Harvest Update - 8/26/08

Tuesday 8/26/08:

We are getting nearer to harvest every minute. Grape samples are showing up at the lab nearly every day, from the 13 growers whom we will be working with this year. Several Pinot Gris vineyards are showing around 20-21 Brix degrees – I will be starting to look seriously at bringing them in once we get a bit closer to 23, probably next week. Brian and I are trying to spend at least parts of 2-3 days per week in the vineyard, watching the blocks, walking them, and getting a sense for how they are going to ripen.

The weather has been really cooperative, with warm days in the low 90’s and cooling evenings that allow the vines to ‘catch their breath.’ This is the perfect scenario for the ripening of grapes – the vines operate most efficiently between about 70F and 85F – higher than that can strain them to some degree, and over 100F the vines actually shut down and stop developing sugar and flavor in the grapes. Prolonged high heat can cause raisining; the Brix may climb, but the flavors and tannins are still green and unripe, producing awkward wines with little body, poor color, and ‘stewed’ flavors.

We brought in a few new guys to help us with harvest, and are devoting this week to training everyone on basic safety issues, as well as all the systems for keeping information and paperwork straight through the madness of harvest. I am reviewing all the slightly changed procedures and very new protocols for some of the wines – everyone here is going to be on a learning curve this year, from myself, to the new guys, to the 15 year cellar veterans as we deal with new vineyard sources, new varieties in a few cases, and new production methods in the cellar.

Lots going on at the moment, pretty soon we will be in the thick of it all here. Looking forward to this first vintage with EOS, it will be challenging, but I think that it will be very good as well.

-NRC

2003 Petra 'Quercegobbe' Merlot - Toscana

Winery:	Petra
Location:	San Lorenzo Alto – Suvereto – LI -Italy
Wine :	2003 Quercegobbe Merlot, Toscana
Appellation :	Toscana (Indicazione Geografica Tipica)
Price :	~$38
Color :	Dried-Cherry Red/Black
Nose:	Pipe tobacco, polished antique wood, dried rose hips, plum
Palate / Balance / Flavors:	Unmistakable aged cigar wrapper, coating tannins, deep black fruit that is evanescent – moving toward the spice box / cigar notes quickly. Vinous in a way that California often is not – fruit is secondary, this wine makes clear that it is, first, wine.
Style:	Not overdone, not over-oaked, not overripe. Clean and professionally made. Balanced at a big, but agile build. Feels to me like a wine with plenty of time to age well.
Analysis:	13.97% alc, 3.57 pH, 5.1 g/l TA, 0.6 VA, 0.00 ML, 0.24 RS
Comments:	Had to include a photo of our swank new tasting room, complete with an integrated basin in the middle of the table. All part of our new offices, which we just moved into this very week.

Cork Taint - the Survey

Click here to link to the cork-taint survey

This is a cork taint survey that my friend Arthur set up - it can be used by anyone who is willing to track how many bottles they open and then how many of those are affected by cork taint. He will tabulate the results, as we are trying to get a sense of what the real-world level of cork taint might be in wines closed with natural cork closures.

Cork Taint & TCA: is it really a problem?

http://www.openwineconsortium.org/forum/topic/show?id=2000748%3ATopic%3A47170

The link above is to a discussion that a friend pointed me to at Open Wine Consortium on the prevalence of TCA, or 'Cork Taint' in commercially available wines. TCA is sensory active at just a few parts per trillion (like a droplet or two in a swimming pool,) and makes a wine taste anywhere from lightly dulled in fruit to completely musty like wet cardboard and dank cellar, depending on concentration. TCA primarily originates randomly in Natural Cork (wikipedia Cork Taint for a more exact discussion,) but it, and similar malodorous compounds can also arise in other ways, under certain conditions.

Seems that the premise is that wine drinkers might be making a lot of fuss over nothing. Some estimates (usually by pushers of alternative closures,) are as high as 12% of commercial wines affected to some degree. Others (usually Natural Cork companies,) say that the cork industry has gotten its act together and that the level is less than 1%. Seems that consensus points to around 3%, but there are not many reliable studies, and getting a handle on the sample size required to really state anything with statistical accuracy makes even the best guess still a guess

So, there is a lively discussion on the link above, including Arthur from Red Wine Buzz who is putting together a survey, so that all of us can track the incidence of corked wines that we open at home. With sufficient people participating, perhaps we can get a decent handle on about what the level of incidence is - at least in our sample set... Check it out, it could be interesting!

2007 Vina Robles 'Roseum' Paso Robles

Winery:	Vina Robles
Location:	Paso Robles, Central Coast, California
Wine :	2007 ‘Roseum’ Paso Robles (Huerhuero)
Appellation :	Paso Robles AVA
Price :	$13
Color :	Bright pink-red
Nose:	Watermelon, carnation, orange
Palate / Balance / Flavors:	Not quite ripe raspberry, floral notes, and a touch of bitter orange zest / kumquat. Very refreshing style, tiny edge of tannin, I love the balance of sweet fruit with herbal floral and slight bitterness like citrus peel. Doesn’t have the heaviness associated with a lot of Paso dry rosé.
Style:	Tasty, fun, easy to drink lots of this! Like the price too.
Analysis:
Comments:	I really like Vina Robles’ touch with white wines, (reds are generally good too, just that they are SO good at the whites; usually there are a few bottles around our house) – emphasis on fruit, freshness and vibrancy. This is a nice example. (Sorry my photo is so crappy – iPhone does not like up close shots very well.)