Category: General

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I’ve heard from a number of people who are wondering if we’re interested in setting something up in their city or when we’re thinking of expanding into their city.

Maybe a little back story is needed here. I’ve had a lot of people in the industry wonder why in the world we’re even trying to do retail and restaurants. Basically they’d love to be in the position we are of selling most of our wine direct and of selling out before its time for the next release. For many, many wineries, this is where they are trying to get to.

One reason we have focused on selling locally is that we’re local. That might sound funny, but it’s the best way I can think of to say it. We live here, and do charity events here and have friends and family here. We really would like to be able to send people to a wine shop or restaurant to try our wine. We want to be a part of the community here and show our commitment to being a local winery.

The second huge reason is maybe best summed up as the ‘eggs in one basket’ strategy. From the moment we wrote the first business plan our plan was to have a mix of both direct and wholesale business. I thought it was a risky plan to put all out effort in one sales channel. What if something happened to that channel? What if we couldn’t ship, or some prohibitive tax was put in place? I wanted to be able to have another channel available.

The funny thing is the channel that’s collapsed in the past year is the wholesale one, the one we’re trying to get into. Distributors are going out of business, brokers are cutting back, retailers are going down market. Wineries who had all their eggs in the wholesale basket are in serious trouble and trying to get a direct market established. So it was the right plan, just a bit backwards.

I still think it’s important though, and we still want to get that market going, we’ve just decided it’s best to do it ourselves. One of the things that was a bit shocking in the distributor world was how little the sales people really knew or even cared about wine. When their accounts suddenly got difficult, they had no idea how to open new ones, or even how to sell to their existing ones. Their only response has been ‘lower prices’.

I’ve worked with sales in my day job for 20+ years, and I KNOW, that any sales guy who opens with ‘lower prices’ as a plan when faced with a tough sale or an obstacle basically sucks. No better way to say it. Want to find a bad sales guy? Find one who wants to lower prices. (Another sign of a looser is someone who wants to give away maintenance, but that’s another rant)!

So we’re going to find our own sales guy or gal. We’re going to give them 100% of our support and get them going. When we have them off the ground, we’ll evaluate other cities. Right now the hardest part of expanding is licensing in other states. It’s no small task, and we don’t want to dilute our efforts by distracting time and resources on that just yet.

If you want to take our wine around and show it, that’s great, that’s how we get most of our business. If there’s a restaurant or retailer that wants it, we can figure out some way to get it to them. But for now our focused efforts are going to be on the Bay Area.

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sby/fbh/1469120211.html

One of our goals for 2009 was to establish a presence in the local market here in the South Bay. We tried a couple of local distributors, but were not happy with the results and I fired the second one on October 1st.

Rather than try a third, we decided to do it ourselves. We hold a type 17 and type 20 permit from the State which allows us to wholesale our wine directly. We’re going to do that. Our biggest draw back has been neither Stefania or I have sales experience and we both have very limited time with everything else going on.

If you know anyone who is interested please have the reply to the listing above.

We spent all day yesterday in the winery getting several wines into barrel. Today we went back for a few hours to finish up some minor tasks and do a punch down on the last wine we still have fermenting.

First up for today was to totally fill the Chardonnay barrels. As the Chardonnay is fermenting it creates a lot of gas, and bubbles so if you filled the barrels completely wine would explode out the top. As fermentation slows down you keep adding a little more wine until it’s completely done, then you top off the barrel.

We used this wine to top up the last air space in the barrels. If you’ve been following since September, then the wine, finally looks like wine!

I’ve started to do a lot of my topping the really, really old fashioned way. Today we use a lot of air systems to fill barrels, either pumps or nitrogen systems (same tanks used for soda and beer). The last few times I’ve topped I’ve done it with a bucket, a funnel, a hose and gravity. No real reason for this other than it seems to create less mess, and also seems gentle on the wine.

Here is the Chardonnay in glass. It sill needs some aging, and we will fine it to get it a little clearer, but it’s really wine now.

Yesterday we put three different wines into barrel. The 2009 Haut Tubee went into one two year old Burgundy barrel. The 2009 Splir Rail Syrah went into a one year old Ermitage barrel and a one year old Seguin Moreau Burgundy barrel. The 2009 Chaine d’Or Estate Cabernet Sauvigon went into 3 new French Sequin Moreau Bordeaux barrels, a one year old Sequin Moreau and a two year old Sequin Moreau. We were only expecting to fill four barrels so the fifth was a happy surprise.

Stefania would not look up for the picture, but here she is prepping a Burgundy barrel. Before they are used they have to be filled about 1/3 with water so they will swell back up and hold wine. It’s a lot of muscle in the process, first you stand it on it’s end (they weigh 100 pounds empty and about 250 pounds when 1/3 filled with water). Then after 30-40 minutes you roll the barrel over onto its other end. Finally you flip it on it’s side and let the area by the bung swell up. When the barrel stops leaking, its ready.

I took this picture so everyone would know what I mean when I say ‘Ermitage’. It’s the brand of barrel. They are 3 year air dried French barrels that are supposed to go very well with Syrah.

This is kind of another random picture. Last year our friend Jay asked us what we do for temperature control during fermentation. I looked at him like he was speaking Greek. I think and he could tell I had a confused look on my face.

“Nothing”, I said.

We don’t have to in general. The location of the winery and angle of the crushpad combined with the small lots we do means the wine stays between 65-75 degrees while fermenting without any additional effort on our part. Sometimes we might get a reading in the low 80’s when fermentation is going really strong but in general we worry about too cold not too hot.

We do have a chiller if anything gets to warm, but it just never happens. More often I’m worried about it being too cold and we have to haul out some heat lamps and put them around the tanks to get them warmed up. That’s pretty unique in California, most wineries have to worry about temperature control, but our location is very unique.

Another random picture. My boots as harvest season closes out. They are stained purple now from pressing wine. I actually wear slippers while driving and put the boots on at the winery. They are too dirty to drive in or wear in the house. This isn’t a minor expense. I need size 15 boots, and finding a good waterproof pair that also fits the three toes on my left foot that don’t bend anymore is very hard. I usually have to buy a new pair each year at $150-$200.

I took these two pictures for Dan and Therese Martin to show them how small our crush pad area is. We had to break up our harvest of grapes from them into two different days and I wanted to show them why I couldn’t process everything in one day.

We’re coming down the home stretch now, and Stefania says she’ll get some more pictures up soon.