2024 Harvest Party

The year is coming to a close and before the New Year comes around, we wanted to thank our harvesters for their help by throwing our annual harvest party. This year, the food theme was "Mexican" and included Mexican chorizo fried in egg roll wrapper, lamb flautas, baked empanadas with chicken filling, Mexican pork ribs, vegetarian southwestern-style spring rolls, plantain chips, and sweet potato salad with cilantro-lime dressing.

We had a fair number of our harvesters attend the event!

One of the traditions at our harvest party is to give away baskets of goodies. This year, Donna took home the grand prize, with David taking the second prize and Karen the third prize. It's a fun thing to do!

We want to thank all of our friends who helped us during our 2024 season! See you next year!

2024 Visit to the Massouds at Paumanok on Long Island

Around this time of the year, we make our annual trek to Long Island to visit our mentor and friends, Ursula and Charles Massoud and their son and winemaker Kareem and his wife, Karen. Last year we were invited to a fabulous Dinner and Winetasting at the Halyard where we tasted more than 25 vintage wines made on Long Island. It was such a wonderful dinner that when we left, we promised that we will come back and make dinner for the Massouds. On Tuesday, we took the Long Island Sound Ferry from New London to Orient Point. We did not make the previous mistake of taking a small ferry and opted for the largest ferry that we could take and that was at 11 a.m. We meandered a bit when we reached Orient Point and went to Greenport where we stopped at the Blue Duck pastry shop where they make their own bread and sandwiches and had a gruyere and ham panini. It was delicious! Our next stop was to see Steve Mudd, and though my husband emailed him earlier he had not responded but we thought we would try anyway. We wanted him to taste our 2019 Chenin Blanc and to thank him for his help in 2013 when his crew laser planted our vineyard. However, no luck, no Steve, so we pressed on.
We reached Paumanok at Aquebogue around 1:45 and let ourselves in to the guest house adjacent to the winery. It was early enough that we were able to rest and then prepared the food that we brought over on the ferry.
The Massouds arrived at their guest house at 6:30 and we began dinner with an appetizer of spanakopita (spinach pie) and tiropita (cheese pie) which we paired with the 2022 Forge Cellars Dry Riesling Classique. We brought the Riesling because Ursula is from the Mosel where her family grew Riesling. She gave the wine a thumbs up! It paired very well with the Greek appetizers.
There was an intermezzo of Greek salad with bread and then moussaka. My husband anted up a 2001 Rocche Barolo and a 2005 Dunn Napa Valley. The wines paired very well with the the moussaka but the Dunn was especially appreciated by all of us. Dessert was one that my husband ordered from Wild Briar, a nussecken, a German nut bar which we still amazingly had room for!
The evening flew by with laughter and great conversation. It was such a memorable evening. Ursula and I think that is the ultimate role of wine!
(Postscript: My husband knew that there was bad weather coming in on Wednesday so he made reservations on the 9 a.m. ferry from Orient Point back to New London, again on the largest ferry that we could get on. The ride was smooth and we reached New London in pouring down rain! When we got home, we learned that the last ferry from either New London or Orient Point left at 10 a.m.!)

One Thousand Vines

A few weeks ago, this book showed up on our doorstep. My husband has been keeping his eye on One Thousand Vines by Pascaline Lepeltier as a book that we can delve into during our "quiet time" in the winter. It came out in French around two years ago and has recently been translated to English. I did glance through the book and it looks very interesting with beautiful illustrations.
I will be reading the book during the cold months ahead. I'll report back. Stay tuned!

Bottling Our 2023 Late Harvest Chenin Blanc

On December 1, 2023, our friends, Mary and Barry came to help us with the last harvest of 2023, the botrytized Chenin Blanc. Barry brought over his apple press and we used that to juice the botrytized grapes. We had a modest amount of juice that we were able to squeeze out from our last harvest, it didn't quite fill a 5 gallon carboy. We let the juice cold settle and on December 3, the cold settled juice was deemed clean enough, so without any racking, we inoculated it with our yeast of choice, QA23.

On December 6, we noticed that fermentation had begun and by December 19, fermentation had possibly reached an end.

The finished wine was stored in the carboy and kept in the darkness. On October 11, we racked the wine into two carboys to get the finished wine off of the lees. The wine went into one 3 gallon carboy and half of a one gallon jug.

On December 3, we combined the racked wine back into a clean 5 gallon carboy and prepared to bottle the wine using gravity.

We used 375 mL Bordeaux style bottles and hand bottled the finished wine. We ended up with 37 bottles of 2023 botrytized Chenin Blanc.
We are looking forward to harvesting our 2024 late harvest Chenin Blanc!

Drinking Pinot Noir for Laura's House

My husband is part of an online group called Berserkers and every Thanksgiving, apparently for the past 12 years, they support Laura's House, a shelter for victims of domestic violence. We have been participating as well. This year, we took this 2023 Kemmeter Sonero Rose of Pinot Noir, shown on the left in the picture below to our daughter and son-in-law's home for Thanksgiving. This was one of the wines that we purchased recently, when we took a trip up to Ithaca and the Finger Lakes.
The rose was bright and tasted of ripe strawberries and red cherries.

The following evening, we had the 2022 Rose Rock Pinot Noir from Oregon and the 2005 Louis Jadot Beaune Clos des Couchereaux, a New World and an Old World Pinot Noir. It was not a fair comparison because of the age difference. I thought the Louis Jadot still tasted youthful. The Rose Rock was easy drinking and went very well with the Stanley Tucci pasta e fagioli that our son made. Truth be told, I wasn't really concentrating on the flavors of the wines but enjoying the evening with our son and daughter-in-law visiting from Massachusetts.
Anytime that we can open up some Pinot Noir, especially for such a good cause as Laura's House is a good time!

A Short Trip to the Finger Lakes Wine Region

This has never happened since we have been farming grape vines, but we found that we had a little time to take a short trip to the Finger Lakes. Also, the big draw was that our landlady when we lived in Ithaca 40 years ago turned 90 this year so it was our pleasure and duty to see her!
When we left Stonington on Tuesday morning, the weather was beautiful and sunny. As we approached Ithaca, there were some amazing cloud patterns and this is one I captured.

It did take around 6 plus hours to get there. Before going to Ithaca, we learned that one of the restaurants that we went to, Souvlaki House was still there so that's where we went! The food was still good and the baklava was what we remembered it to be, nice and crispy, filled with nuts and dripping with honey. We learned from the current owner, (the brother-in-law of the original owner) that they expanded Souvlaki House in 1985 and took over the copy shop space. (I remember the copy shop!)
The following day, we went to Ryan William Vineyard overlooking Seneca Lake. This was an interesting place because they had wine tastings but also served food! We met Michael who told us that all of the food served there was grown at their farm or sourced from other local farms. We had brunch along with a white flight and a red flight. It was a pleasant way to spend a morning. We headed back to our hotel so that my husband could participate in an online discussion related to fire regulations in Stonington. Our interest was in the new regulation stipulating that new wineries must be equipped with overhead sprinklers.

The following day, Thursday, was another chance to taste some Finger Lakes wines! The first place we visited was Forge Cellars where we were part of a tasting given by Anthony. We were there with another couple, Tim and Alexandria from Philadelphia. Anthony gave us a short history of the founders of Forge Cellars, Louis Barruol and Rick Rainey. We tasted around 7 wines, 4 of which were Riesling grown from different areas along Seneca Lake. Anthony's point was that each wine was typical of it's lieu-dit, or the place where it was grown. Indeed, we could all taste the difference in the Rieslings. They were all very good!

After the tasting, there was time for lunch and then we headed to Kemmeter for more tastings! Interestingly and coincidentally, Tim and Alexandria were also there. We tasted 3 wines made by Johannes Rienhardt. Soon it was time to head back to Ithaca to see our landlady and her daughter. We had a fabulous time visiting with Nanse and Jen, telling stories and catching up on the intervening 40 years!
Our trip back to Stonington coincided with a snow storm! What a difference 3 days makes!

2022 Clos Des Rochers Pinot Blanc

We have been toying with the idea of having a tasting of Auxerrois from various locations to have along side the Auxerrois that we make. The original reason we planted Auxerrois was because of the Clos de Rochers Auxerrois that we tasted many years ago. My husband looked on the internet and though it was difficult to find, the Clos de Rochers Auxerrois was being offered by Yankee Spirits! Not only that, they had a store in Swansea, MA that was close enough to us to make it a morning drive.
It's been quite a while since we ventured more than 15 miles away from where we live. It was a very pleasant drive and we got to our destination, Yankee Spirits. We looked around at what they had and saw this 2022 Clos Des Rochers Pinot Blanc. We were intrigued and purchased it.
On Saturday, we opened it up and it was delightful! Easy to drink and went with the Greek cheese pies (tiropita) that was our appetizer. Now, I am anxious to try the Clos Des Rochers Auxerrois, to see if it is still as delicious as when we first tasted it! When we do, I will blog about it!

Vintage 2024: Recap of the Year -- Part 2

A few days ago, I wrote the Part 1 of Vintage 2024: Recap of the Year and today, I am following it up by updating the 2019-2024 harvest numbers for our varieties:
Auxerrois

Auxerrois	Harvest Date	Weight/ Lbs	Volume of Juice/ Gallons	Brix	pH	TA
2019	September 23, 2019	636	50	19.6	3.23	7.35 g/L
2020	September 27, 2020	1670	133	19.0	3.07	7.5 g/L
2021	September 28, 2021	1638	130	18.0	3.25	7.2 g/L
2022	September 25, 2022	3097	248	20.0	3.16	7.1 g/L
2023	October 1, 2023	500	40	18.8	3.36	6.5 g/L
2024	September 29, 2024	1695	135	19.0	3.5	6.6 g/L

Chenin Blanc

Chenin Blanc	Harvest Date	Weight/ Lbs	Volume of Juice/ Gallons	Brix	pH	TA
2019	October 14, 2019	3920	305	21.6	3.15	13.5 g/L
2020	October 11, 2020	8201	655	23.3	3.09	12.1 g/L
2021	October 17-18, 2021	6200	496	20.4	3.17	14.6 g/L
2022	October 16-17, 2022	4901	392	21.0	3.07	8.9 g/L
2023	October 22, 2023	1410	120	20.0	3.05	8.7 g/L
2024	October 20, 2024 October 27, 2024	1980 1875	160 150	20.5 21.5	3.15 3.18	9.5 g/L 9.8 g/L

Chardonnay

Chardonnay	Harvest Date	Weight/ Lbs	Volume of Juice/ Gallons	Brix	pH	TA
2019	September 28, 2019	291	26	21.5	3.17	9.4 g/L
2020	September 24, 2020	1136	80	23.5	3.0	10 g/L
2021	October 3, 2020	2625	210	20.4	3.28	8.2 g/L
2022	October 2, 2022	2306	185	22.5	3.11	8-11 g/L
2023	October 5, 2023	500	40	18.8	3.4	10.0 g/L
2024	September 29, 2024	1562	125	20.4	3.41	9.8 g/L

Cabernet Sauvignon

Cabernet Sauvignon	Harvest Date	Weight/ Lbs	Volume of Juice/ Gallons	Brix	pH	TA
2019	November 3, 2019	332	30	19.0	3.25	11.1 g/L
2020	October 22, 2020	888	80	22.4	3.08	10.7 g/L
2021	October 24, 2021	561	45	20.1	3.07	10.4 g/L
2022	October 21, 2022	1300	104	21.0	3.26	NA
2023	October 31, 2023	369	30	18.8	3.15	10.4 g/L
2024	October 31, 2024	80	6.4	23.0	3.26	10.4 g/L

Cabernet Franc

Cabernet Franc	Harvest Date	Weight/ Lbs	Volume of Juice/ Gallons	Brix	pH	TA
2019	October 26, 2019	377	32	23.0	3.23	11.3 g/L
2020	October 22, 2020	872	80	23.3	3.27	11.3 g/L
2021	October 24, 2021	402	32	19.8	3.2	7.4 g/L
2022	October 21, 2022	1200	96	22.0	3.27	NA
2023	October 31, 2023	369	30	20.4	3.24	7.9 g/L
2024	October 31, 2024	250	20	25.0	3.5	8.2 g/L

Barbera

Barbera	Harvest Date	Weight/ Lbs	Volume of Juice/ Gallons	Brix	pH	TA
2022	October 21, 2022	600	48	22.5	3.0	NA
2024	October 31, 2024	40	3.2	23.4	3.16	19.9 g/L

We have been having some beautiful weather so we have been taking in our clothes pins, rolling up the netting and dropping the net to the irrigation wire and attaching it with the Velcro. We hope to get more work in the vineyard done before the cold weather sets in.
We are also talking about what we can do better next year, given that we were not able to keep the downy mildew off of our leaves. In our retrospective analysis, my husband thinks that we need a sprayer with a fan to get better coverage on the leaves. I think that we need to aggressively bud thin as soon as the buds appear. This way, we are getting rid of the primary, secondary and tertiary buds when we remove a bud.
Now it is a waiting game for the 2025 vintage!

Vintage 2024: Recap of the Year

The red varieties were harvested on Halloween and are now fermenting in our winery space. We go there twice a day to do the daily punch downs. It's a good time to review what the 2024 season was like.
We had the third wettest January on record here in Connecticut. Typically, January and February is a time when we can exhale and catch up on the many things that we kicked down the road.
We began pruning duties in early March when the weather was amenable enough for us to go outdoors. Pruning begins with the removal of Agfast, the black ties that hold the shoots in place. There are literally thousands of Agfast in the vineyard. Next we cut the wire that holds the fruiting cane to the fruiting wire and then begin cutting the tops of the canes in preparation for selecting the two canes that will be laid down this year as the fruiting cane. At the same time that the fruiting canes are selected and cut, they can be tied to the fruiting wire. The cut canes are neatly piled at each line post which makes it easier to remove from the vineyard with our expedition sled.
April brought the beginning of budbreak in the vineyard with the Chardonnay being the first to bud. This year, during March and April, we lowered the bird netting to the level of the irrigation hose and secured the netting with Velcro at each trellis wire. This was an immeasurable time saver as the canopy grew.
We had bud swell in all of our varieties at the end of April and the beginning of May. During May, we begin disbudding the excess buds that were on the fruiting cane and never quite made it through all the varieties before disbudding turned to shoot thinning.
In June, we shoot thinned our vines, going as fast as we could, but not fast enough before the shoots reached the top of the trellis wire and we knew that it was time to hedge. During summer, we had an abundance of rain as well as good weather, leading to the shoots reaching the top trellis wire in record time and becoming unmanageable.
July is frenetic: shoot tuck, hedge, mow, cut overhanging shoots, spray, rinse and repeat!
It seemed that we were going to escape the wet weather without the curse of downy mildew on our leaves, but the beginning of August brought the mildew, first to our Chardonnay and then to our red varieties to the east. West of the Chardonnay, the Auxerrois and the Chenin Blanc didn't seem to be that affected with downy and managed to keep their leaves to ripen the grapes. During the second week in August, we began unfurling our nets to protect the ripening grapes beginning in the Auxerrois and Chardonnay.
September brought more netting activities which was made very easy by the fact that since the netting was lowered to the level of the irrigation hose, we did not have the problem of removing the tendrils from the netting that we had before when we left the net in the developing canopy.
Our first harvest of Auxerrois and Chardonnay occurred on September 29. Our friends managed to harvest 13 rows of grapes by lunch time! We were able to take the harvest to Stonington Vineyards on Monday where Mike and his crew pressed the grapes for us. We did bring the pressed juice back to our Taugwonk facility where we racked the juice from the heavy lees and began fermentation.
Our next harvest was our Chenin Blanc which we split into two harvest dates, the first on October 20 and the second on October 27. Both harvests were done before 11! Once again, the grapes were taken to Stonington Vineyards, Mike and his crew helped with the pressing. We brought the juice back to Taugwonk where it was settled, racked and inoculated to begin fermentation. On Halloween, a few of our friends came to harvest 5 rows of red grapes which we brought back to Taugwonk on the same day and our friends foot stomped the grapes for us.
And now we are here! November!

Happy Halloween Harvest

Our penultimate harvest occurred on Halloween! We had a skeleton crew of friends that came to help us harvest our red varieties. Since the red harvest was a small one and there were only 5 rows, we were confident that our friends would rise to the challenge. We began taking in the clothespins around 8:30 and the nets were raised. The crew was divided between the two rows of Cabernet Sauvignon and the one row of Barbera which we harvested, working from the south end to the north end. Once at the north end, the Cabernet Sauvignon (16 lugs) and Barbera (2 lugs) were loaded on to our truck and we worked our way from the north end to the south end harvesting Cabernet Franc (28 lugs). This harvest with our crew was done at 11!
A smaller group headed to our Taugwonk facility where we set up to stomp the harvest. The Cabernet Franc grapes went into a large tub, the one we used when we had our first harvests of Chenin Blanc. Mary showed Geoff and Bob how we put on the food grade plastic booties, got into the tub and stomped away!

Our first volunteer was Bob, who got bootied up and went into the Cabernet Franc to stomp! After doing a bit of stomping in the Cabernet Franc, he ceded his duty to Geoff and got into the gray tub with the small amount of Cabernet Sauvignon and Barbera.

It was now Geoff's turn and he did a great job of getting the juice out of the Cabernet Franc!

Here is photo of what the stomping looked like on a beautiful, Halloween day. After the stomping was done, we took some of the juice and took a hydrometer reading. We also sampled the juice and the Cabernet Franc at 25 degrees Brix was the sweetest grape juice ever!

Variety	Weight	Volume of Juice	Brix	pH	TA
Cabernet Sauvignon - Barbera Mix	120 lbs	9.6 gal	22.0	3.3	9.90 g/L
Cabernet Fanc	250 lbs	20 gal	25.0	3.5	8.20 g/L

Once again, a big thank you to everyone who came out to help us with our red harvest. Halloween was indeed a happy one for us and not scary at all!

Harvesting the Chenin Blanc

On Sunday, October 20, our friends gathered to help us harvest the first 8 rows of Chenin Blanc. During the days leading up to the harvest, my husband and I meticulously dropped the green bunches of grapes that didn't past the Brix text. My husband was sampling them while I was using the hand held refractometer.
On Sunday, we harvested 90 lugs of grapes in 3 hours! The first hour, from 8-9 our friends came to help us lift the nets in the 8 rows. There was a short break at 9 and we gathered into two groups working from the south end to the north end in rows 1 to 4. We paired up where one person held the lug and the other person cut the grapes. We had two runners in each of the alleys watching for full lugs and swapping them out with empty lugs. My husband and two people were in the alley between the rows that people were working in. They would retrieve the full lugs from the runners and ensure that the lugs were full and stacked them. In this way, we were able to do 4 rows in 1 hour!

Once the group reached the north end, we shifted over to rows 5-8 and did the same process harvesting from the north end to the south end. When we were done, it was 11 a.m.! It was a gorgeous day and people stayed for lunch. My husband brought out a tasting of Chenin Blanc 2019 and 2020 so that people could taste the wine that was made from the grapes they harvested.
The next day, Monday, October 21, we went to Stonington Vineyards to take the 90 lugs of grapes for pressing. Mike McAndrew's crew, Jim and Dakota helped us load the press and by 8:30, the pressing was underway!
We took a sample of the juice and recorded the Brix, pH and TA.
I began writing this blogpost last week but a week has already gone by and another Chenin Blanc harvest occured on Sunday, October 27. It was another perfect morning with temperatures in the mid-50s and sunny. This time, our friends exceeded even last weeks' harvest record, picking 8-1/2 rows of Chenin Blanc by 10:35! I think we are on to something with this method! We celebrated the last big harvest with our friends. Brunch was served and sticking to tradition, we provided a sparkling wine to mark the occasion!
On Monday, October 28, we took the grapes to Stonington Vineyard and had it pressed. The pressing was done by 10:30 and we took the juice back to our industrial space at Taugwonk.
These are the numbers for the two Chenin Blanc harvests with a comparison to the original numbers taken on October 6.

Variety	Weight	Volume of Juice	Brix	pH	TA
Chenin Blanc-statistical sampling	NA	NA	17.0	3.0	NA
Chenin Blanc- Rows 1 to 8	1980 lbs	160 gallons	20.5	3.15	9.5 g/L
Chenin Blanc- Rows 9 to 17	1875 lbs	150 gallons	21.5	3.18	9.8 g/L

We hope people enjoyed being part of the harvest! We want to thank all of our friends who came to help! And a huge thank you to Mike, Jim and Dakota!

Dropping Unripe Chenin Blanc

We are seeing some strange behavior from our grape varieties this year. I wrote about the Mystery in the Vineyard where our Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Barbera leaves fell off. There is something else that we are noticing now that our Chenin Blanc harvest is coming up this Sunday, October 20 and the following Sunday, October 27.
On October 6, we picked a representative sample of Chenin Blanc from the 17 rows that we have. We split the sampling into the two clones, 982 and FPS-1. Both clones came in with numbers that were very low: 17 Brix and pH of 3.0. We decided then that we needed to drop some of the green berries in the rows. We began last week and saw many grape clusters that had brown peduncles and had shriveled and died on the vine. Along with those grapes, we saw many green bunches where the Brix ranged from 8-15 Brix. There were other grapes that were ripening normally and we think that in our sampling, we got a mixture of these green and ripe berries giving us an average Brix of 17.

The good news is that there is very little botrytis rot. We hope to finish dropping the unripe grapes by the time harvest approaches. After pressing, I will report the Brix, pH and TA. Stay tuned!

Winery Work is 90% Cleaning!

One thing that we learned at Jonathan Edwards when we made our wine there was that 90% of winery work is cleaning! We are learning that quickly as we try to set up our own process for making wine and racking wine.
In order to ferment the 2024 Auxerrois and Chardonnay juice that we brought back from being pressed at Stonington Vineyards, we had to first clean some barrels for the Chardonnay and then move the 2023 Chenin Blanc finished wine from the tank into barrels and kegs to free up the tank for the 2024 Auxerrois.
The steps involved:

• Making up the cleaning solutions
• Finding and cleaning the barrels and kegs that we thought the wine would go into
• Setting up the pump and the transfer lines
• Cleaning the barrels, kegs and lines

The above process is complicated in our space because we don't have drains in the floor. My husband devised a method by which we could work around this situation by contacting our Porta-Potty company who said that they would come to pump out the waste matter from an IBC tank that we would fill.
On October 2, we tested our process by cleaning two stainless steel barrels and then transferring our Chardonnay into the cleaned barrels. That took the better part of the afternoon into the early evening!
The following day, the Chardonnay was inoculated and the fermentation was started. Confident in our method, we tackled the 160-gallon tank that we had our 2023 Chenin Blanc in. We first cleaned a barrel and several kegs and the transfer from the tank to the barrel and kegs went smoothly.
Next came the task of cleaning the tank. One complication was that although we put in on-demand pressurized hot water, (please see our blogpost: Industrail Space Upgrade), we did not have any hot water!
We carried on and after the wine transfer, this is what the inside of the tank looked like. My husband washed it out with cold water and since we had a tea kettle, we made numerous pots of boiling water. You can see the progress in these photos:

The entire process of cleaning the tank took one hour! We think that the tank could have been cleaned in at least half the time if we had running hot pressurized water. However, we were really happy with the result. Clean tank!

Pressing Our Harvest at Stonington Vineyards

This year, we pressed our harvest at Stonington Vineyards. A few weeks prior to harvest day, we spoke with Mike McAndrews and asked if it was okay for us to bring our harvest and he agreed. It is always interesting to see how another vineyard has figured out their pressing process. Before harvest, Mike and my husband agreed that he would be bringing the harvest in lugs. Our friends stacked the grape filled lugs into the U-Haul my husband rented and it sat overnight until Mike was ready on Monday morning to receive it.
Mike and his crew, Jim and Dakota were ready at 7 a.m. and we were at Stonington Vineyards little after that. The U-Haul was backed up to their press on the loading dock and our friends Kim and Ted put the Auxerrois into the press.

The pressed juice then went into the FlexTank that my husband had in his truck and once the tank was filled, we drove it to our space at Taugwonk.

While we were transporting the filled tank, Jim and Dakota emptied the press, Kim and Ted filled the press with our Chardonnay harvest.

We got back to Stonington Vineyards in time to see the press being started for the Chardonnay. Kim and Ted were able to leave at 10:30!
That is efficient work!
We stayed and the Chardonnay pressing ended at 12:30. We transported the Chardonnay which ended up going into one full 80-gallon stainless steel tank and one partial 80-gallon stainless steel tank.
The statistics for our first harvest are:

Variety	Weight	Volume of Juice	Brix	pH	TA
Auxerrois	1695 lbs	135 gallons	19.0	3.5	6.6 g/L
Chardonnay	1562 lbs	125 gallons	20.4	3.41	9.8 g/L

On October 2, we racked the pressed Chardonnay juice from the two 80-gallon barrels into clean 80-gallon barrels, splitting the juice equally between the two barrels. We inoculated the Chardonnay with D47 yeast on October 3 at 11:30. By 6 p.m. we noticed action in our bubbler! We postulate that the pressed juice which we racked from the initial 80-gallon barrels to two 80-gallon barrels were already in some stage of native yeast fermentation. By October 4, the fermentation was going quite vigorously!
On October 4, we inoculated the Auxerrois which we had transferred from the FlexTank into a clean 630L Albrigi tank at 12:55. We used QA23 for this fermentation.
Both fermentations are going along well!
Thank you Kim, Ted, Mike, Jim and Dakota!

Vintage 2024: Our First Harvest

Our first harvest for Vintage 2024 occurred on Sunday, September 29. The call went out and 30 of our stalwart friends answered. A few of our friends came at 7:30 to help us raise the nets in 5 rows of Auxerrois and 8 rows of Chardonnay. The nets were raised by 9:45 and by 9:50 the harvesting commenced.
This year, we tried a new strategy. We divided our friends into two teams working two rows at a time. We had one of our friends in each of the rows with yellow lugs working as "runners". Our friends paired up with one person holding the lug and the other person cutting the grapes. This worked because truth be told, our crop was quite dismal.
We began in the Chardonnay with friends harvesting in rows 1 and 2 and in rows 3 and 4. My husband drove the tractor pulling the trailer in the alley between rows 2 and 3, with Barry collecting the full lugs.

Kim and Bob were the runners, ensuring that the lugs never got too full so that we could not hold them. The beauty of this method was many-fold. The lugs were never on the ground getting wet. We never had to bend up and down, putting the grapes in the lugs. The lugs were never left in the alley but immediately loaded on the trailer. By the timestamp on the pictures that my husband took, we began at 9:50 and finished at 11:00. That is 12 rows in a little over an hour!

Our friends took a mini-food break and were anxious to work on the 5 rows of Auxerrois. We employed the same method and the entire 13 rows of grapes were harvested by 12:15!
What did we do with the yellow lugs full of Chardonnay and Auxerrois? They were put into a U-haul that my husband rented.

No more stacking the yellow lugs on a pallet and wrapping the pallet with shrink wrap! We celebrated with a lunch of homemade butternut squash soup, foccacia, and salad as well as a sampling of our Auxerrois and Chardonnay wines. We want to thank all of our friends for helping us! Aloha!

Milestone in the Vineyard

Happy October 1st! This year marks a first in the vineyard. It is the first time that we were able to get all of the nets on all of our varieties before our first harvest! We finished dropping the nets on September 22!

With all of the nets protecting our grapes we were able to do something that is another first in the vineyard. With our friend, Laurie's help, we bagged 800 clusters of Chenin Blanc to be reserved for our botrysized, late harvest wine.

It will be interesting to see how these early bagged grapes turn into noble-rot infected grapes.
Meanwhile, we had our first harvest of Chardonnay and Auxerrois this past weekend. Details to follow.

2010 Brezza Cannubi Barolo

We got a windfall of green tomatoes from our friend Laurie and my husband looked around for a recipe that uses green tomatoes. He found a recipe at the New York Times which called for lamb chops. He made it a few nights ago and made a side of Israeli couscous. He brought out this 2010 Brezza Cannubi Barolo which our friends gave us to pair with the lamb. The barolo was the perfect pairing with notes of dried cherries, raspberries and spice.
Per my usual modus operandi, I looked on the Internet to find out more about this delicious wine. The Brezza Estate is located in Langhe in northwestern Italy, and extends over 31 hectares, of which 20 are vineyards, some dating back to 1885.¹
The property has taken its name from Giacomo Brezza, who with his father Antonio produced their first bottle in 1910. They are now in their fourth generation of growing grapes and making wine. Their annual production is approximately 100,000 bottles of wine made from local varietals including Dolcetto, Freisa, Barbera, and Nebbiolo.
The grapes are harvested in October, carefully hand selected in the vineyards and then transported to the winery in small plastic baskets. At the winery, the grapes are destemmed and put into temperature controlled stainless steel tanks where fermentation takes between 7-8 days with frequent pumpovers. The wine is then racked and put into cement vats to undergo malolactic fermentation (MLF). After the MLF is completed, the wine is moved into Slovian oak barrels where they will remain for 2 years. The final step is bottling, where the wine will spend 1 year in the bottles and then finally be ready for sale. Only 9,000 bottles of Cannubi Barolo is produced. The bottle we received from our friends is number 2680!

References:
1. Brezza.

Statistics for Our Varieties from 2019-2023

Today is the first day of fall! We are getting ready for our 2024 harvest. I thought I would look back at our previous harvests to get a shapshot view of each year's important statistics.
Auxerrois

Auxerrois	Harvest Date	Weight/ Lbs	Volume of Juice/ Gallons	Brix	pH	TA
2019	September 23, 2019	636	50	19.6	3.23	7.35 g/L
2020	September 27, 2020	1670	133	19.0	3.07	7.5 g/L
2021	September 28, 2021	1638	130	18.0	3.25	7.2 g/L
2022	September 25, 2022	3097	248	20.0	3.16	7.1 g/L
2023	October 1, 2023	500	40	18.8	3.36	6.5 g/L

Chenin Blanc

Chenin Blanc	Harvest Date	Weight/ Lbs	Volume of Juice/ Gallons	Brix	pH	TA
2019	October 14, 2019	3920	305	21.6	3.15	13.5 g/L
2020	October 11, 2020	8201	655	23.3	3.09	12.1 g/L
2021	October 17-18, 2021	6200	496	20.4	3.17	14.6 g/L
2022	October 16-17, 2022	4901	392	21.0	3.07	8.9 g/L
2023	October 22, 2023	1410	120	20.0	3.05	8.7 g/L

Chardonnay

Chardonnay	Harvest Date	Weight/ Lbs	Volume of Juice/ Gallons	Brix	pH	TA
2019	September 28, 2019	291	26	21.5	3.17	9.4 g/L
2020	September 24, 2020	1136	80	23.5	3.0	10 g/L
2021	October 3, 2020	2625	210	20.4	3.28	8.2 g/L
2022	October 2, 2022	2306	185	22.5	3.11	8-11 g/L
2023	October 5, 2023	500	40	18.8	3.4	10.0 g/L

Cabernet Sauvignon

Cabernet Sauvignon	Harvest Date	Weight/ Lbs	Volume of Juice/ Gallons	Brix	pH	TA
2019	November 3, 2019	332	30	19.0	3.25	11.1 g/L
2020	October 22, 2020	888	80	22.4	3.08	10.7 g/L
2021	October 24, 2021	561	45	20.1	3.07	10.4 g/L
2022	October 21, 2022	1300	104	21.0	3.26	NA
2023	October 31, 2023	369	30	18.8	3.15	10.4 g/L

Cabernet Franc

Cabernet Franc	Harvest Date	Weight/ Lbs	Volume of Juice/ Gallons	Brix	pH	TA
2019	October 26, 2019	377	32	23.0	3.23	11.3 g/L
2020	October 22, 2020	872	80	23.3	3.27	11.3 g/L
2021	October 24, 2021	402	32	19.8	3.2	7.4 g/L
2022	October 21, 2022	1200	96	22.0	3.27	NA
2023	October 31, 2023	369	30	20.4	3.24	7.9 g/L

Barbera

Barbera	Harvest Date	Weight/ Lbs	Volume of Juice/ Gallons	Brix	pH	TA
2022	October 21, 2022	600	48	22.5	3.0	NA
2023	October 31, 2023	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA

This overview is really helpful for us to be able to see how we did each year. This also reminds us that 2023 was a disastrous year with a freeze in February that killed primary buds and an advective frost that killed the south half of the vineyard.
It will soon be another harvest year to add to this list.

Auxerrois Ripening Numbers

Based on previous harvest dates, we "feel" that the Auxerrois is about ready to harvest. However, there is no getting around the fact that we need concrete numbers to decide when to harvest. So, yesterday, a representative sampling from the 5 rows of Auxerrois we have was collected and the juice was squeezed from the berries. Judging from the color of the juice, it seemed that the Auxerrois was not quite ready. Here are the numbers that we got from the tests:
Brix      17.5
pH      3.17
TA      7.6 g/L
There are nice days coming up in the week ahead, so we hope that we can accumulate a few more Brix.

Mystery in the Vineyard

We have a mystery in the vineyard. This year is very much like last year with respect to the amount of rain that we have been having. On the one hand, we don't have to irrigate, but on the other hand, with the rain and the sun, the amount of vegetative growth in our vineyard was out of control. While we did our best to control this growth and provide for air flow in the canopy, it was not enough to prevent the spread of downy mildew which we typically see in our vineyard.
This year, however, we are seeing somewhat of a puzzle. All of the varieties that are on the east side of the vineyard have really lost their leaves. This includes the Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Barbera. Coincidentally, when my husband sprays, he begins at the Chardonnay and goes east to the Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Barbera. So, for a while, we were thinking that there might be something in this order of spraying.
This weekend, while working with our friend Laurie, I showed her the difference in the canopy between the Chenin Blanc and the Chardonnay which is illustrated in the photo the below.

To me, this photo shows that no matter where the Chardonnay was growing, it experienced the same problem of loss of leaves as the Chardonnay planted together. To add to the mystery, this year, knowing that the Chardonnay is prone to downy mildew, we aggressively shoot thinned leaving only enough shoots to carry a nice load of grapes.
Right now, we are shrugging our shoulders wondering what we can do next year which might lead to a different outcome from the mystery we have in the vineyard this year.

Dinner with Friends and Wine

Recently, we had our globetrotting, wine-loving friends over for dinner. You have to catch them when they are a little stationary here in CT. Last year, they gave us a bottle of 2013 Bellefont-Belcier that they acquired from their trip to St. Emilion and we held it in our possession until we could have it with them with dinner. Chateau Bellefont-Belcier is a right bank Bordeaux, the wine is made of a blend of 77% Merlot, 15% Cabernet Franc, and 8% Cabernet Sauvignon.
The appropriate pairing for this Bordeaux is a nice steak and my husband really knows how to make steak! That was the simple decision but we also wanted to begin dinner with our 2019 Chardonnay and we decided on pairing the Chardonnay with a seafood vol a vent. The vol a vent was stuffed with shrimp and scallops.
Our main course was a smoked cowboy steak, fondant potatoes and a simple salad. For wine pairing, we had their 2013 Bellefont-Belcier and a 1997 Dunn Howell Mountain that my husband pulled out of his cellar with the idea of comparing a California wine with a French wine. It turned out that our friends are Dunn aficionados! They have been purchasing Dunn and have a vertical of the wines including a magnum of 1987, the year that they were married.

For dessert, we pulled out our 2021 botrysized late harvest Chenin Blanc of which we made eight 375 ml bottles. We paired the Chenin Blanc with three cheeses, manchengo, St. Andre and Cambozola. On the size we had honey, fig jam, fresh figs and grapes. (Unfortunately, I didn't take a photo of the cheese platter). We learned that all the cheeses are a great fit with the late harvest Chenin Blanc.
The evening passed all to quickly, with great friends, great conversation, wine and food. That was a recipe for an evening we will remember!

Vineyard Management Marathon

The Olympics inspired me to write this blogpost about the Marathon that is vineyard management. I came up with a heptathlon of activities that constitutes this marathon.
1-Spring Pruning

The first of the activities in spring is pruning. We try to begin spring pruning in February but it all depends on the weather. Since we are typically cold averse, it has to be above 30 degrees before we consider going into the vineyard to begin the first of the activities in the vineyard. This activity can take about a month so we are into March and sometimes April before all of the pruning is done.
2-Lowering Our Bird Nets

One thing that we did differently this year was to lower our bird nets and secure it with Velcro to our irrigation hose. We have always been meaning to do this because in past years, we are always pulling out shoots that have grown around the netting with their tendrils when they are left at a higher level on the trellis. This activity of pulling out the tendrils from the netting occupied most of the summer, with the last of the netting being lowered just in time for harvest! Not a very efficient use of time! We were able to lower the nets during March to mid-April.
3-Securing the Year's Fruiting Canes

This activity of securing the fruiting canes that were identified by pruning can take place concurrently with pruning so this year, we were done with pruning as well as laying down our fruiting canes by May 7th. Just in time for budbreak!
4-Shoot Removal

Soon after budbreak we are busy with shoot removal where we thin out the fruiting cane, leaving enough space between each shoot so that there is a good amount of airflow in the developling canopy.
5-Shoot Tucking

While we are busy with one area of the vineyard, doing shoot removal, other areas of the vineyard decide to grow uncontrollably. It wasn't too difficult this year since nearly every week we had a good amount of rain coupled with sunny (usually very hot and humid) weather. Shoots will grow!. There is nothing to do at this time but to suck it up and try our best at shoot removal and shoot tucking. Did I mention that it was easier to do this because our nets this year were no where near the growing canopy!
6-Hedging

Shoots are growing! While we shoot tuck we find ourselves needing to hedge! This year we had stellar help from our grandson who wielded an electric hedger. Along with my husband, they were able to hedge 5 rows of vines during the cool of the morning. Alas, our grandson had to go home but our granddaughter helped in other ways throughout the summer, lending a hand when needed and being in charge of mowing the vineyard!
7-Weeding and Deploying our Bird Nets

Now, we are at the present time. Last week, my husband weeded the vineyard and we raised the bird nests and deployed a few. The Auxerrois is the first to enter veraison, so those nets came down first and were closed with clothes pins and then the Chardonnay received the same treatment.
Although I categorized this marathon as a heptathlon, it can really be a decathlon since weeding occurs a few times during the growing season and mowing the vineyard is a weekly task. Next up is harvest!

2003 Robert Foley Claret

Recently, we had some friends over to celebrate a birthday. Our friend brought over this 2003 Robert Foley claret to pair with the pork loin roast that my husband made. Our other friend who is the queen of salad making brought over a delicious salad so the dinner came together quite seamlessly.
The 2003 Foley claret was delicious yet not unctious and was still tasting like a young wine, though it was now 20 year old! On the website Robert Foley Vineyards, provided some information about Robert Foley. His credentials include graduating from UC Davis in 1977 with a degree in Enology and Viticulture and working at Heitz. He is the founding winemaker of Markham Vineyards and Pride Mountain Vineyards. He began making his Robert Foley claret in 1998, which means that this bottle was his fifth vintage.
The wine was sparkling deep purple in the glass and had ample fruit but also cedar notes. Although the best pairing is with beef, the pork loin was a good foil. We all complimented our friend about how excellent the wine tasted!
One question I did have but could not find an answer to on the Robert Foley Website was about the label. It is so distinctive that I thought it must have a back story. Sadly, I could find no information about the label.
Update: I emailed Robert Foley asking about the back story on his wine label. He emailed me back! This is what he wrote: For the original label, 1998-2004 we used the Foley Family crest and coat of arms which includes the shield, helmet, pentafoils with the crest itself being the griffin atop the helmet. In 2005 we diminutized the label to be just the crest. We did a limited bottling of 20th Anniversary Claret and reverted to the old label.
It was so nice for Robert Foley to email me back! We further learned that his mother was raised in Milford, CT and lives there now. He also brought his harpsichord to Zuckerman's in Stonington to get it refurbished! I can only say that it is a very small world!

Chenin Blanc: Loire Valley

After two blogposts on the geology of the Loire river:

• Chenin Blanc: Geology of the Loire
• Chenin Blanc: Geology of the Three Major Geologic Regions

it's now time to focus on the Loire Valley, where the Loire empties into the Atlantic Ocean and where Chenin Blanc found it's home. Beginning at the Atlantic Ocean and traveling from west to east, the Loire can be broken up into three major regions: the lower region of Pays Nantais; the middle region of Anjou-Saumur and Touraine. The Centre region consists of Sancerre and Pouilly Fumé.
Here is a beautiful map of the Loire Valley Wine Regions:¹

Geography, soil and climate are the elements that make up the Loire Valley’s terroir. The soil varies from region to region and has a large influence on grape varieties and vine growing practices, but our focus is on Chenin Blanc. The Chenin blancs of Vouvray, produced on soft white tuffeau limestone, are dramatically different in style and weight from the Chenin Blancs of Savennières, an appellation in the Anjou where the earth is covered with slate and other metamorphic rocks. Here is a brief overview of the appellations where Chenin Blanc is grown in the Loire and some of the producers that make Chenin Blanc.²
Anjou

• Savennières appellation:
• The soil here is purple and green schist. Schist both retains and reflects heat which stabilizes the vines and will also cause the roots to go deep to find the natural spring water that runs under these vineyards
• It is a small appellation comprising 360 acres of vineyard and 36 winemakers, and the yields are minimal, one of the lowest in all of France
• Producers to seek out:
  Domaine du Closel
  Coulée de Serrant
  Chateau d'Épiré
  Domaine aux Moines

Samur

• The soil in Samur is limestone. Limestone is excellent for water retention, and vines are under less stress here. This characteristic makes the wine a bit juicier while showing an intriguing mineral salinity.
• Producers to seek out for Sparkling Chenin:
  Bouvet-Ladubay
  Domaine de Filliatreau
  Gratien & Meyer
• Producers to seek out for still Chenin:
  Domaine Arnaud Lambert
  Domaine des Roches Neuves

Touraine

• Vouvray
• The soil here is predominantly clay (limestone-clay or siliceous-clay) soils. The complexity of the Chenin wine is perfectly expressed on these clay soils.
• Chenin Blanc in this appellation comes in many variations, sparkling, dry, and off-dry to sweet wines. The white wines of Vouvray, dry or not, have an aging potential of 10, 20 years, and more.
• Producers to seek out:
  Champalou
  Domaine Huet
  

References:
1. Loire Valley Wine Tour, The Loire Valley Appellations.
2. The Road to Wine, Chenin Blanc - A Loire Valley Introduction.
3. Jamie Brown, A Beginner’s Guide to the Loire Valley and Its Iconic Wines, Wine Enthusiast.
4. Jon-David Headrick Selections, Geologgy and Geography of the Loire.
5. The Wine Doctor, LOIRE VALLEY WINE GUIDE: CHENIN BLANC.
Val de Loire.

Vintage 2024: How Can It Be August!

It's already August. We are in leaf pulling mode and are working on the Auxerrois which are the first grapes to ripen.

We went to the vineyard around 9:30 today and immediately upon getting out of the car, we were hit with saunalike temperatures. Our granddaughter and I leaf pulled one row of Auxerrois and called it a day!