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.

Welch's vs. Pato

All the reds so far (Zinfandel and Petite Syrah) have come in at a bit higher sugar level, or brix, than Tadeo would like. If the Brix is too high then you end up with a very alcoholic wine and it is questionable if the yeast will be able to ferment everything completely and in time. So to correct this we have drained a bit of juice from each. This will lower the total brix but increase the concentration of juice to skins so that no flavor or color is lost. We all talked about what do to with it, Roberto saying freeze it and make grape-pops and Bernardo saying mix it with tequila for a tasty beverage. In the end I kept a gallon of it in the fridge to drink, and damn is it better than Welch's grape juice. Rich, sweet, slightly creamy, and tart it is delicious. I also kept a 5 gallon batch to try my hand at rose!

So what about Rose? I had talked to Tadeo about my beer making ventures and he told me that I could use anything here to do with as I liked. He has tried to make Zinfandel rose but says that it just doesn't come out right, that the good stuff comes from Merlot and Grenache. So I passed on the Zin, but the Petite Syrah was tempting. I siphoned off 5 gallons and started my the Neyers-Underground 2008 Pato Ranch Petite Syrah Rose. Because the brix was high and Rose is supposed to be light and refreshing, I diluted the juice to about 25 brix from 26.8. In doing so, I also diluted the Ph. This is not desired, Rose being light and crisp needs a quite low Ph through fermentation and I had diluted it from 3.8 to 4.7. So I added tartaric acid in the order of 1g/litre to bring it back down to about 3.7. Ideally the Brix would be more like 23-24 and the Ph more like 3.3-3.4 but since I am only working with 4 gallons, it would be too much playing around to end up with a reasonable wine. We also have a bunch of barrel plugs that come in new barrels and are made from the same wood. I thought about tossing some of these in as 'chips' but decided against it. For this batch, ill just stick with it as is. There will be several to come as the Merlot, Cabernet, Syrah, and Grenache all come in. I plan on playing with each as a rose. Actually making the calls on this wine and doing the testing is already teaching me a ton about wine making.

On fermentation, Neyers allows all their wines to start ferment naturally with native yeast and then inoculate. This way allows the native yeast to get a foot hold and begin fermentation when the juice is ready and create the individual flavors that each yeast makes and then the ferment is finished by the cultured yeast which can handle the higher alcohol and finish in time for bottling.

Last weekend Marie and I went to Mendocino and toured around. Amazing little place but very small. Both the coast and Red Woods were breathtaking.

First Grapes

We got the first grapes of the year in today! 5 tons of Zinfandel. Marie, Roberto, and I started at 7 am this morning by preparing the sorting belt, destemmer, must pump (auger), hoses, and tank. Tadeo, Bernardo and his brother Sergio started at 4:30 am in the field to supervise the picking and then truck the grapes back to the winery. All Neyers grapes are sourced from vineyards in the area, so there are no actual vines on the Neyers Winery property-everything is trucked in. By picking early they are able to get the truck loaded and to the winery before it gets too hot in the day (as long as the vineyard is close enough). They are also able to preserve the natural acidity, which is highest during the cool hours of the night. When sorting we looked mainly for rot and there was very little of it. Rot is a problem with zinfandel grapes because the bunches are so tight, air cannot circulate and moisture encourages growth of nasty things. Cabernet Sauvignon, conversely, has a very loose bunch and so can tolerate much higher humidity and rain with out rotting. But luckily is has not rained for a bit, at least since I have gotten here and it has been quite hot, breaching 100 F during the day. So the grapes that came in were quite ripe and some of the bunches had completely rasinated. In tasting, they were delicious very sweet and chewy but the raisins are not so good for the wine. They can add intense flavor but can also unbalance a wine with too much sugar/ripeness.

So all that was Tuesday. Wednesday Marie and I did the early shift and followed Tadeo to the vineyard at 5 am. An early start, but nothing that doughnuts and coffee cant cure. We were harvesting mostly Zinfandel and a bit of Petite Syrah from the Pato vineyards way down in Oakley. Everything was harvested by Mexicans and then loaded into bins pulled behind the tractor. Marie and I would ride with the bins and do field sorting, pulling out leaves and rotten or other unacceptable bunches. The Zinfandel vines were amazing. They were all bush trained vines meaning they had been pruned to form a bush, no trellising, just big stumps with tendrils growing off the top. Many were over 100 years old, the average probably being around 60 years. All were also planed on their original root stock meaning that they could potentially be attacked by phylloxera (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phylloxera). These vines, though, grow in such sandy/loose soil that it is very difficult for the pest to live and so unlikely that these vineyards will have any trouble. The Zin that cam in was plagued by the odd patch of rot and quite uneven ripening. Some parts of the bunch would be plump and juicy while others were dry and raisiney. This is apparently the difficulty of growing zin, it is very a very ornery plant. This is also a symptom of growing old vines, you have mass variation in yield, health of the vines, and quality. The Petite Syrah on the other hand was fabulous. From much younger vines and trellised, the bunches were evenly ripe and had no signs of rot.

About the harvesters, I really felt for them. They were paid by the number of bins that they harvested so all were running and harvesting as fast as possible. It was incredibly backbreaking work done by the spectrum of young/old male/female workers. It was relatively cool in the morning but by the time the sun came up, it was scorching hot and dusty dry. Very brutal work. People bitch about food prices now, imagine if we actually paid these people a wage relative to the work they do. It struck me as out-sourced slavery.