Crush is 76% Complete, and It's a Happy Halloween at Peju Province Winery!

Every year for Halloween, Peju employees furtively collaborate within their respective departments to vie for the title of Costume Competition Winner at the annual Halloween Family Meal. This year, as has been the case almost every year since winemaker Sara Fowler has been at Peju, the Production Team garnered the departmental win! Their group effort in a time of such harvest hectic-ness is inspiring. Other costume creations comprised Jersey Housewives, a couple of pirates, one Zorro, one Sumo Wrestler, and owner & founder Tony Peju delighted us all with a shockingly accurate, surprise Papa Smurf performance. 


As of today, we've brought in 76% of our total crop. Sara aims to harvest all remaining fruit by this Friday. It's all fermenting, pressing & barreling down from there! 


Sheri, our Production Planner, gave me some "fun facts" today. (Visit the 'Meet the Team' page on our blog for photos and titles of everyone on the Production team.)
These are the dates on which we had brought in the last of our fruit over the past four years:
October 11, 2007
October 28, 2008
October 25, 2009
November 1, 2010


And if all goes to plan, it will be November 4 in 2011. Not bad considering we started harvest 4 weeks later this year than in 2009. And by 'not bad' I mean 'this was one logistical nightmare' with the same number of tanks as in years past and around the same amount of fruit coming in, only this year in a much more condensed period of time. Sara and Joe had to use acute foresight to plan their tank assignments and rotations, making sure to align when to bring the fruit in (dependent on nature) with how much fruit had been predicted to come in (a tough (inexact) science) with what kind of tank space would be available at that time. Who knew such a big part of wine-making could be about the logistics of coordinating ripening with fermentations with tank space.


At the Family Meal today, Sara gave us a harvest-time update:

Signing off and wishing you a Happy Halloween! It's Trick-or-Drink in many of the small towns that line the Napa Valley. Adults go door to door with plastic, portable wine glasses and greet their neighbors over splashes of delicious Napa Valley wine. It's something one hears over and over out here, and has truly been my experience: that in Napa Valley, people really know how to live. (More specifically, people prioritize enjoying life everyday. And I think this is good.)

Halloween Cheer and Cheers!

britt

for Peju Province Winery

Cabernet Harvest at Quintessa 10-14 days Behind Normal

It's the first week in October and we have finally picked our early Cabernets - mostly from the estate's south and southwest facing hillsides - Dragon's Terrace, Riviera Sur, and South Terrace blocks. We started last week with the vineyard edges and have continued to pull in more this week. It's a bit of a late season, with Cabernet Sauvignon pick dates averaging a week or more later than last year and the gap between Merlot, which is always the first pick off of the property, and Cabernet 10-14 days later than normal. Merlot has been closer to two weeks later than last year, mainly the result of delayed budbreak this spring. Why the delayed budbreak on Merlot? Another one of nature's mysteries.

The quality of both the Merlot and Cabernet is excellent so far with small berries, even ripeness and minimal berry shrivel from the hot spells in September.

The moderate weather this week is a relief from the seesaw hot-cool-hot-cool weather we had a few weeks ago. Temperatures through the end of this week and weekend look mild and skies are clear.

Meanwhile, Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon fementations for our Illumination Sauvignon Blanc are finishing as projected, with bright tropical and herb aromas coming out from behind the yeasty fermentation smells. We are beginning our second round of battonage on the early lots this week.

Come visit to see harvest in full swing, it's a sight to behold. If you can't make it to Quintessa, visit us on the web and check out our harvest video at http://www.quintessa.com/.

Cheers-

Charles Thomas, Quintessa

Midway at Miner

Now that we are well into the 2009 harvest, here is a run down on grapes we've brought in thus far at Miner Family and a quick assessment.

Day 1 of harvest came after Labor Day (a rarity for us) with the arrival of just over 5 tons of Sauvignon Blanc from Oakville Crossroad Vineyard. We will produce 350 or so cases of SB, which is down from the 800 cases we made in 2008. Also during week one, we brought in some Tempranillo and Grenache from Mike Naggiar's Vineyard in the Sierra Foothills. Beautiful, ripe, and tasty, these two reds were pressed off skins and are now in barrel (See Miner's first post, our amateur video of Tempranillo going to barrel).

All of our Viognier from Simpson Vineyard has been brought in: 75 tons this year and down from the 100 tons in '08. Fueled by Rutherford Grill ribs and cornbread, our fierce night shift crew (Wes, Ben, and Gabrielle) pressed Viognier until the wee hours (think 3am) for six consecutive nights. We barreled down some of our Viognier but the majority is slowly fermenting in tanks. After being kept at finger-numbing temperatures, our Rosella's Vineyard “777” Pinot Noir has now started to ferment in half-ton bins in our warehouse. A whopping 325 cases worth of Carneros Pinot Noir from Sunset Vineyard came in this year - an indication that vineyard yields would be up,and indeed yields look like they are up across the board for Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Case and point, our first block of Chardonnay to come in from Stagecoach Vineyard yielded 33% more than last year and Hudson Vineyard Chardonnay in Carneros also came in with yields above average. We will have plenty of top notch Chardonnay to go around this year and we're planning on doing 3 vineyard designated Chardonnays: Hudson, Hyde and Genny's Vineyard.

We brought in just over 5 tons of Marsanne from Stagecoach Vineyard last week for our La Diligence bottling (a partnership with Domaine Francois Villard/Rhone Valley, France). As for Napa Valley reds, it's looking like they will be ripe soon and we will be prepared for an onslaught in the next week as Cabernet Sauvignon yields are likely to be high.

The winery is starting to smell good as we approach the harvest '09 half-way mark with around 250 tons in so far. Until next time, when we come up for air... or beer

Gary Brookman
Winemaker, Miner Family Winery

Race Horse Runnin'

Time goes by like a race horse runnin', open up the gates, she takes off
a-runnin'
--"Race Horse Runnin'", The Nickel Slots

Everybody, everybody, let's get into it.
Get
stupid.
Get it started, get it started, Get it
started...
--"Let's Get It Started", Black Eyed Peas

The horses are at the gate...and they're off!

Today we finally got things REALLY under way. I've got to keep this post brief as it's 6pm and I still have to press 7 ton of Chardonnay fruit tonight.

I'm ecstatic with the quality of the Chardonnay we picked today. Tomorrow we jump into Merlot and will probably finish Merlot for the season. Cabernet is not far behind.

We celebrated a blessing of the grapes today, officiated by long time family friend and minister, Pastor Ted Muller. The sound is a little low, and it's typical Andy Shaky Cam, but video below.

Cheers!

--Andy Schweiger, Winemaker, Schweiger Vineyards.

Pumping out those Pump-Overs

Our estate fruit is coming in at a steady pace. About one-third of the vines still have fruit, and within the next week we expect to pick the remaining lots of Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon for our VIADER proprietary red blend, and Petit Verdot which is the main component in our "V" petit verdot blend.

Currently we have several fermentations going. To keep things fresh and for style, we use a variety of fermentation vessels including the more traditional stainless steel, concrete, and even single barrels. To ferment in the barrels, the heads need to be popped out, and the bungs tightly wedged in. Shown here is our Malbec, from young vines that produced barely 15 gallons this year.

The pump-overs and punch-downs are now a part of daily life in the cellar, and are even part of the "nightlife." Alan was here until at least 10:00pm last night! Why he didn't call his little sis' to come help is beyond me...

I've also attached a small video of our cellar assistant performing a pump-over of the Syrah. Look at that beautiful color. And it smells and tastes delicious. The caves are whirling with the "intoxicating" (for lack of a better word) airs of primary fermentation.

All the best,

Janet Viader

sales & marketing at VIADER

P.S. At the end of the video I ask Maurilio to "sonrei te" which means "smile" in Argentine Spanish. Who knew he was camera shy! :)

Barrel Fermenting Tempranillo

Mia Fassero
Miner Family Winery

Quintessa Harvests First Red Grapes

Thursday, September 17th marked the start of the red grape harvest at Quintessa with about four tons of Silverdale South Merlot.

A multi-national crew, including our picking and crush crews, many of whom have been with us since we started harvesting in 1994 and crushing at the winery in 2002, assembled to kick off the 2009 harvest. With the experience of our team, including Crush Forman Hugo Hernandez, who has been at Quintessa since the Huneeus family purchased the property in 1989, and Assistant Winemaker/Cellarmaster Benjamin Ochoa, the first few tons came in without a hitch.

The eastern half of the Silverdale South block, just in front of Quintessa along the Silverado Trail, is typically one of the first blocks harvested each year. Saturday, we will move to the interior of the property and pick Lake Terrace Merlot. Our usual 10-14 days between the start of Merlot harvest and Cabernet Sauvignon harvest will be more compressed this year because of the late start and the next few days of high temperatures we're expecting. We'll start Cabernet Sauvignon harvest begin by the end of next week.

At around 9 a.m., we stopped to take a moment to recognize the ritual of the Napa Valley Harvest. Father Brenkle from the St. Helena Catholic Church blessed the grapes and we raised a toast with the entire Quintessa family. As they say, it takes a village...

To get a picture of what harvest around here is really like, take a look at our Harvest Film on www.quintessa.com for a look at picking, crushing, winemaking that features the people and passion behind every harvest season at the winery. Or better yet, come for a visit and see it up close and live. Off we go!

Charles Thomas, Winemaker