The Haut Tubee

Saturday night when we finally got home from our long day I checked email before bed. I wondered why we would have gotten 7 new sign ups on a Saturday in January. Could be that the Haut Tubee won a gold at the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition

Official Results

Or it could be all the positive talk and reviews about the wine:

More Chatter

I love making the Haut Tubee (Hot Tub) wine. It’s a lot of fun. There’s still a little of the 2007 left, and the 2008 will be released this Fall.

Pruning at Chaine d’Or and Double Days

Saturday morning we lounged in bed until about 9 AM reading the paper and drinking coffee. We decided to go easy on the mornings this weekend and not get too worn out with pruning. We made it to Chaine d’ Or by 10 AM though to start pruning.
Every day in the vineyard at Chaine d’Or starts with greeting the puppies! Ghillie is bigger than Sofie now and spent both days by our side out in the vineyard. She never tires of fetching the ball when I throw it. Sofie will go and hide the ball now to get a rest after about 15 minutes.

We worked down the hill each time, but there are still lots of trips back up. By then end of two days your legs will be sore. We had cloud cover on Saturday and a little on Sunday. The temperatures were not bad though and we never got too cold.

The main reason just Stefania and I went out was that a large number of Cabernet Sauvignon vines need retraining. It’s something I have to do myself. Each plant that needs retraining first has to have new canes selected, then pulled down and debudded. I also have to saw off the old canes and remove any excess shoots.
It’s a slow process and means I have to do about 300 squats each day. If we have a full crew in the vineyard they will prune about 75% of the plants before I can get to them to retrain. Over the past two years we’ve gotten about 50% of the plants retrained, but this year I was hoping to get us up around 90% total retrained.
This is a plant with new canes pulled down and the retraining started.
This is the old canes I removed. I got my size 14 boot in the picture to give some scale to the size. It takes a fair amount of time to saw through the old vine and remove it from the wire. To do a retraining like this takes 8-10 minutes per plant. That compares to about 45 seconds to prune a regular plant.
Here is one of the owl boxes we installed. Still no sign of an owl, but we’re hopeful. They usually move into new homes in January and February. We had a good assortment of birds in the vineyard including Mountain Bluebirds.
We left Saturday about 3PM. We headed home, got cleaned up and headed to a friends commitment party. This is what Stefania calls a ‘Double Day’. Two full days of activity pushed into one. The venue was the old Paul Masson / Martin Ray Mountain Winery. They are replanting the old vineyard.
The ceremony was held up in Napa during the week, but our friends had the party Saturday evening closer to home. The top level of the old winery is set up for events now. This used to be the fermentation room. We had a great time and even got some dancing in even with our tired legs.
The next day we worked about 6 hours. I spent about 30 minutes in the winery getting the batteries on the forklift recharged and then joined Stef for more pruning.
Below you can see some of the progress we’ve made. This was also a very good example of the high spurs I’ve talked about at Chaine d’Or. When we took over in 2007 all the Chardonnay plants had spurs this high. You can see it’s well up into the first set of wires.
Over the past three seasons we’ve worked to lower the spurs. It’s not an easy process. We have to prune the plant as normal and hope for a shoot lower on the plant. When that shoot comes out, we have to make sure to leave it during green pruning, then come back the next season and remove the old spur.
You can see in this picture the job is almost done. About 95% of the spurs are now lowered onto the fruiting wire and out of the first set of catch wires. It also gives a great perspective on how high the spurs were compared to were we are now.
Stefania is back out in the vineyard today and Jerry is joining her to help.

The Church

A few years ago the Catholic church around the corner from us got all new landscaping. One of the things installed was a little vineyard of 20 Cabernet plants. Stefania and I drive by a lot on our way to our local coffee shop or the gas station, and the vineyard looked like hell. The plants were not pruned properly, and they never got around to finishing the wiring.
Two years ago I called the priest and volunteered to take care of the little vineyard. At first it was a little hard to get him to understand that we’d just do it for no charge, but we did.
We cleaned up the plants, and tried to get them retrained correctly. Jerry and I also installed the correct trellis supports and installed a 5 wire catch system.
Last year the vineyard got a little fruit and we harvested that and used it for our grape stomp. The rather bizarre rules of the state of California mean we can’t spray anything on the vines, so they do get mildew every year and we won’t end up using the grapes for anything but stomping.
Stef and I had backyard landscaping ideas while we were doing the pruning this year. We let the vines get pretty wild last year with a lot shoots. When trying to retrain a vineyard this usually works best because you have more options on shoots you want to keep and work with. Here’s a vine before we started.

You can see we have the starts of a cordon and spur VSP system going. Each spur threw two shoots, we just had some extra shoots to remove.

 

On some plants we are still pulling down new canes, and here’s one we have started now.

The finished spurs from the plant above. These vines should fill in nicely this year and it is one of the better looking parts of the landscaping now.

On some plants we left three spurs, on others four. It just depended on the spacing. One thing we have to be careful about is leaving two spurs from different plants too close on the ends of the plants. Then you end up with four tightly spaced shoots and that increases the risk of mildew.

Here is a new spur, and our trusty FJ Cruiser.

On to the Backyard the Original Haut Tubee

These vines are what we’ve left in the backyard. Originally there were 20 vines packed in. We’ve thinned it down to 8 and last year began the process of converting them from Head trained to Cordon and Spur on a 5 wire Vertical Shoot Positioning system (VSP). This is the system we use in our other vineyards and all the pruning from here on out will be Cordon and Spur on VSP.

On this Syrah vine you can see the remains of the arms and head from the previous pruning. When doing a conversion we try and get a shoot to come out and pull that down to the wire. The thing is we never really know where a good shoot might come from, so we end up leaving a ‘mess’ of arms.


We were excited that we got good shoots to start cordons on these plants. The plants were in such good shape too that we were able to get vertical shoots started last year. We do this by pruning off the end of the shoot when it reaches the right length. The plant will then send shoots up since it can’t grow out any longer.

Sometimes these side shoots can be weak and we end up removing them, but you can see this one has a small but healthy bud. I’ll keep these two buds on this plant and it will become the spur on the plant.

After pruning and cleaning up the plant is all set up like a three year old Cordon and spur trained VSP vine. The vine is actually 9 years old this year, but the training is like a three year year old vine.

This vine gave me the chance to show pruning on a three year old and four year old vine at the same time. Last year I was able to pull a cordon down and get it started on the right side of the plant. So that side is like a four year old plant, while the other side is like a three year old plant. That is the hot tub in the background.

This is the four year old section of the plant. You can see the different wood colors and that the spurs have already started.

This is the three year old side of the plant. It has thrown some new spur starts, but not at every junction. On this side we will have to use buds on the new cordon to start the spurs.

On the four year old side I had this spur started and in good health.


I count up two buds and make the cut. Like roses it’s best to cut at a slight angle so that moisture can not build on the cut and start rot.

This is the new spur. It will have two shoots and 2-4 bunches of fruit.


The finished vine showing the 3 year old side on the left and four year old side, with spurs started on the right hand side.

Here’s a close up of the spurs, each with two buds.


Here’s a good example of why it’s called a Vertical Shoot Positioning system. This spot had a bud that was pointed out horizontally. The shoot would have come out at a horizontal angle to the cane. I nipped out the bud so it will not grow.


This is a little blurry but it is a vertical bud, pointed straight up. This is what we want on the three year old side. This will send a shoot up into the wire system and establish a new spur.


The plant usually cooperates pretty well with this pruning method. One bud tends to point up and the next tends to point down. This is a shot from further away of the bud above. In this picture you can see it pointed up.


Next up we’ll do the little church vineyard and then on to Chaine d’Or this weekend. Both are VSP systems. We’ll be able to do those pretty fast.

The New Mourvedre Vines Get Pruned

Stefania wanted to prune the twenty five new Mourvedre vines herself, so I took the pictures. The vines are one year old and at this stage require some special pruning techniques. The focus is on getting the plant established and trained properly in year two so we’re not worried about fruit at all.

If you remember a goal of this project was to cut water use in our yard, so we watered these plants very little last year. They are smaller than we’d have in a commercial vineyard as a result, but still in good shape. This is one of the more vigorous vines.

This vine is ready to be pruned back to two buds that will establish the arms or cordons for the plant. Stefania is pointing to the two buds she’s selected to start the new cordons. It’s important to select buds below the wire. The new growth will grow up and if the buds are two high the cordons will have to loop down to the wire and will be prone to breaking.

Here she makes the cut below the wire after having selected the buds she wants to grow.

On a new plant like this all the buds will grow though so she has to clean up the buds she doesn’t want to grow and nip them off with the pruners. That’s the phrase, “nip it in the bud”. She cuts off any other growth on the plant and cuts off the other buds. This will focus all the plant energy on the two remaining buds and allow the trunk to grow strong.


The finished vine. Stef often advises people thinking of putting in a vineyard that in winter it will look like “A stick and wire farm”.

And a rare picture of the master pruner. Many wineries are actually very picky about who prunes. Because it is a specialty skill and each plant requires special attention it’s difficult to get an untrained crew to do a good job. In general we just use the ‘A’ team to prune.

This plant is not yet to the wire. About 10 of the 25 did not reach the wire yet. We’ll take this plant back to a single bud near the base. That way it can focus all its energy into growing a strong trunk this year.

Stefania points to the bud that she is going to keep to establish the trunk. This vine should actually grow enough this year that we’ll be able to get one cordon started on it after it reaches the wire. In year two each cane should grow 5-10 feet.

Stef makes the cut. We actually keep two buds. In our urban environment with people passing by the buds are prone to damage. The second bud is a ‘safety’ in case anything goes wrong with the first one. We’ll remove the second growth as soon as the first gets established.

The final step again is to clean up the plant of any remaining growth or buds. You can also see that the wildflower ground cover is starting to come back again. We choose self seeding plants for the vineyard. We’ve also decided not to clean up under the rows this year. Usually we’d keep the area under the rows clear so the plants are not in competition with the vines. For the yard though we’ve decided to let the wild flowers go. The soil is pretty fertile and the vines should do just fine.

The finished vine. I’ll have more tomorrow on the vines in the backyard and how to prune a three+ year old cordon and spur plant.

Pruning the Haut Tubee Vineyard

Today Stefania and I started with coffee in bed and some oatmeal, then off to the gym for an hour workout. The first full moon of the year was December 31st. Wait – not the new year you say? That threw me off in 2008 also when we started pruning very late in January. I’d mixed up my Roman calender with our modern calender. The ancient new year would have begun with the first new moon after the winter solstice. So the first new moon of the ancient lunar year, the one we prune by was December 31st.

I started with the 9 year old head trained vines by the driveway. These are the last head trained vines we have at the house, everything else is on wires now.

The term ‘head trained’ is probably misleading. Crown trained or maybe even ‘Medusa’ trained would be more descriptive. It basically means the vine has a single stalk the comes out and then branches out into arms that contain the spurs where new growth will come from. The ‘head’ is at the point the arms branch out. Which is why I don’t think it’s a great term. Most things don’t have arms coming out of their heads.

This is what it looked like when I started. with last years growth. We tie the growth up a single post. That’s how it’s done in the Northern Rhone. Most head trained vines in California, Spain and elsewhere are not tied up, they flop on the ground.


The first thing I do is figure which of the two or more stalks I’ll keep. I want a strong one with good buds, and the buds should point up not down so they will grow up. I also check spacing and try to imagine how the buds will grow so that there is good spacing and enough room for the fruit to come out.

These two stalks grew last year from two buds I had selected. It’s almost impossible to describe the difference between one year old wood and older wood without a picture, but in this picture you can clearly see the one year old wood is lighter. This will be what produces new growth this year. The older wood will not.

Here are the two buds I selected. I liked the health of the stalk and the direction and spacing of the buds. The buds are the little nubs sticking out from the stalk.

After making the cut I’m left with one ‘spur’ that contains two buds. These two buds will produce two new stalks and 2-4 bunches of fruit. This Grenache plant will grow 6-12 feet during the season from these two small buds.


This is a good shot of the buds. It’s all about the buds. We count buds, nip buds, look for bud positioning, directions of the buds. The buds have the new growth and the new fruit for 2010, so we work hard to pick the best ones and the right ones.

The finished plant. The one year old wood will become the spurs for new growth and this plant should produce 15-20 bunches of fruit. I’ve left five spurs and a total of ten buds on the plant. This particular plant is one of the most vigorous we have had in any vineyard, but last year it started to slow down a little. That’s one reason old vines are prized, they tend to moderate their growth as they age.

More to come this week. I’ll go over pruning the new one year old Mourvedre vines, and the cane and spur vines we converted from head trained in the back yard.

Recent Tasting Notes

I know this is the time of year when a lot of wine gets opened. It’s probably a good time to review how some of our previous vintages are coming along now.

One of the best sources is Cellartracker:

http://www.cellartracker.com/list.asp?Table=Notes&szSearch=stefania

Here are thoughts on some things we’ve opened in the last month:

2007 Haut Tubee – California

Really spicy and rich. Think this would go really well right now with stews or roasted meats. I think this wine will actually keep for a bit and if you don’t get to it this winter, it will hold fine for a few years.

2006 Eaglepoint Ranch Syrah – Mendocino County

Getting an ‘old world’ nose. I’ve seen it in a few tasting notes online that people mistake this wine for something from the Northern Rhone in blind tastings. Makes me think serving it with mushrooms is a good idea. Still floral and fruity but with a great ‘funk’.

2007 Eaglepoint Ranch Syrah – Mendocino County

This has been slow to develop the floral nose of the 05 and 06, but it’s coming out now. Richer textured than the 06 I think this will age longer. I’m putting ours aside until spring and lamb season.

2006 Cabernet Sauvignon – Santa Cruz Mountains

Still very plush and complex I think this wine should do well and continue to develop for many years. We continue to get notes from people on this wine and how much they enjoy it.

2007 Cabernet Sauvignon Uvas Creek Vineyard – Santa Clara Valley

A real crowd pleaser. I think we knew from the moment we processed the grapes this would be a ‘showy’ wine. It’s bigger and darker than the 05 and 06. Stefania got a note this week from someone who told us this went up against a line up of much more expensive Cabernet’s and finished second overall to a Shafer Hillside Select ($225). This is a pretty powerful wine, I like to have it with beef.

2008 Chardonnay Chaine d’Or Vineyard – Santa Cruz Mountains

I agree this is still coming together. We really wanted to get it out for crab season and we probably rushed it. Next year we may hold it until the Spring for release. Lots of people enjoying this with rich seafood dishes and Stefania has a recipe that was sent to us she keeps promising to post up. I think serving this with food really brings out its best.

We haven’t had a Pinot Noir in a long time, or any of the 05’s. Next time we check on those I’ll update here.

Hiatus Endus

We haven’t really been on hiatus or taking vacation, but this time of year the vineyards need no work, and the wine just needs a little gentle care. It’s a time to rest and catch up on paperwork and bills, and all the other things we put aside for two months of harvest.

The first week of January the moon will be in the right phase, and we’ll be back at work pruning vines. Until then we’ll still be laying low, visiting with friends and family and avoiding shopping malls at all costs.

I thought a good way to get back into write would be to post some thoughts on a few wines we’ve had over the last few days.

Monday night we went to Holly and Noelle’s to watch the Sharks and Monday Night Football. It could have been a little battle over what to watch, but football was a blow out and the hockey game won out.

We started with a 2001 Ridge Monte Bello that Millie brought with her. This was a big rich Cabernet, still dark and showing no signs of being 8 years old. The nose was rich with berry fruit, and strong notes of new oak. The wine was rich, dense and packed with flavor. The tannins were a bit gritty, almost over ripe, but were not falling apart in anyway. I find that in a lot of Napa Cabs these days, the tannins are so ripe that they just don’t hold together on the finish as the wine ages. This wasn’t the case at all, just an angular feel on the finish. I know Monte Bello fans would say it’s too soon to drink this wine but it was very enjoyable. 93 points now, but I think a future of 95+.

The next wine up was a 2001 Chateau Rol Valentin St Emilion , Bordeaux. I really like the 2001 vintage in Bordeaux. It was good, but overlooked and the prices have stayed low. It was hard to find at retail, and is even harder now at auction to find. Most of the wine stayed in Europe. The French feel that Americans will only buy the ‘super’ vintages like 2000 , 2003 and 2005 so they don’t import, ‘useful’ vintages like 2001.

Why is it ‘useful’? The wines are very good, but not super concentrated. They won’t take 15-20 years to be enjoyable. They will be wines you can enjoy while you wait on the super vintages. In that way they are ‘useful’. With the exuberance of the Bush/Paris Hilton years, Americans wanted huge and flashy, not enjoyable and good value. Bummer, we missed out on some really good wines in 2001. I bought what I could then and still pick them up now when I see them.

The wine was starting to show some mature colors, a limpid red. The nose was expressive and complex, with tons of mature fruit and spice. Very well balanced, not heavy and the tannins were enjoyable. Lots of complex red and black fruit with a super long finish. 92 points for me, and I bought this for $30. Still pops up at auctions for $35- $40. A really nice wine.

Tuesday night Stefania and I opened two bottles and made pasta with a bison-tomato sauce and fresh bread Stef had made that day.

First up was a 2001 Yann Chave Hermitage. We bought this wine before the big critics discovered Yann Chave. Now we don’t even see it offered for sale, much less available for the $35 we paid for this bottle. The wine was dark and the nose was wild. Feral, furry, animal, iron, and a bit of corral at Grandma’s ranch, not for the weak of knees. I’ve had a fair amount of ageing Hermitage, and it will get these wild animal smells. The palate was deep and rich and the dark berry fruit came out from the wild game notes. Perfectly balanced tannin and acid kept everything together. After about 45 minutes the wild nose tamed and tons of dark rich plum and berry fruit dominated. The finish on the wine went on and on. I’d say this is 94 points, and will be best from 2015-2025. We have about 20 more bottles.

Next we went to a 2001 Antinori Brunello di Montalcino Pain delle Vigne. This is one of Stef’s favorite wines, but I pulled this bottle from my side. Brunello’s can be monolithic when they are young, so this was a bit of a gamble. The wine smelled fantastic though in the decanter, with red fruit and flowers. In the mouth it was silky and perfectly balanced with more red fruit, plum and spice. Still ‘young’ and not fully mature, but passed the bratty stage it was very enjoyable and one of the best 2001’s I’ve opened. 93 points now, sure to go up in the future.

No idea what we’ll drink tonight, but it will be hard to keep up with Monday and Tuesday.

The Worst Present

Tis the season for the stories of gift giving.

Best gift, worst gift, etc.

I’m only going to admit this once, so pay attention.

I did once give the very worst gift – only I didn’t really know it at the time that it would end up to be so ironic.

First the excuses; I was young (22ish?). I was making $8.25/hour. It was a gift to a co-worker.

And some background; One of my all time favorite places to shop was and still is Cost Plus.
The Co-worker was very much into wine and fine wines. This is going to end badly.

The finale;

I gifted two bottles of wine to said co-worker; A Reindeer White and Reindeer Red.

So, Gary, if you have found me online after all these years. I am sorry. I really am a weenie for gifting you two bottles of cheap wine.

Is there a moral to the story? Yeah, there is – no matter how much you like or dislike the people you work with, never, ever, ever, buy them cheap wine. One day you might end up being a winemaker and regret the gift you gave.

The Coldest Job in the Winery.

There’s a beautiful three ton capacity stainless steel tank at Chaine d’Or.
We hardly ever use it. Anne and Jerry used it for fermentation of their Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon and again for prep for bottling. I use it to settle the Chardonnay but prefer to use the inside tanks for bottling and finishing the Chardonnay. For red wines we usually use Macro T-Bins.
The T-Bins have fallen a bit out of favor recently because they are so small, but for the room we have they are perfect. I can fit them through the cellar doors if I need to , and larger bins won’t fit. They also fit on the upper crush pad area, where bigger bins would not fit on the cement pad. The best thing though is that the are relatively low so Stefania can reach over and do punchdowns with out getting on a ladder. They are also pretty easy for us to keep cool, clean, and sealed, so almost all our fermentations are done in them.
This year though for the Harvest Moon fermentation I decided to use the three ton tank. Here’s an older picture of me checking on Chardonnay must going into it:

I decided to use the tank because the harvest was so late and we’d be fermenting into late November. I knew it would get cold, and that temperature control would be critical. It’s easier to heat up the big tank than the smaller plastic T-bins. It did get cold, and we did drag out the heat lamps to heat up the tank and keep fermentation temps between 60-70 degrees.
Yesterday though I knew would be one of the most painful unhappy days in the winery. Fermentation was done and it was time to press the wine. That means transferring the juice and must from the tank to the press.
The first part is pretty easy. You hook up the pump to the tank and start pumping the juice out into the press. Eventually though the pump just can’t move any more must. The solids are too solid to make it through the pump and that means someone has to climb in the tank and hand buckets out.
Get any illusions of I Love Lucy out of your head. This isn’t a warm Italian countryside, or a Hollywood set. It was 44 degrees outside when we arrived at the winery yesterday morning. The temperature on the tank was reading 52, and it fell quickly as we got the juice out into the press to 48. This is a job for the tallest person in your crew. That’s me.
Off came my boots, my warm socks, and my jeans. I’d selected an old pair of boxers for the morning because I knew this task was ahead. And I climbed in. The must was just above my knees, and 48 degrees. It took about 30 minutes to empty the tank one 5 gallon bucket at a time. Just to add to the misery, that’s about 40 pounds, lifted over your head, about 180 times.
Those gym trips this summer paying off again. I was tired, arms got sore and my back felt it, but worst of all was feeling my feet get numb. I have to climb back out of the tank also, I don’t fit through the door. Stef had towels out and a warm bucket of water waiting for me. I dried back off and got dressed and we finished the days tasks.
The pressing went fine and we transferred about 5 barrels worth of wine to the inside tank to settle. We also prepped all the barrels we will need to fill on Tuesday. Jerry did most of the cleaning outside and I got some barrels moved inside. (more heavy lifting).
We got home about 3:30. I never felt warm again the rest of the day. We started a fire, and I wore socks to bed, but my feet still felt cold all night. Finally this morning they felt better. It feels good though to know that we’ve got just 5 more barrels to fill and we can call the harvest season over. Just in time for Thanksgiving and a chance to warm back up before pruning season starts.