So, it’s slow today. Finally. Nothing but punch-downs.

My expected barrel shipment didn’t make it yesterday. The intent was to put together a consolidated load of barrels for several wineries, but one of the cooperages hadn’t delivered their barrels to the loading point by 6 a.m., and I’m told the driver guy got mad and left. We’re trying again for Monday.

Our Soucie Zin is fermenting nicely, as is the Pratt Cab. We’ll be pressing the Syrah tomorrow and the winery is semi-organized again.

I’m off to Lowe’s to look for some mounting brackets to hang stuff on the walls.

I’ve not kept up on the daily postings as I intended… Just not enough hours in the day it seems.

To recap Crush 2007 to date -

Two tons of Viognier fermented in barrel are near completion. I’ll be adding Lysozyme to prevent malolactic fermentation. The almost finished wine is pretty tasty right now.

We crushed 5.38 tons of Syrah from Lani’s Vineyard on 9/5/07 - nine bins total of must. Starting Brix was 27.5, currently it’s at 13.5. pH was 3.75, TA was .405. I added some tartaric acid, our usual dose of nutrients and the special m2 blend of different yeasties. I know for sure that YAN, or yeast-assimible nitrogen, is low in these grapes. I haven’t had YAN measured but still have a small sample in the fridge to take to the lab. Since it’s low, I’m taking great care to monitor fermentation speed, temperature, etc. The must got a pretty good whomp of nutrients, but still, stuck fermentation is a bad thing. If all goes well, as expected, we’ll most likely press next Saturday.

Three tons of Zinfandel and three tons of Cabernet are coming tomorrow. We’ll crush tomorrow afternoon and kick off fermentation on Wednesday.

I’ve been racking some of the ‘06 wines - so far six barrels of Zinfandel, four of Syrah, five of Cabernet. All tasting great. I’m REALLY looking forward to getting the ’06’s in the bottle next March.

38 new barrels to be delivered Thursday.

The biggest challenge so far this year is keeping the winery organized. Our small space (1800 sq. ft.) makes for continual moving in and out of barrels, bins, crusher, press, etc.

More later… lots of pictures to edit and post.

Five point five tons of Syrah from Lani’s Vineyard in Shenandoah Valley, Amador County, to be picked tomorrow morning - two day laborers are hired to help me get it crushed tomorrow afternoon at m2 winery in Lodi. Chris is working his day job, unable to get time off during the work week during harvest this year due to extenuating circumstances - diabetes and dying relatives among them. Not him with the D&D, but people with whom he’s associated, causing me untoward difficulties, selfish bastard that I am. Ted, one of our new partners, will be by around 2 p.m., hopefully bringing beer and water.

Dave Dart, of d’Art Vineyard and Winery, also in Lodi, is coming by for moral support. He’s picking 10 tons of Cabernet Sauvignon from his home vineyard Saturday. I’ll help out as best I can with his big harvest day by taunting his friends providing free labor as well as measuring sugars, pH, TA, weighing out SO2, tartaric, etc., as needed.

We’re also probably going to do 3.5 tons of Zinfandel from Kevin’s 1916 field on Saturday as well. Today I measured 27.8 Brix, 3.65 pH and .615 TA. Fantastic numbers from this old block of vines. Higher Brix than what Kevin reported from his tests on Sunday, but that’s the way it goes.

From what I’ve seen 2007 grapes are holding higher acids than whatever “normal” is. Berries are smaller than I’ve seen in a long time. Flavors are ok, but I like l o o o onnng g hang time and superior physiological maturity. Harvest is generally early this year, at least for our usual vineyard sources.

Overall it looks like 2007 will be one of the best, most - interesting - difficult - unusual - great - ordinary - insert_your_word_of_choice_here - vintages that California has EVER seen. Shortly you can expect to see famous, nationally know wine publications quoting famous, nationally know winemakers who will say “2007 is the best year since (insert great vintage year here.) It reminds me of the great harvest of (insert great vintage year here.) And of course, you’ll see strong recommendations to buy up all the 2007 wines NOW!!! Don’t wait!!! It’s the BEST EVER SINCE (INSERT GREAT VINTAGE YEAR HERE.)!!!!! Jeez. I hate wine cliches.

I’ve had a long day - taking picking bins up to Lani’s Vineyard, answering more than 30 phone calls, I kid you not, delivering a couple of cases of wine to customers, as well as trying to finish a presentation folder design job for Ann P., which is way overdue - the design work being my feeble attempt to make a little cash in lieu of a real job.

Enough of my bitching…. off to bed with me.

So my viognier barrel fermentation is proceeding quickly. The two barrels with the D254 yeast are nearly finished; -1 Brix today. The R4600 is moving slower and is at 3 Brix. Both are fermenting quicker than I would have liked. Ambient temperature in the winery is 63 F, but that’s really not cold enough to really have much effect on the temperature of the fermentation. The 3 stainless steel kegs are in the cooler at 50 F and still at 15 Brix.

A big shout-out at this time to Mark from Pixar Studios - I met him a few weeks ago and he came back in the winery today. I thought the guy looked familiar but faces and names are one of my worst things. Nice to see you again!

Re: grapes - 5 tons of Syrah from Lani’s Vineyard in Shenandoah Valley is coming on Wednesday. This is a great vineyard and 2007 marks the fourth year we’ve sourced our Syrah from here.

Our Soucie Zin, still on the vine, is around 24 Brix, according to Kevin, and he says about seven days to two weeks from harvest. We’re doing our usual two-pass harvest method with this block of fruit. We’ll also be letting a section of grapes hang for a considerable length of time this year. We’ve made a sweet Zinfandel before - our Zinlady - from Kevin’s fruit, but this year we’re doing it in true late harvest fashion - we’re shooting for 30-34 Brix.

Our two tons of Viognier pressed out to about 275 gallons of juice. I kicked off fermentation on Wednesday - two barrels got D352, two barrels and three 15.5 SS kegs got R4600. I’m fermenting the three SS kegs in a chest freezer re-fitted with a thermostat to keep the temp at 50 or so.

Numbers after pressing were 25.5 Brix, pH of 3.65 and TA of .705, or 7.05% depending on where you like your decimal place. Very very pretty taste to the juice. I’m looking forward to how this comes out.

Next week we’re expecting Lani’s Vineyard Syrah - not sure what day yet. Brix was 25 yesterday, I’m looking for 27 or so.

Two tons of Viognier arrived at the winery courtesy of Bill Bertram at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday. Vineyard source is Perry Creek Estate in Fair Play, El Dorado County.

Beautiful stuff, clean fruit, very little MOG but more dead leaf than I would have liked. As discussed earlier I did whole-cluster pressing which yielded about 150 gallons per ton of dee-li-shush juice. The Bucher Xpro 8 worked beautifully, the only downside is that we were able to press only 1000 lbs at a time. I expected it to hold at least 1500 lbs. I think that if we had destemmed the fruit it would have held that much.

Anyway, the press cycle for unstemmed, whole clusters takes two hours. Max pressure was 1.6 bar, pretty gentle. We were only able to do half the fruit Saturday and finished up pressing on Sunday. I did a light fining with Bentonite at .75 grams to the gallon and sulfited to 50 ppm. The juice will sit and settle until Wednesday; I’ll rack the clean juice into the barrels and innoculate for fermentation then.

I had talked with one of the local labor contractors and hired two guys to work on Saturday but they didn’t show up. On Sunday Nick, a guy who works for the landscape company next door to the winery came and worked with me all day, loading grapes, unloading pressed grapes and helping clean. I’ve got to watch out for my back. I have a minor herniated disc and if I over-do the physical labor I can really get into trouble. It’s way too early in the season to go down for a week with sciatica trouble.

Pictures coming soon. I left the camera somewhere …

Yowza, I realized it’s been July since I’ve written anything new here…

Grapes coming tomorrow, our first for 2007 - two tons of Viognier from the Fair Play AVA in El Dorado county. I’m going to do a barrel-fermentation and if all goes as planned we’ll have a great white wine for release in May of 2008.

 If you read this between now and Saturday afternoon, come on out to m2 and see what’s happening. We’ll be doing a whole-cluster press to get the juice off the skins as fast as possible, then a light bentonite fining. After settling I’ll rack clean juice into four neutral oak barrels and the balance into stainless steel kegs. The kegs will be cold fermented and the barrels will ferment at ambient temp in the winery, about 63 degrees. I’ll add dry ice pellets daily to keep the temp in the proper range if needed. We’ve never done a barrel-fermented white; we’ve done several small lots of whites in our past pre-bonded winery days - Sauv Blanc, Gewurztraminer, Riesling, so this is new.

Lots of other things have happened in the past month - Chris and I met some great folks at the Family Winemakers of California event in San Francisco August 19 & 20 - we’re exploring options on distributing m2 in Texas and Jamaica! Hey Mon! A big shout-out to Jamaica Paul and Texas Kasey, glad you enjoyed the wines and we look forward to future possibilities.

Also, Diana and Chris have done a kick-ass job at sales lately. You can now get m2 wines at Capitol Cellars in Roseville, CA. Marcus Graziano, the proprietor, loves our ’05s and carries our Petite Sirah, Trio, and Duality. He also has some of the very last bottles of the 2004 Dos Arkies in stock. You need to go check out the shop, it’s one of the best in California.

The 2005 Old Vine Zinfandel is essentially sold out. We’re holding back some cases for future library wine, but there’s no more for sale. We are offering futures on the ‘06 vintage, come taste it at the winery.

On the winemaking front, we retired a significant number of older barrels in July. I don’t like to use stuff more than six years old, so several 2000 and 2001 era barrels are now moving on to their next life as planters or decorations.

Our crush plans are now at 32 to 34 tons of fruit, scaled back from our original plans due to space constraints and budget issues. 30 or so new barrels are set for delivery in mid-September - Francois Feree, Demptos, Nadalie, Canton and Seguin-Moreau. Some of the 2006 wines will go into some of this new oak; we were a little short on new barrels last year and some of the ‘06 stuff could use a higher percentage of new oak in the mix, the ‘06 Zin especially and the Petite Sirah, both need more sweet oak notes. I bought 30 used 2005 barrels to use for our 2007 stuff from a top-notch, world-famouse Napa winery too.

Now for something completely different…. Check this out -

If you can’t read the sign on the passenger door it says ‘Allied Driving School’. I can imagine that phone call . . . “Mom! I failed driving school again. Oh, and the instructor is dead.”

I saw this car being towed to a repair shop, or junkyard, the other day driving home from the winery. It made my day.

Later doods!

The fabulous life of owning your own winery allows for many hours of free time, unlike those of you with “real” jobs. Ha! Just a damn joke, ok? I’ve got free time, but no money to spend … So, I was watching TV Land this morning and ‘I Love Lucy’ comes on and it’s that damnable episode where she stomps grapes with her feet. I have no idea why, I can’t stand the episode, so I’ve no idea what the plot is.

I hate this episode, it is just so trite and awful. Yeah, yeah, it’s supposed to be funny. Well, bite me. Because of that one episode, the one and only thing that most people know about winemaking is that you have to stomp the grapes with your feet. NO YOU DON’T! There are no feet involved at any time in making wine in a commercial winery in these supposedly modern times, unless you’re some sort of dingbat winemaker. Or are doing it as a marketing stunt, aka Rick Hutchinson at Amphora in Dry Creek, or Dave Dart of d’Art Wines in Lodi. Ok, both of those guys could fall into either category.

The next person that asks me “Do you stomp on ‘em with your feet? hahahaha” is gonna get smacked.

Thanyouverymush.

 Next time on I Hate Wine Cliches … “Rich man buys land, builds winery …”

So, for some reason we’re planning on crushing 40 tons of grapes this fall. See the June 14 entry for how much must, wine, and finished cases that 40 tons will create.

After lots of back and forth we’ve decided on 38 new barrels from Francois Ferre, Canton Cooperage, Seguin Moreau, Demptos and Nadalie.

We’re figuring on ending up with around 100 barrels of new wine, with 38% of those barrels new it seems like almost too much new oak, but we’ll not be using it equally across all varietals. The Clone Six Cab will get almost 100% new Francois Ferre, Lani’s Vineyard Syrah and Pratt Cabernet will get about 25% new Demptos 50/50 hybrid barrels (50% French, 50% American). Different lots of Soucie Old Vine Zin and Maley Zin will get a highly secret combination of Canton, Demtptos and Seguin Moreau American oak. The Petite Sirah will see about 35% of new oak from Seguin Moreau and Canton. I will say that we like what Seguin Moreau U-Stave barrels do with the Petite Sirah.

Why this combo? As John Belushi said in ‘Animal House’, “Why not?”

Actually there’s a method to the madness and a strategy that picks up from previous vintages and carries us into future ones. It’s not just random whimsy as to what barrels we use for which wine.

Orders have been placed and delivery is set for mid-September for most of this stuff. I’m feeling pretty good about being ready for crush this year. We don’t have the stress of last year - we were pushing hard this time last year to get the new winery ready in time. I was dreading crush last year, this year I’m rarin’ to go!

Overall so far in 2007 the growing season has been near perfect, except for the lack of normal spring rainfall. Temperatures have been spot on with ‘normal’ - only three days or so above 100 in Lodi, and only a few days in the high 90s in Napa. If the temperatures stay like this I’m expecting 2007 to be a very good year for wine grapes. 

We’re adding another top Lodi Zin vineyard to our fruit sources for 2007 - Maley Vineyards, located at Woodbridge and Ray Road. Todd Maley is another 3rd generation Lodi grower and has some tragically good Zinfandel. I was out looking at our Zin today - talking to Kevin Soucie and Todd Maley about the grapes.

Kevin’s vines are 91 years old this year; the block we’re using from Maley Vineyards are about 40 years old. Kevin irrigated to make up for the lack of spring rains and has good fruit set and normal sized clusters. The Zin from Todd has quite a bit of “shot” berry and very small berries. Todd didn’t irrigate, which can account for the smaller berry size.

The shot berry is another thing; Maybe something to do with the age of the vines can account for the shot berry?? I’ve heard that a lot of Lodi vineyards, regardless of the variety, have it. (Shot berry is when the clusters don’t set fruit properly. The berries are the size of buckshot and fail to develop.) Kevin doesn’t have a lot of it, Todd does.

Veraision (when the grapes turn from green to purple) is about a week behind normal, indicating a harvest that’s right on schedule to a week or two late.

Overall 2007 so far in Lodi is looking great. I’ll be talking to our other growers next week and will report on what’s up with those vineyards soon.