More wines and an oyster adventure

Today we harvested the Thieriot vineyard for their chardonnay. This is the one chard that Neyers does with skin contact and almost without exposure to oxygen. We iced everything (Dry ice/co2): the bins, the juice tray, the tank, the barrels, even gassed the line. And we did skin contact for about 2 hours. Tadeo had told me earlier in the day about the first time that he tried skin contact with the chard, back in '06. In that year, there was a bit of Botrytis in the vineyard but he went ahead and let 'em soak for a bit. He only did 1/3 with skin, the rest were normal-strait to the press. At bottling, all were blended except for a bit of the skin contact that he kept for himself...and it turned out fantastic. The skins give off a bit of tannin and that year there was also a bit of Bot that gave off a bit of a honey, candy smell that you wouldn't know was Bot if you weren't looking for it. Any way, after de-stemming the '08 Thieriot, I gathered up all the discarded grapes and the run off juice from the sorting table/de-stemmer in to a bucket. The grapes consisted of bunches of beautiful/healthy grapes with splotches of raisins, some Bot, some sunburning. All in all, about 2 gallons worth. I then topped it up to 4.5 gallons with the last bit of juice from the press. Ill fermnet all this ON THE SKINS. Something very unusual and different, just to see how itll turn out. I have also been collecting the wooden bungs (stoppers) from the new barrels which are made of the same oak the barrels are, just not toasted. I chipped them up so that they would fit into a carboy and tossed them into the toasted. No, not some fancy gizmo we have at the winery, a regular bread toaster. 5 in all, about 5.44 ounces of oak-toss them all into the carboy so the wine will ferment on them. I also gathered up 5 more gallons of just the strait juice from the end of the press. Sure it is the hard press stuff that looks kinda like apple juice but it is from a fantastic vineyard and I want to see what it tastes like next to the stuff fermented on skin. This juice did get the 2hr skin contact though. Also the press only got up to 1.7 bar so not really all that hard anyway. I also tossed in the same amount of oak bungs, medium+ toast. All were inoculated immediately, no natural ferment for me, I need these babies to be dry in time to bottle and taste before I head out of here. So now I have the Neyers Underground 2008 Thieriot Chardonnay Skin and Sans-Skin batches bubbling away. We should get the lab report tomorrow so ill know if any adjusting needs to happen with the sugars/acids or if the yeast will need any food.

Last weekend Marie, her roommate Elizabeth, and I all headed to the Hog Island Oyster Company in Marshall, CA. The drive was amazing along 1 and the country side also. This place was a oyster farm that had a picnic area out back where everything was BYO (except the oysters, you bought them there). When we called they had said that they were booked through November! So we planned on just buying some oysters and headed to another beach/park area to eat them. Luckily when we got there they said that since there were only 3 of us, just grab a table and if someone who reserved one shows up then we'll have to leave. We had only brought some wine, lemons, and crackers. Oh-how could have done it up. The groups around us brought cases of beer, bottles of wine, cheese platters, charcoal for the oysters, steaks, sausages, etc. And the scenery was beautiful across the bay. With our simple fare we had a blast and stayed for 2 hours. Next time we'll gather a whole group and really do it right. It was the first time I had had raw oysters (or even oysters period). They were OK, kinda salty and the texture was a bit like snot, but it was still fun all the same and I would really like to try them grilled....mmmmm. After 'lunch' we continued south and stopped by a park and who pulls up next to us, but Amigo Bob. I had never met Amigo before but Marie had. He is the organic farming consultant for the Neyers ranch and also advises a bunch of other vineyards. Interesting guy and a bit of a juxtaposition. He looks like a complete hippy flake now ranting about organics but in reality he was very down to earth and was a wealth of knowledge about agriculture and such. We had the blessing to see him again, this time at the Neyers Ranch. They had called him in to check out some vines that weren't doing that well so Marie and I tagged along. The main problem with farming here is water, there just isn't enough of it at the right times. We talked a lot about cover crops, mulching, every-other-row tilling. Also, apparently you can use whey as a fungicide, who knew? They are also having a turkey problem on the Ranch-they are eating the fruit. And the organic solution? Shoot them, they're are a pest in the area anyway. I offered my services to Barbara Neyers. Maybe we can have turkey for lunch one day, or even save some for Thxgiving.