Harvest 2011 notes
This year the California harvest season was about 2-3 week later than usu. and we have had a some concerns about grapes getting ripe enough to pick. A couple weeks ago many CA wineries yanked fruit off the vine early to prevent rain damage. We didn’t but we have closely monitored our Tempranillo for signs of rot. Interestingly, Spain has had its earliest season ever. Here is a synopsis of their experience thus far this year:
http://catavino.net/harvest-20
Sunfire Winery and Stew featured on KFSR, one of our local public radio stations over the weekend!
I was a guest this past Saturday morning on The Pulse, a show about innovators and entrepreneurs who are reshaping the Central Valley, on our local public radio station, KFSR. I want to thank Dr. Tim Stearns of the Lyles Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Fresno State for having me on the show and for our wide-ranging discussion on the business of wine-making in the Central Valley in general and on Sunfire Winery, in particular. Enjoy the podcast if you have a few moments!
The Pulse interview Part 1 (right click and open in new window or tab)
Heading into harvest season
Hi Folks, it’s that time of year again. Crush ’11 is coming up in just a couple months. This year Sunfire will be making 2 kinds of wine: Cabernet Sauvignon and Tempranillo. We grow most of our own fruit but since we are growing faster than I had planned for (which is why my wife says I need to write a business plan) we need to source some addition fruit from other vineyards around the state. I have been looking seriously at a couple of Paso Robles cabernet vineyards that look very promising. Tempranillo will be much more challenging since there is so little acreage planted to it. Odds are I am going to have to have more of it planted next year. There is however a tiny site (about 2-3 acres) with Tempranillo from some Rioja cuttings grown by a gentleman farmer just way up in the hills at an elevation of about 2200 feet. He even has one of the rows planted to Mensia, the grandfather of modern Cabernet Franc!
Since this is a brand new vineyard (3’rd year vines) I’ll be spending a significant amount of time discussing and observing viticultural techniques with the owner. The soil is sand and granite with excellent drainage. With close attention to quality and low yields, this may very well end up being one of the top sites for high elevation Spanish varietals in the state.
As many of you know, my vineyard site’s well ran dry a few years ago. We didn’t know at the time how that would affect the vineyard or if there would still even be a vineyard. There has been a learning curve in ways to handle the water issue. We built cistern to collect runoff and rain water. We upgraded to fanjet drip emitters to reduce water waste and where once we got 3-4 total yield per acre which we now grow in the 2 ton range. Ultimately we may change over to sub-surface drip irrigation to conserve even more water. I can say now that the vineyard is, if not actually thriving, it is at least healthy.
This year, in part due to the uncharacteristically cool weather, the yield will be cut back (a process called cluster thinning) by roughly half– partly to accelerate ripening and to assure that I’ll still get the quality that I’m hoping to attain. We are looking at it from the point of view of long term vineyard sustainability.
Right now the clusters are still uniformly green. That means that veraison has not yet begun. The term refers to two processes in the final stages of grape development. First, at least in red wines, the green berries get their color (turning red) and second, the berries (both red and white) soften. After veraison the grapes rapidly increase in sweetness. Generally one can figure that harvest will occur about 6-7 weeks after the color change. One of the cool things this year is that we can now electronically monitor soil water density right at root depth (called the rootzone) at approximately 30-36 inches. This is exciting because it allows us to precisely quantify the amount of irrigation necessary to stress the vine to improve flavor development and concentration in the berries while making sure that the vine has enough water to remain healthy. Until these were installed we could only make educated guesses. Sometimes with less than desirable results…
Stew “That vine looks kinda spindly”
Dave “Maybe we should’ve put more water on it”
Stew “Oops”
Anyway, not that bad really but you get the point.
Barrel washing at my neighbors winery…
Well, today I am over at the Papagni winery with Tony, their cellarmaster, who is helping us out since our well pump isn’t working at our winery.
Now, Tony has been working in wineries for over 26 years– he started at Paul Masson way back when. So he dug out a really old but really cool barrel washer. This thing is just plain awesome. That’s the thing in the front of the photo. This washer, that’s probably older than I am, does a better job than a state of the art James beard machine…
Simple, no fuss chicken tapas recipe
A couple days ago while I was out promoting our wines at Whole Foods, a customer there asked for a a really simple to make recipe for a Spanish themed party. I make a chicken dish as tapas at home that I thought would be perfect. Here is the recipe I gave her:
- 4 chicken thighs (skinless)
- 1 tsp Spanish Pimenton (Paprika) smoked works best
- 2 tsp olive oil
- 8 garlic cloves, sliced
- 1/4 cup dry white wine
- 1 bay leaf
- pinch of salt
- fresh chopped parsley (garnish)
First, cut the chicken into bite sized pieces and season liberally with the smoked pimenton (Hungarian paprika works too but add a bit of red pepper).
Heat the oil in a large saute pan and fry the garlic slices for about a minute. Remove the garlic and set aside on a paper towel to drain the oil.
Now add the chicken pieces to the pan and cook, turning occasionally, for about 10 minutes until the chicken is browned on all sides. Add the wine and bay leaf and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for another 10 minutes or so until most of the liquid has evaporated.
Add the fried garlic pieces, mix well then season with the salt.
Serve it on a plate and sprinkle the chopped parsley on top.
As a more robust variation, instead of the parsley you can add warmed chopped green olives.
Inventory update
As of this morning we are completely sold out of our 2006 Tempranillo and now have only 2 cases of our 2003 Sunfire One left in our library. One of them is going home with me. So 12 bottles remain for our club members. The B-82 SBR reserve tempranillo is down to 6 cases.
We hope to have the 2007 Tempranillo ready to release by the first week of February. Also in February we plan to blend and bottle the next Cabernet which has been residing in several gorgeous Vicard Distinction barrels. I’m a bit of a geek about barrels…
2007 Tempranillo wins in San Francisco
This morning at the winery when we picked up yesterday’s mail we found a letter from 2011 SF Chronicle wine competition. This year there were a staggering number of entries, 5,050 from 23 states which now makes this the largest wine competition in the U.S.
I am absolutely delighted announce that we won a Silver Medal for our latest Tempranillo!
Alicante Bouschet AKA the forgotten grape
So I somehow wound up at a tasting event (Yay!) the other day while I was supposed to be doing a winery inventory (boo) and somebody showed up with and incredibly rich, powerful, downright brooding wine. And it was dark– i mean it seemed to stain the f_+*^%$g glass. Holy crap batman!
An actual bottle of Alicante. WOW . Nobody really sees this wine about anymore and that’s a real pity because any wine with the mouth-feel of a Syrah combined with the intensity of a Petire Sirah is a winner in anybody’s book. Years ago it was widely planted in the Central Valley of California and was a major player in the massive zinfandel based field blends up in Sonoma. Sadly by the early 1990′s it was all but gone. Topolos used to make one as did Ridge. There are a few folks like Kaz still doing it too.
If you’ve never tasted an Alicante it’s definitely worth seeking it out… You’ll thank yourself!
BTW, it turns out I tasted a Papagni Vineyard Alicante from the 1980′s. Seems this is a grape that ages very well.
Once in a blue moon…
Every so often I run across an article that just sums up my feeling about a particular wine perfectly. This one’s about Spain’s most famous wine and is one of the finest in the world. Like the reviewer, who writes for Catavino.net, I generally speaking dislike pricing wines out of reach of most wine consumers but once in a while it’s worth it. The Vega Sicilia is gorgeous.
Happy reading!
http://catavino.net/spains-greatest-wine-vega-sicilia-unico-2000/
Something new for summer
For those of you who know me or frequent the winery and our summer impromptu lunch parties this will come as no surprise… I love Rose as a summer sipper and realy think there’s nothing better than hangin round outside by the pool (which I don’t have- tho we do have a hose) with a chilled glass full of light raspberry and strawberry flavors. Yum!
But I have a new love called Verdelho that’s makin’ its way to a store shelf near you. Now I can already hear y’all ask “What the *#$@ is Verdelho? Well its a white wine from- you guessed it- Spain and its sorta like an exotic Sauvignon Blanc without the grass. Think mangos and melons and tart acidity. Molydooker of The Boxer fame makes one called the Violinist and Scholium Project’s Naucratis is quite possibly one of the most intriguing wines to cross my lips this year.
Tasting today at the Meat Market
Hiya Folks,
If any of you happen to be out and about, stop by the Meat Market at Fowler & Shephard in Clovis for free samples of our 2006 Tempranillo.
New York Times on Rioja
This morning I finally had a chance to catch up on my new york times reading (a week of newspapers… arrgghh) and I ran across a piece by Eric Asimov, the wine writer, where he said that the Spanish crianzas are among the best wine values in the world. Below is a link to the article. Anyone who is interested in Tempranillo and Spanish winemaking should read it!
Still harvesting…
Hiya folks, it been an eventful week plus since my last update so here goes… Right after the storm of october 13 the first batch of Tempranillo ambled into the winery (we got it off the vines before it got wet but it sat a day under a pole barn while I searched for a trucking company who could haul on short notice). Although a little less ripe than I had hoped for the grape flavor leaned heavily to red berry/raspberry the fruit was clean and chemistry in balance. We did a 4 day cold soak (yay!) and innoculated the wine with D254 yeast which is great for maximizing mid palate fruit expression. A coulple days ago it was at 4 brix. Looks like fermentation will be done just in time for the next batch to arrive probably on Wednesday or Thursday. I looked at the vineyard and the fruit on the vines has matured and the pH is up where it should be so I have high hopes for Vintage 2009. The Cabernet is currently (as of Monday) at 23.5 brix with a pH of 3.4 so it will be coming off the vines I expect Friday morning. Since the clone 337 cab tends torward granite and cherry notes I picked up a couple beautiful barrels from Tonnellierie d’Aquitaine which will really help frame in that fruit. 
On another note, beginning in December, when Crush 2009 is over, I will getting back to the real purpose of this blog and that is to TryTempranillo. So I will be purchasing and tasting a new bottle of Tempranillo each week and posting tasting notes as well as where you can find the wines. The wine could come from Spain, Australia, Chile, here in the U.S. or anywhere else Tempranillo is made.
