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Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Monday, February 25, 2008
Challange Accepted, just little late
My old co-worker and friend Farley, who blogs at Behind the Vines and at Wine Outlook, offered up a challenge for me to tell a little bit more about myself, stuff most people probably wouldn't know. I think it's called a meme, or something (I have to admit I'm just getting hip to blog culture) so here goes.....
1.I was really involved in acting as a young child. I attended A Montessori Children's house in Lansing MI, in grades 1-3 we wrote and acted in Greek Myths. Grades 4-6 was Shakespeare. I played Petruchio in 6th grade, don't know how I memorized all those lines? I also did some community theater, including a role as Thor Waldgrave in Larry Shue's "The Nerd". And my crowning achievement: getting to meet former Wolverine and Buffalo Bill, John Kolesar (my idol at the time for his ravaging of OSU) in a local "America needs me Drug Free" commercial.
2. Every summer i spend at least a week in the back country of Kings Canyon National Park. It's the most wild, exciting and peaceful place I think I've ever been. It is therapy at it's best.
3. My favorite author right now is Michael Pollan. His works on the science and state of our food system (Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto) should be required reading for everyone who wants to eat, oh wait that means everyone.
4. One of my favorite things in the world is the Detroit Industry fresco cycle in Rivera Court, at the Detroit Institute of the Arts. Diego Rivera is one of the most fascinating and intriguing muralist ever.
5. ...boy this is getting more difficult... i became a member of my local NPR affiliate, KQED, for the first time this year. So necessary.
6. When my right knee isn't barking, I'm a pretty avid runner, especially the hills here in SF. When I lived in North Beach, I's run down the Embarcadero around the ballpark. When I lived in the Presidio, I'd run all over the numerous trails that criss-cross the park (it's a runners paradise). Living in Noe Valley is a little more challenging, I hate running around traffic, but I've found a good route for running to the top of Twin Peaks, awesome view and a great workout. Should really get me in shape for the back country this summer. I've been using the Nike+iPod accelerometer on my shoes. It's pretty cool to track your runs by speed, distance, etc..
7. Finally, I want to give a shot out to my favorite coffee shop in the city, they carry my favorite green tea, Sencha, just for me (they put my name on the bag!) It's Bernie's on 24th st and it rocks. I makes me nauseous watching people go into Starbuck's with this place basically across the street. Support your local coffee shop!
Well there it is..
1.I was really involved in acting as a young child. I attended A Montessori Children's house in Lansing MI, in grades 1-3 we wrote and acted in Greek Myths. Grades 4-6 was Shakespeare. I played Petruchio in 6th grade, don't know how I memorized all those lines? I also did some community theater, including a role as Thor Waldgrave in Larry Shue's "The Nerd". And my crowning achievement: getting to meet former Wolverine and Buffalo Bill, John Kolesar (my idol at the time for his ravaging of OSU) in a local "America needs me Drug Free" commercial.
2. Every summer i spend at least a week in the back country of Kings Canyon National Park. It's the most wild, exciting and peaceful place I think I've ever been. It is therapy at it's best.
3. My favorite author right now is Michael Pollan. His works on the science and state of our food system (Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto) should be required reading for everyone who wants to eat, oh wait that means everyone.
4. One of my favorite things in the world is the Detroit Industry fresco cycle in Rivera Court, at the Detroit Institute of the Arts. Diego Rivera is one of the most fascinating and intriguing muralist ever.
5. ...boy this is getting more difficult... i became a member of my local NPR affiliate, KQED, for the first time this year. So necessary.
6. When my right knee isn't barking, I'm a pretty avid runner, especially the hills here in SF. When I lived in North Beach, I's run down the Embarcadero around the ballpark. When I lived in the Presidio, I'd run all over the numerous trails that criss-cross the park (it's a runners paradise). Living in Noe Valley is a little more challenging, I hate running around traffic, but I've found a good route for running to the top of Twin Peaks, awesome view and a great workout. Should really get me in shape for the back country this summer. I've been using the Nike+iPod accelerometer on my shoes. It's pretty cool to track your runs by speed, distance, etc..
7. Finally, I want to give a shot out to my favorite coffee shop in the city, they carry my favorite green tea, Sencha, just for me (they put my name on the bag!) It's Bernie's on 24th st and it rocks. I makes me nauseous watching people go into Starbuck's with this place basically across the street. Support your local coffee shop!
Well there it is..
Disgorgement and Dosage
A week ago Friday Michael and I headed out to beautiful Santa Cruz to visit with Barry Jackson, who produces Equinox, one of the best sparkling wines made in California.
We are getting ready to disgorge our 1998 Blanc de Blanc SCM sparkling wine, and we are having Barry handle the logistics of the project (we don't own the equipment necessary to disgorge, dose and cork sparkling wine.
It was a fascinating process as Barry prepared a series of flight with various components in the dosage and at varying levels of sweetness.
Our 2000 Blanc de Blanc was bottled with no dose, so called brut natural, brut zero or ultra brut. We began our trials at that level but found that the complex yeast aromas of this late-disgorged bottling demanded a bit more. Following another series of samples we decided upon 5g/L, or .5%, still well under the maximum of 10g/L or 1% for 'brut' designation. This 'dry' style seems to better fit our taste for sparkling wine as the acidity is emphasized.
I think the extra time en tirage has really benefited the wine and I'm pretty excited about the result, some 10 years after vintage!
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Summer in February
After a much needed month of rain, we are in the midst of a serious couple of days of fantastic weather. IT has been in the high 60's/low 70's since Friday and I am loving it!
This past weekend in Anderson Valley was beautiful, and the event was a lot of fun and very well done, kudos to the Anderson Valley for organizing such a fantastic event.
I was solo for the weekend so was pretty busy and unable to taste a whole lot of wines. We had very good response to the 2 Gewürztraminers we were pouring.
Some favorite wines, other than ours of course (!)-
Riesling- Chateau Grand Traverse (From Old Mission Penninsula, MI) love their Whole Cluster Riesling (mark my words this region will be THE premier region for Riesling in the US in 10 years, better than anything from CA by far.
Chehalem Corral Creek Riesling is also the example of the Willamette style.
Gewurz- Navarro is always on eof my favorites along with Claiborne and Churchill and Londer.
Pinot Gris- Had a nice example from La Crema, using Carneros fruit.
Muscat- Again Navarro, their 2006 Dry Muscat is so unique and interesting.
The event seems to be growing every year, both in consumer and in wineries involved. There were wineries from Alsace, New Zealand, Michigan, Washington, Oregon and California represented. Riesling has been growing in popularity lately and this may have been reflected in the larger turnouts. Hopefully some of that will rub off on Gewürztraminer!
We were treated to great and traditional Alsatian cuisine all weekend: including loads of charcuterie and excellent flat-bread.
The real treat of my stay was my lodging, and i am hesitant to spread this around for fear of not being able to stay there myself! Mary Anne Wilcox runs Holly Hill Farm and her new Hillside Cottage, where i stayed, and her Guesthouse are both very well appointed and comfortable places to stay in an area where lodging is scarce. The cottage has excellent modern but comfortable decor and all the amenities one could want. I highly recommend a stay there if you happen to travel that way.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Off again
Things have been moving along rather briskly here for being the 'off' season!
We finished racking the last of our '06 BDX reds today, the 06 Cab Sauv Gist is back in barrel and looking great. Its a pretty suave wine for that vineyard, which usually produces ferociously tannic juice. One of the hallmarks of the '06 vintage is the seamless nature of the wines, they will drink awfully well in their youth.
I am off to a Biodynamic class at Joseph Phelps Vineyards tomorrow. Philippe Armenier and his wife are teaching it and it should be very interesting.
On Friday I am off to one of my favorite places in California, the Anderson Valley in northern Mendocino County. In my mental dictionary there is a large panoramic of the Anderson Valley under the word bucolic. The 3rd annual International Alsace Varietals Festival is being held on Saturday and we are there to pour our '06 Gewürztraminer and '03 Late Harvest Gewürztraminer. I attended last year and had a great time, there are a lot of interesting wines and the atmosphere is refreshingly laid back.
We are gearing up for a big month of bottling in March- 3 different runs no less! It should be pretty exciting as we bottle the first wines from '07 and our '06 Chardonnays. Bottling is always stressful, but once the wine is in bottle it is a large weight of my shoulder, no more SO2's, VA's, etc. All we have to do is sell it!
We finished racking the last of our '06 BDX reds today, the 06 Cab Sauv Gist is back in barrel and looking great. Its a pretty suave wine for that vineyard, which usually produces ferociously tannic juice. One of the hallmarks of the '06 vintage is the seamless nature of the wines, they will drink awfully well in their youth.
I am off to a Biodynamic class at Joseph Phelps Vineyards tomorrow. Philippe Armenier and his wife are teaching it and it should be very interesting.
On Friday I am off to one of my favorite places in California, the Anderson Valley in northern Mendocino County. In my mental dictionary there is a large panoramic of the Anderson Valley under the word bucolic. The 3rd annual International Alsace Varietals Festival is being held on Saturday and we are there to pour our '06 Gewürztraminer and '03 Late Harvest Gewürztraminer. I attended last year and had a great time, there are a lot of interesting wines and the atmosphere is refreshingly laid back.
We are gearing up for a big month of bottling in March- 3 different runs no less! It should be pretty exciting as we bottle the first wines from '07 and our '06 Chardonnays. Bottling is always stressful, but once the wine is in bottle it is a large weight of my shoulder, no more SO2's, VA's, etc. All we have to do is sell it!
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Trade Tasting and Unified Symposium
Finally back in the office after another week away.
Tuesday I helped Anne pour our wines at the Santa Cruz Mountains Trade Tasting at Farallon Restaurant in San Francisco. Farallon is an institution in SF and Peter Palmer,wine director at Farallon, is a true class act and one of the really good guys in the wine business. It was a nice event and a great way to get our wines in front of a number of wine buyers from restaurants and retail shops from all over the city. We poured our '06 Gewurztrmainer, '05 Chardonnay SCM, '06 Pinot Noir SCM, '04 Merlot SCM and the '03 Lexington Meritage. All were well received and someone even commented that this was the strongest lineup of Fogarty wines they had tasted in a while!
After the trade tasting it was up to Sacramento for the Unified Wine & Grape Symposium. This is the industries biggest trade show and also features a number of talks and presentations on all aspects of the wine biz. It also serves as a great chance to catch up with friends and old classmates.
The highlight of the show, outside of the numerous parties (the Scheid Vineyards after hours party is legendary), is the trade show. Vendors with products ranging from mechanical harvesters to corks all present displays showing off their wares. It is overwhelming at first as the Sacramento Convention Center is overflowing with booths, people and noise. Once the initial blast of stimulation wares off one can begin to attempt to get down to business.
I spent most of Wednesday and Thursday morning wandering the aisles, visiting suppliers i know and meeting with new ones. I quickly learned our barrel prices are going to go up, not only because we pay in Euros. The supply of top quality French Oak is limited and demand continues to grow. I was shopping for a new pump, a 2" Diaphragm or "bump pump". They are great for barrel work and an extra pump would come in handy during harvest.
Thursday at 2 Pm the rain began to fall in Sacramento pretty heavily, that was my cue to get on the road as I was meeting Michael and some fellow winemakers for a Friday on the slopes of Northstar, we were halfway to Tahoe after all. The drive was miserable, but Friday was an amazing day on the mountain!
Fogarty has been the subject of some great press lately. Laura Ness recently wrote a really nice article on Michael for Appellation America, check it out.
Wine and Spirits Mag also included Fogarty in their SCM Syrah article in the current issue, and while we only make 200-300 cases of Syrah a year it was great to be included.
Tuesday I helped Anne pour our wines at the Santa Cruz Mountains Trade Tasting at Farallon Restaurant in San Francisco. Farallon is an institution in SF and Peter Palmer,wine director at Farallon, is a true class act and one of the really good guys in the wine business. It was a nice event and a great way to get our wines in front of a number of wine buyers from restaurants and retail shops from all over the city. We poured our '06 Gewurztrmainer, '05 Chardonnay SCM, '06 Pinot Noir SCM, '04 Merlot SCM and the '03 Lexington Meritage. All were well received and someone even commented that this was the strongest lineup of Fogarty wines they had tasted in a while!
After the trade tasting it was up to Sacramento for the Unified Wine & Grape Symposium. This is the industries biggest trade show and also features a number of talks and presentations on all aspects of the wine biz. It also serves as a great chance to catch up with friends and old classmates.
The highlight of the show, outside of the numerous parties (the Scheid Vineyards after hours party is legendary), is the trade show. Vendors with products ranging from mechanical harvesters to corks all present displays showing off their wares. It is overwhelming at first as the Sacramento Convention Center is overflowing with booths, people and noise. Once the initial blast of stimulation wares off one can begin to attempt to get down to business.
I spent most of Wednesday and Thursday morning wandering the aisles, visiting suppliers i know and meeting with new ones. I quickly learned our barrel prices are going to go up, not only because we pay in Euros. The supply of top quality French Oak is limited and demand continues to grow. I was shopping for a new pump, a 2" Diaphragm or "bump pump". They are great for barrel work and an extra pump would come in handy during harvest.
Thursday at 2 Pm the rain began to fall in Sacramento pretty heavily, that was my cue to get on the road as I was meeting Michael and some fellow winemakers for a Friday on the slopes of Northstar, we were halfway to Tahoe after all. The drive was miserable, but Friday was an amazing day on the mountain!
Fogarty has been the subject of some great press lately. Laura Ness recently wrote a really nice article on Michael for Appellation America, check it out.
Wine and Spirits Mag also included Fogarty in their SCM Syrah article in the current issue, and while we only make 200-300 cases of Syrah a year it was great to be included.
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