We got up at 5:00 a.m. to make certain we made it to Phoenix in time for our 12:00 lunch appointment. We were driving 70 all the way, but we were still one of the slowest cars on the road and the only Prius (just like the previous evening). Trucks would stream past us, driving at a wicked pace. Guess gas mileage isn't an issue down here. The speed allowed us to get to Phoenix early so we had plenty of time to change out of travel clothes and into "tasting" attire for our event at Caffe Boa, a restaurant that describes itself as a Euro-style bistro and wine bar.
We had lunch outside with some trade accounts, weather was perfect for this. We were a little disappointed with the light turnout, but the food was great and the wines showed well. Made a brief stop at My Wine Cellar nearby, a wine shop and tasting bar that does some great wine education programs and visited with one of
the owners, Kathy. Then it was on the road again for Tucson and our bottle signing at A.J.'s (a grocery store that has a great selection of wines and gourmet foods) that afternoon. Turnout was less than we hoped, but everyone loved the 2004 Alexander School Syrah so we sold quite a few bottles of this.The highlight of the day was definitely spending the night at Hacienda Del Sol. We had a delicious dinner with a bottle of wine from one of our neighbors,Trenadue Dry Creek Petite Sirah (Victor Trenadue was also staying at the hotel and they were featuring his wines,something we should look into).
For the next month, AVV owners Hank and Linda Wetzel are plying the nation's roads, visiting with sommeliers, restaurateurs and consumers to tell the winery's story and preview many of our new wines. They are also filing these blog entries along the way, chronicling their trip.
FRESNO-April 2--Our first stop on the trip took us only a few hundred miles from the winery, to Fresno for a trade tasting at a new restaurant called Pangea. We arrived about an hour early. We needed the time because Pangea is located in a maze of shops in a new upscale shopping center. We had a good turnout, lots of great appetizers and much interest in the wines. By 3, we're back on the road headed for Phoenix (an eleven hour trip per our
GPS). Much discussion just which was the quickest way (avoid LA) but we decided we'd risk the LA traffic as it was the shortest way. Fortunately we were late enough to avoid rush hour and had a fairly easy, although long drive to San Bernardino where we had dinner at Slim Pig N's.More than 9 weeks after that first truck load of Pinot Noir slowly trudged its way up our long driveway to the winery, the last bins of Cabernet Sauvignon arrived today.
Faced with the threat of rain this week and days that grow ever shorter, it was unlikely the remaining grapes would benefit much from leaving them on the vine any longer.
Considering all the scrambling that's been going on around here over the last 66 days--whether it was trying to find tank space for the 2163 tons of grapes we received or a spot in the cave for all the barrels--the end of the harvest has been almost anti-climatic.
Although we've crushed the last grapes, there's still more than a month's worth of work to do whether it's filling barrels, filtering the fermented juice, cleaning out tanks or even doing some bottling. But the work load is such that we're planning to go back to our regular work week, which is probably great relief for the crew that's been holding down the graveyard shift.
There's a lot to look forward to next week, like temperatures pushing into the low 80s. That's a little abnormal for this time of year, but it's exactly what we need right now. It would dry out the vineyards and allow us to finish picking those last bunches of Cab
ernet Sauvignon. The sugar levels are still a little lower than I'd like to see them and a few days of heat would put the grapes in better condition.
We can tolerate a few days of rain like we've had this week, but we'd have to reassess things if it goes on for too long. Luckily, virtually all the fruit is in by now with just a few tons left on the vine. The worst case scenario is we don't pick that Cab. I'd rather sacrifice that small amount of fruit than bring in substandard grapes. It's been a great harvest and I certainly don't want to do anything that would damage that fact.
The slower pace has made this harvest a little easier. There's always a long list of tasks for the cellar crew--pumpovers, digging out tanks, bringing in the new barrels (a truck filled with 232 arrived this morning). And while we are still running around-the-clock shifts, we've had the luxury of allowing some of the crew a much deserved day-off here and there.
Harvest is always a juggling act. If you get a steady flow of fruit from the vineyards, life is easy. However, rarely are things so predictable.
I've written about the initial rush, then the lull. The pace began to pick up as September turned a bit more seasonal. Now we are at a point where everything has slowed to a snail's pace. Harvest started with the promise of becoming one of the quickest on record. It's ending as the harvest that refuses
to offer us any closure. As of today, we still have about 300 tons of Cabernet Sauvignon waiting to be picked.Meantime, the fruit in the tank seems to be taking a cue from the fruit on the vine. Fermentations are very slow and the readings we take periodically show the temperatures actually dropping rather than increasing (as the grapes ferment, they generally give off heat). From a wine-making perspective, a slow fermentation can improve the quality of the finished wine, allowing for better flavor development. From a practical perspective, however, that just means we are running out of places to put the new fruit arriving at the winery almost daily.
Some much-needed relief did arrive last week in the form of 3 16,000 gallon stainless steel tanks. They are now the largest at the winery, holding the equivalent of about 6,700 cases of wine. The tanks were temporarily installed at the end of our parking lot and will eventually be moved outside the new cave we are building. Although we are initially planning to use them strictly as holding tanks, they certainly are making crush just a little easier right now.
There is one thing we hope for during the harvest every year. Good timing.
Like the rain, for instance. It's great to have several good rainfalls during the winter to load up the water table before the buds open so that the vines have something to work with over the course of the growing season, which customarily tends to be very dry.
It's a different matter still to get a big storm in late September or October.
Rain is the winemaker's nemesis during harvest. It can cause grapes to mildew. And water-logged grapes tend to make lousy wine.
Despite the forecasts, the rains have stayed away this week. That's allowed us to get in all of the grapes that are most susceptible to damage. Thin-skinned varieties like Zinfandel can really take a beating in a storm. But all the Zinfandel is picked from our vineyards in the Alexander and Dry Creek Valleys so we've dodged that bullet.
In fact, we're about 60 percent through harvest at this point. All that remains are the Bordeaux varietals--Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Petit Verdot, Cabernet Franc--as well as some Syrah. We're less concerned about rain with those varietals due to their thicker skins. But even those grapes couldn't withstand a couple of downpours. The Cabernet that came in this week is of very high quality, though the yields are down substantially. More on that later.
You can almost see the skid marks on the roads around the Alexander Valley now that nature has slammed the brakes on the harvest. The temperatures have plummeted over the last few days as have the sugar levels in the grapes.
A week or so ago, we took a Brix reading of 23 from the Cabernet Sauvignon on one block. This week, that number fell to 19. So after scrambling since the end of August, we've won a bit of a reprieve.
We used to grow small quantities around the winery, enough to produce a few hundred cases of a varietal wine with a bit left over to blend into wines like the Cab and CYRUS. But there's been a lot of interest in different varietals over the past few years so we've planted some new Cab Franc which should begin producing good quantities of fruit over the next couple of years.
Smack in the middle of all these Bordeaux varietals is the Gewurztraminer. It always comes at an inopportune time, usually when we are coping with a convoy of Cab or Merlot trucks. We pressed the first Gewurz on Wednesday and more came in yesterday and today.
About the only thing that helps is that the Gewurz is first in and last out. Because our growers up north in Mendocino like to pick the grape at night to preserve the freshness of the delicate grapes, we press the Gewurz very early in the morning or very late at night. Over the next few months, harvest will be a 24 hour a day undertaking.
So the heat wave continues. I keep hoping for a break so we can catch our breath, but so far no luck. Our vineyard manager Mark Houser has the picking crews working fast and furiously to get the grapes picked before the sugar levels get out of control. He's been starting the crews well before dawn and they usually quit around 10 a.m. Mark calls it a big chess game which is what it really feels like.
Yesterday, Mark and I checked the Primitivo, which the crews picked fairly quickly. It's only about an acre block, but the vineyard is on a steep hillside way above the winery and the vineyard has to be hand-picked. The fruit looked very good which means we are likely to handle it as a separate varietal, probably for one of the Alexander School Top of the Crop wines, as we did with the 2005 Primitivo.
Despite the warm weather, I'm still very encouraged that this is going to be a great vintage. This has really been a textbook growing season with temperatures pretty moderate all summer. We're getting this heat now, but we had such good flavor development in the fruit before so I'm not too concerned about what the weather is throwing at us.
If I had to sum up the 2007 vintage after the first week, here's how I'd characterize it: turbo-charged.
We've just about finished picking all the whites on our property, the Chardonnay and even the Viognier, which customarily wouldn't come in for a few more weeks. It's about what you'd expect given the weather this year. After a fairly moderate summer, temperatures have been pushing 100 the last few days and the dry conditions in the vineyards (we've only received about 65 percent of our normal rainfall this year) have really accelerated the harvest.
Meantime, the rosé we're making seems to be taking a cue from the vineyard. That rosé we thought would need 12 to 18 hours to pick up the colors and flavors we were seeking, finished off in about 5 hours. We drained off about a third of the juice and left the rest to keep soaking for a few more hours. We'll blend the components back together down the road to get the profile I'm looking for.
The fruit is ideal. I was looking for a brix (the measurement of the sugar levels in the grapes) of between 22 and 23 which is exactly what we measured when the grapes arrived this morning. That should yield a wine with high acidity, which is what we are seeking in a rosé as well as lower alcohol levels.
In total, we received about 58 tons today, Sangiovese, Chardonnay and Zinfandel. Less than half of what we'll see when things really get pumping. So far, the weather has been great, but we're all a bit wary of the heat that is supposed to spread through this week. There's a small window that could really cause problems. In truth, if it hits 100, as the reports are predicting, that wouldn't necessarily be so bad. The grapes go into a self-protection mode and shut down. But a couple of days in the 90s would take us in another direction, pumping up the sugar levels to beyond where we want them.
