International Chardonnay Day

Last week Thursday, May 25th was International Chardonnay Day. Apparently, it occurs on the Thursday before Memorial Day. My husband found this out and learned that there are International Wine Days for all kinds of wines at The Traveling Corkscrew.
We planned to celebrate the day and invited our friends over for grilled chicken with a medley of roasted mushrooms, chickpeas and tomatoes. They were unavailable that evening, but we celebrated the following evening. We anted up the 2012 Clos Pepe and they brought over a 2009 Kistler Hudson Vineyard and a wine that they scored on their trip to New Zealand, a 2015 Marsden.
We started the evening with the Clos Pepe and the Marsden along with two cheeses, a Brillat-Savarin, a soft triple cream Brie made from cow's milk and a La Tur, a soft-ripened cheese made from a blend of sheep's, cow's and goat's milk. Both cheeses went very nicely with the Chardonnays.

My friend said that she purchased the Marsden while in New Zealand because it reminded her of a Kistler style Chardonnay. I liked the fresh zesty taste of lemon with a well integrated note of a little bit of oak on the wine. I would say that in terms of oak on the palate, Kistler > Marsden > Clos Pepe. We had the 2009 Kistler Hudson Vineyard with the grilled chicken. Our friend generously shared that bottle of wine which they received as a wedding gift. It was a perfect compliment to the grilled chickedn and roasted veggies. All of the wines were delicious in their own way and all were very well made.

Vineyard Wifery Duties

I'd like to propose a new term in viticulture. I want to call this task "vineyard wifery" a companion term to "animal husbandry". The importance of vineyard wifery for the new plants is to:

• Allow for air flow in the canopy to ameliorate fungal diseases
• Keep the best positioned shoots to be next year's canes
• Keep the shoots in one plane
• Allow the optimum amount of sunlight access to developing inflorescence primordia to encourage fruitfulness next year
• Allow for the strongest growth to be closest to the graft union

Lately, since my husband has been busy with the countless other chores involved in post-planting, I have taken on the task of cleaning out the area around the graft union and training our two year old vines that have been producing huge amounts of foliage. I keep in mind what will be next year's canes as well as the cane for the following (2 years hence) growth. I also recognize that each plant is an individual so that there are no hard and fast rules to follow. Here is an illustration of what I mean:

My husband might say that the cleaning could still be a lot better. I enjoy this communing with the young vines. (Up close and personal). Yesterday, when I was sitting on the wheelable garden stool, what I thought was a bumblebee flew close to me. My initial reaction was to shoo it away, but when it came back, I noticed that the body shape was longer than a bumble bee and it flew like a hummingbird. It continued to hover around me so that I could get a good look at it, maybe twenty seconds or so. Later when I looked it up on the Internet, I learned that it was a hummingbird clearwing moth.

Grape Leaf Pearl Glands

I read about these things called "pearl glands" in Ronald Jackson's book on Wine Science on page 60:
The outer tissues of the young stem consist of a layer of epidermis and several layers of cortical cells. The epidermis is initially photosynthetic and bears stomata, hair cells and pearl glands, especially along the veins. Most cortical cells also contain chloroplasts and are photosynthetic.
Yesterday, when I was up close and personal with one of our grapevines, I saw what Ronald Jackson was talking about:

The hairs as well as the exudate from the pearl glands were clearly visible. This morning, I was talking with my husband about these pearls that I saw and he mentioned that he also saw these spherical pearls on the bottom of the leaves that he was looking at. Yes, young leaves also possess leaf hairs and pearl glands.
References:
1. Ronald Jackson, Wine Science Third Edition, Elsevier, 2008, pg. 60 and 62.

2013 La Bettola Barbera d'Alba Erbaluna

We recently drank this 2013 La Bettola Barbera d'Alba Erbaluna. This is a wine made from organic grapes grown in the vineyard named Erbaluna. I learned that this Barbera, which is already 4 years old was aged in stainless steel tanks.
We planted our first Barbera vines a few weeks ago and have been interested in Barbera wines and vinification. This wine was ruby red in color, had good fruit flavors and a punch of acidity, which we have come to associate with Barbera. The nice thing about the 2013 La Bettola is that it is under $20.00.

Wines for Vines

On Thursday, May 18th, we pulled up twenty-five Cabernet Franc ENTAV clone 214 from our "nursery" and drove it over to Jonathan Edwards. The winemaker, Michael and vineyard manager, Chris were there to receive the vines. Jonathan Edwards also has Cabernet Franc 214 planted in their vineyard and they expressed an interest in planting our tall grafted vines and seeing how the vines compare to their conventionally grafted vines.

Chris had to run off, but Michael gave us a tour of the winery. One of the items that we are interested in are the Mueller fermentation barrels. Michael had a few so he showed them to us. We had heard from other winemakers that the curvature of the stainless steel barrel is a critical feature for being able to top it off. Michael said that stacking a curved stainless steel barrel was better for the barrels than if they were flat. Before leaving the facility, Michael asked us how much we wanted for the tall grafted vines. We were just happy that they wanted to experiment with the vines, so we said, "nothing", to which he replied, then you're getting some wine, and he gave us 7 bottles of the wines that he had made! We'll be sharing it with our friends and I'll be blogging about the wines.

Vintage Notes: May 2017 Weather Report

May started off being cooler than normal, which was very good for planting. Our planting days began on May 7 and ended on May 10th. Although we "only" had 1500 vines to plant, the planting was made difficult by the rains that preceded the planting dates. Especially the rainfall that came on May 5th, Friday that went well into mid-morning on our first scheduled planting day, Saturday, May 6th. Needless to say, the rains made us postpone the Saturday planting because the last thing we want is to make our volunteers/friends feel unduly burned out by planting. I should be moderately fun.
Later in the day, the sun came out and my husband and I went back to the vineyard to assess how the rain had affected our pre-dug holes. I took a few pictures of the Chardonnay, before disbudding.

The days post-planting brought some rain on Mother's Day, May 14th, which was really nice for the newly planted vines. This week, we have seen temperatures soar into the high 80's on Wednesday, Thursday, and today, Friday, May 19th. What does that do to grapevines? They take off.

Our Visit to Coastal Vineyards

After we left Travessia we went to South Darthmouth, MA to visit Coastal Vineyards. We have visited Coastal Vineyards before and we know Dave Nielson, so we wanted our friend to meet Dave and to taste his wines. We found Dave working in the vineyard, replanting some vines (we know all about that). Dave told us about his vineyard devastation in 2014 and we know about that, too. Dave told us how he is training his vines. He showed us his fermentation room and said that it should at least be twice as large as what he has for the 800 cases that he produces annually.

We knew that Dave had a lot of work to do and were feeling a little guilty about taking him away from planting duties. Dave turned us over to Bob, the taste master who expertly poured and described the various wines that we were tasting. Bob also had hummus that he made and gave Mary the recipe. It turns out that Bob puts his recipes on the website for Coastal Vineyards provided above.

We ended our day at Matunuck Oyster House with a cup of hot tea and a soft shell crab po'boy.

Visit to Travessia

We finished up our planting duties (1500 new vines) on Wednesday and took Thursday to do a few things post-planting but decided that we could take Friday off for a road trip and we brought Mary along with us. Our first stop was at the Urban Winery called Travessia in downtown New Bedford. Marco Montez is the owner of the establishment and he welcomed us to his urban location. He was on his way to another appointment but gave us a tour of his winemaking facility and his philosophy of winemaking. We were free to ask any questions and learned a lot about how Marco approaches his winemaking. Marco has been at this site for 9 years and is quickly growing out of the space. When giving us information regarding the type of equipment he used, Marco mentioned Running Brook, a winery that we are familiar with since we learned about tall grafted vine from Manny, who used to be the vineyard manager there.

Before leaving for his next appointment, Marco gave us a sample of his recently bottled Chardonnay! Thanks, Marco! Then, we settled in with Chris who was in charge of the wine tasting. Marco's white wines were very aromatic and so reasonably priced! His Rosé was a wine that I could see sipping in the heat of summer and his Merlot was fruity and approachable. We enjoyed our time at Travessia but had another appointment to keep. The revitalized downtown New Bedford looks like an interesting place to visit. If you are there, put Travessia on your list of places to go. It is definitely worth dropping by and tasting Marco's creations.

2016 Miriam Alexandra Chenin Blanc

Our friends know that we love Chenin Blanc so on one of our get togethers, they brought this 2016 Miriam Alexandra Chenin Blanc. They received this wine because they belong to a wine group that provided her with this Miriam Alexandra from Naked Wines. Our friends told us the philosophy behind Naked Wines where people support up and coming winemakers so that the winemakers can focus on making their wines.
We enjoyed tasting this California Chenin Blanc and thank our friends for bringing it over and expanding our Chenin Blanc horizons!

Vintage 2017: Planting Time

Before this year's planting time arrived, I looked at my notes from last year when we planted 1600 vines in one day. In assessing this year's situation, I thought that we should definitely be able to plant the 9-1/2 rows or the equivalent of 1500 vines, over the weekend. I may even have intimated to friends that it would be a "piece of cake" this year. Oh, oh, oh...never share and say those thoughts out loud!
Mother Nature decided to gift us with nearly 4 inches of rain on Friday and didn't let up until Saturday afternoon. The soil was exceedingly moist even on Sunday, but 19 volunteers showed up to help us plant our grapevines. With the soil so moist, a crew of 4 had to clean the holes that we dug earlier with the dingo. The wet soil also made it difficult to plant the vines, so the remaining crew of 15 people were able to help us plant 2-1/2 rows of vines that consumed most of Sunday. Spirits were high, even though the task was daunting. Here is Mary, with tractor duty with a pose that we decided was "Calender-worthy". Thoughts of a vineyard calendar are brewing.

Chardonnay Inflorescence

Sadly, yesterday, Mother Nature had the upper hand over the weather forecasters. Even though it appeared that there might be a short break in the "occasional rain", it was still raining. A few hardy souls, Mary, Barry, Bob, Betsy, Rich, Laurie and Bob V. showed up before planting time. However, when planting time came around at 11 a.m. it was still raining with occasional downpours. In addition, the holes that we dug so carefully with the dingo were collapsed and some of them were full of water. So, planting was postponed until today. It did clear up in the afternoon, around 3 p.m. so my husband and I went to assess the situation we would be facing and found that there will be work to do to clear the holes before we can plant. As we assessed the holes, I checked out the vines. The Chardonnay are way ahead of the others, with inflorescence beginning to show.

Planting Day

This is what we have been looking at in the Northeast as planting day 2017 approaches for us. Last year, with a stellar crew, we planted 4200 vines in 6 days. This year, we have "only" 1500 vines to plant, but Mother Nature is not going to make it easy on us with this weather system that we were seeing last night.

Knowing the weather pattern coming up, a skeleton crew of 5 people planted nearly 300 vines on Thursday, reducing the number that we need to plant today and tomorrow to 1200 plants.
On Friday, the weather forecast called for rain showers in the morning so we delayed the start time for planting until 11 a.m. This morning, when we woke up, the forecast had changed to no rain in the morning and rain showers beginning at 10 or 11 a.m. Such is the vagary of farming and working with Mother Nature. I'll post again to let you know how we fared.

The Vines Are Here

My husband was working in the vineyard on Monday and saw a FedEx truck coming towards him. He was very perplexed at first until he realized that those were our vines! The information that was provided by our vine purveyor (who shall remain nameless) was that our shipment would be coming by UPS. Even when asked, they failed to provide us with a tracking number and not knowing when (and if at all) our vines were shipped, we crossed our fingers and hoped that it would show up on Wednesday, today.
But no, here it was. My husband scrambled to contact our neighbor, Stonington Seafood Harvesters to see if we could borrow their refrigerated truck on short notice, and they were very accommodating. At the end of the day, my husband using his tractor and forks lifted the 9 large boxes of vines into the truck.

We have to get into gear: we still have holes to clean, alleys to mow, water for soaking the vines, vine roots to cut, pencil rods to attach to the fruiting wire, etc., to prepare for the weekend planting party.

2013 Les Hauts De Smith

This wine was my downfall. We had it with our friends with cod en papillote (in parchment paper). My husband finds this to be a simple meal to fix and his go to ingredients are artichoke hearts and roasted red peppers, the kind that you can get already made in a jar. He might also add green olives and lemon. Basically, whatever we have on hand goes into making this presentation friendly meal. I recognized the bottle and the chateau as a Bordeaux and I know that the only white grapes that grow in Bordeaux are Semillon and Chardonnay (wrong!). My husband seized upon this error and made me a bet that he knew he would win. In front of our friends, we bet that it was not Semillon and Chardonnay but Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc that went into a white Bordeaux. Well, you know who won the bet and the bet was that I have to make dinner for an entire week. I think my servitude ended yesterday evening. We later learned that this 2013 Les Hauts De Smith was mainly made of Sauvignon Blanc.
I read a great story about the owners of Chateau Smith-Haut-Lafitte, Daniel and Florence Cathiard, on the online Wine Spectator in an article titled Olympic-Size Ambition.