Post 21. Goodbye America

Hi All,

As the title states, I'm leaving to come home today. It's been a great trip and one I would recommend to anybody thinking about doing the same type of thing. But I'll tell you about my last week in Napa.

Last Saturday I was leaving the house to go into Napa when I heard a band playing. We live very close to the centre of Yountville so I walked to the main street and there was a parade going on. I asked some guys what the occasion was and they said its for harvest and making the most of the warm weather which will end soon. I got a couple of short videos to show you. It was a little peak at American culture.

This week started busy as the push came to get the blocks picked. The fruit was turning fast and we only had a small window of a week to finish picking the remaining blocks. I was on nights running the harvesters at our Gamble, Dos Rios, and Chabot Ranches. The crews were brilliant and apart from the usual vintage issues, we got the job done. I officially finished Thursday morning. On Wednesday James and I went down to Napa Corporate where the employee store is to get a couple of bottles of wine. There is a Brewery across the road called Napa Smith so we called in to check it out. Once we were there we thought it would be a shame to leave without having a taste; so we tasted them all!!

Yum

The Bar at Napa Smith Brewery

On Thursday Michael Clarke, our CEO was in town for a meeting and he addressed the employees at Napa corporate offices. So James and I went back down there Thursday to have a listen. Later on that afternoon there was a tasting of the latest Penfold's releases. So, obviously we hung around for that.

The star of the show

The Bistro



Adding a bit of class and culture to the proceedings

While I was there Michael Clarke saw me and wanted a photo with me. So, how could I refuse?

Thursday night I took The three vineyard managers out for tea at a restaurant in Yountville. It was good fun and we opened a couple of bottles of Wynn's I took. At the same time James had some people from the winery over to our place for tea, so when we were finished at the restaurant the party continued at our place. It was a big night which was a good blowout for the end of the trip for myself and Peter (who is flying out Sunday) but we paid for it the next day.

Below is a panorama from the Yountville Ranch gate looking back to Yountville.

A couple of stats from the trip

1. 10 weeks in California
2. 6500 miles driven
3. 2 regions  worked in : Central Coast and Napa Valley
4. 6 appellations picked: Santa Barbara, Carneros, Stags Leap, Napa, Yountville, St Helena
5. 10 vineyards harvested : North Canyon, Yountville, Gamble, Dos Rios, Stags Leap, Big Ranch, Bale Lane, Chabot, Stanley, St Helena
6. Fruit delivered to 7 wineries: Paso 360, Asti, Beringer, Stags Leap, Etude, Cardinal, Kendall Jackson
7. Visited Los Angeles, Las Vega's and San Francisco 
8. Many Mexican meals

Thanks everyone for reading this blog. It was primarily for Merran and the boys and the rest of my family, to let them know what I was up to, but I hope there was a bit in there for everyone.

Adios from Napa and see you in Australia

Scott signing off

Post 20. Busy Week

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.

Pellenc "shaking" fruit off the vine

My main driver, Gustavo

Lining up to enter a row

Vines before

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.

Darioush. Notice the Chinese models posing for a photo

Water feature inside Darioush

Tasting counter at Darioush

View from Stag's Leap tasting counter

Soil profiles at Stag's Leap. Their Stag's Leap and Fay vineyard up valley.

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.

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

Panorama from Marston

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

Post 19. A big weekend

As I said in in Post 19. It rained at the end of last week so I had some free time. So, I went to Vallejo and finally sorted out my social security number (on the fifth try), so I am now legally allowed to work in the U.S. The rest of the day was a bit of a write off and didn't do much else for the rest of the day.

Friday Pete, James and I went out to Lake Tahoe. Its a 3 and a bit hour drive north west of Napa and it is a perched lake in the mountains. The scenery is spectacular, as it is in the Sierra Nevada mountain range and sits at 6500 feet. We all wore shorts, shirts, I threw in thongs incase it was warm (and a jumper thank god!). It was freezing, 4 degrees at the Lake and 8 degrees in the mountains around it. It was lightly raining and there was snow on the peaks. It was funny to us dashing out of the car to take photos when every one else was rugged up, totally unprepared. The photos below don't do the scenery justice. It is 30 kms long by 18 kms wide and holds enough water to cover the surface area of California completely to a depth of 360 mms, so its big.

Foreshore of Tahoe city

Looking back to Tahoe city

Pete and James taking selfies

A more traditional shot

Tahoe scenery

The California/Nevada border runs right through the centre of the Lake

Snow capped peaks

 When we spotted the snow we went looking for it. We found a spot called mount rose where there was snow everywhere. I wasn't thick and fluffy, more like thin and icy, but it was enough to make a snowball and look very wintery (remember, summer has just ended).

Snow at Mount Rose

My Snowball

My snowball on Pete's back

  Mount Rose is at an altitude of 9000 feet, which meant it was a bit difficult to breath for us low landers. We climbed a slope that was about 150 metres to the peak and we were all gasping for breath as if we'd run a couple of km's. For the rest of the day I felt like I was a bit breathless, like I couldn't get enough air in my lungs, the other guys felt the same. Even the car was revving weird as it wasn't getting as much air as when it drives around Napa. The snow was a bonus adventure as when we left home that morning we expected warm weather (stupidly, I know). We continued to drive around the Lake, we drove about three quarters of its circumference and came to a place called Emerald bay. If the scenery was good before, it took a step up at Emerald Bay. I know what everyone is saying "He's into his scenery isn't he" or "enough of the scenic shots!!!" but, really, its pretty awesome, and I cant help myself.

  

mountain backdrop to Emerald Bay

Emerald Bay out over the lake

Emerald Bay again

Paddle Steamer

Odd rock formation above the tiny town of Kyburz (read the sign)

 On Saturday Pete and I went to San Francisco for the day. We drove to Vallejo and caught the ferry across the Bay to Fishermans wharf. There were good views of Alcatraz as we were going past. We didn't get out to Alcatraz as you have to book weeks ahead to get out there and it was all booked up.

Alcatraz

 

Alcatraz and the Golden Gate bridge in the background

 We got to fisherman's wharf, had a look around and then hopped on an open topped doublr decker bus that tours the city. It was the best way we could have chosen to see as much as possible in as short a time as possible. It was a 2.5 hour bus trip with a tour guide that crossed the city and went across the Golden Gate bridge and back to Fishermans wharf. I'll throw a heap of photo's in below of the tour.

Lots of murals on houses and buildings in SF

Coit Tower. Designed to look like a fireman's hose nozzle

Transamerica Pyramid

Downtown

Wonkey panorama of Union square

Town Hall

Cool house in Haight-Ashbury district (hippie enclave)

Shop in Haight-Ashbury again

 Driving across the Golden Gate bridge was a great experience in an open top bus. It was incredibly windy, I was Skype messaging going across on my ipad and it was nearly blowing out of my hand. Once we were across we stopped at a viewing area for 10 minutes and came back across.

This one was taken from the ferry going across the bay

 We got off the bus back at Fisherman's Wharf, had lunch at Codmother's (voted in top 100 restaurants in the country by Yelp, fish and chips). It was two small windows in a shack as big as a kitchen with a small courtyard in front. Good food that you had to line up for.

After lunch we went for a walk up to Coit Tower then down through the city to Chinatown then looped back to the wharf for the ferry home. A busy day on the go the whole time.

I am Huuuuuge

China Town

So after the last couple of busy days it was late out of bed Sunday morning, shoe shopping for Merran and the boy's in the morning, wine tasting this afternoon and a restaurant for tea tonight. It's tough over here everyone, I hope I'm getting that message across.

 



Bye

Scott