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!

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!