Post 17. Viticultural interlude

Hi All,

A couple of interesting things occurred this week viticulturally. The first was I went on a grading calibration with some winemakers, viticulturists and upper mgt last week. It was good to taste some fruit with those guys and get a feel for how they grade cabernet compared with how we do it in Australia. Its a collaborative effort with everyone putting their two cents worth in. The session was driven by technical viti who get more involved over here in such decisions than back home. the grades were recorded on an ipad and became the field grade for those blocks. Another thing they do differently over here is they field grade alpha numerically, whereas our field grades are just a letter. There were some very smart vineyards and one in particular stands out, the Steinhaur vineyard which is up in the eastern hills bordering Napa Valley. This is an A grade vineyard and is high, so ripens later than the valley floor. As such flavours have time to develop and wine made from this vineyard is high quality. What I liked about the vineyard though was the cordon/canopy architecture. Back in Post 13 I described the trellis set up and I liked it because it spread the fruit laterally, which means there is very little clumping and each bunch has its own space. This vineyard is a superb example of that theory in practice. I will include some photo's below.

Steinhaur Vineyard



Notice the how far away from the cordon the left hand bunch is

The cordon wire is the one on the right.

Another good shot of the distance laterally between bunches

A cracker of a vineyard

You can see in the last photo above, the canes growing out at an angle from the cordon, not vertically. Advantages are; sun exposure on bunches early in fruit development through to harvest (can be a negative as well), improved spray penetration, reduced need to thin out clumps (saving some bucks), and visually impressive. as mentioned above, a disadvantage can be afternoon sun exposure.

Another interesting nugget I found last week was when I was driving between ranches at about midnight the other night. I saw a heap of lights in a block near our Stanley Ranch and thought "what the hell is that?" It was lights on tractors lighting up the vineyard for night hand picking. Yep, you read right, hand picking at night. There were about six tractors set up with LED light strips on frames on their three point linkage, lighting a panel each across the block and pickers were picking in the light cast. There were tractors behind those that held bins the pickers were picking into. Behind the pickers were some guys with torches checking the rows to make sure no fruit was missed. That's hard core. I was talking to some people at the winery here and I asked them why. Their response was to get the fruit as cold as possible. Overkill if you ask me and totally unnecessary. I bet the pickers love it though. Those guys would pick 24 hours a day if you let them. Photos below.

Night hand harvest

Night hand pick 2

I was unable to get to San Francisco this weekend as I worked all night Friday night and again Sunday night so Pete and I drove over to the coast through the Sonoma Valley. The road was long and winding and went forever over a couple of small mountain ranges. We saw some good country though (photos below). We came out at the coast and headed south. The coast line was similar to the coast I drove along last weekend around Big Sur. The coastline in northern California is rugged, made up of sheer drops and small, hard to reach beaches composed of darkish sand. Some cool scenery though. We stopped at a place called Bodega Bay and had lunch. Pete bought some Oysters and we headed home. A 200 mile trip that filled in a day. Photos below.

Lake Sonoma

Lake Sonoma again

Scenery

More scenery

And some more

A big redwood we found

A redneck leaning on the same redwood 

Cant get rid of him

Typical northern Californian beach, dark sand

 It was fun driving on the road with that for a view.

Post you later!

Scott

 

Post 16. on the Job

Hi Everyone,

I've settled into a routine here in Napa. I start work at 9 pm and go through to about 1am. I travel to the ranches we are picking for the night and let the crews in on the picking plan, mostly they know what's going on anyway, let them know about any changes, make sure everything is in place and make sure the harvesters are picking as clean as possible. There are up to 7 harvesters picking each night at two to four ranches (they call vineyards ranches over here). I start again at 7 in the morning and go through to about 11 helping out where I'm needed, no set role. Then I go up to St Helena at about 1 pm to the Beringer winery to sit in on the picking planning meeting with the winemakers. Its not an exhausting day but I get to hang with the vineyard operators and foreman at night, practice my Spanish, and during the day I hang with the managers and winemakers so i'm happy with the arrangement. Next week that may change as most of the chardonnay will be off and we will be getting into the Cabernet. There will be a lot of fiddly hand picks next week to extract parcels of A grade cabernet from various blocks.

I got to see a picking crew from Paso in action on Tuesday morning. These guys were flying. As the director of vineyard ops here put it "those guys really haul ass, don't they?' I took some video, included below. I will say though the picking conditions were as good as it gets; no leaves in the way, big chardonnay bunches and a cool morning. The eleven guys had picked 4 ton in the first 30 minutes of the day, about 360 kgs each in half an hour!!!

One of the videos show how they dump the full bins to save as much time as possible. The turn around of the tractors need to be quick because the pickers are going so fast.

Last weekend one of my roomie's and I had a look around Sonoma Valley. Sonoma Valley runs parallel with Napa Valley to the west. There is only a small mountain range separating the two regions. Sonoma is a little less polished than Napa and sees fewer tourists but there is some nice wines there and it is where Chateau St Jean is located.

I'll throw some photos in below with the captions explaining what they are.

Every morning Balloons go up

more balloons

Chateau St Jean in Sonoma Valley

Gamble Ranch

A couple of cool hombre's (Napa south mgr)

Petite Syrah (Duriff), Stag's Leap

More Petite Syrah, Stag's Leap

I'm trying to get to San Francisco on the weekend so I'll post next on Sunday night.

Scott

Post 15. Napa and the Earthquake

Hi All,

As the title suggests, I am in Napa. I got here Saturday afternoon after a 6 hour drive up from the central coast. I took the long way along the coast. The road hugs the coast and winds around almost sheer drops into the ocean. Its spectacular scenery and there were a lot of people on the road with their go pro cameras hanging out the windows or bolted onto the front of their cars recording the trip. the road joins the coast at Moro Bay and heads north for about 100 miles to Monterey. The road goes through Big Sur which is a wooded stretch covered with big sequoias and redwoods.

Coast road near Big Sur

More coast road scenery

The town I'm staying in is Yountville. I'm in a house with two other guys, an Aussie grower liaison and a Kiwi cellarhand/eonologist. The whole Napa Valley smells of money and no penny is spared anywhere. Vineyards are immaculate, they look like they are almost landscaped, they are picture perfect, but if there is one place where the money smell is strongest, that's Yountville. I'm told millionaires and billionaires live and own houses in Yountville. I've never been in a town that is as clean, as manicured, as gentrified as Yountville. It is a town of 3000 with three bedroom duplexes costing a million dollars. It has a great restaurant scene and is smack bang in the heart of the Napa Valley. It is also very close to two of the vineyards I'm working at. Needless to say, the house we are in is awesome, and the company has looked after us extremely well.

House at Yountville

The first day on the job the Napa South vineyard manager showed me around and he took me to the Abbot vineyard in Carneros (a dozen km's or so south of Napa city). This is where the earthquake hit and where the fault line opened up. the photo's below tell the story better than I can tell it but in a couple of the shots below you can see where once straight rows are now out of alignment because of the shifting ground.



row with new "dogleg"



My boot in the fault

The fault continuing into the neighbours driveway

The crack you see above is the fault line that opened up. It goes unbroken for several kilometer's in either direction and originated 7 miles beneath the earth. There is a line of yellow vines that follows the fault line as well. The manager told me his neighbour lost a horse because it was standing on top of the fault and had a heart attack. He also told a story of a heap of media turning up at the vineyard a couple of days after the quake. The day before a contract crew had gone through and dropped a heap of diseased fruit on the ground. Anyway, someone was passing after the quake, saw the fruit on the ground and thought the quake had shaken all the fruit off the vines and contacted the media. Once they got hold of the story they were reporting massive crop losses in the Napa Valley due to the quake, which everyone in the know thought was hilarious.

I'll follow up tomorrow with another post

Bye

Scott

Post 14. Who is Fess Parker ?

Hi All,

Its been a while since my last post so here I am. Who is Fess Parker I hear you ask? I'm proud (or embarrassed) to say I knew without thinking too hard. I imagine the older readers and American viewers of this blog will know but I doubt anyone else will. Have a think about it while I tell you about the previous week in California.

I was due to leave the central coast last Sunday and start at Napa South vineyards last Monday but just prior to leaving I was asked to stay another week to cover for the vineyard manager who was away for a few days. So all this week I remained at North Canyon finishing off their vintage. The last fruit was hand picked today. It will be like doing two vintages, as I worked at North Canyon from the start to the finish of their vintage and when I get to Napa South it will be early into theirs.

So it has been uneventful this last week or more. I went out for tea with two of the Techo's here and the other Aussie who is out here on exchange (who I met for the first time) at a place called Eureka, in San Luis Obispo last Thurs night. The town was packed as the students all returned from summer vacation and there was a night market on as well. It was a good night and I've included a photo of the beer taps in the Eureka, there were 30 different brews on tap, most of them brewed in California. For tea I had a burger with fries. Big deal I hear you say. Well, the burger was made from Bison meat. Boys, remember the massive Bison we saw at the Halls Gap Zoo? Well my burger was made from one of those. It tasted like chicken?? Only joking. It tasted just like an angus burger or something similar; it was good.

Beer taps at the Eureka

Last Sunday I ducked into the vineyard to make sure we were right for picking that night and on the way home I took a detour to have a look at a small town on the coast near Santa Maria called Guadalupe. There's nothing there except a heap of houses surrounded by massive flat paddocks of broccoli and strawberry's, but the Lonely Planet said its beach is worth a look as it was where the Ten Commandments by Cecile B DeMille were filmed. Its not too remarkable. Not a bad beach (photo below).

The fence is straight. Panorama on the iPhone gives it a fisheye perspective

I worked all week but I managed a Mexican lunch (see photo below). It was a small place away from the main part of town. Las Taco del Mexico (Me-hi-co). Everything was in Spanish so when I ordered I wasn't sure exactly what I was getting even though I knew it was a burrito. Its called a wet burrito and even though it looks gross, it tasted delicious. Its a burrito swimming in a salty soup with melted cheese.

Looks gross, tastes great

I will be driving up to Napa tomorrow and having tea with the manager I'll be working with. I'm staying in Yountville with two other exchange guy's (1 Aussie, 1 Kiwi). It sounds like it will be busy, which I'm looking forward to.

Have you remembered who Fess Parker is yet? In the photo below is a clue

Lookin' cool in my work clothes

OK OK, I'll tell you. Fess Parker was the actor who played Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone on TV in the 50's and 60's. He established a vineyard and winery in the Santa Maria valley (Santa Barbara county) in 1989. I remember watching Daniel Boone in school holidays of a morning after the cartoons. It was on the way to lunch yesterday (a farewell lunch with the manager) and we stopped and tasted his wines.

Fess Parker

His top shelf wine, a Syrah

Now that's settled I will post some random photos I've taken over the last couple of weeks. The first three are photo's of gifts the manager of North Canyon gave me at lunch. I think she is trying to tell me something.

Very common head attire in these parts

The Rednek guzzler. There's a straw poking out the top

back of the box

Hmmmm. I'm all set when I go huntin' next :-) She also gave me some BBQ seasoning made here (see previous post - Santa Maria known for their BBQ's, remember). All gifts are to remind me of the Central Coast.

Ok, random photos to start now.

Now THATS a beer

Contractors doing their morning warm up exercises

Awesome way to pay for wine, by the taste, half or full glass
You help yourself with a card (see it sticking out top left).
When lunch was finished we gave the card to the waitress which
kept a record of our purchases. Very easy.

Deer in the vineyard

Danl Boone (not a typo, how it was pronounced)

Deer



Fox

Lifted Ute

Cool little thorny devil/lizard thing

Vegas girls (I know, I just found it)

Vulture. There are heaps of vultures at North Canyon

My next post will be from Napa.

Bye

Scott