Wine Appreciation: Swirl, Sniff and Sip

I remember the first time I was given the challenge of swirling wine in a glass, my husband said, "We cannot go to the International Pinot Noir Conference if you don't know how to swirl wine in a glass." That was in 2006, nearly 20 years ago! I confess it took me awhile to master the art of swirling wine in the glass, but that is the first requisite for wine enjoyment.
In writing this blog, I checked the Internet and there are 5Ss to wine tasting and not the 3 that I am familiar with. The other 2Ss bookend the ones that I am familiar with so it goes: See, Swirl, Sniff, Sip and Savor. I agree. We do give the wine we are drinking a "see". We check the color of the wine regardless whether it is a red or a white wine, especially if it is an aged wine. The color of a wine can indicate many things even before the swirl. Swirling the wine releases the volatile components in a wine that contributes to the aroma that one perceives. After the appropriate swirl, the sniff, can reveal many different attributes of the wine. Then, the sip, how does the wine taste on the palate? If the wine lives up to expectations, the next step is to savor and enjoy!
Recently, we had a real life experience of another component to wine appreciation that may go neglected. It is just as important in wine tasting to serve the wine in the appropriate glass.

My husband and I did this test recently where we put the same wine in a conical glass and then a glass with a bowl. Even before the swirl, the conical glass made the wine mute, the glass with a bowl was already releasing some aromatics. It is much easier to swirl in a glass with a bowl than it is to swirl in a conical glass. After swirling, the aroma compounds in the wine were much more apparent in the glass with the bowl.
Lastly, regardless whether it is a white or a red wine, a well made wine will evolve throughout the drinking experience. If it is a white wine taken out from being chilled, a white wine will reach its sweet spot in temperature and be just delightful! So see, swirl, sniff, sip and savor!

Book Review: Napa The Story of an American Eden

In February, we visited Kelly and Bob Foley of Robert Foley Vineyards on Howell Mountain. We got there in the pouring rain but inside the tasting room, Kelly and Bob welcomed us warmly. We spent one hour telling stories and there were many! Bob was telling us about his love of Charbono after tasting an Inglenook Charbono in his formative years. He went to U.C. Davis and got a degree in Enology and Viticulture. Somehow Robert Mondavi's name came up and Bob told us that he went to school with one of the Mondavis and at that time they pronounced their name "Mon-day-vi". It was only after Robert Mondavi began his winery that Robert began to pronounce the family name "Mon-dah-vi".
After our trip to Napa, I decided that I needed to read more about Napa. Full disclosure, I have read Napa The Story of an American Eden once before and wrote about it, but in light of our recent trip to Napa, where we visited Bob and Kelly, I thought that it would be good to refresh myself by reading James Conoway's book again.
My first review was a general overview of the book. Since James Conoway begins by recounting how Jack and Jamie Davis were looking for a property to buy in Napa and then flashes back to some of the history, the read can be a little disorienting. I thought I would try to put some kind of chronology on the book by highlighting what I thought were some interesting facts about Napa.
Interesting tidbits from the book:

• Napa means grizzly, or harpoon point, or fish, or bounteous place
• George Calvert Yount, a trapper from North Carolina and the first white settler in Napa Valley, planted Mission vines bought from General Mariano Vallejo in Sonoma in 1838
• Agoston Haraszthy was a Balkan immigrant who started a winery in Sonoma, called Buena Vista, in 1856
• Wine was made commercially in Napa in 1858 by John Patchett
• Prussian immigrant and freethinker, Charles Krug, made wine in Napa three years after Patchett
• Beringer brothers from Germany, worked for Krug and in the late 1870s constructed their winery, tunneled into the mountain, and eventually built an elaborate seventeen-room mansion called the Rhine House
• Gustave Niebaum, a Finnish sea captain created an architectural wonder called Inglenook; Inglenook's first harvest was in 1882, Inglenook was one of the first wineries to put “Napa Valley” on its labels; Inglenook’s practice of vintage dating was also uncommon
• Hamilton Crabb as the owner of the To Kalon vineyard in Oakville
• J. Leland Stewart was the owner of Souverain Cellars on Howell Mountain
• Beaulieu Vineyard was owned by Georges de Latour and their enologist was André Tchelistcheff, in 1951 they hired Joe Heitz as assistant winemaker for $325 a month
• Tom (a du Pont) and his wife Martha May bought a vineyard from the Rhodeses and named it Martha’s Vineyard, in honor of his wife. Martha’s Vineyard produced some fine Napa Valley Cabernet grapes, which were sold to Joe Heitz

I was interested in reading about Joe Heitz because Bob said that he spent one year learning about vineyard and winery work from Joe. In reading the book, I also learned that Robert Mondavi did indeed change the pronunciation of his name to "Mon-dah-vi". There were many other interesting factoids in the book which I am thinking of summarizing in a future post.

2022 Sokol Blosser Dundee Hills Pinot Noir

Our son paid us a visit this past weekend so that he could get together with his friends and have a play date for his daughter, our 4 year old grand daughter. We met up for dinner which was moussaka, Greek salad and a nice Tuscan boule bread. Typically, when we have a Greek meal, our drink of choice is ouzo, which brings back wonderful memories of sunny Santorini. However, this evening, our son anted up a 2022 Sokol Blosser Dundee Hills Pinot Noir. I have to say, it went very well with the meal. The Pinot Noir was nice and smooth on the finish and tasted like a mature wine.

I wanted to find out more about this wine and looked on the internet and on the Sokol Blosser website was everything I wanted to know!
Here is the vintage notes from the 2022 Dundee Hills Pinot Noir:
What started as a dry winter turned into a deluge of rain in the springtime. We had the wettest and coldest April/May/June in recorded (130 years) history. Freezing temperatures on the morning of April 14th and 15th knocked back the fragile new growth and we thought our crop yields would be down by 50-60%. In over 51 years of growing grapes here in the Dundee Hills we have never seen a freezing event during the growing season, so we had no idea what was going to happen. The primary buds froze and died, but the secondary buds came on, produced fewer but larger clusters, and the vines made a miraculous comeback. We had the 2nd warmest and driest summer on record, and then we got to October. Everything depended on good ripening conditions in the month of October since bloom was much later. Fortunately we got the warmest October in Oregon history, we were able to let the grapes hang, and the rains stayed put until all our Estate fruit was in on Thursday, October 27th. The fruit got nice and ripe, and we are thrilled with the wine produced from this vintage!
As a grape grower, I really appreciated the vintage notes.
References:
1. Estate Pinot Noir Dundee Hills, Willamette Valley, Oregon 2022.

Streamlining Pruning Tasks in the Vineyard

It's taken many seasons and each year, we try to streamline our spring pruning duties in the vineyard. We begin by cutting the tops of last year's shoots which are now hardened canes. In the beginning, we would just throw the cuttings in the middle of the row and then come back to gather them up and take it out of the vineyard using a tarp. After a few years, we began piling the cuttings at each linepost to give us a visual guide as to where the cuttings were. This actually speeded up the process and then the big breakthrough came when my husband procured a sled from Alaska to remove the cuttings from each row.
This is a picture from last year where our friend Barry came to help my husband with the removal of all the cuttings.

Another thing that we implimented last year was to lower all of the nets to the lowest notch on our lineposts. Every year, we always talked about how we should be lowering our nets to make work easier for us during the growing season before we have to deploy our nets. The stumbling block was always "how would we secure the nets". The way we secured the nets had to be easy, preferrably not involving any cutting which might inadvertantly damage the netting. After much brain storming, we came up with velcro and that has made all the difference!

At the end of harvest last year we lowered the nets and velcroed the netting to each line post, which gave us a leg up on our pruning tasks this spring.
The first thing we did this spring was to remove all of the Agfast, the little black ties, shown circled in red in the picture above, that we put into the trellis to prevent the new shoots from growing into each other and to allow for airflow. In the past, it took an entire month to remove the Agfast, but with the nets in the low position, it made it possible to see where all those little black ties were and this year, it took us only 15 days to remove all the Agfast.
The next improvement in our method was the realization that we could cut last year's fruiting cane from this year's potential fruiting cane while leaving it still attached to the trellis. This pre-cut puts all of the energy of growth into the few remaining shoots!

The images above show our workflow. First, cut the tops off last year's growth, pile the cuttings at the linepost and then make a pre-pruning cut indicating what we will remove from the vineyard, leaving what we will use as this year's fruiting canes. We feel that this pre-pruning is important because as the vines begin to wake up, all of the energy of growth will go into the few canes that we have left. At the moment, 20 out of the 36 rows of vines have had this pre-pruning cut made.
After 13 years, we are feeling like we are finally getting the hang of being grape farmers!

Spring Sighting in the Vineyard

We are in the vineyard, doing our first prunings. While I am focussed on just pruning, my husband is pruning as well as watching out for interesting and unusual things in the vineyard. A few days ago, while we were working together, he came across the first ladybugs in our vineyard. The ladybug looked a little weird and was moving quite slowly. It had some yellow stuff on it's wings. Although it looked like pollen, when we took some close up shots of the ladybug, the yellow stuff looked like this:

At home, we learned that this lady bug was infected with the Hesperomyces virescens fungus and what we were seeing was the yellow fruiting bodies of the fungus. I came upon an excellent and freely available article called "Integrative taxonomy reveals hidden species within a common fungal parasite of ladybirds", that contained a very magnified view of the fungus:¹

This illustration shows that what we perceived as pollen were groups of the fungal thalli. The illustration on the left shows a single thallus in all it's magnified glory!
We speculate that these ladybugs overwintered in a sheltered place and were out in the spring weather. When and where they became infected with the fungus is a mystery but now we know that the yellow stuff on the ladybugs are fungi!
References:
1. Haelewaters, D., De Kesel, A. & Pfister, D.H., Integrative taxonomy reveals hidden species within a common fungal parasite of ladybirds, Sci Rep 8, 15966 (2018).

2016 Ashes and Diamonds Cabernet Franc

My husband was very interested in trying a bottle of Ashes and Diamonds and he got his hands on this 2016 Cabernet Franc.

His interest in this wine was peaked by the fact that Steve Matthiasson, one of their winemakers made this particular vintage. We do like the fact that the back label includes information such as the harvest date, pH, TA and winemaker. We tried to see Steve Matthiasson when we visited Napa recently, but had no luck.
My husband made his special smoked steak which we had with baked potato and a side salad. This wine already has some age on it which is very nice. To my palate it was still very young with a tannic finish. This particular wine was made from a blend of grapes from vineyards located in Los Carneros, Oakville Knoll and Yountville.
Ashes and Diamonds is located in Napa Valley.

Perhaps the next time that we are in Napa, we will put Ashes and Diamonds on our to-visit agenda.

Dinner with Friends

On Sunday, we attended a dinner that our friends had planned in order for my husband and another friend, Christy to talk about living in California in the early 70's. But, it became more than that. My husband made his salmon cakes for an appetizer and we had "slow" food. The conversation flowed and we enjoyed the evening.
Christy provided the wine for the meal which was grilled lamb chops, green beans almondine and crispy potatoes. We were treated to a 1993 Louis Jadot Chapelle Chambertin and a 2000 Chateau Pontet Canet. The ullage on the 1993 Louis Jadot was at the shoulder and the cork was pushed in a little, but the wine was still hanging in there tasting very much of burgundy. The 2000 Pontet Canet was still youthful, redolent with blackberries with a long finish.

Good friends, good food, good wine! You can never plan to have a memorable evening it just happens!

Vintage 2025: It's March and That Means It's Time to Prune

The weather is becoming warmer so there is no excuse! It's time to get to the vineyard and begin our pruning duties. The first thing to do is to trim off the tops of last year's growth.
When we went to the vineyard on Monday morning, we had some company.

It was Gavin from the tree trimming crew! He brought some big guns! Unfortunately, Gavin was not here to help us prune our vineyard. Gavin and Colton were here to trim up the trees that are currently dormant and very near the power lines owned by EverSource. While we were pruning, we were able to see Colton skillfully maneuvering the helicopter to get the saw to the trees near the powerlines. Colton and Gavin used our south field as a heliport. They were great! They let my husband take these movies of their operation. Here is Colton in the helicoptor:

That's Gavin, ground crew in blue and Colton, helicopter pilot in green. We enjoyed the diversion from our work, but now it is back to manual pruning for us!

SOMM TV: Liber Pater Wines

During the winter, (wait, it's spring!) we are engaged in our continuing education in wine. This past week, we were watching an episode of SOMM TV which featured the Liber Pater Wines. Loïc Pasquet is the winemaker at Liber Pater, but he insists that he is a vigneron. His claim to fame is that he is currently acknowledged as selling the most expensive wine in the world.
How did this come about? Just a litle bit of history. During the time of Napoleon III, when Napoleon commissioned the 1855 classification, the grapes were grown on pre-phylloxera soils. After phylloxera came to Europe and caused the near extinction of grape vines, in order to survive, almost all European grapevines were grafted on to American rootstock. Some claim that own-rooted vines have a different flavor profile than grafted vines.
Enter Loïc Pasquet! After pursuing engineering studies in Dijon, Pasquet became side-tracked by the world of fine wine, and most specifically by a desire to (re)discover the ancient grape varieties of pre-phylloxera Bordeaux. Guided by his mentor, Savoyard Michel Grigard, who was instrumental in bringing back Mondeuse, Altesse, and Jacquère to the Alpine vineyards, Pasquet began his quest to ressurect pre-phylloxera Bordeaux varieties such as Castet, Pardotte, Tarnay, Petite Vidure, Mancin, Camaralet, and Saint-Macaire. To date, Pasquet has “exhumed” 14 varieties in total!¹
Pasquet identified the small commune of Ladiras with its “magnificent gravel outcrop” and excellent drainage, and a “cocktail of sandy topsoil” as an excellent location to grow his own-rooted vines.
Pasquet farms two plots, Liber Pater and Denarius. Pasquet says that both Liber Pater and Denarius wines are 100 percent ungrafted, organic, and made with native grape varieties. Of his two vineyards, he says that, in the Denarius vineyard, “we have more clay, so the wine is very soft, while Liber Pater is very elegant, more for the gods.” ²

What is it that is so unusual about Loïc Pasquet wines? The main grape variety used in both Liber Pater and Denarius is Petite Vuidure, an old name for Cabernet Sauvignon. It is blended with the nearly extinct varieties Mancin, Castets, Saint-Macaire, Pardotte, Gros Cabernet, and Cabernet Goudable, as well as Tarnay Coulant.
After the 2015 vintage, the wines at Liber Pater are being made from 100 percent native varieties and 100 percent ungrafted vines (Franc de Pied). Pasquet produces only 500 bottles a year. Some years he doesn't make any wine from Liber Pater. What will a bottle of Liber Pater cost you? $33,000.00! Pasquet will say that what he is offering is time traveling in a glass. An opportunity to taste a wine that Napoleon III might have enjoyed from a pre-phylloxera, own rooted vineyard.
Is this resurrection of ancient varietals on own rooted vines enough to justify the price? I for one will never know. Sad.
References:
1. Simon Field, Liber Pater: The shock of the old, The World of Fine Wine, August 17, 2023.
2. Mike DeSimone and Jeff Jenssen, Why a $33,000 Wine Made From Rare Grapes Is Polarizing the Wine World, Robb Report, October 27, 2024.

What is Auxerrois?

We grow Auxerrois in our vineyard. Many people are not familiar with this grape variety, so I thought I would do a little research and blog about it. The name itself can be pronounced as either "awk-ser-WAH" or "oak-sair-wah" or even "oh-sehr-WAH". Genetic testing suggests that Auxerrois is a sibling of Chardonnay, both being offspring of Pinot Noir and Gouais Blanc.
Auxerrois can be found in France, Germany, Austria, Italy, and Luxembourg with a handful of plantings in North America and South Africa. In the United States, Auxerrois has found a home in Oregon and on the Leelanau Peninsula located on the 45th Parallel.
In our vineyard, the Auxerrois is not the first variety to budbreak in the spring. However, the Auxerrois is the first to ripen and the first grape that we harvest. We watch the Brix and when it gets to around 17, we also test for the pH and the total acidity. We want to be able to keep the acidity so that the Auxerrois is nicely balanced.

As far as we know, we are the only vineyard and winery on the east coast growing and making Auxerrois wine.
References:
1. Layla Schlack, Understanding Auxerrois Wine, Wine Enthusiast, October 17, 2023.
2. Aurora Cellars, Discovering Auxerrois: A Hidden Gem in the World of White Wine,

Racking Our 2022 Auxerrois

This past week, we racked our 2022 Auxerrois from the four stainless steel barrels that they were in, into a 240 gallon IBC tank with fittings. Before racking the wine, we tasted the wine from each barrel and they were slightly different in aromas and flavors so racking and blending the wines is a good thing to do.
The 2022 Auxerrois had the following numbers:

Variety	Harvest Date	Weight	Volume of Juice	Brix	pH	TA
Auxerrois	September 2, 2022	3097 lbs	248 gal	20.0	3.16	7.1 g/L

The wine coming through the site-glass was clear and light yellow in color. The racking of the four barrels took about one hour. We think we ended up with approximately 225 gallons in the holding/mixing tank. The cleaning of the barrels took another 3 hours. As is always the case, the cleaning takes much more time than the time spent actually working with the wine! While we cleaned the barrels, I noticed that the tartrate crystals coming out of the barrels were the largest that I have ever seen!

Of all of the vintages of Auxerrois that we have harvested and made into wine, the 2022 has been the most abundant. We are crossing our fingers that this year we will have another year as good as our 2022.

Robert Foley Makes Charbono Wine

When we visited to Kelly and Robert Foley, he told us that one of the wines that he has a special affinity for is Charbono. I had never heard of the grape variety before, so Bob told his story. The entire reason why he entered the wine making business was the memorable 1968 Inglenook Charbono that he drank when he was a youngster (age withheld to protect the innocent). After that, Bob was hooked and when a friend of his father's urged him to get an Enology and Viticulture degree, he went to U.C. Davis and did just that. After graduating, he worked with Joe Heitz at Heitz Cellars and was the founding member of Markham. He also spent 15 years as the winemaker at Pride Mountain. He was encourage by Pride Mountain to begin his own label and the rest is history.
We tasted his 2020 Charbono. It was delicious and appealed to our palate.
Bob said that the Charbono grape comes from Savoie in eastern France. Italian immigrants brought the Charbono to California but they called it Barbera.
In the late 1930s Dr. Harold Olmo, a UC Davis geneticist, determined that what was thought to be Barbera was actually Charbono. Professor Carole Meredith of UC Davis and her research team determined by DNA testing in 1999 that "the Charbono of California is the French variety Corbeau. Corbeau is associated with the Savoie region of France. One of its synonyms is Charbonneau, and it also has been called Douce Noire.
In France and Italy the Charbono grape is a desirable addition to many blends, imparting a deep, rich color, tannins and fruit. It gives a good "middle finish" to the wines.¹
In 1989, Inglenook had 35 acres planted to Charbono. Inglenook bottled it's first Charbono in 1941. Currently, here are less than 65 acres planted to Charbono in the Napa Valley, making it a very rare varietal wine.¹
In 2022, Brian Freedman wrote, Everything You Need to Know About Charbono and listed Robert Foley's Charbono as one of the most important producers of Charbono in California, and this bottling is, vintage after vintage, one of the more consistent and exciting.²
You can be sure that we ordered a few bottles of the 2020 Charbono and are anxiously awaiting the shipment!
References:
1. Patricia Savoie, Wine Business Monthly, Charbono, May 17, 2003.
2. Brian Freedman, Food & Wine, Everything You Need to Know About Charbono, July 5, 2022.

Visit to Napa Valley

This past week, before we visited my husband's sister in Grass Valley, we took a half day excursion to Napa Valley. It has really been a very long time since we went to Napa.

We came in from the south end of Napa and saw this iconic statue:

It was raining when we got there and where there is rain, there is a rainbow!

The rained pooled in the vineyards on the valley floor:

Our first and only destination for the day was the Robert Foley Winery located in Angwin on Howell Mountain. We wanted to go there because having tasted his 2003 Robert Foley Claret and learning that his mother lived in Milford, CT and he had a harpsichord that he took to Zuckerman's (right down the road from our home) for repairs, it seemed as if there was a cosmic connection. We made arrangements before hand and Kelly was nice enough to have Bob fly out of South Carolina the evening before so that we could meet him in the morning.
Did I say that it was raining in Napa? Driving up Howell Mountain was a little treacherous as the rain swelled the stream and some branches of trees seemed to have come down and in the process of being washed away.
As we let ourselves in past the open gate that led to the winery, Kelly pulled up in her car and we followed her the short distance. Bob came out to greet us and for the next hour, we had a great time talking about anything and everything, including Kelly and my husband's love of cooking.
At 10:30, we were joined by a couple, Mike and Anna from Maryland. We tasted 8 wines! The six shown below as well as a 2019 Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon and their port, Conclusao. All of their wines were delicious! We really liked the Charbono. Bob told us the history of how he came to acquire a vineyard in Napa that was growing this unique grape.

All too soon, the time with Bob and Kelly came to an end. I took a photo of his crush pad:

Bob and Kelly were such gracious hosts! We enjoyed our time with them and hope that they will take us up on our offer to visit us when they come to the East Coast. Thank you so much Kelly and Bob!

Vintage 2025: February Notes

I can't believe that I missed writing a Vintage 2025: January Notes! It is already February in the new year and as Punxsutawney Phil's prediction for 2025, we are going to have 6 more weeks of cold weather. We recently had our first major snowfall along the coast and had another snowfall that began on Wednesday evening, February 12 and continued into Thursday morning.
This week continues with temperatures that hover in the high twenties to the high thirties. However, by next Monday we should see temperatures in the forties and that means it will be time to get back in the vineyard to begin pruning!

Tasting Our 2024 Late Harvest Chenin Blanc

Our 2024 late harvest Chenin blanc is coming along on it's tragectory to being bottled shown in the pictures below.
We tasted it and thought it was balanced with stone fruits like apricots, and honey with a long finish punctuated with acid. While we did do a taste test we still need to check the level of residual sugar that is left in the wine.
The color in the glass was a pale yellow (shown in the photo below).
The photo on the right shows the color of our 2023 late harvest Chenin blanc at the same time a year ago, February 2024 for comparison.
The color in the carboy is very similar to our 2024 late harvest seen in the photo below.
We will continue to monitor and taste the wine until the wine tells us that it's time for bottling.

Happy Valentines Day to You!

Happy Valentines Day from Passionfruit Estate to you!

Meeting With the Crew from Veritable

Recently, (February 6) we met with the crew from Veritable because we wanted them to see our operation at Taugwonk and also to share some of our wine and the rum we brought back from Hawaii. Jacob, Finn, Damien and Joel came.

We showed them around our facility and answered some of questions that they had about fermentation. It turns out that although fermentation begins in a similar way with making beer, Joel is in charge of that, in making wine, we let the carbon dioxide escape while in making beer, trapping the carbon dioxide is critical to the carbonation that is part of beer.
We then had them taste our 2019 Chenin Blanc. We also opened up a 2019 Late Harvest Chenin. We moved on to the Ko Hana rum that we brought back from Hawaii and tasted it with the Manoa Ko Hana chocolate.

The Ko Hana was very smooth and went perfectly with the chocolate. It was easy to take small sips of the rum and chase it with a bit of chocolate.
Fin explained to us that the word Agricole is a French term that means rum made from sugar cane juice and not from the byproduct of sugar production which was molasses. Fin said that Napoleon had a lot to do with the rise of Rum Agricoles.

References:
1. Pierini, Marco, "A History of French Rum 5. Napoleon, Sugar Beet And Rum, The Rum University, October 22, 2019.

The Mission Grape at Mission San Gabriel

My husband has us subscribed to SOMM TV this winter and it is really interesting to watch the various shows on this program. One of the episodes that peaked my interest was about the Mission Grape planted at Mission San Gabriel in Los Angeles.
I have blogged about the Mission grape before in Red Grapes of California and California's First Woman Vine Grower and Two Horticultural Wonders.
This episode featured Terri Huerta, the Director of Development and Communications at Mission San Gabriel and the vine growing on the property known as the Mother Vine or Trinity Vine. From photographic evidence it was deduced to have been in existence as far back as 1765.¹

In the 1830s the vineyard at Mission San Gabriel had expanded to more than 170 acres producing as much as 50,000 gallons of wine per year! As Pierce's disease and Prohibition took its toll on grapevines, they fell into neglect with the exception of this Mother Vine that survived due to it's proximity to an underground aquifer.
In 2020, Huerta reached out to three Los Angeles winemakers Jasper Dickson and Amy Luftig from Angeleno Wine Company, Mark Blatty from Byron Blatty Wines and Patrick Kelley of Cavaletti Vineyard to see if they could propagate the vine. The winemakers noticed the grapes growing on the old vine and came up with the idea to make wine from one of the oldest grapevines planted in California.²
Harvest day came on November 3, 2024. Volunteers with BYOL (Bring Your Own Ladders), reached up to the grapes growing on a pergola. ³

Volunteer Jossalyn Emslie was enthusiastic about her participation in the harvest, saying that she was hooked. Nearly 400 pounds of grapes were harvested.

From this bounty, Dickson, Blatty and Kelley used a recipe found in the old Mission records and made their version of Angelica. The winemakers decided to use the Solera system, which is generally used in Sherry production to blend wines across vintages. Older wines add depth and complexity, and younger wines add acidity and freshness. For the Angelica, juice from the 2021, 2022 and 2023 vintages were combined with the initial wine from 2020.⁴
As the harvest ended, a bottle of Angelica, with a depiction of the Mother Vine as the label, was served to the harvesters. The volunteers sipped beneath grape leaves that swayed in the cool breeze, noting the sweet and fruity nature of the wine.

Post Script: Something I learned about the Mission grape. From DNA tests conducted in 2014, the grape vine at Mission San Gabriel is a hybrid betweenVitis girdiana, a wild grape native to Southern California, and Vitis vinifera.¹ The Mission grape is a prolific varietal that originated in the Castilla - La Mancha region of Spain and brought to California by the Franciscan Friars.
The Mission Grape is also known as Listán Prieto in Spain, as Criolla Chica in Argentina and Pais in Chile.


References:
1. Scerra, Jennifer, "The Unfurling Story of the Homestead’s Grapevines", The Homestead Museum, May 27, 2020.
2. Snyder, Garrett, "Wine from the ‘Mother Vine’: A trio of L.A. winemakers are harvesting historic grapes at San Gabriel Mission", Los Angeles Times, October 9, 2020.
3. Romano, Natalie, "How ‘Angelica’ was born: Winemakers honor San Gabriel Mission", Angelus, November 21, 2024.
4. Duzdabanyan, Ani, "Los Angeles wineries release bottling from 18th century vine", Decanter, November 29, 2023.
5. Agran, Libbie, "The Mission Grape – Five Centuries of History in the Americas", Wine History Project, February 25, 2021.

2024 Chenin Blanc and SAD: Part Three

This is the final blog detailing the problem we had with our 2024 Chenin Blanc experiencing a sugar accumulation disorder (SAD) and suppression of uniform ripening (SOUR) problem.
The first blog 2024 Chenin Blanc and SAD: Part One was an overview of the grape ripening disorders that can occur.
2024 Chenin Blanc and SAD: Part Two focussed on sugar accumulation disorder (SAD) and suppression of uniform ripening (SOUR) both classified as grape ripening disorders that occur shortly after the resumption of ripening in stage 3.
In order to discover why the grape berries stopped accumulating sugar, the authors of the article noticed that:¹

• Once initiated, the impaired sugar import into the berries triggers downstream effects on primary and secondary metabolism before the visible symptoms of berry shrivel (BS) appear
• BS berries remained low in K+ (which, like sucrose, is imported via the phloem) and pH
• BS berries showed a higher total acidity in BS berry juice, possibly due to a concentration effect of less turgescent berries
• There may be a genotype that succumb to BS, which includes varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Blauer Zweigelt, Pinot noir, Pinot blanc, Durif, Sémillon, Sauvignon blanc, Grüner Veltliner, Nebbiolo, Chasselas, Humagne rouge, Gewürztraminer, Melon, Merlot, and Cornalin

BS is associated with major shifts in primary and secondary metabolism at the transcriptional level, resulting in distinct metabolic profiles. The authors made the following observations between healthy and BS affected berries:

• The brush, an opaque flesh consisting of vascular tissues in healthy berries, remains attached to the pedicel when the berry and pedicel are pulled apart; in contrast, the brush lacks flesh when BS berries are removed
• In BS berries, a higher percentage of cell death is observed near the seeds in the inner mesocarp
• In BS-afflicted clusters, the extent of the plugging of sieve tubs is much greater than in healthy berries

While the authors made all of these observations, they were uncertain as to the cause of the BS in the grape berries, they could only point to a disturbance in the onset of ripening.
I still found this an interesting review article to read. We will certainly be on the look out for SAD and SOUR in our grapes during the coming season.

References:
1. Griesser M, Savoi S, Bondada B, Forneck A, Keller M. Berry shrivel in grapevine: a review considering multiple approaches. J Exp Bot. 2024 Apr 15;75(8):2196-2213. doi: 10.1093/jxb/erae001. PMID: 38174592; PMCID: PMC11016843.

2024 Chenin Blanc and SAD: Part Two

Recently, I blogged about 2024 Chenin Blanc and SAD: Part One. This post is a continuation with the goal of trying to figure out what causes impaired sugar import into the grape berries. Sugar accumulation disorder (SAD) and suppression of uniform ripening (SOUR) are both classified as grape ripening disorders.
In order to understand why SAD and SOUR can occur in grapes, we have to go back to how grapes ripen since these disorders occur shortly after the onset of ripening. After fruitset and the first growth stage, the grapes enter into a lag phase before véraison. This progression of first growth, lag phase and véraison in grapes is characterized by a double-sigmoid curve, which is best summarized by this graphic:

For additional information about grape berry ripening, please check out this post: Grape Berry Development - Heading into Véraison.
Ripening involves higher levels of abscisic acid (ABA), brassinosteroids, and ethylene. Grapes affected with SAD or SOUR exhibit the following symptoms:

• Grape berries look deflated
• Reduced berry weight, symptoms appear shortly after onset of ripening
• Low (10–13 °Brix) due to arrested phloem influx
• Titratable acids often high due to berry dehydration
• Tartaric and malic acid content per berry not changed; oxalic and citric acid reduced
• Most amino acids reduced; higher hydroxyproline, arginine, and alanine
• Low yeast-assimilable N, K+, and other nutrients; low K+ in rachis and pedicels
• Low anthocyanins, genes for biosynthesis delayed; elevated skin tannins
• Rachis and pedicels are green and show no symptoms

Here are pictures of unripe Chenin blanc that we dropped prior to our harvest. Many of the grapes did have low °Brix that we checked for using our hand held refractometer or by taste test. The rachis and the pedicels did appear green so that did not help us in the culling but in the process of dropping nearly one ton of grapes, we were able to hone in on which bunches were likely to be affected with SAD and SOUR.

Next blogpost will be on the possible causes of SAD and SOUR mentioned in the review.
References:
1. Griesser M, Savoi S, Bondada B, Forneck A, Keller M. Berry shrivel in grapevine: a review considering multiple approaches. J Exp Bot. 2024 Apr 15;75(8):2196-2213. doi: 10.1093/jxb/erae001. PMID: 38174592; PMCID: PMC11016843.

A Visit to Ko Hana Agricole

Full disclosure, we were in Hawaii recently and went to visit the Ko Hana Agricole. We were interested in this distillery for two reasons, (1) our neighbors at the Taugwonk Facility are rum distillers and (2) we watched an episode of Taste Makers that featured the Ko Hana distillery. The distillery is located in Kunia, on Oahu.

We signed up for their tour and was met by Chiffon, who took us on the winery tour. Their name is Hawaiian for Ko "sugar" and Hana "work. She explained that they grow around 34 varieties of sugar cane that was brought over by the Polynesians when they came to Hawaii. Outside of their tasting room, they grow the various sugar cane that they use in their rum.
We then went into their barrel room where Chiffon explained the various barrels that were used to age the rum.

As we exited the barrel room, we were fortunate enough to see some fresh pressed sugar cane juice being pumped into their outdoor tanks, where it is fermented. After fermentation, the alcohol is put through the distiller. There are various cuts that are made in order to get just the most concentrated portion that would be free of other products such as methanol and ethyl acetate.

Then it was time for the tasting! It's very difficult "taste" rum so what I did was merely to sniff the rum and very carefully take a very small sip.

I learned that the Ko Hana rums come directly from the sugar cane juice, as opposed to other rums that come from molasses. Chiffon explained that there are only three ingredients that go into the making of a Ko Hana rum: cane juice, a special yeast selected to ferment cane juice and water.
We enjoyed our visit and came home with a souvenir that we plan to share with Veritable Distillers.

2024 Chenin Blanc and SAD: Part One

Earlier this month I blogged about our grapes being affected with late bunch stem necrosis along with this disorder, we believe that our Chenin blanc also suffered from sugar accumulation disorder (SAD).
I found this reference online which may address the problems we saw last year. The artcle was written in 2024 and is a review entitled, "Berry shrivel in grapevine: A review considering multiple approaches".
It is an excellent and thorough review. One of the illustrations explained how the various grape ripening diseases are related.¹

The diseases shown in the diagram include the following:

• Berry shrivel (BS)
• Sugar accumulation disorder (SAD)
• Bunch stem necrosis (BSN)
• Late season dehydration (LSD)
• Berry splitting
• Sunburn

These disorders are all classified as grape ripening disorders. What we observed in our Chenin blanc was definitely a sugar accumulation disorder. Shortly after harvesting our Auxerrois and Chardonnay, we did a comprehensive sampling of the Chenin blanc and came up with 17 Brix. We noticed that while some of the Chenin had reached 20 Brix, many bunches were lagging behind and were only at 14 Brix. According to the review this sugar accumulation disorder (SAD) is also known as suppression of uniform ripening (SOUR).
The findings reported in this review stated that the lack of sugar accumulation maybe the result of cell death in the berries, most commonly around the central vascular bundles proximal to the seeds, and may or may not progress to the pedicel and rachis. The cause of this cell death remains unknown but leads to impaired sugar import into the berries.
The review then goes into the current science that might help us to understand the causes of SAD, to be continued in Part Two.
References:
1. Griesser M, Savoi S, Bondada B, Forneck A, Keller M. Berry shrivel in grapevine: a review considering multiple approaches. J Exp Bot. 2024 Apr 15;75(8):2196-2213. doi: 10.1093/jxb/erae001. PMID: 38174592; PMCID: PMC11016843.

2023 Clos Henri Sauvignon Blanc

We have been fans of Henri Bourgeois Sancerre for awhile now and really enjoyed his Les Demoiselle. We were intrigued to learn that he had purchased land in New Zealand in order to grow Sauvignon blanc there.
The Bourgeois family estate in Sancerre has been passed down through 10 generations. In 2000 Jean-Marie and the late Rémi Bourgeois decided to establish their vineyard in the Wairau Valley with the intention of growing Sauvignon blanc and Pinot noir. The soils in the Wairau Valley reminded them of their own terroir in Sancerre. I wondered what this wine would taste like? Would it be the ethereal expression of the Les Demoiselle or would it embody the New Zealand signature? I have to say that the Clos Henri is really a wine that speaks to the terroir in New Zealand. I do enjoy the New Zealand style Sauvignon blanc because on my palate I get passionfruit and not grassy flavors. We had this Clos Henri with Japanese tonkatsu and it paired very well.

2020 Passionfruit Estate Auxerrois

We recently tried our 2020 Auxerrois that was bottled at Jonathan Edwards Winery. We are trying to see what foods will go well with this wine. Auxerrois is a sibling of Chardonnay, both according to DNA analysis descend from a cross between Pinot noir and Gouais blanc.
The wine was pale yellow in the glass. This wine, while related to Chardonnay exhibits a very different flavor profile. We whole cluster press the grapes and then ferment it in stainless steel barrels where it sits on lees for at least a year.

Here are some numbers from this vintage:

Variety	Harvest Date	Brix	pH	TA g/L	Lbs	Gals	# Cases 750 mL	# Cases 375 mL
Auxerrois	9/17/2020	19.0	3.07	7.5	1670	133	36	21

We feel that the Auxerrois is a good pairing with Asian food. We made eggplant kabayaki. This is eggplant cooked to resemble the teriyaki style Japanese unagi (eel). The pairing went very well! The side was bok choy that was blanched in boiling water then sauteed with sesame oil with a light teriyaki sauce. While the bok choy did not clash with the Auxerrois, we thought that the sesame oil over powered the flavor of the Auxerrois. My husband liked the eggplant made this way. We will try another side that might be a better match in our quest to find the perfect Auxerrois-food pairing.

Hyperoxidation in Our Pressed Chardonnay Juice?

Today, I am looking back at our 2024 Chardonnay harvest and pressing. We pressed our 2024 Chardonnay on Monday, September 30, the juice was left in the press pan until there was enough to pump over into our transport barrels. During that time, the juice turned a dark brown color, despite the fact that my husband added potassium metabisulfite to the pressed juice. I recognized it as oxidation, but was it hyperoxidation?

Hyperoxidation is a winemaking practice that involves forced oxidation of white juice prior to fermentation in order to reduce the phenolic content of the juice which can be bitter and lead to astringent wines.¹ If hyperoxidation is used on the juice, the result is juice that is black in color. This technique originated in Burgundy sometime in the early 20th century.
Since we did not add more oxygen into the juice by using a diffuser, our juice did not qualify as hyperoxidized juice, however it was much darker in color than we usually see in our pressed juice.
I remembered a Chardonnay that we tasted in January 2023, during our Great Chardonnay Tasting when we sampled a wine called 00 from Oregon's Willamette Valley made by Chris and Kathryn Hermann using hyperoxidation. Double Zero’s Chardonnay is picked fully ripe, but at relatively low sugar levels, and the whole clusters are foot-crushed, chilled and macerated overnight. It then sees a long “heavy press cycle” with no sulfur additions. The must goes into the press pan and immediately turns dark brown to black through oxidation of the molecules from the skins.
This hyperoxidation technique used by 00 is to maximize the extraction of phenolics from the skins and seeds making the oxidized phenols fall out of suspension. The resultant clear juice is put into barrels, leaving behind the gross lees, and fermented with native yeast and then aged.
The result is a wine that retains all of the complex aromatics, flavors and texture from the phenols—is astonishingly oxidation-resistant and fresh. The top wines develop for 18 months in barrel, gaining in complexity and richness of texture through contact with the thick layer of lees.²
This is a picture of the 00 juice in the press pan which looks very much like the color of our pressed juice:

Recently we went back to sample our 2024 Chardonnay. The color was pale yellow in the glass and the aromatics were reminiscient of tropical flowers. The favors were of honey and pineapple. We will continue to leave our wine on the lees and monitor it's evolution. This wine seems to have a different flavor profile from other Chardonnays that we made. It could be the result of the juice browning, dropping out some of the oxidated phenols.
Here is a picture of our 2024 Chardonnay in the glass:

References:
1. Australian Wine Research Institute, Winemaking Treatments - Hyperoxidation.
2. The Rare Wine Company, Double Zero Chardonnay.

Retrospective Analysis of Vineyard Problem in 2024

All growing years are never the same and 2024 was another year to learn yet another lesson in viticulture. The summer was warm with a rain event almost every week, which in any other year is a welcomed event, saving us from having to irrigate the vineyard. However, the warmth and the rain caused our vines to grow uncontrollably and probably lead to what we began to observe in the vineyard. Here are some photos of the grapes as they matured through veraison.

There may be more than one problem going on here but a few of the symptoms suggest that our grape bunches suffered from something called late bunch stem necrosis(LBSN).¹
LBSN is a complex physiological disorder of grapevines, where the bunch stems (rachises) shrivel during ripening, followed closely by berry shrivel. The cause of this shriveling may be due to environmental stresses that causes the vine's xylem that transports water and nutrients, to shut down. Without a working xylem network, water and nutrients do not get to the grape bunches leading to the shriveling.
In reading this article on LBSN, one thing stood out that might have relevance to our situation: Aerial roots (roots forming on the cordons) can happen in response to winter injury, late frost damage, or excessively wet, humid conditions. While they do not negatively affect the plant, they do serve as a useful clue that the vine is experiencing these conditions.
We did observe aerial roots in many of our vines. In 2023, we had a late frost event on May 18th that decimated the south half of our vineyard. In 2024, we noticed that the north half of the vineyard fared better than the south half, being able to ripen the grape bunches. So it could be that our vineyard was still trying to recover from the damage done in 2023. The aerial roots and the berry shriveling were the visual cues that indicated a stressed vine.
We wait with anticipation as to what lessons Mother Nature has in store for us in the vineyard this year.
References:
1. Amaya Atucha, Berry Shriveling in Grapes: Late Bunch Stem Necrosis, UW-Madison Department Horticulture, September 13, 2019.