Never Boring

Their shrill barking woke me from whatever dream I was having. A pack of coyotes was having a debate in the vineyard outside my window. In my sleepy stupor I tried, but could not remember the day of the week. It sounded like dozens of them, but it was probably just a few being particularly rambunctious. Suddenly the report of a rifle echoed sharply across the valley and the coyotes were silent. Just a few hundred yards from our house, in the other direction, the first crew of cooks were arriving for work at The French Laundry.

Such is life in Yountville during harvest. There is this incredible mixture of nature and urban sophistication, which only intertwines so completely in the Napa Valley. The reason I could not remember the day was simple: during harvest all days are the same. There are no regular patterns, hours or life. It's exhausting, stressful and the best thing that happens to you every year.

So what does this vintage mean to us? It means another debate with Mother Nature, much like the coyotes outside my window had last night. As winemakers we all bark at the weather, but in reality we live within it and in the end treasure what we have been given each and every year. Like a parent we don't have a favorite child, but revel in their differences and the memories of their unique strong and weak points. The critics will give this harvest a rating, but numbers have no soul and harvests, like all things in nature, do.

So what should you expect from a wine or from a vintage? I think you should expect personality. Those who rank vintages by number in the modern era miss the fundamental character of wine and truly do not understand wine itself. The question should never be what is the greatest vintage of this wine can I have with my dinner tonight, but should be what vintage will taste the best with my dinner tonight. The disaster vintages of days past are no more due to the dramatic advances in enology and viticulture over the last decades. On top of it we live in the Napa Valley where, let's face it, the weather is never really that bad. The ranges of vintages today runs more from producing earlier or later maturing wines and from bigger or more elegant styles. It's a fact of the matter in the Napa Valley an overly hot vintage has a more negative impact on wine quality than ones that are overly cool.

It often strikes me that critics want all vintages to be the same. I cannot think of anything more boring: or unnatural. Tomorrow morning at 4 a.m. we start picking our Talcott Vineyard Cabernet Franc in St. Helena. It will make a wine different from last year and from the one it will make the next. I would not have it any other way.

Craig Camp - Cornerstone Cellars

NVV Harvest 2011: The Jackse Vineyard

October 17 - 22: Harvest Live

A Groundbreaking Six-Day Webcast Combining Harvest with Real Time Q&A

The Napa Valley Vintners (NVV) non-profit trade association is excited to bring you "Harvest Live 2011," the Napa Valley's first week-long, live harvest webcast that will allow viewers to interact in real time with winemakers, vineyard managers and special wine industry co-hosts to hear and see all that's news with this year's crush in America’s premier wine region.

"These innovative, interactive webcasts will be breaking new ground in social media wine education," said Linda Reiff, NVV executive director. "It will be a terrific opportunity to have a conversation with these renowned vintners in real time, all week long."

"Harvest Live provides an opportunity for anyone, anywhere, to experience a Napa Valley harvest--even on their phone via the Ustream mobile application," explained Christophe Smith of Titus Vineyards. "This is a chance for wine lovers to connect with the Napa Valley beyond what they have tasted in the bottle and have a behind the scenes look into the 2011 vintage. We look forward to a great exchange between wine enthusiasts and those of us in the winemaking business during this most exciting and important time of year."

Produced by Christophe Smith along with David Gowdy of Dirt on the Vine, Randy Hall of VOM Productions and the NVV, Harvest Live offers participants a behind the scenes view into the Napa Valley harvest that even many locals don't get a chance to see. During the morning broadcasts viewers will be taken outside into the vineyard to learn about picking decisions and what's current in the field, then during the afternoon journey into the cellars to follow those grapes through the winemaking process. Capitalizing on the real-time webcast, viewers will have the ability to ask questions of winemakers and hosts via the Ustream webcast and receive answers instantly. For Twitter and Facebook users, questions will be monitored and answered via the #HL11 hashtag.

The interactive, one-hour webcasts will occur daily October 17th through 22nd at 9am PDT and 2:30pm PDT, and will be hosted at a different winery each day, showcasing varied winemaking techniques as well as multiple American Viticultural Areas (AVAs) throughout the Napa Valley AVA.

The winery participants by day are as follows:

Monday, October 17: Robert Mondavi Winery with Keith Horn, director of vineyards and Genevieve Janssens, director of winemaking

Tuesday, October 18: Staglin Family Vineyards with Garen Staglin, owner, along with Fredrik Johansson, winemaker and Chris Platt, assistant winemaker

Wednesday, October 19: William Hill Estate Winery with Raif Holdenried, winemaker

Thursday, October 20: Round Pond Estate with Chris Pedemonte, vineyard manager and Brian Brown, winemaker

Friday, October 21: Titus Vineyards with brothers Eric and Phillip Titus

Saturday, October 22: Chappellet Vineyard & Winery with Phillip Titus, winemaker

To access the interactive webcast, visit the NVV's Harvest 2011 website at www.napavintners.com/harvest . A detailed schedule including on-camera talent and topics can be viewed online in advance of broadcast, and sessions will be archived here as well so viewers can watch and hear all the sessions.

To read and watch all the Napa Valley Harvest 2011 videos, blog posts and photo galleries, and to take the fun and interesting quiz, find out about tasting events in celebration of October's Harvest Napa Valley month, please visit www.napavintners.com/harvest

Mutinous Mother Nature

It’s a real nail-biter, this 2011 harvest. Or as assistant winemaker Joe says, it’s “one year that Mother Nature is not cooperating.”

The sun has come out this afternoon, and it’s almost as though the breeze that left with the rain this morning was a collective sigh of relief from winemakers throughout the Valley. It has been raining for over a week with a tease-of-a short, sunny respite this past weekend. Most of the grapes simply aren’t quite ripe yet, so it’s a gamble as to when to bring fruit in. Wait and hope the right weather comes to ripen fruit to its potential, and risk rain that’s unrelenting? Or play it safe and bring in now what you’ve already got? The fruit is not as concentrated and scrumptious as anyone would like, but picking now would pre-empt the potentially major loss of yield that would occur if these damp grapes continue to get no love from the sun and start to mold.

Luckily for us and for our wine (and it’s no accident), Sara is a unique, dynamic blend of an optimist and a perfectionist. She’s also this awesome combo of serious scientist, positive energy force, and sensory-sensitive sweetheart with super smarts, sass, and a proclivity to fun. Anyway, she believes the weather will change, that the fruit will ripen beautifully, and that the wine will be delicious as always. And she won’t settle for anything less. “We’re taking the risk!” she says. “To ensure the best quality of fruit. With ripe tannins and good sugars and all the other delicious things. Mmm…” She pauses, smiling with an excited glint in her eye. Then she continues seriously, “It will just mean an action-packed couple of weeks of harvest, as we have fewer days than ever before to process all of our fruit.” But I can’t think of anything more rewarding than busting your boots with a group of people for a common goal. I’ll be out there tomorrow!

In the vineyard, the crew is busy opening the vines’ canopy, or removing leaves to concentrate the plant’s energy into ripening the fruit.

And this afternoon is turning out to be a bright blue beauty, so nail-bitten fingers crossed it stays. It’s amazing how quickly a little direct sunlight evaporates the melancholy ennui of a week of rain. Let’s hope it does the same for the grapes’ moistened skins!

Peju Sycamores with Sunshine

Clouds for a Daydream

We are indeed.

by Britt Starr for Peju Province Winery
from 10.11.11

see this post in context: www.pejuwinery.blogspot.com

Round Pond Harvest Update #3

Rutherfordians,

As I sit at my desk patiently waiting for a high pressure system to brush aside the upper level trough that has brought us this less than welcome wet weather, our Estate and Reserve Sauvignon Blancs are quietly and coolly fermenting in tank, drum and barrel. The white wines of 2011 are looking marvelous as they progress through primary fermentation. Being an optimist to the core I am hoping that the quality of the Sauvignon Blancs are tea leaves for the rest of fruit that has yet to come in.
The phrase “when will we start bringing in the Reds,” has recently been replaced with “will we ever bring in the Reds?” To that, my coy response has been, “We’ve already harvested some red fruit.” And indeed we have, albeit not for red wine production. We have picked part of the Sangiovese and Nebbiolo crops to produce Rose. While the Sangiovese was predetermined to be a Rosato, the Nebb’s fate was a bit more ad hoc.

Because the weather has been so inclement, rot has started to form in tight cluster varieties such as Nebbiolo. Faced with the prospect of losing the fruit to mold and being forced to cull it onto the ground, where it would then release more spores into surrounding vineyards, I thought it best to bring the fruit into the winery and press it in the same fashion I did the Sangio. This has the dual benefit of preventing cross contamination in the vineyard and allows us to experiment with the Rosato di Nebbiolo. I am excited about the prospects of producing another refreshing wine to serve on the terrace, and as they say, when life gives you lemons you should make Rose…

Back to the Reds, yes, we will bring them all in. At this point we are watching the forecast fastidiously and walking our vineyard blocks compulsively. From a management stand point we have applied all the protective sprays applicable at this phase in the season; we have leafed out the fruiting zone to promote airflow; we have even gone to the point of using leaf blowers like large hairdryers to dry out more susceptible varieties like Petit Sirah.

I mentioned in earlier updates that the Winegrowing team learned much from the previous two cool vintages. One of those lessons was “don’t put your eggs in one basket.” As such, we have diversified the blocks from where we pull fruit. Should one block ripen quicker than another, we can capitalize on this phenomenon. This is indeed what we are seeing and as we enter into the final phase of the growing season we will segregate each pick according to its potential to produce Reserve, Estate, and Napa Valley styled wines.

I suspect that we will be bringing in fruit towards the end of the week and certainly the week after. I will update you again in the near future with developments as they occur.

Si Se Puede,

Brian Brown
Winemaker

Crush 2011: Stewart Vineyard Merlot and Davis Block Merlot and Cabernet Franc

Cornerstone Cellars

The Team That Picks Together Stays Together

We all gained a mega-appreciation for our super-skilled vineyard staff today. It took us 1.5 hours to pick 1.5 tons of grapes. According to Manuel, our Director of Facilities, in 1.5 hours, the vineyard crew of 16 guys will pick 8 tons to our 1.5. And we were 30 strong out there today. We’ll have to get a video of the vineyard crew doing their thing. It’s mesmerizing the way their fingers fly through the vines while the voluptuous grape clusters go thunk thunk thunk in their bins. Today my grape clusters went thunk…[30 seconds later]…thunk… It’s hard to get your little blade through all the intertwined leaves and vines to make a quick, efficient slice at the hidden juncture where the cluster grows, and then move on without missing a beat. For us amateurs, it was a lot of bending over, squatting down, feeling and fumbling and fighting with the vine to get to the stem of the cluster only then to try to untangle it from the vines it has grown around. The pros in the vineyard practically keep a steady walk as they pick. I don’t know how they do it.

Next week, we will begin bringing in the bulk of our fruit, and it is going to be crazy. I’m running out the door to go pour at a wine and food event in San Francisco, so more updates will have to wait until next week. I wish everyone at least one delicious and memorable wine experience over the weekend!

Cheers!

britt.

Employee Pick Participants, 1.5 hours and only 1.5 tons later...

All Whites Are In, Reds Begin at Peju Province Winery

Yesterday, we processed the last of our Chardonnay. All of our white grapes, both Sauvignon Blanc and Chard., have now been plucked from their vines and have begun their journey to becoming delicious white wine.

The first bit of Sauvignon Blanc that we picked on September 6 and inoculated on September 9, allowing a few days for the lees to settle out, is dry! (‘Dry’ in winemaking means that all of the sugar in what was once juice has been converted to alcohol in what is now wine. In wines with what we call ‘residual sugar’, not all of the sugar was converted to alcohol, and the wine remains ‘off-dry’ or slightly sweet. There are a number of reasons that this will occur, some intentional, some not…) With much of our Sauv. Blanc dry, this means that technically, we have 2011 wine!

But it’s not quite finished wine. It’s baby wine. Born and alive, tangible and functional, but so fresh off the boat (out of the womb/off the vine and the lees) that it hasn’t really come into itself yet. Foregoing a discussion (monologue) on nature and nurture, suffice it to say that wine and humans make for amusingly comparable subjects for consideration. The point is that you take what ‘God/Nature/Insert-Name-Here gave you’ and then you take advantage of what Life throws your way. You try to cultivate your best self and you enjoy pondering how you got to be that way. Wine lacks the ability to introspect, of course, so we have to ponder its constitution for it.

Our 2011 Sauvignon Blanc has been born tasty, bright, and fresh. Soon a small percentage will hang out in neutral oak barrels for complexity, flavor, mouthfeel and structure. Then it will be time for Sara to work her magic, blending from the different tanks of S.B. separated by vineyard blocks and ripeness-levels-at-crush, to create what we are proud to call Peju Sauvignon Blanc. Forgive the shameless self-promotion, but it really is delicious!

The first Zin to come in (hill-side vineyard block - less water retention in the soil)

Oh, and also, we brought in our first red grapes on Friday, which was very exciting, as it has been a long time coming. The reds still aren’t quite there yet, however, in terms of ripeness. And the rain yesterday and today has everyone feeling a little nervous. As long as we get sun after the rain though, all should be well. Friday, we brought in the little bit of Malbec and Petit Verdot from our Rutherford property. Yesterday, it was Zinfandel grapes from the Persephone Vineyard. Friday, I’ll be working crush with the crew so stay tuned! Can’t wait!

- Britt Starr at Peju Province Winery

Click on me to read this blog in its context.

Pablo, Lony, Juanito & Frankie wave 'Hello!' from the sorting table

Flora Springs Winery: Harvest Superstitions

Night Harvest: 4 a.m. Boyd Vineyard Syrah in Oak Knoll

We like night picks at Cornerstone as the best way to bring the fruit into the winery as cold as possible. This helps preserve the fresh fruit flavors and aromatics. As the reds first get a cold soak and the whites and rosé are fermented at very cold temperatures the cold fruit gives us a head start getting the must to the desired temperature. As usual with this vintage, the quantity of the fruit we got from this vineyard was low, but the quality was exceptional. We may not make much wine this year, but what we make will be wonderful.

Craig Camp, Cornerstone Cellars

Sparkling harvest at Domaine Chandon is over!

Most wineries in the valley are just starting their harvest, but for us at Domaine Chandon we are done with sparkling wines!

We received the first grapes on Monday, August 22nd and the last on Friday, September 23rd. During this month, we have been very busy receiving and processing the fruit 24 hours a day. Everything went very well, we had a great team. This year we have interns from France, Italy and also two people from Domaine Chandon Australia and Argentina. It is great to have people from all over the world as it is an excellent opportunity to exchange information about our techniques, wines, cultures...

Most of the wines are now dry, just three fermenters left to go. We already inoculated the wines for malolactic. We are not doing malolactic on all our wines but just on the lots we selected. This year again has been a great year for sparkling wines at Domaine Chandon. The grapes had a lot of acidity which will make excellent wines - we are very excited about this vintage.

Now that we are less busy with the sparkling wines, we are bringing in our still wines made from Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier this week. At Domaine Chandon we never stop!

For me, I am happy that the sparkling harvest is over as I just completed my second vintage of 2011 after spending the first 4 months of this year in Australia working for Domaine Chandon in the Yarra Valley. I am now looking forward to some time off and my first weekend!!!

Good luck to all the other Winemakers in the Valley as you start harvest!

Pauline Lhote
Assistant Sparkling Winemaker, Chandon

Video: Napa Valley Chardonnay Harvest & Flavor Profiles

With the heat spike over the last two weeks, the 2011 Napa Valley Harvest is switching into high gear! Throughout the valley wineries are picking white varietals (as well as a few early reds) and have generally moved from Sauvignon Blanc into Chardonnay territory.

In the spirit of the Chardonnay harvest, check out the fun video below featuring Bo Barrett (Chateau Montelena), Cameron Parry (Chateau Montelena) and Armando Ceja (Ceja Vineyards) sharing their thoughts on Chardonnay flavor profiles.

Good ideas and bad decisions

Up here at Chateau Montelena we like to think that we know a good idea when we see one, even if it sometimes takes us awhile to get on board. So in what is proudly a blatant rip-off of the Schramsberg "Harvest Dress" we present to you the "Harvest Hat!" A real gem that I found in Chinatown and just couldn't pass up - who doesn't love a fuzzy white pig? The rules are the same as for the dress - wearer must have done something to deserve it. In this instance one of our interns (Matt Johnson) in a case of bad judgment failed to hang the "man in press" sign on the outside of the press while cleaning it, so now gets to wear the hat as a reminder to himself and the rest of the staff to follow the rules for their own safety. Goes nicely with his outfit don't you think?

On the more serious side, today was our 3rd day of fruit this year, and we've got just shy of 60 tons in so far. All white grapes to this point (Chardonnay and Sauv Blanc), but we're looking at potentially harvesting the first few tons of Estate Cabernet Sauvignon tomorrow. Today's hot weather is moving everything along quite nicely, and should help push several blocks into pickable condition. Rain next week? That's the next big question...

Stay tuned and happy harvesting!

Round Pond Harvest Update 2.0

After patiently waiting nearly all of September, the commencement of harvest finally arrived on Wednesday of last week. Sauvignon Blanc picking and pressing is in full swing and I am thrilled to report that the quality looks very good this year. As most of you know, shatter was a big factor in the size of the crop this vintage and Sauvignon Blanc was particularly hard hit. Early estimates pegged the damage at fifty percent reduction, but after harvesting the first two blocks it looks like the crop load was affected to a slightly lesser degree.

One of the challenges that we have encountered this year has been to bring the canopy and crop load into balance. Sauvignon Blanc has a naturally vigorous vegetative growth habit and when combined with the deep heavy soils where the vines are planted, the crop size can be prolific. Because of the shatter the natural balance between leaf surface area and crop load was thrown askew. Too many leaves and not enough fruit causes sugars to accumulate quicker than flavors. To mitigate this we hedged the vines early and often to remove actively growing shoot tips and control the overall number of leaves.
The cool growing season delayed the commencement of harvest by twenty six days. However, this late season heat spell kicked the pace of ripening up a few notches and Sauvignon Blanc throughout the valley is being picked at a furious pace to keep sugars and flavors in an appropriate range. Round Pond’s trellis set-up has allowed us to weather this heat with minimal detrimental impact to the fruit. The fruiting zone is well protected by the canopy so that sunburn does not occur. The flavor intensity in the fruit is exceptional and the multiple picks should allow for a very expressive and complex wine. I am hoping to wrap things up early this week for the Estate Sauvignon Blanc; the Reserve fruit should come in shortly there after.

Until the next installment...


Brian Brown
Winemaker
Round Pond Estate

Harvest Underway at Trefethen Family Vineyards

The harvest at Trefethen Family Vineyards is well underway! The weather during September has been fantastic adding a great chapter to a pretty mild season. On our estate in the Oak Knoll District, high temperatures for the past thirty days have exceeded 80F on all but five days. In fact, there were nine days that topped out over 90F and we expect a couple more this week. With the long hang time coming from the mild summer, flavors were already well on track and this recent warmth has brought the chemistry into balance - the sugars jumped up a bit and the acids finally began to drop off. What does that mean? It means we're picking! Over the past few days, we have brought in Pinot Noir, Riesling and Chardonnay. While some of the blocks of Riesling and Chardonnay will certainly linger a bit longer, we also expect to see our first Merlot this week!

In our quest to make the best possible wine, with the smallest possible environmental footprint, we harvest many of our vineyard blocks in the cool early morning hours, often starting as early as 2:00AM. The air temperature is much cooler at this time and so are the grapes. Last week, when the highs reached 100F, the nighttime lows were still in the 40's! Cool grapes better preserve the delicate aromatics which are vital for our fresh white wines and they are less likely to undergo oxidation before being safely pressed to tank or barrel. There is also a tremendous energy savings at the winery because white wine fermentations are all conducted at cool temperatures (50F - 60F) and even most of our red fermentations begin with a "cold soak". Since our grapes arrive cool at the winery, we don't have to spend the energy to cool them down in tank. Night picking even helps with local traffic issues! When our teams are working a shift from 2:00AM to 10:00AM, that means fewer cars on the road during the rush hour commute. And, lastly, the vineyard crew actually enjoys it. Sure, it takes a couple days to get in the rhythm but we light the vineyard well so they can see the grapes and doing the heavy work of harvest is easier at night compared to working on a hot afternoon.

Now, I'm off to check out the fermenting juice as the first wines are already bubbling away. Cheers to vintage 2011!

Jon Ruel
Director of Viticulture & Winemaking
Trefethen Family Vineyards

Napa Valley Harvest Update - White Wines

Follow 2011 Napa Valley Harvest updates on our blog, www.napavintners.com/blog, or on Twitter with #NVHarvest.

News Brief from Cuvaison's Vineyard Manager James

Cuvaison's Vineyard Manager James reports on the 2011 Harvest. James has managed Cuvaison's vineyards for over 15 years, is a Lead with Walsh Vineyard Management, and is very experienced with Napa Valley winegrowing. Needless to say, this isn't his first rodeo!

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3...2...1...

The launch codes have been given and the pad prepared, we are T-minus 21 hours to the start of our 40th crush! The new cellar is finished, the headlamps are cleaned and checked, the crews are rested and ready for tomorrow (early) morning when we will begin Harvest 2011. The first fruit across the scale this year will be about 10 tons of night harvested Sauvignon Blanc from our Takahashi Ranch in the Oak Knoll District of Napa Vallley.

A long standing tradition on the first day of harvest here at Montelena is the Blessing of the Grapes. Tomorrow mid-day before we begin pressing the Sauvignon Blanc, we will invite our friends and neighbors to join all of Team Montelena for an invocation and blessing of this year's crop, the new cellar, and all of us working with them. Two priests will be on hand to help us out, followed by a few toasts, and lunch by Jade Lake. A fine way to start what is bound to be an interesting and intense Harvest 2011.

Cameron Parry
Winemaker

(Meet Cameron in our latest Harvest 2011 Video!)

Why Not? Let's Throw a Party!

It's happening!  Harvest is getting underway all over the valley.  The sweet smell of fermentation is becoming more noticeable in the cool night time air, grape trucks and limos are filling up Highway 29, and everyone is excited/anxious for the coming months of hard labor.  It is a busy time of year, not only because we have grapes to make into some of the world's best wines, but because people love to come out to Napa to see the process.  It is the perfect excuse to throw a party!
    On October first we will be hosting our annual Harvest Party, not only to celebrate this wonderful time of year, but also to release our 2008 reds.  We have an amazing line up for the evening, Chef Casey Thompson, one of the finalist from season three of Bravo's Top Chef, is coming out to do the food.  Not only is she amazing chef (I have been blessed on a few occasions to enjoy her food), she is also a joy to be around.  For entertainment we have Dave the Butcher from Marina Meats and Avedano's coming up from San Francisco to demonstrate the fine art of butchery, and it truly is an art. Dave treats each animal with the utmost respect, and loves sharing his knowledge with anyone that is interested.
   If you are interested in joining us tickets are available on our website. Hope to see you here!

Late, Light and Luscious

While harvest started at Raymond on Monday, September 12^th with the picking of our Sauvignon Blanc, our winemaker, Stephanie Putnam, and our winegrower, Eric Pooler, wanted to share their thoughts on the 2011 growing season and offer some predictions on the year’s harvest. Here’s a hint…it going to be “late light and luscious.”

--Raymond Vineyards