I was able to take a little time off from the day job last week. We were also caught up in the vineyards and winery so had a few free days. We gave Jaye a few days off and she was able to go visit family in southern California. Millie stayed close to home but we also gave her a few days off as well.
Stefania and I headed down to Monterey for the Easter weekend. It’s been a favorite getaway for us over the years. We were lucky in having clear beautiful days. It was chilly with highs just in the 50’s but the sun was out the entire time. We brought down our bikes to get around in. What a great idea. I’ve been going to Monterey for 25 years and never brought bikes before. Friday we rode them from downtown to the gates of 17 mile drive.
We stopped for lunch at the Cannery Row Brewing Company, which has become a favorite spot of mine. There’s a little hidden out door sitting area with fire pits that we love. One of the great things we about having the bikes is that it’s about a 25 minute walk from the Cannery/Aquarium area to the Downtown/Wharf area. On bikes it’s 5 minutes and a bike trail connects the two.
Friday night we went back for dinner, beer, bourbon and cigars. Most of the weekend revolved around beer, bourbon and cigars. We were joined at the fire pit by two Marine Corp Captains and an army Captain who were studying at the Naval Post Graduate school. We had a great night exchanging vineyard and winery stories for stories of goats wearing sweaters (Pakistan) and Nissans up on bamboo polls (Liberia).
I only took one picture all weekend. Here’s the bike on the balcony of our room at the Marriot. That’s going to be my one piece of advice for anyone visiting Monterey. Bring your bikes.
Saturday was a cold and rainy day. We headed up to the winery for a long day of work inside so at least we’d be mostly dry. We still had 15 barrels to get through the first racking and sulfuring of the year. Malolactic fermentation has been slow this year and 5 different lots were just finishing up.
We can’t add sulfur to the wines before Malo has completed or the sulfur will kill the Malo bacteria along with the bad bacteria. The longer we go though the greater the risk of those bad bacteria showing up so it’s been a tense few months.
Stefania started by setting up her lab and I got the pump, tanks and barrel cleaner ready. We had lab results back from the lab we have to do our government testing with so we didn’t need to do much in the way of actual measurements, but we would have to prepare SO2 for every wine and Tartaric Acid for a few.
One routine we always have is that a second person must verify that the pump is hooked up right and all the seals on the tanks are closed. This helps prevent oversight and shooting wine all over the place.
We had five different lots to work with; Crimson Clover Cab ,Harvest Moon Cab, Coastview Syrah, Mourvedre and Haut Tubee. Everything would get an SO2 treatment of 40-50 ppm depending on the pH of the wine. The Mourvedre, Harvest Moon and Haut Tubee would also have Tartaric added to lower pH.
We combined some of the Crimson Clover Cabernet, with some Peacock Cab Franc and a little Harvest Moon Cab to start a Santa Clara Valley Cabernet blend. The rest of the Harvest Moon and the Haut t was kept on its own for now. We finished up the day about 5PM by filing the tanks with Coastview Syrah in tank #1 and Mourvedre in tank #2 and left them to settle for the night.
We returned the next day to get those wines back in barrel and spent just 3 hours compared to the 8 the day before. We started our GSM blend by putting some of the Syrah in with some of the Mourvedre, but kept two barrels of each on their own. In the end we had 14 barrels and topping wine.
Each barrel is rinsed and cleaned as part of the process on the barrel holder below. The holder allows the barrel to spin and Stefania usually does this job.
I was really happy with the Mourvedre. Our original plan was to blend all of it into the GSM blend or the Haut Tubee, but we may keep some on its own. The other wines were all good as well, and I’m excited about the final wines. After a rough weather year last year it looks like we still ended up with good wine.
This has been one of the driest years I can remember. Right now in San Jose rainfall is at about 40% of a normal year. We’ve only had a couple of good storms go through. Mostly when we have had rain though it has been a light drizzle more than real rain. The winter months of December, January and February had almost no rain at all.
The natural question to ask is how will this effect the vines and potentially the grape harvest in 2012. The answer is – not very much. The vines are dormant in the winter so not using any water. Rain during that time is important to build up reserves for the dry summer months in the soil, but not important for the plants at that time.
I took the picture below on Wednesday of the Mourvedre vines in the front yard. They are just starting to wake up and grow. Now is when they need rain and water and right now we are getting regular little storms. It’s been more than enough for the vines right now. It has also been cool with highs in the low 60’s. That means the plants will be growing slowly and don’t need a bunch of water just yet. It also means there is no risk of mildew since mildew needs temps to be over 70 degrees.
Another good side effect we will see this year is that the lack of rain has kept growth down between the rows. You can see that in the picture below. At this time last year the cover crop was a foot tall. Those cover crops, and weeds compete with the vines for water, and this year those plants are small and won’t offer much competition. Last year we had to mow three times in most vineyards and some weeds grew to 5 feet high. This year we’ll likely mow just once or twice and it doesn’t look like anything will be over 18 inches tall.
We can’t count on the perfect timing of the rain though through the rest of the year and the amount of water in the soil is going to be an issue if we don’t get a lot of rain in April and May. That’s why we have drip systems though and we can turn them on if we need them. We usually don’t have them on so there will be some additional work we’ll have to do to get them ready before we can use them. This means turning them on and walking every row to see where they have gotten leaks since we lasted used them and fixing the leaks.
So we’re not really worried about the rain shortage or drought at all. Drought years like 2007 and 2009 have turned out to be some of the easiest farming years we’ve had, and produced great wines. If we have to turn on the drip systems we’ll have additional costs in water and maintenance. Those should be more than offset though in the savings from mowing and weed control. Look for an update on the rain situation in May. That’s when we will decide about turning on the drip systems or not.
Stefania had this idea to host a blind tasting of our wines and compare them to others in the area. She narrowed it down to Cabernet and decided to focus on a single vintage (2007). It took some time to pull together but we finally did it on Friday March 16th.
All of the following were served blind in flights of three. The wines were bagged by Jaye and as new wines came in they were mixed in the number rotation so that the ‘new’ wines would not all be the end numbers. Each wine was opened about 45 minutes prior to serving but not decanted. Foils were all removed and wines were served in numbered bags.
Original notes are as I took them down. Thoughts after bags were removed are in parenthesis. I used + when I though a wine’s future score would likely be higher and many of these ended up with a +.
#1 2007 Mount Eden Estate, Santa Cruz Mountains
Rich, chocolate and classic cab nose. Tannic, lighter on the palate. Should be rockin in 10 years 94+ My WOTN
#2 2007 Cooper Garrod George’s Vineyard, Santa Cruz Mountains
Dusty, light fruit, clean but just ok 87 pts (much less impressive than a previous bottle I had)
#3 2007 Chaine d’Or, Santa Cruz Mountains
Big green nose, rich, round and tannic, lots of hidden fruit, berry , needs 10+ years 89+
#4 2007 Kathryn Kennedy ‘Small Lot’, Santa Cruz Mountains
Wood influence, spice, red fruit, lighter texture. From a warmer site? Martin Ranch? 89 (Most of the small lot fruit comes from Martin Ranch)
#5 2007 Ridge Monte Bello, Santa Cruz Mountains
American oak on the nose. Very tannic with great balance, light fruit, long finish with berry. 90+
#6 2007 Martin Ranch Thérèse Vineyards Estate, Santa Cruz Mountains
Less wood, I like this one. Cherry pie, little funky on the finish, greenish tannins, guess of a cooler site 89+
# 72007 P•M Staiger, Santa Cruz Mountains
Sour cherry nose, low oak influence, slight volitile, peppery with light fruit 82 (The only wine I really didn’t care for)
#8 2007 La Honda Lonehawk Vineyard, Santa Cruz Mountains
Musty, mushroom, slight volitile on nose but well balanced. Finishes oaky. 88. Might be better in 5 years but VA worries me.
#9 2007 Stefania, Santa Cruz Mountains
Big nose, good balance of wood. Best balanced in this group of three with tannin/acid/fruit. Smooth, round, warm site? 92
# 10 2007 Ahlgren Bates Ranch, Santa Cruz Mountains
Green nose, smooth black fruit and good balance, cool site? 89+
# 11 2007 Stefania Uvas Creek Vineyard, Santa Clara Valley
Round, spicy, mushroom, great balance and plum fruit. Not especially ‘cabby’ but I like this 91
# 12 2007 Woodside Estate, Santa Cruz Mountains
Greenish nose, and pepper flavor, short and tannic 85
# 13 2007 Thomas Fogarty, Santa Cruz Mountains
Slight pepper, roundish, black fruit, bright green tint stays through the wine. 5+ years 90+
# 14 2007 Domaine Eden, Santa Cruz Mountains
Menthol nose, balanced, light oak, black pepper and red fruit 92
# 15 2007 House Family Vineyards, Santa Cruz Mountains
Dusty and black pepper, grows on you with good balance. A little funk but nice length. Warmer site? 91+
# 16 2007 Ridge Estate, Santa Cruz Mountains
Rich nose with some gren. Sharp red frui, cooler site? Nose of #3 without the ‘balls’. 88
#17 2007 Martin Ranch Thérèse Vineyards Dos Rios Vineyard, Santa Clara Valley
Woody from a great barrel, Pessec Leognan nose. Dusty, balanced and round. A ‘wow now’ wine with tons of fruit. 93
# 18 2007 Creekview Vineyards, Santa Clara Valley
Funky mint nose. CHalky not roundest of the group has mint without pepper, good finish 88
Everyone voted on thier top three with 5 points for 1st, 3 for 2nd and 1 for third. Group winners where:
1st = #17 2007 Martin Ranch Thérèse Vineyards Dos Rios Vineyard, Santa Clara Valley
2nd = #1 2007 Mount Eden Estate, Santa Cruz Mountains
3rd = #5 2007 Ridge Monte Bello, Santa Cruz Mountains
4th (tie) = #9 2007 Stefania, Santa Cruz Mountains
#3 2007 Chaine d’Or, Santa Cruz Mountains
Saturday turned out to be a rainy day at the winery in Woodside. We had hoped to set up on the front patio by the pool. The plan was to put out a table with all the wines we’d be pouring and have the Pizza oven in the round about serving hot pizza.
The rain forced us inside though. The pizzas had to be heated as we needed them and we poured wine from the kitchen of the main house. With rain and the steep road we thought attendance might be low but we ended up with about 40-50 people stopping by.
I took this picture before we got started. Stefania and Jaye behind the counter. I spent a lot of time washing glasses but did get to talk to a fair number of people. We will probably do the fall pick up closer to home and I think this will have been the only time we will open the winery this year.
A few months ago I told Stefania we should start a new blog called “Slow and Hard”. She laughed and thought what you just did.
Every ad, every stir and smile tv cook and every commercial on tv for food seems to use the phrase “Fast and Easy.” They leave out the “Crappy” part. It should be “Fast, Easy and Crappy”. As in: “Show your family how much you care by serving this wonderful soup that is ‘fast, easy and crappy'”. Good food is slow and hard. It means some level of commitment by someone to not cut a corner and make it crappy.
A few years ago we stopped buying ground beef. We knew no one was grinding up chuck in the back of the store anymore and the process to make what was being sold commercially was gross. I also have been on this kick about respect the animal. I like to name all our meat. That freaks some people out but if I call the chicken ‘Max’, it just seems more respectful to the chicken. Max gave up his life so we could eat. Respect Max. Eating Max as a chicken nugget at KFC is disrespectful to Max and chickens in general.
Eating ground beef that has gone through a centrifuge and been mixed up with 100’s of other cows is disrespectful to the cow. Plus it tastes like crap. Honestly it’s mostly that it tastes like crap. We grind everything ourselves. It’s slow and hard. Well not really, to grind 3 pounds of meat takes a total of about 10 minutes from set up to clean up. There is an attachment to the Kitchen Aid mixer that works super well. The end product is hugely superior to anything we’d bought in a package in years.
Me worry about Pink Slime? No way! We’re eating Maribelle right now and she was a good cow. Happy and active. We have a picture of her up on our fridge. She’s really yummy too.
We have been shipping out orders from the Spring release for about a week now. We are holding the southeastern U.S. due to the heat wave there but everything else looks open. The release included 2009 Crimson Clover Cabernet Sauvignon, 2009 Santa Cruz Mountains Cabernet Sauvignon and 2006 Uvas Creek Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon.
As usual we have to ship in small batches. We are not big enough to get a regular pick up from UPS so we have to be able to fit everything in the back of our car to run to UPS. Since we stage shipping out of the garage, which is also small, we can handle about 30 cases a day maximum. We do expect to have everything out that is not on a weather hold though in 2-3 weeks.
We’re shipping east coast orders on Thursday and Friday now. That holds it over weekend west of the Rockies which is cooler than holding it east of the Rockies. Those shipments have to over weekend somewhere and we feel better about having it in the west which is cool right now. There still is enough wine to fill orders. We’re very low on the Uvas and Crimson but can still take orders on both.
Pick up day for the Spring Release is this Saturday from 11-3. Here’s the ‘official’ invite:
We would like to invite you this weekend to the winery to taste wines from our current release We will also feature complimentary brick oven pizza from our friends at Mario’s Mobile Pizza.
This is a residential location, parking is limited to the street area. This will likely be the only time we will be open this year. If you have an order from the Spring Release it will be available for pick up. We hope you can join us and we look forward to visiting with you again!
For more information about our wines, you can also visit our website, www.stefaniawine.com
Over the last few years we’ve made an effort to take Sunday off from work. Even during fall harvest time we try and keep one day when we can rest and recover. I’ve always been a football fan and Dad would take us to 49er practices and games well before Joe Montana and Jerry Rice made the Niners a great team.
Stefania has gotten to be an even bigger fan though and she insisted that last year we get the NFL package on Directv. That way we could watch the Saints, Broncos, Bears and Seahawks also. She like to follow the teams of cities we visit often or have been to games at.
Well the news this week had been buzzing about Payton Manning coming to the 49ers. He decided on the Broncos though and Denver quickly announced they would try and trade Tim Tebow. That’s when the staff around here got worried. Stef likes Tebow, and the odds of any NFL team trading anything for him seem pretty low. I bet we could get John Elway to trade him for a vineyard worker to be named later. Millie and Jaye were both worried we might offer one of them to the Broncos for Tebow. After all there is no need to throw anything when working in the vineyards or winery so he has the right skills.
That’s my way of reminding everyone Millie is back working with us and Jaye decided she likes this new job and stayed with us after trying the job out last fall. We’re a crew of six now.
Saturday morning we went out to inspect several vineyards and put together the work orders for the next few weeks. Jaye was with us mostly so I could show her the way to Peacock Vineyard. I didn’t take any pictures at Peacock but things looked great there. The homeowner does the pruning themselves and we just have a little correction and clean up to do.
Next we were on to Crimson Clover. This also looked really good and the vines are really healthy and starting to get thick at the trunk.
The third stop of the day (after a bathroom stop at home) was at the little Red Hen Vineyard. This was the first place we saw bud break. We put in some flags there to mark spots where we want Millie to install additional posts. The vineyard was pretty vigorous last year and the vines need more posts to hold up the wires that hold up the growth. Stef had already bought the posts so we were just marking out the install points.
Our final stop was at the Brauns vineyard to check on the Pinot Noir Vines there. Bud break was also starting and I took the picture below. We have a few grow tubes to install on smaller plants. We took this vineyard over last year and I think it has suffered from over watering. The vines are scrawny for their age which is a sign to me the roots have not gone deep. That happens when the plants are getting all their water from a drip system at the surface. We’ll work this year to correct that.
Here’s one of the plants that’s furthest along. We’ll also try and limit fruit production here this year so that the plant can work on its strength.
Overall we were really happy with how everything looked and the work that’s been done so far this year. The crew will be busy over the next few weeks on the tasks we’ve put together.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.ACCEPTRejectRead More
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
