Thursday, September 9, 2010
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
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!
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Friday, September 3, 2010
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!
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!
Thursday, September 2, 2010
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.
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.
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