Winery & Tasting Room
Part of the challenge of the truck being stuck means we have to hand carry the empty and full cases up the hill. The forklift won’t make it up the hill with a load.
The crew for today is Stefania, Jerry, his wife Estella, Ingrid and me. Ingrid will mostly be in the winery. She works the pumps and tank on bottling day.
We have gotten one task done today. We hand bottled nine Syrah magnums and three Haut Tubee magnums. We’ll do twelve Pinot Noir later today.
Last night we got off to a rough start. We thought the septic backing up would be the one bad thing that always happens on bottling days. Well, the bottling truck one upped that. It got stuck coming down out tough gravel road. We had to call a tow truck to pull it out.
We were here until 8:30 last night and did not get everything done that we need to. That means we’ll be starting about an hour late this morning.
The inside of the winery is mostly ready though.
Outside Matt is working to get the truck up and running. We are much further down the driveway than usual. We just could not get the truck further down this time. All the rain has made the gravel road soft and the truck can’t get traction to push the trailer back up the hill. When we are done this afternoon we will likely have to call the tow truck again to pull the entire rig back out.
The glass is staged though and ready to go.
Saturday morning we arrived at the winery before 10 AM. We had a busy day planned with final preparation of the Chardonnay for bottling. First up was to remove all the extra insulation from the tank holding the Chardonnay.
Then we had to hook up the filter. No small task, it’s only the second time we’ve used it. Stef had pretty good notes from last year but it still took us 90 minutes or so to get everything hooked up. We also decided to do a final racking so instead of filtering through the bottom bottling valve we finished off the tank with a racking wand.
The wine this year has a small amount of residual sugar so we wanted to get a good filtration on the wine to prevent any problems after bottling. The picture below is the filter all hooked up and working away.
We had one set back that we thought was major, but turned out to be minor. At some point in the last year the filter had been bumped and a pressure valve was turned sideways. We didn’t notice the valve was out of position and when we started to tighten down the filter, the valve popped right off. We thought we were stuck, but we were able to route around the broken valve.
I’m glad we did the final racking the tank had a fair amount of lees left. We had guests at 2PM so mostly stopped for the day and did some tasting and had snacks. Stefania cleaned up the tanks around entertaining and we were packed up and on our way home by 6:30
Tomorrow we will be in the winery getting ready for bottling. I’ll bring my computer along and see if we can get hooked up to the wireless. If we can I’ll try and do ‘live’ pictures like we did last year of bottling.
First up we will be filtering our Chardonnay and that involves moving it from tank to tank. Next we’ll put together the final blend for the 2008 Haut Tubee and get that into tank. That will mean that the 2008 Eaglepoint Syrah will also have to go into a smaller holding tank and out of barrel. We’ll check sulfur levels, and will make any additions we need to.
I will also be hand bottling 12 magnums of the 2008 Eaglepoint Syrah. The logistics of the truck just make it easier to bottle the magnums by hand and cork them with the hand corker. For now the 2008 Pinot Noir will stay in barrel. As we empty out a tank on Tuesday , I’ll get the Pinot into an open tank. We’ll check sulfur then and I’ll also hand bottle 12 magnums of the Pinot Noir.
We’re hoping everything will go ok. If we can’t finish on Saturday, we’ll come back up Sunday to complete the job. If not Sunday will be a hike and then the Sharks game.
Monday we’ll be back at the winery. The forklift arrives at 9AM. We’ll also bring all the corks and labels with us. The glass will be delivered between 10 and 1 and I’ll unload it with the forklift. The bottling truck should arrive about 2 or 3 and we will help get it backed in and level. That process takes about 3 hours. It actually takes longer to get the truck backed in that it does to bottle.
Then we are mostly done for the day. Matt from the bottling company will get the truck all ready to go that night.
Tuesday we will be in the winery about 7AM. We’ll have to hook the tanks up to the truck and clean all the hoses. Then we start bottling. It should be done about noon or 1 PM if all goes well. Then we will clean all the tanks and equipment and barrels! I’ll help Matt get the truck back out, which only takes about an hour (it’s only moving about 60 yards, but it’s a few tight turns).
If we are on time and on schedule the truck will show up from the warehouse about 3PM to pick up the bottled wine. If we are behind schedule at all, we’ll have to postpone the pick up until Wednesday. I’ll get as many pictures and updates in over the next 5 days as I can.
There is a real threat to wineries and winemakers brewing in Congress. Alcohol wholesalers have convinced lawmakers to introduce House Resolution 5034. If passed into law, H.R. 5034 would give states the right to ban wine shipping without having to defend themselves in court. In essence, H.R. 5034 takes state alcohol laws outside the orbit of the the U.S. Constitution’s Commerce Clause, it is that provision of the Constitution that led the Supreme Court in 2005 to overrule the plethora of discriminatory wine shipping bans that existed across the country.
This bill would devastate wineries, particularly those that rely on direct to consumer shipping, and of course, it is an attack on consumers who merely want to obtain wines by mail that they cannot find locally.
I urge you to help oppose H.R. 5034. You can do so by immediately using Free The Grapes “Write Your Congressperson” system to send off a letter to your representative: http://www.capwiz.com/freegrapes/issues/alert/?alertid=14948676&type=CO
In addition, if you are on Facebook I urge you to become a fan of the STOPHR5034 page to get regular updates on the bill: http://www.facebook.com/STOPHR5034
The proponents of H.R. 5034 work for the beer and wine wholesalers and are extremely powerful. They are working very hard to get this bill passed. Without an aggressive effort those that value free trade and the ability for consumers and wineries to interact with each other, many wineries will be hurt and consumer rights lost.
Stefania and I have worked very hard to build our winery from the ground up and this bill would be devastating to ourselves and other small family wineries that count on people like you to buy our wines.
Bottling Itinerary:
Corks, labels and foils are now all on hand. Foils will go on the bottles that get the Chaine d’Or label. We’ll be bottling four different wines.
If I can get a network connection on Tuesday I’ll try and get pictures up every few hours.
I did manage to get one picture taken.
The day went off pretty well. Just that little bit of traffic that slowed us down but otherwise no issues. Enterprise had TWO trucks for us this time, just in case something was wrong with the first one 🙂 I brought back a couple bottles of wine to thank the staff there. We were even able to return the truck early.
Stefania made us some Chowder to watch with the Sharks game:
4 red potatoes
1 leek
2 ears white corn separated
1 cup crab
1/4 c whole milk
3 TBSP olive oil
3 C Beef stock
Sauté sliced leek and cubed potatoes in olive oil add half the cob corn and select pieces of crab meat add beef broth bring to boil them simmer til soft.
Blend on medium speed add milk to thin as needed.
Return to pot add remaining corn and crab.
Garnish with a squeeze of lime and cilantro leaf.
Looks like everything is coming together for bottling. Keeping our fingers crossed though.
It took awhile this morning to track down the Common Yellowthroat. I have two bird books here but neither had a photo that matched the little dude I saw with his black mask. Such a little cutie bird. Also looked up a really large orange bee that I’ve never spotted before. Turns out he’s not really native to this locale, more of a southern Cal kind of guy. After reading up on it, I think I’ve identified this bee as a male carpenter, except there were two of them chasing each other around….I kind of got the impression they were solo adventurers but there were definitely two of them.
This morning while I was peering out at the vineyard, a black headed Phoebe perched on the wire and peered back at me. She’s been a constant in our yard for months now. Usually we’ll hear her in the backyard about an hour before the sun sets and she gets her fill of bugs.
The photos are all stock pics I pulled off the web – the camera I have now would never be able to capture clear shots in my yard. While I was sitting up front the other day trying to identify the Common Yellowthroat I watched one of the crows that’s always hanging around chase off the Coopers Hawk. For a suburban neighborhood I get a lot of great bird traffic!
Saturday was a full day.
We were out in the vineyard at 8:30 am. The project for the morning was the Sesson Vineyard in the Coyote Valley just south of San Jose. Jerry had already pruned the vineyard but it needed some technical work. It’s a young vineyard and many of the plants needed some retraining and repair from some issues last season.
It’s the type of work that Stefania and I really need to do ourselves. Each plant needs to be evaluated and a repair plan for it put together based on the plant strength and the position of the new buds. We are training Jerry to help, but it will probably take him a couple years to fully get the concepts down.
Once you ‘get it’ it goes pretty fast and the three of us were done by 11:30. I really like the potential of this site. The local geography is a lot like the premier and grand crus vineyards of Burgundy. It is on a gentle slope at the base of some very stony hills. There are several layers of soil down to the water table making for a complex mix. The weather is well suited for Cabernet Sauvignon and that’s what we’ve put in.
I’ve had my eye on this area for many years so we’re excited by this project and hope we’ll be able to make some wine from the vineyard soon. Below you can see Stef working away.
There is something though in the vineyard that gives my allergies a terrible time. I took several different drugs but finally had to head off to the gym about 3:00 pm. When my allergies get really bad 30-40 minutes on the bike at full speed really seems to help. I’m not sure what it is maybe just pushing all my blood really hard through my system helps.
That night Stefania and I were pouring at a Rotary Club fundraiser with a 1960’s theme. It was a good chance to bring out the tie dye. We poured for a few hours and finally headed home about 8:30.
Sunday we got to have a ‘Paul and Stef day’. That’s what we’ve started to call the Sunday’s we have with no work or obligations. We got up early again and headed to the beach at Pascadero. We walked the beach for about 40 minutes, then headed to Pillar Point harbor. A few years ago the harbormaster there started to allow the fishermen to sell directly off their boats. We bought three Dungeness crabs and a flounder.
We made civiche out of the flounder and Stefania boiled the crabs on the back patio. We lounged in the backyard all afternoon and enjoyed a Chardonnay from Sea Smoke with the fresh seafood. We’re still trying to keep Sunday’s clear and I hope we can head back to Pillar Point next week!
Flounder Ceviche:
12 oz very fresh flounder or other white fish
1 avocado
1 cup Jicama
2 green onions
1 mango
1/4 cup cilantro
1 small serrano pepper (diced very small)
Chop into bite size bits and mix in a glass bowl with:
Juice from 4 lemons and 3 limes
Allow to sit for 2 hours.