January 2014 – Stefania Wine

January 30, 2014

A Couple More Crimson Clover Pruning Pictures

The sun did not last long enough in the vineyard but it was a warm day and we were actually glad for the shade in the late afternoon. In the summer time we won’t get this shade in the vineyard. With the sun higher in the sky the vineyard stays sunny until just before sunset. By late afternoon it was just Jerry, Millie Stef and I doing the work. We were all slowing down some and even Jerry took a break.

As I said in the last blog you put on a lot of miles carrying out the cuttings from the vineyard. The picture below was of the pile at about 4 PM with 3 rows still to go. At this point it’s about 5 feet tall and 15 feet in diameter. The cuttings have to be carried out in small bundles. If you try to pick up too much they become hard to control and you drop them along the way. We’ve tried tying them up, using a wheelbarrow and lots of other tricks, but in the end just making small piles as you prune seems to work best for everyone. Millie likes to put her’s on a blue tarp and drag them along as she goes. She then drags the entire tarp out of the row to dump. It saves bending over, but is hard on the arms to pull along.

The extra hours on Saturday tough were worth it to take Sunday off. We were able to hang out in the back yard and enjoy a cigar and an Old Fashioned. Our hands were sore for a few days and legs and backs also, but the Old Fashioned helped.

January 28, 2014

Crimson Clover Pruning

First pruning of 2014 was at our Crimson Clover Vineyard. We didn’t head out too early. There’s no sense in trying to prune when it’s dark, but it was cold that morning. The temperature actually dropped to 34 when we arrived at the vineyard. There would be six of us pruning; Jerry, Millie, Stef, my cousin Susan and her husband Andre and me. Susan and Andre wanted to learn what it was like so we had coordinated with them to come and do a couple rows with us.

There was frost on the ground when we arrived but as soon as we got moving everyone warmed up. The sun game out over the vineyard by 9 AM and we were all warm pretty fast. Most years we count on pruning this site as a two day job. The hardest part is what I call ‘pick up sticks’. That’s picking up the cuttings and carrying them out of the vineyard. It’s bending over 100’s of times and grabbing the small sticks, then carrying the cuttings to a burn pile outside the vineyard. This year I put an App on my phone to chart how much ground I’d cover in the day. It actually drained one battery and I had to switch to my work phone to finish. The grand total was just over 9 miles walked for the day, all in a one acre space.

Below is the happy crew at work. Happy because it was still early and the sun was out. You’ll notice that everyone is on their own row. We learned this pretty early. Pulling the cuttings out of the wire can me dangerous for any bystanders. They can come out like a little whip and draw blood if they hit skin. At very least it stings. You’ll see no one is working the same row and no one is right across from anyone else. I’m the worst person to work near by unanimous vote, because I’m the strongest I’ll pull things out of the wire that everyone else would cut out. No one wants to be close by when I’m pulling on a really stuck cutting.

There where a lot of cuts to make at Crimson Clover this year because we were reestablishing spurs on many plants and that meant instead of the usual 16-25 cuts per plant we were doing 30+ on every plant. Everyone had sore hands the next day. 3 PM is usually our stopping time for vineyard days but when 3 PM came we were down to the last 6 rows and we all decided we’d rather work another couple hours rather than come back the next day for 2 hours work. I have a few other pictures on the second phone I’ll get up soon.

January 20, 2014

2007 Uvas Creek Cabernet Sauvignon – Last Chance

I’ve had the 2007 Uvas Creek Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon up for sale at our ordering site since the Fall Release. I’ll be taking it down this week to get ready for our upcoming Spring Release. There are a few cases left so please order soon if you’re interested. Recent notes on this wine have been very positive and it’s ready to go for drinking now!

January 18, 2014

Soil

In blogs and release letters I’ve often talked about the red volcanic soil that we have in a few of our vineyards. It really does not happen in the Santa Cruz Mountains very often. On the west side of the mountains the soils are mainly sandy and sandstone based, that’s part of why I think the wines there can be light in color. On the east side of the mountains the soils are clay and fractured limestone. Every now and then though there’s a rare streak of red volcanic soil.

This is actually much more common in the band of foothills to the east of the Santa Cruz Mountains proper. In the southern part of the range those foothills are called the Santa Teresa Foothills and our Crimson Clover vineyard is in that chain. There’s some of that red volcanic soil at Crimson Clover and I’ve always thought that was a key to the high quality of the site.

Our Pinot Noir vineyard is on a knoll of red volcanic soil in the northern part of the foothill chain. So far the wine from that site have been unusually dark and tannic for Pinot Noir. I think that’s the soil in play. I love this soil and wish we could find more sites with it.

Just before Christmas Stefania and I went on a seven mile hike in Santa Teresa Park, which surrounds the highest peek in the foothills. That peak is called Coyote peak and is just over 1100 feet. Our hike took us from the base of the hills at 90 feet to the peak. Along the way there’s an old horse ranch and I took this photo of an old barn.

On the way back down we took the trail below and I thought this was a great shot of just how rare and elusive the red soil of the Santa Teresa Hills is. In the foreground the trail is dark brown. This is a heavy clay soil we have in the valley floor below. It turns black when it’s wet and holds a lot of water. Our Mourvedre in the yard at home loves this soil but Syrah has never really done well in it.

Half way down the trail though you see the color of the trail change. That’s not the lighting, that’s a band of red volcanic soil. You can even see the little raise in the hill where the lava once flowed. The band lasted for about 70 yards on the trail and then was back to black clay. The photo will enlarge if you want a bigger view of it. Next time we’re in the park I’ll take a close up of the transition. It’s pretty dramatic.

January 16, 2014

Vacation Pictures

We’re almost ready to get back to work. Harvest and barrel work ended the earliest ever for us in 2013 and we really enjoyed the extra time off. In 2011 we finished all the harvest and winemaking related work on December 18th. In 2013 we finished on October 26th. That two months really made a difference in feeling rested and having some time away from the vines and winery.

I had two weeks off from the day job over the holidays so we decided to go to the Oregon coast. We first went in 2007 to visit with Pinot producers who were making Pinot Noir we liked. On our way home we found the little town of Newport and ended up going back there the next year. We did the drive from San Jose in one shot, all 670 miles in a single day. We left at just after 6AM and the weather was clear except for fog in central Oregon.

This was the view from our room. We got a small place with a kitchen so we could cook and relax.

The town has a beautiful bridge that was built in the 1930’s in an art deco style. Of all the bridges along the coast this is my favorite. There’s a small bay with an active fishing fleet and some processing plants and a small assortment of shops and restaurants. Because the town is small and 2+ hours from Portland it’s managed to stay fairly un touristy for a seaside town. The big business in town is fishing and then the NOAA boats that are home ported there that you can see in this photo.

The bay has an oyster farm, they were fantastic and up river a bit a lumber mill. The other big business in town is the Rogue Brewery and we spent a fair amount of time there. Ok we went every day. It was about a 3 mile round trip from our place to the Rogue public house so it seemed that going to get a beer was a perfect excuse for a walk.

We came back on the 2nd in one day also. The weather was clear the entire time back except for morning fog along the coastal mountains. There was almost no snow on Mt Shasta or Mount Lassen that we passed on our return. We’ve had a very dry winter. I went back to the day job on the 6th. Our office location moved and to avoid a 90 minute commute I changed my schedule to come in at 6:15. I get good sunrises, but the parking garage is just not the same as the boats!

We’ll be back at work Saturday pruning the Crimson Clover vineyard. We rally enjoyed the time off!