2014 – Stefania Wine

February 10, 2015

Settling In

No we haven’t totally dropped of the grid, so it’s time for a quick catch up. We did get moved in to our new place in September and finished our move out of Chaine d’Or and in to our new place in Salinas in December. All our production was at the new facility last harvest and we have a bunch of new wines and some old favorites we’re working on from 2014. We’re very happy with the new facility and it was much easier on us with the additional help to handle set up and clean up. The drive was also much shorter and easier and we put far less miles on the FJ this Fall.

We’ve been very busy of course with all the moving and settling in to our new home. The building that will become the tasting room is all cleaned up and ready to go, we’re just waiting on the government now for permits.

I thought the best way to run through an update was with some pictures:

First the little kittens are growing like crazy and loving their new home.

We got the bar set up in the new house right away:

We’re still eating Primal:

And we did go to New Orleans on our annual trip:

Spending way too much time in the care of Fay at Coops:

When we got home there were never ending chores and clean up to do. We hauled away 8 truck loads of yard debris, cut down treees, repaired things and just general new home stuff like stacking a cord of wood:

We had frequent wildlife visitors with the turkey’s being the most common:

And they like the backyard too:

Stefania hasn’t shot anything yet but she’s ready just in case:

We put a new cellar in and we’re trying to decide what to plant which means lots of research:

Which means more Primal food lick smoked duck legs:

With the New Year I’ve started a garden:

And have more seedlings ready to go in:

All this is enough to tucker out a kitty and keep us from writing regularly. We may be on a monthly summary now, at least until we get the tasting room going.

September 22, 2014

More Grape Picking and Creature Pics.

It was another busy weekend for us. Saturday we picked the two largest vineyards that make up our Haut Tubee base wine. We did the actual picking of 600 pounds of Cabernet and Syrah at Roxie Vineyard near Crimson Clover. We just had to pick up and sort the 800 pounds of Syrah from the Harrison vineyard in Los Altos Hills. Most of the day seems like it’s driving at 60 MPH towing a trailer, and it is. We were out of our old house on Canton before the grapes were ready for wine but one of our neighbors came down and harvested about 200 pounds of grapes to make jam. No Mourvedre in the Haut Tubee blend yet, but we will have Mourvedre Jam in the new tasting room this Spring.

Sunday we were up early and did what is now a really long 55 mile drive to Chaine d’Or. Our trusted ‘A Team’ picking crew was there and had already removed the nets when we drove in at 7:30. We picked just about 3200 pounds of Chardonnay. The picture below is Jerry walking out the picking bins. In the lower section we bring the bins up on the tractor but in this upper section the three of us who can drive the tractor, Millie, Jerry and I all prefer to carry the bins out rather than mess with getting the tractor all the way up and down the long rows and around the two sharp turns.

Stefania usually avoids the camera when I’m taking pictures but I thought she was exceptionally pretty Sunday morning and got in this shot. That’s her usual place and job at harvest time. As we dump in the 30 pound picking bins she sorts through the grapes and removes, leafs, bugs, twigs, bad grapes, secondaries, water bottles, gloves, twisty tie, clippers and anything else that have found their way into the bins. We do always laugh when someone says they have hand made wine and wonder if they really touched every cluster with their own hands like Stefania does. Probably not.

Back at home we’re getting used to the new routines and sights and sounds. This little guy comes by every day. I think I’ve seen small bumps for antlers but Stef hasn’t so we’re not sure of its sex. It is really small so I think it was likely born this past Spring. I just spent some time on Google and the proper term is ‘Fawn Buck’.

September 6, 2014

Big News – Part Four!

Our first harvest was in 2005 and we took our grapes to Crushpad which was then in San Francisco. I worked there too as a volunteer a few days a week in addition to doing our own winemaking. Probably my biggest contribution was spending an entire Saturday cleaning and organizing the loading dock. I also volunteered that year at Chaine d’ Or. Crushpad was just too chaotic for us so the next year we moved our production to a facility in the Santa Cruz Mountains. I volunteered again at Chaine d’Or.

That 2006 harvest was ok but Stefania and I were still interested in finding a better fit for us and our winemaking. By pure chance I got a call from Bradley Brown at Big Basin Vineyards. He was checking to see if I had any Grenache or Mourvedre to sell. As we talked I told him I was looking for a new space in 2007 and he said he was looking for a new tenant. We met and decided we’d move into Big Basin that year. We were all set to move in September when we got the call that August to take over operations at Chaine d’Or. I still kept the deal with Bradley and we made about 1/2 our 2007 and 2008 wines at Big Basin.

That’s where we met Ian Brand. Ian was the assistant winemaker then at Big Basin. He’s started at Bonny Doon and he had glamorous tasks at Big Basin like sorting grapes, cleaning bins and all the other things assistant winemakers do. Ian and I spent a lot of time together on the sorting line and while cleaning things around the winery. In 2009 Ian went out on his own to start Ian Brand Family Wines. We stayed in close contact, talking at least once a month. Ian asked for advice on getting started and he shared some grape sources with us (Split Rail and Coastview). We sold Ian our old barrels we were no longer using and spare equipment when we had it.

Sometimes we’d have logistical nightmares of having to pick two vineyards on the same day that where 100 miles apart and Ian would step in and pick up the grapes from one of those vineyards and do the initial crush and fermentation for us. We’d then go down with out barrels and press the wine into our barrels and haul them home. He’s been a great friend and a great help to us over the years.

When we knew we would need a new home this year I didn’t think of asking anyone else but Ian. I think he said “well I know you’re not an asshole, so no problem”, or something like that. Ian built up a fantastic facility in Salinas. It will be shorter for us to get to from our new home than the old drive was to Chaine d’Or. We’re excited by that of course, but mostly we are really excited to be in the same facility with Ian again. We will work under our own bond in what is called an ‘Alternating Proprietorship’ or AP. That means we’re making the wine and using the equipment. We can hire his crew to do tasks like clean up and maintenance though and that will free up lots of time for us.

Ian makes great wine and if you haven’t tried it, search it out. We’re so excited to be sharing space with him and so grateful for his generosity.

September 4, 2014

First Pick of 2014

I know everyone is waiting for part four of the news but we did have some actual winemaking to do this week. I’ll have Part 4 up soon I promise.

Harvest 2014 started like it does every year for us with getting the picking bins out of storage and cleaned up after a year of sitting outside. We do cover them but dirt creeps in. Millie is driving the tractor in the picture below with two of our bins on the back. I had the pressure washer set up and clean them as they got to the crush pad. Stefania helped out with a disinfecting scrub and I blasted away all the dirt.

While we were on site Stefania also set up the testing lab for the season. We’ll test pH, TA and Brix on all our vineyards over the next couple of months. Those are Chardonnay samples being tested. The testing is pretty redundant for us 10 years in. I walked through the vineyard before the samples were picked and said: “2 maybe three full weeks until these are ready.” Stefania walked down one row and picked about a dozen berries and said: “These are at 19.5 Brix”. The testing results were Brix 19.6 and pH 3.1 which means we are 2-3 weeks out.

With all that done we loaded up the FJ Cruiser with 3 bins to take down to the vineyard for picking the next morning. It’s a pain to have to deal with the u-haul office on the first weekend of the month but it had to be done. When we get into our new place I’ll have room to store a trailer and our rental days should be behind us.

The first grapes of the year came in on Labor Day. We got 3000 pounds of Viognier from Leal Vineyards in San Benito County. The grapes looked great and we were able to confirm with the assistant winemaker at Leal that we should be able to get Viognier from them every year.

It was a pretty easy drive to our new facility, although we did hit some holiday traffic. Here’s a little bit of a sneak preview of Part 4. It’s the Viognier being loaded into the press at our new facility. The crew there was fantastic and even with hanging around and chatting for a little we were in and out in less than an hour. Stefania was SOOOOOOOO happy to not have to clean a press or a tank and have the crew there to do those tasks. The wine is doing well. We’ll raise it half in neutral French oak and half in stainless steel. It will be bottled early and should be available to our mailing list next Spring.

June 12, 2014

Yep We’re Still Here.

We definitely go through writing phases and neither one of us has been in one so far this year. We’ve been busy though with a few trips including a great 10 day adventure of hiking in Southern Utah. We’ve been keeping up on the vineyards and all the 2012 and 2013 wine in order. We had a good spring release which we never even put up here. The order page is updated though with current inventory.

If there’s something you’d like though that’s not on the inventory page send us an email. I have about a dozen different wine right now that are showing 1-3 cases in stock. Not enough to put on the web page but we could check for you if there’s something you really like.

We’re heading to Crimson Clover tomorrow to tuck the wines there. The weather so far in 2014 has been great. We thought the drought would effect yields but so far it looks like we’re on track to have about the same amount of fruit as a typical year like 2012. We’ll have a Summer Futures offer out soon and then a fall release around Sept 15th. It will be our first wave of wines from 2012.

We are also doing a new diet and fitness plan, with lots of hiking and we’re averaging 12-18 miles a week. I’ll see if the writing bug picks up again this summer. We’re expecting a little easier harvest this year than last so maybe I’ll even get some writing in at harvest.

January 16, 2014

Vacation Pictures

We’re almost ready to get back to work. Harvest and barrel work ended the earliest ever for us in 2013 and we really enjoyed the extra time off. In 2011 we finished all the harvest and winemaking related work on December 18th. In 2013 we finished on October 26th. That two months really made a difference in feeling rested and having some time away from the vines and winery.

I had two weeks off from the day job over the holidays so we decided to go to the Oregon coast. We first went in 2007 to visit with Pinot producers who were making Pinot Noir we liked. On our way home we found the little town of Newport and ended up going back there the next year. We did the drive from San Jose in one shot, all 670 miles in a single day. We left at just after 6AM and the weather was clear except for fog in central Oregon.

This was the view from our room. We got a small place with a kitchen so we could cook and relax.

The town has a beautiful bridge that was built in the 1930’s in an art deco style. Of all the bridges along the coast this is my favorite. There’s a small bay with an active fishing fleet and some processing plants and a small assortment of shops and restaurants. Because the town is small and 2+ hours from Portland it’s managed to stay fairly un touristy for a seaside town. The big business in town is fishing and then the NOAA boats that are home ported there that you can see in this photo.

The bay has an oyster farm, they were fantastic and up river a bit a lumber mill. The other big business in town is the Rogue Brewery and we spent a fair amount of time there. Ok we went every day. It was about a 3 mile round trip from our place to the Rogue public house so it seemed that going to get a beer was a perfect excuse for a walk.

We came back on the 2nd in one day also. The weather was clear the entire time back except for morning fog along the coastal mountains. There was almost no snow on Mt Shasta or Mount Lassen that we passed on our return. We’ve had a very dry winter. I went back to the day job on the 6th. Our office location moved and to avoid a 90 minute commute I changed my schedule to come in at 6:15. I get good sunrises, but the parking garage is just not the same as the boats!

We’ll be back at work Saturday pruning the Crimson Clover vineyard. We rally enjoyed the time off!