Sometimes Beauty Is All Around Us

This time of year, I do a lot of driving between the vineyards and the winery. Sometimes it feels like it just becomes routine. Every Saturday morning I’m up early and off to the Russian River to take samples from St. Mark’s Vineyard and every Monday it’s up to Stagecoach Vineyard in Napa. It’s the little things that tend to jolt me back to the reality of how lucky I am. The vineyards are always so peaceful and wonderful places to take a walk in. Last Saturday as I was driving (rushing?) up to St. Mark’s I looked up and saw all these hot air balloons descending into the surrounding vineyards and quickly grabbed my cell phone and snapped off a couple of pictures. Not the best thing to do at 45mph, but it did remind me of the beauty of the moment and I thought it would be a good picture to post on my blog. Well, the quality isn’t that great, but hopefully it conveys the feeling of the moment.


Then, as I was sampling grapes from the vineyard, I came across an abandoned birds nest with a bunch of Syrah grapes nestled nicely in the space where the eggs should be. So here is a picture of that little moment in time.


Last Friday I pressed my first lot of 2008 Syrah (Furlong Estates) into barrel. It’s still fermenting but I like to get the wine into the oak barrels before fermentation has finished. Doing the last bit of fermentation in the barrels helps to integrate the oak into the wine. The wine tastes great, very full and fruit forward.

Today I received another 2 tons of Furlong Syrah and on Saturday we will be picking the St. Mark’s Syrah, followed by the Stagecoach grapes probably towards the end of next week. By the end of next week, all my grapes should be harvested. It looks like it will be close to 10 tons this year!

Another Fun Day At The Winery

Whoever said making wine is romantic, has never spent time in a winery. Here’s a rundown of what I did today. Dropped Oscar off at school and then drove 40 minutes up to the winery. When I got there it was time to do the morning punch downs of the Furlong Estate Vineyard Syrah that is currently fermenting. Then it was time to check the amount of sugar left in the must and see what temperature it was at. The thermometer read 102°F! Yikes, that’s way too hot for fermentation. I dove my hand into the must and it sure didn’t feel that hot. It smelt OK (At that temperature you would expect to start to smell some off odors). I check all my fermentation bins and they all had the same temperature. Heat spikes during fermentation is normal, but this seemed pretty late in the fermentation to be getting so hot. So, I found another thermometer and rechecked the temperature: 78°F. Phew, crisis averted, the wine was fine. Time to taste the wine. Mmm, delicious – lots of fruity aromas and nice round tannins! After cleaning and sanitizing the sides of my fermentation bins, I then had to work out which barrels to press the Furlong Syrah into on Friday. So, into the cellar I went to look at my empty barrels (and then climb up stacks of barrels to mark the ones I want to use). After that it was time to spend a couple of hours with a rag, some solvent and a razor blade. What has this got to do with winemaking you may ask? Well, when I bottled my wine last June, there were about two-dozen bottles that where used to help calibrate the labeling machine when we started bottling. All those labels were crooked, so I had to scrape them off, remove the glue left on the bottles and clean them before hand-applying new labels. Next it was time to move bins around, have some lunch and then back to more punch downs. After all that, who would want to work in a winery? Well, I do. I love what I am doing and I’m doing what I love. Maybe tonight, I’ll even drink a glass of wine!

Avast Ye Scurvy Dogs – It Be Time To Make Grog!

As today be International Talk Like a Pirate Day, me thinks I be writing th' blog in buccanneer speak! Arrr! Jus' a quick update, th' Furlong Estates Vineyard Syrah finished thar six tide cold soak an' be inoculated wi' yeast on Wensdee. Th' color after th' cold soak be absolutely gorgeous. Very dark an' on accoun' o' all th' whole berries 't looked an' smelt like a very thick berry jam. Th' extended cold soak gave me some time t' get o'er me nasty cold in time t' start th' old punch downs. The fermentation be startn’ an' be progressin' nice an' slow. I like t' start them off slow so that I can get th' maximum amount o' extraction ou' o' th' grapes. Arr, makes for great grog! I so love workin' wi' th' fruit from this here vineyard an' ben fortunate enough t' get a chance at gettin' some more o' 't. As th' top side o' th' hill ripens earlier then th' lower, only 5 tons be picked ou' from th' vineyard last tides (o' which I got 2.5). Next tides they be goin' t' pick me another 2 tons from th' lower part o' th' block, so I’ll end up wi' around 4.5 tons total. Once th' two blocks be blended together after fermentation, 't’s goin' t' be a the type of grog that will shiver me timbers!

The Grog Be Fermenting, Arrr!

Earlier in th' week, I visited St. Marks Vineyards an' Stagecoach Vineyard. Th' weather here has cooled considerably an' th' vines be now slowin' down an' th' grapes be aft t' ripenin' at thar normal pace. This be givin' plenty o' hang time fer th' fruit an' I don’t think either o' these vineyards will now be picked until early Octobree.

Enjoy Talk Like a Swashbuckler Tide. Arrr! (Click here to find out more)

Cap'n Grog

First Grapes of the 2008 Harvest Are Crushed

My first grapes for the season arrived on Thursday. They are Syrah grapes from the Furlong Estates Vineyard in the Alexander Valley. They arrived at the winery at around one in the afternoon and they looked great. Lots of small bunches with a lot of flavor. I expected about 3 tons and ended up with about 2.75 tons. We crushed them straight away into half-ton macro bins and they then went into the cold room for the next 4–5 days. This cold soak helps to extract color from the skins before the fermentation starts. Its been a long week with a lot of driving between vineyards and picking up of barrels. It sure is good to have the first lot of grapes in and now my hands can start to get wine stained again.

Bins of grapes waiting to be crushed

Adding whole bunches to the fermentation bin

Freshly destemmed grapes being pumped into the fermentation bin

This morning I visited St. Mark’s Vineyard and took samples. The weather has cooled down considerably from last week and the morning fog is back. This is good as the ripening process has slowed back down to its normal pace. After checking the sugar content of the samples, Mark, Ginny and I have decided to give the grapes a little bit more hang time. We originally thought we would pick sometime in the next two weeks but if the weather behaves, we will now most likely wait until the first or second week in October. Everything looks great in the vineyard and I’m sure the grapes can handle the longer amount of time on the vines. This will lead to better color and more intense flavors.

Other news is that our 2006 Eight Arms, Stagecoach Vineyard Syrah is now available for sale at a special pre-release price. To learn more and to purchase some of our wine, please click here.

Vineyards, Racks & Barrels

Oscar at Furlong Estates Vineyard

Never let a winemaker tell you there life is glamorous. It’s only Tuesday and I think I have already driven over 400 miles since Saturday and I still haven’t crushed a grape. On Saturday my son Oscar and I visited two of the vineyards I am getting grapes from. St. Mark’s Vineyard in the Russian River Valley is looking great and still about 2–3 weeks away until we pick. The vineyard is dry-farmed which means it does not get any irrigation. It was pretty hot up there and Mark (the vineyard owner), Oscar and I walked the vineyard taking grape samples and discussing the upcoming harvest. The vineyard got hit hard with a heavy frost last April and because of that, the crop level is pretty low. I share the vineyard with another winemaker and it looks like I’ll get 2–3 tons of Syrah from it. The bunches are very open (lots of space between the berries) and the grapes are small, so the wine should have a lot of color (due to a higher skin to pulp ratio) with intense flavors. Mark, and his wife Ginny also grow and dry lavender and they were kind enough to give Oscar a few sachets (as well as a turkey feather and a lucky horseshoe from one of their horses).

St. Mark's Vineyard

St. Mark's Vineyard

From there we proceeded up to the Alexander Valley to check on the Furlong Estates Vineyard. With all the heat we had last week (it was 97°F by the time we got there on Saturday), the sugar content of the grapes here really took off. I usually expect to see an increase of around 1° Brix/week. (Brix is a measure of sugar content). But his week the sugar increased by almost 3° Brix. Yikes! These grapes are getting ripe and it they will be the first of the grapes I’ll harvest this year.

Oscar at Furlong Estates Vineyard

Furlong Estates Vineyard

On Sunday I headed down to Livermore to pick up some barrel racks. Racks are what the barrels rest on in the winery and they allow you to move the barrels around with a forklift and also to stack them up to six high. New racks cost around $90, so good fortune smiled on me when I found these used one’s for a mere $20 each. As you can see, fitting ten of them in the back of my pickup made for quite the load.


Today it was off to Stagecoach Vineyard in Napa in the morning. The grapes there look great but are probably still a few weeks away from being harvested. After that I had to pick up some used oak barrels. I managed to find six of them at a winery in Napa. However, I can only get four of them in the back of my truck at one time (see picture below). So that meant two trips: Napa to Fairfield to unload them, back to Napa and then back to the winery in Fairfield.



Tomorrow is a bit of a breather and then the Furlong Estates Vineyard grapes will be picked on Thursday. Finally a chance to make some wine (did I mention I have to pick up some more barrels on Friday!)

On another note, there was a very interesting interview on Fresh Air yesterday with Thomas Friedman whose new book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded, is about the need for a green revolution. I’ll definitely be putting it on my fall reading list. Click here to listen to the interview.

Only One Week To Crush!

Things are moving along at lightning speed this year. With all the warm weather we are having and a lighter crop on most of the vineyards, the grapes are definitely ripening faster. I visited Stagecoach Vineyard on Monday and was expecting to see under ripe grapes. What a surprise I had when I got out of my car and started walking the vineyard (see pictures). The crop is a lot less this year (around 3 tons compared to 4.5 tons last year) and the grapes are already at 22.5° Brix! I usually pick them at around 25° Brix and this time of year they are normally only at around 18° Brix. So what doe this mean? Normally the sugar content increases by around 1° Brix per week. So, instead of harvesting in late October (like the last two years), I’ll probably be picking them in about 3 weeks. Not really a problem as the grapes look fantastic with a lot of color and flavor plus the lighter crop will lead to a richer, more concentrated wine. All up, it should be a great vintage this year. I’ll be heading back up to Furlong Vineyard in the Alexander Valley and St. Mark’s Vineyard in the Russian River Valley on Saturday and will probably start harvesting next week. It looks like crush is her and all I can say is: “Bring it on!”