2011 Grgich Hills Fumé Blanc

I must confess that I like Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand. Ever since my husband introduced me to Cloudy Bay, I was a fan. The years have passed and many New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc appeals to my palate by having a decidedly passionfruit flavor that I enjoy. I also confess to enjoying the Loire Valley Henri Bourgeois Sancerre as well as a Pouilly-Fumé, both made from the Sauvignon Blanc grape. That's the problem with the nomenclature of the Sauvignon Blanc grape because depending on where it is grown, it can be called something else. The California Fumé Blanc nomenclature can be traced be traced back to Robert Mondavi who decided to call his dry-style Sauvignon Blanc, Fumé Blanc to distinguish it from his sweeter-style Sauvignon Blanc, and rather than patent the name, he allowed anyone to use it. This Grgich Hills Fumé Blanc differs from any New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. I would put the expression of the grape between that of the Loire Valley and New Zealand. My husband and I did enjoy drinking this wine and he promised me that he would pick up a few more bottles.

Reductive Regime vs Oxidative Regime for White Wine Making

Reading Clark Smith's article on Making White Wine reminded me of my favorite go to article on hyperoxidation called Must Hyperoxidation: A Review written by V. Schneider and available online. Clark Smith wrote that the reductive treatment of must is the newest methodology in the treatment of white wine making which superseded hyperoxidation. It turns out that hyperoxidation and the use of sulfur dioxide, a totally reductive treatment are two divergent pathways in the treatments of a white must and the article by Schneider explains the chemistry behind this distinction.
Which method is used is also dependent upon the press regime that is employed as well as the desired outcome of the phenolics in the resultant wine. If the press regime includes pressing of the grape skins and seeds, more of the flavonoid phenols will end up in the must.
Schneider defines hyperoxidation as:
          the phenomenon of phenol stabilization via oxygen consumption in the           must by the deliberate use of oxidation prior to fermentation in order to           improve a wines' shelf-life.
Oxidation of must is an enzymatically induced reaction and is different from oxidation of wine. Enzymatic oxidation of must is carried out by tyrosinase, a natural grape enzyme. If the grapes are infected with molds, the enzyme laccase also contributes to the oxidation. Press juice has more tyrosinase activity than free run juice.

The most abundant non-flavonoid phenolic compound in white grapes are the hydroxycinnamic acids and the major derivate is caftaric acid. When white grape juice is processed without sulfur dioxide, enzymatically induced oxidation occurs and leads to a precipitation of phenolic compounds as insoluble brown pigments. For must hyperoxidation to be effective, it has to be carried out directly after pressing and before any further juice processing. Clarification by racking or centrifugation is an important next step and is used to reduce suspended solids to less than 1% by weight in order to eliminate the major part of the phenolic precipitates. Because hyperoxidation occurs prior to the addition of yeast, it has no influence upon fermentation kinetics.
Conversely, when enzymatic activity is inhibited by the use of sulfur dioxide, the phenols are protected against oxidation and stabilized in solution. Therefore, the fate of these phenols is closely related to sulfur dioxide management.
Sulfur dioxide management and the mechanism by which it works is threefold:

• It inhibits and destroys tyrosinase;
• Sulfur dioxide reduces caftaric acid quinone back to its phenolic form, preventing flavonoid oxidation
• Sulfite containing media enhances the solubility of phenolic compounds

Therefore, the early use of sulfur dioxide in the must, preserves the phenolic content.
References:
1. V. Schneider, Must Hyperoxidation A Review, Am. J. Enol. Vitic., Vol. 49, No. 1, 1998.

Amazing Grapes

It's getting close to harvest time in Connecticut. This year because we don't have grapes to harvest, we decided to call Russell Holmberg of Holmberg Orchards to see whether he was harvesting or not and if he could use some help. Russell was in the midst of juggling apple picking as well as grape picking and he said if we could spare some time, he would welcome our help. He had 3 people picking his grapes and yesterday they finished 6 rows and got 4 tons of grapes! When we arrived, we saw evidence of grapes being picked but for a few minutes, did not see anyone. I took this photo of the Pinot Blanc grapes that we were there to harvest.

The grapes were beautiful and the canopy was green and well maintained. The alleys were nicely mowed and the vine rows were clean. After a few moments,we ran into Joe, who directed us to see Federico and Juan. Federico showed us how to pick the grapes and showed us some bunches that looked good but were sour! It was a slight difference in the turgidity of the grape bunch that clued you in on the potential for sourness in the bunch. I have never seen such pristine looking grapes in Connecticut. It was amazing as was the tonnage that Russell was able to achieve!

Celebrating a Birthday: A Little Break From the Vinework

We took Friday off to procure a few things to celebrate our friend Barry's 60th birthday. Because he loves champagne we were on a mission to buy some cheeses that paired with champagne. My husband did the online research and found a cheese shop not too far from us so we took a road trip to The Cheese Shop of Centerbrook and met up with the proprietor, Paul Partica. He let us taste a number of cheeses and recommended a pear pairing so, this is what we ended up with:

The cheeses, oysters, popcorn, and strawberries were the starters for our slow food dinner that we paired with one of our favorite champagnes, Egly-Ouriet, a champagne made totally from the Pinot Meunier grape, provided by Barry's SO. We also opened up a Duval-Leroy with artwork on the bottle by Leroy Neiman.

We followed up the appetizers with pan seared beef tenderloin finished in the oven and served with mushroom sauce. The side dishes were grilled potatoes and onions and one of Barry's favorite vegetable side dishes, a ratatouille of corn, tomatoes and okra a combined effort of the attendees. The main meal was accompanied by a trio of wines that included a 2004 Bond Estates Pluribus Red, 1994 Dunn Napa Valley and 1994 Ridge MonteBello. All of this was lubrication for the festivities of a 60th birthday roast for our friend, he had no idea what was coming next! Suffice it to say that the birthday gifts, mainly of the gag variety, had all of us in stitches. And when all was said and done, we had consumed 5 bottles of wine including one bottle with dessert. When we said our farewells, it was 1 a.m.!

Making White Wine

In the September 2014 issue of Wines & Vines, author Clark Smith, wrote about Four Ways to Make White Wine. Since we are growing white wine grapes, I found this article to be quite interesting. The four methods include:

• METHOD NO. 1 Totally reductive. From crushing to bottling, inert gas protects grapes, must and wine from oxygen at every point.
• METHOD NO. 2 Hyper-oxidized must treated reductively after fermentation.
• METHOD NO. 3 Structured wines incorporate tannin as a positive element.
• METHOD NO. 4 Clay jar wines (known in Italy as ‘orange wines’ and in Georgia as qvevri wines) generally are made from semi-aromatic varieties.

For each of the above methods, Clark also lists examples, techniques and comments. The methods as they are presented are easy to follow and it takes only a few minutes to read the article, a good use of time while sitting at the computer.

2010 Paumanok Cabernet Sauvignon

It's always a special evening when we get to drink a Paumanok wine. My husband made his speciality, pan seared steak finished off in the oven and then a sauce made from the au jus with butter to thicken it. I was a happy girl!
We paired my husband's meal with this 2010 Tuthills Lane Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon. The wine was an inky purple and had the right amount (for me) of fruits and very smooth tannins. Only 96 cases of this wine was made and bottled!

Soil Test Results

In mid-August, our friend Mary helped us to take some soil samples from our vineyard. Our first sampling was done in November, 2012 in order to determine what kind of soil admendments we would need. First of all we needed to raise the pH of the field from a rather acidic pH 5.3 to something more neutral. After planting our vines in 2013, we took another sampling of our vineyard and learned that the east side of our planting where the chardonnay was located was still somewhat acidic at pH 5.5 for the northeast and pH 5.4 for the southeast side. We put down more lime in the fall of 2013 and the latest soil test results show the following:

What the above diagram shows is that we still have a problem with pH in the southeast portion of our vineyard and we've managed to pinpoint the problematic area. Thanks to Mary's help!
We know that in our portion of Connecticut, we have acidic soils. What is so important about raising the pH of our soil is that the availability of the macro- and micronutrients to the vines are very pH dependent as shown in this diagram:

Mark Chien of the Penn State Cooperative Extension in his presentation Grapevine Nutrition recommends that the pH for growing grapevines be between 5.5-7.0.

Vineyard Visitor

We have been having the hot, humid, hazy days of summer in the first week of September. We have also been having another very dry summer. While walking the vineyard a few days ago, my husband and I saw this little cutie on a grape vine. It was a tiny tree frog finding a cool place to hang out. Apparently, it was in a happy place because it didn't move at all while my husband lifted the leaf so that I could take a few closeup photos.

Well! It's a Gusher

My husband thinks that drilling for a well is like going to the casino and hoping you hit the jack pot, all the while knowing that the house (Mother Nature) always wins. The saga of finding a well capable of delivering what we need to irrigate our vineyard came to a happy conclusion today. Yesterday, Tony and DJ set up the drilling equipment in the spot where both Tony and my husband independently, located using a dowsing stick.
This time, it was night and day difference from the previous drilling. They found water after drilling for less than 100 feet with an output of about 8 gallons per minute. That was good news and when we left yesterday, to run a few errands, they were at 11 gallons per minute in pink granite. Still 11 gallons per minute is not enough for vineyard irrigation so we were concerned, but when we returned to the land around 4:15 p.m., we were just in time to watch Tony, DJ and Rob run the test. They created a dam so that all the water would flow one way and then put a short PVC pipe that would funnel water into a 1 gallon can. DJ was the timer and Rob was telling me how they calculated how much water we were getting. The average of 3 tests showed that the output was anywhere from 20-30 gallons a minute at less than 500 feet!
Today, DJ and Tony's son Nicholas were continuing the drilling. We were working on our land and then went off for lunch. When we returned, DJ mentioned that we were now getting between 40-45 gallons of water per minute at approximately 620 feet. In fact, DJ and Nicholas were waiting for us to return so that we could shoot the video of our gusher! Here it is:

In my eyes, just as beautiful as Old Faithful!

Well?

Last week, Tony and his crew came to set up the well drilling equipment at the location where his dowsing stick pointed to a promising site. The first day, they went down to around 400 feet and found no water, but they did find pink granite, a sign that Tony said indicated that there might be water. The next day, they went down to 720 feet and there was some water, may be a gallon a minute. Since there was a change in rock from pink granite to quartz, there was hope that there would be water. We needed to wait over the Labor Day weekend to see if our well would produce the necessary flow to irrigate the vineyard. Well, it did not. After going down to 840 feet, we have 3.5 gallons per minute, good enough to supply a home with water, but not good enough to supply thirsty vines with water. We will try again. Yesterday, Tony and my husband independently dowsed and came up with the same location. In fact, at one area, the dowsing stick hit my husband's leg, Tony said that anytime the dowsing stick spanks you, it is a good sign. Once again, I tried my hand at dowsing and nothing! Tony left the dowsing stick with us and I promised to practice. Tony said, there is no practicing with dowsing, you either have it or you don't! Sigh...and I am such a believer.