Beserkers: Support Laura's House

My husband is participating in a Beserkers challenge called "Empty My Wallet" started by Frank Murray III, for Laura's House, dedicated to ending the silence of domestic violence. The challenge began on November 21st and will last until November 30th. For every photo that is posted with tasting notes, Frank will donate $10.00 to Laura's house. Here is my husband's contribution to the challenge.

1996 Louis Jadot Beaune 1er Boucherottes:
We had this wine over 2 nights with duck breast with berry-balsamic sauce, wild rice, and salad with tarragon vinaigrette. Color was medium garnet with a touch of bricking at the margins and the wine was crystal clear. The first night there was not much aroma which blossomed slightly to an earthiness on the second night. The flavor came off with a forward hint of oak tannins and a reserved sour cherry flavor lagging behind on night one. This became more balanced the second night with the tannins stepping back in line with the acidity and cherry fruit which was now showing a bit of red raspberry. Overall, this is a good wine and not a great wine. The wine does not taste of an obviously aged wine as the tannin and acidity are there but I think the fruit is not strong enough to last much longer as the other elements mellow further. I have had this wine in the past and the fruit was a bit stronger. I will know if this is a variant bottle as I have more to drink in the future. Thank you Frank for the challenge....Cheers, Gary
On Thanksgiving, we had two other bottles of Pinot Noir with friends. My husband brought over the 2013 Patrick Javillier and our host and hostess provided the 2002 La Pousse d'Or Volnay Premier Cru Clos D'Audignac. The Patrick Javillier seemed a little thin compared to the Clos D'Audignac. Our new friends shown in this photo are from near Reims in France, so they really know their wines. When the Clos D'Audignac was brought out, Alain was delighted!
Here are my husband's tasting notes:
2013 Javillier Savigny les Beaune 1er Les Serpentieres
Talented and well known vintner for white burgundies and less so for red. The Javillier vines in Aux Serpentieres are ~ 30 years old. This was my first experience with a red burgundy from this vineyard. Color was a light garnet color for this clear wine. Not much of an expressive nose at this stage. As the color might suggest this was a light bodied young wine in the mouth. The tannins are in the forefront slightly compared to the good acidity displayed. At this point the fruit comes off as a weaker partner in the trio with a light blend of strawberry and red raspberry. I have one more bottle on hand that I will save for a few years to see if anything emerges but at this point I do not see the fruit depth to warrant additional bottles for this vintage.
2002 La Pousse d’Or Volnay 1er Clos d’Audignac
Monopole vineyard for this estate with vines of ~36 years old at time of harvest. Clean clear wine with dark red color and slight bricking on the edge. A leather and floral nose emanates from the glass. On the mouth this wine exhibits terrific balance with well integrated soft tannins, acidity, and fruit. The fruit comes through as a beautiful blend of sweet cherry and black raspberry over a very slight earthiness. This is a clean and succulent wine that straddles a new and old world style. It seems to me that this wine is peaking now but should be there for a few more years as it has the fruit and acidity to march on.

My husband and I had our friends over for a post-Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday for another round of drinking Pinot Noir. This time, it was a 1999 Clos de Tart.

Drought Stress and Young Vines

This past spring, we planted 4200 vines and then were faced with the need to put in our irrigation system, STAT! Between May 30 and July 29, we had approximately 10 weeks of very little or no rain. This period corresponded to the time between flowering and rapid shoot growth. Severe water stress in grape vines can lead to:¹

• Wilting of leaves
• Drooping of tendrils
• Desiccation followed by abscission of shoot tip leaving behind a brown scar at the shoot apex

Fortunately, we were able to get our irrigation system up on running on July 23rd with the help and dedication of our well guy, Tony!
I found some information regarding irrigation and newly planted vines here:
Drought Stress, Vine Performance, and Grape Quality.
For newly planted and young newly bearing vines:

• Irrigate if necessary to avoid severe stress.
• For newly planted vines, drought stress needs to be avoided – irrigation and weed management are necessary – to maintain good establishment.
• Poor winter survival is a much greater risk in newly planted vines that have been exposed to severe drought stress.
• Pay special attention to new “replants” in existing vineyards as these are sometimes forgotten at this point.
• A very conservative approach should be taken with young vines just beginning their bearing cycle (2-5 years old). Crop should be thinned or even dropped completely under severe drought conditions as it may affect the winter sensitivity (cold damage) and long term survivability of the vines.

References:
1. Bhaskar Bondada, Janani Shutthanandan, "Understanding Differential Responses of Grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.) Leaf and Fruit to Water Stress and Recovery Following Re-Watering", American Journal of Plant Sciences, 2012, 3, 1232-1240.

2016: Retrospective

There is a slight respite that comes after the hustle and bustle of the year as the grapes slowly turn into wine, I wanted to reflect a little on the year that was.
We couldn't have accomplished all that we had on tap for this year if it wasn't for the labor of our friends.
In mid-April, we began preparation for replanting our vineyard that had suffered a catastrophic loss in the spring of 2014. Our friends came to help us drill 4200 holes with a dingo that we had rented.
Our vineyard began to wake up from the winter sleep in late April. I always feel that it is a magical time when the young leaves tinged with pink start to emerge from what is for all intents and purposes dead looking buds.
In mid-May, we called on a larger group of our friends to help us replant the vineyard. In 6 Days, 30 People, planted 4200 Vines! After the planting was over, there was a sense of relief, but we still had a long to-do list.
Next on tap was to get our irrigation up and running. In late June, Tony and his crew installed our pitless adaptor. Rental of a generator and the installation of the variable frequency motor and pump allowed us to start irrigating the vineyard on July 23rd.
This year, irrigation was critical because of the drought that Connecticut was experiencing and the fact that we had planted 4200 new vines! According to the United States Drought Monitor, our half of the state is still under a severe drought.

This drought situation will impact our vines if it continues into the new year, so I've been reading about the impact to vines during drought. Stay tuned for that post.

2007 Lopez de Heredia Viña Cubillo Crianza

There has been a lot of drinking in the past few days and one of the wines that we had was this 2007 Lopez de Heredia Viña Cubillo. We are fans of Lopez de Heredia wines, having had their 2002 Lopez de Heredia Viña Bosconia and 2001 Lopez de Heredia Gravonia. The Cubillo already has 9 years of age on it but it was drinking like a very youthful wine. The color was intensely purple. It is a blend of the usual 70% Tempranillo, 20% Garnacho, 5% Graciano and 5% Mazuelo fermented in old oak vats with natural yeasts and matured in barrel for three years.
At a cost of approximately $27.00 it is a fantastic value for an aged Temperanillo.

Bottling Our Chardonnay

We harvested our Chardonnay on September 14th. We harvested a total of 5 pounds 10 ounces of grapes. I know, it is a pathetically small amount of grapes, but we were determined to see what kind of wine we could make. Winemakers can tell you that it is very difficult to make a small amount of wine. We made ours in a glass gallon jug fitted with a fermentation lock. We started our fermentation on September 19th after our usual must clarification step and saw signs of carbon dioxide evolution on September 20th. Although the fermentation began on the 20th, the kinetics of the fermentation were exceedingly slow. On October 6, we took a Brix reading at it was at 12. The fermentation finally ended on November 1st. We put the gallon jug in our refrigerator to cold settle.
Today, we were able to bottle three 375 mL bottles of our very first Chardonnay. We took all the necessary precautions, sanitizing the bottles, nitrogen flushing and minimizing oxygen in the bottling process. Some information:
pH = 2.73
TA = 7.2 g/L
My husband was shocked at how low the pH was and looked on the Internet to see what other beverages have such a low pH. Apparently, lemonade is pH = 2.6. When we took out some of the wine for testing, we also tasted it. This wine has a ways to go to settle down! It was, however, drinkable and the nose was very fragrant. It reminded me of some kind of spice and peaches.

First Harvest Chenin Blanc Update

Yesterday, we moved our first harvested Chenin Blanc that I blogged about as Harvesting Organza Wedding Bags on September 19th, into the holding tank. This is a tricky task that calls for trying to minimize oxygen exposure as much as possible. The first thing we (invoking the royal "we", my husband did everything) did was to sterilize the holding keg and then flush the keg with nitrogen. The next thing that we did was to fit the keg with the fermented juice with a racking wand. The final thing was to hook up the nitrogen gas to the fitting on the keg with the juice.
Here is a YouTube Video of the nitrogen assisted transfer of the wine from one keg to another:

We saved a little of the wine to do some tests:
pH = 3.09
TA = 6.6 g/L
The fermentation began on September 27 and lasted until October 22. The fermentation went to dryness. We did taste the wine:

This year's verdict: It's not tasting searingly acidic like last year's wine, that my husband likes to refer to as jet fuel. It already had a nice floral aroma coming from the glass (imho).