I've once again contacted the Fess Parker people to arrange
for moving my wines down to
After the last visit, wherein I tasted the barrel samples, I briefly reconsidered my Fess Parker decision; Sal was affable and has a certain proprietary attitude towards the wine that I appreciate. In other words he wants to finish the jobs i.e. see them through to completion. But here's the problem, and it's clearly one that's not going away. This person is doing his own thing; he's not listening to a word I tell him about how I want things done. I will readily concede that doing things the way I want them may not make winemaking or even business sense. However I need to get as sense that I'm getting something for my expenditures.
Back in the summertime when all of this was a gleam in my eye over some contracts to buy grapes (and when the national economy was solvent enough to power that gleam for the foreseeable future) I had strolled the GV facility with Sal. I believe it was just after my motley collection of barrels had been installed. I explained to Sal that I wanted to do a barrel ferment for three barrels of syrah, age two of those on their lees and use my best (this is a very relative term when dealing with my stock) barrels for aging in the hopes of producing a "reserve" i.e. a wine that would perhaps justify a somewhat higher price tag (I was thinking $30 instead of $24). He nodded slowly in agreement, impressed by my sage marketing instincts and maverick winemaking attitude. His reaction probably would have been the same if I had suggested dumping a gallon of Welch's grape juice in each barrel to improve complexity.
Of course Sal never did any barrel fermentation of the grapes, and in fact he treated my continued requests with derision in the notorious email he sent impugning myself, my project, and implicitly my entire right to even deign to tell him what to do or even purchase grapes and start a wine project.
I knew that almost no one did barrel fermentations of syrah. It's a tedious process and in most cases would probably not have a positive effect. It's also labor and space intensive and leaves you with a spent useless barrel, since usually you pop off the top of the barrel to shovel in the grapes and manage the cap. I really just wanted to see what it would taste like, since by all accounts it would taste different. Some very tasty and interesting pinot noirs I'd had in California (notably Arcadian and J Wilkes) use partial barrel ferments in their winemaking so I was very curious (Arcadian and J Wilkes use different methods. I believe J Wilkes does a small lot of 100% barrel fermented juice and then blends in back in to the tank fermented batch while Arcadian ferments the whole lot in tank and then transfers it to barrel for the last 5 or 10% of fermentation. I may have this backward. Or wrong.)
Similarly there are any number of small producers of all
kinds of wine in
Barrel fermentation is used much more widely in white wine.
It's commonplace in both
What does barrel fermentation really do for a wine? Barrels allow varying degrees of micro-oxygenation, the key process. Allegedly this will give the wines a certain softer mouth feel and depth of flavor; if you do it in newer oak of course you will get more integrated oak flavors, possibly too many of them. The barrel fermentation process, while allowing the same sort of micro-oxygenation as the aging process, will have a different effect because of the different and volatile chemical reactions taking place.
When I was talking to the home-winemaker oriented people in
Is it all about the barrel fermentation? Of course not. My wine venture is eerily reminiscent to me of a peripheral episode in someone else's life:
I have a stepbrother named Peter in
Around 20 years ago I saw Peter at a family gathering in
Although by this time I felt I knew most things about software development, I actually knew very little, certainly compared to what I've learned since. One thing I did know that hasn't changed over time is that serious software projects take a lot of time, money and expertise. Peter's software experience was that of an end-user, like most people. He had investigated many packages and come away unsatisfied, especially when it came to programs optimized for the arcane Canadian system, which consisted primarily of dealing with various government bureaucracies. Peter had decided to roll his own - he knew exactly how it should work so what could the problem be?
I was astounded that Peter would undertake this project and honestly I was skeptical but also fascinated. Could he pull this off? I thought of Ferruccio Lamborghini, the tractor magnate who started a car firm to rival Ferrari. I also thought Peter might be naïve as far as the commitment it would take to pull this off.
I never really got into the details of Peter's project until much later but every time I asked him or my stepfather about it he was indeed still on the case.
To summarize the story, Peter's software company finally
made its first sale roughly two years ago. About that time I took a trip to
Although Peter made a good living as a radiologist, he confided to me that had he not inherited a large sum of money from his father along the way the software venture would have bankrupted him some time ago.
The last time I discussed Peter's software venture with him he had indeed made some sales, I'm sot sure how many, I believe between 10 and 20. By this time there were many software packages in Canada optimized for medical billing. He'd sold his practice, although I believe he still owns the software business, having finally evolved into a software executive heading a small boutique operation. So, twenty years later and probably several million dollars poorer Peter is a bit of a software success. It's certainly a cautionary tale. Of course I'll run out of time and money long before numbers like 20 years and millions of dollars are bandied about.
I can understand Sal the winemaker's attitude - to him I'm just a dilettante like Peter who decided he can do better without knowing what he's getting into. For me to tell him what to do would be the equivalent of Peter giving me tips on how to code a program. But I don't want or need to do better, I just want to do it well. And I can do the winemaking myself in the future at some point. Peter would always be at the mercy of his programming staff, A winemaker may differ but I can assure you that developing software professionally is more complex and requires much more experience than cranking out some good wine. Nevertheless that is largely moot in the current situation.
Sal's opinion came to the surface in the notorious email,
which included some personal attacks on myself as well as the project. It was
brought on, ironically, by my feeling that I was not being taken seriously and
that, since I was shelling out the cash, should at least not be treated like a
chump.
The "incident" that set off the hostilities was my gentle correction of Sal's assertion that I had to bring in over 6 tons of grapes to get the 6 ton price break. The cost of processing over 6 tons at the winery was $650 a ton, while less than that was $950. A big difference.
When the syrah was finally harvested Sal sent me this little missive:
Steve Worth brought in 5.78 tons and the
cut off for the break down on custom crush pricing is at 6 tons so I sent a
couple of our pickers out with him to pick enough to get you over the 6 ton
mark. This guarantees your CC price at $650/ton instead of $950.
This struck me as strange. I've written a lot of software that deals with price break structure so I decided to enlighten him thus:
Just a heads up on how crush pricing
(and most agri processing) works:
When something is price tiered by volume any tier price is available to the
client as long as the minimum qty is used. What this means is even if I
brought in say, 4 or 5 tons, the pricing would be $650. However I would pay
for 6 tons. The way tier pricing is set up of course, paying for the smaller
qty at the higher rate is usually more economical (although not at, say, 5
tons in the GV example).
However when something comes in at .22 tons under a price tier it's
essentially irrelevant - just charging me for 6 tons would have been
standard practice.
OK end of accounting lecture ...
Two days later I got a response to that one - telling Sal "how it is" was not my road to peace and prosperity:
It's Sunday night and I'm checking my
emails, and wow, you've hit my pet peeve. I really hate being, as you say,
lectured to. Custom Crush pricing is pretty much what I say it is, I was trying
to do you a favor
You've purchased okay grapes and will
get an okay wine, no matter what I do. I can spend all day massaging your
latest, greatest lot o grapes, and they will still make an okay wine
Followed by an eviction notice:
I'll get you your crush contract by the
end of the week, but there are two contracts to be signed, the crush contract
and the storage contract. You don't get a storage contract. I'd like you to
begin making other arrangements for barrel storage at another bonded facility
Followed by a personal attack:
I don't think Charlie is nervous about
his bin really, I think he's nervous about dealing with you.
(I had reminded him Charlie needed his bin back, Charlie
being the
and of course:
I feel as if you're trying to tell me
how to do my job and not appreciating what I've done for you
You're walking into you new project with
you eyes closed and I don't think I want to see the outcome
(Both likely true)
Back to barrel fermentation
I'm gonna do 3 barrel ferms for you, and
you will pay the standard price set out on the custom price sheet, which by the
way was set for Chardonnay producers
Your so called barrel ferms are really
pointless. They are usually done by wine makers, as a marketing gimmick
At least the lines of communication were now fully open - I'm sure this will forever hold the record my longest Sal-produced email.
Things have been a little poisoned since then of course. I phoned Sal 2 days later and we had a long talk. This had come right after the global financial meltdown and everyone has been a little testy since - the mood of the country is pretty dour to say the least. Sal also remarked that he had to put his old dog down that day so he was extra surly. Fair enough I guess, at this point I just wanted to assuage him to the point where I could deal with him rationally again.
During the phone conversation he also mentioned the mourvedre grapes seemed to come in a little light in color, but it turned out he liked the syrah, a mild reversal from the "OK grapes" description he'd used previously.
Following the phone conversation I sent him a follow-up email, stating I still wanted to do the barrel ferments. He ignored that request of course.
The eviction notice has been rescinded, as I thought it would be after he calmed down but there are two problems still extant:
I still haven't received an invoice or contract to cover the crush fees and Sal has not answered my last 2 emails, which deal mostly with my requesting a contract or invoice. Since I'm used to dealing with clients as a consultant, I'm astounded that I can be ignored in this fashion. But I understand the issues:
Sal is a consultant at GV - he gets to bring his own clientele, consisting of some small to medium sized producers, but in addition his contract requires him to deal with GV's clients. I'm a GV client despite the fact that I've never dealt with anyone at GV besides Sal. I haven't even met anyone, except one of the owners, briefly. It turns out GV actually only has one employee - the cellar worker (known semi-affectionately in the trade as cellar rats). Everyone else is either a consultant (the controller/accountant) or related to one of the owners (the owners and their various wives and children take turns staffing the tasting room, doing paperwork, etc). By Sal's account they are somewhat broke, and I'm sure the economic crisis isn't helping things. By anyone's account they don't know I exist, even though I'm their client, since I'm sure they would be more aggressive in collecting their crush fees if they did. It's up to Sal to get the paperwork initiated but since he has no real motivation to do it, it's not getting done (he apparently does get a commission of sorts for dealing with GV's clients but I'm not sure he has full confidence in receiving it) - Sal's incentive is to deal with his own clients, and also to deal with GV's estate wine production, which comprises a fair amount of wine (they have 32 acres under cultivation).
I'm sure Sal won't let me take the wine out of there without settling up but at the same time he's not taking any steps to get me settled up. So my wine is being held hostage by this absurd Catch 22. It's all moot until I get a contract from Fess Parker anyway, and the woman I'm dealing with there never returns calls or emails either. Is it me? Is it the wine industry? Is it the depression everyone's in because of the economy?
As a footnote to the soap opera Sal remarked to me that he was taking over management of Steve Wirth's vineyard in return for some grapes next year and that it had great potential. He recommended to me that I reserve my allocation for next year now, as he would be bringing some other winery guys over to look at it.
I have in fact reserved another 6 tons for 2009 with Roger, who handles Steve Wirth's grape sales. How I will pay for the grapes and processing is up in the air, as my consulting income has gone from pretty steady to exactly zero in the last two months. I did email Roger with the news that Sal would be managing Steve Wirth's vineyard - this was met with confusion by Roger, who assured me Steve does the vineyard farming himself to keep costs down. I'm sure a nice Rashomon-style farce is just waiting to be told.