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.

I spent a couple hours Thursday and Friday topping barrels. As wine ages in the barrels it slowly evaporates through the staves and heads of the barrel. This is part of the normal aging process and is what makes new wine evolve from brash fruit and fresh alcohol into a ‘finished’ wine.

I had quite a bit more loss than expected this month - I can only assume that it’s because the outside temperature has reached the high 90s and low 100s and the air conditioner is running 12 hours or more a day. It’s not a detriment to the wine at all, as long as I keep up with our topping regime. We know from errors made by others that not topping religiously can ruin great wine very fast.

We’ve got a great racking system now. We store our topping wine in stainless steel kegs and have a elaborate piece of stainless stell tubing and check valves to pull wine from the keg. An inert gas (argon in our case) is hooked up to the gas inlet valve, a hose with a pistol grip valve is hooked to the wine outlet. Argon goes in, wine comes out. The keg can be left with a pressuried argon atmosphere for weeks without harming the wine in the partially full container. Very easy to top barrels.

To cut down on topping losses we would ideally refrigerate the winery rather than use air conditioning, but we can’t afford refrigeration! Refrigeration would have cost us about $40K for our space vs. the $10K the AC cost to install. AC dries the air, and increases the evaporation rate of the wine in the barrels. Life is full of little trade-offs.

I went to the ASEV convention in Reno last Wednesday, not for any of the seminars but for the trade show. I was on a barrel quest - looking for oak for the 2007 harvest - several of the cooperages had reps there with info on their barrels and some had wines that had been aged in specific barrels to taste and compare.

I’m thinking of acquiring a lot of Canton barrels - 36 month air-dried staves, Pennsylvania oak, medium plus toast. The differences between cooperages and the flavors their barrels impart to the wine is remarkable. This particular Canton barrel lengthens the finish on the wine and adds a spicy note, something I’m looking for to enhance our Zinfandel.

I also talked to Lallemand and Lalvin reps regarding yeasts and fermentation supplements - nutrients, enzymes, etc. There are some new hybrid yeasts on the market now, Lallemand BM 4×4 is one of these; a hybrid of BM45 and another ‘unnamed’ yeast. I’m going to try some of this yeast on our Zin as BM45 has always been a favorite of ours.

Lallemand says “BM 4×4 is a combination of yeast strains that have been specially seleetec for the positive synergies to optimize the sensory profile of wine and reliably regulate fermentation with a timeframe.” Huh? Sounds like marketing BS to me but the upshot of this is that the yeast purports to increase color stability, lowers astringency, decrease VA and enhance MLF.

These yeasts are not genetically engineered, they are naturally-occuring yeast crosses and/or lab-created yeast crosses. Again - NOT genetically engineered, they’re just messing with the sex life of yeast. I don’t know how the lab geeks help the yeaties get their freak on, but the tests and analysis show that the hybrids do work as advertised.

There’s also a new yeast from Anchor that’s rep’d by Scott Laboratories, another hybrid. Because we ferment in small lots we can keep different yeasts separate through the fermentation and aging process and my contacts at Scott are interested in seeing the results of our use of these yeasts.

More on this as the year progresses…….

It’s June 14 today … in three short months we’ll most likely be days, or hours, away from our first harvest and crush for the year.

So, I’m trying to get ahead of the game. The plan for ‘07 is 40 tons, plus or minus. That equates to about 90 barrels, 6700 gallons of must, 6000 gallons of wine at press time, and something around 2000-2200 cases of finished wine.

We are getting rid of a LOT of barrels this year. A barrel is, theoretically, good indefinitely as a storage container but contributes oak flavors to wine for only three years or so. Our oldest barrels date to 2000 and are completely ‘neutral’ in terms of impacting the flavors of the wine. Neutral barrels still contribute to the voodoo that is the complex interaction of wine and the outside atmosphere that happens during barrel aging however.

As I said, properly maintained, a barrel will theoretically last forever, but because certain bacteria love wine, even the best maintained barrels eventually build up a bacterial ‘load’ that you can’t effectively get rid of. So, our oldest barrels are going to Terry at Fair Oaks Nursery in Sacramento for planters. And I’m figuring out how many new barrels we want, and from which cooperage to acquire them.

I’m also making decisions on yeasts, nutrients, cellar chemicals, and other crush supplies that need to be ordered for fall. All in all, a lot of decisions. And decisions aren’t always my quickest thing to make happen.

(posted by Chris) i had a very unique experience at the winery on saturday…

We bottled two barrels of Cabernet Saturday that we put together for a group of friends, sort of a very small lot custom-crush deal, and at the tail end of bottling the cabernet, a group of 4 walked into the winery, seemingly to do some wine tasting. they were of asian descent. there were 2 older people, and 2 younger people…parents and sons. they walked up to me at the tasting bar and one of the sons started talking to me in a broken, soft spoken english. he explained that his father had just started a winery in MONGOLIA!! yes, MONGOLIA!! and was interested in our practices in the winery. they wanted to know if we would show them our winemaking equipment and talk with them about the winemaking process. so, i obliged…

first we went back to the crusher/destemmer and i explained the function and how we used it. they asked me some basic questions regarding the crusher through their son translating. and they would talk among themselves, mother and father, for a bit and ask more questions. then we went to the horizontal rotary bladder press and again, same thing, more questions, talking among themselves, etc.

they asked if there was somewhere locally that they could get a press and a crusher/destemmer and i said that ours was specialized equipment and was special order only. and they asked if there was a place where they could buy supplies, so i sent them to napa fermentation supplies.

and then toward the end, they discovered our little 3 nozzle syphon bottler…they went CRAZY for this…lots and lots and lots of talk between them. all this time, they had a sony digital camera and they were taking pictures and doing videos of all the equipment and the winery. they asked if we were “making wine today”…i told them, no, we only make wine once a year during crush, but that we were bottling today. so, finally they tasted some wine and bought a couple of bottles and left, seemingly happily…they taught me to say “you’re welcome” in mongolian…

fascinating, if odd and weird experience…

We’ve gone live today with our ‘new’ winemaker’s blog. For years I’ve kept a diary/blog about m2 and the events surrounding our winery and winemaking. It’s always been written in HTML because I didn’t have time to spend on figuring out blogging software and how to convert the ‘old’ into the new. The past years, 2004 thru 2006, will stay as HTML pages and I’ll have the links to those pages working soon.

Thanks to a new friend, James J.; he helped me figure it out and set up his server to host the blog. We’re using WordPress to administer and publish the blog; you can now post comments, and add links or trackbacks to our site. Soon, I’ll figure out how to set up the RSS feeds, like next week or so.

Be sure check out the new wines on the Our Wines page. We finally got our winemaker’s notes put together and posted with our take on all the ‘05 wines.

I was talking today with Tim Holdener of Macchia Wines here in Lodi and he asked me if I’d been out to see the Soucie Zin vineyard yet. Of course not…. I’ve been busy. I asked a stupid question, “How long until bloom? Tim looked at me funny and said that the vines already have set fruit and berry development is well along.

Well, jeez, I felt stupid. Been so busy that I’ve paid NO attention whatsoever to what time of year it is. I’m still thinking it’s late March. Yikes - harvest is less than four months away!!!!

Zinfest was a hoot for sure. In case you missed it, Zinfest was held this past Saturday.

It is Lodi’s big annual wine tasting event with music, art, food, and almost every Lodi area winery in attendance pouring their stuff. We were the first winery booth after peeps entered the main gate, so we were swamped. We were pouring our ‘05 Old Vine Zinfandel and the ‘05 Zinlady - couldn’t pour our other stuff because it’s not Lodi appelation.

We had a lot of positive feedback from the crowd and many people told us that they thought our Zin was the best they had that day. In fact, someone stole the bottle from our display. Didn’t know what to think of that, but evidently we’ve got a new fan.

Anyway, a big fun day and we want to say thanks to everyone who stopped and sampled our wine. We had tremendous positive response and that’s always gratifying!