Wow, looks like I haven't posted in almost a month! Some of you were getting a bit restless out there....in my defense, in addition to attending class and a big ol' test on the wines of France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Argentina, South Africa, and Germany (yikes!) I have been very busy with THREE term projects, all due this week or next, and I have to admit that I procrastinated in getting started on them!
First project was a term paper, "The Story of Veuve Cliquot Champagne" - it's actually the story of the woman who built the famous French champage house, and is credited with perfecting the technique called remuage (riddling), which forever changed the way champagne was made - in short, it is the process of turning bottles to collect sediment on the cork, which can then be removed (degorgement) before the bottle is topped off and resealed with a new cork. I decided on this as my topic after reading the book "The Widow Cliquot", a gift from my friend Joyce.
My second project was a "lab report" done by making observations in a specific vineyard over a period of months, from veraison (when grapes are softening and turning in color) through ripening and harvest. My subject vineyard was an old vine Zinfandel vineyard belonging to Battaglini Estate Winery, and thanks go to vigneron Joe Battaglini for his permission to traipse around in his vineyard, as well as the background information he supplied.
My last project is still in the works, and I left it for last because it was the one I dreaded most doing - a budget for a hypothetical vineyard operation. I chose to use as my "fantasy" vineyard one based on the Burgundian concept of "small vines" - high density planting of low vigor rootstock of a Pinot Noir cultivar. I am getting some assistance from a local small vine vineyard, and boy do I need the help! Even the simple idea of creating a budget just to establish such a vineyard, and maybe take it through the first year of growth, has turned out to be so much more complicated that I imagined. Oh well, it's a learning process, that's really the whole point of it.
Other than the above, we did have an interesting field trip to the Clos du Bois winery in Geyserville, which I'll post some notes on with pictures I took. And two "weekend" classes on pruning grapevines, which I really liked. Have some pictures of that too, so I'll get those up shortly.
Two more weeks until the semester ends and then I have a month off before Spring classes begin in January.
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