Category: General

Last night at the gym was a little hard. After working hard for 4 of the last 5 days, we still shuttled off at 7PM to hit the gym. We hadn’t been since Thursday, but had been getting plenty of work done in the winery.

I rode the bike hard for 30 minutes and my legs felt tired. The weight room was where the last few days activity really showed. My body was pretty warn out. Instead of our usual 90-120 minutes, we were in and out in 75 minutes.

I think It’s time to officially declare training camp over after 4 weeks. The regular season has started. We’ll still be hitting the gym on days we don’t work at the winery, but I’ll need to change the routine. Less time on hard rides on the bike and strength training with weights. More time on endurance on the treadmill and bike, with light weights to keep muscles in shape.

We also need to change up the diet a little starting tonight. The bumps, scraps and bruises start to get bad now. Stefania is prone to getting bruises, so we’ll be eating more spinach, chard, broccoli and bison. Those are all high iron foods that should help with healing.

It’s probably a surprise to most people how much effort we’re putting into being physically ready for all this. It is necessary though. It’s hard work, long days, lots of lifting, and demands you stay sharp. I think we’re pretty well prepared.

The first stop this morning was at Chaine d’ Or to pick up barrel racks. Jerry and I set off at 7:30. I checked in on the Haut Tubee, and it’s started fermenting. The juice looks extra dark, and the cap needed to be punched down.

Next we were off up Highway 84, to Highway 35, then Highway 9 finally getting to Highway 236. These are all very twisty mountain roads, and it’s about 45 minutes from Chaine d’Or to Big Basin Vineyards. We make about half of our wine at Big Basin. Today we started bringing over the barrels and racks we’ll need there from Chaine d’Or. Big Basin had already started making some wine and the crew there was cleaning up when we arrived.

We stacked our racks right outside the winery entrance. Bradley Brown is the owner/winemaker and he built the winery out of redwood trees grown and harvested on the property. Upstairs is a yoga studio where his wife teaches. Bradley learned to make wine with John Alban, one of the original Syrah pioneers in California.

We then headed back into San Jose for an appointment with our CPA, a brief lunch, and then back up to the winery to sort out which barrels are going tomorrow to Big Basin. In all a typical harvest day in many ways, about 4 hours in the truck, 1 hour in a meeting, 3 hours moving heavy things and 5 minutes making wine.

The last picture is left over from Saturday. Our lab mistress, Stefania, working TA and pH tests in the little lab at Chaine d’ Or.

The winery weekend started on Friday. We spent the entire day cleaning. Everything. Top to bottom, every nook and cranny. Wiped, washed, disinfected, scrubbed, and cleaned. It was a long day, but worth every minute of elbow grease – the winery sparkled when we left.

Saturday started an hour earlier. At 7:30 Gerardo (Jerry) showed up and got started taking nets off the vines out front. Paul joined him while I printed new labels for the net bags. While they were harvesting and taking care of their work, I was in the winery office emptying out my desk in anticipation of the delivery of the new work station.

The new work station arrived, it was assembled, and off we went to the Ottigurr Vineyard to harvest. By 10a.m. we were loaded up and mobile to the winery with the first batch of grapes.

In years past this first lot would be crushed by foot, but Paul wanted to run everything thru the equipment and make sure we were set for the bigger lots that are due in soon. The clean up took longer than the actual processing time, but it’s still good practice.

We sent Kathy and Millie back down the hill to Home Depot for two storage cabinets for the Dry Room and sandwiches. While they were gone, Paul and Jerry started racking the 07’s and I did the lab work. I calculated pH and TA numbers for the estate chardonnay and mixed the sulfur solutions needed for racking.

I don’t prefer working with sulfur, the fine powder gets in my hair, on my clothes and up my nose. Most annoying of all is the effect it has on my palate for the next day or so. Drinking wine is worthless after a day in the lab – everything tastes like “bottle shock” to me. For anyone that suffers from allergens or similar work dust, I recommend using a neti pot.

Around 1 the sandwiches showed up – and the five of us ate in mini shifts, half of a sandwich at a time while the wine was either on its way in to the tank or back into the barrel. All told I think we sat down for maybe 30 minutes the whole day. Three of us worked the entire day in the Wet Room, two of us spent the day in the Dry Room.

I was completely exhausted by the time we finished putting away the last clean bucket, moved into the new cabinets, and turned off the lights at 4:30.

Normally we’ll play with Sophie or Jesse (the vineyard dogs) for a few minutes at a time, or take a break to water the garden (dying tomatoes, sad corn), or even just to rest and get some water in us and catch our breath. Not on Saturday. If we had stopped at all and interrupted the momentum of the tasks at hand the day would have lingered well past 11 hours, and when you’re working with heavy equipment, fatigue is almost as dangerous as being drunk.

Thank goodness for football season. We worked all day long again on Sunday, but sitting at a desk printing, signing, folding, and stuffing envelopes isn’t exactly strenuous work and can be done perched in front of the tv.

And those are my thoughts on the first weekend of harvest. Cheers.

Sunday morning we got out and visited a couple vineyards that are getting close to harvest. I only took pictures at one though. After visiting the vineyards, we think both are still 10-14 days away from picking. The weather forecast calls for sunny moderate weather for the next few weeks so we’re in no hurry now. In some ways it’s reminding me of 2005. That year we had a wild ride through the spring and summer, then in mid September, we just went into a holding pattern of sunny, mild weather for weeks.

The challenge with 2005 though was fighting dilute grapes from all the spring rain and summer green growth. This year I think it will be controlling the tannins and intensity from the small concentrated crop. So the pattern is similar, but the grapes are very different.

This photo is of the Crimson Clover vineyard. You get a good sense of the hills that surround this vineyard site

The plants are 4 years old now, and we’re expecting about 2 tons from this 1 1/8 acre site.

It takes a lot of work during the year to end up with plants that look this perfect.

The sugars are almost ready in these grapes, but the tannin and flavors are not just ripe yet, it will be a couple more weeks.

Here you can see the grapes we dropped earlier on the ground, returning their nutrients to the soil.

Stefania has been busy all afternoon in the home office, printing and preparing the fall offer letter. Her and I have signed all 400+ copies and the last step will be to stuff envelopes.

We’re sending the letters out again in waves. The first group of ‘1000+ pointers’ will go out tomorrow. I think there are 79 of those in total. The other 350 or so letters will go out next week, and the week after in two waves.

We’ll be releasing our 2006 Uvas Creek Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon. This was a very popular wine last year and we sold out very quickly. This time around we have a total of 121 cases. We’ll also be letting people order 3 packs of our 2006 Eaglepoint Ranch Syrah. We had some cases left after we decided not to do a few events this summer and they will be available on a first come, first serve basis.

Look for your letter to arrive in the next few weeks

The base for the Haut Tubee is now in bin and should start fermenting soon.

We crushed about 450 pounds this morning. That means we just have about 49500 more pounds to pick! I tested myself this year on the home grapes, I never took any readings. I wanted to see how good I could do just picking on taste. Well Stefania took all the lab readings after the wine was in bin, and it was at exactly 25 BRIX. Dead perfect for this wine!

We added a little superfood to help the native yeasts get started in fermenting the must. It should be just a day or two and it will be burbling away. The must is pretty dark compared to the last couple of years and the flavors seemed pretty intense.

The best news is that all the equipment worked and we seem to have our procedures down pat. We wrapped up the crush activity by noon, then spent the rest of the day racking the 2007 Chaine d’ Or Cabernet Sauvignon, the 2007 Santa Cruz Mountains Cabernet Sauvignon, and the 2007 Haut Tubee.

Tomorrow will be an off day. This time of year that just means no heavy lifting. We’ll be sampling the Crimson Clover vineyard and the Woodruff Family vineyard. Then Stefania and Kathy will be stuffing offer letters. The first wave goes out Monday. I get to watch football while they stuff. My hands are so big, and I stuff so slow, they’d rather just have me out of the way!

We started at 7:30 this morning, harvesting the grapes around our house. We usually just get about 200lbs, and this year was no different. It’s a great chance to try out all the equipment and procedures on a small scale. The grapes will go on to become the base for our Haut Tubee wine, of which we’ll make 50-100 cases.

The first cut of the season. On a Mourvedre cluster. We’re going to plant more Mourvedre next year, it does really well here.

The Hot Tub, and Syrah vines in the back yard.

Bins starting to fill up

Why do I hate bird netting? This is my hand after just 50 plants. Imagine removing acres of the stuff.

Next off to the Ottigurr Vineyard for 300lb’s or so of Syrah and Zinfandel.

Today Stef, Jerry and I spent the day at Chaine d’Or getting everything cleaned and ready for harvest. From this point out, we’re going to try really hard to have a blog entry every day. I thought I could do that last harvest season and it was very difficult to get one a week out.

I think though the blogs will be short, and pictures may not have narratives with them. We’ll just throw up what content we have and get it out there.

The pictures below show some of the goings on as we scrubbed and cleaned everything today.

We’re starting to narrow in on some picking windows for the start of harvest. I’ve heard that in Napa and Sonoma things are well under way, but we’re still waiting here.

Friday we’ll do our annual clean at the winery. Once a year everything gets a good scrub down to get anything we may have missed during routine cleaning during the year. We’ll also prep, clean and test all the equipment. De-stemmer, pump, press, and the big tanks. Jerry already cleaned and prepped all the plastic bins on Monday.

Saturday will be the first pick. We’ll harvest the Syrah, Zinfandel and some of the Grenache (a couple plants need another 7-10 days) at home for the Haut Tubee blend. Friday night we’ll also test the Syrah and Zinfandel at the OttiGurr home vineyard and pick that Saturday as well.

The Crimson vineyard is close to ready. We may pick that next week. We need to check on flavors first. Those grapes will go to Big Basin Vineyards and we’ll make the wine there.

Jerry is out taking samples today at the Woodruff Family Vineyard. It looks like we’ll be picking all the Chardonnay next week, and some of the Pinot Noir. I may take a ton or so at the same time for us, but right now the plan is to get next weeks pick to Hobo Wines and Stores. Following that we’ll pick for Pax Mahle, then finally Big Basin and ourselves. I may take a little at the same time we pick for Pax, so I can judge picking at different times.

So, off we go………

I’ve added a new link to the blog for ‘Friends of the Winemakers’. FOW for short, is a group Stef and I joined originally as supporting members. Then we converted to a member winery when we started making wine.

The mission of the organization is to preserve the history and support the efforts of winemaking in the Santa Cruz Mountains and Santa Clara Valley. They also have a really, really good time doing it. Stef and I don’t get to go on nearly as many events as we’d like to with the group since the parties and trips are usually on Saturday’s when we’re busy working. If you have free time though, this is a great group to check out.

We also host an annual event for FOW members. Each November we prepare a special dinner and pair our wines with that dinner. I talk about each wine and the food pairing we’ve put together. The cost is under $50 and includes a 4-5 course meal and a sampling of all our wines. It’s really a very fun event.

This year for instance for the main course we’re planing on smalll portion of:

Lamb chop with mint jelly and lentils d’ provance.
St Andre’s bison chesse burger with Stefania’s Blackberry BBQ sauce.
Filet Mignon with pepper/port reduction sauce.

The three will be served on one tasting plate and paired with our 2006 Syrah Eaglepoint Ranch, 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon Uvas Creek Vineyard, and a special sneak preview of our un-released 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon Santa Cruz Mountains. The idea is to be able to sample each wine, with each meat and see what makes the best combo!

So do give FOW a look, it’s a great group of people and we enjoy our annual event with them!