Hot and Cold

“Up next, we have up to the minute weather in your neighborhood!”

I think that’s the most ridiculous thing I hear regularly on TV. Am I living in a house with no windows or doors? Really, if I need up to the minute weather in my neighborhood I can look out the window. This past week the local weather dudes have been all a fluff about a ‘record heat wave’. The California weather guys can get a little over dramatic about tiny changes in the weather, just because it changes so little. Really on May 1st each year the TV news report should be: “Fog in the morning, sun in the afternoon, highs in the 80’s lower near the water, next update in October, have a nice summer.”

Last week they were predicting 100+ degree days. Stef just discounted that right away. “There’s fog coming in and the nights are in the 60’s, it won’t get to 100.” She was right. It’s been 90’s and high 80’s. Really the best source for weather in your neighborhood is someone who lives there and pays attention.

So we didn’t panic at all that it would be too hot for the grapes, they really like high 80’s and low 90’s. It was good to be able to sit out last weekend and this week.

I’ve had a double whopper. I’ve been on call for Jury Duty all week, so far I have not been called, and it’s pretty unlikely I’ll have to go in tomorrow. Worse though is I’ve had a cold in my chest with coughing and general cold like symptoms. We will get started this weekend and next week will be busy, so I’m pretty confident if I do get called for Jury duty tomorrow, I’ll be excused. The cold has been lingering too long, but I hope by this weekend I’m going better.

Tomorrow things get rocking and we will try and get an update out every night.

Fall Colors Preview

The Fall Colors in the Haut Tubee vineyard are still very green. Very few leaves have turned color so far.

These grapes are still hanging on by the front door – they’ll never ripen fully but I like to leave them for aesthetic purposes. When I asked Paul if I could put the two vines on either side of the walkway he was skeptical. It’s really hard to convince him that not all of the vines have to produce usable fruit.


And then some pics of the front vines. The neighbor dude was passing by as I was taking these this morning and he asked why some of the new vines were more vigorous than others. It could be that I was too lenient on the water rationing this first year, but I’m not in any hurry to rush these into production. The primary goal was to remove the water hogging lawn so any fruit we harvest in a couple of years will be a bonus; Haut Tuvedre?

On Friday a.m. we’ll start harvest at “the steep vineyard” on Arastradero. I anticipate crisp morning temperatures, followed by a warm afternoon.

Lab Pics

The other day I checked Brix, pH, and TA (total acidity) for a couple of vineyards.


I set the lab up on the kitchen counter at home – I was doing office work (getting the offer letters printed) while Gerry ran around to all the vineyards pulling samples for me. When he got here, we sat at the dining room table to fold, stuff, and seal all the envelopes. It’s a great time for us to sit for several hours and practice speaking in English and Spanish.

The shot glass has distilled water in it – for rinsing the probe in between calibrating. Above, calibrating the pH meter.


These are the cabernet berries from Crimson Clover. They look just like blueberries to me. The “high tech” method of extracting the juice for testing involves a potato masher.

These are the pinot and merlot berries from Vista Verde, after smashing for juice extraction. The very bright green seeds indicate what the numbers confirmed, they are not ripe yet.
Paul already posted the lab numbers, I promised pictures, so here they are.
Missing are pictures of the hygrometer and refractometer for checking Brix.

Sunday Funnies

Went and saw Spamalot again lastnight. I can’t say for sure what my very favorite scene or act was but all of the scenes in Act II were hilarious.

Dinner was at the new Brazilian Churascaria downtown on First Street – Maceio. The restaurant is inside the old Melting Pot and all the tables have the leftover fireproof glass inserts dead center. We joked about it with our server, Sarah, and wondered if there was any way to turn on the “tv” and watch the Sharks game. Actually, she said, it’s a touch screen for placing orders, “Can’t you see the menu? it’s right there, no really, you don’t see that?” It was funny, we were feeling silly, you had to be there.

Thoughts about dinner? Awesome. We’ve been to Fogo de Chao many times in D.C. and loved it, however, I think the meats presented lastnight were superior. First, the seasonings were reasonable. Seems like at other Brazilian venues there is an abundance of salt on each offering.

The salad bar rocked. My opinion of course, but I liked the selection of steamed vegetables alongside with the standard salad bar choices. Each of us made our own first course plate; lettuce salads, pasta salads, devil eggs, mozzarella slices and tomatoes, pesto potatoes, couscous, carrot slaw, etc.

Just before we started the meat service, I filled a veggie plate for the table to share – a selection of bok choy, asparagus, broccoli, zucchinis wraps (thin slices rolled around feta cheese), and more mozzarella and tomatoes.

We dined on chicken, pork short ribs, shrimp (the butteriest I’ve tasted), tri tip, top sirloin, filet mignon, turkey, and the most amazing roasted pineapple. Rotisseried til golden, bathed in butter, sugar, cinnamon and clove (?I’m guessing at all that based on flavor) and carved tableside just like the meats. To die for. All four of us had seconds and thirds of that.

Now for the Sunday Funnies – kind of.


San Jose has some pretty awesome public spaces, but because we travel around so much we rarely spend any time enjoying our own home. We attended the Tapestry and Talent festival downtown over Labor Day and for the first time went up close to the fountains that so many people enjoy.


And because we always mention this lovely statue to all our visiting guests, “the turd”. It was a piece of art that was commissioned for the city, but the artist eventually became fed up with the requests to change his original design. After many such requests he quit, but was informed that he had to produce something per the contract and payment agreement…and so we have a large “Turd” in the park. Even comedian Ron White mentioned it when he was here for a show, “Do ya’ll know there is a statue of a turd in your park?”. Awesome.

Random picture of cookies. We dined at a friends house over Labor Day and I took a large plate of cookies for dessert. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, I like to ice the cookies with a simple powdered sugar frosting, but I don’t add vanilla extract or water, I usually use either a Sauternes or Muscat. This batch was with a leftover Gewurztraminer…not the best if you’re wondering. Paul opened a dessert wine that night and it seemed to go well with the cookies. For those that don’t know, I don’t do sweet wines…and don’t tell me I haven’t tried the right one yet, I’m the same girl that doesn’t pound chocolate on a monthly cycle, I simply don’t prefer it.


Vineyard dogs. Last year Fergie expired on the day we harvested Crimson Clover. That was a year ago. Then in January, we were back at the vineyard to prune and Millie brought along Truffles*. Long story longer, the owner at C.C. fell in love with Truffles and wanted to adopt her sister. The economy being what it is, the price of adoption was too high, so she went online “just to look” for other similar pups. And she ended up with Sunshine (left). She’s got the flat face, similar underbite and perky ears as “the little mutt*”. Rascal is laying down next to her for the photo op wondering what all the hubbub is about.
* For the record, Truffles official name is Jazzi, and I often refer to her (lovingly of course) as The Little Mutt, pronounced like I’m from Brooklyn as DaLeetleMuhhtt.

Day Getting Ready at the Winery

We’re getting close to picking grapes so it was time to get to the winery and start to get everything there ready. On the way up I stopped at Page Mill Road and 280 to take this picture. It’s a great visual on what makes the Chaine d’ Or vineyard so special. The fog on the left is the ridge across from the vineyard. The one in bright sunshine is where Chaine d’Or is located.

I took this one as soon as we arrived at the vineyard. You can see the vines are in full sun, but the fog is just a few hundred yards away keeping everything cool. It was just 77 degrees when we left the winery at 2:30 compared to 92 on the valley floor. This lets the grapes ripen slowly and develop great flavors.

I hiked down to check on the Cabernet grapes. They are coming along well, but we’re still 5-6 weeks away from picking.


Some close ups on the dappled sunlight we try and get on the clusters.

And a shot of the Chardonnay. The Chardonnay is almost ready, maybe this week, early next week at the latest.

Then it was into the winery. Twice a year we take out everything that we can and clean the floors. We also make sure the drain is working fine and clean the gutters up. We do some reorganizing as well to try and get everything in a good place before harvest. While Stef and I worked inside Jerry was outside cleaning the chiller tank and press. He also cleaned up all the picking bins and started bringing up the 1/2 ton and 1 ton bins.


He will go back on Monday to finish up cleaning the bins, and pull some samples for Stef to test. Tomorrow we’ll check again on Crimson Clover and do some planing on barrel usage. I’ll also try to get over to visit our friend Ian and see about a pump we may need to borrow for a day.

Late Big Sur Pictures

The weekend after Labor Day each year some close friends host camping in Big Sur. It’s a perfect time for us to get away. We are close to harvest, but being away keeps the panic down as everyone else starts picking and just makes us focus on something else.

I’ve got a new computer so guess what? These pictures are in reverse order of the weekends events, so I’ll tell the story backwards. 🙂

Nature really is great. Here’s new baby redwoods starting out from a tree burnt out in the fires last summer.

Stef and I hiked on Sunday morning up to about 2200 feet above the Big Sur Gorge. It was an impromptu hike, we hadn’t brought a lot of water with us. Just about two hours and 5 miles total.

Stef looking out at the ocean about 3/4 of the way up. We’d like to go back and finish the total 8 miles, but we just didn’t have enough water with us this day to finish.


Me at the fork between the trail to the waterfall and Manuel Peak. The waterfall trail is still closed from landslides.


On Saturday we played in the river for a few hours and Stef caught about two dozen crawdads for dinner. Then we headed up the gorge to see how far we could get with the very low water.


This is the end of the trail. We had to wade through the creek a couple times to get this far but at this point we would have to go waist deep so we stopped for the day.


We were on the hook for cooking for 12 that night. Here I am ready to cook with a glass of our 2006 Santa Cruz Mountains Cabernet Sauvignon and my special shirt for the weekend.

Stefania boiled up the crawdads and I started in on the potatoes. Wrapped in foil and thrown in the hot coals for about 75 minutes. Turn them every 20 minutes so they cook evenly.

Then on go the Prime Rib Steaks. 13 in all over open flame. There’s no hair left on my hand 🙂


Sunday night was a bit of an adventure. We had about 1/2 inch of rain with us in our little two man 7 foot tent. We made it through though with just a little damp and mud and headed home the next day.

More Numbers Coming In

Tuesday night we actually moved all the lab equipment from the winery in Woodside to our home. It’s just easier to bring samples back here than drive up to Woodside each time we have a test to do right now. Woodside is also the most Northern site we have and our home is more in the middle.

Jerry was out gathering samples and Stefania ran tests yesterday morning. Here is her email to me:

Vista Verde:
Brix Hygrometer: 24
Brix Refractometer: 24
pH: 3.58
TA: .9
Visual appearance of seeds, many bright green
Juice a deeper red

Crimson Clover:
Brix Hygrometer: 25
Brix Refractometer: 24.95
pH: 3.67
TA: .7
Visual appearance of berries and seeds exceptional
Juice color visibly lighter color than above, though I probably didn’t get as good a skin extraction due to the thicker skins.

Bottom line…..

We’re going to turn the water on again at Crimson Clover to get through this weekends heat, then likely pick on Wednesday next week. Vista Verde still needs 10-15 days. Maybe right around October 1st. Stef has pictures she’ll get up soon.

On Your Mark, Get Set, GO!!

Ok, not quite “GO” yet, we still have another week or so before harvest kicks into gear, but we are getting very very close. I was going to tell you about the chardonnay numbers, but Paul beat me to it (see yesterdays blog).

If I remember, I’ll take pics of the lab work today when I test the Crimson Clover cabernet samples.

Most other winegrowers are probably freaking out about the upcoming heat spike that is in the forecast but I think it’s a great opportunity to give the grapes one last push of sugar energy. Once that sugar level peaks, it’s all flavor ripening from there on out – I’ve tasted it, I’ve experienced it on my palate while walking the rows. It’s in the skins. I can’t really explain it beyond that.

Grape talk aside for a quick second, we saw Spamalot lastnight. Absolutely hilarious! A gas! Does anyone say that anymore? It was good to get out on a date and laugh at silly jokes, gestures, and totally absurd humor. I wasn’t sure I would “get it” having never watched or understood any of Monty Pythons movies, but you didn’t need to be familiar at all, though it helped with some of the parodies if you were.

I’m already talking about getting cheap seats for Saturday night and going with friends. Fourth row was nice, but there are no bad seats at the SJCPA so I’m headed back to the balcony this time.

Some Early Numbers

Tuesday night we took samples of Chardonnay at the Chaine ‘d Or vineyard.

Upper Section:
Brix: 25
pH: 3.14
TA: .96

Lower Section:
Brix: 22
pH: 3.24
TA: 1.04

Combined:
Brix: 23
pH: 3.25
TA: 1.01

As we walked through the vineyard Stef though everything tasted “Juicy and fruity but still tart.” The numbers matched that assessment. We still need 7-10 days I think to get the pH a little higher and let the TA (Acidity) drop a bit more. The 1/4 inch of rain we had on Sunday night can be a risk, Chardonnay is prone to rot, but we saw no rot in the vineyard so the rain should actually help by keeping the BRIX in check while the acidity falls.

Ideal numbers for us would be 24-25 Brix, 3.4 pH and .8 TA so we’re pretty close to that. The flavors are almost where we want them, The acidity is masking the fruit some now, so I think that will be key over the next week.

Details of Our Fall Release

Here are the details of our Fall Release. Stefania has spent the day stuffing letters and they went out in the mail today.

2008 Stefania Chardonnay Chaine d’Or Vineyard Santa Cruz Mountains

Price: $24 per bottle. Total Production 72 cases.

This is our first effort from the Chaine d Or vineyard since taking it over in the summer of 2007. In 2008 we severely pruned back the old vines in an effort to lower the spurs on each plant which had gotten very high in the past 20 years. This contributed to one of the lowest yields the vineyard has ever seen with just less than one ton per acre harvested on September 20th 2008.

The wine was immediately pressed and allowed to settle for 24 hours before being pumped into a chilled tank to start fermentation. Fermentation was on all native yeast and when the wine reached 16 BRIX it was inoculated with Malolactic starter and transferred to a combination of Sequin Moreau and Claude Gillet French oak barrels to complete fermentation. The lees were stirred every week and the wine completed both fermentations before Christmas. Stirring of the lees was then done every 3 weeks. The wine was bottled early, in May of 2009, as has been the tradition at Chaine d’Or to preserve its fresh fruit flavors.

The finished wine is bright and crystal clear with a light golden hue. The nose is rich with peach and stone fruit notes. There are hints of the citrus fruit notes of lemon and lime that are typical of the Santa Cruz Mountains, and the wine is broad but refreshing. The oak notes are moderate and reflect the care we take in selecting our coopers. I suspect you will think we used a much lower percentage of new oak than we did as the effect is so well integrated.

Serve this wine just below cellar temperature at 48-50 degrees. We are releasing it in October so that it will be available when Dungeness Crab season starts in early November.

2007 Stefania Cabernet Sauvignon Uvas Creek Vineyard Santa Clara Valley

Price: $38 per bottle. Total production 115 cases.

This is our third wine from this vineyard in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The grapes were harvested on October 29th 2007. Starting in 2007 Bill Holt of Uvas Creek began to only allow women to work in his vineyard. “They are gentler with the grapes”, was his reasoning. We 100% destemmed the clusters but did not crush the berries. Fermentation was on native yeast and we had to foot tread the must daily until the berries began to break up about 15 BRIX. The wine was raised in 60% new Sequin Moreau French Oak.

The wine is deep red with a pronounced nose of summer cherries and dark berry fruit. On the palate, there are powerful notes of ripe berries, spices and cherry fruit. The fruit is layered and complex with a classic Cabernet Sauvignon profile. This is a more serious and masculine Uvas Creek than the 05 and 06, but still retains the balance and red fruit profile of previous versions.

2007 Stefania Haut Tubee California

Price: $20 per bottle. Total production 94 cases.

Haut Tubee (pronounced Hot Tub) was inspired by the vines planted around our hot tub. The blend includes Chaine d’Or Cabernet Sauvignon, Eaglepoint Ranch Syrah and Syrah, Grenache, Zinfandel and Mourvedre from the small vineyards we manage.

Each individual vineyard was processed on it own and the components blended in barrel. All lots were de-stemmed and allowed to ferment on native yeasts. Hand punch downs were done on all lots and fermentations lasted 14 to 22 days. The finished wine was transferred to tank before being assembled and aged in one new Hermitage barrel and 3 neutral oak barrels. The Haut Tubee program allows us to process grapes from the many micro vineyards we manage and produce a finished wine that expresses the dedication we show to these small vineyards.

The wine is deep red with a nose of spice, smoke, and ripe blackberry fruit. It is lush and soft with rich berry and summer fruit notes. The 2007 version of this wine is just over 50% Syrah and the wine shows the richness of the Syrah grape. The 25% new oak added notes of toast, smoke and rich spice. This wine should continue to develop in bottle for some time.