The Vineyard in January

This January, Paso Robles, and much of California has suffered from one of the dryest winters on record.  Normally, at this time of year, the grasses and wild flowers (otherwise known as weeds) would be enough feed for our 5 free-ranging cows.  We were on target for winter rainfall at the end of November, but the surprisingly dry months subsequent dried up what should have been growing.  While the days have been particulary beautiful, with incredible clarity and warm temperatures, we were hoping for more rain!

Although, as I write this, the weekend storm brought about 2 inches of rain.  Still, this is not enough to make up for the lost rainfall.  The vines and olives will be okay, primarily due to 2 past wet winters.  Still, it is discouraging to look out at the hills, and see brown where there should be green.  Along with our 5 cows eating what little they can find, and fertiziling our soils, we have 2 young lambs on the property grazing with the cows. 

A good factor of a dry January: we've been able to get in to the vineyards to begin the pruning.  Vines go dormant in the winter, all the leaves fall to the ground (making the rolling hills of vines around us so beautiful, full of fall colors).  The vines reach into the soil to get the nutrients and strength for the summer to come.  We believe winter is the most active time for a vine, and that the health of a vine will be seen in the summer when the natural growth occurs.  We prune on descending moon days, and on fruit and flower days according to the lunar calendar by Maria Thun.  It typically takes 30 solid work days to prune over 7,000 vines.

And boy!  Can you see the growth in the olive trees!  I love this photo, of Bede running down the road with El Cid hot on his heels!  In December, we harvested 1,500 pounds of olives, yielding a little over 100 litres of extra-virgin estate olive oil.  Not alot of oil!  But this was typical for olive trees this year, many of our friends with trees didn't have a single olive, so we are thankful the little amount of oil we did harvest!  Next in the vineyard?  Building cold frames for the garden, ordering more bees and to continue pruning (as well as spraying the BD sprays and trapping the pesky gophers).

Mid Harvest Report From the Winemaker

We feel as though we're in a suspended state of calm before the storm, waiting for the grapes to ripen and the madness to begin. This growing season of 2011 has definitely been one of those examples of good-gone-bad. A fantastic rainy winter season left us with a severe late frost in April that caused our county to declare a disaster for growers. Our early "budders", those vines that break out of the winter doldrums first, were damaged ruining our crop. At first we didn't think we had significant damage, but now that we have harvested those early varietals, the proof is in the pudding: 500 pounds of Viognier harvested from 1 acre, 1200 lbs of Syrah from 2 acres, 800 lbs of Tempranillo from an acre, and on it goes. Even for AmByth these are tiny crop loads. Our goal is 2 tons of fruit per acre. (An average irrigated vineyard yields 4 to 10 tons/acre.)

A friend said the other day, "Why go to Vegas when you can farm?". Perhaps this is why some little inner workings in me decided to make 17 different wines with the 2010 vintage (which was incredibly bountiful). We have single varietals of Roussanne, Marsanne, Grenache Blanc, Counoise, Mourvedre, Syrah, Grenache, Zinfindel, along with our standard blends: Priscus, Adamo, ReVera & Maiestas. The 2011 will be limited, but variety will still abound as a combination.

Because of the cold growing season, our harvest has started later than usual again. But as things progress, it looks like we will wrap us as usual, right at the end of September. The Sangiovese, Grenache and Mourvedre crops are looking strong, and despite the cold spells, they keep advancing toward maturity. Thankfully, the 2011 Counoise crop is looking quite handsome--our new darling in the winery is the 100% Counoise 2010, hopefully the '11 will only be as delicious. We thought we would have to aide grape ripening a bit by applying a series of egg shell teas, but the vines are taking care of themselves.

A small change for 2011 in the winery: we are fermenting in the garage of the house (true "garagistes", we are!). As the winery is now climate controlled for aging wine and storing case goods, it's a little cool for the smaller fermentations to take place. Our garage stays at a constant of 75 degrees, so voila!, perfect temp for fermenting. Fortunately, we did have this alternate location in our minds 'back in the day', so it is perfectly legal and bonded.

Cheers, Phillip

Pictures: Bede punching down fermenting Syrah (top); Phillip taking brix measurements on just-picked Zinfandel

Refrigerating...Labwork at Home

Phillip pulled a sample amount of our 2010 Viognier and 2010 Marsanne from the barrels to test for "cold stabilization". And the best way to do this? Fill empty wine bottles and pop them in the refrigerator to observe the wine over a four day period. We are looking to see if the wine remains clear. If the bottle clouds up, then the wine is not stabilized. It needs more time in the barrel, or it needs to be put outside in freezing temperatures to continue stabilizing. If the wine is not cold stabilized, then the proteins can coagulate and appear as a haze in the bottle.



What does all of this mean? A wine that appears to be hazy or cloudy is more offensive in visibility than in taste. It really isn't that much fun to drink a cloudy wine. But let's not get this confused with sediment, tartrate crystals, or with white wine "browning"--these are characteristics that are interesting. We check all of our white and rose wines to check for lovely, clear wine.



There is always an advantage to seeing these bottles in the fridge...we get to drink them! And something you may see on the tasting bar later this year: 100% Marsanne with zero added sulfites. It tastes delicious, this hilltop property produces some pretty darn good whites (yes, we're both drinking a glass now, waiting for the rain to come but thoroughly enjoying it).

A Little Bit of an Italy Recap

Over the next few months I'll be detailing our visit to Italy, where we were invited to pour at Vino!Vino!Vino!, Wine by Second Nature, a wine expo of naturally grown/made wines held in Cerea simultaneously as VinItaly in Verona. This was an amazing event, it was held over 3 days, from 10 to 6. It completely wiped us out! This was a serious wine-drinking crowd that was nonstop: importers, distributors, restaurateurs, wine bar owners, journalists, etc. As the days and hours waned on, the crowd did not thin or become obnoxious, hardly was a drunk patron seen! It was invigorating to see and experience. There were 130 producers present, the majority of them owners/winemakers; Phillip made his way around the exhibition hall every day, yet he still wasn't able to taste all of the wines present. We made excellent contacts and discovered beautiful wines, ever heard of Schioppettino...well, neither had we!



Our wines were well received, we poured our white, Priscus (Grenache Blanc/Viognier/Roussanne/Marsanne), Venustas (cheeky bugger Phillip is, taking a Sangiovese blend to Italy), 100% Grenache and ReVera (Mourvedre blend). Everything (36 bottles) was carried over in our suitcases, and surprisingly, the Grenache showed the best--which was our No Added Sulfite wine. We guess it liked the travel! (Although, we were concerned how it would hold up after being subjected to extreme temperature changes, being man-handled, etc.) Everyone there was skeptical about our wine, in a sense that they expected the big, fruit forward, high alcohol California wine. But once they tasted, they knew we were more European in our style. Many winemakers visited our tasting table, and they even enjoyed the Sangiovese!

Bud Break Amongst the Poppies

Sangiovese has awoken from it's dormancy and leafed out this week. We were concerned this past weekend as the rain amounted to 3 inches that the baby buds would be broken, but this afternoon they were nearly translucent in the sun, and so beautiful against a poppy-strewn cover crop. Sangiovese is always our first varietal to bud, closely followed by Tempranillo. The vineyards are particularly beautiful right now, they are teeming with wildflowers and the hum of bees is a constant companion whilst meandering up and down the hills. We are counting our blessings.