Juice

Think Tank Pinot

One of our commerce customers, Michael Giarraputo, launched his wine brand think tank wines this evening for the Crushpad team.  Think Tank is play on his last name which in Italian literally means something close to "jar of thoughts."  The focus of the brand is high end organic vineyard sites with environmentally conscious packaging.  Light bottles, tree-less bamboo labels and low impact winemaking.  Michael was overly generous, giving everyone tshirts (organic american apparel of course), and wine. 
His 2007 "La Encantada Vineyard" Pinot is pretty rockin.  La Encantada is owned by Richard Sanford, one of the pioneers of both Pinot and organic viticulture in California.  It's a beautiful place that I visited in September 2007.  The wine is very young, packed with deep darkish flavors and some good verve on the finish.  Also a rich nose with a delicate touch of spice and earthy notes.  I sensed a slight bit of reduction but it was the type of thing likely to fade after a little more time in bottle.  Certainly not a negative thing.

Sangiovese Punchdowns

Sangio Sorting

On Monday night the grapes for my yet-to-be-named wine arrived at the winery.  As many of you already know, the grapes I'm using for the base of my wine are from Stolpman Vineyard in the Ballard Canyon area of the Santa Ynez AVA.  (I'm sure there was a better way to write that last sentence but whatever)  In short the grapes kicked ass.  One of the key features was that the berries were tiny and bursting with an intense flavors.  Kind of like the intensity knob had been turned up a notch or two.  We really didn't need much sorting as there was very little raisining and no mold. 

We destemmed the grapes but didn't crush as we're opting for a whole berry fermentation.  Whole berry fermentation should help use preserve some of the aromatic complexity and freshness.  

At Crush the grapes were at 24.6 brix, with a pH of 3.68.  The pH is a bit higher than I would like and will only go higher after malolactic fermention because malic acid is stronger than lactic acid.  Bacteria who use the malic acid for energy turn it into lactic acid during this process.  These bacteria are called lactic acid bacteria.  Go figure. 

Now the little lovlies are sitting in cold room. Marinating in their own juices.  Slowly moving towards their ultimate destiny of becoming an absolutely stunning wine.

Lily Oliver at El Molino

Grabbed this a few months back but hadn't posted it.  El Molino makes some sensational chards and pinots.  I'm especially infatuated with their pinots.

El Molino was one of the oldest wineries in Napa.  Started in 1874 and run until prohibition.  Lily and her husband John make the wines.  They're both fabulous winemakers and great hosts.  They meld Burgundian sensabilities about winemaking with Napa fruit to produce something that's unique.

These wines are definitely worth seeking out and seem to usually sell out.  Older vintages are hard to find.

Yecla? You betcha!

Its good to have friends in the biz.  Last night my buddy Baron pulled together a little tasting of nearly 60 wines from the Eric Solomon collection.  Everybody else brought food which ended up being sausages, dry aged rib-eye, roasted peppers, homemade pizzas, tomatoes & fresh basil and jamón ibérico that was smuggled back from Spain.  My god that jamon was obscenely good!  Especially when paired with some kick ass Priorats like 2005 Doix VV and the 2005 Creu Alta from Bodegas Mas Alta.  I also really liked the Louro do Bolo which is 100% Godello by Rafael Palacios, brother of Alvaro Palacios. 

We also tasted 03 and 04 Marcoux CDPs.  The 03 was a bit too ripe for my tastes but the 04 was right on.   I love how the suave dark fruits are interwoven with savoriness.  Maybe even a little touch of blood like a Nuits St Georges.

Also of note was the the Bota de Manzanilla Pasada No 10. which I started and finished with.  Very fresh saline characteristics with Marcona almond flavors.  Super fresh on the palate.  Peter Liem also gave this his wine of the week tag a few months back on his excellent blog Besotted.

The view from Jay's pad is also excellent.  (see below)  We were treated to an amazing harvest moon out over Oakland but the iPhone camera couldn't do it justice.

La Encantada

Saturday morning we woke up in the Holiday Inn Express in the tourist trap dutch town of Solvang, CA.  Our five hour drive, with an hour intermission for dinner at Mcphee's Grill, had left us with some sort of a hangover although not the alcohol kind.  The proper medication for something like this usually involves a big fat coffee but we were running late eager to get to our appointment at La Encantada Vineyard with vineyard manager Kerry Martin. (and we're also coffee snobs so we passed on the Holiday Inn Express breakfast bar)

La Encantada is one of those vineyards that just feels special.  It is nestled towards the Western end of the Santa Rita Hills and there is a rugged beauty to the landscape.   Owned by Richard Sanford, who is unquestionably one of the pioneers in modern California winemaking, it is planted to 98% pinot noir and 1% each of pinot gris and pinot blanc.  La Encantada is certified organic and probably goes even a few steps beyond. For example, Richard has refused to put up deer fences out of respect for the natural habitat and ecosystem. 

Sanford also is hosting some students from UC Santa Cruz doing reserach on peregrine falcons.  The students have set up camp under an oak tree in the vineyard and the falcons were presumably camped out in their hut on top of a tall hill.  The falcons, in addition to being the objects of study to lucky ucsc students, are great hunters of gophers.  Gophers must be a big problem as there are also many barn owl houses on the property.

One of my tasks was to shoot video, which I will post later, and the other was to get cluster samples.  I seriosuly underestimated how long it would take to get these samples.  Crushpad sources from 5 different blocks on the property and one of those blocks is big enough to warrant seperate vineyard samples from each the North and South ends.  When you are taking cluster samples you basically want to divide each block into about six different sections (depending on the block size) and combine clusters from each section into one bag.  This should give you a representative sampling of the block.  Some rows were probably 3-400 meters in length so walking the entire row and back took some time.  Not a bad way to spend a morning though : )

The benefit of it taking a couple of hours to get the samples was that I was able to witness the signature climactic conditions of Santa Rita Hills; foggy mornings that give way to warm, but not exceedingly hot afternoons, accompanied by nice ocean breezes.  The temperature must have changed a good 15 degrees in a thirty minute span.

The fruit from La Encantada was dark purple with a sort brambly intensity although still a few weeks away from harvest.  Or as Kerry put it,"I don’t think it’s far-fetched to say LE is indeed a magical spiritual place and that translates into earthy untamed wild berry flavors in the grapes which are gonna rock this year!"

Well said.

Due to the run of warm dry weather in Northern California and the Central Coast, harvest is in full on schwing here at Crushpad.  Overall the fruit has looked really good with a little bit of dehydration and high sugars but also pretty good acid. 

On Monday I manned my first shift as harvest intern.  The IT and Marketing teams are collectively staffing the equivilent of one harvest intern and Monday was day was my day..  I did punch downs and brix and temperature measurements on a bunch of Pinot and also sorted an amazing am Cabernet from the Ink Grade Vineyard near Howell Mountain.

A few days ago I was able to climb up on the sorting line and get up close an intimate with some pinot grapes.  This pinot I sorted on Wednesday was from Amber Ridge Vineyard in RRV.  Amber Ridge is a source for top producesr like Dain, Kosta Browne and Siduri.  It's tough to taste the Kosta Browne and think it's the same vineyard that goes into Dain's American Beauty but I digress.

The grapes looked and tasted pretty great.  With the heat wave there had definitely been some water evaporation and the grapes soaked up to like 27.5 brix.  There were many relatively small but very intesnse berries.  All of the fruit looked pretty clean.  Not a great deal of sorting to be done but it was fun to get my appendages all sticky with grape juice. I sorted about two tons and only ate about 1/4 pound. 

 

Three Decades of La Jota Cab Franc

Last night I went to a taste seminar as part of the Slow Food Nation weekend.  The topic was Howell Mountain and a tasting of Cab Francs from La Jota.  The session was led by the current La Jota winemaker, Chris Carpenter.

I learned some interesting things about botht eh topography and weather patterns in Napa broadly and Howell Mountain specifically.  Carpenter made the case that air movement played a much more significant role than soil in the terroir of Howell Mountain (and Napa in general).  Howell Mountain has a cooler climate not just because of elevation but also because of fog and wind patterns tha keep it shielded from heat.  Howell Mountain receives significantly more rain than the valley floor but its poor soils drain it away pretty efficiently.

We tasted eight Cabernet Francs spanning three decades.  They were the 88, 92, 95, 96, 97, 01, 03 and 05 vintages.  The 88 was remarkably fresh and still had great fruit and concentration.  A beautiful mountainous nose of sage brush and eucalyptus, only slight rust at the edges.  Dark plum notes intermixed with more leathery, tobacco notes.  Lovely acidity!

I found a number of the La Jota Cab Francs (92, 95, 96) to have a stewed fruit character and a sour note.  Not super offensive but not compelling either.

2005 was probably neck and neck with the 1988 for me in terms of favorite wine of the flight.  Obviously at different stages of life but sharing in overall balance, purity and mountainous flavors.

First Grapes

Today at Crushpad we welcomed the arrival of the first grapes of 2008. A couple of tons each of chardonnay (from somewhere in Lodi) and Sauvignon Blanc from Grassini Vineyard down in Santa Ynez.

Mike Z kicked off the proceedings with a toast to the new harvest season and poured some ceremonial bubbles on the sorting line. Then we all slurped downed some flutes of J Cuvee 20. Then it was back to the coffee.

Just another day at the winery!