Category: General

We had a great time in Vegas. Unfortunately the frustration with our iPhones meant I didn’t feel like taking the thing out and taking many pictures. The show Saturday night was a blast. I though Locksley was the best band of the night. We meet a ton of great people.

Next year we have to make it a party and have people join us. The set up had us inside a cabana on the beach. There was plenty of room for us to have guests in the cabana and just sit back, enjoy the wine and music and take advantage of the great space.

We spent all day Sunday by the pool, swimming and watching football on the tv. We had a nice dinner at Hank’s inside the Green Valley Ranch resort.

We flew back Monday morning and then Tuesday we headed over to the Verizon store as soon as they opened. It took a little longer than I though it would but we both left with new Samsung Fascinates which so far have worked out well. It took us a little time to figure out how to get photos off the phone, but we did that today.

The best thing is I have a signal again in San Jose! For a few weeks now I’ve had nothing from AT&T. One day last week I dropped a call 11 times driving down highway 87. Voicemails were showing up 2-3 days after they had been sent. Verizon has had a good signal at both home and work. We’ll try it out in the winery tomorrow.

The camera is also nicer on the Fascinate and includes a flash which means we’ll have pictures from inside the winery this year as well as early morning harvest day pictures. Better yet there’s video! We’ll test that out tomorrow but expect us to have a few harvest related videos on the blog soon.

We also walked out of the store with an HP mini. Our hope is that this will allow us to connect in more spots during harvest and get up pictures, videos and blogs in ‘real time’. We’ve set it up with 3G service and so far it’s gotten a good signal in tough spots (like my office). We’ll try that at the winery and out in the field this weekend.

Which brings us to the ‘Back in the Game’, part of the Blog today. Tomorrow we’ll be in the winery prepping for our first picks of the season. We’ll be cleaning picking bins, and prepping the crusher, tanks and fermentation bins. We’ll stage the pump so everything is ready for Friday.

Friday morning we’ll harvest three of the Haut Tubee vineyards; Home, the Church and the Ottigurr vineyards. We’ll then head up to Chaine d’Or and harvest the Chardonnay there. We’re not expecting much Chardonnay, most was damaged by sunburn in the August heat wave, but what is in good shape we’ll bring in.

After the Chardonnay has gone through the crusher we’ll process the Haut Tubee grapes. Then we’ll clean everything up all over again and prep for Saturday. Our last task for Friday will be to drive down to Aptos and drop off picking bins for our Pinot Noir. I expect a 12-14 hour day.

Saturday morning we will be picking our Pinot Noir and getting it back to the winery for processing. We’re expecting 2 tons. I think it will be a slow pick. The clusters are small and light with few on each plant. That will slow the picking crew down. If all goes well we’ll try and take Sunday off (except for punch downs) and watch some football.

Watch the blog and see how we do with live updates.

We’ve written a lot about our iPhones and used them a great deal. I’m afraid that’s all coming to an end though this month.

First there was a terrible experience with Apple, the Apple Store and Apple Support this month in an attempt to purchase an iPad.

I found the iPad totally and completely defective. It is NOT wireless compatible. Unlike other devices it only meets a limited number of wireless standards. I found this out after we purchased one and I was not able to get it to work on our home network. I also tried it at 7 other network points and was only able to get it to connect to 3 of the 7.

When I phoned support (after hours of self help), the friendly but totally unqualified support person’s only suggestion was that I buy a new router. When I told him I would not do such a thing and that would not fix the problem with the other networks his response was. “Well I bought a new router and I love my iPhone.” I replied that I could not buy a new router every where I need to use this device and he replied “That’s to bad it’s a really neat toy.”

Neat toy.

Useless toy.

I returned it the next day. Apple wanted to know why I didn’t like their service and gave them low marks on their survey’s. Well no they really didn’t give a snot. They called once. I returned the message and said I was traveling but they could call back when I returned. Some low level manager marked it off their tasks to do and I never heard back from anyone at Apple, the Apple Store or Apple Support about their lack of ability to give me a working device.

And then they charged me $50 for a restocking fee.

That’s one lost customer for life. Enjoy the $50, I’ll never spend another dollar with Apple as long as I live. I’m mean that way.

So that brought our ongoing problems with AT&T to a head. AT&T claims they cover 97% of America.

BS.

Among the place I don’t get coverage:

The light rail station at 1st and Tasman. That’s the main light rail terminal in San Jose.

The airport in San Jose. My signal drops every day when I drive by the airport. That’s at 101 and 87 (Google Map it), or just about the busiest place in San Jose.

My office – which is near 1st and Tasman and 1/3 mile from the HQ of a little company called Cisco.

My living room or anywhere else in my house or backyard. We live at Blossom Hill and Snell in San Jose. Next time your in town ask someone where that is. It’s one of the busiest intersections in town and 1 mile from the second biggest mall in town. Everyone will know.

Of course coverage is spotty in the vineyards and winery. We expect that, but we can’t really run a business with a service that can’t get coverage in the 9th largest city in America.

If you have suggestions for alternatives please send us a note. We are out shopping now for new phones and a new provider. Apple and AT&T might be ‘Neat Toys’, but we need a reliable business tool.

I put up a brief note earlier that we’d be pouring at an event in Las Vegas this weekend. We are all set to go and booked for the event. It will be Saturday evening at Mandalay Bay starting at 7PM.

Check Wine Amplified for ticket information and discounted hotels. The lead band will be Third Eye Blind and it should be a really great time. We’ll be pouring our 2007 Santa Cruz Mountains Cabernet Sauvignon and a special preview of our 2009 Chardonnay Santa Cruz Mountains.

Stef and I are arriving Saturday afternoon and staying through Monday. We will be at the Green Valley Ranch Resort. It’s a bit out of town, but neither of us are big gamblers and the attraction of a great pool and a nice cabana pulled us there. We’d visited the hotel at our last Rock and Roll Wine event and really liked the set up and hotel.

We have a cabana reserved all day Sunday so if you happen to be in town please let us know!

Saturday we went out to check on the Crimson Clover Vineyard and the Chaine d’Or vineyard. At Chaine d’Or the red grapes are finally starting to turn colors. It’s too late. They need at very least 45 days after they complete the change before harvest, and we’ve found 75 is really ideal to get the grapes properly ripe. Right now that will put the harvest date at December 15th. The plants will have shut down and lost all their leafs well before that date.

That means no Cabernet from Chaine d’Or this year. The Chardonnay is in a little better shape but still suffered a great deal of sun burn. It looks like we’ll try to pick what we can around the 1st of October. There is probably only enough to make a single barrel. That will make wine making really hard as we won’t be able to use any of the chillers in the tanks to get the wine to settle and keep it cool. There just won’t be enough volume to reach up to the cooling jackets on the tanks.

Crimson Clover looked much better and we took a few pictures. In 2008 we harvested here on Sept 28th and in 2009 in was Sept 29th. This year it looks like we’ll pick around October 20th, or almost 4 weeks later. The crop load looks good and the vineyard is clean. We did a little leaf pulling to help fight mildew and everything is coming along well.

The clusters are larger than they’ve been the last couple of years. Tasting the grapes we could tell they were not close to ready yet. The flavors are past the green stage (green bean and bell pepper) but just now in the red fruit stage. We will want to wait for plum, black cherry and berry flavors to show up. The tannins also are still very astringent and will need more time to soften.

We did pull samples off and Stefania ran BRIX tests on the juice. She used a refractometer and hydrometer and the readings from both were 20.2 We’d like to pick between 23.5 and 25, although we’ve usually picked this particular vineyard higher in the 26-27 range. You can see the juice is pink still and not showing ripe color.

All this means we have a lot more time to go. Stefania thinks it will be even later than the 20th. We’ll start to taste test now pretty regularly and watch the weather closely. We definitely will not be picking in September this year though.

The Haut Tubee blend began on September 13th with the harvest of the Home vineyard and the Ottigurr vineyard in San Jose. The grapes were picked in the early morning and transferred to Chaine d’Or for processing. They were destemmed and crushed into a 60 gallon tub and fermentation was on native yeast. The initial picking included about 450 pounds of grapes with 70% Syrah, 14% Grenache, 13% Zinfandel and 3 % Mourvedre. About 10 pounds of mystery pink grapes (likely Pinot Gris) from the Chaine d’Or Estate were added whole cluster on 9/20.

On September 27th 250 pounds of Zinfandel and 50 pounds of Cabernet Sauvignon from the ‘Roxie’ vineyard, a neighbor of the Crimson Clover Vineyard were crushed and started in their own tub.

The initial blend was pressed in a wooded basket press on 9/30 and transferred to tank to wait for the other lots to complete. The Roxie completed on 10/15 and was blended into tank with the first lot.

On October 24th 22 gallons of Elandrich vineyard was added to the tank and the entire blend transferred to a single new Sequin Moreau barrel. In May of 2009 the wine was racked into a used barrel as we felt it had achieved the level of new oak influence we were after.

On May 3rd 2010, the final blend was assembled. One barrel of 2008 Santa Cruz Mountains Cabernet Sauvignon was selected and blended in tank. In addition ½ barrel of new oak Eaglepoint Ranch Syrah was added as well.

Final breakdown at bottling:

Merlot 15%
Zinfandel 10%
Syrah 36%
Cabernet Sauvignon 37%
Grenache 2%
Mourvedre (trace)
Cabernet Franc (trace)
Petite Verdot (trace)
Pinot Gris (trace)

Final Alcohol 13.8% pH 3.72

Dark red the color of a ripe Bing cherry. Wow nose of cherries, plum, licorice and herbs. Very southern Rhone in the mouth with soft and ripe tannins. The wine seems to show Grenache even though that’s a small part this year. Very ripe fruit and spice in the mouth with a long, fresh, juicy finish. Kind of a cross of the 06’s juicy fruit and the 07’s excellent structure.

Release Price: $60 per 3 pack, $120 per six pack

Our 4 rows from the 1989 block of Syrah at Eaglepoint Ranch yielded 2.6 tons in 2006 and 3 .2 tons in 2007. In 2008 severe weather would limit the yield to just 600 pounds, or .3 tons. We pulled grapes from 15 other rows to harvest just less than 1 ton total. The grapes were picked early in the morning of October 1st and transported to Big Basin Vineyards for processing. We sorted the grapes and 100% destemmed but did not crush the berries.

Final Brix was low for the site at 25.5 and pH was 3.84. We added a small amount of tartaric acid to preserve the pH through Malolactic fermentation. Only native yeast was used in the fermentation and we again started Malolactic Fermentation in bin. The wine finished primary fermentation on 10/13 and was pressed and transferred to one new Sequin Moreau barrel and one old French Oak barrel. We did two additional rackings of this wine in 2008 to manage the tannins from the smaller than normal berries this year produced.

In early April the wine was transferred to Chaine d’Or for bottling. On May 3rd 50% of the new barrel was transferred to the Haut Tubee Blend. The remaining wine will have 33% new oak influence. As we sampled we felt that a 50/50 blend of new/old oak was too high for our tastes.

Final Alcohol 14.5% pH 3.71

Very dark and dense crimson color. Sweet floral nose with plums, berries and spice on the nose. More ripe plum, spice and pepper on the palate. With air the wine showed berry pie and pronounced black cherry flavors. The finish is lifted with a pepper note that carries the black cherry. This wine is as floral on the nose as past vintages with more cherry fruit. We’ve had no metallic notes in this wine and think the choice to wait until after the heavy rains around the 1st of October was key in removing any smoke residue from the vineyard..

Release Price: $99 per 3 pack, $180 per six pack

In 2008 the 30 year old Pinot Noir vineyard we sourced these grapes from was under our management and we took efforts to reduce yields and improve sun exposure to the vineyard. The vineyard is a mix of ‘heritage clones’ including Swan and Mount Eden. Located just a few miles from the Pacific outside of Corralitos CA this is a very cool site. The vineyard produced a total of just over 5 tons of grapes on 4 ½ acres or about 1 ¼ ton per acre. The thirty year old vines produced tiny clusters and intense small berries.

We harvested just over one ton for ourselves on the morning of October 3rd. The grapes were transferred to Chaine d’ Or and 100% destemmed and crushed for fermentation in two t-bins. We used no whole clusters this year due to the very small cluster size and a desire to limit stem tannin.

Final numbers on the Pinot Noir were Brix 24.5 and pH of 3.39. We gently punched down the must 1-2 times daily and fermented on native yeasts. The fermentation was slow to start again this year, allowing some pre fermentation soak time. We added Malolactic starter on 10/13 while the wine was still in bin and pressed the wine on 10/21 after eighteen day fermentation. The wine was allowed to settle in tank for 3 days then transferred to 1 new Sequin Moreau barrel and one used French oak barrel.

No further rackings were done on the wine and it was allowed to age on its fine lees until racked for bottling after 17 months in barrel. We extend the barrel aging routine on all our 2008’s in an effort to manage the large tannins that resulted from small berries and clusters.

Final Alcohol 13.5% pH 3.59

Ruby red color, darker than the 2007. Raspberry, strawberry, rose and spice on the nose. The nose is very exciting on this wine. Soft velvety tannins carry red fruit, ripe berries and a hint of forest to a long finish with blackberry showing as the wine opened in the glass. The wine has ripe and ample tannins promising long life in bottle.

Release Price: $135 per 3 pack, $250 per six pack

I ended up with few pictures from our trip. Most were on my iPhone and came out pretty poorly. I know Stefania took better pictures and I hope she can post those up soon with some more trip details. We also had a few dozen sent to us from people at our party in Bordentown New Jersey.

I took this picture of Stefania in the ‘Cool Cricket’ in Bordentown. She had just won the Bud Light hat in their drawing at half time of the Sunday football games.

We both wanted to thank the great people of Bordentown again for their amazing hospitality. We had some stops at some pretty well known and high powered spots on our trips. We poured at a D.C. law firm overlooking the Potomac at Washington Harbor (That’s one building down from the famous Watergate buildings) on Thursday. Monday we where hosted at Harry’s Cafe and Steak House, just one block from the stock exchange on Wall Street in N.Y.C. We loved both of those stops.

Saturday though was in the tiny town of Bordentown, population 3,953. Our event there was set up by Mark and Pam of Jersey Foodies. Not only did they host a fantastic party for us with amazing food, but Mark came and picked us up personally at the train station and drove us to our hotel. We met so many wonderful people Saturday night and everyone was so gracious to Stef and I. Mark drove us back to the hotel again at 1:30 AM. The town doesn’t have regular cab service, it’s too small.

Saturday the folks in Bordentown were great to us, then on Sunday they one upped themselves. Saturday night I had mentioned to someone at the party that one of the things we don’t like about traveling is not having good coffee in bed in the morning. Sunday morning there was a text message offering to bring us coffee at our hotel! We declined, it just seemed like too much, but we did accept Mark’s offer of a ride to a local pub to watch the football games Sunday afternoon.

We hung out and ate chicken wings and drank beer for 6 hours. We never paid for a drink the entire time we were there. People we had met the night before insisted that they treat! When it was finally time for us to go back to the hotel a new friend we had met just the night before offered to take us back again to our hotel. Not only did he do that but he stopped us by his home for a visit. It is a 19th century building that he renovated. It used to be the Baptist Church in town, and he’s restored it into an amazing living space. As if that wasn’t enough he offered to pick us up the next morning and drive us to the train station in Trenton!

America is full of wonderful, amazing, gracious people, in big cities like Washington and New York and small towns like Bordentown. We hope to be back some day and visit again. In the mean time we continue to extend the invitation we gave to so many people in our travels. Come visit us in California. Let us throw a party for you at our winery and in our home!

I know I’m missing one, but that’s what I get for not writing it down…

Here are the three I did capture:

#1 “I am not high strung, I am energetic and enthusiastic with organizational skills”

#2 “Cross and Skull Bones”

#3 “I’m entertaining myself and it’s not even physical this time”

The first one was in reference to Paul saying I’m high strung and Liz correcting him. She and I are scary similar 😉 (that was at the backyard party in NJ)

The second one is me screwing up Skull and Crossbones (that being the theme on a garment I was wearing for Tbird as I was explaining it to his wife)

And last but not least, the third quote was overheard on the trip home on the flight from L.A. The gentleman in the seat behind us was “chatty”.

Awesome.

I am my own worst boss. If I worked for me I’d quit after a week, seriously.

We were barely through the door lastnight and I was already making a mental list of all the things to get done today or before the end of the day Thursday – many are related to basic housekeeping and home maintenance, but all are necessary tasks given the threat of rain for Sunday (bring in the outdoor furniture for one…)

Paul is already tasking me for Friday doing some running around at the vineyards to start taking samples and see how things look.

I too have photos from the East Coast Tour to post up and some commentary to add so please hang in there and be patient while I work through the rest of my list…

It’s good to be back and to have something to do besides eating and drinking; yep, the list includes some dietary changes for the upcoming week 😉

Chat soon…gotta run