1995 Ridge Montebello

Our friends are safely home from an 11 week journey down under! We invited them over for dinner and they shared with us another one of their 2009 Domaine Leflaive Puligny-Montrachet Les Combettes. My husband made a very slow smoked filet mignon on our grill. It took 2 hours. While we were waiting for the steaks, we sipped the wonderful Burgundy with Les Clarines and aged manchengo and listened to tales of white water rafting and Tasmanian devils.
When the slow smoked steak was ready, my husband opened up this 1995 Ridge Montebello. It is now 20 years old and the label on the Montebello says that now will be the appropriate time to drink this wine.

The wine is a blend of 69% Cabernet Sauvignon, 18% Merlot, 10% Petit Verdot and 3% Cabernet Franc from the Santa Cruz mountains. Some of us smelled aromas of a nice Cuban cigar mated with red raspberries and sour cherries. Still holding on to it's fruit but with perfectly mellow tannins, it was the perfect foil for the filet mignon that was smoked to a cuts-like-butter perfection.

Recapping Our 2015 Season

Today, I spent a little time compiling a few of the shots that we took over the 2015 season. This was the first season that we had bloom! Along with our first bloom, we had fruit set and then our first harvest. I thought that it would be cool to put it all together so that years from now, we could look at our first harvest and have a few chuckles.

Shipwrecked Champagne Update

Since we are still within shouting distance of the New Year, I thought I would blog about Champagne. Back when I was taking the U.C. Davis online certification course in viticulture and enology, we learned about a shipwreck in the Baltic Sea that contained what this July 2010 article in The Guardian was calling Champagne found at sea turns out to be world's oldest vintage. The champagne was thought to be from 1780 so the class had a lively discussion about whether the champagne would be any good at all. The divers that found this stash tasted their booty and found it to be "sweet, tobacco and oaky tasting".¹
A follow up article published in The New York Times mentioned that the cargo numbered 172 bottles of Champagne, four were broken, but 168 others were intact.²
On May 30, 2012 the SHIPWRECKED CHAMPAGNE IN HISTORIC TASTING was reported by the Drinks Business. This article clarified that there were 145 bottles retrieved from it's watery storage. All the champagnes were tasted by expert tasters, and of the 145 bottles, 79 were assessed as “drinkable” and re-corked. ³

The branded engravings on the corks revealed that the champagne came from the houses of Veuve Cliquot Ponsardin, Heidsieck and Juglar (later known as Jacquesson).⁴
On April 20, 2015, The Los Angeles Times provided an update on the sunken Champagne in an article called 170-year-old shipwrecked champagne much like bubbly today, study finds. Professor Philippe Jeandet and his colleagues at the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne in France published the results of their analysis in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. They compared the chemistry of three samples from the shipwrecked champagne, which is believed to have been produced around 1840 or 1841, with three samples of modern Veuve Clicquot from 1955, 1980 and 2011.⁵ The research team found the Baltic wine had 140 grams of sugar per liter. In contrast, only about six to eight grams per liter are found in champagne today. Put in perspective, a one liter bottle of modern popular cola contains approximately 108 grams of sugar. The bottles also contained ‘unexpectedly high’ levels of iron and copper likely originating from copper sulfate, which was used to protect vines against fungal diseases.⁴
I suppose if you like cola, you would like these 170 year old still drinkable champagnes!
References:
1. The Guardian, Champagne found at sea turns out to be world's oldest vintage, July, 2010.
2. The New York Times, Buried Treasure in Baltic Has Vintage Taste, DEC. 14, 2010.
3. the Drinks Business, SHIPWRECKED CHAMPAGNE IN HISTORIC TASTING.
4. Ancient Origins, Sunken Treasure: Scientists Taste 170-Year-Old Champagne Found in Shipwreck, April 21, 2015.
5. The Los Angeles Times, 170-year-old shipwrecked champagne much like bubbly today, study finds, April 20, 2015.

2013 Guiberteau Samur

We are continuing to educate our palate courtesy of purchases that my husband made from The Manhattan Wine Company. We drank this 2013 Domaine Guiberteau Samur with halibut cheeks that my husband prepared with red onion, capers, lemon zest, lemon juice, chives and butter. This wine rocked with acidity.
We paid $28.00 for this wine and it turns out that we were really fortunate to be able to get this wine because it is highly sought after. Domaine Guiberteau makes wines from Chenin blanc and Cabernet franc. Romain Guibert is the winemaker.
References:
1. Candid Wines Domaine Guiberteau.

We are home bound today, waiting for storm Jonas to pass. This reminded me of the snow storm that we had in 2015 which I blogged about as: Champagne to Weather an Epic Snowstorm on January 28, 2015.

New Tab: Wines Under $20

We have been having quite a nice selection of good wines under $20.00, so I thought that I would create a new tab with that information: Wines Under $20
I hope to populate the categories as we find more wines under $20. The current contents that can be found under this new category include the following wines:
White Wine
2013 Javillier Bourgogne des Forgets (Chardonnay)
2013 Terres Blanches Saumur (Chenin Blanc)
2014 Waitsburg Cellars Cheninières (Chenin Blanc)

Rosé Wine
2014 Chateau Soucherie Rosé

Sparkling Wine
2013 Naveran Cava (Xarel·lo, Macabeo, and Parellada)

Red Wine
2004 Saladini Pilastri Pregio del Conte (2 indigenous Italian grapes: Montepulciano and Aglianico)

2014 Verduno Pelaverga

Another of the gems that my husband purchased from the Manhattan Wine Company is this 2014 Comm. G.B. Burlotto Verduno Pelaverga. The wine was a clear pale purple in the glass suggestive of a cool climate Pinot Noir and the flavors were one of red raspberries. It was light bodied, although it has 13.5% alcohol and went very well with the pizza we orderd as part of our all day TV-sportfest last Sunday (which was pouring down rain and therefore, prevented us from working in the vineyard).
The Comm. G. B. refers to Commendatore Giovan Battista Burlotto who served as winemaker from 1850-1927.¹ Pelaverga is an old, rare, grape variety which the family has grown since 1800 in the town of Verduno. Robinson et. al. mentioned in their compendium Wine Grapes that the Pelaverga Verduno is distinct from Pelaverga, and is also known as Pelaverga Piccolo. It is a vigorous growing vine with mid-to late ripening of the fruit.²

A really nice story about the Burlotto family can be found at the Rare Wine Company: G. B. Burlotto.
This wine can be purchased for under $20.00!
References:
1. Hi-Time Wine Cellar, BURLOTTO 2014 VERDUNO PELAVERGA.
2. J. Robinson, J. Harding and J. Vouillamoz, Wine Grapes - A complete guide to 1,368 vine varieties, including their origins and flavours, pg 778, Allen Lane 2012 ISBN 978-1-846-14446-2.

Wild Animals Near the Vineyard

Every so often, our hunter downloads the photos on his hidden camera and he sent us the following photos of animals that live and hide unbeknownst to us, just on the borders of the vineyard:

Who knew that turkeys and deer were friendly? He also sent us photos of racoons on his trail camera, one photo which was taken in the day time and a larger congregation of racoons taken at night.

And last, but not least, a lone, but obviously well fed wolf.

2014 Vigneto Saetti

My husband is ranging a little out of our territory to procure unusual wines and he got this lambrusco from The Manhattan Wine Company and paid $19.00!
This lambrusco is a Louis Dressner imported 2014 Vigneto Saetti and hails from the Modena region. The color was ruby red with a little fizz.
I looked online to find out more about what I was drinking and found a nice article on the Dressner site about the Lambrusco Salamino from Luciano Saetti. Luciano Saetti began life as an egg distributor and having made a fair amount of money in that business, turned his attention to making Lambrusco from organically grown grapes on 3 hectares of land. Saetti's vineyard is planted in the local strain of Lambrusco called Salamino. I looked up this variety in Robinson, et. al. compendium Wine Grapes and found that the grape is called Salamino because the grape bunch resembles a small salami!¹
The link to the Dressner site gives a tour of the Saetti facility including a video on how Saetti corks his wine. I showed my husband the video because when he opened the bottle, he was surprised that the cork did not come with the usual wire cage. After opening the wrapper, we found a little note in the bottle:

The label itself is very interesting. It is made from a very cool fabric in his friend's factory. I went to feel the label and indeed, it is made from fabric!
References:
1. J. Robinson, J. Harding and J. Vouillamoz, Wine Grapes - A complete guide to 1,368 vine varieties, including their origins and flavours, pg 538, Allen Lane 2012 ISBN 978-1-846-14446-2.

Second Edition of Karen MacNeil's The Wine Bible

On October, 2015, the second edition of Karen MacNeil's The Wine Bible arrived on bookshelves, and fortunately for me, as an ebook! I'm quite the hypocrite. I used to be a huge proponent of reading physical books, until I found that I could use my phone to read a book. This is quite the revelation for someone in the early stages of cataracts. My vision is not what it used to be but thanks to the help of my phone and 1.5X magnification glasses and backlighting, I find that reading can be easy on even my eyes. So, I've been downloading ebooks (criteria: free) and going to town reading even the most ponderously heaviest of books i.e. Moby Dick.
In the new year, it was my intention to read and take notes from Karen MacNeil's book, The Wine Bible. I read the 2001 edition in 2013, so I was delighted to learn that I could download the 2015 second edition as an e-version! An article in the Los Angeles Times mentions that MacNeil has rewritten 80% of the book. The Introductory chapters gives a comprehensive description of the various types of soils and then the top 25 grape varieties and ends with an alphabetical list of important grape varieties. That's as far as I have gotten, but this is a much friendlier way to read a book. Since my phone is always nearby, I can pick up the ebook anytime and continue reading it. Even taking the book to bed is not so onerous as propping up a 4-inch thick tome that can cause serious injury when nodding off. So far, a good read. I'll report back with details.

Testing Our Chenin Blanc

It has been more than 1 month since we last tested our Chenin Blanc. In November, when we tested our wine, I took a photo of the clarity of the wine. Unfortunately, I didn't create the appropriate photo-op for the wine, but this time, I tried to create a background that would enable us to appropriately assess the clarity and the color of the wine. This is a photo of the side by side of the November and the January wine clarity. It's a little difficult to discern but I do think that the January photo shows a wine that has become a bit clearer.

The values that we got from our test on January 7 are as follows:

• pH = 3.07
• TA = 9.4 g/L
• SO₂ = 40 ppm

Once again, we were only able to taste a small sip of the wine but we think that it is getting a bit more aromatic and has evolved with a bit more of a tropical fruit flavor instead of the searing acidity we first encountered.

2013 Javillier Bourgogne des Forgets

We recently drank this 2013 Javillier Bourgogne des Forgets. Although it is a regional wine, the fruit comes from Meursault, Burgundy! The color was very pale light yellow, the nose was clean and aromatic of honey and citrus and the flavor was crisp with a touch of well integrated oak. We surmised that this wine must have been oak barrel fermented because although the oak was present, it had become an integral flavor of the wine. Don't you sometimes drink a wine and taste a mouthful of splinters? This was definitely NOT like that.
We had the wine with a soft Brillat Savarin cheese, a typical cheese that goes with sparkling wines, but paired surprisingly well with this Chardonnay. We also had an aged Manchego and this hard cheese was also a good pairing for the Chardonnay. The wine sells for just a little over $20.00 and makes it a very good value.

The Heidelberg Tun

Chapter 77 in Moby Dick written by Herman Melville is titled "The Great Heidelburgh Tun". In this chapter, Melville likens the upper part of the head of the Sperm Whale, the Case, to the great Heidelburgh Tun. That got my attention. Melville wrote:
          And as the famous great tierce is mystically carved in front,
           so the whale's vast plaited forehead forms innumerable strange
           devices for the emblematical adornment of this wondrous tun.
           Moreover as that of the Heidelburgh was always replenished with
           the most excellent of the wines of the Rhenish valleys, so the tun
           of the whale contains by far the most precious of all his oily
           vintages; namely the highly-prized spermaceti, in its absolutely
           pure, limpid, and odoriferous state.
First I wondered, "What is the Great Heidelburgh Tun?" So I did some online searches and came upon a terrific site with a current photo of the Heidelberg Tun housed at the Heidelberg Castle: Luxe Adventure Traveler Site Adventure Travel with a Glass of Wine" written by Jennifer Dombrowski and Tim Davis. Adventure traveling and wine is right in my wheelhouse! I liked reading their article on Heidelberg Castle and the World's Largest Wine Barrel so I wrote to them to get their permission to reproduce their photo, which they generously granted:¹

According to their article, the Heidelberg tun was built in 1751 and stands seven meters high, is eight and a half meters wide, holds 220,000 liters (58,124 gallons) of wine, and has a dance floor built on top of it.
Since we are tied to the land and have no time for traveling, I enjoyed reading all about the UNESCO World Heritage places that Jennifer and Tim have visited.
As for this blogpost, I'm filing this wine treasure under my Esoterica Tab, along with other wine wonders like the Vix Krater and Oldest Living Grapevine: ‘Žametovka’ Grapevine from Lent in Maribor.
References:
1. Jennifer Dombrowski and Tim Davis, Luxe Adventure Traveler Site Adventure Travel with a Glass of Wine, Heidelberg Castle and the World's Largest Wine Barrel.
2. From Taxes to Ax Marks: The Story Behind the World’s Largest Wine Cask

Installing Our Irrigation System

My husband has been investigating how to put in the appropriate vineyard irrigation ever since we received a grant from the NRCS for well drilling and irrigation. He sourced all of the irrigation material from local stores and as well as online. We finally broke ground for the irrigation installation on November 4, 2015 using a ditch witch. After two hours of using the rented ditch witch, my husband threw in the towel and resorted to his backhoe. Using the backhoe was a little tricky, because he needed to dig a trench between the black locust endpost and the anchor rod that we had put in last winter. (As I watched my husband work, I thought that he would really do well with those games that you pay a dollar to pick up a stuffed animal.) After 2.5 days, the first trench for installing the zone manifolds and the lateral drip lines was dug. What follows is a short clip of some of the work we did in installing the trench for the manifold for the lateral drip lines as well as the main line trench from the well.

Our irrigation system has 7 zones so we had to dig a trench for the manifolds. Beginning from the west side of the vineyard, we have 4 manifold trenches. The first three trenches have plumbing for 2 zones and the last trench has plumbing for 1 zone so we have 7 zones in total. Each zone can be controlled manually or electronically. Here is a short clip on how we put in the manifolds:

All in all, it has taken us about 2 months to put in the irrigation system.

2008 Josmeyer Pinot Auxerrois

Happy New Year!!!! I thought I'd start the first blog post of the new year with a review of a 2008 Josmeyer Pinot Auxerrois that my husband and I drank. We shared this with our son and his wife when they came during the holidays. We had it with a starter of Matunuck oysters and sticking with the oyster theme, we followed with an entré of oyster mushroom risotto and seared Bomster scallops, both locally sourced shellfish.
What seemed unusual to us was having an Auxerrois which was 7 years old which still tasted of fruit and acidity with a sublime mouthfeel. My husband I knew that we were tasting something unusual.
We are also growing Auxerrois so it was interesting to taste this example of an Auxerrois with some age on it! Our first introduction to Auxerrois was at a local wine bar. We knew nothing about this grape but after tasting an example of it, decided to plant it in our vineyard.
Wanting to know a little more about this wine, my husband went online and found an article written in The World of Fine Wine called Josmeyer Treading a Different Path.¹ The article gives information about Jean Meyer, who was initially a négociant in the Alsace, who became a biodynamic grower. Jean's daughter Isabelle went to work with Noël Pinguet at Domaine Huet. (That is a very fine pedigree!) Planted in the heart of the HENGST vineyard, this wine is not authorised to have the Grand Cru appellation because it is made from the "inferior" Auxerrois grape. The "H" on the label refers to the HENGST. All JosMeyer wines are certified biodynamically farmed and domaine-bottled, with no chaptalization, and no addition of yeasts or enzymes.
References:
1. The World of Fine Wine, Josmeyer Treading a Different Path, Issue 22, 2008, page 126-133.
2. This link is to the Josmeyer site and gives detailed information regarding the 2008 Pinot Axerrois: PINOT AUXERROIS " H " VIEILLES VIGNES.