Urban Vineyards

Pic is of the Syrah vines in the Haut Tubee vineyard. This is where Paul and I like to hang out with friends, have BBQ’s, soak in the hot tub, lounge in the adirondacks and generally kick back and enjoy just about every evening. I did put the canopy up on Easter so I could rotisserie a leg of lamb, I was not going to be thwarted by a little rain storm (ok, it poured on me, but I was out there!!!)



The palm tree is on the neighbors side of fence and is perfect for our back yard vineyard because it’s not dense enough to provide a lot of shade. The vines in front of the hot tub have filled in perfectly and are all done flowering. We have great fruit set and have had good luck keeping powdery mildew at bay using Stylet Oil.


The front vineyard is still a work in progress. I was just thinking how pretty it could be if we put sod between the rows and made it look a lot more urban-ey, but that would defeat my number one priority and that’s saving water. The row closest to the camera is still flowering so I didn’t pull those shoots down yet to make canes – even though I won’t keep the fruit this year, I don’t want to risk breaking them. After flowering the shoots harden off and are more pliable, making it easier to pull them down to the cordon wire and get them wrapped around.


A couple of weeks ago we brought in a ton of river rock to put up under the eaves in the front. Originally there were tropical shade plants that Paul wanted to keep and I talked him out of them. Tropical foliage with a vineyard? That’s even too eclectic for my tastes. So it’s been raw dirt for over a year and I didn’t want to invest in decking for a space we rarely use though we talked about that too. Eventually the cats using the dirt as a litter box put me over the edge and I said, “that’s it, we’re getting rocks!”.

Paul had a great idea, why not use the leftovers to line the vineyard under the rows, that’ll help keep the soil in place and look better than bare dirt in the winter. He figured we’d have a lot of leftover rock from the ton order. Nope. I’m going to need a second ton to fill in the rest.

Soon as flowering is done, we’ll clean up the rest of the “weeds” (the dead and dried up wildflower cover crop) and I’ll pull down that last row of shoots and get those trained on the wire. The two rows under the magnolia tree are behind, but I should be able to pull down at least one half of the cordon.

One thing I noticed for sure with the Crimson Clover, it definitely helped the other plants I have up front. The rosemary is the brightest green I’ve seen, the sage flowered and the lavender bloomed for the first time. Could have something to do with the wet winter we had too, but clover is supposed to put nitrogen back into the soil and I definitely noticed a difference in foliage color.

iPhone Update, 15 months later…

Remember how iNlove I was with my new iPhone? What do I say? I’ve never been a phone person so that part of the gadget is virtually worthless to me, however…

I’m a text junky. I admit. Paul and I will text each other while sitting side by side on the couch…lame huh? You should have seen our first cell bill after we discovered that function. Good times.

Next came the apps. I’m very selective about the toys I’ll put on my phone, mostly because I’m overwhelmed by the choices. I’m to the point of needing an adviser to help me decide what tools I really want or need. The most useful one for the winery is Swipe. It lets us process credit cards remotely for wine sold at events.

I seldom use the camera feature, but find myself taking notes more often that I would have thought. I downloaded a decibel reader, to see how loud Kathy and Millie’s “little mutt” really is when she snores, and I play the occasional game of Frogger.

The greatest use so far has been checking email, using google for crossword term searches, and other internet stuff.

I’ve set the stage. I’m ready for an iPad. From everything I’ve read, it’s exactly what I want and need. I can move Swipe over to it and it becomes a business expense.

As for an update on the iPhone, let me tell you a quick story. Paul had the original one, I waited for 3G. Last month he dropped his, again, on the concrete crushpad and it shattered the glass. I gave him mine, we switched out our sim cards and I bought some press on cover protectors…for now it will have to do.

No Intern this Year

It’s June 1st and there is plenty to be done in the vineyards. We didn’t get an intern this year, mainly because we don’t need one. I’m full time with the winery now and caught up on the major projects.

This week I’ll head up to Chaine d’Or and finish thinning. Doesn’t look like the Cabernet will need as much as the Chardonnay. We’ve been steadily pruning the spurs on the Chard so that they aren’t so high into the wires. It means selecting the best looking shoot from the cordon and letting it grow so we can turn it into a new spur.

I’ll need to check on the Sesson vineyard in Morgan Hill. It’s a year behind schedule, but the site is vigorous enough that I think we’ll see huge improvements this summer. We might even get some cordons trained, that’d be fantastic.

The Crimson Clover vineyard is likely still in flower right now so I’ll leave it alone for another week or two. I’ll go check it, but I anticipate that I’ve got some time before I can thin and I hate to make a special trip just to sucker – I can do that while I’m there cleaning up the shoots.

Harrison’s Vineyard looks great, we checked in with Mark last weekend and Arastradero is caught up too. The ‘estate’ vines are still flowering, but I’m getting ready to start pulling cordons down in the Mourvedre. I’ll dose them up with water pretty good this summer and then let them take off on their own after that – a few are lagging behind, but I’m not surprised given the shaded spots up by the magnolia tree.

For my sis-in-law about Cropping:

Each mature vine will have up to 10 spurs (5 on each side of the main trunk). Each spur will have 2 shoots and each shoot will carry 2 clusters of grapes. So for example, the Mourvedre vineyard I have at the house, which is 25 plants, will produce 1,000 clusters of grapes.

{25 plants x [2 clusters x (2 shoots x 10 spurs)]} = 1,000

When we say how we’ll crop the vineyard, we are talking about the method of pruning or training we’ll use to control that final number.

Some winemakers and winegrowers may choose to have only one shoot per spur and only one cluster per shoot. In the example above, the yield would be 500 clusters.

I keep joking with Paul that I want to crop the heck out of the Mourvedre, 2,000 clusters!

Inventory Update….and a Close Out Special!!!

Just running through inventory to see what we still have about. Here’s the status on all of our 2007’s and the one 2008.

2008 Chardonnay Chaine d’Or Vineyard Santa Cruz Mountains – Sold Out.
We weren’t even able to save a single bottle for ourselves!

2007 Pinot Noir Santa Cruz Mountains – Sold Out.

2007 Syrah Eaglepoint Ranch Mendocino County – We have about 30 cases left.
$32 a bottle $180 for six.

2007 Haut Tubee California – Sold Out.
We’ll release the 2008 this Fall. Allocations will be down though, we only made 1/2 of the 2008 that we made in 2007.

2007 Cabernet Sauvignon Uvas Creek Vineyard Santa Clara Valley – We have about 25 cases left.
$37 a bottle $210 for six

2007 Cabernet Sauvignon Santa Cruz Mountains – We have about 40 cases left.
$40 a bottle $225 for six

2007 Cabernet Sauvignon Chaine d’Or Vineyard Santa Cruz Mountains – Four cases left.

Here’s the closeout! Regularly this is $30 a bottle or $360 a case. For these last four cases, first come first serve, we’ll do $250 a case with free shipping!

Weekend Update -Vineyard Work

Saturday we spent the morning visiting a couple of vineyards and getting a status on how things are going. We’ll use the visits to put together our work plans for the next month or so. We check on the health of the plants and look for any mildew or other problems. We also want to see how they are growing and how the weeds are. The final step is for Stefania and I to do a demonstration row. If one of us can’t be on site when we send Jerry out, he’ll at least have a row to look at to know what we want done.

First up was a small vineyard in Los Altos that we take care of for Big Basin Vineyards. This is the demonstration row after we’ve cleaned it up. Big Basin likes to have a single shoot on each spur and just one cluster on each shoot. That’s what we’ve done here.

This is what the rows looked like before clean up. We will need to weedwhack again here. We’ll wait though for another month or so to let the grass dry out. The plants are very healthy so there will be lots of thinning to do. We probably have a total of about 60 hours of work to do here in the next 6 weeks.

Stefania said she spotted the signs of an owl in the box we installed last year.

Our next stop was the Harrison Vineyard, also in Los Altos. We installed about 250 Syrah vines a few years ago. This will be the first year they get fruit.


The Harrison’s are pretty independent and we just visit them every 2 months or so so they can ask questions. They take care of most of the maintenance themselves. I thought this fruit might make a nice Rose this year, but right now the vines look strong enough to contribute to the Haut Tubee blend.

Sunday Stefania went to Sacramento to see her sister graduate and I spent the morning at Chaine d’Or. There was a little work to do in the winery. Most of the morning though I was out gopher hunting in the vineyard. They are active now and it’s a good time to find fresh tunnels. Chaine d’Or is the only vineyard we have now that hasn’t had an owl family move in.

Today I’ll be writing up the plan for the next 2 months or so. We’ll be pretty busy!

Coastview Vineyard Tour

On Saturday Paul and I drove my brother Hans and his wife Richa to visit Ian at Coastview Vineyards before driving into Monterey Bay for lunch and to visit the aquarium.

Left San Jose at 9:38, heavy morning fog, getting thicker and colder as we head south to Salinas. Exit the freeway at 10:40, turn east and drive to the base of the foothills.

Ian Brand met us at the lower gate and we followed him up the hill…past cows lazying away the morning on the road, a couple of jack rabbits, and a lot of quail.

He wasn’t kidding when he told Paul to put the Jeep in 4-wheel drive once we started the incline. Awesome ride up, and we were east enough to be out of the fog and enjoying a warm, sun-exposed hilltop – complete with wine and snacks!

Looking north-west toward the Monterey Bay, under a heavy blanket of fog.

Richa and Hans taking a break from sipping wine to listen to Ian tell us about the terrain, soil, terraces, and overall geology of the vineyard.


I keep telling Paul I want to live on a hill, surrounded by vines…something like this would be awesome.

Laura Ness wrote this blog about Coastview:
http://myvinespace.com/2010/04/25/high-above-steinbeck-country-coastview-vineyard-reigns/

She captured in prose our exact experience, save for trudging up the hill because of the mud…we were able to drive to the top 🙂

Touring Season

It’s that time of year again. We’ve had visitors for three of the past weeks and we’ll have more over the next four. We love to entertain at the winery so please do come by for a visit. I thought I’d share a few tips for visiting us.

First the earlier you can let us know you’ll be coming by the better. We can swing things at the last minute sometimes, but other times we may have blocked the day out for vineyard work at another vineyard or have another appointment. Saturday’s are usually the best day, but with enough notice we can do any day.

Let us know how much time you’d like to spend. About an hour seems to be the shortest visit we have, but we’ve also had people stay for 4 or 5 hours. If you have time we will prepare some snacks in advance. Also let us know of any special tasting requests in advance. I usually will pour 4 or 5 wines of our most current releases and sample from a barrel or two. If you’d like to try something from the library though we’ll have to bring it from home.

Woodside is usually a few degrees cooler than you’ll see on a forecast. In the summer the fog will also hang around the vineyard making it a little breezy and cool. A sweatshirt is a good idea. If you’d like to see the vineyard remember to bring good walking shoes, sunscreen and a hat.

The road up to the winery is very busy on the weekends. There is also a lot of bicycle traffic. Plan on a few extra minutes more than you’d expect. Map out your route in advance. We get really poor signals at the winery on our phones and often can’t call out. We might not be able to guide you in. If you do need to reach us text messaging seems to work best in the winery.

We have two large dogs at the winery. One is still a puppy and she gets easily excited. She has done fine with other dogs and small children, but you will need to mind after them. We usually try and wear the dogs out with some fetch before visitors arrive but they do have a lot of energy.

There are other wineries in the area. Varner, Woodside, and Great Blue Heron will take appointments. Fogarty, Michael Martella, La Honda, and Domenico all have tasting rooms. Rhys is one of our closest neighbors but I understand they only set up tours on pre-determined days. Many people want to do Ridge also. You can see Monte Bello from our cellar door. It’s about 7 miles away, but it takes about 90 minutes to get from us to Ridge.

It’s about 2 hours to Napa from us so a lot of people like to come right from the airport, visit us then head to Napa. Just let us know your plans and we’ll make sure you get on the road in time and recommend best routes. If you’re planning on staying in the South Bay we’ll probably make it an excuse to have a party. We can also recommend hotels and restaurants for your stay. The South Bay is actually fairly cheap on the weekends for hotels, most hotel traffic is during the week for business so many local hotels have low rates on weekends.

To reach us for an appointment it’s best to email at [email protected] or call 408-242-8598.

Bumble Bees

Why am I uploading Bumble Bee pictures? Because I’m so over bottling that I wanted a fun distraction to share. On Monday while we waited for the glass delivery and bottling truck to show up, I took some time to look at bees. I noticed that the bumble bees went from plant to plant in a group and tended to avoid hanging out with the regular honey bees. The two groups took turns going from the lavender plants.

The lizards are wary of me so I didn’t get any pics of them, and the banana slugs are just gross so I let them be.


Time for a much needed margarita and long siesta – it is Cinco de Mayo after all.
Salud.

Last Bottling Post

We are cleaning up now. The tanks are being broken down, hoses cleaned, barrels, and putting the final touches on. I’ll update all the pictures tomorrow with some details. A good day though and all the wine is safely on pallets now waiting pick up.

This is actually left over glass that I’m going to sell on Craigslist.

The crew at work finishing up a run of wine.


A finished pallet ready to go to the warehouse


And the Haut Tubee

Some challenges as always with bottling but overall it went ok and we’re glad to be done!

More Bottling

I took this one inside the truck. I was the primary glass loader. I was also forklift driver, winemaker, and cleaning. When I had to be away from dropping glass in, Matt did it.

Jerry loading up a full pallet. Normally we’d put the pallet right by the truck but with the tow truck issue we had to use a hand cart.

Ingrid on the bottling line. When she wasn’t inside doing winemaking she’d come out and help tape up boxes.

Glass going down the line.

My station. The glass enters here and the first step is to ‘sparge’ it with nitrogen, then it’s filled with wine.

Sophie standing guard. She’s become the perfect vineyard dog since her first harvest in 2005. She was protecting the wine from bunnies and other vineyard creatures. 🙂


This is the end of the line where bottles come off to be packed back into boxes.


And they roll down here to be tapped up and loaded.