Last Pick

With mixed feelings, I watched the last two bins of Silvaspoons Vineyards Kerry Lane Block Mourvèdre drive off to the winery, signaling the end of our harvest.

I was just getting used to my routine of waking up in the dark at five o’clock, wolfing down a pot of oatmeal and putting on the grubbiest, most hole-filled clothes I could find.

On my way to the vineyards, if I was lucky, I had enough time to hit Starbuck’s on East Kettleman Lane for a venti non-fat, no-foam latte with three packs of Sugar-in-the-Raw to jump-start the brain.

The main job for Nick and I has been to jump onto the bins on the back of a narrow tractor and frantically pull out leaves from the gathered grapes while moving, trying not to fall off. We just don’t want those undesirable “green,” herbal flavors.

At the same time, we would try and snap some photos or video for our Web site, knowing that nowadays marketing is almost as important as high-quality winemaking.

We got into a rhythm of taking a few pictures just before the whole crew began dumping yellow lug bin after bin into our half-ton bin. Seemed that each member of the crew filled their bin about the same time, so they all came back at once like a big dump truck.

No matter than the cameras became sticky with grape sugars, such that the zoom on one camera is jammed. I didn’t mind getting whipped in the face by long vines as the tractor drove through the rows, or having my glasses glaze over like a doughnut, making it hard to see.

I already miss the popping sounds made by hands yanking off grape clusters aching to be made into wine.

Panthos, The Next Generation

 
I was telling Jon, working with the wines every day is what it's all about. I can't get enough.

Then my son, Jonathon wakes up one morning two weeks ago and asks where I'm going. It's 7:00 in the morning which is pretty early for most 12-year olds. I explain my daily ritual of punch downs, brix readings, etc. and his eyes light up as he jumps from his bed asking, "Can I go? I want to do it too!" I haven't stopped grinning since.
 
Jonathon really likes to get into his work.

Today we have different lots at every end of the spectrum. Al Bechthold's Cinsault and our two Syrah's are almost dry, reading from 0.4 to -1.5 brix on the hydrometer. On the other end of the spectrum, we have one of Markus Bokisch's Petite Sirah's from Belle Colline that I just removed from a cold chill (52 degrees and 26.5 brix) that will begin its natural fermentation under the watchful eye (or should I say "eye's" now) over the next two days; and with our last crush of 2008, we're planning on harvesting Ron Silva's Mourvedre this Tuesday.

We're thankful the rains last night were light and any moisture is drying from today's breezes. But I'm really thankful for days like these, up to our arms, side-by-side in a beautiful Petite Sirah.

Our Bin Runneth Over

Every year we learn something new.

This year one of the tweaks we were getting ready to be proud of was the determination of exactly how much you could fill a one-Ton Macro T-Bin with crushed grapes such that they wouldn’t overflow during fermentation.

We filled a number of bins up to a line five inches from the top, and double-checked to make sure we had clearance.
Once fermentation hit its stride in a couple of days after warming from cold soak, copious amounts of very purple Petite Sirah juice began cascading down the sides of one of our bins.
This created enough of a mess that the cellar master repeated at least six times that he had to clean up everything and, “You are going to remove some of those grapes.”
Nick – who has been kindly doing all the punchdowns this year – went over the records to determine that the most obnoxious bin of Petite hadn’t even received its first helping of yeast nutrient yet.

So we have reset our maximum fill protocol to what should be an ample seven inches from the top. (Let’s hope that works or we're going to be wearing out the mop!)

We're Legal!

For weeks now we’ve been wondering what was going to potentially hold up shipments next month.

In our minds it’s been a neck and neck race between the California State Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) in granting us a permit to sell wine at wholesale and a special ribbon we are having made.

I figured I’d just give our new mailbox a check at the UPS Store on Kettleman Lane in Lodi as I was dropping off a sample for ETS Labs today.

We rarely get anything in the box, since only a couple of government agencies and random junk mail businesses know about it.

I turned the key, peered inside, and noticed one white envelope leaning along the side of the small PO box. I could barely make out “Department of Alc…” on the return address and became immediately excited.

I reached in, saw the familiar pink paper – the color of a final permit – and began hopping around the UPS Store. The owner, Dan, asked how I was doing, and I said, “I’m just happy happy! We just got our ABC permit and now we’re legal!”

So if we can get that ribbon in soon, we’ll be ready to hand-assemble our 1,200 bottles!

Crush Has Started!

Like every year, this year is different but wonderful. The Cinsault was ready before any other varietal this year. In fact, weeks ahead of any of the other varietals including our Syrah, Petite Sirah and of course Mourvedre which we always want to be our last. The Mourvedre benefits from the longer hang-time on the vine.

Since we're specializing in small exceptional lots, this lot of Cinsault is slightly more than one ton. (The video below is the Cinsault being harvested) We allow the newly destemmed fruit to cold soak for 48 hours then move it to a room set at about 75 degrees F. After another 2-3 days, it begins natural fermentation. The picture gives you an idea of what it looks like about 3 days into the fermentation with a nice 5-6 inch cap of skins that have risen. I punch the cap down gently twice a day during the most active period, measuring the sugars (brix) and monitoring the temperature.

We can already tell that the rows and vines we picked this year are the best section the vineyard has to offer. As usual, the vineyard owner, Al Bechthold is right again.

Sugars Moving Fast

Today’s visit to the remaining ripening vineyards of Belle Colline, Silvaspoons and Mettler all confirmed the buzz in the wine industry: all the grapes are ripening at once.

We are shifting the source for one of our Syrahs to one of many growing in the Belle Colline Vineyard, so this morning was spent focusing on which to take.

This vineyard-on-a-hill features four clones of Syrah (1, 2, 383 and 470) planted on two different soil compositions, each as a separate block. The block planted lower on the hill benefits from irrigation water running down from the upper blocks. The upper blocks are therefore as much as a week or more further along towards ripening than the lower blocks.

I found nice flavors in the clone 2 Syrah in the upper block, but back at the lab we found sugars to be 27.3˚ B with pH a bit too high at 3.98. So we had to pass on that one.

Markus Niggli, the assistant winemaker at Borra Vineyards, our custom crush winery host, will join me first thing on Monday morning to make a final decision.

Other stats are:

Silvaspoons Mourvèdre – 21.2˚ B, pH 3.43, will need a few more weeks.

Belle Colline Petite Sirah – upper block 25.3˚ B, pH 3.70 with nice flavors could be ready this week, lower block 23.6˚ B, pH 3.55 may need two weeks.

Mettler Petite Sirah – 23.7˚ B, pH 3.78 nice flavors could be ready in a week and a half or sooner.

Belle Colline Syrah – lower block clone 470 24.2˚ B, 3.73 pH, may need a week and a half.

Our 2008 Harvest Has Begun!

We kicked off our 2008 harvest today with 1.25 tons of Cinsault from Al Bechthold's 1889 vineyard near Lucas Road, between Davis and De Vries in Lodi. Flavors in these grapes from 119-year-old vines are very nice, even intense and exciting. And at 26.1 Brix with a pH of 3.59, everything about the grapes are in perfect balance.

Even my son, Alex, chugged down a glass of the juice without coming up for air. I don't know how he can drink that much sugar so quickly!

Being the first crush for the winery, we were ready for some possible hiccups. None of us had used the aging Demoisy crusher-stemmer for almost a year. We turned it on and the grapes just weren't dropping into the destemmer paddles properly.

We thought a drive chain for the rollers was loose, then, eventually, Steve Borra came on over to help diagnose the problem.

He pointed out that the rollers weren't moving in the correct direction and realized that some off-season electrical work had caused the polarity on the main power outlet to be reversed.

Once Steve live-rewired the outlet, we were crushing very quickly.

We are hoping this Cinsault will finally be a good fit for our Panthos blend this year.

Sure is exciting to be sticky all over again!