Wine and Rock and Roll Music... Great Idea!

We just got back from Las Vegas where we were fortunate enough to participate in the 3rd Annual Wine Amplified festival at Mandalay Bay. Picture this for an evening out:

• 30 wineries pouring
  
• 2,000 people partying
• 2 great bands (Gin Blossoms and Sherwood) rockin
• All outside at night at the beach
• In Vegas!

It does not get a lot better than that if you love music and also happen to enjoy great wine along with your music.  This was the view from our pouring table in the Lexus VIP lounge.

Chris Hammond and his partner Sonny Barton of Rock'n Roll Wine put on this event and they really did a great job.  These guys have been putting on wine and music events for several years and they attract huge crowds, great wineries and the best bands.  The Gin Blossoms were fantastic.  They played all the big hits and some really nice new songs.  We were lucky enough to hang out with a few of the guys after the show and they were very cool.  The guitar player Scotty Johnson is a big wine fan as well so be sure to check out their new CD.

We are already looking forward to next year.

GRC

2008 Pinot Noir Harvest

On Saturday September 20th we harvested our Santa Lucia Highlands Pinot Noir. One down two to go!!

Friday night we got together in Hollister to load our bins on our rental truck in preparation for the morning harvest which started at 6AM. Gary met the crew at Olsen ranch first thing in the

morning and by 6:30am the bins, crews and tractors were in the vineyard and busy harvesting. The weather cooled off this week and the morning of the 20th was cool but not cold while we plucked the fruit from the vines. Vineyard samples of the fruit showed 24 brix the day prior to harvest and the morning of the pick I was getting between 24 and 25 depending on which bunch I sampled. The berries this year were exceptionally small which offers the promise of concentrated flavors in the wine. The rows in block 13 of Olsen where we source our Pinot Noir run roughly east/west and the south facing fruit zone was just beginning to show signs of stress and some dimples when we picked. We picked up notes of coffee and chocolate in the dimpled berries while the more north facing bunches showed more plump fruity ripeness.

Our vineyard manager Bryan pulled together a crew of 10+ which made the work go swiftly and we were finished by 8:30am. After weigh in we dropped off the fruit to begin its cold soak as we typically do to extract maximum flavors and tannins. The must is still soaking now in its three separate lots and we'll pitch our yeast selections tomorrow to begin fermentation. There is still lots to do but there is always some feeling of relief to bring the grapes in. Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon still have some ripening to do and we expect to harvest them in about another week. The warm weather up in Dry Creek Valley means that we're going to bring in the Cab nearly two weeks earlier than last year.

IDC

Remembering 9/11 and Cuatro (It's a Port)

So I'm sitting here thinking about what life was like 7 years ago and what I was doing. As we all know the country changed pretty dramatically on this day in 2001. At this time 9pm I was glued to the tv like everyone else in the country pretty stunned at what had happened. But, This site is really about wine so I'm not going to write much about 9/11 except to say that two days ago I witnessed my father take the oath of citizenship to this country and I'm proud to be American and call this place my home. It's a great country to live in and not a bad place to make wine either.

Now about wine. Gary and I poured our wines at a charity event for the Kinship center last weekend which was a lot of fun. It was attended by about 1,000 people and lots of them visited our booth and tasted our wines. As is typical with tasting events we get a lot of questions like "I've never heard of you, how long have you been around?" and "Are you new?"

So here's a piece of the story as it ties in to this day 7 years ago. I think Gary and I started on the paths that would lead us to this endeavor at about the same time. We just hadn't put the two together yet. In 1999 I reconnected with an old friend who had just finished the viticulture program at CalPoly. It must have been post-harvest because I don't think we made wine that year. Or if we did I've drank it all by now because I don't have any left. For a few years after that these friends (Randy, Joffre and Justin) and I played around with making wine. Two of them worked together for a large Monterey county grape grower and we had our pick of fruit. Varietals, vineyards, it was all there and since we were able to pick pretty much whatever we wanted to play around. I will have to get Gary to tell about his first Pinot planting in a separate posting. I'm sure he was doing it around the same time though. We made the first Six Strings Pinot Noir in 2003 from Gary's vineyard at his home in San Benito County.

For the 2001 vintage (which was being picked while the world was in complete turmoil), we picked lots of varietals. Zinfandel, Syrah, Petit Verdot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinot Noir. One of the last was Souzao for making Port http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Souzao Souzao is a common grape in the production of port in Portugal known for its deep inky color. As you may know port is made sweet by stopping the fermentation process before it has completly consumed all of the sugars. This is achieved by spiking it with brandy whilst there is still sugar in the must. In our case we used brandy and a bit of rum from the local grocery store. The result...59 gallons of deliciousness. We called the wine 'Cuatro' for the 4 guys who made it and commemorated 9/11 by putting an image of the American flag on the label. Justin is now the maker of some great Tempranillo and Sauvignon Blanc http://www.nadawines.com/ and Randy grows some of the top Pinot Noir producers in the country as their viticulture director http://www.saintsbury.com/

IDC

Harvest...right around the corner

It's now Sept 5th and its looking like harvest is only a few weeks away for all our vineyards. We've been getting frequent updates from Puma Springs Vineyards who grows our Cabernet Sauvignon and harvest is definately coming earlier than last year. They harvested Merlot on Wednesday. It's not uncommon for the Cabernet to come in mid to late October but this year will likely be before the end of September and the weather in Dry Creek Valley is warm right now. Brix is approaching 22.

Everything else is lining up great.

Our 2006 Cabernet is in the bottle waiting for its big debut around Nov/Dec. Since we only produced 59 cases this wine is going to go fast and Gary and I are still figuring out our channel strategy for such a limited production. For lots of reasons we're going to make a little more Cab this year than we did in 2006 & 2007. It is a lot of effort for just 59 cases so this year we plan to pick two tons, or about 120 cases. This still means there won't be more of our Cab until fall 2010, wow!! Wine takes a lot of patience.

Our new french oak barrels for this years harvest are waiting for us up in the warehouse in Napa. We've got enough to get that 25-30% blend we generally like for all our wines.

We'll bottle our 2007 Chardonnay next week and plan to release it early 2009. Another great vintage for Chardonany!

IDC

Just A Little More Time... 2006 Reds Are Big and Bold!

Iain and I wrapped up a marathon tasting session at the winery yesterday and we came to conclusion that our 2006 red wines are just about ready to go. The 2006 Santa Lucia Highlands Pinot Noir is already in the bottle and should be ready for an October or November release. The 2006 Dry Creek Valley Cabernet Sauvignon will be bottled this month and should also be ready for a December release. Unlike the 05' wines which did not need a lot of time to hit their stride, the 06' wines are big and bold with a firm tannin structure that you will surely notice. Be patient with these wines as it will be worth the wait.