110% Brand Comittment

First of all I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and survived the craziness of Black Friday. As you can see from the above picture, I am now completely branded. My tattoo that was started in August now has color in it and has almost completely healed. I guess this is what you call 110% brand commitment. If anyone else wants to get branded, just let me know, and I’ll send you an octopus temporary tattoo!

It’s been a quiet week at the winery. With all the wine in barrel, there is not a lot to do. I was up there yesterday checking on this year’s wine. Stagecoach went into barrel two weeks ago and after a quick check, it looks like it is still fermenting away. With the weather turning cooler, it will probably take awhile for it to finish. Also once, the grape juice turns to alcohol, the yeast has a harder time converting the remaining sugar because they do not particularly like a high alcohol environment.

Last Saturday we had an open house up at the winery. Winterhawk Winery (the winery I rent space in) hosted the event. Winterhawk, Blacksmith and Eight Arms all poured our wines. The turnout was great with almost 200 people attending. My Syrah was really well received and I got a lot of great comments about it. Here are a few pictures from the event.

Always lots of schwag!

It's nice to have help from my assistant winemaker!

Magnum anyone?

Release Party Photos

The Release Party was last Sunday and it still feels like a bit of a blur. It was a really amazing event. As soon as the doors opened at 1 p.m. it seemed like people started flooding in. I was expecting around 80 or so guests and we ended up with around 175 people attending. It was a lot of fun and the wine was well received. Besides the great wine, the food was also delicious. Riva Cucina did a fabulous job with all the appetizers but I would have to say that the octopus and potato salad really rocked (not that I’m biased!). I had also had some octopus temporary tattoos printed up and they were also a big hit. So here are some photos from the event.

A nice surprise was that that someone had posted a review of the wines on my Yelp page. Click here if you would like to read it (and feel free to add your own review!!!)

Finally, I would like to thank all the wonderful people who helped to make the release party a huge success. Everyone helped make the event go off without a hitch. You guys are the best! So here goes:
Stacey, Lillian, Heather, Steve, Darlene, Wanda, John, Chris, Philip, Sue, Brittani, Ryan, Anna, Myra, Matt, Dave, Mila and Jennifer & Massi and all the wonderful crew at Riva Cucina.

The Party Is Here and Eight Arms Haikus

It’s almost 7 p.m. and I just finished getting everything ready for tomorrow’s release party. This is a really exciting moment for me. The idea of becoming a winemaker took seed in my mind about 6 years ago and it still amazes me that it has become a reality. All the hard work I have put in has finally come to fruition and it will be great to enjoy the party and share my wine with everyone. Looks like we are going to have some unseasonably warm weather tomorrow (it was 80º in Berkeley today!), so it’s good that Riva Cucina has an outside patio. I’ll post some photos of the event some time next week.

Yesterday I finished up crush at the winery. Stagecoach Syrah is now in barrel and it looked beautiful and smelled great. I think it’s going to be another great year from Stagecoach. It really is a wonderful vineyard and I feel fortunate that I’m able to get grapes from there.

Stagecoach Syrah free run wine getting ready to go into barrel

As I mentioned in my last post, SFist had a Haiku contest. They got a pretty good response. Here are some of them with the winning Haiku being the last one. (Click here to read them all)

aye taste buds yearning

green berries smoke pepper
wine
swirl sniff sip savor

wine's got bouquet, nose 

fuck's all that supposed to mean?

who cares; good with green.

Green Octopus Wine

Who in their right mind wants it

it's figurative

late autumn's sweet wine

a toast drunk to crumbling leaves

once green with vigor

Leaves no longer green.

Moonrise east; wine grapes, now sweet,

will fall by next moon.

Landscapes green with vines

Lush fruit transformed into wine

Playground for the senses

Blue-state green red? Huh?

Wine flows too fast when poured by

eight-armed sommeliers.

black ink and green wine

i need seven more glasses

beak gets in the way

up from the green depths

wine colored arms come seeking

to preserve the seas

The grapes are most green

In the state that is bluest

Where most prefer red

Eight Tons Fermented and One Octopus

Checking the level of sugars during fermentation

It looks like this will be the last week of crush. After two plus months and eight tons of grapes, things are starting to wind down. How appropriate that Eight Arms crushed eight tons of grapes this year! Stagecoach is almost finished fermenting. In fact, tomorrow I’ll press it and let it complete it’s fermentation in the barrel. This helps to better integrate the oak and leads to a more balanced wine. So, it’s always nice to come to the end of harvest and to have successfully fermented all of my grapes into wine, but it’s also sad, because now I have to wait another 10 months until harvest rolls round again.

This is a big weekend for me. The release party for my first vintage is on Sunday and I think it’s going to be huge! So far it looks like there will be 70–100 people attending. Plus I managed to get some good press for the event. Today it was listed in Daily Candy’s Weekend Guide. Not a small feat. I spoke to them yesterday and asked how many people get the email. The woman I spoke to said she didn’t know the exact numbers but estimated it to be in the tens of thousands. Yikes! This tasting could get big really quickly. We’ll just have to wait and see. It was also mentioned in Tablehopper's weekly email (scroll way down near the bottom) and SFist had a post about it today. In fact, if you are interested in trying to win a bottle of wine, then check out the post, write a Haiku and submit it before 3 pm tomorrow (check out the comments section of the post to see some of the submitted Haikus).

As for the one Octopus, I was at Riva Cucina today working out the final details of the party. They have a wonderful menu of appetizers planned and to top if all of, it wouldn’t be an Eight Arms event if we didn’t serve Octopus. So Chef Massi showed me the first of the Octopuses he is preparing and it was this wonderfully huge red Octopus that filled an entire dinner plate. Yum! (sorry, didn’t have my camera with me, so no pictures!)

Corks and Yma Sumac

Have you ever wondered what to so with all those left over corks from your wine bottles? Instead of throwing them away or turning them into a corkboard craft project, you can know recycle them at your local Whole Foods. Here is an excerpt from a press release from ReCORK America:

“ReCORK America announced today the start of a recycling program to reclaim a small portion of the estimated 13 billion natural cork wine stoppers sold into the world market each year. The six-month trial will involve 25 Northern California Whole Foods Market stores, including Reno. Each store will have a convenient collection box situated in the wine department. Customers will be encouraged to add wine corks to their list of recyclable packaging.

Unlike plastic or metal screwcap closures, recycled cork can be turned into flooring tile, building insulation, shoe soles, fishing rod handles, bulletin boards, and even soil conditioner. Natural cork is biodegradable, sustainable and a valuable source for carbon retention.”

The Whole Foods Markets in Northern California that are participating in the program are: Berkeley, Campbell, Cupertino, Fresno, Los Altos, Mill Valley, Monterey, Napa, Oakland, Palo Alto, Petaluma, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Mateo, San Rafael, San Ramon, Santa Rosa, Sebastopol, Sonoma and Walnut Creek.

ReCORK America is a recycling program sponsored by Amorim, and Portocork America. For more information about ReCORK America, visit their Web site at www.recorkamerica.com

If you don’t want to collect them and take them to Whole Foods, you can always put them in your green bin or a compost pile.

On another topic, Yma Sumac died over the weekend. If you don’t know who she is, then click here to listen to the NPR story on her yesterday. She really was a one-of-a-kind performer whose unique vocal style will surely be missed.

Here is a little video about her.



And don’t forget to vote today!

Stagecoach Harvested Just In Time!

Freshly Picked Stagecoach Vineyard Syrah

The rain has really been coming down hard today, so it was a real relief to have harvested Stagecoach last Wednesday. There is always the danger with grapes that take a long time to ripen that you won’t get them into the winery before the weather turns bad. But Mother Nature was smiling on us this year and the quality of the fruit is excellent with wonderful flavors. We only got 2.5 tons, so a little less then expected. After putting a layer of whole clusters into the bottom of the half-ton bins, the rest of the grapes were destemmed and they have been cold soaking for several days now. I’ll check them on Monday and kick of the fermentation early next week.

De-stemmed grapes in a half-ton fermentation bin

Only 2 weeks to go until the Release Party and I’m working like crazy to get everything ready. I’m very excited about the event and I think it’s going to turn out great. If anyone wants to volunteer to help out on the day, let me know.

Went over to some friends house tonight and we cracked a couple of bottles of the 2006 Eight Arms Syrah. If I must say so myself, it’s tasting amazing. Lots of fruit and spice with a lovely long finish!

And if you were wondering, Oscar, was dressed as Spiderman for Halloween.