A new year has dawned and I've spent the holiday season getting legit. The meeting with Fess Parker, where the staff patiently outlined to me the various agencies I had to satisfy, had a lasting, and beneficial, effect. In the month of December I have met with the Alcoholic Beverage Commission (ABC). I have met with State Board of Equalization. I have met with Los Angeles Planning Commission. I have sent money to the Franchise Tax Board. I have sent a letter to Fess Parker that will be passed on the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB). I have opened a business checking account at Wells Fargo. I have refinanced my house (again) to build my war chest for the capital-intensive year to come, whence I not only pay for another harvest and crush season but also for my first bottling run.
The ABC (Alcoholic Beverage Commission) and TTB (Tobacco and
Trade Bureau) are the main agencies in charge of blessing alcohol sales and
production in
I had my first meeting with the ABC early in the month. The ABC requires an applicant to walk in with their "package". The package consists of a variety of forms, permits, affidavits, floor plans, etc depending on what kind of license is being applied. There are far more license related to alcohol than I would have imagined, although in hindsight I can't see why I was surprised. There are myriad options for making, selling and distributing beer, wine, hard liquor, etc. You can do it retail. You can do it wholesale. You can do both. You can do it on a temporary basis (e.g. a catered event). You can do it mail order only, or in a store, or at an event. You get the idea.
It was confusing to precisely discern which permit I was
going to apply for. Originally the thinking by me and the Fess Parker people
was that I would apply to the
My package in early December comprised a number of official ABC forms:
140 CERTIFICATION RE
CHAPTER 15TIED-HOUSE RESTRICTIONS
208A INDIVIDUAL
PERSONAL AFFIDAVIT
208B INDIVIDUAL
FINANCIAL AFFIDAVIT
217 APPLICATION
QUESTIONNAIRE
253 SUPPLEMENTAL
DIAGRAM
255 ZONING AFFIDAVIT
256 LLC LIMITED
LIABILITY COMPANY QUESTIONNAIRE
257 NR LICENSED
PREMISES DIAGRAM (NON-RETAIL)
Some of these are very easy to deal with. The 140 form only required me
to assure the powers that be that I did not own wine production, distribution
and retail facilities at the same time. Ah, another arcane liquor law (there
were many more to come). Frankly this has me completely confused, as any winery
operation with a tasting room is involved with production, distribution and
retail operations but I'm sure there are many detailed rules and loopholes.
Some of the other documents made little sense. The two diagram forms (253
and 257NR) required diagrams of the premises and surrounding areas. Obviously
these were directed towards liquor stores and/or warehouse/production
facilities, not my little home office. When I called the ABC for assistance
they assured me that it in fact meant my office. OK, no problem, I found a
zoning map of my neighborhood and stick it in my folder (er, package).
There were many other questions on the forms, most requiring reiteration
of basic information (addresses, personal data, etc), several times. The Man
(state division) wanted to know where I got the money for my little venture and
if, officially, I was a stand-up guy.
The most puzzling was the zoning affidavit, requiring a signoff from the
City Planning Department that my facility (what facility?) was copasetic.
The ABC requires an appointment - you have to show up in person with the
package and sign everything in front of the BC person, as well as clarify any
ambiguous or missing information. As is my occasional wont I'd waited until two
days before the appointment to get started on filling out the forms. Naturally
it took much longer I'd anticipated. The Zoning affidavit threw me for a
complete loop but I reasoned that once I explained the situation the ABC person
would agree that form 255 was not required.
There are several ABC offices in the state of
This was frustrating. All I was doing was trying to get an appointment
and these guys couldn't even figure out what office I was supposed to get to.
LA Metro in fact thought I belonged to the
The morning dawned cold and bright and off I went. I strolled into LA
Metro, of course clutching my package. The administrator took a quick look and
immediately terminated the process. No zoning affidavit. No diagram of the
inside of the premises. And my nifty little printout of my neighborhood was
unacceptable - it in fact had to be an ink drawing of the neighborhood. I was missing a couple of documents as well.
The
I decided to dedicate the day after Christmas, December 26, as my
Planning Department day. I also hoped to get to the State Board of Equalization
office to get my Seller's permit, a necessity for anyone selling most anything
retail in the state of
The Los Angeles Department of City Planning is located in a large office
plaza on the edge of downtown. They take up the entire fourth floor of one of
the buildings. I had been warned in advance that dealing with them was an all
day affair; the office is usually mobbed with applicants toting stacks of
blueprints, forms and legal documents, as this agency has authority over what
kinds of businesses and construction projects can be undertaken in various
parts of the city. Including neophyte wine businesses of course.
When I arrived bright and early on the 26th I found the whole
floor largely deserted, with most of the employees lolling around chatting.
Apparently I had picked a good day to show up. Probably the best day of the
year. After getting oriented I went to the likeliest station and presented my
affidavit to a bored but pleasant man killing time behind the counter. As he
examined my form he frowned and began muttering that a wine business in an R1-1
area was completely against the rules, not allowable, etc. In other words, no
go. My heart sank - after all this I was faced with getting some crappy little
office somewhere to satisfy the bureaucracy.
After more frowning and more mumbling (both to himself and me) the man
suddenly straightened up and said in a normal tone "I don't see how we can
allow this. But actually I'm not the person to see. You have to go across the
room to the zoning people".
A reprieve? Maybe. If this guy was so certain I was non-copasetic what
would zoning say? Off I went. Even though things were largely dormant today the
man I had to see was busy with other applicants. He was poring over blueprints
with some businessmen types. I took a number and waited.
While I was waiting I was already adjusting my budget and timetable. I
would have to rent an office, change all the applications to reflect the new (hopefully
approved) business address, and basically spend money for essentially nothing
except a legal requirement (welcome to the small business world!)
It was finally my turn. The person at the zoning desk seemed very
relaxed. I showed him my affidavit and assured him that no inventory (i.e.
wine) was going to be warehoused there, just my bad self (and my bad records
and files). He seemed agreeable and signed his name, after scribbling "No
inventory to be kept at this address"). It was that easy. I think on that day
this particularly staffer might have approved most anything at my address: an
airport, nuclear power plant, cement factory, etc. Just don't harsh his post-Christmas
mellow. My gut feeling is that the venture is not strictly by the book but ... I
was in! At least in this respect.
I practically floated out of the Planning Department and headed to Van
Nuys. I knew the mojo was with me and sure enough, the State Board of
Equalization was nearly empty. They approved my application on the spot (no
charge!) and I strolled out of there in less than an hour with my newly minted
resale permit. Certainly the most productive day after Christmas I've ever had.
I've returned from my trip up north having set out to accomplish two broad goals. The first was to meet with the Fess Parker people about moving my wine there and operating out of their facility. The second was to get some samples of my wine as well as tell Sal I was moving out in a month or two. Of course I wasn't going anywhere if the meeting at Fess Parker's didn't go well or didn't happen at all.
I had been to the Fess Parker custom crush facility twice previously: once when I was to meet Dave Potter (assistant winemaker and owner of his own wine venture) and taste some barrel samples and then subsequently to meet with Armando the facility manager to discuss my then theoretical custom crush requirements. I had signed up for wine futures of Dave Potter's new label, Municipal Winemakers and his debut red, entitled Bright Red. I had called him and he'd invited me to the facility to taste some barrel samples of other wines he was working on.
I never purchase wine futures by the way. Futures programs
vary widely, from fat cat
The catalogue is fun to read and it's interesting to catch up on what the local luminaries will be releasing in the next few years. Occasionally the Wine Cask will provide a showcase for some new producers who they feel are worthy of exposure, despite their wine not necessarily being in what you might call the "rare and collectible" category. Bright Red was one of these and I think it was by far the least expensive red in the catalogue, going for $14 for the futures (it would be $21 upon release). I liked the description (an easy drinking Grenache-Cinsault-Syrah blend) and the idea of getting some futures somehow appealed top me at that moment. Especially low priced ones. So I signed up for ½ a case, the minimum futures order.
I emailed Dave shortly after I placed the order - he'd established a website and encouraged all interested parties to contact him. Although Dave skipped our meeting I did discover this gigantic facility and learned from the receptionist they indeed did custom crush. Although I had vaguely known in the back of my mind that Fess Parker had an additional facility besides the picturesque winery in the middle of the Santa Ynez Valley, I had no idea they did custom crush. Thus my wine consumerism has led me to an avenue that is directly related to my nascent production side.
Like any industry that promotes luxury goods, nice milieus
are an essential part of the wine industry. A comfortable tasting room, soft
music playing, eloquent descriptions of what you're drinking and why. Pretty
knickknacks, all manner of logo
clothing, coffee table books. These are essential to promote the product
although truthfully, even back in the day the flowery tasting rooms filled with
potpourri were not really that appealing to me. In my new role I much prefer
hanging out in the down and dirty of a humming production facility: wet cement
floors, tanks and barrels lined up ready for action, talking trash about barrel
samples. The
The same day I had arranged for the meeting at the facility
I'd picked up my Bright Red allocation at the Wine Cask in
I sat down with Maurice, the chief operating officer and
Kathy, who specialized in compliance and we started talking about my little
venture and its requirements. I could see that my presence was a source of some
puzzlement to the two of them; the
During the meeting Maurice had to take a phone call. Kathy looked at me quizzically and asked if I was just getting into the wine business. The answer, as we know, is yes. She remarked that she'd been in the business for some time and couldn't understand why someone would want in. She apparently wanted out. What could I say? I shrugged and explained that, yes, it was a romantic thing and, yes, making wine is one of the silliest endeavors you could get into from an economic standpoint. I ticked off some other futile business ventures that regularly attracted entrepreneurs who might be classified as naïve: restaurants, airlines, racing cars. "It's a romantic thing", I said again, almost apologetically. She nodded silently - she's seen this movie before.
When you make or sell alcoholic beverages there is a lot of
paperwork to do to satisfy government regulations. The Feds have one set of
rules and the state has another. Two things I've always observed when dealing
with the federal government compared to the state is that the feds seem to be
more organized and they seem to charge less for filing forms, nothing in most
cases. The federal authority over most things alcoholic is the TTB, which
roughly stands for Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau. They were formerly
known as the BATF, which stood for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
I can understand somewhat the connection between tobacco and alcohol but the
firearms connection has always left me puzzled. In any case the TTB still
handles firearms regulation and taxation, although they've removed it from
their name. The
The TTB requirements are not too daunting (especially compared to the ABC's). Since technically I'm just a wholesaler all that's requiredis to file an Application for Basic Permit, get an employer number from the IRS, get label approval and file a DBA. The Fess Parker people do the latter two so I completed the first two this morning - it was painless (and free!) Of course if I were starting a real brick and mortar winery there would be bond and tax issue, EPA issues and various additional permits.
The state ABC requirements tend to be more involved. The one Kathy insisted on was the "Application for Seller's Permit". That's the one she wants complete before I move my booty on in. I spoke to the ABC people previously and they mentioned several other forms. After filling out the forms it's then required to show up in person for a quick interview, I guess to see if I had the requisite level of insanity and deep pockets to participate in the wine industry. The ABC people had mentioned that I needed to bring in forms 253, 255, 256-LLC, 140, 217, 208A and 208B. There's no doubt these are all very important and I guess I have to revisit them and find out what they actually mean.
Our talk went well, although at one point I started raving about barrel fermentation again, causing more confusion among the other two. Barrel fermentation? I could see going through their minds. I stressed I only wanted to do some experiments with it but clearly my obsession wasn't buying me credibility.
Soon after, Dave Potter was called into the meeting: the same Dave Potter who made the wine in my car, and who had inadvertently and unintentionally turned me on to the facility. Dave is the winemaker for the custom crush facility, which means he makes the wine for the custom crush clients. I'm not sure he makes the Fess Parker wines, since there are (at least) two other official Fess Parker winemakers. Dave seems easygoing although he's very serious minded about wine making as you would have to be overseeing such a large facility. We talked about bottling schedules and my expected load next vintage.
The bottling line at Fess Parker has a capacity of 90
bottles per minute, so accommodating my 500 or so cases wouldn't stress their
system. Since a lot of clients use the facility for bottling services it is
imperative I reserve now - they don't bottle during September or October (crush
time) and the August slots are already filling up. This means I have to design
my label, get it approved and buy glassware, capsules and corks. I suggested
that I could perhaps piggyback onto the Fess Parker winery acquisition process
and just use whatever they use, a suggestion that Maurice approved. That would
be great, as there is no way I could get rates as low as Fess Parker Winery,
not on my own soliciting quotes for a 500 case run. Whereas I would be on my
own dealing with a dysfunctional business organization in
One of the things that had struck me about the Fess Parker
facility when Armando had given me a rate sheet (lo those many months ago when
we were young) was how reasonable the rates were. Their standard custom crush
rate is $450 a ton - by way of comparison I'm paying $650 per ton for my 6 ton
lot and $950 per ton for my smaller lots. Similarly, my bottling run at Fess
should be around $1750 whereas the quoted rate up North is $3000. The facility
up North relies on the bottling truck, a portable bottling line in a tractor
trailer that makes the rounds of wineries and does bottling runs. The bottling
trucks are widely used in the
To add to the benefits Fess Parker is also much lower on case and barrel storage - $6 per moth versus $10 for barrels and $.15 per case versus $.25. To be fair though Fess Parker will nickel and dime me at every juncture for things that Sal throws in, such as barrel samples, topping, etc. So let's call it a toss up once bottling fees get removed from the equation. My real motivation is having my fledgling enterprise take advantage of an infrastructure where everyone knows exactly what you have to do to get that wine out to some thirsty consumers. Of course the people up North know, but they don't really care about me getting my wine out there - nor did I expect them to when I signed up.
The eventual upshot of the meeting is that the Fess Parker
people would be glad to store my barrels and bottle my wine. As far as handling
smaller lots of red wine, they just weren't interested. My goad is to grab hold
of a few 1 to 2 ton lots of red grapes in
My general plan includes doing 1 or 2 whites next year that I would release at the same time as the reds, so at least the white wine program will have a home.
I was off to points North; Sal was expecting me the next morning. I'd requested 2 half bottle barrel samples each of my three wines, and I wanted to tell him I was moving my wines out. I hoped he wouldn't take it personally but I couldn't see why it would matter to him in the slightest. In my various lives as musician, programmer and (now) wine negociant I know ego can easily get in the way of rational thought. Since the notorious email exchange I've had a distinct feeling of walking on eggshells when dealing with Sal and I know he must feel the same way.
I rolled into GV late morning on Friday, a typical gray, chilly December morning. There was a small group of workers playing around with some hoses at the winery entrance; Sal was upstairs. All else was quiet, with the exception of Sal's dog barking at what seemed to be an invisible presence.
I'd never been upstairs to the tasting room at this winery before; Sal was in the office behind the bar, apparently working on my storage contract. He came out and showed it to me, averring that it wasn't quite finished yet. I told him I was moving the wines south to the Fess parker facility. This made him happy, or perhaps relieved. I could tell that relations between us had just improved considerably. I was a pretty small customer and, what was worse, I wasn't his customer. This was really the crux of the problem - I was the winery's client but no one at the winery besides Sal knew I existed. Sal had his own clients to service that were a higher priority than myself.
We commenced chatting a bit about typical wine minutiae,
followed by tasting my wines. They're all in barrel now. The Grenache seems to
have entered a closed phase, the Mourvedre has developed some
Sal suggested perhaps adding a bit of Petite Sirah to the Mourvedre. He makes a small line of his own wines and had too much Petite Sirah, so he was looking to sell off some bulk, and here I was, with some Mourvedre that needed pumping up (the wheeling and dealing never stops. I love it). Peteite Sirah is one wine that rarely needs pumping up - what it usually needs is toning down. We poured a bit of his extra strength petite into the mourvedre and the blend was immediately transformed into...Petite Sirah, with no trace of the Mourvedre discernible. So that impromptu experiment didn't work.
Things were relaxed, I gave Sal a bottle of Dave Potter's Bright Red (he returned the favor with a bottle of his Tempranillo so I made out slightly there) and I was off, in possession of 6 ½ bottles of barrel samples - Ritual Wine Company has inventory!
On my way home I stopped over in the Santa Ynez Valley, as
Laurie, a friend from the winemaking class, had alerted me to a slate of winery
open houses. I was up for a bit of a party, having accomplished what I set out
to do on the trip, and Saturday morning I bee lined down to Laurie's place in
It's an easy hop over to
He married Morgan several years ago and when you're married to a well known winemaker, why not start a wine company? She did, and pursued Viognier, which also happens to be among my favorite white varietals. I have a vague plan to try to produce some in 2009, but that's another story.
In an amusingly odd twist to the wife as winemaker story, very shortly after Morgan debuted her wines, another new wine label appeared: Verdad. Verdad is the brainchild of Joanna Lindquist and specializes in wines produced from Spanish varietals. Why is this relevant? Joanna Lindquist is the wife of Bob Lindquist. Bob Lindquist and Jim Clendenen make wine in the same facility at Bien Nacido Ranch (which is also home to almost 1000 acres of top quality vineyards and an additional winery besides Jim and Bob's); Bob started his venture (Qupe Cellars) at the same time Jim started Au Bon Climat and Bob is not only a Santa Barbara County pioneer like Jim but also a Rhone varietal pioneer: Qupe was one of the very first California wineries to make a large scale commitment to syrah; today Qupe makes a number of syrahs as well as a slew of other wines from Rhone grapes. Bob and Jim have been friends for many years and have done collaborative wine ventures over the years as well as having shared their facility.
Thus I found it interesting that Morgan and Joanna both got into the wine biz at roughly the same time. Did one inspire the other? Were they hanging out and decided it simultaneously? Is it a coincidence? Did Jim and Bob place a bet to see which wife could produce wine first?
As a final family footnote Bob's son Ethan also produces wine now as
well, a very tasty sangiovese and sangio-syrah blend. I believe he has another
son that's the winemaker at Tres Hermanos winery in
I've always liked Morgan's Viogniers and she was pouring 5 or 6 at the open house, which is roughly 5 or 6 more than most wineries have on offer. We recognized some fellow winos from the area (one of the other recipients of the Vandale Sangiovese, David the home winemaker, was in fact pouring for Morgan), so I decided to bring in my little carafe of syrah. I had brought it for Norm to try (we were hitting Norm's next), but I thought I'd bring it in for some people at the open house. After getting lubed on Viognier (there's a phrase you don't hear often) I was feeling expansive and naturally, in a room full of industry players I decided to show that I was a player too. I poured some small sips all around, and even offered some to complete strangers - good times all around.
The syrah met with positive response although I didn't expect anyone to come out and insult it. I was vaguely reminded of the my old musician days, when meeting prospective bandmates involved pulling out a cassette and playing it, while everyone nodded and listened. You would praise whatever music was being played, even if you hated it, just because musicians are so sensitive about those things, and so it goes with something like a neophyte's barrel sample.
Following a sample of the very nice Arcadian pinot noirs it
was off to Norm's open house. Norm was showing off his ever expanding line of
pinot noir, including a 2008 barrel sample that was my personal favorite, from
a new vineyard near
We had a great time at Norm's and closed down his open house,
helping to finish up all the stray wine. Laurie and I ended up at dinner with a
few others in Los Olivos; I brought a bottle of (yep) Dave Potter's Bright Red.
The Bright Red was serving me well in a variety of social situations -I left a
bottle for Jason, who had let me use his
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.
I've just returned from the first actual tasting of my wine. One hard truth I've learned is that being far away from the wine guarantees that I have little control over the winemaking process. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Despite our soap opera-ish dust up a few weeks ago Sal and I both agree on one thing at least - he's the winemaker and I'm not. In fact what I really am this go round is a negociant. Having enough on my plate already, I would almost certainly have made a mess of the winemaking process this go round.
Almost to a man (and woman) everyone I know personally remarked in advance "I'm sure the wines will be good". I presume this sentiment exists because I'm known for drinking good wine. There is some truth to this in that I have no intention of bottling and trying to sell a wine I wouldn't drink myself. The problem is, what if the wine is crappy now?
It has to be said that I was extremely nervous about the wine. I (and everyone) have tasted plenty of bad wine over the years and I was wondering if perhaps my wines were terrible. After all, the syrah vineyard is completely untested, I'd never tried the mourvedre and there isn't enough of the Grenache (only a little over one barrel) to matter. I was making a contingency plan: if the wine was sub par - walk away now! Since I hadn't paid crush fees it would only be a moderate financial bloodbath, and in the wake of the worldwide economic disaster moderate bloodbaths were to be preferred to large scale ones.
We rolled into the winery late Tuesday morning. It was very quiet there, with no one around but Sal and the cellar hand. This was in direct contrast to my previous visits, when the facility was noteworthy for the hectic bustle and noise. Even though there was a certain energy about it before I must say I liked the placid mood better - things seemed more under control, rows of wines slumbering (most actually still fermenting to some extent) peacefully in barrel.
Only one of my wines was in barrel, the Grenache. The Grenache had come in first, a month earlier than the other two. The syrah had been pressed off and was undergoing malolactic fermentation (ML). The mourvedre was being pressed off as we showed up.
We tasted the mourvedre first, a swig of purplish-gray murk. It tasted about as good as it looked, not unexpected in such a raw state. I could detect some wine like aromas underneath the murky smell and honestly I don't know about this one. I'm optimistic however. What choice do I have?
The syrah was next. Now this is more like it. Nice fruit, good aromas and pretty smooth. Definitely an easy drinker, not destined to be an Important Wine. I'm relieved. If the syrah doesn't work then the whole venture has issues, as the syrah will be bottled by itself and will most probably be a blender for the other two.
We tasted the Grenache last, out of barrel. This one is the most finished, having pretty much concluded both fermentations, and its been in barrel for nearly a month. Very tasty! Not only is the Grenache excellent, but it's in exactly the style I like for this varietal - bright flavors, good acid backbone and on the light side of intense, with nice forward red fruit. How about that wine bullshit!
I only have a little more than one barrel of the Grenache. If I would have a decent amount I'd bottle it on its own (Northern California Jason urged me to bottle a couple of cases of straight Grenache just for private consumption upon tasting it)
I knew the Grenache would be a blender but due to the nice flavors I'm now intending to make it the primary component in what will probably be a three - way G-S-M blend, hoping to preserve those nice flavors while adding some stuffing on the back end.
Of course the high quality of the Grenache is directly related to my limited allocation, as the low yield (due to the frost) apparently is the greatest factor here.
This idea was brought home after Sal let us taste the GV estate syrah. Even though the GV vineyard is only ½ mile from the Wirth vineyard where my syrah is from it was hit very hard by the frost (the Wirth seems to have escaped for whatever reason). Their total yield was only 1.1 tons per acre, a ridiculously small quantity for a wine that will sell for around $20. We tasted it and ... it was great, which I guess is some consolation to the winery owners, who will of course take a financial beating on it. Similarly the adjacent syrah vineyard was harvested at 5 tons an acre (owned by the original owners of the winery and its vineyards) and it was terrible.
It's always illuminating to have tastings like this. Syrah has a reputation of being able to give a generous yield without serious degradation in quality but clearly it's a matter of degree. Certainly the quality of pinot noir or cabernet sauvignon is acutely sensitive to yield volume; a typical high end pinot vineyard will be farmed to yield 2 to 21/2 tons per acre whereas conventional wisdom dictates that you can get away with 3 or 4 tons per acre for even high end syrah. This may be a reason why the top pinot growers in SB County are now getting $4500+ per acre for grapes while a reputable syrah site will fetch around half of that. And this is reflected in the price of course.
It brings up a conundrum for any grower. If you own Domaine Romanee Conti or Chateau Lafite you know what yield generates the highest quality grapes: that's going to be your yield in a normal year of production because you're assured of getting several hundred dollars per bottle of your finished product. Maintaining the quality and reputation of the wine from a top estate is far more important that concerns about the effect of low yields on the bottom line.
What if you're a small grower in
The Charlie situation is keenly important to me because Sal feels Charlie cranked up the volume on the mourvedre, most probably to make up for the Grenache disaster. Since Mourvedre is a very late starter and ripener it was still dormant during the frost. I hope he didn't, although it makes sense. At this point the mourvedre is the real question mark in the prestigious Ritual 2008 lineup.
]]>A great deal has happened in the last week. The syrah has come in. The mourvedre has come in. I've had a falling out with Sal the winemaker. I've reconciled with Sal the winemaker. Sal has informed me the grapes are mediocre. Sal has informed me the grapes might be pretty good.
My questions about Sal started when he sent me an invoice for picking up grapes and barrels as well as for some used barrel racks he sold me.
Some time back Sal had agreed to sell me the racks for $20 each, a good price. When it came time to finally get the racks in August the price had gone to $35. When I asked him about it he said:
I should have mentioned, I
bought 80 newer racks for $35 each. I still have enough of the older racks for
your needs. They're the same rack, just not as pretty. I'll have your barrels
on the racks for $20 each
OK, fair enough I guess. When I got an invoice it was not from GV Cellars but from Galvan Wine Services, an entity I'd never heard of (Sal's last name is Galvan). The invoice was generated from a typical cheap accounting program like QuickBooks or something, but what struck me was the Invoice number: 1001. It is common to being invoice sequences with 1001, just like checks in a new account, and I have a strong suspicion that there had not been 1,000 previous invoices cut by Galvan Wine Services. So I was the first. This struck me as strange, as if Sal was using the winery resources and then marking them up to me on the side with his shiny, new (and fictional?) wine services company?
I paid the invoice but informed Sal I wouldn't expend any more funds to anybody until I saw a contract from the winery for the crush services. He agreed to have it for me upon my scheduled visit, actually meant to be tomorrow. When I was first discussing the crush with him he mentioned all the contracts had to be in and signed by mid August to ensure a place (this is standard for crush contracts), so of course we're way behind. I didn't give it that much thought but as the months went on I was wondering what's going on.
I was getting antsy about the syrah and the main motivation behind my scheduled special guest star cameo up North was to look at the Syrah vineyard and pull the trigger on the picking. I knew the vines were shutting down, so I wanted to identify the ripest and just get those damn grapes in.
Last week Sal visited the vineyard (which is literally across the street from the winery) he decided the grapes were ripe and instructed Steve the vineyard owner to pick. So the syrah came in.
After the syrah was in Sal sent me this update:
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 seemed odd to me. Why not just charge me for 6 tons? I decided to give Sal a lecture on tier pricing, based on my experience writing software to do said tier pricing.
It went like this:
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 ...
Big mistake.
I received back a scathing email, essentially impugning my grapes, myself and everything related to my wine venture. In addition Sal stressed that I could not store my wines after December that I was out of there, evicted, find somewhere else.
It was not a great thing to wake up to Monday morning. My initial reaction was outrage and naturally I composed many scathing emails in my head to really put him in his place. However if I've learned one thing over the years, it's not to do things in the heat of the moment that may impact you for a long time to come so I decided to calm down and think through our new situation. To complicate things Sal's vineyard manager was picking up the mourvedre grapes that very day.
In the midst of his vitriolic email Sal had stressed he would do a professional job on my grapes, but was his heart in it? Would he "forget" to cold soak the grapes? Would he "forget" them out in the sun? These are all thoughts that go through the mind of the stressed out wine entrepreneur.
I sent Sal a short response expressing my dismay at his feelings and assuring him I would move the barrels out in December. Since I needed a report on the weight of the grapes, as well as hopefully a lab panel I decided to wait a day and then maybe sent him another email asking for this data, hoping he'd cooled down. In the meantime I sent a query to Armando at Fess Parker. I had met with Armando originally to discuss crush services; we had both decided I was too small an operator for that but he had mentioned that they could perhaps help me
afterwards in terms of storage and bottling.
Armando seems to be a consummate pro; he had been sympathetic to my crazy wine venture, probably having seen it many times. As I reflect ion the difference between the organized, state-of-the-art Fess Parker operation and the frantic chaos up North it certainly brings up some questions in my mind as to where these barrels should ultimately be, Sal's eviction notice notwithstanding.
Armando emailed me back in the affirmative, so there was one
option. In the meantime I recounted the whole sad story of my falling out to my
girlfriend Adina and my
After spending Tuesday mulling it over I decided to call Sal directly and apologize. We had a long chat, during which Sal regained his original enthusiasm for the project, which seems to involve, as usual, a lot of self-advertising. At least he's back on it; clearly having an adversarial relationship with him would be a disaster.
Syrah watch 2008 continues. The national events of the last several weeks have roiled the economy and placed the entire wine venture in jeopardy. With the collapse of the financial system credit markets have frozen. This impacts me two ways: first, the software work has completely dried up, and it happened fast. 6 weeks ago I was confident that I would make enough money from consulting to sail through a second round of grape purchases and custom crush charges, in addition to other requirements, such as eating and paying the mortgage. Now I'm wondering if my soon to be dwindling savings account (which includes funds earmarked for Ritual Wine Company) will be used solely for living expenses.
The second fun fact is that my chances of getting some sort of a loan have dropped close to zero. A bank will not take a flier on a barely capitalized wine venture in a time of economic contraction and unavailable credit. This has me depressed and distracted instead of focusing on the issue at hand, the current crush. It almost seems pointless if I can't do another crush next year, and that's the way it's looking in my worst case scenario.
Speaking of the issue at hand, my fears about the syrah failing to ripen also continue to fester. During the period between committing to the syrah and beginning the various expenditures (barrels, additional grapes, etc) I seriously considered abandoning the venture while I still could. I have been glad I stuck it out but if this unknown syrah vineyard bites me I may be back to weighing an exit. Yes, I share the national malaise, as well as my personal syrah malaise.
This past weekend I attended the bi-annual SB County Vintners Association wine festival. The vintners association puts on two of these events every year - the spring festival is called the Vintners Festival while the one in fall is called "Celebration of Harvest". The format and participants are largely the same - there are a number of local wineries and eateries proffering samples, there's a silent auction with rare bottles (usually large format) and other goodies (dinners, tours, etc). Bands play. People drink and eat. People drink some more. My friend AJ and I go every time; it's always fun and I get to meet up with a lot of friends and acquaintances in Santa Ynez Valley, as well as sample the latest wine offerings from both the established producers and new upstarts.
I had a chance to talk with Blair Fox this time around. Blair Fox is the head winemaker at Fess Parker (recently hired I believe), which didn't interest me. What did interest me is that he also his own label and is known as a syrah specialist. I made my way over to the Blair Fox Cellars Table; there were three vineyard designate syrahs on offer.
Blair Fox himself is a burly, somewhat biker looking guy, but in a very clean-cut way; he was happy to talk to me about syrah, a topic that has been on my mind for some time.
I asked if all his grapes were in - it turns out his last lot had come in just the previous day. Were they shriveled? Yes indeed, although I think "puckered" is the word we syrahistes prefer. So there are some other late ripeners out there.
Blair works with pretty small lots, enabling him to pretty much hand make everything and do manual punch downs for all the syrahs. It's nice when you have the day job supplying the cash flow (and winemaking facilities). Something to keep in mind, since 2/3 of my syrah will be in a big tank with electric pumpovers. Luckily syrah loves abuse.
All three of the Blair Fox syrahs were great, possibly my three favorite wines of the festival. Usually a pinot noir gets my best-in-show award but the Blair Fox syrahs were just that good.
In the midst of my wine venture I have continued to be much the same wino I've always been. I like to go fairly long periods without drinking much. I get into shape, I feel clean, I'm a little bored. These are offset by periods of intense consumption. Such as the last 6 days or so. Naturally I have considered my potential lifestyle change. If the wine thing works I'm not going to wake up, have a strong cup of coffee and diddle my computer all morning. It will be off to the winery, vineyard, sales call ("Please buy a few cases of wine, Boutique Wine Shop Person") or who knows what else.
Darren, one of my teachers in my final wine class, Lab Analysis, remarked often that since becoming a wine industry professional his taste for fine wine had gradually waned; He is in fact a spirits man at this point. Naturally he offered the qualifier you would expect: "I still like wine". This wasn't convincing; the fact that he needed to say it implied the opposite.
This alarmed me a bit. If the price of success in the wine industry is the loss of my general interest in wine, that price is too high. It was curious hearing Darryl say it and I realize that there must be quite a few wine pros who don't like wine. Why should they? It might make them even more effective if they didn't like it - no sloshed tasting room employees stealing sips all day, or even better, no sloshed winery staff.
So I've thought about it. I think about all the successful and dedicated wine pros who have kept their enthusiasm and wonder for fine wine, and discovering more of it. I'm convinced they're in the majority. I will be one of them. I also plan to be a totally sober winery employee, assuming the as-yet theoretical winery. That's important.
One of the funny things about my college wine experience is that when I moved to Solvang part-time I consciously decided I would not drink wine regularly. Even though I was in the heart of my favorite wine region, I was here to learn, and study, and not to blow a ton of cash on Mike's wine fantasy camp.
I did it too. I was so worried about falling into one of my bad wino habits that I didn't have so much as a glass of wine for several weeks after starting school. I dropped some weight, I started jogging once a week (this was big, believe me), my attendance and attitude at class was impeccable. What drinking I did when in Solvang was mostly reserved to various class functions. By class functions I mostly mean various tastings or parties by the winemaking class, all of which were great fun (I was around 18 people who at least equaled my own wino proclivities).
I should mention a wine soaked class "function" that really was a scholastic learning experience: the intro class took a field trip to Sunstone Winery, a very chic family winery, and they lined up their whole catalog for the class to taste. That's right,18 tastings coming right up, with the assistant winemaker there to tell us about them. We then took a tour of the winery; they were in middle of crush and Sunstone's generosity was really something. A field trip like that just makes you feel good.
I completed my first semester with straight A's (Should not be overestimated. Most everyone got an A), minimal wine consumption and a welcome expansion in my wine knowledge.
There was a huge gap between the first and second semester. This was the holiday season, meaning I changed from a lean, mean learning machine to a, yes, partying guy. By the time the second semester started I had also contracted a vicious case of the flu that took me 2 weeks to recover from. In the meantime, I had gone from 2 ½ courses to one (actually ½ semester courses). The winemaking course was only 8 weeks, and the Lab Analysis course was 8 weeks as well; they overlapped slightly but what it meant was just one course active at a time. I was dead set on completing the winemaking course, so I was going to resume my part-time residency. I could only find the Lab Analysis course as an additional wine course to complement the Saturday morning winemaking class. Lab Analysis was Wednesday night, so in the weeks that they overlapped I would have serious downtime. And in any case I would leisure time on my hands in any case, since just going up and coming right back down was too grueling, plus I liked hanging out at the Solvang house.
The main thing someone like me does with leisure time in the Santa Ynez Valley is drink a little wine here and there, so I gradually got into the habit of visiting wine bars and restaurants much more frequently than the previous semester.
The unanticipated wine consumption came about from the winemaking source. While we had spent the first semester visiting vineyards, tasting grapes, bringing in grapes to process, we now had 5 barrels of finished wines, happily aging in casks right next door. Part of the class, naturally, was to occasionally taste what we had, and proffer predictions on ultimate style, further winemaking strategies (Filter? Fine? Blend? Throw out?) and anything else related to dealing with our inventory.
Here is what is most interesting about being next door to all this wine. Not only did the class own the wine, but there were at least three classmates entrusted with the key to the winery facility. They were liberal with loaning the key or providing and it soon became common for a late morning barrel sampling session for those of us so inclined. The morning drinking is not a good habit to get into, but I enjoyed it. It was really the only time in my life I have drunk alcohol before lunch. And honestly the tastings were frequently directly related to the class curriculum and I learned a lot. Frequently but not always of course.
The Lab Analysis class was on the second floor of AHC's spanking new science building, about 100 yards from the winery. The Lab Analysis class was two hours or so. The first half was lecture, the second half was lab time. There was a 15 minute break between each half.
You can guess what started happening. There were about 10 of us from winemaking class in Lab Analysis and ... we needed to check our wine. It's right there. What helped our justification for essentially drinking during school was that the lab time was chaotic, with the whole class (about 25 people) crowding around the instructor demonstrating a typical lab panel for wine or grape juice. These demos left a lot of us completely confused, so there were even a couple of occasions towards the end where we stopped going back to class and just lounged around the winery facility enjoying our barrel samples. It was great camaraderie, and those lab sessions were driving me crazy.
It was funny how I went from sharpened idealist ready for knowledge to a tipsy part time student who was drinking during each of his (admittedly wine-based) classes. Will the same arc occur in a winery - starting a crush working hard, eagle eyed, focused, only to be lying around 6 months later experiencing the inventory firsthand more often than not?
Nah.
]]>I'm in a holding period between the Grenache fermentation and the syrah harvest. The syrah is the crux of the whole venture so naturally I'm a little tense. Combined with the stress of the financial collapse and various family issues I'm all atwitter these days.
Sal has revised his opinion of the Grenache somewhat, from "bubblegum" to "I'm liking it much better". This is good news, assuming a substantial qualitative upgrade from "bubblegum" to "much better" than bubblegum.
Roger my Syrah contact emailed me yesterday with his outlook on the pick date: at least 2 more weeks, maybe 3. As long as it gets there it's fine with me - I just want some ripe syrah at this point. Roger has asserted repeatedly that the syrah grapes have to be shriveled to really be ripe. Shriveled is really one small step from itty bitty raisins so it's a fine line.
I have never personally harvested syrah. I have harvested cabernet sauvignon, sangiovese, pinot noir, chardonnay, merlot and a bit of pinot grigio. Admittedly my experience with harvesting firsthand is very shallow - of all the grapes that have fallen to my deft clipper moves Sangiovese is the only one I have personally harvested more than once.
The best grape I ever personally picked, in terms of market value, is without a doubt the Kathryn Kennedy cabernet sauvignon. Kathryn Kennedy Cab sells for around $150 a bottle by now I think and at the time (1998) it was already well over $100 per bottle. All of my harvest experience is directly related to either my experience with Kathryn Kennedy Winery or the AHC winemaking course.
The history of the Kathryn Kennedy winery is unique and
iconoclastic. Some time ago Kathryn Kennedy divorced her wealthy developer
husband. I don't know the terms of the settlement but I do know she received
their home in
Kathryn Kennedy received one of these in her divorce settlement. She decided to plant a cabernet sauvignon vineyard on 7 acres on the lower part of the estate. She had decided to reinvent herself as a winemaker. Within a few years Kathryn Kennedy winery was operating out of a building on the estate and it was essentially a one or two person operation for many years. The winery only produced one wine: a 100% estate bottled Cabernet Sauvignon. It was very expensive. Production was very limited. That's about what I know of the original history.
Kathryn Kennedy Winery came to my attention because I was
such a fan of Ridge Winery and their ATP wine club. Since I came up every year
for the 4th of July wine club party I stayed overnight in the area and
spent the next day tasting at the other local wineries in the
When I first started coming up for the Ridge event I had studied a map of the local wineries to see where there was additional tasting for "Day 2 - Santa Cruz Mountain Debauch". In the mid 1990's there were perhaps only about 7 or 8 wineries with tasting rooms, and a handful more that had no tasting rooms. One of the ones that captured my attention was Kathryn Kennedy Winery, essentially due to its complete mystery: There they were, on all the maps of The Santa Cruz Mountains appellation but:
There was no public tasting room
There was no tasting or touring by appointment
There was possibly no retail distribution
There was one wine - the hyper expensive Cabernet Sauvignon,
as pricy as the Ridge Montebello Cab. The
Thus the name Kathryn Kennedy stuck with me over the years. Every time
I looked at an updated vineyard map of the area (there are
new winery and vineyard operations popping up in
I became connected to Kathryn Kennedy Winery through their Syrah. Syrah? I thought they only made Cabernet. When I had last checked in on them that was the case but a few years later I was reading something or other on wine (perhaps on the internet) when a passing reference was made to the 1996 Kathryn Kennedy Syrah, in very complimentary tones. Kathryn Kennedy! I couldn't believe it. I still had a deep curiosity about this mysterious place. The syrah was $38, so although definitely high priced, much less than the triple digit cab. I called the winery and spoke to winemaker Marty Mathis, who is Kathryn Kennedy's son.
Kathryn Kennedy had recently retired after years of turning out her Cabernet and Marty had taken over. Marty had ambitious plans for the winery operations. Kathryn Kennedy was already middle-aged when she started the winery but Marty was in his early 30's and had grown up essentially at the winery. It was time to spread their wings.
Marty was affable and happy to chat about winery things in general. I had been so curious for so long that all of my dormant interest was now reawakened, and I quizzed him about winery stuff. We chatted for a bit and he remarked that, yes, the syrah was just great. He got the grapes from an old farmer who had a large parcel of farmland right above the Kathryn Kennedy Estate. The farmer was a distant cousin of the Mondavi family and at one point he'd been advised by family members who would know that he should tear up some of those low income nut tress and plant sangiovese and syrah. He had done so a few years ago and now Marty was getting some nice syrah grapes.
I ordered a bottle and awaited it with great anticipation.
It showed up in a week or so and I took over to my parents' house. They both
like a nice glass of wine and my mother is a top cook, in a hearty Central
European (i.e. Czech-Slovak-Hungarian) kind of way. I don't recall what we had
for dinner but I still recall the taste of the Kathryn Kennedy 1996 Syrah,
Maridon Vineyard. Let me put it this way: The Kathryn Kennedy 1996 Syrah,
Maridon Vineyard is possibly the best
My interest was even more piqued. I ordered 2 more bottles.
Now, even today a $38 California Syrah is definitely a slightly pricy
(although, alas, not at all uncommon) item. In 1998 it was, for all I know, the priciest
The next 2 syrahs were, yes, great, prodigious, amazing. By this time I wanted to experience this operation firsthand. I had spoken with Marty again subsequently and we were on familiar terms so I called him and offered my services for the upcoming crush. He readily accepted my offer of free labor.
I rented a motel room in
Marty was running pretty lean for his crush operations. He had one full time employee at the winery, who was there to supervise the picking crew, ferry bins back and forth, prepare for the crushing and fermentation, etc. In addition there was an old friend of the family, a man in his late fifties, who helped out every year. And me.
Throughout the course of the day I picked grapes. And more grapes. Marty brought in a nice lunch, accompanied by various Kathryn Kennedy wines. In the last few years he had expanded the winery's offerings considerably, by now offering a pair of whites, some additional cabernet and cab franc blends, a malbec blend and of course the syrah. He would also be taking some of Charlie (syrah) Maridon's sangiovese that year. The lunch tasted great, as it always does when you've been doing manual labor all morning, and the wines were generously poured. In the afternoon it was off to the Maridon vineyard to pick sangiovese. I was by now tired of picking grapes (at this writing I am permanently tired of picking grapes. It doesn't take long) and wondering if I had trekked up just to spend a weekend as a migrant worker.
Thankfully by mid-afternoon the grapes were all picked and waiting in several bins outside the small winery building, a barn like structure roughly the size of 2 suburban garages. Marty's permanent employee left at 5:00 or 6:00; in the few hours leading up to the welcome dinner break Marty's friend and myself moved carboys (Sparkletts bottle sized containers frequently used for keeping topping wine or aging small experimental batches), rearranging barrels and yakking about Kathryn Kennedy Winery. Following dinner the crush would commence - roughly 12 tons of cabernet grapes.
Dinner tasted as good as lunch, since I was even more tired now, and we drank more tasty Kathryn Kennedy wine - all the offerings were very good, although not up to the standards of the syrah. We were not offered any of the syrah or estate cabernet with the meals, nor would I expect any.
The three of us had a relaxing dinner, capped off by tasting
barrel samples of something or other (
The winery had a very small, slow crusher. Marty told me that this assured gentle handling of the grapes. It also assured slow handling of the grapes. Marty assumed the position near the top of the bin and shoveled grapes into the crusher. The family friend and myself were positioned at the crusher to make sure things didn't jam, pulling stems out of the apparatus and crushed grapes, etc.
By about
We finally finished after
Since I wasn't coming back to the winery Marty gave me a case of wine for my hard work; I really had expected only a bottle or two but he was more than generous. Included in my booty were 2 bottles of 1995 estate Cab (!) and 3 more of the magical 1996 Syrah, as well as a nice cross section of the current releases.
I slowly drove back to the motel wondering how I would muster the strength for another day; I really felt the exhaustion deep in my bones. After a predictably sound night's sleep I managed to be up bright and early the next day; Off I went to the to the remote facility. On my way out there it started raining and by the time I got there it was a full deluge. Since much of this facility's operations took place outside, the day's activities were cancelled. I felt like I'd gotten a reprieve from the governor, as just driving out there had reminded me how tired I was from the day before.
Thus I really only worked 1 day on the Kathryn Kennedy crush, and received a handsome package of wine. I felt slightly guilty about this (but not too guilty). I developed a hernia shoveling all those grapes, which helped to assuage any bit of guilt I might have felt.
In addition to my souvenir hernia another result of my weekend with Marty was the termination of my corporate IT job when I came in Monday morning. I had been slated to be let go for some time, and the person who had been hired to "re-engineer" the company (a popular and abused term in the nineties) had been treating me as persona non grata since he'd arrived six months previously, I had skipped work Friday and had only told my assistant of my general whereabouts. Apparently re-engineering guy had flown into a rage when hearing about my wine crush weekend. I'd been waiting for the axe to fall so it was no great shock to finally get fired; between my first crush experience, the hernia and the firing it was quite a weekend.
Before the Kathryn Kennedy experience I'd never really handled wine grapes close up. Cabernet grapes are very regal - handsome small bluish-purple globes that feel velvety to the touch. I was struck by the contrast between the Cab grapes and the Sangiovese I picked later in the day. In contrast to the deluxe Cabernet package the Sangiovese really were just ... grapes. They didn't look any different from table grapes; even the color was banal - a typical dark shiny purple you might see at your local grocery store compared to the impeccable bluish pastel of the cabernet.
I though about these and other grapes when Roger told me about the mandatory shriveling required for ripe for syrah. Yes, they're all different. Any skepticism I might have towards this shriveling idea was mitigated by a few bunches in the vineyard that had already shriveled. Lo and behold, these forlorn looking specimens tasted much better than the healthy, fulsome grapes that dominated the vines - the shriveled shall inherit the Earth.
About this time I had dinner in a much touted local wine
bistro in
As a postscript to the Kathryn Kennedy experience, all of the wines in my case ranged from good to superb, with the exception of the estate Cabernet. As has happened to me so often, I was sorely disappointed by a highly touted Cabernet/Bordeaux , both bottles not showing much of anything. I even waited until 2003 to open the first cab, just to let it age a bit. My expectations were low by the time I opened Cab number 2 two years later and it tasted identical to the first one - my first impression was no fluke.
The 3 syrahs Marty gave me were all fantastic. The following year the price was hiked to over $60, thus ending my relationship with it. I did go up to the winery a few years later for one of their rare public events and managed to taste the current syrah offerings. It was a blisteringly hot day, so tannic red wines were not really hitting the spot. The event was outside and my whole time there what I really wanted was a cold beer.
I just took a quick look at the Kathryn Kennedy website and sure enough the Maridon Syrah continues to be on offer, at $65.
]]>I spent this week in
Jason and I rolled up to Amador County on Wednesday morning;
I'd spent Monday and Tuesday on personal visits to some family and friends on
the Coast and now I was ready to work. Sort of. Observe and taste was more like
it. We'd booked a night at a nice Bed and Breakfast in
The vineyard where I'm getting my grenache and mourvedre
grapes is owned by Charlie, who has a nice residence on his sprawling vineyard
spread. I had spoken to him once on the phone and exchanged a few emails before
committing to the grape purchase. In other words I was winging it, per usual.
I'd decided to try to snag some other
I had found Charlie's grapes in (where else?) Wine Business
Monthly. He was advertising up to 2 tons of Grenache, and 2 tons sounded about
right in terms of my budget, coupled with the fact I didn't know anything about
the vineyard or him. We spoke on the phone and he referred me to
Charlie's vineyard is in the
Amador County resembles many other wine regions as it features rolling hills, vineyards, tasting rooms and little country roads. One way it does not resemble many California wine regions is that instead of quaint little towns dotted with tasting rooms, boutiques and cafes, the area is interspersed with somewhat less charming towns that are as likely to feature auto parts outlets as tasting rooms. Even the most touristy town, Sutter Creek, is right next to Jackson, a municipality whose main appeal seems to be its sleepiness. Even Sutter Creek goes very light on the tasting room presence (I only saw one), although it does seem to be a good place to shop for antiques or wander among Victorian gold rush architecture.
We were headed to the outskirts of
After I had committed to the Grenache Charlie had offered me some Syrah and Mourvedre as well. Of course I have plenty of Syrah but the Mourvedre sounded appealing and I committed to 1 ton. So I was going to look at both Grenache and Mourvedre.
I had talked to Charlie on the phone Tuesday to remind him of my visit. He had another surprise for me besides his urgent desire to Pick those Grapes Now! Some weeks earlier he had sent me an email saying that due to lower yields I could only expect 1 ton instead of 2. On the phone he now said I could expect ½ ton. He also claimed he had sent me an email saying as much, a complete fabrication. Once again I was feeling rather disrespected in the wine world. It almost didn't make sense to get ½ ton of Grenache. Almost but not quite, as now the strategy would have to be to make a Mourvedre with whatever Grenache I got as a blender.
Thus hot on the news of my reduced allocation I was in a bit of a sour mood regarding Charlie and his grapes.
We wound our way up to Renwood Winery, their enormous tanks
gleaming in the sun; down a small road we found to entrance to Charlie's
spread. Once on his property it was another ¼ mile up a dirt road until we
reached a large
After greetings all around and availment of bathroom facilities we stood around playing with the dog while Charlie paced around nervously fielding calls from what seemed to be more grape customers. From overhearing Charlie's side of the conversation I gleaned that while Charlie wanted to pick now, everyone (like me) wanted to wait a bit. He agreed to pick the following Friday (10 days hence) with a customer clearly more important to him than myself.
We followed him down to the vineyard, back outside the gate we had entered and looked at the Grenache grapes. Sal had told me that unless they were totally raisined, waiting would be advisable, which now seemed the prevailing opinion. The grapes were not raisined but tasted ripe; we all agreed that Friday was the way to go, Charlie disclosed to me that he was shorting everybody (including myself), mostly due to the frost (that damn Santa Barbara County frost, coming back to haunt me 400 miles to the North), and he admitted that he even considered shutting me out completely. Upon hearing this I was glad that I had showed up; if I had remained just an anonymous (and small) customer somewhere to the South he might have done so, but now I was a living, breathing, wine dude, so he felt obligated to get me my grapes. Of course there was also the small matter of breach of contract, as he had not wasted any time cashing the deposit check I'd sent him but in the wine world it's all about putting a romantic spin on things. At least first time around.
We ended up having a good visit, taking some time to taste the Mourvedre grapes (not ready) and talking about general wine stuff. It seems he would like less Zinfandel and more Grenache planted in his vineyard (he has some zinfandel still for sale), confirming the trend I'd seen in Paso Robles on a visit there some weeks earlier.
After an unremarkable "gourmet" Tuscan dinner in
The Syrah vineyard is owned by a man named Steve Wirth who I had never met before; it was unclear how involved he was in the actual vineyard. I had always dealt with Roger King, the head of the Suisun Valley Wine Grape Growers Association. Roger had listed the grapes for sale and shown me around the area, drawn up the contract and generally acted like the man in charge.
I called Roger and arranged to meet him at GV Cellars, where we would all (hopefully including Sal) go over to the Wirth Vineyard (across the street from the winery) and look at grapes.
We rolled into GV Cellars, which was bustling with activity. Their annual harvest festival was set to kick off the next day so there were people milling around everywhere setting up party-related items and equipment.
The winery proper is in the back section of the main building, so we walked around to the back, accompanied by one of the friendly vineyard dogs. Just like last time the winery appeared to be in state of chaos. Someone was worker on what appeared to be a small crusher right at the entrance, fitting a new chain. The inside was packed with barrels and fermenters; immediately outside forklifts and various people were running around, some seemingly at random.
My initial impression of GV Cellars is that it resembled a winery I might run, if I ran a large winery that did a lot of outside work. I'm not sure this is a great thing - most winery operations are very clean and well organized places, with people doing their work slowly and pourposefully. GV is not too organized or clean from outward appearances, and has a lot of people rushing around, without much purpose. It honestly is a fun place though, due partly to the seemingly random nature of things.
We gave Sal a sample of the Grenache from Charlie's vineyard, which he took into the "lab" (a tiny room in the winery with a PH meter, a sink and some cupboards filled with, I guess, pipettes, vials and other testing paraphernalia. or maybe cookies and crackers). He came back and pronounced the brix 25.6 with a PH of 3.8.
Brix is the percentage of solids in the juice, essentially sugar content. PH is the degree of acidity in any solution (NOT the amount of acid, which in wine is mostly tartaric acid), with 7 representing a neutral reading. A solution below 7 is acid and above 7 is alkaline. A finished wine will come in with a PH of between 3 and 4 generally. A PH under 3.4 or so will taste notably acidic and a PH over 4 might be a little flabby. Wines with a high PH generally are not good agers, as the acid will provide the structure and the mild preservative effect to ensure longevity. There are many high alcohol, high fruit wines, especially from hot weather areas in California, that come in with PH values around 4or even higher - many of these taste pretty good, but what they have in common most of all is a blinking sign that says "drink me now - this is as good as it's going to get".
Since my Grenache allocation was going to be miniscule I didn't worry too much about the chemistry numbers, although I would perhaps prefer a tick or two lower on the PH side. The general equation for brix is slightly less than .6 degrees of alcohol per unit of brix so 25.6 brix ends up as roughly between 14.5% and 15% alcohol in a wine fermented totally dry, a value that was considered outlandish 30 years ago but is now well within normal for a California red.
After the brix/ph report Sal took me over to my barrels. My barrels! My guys! I had purchased 20 of the older barrels from Signorello sight unseen; Sal pointed out that they had snuck in an American oak barrel even though I'd been promised all French. Oh well. I'm overstocked anyway. A friend had asked me about getting a barrel as a garden decoration earlier that week and now I had just the thing for him.
The Sylvain barrels from Larkmead looked nice. I told Sal
about my idea for a reserve syrah, barrel fermented, aged on its lees and to
cap it, aged on its lees in the nice Sylvains. He liked the idea of creating a
separate lot of wine just to see what it would be like. The lees aging idea is
not that common for reds (or even whites in
Sal didn't have time to visit the syrah vineyard so Jason and I followed Roger over there. It looked the same as it had last time with the notable exception of purple grape clusters hanging off the vines. Ahhhhh, much nicer. As we were tasting our first grapes (noticeably unripe), I heard a howling in the distance, steadily getting louder. Coming up the small dir access road that runs through the vineyard a man wheeled a World War II vintage jeep around a bend towards us, accompanied by a large dog apparently trying to bite the right front tire of the moving vehicle. This was the source of the howling, as Fido was really making a racket while jousting with jeep. The jeep pulled up and there was Steve Wirth - he really existed.
Steve Wirth is a very tall, lean man. He looks like a farmer, although I don't know if he does that full time. I'm not sure he even makes a profit on the syrah. He also grows zinfandel at his vineyard, which does go to a commercial operation and it's a good sized vineyard - I could have gotten at least 12 tons of syrah if I had wanted to.
The Wirth Syrah vineyard has never produced commercial wine. This will be the fourth vintage of grapes from it, and it seems to me it's something of a make or break period for this venture, as I'm willing to put enough resources into the venture to produce it commercially. If my wine is less than good it's unclear who else will want to take a leap of faith.
Roger had told me the history of the venture: A winemaker
from
A sad story it is indeed. Of course I don't know the other
side of it. I don't rule out the possibility that the grapes are sub par and in
fact I'm worried that they may not ripen fully. The vineyard is in a cool
weather area, which is where you want to be in
This sort of negativity is premature and I'm optimistic. In fact if the grapes ripen just enough I may have a complex and elegant syrah on my hands. As I keep reiterating, this year is a pilot project. Or did I say crapshoot?
Steve Wirth turned out to be a very solid, farmer type guy. For all I know he has twenty other vineyards, or maybe he supports himself as a software consultant and likes having a vineyard. He acts like a farmer, at one point complaining about the high cost of running the vineyard, as any good farmer would do. Or someone in the wine business.
We stood around talking and tasting unripe syrah grapes for a few more minutes. We took a couple of bunches back for Sal to have a look at and run some numbers on our return to GV Cellars. The numbers confirmed what I knew: brix was around 21, so at least 3 or 4 ticks to go. Roger is optimistic that they will ripen nicely in 2 to 3 weeks. Like I said, I'm with him.
Following my return to Los Angeles Charlie had a surprise for me: he was postponing the Grenache harvest until 2 local winemakers checked out the grapes and made the decision when to harvest. This was yet another example of my novice status in the wine industry and I'm starting to get very tired of it. First this guy had advertised 2 tons, then he decided I was getting 1 ton, then (without telling me until I came up there ) that was reduced to ½ ton. And now he was jerking me around on the harvest date we'd agreed on.
I had already arranged for Sal to go pick up the Grenache.
It's 2 hours from
I had to tell Sal that the grapes might not be picked that Friday; here's my email:
Yo
Sal
The
grower is not picking on Friday, looks like late next week. Sorry for the
confusion, he's jerking me around big time. I'll update you ASAP when he
commits to a firm date.
MS
Here's his
response:
I thought the quality from
the samples you brought was already degrading. Grenache has a tendency to
become very unbalanced in late pickings, I'd rethink these grapes Mike, weather
is supposed to be in the low 90's by Monday up there. I'd hate to see you
spend all this money for 90 gallons of Grenache you're not happy with.
Let me know what you think.
And here's my response to his response:
I agree w/ you completely but
the problem is the guy sells a lot more of it
to winemakers in Amador who are focused on fruit bombs (it all tastes like
zin no matter what the varietal). So these winemakers have decided on an
extra week.
Yes, I was getting frustrated enough to start ragging on
everybody, not just Charlie. These damn
I forwarded Sal's email to Charlie and voila! Charlie was picking Rousanne on Friday, so he could have his crew pick the Grenache afterwards. Of course, since I was a more or less unimportant customer (ah, that frustration ...), the Grenache would be picked last, meaning in the hot sun, and it would ride back another 90 minutes in the hot sun.
When you pick grapes you want to do it as early as possible. The simple fact is that the grapes taste better cold, in addition to the negative effects of sitting in the sun (or even shade) as the temperature rises. Sal had bins with lids, so that would help, but I was still worried. Doing it all by remote control wasn't helping my mood either.
After going back and forth with Charlie a bit (at one point
in a phone conversation I told him we might as well throw the grapes in a
toilet rather than transporting them back in the sun) he promised to have them
picked by
So we were on. It turns out Sal didn't get there until
Sal and I had agreed to do a cold soak on the Grenache, so
if he could them back to
Charlie called late Friday and complimented me on Sal's professionalism. He assured me the grapes were beautiful and all was well. What else would he say?
I received an email from Sal today (Thursday). After the cold soak he inoculated the grapes with yeast on Monday and they're currently fermenting. He says they smell "very bubble gummy". I don't think this is a good thing at this point, but at least they don't smell like rotten fish or fertilizer. Bubble gum is not really a flavor component I had in mind though.
One of the problems Sal had relayed to me was that the fermentations at GV were going very fast. He said in the email he would press it off Saturday, which means a 6 day fermentation. When I was up there he remarked that a large lot of Sauvignon Blanc has also fermented in 5 to 7 days. Generally you want to ferment your wine around 14 days. The slower the better (to a point). This seems to be directly connected to GV's equipment. Normally fermenting tanks have cooling sleeves in order to slow down and extend fermentation. GV has some big tanks, but for the smaller stuff I think they just leave it in the winery and let it go.
So I'm glad this small lot of Grenache is just about ready for barrel - I'm learning what's going on up there. I'll be going up for the syrah harvest and I need to address a couple of things with Sal, most notably the fermentation times. I have to insist we try to get to 14 days, or at least a few more than 6. Whether I have enough influence to get them to do this, and whether their facilities will even support it is another issue entirely.
The other factor I'm worried about is the cold soak. I would like to cold soak the entire lot of syrah, 3 days or so for most of it and 6 or 7 days for our potential reserve. I'm not sure this place, cramped and chaotic as it is, has the ability to let 6 tons of grapes sit around in a cold soak.
A cold soak is a common method of extracting additional flavors, tannins and (primarily) color from grapes. Additional chemical reactions occur that extract more phenols from the juice and skins over the period of cold soaking. Phenols are the flavor components of grapes and wine.
There is no downside to it if you have the proper facilities and the proper attention. There is tremendous downside if either of those two factors don't exist - if the temperature is not kept cold and if the grapes are not hit with SO2 once or twice you can get premature fermentation with native yeasts, bacterial infection, etc. Bad stuff. So again I'm worried - I may have to settle for just cold soaking the "reserve" (only about 1½ tons) and plunging forward with the rest.
The silver lining in all of it is that the mourvedre will come in so late we can probably do whatever we want in terms of soaking and fermentation because that will almost certainly be the last lot of grapes into GV - Charlie told me it never ripens before late October.
Time to check in with Roger on syrah ripeness. I hope he doesn't tell me it's tasting like bubblegum.
]]>A lot of people have asked how I plan to sell my wine. I
have no good answer for that at the moment. I'm thinking direct pitches to
sommeliers in
Or maybe I could submit it to a wine publication and get a super duper score and be sold out for the next 5 years up front.
Wine scores have taken over wine marketing and fine wine
sales among a huge swath of the "informed" wine buying public in the
When it comes to reviewing and rating wine for the American market there are two publications that tower above all others in influence: The Wine Spectator and the Wine Advocate. The Wine Spectator is a large format glossy magazine that features, along with an extensive list of capsule wine reviews (each accompanied by a score), all sorts of articles about wine and food and to a lesser extent traveling to places that have wine and food.
The Wine Advocate is a newsletter, and almost no one refers to it as "The Wine Advocate" when discussing it. They refer to it as Robert Parker.
Robert Parker is one of the most polarizing figures in the
wine world. An ex-attorney based in
It's important to note that by now The Wine Advocate has
several writers and tasters besides Parker, but it will always be Parker who is
synonymous with the publication and its reviews..
The 100 point scale has fomented severe consternation over the years. Briefly, a wine that scores from 95 to 100 points is considered outstanding, at the very top of its class. 90 to 94 is excellent. 85 to 89 very good, 80 to 85 good. Below 80 is not recommended for much more than cooking, so really it's a 20 point scale. The Wine Spectator uses the same scoring system.
Very few wines get scored below 80 and very few get a
"perfect" 100. A brief glance show around 130 perfect Robert Parker scores as
of June 2008, the vast majority from
The simple fact is that a review from Parker can make or break a winery, the general demark being 90 points (although if a wine is low priced 85 may get it over the hump). Wineries decry the monolithic and quantitative 100 point scale but if their wine scores over 90 you can be sure they will feature that score in all of their marketing and communications. You can also be sure that the price will go up quickly.
The wine scoring process has become so ingrained in the culture of wine retailing, marketing and collecting that sadly, many wines that do not score over 90 points become market laggards, for no good reason. I have been in many wine shops; in most of them the high scoring wines are displayed prominently, and many customers tend to seek them out (I have been told by friends in the wine business that some customers will not even consider a higher end wine that scores less than 90 points). Naturally the high scorers sell out quickly, and if you can find a wine that scored over 95 points you will see a marked up price. Of course you can get one at auction. As I was perusing Parker's 100 point wines I took a glance at the Sine Qua Non 2003 Syrah. It's still available, at a number of online auctions, at a median price of around $800. This wine was probably priced at $40 or $50 on release although once the score came in the release price went up quickly.
Parker is regularly reviled for mainly 2 reasons:
1) It is unhealthy for one person to have so much power over tastes, trends and pricing.
And
2) He has an affinity for a very specific type of wine, i.e. big blockbuster reds bursting with fruit and tannins and lacking, perhaps, a subtle or food-friendly touch.
From my own wine tasting experiences I know that after a while a certain amount of palate fatigue sets in, and it takes more and more oomph to cut through that fatigue. Thus a wine that early on may have been just plain over the top with overripe fruit and high alcohol just really hits the spot later in the game. It's important to note that wine tastings do not involve food, and the tasters usually spit out the wines. Thus the wine tasting and reviewing scenario does not resemble a typical scenario for fine wine i.e. having a bottle with a meal. I recall a quote from a well known winemaker (I forget who) along the lines of "I make my wine to drink with food, not Lafitte".
I've learned this lesson many times. Recently I was at a wine bar in Solvang, and doing an extensive tasting (as is frequently my wont) of mostly pinot noirs. Since I don't spit, I was not only experiencing palate fatigue but also a degree of lapsed judgment. The counter guy brought out a zinfandel from Paso Robles, a huge fruit bomb with over 16% alcohol, to contrast with all those elegant pinots. It tasted great; all that fruit and alcohol cut right through. I bought a bottle but when I subsequently served it at a nice dinner it didn't mate with the food so much as squash it.
The main objection to Parker is not so much his palate but his power. In fairness to the man, his influence frequently seems to be a source of embarrassment to him. After all, he's really a guy who loved wine and wanted to write about it. World domination was not on his agenda. Corollary to the criticism is the charge that winemakers have altered their style to get high scores. Honestly I can't vouch for this is one way or another, but I can say that there are an awful lot of wines out there and it can't be that difficult to find one in a style you like. They're not all big ass reds.
The Wine Spectator (WS) is the co-conspirator as far as the
wine score tyranny goes. WS started as an industry newsletter; in the 1990's it
evolved into a large glossy magazine and is now the undisputed heavyweight when
it comes to North American wine magazines.
I used to read WS regularly, and pored over their wine ratings, which make up several pages in the back of every issue. I became burnt out by the magazine's style and disillusioned with the whole rating system.
WS is so in thrall to their wine scores that any reference
to a wine in an article will always be accompanied by its score. For example an
article about travel in
Like any subjective system, the WS scores are imperfect to
the point of occasionally being badly flawed. One of my favorite wines of the
past few years was a 2001 Kali Hart pinot noir, a low priced wine made by
Robert Talbot, a well known chardonnay and pinot noir specialist in
Why was this delicious wine, from a respected producer, so low priced? I learned later that WS had scored it 78 points, essentially delivering a death blow to the wine in terms of market acceptance - a score below 80 points might as well be zero.
When I was an avid reader of WS I did purchase wines based on scores, but this practice lasted a short time. The wines were disappointing more often than they should have been, they were hard to find and naturally no one does you any favors on the price.
Now, most wines scored highly by WS and Parker are without a
doubt good wines, and most wines scored low are not. This is an immutable fact
of wine reviews in general. Wine reviewers are generally conscientious and feel
that what they are doing is an important part of the wine world (there are a
few publications that seem to have a different agenda and give suspiciously high
scores). And you are not going to be able to taste most wines, especially pricy
and/or rare ones, so if you're curious about a certain wine or genre reviews
and scores may need to be your starting and/or ending point. But the lesson I
have learned over and over again is that acquiring wine based on reviews
(numerical or otherwise) is both limiting and not much fun, and to my friends
who shop solely on the basis of scores I say go out and taste before you buy.
The wine magazine I read regularly is Decanter, the leading
wine mag in
Truth be told, Decanter is a fairly stodgy publication, and they cater to a certain kind of British clientele, the kind that presumably buys "claret" and owns a cellar which ages fine wines for many years before drinking. The Brits are obsessed with drinking older wines, something that bemuses the French, who make most of these wines that are laid down to age. Decanter is also a rabid Robert Parker hater, and their various writers and columnists will take various potshots at him from time to time. I find this great fun and I believe much of it stems from envy - the fat cats of British wine journalism want to call the shots and set the tastes rather than the American upstart. Jancis Robinson, a frequent contributor and probably the leading female wine writer in the world, has a long running feud with Parker. Oddly enough, this feud apparently originated over a single bottle of wine: the 2003 Chateau Pavie. Robinson gave it 12 out of 20 points and called it "portly-sweet late harvest Zinfandel". Parker gave it 100 points. They've been at odds ever since, as various critics lined up behind one or the other (usually based on which side of the Atlantic they were on) and the whole thing turned into an argument over whose philosophy of wine was "right".
Hugh Johnson, another well known wine writer who contributes
to Decanter had this to say about Parker in his memoir: "Imperial hegemony
lives in
Decanter is of course rabidly against the "American" 100 point scoring system. When they rate their wines it's on the 5 star scale, with ones and fives being very rare. Ah but Jancis Robinson gave the Chateau Pavie 12 out of 20. What's going on?
In
It's now getting towards fall and that means crush time. The real action (part 1) is about to begin.
I procured barrels from 3 different sources, all through Wine Business Monthly. Since I'm getting between 8 and 9 tons worth of grapes; that translates to roughly 630 cases, using a very optimistic figure of 70 cases per ton. This is on the high side, 65 or so per ton is more realistic. Still, you don't want to be short of barrels, so I have 31. There are 25 cases per barrel so I have over 750 cases worth of capacity - as usual I over shopped.
I purchased 8 barrels from Meza barrel Company in
There is a funny sequence in Mondovino, a highly biased film that laments the homogenization of the wine industry. Although Mondovino makes some good points the film goes out of its way to make buffoons out of wine industry figures it disapproves of. One of those is Michel Rolland, a Pomerol based "flying winemaker" who is in great demand the world over. Rolland has attracted tremendous criticism from many sectors for creating wines all over the world that taste similar (I can't vouch for this yea or nay since I can't afford his clients' products). His other accomplishment is usually to increase sales of the clients' wines, sometimes very dramatically. In the film he is shown running in to 2 or 3 wineries, screaming "microoxygenate!" and then running back out to his chauffeur-driven Mercedes, presumably off to the next winery to repeat the process.
Meza Barrel Company is outside
I was more interested in the somewhat newer barrels, so we
strolled through the dark unlit building. It's a great setting for a horror
movie, perhaps a deranged killer living amongst the barrels in the dark corner
of the warehouse, picking off unsuspecting winemakers looking for a few good
barrels.
Armed with the tiny flashlight I keep in my car I inspected the inventory. The ones I was interested in were near the front thankfully, so there was a bit of daylight helping me out. The truth of the matter is that I knew I wanted French oak but beyond that I have no idea how the various barrels would affect my wine. Some looked less used than others but I felt this might be misleading, although of course I didn't want any falling apart at the seams.
As with all things in winemaking there is much ongoing
debate about barrels and cooperage. French oak commands the highest price and
is considered the best product. At this writing a new French oak barrel will
cost $1100 in the
The French have by far the most comprehensive oak program. There are several forests, replanting has been regularly undertaken since the 19th century and the oak is usually aged from 2 to 3 years before being sold to cooperages. There are many cooperages. Some common wisdom says that the cooper has a greater influence on the taste of the wine than the forest used for the wood, others say it's a subtle nuance at most. The barrels are toasted (charred on the inside) after construction: there is light, medium and heavy toast. There is also medium+ toast, which I guess is between medium and heavy. The great majority of barrels used for red wines are medium and medium+ toast - I have never seen a barrel marked "heavy" toast.
In the winemaking class Norm brought in barrel samples of the same pinot noir that was aging in 3 different brands of new French oak. It was quite a revelation, as the wine from each barrel tasted noticeably different. Norm explained what he looked for in each barrel e.g. tannic structure, oak flavor, more gradual aging, etc. I had a similar experience when Norm brought in a guest speaker who was a rep for several French coopers on the West Coast - sure enough the same trial was repeated, also with pinot noir, and the whole class noticed distinct differences across the different barrels.
So what does it all mean? It means experience counts and it
means I'm winging it. Since all of my barrels are at least 11/2 years old (in
terms of use) it's a double edged sword. The oak flavors I'm going to get will
be muted at best but it's possible I will gain little in experience as to how a
certain barrel tastes.
At Meza I selected 8 barrels - 4 Saury, 2 Quintessa and 2 Roberts and Sons. I took the Saury since Saury is widely used and I've seen it everywhere - how much damage can it do? I took the Roberts and Sons because it was from Nevers, one of the smaller French forests. I've never heard of Roberts and Sons but I liked the exotic aspect of using Nevers oak. And I'm sure I took the Quintessas for some good reason but I can't remember why.
After shaking hands on the deal I looked up Nevers, seeing that it was a robust flavored wood generally used for heavy reds. Hmm, heavy red is not the style I'm going for but on the other hand, maybe that means they'll have more left after 2 vintages. Or maybe it means nothing. Or something completely different - for all I know the "heavy reds" presumably aged in these barrels soak up all the oak early on.
Roger quoted me $200 for shipping to
I returned to Wine Business Monthly for more barrels; I
figured I needed 20 more and sure enough Signorello, an upscale winery in
Fair enough, but it never hurts to ask. These are my neutral oak barrels.
I had also been in contact with Larkmead, an even more
upscale winery in
I did more research on Sylvain and luckily they were widely considered superior for syrah in particular and reds in general. Larkmead later informed me the Damptos was gone, so I got an additional Sylvain. The 3 Sylvains are my "new" barrels, as silly as that sounds. It's all relative when you're doing it on a shoestring.
I had Sal arrange to pick up the 2 additional lots, so
everything is now at the
My preliminary plans for the barrels are:
For the Grenache:
I'm getting between 1 and 2 tons, which means between 2 and 4 barrels
1 Sylvain, 1 Roberts and Son, 1 Saury and the rest neutral
For the Mourvedre:
1 Saury, 2 neutrals
For the Syrah:
Everything else.
How have I come up with these formulas? It's a combination of about 20% common sense and 80% winging it. The Grenache was originally meant to be my flagship, so it needs some oak. I don't want an oaky Mourvedre, as it's probably going to be a blender.
The syrah is where I can play around. I'm getting six tons,
which by itself is almost 400 cases. I want to do 2 barrel fermentations, just
to see. Barrel fermenting syrah is fairly unusual but not unheard of, and I've
had barrel fermented pinot noirs that are terrific, so I can try an experiment.
I may leave one of the barrels on its lees (the dead yeast cells) until
bottling and rack the other just to see the difference there as well. I'm not sure
if you're supposed to barrel ferment a red in new or old oak so I need to
research that issue. I'm sure I'll find a variety of opinions on the subject.
The lees thing is usually used for a certain style of white
wine (it's widely used in
My original plan was to have the Grenache be my flagship
wine. I think there is only one winery doing a 100% Grenache from the vineyard
in
So the strategy's changed. I'm now thinking a GSM blend -
the classic Grenache-Syrah-Mourvedre blend found in the Cotes du Rhone. The
syrah vineyard from
There of course will be a syrah, maybe 2. If the barrel fermenting thing works out there might even been a reserve variant, for a few extra bucks. Will I blend in some of the other 2? Uhmmmm.
And then there's the mourvedre. Mourvedre in
The depreciation of barrel stock is unbelievable: you go from $1100 to $125 to $30 to pretty much nothing in the span of 4 years.
The bottling finally took
place this weekend. To me this marks the closure of the school winemaking, and
the signal to concentrate fully on the pro thing. Complicating things is an
influx of software work that has failed to capture my interest. Which is too
bad since I could use the money.
Most of the class was
expected to show up, 13 out of the original 18 Of the 18 people that started the class back
in August 2007, 15 had stayed for part 2, and 13 would probably show up for our
final activity as a class. Everyone in the group gets along well, from my
perspective.
Of the 2 no-shows one was
Josh, my partner in the Sangiovese, and Robert S., who had to work but would be
along to the party later.
There had already been two
bottling sessions: Norm had wanted to do a Rose so we would have wine in the
first semester and thanks to the generous Merlot allotment from Buttonwood a Merlot
Rose it would be.
The class had a large amount
of merlot and in fact Buttonwood seemed to happy to allow us to take as much as
we wanted. They have a huge amount of Merlot planted and I'm not sure it's
right for the area. I remember back in the old (i.e. early 1990's) days
Buttonwood Merlot was well thought of and I personally enjoyed several bottles.
I've lost track of Buttonwood Merlot but I think they still make some. I'm sure
the Sidfeways movie hasn't helped sales.
The Buttonwood Merlot
vineyard is quite picturesque and expertly farmed. The class swarmed the
vineyard like locusts and within an hour we had over a ton of nice looking
grapes. It was a relaxing picking experience.
To make Rose you take red
grapes and press them off the skins (like a white). The skins provide the color
in red wine, so voila, you get rose. We fermented it dry, filtered it and
bottled it all within the span of 3 weeks. Someone printed some fairly nice
labels and there it was.
The Merlot Rose is not bad.
It has no flaws and tastes clean but in my opinion tastes somewhat diluted,
almost watery. Nevertheless, we'd made and bottled wine, no matter what
happened from here on in.
The second bottling
experience was the Chardonnay. We had received Chardonnay grapes from North
Canyon Vineyards, the benefactors of the beautiful pinot grapes. The Chardonnay
grapes were also beautiful but the Chardonnay tasted so bad I had lost
interest.
Shortly after the class
started Norm decided it was time to rack the wines, essentially transferring
the wine among barrels and leaving the sediments and lees (dead yeast behind).
This worked wonders with the
Chardonnay, which went from tasting like white wine flavored mud to tasting
like good Chardonnay. I missed the Chardonnay bottling session, where the wine
had been filtered before bottling. I was shocked at how good the wine had
become. It was a real eye opener in the evolution of a wine throughout the
process. The chardonnay was bottled in April and I've had a few since. All very
good.
We would bottle 5 barrels:
my Sangiovese a la Toscana, Cabernet Franc donated from Bien Nacido Vineyard,
the brown Pinot Noir and 2 Cabernet based wines from Steinbeck Vineyards in
Paso Robles: a field blend with Cab, Merlot and Petite Sirah and a straight Cab
that John B. intended to buttress with the Franc and ubiquitous Buttonwood
Merlot.
There was no separate
Buttonwood Merlot. Most of it had gone into the Sangiovese. The
Sangiovese-Merlot blend was about 50-50% and John and I had talked about
goosing it with some Steinbeck Vineyard cabernet.
John was the keeper of the
Cab. He had arranged the acquisition of the Steinbeck Vineyard grapes, which
happened very late in the firs semester: John and his wife picked the grapes
after all the red wine was in barrel; he had talked about it for so long I was
wondering if it would happen.
John is an affable man, who
also runs 2 grocery stores and plays in the local symphony orchestra. Like
everyone in the class he likes wine. He had recently converted his swimming
pool into a wine cellar (his stores feature an eclectic wine selection)
The Steinbeck vineyard is a
large operation in Paso Robles that supplies several hundred tons of grapes to
many different wineries. It's also machine harvested, which meant that the
grapes at the end of each row were there for the taking (the machine pick skips
the last few vines on each row). John knows Howie Steinbeck, proprietor, and
Howie offered John the unpicked fruit.
John had shepherded his 2 batches of cabernet himself and was in charge of
those 2 barrels.
My situation was more
complicated. Although Josh and I had picked and paid for the grapes, inoculated
the wine, done some punchdowns and made the decisions about aging, which
essentially consisted of whether to add oak chips. (I decided yes and added a
heavy dose to the wine, since we had been give the crappiest barrel in the
school's small inventory, a barrel that I knew would impart zero oak flavor).
The additional problem is
that our Sangiovese allotment was so meager we ended up with under 400 pounds
and didn't have enough wine to fill a barrel (the birds! The birds!). It made
sense to Josh and myself to fill it out with merlot to fill out the barrel. The
idea of making a "Super Tuscan" style wine was romamtic. The Sangiovese was an
over the top fruit bomb with very little acidic structure (I had to blitz it
with a large dose of tartaric acid prior to fermentation) I felt that the low
alcohol and acidic merlot would be a nice match for the boisterous high alcohol
Sangio.
Chris had warned us that preliminary lab
results showed the Sangiovese grapes were "out of balance" and had an "acid
problem" (i.e. not enough of it). Later I ran into the Margerum guy who had
been at the Vandale Vineyard and we both laughed about how much acid we had to
dump into it. Poor Chris. What a trainwreck. In the final accounting Josh and I
were severely shorted on our grapes.
The class would have to vote
on whether to combine the Merlot and Sangiovese. If they voted no Josh and I
would be hosed, as the Sangio would have to be gassed regularly to prevent
oxidation, something he and I had no chance of keeping up with.
I had to be in
Thus the class owned half of
our potential Super Tuscan. Briefly the "Super Tuscan" category arose relative
recently in Itlay. Super Tuscans are wines from Chianti and thereabouts that
are primarily Sangiovese based, but also combined with "internatonal" (i.e.
The top "Super Tuscans" are
very prestigious and sell on the basis of their widely-recognized brand names
(Sassicaia, Onellaia Tignanello, etc).
After John revealed his
Steinbeck Vineyard project to me we both agreed that we would try to add some
cab to the blend, thus creating our own Tuscan, super or otherwise.
Bottling day really was
bottling weekend. Based on the previous rose and chardonnay experiences there
was universal thinking that it would take two days to do all five barrels, 1500
bottles total, all manual labor. What we didn't full appreciate was the new
bottling apparatus.
The class had spent the
first semester based in a defunct refrigeration plant near Vandenberg AFB. It's
way out in the sticks, on an obscure road that dead ends at Vandenburg, off an
obscure highway that runs between
The facility near Vandenburg
was great. There was an indoor area we used as a classroom and an enormous
warehouse type room with a 50 foot ceiling. We were making a few barrels of
wine in this room; there was easily enough space to make 1,000. Our petite
inventory of home winemaking equipment was dwarfed by the cavernous, cool
space. There were additional warehouses there of similar proportions that were
being used for barrel storage. The owner had (and may still have) plans to
create a custom crush facility (they're spreading like wildfire) but for now it
was a barrel storage facility. The only people we ever saw there unconnected to
the class were the occasional crew leisurely unloading old barrels and slowly
moving them inside.
Alfredo had big plans for
the school viticulture program. He had already started restoring the vineyard;
his ultimate goal was to have a bonded winery on campus and even perhaps a
small scale commercial wine program. There was plenty of space next to the
vineyard to build a winery. Whether or not the funding was there was unknown.
At one point late in the
first semester Alfredo had invited our Friday viticulture class to inspect the
future home of the campus winery (there was a large overlap between the
students in both classes). I was dismayed to be led into an abandoned office
style classroom at the end of campus that was filled with dusty blueprints. The
room had a high ceiling but the floorplan was barely larger than a standard
classroom. After the capacious winery in Vandenberg this looked a little
cramped.
I don't know if the school
was evicted from the Vandenberg facility or if Alfredo decided it was time to
bring things in-house. In any case by semester 2 of winemaking everything had
been moved into our new "winery": 6 barrels of wine, all the heavy winemaking
equipment (crushers, presses, pumps, etc), racks of supplies, bins, spare
barrels, storage containers. There had been room for everything, and fifty more
of it at Vandenberg; this room was severely cramped. I later found the campus
setting to be both an advantage and liability in terms of the winemaking.
The conclusion to the story
of Alfredo's Move to Campus is that right at the end of semester 2 we entered
the "winery" to find all kinds of new goodies planted inside: there were 2
large (at least 400 gallon) steel fermenting tanks and one very large (1000
gallons+?) steel fermenting tank. There was a brand spanking new Italian
crusher/destemmer, still in its carton (I believe I have neither seen a
crusher/destemmer not made in
Where the room had been
cramped before now it was almost impossible to navigate. In fact, doing any
work in the "winery" involved spending time moving all these gigantic dormant
fermenting tanks around, and then moving the wine barrels outside. It was
ridiculous. The theory was that Alfredo had received some funding and decided
to go for some acquisitions. Like any good bureaucracy, the administrators at
AHC knew if they didn't spend it they would lose it.
The presence of all this
useless equipment caused grumbling from the time it appeared. After the pinot
noir was ruined I initiated a campaign to move the bottling up from mid-August
to right now! On the last day of class we all signed up for topping duty. Wine
steadily evaporates in barrel and must be replenished regularly, usually every
week or 2 when the weather gets warm. This is very important, as allowing any
degree of oxygen to enter the barrel will result in an oxidized wine, very
undesirable, very bad tasting. Of course when class was going we would all go
over to the winery (next door to the classroom) and top the wines. We would
also frequently taste them and getting a little tipsy became a Saturday morning
custom.
It was my turn to top in
May. There was a searing heat wave right before and when I topped the pinot
noir it was over 2 bottles low, much more than the other barrels. I then poured
a taste for myself. Oh Oh. It was brown. And tasted, um, oxidized. I had
mentioned to a few others that the pinot was oxidized. I had even called Norm
on his cell phone to0 enlist his gravitas in trying to move up the bottling.
Norm was sympathetic but not seem as emotionally invested in the wines as my
classmates. This was his last class and
has very busy with his own wine stuff, i.e. his livelihood.
Laurie topped after me and
sent out this email:
Those of us who have tasted and smelled the pinot noir several times
over the last two weeks think it has taken a sharp turn for the worse.
We ran a free SO2 test on it (you got the results) and it showed 20 ppm, which
is still pretty good.
John Beck added more SO2 to ALL of the wines last Monday (the 5th), and several
of us in wine analysis are going to gather samples from every container of wine
in our winery after our (last!!!) class this Wednesday and I'll trot more
samples over to Vinquiry Thursday morning.
When I sniffed the pinot after class last wednesday (two days post SO2), it
seemed better, but still stinky.
Two days later (Friday), I pulled a sample of it and took it to dinner with me
in order for a winemaker friend to sample it. He did, and pronounced it full of
TCA (cork taint, or, in this case, barrel taint). I trust his opinion because
he's a chemist and has a great nose and palate.
We still need to run the tests this week, but, armed with those results, we may
need to decide, as a group, to 1) make some "fixes" to the pinot
(whatever that may be -- i haven't a clue, myself), or 2) go ahead and bottle
it 'early' to get it out of that barrel, if that barrel is indeed the culprit.
Sterile filtration may help this wine recover, or so I've been told. Or, 3) we
can do nothing and leave it be.
The winery itself has been much cooler since the heat spike of April 26th/27th,
but temperatures are forecast to be heading up again this week.
Does anyone recall if the pinot barrel is one of the older ones??
Here was my chance to revive
my plea for an accelerated bottling date:
IMHO the pinot noir is a write-off (it is in the 1 year old barrel and
I
still belive it is oxidized rather than TCAed).
IMHO part II the next heat wave may effectively destroy the remainder of the
wines, so I think they shhould all be bottled ASAP. Young wines are more
sensitive to temperature fluctuations or high heat and that room is
enventilated and uncooled. The only realistic alternative is for the class
to pool some cash and buy a portable A/C unit to try to keep the temp below
75 - I am willing to contribute.
M "Your Humble Servant" S
I did not get much support
for the early bottling date. I did get some offers to chip in for an air
conditioner. I subsequently discussed it with John B, who was dead set against
early bottling and in fact he felt the pinot was not especially damaged. I
played my (only) hole card and remarked I might bottle the Sangio early simply
due to my heat paranoia. John didn't want to hear that; both he and I wanted to
try that Super Tuscan thing, if I pulled the plug it would just complicate everything.
He brought up the air conditioner idea again and I agreed to drop my early
bottling campaign if air conditioning was installed. Personally I wanted the
wines to age longer anyway, plus everyone had already made plans for the
mid-August date.
Sure enough there were 2 air
conditioners installed, in the last bit of available floor space. One was a
modern unit, more suited to a living room, that was set to run continuously. I
believe John may have bought this himself but I don't know. Some weeks later,
not long before bottling a gigantic, weathered "solar-powered" contraption
appeared that officially was an air conditioner. I'm sure this was salvaged
from some remote corner of the school by Alfredo, who of course had blown all his
funding on shiny new equipment for the near and far future. No one had any idea
how to use it (it looked like simply turning it on might cause an explosion),
and it had to be moved out first before anything else could be accessed. At one
point I suggested simply leaving it outside; although people will steal
anything, I couldn't see any downside in someone stealing this thing. As luck
would have it the rest of the summer has stayed fairly cool.
The bottling went smoothly
on Saturday, It went better than smoothly - it exceeded everyone's most
optimistic expectations. All due to the bottling machine. The previous 2
bottling runs had been bottlenecked by the previous bottler, a small trough
that fed 6 nozzles. Not just home winemaking but crappy home winemaking. The
trough reminded me of a miniature urinal and it had only a rough fill level
control, which led to much eyeballing and manual adjustments. Terrible.
The new bottler had a
precise level adjustment and a trough that held several cases of wine, so we
could run the pump smoothly into the trough, and then watch it cascade prettily
into the bottles, which were filled at the exact preset level. Home winemaking,
but now way up in class.
Early on we knew it was
going to be a luxury ride. The first barrel was done in an hour. By the end we
were running so smoothly the 2 barrels bottled after lunch took 1½ hours. We
took a leisurely lunch break. We drank wine at lunch, We drank wine after
lunch. We drank beer before lunch. It was all done by
I ended up with 5 cases of
my Sangio Tuscan-a-rama, 2 cases of the Cabernet Franc and a case each of
John's 2 Steinbeck wines. That's in addition to 2 cases of chardonnay, so it's
a nice haul. I left the Pinot Noir behind, which had been adulterated with
enough acid to turn the color from brown to maroon as well as improve the test
results. It now tastes like tartaric acid fortified with alcohol rather than oxidized
pinot noir.
I've had a Sangio and Cab Franc
since the weekend - how could I resist? The Sangio blend is already tasty and I
think will be a solid winner. I was by far the most involved with this wine so
it's gratifying. Am I the winemaker of record? Maybe slightly more than anyone
else but although I made many of the decisions regarding the process, it's hard
to say there was a "head winemaker" calling the shots. Over time I may fudge
that fact a bit.
The Cabernet Franc has good
depth of flavor and a nice mouthfeel. Those deep flavors don't taste that good
at the moment but there's some stuffing here. I'm optimistic.
The party at Terry's was a
typical class party. Lots of very good wine was consumed, as well as lots of
food. The winemaking class was, to a man and woman, a serious bunch of winos.
As a bonus we were cracking our own wines tool, which held up well versus the
"real" wines.
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.
I contacted Terravant
shortly after returning from the grape buying journey. Their website at the
time (and possibly still) was fairly rudimentary, but it did a good job of
explaining what they were about, which was essentially Custom Crush Deluxe.
Terravant would shepherd the grapes from crush to bottling for a pre-arranged
price, which seemed to be by the case rather than by the ton. They also pitched
the Alternating Proprietor Program, which classifies their customer (i.e.
myself) as a winemaker/producer rather than a wholesaler. This would mean I
could actually get in there and mess with the winemaking. An AP is also allowed
to operate an independent tasting room. CCWS I believe requires all of its
clients to be APs, as everyone I've met who uses CCWS is very hands on in
making their wine and essentially uses CCWS to rent facilities, storage space
and equipment.
I emailed Alan Philips, the Director of
Winemaking and briefly explained that I had 6 future tons of syrah burning a
hole in my pocket. We ended up talking on the phone a bit where he emphasized
the boutique nature of the operation (any size client was welcome) and the
turnkey pricing i.e. we would decide on the process beforehand and then a price
would be quoted that would place the wine in bottles. We set up a meeting for a
couple of weeks hence, when I would be up in the area.
Terravant
is located in Buellton, a town on Highway 246 in the SYV. Buellton is about a
mile from Solvang, a heavily touristed little town that is known for its Danish
motif - the style is all Danish within the main tourist area (there are strict
codes governing architectural styles) There are lots of Danish language signs
and references and it is very easy to get a fresh Danish pastry, as well as
mediocre Danish food (and mediocre American food). Opinions of Solvang range
from kitsch to charming; my personal opinion is that it's a lot nicer when not
thronged with tourists, although not the most interesting spot in the world. In
recent years Solvang has also become known for being a gateway to the wine
country; the town, which is barely 2 square miles in size has become home to
numerous tasting rooms and you can do a weekend's worth of wine tasting on foot
without leaving the city limits.
Buellton
does not have the slightest whiff of tourist attraction to it, unless you count
the Anderson Split Pea Soup operation, which is nothing more than a restaurant
and gift shop. In many ways Buellton is the anti-Solvang: where Solvang is all
about small squares and cutesy gift shops, Buellton features a mall with a
corporate grocery and drug store, as well as the full range of American fast
food options. The west side of town also features a burgeoning spread of master
planned communities whose prevailing style seems to be blandness and
expediency.
Terravant
is on
Highway
101, which bisects the town. I rolled up at our appointed time to a large
warehouse emblazoned with the Terravant logo. There was nobody there; Alan had
mentioned he would make a special trip in, as they were closed on weekends.
After
I walked around the facility for a few minutes seeking a way inside I noticed a
man in an SUV idling in the middle of
The
winery facility at the end of street was a recently constructed building that looked
like a large warehouse. We walked over to it and Alan pointed out a huge
cylinder lying on the ground on the side of the building that resembled a
Saturn 5 rocket.
"These
are custom designed fermenters", he explained. "It's open top as well as
pumpover. Two separate compartments."
Whoa,
trick.That meant you could have 2 independent fermentations going on in one of
these monsters (I each compartment had a very large capacity) - open top for
pinot noir and enclosed for, say, syrah. We went inside and there several more
fermenters of this design, in various sizes. Alan gave me the tour of the
facilities, showing particular pride in the mobile press, which could roll up
to each fermenting tank and press off the wine directly using no pumps, just
gravity.
"These
cost $1,000,000 each. In fact we just assume everything runs about a
$1,000,000: the bottling line, the crusher, the tanks, etc."
He
showed me the room with the bottling line, which was directly below the public
tasting room, where the wines of Terravant's clients would be poured, A great
idea, and a nice bonus.
I
had two thoughts at this point: that this place was a shrine to winemaking
technology, and that they might find it difficult to make money at this
venture, at least for a few years. It was certainly the most impressive winery
I had personally been in, although of course not one drop of wine had been made
there yet and certain pieces of equipment were still absent (e.g. the crusher)
Following
more chitchat we retreated to his office in the first building, where he
fiddled with the custom Terravant software program that would determine what it
would cost me to process my grapes. He walked me through my options:
Did
I want a cold soak period? Would I filter the wine? Fine it? Barrel age? Length
of time in barrel? Barrel ferment? And so on. The process for making syrah is
straightforward (at least in my orbit, where I was trying not to screw things up
first time around), so I had sufficiently advanced in my knowledge (or
bullshitting ability to provide competent answers. After some more fiddling by
Alan the program spit out a sheet showing my decisions along with a price: $47
per case. This included a 15% "Founding Vintners Discount" if I signed up by
August 15.
I
thanked him and left, promising to get in touch shortly. I told him the price
sounded good, but when I did the math I realized that the price did not sound,
look or feel good.
Let's
take a look, using our $650 per ton rate from GV winery as a comparison.
If
I would process the wine at GV here's the breakdown:
|
6
tones @ $650 per ton |
$3900 |
|
15
barrels stored for 8 months @ $10 per month |
$1200 |
|
15
barrels racked @ $5 per barrel |
$75 |
|
Topping
fees (estimated) |
$500 |
|
Bottling
|
$3000 |
This
comes out to about $8700, so let's call it $10,000, as there's always other
stuff (in/out charges, lab tests, winemaker consultation, etc)
Terravant
estimated 391 cases would come from my 6 tons, so if we multiply that by $47 we
get ...
$18,377!
Ouch.
So
that sure was a nice facility, but priced like it too. GV suddenly looked a
little better, and they were closer to my grape sources as well. I was still
not totally convinced.
My
next contact was a facility close to my home in
I
called and, per usual, no one answered. I left a message. The next day I called
again, impatient with these guys and yet somehow fascinated by an operation
that could survive without returning phone calls or answering the phone. This
time someone did answer, an affable man named Norm, who acknowledged he'd
gotten my message and mentioned he had planned to call me today. I briefly
outlined my requirements and we arranged to meet at the facility.
Camarillo
Custom Crush (CCC) has been around a while and they evolved very differently
from Central Coast Wine Services. There are a lot of little vineyards in the mountains
by the
CCC
had recently moved into a new facility when I visited. The mood was very
relaxed. Norm was in charge, a genial guy in his late fifties. As I strolled in
and said hello, there were 4 employees gathered in the lab/tasting room. The
three besides Norm were in their late twenties or so and everyone seemed to be
hanging out. There were some half-filled glasses of wine on the table; it was
both lunch break and a tasting session.
Norm
explained that the staff regularly tastes the clientele's wines, for quality
control purposes ostensibly. And also so they could taste them. Norm took me
out to the back of the building, where the winery proper was. It was a decent
sized warehouse, but in a way it was an expanded version of the AHC college facilities. There wasn't much equipment I'd
grown used to seeing in commercial wineries. There was indeed a press, a
crusher, barrels, etc but it was all so small and cute. Norm admitted that they
weren't set up to bring in lots of more than about 10 tons and even this amount
seemed stretching it to my nascently-trained eye. I couldn't keep from flashing
back to the Fess Parker operation, where they wanted at least 20 tons at a
time, a humming facility with big equipment and big capacity.
I
casually mentioned some of my requirements. I wanted to barrel ferment some
syrah but that was out. Not enough space. Norm suggested oak dust, the
preferred method at CCC. With this process you dump some oak dust into the fermenting
bin and voila - barrel fermented! Oak dust is available at all home winemaking
outlets and the owner of CCC also runs a home wine and beer making supply.
So
I sensed the orientation here. Honestly, oak dust may be more effective than
the actual barrel. I don't know. What I do know is that when I talk about how I
age my wine, I have to be able to say "barrel fermented" not "fermented with
oak dust additives".
Business
is good at CCC. There are a lot of semi pro operators who use the facilities
and in fact I saw several barrels from a local label labeled as "LL Syrah". I
asked Norm if it meant Lucas and Llewellyn. He admitted yes. LL is by no means
a dilettante or vanity operation; they farm several hundred acres of high
quality grapes throughput SB County. So LL Syrah guy was making a substantial
investment (I also couldn't help admiring his impeccably new French oak).
Still, I couldn't help feeling that CCC was for either dilettantes or vanity
operations.
As
we were touring the warehouse/winery the owner of the entire operation showed
up, a skinny man named John in his sixties or seventies wearing shorts. He was
good natured and seemed to be enjoying having this nice new facility to hang
around in, especially tasting wine with the kids in the lab/lunch room. The new
facility even has plans for a tasting room in the front, featuring clients'
wines. This was in progress when I was there, i.e. it was strewn with various
cases of wine but did not look like a tasting room then. It was just a disheveled
room in the front entrance.
It
was all very affable, and I like hanging around with wine people and discussing
winemaking. Naturally Norm and John had their own opinions on my preferred
winemaking path, and I wanted to hear their input. They've been making wine for
a while, vanity vineyards or not.
On
the way out Norm again mentioned the tasting room plans and gestured toward
several cases of wine stacked against the wall in the front room.
The
price per case at CCC was $40.50, if I remember correctly. Less than Terravant,
but it seemed high. I had to concede to myself that it was totally handmade
winemaking from start to finish, but still.
On
my way out Norm gave me a Stafford Chardonnay and his personal cell number. I
left knowing I wouldn't be making wine there but also with a solid affection
for the place. No commercial pressures here (subject to change without notice)
After agreeing to buy the
syrah grapes Roger suggested we proceed to the local "big" winery, GV Cellars,
which was embarking on an aggressive custom crush program under its new
winemaker Sal. Freshly armed with my six future tons of syrah I felt like wheeling
and dealing.
I had never heard of GV
Cellars, or any other winery operation in
GV Cellars is about a mile
from the syrah vineyard and surprised me by the size of the vineyards and
winery facility; there were clearly over 40 acres surrounding the winery, which
included a residence, tasting room and the good sized winery. We strolled into
the winery proper and greeted Sal.
Sal is just starting at GV,
having spent time at Chateau Potelle as assistant winemaker. It would be hard
not to know about Sal's stint at Chateau Potelle if you spent more than 10
minutes in his presence. He dropped that name with much more frequency than I
had ever blabbered about Larner (of course he's not lying about his
association. I think). He was enthusiastic about getting me in there as a
client, and it appeared to me that part of the Sal regime at GV would be an
increased emphasis on getting others to make their wine there.
I had frequently discussed
my winemaking venture idea with Mike Larner after class last fall, since at
that the time I knew nothing about custom crushes except that I would need one.
He repeatedly emphasized that the best deals would be had at wineries with
excess capacity rather than dedicated facilities. GV falls into the former
category.
The winery didn't
particularly impress me. I've been inside lots of wineries; the ones I respect
most are impeccably clean and organized (2 things I aspire to but will never
achieve), rows of clean (almost gleaming, if wood gleams) barrels, shiny,
spotless equipment, nothing out of place, etc. GV is the opposite. It was
cluttered from top to bottom with barrels (what percentage were full or empty
was unclear). There was a dripping hose right outside, and a worker kept
cruising in and out on a forklift. While we talked I noticed what appeared to
be the lab and asked Sal about it: it was a lab, but very limited: only for
testing brix (sugar content), PH (degree of acidity) and TA (actual acid
content). I knew from class these were the big 3, but I also knew you sometimes
need more more more testing - certainly they stressed that in Lab Analysis
class, where monthly lab submissions were recommended. Of course that class was
taught by the head of Terravant, who was previously the head of the lab at
Vinquiry (located in CCWS and the main 3rd party lab in SB County),
so frequent lab submissions by winemakers were an ongoing justification of his
job.
The GV lab was similar to
the rest of the winery: cluttered and not exactly approaching surgery theater
levels of sanitation. I have to say that overall I sort of liked the winery. It
has a lived in feeling and has that certain hum of activity in a busy place.
Sal got me a rate sheet and
informed me that my 6 tons were right at the price break. Between 6 and 12 tons
were $650/ton; less than 6 tons was $950/ton, a pretty good spread. Remembering
Fess Parker's $450/ton figure led me to balk at this figure, but GV would do it
for $450 for over 12 tons. Sal assured me that he had brought his crew from
(where else?) Chateau Potelle and that he and his team would do a good job.
Although being a fairly young guy (thirtyish, maybe even younger) he seemed to
know his stuff. Of course compared to me the head winemaker at any winery knows
an encyclopedia's worth.
As I studied the rate sheet,
Jason looked around a bit and Roger even agreed to buy some Sangiovese bulk
wine from GV. Sal remarked that it was good wine but not up top the standards
he was instituting at the winery. My gut feeling was that 1) the wine might be
no good at all or 2) Sal did not want to bottle someone else's wine. Or both 1
and 2.
The whole time we were
standing there talking a middle aged man dressed relatively formally (in slacks
and a short sleeved dress shirt) was standing there, waiting his turn with Sal.
As Roger and Sal discussed commerce he and I started talking. It turns out he
was a winery supply salesman, repping various yeasts, chemicals, lab tools, and
who knows what else. He was a nice guy and clearly knew the inside of the
Following the GV visit it
was back to Wooden Canyon Winery, Roger's winery base. We went into the winery
and met Rick, who is one of the owners and I guess the winemaker. He is in the
immediate family, which has owned the estate and winery for three generations.
Whereas Sal had been a slick talking modern winemaker dude, Rick was clearly a
farmer - laconic, dressed for work in the fields, and certainly not out to
impress anybody. He assured me that they could always squeeze in 6 tons if I
just called a week ahead (he was very casual about absorbing my 6 tons). We
toured the winery, which was tidier than GV and much less busy. In fact there
was nobody in there but us and things were very quiet. We looked at fermenting
tanks. We looked at barrels. We looked at a press. We looked at a crusher. It
looked like a winery. One thing
So Wooden canyon had a
bottling line. Rick warned that it was finicky about labels and bottle shapes,
but if you observed the restrictions in these areas it worked fine.
Rick got me a rate sheet: much
less than Sal's: $375 a ton, period, no price changes with additional tonnage.
And the bottling charge was much lower than Sal's (since GV had to hire the
bottling truck to come around). My problem with
The upshot of my tour of the
2 wineries was that I decided to keep looking. Laurie, my frequent classmate (she
was in 3 of my 4 classes) and good friend informed that Terravant, the brand
new upscale facility in Buellton, was hurting for clients and would talk to
anyone (even a nobody like me) because they were projecting so much excess
capacity in their maiden crush. Laurie writes for a local newspaper and one of
her responsibilities is the wine beat. She seems to know most everybody in the local
trade so I like getting her dirt on wine industry doings. This was a good lead
and I decided to contact Terravant after Jason and I finished getting sloshed
in
Acquiring my wine grapes was
done perhaps hastily and perhaps randomly. And perhaps you can remove the
perhaps from that sentence.
After almost a month Mike
Larner emailed me back with the following:
Mike,
So I didn't scare you off with all that economic loss talk, ehh!
Unfortunately I don't have anything for sale, well fortunate for me I
guess. I know of a vineyard coming on line this year, same soil,
climate, and good clones. I on't know if it has a home, but i will
contact them and get back to you (I have done some consulting work for
them, so I know the vineyard pretty well). Otherwise call Jeff Newton,
I think Watch Hill vineyard has some unsold Syrah. However, you may be
up against many others since the frost did a lot of us in, I lost near
10 acres in one night! What was that about economic losses!
I will be in touch.
All the best,
Michael
Oh yeah, the frost! Maybe
there weren't any grapes to be had in Santa Barabara County. I called the
people he suggested and they had nothing to sell. A prudent person would have
waited and explored the area further, since I wanted to center my wine
operations in the county. An impatient person would have done what I did: check
out Wine Business Monthly classifieds and make inquiries.
Wine Business Monthly is one
of the main trade publications for the North American wine industry. The
articles have names like "Tasting Room Survey Report" or "Annual
Crusher/Destemmer Comparison", and can vary widely in terms of usefulness. They
also publish the numerous various press releases emanating from the industry,
usually who's buying who, which winemakers are switching companies, new brands
and wines introduced, distribution deals, etc. The print version mostly consists
of ads, for everything related to winemaking: corks, crushers, fermenting
tanks, barrels and every other piece of equipment. The first time I opened this
magazine I couldn't believe how many items and products potentially went into
the making of a bottle of wine.
Wine Business Monthly's
primary value, however (especially the online version) is their classified ads.
This is where industry people can source or sell barrels, grapes, bulk wine,
equipment, land, etc, and this is where I looked. One listing I responded to
advertised up to 10 tons of
I decided at the outset that
my primary grape variety for the virgin go-round would be syrah. Syrah was
plentiful and it was a widely recognized varietal - it's certainly acceptable
to bring a
Most importantly syrah is
known as a variety that will not only tolerate rough or indifferent treatment,
but actually likes it. I heard from more than one established winemaker
(including Mike Larner, who grows a lot of it as well) that a vigorous pumpover
was the best way to extract the maximum flavor and color from syrah grapes,
without much worry as to whether their feelings would be hurt. A thick-skinned
Mediterranean grape, evolving in the hot sun, begging you to bring it harder!
Syrah in fact most probably originated in the
Put succinctly syrah is relatively
difficult to screw up. And it's damn tasty. Syrah comes in different styles - a
colder weather version that shows white pepper and anise characteristics all
the way up to a full on California (or Australian) fruit bomb, and everywhere
in-between. It's the only red grape used in the Northern Rhone area (e.g. Cote
Rotie and Hermitage), where it makes some famous and pricy wines, and it's
right behind Grenache as the most widely used grape in the South (ranging from
Cotes du Rhone to Chateuaneaf du Pape). You will likely not find a 100% syrah
in the
I've had some beauties from
So Syrah was going to be the
maiden voyage, if it happened at all. I also harbor a dream to make pinot noir,
but whereas syrah likes to be spanked, pinot noir is by universal acclamation
the most difficult red grape to work with by a considerable margin. This was
driven home to me by the AHC winemaking class where we used pumps to rack and
transfer all the wine except our pinot noir, for which Norm brought a specialized
siphon-type thing whose name escapes me.
The fragility of pinot noir
was further brought home to me when, during a brief heat wave in Santa Maria,
the class's pinot noir, which had been tasting excellent, rolled over and died,
its color a disheartening brown shade, and the taste worse than the color. The
other wines were unaffected. To add to the fun, a ton of quality pinot noir in
SB County is now going for between $4000 and $5000 while even the top syrahs go
for much less. And of course after you buy those nice grapes you're obligated
to use some nice new French oak as well.
I budgeted $2000/ton for my
syrah purchase, figuring I could snag a couple of tons, so when I saw the
grapes from Solano County advertised for half that I knew there would be a
catch. I answered the ad to see what the deal was.
A man named Roger King
called me back almost immediately after I sent the email - he didn't own the
vineyard but was the head of the Solano County winemakers association (I
think), and was closely involved with the vineyard, owned by a man named Steve
Wirth.
Roger explained the vineyard
situation to me - the vineyard had been laid out and planted under the
direction of a winemaker in
Roger King owns his own
vineyard in Solano County and reinvented himself as a grower/winemaker after a
long stint in the corporate world (as a ski executive, mostly). He was uncertain
about the clone(s) that had been planted in the Wirth vineyard, but had some
theories about it. Since I knew nothing about syrah clones, that part of the
conversation went by without much input from myself.
In recent years clones have
received increasingly greater attention in CA winemaking circles (the
definition of a clone is simply a common DNA imprint, just like humans, sheep,.
etc). It mostly has been centered on various pinot noir clones. By all accounts
the different pinot noir clones all taste somewhat different, as well as
ripening at different times and having varying requirements as far as
temperature, moisture, etc. Because pinot noir is such an unstable grape that
mutates readily, the quantity of different clones has built up over the
centuries. Pinot noir, pinot gris (grigio) and pinot blanc are all different
mutations of what started out as the same grape, and it's not unheard of
(although rare) to see a pinot noir vine with a branch that has produced
clusters of white or pink (the usual shade of pinot gris) grapes. This is
considered a bad thing, by the way.
Entirely different grapes,
such as Pinot Meunier (widely used in
champagne) are thought to be pinot noir mutations as well.
In the winemaking class Norm
had brought a cross section of different clones from the same vineyard for the
class to taste. They definitely tasted different, and you could tell the
differences just from the juice. I had already realized that there were
different pinot clones but I never realized there were so many: In Santa
Barbara County there are many different
pinot clones, some more widely used than others of course. (The well regarded Fiddlestix
property, a 100 acre pinot noir vineyard in the prestigious Santa Rita Hills
AVA, has at least 10 different clones planted. Melville's vineyard in SB County
has 14 different clones planted); most winemakers will blend them; some like to
make a single clone pinot noir. Norm in fact makes 2 versions of a pinot from
the same vineyard, one using only
Almost every family of
grapes has a variety of clones but in some cases it just doesn't matter. For
example there are various Sangiovese clones, but ultimately there are two types
of Sangiovese: Piccolo (found in Chianti) and Grosso (most notably in Brunello
and Rosso di Montalcino). As you might guess one is larger than the other, and
they are very different to the point where they are almost different varietals. However the various
clones (despite having different DNA) within these two main groups are fairly
similar from a winemaking and grape growing perspective, so in the case of Sangiovese
(clonally speaking) perhaps all you really have to know is: Grosso or Piccolo?
Incidentally Sangiovese is
the most widely planted red grape in
Of course Sangiovese and Pinot
Noir are the extreme examples, and the current thinking is that syrah clones do
make a significant difference, so I hoped for the best. I wish I could spin a
few nifty facts or anecdotes about syrah clones, but that's a research project
for another day. And after all, at this point no one seems to know what the
clone(s) is/are in the Wirth vineyard anyway.
I told Roger Id need to come
up, meet him, taste the homemade wine and look at the vineyard. The reason for
the low price was now obvious, since no one had ever made any money from these
grapes.
Jason is one of my main wino
buddies and my best friend dating back to college. He lives in
The largest city in
Luckily, as soon as
Fairfield ends the wine country begins - it's like someone flipped a switch:
one moment you're at a light in front of a rundown mini mall featuring liquor,
check cashing and donuts (there must be some sort of trinity in there
somewhere), and the next you're passing a lush vineyard estate (gated of
course, to keep out the mini mall people). We continued down the road to
Roger loves to talk, mostly but
not exclusively about wine, so we chatted in the parking lot for a while. He
had brought the bottle of wine so I suggested we go inside and try some. He
produced a bottle of the homemade (or I should say non-commercial) wine, which
had been blended with 10% cabernet sauvignon. The tasting room attendant opened
it and the moment of truth had arrived. I deeply wanted this to be a revelatory
moment, when classic aromas of anise, pepper, leather and smoke would caress my
olfactory lobes, and the rich, seductive glyceriny mouthfeel would make images
of the
OK, it wasn't quite like
that. But. There was something there, as the wine had a nice aroma, with a certain
degree of complexity. I would agree with Roger that the wine was cleanly made,
and actually I could happily drink it with a meal, but honestly it was very
average on its best day. All things considered it was what I expected when I
was being honest with myself in my anticipation of the tasting, visions of Purple
Rhone Angels circling my head notwithstanding.
On to the vineyard. Roger
took off, we followed in Jason's car. On the way we stopped at Roger's syrah
vineyard, which he claimed had produced several 90 point wines He didn't
elaborate on who were assigning the points. Perhaps Roger was. It reminded me of
a winery website I had seen some time ago, in which the winery had rated their
wines themselves. They all scored very high.
Apropos of awards and
ratings, a recent email from Roger informed me that the wine I had tasted at
Anybody who has spent much
time in
We stood around Roger's syrah
vineyard, which was indistinguishable from most other vineyards, especially in
its pre-veraison state (veraison is when the grapes turn from green to red.
It's marked by several pagan festivals and a 4 day non-stop feast. OK, not
really). He remarked on the trellising system, which I believe he said was the
same as in the Wirth vineyard. In my viticulture class we had gone over various
trellising systems extensively; sad to say I remember none of it. As with so
many things wine-related, it's remarkable how many ways there are to train a
grapevine.
After chewing on some hard
green syrah grapes and standing around a bit we resumed our drive to the Wirth
vineyard. I had already decided I was going to buy a batch of grapes, mainly
because it was time to be a player, damn it. The price was right although, in
my eagerness and naiveté I didn't realize that the cost of processing the
grapes would be the same regardless of the tonnage cost of the raw material, and
that the initial cost would in fact be less of a portion of the total cost of
producing a bottle of wine. I actually did realize this implicitly but I was
talking myself into getting into the game, like right now. Plus, I didn't know
how many more of these sorts of grape expeditions I could really go on.
The vineyard looked exactly
like Roger's, only bigger. We chewed on more hard green grapes while Roger
expounded on the trellising system, canopy management strategy (the canopy is
the green leafy part, which needs to be arranged to provide optimum sunlight and
shelter for the grapes themselves). It all looked copasetic and I was excited.
As I mentioned, unless the vineyard had been overrun with mildew, or was dotted
with abandoned tractors and huge weeds I was in.
"I'll take six tons", I
said.
We shook hands on the deal.