The Lynn Pedone Wine Discovery Tour Begins!

So today I started my own little "discovery tour"
of Sonoma County vineyards & wineries. My plan
is one wine tasting each week at a new winery!

I chose Martinelli Winery first because of their proximity to Shone Farm, and also because I'm trying to get their approval to "monitor and observe" one of their vineyards for a class project over a period of a few months. George Martinelli (described by my teacher as handsome and resembling Paul Newman - and wow, was she not exaggerating!) was gracious enough to meet with me for a few minutes today (everyone is super busy w/harvest at this time of year) and hopefully he will be able to spend part of tomorrow morning showing me around. I'm also hoping he will take me under his proverbial wing and maybe teach me something I can't learn from my school textbooks or classroom lectures. Maybe I can even get an internship or - dare I say it - a job, somewhere down the line...

On the way out I stopped in the tasting room where Denise and Judy were friendly and knowledgeable and because I mentioned I was a Vit student at the JC, I got my tasting fee waived...I sampled two Chardonnays, one Pinot, one Zin and one dessert wine. My favorite was the 2008 Vigneto di Evo Zinfandel: "layers of blackberry, kirsch, roasted figs...long lingering finish" - it comes from a tiny vineyard which is the site of the original family homestead ranch. Excellent at $30. My second favorite was the 2008 Muscat Alexandria, a honeysuckle, jasmine. honey and vanilla delight that would be great during the holidays - also reasonable at $28. The Martinelli family has been in Sonoma County since 1860, starting by raising sheep, cattle, potatoes, walnuts, prunes, apples, and finally wine grapes. They specialize in producing small lots of wine from single vineyards. I loved the tasting room, which is situated in a big, red, historic hop barn. Worth a visit.

Wines of France

Last week we began Unit 2 of World Viticulture and Wine Styles. The instructor, Gerald Boyd, is a former editor of Wine Spectator magazine, very knowledgeable and with a great sense of humor. In 3 hours we covered only the regions of Champagne, Burgundy and Bordeaux. I had no idea there was so much to know about French wines! Of course I wasn't surprised to learn that the French view wine as a food, whereas here in the U.S. it's considered an alcoholic beverage; also that in France wine is rarely consumed without food. Covering a bit of its history, it is easy to see why wine is so deeply entrenched in their culture. The French are passionate about wine, and here's a statistic that proves they believe their own is the best: only 3 percent of all the wine consumed in France is imported!

As most people who are familiar with French wine know, the government controls their wine industry. The French AOC System is one of the most detailed and strictest in the world - it dictates who can plant which grape varieties where; it determines what the density will be in vineyards (how many rows, how many vines per row); and it classifies all wine into four levels of quality, from highest (AOC) to lowest (Vin de Table, or table wine). Within each level, the wines have to meet a very specific criteria that encompasses the grapes, the soil, the alcohol content, and the vineyard & winemaking practices. It was interesting to learn that the whole reason this system was developed back in 1930-37 was to combat widespread fraud that had been going on for years by unscrupulous producers who would, to meet the marketplace demands of popular wines, attach a region's name to their bottles to get a higher price, or buy grapes from somewhere else and blend them with their own and label them all as coming from the same place. In the Champagne region, around 1911, the houses were selling 11 million more bottles of wine than their region's vineyards could possibly have produced! So basically the system protects the authenticity of the geographic names of origin. Good for the consumer!

We learned about the production process of champagne, and I learned a new term: chaptilization, which is the addition of sugar to fermenting wine to increase the alcohol - a procedure NOT legal in the U.S., where our grapes have more sugar naturally and less acid.

"Burgundy makes you think of silly things...
Bordeaux makes you talk about them...
Champagne makes you do them."
- Brillat-Savarin, 18th Century French Food & Cooking Authority

Pug Wine!

For all of my wine-loving friends, and especially for all of my Pug-AND-wine-loving friends.....I just discovered the ultimate winery - Pug Wine, in Mill Valley. The proprietor, Peggy Bennington, owns three Pugs herself. They specialize in "small lots of handcrafted, ultra-premium single (Sonoma County) vineyard wines.....Pug Pinot, Pug Blanc, and Pug Cab. They don't have a tasting room yet, but I contacted the owner and have been invited for a private tasting at her home next weekend. Frankie & Otto get to come too! I'll report back on what I liked.

Their website is http://www.pugwine.com/ - to order.

2010 Crush - Sauvignon Blanc

We had perfect weather this morning - cool and overcast - for the Sauv Blanc crush. We got one ton of the 43.5 tons picked (Benzinger Winery gets the rest) which should yield about 70 cases for our Shone Farm label. I was surprised at how much "prep time" goes into the operation - sanitizing all the equipment (Hopper, Press, Settling Tank, hoses) with a hydrogen peroxide-type solution and citric acid wash took a good hour. The grapes were crushed in a big, rotating stainless cylinder with a"bag" inside that inflates to press the grapes up against the sides; juice falls through slits into a big bin below, and it is immediately pumped into a settling tank for the night where it will receive some bentonite (removes proteins and helps to clarify the wine); tomorrow it will be pumped into barrels for fermentation.

Here come the grapes! Sorting in the Hopper, then into the Press

What's left...juice pumped into settling tank...readying the fermentation barrels

The Winning Team

Wow, just learned this afternoon that my team 'won' the crop projection exercise we did last week - we had to project how much Sauvignon Blanc we had for the winemaker (what was harvested this morning). "Pick complete for Block 7, and the total was 43.5 tons. The winning team for the crop estimate is MGMBL - they predicted 41.7 tons. They'll announce who they are in next Thurday's class." Mark, Gery, Maria, Barbara and LYNN! How did we do it? Count # of rows of vines, # of vines in each row, estimate # of missing/non-producing vines, allow a percentage for sunburn/disease, weigh samples to get average cluster weight in lbs., figure average cluster # per vine, times the total # of vines, divide by 2000 lb. Easy!

My First Crush!

So tomorrow, the Sauvignon Blanc grapes at Shone Farm are scheduled to be picked (at 3 a.m. because it's cool) and crushed and sent to fermentation. Those of us from the program who want to be there, and can be, will be assigned a variety of tasks from shoveling to sorting. I will post photos over the weekend!

Our Sauvignon Blanc Grapes, Ready for Harvest Next Week!

Morning on Shone Farm 9-9-10

PHOTOS - La Crema Winery Visit 9/7/10

Site Visit to La Crema Winery

Our VIT 1 class site visit to the La Crema winery in Windsor (generally not open for public tours) began with a sampling of their Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, the two varieties they focus on. Oh, the hardships we have to endure in this course! Our visit was hosted by winemakers Melissa Stackhouse and Elizabeth Grant Douglas, who described the winemaking process at La Crema and their own winemaking experiences in general. The winery began in 1979, producing 250,000 cases per year; today it produces 800,000, and is working its way to a goal of 1 million cases of wine each year. They make 5 different varities of Chardonnay, and I was proud to learn that they actually use some of the grapes grown on the college's Shone Farm.

A few of the interesting facts we learned last night: their Chardonnay grapes are machine picked, but the Pinot grapes, because they are thin-skinned and not as sturdy, are hand-picked and sorted. They prefer French oak barrels (more subtle flavor), which are made for them by World Cooperage in Missouri (a cooper is a barrel-maker) with staves harvested in their own forest overseas. This is a huge operation, which is evident in the photos that follow!

PHOTOS: Vineyard Management Classes

PHOTOS: Shone Farm/Vineyards

Week 3 Highlights

I'm now an official resident of Sonoma County. Maybe my gypsy wanderlust will end here!

Working in small teams, our Fall Practices Viticulture class spent Thursday morning in the vineyard making a Powdery Mildew assessment on one block of vines. Nasty little white masses you have to look for with hand magnifiers and that can colonize entire surfaces of the grapes and leaves and last the whole season if not stopped. Fortunately, we were able to report to the management company that takes care of our vineyard that we saw very little mildew. We did, however, see a lot of sunburn and shrivel (raisins!) due to the record-high temperatures the past few weeks.

Thursday afternoon - Winery Practices - my favorite class! This week we learned the specifics of white wine processing: crushing methods, separating the juice, fermentation, additives, clarification (racking), aging and preparing for bottling. We then got to "play" with the machines (sans grapes of course at this point) in the winery - the receiving hopper, the destemmer/crusher, the must pump and various hoses and fittings. Harvest season is right around the corner and Shone will need lots of help with this season's crush - can't wait to volunteer!

Speaker Series

We have had some very interesting speakers address our last 2 Vineyard Management classes.

Last week we heard from Nick Frey, with Sonoma County Winegrape Commission. The SCWC promotes Sonoma County grapes and wines, builds community support for the industry, and offers continuing education to grape growers and the public. A few really interesting facts we learned from Mr. Frey: there are actually people here who don't like to see vineyards planted in the community - ! what?! why?? I was surprised to hear this - I would have guessed just the opposite would be the case, given the economic value generated by wine and all the related industries that exist here (grapes generate 71% of Sonoma County farm revenues but only grow on 6% of the county's land area!). But some people feel the vineyards use too much water and too many pesticides. The statistics Mr. Frey provided, giving a comparison of water usage by an average vineyard vs a family of four, showed that vineyards use only a fraction - in fact, grapes don't require a lot of water - over-irrigation actually reduces their quality! And it's the local apple growers (home of the Gravenstein) who use more pesticides than the grape growers. I suspect those folks who don't want "alcohol farms" in their midst don't pay any attention to these facts!

This week's speaker was Alex Klein from American AgCredit, who talked about the role of AAC in financing vineyard development and operations. Mr. Klein reinforced what I've heard about how expensive it is to start a vineyard - you should come prepared with very deep pockets: $25-30 thousand dollars PER ACRE, and upwards, depending on the location! I had better start buying lottery tickets.