Category: General

I can’t help it, I sing that Willie Nelson song every time we start off on a road trip.

We slept in a little but still got on the road at 8:22 this morning.

And 0 miles on the trip meter. It was 437 miles to Del Mar in San Diego.

Not 10 miles from home we passed another winemaker heading south. The license plate was BW Syrah, with a UC Davis license plate frame. That was a sure give away. They stayed on 101 though and we cut over Pacheco Pass to Hwy 5. I’ve probably done this drive 50+ times, but it’s been 15 years since I’ve done it.

The glamour of Hwy 5. This really is the highlight of the drive.

Because this is what was waiting for us when we hit Los Angeles. The air was terrible too and it was slow going.

We arrived fine though just about 3:30 and got settled into the hotel. We’re headed down soon to see the workout room, pool and sushi bar!

Bud break is when the vine first opens up in the spring and new green growth comes out. It’s also call bud burst. We always see this at home first, since we’re warmer on the valley floor in San Jose than in the Mountain vineyards.

These pictures are of the original Grenache in the Haut Tubee vineyard at home. The pictures are a bit blurry from the IPhone but should give an idea of what happens.

In this first picture you can also see ‘weeping’. As it warms in the spring fluid that has been stored in the root system over winter begins to rise in the plant. Where there are open wounds from pruning the vine will ‘weep’. Small amounts of fluid will come out. This means the sap is rising in the plant:

As it rises it pushes the new buds and gives them the nutrients and energy they will need to get leafs out. The picture below shows the first bud of the year swelling and almost ready to open. The buds turn from brown, to white to green during the process and get a little down like fuzz.

We will probably miss the first leaf this year. We will be in San Diego all weekend at the Family Winemakers event and the first leaf will likely come out Sunday or Monday. We’ll do our best to get out updates from the road on our trip down to San Diego, and progress reports on the show.

http://tv.winelibrary.com/2009/03/10/randy-sloan-from-match-cellars-comes-by-the-thunder-show-episode-640/

Stef and I have been buying Randy’s wines since his first release of his 2002. We actually went up to visit him before the release and I was so impressed with the vineyard and barrel samples that I was hooked then.

Stef usually buys a few 1/2 bottles and I get 4-6 full size bottles. Over the years I’ve dropped almost all of my Napa Valley purchases. The wine just got to expensive and was a poor value for the money. This past year I stopped buying Lewis, and Match is now the only Napa Cab I buy regularly. Stef also buys Karl Lawrence, and I buy Lagier Meredith Syrah from Napa, but otherwise we’ve both mostly looked elsewhere for wine.

You can buy a single bottle from Match if you’re interested in trying the wine, or come visit and we’ll open a bottle for you too 🙂

Stefania and I spent last night signing all the letters for our Spring Release. She had spent the entire day printing the letters and offer sheets. The offers are a little bit more complicated this time than in the Spring Release and she had to do a few runs through the printer.

We’re waiting on the printer to finish envelopes for us. He should have them done today and then Stef will stuff all the envelopes. I’m banded from stuffing, I’m too slow at it. I do get the lick and seal job though. If all goes well we will drop them in the mail on Friday.

We will be releasing two wines: 2007 Stefania Syrah Eaglepoint Ranch and 2007 Stefania Pinot Noir Santa Cruz Mountains.

We made a total of 144 cases of Syrah and people at the top of the list will be allocation 12 bottles. Most people will be allocated 6 or 3 bottles with an option to request more. We are pretty sure we will be able to fill all orders for our Syrah.

We made just 46 cases of our Pinot Noir. The cut off for an allocation is over 800 points and most people on our list will not get an allocation. Only six people have a six pack allocation. It took 3216 points to be offered a six pack. I suspect a few people who got an allocation will not take them, so there is a chance if you mark additional request, you can get some Pinot Noir. Extras will go out based on requests and points standing.

The Syrah is priced at $32 a bottle, $96 for a three pack and $180 for a six pack. We did lower the price this year. We had actually planned to do that well before the current economic situation. Our 4 rows at Eaglepoint Ranch produced over three tons in 2007 and with the extra volume our costs were just a bit lower. We had wanted to pass that savings on.

The Pinot Noir is $45 per bottle, $135 for a three pack.

We’re trying something new this release too, we’re going to offer a ‘Combo Case’. Twelve bottles: 8 2007 Syrah, three 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon Santa Cruz Mountains and one 2007 Pinot Noir. Price will be $390 and shipping will be free. There will be a total of just 20 ‘Combo Cases’ available on a first come, first serve basis. Look for the letters to start to arrive next week.

This coming week we will be at two events in Southern California sponsored by the Family Winemaker’s. Sunday we will be in Del Mar near San Diego. There is a public session from 3PM – 6PM. Tuesday we will be in Pasadena for a trade only event:

http://www.familywinemakers.org/tastings/tastings.cfm

Please stop by and say hello if you are going to be at either event. This is our first Family Winemaker’s event

We will be driving down on Saturday something I hope we can do in less than 12 hours and heading home on Wednesday. I’ll try and take pictures at the event and get comments up from the road.

If you read a lot of barrel reviews like I like to do, you hear the term ‘hard to taste’ often. Steve Tanzer in particular uses this phrase when talking about Burgundy.

Yesterday was a perfect example of ‘hard to taste’. I was in the winery all afternoon. The wines needed topping off, the Chardonnay needed to be stirred and I had to take final sample to send to the lab of our last 07’s still in barrel.

I wanted to taste all the barrels of 07’s left. 13 barrels of Cabernet Sauvignon in all. I also wanted to check on select 2008’s. Yesterday was a hard day to taste wine. It was cold in the cellar. The tanks read 48 degrees, which meant the wine in barrel was probably just a bit cooler. At that temperature the tannins will really stand out in a red wine and the nose will be muted and dominated by less volatile smells. Less volatile means less fruity in general.

It was hard slugging getting through the samples and getting through the cold induced limitations. I was happy with the 2007’s. The 2007 Chaine d’Or vineyard has a good classic Cab nose, with black fruit and tobacco notes, with a peppery finish. The tannins are big, but round and the wine is very dark. Removing the press wine seems to really have helped tame the tannins in this wine. It will still be very long lasting, but this may be the most approachable young CdO I’ve had.

The 2007 Santa Cruz Mountains Cabernet Sauvignon is not as dark, but still full of color. There are deep cherry notes and notes of dusty plumb, mint and tobacco box. It’s very fruity and the tannins coat the palate. This will be a good follow up to the 2006, with less of the minty notes on the nose.

I also sampled our 2008 Chardonnay and 2008 Pinot Noir. The Chardonnay is pretty amazing. It’s sitting in 70@ new wood right now, but it’s hardly showing any wood notes at all. There is deep ripe peach, figs and apple pie flavors. It’s very full bodied and extremely rich.

The Pinot Noir is going through it’s ‘light’ stage right now. The color is light, but I know it will darken some in barrel. The nose is all cream and strawberry right now. The wine really seems like it will have loads of fruit as it ages and this wine is showing a firmer structure than the 2006 at this point. It could be a Pinot Noir to hold for a few years, but we’ll see how it develops. I think at this stage it’s much better than the 2006 was at the same stage.

I headed home about 6PM, and never did get warm. It was one of those chilled to the bone days and nights. I’m glad to have the work done though as we’re heading out on the road the next few weekends.

Yesterday I sent Jerry out to spray for the first time this season.

We spray to prevent Powdery Mildew and to a lesser extent, Grey Rot or Botrytis. The plants have not yet started to grow so this was a dormant spray.

Normally I don’t do dormant spraying. There’s no scientific evidence that it does anything, and there’s not even a really good hypothesis on how it could work. Because both Powdery Mildew and Grey Rot need green growth to attach spores to there’s no reason it should help to dormant spray. Still this year I decided to do it. There’s a lot of ‘field’ evidence that it helps. Which is a way of saying people think it helps.

I have read a lot over the past year though that Stylet oil is more effective if you first do a dormant sulfur spraying, and that does seem to make sense.

I haven’t used sulfur for a few years now. It is an organic, but the amount we have to spray and the discomfort it causes when spraying make me an anti-sulfur guy. The bad part about using sulfur to is that it requires not just a high dose, but a lot of spraying through the year. I was glad to get away from it, and this might be the only time we use it this year.

JMS Stylet oil on the other hand, I really like. It works by coating the plant with a micro layer of inert mineral oil. The oil prevent the spores from Powdery Mildew from attaching to the plant and growing. It uses a low dose and I don’t have to spray as often as with sulfur.

Both are ‘contact’ sprays though. If it rains, you have to spray again because the treatment is on the surface of the plant, not inside it. Stylet oil is also an organic.

This year we will treat all our vineyards except Vista Verde with 100% organic treatments. Vista Verde is a new vineyard and I had really bad luck a few years ago trying to take a non organic vineyard to all organic in a single year. Now I phase out the systemic chemicals slowly over a year or two and phase in the organics. Vista Verde may complete the transition this year, I’ll just have to watch and see how it goes.

Jerry finished Vista Verde and Arastradero then helped stack some firewood at home. Monday he’ll do Crimson Clover, and Sesson, then Tuesday Chaine d’Or. The weather looks good for the next week and we may see bud break at home next week.

I’ve had lots of bumps and bruises since we started, and more soreness and stiffness than most people would guess. In fact I did an interview for a blog last year and the question was, “What would surprise people the most about winemaking?” and my answer was – “How physically demanding it is.

Still I’ve avoided anything really serious in the vineyard or winery. Until Sunday. Stefania and I were out looking at a new vineyard site and I took a bad tumble down some old wet stairs. It had been raining all day, and was still coming down when I started down the stairs. My boots are a size 15 and my feet don’t really fit on most steps. My right boot slipped and down I went.

I twisted my ankle, and bruised my wrist. I put my right hand down to stop the fall and hit my thumb hard. My thumbs are already in bad shape from old hockey injuries, and this aggravated that injury. Worst though was I really landed hard on my right thigh.

The bruise is about the size of a cantaloupe and dark black and yellow now. I can’t sit for long and it aches most of the time. It’s a bummer because the rain is just ending and Jerry and I have a lot of work to do in the vineyards, but it looks like for the next week or two, he’ll be on his own.

Stef wanted to take a picture and post it, but I didn’t really think a picture of my butt with a bruise was a good thing to put up. I just hope it’s better by next weekend as we have a long drive down to San Diego.

We arrived early for the event yesterday. There’s not much to our set up, especially compared to some of the elaborate displays some people put on. Stefania got us all ready to go, and our award was waiting for us on our table.

The hall was large and the event well run. We had been to other events at Fort Mason that we’re overcrowded and under spaced, so it was nice to see we would be in the big hall. We spent the time before the show started playing gin and catching up with friends and other winemakers.

One of the strange things about making wine in the Santa Cruz Mountains is that events like these are the only time we really get to see other winemakers. The mountains are so rugged and the drives between wineries so long that we rarely get to visit. We talked with Ted Mederios from Uvas Creek, Therese Martin from Martin Ranch and met the winemaker for La Honda for the first time.

Stef and I took turns doing the pouring and had help from Alice. One thing we wanted to try was putting one of us in front of the table to talk with people. We know one of our frustrating things when we go to these events on the other side of the table is that people can crowd around the winemaker and it makes it impossible to get to the table to get a pour. We thought if one of us was in front of the table it would encourage people to step away to talk with us and let other people come up for a pour. That actually seemed to work.

The crowd came early and the hall filled up. We had a good time and enjoyed talking with people. I still don’t think events like this do much to sell any wine, but it was still enjoyable for us. We will probably do one more event like this in San Francisco this year – the Family Winemaker’s this summer.

Last night we visited Nazca, a Peruvian restaurant that opened last March in downtown San Jose. We’re always on the look out for good South American food so Stefania can sample dishes she grew up with in Chile.

http://www.nazcaperuviancuisine.com/home.html

The interior is a sleek open space with a small wall separating the large bar and lounge area from the dinning area. The colors and lighting give it a feeling of a club or lounge. The only oddity was the pan flute music in the background. We soon amused ourselves though figuring out what song was getting the flute treatment. ‘We Are The World’ on the pan flute is odd, but half way through our meal the music kicked over to something a little less goofy.

Service was crisp and efficient. Our waitress set the stage for us and checked with us on timing and clearing often. The right mix of friendly chattiness and professionalism that matched well with the lounge/club feel.

We started with five items from the Appetizer menu that we passed around between the four of us. Each dish was presented on a long plate which worked well for sharing if not passing. The Pastel de Choclo was light and fluffy with the filling centered in the whipped corn bread crust. This is something Stef makes at harvest every year. It’s hearty and satisfying. This take brought a lightness to the dish.

We had the Ceviche de Pescado, which featured Red Snapper. The fish is always ‘of the day’ for the Ceviche’s we were informed and our waitress recommended this highly. We were not disappointed. The Anticuchos de Corazon takes a leap of faith for an American Suburban palate, but they were cooked perfectly and had a nice gamy – mineral mix. We also sampled Choros a las Chalaca, mussles with a corn salsa, and Papa Rellena, a deep fried version of the hearty ground meat, egg, olive and raisins stuffing combo.

No appetizer disappointed, in fact we could have ordered another round after the first. Each executed well with a great variety of flavors and textures.

For our main course we again passed around four dishes; Aji de Gallina is a pulled chicken in a cream sauce, Arroz a las Criolla de Mariscos, is the Peruvian take on paella, Seco de Cordero, a savory lamb shank, and Bistec a lo Pobre a grilled steak with fried egg.

Only the chicken disappointed. The cream sauce was sweet and dominated the dish with out a good balance of spice or acidity. The lamb had a nice gamy finish and fell from the bone. The paella though was the highlight with spicy dark rice and a perfect mix of seafood in each bite. It came topped with a beautiful full head on shrimp.

We sampled all four desserts on the menu and no disappointments at all in that group. In fact when faced with the dessert options at other downtown restaurants, I think my preference would be to head here to finish. Each was a nice combination of fruitiness and sweetness.

The wine list was small and mainly South American, keeping with the theme and we were pleasantly surprised by the two Peruvian selection on the menu we sampled. As a wine guy I’d like to see a little deeper selection on the menu, especially given the complexity and depth of the menu and food. A Syrah from the Northern Rhone would have been excellent with the lamb, and the corn based appetizers would have sung with a full bodied Chardonnay from Sonoma, or Burgundy.

Nazca will become a regular stop for us, I’m sure.