Hi All,
I've been busy this week. After a pause in picking last weekend we have started cranking up again. My work hours have been 3 am to about 10 am picking, then scouting remaining blocks for a couple of hours, tasting and giving feedback to the winemakers. The winemakers want everyone checking blocks for flavour ripeness and anything that could be a concern. The biggest concern at the moment is shrivel and raisining. It has been hot the past few days and that heat is continuing into the next 5 so fruit that was close and softening is turning rapidly. The philosophy is, many eyes and tastebuds = no surprises. So as a result I'm making up for my lazy/touristy long weekend last week and I'm flat out and tired. I'm sleeping a couple of hours after the intake meetings in the afternoon, but this is the last push. another 8 days or so and there will be bugger all left.
I do have a few pics to share though, both viticultural and of interest (hopefully). I took some photos of the Pellenc harvester in action, because there are readers of this blog who aren't familiar with machine harvesting. For those readers, the process of removing the fruit from the vines is basically the same no matter what mechanical harvester you use. In Coonawarra we use different manufacturers, although we have used the machine featured in the photo's. I took a movie of it emptying one of the side bins. Each bin holds about 1.25 tons of fruit.
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| Pellenc "shaking" fruit off the vine |
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| My main driver, Gustavo |
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| Lining up to enter a row |
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| Vines before |
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| Vines after |
Last Sunday Pete and I went wine tasting. We went to four places along Silverado Trail. One was featured in the BBC doco Oz and James wine adventures when they did Napa Valley which was where we started. All the places we visited had tasting fees, the cheapest $12 and the most expensive was $25. We tasted for free as we had our business cards (as I've mentioned previously). If we didn't get this service I would not have tasted at any other winery other than my company's. Worth mentioning is the brilliant service we received from these cellar doors. You would expect them to put all their time and service into their paying customers, but they focused on us even more, and I believe they enjoy the interaction with "industry insiders" more than perhaps the general public. I guess we help spread the word about them as well. The places we tasted, in order were:
Darioush, Persian influenced architecture (Oz Clarke and James May visited this one.
Clos Du Val
Stag's Leap (not the TWE Stags Leap, notice the apostrophe. there was a lot of legal stuff over that apostrophe)
Odette
A quick word about the wines we tasted. Northern California had a difficult 2011 with cold rainy conditions (as did Australia, weird) and so the 2011 cabernets, merlots, anything red really, tasted green, thin and some shouldn't have been bottled in my opinion. The 2010's and 2012's were much better (same as Australia, weird again). There were a couple of stunners from 2010, one being a Malbec Sharpie, that were complex, rich, chewy and hung around on the palate forever. Wish I could have afforded them but they were out of my price range, even with the 30% discount I could have got (standard industry discount at all cellar doors over here).
A tip of the hat Allen, I thought you would like the soil profile shot below.
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| Darioush. Notice the Chinese models posing for a photo |
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| Water feature inside Darioush |
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| Tasting counter at Darioush |
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| View from Stag's Leap tasting counter |
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| Soil profiles at Stag's Leap. Their Stag's Leap and Fay vineyard up valley. |
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| Cool statue at Hall Family Vineyards. In the fog it looks like it's jumping out of the block |
Also this week I tasted the ferments at Beringer with the winemakers and vyd managers. It was good fun and a great experience. A great opportunity I've embraced while being in Napa is tasting cabernet (and other reds) on the vine, in the fermenters, and in the glass. The value of being able to taste so often in a great cabernet region like Napa as an experience is incalculable and will help me immensely in the future.
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| The Beringer team |
The vineyard I'm responsible for as far as scouting and keeping an eye on is the Marston vineyard. Its on the top of a large Hill with steep slopes but great views. See below
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| Panorama from Marston |
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| Looking down the valley towards St Helena |
And now for some random Photos I thought were interesting. The first one is for you boys and the nieces and nephews reading. I was working the other morning at our Dos Rios ranch and happened to notice the power pole was chock-a-block full of acorns. I asked Juan (supervisor) how they got there. As I'm sure you've already guessed it was the squirrels and birds who put them there.
They store acorns over winter and they will jam them in every crack or hole they can find, as you can see from the picture above. As we were talking about it, two woodpeckers flew up to the pole and started drilling holes, so all the holes you can see with an acorn in it was created by a woodpecker. Around the garden at our house you see squirrels burying acorns in random spots as well. Nature in action.
The next video is one I forgot to include in the last post. It is a short clip of the tourist bus I was on driving back across the Golden Gate bridge. Turn the sound down as the wind was really loud.
That's all folks. As I said earlier, I've been busy with harvest and so couldn't even get away this weekend (Yosemite was the plan, maybe next week). This is my last full weekend here as I'm flying back home next Saturday evening. I've been told I can take next Thursday and Friday to head off somewhere so maybe I can go then, we'll see.
Take care
Scott
