"Racking" up Wines

Racking is a procedure used to remove sediment from wine. It's as simple as removing the "clear" wine (free of sediment) from each barrel, cleaning the barrels, and refilling them once the barrels dry. Here's a shot of my brother Alan with the "bulldog" racking device pulling out the wine. He uses a flashlight on the hose to ensure he's not taking up any solids or sediment with the wine. Our 2009 wines have finished malo-lactic (secondary) fermentation, and so this is the first time they will be racked.

Everyone's philosophy is different when it comes to racking. We usually "rack to tank," meaning we move the wine from several barrels into a tank, clean a whole slew of barrels before refilling from wine stored safely in the tank. The wine is more homogeneous and it is more efficient since we don't have a huge staff on hand (my brother has two helpers and about 200 barrels per vintage). The wine may undergo some more movement with this method, depending on how close the barrels are to the tank, so we reduce the number of times we rack to about 3 times in the two year winemaking process.

Another way to rack is "barrel to barrel" - cleaning one barrel at a time and refilling it with the next barrel's wine. This minimizes the agitation of the wine and exposure to oxygen, keeping more of the trapped C02 which serves as a preservative, but also allows for barrel variation, possible reduction smells, and sometimes you get a slight "spritz" in the finished product which usually blows off with decanting as do any notes of reduction. There's also the copper in the cellar trick, but that's another story...

Great wines are created using either racking method, so it is really up to the winemaker to choose his or her winemaking style and priorities.

Cheers from Alan and Delia, mother-son winemaking team! Here they are putting together a mock 2009 VIADER blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc.

Warm regards,

Janet

Janet Viader

sales & marketing at VIADER

Precise & Professional Pruning Prior to Premiere

Precise pruning is a job for professionals. On my recent travels, I learned a lot about the various pruning methods. In Rioja, 100 year-old Tempranillo vines are shaped into "Gobelet" training systems, in Burgundy they favor "Single Guyot" for their Pinot Noir, and Bordeaux is a mix of Guyot, and "Bilateral-Cordon" which you traditionally see in Napa Valley and on our estate.

Yesterday at VIADER, we finally took to the vineyards and started pruning with an army of about 15 men. Pruning is an essential part in the management of vines, and has very specific timing needs. I'm not a viticulturalist, but I'll do my best to explain it the way I understand it. (Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong!)

Typically, once the cold weather settles in after harvest, the vines lose their leaves, cease photosynthesis and go dormant for about 2-3 months. Unused energy in the form of carbohydrates from within the canes is slowly pulled down for storage in the trunk. These carbohydrates are later needed for bud-break and early canopy development. Pruning the dried canes as the weather warms up gives the young buds the extra push to break through and pull that energy into life.

Each bud, like our estate Syrah vine pictured here, will produce a shoot that may have 1-2 grape clusters, so pruning is important for gauging and controlling future yields for that harvest year.

My brother Alan commented, "This is when you create and set the balance for the rest of the year." We'll have a better idea of yield as we get closer to bloom, usually in late March. There's still more fun to come beforehand, so stay tuned!

All the best,

Janet Viader

sales & marketing @ VIADER

All Staff Meeting!

Our first meeting of the year we decided to have a little fun. My brother Alan opened a bottle each of our estate blends -- 2006 VIADER, 2006 "V," 2007 VIADER and 2007 "V." Our VIADER wines are blended with about 60-70% Cabernet Sauvignon and the rest Cabernet Franc, while our "V" features Petit Verdot, usually about 65% blended with Cabernet Sauvignon. However, our 2007 "V" blend has 92% Petit Verdot. I repeat, 92%! It's a labor of love to work with the challenging varietal of Petit Verdot, but it's so deliciously worth it! As you can see!

FYI, I'm off tomorrow to explore the wine regions of France and Spain, so you won't be hearing from me for a couple weeks.

A bientot! Hasta luego!

Janet

sales & marketing for VIADER

Handle with Care

After the nice holiday break it seems like there is no time to waste in the cellar! We have at least 2,500 cases of 2007 vintage wines that need to be hand-labeled by our dedicated team, headed by Blanca Avina, our Quality Control & Shipping Manager since 1996.

These rare beauties were just finished yesterday. Only five cases - 60 bottles! - of 2007 Petit Verdot from the VIADER estate were privately bottled for Meritage Wine Market in Encinitas, CA which purchased the lot at Premiere Napa Valley last year. This winter wine auction is attended exclusively by members of the wine industry (wine retailers, distributors, restaurant owners, etc.) to raise funds in order sustain the various outreach programs of our non-profit trade organization, the Napa Valley Vintners. During the event, all wines specially selected for this auction are tasted directly from barrel. Recent years have included up to 200 rare barrel selections from different Napa wineries offering 5, 10 or 20-case lots (Note: there are roughly 25 cases of 12/750ml bottles per barrel).

With the 2010 Premiere Napa Valley around the corner, we're in the planning stages for our Open House on the evening of 2/19, which is attended by people both in and out of the wine industry. Last year, we had fun and displayed a pirate theme in our Tasting Room, and this year we're hoping to get people excited about the "Roaring Twenties!" My brother Alan chose his favorite barrel of 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon to pour at Premiere. The 2008 vintage represents our 20th harvest on the VIADER estate, and we've chosen to offer the full pledge of 20-cases. (Alan's also turning 30 this year!! But don't tell him I told you...)

Sincerely,

Janet Viader

sales & marketing at VIADER

Blogging on a wet winter’s day!

In the spring and summer months the winemaking staff often envies the vineyard staff, working in the beautiful sunshiny days in the Napa Valley, but come January when it’s cold and rainy outside the cellar staff is pretty happy staying dry and warm; well relatively warm at 61 degrees F in our barrel room.

All the hype of harvest is just a blurry recollection and the less glamorous reality of the day to day work in the cellar continues. January is the time at the winery that we start the first rackings of all those marvelous wines we barreled down at the end of harvest and get a more tangible feel for the quality of the vintage. There is a kind of excitement amongst the staff as the new wines are pumped into tanks and we pull samples for analysis and evaluation; the wines are vibrant in their youth and full of promise, and at this point we get to decide which program they’re destined, the Elivette or the Estate Cabernet, and make adjustments to their oak regime if needed. Then it’s back to the barrels and continue ageing for another few months while we start the blending trials to decided how best to marry all our lots to produce the best possible wines. So we stay busy in the cellar at this time of year, covered in a muted excitement about the new vintage with anticipation of their next step in the two year trek to the bottle.

If you’re in the area and have a chance, stop by and see how things are going in the cellar, but watch out for pumps and hoses and lots of new oak barrels being rolled around.

Jac Cole - winemaker

Spring Mountain Vineyard

The Monks Visit Montelena

One of the fun things about the holiday season is all the traditions that have sprung up along the way - some unique, some common, some just plain odd. These traditions bring us comfort as they are known, constant, and enduring - some just bring heartburn and make us question our better judgment.

Here at Chateau Montelena, one of the more entertaining holiday traditions is a pre-Christmas employee social gathering known as the Monk's Visit. Started some time ago, it is now an annual ritual were we all get together, snack on Dave Vella's (our vrd. mgr.) famous game sausage, pretzels, and other simple foods, exchange stories, chat about holiday plans, relax, and enjoy the presence of the monks. Never the same group of Monks, though there are always a few old favorites, some years there are few, other years many, but it is always a good time.

Hopefully your Holidays too are full of great traditions, and may Chateau Montelena or any Napa Valley wine be among them.

Cheers! Until next year,

Cameron Parry
Winemaker
Chateau Montelena


Oh - I almost forgot - the Monks in question are the Belgian Trappist variety, this years group is pictured above right.

Holiday Gifts Galore

Disclosure: I have no idea what's been going on in the cellar the past two weeks. :-S I saw some wine being pressed in the basket press last week, but I can only assume it was our Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon since it was the last of the fruit to come in during harvest. Our winemaker has been hard to track down lately!

What's he been up to? Let me introduce my new nephew, Matthew Alan, born on Saturday, 12/12. He's been keeping Alan & Mariela very busy lately! I overheard a friend saying to him today, "It's like harvest all over again," referring to the loss of sleep, long busy days, constant cleaning...

Matthew will be the only one not enjoying a glass of wine with my family's Christmas dinner this Thursday evening. His parents will definitely be toasting to 2010!

On other business, we have completed almost all of our holiday shipping. One part of our caves is dedicated to our shipping department, and our shipping manager is now on vacation. So my morning involved packing a few "DARE-ing Collections" for people who ordered over the phone and off our website. We'll probably get some calls tomorrow from people trying to find gifts for their friends and family -- to be sent before Christmas of course. We'll do it if they pay 2-Day Air! (Otherwise, the wine sits in a freezing warehouse all weekend, and it could possibly ruin the wine.)

Make sure you all stay warm out there!

Happy holidays,

Janet Viader

sales & marketing at VIADER

So what now?

OK, so the grapes are picked, the crush gear is clean and stored for the season, and the fermentations are finished (mostly), so what's going on in the winery now? Is everybody just sitting around staring at the barrels and biding their time until the holiday break?

Not a chance.

We're still very busy here in the winery getting the red wines through malolactic fermentation (the conversion of malic acid to lactic acid carried out by the bacterium Oenococcus oeni), waiting for a few Chardonnay and Riesling ferments to finish, and performing lots of rackings. Racking is the term we use for decanting (pumping) the clear wine off of any solids (lees) that have settled to the bottom of the tanks. These lees are largely comprised of dead yeast and bacterial cells along with some grape solids. Each of the red wines we make is normally racked 3-4 times before it goes to barrel for ageing, and each time we save those lees, so what happens to all the purple glop? Well, there is still wine mixed in with the lees, so we call in a filtration company and we have them use a Rotary Drum Vacuum filter to filter (see above pictures) out the solids and recover the wine from the lees. This recovered wine isn't of sufficient quality to be included in our products, so we sell it to other wineries or negociants that will blend it with other bulk lots to create other brands. Waste not want not, right?

Cheers!

Cameron Parry
Winemaker
Chateau Montelena Winery

Season's Greetings

Work in the cellar was cut short this morning because all the water is frozen! The holding tanks next to the winery were not drawing any water during the night when the temperatures fell to the low 20's. All we can do is wait...

I suppose our fountain could act as an indicator of when the temperature get's back above freezing. It's 9:15am, and sunny, yet still in the 30's.

This is typical weather this time of year. Since the vines are now dormant, they are able to endure the extreme weather with no issue. Not until February will we treat the vines to some "TLC" with our pruning team. For now, they can just relax and dream of all the wonderful grapes they will produce for us next year.

Sincerely,

Janet Viader of VIADER

Life on the Crush Pad

Pressing; pressing; pressing. Shown here is our basket press, gently squeezing the remaining juice from the Tempranillo grapes. One complete cycle for this press takes 24 hours.

Alan says we have only about four lots to go before everything is pressed and "barrelled down" (transferred from tank to barrel). The remaining wine is happily contained in the stainless steel tanks inside the winery at around 70+/- degrees. On average, the skin contact was around 50 days for all the wines - that's a lot!

And in the middle of everything, we bottled our 2007 VIADER Proprietary Cabernet Blend, and the 2007 "V" Petit Verdot Blend last Monday. Since our own bottling line only does about 500 cases a "day" (read: a very loooong day), and our 2007 VIADER is about three times that, we hired a mobile bottling line to get it done in one day. Well, I guess the large formats and half-bottles were bottled over the weekend, so it was more than one day! Today our friend Valerie Lenhart waxed the tops of all the big bottles (3L, 6L and 9L). She has to wear a back support belt!

As the holiday nears, we will break for Thursday and Friday. Unfortunately the whole family will not be together, as I have a trip to the East Coast... Wine will definitely be served with Thanksgiving dinner on both coasts. :)

Sincerely,

Janet Viader

Sales & Marketing at VIADER