Racking Day(s)

Saturday was a cold and rainy day.  We headed up to the winery for a long day of work inside so at least we’d be mostly dry.  We still had 15 barrels to get through the first racking and sulfuring of the year.  Malolactic fermentation has been slow this year and 5 different lots were just finishing up.

We can’t add sulfur to the wines before Malo has completed or the sulfur will kill the Malo bacteria along with the bad bacteria.  The longer we go though the greater the risk of those bad bacteria showing up so it’s been a tense few months.

Stefania started by setting up her lab and I got the pump, tanks and barrel cleaner ready.  We had lab results back from the lab we have to do our government testing with so we didn’t need to do much in the way of actual measurements, but we would have to prepare SO2 for every wine and Tartaric Acid for a few.

One routine we always have is that a second person must verify that the pump is hooked up right and all the seals on the tanks are closed.  This helps prevent oversight and shooting wine all over the place.

We had five different lots to work with; Crimson Clover Cab ,Harvest Moon Cab, Coastview Syrah, Mourvedre and Haut Tubee.  Everything would get an SO2 treatment of 40-50 ppm depending on the pH of the wine.  The Mourvedre, Harvest Moon and Haut Tubee would also have Tartaric added to lower pH.

We combined some of the Crimson Clover Cabernet, with some Peacock Cab Franc and a little Harvest Moon Cab to start a Santa Clara Valley Cabernet blend.  The rest of the Harvest Moon and the Haut t was kept on its own for now.  We finished up the day about 5PM by filing the tanks with Coastview Syrah in tank #1 and Mourvedre in tank #2 and left them to settle for the night.

We returned the next day to get those wines back in barrel and spent just 3 hours compared to the 8 the day before.  We started our GSM blend by putting some of the Syrah in with some of the Mourvedre, but kept two barrels of each on their own.  In the end we had 14 barrels and topping wine.

Each barrel is rinsed and cleaned as part of the process on the barrel holder below.  The holder allows the barrel to spin and Stefania usually does this job.

I was really happy with the Mourvedre.  Our original plan was to blend all of it into the GSM blend or the Haut Tubee, but we may keep some on its own.  The other wines were all good as well, and I’m excited about the final wines.  After a rough weather year last year it looks like we still ended up with good wine.

Rain – Panic – Calm

It’s raining in Northern California.  You may have read newspaper articles about the rain or even seen the occasional TV report.  Those reports usually give an air of panic and desperation as wineries try and rush in grapes before they are ‘ruined’ by the rain.  Hooey!

We have a rain event every year.  Well almost every year.  In 2006 there was no October rain, otherwise it’s an annual thing.  We do try and bring in the thinned skinned grapes like Pinot Noir and Chardonnay before the rains come.  The thick skinned grapes like Mourvedre (in the picture) and Cabernet Sauvignon though will go just fine through the rain.

The key is to let the grapes dry out after the rain and before you pick them.  In the picture you can see Mourvedre in our front yard and there are little drops of water on the grapes.  Those little drops add up and can dilute the wine, lowering alcohol by as much as 2-3%.  That’s why it’s important to let the grapes get some sun and dry out.

We had been scheduled to pick the Haut Tubee vineyards tomorrow, including Red Hen, the Church, and Home vineyards but I just sent a message to Millie and we are postponing until Tuesday.  We’ll still go on with Crimson Clover on Sunday as we have 2 days of sun coming and that will be enough to dry out the grapes.

Then what’s next?  Do we panic and bring in all the Cabernet out there before it rains again?  No, we go to New Orleans for a week to avoid all the panic going on.  The Cabs will be ready after October 20th from our testing.  Some vineyards will actually be ready around the 31st.  That’s normal for us, the warm September helped get us back to normal, so it’s best to stay calm and wait it out.

Fall Release

Stefania is working away in the office on offer letters for our Fall Release. Letter will start to go out on the 15th. We’re expecting that the wine we have available will sell out very quickly. It could be as fast as two weeks. I’ve just updated the Wine section of the site with details on the three wines being released.

2008 Stefania Cabernet Sauvignon, Harvest Moon Vineyard, ‘Special Reserve’, Santa Cruz Mountains

Mailing List Price: $44 per bottle. Total Production 66 cases.

2009 Stefania Syrah, Split Rail Vineyard, Santa Cruz Mountains

Mailing List Price: $36 per bottle. Total production 96 cases

2009 Stefania Haut Tubee California

Mailing List Price: $20 per bottle. Total production 145 cases

LIBRARY RELEASE:

2006 Stefania Syrah, Eaglepoint Ranch, Mendocino County:

Mailing List Price: $38 per bottle (Total cases available: 12)

Barrel Order

Oak barrels

I thought I was late getting in a barrel order this year, but when I checked my records it was the exact same time last year that we put in an order.  Barrels are a huge expense for us.  We only use French Oak and I select very high end barrels.  The cost, depending on the exchange rate of the Euro, is usually about $1100 a barrel.

Our primary barrel supplier is a French company called Sequin Moreau.  We also use Claude Gillet for our Chardonnay and Ermitage for Syrah, but most of our new barrels are Sequin Moreau and are used on our Cabernets.    Barrels come in two basic formats: 225 liter ‘Bordeaux’ or 228 liter ‘Burgundy, which are slightly fatter and shorter.  For Cabernets I use the Bordeaux barrels.  Next you have to decide on thickness.  They either come in 21mm called ‘Chateau Ferre’ or 27mm called ‘Export’.  I always select Chateau Ferre.  I’ve just heard that it is superior and it comes in a wider selection of barrel types.

The next choice is barrel grade.  Sequin Moreau offers 5 different grades of barrel.  The basic is called ‘Selection Terrior’.  That’s really just a brand name.  The grades represent an increase in the age of the wood and the tightness of the grain.  The older and tighter the wood, the more desirable as the impact of the wood becomes more subtle.  In the past I’ve tried a selection of the top 4 grades from Sequin Moreau.  The one I’ve found I like best is their second highest grade called Selection Vendanges Tardives or SVT for short.  The SVT seems to really bring out the aromatics of the wine and add nice spice and gentle tannin development.  The barrel below ‘Selection Cabernet’ is nice, but just not as fine as the SVT.  There is also a Selection FX which we tried but I thought it was too drying for our wines with too much sweetness.

So this time I ordered all SVT barrels.  They seem to be best for our wine.  The next big choice is ‘Toast Level’.  This is the amount of fire toasting that the barrels get and probably has the largest impact on the finished wine.  There are five levels of toast and the option to toast the heads of the barrels.  The toasts are Light, Medium, Medium Long, Medium Plus, and Heavy.  You can then select with each option to have the heads of the barrel toasted too.

This is probably the thing we’ve learned the most about in six vintages.  Certain vineyards and certain wines respond better to certain levels of toasting.  At a basic level the lighter the toast the more vanilla and simple flavors you get and the more tannin and structure is added to the wine.  The heavier the toast the more complex spicy, smokey flavors and the less tannin extract you get.  For most of our wines, we have more than enough tannin in the grapes and don’t need to add any with the barrel treatment.  For those vineyards we use heavier toasts and even toast the heads.

At first I was reluctant to use Heavy toast or Toasted Heads.  I’ve learned though that in a very tannic site like Chaine d’Or the wine benefits from the complex flavors and it’s best to avoid adding any tannin.  For Chaine d’Or we’ll use a combo of Medium Plus and Heavy toast barrels with Toasted Heads.  For a wine like our Haut Tubee that has lots of Zinfandel and warm site Syrah we’ll use a lighter toast to add some structure to the wine.

We ordered a bunch of different toast levels and combos.  That will give us some flexibility at harvest time.