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Thursday we harvested about 1500 lbs at the Elandrich Vineyard. This was easily a new record for us there, as the vineyard is finally coming back after a long restoration project. The fruit looked and tasted excellent and was 25.9 BRIX in the bin after crushing.

We started about 8AM with the ‘normal crew’; Millie, Daniel, Herrardo and myself, plus some extra help from a few friends and the vineyard owner who was able to come out and help even on a work day. The crew did a great job and we arrived at the crusher at 9:30 AM right on schedule.

We only had one back up with the pump and it quickly was fixed. The crew really has the routine now, and Jerry commented it was the best harvest day he’d ever seen, because all he had to do was remind me to turn the pump on before the crusher and fix the cellar door.

We should end up with 1 1/2 or 2 barrels of wine from this vineyard which will be really cool. We can evaluate it on it’s own for the first time in barrel and get a better idea of what we might be able to do long term with these grapes.

I’ve wanted to write a blog for a few weeks about our company “Vision Statement.” I haven’t had time though to devote to writing it, I think it needs a good explanation to stay away from Dilbertville.

I did come up with one though, I actually thought it was really important to do that. In the still to be written blog about visions statements I’ll explain why. The one I came up with though was : “Make Friends”.

This release has been really satisfying in meeting that vision. I’ve gotten to email and talk with dozens of people all over the country. I have really enjoyed that a great deal. I feel like I’m making new friends all over and it’s great to hear from you about our wine, and our adventure.

I know many winemakers like to avoid dealing with customers, they view it as a time drain, or are really uncomfortable with it. I love it. The last few weeks have been a real blast. The emails from people and phone calls have given us a lot of inspiration during the really long days we are putting in. It’s been nice to take a break every now and then and just chat about wine with people.

I hope this continues and I hope I get to talk to and meet even more people in the months ahead. It’s great to hear from everyone, and each phone call and each email, gets us closer to the vision statement of making friends!

Just a quick note that I released about 20 orders for shipment this morning. Mostly going to the north east, and upper midwest. I was torn about Illinois, but it looks like temps will cool there tomorrow and a went ahead and let those go.

I released some for Northern California, but almost 90% of the California orders choose to pick up at Chaine d’Or (or have Kenny pick them up at Chaine d’ Or 😉 ) so only a few will actually ship. Next week if things continue to cool, I should release another batch of orders.

We also sent out a final offer to the 26 new sign ups we got in the last 3 weeks. That should get us close to selling out. The sending out offer letters in waves worked out well and I think everyone who wanted wine will be able to get wine and there are probably just a few requests for extras that we’ll be able to meet.

Friday morning we picked up 1 ton of Pinot Noir from an old vine vineyard in the Southern Santa Cruz Mountains. This will be the first Pinot Noir we make.

The grapes were small and the flavors very intense. It was very cool Friday morning. Temps were in the high 40’s and the grapes came off the vine cool, which is perfect for transport and winemaking. Millie was able to load both bins in the back of her pick up truck so we didn’t have to rent a big flat bed like normal.

We were a little late leaving the vineyard, but by 10:00 am we were on the road and headed towards Chaine d’ Or, about a 45 minute drive. We arrived just before 11:30.

I was a little worried about how things would go. This was the first time anyone had brought grapes into the winery, everything else made there had always been estate grapes. That meant we had some new processes to set up, new equipment to use, and a new layout of all the equipment. With so much being done for the first time I was counting on some problems.

We got very lucky! Everything went better than planned and we quickly worked out a couple of small details and had a system down. 85% of the grapes went through the de–stemmer and 15% went into a t-bin in whole clusters. We just filled up one bin, or about enough to make 50 cases of wine.

The Brix tested at 25.2 in the bin, right in the range I like and I covered the grapes and let them start their cold soak. With temperatures so low, we won’t need to do anything artificial to lower the temperature. The grapes should just soak for 2-3 days before natural fermentation starts. My plan is to be pretty gentle in push downs as the juice already seems pretty intense.

We’ll have another 1-2 tons coming in from a second vineyard soon and eventually we’ll combine the two into a “Santa Cruz Mountains” Pinot Noir.

I finally got a little break yesterday afternoon to start processing payments. The weather looks pretty good next week and we’ll start sending out shipments to those areas that also have good weather.

Right now we stand at about 60% of the wine ‘booked’, that is orders in, entered and waiting for billing. There are commitments for about 25% more. I’ll make a call one way or another tonight to send out order forms to the last group of people to sign up after the initial release.

By the end of next week we should be sold out and by the following week we’ll have shipments going out to everyone but people in the hottest areas. If you’ve been holding on to your order form, please try and get it to me soon. Last release I kept back some wine for people who I knew would be stragglers and was able to fill a few orders into June. This time around I don’t think I’ll have anything left.

There are lots of unglamourous things to do in growing and making wine. We often joke as we work about feeling ‘romantic’ or glamorous‘, as we clean things or lift things. The past two days have given some good examples of the un-fun side of winemaking.

Saturday after picking and crushing the home vineyard grapes we stopped by the Elandrich vineyard to take sugar readings. A 2 foot rattle snake greeted us on the walk way up to the Zinfandel section. The little snakes are the worst. Their rattles don’t rattle yet, they are too soft to make noise, and they bite everything, since they haven’t learned yet not to waste their poison.

With a rake and a pair of hedge trimmers we were able to eliminate the little dude. The head keeps on biting well after being removed from the rest of the critter, so you’ve got to bury it. That task done, we went on to test the Zinfandel. 23.4 BRIX, almost ready, another week or so.

Yesterday was spent at Chaine d’Or picking Chardonnay and Merlot. As soon as the picking starts, the bees and wasps show up. Hundreds of them if not thousands. They hover around the crushpad where there is lots of good grape gunk to feast on.

I got my first two stings of the season. Luckily I’m not allergic to bees, but one of the pickers had a pretty bad reaction on his hand. That’s a little secret of picking. You can’t sneak up on the clusters, you have to give the plant a good shake before you reach in to start cutting. That lets the bees know you are there and they move on to another plant.

At the end of the day I was crushing about 600 pounds of Merlot. My shirt and pants were covered with grape gunk from the crusher. The little bits of grape are too much for the bees to resist and they crawl all over you. It’s not unusual to have 10-15 bees on you and many more hovering around. You’ve got to just let them be bees. If you leave them alone they’ll happily harvest the sugar and be on their way.

So add two more skills to the winemaking playbook. Snake wrangler and bee herder.

Woke up at 6:15 this morning. A very cold morning, in the low 50’s. It rained last night for about 45 seconds, but by this morning there was no sign of it, the sky was clear. We tried to have a normal morning, a little coffee in bed, and read the newspaper.

At 7:30 we started the first pick of the season. The ‘Home Ranch’, “Haut Tubee“. The Syrah, Grenache, Mourvedre and two Zinfandel plants around our home. It took about 30 minutes to get the bird netting off. Always a dirty disgusting job. Then about 10 minutes to pick the 150 pounds of grapes we got this year.

Next we’re off to Kathy and Millie’s to pick the grapes around their house. About 9:30 we should be on our way up to Chaine d’Or to get the 300 pounds or so of grapes into a bin to start turning it into wine. In all about 1/3 of a barrel, or 10 cases or so. We’ll combine these grapes with the other small lots and probably end up with about 40 cases of wine from the small lots.

There won’t be much processing. It’s really not worth hooking up the crusher and pump. We’ll dump the grapes in whole cluster and then some lucky person will jump in and smash them up some. Then I’ll leave it to start on its way to fermentation. If all goes well we should be done and cleaned up by 1pm.

Orders are still coming in from our first round of mailers last week. Demand is just about where I thought it would be so we dropped of the second round of mailers on schedule today.

This round includes offers for three packs with an option to ask for a six pack. Right now it looks like we should be able to fill requests for a six pack if ordering stays on track. I’m guessing that by this time next week we should be down to 3-4 cases left. I’ll start to process payments shortly and we should begin shipping to states that have good weather in the second week of October.

We’ve had about a dozen recent sign ups, and I hope to get those people out a three pack offer next week if ordering stays on track. IT will be tight, but I’m still hoping I can get wine out to everyone who wants it. Maybe not as much as they want, but I should have wine for everyone.

A few years ago when we started the vineyard management company we averaged 8-10 calls a year about managing or installing vineyards. We’d consult on 1-2 and usually take on one small project every year. That was the most I could handle and that was usually the scope of the projects. A few acres or even a backyard and some advice on growing grapes and making wine.

Each year it grew a little more, and we remained pretty selective on the projects we’d take on. The important thing was to make sure that the projects helped us out in making wine and growing the winery side of the business. Along the way we started to get a reputation among the local winemakers as top quality growers and dedicated farmers.

This past summer I’d say the vineyard business ‘tipped over’. It’s grown to the point now that it is its own thriving enterprise. Sycamore Creek, Big Basin Vineyards, Windy Oaks and several other wineries have started to recommend us to people thinking of putting in vineyards. We’ve also started to get calls from landscape architects and even one of the largest commercial construction companies in the area.

So now, even though we’re months away from 2008 I’m trying to figure out what projects we’ll take on in 2008. There are already people trying to sign us up for next year. There are two large projects pending. One would involve a no-corners cut top of the line 4+ acre vineyard installation project. An amazing south facing hill side ready for us to plant, and grow grapes and make wine. The owners want the very best, top of the line, and they’ve asked us to do it for them!

We’re also mulling over another amazing project. 12 acres of some of the finest old vine Pinot Noir and Chardonnay in the Santa Cruz Mountains. A 30 year old vineyard that supplied grapes for some of the most legandary wines ever made in the Santa Cruz Mountains. We’ve been asked to take over management of the vineyard, and most importantly, make the wine from the amazing site.

Now comes the tough part. What project can we take on? Can we do both? And what about all the other calls we’ll get in the Spring? I never thought the little vineyard company, “Two Gringos” would grow so large, and take on such huge projects. Hard work, dedication, and commitment to the highest quality, I can’t think of any other secrets, but those three things worked!

I’ve been keeping up on postings on line about harvest around the state. One thing seems to be happening already that I’m calling harvest spin.

A few posts ago I wrote about being surprised about early harvesting going on. I was even more surprised to see pictures of these harvests. The grapes just did not look ripe. Green stems and green seeds in the bins. A few old growers joked about ‘panic’, and those harvesting shot back with some pretty harsh words about people who ‘pick by the numbers’.

Now this week I’ve seen a few of those early pickers start talking about what a great job they did. How now the weather looks cooler, and there is rain on the way (40% chance of 1/4 inch of rain this week) and the harvest is ruined for everyone else. I’ll tell you what I think that is….pure spin.

I think those earlier harvesters got nervous with the little heat wave and worried it would not end. They picked when their grapes got in the sugar ranges they wanted because they worried the sugars would climb too high. I also think those grapes were not ripe yet. Now they are trying to make a bad choice, seem like a good one, even if only to themselves.

The weather has turned cool, but it’s in the normal range. There is light rain in the forecast, but just a little, and the vineyards will dry out fine afterwards. Now the patient people are talking about a harvest a week or so earlier than 2005 or 2006, with ripe grapes and lower alcohol wine. That sounds like a great combo to me.