Tomorrow is bottling day for
the AHC winemaking class. I foolishly volunteered to print the labels for the
whole bottling, which is roughly 1500 bottles, meaning over 2000 labels printed
right here in my office.
There are five different
wines being bottled, in varying blends that I'm sure will be adjusted right up
until the last minute. The situation is even more complicated since John Beck
(one of the alpha males of this group) and myself (formerly an outsider but now
heading for co-alpha status) each have financial interests in the wines. In
fact John and I have some degree of propriety over 3 of the 5 wines (all red)
that are left to bottle.
I never meant to buy wine
grapes or anything like that during my initial school year. But after 3 weeks
of the winemaking class we still didn't have a line on grapes, excepting the
possibility of some pinot noir and chardonnay grapes from a home (as Norm calls
them "vanity") vineyard. And even that wasn't certain.
Norm assured us that even if
we couldn't get grapes we could always get bulk juice and make wine from that.
I found this even more distressing, as the fact Norm mentioned made the threat
of no grapes seem very possible. Low end, man! Making wine from bulk juice
sounded like a cruel distortion of real winemaking.
I had made friends with a
nice surfer dude guy named Josh from Arroyo Grande in the class and one day
after the bad grape news we were commiserating about the bulk juice downer.
Josh had already taken the intro class the previous semester; in one of those
friend of a friend of a friend scenarios I suddenly had a line on some Sangiovese
grapes.
It turns out that a class
member from that class had taken on management of Vandale, a vineyard planted
98% to Sangiovese (there are some whites but I was told they didn't work out.
They were intended to coferment with the sangio). Bruce Vandale, a
multi-million dollar retired yacht maven had died recently and his widow needed
someone to see the current crop through.
Bruce Vandale had a love of Chianti
(I think both the region and the wine) for much of his adult life. It was his
dream to grow his own grapes and make a Chianti style wine. Bruce, by all
accounts a terrifically nice guy, enjoyed tremendous success in San Diego
County during the eighties boom years and did well enough to buy a 5 acre
estate just outside Los Olivos, tucked away in a beautifully rustic
neighborhood that still featured cows and goats as well as grapes.
3 acres of the Vandale
Estate were turned into a vineyard. It's actually 2.8 or so but Bruce fudged it
so he could get into the Vintners Association (vineyards must be at least 3
acres to be in).
At some point the Vandales
retired and moved to the
The last vintage of Vandale
Sangiovese was 2005 I believe, but you can still find it some wine lists in the
area. I like to order it due to my relationship with that vineyard and it
rarely disappoints. It also rarely enlightens, being what I would call a
reliable red food wine. My roommate Tony in Solvang however, thinks DiBruno Vandale
Sangiovese is a landmark SB County wine. So there you go.
So Chris had taken on the
vineyard management of Vandale. And it looks like they had some extra grapes to
sell. And we might be able to buy them. Josh didn't have any real details so we
left it at that until he knew more. Alfredo had told us that we could make our
own wine within the class, so we felt we were in as far as facilities.
I floated away from our
talk, completely psyched up. I thought the idea of buying my own grapes was
about the best twist in events I could imagine. Two hours ago I was hearing about
bulk juice and now not only were grapes in hand, but I could own a piece of the
raw material.
Now, despite my absolute
youth and naiveté regarding the inside of the wine industry I knew enough to
realize that a tiny vineyard with a commercial track record that suddenly had
plenty of extra grapes had some problems going on. Especially with a virgin
vineyard manager, over-confident after sailing through the introductory wine
class at
An unexpected thing happened
right after our conversation. The class suddenly started getting grapes. Lots
of grapes. Through the steadfast cajoling of Alfredo and Norm some of the local
vineyards had agreed to donate grapes to the class (hey, it makes a nice tax
write-off)
First up was the vanity
vineyard, formally known as Mary Jane's Vineyard. Mary Jane had donated grapes
to the school for years; in return she got a few cases of wine, a good deal all
around.
Mary Jane's is out on the
remote side roads between Buellton and
The class descended onto
Mary Jane's (I got lost on the way actually); her vineyard had a spot of
mildew: nothing like the school vineyard but still discouraging. I wrote it off
as marginal quality at the time we picked the grapes and tasting it since then
has not changed my mind. In fact of all the wines made in class, this is the
one that is never discussed. Nor has anyone ever expressed an interest in
owning any. Nope. It's all going back to Mary Jane. As I said, a good deal for
her.
The whole vineyard was about
an acre, split between pinot noir (40%) and a combination of Pinot Grigio and Chardonnay,
Since more than 10 class members showed up we finished in 45 minutes. My kind
of grape picking.
I had picked grapes before
and I have to say it's my least favorite part of the wine producing process, I
have promised myself that I will be willing to take part in any aspect of
winemaking as necessary except picking grapes. It's no fun and hell on your
back. And boy can it get hot in those vineyards. Little did I know what fate
awaited me at Vandale.
There were real wineries on
board now in winemaking class. We picked Buttonwood Merlot a few weeks later.
We received, practically gift wrapped, a ½ ton each (or was it a ton?) of
chardonnay and pinot noir from North County Vineyard. Delivered! Both
In the midst of this endless
grape bounty the Sangiovese plan suddenly reemerged. Josh informed me that we
could get in on it. The deal was $500 for a ½ ton. 50% off the list price! The
proviso was that we would have to harvest the grapes (3, er 2.8 acres worth. Again I must stress that it's a
lot bigger than it seems when all the labor is strictly handmade). The mysterious Chris would work alongside us
and of course supervise the festivities.
Despite my deep dislike for
picking grapes (at the time it was deep dislike; it's now beyond that), it
sounded great. We'd end up with at least a barrel's worth, we could make it
ourselves after hours and I could actually point to My Own Wine right out of
the gate.
I went to Norm to discuss
the Sangiovese venture with him. He expressed severe reservations about the
endeavor and debunked some of my ideas immediately. First off, Josh and I would
not have access to the facility to carry out our own mad scientist project.
Secondly and corollary, any wine made at the facility would have to involve the
whole class. My feeling was that he was not hot on my venture, and did not
share my excitement about the Sangiovese project.
The Sangiovese plans were
made: we would rendezvous at the Vandale Estate at
There is not much romance to
picking grapes. It's backbreaking work, farm labor at its most basic. I woke up
at
It was still dark when I
showed up and fairly chilly. It was so dark I had no idea where I was, as I had
pulled into a long driveway with no sign of activity. I called Josh and he
instructed me to drive to the end of the driveway and park in front of the
garage; the vineyard began where the garage structure ended.
I parked the car in the
darkness and finally made it top the vineyard, where my 3 classmates and a few
others were milling around. There were a few flashlights available but it
seemed to me it was too dark to pick grapes. Bad planning guys. I felt grateful
I was a little late. It finally got light enough a few minutes later and we hit
the vineyard. There are actually 3 vineyards (plus a really dinky 4th one with
the bad white varietals), all planted to the Sangiovese piccolo clone (used in
Chianti). This first vineyard is on relatively level ground compared to the
other two but it does have a decided slope to it.
We hit the vines. I met
Chris and would speak to him frequently the rest of the day, he was (and I'm
sure still is) in the wine biz big time, starting as a high end tour guide (he
boasted to me about flying sheiks in on helicopters from Los Angeles direct to
the wine country), and had since expanded into wine distribution (Chris
distributed some very respectable brands and was apparently doing well) and had
even invested into a very high end vineyard operation - Rio Vista in the Santa
Rita Hills. The
Which means, I guess like
for all of us, that a man feels the need to get his hands dirty and start
working directly with his livelihood and his passion. For Chris, this time
around, this took the form of becoming vineyard manager for the Vandale
Vineyard. He had taken the intro class at Allan Hancock: the class talked about
plant physiology, vineyard techniques, you know, lots of that kind of stuff and
so Chris was ready. Since he was an experienced and successful local wine pro
he was taken seriously when he offered his vineyard management services to Mrs
Vandale; on top of that he was friendly with the family and clearly had a deep
affection for the memory of Bruce Vandale. Chris was hired.
It can be exasperating. It
can be amusing. It can be financially ruinous. But it's almost always
interesting. I am talking about the permanent attitude of dilettantes, newbies
and winos concerning the ease of getting into the wine producing business and
doing well at it. Chris admitted to me at least twice that his partner in Rio
Vista had warned him that a three acre vineyard was not as small as it seemed,
especially since Chris would usually be going either solo or plus one.
And this is exactly how it
turned out. The vineyard manager gig had proved to be completely overwhelming
to Chris. In addition to his regular jobs he now had to travel out to the Santa
Ynez Valley from
There were many factors that
Chris hadn't counted on:
Most damaging were the
hordes of birds that had attacked those juicy Sangiovese berries. After a
significant part of the crop was gone Chris had belatedly put netting on the
vines. His description of this chore was very vivid, portrayed as a death
struggle between relentless bluebirds, encroaching darkness and Chris wrestling
with increasingly heavy and cumbersome netting.
Just pulling the netting
back to get at the grapes made him shudder at the memory.
There had been problems with
the irrigation system. Chris didn't know how to care for a Sangiovese vine; in
fact he when he started really knew nothing about at all about managing a
vineyard. He had learned quite a lot by the time I showed up for the harvest
but those lessons were very hard earned and he was a tired man. Chris was
determined to see it through at any cost. I think he felt he owed it to Bruce's
widow, who perhaps wanted a vintage that year as a commemorative gesture.
There hadn't been a
Vandale-labeled wine in 3 years and Bruno d'Alfonso did not want the grapes. Whether
or not this decision had been made on the basis of Chris's appointment as
vineyard manager is conjecture but not an unwarranted theory. Bruno did call
Chris occasionally with tips on what Chris should be watching and working on.
But Chris had to find someone to buy the grapes. This was where Josh and I came
in.
The first batch (one or two
tons) would go to Margerum, a newish and successful winery run by former
restaurant honcho Ken Margerum. These would not end up in Margerum labeled wine
however - Margerum was making it for a friend privately.
The next batch would go to
two guys at the vineyard, also presumably promised a discount in return for
their picking prowess. They were veteran home winemakers and worked hard at the
pick.
Josh and I got the third
batch, said to be a ton or more.
So the Vandale Vineyard, in
the span of one short year, had been diminished to a vineyard solely used for
home winemaking. There would no wine commercially released from Vandale Vintage
2007.
We proceeded to pick. It was
hot slow work. The sun had come out and I was feeling it. By
Vineyard 2 is the steep
vineyard. The descent down the vineyard rows is a constant steep downhill. What
this means is walking back up the vineyard to dump the gapes in the bins was a grueling
uphill (made more strrenuosu by the weight of the freshly picked grapes).The chilliness
of the morning was long forgotten and the sun was blazing overhead.
Vineyard 2 turned out to be
an ordeal, not helped by the effort expended on Vineyard 1. We finally
finished, ironically helped by the fact that vineyard yield was so diminished by
the birds.
It was time for lunch.
Standing in the shade submitting our sandwich orders was a certain small
pleasure in itself, after toiling in the vineyard.
Chris and I made the run
into Solvang for sandwiches. We had been invited to eat at the kitchen counter by
Beth Vandale. Chris and I returned with sandwiches. Beth brought out a bottle
of Vandale Sangiovese. I vaguely felt like I was working on a Tuscan villa 50
years ago, where the owner would bring out the house wine for a communal lunch.
The sandwich was delicious,
the wine was delicious and there was quite a bit of lingering and wine sipping
in the sleek and comfortable Vandale kitchen.
It was almost
The haircut felt good, better
than a massage.
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