Generations

My mind has been drifting lately to the image of our family’s future estate winery and the pleasures of that life.  Maybe it’s because Macy and I have been bonding over the 220 pounds of Pinot Noir grapes we got in from California a couple weeks ago.  She’s an old hat now at every step of the winemaking process.  She helped crush and destem, punch down the grapes during fermentation, and rack the new wine into glass carboys.  She would have helped me press the must as well, one of her favorite tasks, but I had to do it after her bedtime.

Drew, Hal, Macy and me.  Two families,
two generations of winemakers.

How many wine aficionados do you know that can describe, from harvest, every step of the winemaking process and the tools you need to complete the task?  At seven years old, Macy can recite it for you now, and she doesn’t even drink (yet).  While we were moving the freshly pressed wine to the basement for aging yesterday she asked me if I’d decided where we were going to have our winery someday. 

“Will it be in Maryland, or on an island, or somewhere else?”

I told her “yes, in fact it may be in a place called Long Island, but Oregon would be nice too.  The problem,” I said, “is that it’s really expensive to buy the land and build a winery, so we have to keep saving money first.”

“Well, it’s your dream, Daddy, so that’s ok.”

I swear to you I almost cried when she said that. 

She went on to tell me that she thinks she would want the job of working in our tasting room, because it would be fun to pour and tell everyone about the wine. 

I told her the job was hers, and that made both of us happy.

I’ve got some money to save first, not to mention a lot to learn, but like Macy says, “that’s ok.”

Regression Analysis

It would be nice to think that a self-education in winemaking involves a linear trajectory from A to Z, but as I learned on Sunday, my worst day of winemaking yet, instead it sometimes goes from A to J, then back to B, with Z nowhere even on the horizon.

This much anticipated day started with my visit to the Maryland Wine Festival to compete in its annual amateur winemaking competition.  Last year I entered a Chardonnay and Malbec, both of which scored 14s on a 20-point scale, summarized as follows:

18-20 Extraordinary

"Sorry!"

15-17 Excellent

12-14 Good

9-11 Pleasant

6-8 Mediocre

0-5 Poor, objectionable

This year I entered my latest Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.  The Chardonnay scored a 13.  Less than last year, but still solidly “Good.”  My Pinor Noir scored a six.  A six!  That’s barely mediocre, one point from objectionable.  In the comments section my reviewer gave me a one word response: “Sorry.”  Mind you, I’d be the first to admit this wine is flawed.  As frequent readers might remember, this wine was tarnished with an inferior (cheaper) brand of oak chips, giving the wine an off smell and woodsy aftertaste.  But the Malbec had it even worse!  How the Malbec gets a 14 last year and the Pinot gets the 35th ranked score out of 37 wines is beyond me.

Not good.

Anyway, you can see what kind of mood I was in when I went to complete my second task of the day, harvesting my Corot Noir grapes.  When I arrived I quickly learned that in an effort to improve the sugar content I had waited perhaps a week too long to pick.  Significant black rot and shrinkage had occurred, and what I expected to be a production significantly larger than last year’s crop turned out instead to be less than half its size.  How exactly does one spend a year making wine out of less than ½ a gallon of grape juice? 

I was so pissed that I decided to both crush and press the grapes at once in a half-hearted attempt at making a rosé.  In the end though, the season looks pretty much like a complete write-off, in what by all accounts is expected to be one of the best growing seasons Maryland has ever had. 

It’s all enough to make you want to drink, if only I had something worth drinking.

My entire 2012 production.

Disaster Strikes

It’s been a busy month at the winery with some serious highs and lows.  Over the weekend, I was in the process of racking my 2011 Russian River Pinot Noir when I accidentally clipped the granite counter top with a gallon carboy on my way out to the garage.  Next thing I know, it shatters, and I’m left to clean-up the world’s largest mess, including disposing of our new rug, and mourning the five beautiful bottles worth I just lost.  That’s 20% of my entire production!  You won’t see any pictures of that event here, as frankly I was too upset at the time to want to memorialize the moment. 

Measuring sugar content with refractometer.

Nonethless, once the task was complete (two days later, mind you) I confirmed my belief that this is shaping up to be my best red wine release yet.  For me, the remnants at the bottom of the barrel were worth keeping, and I enjoyed them over the rest of the weekend.  By the time I bottle this wine near the end of the year, I expect to have something I’m proud of.

Not so, I’m afraid, for my 2011 Corot Noir, which I bottled last week.  As a reminder, this is my first ever production from the home vineyard, and was overrun with problems from the start, from attacking birds and bees, to a resident bacteria, and a lack of skin contact time that has left the wine tasting flat and weak, although not offensive.  In the end, I had enough for ten 375-ml bottles, which is the perfect size bottle for this production really.  It’s not good enough to want to drink an entire bottle with dinner, but since it is homemade from start to finish, it's probably interesting enough to want to open in a crowd to give everyone a taste, before turning to something more enjoyable.

"Vineyard" view from the dining room.

Finally, this year’s vintage of Corot Noir seems to be shaping up much better than the last.  For ecological reasons I’ll never understand, the birds and bees just haven’t been around this year, which means the production remains in much better condition (although I have found the occasional ladybeetle).  Meanwhile, the hotter, dryer summer has caused the grapes to ripen sooner and with higher sugar content than last year’s mess.  I’m currently planning to complete my second ever harvest in two weeks, on the same day as this year’s amateur winemaking competition at the Maryland Wine Festival, where I’ll be entering my 2010 Pinot Noir and my 2011 Chardonnay. 

Which begs the question, the next time you hear from me, will it be more good news or bad?

Westminster vines, two weeks prior to harvest.

Giant Asian Ladybettle -
Not a friend of the vineyard's.

Wine Camp!

Kim and I just got back from a memorable four days in Long Island where we attended Wine Camp in the North Fork wine region.  We knew nothing about the area and had literally never tried their wine before, but I can now say without hesitation that the place is a hidden gem.  The cool climate there surrounded by water on three sides allows them to grow many of the world’s most popular varietals, including Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cab Franc, Chardonnay, and even a little Pinot Noir.  What’s more, it is a charming area, with a number of nice restaurants and bed and breakfasts, and, particularly unique for a wine region, beautiful beaches five minutes away.

Working the vines.

Castillo di Borghese

Typical Long Island beach.

Art of wine tasting.

At the wine camp, we were joined by 14 other enthusiasts who were given considerable access to the most respected winemakers and winery owners in the area, each leading discussions on a different topic, ranging from how to taste wine, the chemistry of making wine, how to prune the vines, how to blend, etc.  Every session was enjoyable, but the highlight was probably the farewell dinner, where we were joined by an actual Italian Prince and Princess, Ann Marie and Marco Borghese, owners of Castillo de Borghese, for an amazing five course food and wine pairing.  We even happened to be featured in the local Long Island press.  (Here’s the link.)  

For anyone interested in a unique wine vacation, I highly recommend this trip. 

Winemaker Anthony Nappa.

Believe me, we weren’t there long before I started looking into acreage cost for undeveloped land, and while I wouldn’t necessarily say I loved it more than the Willamette Valley, I also wouldn’t say I didn’t.  And considering that having a winery in Willamette Valley has been my life’s ambition for the last ten years, that’s definitely saying something.

Vineyard Expansion

Over the last several weeks, Kim and I rearranged every flower, bush, plant and vegetable on our property to create room for a new long, narrow bed in the side yard, perfect for the planting of vines.  This is back breaking work I can assure you, but a small price to pay for the result, which is eight new beautiful Corot Noir vines, right outside my dining room window.

And just like that, my vineyard is now more than twice the size it used to be.  That’s the beauty of the Law of Large Numbers – while doubling a 30 acre vineyard is an expensive and burdensome task, going from 7 vines to 15 only takes about 40 square feet, a strong shovel, and an even stronger back.

Like all things related to winemaking, patience will be required here.  My first fruit isn’t expected from these vines until Fall 2014, which means the earliest I’ll be drinking their wine is three and half years from now.  In the meantime, I can take pleasure from the grace and symmetry of a well laid row, not to mention the 20 plus gallons of wine aging in my basement.  

Three weeks after planting.

Chile Reception

Last weekend I received from Chile my largest delivery yet, almost 300 pounds of grapes, evenly split between Chardonnay and Syrah.  As expected, this led to a flurry of activity that has kept me busy on a daily basis for the last week and a half.  Both new productions have now been crushed and pressed, and have found a resting place in the basement where they are in the ending stages of fermentation.  All in I’ve got 19 gallons of new wine coming to life, which should yield 5 to 6 drinkable cases by next summer. 

Meanwhile my vines have come to life for the 2012 season as well.  They’ve now been sprayed with fungicide three times and are starting to show early signs of fruit.  Most of them, that is.  I still have one or two vines that are lagging the rest, and have only just started to break their buds.  At this point I’m not sure what the cause for the variance is.  In a vineyard of 30 acres, the occasional sick vine is of no consequence, but when you only have seven vines, losing two for the season would be significant.  I’m still holding out hope that the entire row will ultimately bear fruit, but if not, I could be looking at another season with less than a gallon of "estate" wine to show for my troubles.

Busy Season

Left - 1 Gallon Corot Noir
Right - 5 Gallons Chardonnay

The busy season at the home winery has definitely begun.  After months of nothing but watching wine age (akin to watching paint dry but with a better aroma), things are definitely picking up.  In the last two weeks I have racked my 2011 Corot Noir, prepared my 2011 Chardonnay for bottling, and sprayed the vines with their first delicious coat of Captan fungicide. 

Over the next few weeks, all of the following are to be expected:

-          Rack the 2011 Pinot Noir

-          Bottle the 2011 Chardonnay

-          Crush, ferment and press my new 2012 Syrah

-          Crush, press and ferment my new 2012 Chardonnay

-          Apply fungicide spray to the Corot Noir vines every seven to ten days

For most winemakers in North America and Europe the focus would be only on the new budding vines.  My vines have indeed come to life, and the first leaves of the season have started to appear.  But I couldn’t resist the notion of getting grapes from South America as well (including my first ever attempt at Syrah), hence a routine that blends the burdens of two hemispheres at once.  This is why the concept of interns was invented.  Anyone in the greater Baltimore area interested in getting your hands dirty, let me know.  Previous experience not required.