Category: General

The winds are calmer this morning and blowing north and west. The fog came in last night, and news this morning was that the fire is 40% contained.

It looks like Reed’s vineyard and home are ok from the maps we’ve seen, but I still have not heard from him.

I’ll call the Woodruffs this morning to see how they are doing. The fire was about 1 1/2 from the vineyard there. A close call and a reminder how dangerous the mountains can be. I worry all the time driving through places like Ben Lomand, or Redwood Estates, just how bad a fire would be in one of the more populated pockets of the Santa Cruz Mountains.

It looks like this one’s impact will be relatively small. The weather cooperated and the area of the fire is very sparsely populated.

Stef and I both just spotted Reed’s house and vineyard in the coverage.

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/feature?section=news&id=6158710

http://localhost/wordpress/winesvineyards/vineyards.html

It looks like the fire is 200-300 yards away. The house looked empty. The fire crews will not try and save the vineyard it won’t be a priority. At the current time they are saying it is zero contained and they are focusing on evacuations and protecting homes in immediate danger.

Please see Dave Tong’s Blog for the latest news on the fire.

It is very close to several projects we’ve consulted on and about 3 miles from the Woodruff Family Vineyard. Ash is falling in the vineyard there. I’ve spoken with Pete and Barbara today and they are ok at the moment.

We know this area very well and the rugged roads are one reason we have the 4wd Toyota FJ Crusier as our vineyard car.

Brown Valley Road is closed and I was going to send the crew there tomorrow to spray at the Woodruff’s but that of course is off now.

I keep a journal that I call the ‘Work Order Book’. It contains the plan and schedules for all nine vineyards we have under our full time management. (I don’t include the Haut Tubee vineyard, or the 20 plants at the local church we take care of.)

Each vineyard has a list of tasks, the dates they should be done by, how long it should take, any equipment or training needed, and any conditions that should be met. For instance it says, “don’t spray Sulfur if the temps are over 90 degrees’.

Millie, Gerardo, and I each have a copy, and I keep it updated on a monthly basis. I mark off tasks as they are done, and insert maps, instructions, or notes that the crew will need. The Haut Tubee vineyard has actually turned into a training ground. Since everything happens in that vineyard a week or two before the others, I’m able to have the crew come over and we go over the upcoming tasks in detail.

We even let the roses get powdery mildew this year on purpose so that the crew could see it in all its stages and know what to look for in the vineyards. We’ve sprayed the roses now though, don’t want to miss out on Spring roses totally.

Monday I updated the Work Order Books, and guess what? We are totally caught up and on schedule. In each vineyard the plants have begun to flower, so now we just leave them alone and try not to disturb them at all.

There’s work to do in the winery, but for the next two weeks, it’s time for a break in the vineyards!

About 4 weeks ago I signed up on myspace. Stef had signed up because her brother Hans had signed up and sent her a note. So I thought I’d sign up too. What a pain in the ass the site was. After fighting with the set up process for 45 minutes, then spending 15 minutes figuring out how to get this Tom guy off my friends list I sent Stef a note:

“I’m on myspace now, you can make me your friend.”

to which she replied:

“I’m on facebook dumbass.”

🙂

So off to facebook a went. That was a marginally less stupid sign up and set up process and there was a feature to actually find people I already know who were on facebook. So I sent notes off to about a dozen people and had about a dozen people add me in. Stef even posted on my ‘board’:

“Facebook = Lamebook“.

Feeling the web 2.0 love.

But I gave it a try and I think I’ve learned I am squarely in the generation that this stuff is not meant for.

I’ve still got those 10-12 people linked on facebook, but I find the site about as compelling as Miracle Whip. I’ve got no reason to go there or use it, and it doesn’t really beat actually talking to those 10-12 people. I’d rather invite them over, open a bottle of wine and catch up with them, than read what they did today on line.

Myspace, well that’s ‘Lameface‘. I’m proud to be friendless. Not that I don’t get offers every few days from ‘Rachel’, or ‘Lisa”, to come be their friends and look at the naughty pictures they took, but I really didn’t need another way for SPAM to reach me. I do take a certain joy though in marking those invites as SPAM. It always amazes me that their ‘profiles’ have notes from 10-15 guys who added them as friends with such witty commentary as ‘Yo baby, thanks for lookin me up’. Which brings me back to the Miracle Whip commentary as in, “these guys are dumber than Miracle Whip.”

So, you can send me an add request. I might get to it. You might even be the first myspace person to not be a porn site, but I’d still rather invite you over for a bottle of wine.

Time for a quick update on shipping.

We’ve released all orders for shipment. Everything is now either delivered, on its way, or holding at the shipment warehouse waiting for some state requirement and will ship as soon as the state in question approves it. Only one exception and that is a single order to Missouri, which will go out Monday.

Here is the breakdown on holds:
New York, New Jersey and Michigan: All pending state label approval. This should happen no later than 6/1 and the wines will release from the warehouse as soon as the label is approved.

Florida and Virginia: The Syrah label has been approved, the Haut Tubee has not. If your order included just Syrah, it’s shipped. If it included both wines, it’s pending still, also until 6/1.

We still have wine left if you have an order form you’ve been holding on to. Not a ton, just about 5 cases we can still release.

Last night was one of the highlights of the winemaking job.

Our friends parents were visiting from Canada and requested a winery tour, so we overlapped them with a winery appointment for a couple visiting from New York. What would have been a routine evening after work ended up being a very special night for us.

We greeted our six guests, toured the vineyard site and winery, and opened four bottles of wine to taste through. Paul opened the Chaine d’Or Chardonnay, Stefania Syrah, Haut Tubee, and Uvas Creek Cabernet. In addition to the bottled wines, Paul pulled several barrel samples for everyone.

Paul entertained the couple from New York while I answered questions and visited with our friends and their parents. For two hours we talked about the weather, grape varieties, childhood memories of rolling hills and prairies, back yards with grape vines, processing, bottling, labeling, art, music, alcoholism, social eating, aromas in wine, anything and everything.

We sent two partial bottles home with the parents, dropped off the opened Haut Tubee bottle with Jerry to drink since he had not tried it yet, and took the leftover Chardonnay with us to sushi.

Figuring it might be tough to get a spot at the sushi bar, our back up plan was to call and order a pizza. As luck would have it, there were several seats at our favorite sushi house; Tomo Sushi.

We brought in a bottle of Haut Tubee for Jun, the chef. He opened it right away and poured for the nine of us sitting there and we also passed around the last of the Chardonnay. The party was on a roll and we were loud and boisterous having a great time. Paul pulled another bottle from the car and some business cards for the folks that wanted to know where they could buy our wine.

It was so much fun meeting our neighbors and talking about growing up in the valley, and hearing their memories of the landscape before high tech took over and the population growth. We must have been there for nearly 3 hours carrying on, eating, drinking, laughing. An evening of much conviviality and joy.

I’ve blogged before about the coming together of mixed people and having the differences of lifestyles, opinions, backgrounds, political and/or religious views, all mesh over good food and good wine, and in this case some sake, and beer too.

Cheers,
Stefania

By “Trade Show” I mean we had a table at Rock N Roll wine www.rnrwine.com at the Green Valley Ranch in Henderson. What an awesome venue, what an awesome party.

Initially we talked about what we were going to do with the leftover wine…since neither of us really wanted to pack it up and check it on the flight home. Hah! The event was scheduled for 3 hours, from 7-10pm, and we ran out of wine just after 9. Four cases in two hours, and since the cups were small we were giving little pours, ~2 ounces or less. (I’ll admit giving smaller pours to anyone on a cellphone jabbing their glass in my general direction).

Speaking of the “stemware”, we did a taste test at the end of the night.

We got down to our last bottle, and put our table sign face down with people still lined up for more wine. We apologized for running out and someone pointed to the bottle in Pauls hand. Sorry guys, this is for us…and we headed to a quiet spot by the pool.

My plastic “stem” sprung a leak, as many others had thru the night, and Paul fetched me a replacement – a clear plastic water cup, no stem. Hm.

One thing I noticed with the goblet was that it didn’t matter how much you tried to swirl and sniff, there was no aroma present, the goblet was so wide and flat on the bottom that it killed whatever nose you would expect. Then I poured the remaining wine from the leaker into the water glass and was pleasantly surprised, the nose returned! Ok, it was still a plastic cup, but at least I could smell the wine in it.

For those of you thinking you might like to hit an event like this, the VIP section of the party included a Riedel “O” glass, which I would say is well worth the price of admission based on our experience of leaking plastic goblets.

We poured the 2006 Haut Tubee (a cab. blend $20 retail) and the 2006 Eaglepoint Ranch Syrah ($35 retail).

I’ve been enjoying the Syrah a lot but worried that it’s so different from the average Syrah. It’s bright and crisp, and has a palate cleansing acidity that lends it self well to spicy foods and solid cheeses. The nose is very floral (in the right glass) and clean.

Last night for dinner, Paul braised lamb shanks and simmered them with rough chopped carrots, celery, and potato. I made goat cheddar and herb muffins to dunk in the stew.

He opened a 2001 Cote-Rotie and poured a glass while he cooked. I wasn’t ready for wine yet, but sipped from his glass and asked if we could open one more bottle for comparison. Since he almost never tells me “no”, he asked what it was that I wanted.

For a side-by-side comparison I had him open the 2006 Stefania Syrah. The nose on our syrah was prettier, the CR was smoky and saltier. Both were crisp, both were savory with the stew, and both opened up over the course of the meal getting denser and fuller. We went back and forth between bites and sips and ended up finishing with the Stefania wine.

At least the wine finished better than the Sharks, what a disappointment that was….

Cheers,
Stefania

40th Floor Condo Overlooking River : The view, the view, the view!!!
Deep Dish Pizza : Something I look forward to each trip
Fox & Obel Market : Most expensive dinner “at home”
Blue Man Group : A Must See, great venue
The Bean : Because it’s cool
Chicago Art Institute : Winslow Homer & Edward Hopper exhibits
Tulips : Prettiest sign of spring in the city
Museum of Contemporary Art : Inspiring
Lightning Storm as seen from the 40th Floor : OMG Fantastically Awesome!!!
Dinner with Friends : Good Wine, Good Food, Good Party, Great Friends

Best part about coming home :

The Rose Garden & Haut Tubee Vines :

Here’s the latest on shipping.

Orders from states listed on our ‘ship to states’ section on the allocation letters have all been released to the fulfilment center. Those orders that came in before 4/21 went out last week and tracking emails have been sent. Orders after 4/21 went out yesterday and tracking emails should go out today or tomorrow.

If you did not receive a tracking email yet it is because of one of two reasons.

First: a number of states require ‘label registration’. This means the state government must approve the label for shipment. Yes, even though the federal government has already approved it, each individual state has a right to approve it also. Currently the following states have registration pending: NY, NJ, FL, MA, NC (I’ve given up on NC, they still have not approved the 05 labels after over a year). In addition VA has approved the Syrah label but not the Haut Tubee label. All those approvals (except NC) should be done no later than 6/1. As soon as the label clears, the shipment will release.

Second: States not listed on our allocation letter have to be shipped directly using our Bonded Winery Permit / Type 2. Those go out directly from the winery and have to be picked up by UPS with us present or delivered to a UPS office by us. We will begin shipping those states next week.

I’ll begin sending updates directly to individuals next week who are going to have delays beyond 5/15 to let them know the status.

Write your state legislator or visit www.freethegrapes.org, to see what you can do to make this situation easier for all of us wine lovers!