March: bring on the bottling season

Lots been happening around here lately, I'll try to summarize all of the myriad activities going on at Fogarty.

Vineyards: I helped Julio prune our small block of Nebbiolo last week. Our pruning is almost entirely finished, just a small block of Merlot at Gist to finish. The buds are juts beginning to swell. It looks like this year will be a normal to late bud-break, which is good for us, early bud-break usually puts us at more risk of shatter (bad weather during bloom which really limits our crop).

We have decided to prune our canes (we are 100% cane pruned) a little shorter this year, this should limit our crops a little more and minimize some bunching of cluster and shoots. A more "open" canopy is less of a haven for fungus and allows our sprays to be more effective.

Winery: We are bottling our 2007 aromatic whites this week (Gewürztraminer, Riesling and Pinot Gris) as well as our Skyline Chardonnay (100% stainless steel) and a Barbera Rose.

Bottling is always a stressful time, there is a lot going on and getting the wine into the bottle soundly is your last chance make and final changes. Luckily all the wines are looking great and things have been running smoothly (knock on wood)

World of Pinot Noir: This weekend we are participating in the world of Pinot Noir celebration in Shell Beach, CA. I am a panel member at a Seminar on Old Vines/Old Clones vs. New Vines/New Clones on Friday morning and we are pouring at the Saturday Tasting. If you are into Pinot Noir, especially from the Central Coast, this is a must; one of California's great wine events.

We also are thinking ahead to the end of the month when we will bottle our 2006 Chardonnays!

New Year, new tasks

Ryan Teeter, Cellar Master, finishes topping our 2007 reds

Back from a long (and hopefully much-deserved) break and we are back into it up here on the mountain. The cellar crew finished barreling down and topping right before the holidays, this ensured everyone was able to get away for a spell.

The New Year brings new tasks and a definite switch in mind-set. No longer are we in “post-harvest” mode; the next range of tasks involve lots of racking and getting ready for our bottling in February. We had originally planned to bottle in the beginning of the month, but we were unable to secure our Stelvin “screw-caps” for our aromatic white wines (Gewurz, Pinot Gris and Riesling). Kind of a bummer, but these things happen. We re-scheduled for later in the month. We are using Bay Area Bottling for the first time. Our friends at Clos La Chance in San Martin recently purchased the line and we are excited to have a local mobile bottling option.

My last post was right before our ‘assessment’ of the ’07 vintage, I was unable to get my thoughts down before my vacation but definitely want to get them down at this time.

Without a doubt, 2007 has the potential to be the finest vintage yet, across the board, in my four harvests here.

Our first flight consisted of three wines: 2007 Monterey Gewurztraminer and Riesling, and our Estate Pinot Gris from Gist Ranch. The wines were already aromatic and showing great definition. The Gewurz has great balance and texture and should prove to be a worthy successor to the fabulous 2006 that is in the marketplace now.

The second flight featured four different lots of Pinot Noir (We skipped tasting the Chardonnays as they are in the throes of Malolactic Fermentation and are difficult to asses at this time). We upped the percentage of whole-clusters we used in our fermentations to about %25 this year and this, combined with great fruit has yielded some pretty awesome Pinot. They have great structure and texture, yet they are not heavy or cloying. I am super-stoked on the Pinots this year and can’t wait to see what they are like in bottle a year from now!

Our third flight was a combination of Merlot and Cab Franc, our ‘Right Bank’ flight if you will. The Cab Francs were very aromatic and pure, particularly the Gist Ranch. However, unquestionably the showstopper of the tasting was the Merlot samples. Huge tannins, dense fruit, but definitely not over the top. These are classic mountain wines that should prove to be long lived. It is gong to be very interesting to see the Camel Hill and Gist Ranch lots progress over time.

The fourth flight was a horizontal of Cabernet Sauvignon. Cab is notoriously tough to taste when so young but all the wines showed great character- dark fruits mixed with spice and mouth-coating tannins. The Gist Ranch and Raines Cabs seemed to be the strongest lots.

The final flight included two lots of Fat Buck Ridge Syrah (one 50% whole cluster with 30+ days of skin contact, the other %50 whole cluster with about three weeks of skin time) and our 2.5 barrel lot of Malbec. All three were impenetrably dark with complete saturation of color. The Syrah lots were quite different, the longer skin time lot (Lot #1) was much spicier and austere, while the shorter maceration lot (#2) was fruitier and lusher. The blend should prove interesting, and may make our best Fat Buck Ridge yet.

Malbec is a grape we have struggled with in the past. We decided to let the crop hang this year and the resulting hang time seems to have worked in our favor. This is certainly one of our more exotic lots, it is brimming with black fruit and wild exotic flavors. Too bad we only have 150 gallons!

As you may have guessed we are quite pleased with the vintage. Certainly feels good to justify all the hard work!