They're here....

They’re here…. Chardonnay grapes that is, not the poltergeist of Alfred Tubbs (he’s always here).

The delivery of 17 tons of Chardonnay from one of our growers in the Oak Knoll District of Napa Valley marked the official start of the 2009 Harvest for us here at Chateau Montelena. This is the 38^th consecutive harvest under the current ownership, but there is a much longer history, dating back to the first harvest in 1882 under the direction of the above mentioned Alfred Tubbs – the founder of Chateau Montelena. But enough with the history lesson; that was 127 years ago… So, yesterday’s grapes were both Dijon clones of Chardonnay, clones 809 and 96 to be precise, and this is the first time that we’ve worked with them here at Montelena. So far we’re quite excited about them – we saw great early flavor development without high sugars, which means lower final alcohol, something that we work hard to achieve every year. Yields were very good - about 3.25 tons per acre – especially considering that these vines were T-budded over from Merlot only 2 years ago. The juice tastes great in the tank, so we’ll see how the flavors change during fermentation and aging, but it won’t be until we pull everything out of barrel before bottling next August that we really find out how these new clones fit (or don’t).

The next round of fruit will come in tomorrow – another Dijon clone (76) – so if you’re in the area, stop by in the morning to watch us load the presses. Get here early though, as all of our Chardonnay is harvested at night in order to assure that we receive cool firm fruit – this preserves the delicate flavors, helps prevent damage or unwanted microbial growth in the picking bins, and reduces the amount of energy needed to cool the juice during the initial settling. After that, we should be off and running, with fruit coming in every day from that point on. I expect we’ll be picking the first Estate Cabernet Sauvignon grapes sometime next week….

Until next week, Happy Harvesting and Cheers from the top of the Napa Valley!

Keep reading to see what our Intern Daniel Orrison had to say about the past week.

Cameron Parry – Winemaker

Chateau Montelena Winery

First Day of Harvest 9/8/09

The last few weeks have been relatively calm around the winery… cleaning tanks, racking wine, sanitizing (everything you can imagine), cleaning more tanks, and for the interns, trying slow but sure to learn the ins-and-outs of Montelena-- an area I’ve found comes far more from experience than anything else. Fortunately however, experience, is something Montelena does very well. Certain members of the cellar staff have worked at the winery for over 20 years! They may not be able to offer you the book definition of malolactic fermentation, or the theory behind volatile acidity, though, working with them daily I have learned more about wine than I could have ever imagined. For example, the importance of hard work, responsibility, care, dedication to trade, and professionalism (even in the most mundane and simple tasks) that must take place daily for any wine to be successful. In this area alone I have grown as a person and my appreciation for wine and its process has been heightened without the sign of a single grape!

But who wants to talk about topics that don’t involve grapes (especially on a day that will go down in books as the official start of my FIRST harvest)? We received over 13 tons of two different chardonnay clones. They came in early, and if I may, left very late… The day lasted around 13 hours, from 7am to 8pm, which, I’ve been told is relatively tame for any harvest day. Though for me it was the perfect start… I got to marvel at the sheer quantity and quality of fruit brought to the property. I got absolutely soaked, several times I should note, in juice, water, sweat, and more juice throughout the day. I ate my first freshly picked chardonnay grape and took part in my first, ‘famous’ Montelena Harvest lunch. (It lived up to all the hype, fantastic actually… lasagna, salad, garlic bread, fresh fruit, and a dangerously tasty fudge brownie. All consumed in about 15 minutes. They say you are supposed to lose weight during harvest, but at this rate, I’m not so sure… 167 and counting.) The day however seemed to move at a feverish pace, for as quickly as it started, looking back, the ending was quite similar (bike ride through the vineyards to our lovely home on Old Toll). Tomorrow is another day. Can’t wait!

Best from Montelena.

Life is clean. Life is beautiful. Life is pure.

Cheers,

Daniel Orrison

You know it's harvest when....

...you're out in a vineyard tasting your Petite Sirah at dusk, want to take some pictures, grab your camera, and realize it's sticky from pulling leaves and taking pictures of this mornings pick of Chardonnay at sunrise.

So here is basically how the day went. To really start, I have to begin with drinking some Pinot Noir in front of the TV late last night, because someone asked me to evaluate it for a future project. That led to falling asleep in place, only to have the wife reach over several times with a sort of loving touch/smack and the kind words of "Go To Bed". Begrudgingly, I crawled myself upstairs, barely got the teeth brushed, and remembered the ever important set the alarm for tomorrow's pick. The next thing I remember is thinking that can't be the alarm, hitting snooze, and lying there half asleep and half awake waiting for the next reminder that I won't be able to fall back asleep anyway. A few more snooze's and off we go.

Jump in the truck and haul a.. out to the vineyard thinking that I'm going to be late. Head down the road toward Caffino (the wrong direction from the vineyard) and realize there is actually a Starbucks on the way. Step on the gas to get to the Starbucks, order my double mocha, wonder what other souls must be out at this ungodly hour, and wait and wait and wait for them to fill the order of one medium (they call it Venti) Mocha. Really how long can it take. Haul a.. out to the vineyard to see the Vineyard Manager waiting for the bins and breathe a sigh of relief that I wasn't late. We pick, pull leaves from the bins, and take some photos. This is where the camera gets sticky, but too busy to notice. Once my truck has a full load I head off to the winery. I make several phone calls to the winery to see how the other vineyards are picking, and make the call as to the order of which things might get pressed. Make the call to hold one press for my grapes and start loading the other with the other grapes coming in all while using my speakerphone on my phone and wondering if holding the phone in hand but not up to my ear really means "Hands Free".

I get to the winery to find out that there are more grapes from the first pick then previously thought, and we'll have to add an extra press load to the already max scheduled day. We begin loading the press, squeezing berries, and collecting juice as fast as we can. Anyone who knows winery work, knows that this means hurry up and wait. Loading the grapes takes about half an hour or so, while running the actual press to get the juice takes roughly two hours. So our pace at the winery is hurry, hurry get the press loaded, get everything else done while it's running, clean the press, and start over.

Usually at the winery in the meantime, this means several conversations with other winemakers about custom crush, making sure sales are on track at the winery, consulting with the tasting room, oh yeah the two tour groups that came through the winery, taste all the fermenting wines, check sugars, get the lab analysis, do the additions that need to be done, and finally clean up all equipment the winery that was abused over the day.

By the end of the day, we've cleaned everything up, talked about tomorrow's chaos, and said goodbye for the night. This is the point I head off to check the two Petite Sirah Vineyards, taste the grapes and take some beautiful sunset pictures in the vineyard. I pull the camera from the car, and realize that the thing is super sticky from this mornings pick. Oh well, I take the pictures anyway. After checking the vineyard, I head off to an account to deliver a case of wine, meet up with the wife, have a glass of wine and some food, and head home.

Tomorrow it all begins again.

Bruce Devlin
Winemaker
Three Clicks Wines

Vintage updates from PEJU!

Hi and welcome to our harvest blog! We’ll be giving you the down and dirty on harvest at Peju. Yes, fall in the Valley is romantic and beautiful with the pleasant smells of grapes wafting through the air, but in our world of wine production, things are not always so glamorous. We’ll take you through the process with us every step of the way, good, bad and ugly – all of the things that make the final product even more rewarding. We have a blast along the way and continue to learn new ways of making the absolute best wines we can from our vineyards. So here we go…

In order to ramp up for a busy three months of picking, fermenting and barreling, we recruit the brightest, best and most fun harvest interns from around the world! Every year we draft talent from foreign countries this year we have a South African, named Arno Smith who hold a degree in Enology and Viticulture from Elsenburg and who has done vintage in Australia and South Africa. He is not only super friendly and smart, but more importantly FUN! Luckily he arrived just in time (with only one small Visa snafu) to help us prep the cellar for harvest and finish bottling our 2007 Napa Valley red wines.

We kicked off harvest on August 21 and have since picked all of the Sauvignon Blanc blocks from our Persephone Vineyard in Pope Valley. All was good on the harvesting end, however, once the fruit got to the winery we had a few issues: Day one, the Bin dumper on the Forklift wasn’t working (hydraulic oil leak), Day two, the hose from the Press going to the tank got clogged, Day three, a fuse on the Press went out, Day four the Transformer on the Press went out – and every day since things have been running smoothly (Yikes, I am afraid as I type this that I just might Jinx things)… On the bright side, we are noticing amazing flavors from the fruit and thus far extremely pleased with what we are seeing this vintage! At this point all the SB has gone to tank, yeast has been added and fermentation is in full gear (btw, our cellar has the most marvelous smell).

We also received 60,000 predatory mites via FedEx this week to release in our organically farmed Rutherford vineyard! Spider mites- beware! The microscopic “good mites” arrive on bean plants that we in turn place throughout the vineyard canopy. The good mites make their new home in the vineyard and prey on all the bad bugs that can hurt the vines. It’s a great alternative to pesticides and chemical sprays.

Next up – Chardonnay and Syrah! We’ll tell you all about it in next week’s adventures…

Cheers, Salute, Prost, Gesondheid!

Sara Fowler
Winemaker
PEJU Winery
www.peju.com

Chardonnay at Trefethen Family Vineyards

We brought in our first Chardonnay of the season this morning at Trefethen Family Vineyards in the Oak Knoll District. The vineyard crew began picking the 1.26 acre block of Wente clone Chardonnay in the chilly morning hours. This particular clone has a lot of muscat character and had just reached the point where the berries were singing with flavor!

When the fruit arrived on the crushpad, the Trefethen family joined the crew in celebrating the start of the 2009 Harvest. Nothing like popping the cork on a bottle of sparkling wine at 8:30 in the morning! None for the forklift drivers, of course....

After loading the press with grapes, we headed back out to the vineyard to taste grapes and discuss harvest plans for the rest of the week. We have another Wente clone selection that is nearly ready. This one is called "Hens and Chicks" for its tendency to produce large and small berries on each cluster. We're also looking at some Dijon clone Chardonnay as well as some Pinot Noir for later this week.

Happy Harvest!

Jon Ruel

Trefethen Family Vineyards

Who needs a Refractometer when you've got Winery Dogs?

Going on his 10th harvest, Kodiak doesn't need to measure the Brix (or sugar) level, he can just smell it!

Delia Viader, who is the owner/winemaker at VIADER (and also my mother) was the one who discovered Kody proudly showing off his fresh catch of the day -- a ripe cluster of Cabernet Sauvignon -- during last year's 2008 harvest.

Half-way up Howell Mountain in Deer Park, our estate fruit is rapidly approaching full maturity. So quickly in fact, that my brother Alan, our vineyard manager and winemaker, had to cut his recent travel plans short and will be returning this Wednesday and expects to start picking first thing Thursday. He and his wife Mariela are currently in Utah representing our private bottling of "Robert Redford Reserve" Cabernet Sauvignon that we bottled specially for Sundance.

Hopefully Alan can get to the grapes before Kody does!

Warmly,

Janet Viader

sales & marketing at VIADER

Almost, Not Quite Yet In Calistoga

I want to be informative and tell you all about our harvesting, but, we aren't doing it yet!!! The bins are clean and being moved to the vineyards from which I purchase, the equipment is all prepped except for the final cleaning. The generator and forklift are primed and ready. I'm standing around like a 9 1/2 month pregnant woman waiting for the dang delivery....such is the life of a winemaker.

In the meantime, I continue to walk the vineyards, test the fruit, watch the weather, sell wine, hmm... all the things we do to keep busy while the grapes ripen.

I thought I'd share an integral part of my operation - Zoe, the wine dog. She meets and greets, leads folks up to the tasting room, has her own method of checking the grapes (not MY favorite method) and generally keeps me laughing.

To my brethren in this business - busy harvesting Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir - sleep is now allusive, I'll just rest until MY harvest starts!!!!!

Until next time, Laura

Musings From the Mountain

I’m sitting in my home office looking out my window at our 5-acre vineyard here on Diamond Mountain (see photo) and I admit I am having a hard time focusing on this harvest report. There is not a cloud to be found in the endless blue sky and the temperature is a perfect 85 degrees out. Did I also mention it is Friday and the start of the long Labor Day weekend? But I promised Joel, the Communications Manager for the Napa Valley Vintners, that I would get this blog done today. I feel like a school kid sitting in class rushing to finish my assignment as I watch the seconds tick by on the clock until the bell rings and the weekend begins.

You may be wondering where this is all going and why I haven’t mentioned harvest much yet. Here at Diamond Terrace we make Cabernet Sauvignon from our Diamond Mountain and Howell Mountain vineyards. Most of the mountain appellations in the Napa Valley harvest several weeks to even a month behind the vineyards on the valley floor. Our fruit has gone through veraison, the technical term for the fruit changing color from green to dark red, but we are far from harvesting. In the past it has not been unusual for the fruit to hang well into October and based on the health of our vine canopy and the mild summer weather we are having (see paragraph 1) it looks like we are headed in that direction again this year.

So with not much to report at this time I think it is safe to say my assignment is completed and I’m off to enjoy the start of a fun Labor Day weekend. The weather here is perfect (again see paragraph 1) so if you don’t live far it’s not to late to jump in the car and come for a visit. Most of the grapes are still on the vine and enjoying the perfect weather as well.

Maureen Taylor, Owner
Diamond Terrace

Dutch Henry Ziplocks and Grapes

Dutch Henry Brix Update for 9/4/09:

• Mt. Veeder Pinot Noir: 23.7 brix. Not Ready.
• St. Helena Estate Cabernet Sauvignon: 22.4 brix. Not Ready.
• Estate Tomatoes and Veggies: PERFECT!

Stay Away Thieving Birds

Mountain Harvest at Oakville Ranch Vineyards

chardonnay is ready to go
color of new mowed hay
acids mellow

young cabernet, first crop
sweet and full

tannins
first sampling done on entire ranch
thought we would be late
but the flavors are ahead of last year

tiny berries
cooling in the morning fog
stay away thieving birds

Phil Coturri – Vineyard Manager
Oakville Ranch Vineyard

NVV @ Whole Foods Napa

The Napa Valley Vintners are proud to be partnering with our local Whole Foods market. During alternating months Whole Food's Napa tasting bar will feature an exciting lineup of NVV member wineries.

Rhiannon Bernard, left, and Ann Pepi of Joel Gott Wines poured samples from 5-7PM on Thursday, September 3rd, as the inaugural winery in this new series. A nominal cost of $2 bought patrons a taste of five wines, including Joel Gott's newest wine, "Gott", a 2005 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon by his winemaker wife Sarah Gott.

Tasting Schedule
September 3 & 4th - Joel Gott Wines, 5-7PM, $2
September 10 &11th - Duckhorn Wine Company, 5-7PM, $2
September 17 & 18th - Heitz Cellars, 5-7PM, $2
September 24 & 25th - Newton Vineyard, 5-7PM, $2

Waitin' In the Blocks at Spring Mountain Vineyard

I feel like a sprinter in the blocks dealing with a series of false starts. We thought we’d be off and running on Tuesday, September 1^st. We tasted fruit and 'no go', not ready.

So off we went to taste again for a Thursday start. 'Ready, set and No' once again.

We tasted Sauvignon Blanc again this morning and...you guessed it...'Not ready'. OK starter, put your gun away.

We’re going to kick harvest off next Tuesday when we’re done with Labor Day and the grapes are finally ready to go.

Have a great holiday and we’ll see you early (very early) on Tuesday the 8^th to show you our first day of harvest.

P.S. Left to right in the photo are Ron Rosenbrand, SMV Vineyard Manager, me, and Leigh Meyering, Associate Winemaker

Spring Mountain Vineyard
Jac Cole, Winemaker

Dutch Henry has 09 Sauvignon Blanc in the Barn!

Yes, Dutch Henry has its first mule kicking in the stall. We successfully crushed our Pope Valley S. Blanc last Saturday (8/29/09). It is currently bubbling away in a refrigerated stainless tank. The cellar has been scrubbed and polished, the crusher and press work, and we have one varietal under our belt. Next up: our Estate Syrah in front of the winery. Probably end of next week. 100 F in the shade at the winery yesterday and it RAINED! That was a first for me and I’m a native Northern Californian of 40 something years.

Waiting and Working at Chappellet!

The signs of an upcoming harvest abound at Chappellet, located on Pritchard Hill in the eastern hills of the Napa Valley. Cellar workers are busy bees, cleaning and checking all of the equipment, and ensuring that the winery is ready for the onslaught of grapes that is right around the corner. The vineyard crew is making its final thinning passes, fine tuning the crop to ensure that it reaches the excellent potential that we all see in this 2009 growing year.

We are still at least a week away from bringing in our first varietal, Chenin Blanc (pictured). This will be our first Chenin harvest in five years at Chappellet and we are anxious to see what our newly replanted vineyard will give us. Our Chardonnay (from American Canyon and Oak Knoll) is approximately 2 weeks away, but the current warm weather could move that up a little. Our red grapes on the estate are about a week behind normal due to the cool growing season. Merlot and Malbec may see a September harvest, but the Cabernet is solidly a mid-late October baby this year.

The vineyards look great, the winery is ready to go and the staff is anxious to put another great year in the barrel here at Chappellet.

Cherry Picking the Ripe Fruit

The 2009 growing season has been ideal for our vineyards. The weather has been moderate to cool for the large part, with average crop size. While the majority of our harvest is a few weeks away, it is time for cherry picking! Imagine yourself looking at a cherry tree, some of the cherries are nice red and ripe, while others still have an edge of green and need more time to ripen...so you pick the red juicy cherries and enjoy the bright flavors. With experience and patience, that is exactly what our job is in the vineyards today.

We are in the vineyards every morning looking for the ripe fruit, and of course, our experience tells us what vineyards and varieties ripen early. We started harvest modestly last Friday with 5 tons of Sauvignon blanc, an early variety, from the St. Helena district. With the heat of the last weekend, a couple more cherries turned red, ripe and juicy....Wednesday we picked 18 tons of Viognier from the Carpy-Conolly Ranch in Rutherford...and this morning saw 10 tons of Sauvignon blanc from Yountmill Vineyard in Yountville. All the fruit is looking great, clean with much promise for flavorful wines and great numbers to boot. With all of the ripe fruit picked for now, I think we have cleared the weekend....which makes for a lot of happy faces with the crew.

We're Not Even Sampling Yet

While the grape trucks rumbling up and down Highway 29 signal the start of harvest for other wineries in the valley, our picking bins, sorting table, crusher/destemmer and press are all still tucked snuggly away in the storage room. As picking crews and cellar teams busy away at neighboring wineries, life at Paradigm rolls along at late summer’s languid pace. The vineyard will laze under a few more weeks of sunshine before harvest’s toils come knocking on our door.

Ripening, in the long version, is a complex physiological process that involves sugar transportation, ion transfer, respiratory catabolism of acids, and a bunch of other things that are definitely better explained in your high school biology textbook than they will be here. Ripening, in the short version, is the simple progression from tasting acidic, tannic and watery, to tasting concentrated, balanced, and well…ripe.

The Paradigm estate vineyard started veraison, the green-to-red color change shown by maturing red grapes, in late July. If we take a moment to glimpse into the evolutionary past of our good friend the grape vine, this visual cue evolved as means of flagging down a means of seed (thus gene) dispersal. Sending the maximum number of genes into the world is the end goal for nearly all life forms. But back to grapes – once the seeds are viable (able to pass the vine’s genes along in the form of a new plant), the seed chemically signals the grape’s skin that it’s time to turn color. Passing birds stop to nibble on the pretty red berries (suddenly quite visible against the green canopy), and never know they’ve fallen into the vine’s reproductive trap as they happily drop little grape genes all along the way to their next stop.

Shockingly, humans have pickier palates than do birds. While seed viability may have been completed with veraison, a tasty grape that will translate into a tasty wine is still a long ways off. Grapes starting veraison are tart, watery, and bitter. If you care to taste a berry at this point, one might find that Merlot tastes like broccoli stems and Cab is reminiscent of a non-spicy jalapeno, both with enamel-stripping acid levels and tannins that grate on your tongue in a way that you might not have a reference for unless you’ve ever gnawed on a banana peel.

As the grapes ripen, acids will slowly decrease as the sugar content increases, skin tannins grow softer and less bitter, and the overall flavors will phase out of the “green” category (broccoli, bell peppers, grass) and become more fruit-like (melon, peach, blackberries…). As we get closer to harvest, we’ll pull samples out of the different vineyard blocks in order to track chemical markers of maturity in our lab, but for now it really only requires heading out into the vineyard and tasting a couple berries to know that, for us, harvest is still a few weeks away.

Enjoy California Wine!

Napa Valley is heading to New York City from September 14-16 to celebrate and promote California Wine Month.

In addition to our events for the trade and media, we’re involved in a couple great consumer events, too. Here are the details:

California Wine Month Wine Dinner at
The Modern
Tuesday, September 15, 7:00 PM
Four courses
Nine wines
$150 per person (not incl. tax & tip)
Address: The Museum of Modern Art, 9 West 53rd Street (bet. 5th & 6th Aves.), NYC
Reservations: Call 212-408-6645

Join representatives from Napa Valley, Mendocino, Amador County, and Lodi for an exciting multi-regional wine dinner at The Modern. Learn about regions you know and love—as well as winegrowing areas that may be new to you. Enjoy great California wines paired with phenomenal food and hear from several of the vintners themselves. Kathleen Heitz Myers (Heitz Cellar), Su Hua Newton (Newton Vineyard), and Suzanne Groth (Groth Vineyards) will all be in attendance—as will their stellar Cabernets.

Napa Valley In-Store Tastings at New York-Area Retailers:

Gary's Wine & Marketplace
Monday, September 14, 4-7 PM
featuring Kathleen Heitz Myers (Heitz Cellar)
1308 Route 23 North
Wayne, NJ
FREE

Grande Harvest Wines
Tuesday, September 15, 4-6 PM
featuring Kathleen Heitz Myers (Heitz Cellar)
Graybar Passage, Grand Central Terminal
New York, NY
FREE

Morrell & Co.
Tuesday, September 15, 3:30-6 PM
featuring Suzanne Groth (Groth Vineyards)
1 Rockefeller Plaza
49th Street (Between 5th and 6th Aves.)
New York, NY
FREE

Sherry-Lehmann
Wednesday, September 16, 2-4 PM
featuring Suzanne Groth (Groth Vineyards)
505 Park Avenue
New York, NY
FREE

Union Square Wines
Saturday, September 26, 2-5 PM
140 4th Ave
New York, NY
FREE

De Gustibus Cooking School Class: THE NEXT GEMS OF THE NAPA VALLEY
with GARY FISCH, CEO/founder of Gary's Wine & Marketplace
Saturday, September 26, 2009
1:00 to 4:00 PM
De Gustibus Cooking School
151 West 34th Street, 8th Floor
$95
Gary Fisch, CEO/founder of three Gary's Wine & Marketplace stores in New Jersey, aka Wine Guy on Food Network's "Hot Off the Grill," will give a sneak preview of which Napa wines are next in line for stardom and cult status.

Or if you're traveling to northern California, here are some Napa Valley winery events in Napa Valley.

Harvest Preparations at Chateau Montelena

Well, it’s that time of year again…the decking has come off the crush pit, and we’ve dusted off the destemmers. The presses have rolled out of the warehouse and the shaker table is all bolted in place. The new barrels have all arrived and the grapes are getting sweeter by the day. Now how do all these puzzle pieces fit again? We’ll figure it out - not without a few surprises along the way I’m sure, but it’s the challenges that keep it interesting, right?

The crush season is upon us and the interns are in full force (see testimonial below) cleaning everything and anything they can get their scrubbies on – we wouldn’t have it any other way. Everything’s got to be bright an clean before the first grape hits the scale. Speaking of the grapes, they’re looking great! We’re expecting another excellent vintage and with more tonnage than last year. The Chardonnay crop should be about 115% of normal and the guestimates from the Estate suggest that we’ll have about 180 tons of Napa’s finest to work with this season, including the much anticipated first crop off of the replanted J-block. While we're on replants, we’ve got about 13 acres off-line this year that are in various stages of replant, and the second half of C-block is slated to come out after this harvest. What’s it all mean you say, well, it is all part of our master plan to produce the best possible grapes from this extraordinary vineyard, so as the production from the older plantings (1973 and 1974) declines we are gradually replanting those blocks to ensure that we have sufficient grape tonnage to ensure consistent production levels. But remember folks, this is farming, so check back to see what we actually get…

We expect to receive our first grapes – Chardonnay – in about 7 days, but that all depends on mother nature and what she has in store for the next week or so – any prognostications? The conditions down in the Oak Knoll District of Napa Valley where we grow most of our Chardonnay have been very good this season – a bit cooler than normal, but that’s good for Chard. No new growers this year, but we will have a few new (to us) clones to play with courtesy of an existing grower that T-budded over some Merlot to Chardonnay Dijon clones last year.

Aside from new Chardonnay clones, there is actually quite a bit of “new” here at the old Chateau. We have 9 new tanks in the cellar this year, a new basket press, and a few more new pieces of grape handling equipment. What’s with all the new you ask, well, what it boils down to is that all this new stuff is designed to do one or both of these two things: either make the wine better or make the job easier. This simple philosophy has deep roots here at Montelena and is in line with our growing philosophy as well: the right grape in the right place. All that to say that we are continuing to tweak and improve all aspects of what we do here in order to not just maintain, but improve upon the excellence expected from Chateau Montelena.

Check back in to see how everything plays out here at the top of the Napa Valley! One of our interns and I will be posting updates once a week (maybe more) as we progress through this harvest.

Cheers!

Cameron Parry

Winemaker

Chateau Montelena Winery

1429 Tubbs Lane

Calistoga, CA

www.montelena.com

Now here's an entry from Daniel Orrison - one of this year's interns here at Chateau Montelena:

Summer Harvest: Entry 1 9/1/2009

Montelena Monday:

My name is Daniel Orrison, though these days I more appropriately go by Intern, or Harvest Intern, Intern who almost flips the forklift four days into the job, etc. Yes, that is correct, I am one of the harvest interns at Chateau Montelena (or how I refer when meeting a young lady in the small city of Calistoga… “I am an apprentice to the winemaker at Montelena”). Jokes aside, this is a dream position. There is not a winery in the world I would rather work and a staff I would prefer to learn from.

In the following weeks you are going to hear MY story behind the 2009 Montelena harvest. Not your everyday recap, that I can promise, but the REAL side of a Napa wine harvest, from the eyes of 22-year-old kid who is crazy about wine and obsessed with new experience (a little too much some may say). I plan to document the ups and downs, highs and lows, and ins and outs of the entire adventure. Wherever that may take me…

But a little bit more about myself before we get started: I love wine – the style, art, culture, science, and tradition all sown into the subject. This love has taken me across the globe. Tasting in the south of France, sipping in South America, touring in Portugal, Spain, Italy, and has now landed me in the epicenter of the American Wine Trade – the Napa Valley. Which, appropriately, seems to be then most beautiful of all the regions in the world I have had the privilege to visit.

How I wish I could put the beauty of this area into words – the beauty of Napa Valley – the beauty of Calistoga. A place such as this remind you how pure and clean the world can be – how extraordinarily far the pleasures of thought and imagination can take you if you are only willing to dream! It really does seem quite perfect… I’d be willing to argue the only discomfort one experiences when visiting is in the realization of how tragic it is the likes of Van Gough or Monet will never get to the stories of these hills with their brush. That may be the tragic romantic in me… but who’s counting. We’re in wine country, right?

Now onto Chateau Montelena… From the instant you step foot on the property, winding your way down a charming path lined with Eucalyptus (and stumble upon the castle I now call home), a feeling of excitement surrounds you – a feeling of passion – a feeling of care, pride, and tradition. It’s amazing to see the level of excellence that radiates throughout the building. From top to bottom there is not a detail missed and it is because of this that the winery has remained among the World’s elite for so many years. If you could only see how excited I am sitting down to write this post, for it is a reminder of how special I foresee this harvest. Chills are running through me as we speak. Away from myself, though, and back to the quality that is Montelena… an area I feel has a great deal to do with then quality of young staff they employ (the Interns).

I live with two others in an amazing old farmhouse (hidden between rows of vines on Old Toll Road), owned by our boss, Bo Barrett. One is a Portuguese lad by the name of Ricardo. He has worked seven harvests in different places around the world. Him and I are becoming good friends. He has such a passion for wine. It is inspiring to watch him work are care for the grapes for his attention to detail is like nothing I haven ever seen. The other intern is a lovely young girl by the name of Janice. She has recently graduated from Cornell University, where she studied Viticulture and Enology. Another amazing young mind who knows farrrr too much about wine (compliment in these parts). But both are incredible people I look forward to taking this ride with.

So far life as an intern has been easy. Harvest is still a few weeks out as the summer’s temperature has been a bit cooler than usual and the grapes still need a few more weeks to ripen. The quality of fruit though looks to be outstanding. We can’t wait to get started! Until then… I hope this introduction treats you well. Much more to come. Much more to come.

Wine tasting this weekend? See you around the valley.

Cheers most sincerely,

Daniel