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.