Harvest at Joe The Wino's In the Time of Drought

The best harvest party in all of San Diego County was at Joe the Wino’s estate of course where as many as two hundred volunteers assembled shortly after dawn for a champagne toast and a quick lesson in grape picking 101.

“This is a clipper,” said Joe, “And this is your finger. May the two never meet in our vineyard.”

“Amen,” rejoined the crowd.

“If you see a raisin, think of it as a sugar pill that will enhance the fermentation – put it in the bucket,” Joe said. “Try to keep the leaves out and just pick everything you see. We have a team of quality control experts who will inspect every grape before it goes in.” Joe raised his glass of Dom Perignon champagne and the assembled raised their cups of Costco sparkling wine. “May you have fun, be safe, and let the harvest begin. Cheers!”

“Cheers!” And the herd downed their glasses picked up buckets and clippers and headed out into the vines.

This event – a social high point for the year for many attendees as Joe the Wino opened his wine cellar to any and all of legal age (to the consternation of Janet who used her best efforts to cut costs and even suggested substituting fish bait for the salmon roe that decorated the canapés) was the pinnacle of country living and quite possibly one of the last bastions of free love for adults of a certain age in San Diego.   Marriages resulted from couples who had met at the harvest party. A gal might walk up to a guy and ask “May I pick with you?” while a guy might ask a gal with a heavy bucket of grapes at her feet, “May I carry that for you?” And then they would chat while picking or carrying and find out they had something in common and a bottle of wine later new friendships were sealed under the olive grove adjacent to the vineyard and promises were made. And lest anyone forget the venue’s mantra a sign at the top of the vineyard proclaimed “Zero to Naked in 1.2 Bottles of Wine.”  For a day at least Bacchus and Venus ruled and Fidel was left with the task of picking up panties and thongs from the vineyard floor the next work day.

Fidel – wearing a freshly ironed black eye patch over the eye he lost - was commander of the Gator during Harvest – that is, Joe the Wino’s Gator – driving it as his own. He slammed on the breaks and skidded to a halt two feet behind Bootlegger’s knee. “Que pasa amigo?!” he called.

“Amigo my ass. How are you?”

“Fine. Did you get a new dog?”

“No, but I got a coyote. He’s eating my grapes. At first, I thought it was you stealing my grapes, but I found out it was a coyote.”

“They don’t eat grapes.”

“They don’t eat your grapes because yours are no good. They love our grapes because they’re delicious.”

“You should put water out for him, he’s thirsty.” Fidel always left buckets of fresh water out for the coyotes, so they wouldn’t chew through the irrigation drip lines of his clients.

“He ignores the water and eats the grapes.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Shoot it.”

“Can I shoot it for you?”

“No.”

Fidel was disappointed and he shot Bootlegger a zinger. “Have you seen Bill lately? He’s selling a lot of wine.”

“So I heard.”

“How’s your wine selling?” Another insult.

“I have no time to sell it. I have to work for a living" - he didn’t need to add unlike some people. Fidel took the jab and countered.

“You should get a tasting room.”

“You should sell our throw-away wine to your friends.”

“Let me build a tasting room for you. You have a lot of money.”

“I had a lot of money and spent it all on wine, women and you, bastard. I gave you all of my money and now my vineyard wiring is falling apart.”

“You should let me come over and fix it.”

“So I can give you more money? Gracias non.”

“Do you want me to come over and shoot the coyote for you?”

“A coyote shooting a coyote? Gracias non.” A vineyardista picking grapes accidently butted her butt against his in the pathway. “Good morning,” he said to her with a broad smile. “Let’s do that dance again - the vineyard bump.”  Anything could happen in the vineyard that day with women and wine and men and the grapes. She giggled, returned the smile and walked by as Bootlegger admired her shapely form and vineyard sway. He closed his eyes and inhaled the natural aromas from her wake and wondered what scent his winemaking muse 3,000 miles away was wearing at that moment.

“Hey amigo, you want to go to Tijuana?” asked Fidel. “I’ll show you around. They have a lot of pretty senoritas there.”

“When Donald Trump is elected president he’ll send you back to Mexico.”

 “Puta madre,” he spat at Trump’s name.

“How’s your knee?” Bootlegger asked.

“It’s pretty good. I can walk up and down hills again.  I’m going to get the other one fixed after the harvest season. Then I can come over and work for you.”

“That must cost a lot of money?”

“No, it’s almost free.”

“I give you all my money and now I have to pay for your health care with my taxes?”

Fidel switched gears. “You should get another dog.”

“You should pay taxes and pay your people fairly – el Pirata.”

A helicopter circled the vineyard. One of volunteers who lived in an apartment downtown asked, “What’s that?”

“It’s the water police,” Bootlegger answered. “They’re looking for water hogs.” He called over to Fidel, “Hey amigo, these vines are green and the clusters are pretty big – how much water did you cut back?”

“Fifteen percent.”

“Fifteen percent this month?” he asked surprised but not surprised. The mandate was 35%. “We cut our water by 50%.”

“Your vines look like shit – you should let me take care of your vines. I’ll make them green.”

“Keep your hands off of our vines. Our grapes taste good. That helicopter is after you, man.”

“It’s not my fault,” said Fidel, “It’s Janet. She won’t cut the water.”

“If the water police don’t get you, it will be immigration. You should pay your people more so they don’t rat on you.”

“You should mind your own business” and with that Fidel pressed the accelerator of the Gator and called out heh heh hehhh with a pirate’s laugh shouting “out of my way” and as he pulled out he admonished one of his crew taking a sip of water as temperatures rose, “Hey, stop looking at the senoritas and get back to work.”

“Si patron,” replied Rodrigo cursing under his breath as Fidel sped down the hill “hijo de puta” and went back to work. “That fucking son of bitch riding around like a big shot in that fucking gator ….” 

At the bottom of the hill, one of his crew lifted hundred pound lugs of Brunello-clone grapes into the Gator and Fidel drove the cargo to the shaded crush pad at the top of the hill where another day laborer lifted the lugs and set them on a scale as Janet, Joe the Wino’s spouse, counted every pound. Fidel walked over to an ice cooler used by the gringos, grabbed a beer and took a long drink as the swarm of locust volunteers worked their way up the hill picking ten tons of grapes one bunch at a time while a covey of Guatemalan women he assembled - paying them half the minimum wage and pocketing the rest – diligently inspected each and every berry under Janet’s watchful eyes before sending the perfect ones to the crusher and damaged ones to the compost.....

To be continued. (C) Copyright 2015 All Rights Reserved. Craig Justice. "About That Wine I Gave You"

Poles, Polls & Pols

Now that pruning and dormant spraying are done, next on the list of vineyard to do's is replacing damaged poles. I used to think it was my Herculean strength pulling the wire tightener that caused 10 ft. poles to snap, but alas, I have been assisted by termites. (Question: If termites are eating the wooden poles in the vineyard why aren't they eating the wooden beams in our house, or are they?) Digging hole, inserting pole, aligning pole, mixing concrete, pouring concrete is all pretty straightforward. Before this, the pole must be cut from the wires, causing the cordon wire to go limp leaving vines to stand on their own, which they do well when dormant. I want to get this done before budbreak -- which has already started --  before the vines are a host of tender new shoots so easy to break.

Removing the concrete remnant of a 10 ft pole four feet underground is a back-breaking task. Easy enough for me to dig down to where the shovel meets concrete, but with so much wood sticking out, we call in Fidel, that rascal, for the dirty work at 4pm in the afternoon to finish the job. When he's done at 6pm he says, "That'll be $30."

"Why so much?" asks the Queen. "The rate is $12 an hour and you worked two hours."

"You always give me the hard jobs to do," he says.

"Why do you think we hired you?!" says the Queen and she's huffing and puffing and can't get to sleep at night carrying on about the nerve of that rascal to request so much when he does so little and what's so hard about the jobs we've given him because we've been doing everything ourselves.

 "Of course we hire him for the hard jobs," she complains to me at 2 am. "Otherwise, I'll do it myself."

Another sign that the recession is dead and unwell and not living in Paris. The Big Recession is so 2008 and it's 2012 and it's a great leap-year forward and it's an election year and this economy is on the mend and it's time for everyone to plan to reap the future harvest if you're not reaping already. The Hebrew Bible tells us the story of Joseph who had dreams of 7 years of famine and 7 years of bounty.  Have we not been through our years of famine? Is there not light at the end of this tunnel?

This is America and there's been cycles of booms and busts throughout our history. Is this not just another cycle? Isn't there a rainbow after this storm?

I've been so busy travelling around the world and selling everywhere I go that there's been no time to write about the winemaking adventures of Bluey & Craig and the carrying's on of Fidel and the escapades of Coyote Karen and Merlot Mike. While I've been out of town two new restaurants have popped up on Grand Avenue in our little town filling up spaces vacated during the downturn. Why, even Joe the Wino himself has been quiet these days, unsure what to say because the economic spring is here and the flowers are blooming and he hates the President and it seems he's upset the economy is improving because he can't blame that on the President. I remember last year when Joe, who owns a high tech company in San Diego, laid off more employees (again) from his very profitable firm and the next day the stock market tanked hundreds of points and it was as if he (and his corporate buddies) timed it perfectly and they believed they were economic and CEO geniuses. While they were cutting jobs and speaking venom and putting millions of dollars into their own pockets, the good stewards of business were investing and building their companies and expanding sales and growing exports while Joe the Wino was complaining about Obamacare and telling his employees they could "go on the government plan" and saying the President was "ruining the country" and Obama this and Obama that. He said "Obama is destroying jobs" and raising his taxes and those of his millionaire friends is going to reduce jobs but it was he (Joe the Wino) who was laying off employees, looking out for number #1 (himself), paying the lowest tax rates in recent history and putting millions of dollars into his own pocket as our country's national debt soars.

Who can afford going to the movies these days or to a ball game or to the theater, so for us there's TV (yes, we finally bought one) and our favorite entertainment has been watching those Republican presidential candidates debate as they rant about Obama this and Obama that and how he's as evil as that Holocaust denier from Iran and this is all we hear on TV and after months and months of this, like the Big Lie, with so much repetition it sometimes becomes hard to discern the truth and we were starting to believe what they say and what Fox News says might have some truth to it.

We went outside and pruned the vines and got rained on and hailed on and did our work and thought about things. We heard the cries of the hawks and the barks of our dogs and found enough money to turn on the heat (whenever we could see our breath in the house) and ate bread and beans and drank the $1.99 6-pack beer from Trader's Joe. We drank the wine we grew which is inexpensive for us to make but has an amazing taste and ate way too much cheese to go with the wine and we didn't go to bed hungry though we might not be eating as well as we should. Now if things are so bad and the President is the reincarnation of 666 and a Darth Vader destroying jobs and job creators, how is it that I'm  involved with a little company that started with  2 people in the garage at the depths of the recession and has now grown to 50 people and we started offering benefits and providing health insurance and all the while the candidates are saying that the President has stifled small companies and yet who could be smaller than us and we are growing like crazy. And, after a couple of years of do it yourself vineyarding we've got  a tiny bit of extra funds to hire Fidel for a couple of hours and Fidel is demanding more money and isn't this also a sign of an economy that's turning around?  If not, why are customers and dealers from all over the world demanding our products?  Even our wine sales are increasing, PTL, because we've got to sell all these cases of wine that are piling up.  So much for the pols and the polls. You heard it here first (although I was too busy to right it down last year): good times are coming and make your plans now to join us for our 2nd Presidential Inauguration Wino's Ball (and yes, Bo the First Dog is invited) and before then let's start planning for a bountiful harvest in the Fall.

Fidel came back the next day and pulled the termite bitten wood out of the holes and he worked for less than 2 hours and said, "You only have to pay me $20 today."

"Good, because that's all I have," said the Queen. As he was leaving she gave him two Italian-made chairs which had once served the dining room of a condominium at the Watergate. He put them in the back of his beat-up pickup and drove off, a truce of sorts between them and a sign of the trickle down economics to come.

Good Chemistry, Questionable Grapes

Mike,

I much prefer Coyote Karen as a lab partner, but how could I refuse your request to run an acid test on the Petit Sirah we picked this morning especially after you crushed it and Gatored it over to our place? Thank you.

I apologize for the delay in getting back to you with the lab results. I just returned to the house with Bluey in tow. He had been out chasing she-coyotes in heat, again. (I guess I would do the same if I were him -- after all, aren't all men dogs?) I should have known something was up last week as he began making low moans that grew into howls. I thought he was lamenting the loss of his friend Carlyle, the neighbor's cat, who went missing after an evening outside attending the Coyote's Ball. Instead, it was either an 8-year itch or a mid-life crisis, because for all the years of his life he's never, ever been one to roam. Well, that's what a hot bitch in a fur coat can do to a dog (and a man).

After the harvest I had planned to bring Bluey to the Three Priests for the Blessing of the Animals (if not outright confession for his recent transgressions) as the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals, is upon us. As I was getting ready to leave, the Queen showed up short of breath yelling "Karl Rove" had returned from the dead. (She can't pronounce C-a-r-l-y-l-e; the word comes out sounding like the Republican political strategist, which reminds me of our old friend Joe the Wino -- where is he? Out campaigning with the Tea Party?) Now a cat who dances with coyotes, disappears for a week and was proclaimed a goner but returns is a sight to be seen. He's our neighbor's cat and good vineyard friend. They asked us to look after him but it was like looking after a ghost because he was not to be seen, only a trail of dried blood drops from the cathouse to the woods as Carlyle had been injured just after they left. I went up to the house and sure enough he was asleep under the deck (had he been there the whole week and simply ignored our calls when changing his water and leaving fresh food?) I approached him carefully (perhaps he had rabies?) but he seemed well enough, if a bit beat up and tired. I put him inside the neighbor's house, feed him and comforted him. It was too late to drive to the church service, so (with apologies to the Three Priests for missing yet another church service) we just gave thanks where we were for the bountiful harvest and all the animals in our lives, especially the cats and dogs that survived while playing around with coyotes.

I headed back down the mountain to do your lab work, started a barbecue of sausages (somehow we had forgotten to eat today despite all the work) and then went out and took a sample of Grenache berries to measure their ripeness and to provide a control for the tests. The grill was smokey when I came back and the sausages were darker than a black cat. So much for eating.

I had 3 samples to test. The sample of Petit Sirah (PS) you gave me. The Grenache from our vineyard (as a control), and a sample of PS I took from our share of today's harvest. That sure was one of the most interesting harvests we've seen over the years, a perfect storm of powdery mildew, Pierce's disease and a blasted heat wave that taken together ravaged the grapes resulting in the lowest amount of juice we've ever seen. The mildew had decimated a good percentage of the vineyard, reducing what should have been plump grapes to dried out shells, without flavor nor sugar. And, what were plump berries just a week ago were shriveled by the surprise heat wave this week. Decimated by Pierce's disease and a fraction of its former self, it's become something of a family tradition to travel to Valley Center, the next hill over, each year for this harvest of the Scotchman's grapes and this year did not disappoint. In another chapter of the miracle of Don's vineyard, somehow, grape must was produced again this year in abundant quantity which should yield a barrel or two of distinguished wine. Yet, this 2010 vintage, with all of those skins, is going to present a challenge. Here's my strategy: cold soak for 4 days to extract as much fruit flavors and "soft tannins" as possible. Then, ferment for 3 - 4 days (without extending the fermentation beyond that). Then, pressing lightly (which is our normal custom) to produce a well balanced finished product to be blended to perfection with another grape, perhaps Petit Verdot to make another round of "Petit-Petit."

We were both pleasantly surprised to see that the brix (i.e., sugars) were in good shape ... close to 23.5 and likely to increase nicely with cold soaking because of all the raisins (not to mention skins) which should result in a bold Petit Sirah). And the pH was under control. But as I left, you pulled me aside and whispered that you were getting a reading of .9 on the acid, and would I mind checking it at our place because surely the acid could not be that high? Perhaps your test chemicals were out of date?

I have good news and good news and good news. There's nothing wrong with your testing procedure, nor your chemicals. Of the sample you gave me, I also measured TA (tartaric acid) of .91 with my equipment and my methodology. And, it should be noted that I measured .97 on not such a random sample from "our grapes" from the same vineyard. (For the record, I tested the acid of our Grenache, which was low as expected given the long hang time of this year's harvest.) Although you're concerned that the level of acid of PS is too high, let me share with you some wisdom about brix and acid from a master, my old mentor Angelo Pellegrini (bless his heart) who wrote almost 30 years ago in his book "Lean Years, Happy Years" :

"It has been established by years of experience that ... the sugar and acidity in the must will be adequate if the range is between 20 and 24 percent by volume of the one and .6 and 1 percent of the other. These are the minimum and the optimum.... I have found that when the sugar percentage is 23-plus and the total acidity near .8, the result will be a wine that will elicit the highest praise. Of such a wine we would say that the total acidity and the sugar in the must were in nearly perfect balance."

We are not too far from that my friend, and, with the luxury (and skill) of blending, we can achieve it.

So let us drink to the memory of Angelo, to the celebration of the harvest, to the nubile maidens (those who joined us and to those who dream of joining us some day) who crush the grapes, and to the cats and dogs and coyotes, and to good wine and good friends and our induction into the Order of Wise Old Peasants. Cheers!

Test Results:

Your Petit Sirah Sample: 23 brix; pH = 3.45; TA= .91
Our Petit Sirah Sample: 23.5 brix; pH = 3.54 TA = .97
Our Grenache Sample: 24 brix; pH = 3.55; TA=.56

Brix measured with refractometer.

Editor's Note: We welcome low acid on the Grenache because we have plenty of high acid wine with which to blend. Stay tuned for the Grenache harvest next week and the waiting of Petit Verdot.

Pictures: From top to bottom: 1) Bluey's Call of the Wild 2) Carlyle (aka, Karl Rove) 3) Petit Sirah vineyard in Valley Center, CA 4) Example of Powdery Mildew damage

Birds & The Bees In The Vineyard

After my nostrils were treated to the aroma of decomposed chipmunk before breakfast (I bet you never tasted that in wine -- I tell you there's more birds, squirrels, ants, slugs and chipmunks in wine then espresso and chocolate), I recalled a song we used to sing as children in North Carolina during the last Century:

Great big globs of greasy, grimy gopher guts
Mutilated monkey meat
Little dirty birdie feet ...
That's what I had for lunch.

Bluey and I traversed rows in the vineyard looking for bees (a sign that a bird had pecked a berry) and damaged, leaking fruit. Where we found it, there was sure to be an opening in the netting and perhaps a bird himself. Bluey came across the first sparrow -- he just wants to sniff their butts, not devour them--and I was able to reach in and eventually catch and release. (I was reminded of Snoopy and Woodstock.) We came across another bird, this one lifeless. I tried to pull it out, gently, and about to rip its head off, decided to leave it in the nets. Then we came across a "yellow bird" (shown at left) which we caught, brought to the Queen as a present, then released.

Our friends the honey bees made their appearance in the vineyard the other week, and we took preemptive action against the not so friendly yellow jackets, which I hadn't encountered in the vineyard until the Queen placed yellow jacket traps deep inside a row of vines (I suggested to her to place the traps outside the vineyard). I'm not sure what kind of yellow jacket mojo the traps contain but the person who harnesses a similar hormone in humans that causes women to swarm to men is going to be rich. There is a warning on those traps not to hang them during the middle of the day when the flying stingers are active and you are likely to attract the bastards to you. Folks, there is a reason for this. Pay attention to that warning.

As I walked back to the vineyard I passed the deceased sparrow, bless his heart, whom I could not remove from the netting. He was covered with yellow jackets, and I realized that the yellow jackets would be useful in cleaning up the carcass. When I returned the next day, there was just a skeleton. As I think about it, most creatures under the sky serve some useful function.

Last night, all the neighbors in Blue-Merle Country got together to honor Joe the Wino, hero of The Wine Summit hosted by Sarah Palin earlier in the week. They slaughtered a pig and roasted it and there were more than 100 people and more than 100 bottles of wine. What do you bring as a gift to a pig-pickin' party where the host has everything? I found the answer: Stone Beer. We were proud of Joe who, according to press reports, managed not to make a fool of himself. And I was glad that he honored us by requesting our wine. "Joe, what did Sarah think of the Blue-Merle wine?"
"Well partner, she's a Syrah drinker, K Syrah, Sarah."
"Shakespeare. Good one, Joe."
"When I poured her a glass of your 2007 Petit Verdot she said it was very floral. From her purse she pulled out a bottle of Channel #19 and emptied it. Then filled it to the top with your wine and sprayed it on."
"She's got class. I'm beginning to like her."
"I told her about a good follow-on to Cash for Clunkers our tech group had come up with: 'Cash for Klunkware.'
"I don't get it."
"You see, millions of people have old computers running old software. Under this new stimulus, the government will allow Americans to turn in their old software and receive a voucher to purchase new software."
"Brilliant. And who's going to pay for it? Microsoft?" Joe doesn't like Microsoft.
"How did you know?"
Dinner was served and Joe brought out the roasted pig wearing a Banana Joe's hat, sunglasses, a long sleeve linen shirt rolled up above the pig's knuckles and a Cuban cigar. The Queen would have nothing to do with this mockery and boycotted the event, saying it would bring bad luck. As the sun set and the moon rose the coyotes in the valley woke from their slumber and gave a first call.
"Joe, with all those coyotes living in the valley on your property, isn't there a problem with them chewing your drip lines?"
"Naw, I water them with a water trough. Since I started doing that, I haven't lost a drip line." I guess it kept them from chewing our drip lines also. "Drink at Joe's" must be what the coyotes around here say.

The next morning as I walked though the vineyard and came to the spot where the chipmunk was tangled in the net I found no chipmunk; only a hole in the net. He had been ripped out by a coyote. Another useful function served by Mr. Coyote.

I irrigated the vines and where there was mildew damage in the Aglianico grapes a single droplet of grape juice emerged on a round grape, and I immediately recalled when Coyote Karen was over during the full moon and wine seemed to lactate from her as she had two purple spots at precise locations on the front of her white T-shirt. (Editor's Note: Discretion cautions us from publishing the photo.)

As I hung yellow jacket traps, yellow sticky traps (to keep an eye on the sharpshooters) and replaced 2-gallon per hour water emitters with 1-gallon per hour in an attempt to reduce the vigor of two rows of vines, the Queen busied herself raking then vacuuming the vineyard. As birds destroyed the grapes, she was cleaning the vineyard.

"Sweetie," I started out, "What would you think about fixing the holes in the nets to keep the birds out?" I suggested as gently as a man can say when he means what the hell are you doing?!
"I want to clean up. Please, go and get your own vineyard."
"Why don't you leave the leaves and the canes where they are? It's good organic material for the soil and will help control erosion when it rains."
"Why don't you leave!" When Bluey heard this he exchanged the grapes of wrath for the coolness under a giant grapefruit tree.

Well, this has become the source of a major disagreement and you can tell there's not going to be any birds and the bees between us. I began thinking of taking out a paid classified ad and tweeting: Seek vineyardista lifelong companion who likes composting and organic farming. Will work for wine and birds & the bees. As I thought about that and especially the birds and the bees part the Queen began singing a song about how it was her vineyard, and her dog, and her wine, and her awards and how I wasted her little plastic bags by filling them up with fruit scraps and coffee grinds for the stupid compost pile.... I really couldn't hear what she was saying because the silence of the vines turns the wife's song into sweet wine. When Jesus said love your enemy I think he meant wife. This is not easy.

She volunteered to go into town to purchase clothes pins to make the nets more secure and Bluey emerged from under the grapefruit tree and we cut the last row of Zinfandel and yes we put the cuttings in a neat row along the vines so the organic matter could work its way back into the soil and the rain would be slowed as it fell and trickled down the mountain carrying any topsoil that was left. Next, I put some of the cuttings behind the row in the most inaccessible part of the vineyard and she will never go there to clean it out because the access is difficult and for fear of snakes. I even made a little video of the work. Merlot Mike says it takes 3-guys to net his vineyard and it started out that way with us when we made it complicated by using gas pipes on either side and attempted to lift the netting (wrapped around a PVC pipe) over the vines which resulted in more singing by the Queen. She finally threw away the pipes and took the nets and did the netting herself while I was at my daytime job. She is barely 5 ft. tall and that was an accomplishment and I was more proud of her for the sixth time this year since Michelle Obama ran for First Lady and was proud for the first time to be an American.

The Queen returned about the time Bluey and I finished the netting and we hiked down the mountain and came to my favorite aloe which the Queen doesn't like and had apparently hacked to pieces as she stormed out. She doesn't like the aloe because it starts off cute and fits in a wine glass but as they grow they become larger than a barrel and they have sharp edges and she's always saying dig it out and I was planning to dig it out someday but not today and not this year but in a couple of years and she has taken vengeance on my favorite plant. Upon inspection I see that half the plant is eaten out by none other than Mr. Gopher -- who has been in retreat these last few months. I am pleased by this and even a gopher has his good points. As do coyotes, yellow-jackets and spouses.

I check Bluey's paws for foxtails and we go inside and the Queen has prepared sushi and an omelet made of octopus and vegetables. After lunch I top the barrels of 2008 wine which hold great promise, tasting along the way. Is this a chore?

Preparing For Baby's Arrival & The Wine Summit

You heard about the Beer Summit held at the White House last week, but do you know about the upcoming Wine Summit? First, a recap of the vineyard news.

While waiting for the harvest of our first crop, I compared myself on Twitter to a nervous, about-to-become-a-father in the 3rd Trimester not knowing quite what to do. My comment resulted in several offers from baby goods suppliers and I began to think hosting a "berry shower" for the first crop might not be a bad idea. I could invite Joe the Wino, Merlot Mike, Coyote Karen and the whole cast of characters from Blue-Merle Country and instead of a crib they could bring a crusher destemmer. Instead of a pram, they could bring me a Gator. Instead of baby bottles they could bring me 750 ml Bordeaux green glass push up bottles. Instead of a rattle, they could bring me a shotgun. And, best of all, instead of formula they would bring fresh mother's milk from the nymph-maidens who crush the grapes at Merlot Mike's with their fine breasts when making the Fine Merlot(TM) wine he's patented. In the end, the grapes probably know best what to do, thank goodness, just like a baby swimming through the womb to this world. There was no shower, but the stork from Vintner's Vault arrived carrying more than a ton of equipment including the items mentioned above (less the milk and shotgun), and Merlot Mike saved the day by managing to haul it up the driveway with his Gator. Our cars, freshly washed for once, are now outside again, the sign of a true winemaker. And the Tempranillo grapes, now at 19 brix, probably know best what to do, just like the newborn. Harvest could be in three weeks.

With the grapes hitting 19 brix the bees arrived and the birds have multiplied. I found a large yellow bird inside the netting this morning and as I went to rescue him he fluttered through the row and escaped through a hole. The Queen reported that the bird-brained grape-vultures are crafty and now I believe her. I saw a small sparrow fly half the length of Row 11 (once again inside the netting) before making a Star Wars dive-bombing maneuver cutting 90 degrees right and out, escaping my furry.

A full moon is waxing this week and I've sent out invites to the cast of characters and thought I would also invite the world via Twitter. The idea is for people who enjoy the combination of wine and full moons to share their thoughts about moon-wine as the moon shines. The first RSVP was sent in by Obi Wan Kenobi who wrote, "That's no moon. It's a space station." Thank goodness it's not The Death Star. If you'd like to join the fun search for #moonwine on Twitter (the # mark indicates a group discussion) and tell us (and the world) what you're up to. I think I'm going to write something like: "Ladies, I just finished stuccoing the retainer wall real smooth so it won't rip your stockings as you sit and enjoy the full moon at #moonwine. If they do tear, no worries. Plenty of black-lace bird net available."

Today being Sunday I learned what Jesus meant when he said "love your neighbor." We have been taking care of our neighbor's three cats while they are out of the country. When we visited their home to feed them we found, in addition to the usual bricks in the litter box: an ant trial that extended from the cat food a mile outside; several semi-dried puddles of cat throw-up; several piles of cat "shat" in the home office (some semi-dried, some mushy fresh). Apparently, as their masters are away the cats will play, and they are pretending to go feral and not use the litter box all the time. Or more likely, they are pretty pissed off being left alone. We cleaned it up, joyfully. I love my neighbors. Really. If the Devil offered me the chance to marry the most beautiful woman in the world with one condition: I must clean her cats' litter box. It's an easy choice: No Thank You!

The Wine Summit

As for the wine summit, it all started when I went to Escondido Joe's on Friday morning for a quick cup of java on the way to my daytime job. A sign stated "Free Cup of Coffee for Anyone Named Joe" and that sounded like a good idea as it's still the Recession and I like saving a penny here and there so I told the waitress, "My name is Joe The Wino -- I kid you not." To which she replied "Oh no you're not. The real Joe the Wino is here right now." As my stomach dropped a foot caught in the lie and I stammered, Joe emerged from the washroom. I hadn't seen him in weeks. "Joe, good to see you. It's been months. How you doing?" We banged knuckles and exchanged a manly shoulder bump. It was good to see him.

"This country's headed in the wrong direction," he started. "If Congress passes this health care legislation and they start taxing me more to offer health insurance to our employees, I tell you, it will just be cheaper for me to put everyone on the government plan. We provide our team members the best insurance in the country and I'm proud of it but at some point everyone is going to be insured by the government. This country is going downhill.'

I wanted to ask him about the uninsured but I know Joe and he wants nothing to do with it so I humored him with one of my pet peeves. "You know I support the President, but I tell you, this cash for clunkers is about the stupidest thing I've heard of and it's the straw that's going to break the camel's back. Enough is enough."
"You're right. They're just taking our tax dollars and helping people buy cars they're going to buy anyhow sooner or later. What a waste of money."
"Why doesn't the government start a program to give $4,500 to farmers so they can go and trade in their wheelbarrow for a Gator?"
"And a bottle of wine for every household."
"I'll drink to that."
"Joe, I haven't seen you in a while. Where you've been? Hiking the Appalachian trail or visiting Evita in Argentina?"
"Alaska."
"You rascal! I knew it! You've been with Sarah haven't you?" As Joe was explaining to me how he's been advising Sarah Palin and donating to her election campaign in walked a policeman looking for a free cup of coffee.
"Is you name Joe?" asked the waitress.
"No, it's Captain Smith. Is your health permit displayed?"
Joe overheard the conversation and interjected, "Tell her your name is 'Jo Mama' and she'll give you a free cup," to which, Captain Smith, a police officer of color took great offense and before you could say Jammin' Joe he was in handcuffs and being escorted to the station. You know the drill by now: Captain Smith claimed that Joe was out of line and causing a raucous. Joe says he did nothing wrong and was wrongfully arrested. Sarah Palin has invited them both to Wasilla next week to see if they can settle their differences over a glass of wine. The press is already calling it the Wine Summit, and there's been great speculation about what wine Sarah will be drinking. I know Joe will throw me a bone and ask for a bottle of Blue-Merle, and Sarah being an advocate of free trade and free commerce will probably encourage the shipment of our best vintage across state lines in violation of federal and state laws to make a point of free trade and freeing the grapes.
"Joe, will she be drinking Bitch Wine?"
"She's got the balls to do it, but since it's from Australia, I think not."

"K Syrah, Sarah."

"Amen brother."

Coyote Karen Stricken With Vineyarditis

Coyote Karen who owns the perfect micro vineyard in Blue-Merle Country got a crazy idea in her head. Plant more vines. The little vineyard she has right now at 250 vines is a wonderful size, produces more than a barrel of juice and can be considered a "hobby." Adding 500 - 700 more vines and this vineyardista will be looking at a career change. I think she's been bitten by some glassy-winged sharpshooter (or vampire?) who's given her "crazy lady disease." That's what happens to strong women who live in the country too long. Next thing you know she'll be buying 1,000 acres in Paso Robles.
"Want some fruit trees?" she called.
"Be right over." We loaded Bluey into the vineyard mobile and sped over.
She was clearly infected with vineyarditis and was out there by her lone self, dressed in a white pull-over, digging up orange, lemon, avocado, nectarine and plumb trees that were in the way of her vision. We went over to lend our backs and a helping shovel. Let me tell you it's a lot of work digging out a tree with a shovel but that women huffed and puffed and seemed to blow them down with her tornado. When I offered to help her install her new vineyard, that didn't include transplanting fruit trees. "Are you crazy?" I asked. "Think for a minute. With a tractor, you could lift these babies out in a minute with less damage to the tree." And just then I saw what I thought was a mirage: Joe the Wino out Easter Day taking his bright orange Kubota for a leisurely drive. I ran out to greet him.
"Joe, good to see you. You're just in time to help a damsel in distress."
Joe drove right onto Karen's land and right up to her stepping down from his tractor. "Hello sweetheart. Give me an Easter hug." Joe got his hug and Karen got her trees pulled out and then the vineyardista took advantage of having that machine there to get her property "manicured." I can't use the word "graded" because government permits are required for "grading." Joe drove over the land smoothing it out here, filling in holes there, ripping up dirt and rolling boulders. There were a couple of more trees in a prime vineyard spot (WARNING: Tree huggers should stop reading now!) and Karen was ruthless in her vision. "Rip them out!" Joe agreed with her, saying, "You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs." He runs his business the same way. Ruthless. But I persuaded him to take the trees back to his place (after all, he has 10 acres). So, we saved the trees and Karen got her her land cleared. Joe got his hug, but he didn't get to mud wrestle the vineyardista in all that rich dirt and water. Bluey got to play in the mud. We got a bottle of wine. Ever hear the expression "Will Work For Wine"? You should watch what you say. And, as an extra benefit, when I went to the dentist's office this morning for a regularly scheduled check up my blood pressure was lower than last year (that's what a 4-day vacation of working in the vineyard and wine drinking will do to you.) Meantime, Karen has been on the phone getting everything ordered: vines, end posts, cement, wire, irrigation supplies, the works. She even found Fidel, that rascal, who is available for hire. If you want to see one of the most beautiful vineyards in California develop, stay tuned. And remember, do try this at home.

Blue-Merle Country Pot Luck & Wine Blending

The neighbors of Blue-Merle Country held a pot-luck the other night in our local community center and I discovered the recipe for a future wine blend. I volunteered to bring some wine (which was already made) to the dinner, but was asked to make a dessert. Being busy chasing gophers, and mildew spraying, and weeding, and planting new vines, and repairing broken trellis systems, filling out tax forms and cutting down overgrown trees in the middle of the vineyard, and giving tours and tastings to passers-by, I'm not a person who has much time for making desserts on a Saturday afternoon. I thought I would whip together one of my "persimmon puddings" (one very ripe persimmon, an egg, some flour, some baking soda, some milk), but as we only have ONE persimmon left from the fall harvest, and as it is the Queen's, at the last moment I substituted a Myers lemon (of which we have an abundance) and a couple of diced kumquats (of which we have an abundance) and one tangelo (of which we have an abundance). I put in two eggs this time and set the oven for 425 degrees. I must say, it came out well, and had I added a white sauce and Grand Mariner, then the dessert would have been ambrosia. As it was, I did bring back and empty plate back from the event so someone must have liked it.

I brought a bottle of 2007 Petit Verdot to the pot-luck along with my dessert and my friend Joe the Wino brought a bottle of 2006 "Merletage" which was a blend of 2006 Blue-Merlot (80%) with 20% Nebbiolo. Joe's wife -- who I love to death -- is a generous person, and it's interesting to see her bring her own wine to these events (she's loathe to drink the house wine). She honored me by bringing a bottle of our wine, and since our Queen had drunk all of our '06 wine, Joe and his wife had the last 6 bottles in the world. I would gladly pay them $100/bottle for it.

"Joe, I remember the first time we met. You came to our open house two years ago when we planted our vineyard. You sat your sorry ass on a barrel of our best wine and kept dipping the turkey baster into it and pulling yourself a glass. 'Who in the Sam hell is that?' we asked ourselves."

He demurred, as if still suffering from that long ago hangover.

"After the blessing of the vines and the party had ended we found a bottle of Nickel & Nickel's best Napa Valley wine which you had left as a present and we said, 'Well, I don't know who the hell he is but he's my kind of guy to leave a bottle of wine like that.' The rest is history my friend. Here, please try a sip of this," and I poured him and his wife a jigger from the 2007 Blue-Merle Petit Verdot which he'd never tasted and which is not yet released.

"Smooth," said Joe's wife, but she wasn't doing cartwheels. And neither were Coyote Karen and Celestial Sandra -- they said it was nice but it didn't get me any hugs. Disappointed, I went to the bar and had a sip of all the house wines, then poured me a sample of the "Merleatage" Joe and his wife brought and had a sip. I was hit by the tannins. This one stood out. "Joe, try this," I said filling his glass.

He had a sip, and proclaimed, "This is the best wine here."

I thought I would have some fun and I went over to the Coyote who was pouring her own wine, and I suggested, "Let's play the Gustavo game." Gustavo is the name of the character in the movie "Bottle Shock" who can identify the type of grape in any bottle of wine. (It is an amazing ability.) The Coyote poured first. I took a sniff and a taste and I recognized the grape:

"Brunello, 2007, Bill Schweitzer's vineyard, Ramona." I was dead on (but won no money, only bragging rights). Then I poured her the "Merleatage." She liked it but didn't recognize it. "I'll give you a hint," I said. "You know the grapes." She still couldn't guess it, which surprised me, as this is the woman with the million $ pallet for whom $50 is a cheap wine. "It's 80% Merlot Mike's grapes and 20% Camillo's Nebbillo." She had made wine with the same grapes herself, yet couldn't recognize them.

I went back to the bar and poured myself another glass of the Merlatage, and did a more thorough taste test. The wine did stand out, but it could benefit from additional aging. I told Joe to cellar the remaining bottles for another two years. Then, I tried a little experiment: I poured some of the 2007 Petit Verdot I brought into the same glass as the "Merleatage" Merlot/Nebbiolo blend. Now that was good. I brought some to Celestial Sandra. "Try this." She sipped and approved. Then, I darted over to the Coyote. Now, we had played the "Gustavo Game," but there is a new measure of the worthiness of wine I call the "Gustavo Scale" -- this is when a woman loves the wine you give her so much she throws herself around your neck and offers a passionate kiss as a reward. With that in mind, I brought the serendipity blend to the Coyote.

Now it's not for nothing that we call her The Coyote. Of course, her vineyard is infested with the critters who try to snatch her grapes. This vineyardista is Coyote beautiful, proven by the howls of coyote, dogs and men alike in admiration of her feminine charms, and I had found the aphrodisiac to unleash her womanly affections.

"I like it," she said. Well that was a start, although there were no public displays of affection. With tail between my legs, and with a recipe for a blend that I know would work (3/4 Petit Verdot, 1/4 Merlot) I shuttled back over to Joe. "What's new my friend?"

"I went down to the County government to get a permit for my wine cellar." Joe had built a cellar into the side of a hill. It was magnificent, and I love to go there. Everyone loves to go there. "The government official said, 'We have a problem.'

"'What's that?' I had been trying to get that permit for almost two years now.


"'Wine is flammable.' So what? I said to myself and kept listening. 'You're going to need to add another door to your cellar.'"

Joe was dumbfounded. His cellar is buried underground. To add a back door would require major expense. It's as if the County of San Diego had never needed to give someone a permit for a wine cellar before. This is not a good sign for the County's future as an emerging wine making region.

Joe replied coolly to the County Official: "Let me tell you something. We just had a fire rage through here less than 2 years ago and I lost more than $2.5 million in property damage including my home. The fire passed right over the underground wine cellar without any damage at all, and without any increase in temperature. And now you're telling me that I need to add a back door to my wine cellar because wine is flammable and without a back door people could be trapped in the case of a fire?"

"Yes sir."

At that point I couldn't help throw Joe a jab: "Well, if Obama was head of the County, he'd clear this up and San Diego would be on it's way to becoming a major wine producer." Joe hates Obama, but now he hates the County government worse.

Macadamia Bruce joined us. I asked him what's new? "I'm looking for a squaw to marry."

"Why's that?"

"The Indians have just invested $300 million in a golf course that rivals St. Andrews and Pebble Beach combined. If you're a member of the tribe, you play for free."

I asked him how many gophers he'd caught this year and confessed that I had only got one in January. He promised to come over and give me a hand.

The next day, Sunday, I was finishing up my spraying and checking the gopher traps and Merlot Mike came by in his Gator. Well, wouldn't you know that I would find a melting gopher carcass in one of the traps as Mike pulled up. "I should have known you were on your way. I always catch a gopher everytime you visit." Mike had a guest and either they were pressed for time or he was feeling chicken and didn't want to take the vineyard plunge driving his Gator down our vineyard. "I hear we're getting a lot of TV coverage from the tour de California bike race going on," Mike said.

I reminded him: "The real tour is taking place here after Lance Armstrong crosses the finish line in the bike race. I've invited all of them to come up here on their mountain bikes to try tackling the Blue-Merle Vineyard."

Merlot Mike went on his way and I went back to setting more gopher traps and Macadamia Bruce, who had not visited here since we first probed the irrigation system 2.5 years ago came by. He wanted to teach me how to set gopher traps. So I took him to where I had set a trap and low and behold, there he was, Mr. Gopher, dead meat as fresh as he could be. Happiness is catching a gopher when your friend comes to visit. Priceless. And Bluey was ecstatic.

"You were lucky," Bruce said. "You put that trap at the end of a tunnel. You need to find their main road, and set two traps, one in each direction." He went on to explain that you don't need to use mustard greens as bait. "They're not hungry. They want to repair their holes." He also suggested setting the traps between where the males are digging and the females are hanging out -- because you know the little [expletive deleted -- a derogatory word to used to describe Mr. Gopher in the act of procreation with Mrs. Gopher] is going back there at the end of the day."

We went up to "Gazebo Hill" and inspected another trap I had set. (Nothing yet.) Then went over to the Protea Garden where Mr. Gopher's friends were running wild. Bruce found a tunnel, and set a trap in each direction. When I came back Monday morning to inspect, nothing. A few days later, when I inspected the traps I had set, I found a very gamely, disintegrating, rotten, Mr. Gopher. The final tally, three gophers in one weekend. I was gaining ground. As we used to sing as kids:

"Great big globs of greasy, grimy gopher guts
Mutilated monkey meat...."

February rains caused flashbacks to the days I lived in Seattle and biked in storms to college, but the cold has given rise to Southern California Spring, or at least a false Spring. Purple lilac blossoms decorate the wild countryside while in the vineyards, the great wave of bud break where green shoots emerge from bark has begun as the first pop of pop-corn and a the wave from San Diego to Temecula to Santa Barbara to Lodi to Paso Robles to Napa Valley to the North Coast to Oregon to Washington state ripples up the coast. Bud break in America begins. Here.

Outlaw Winemaker Runs Into "The Law" in Texas. Was Justice Served?

I am an outlaw winemaker, who ran into the long arm of The Law in Texas. Was justice served? Was Justice able to serve wine to his fans? And what is it that Texas' women keep hidden in their boots? To find out the answers to these questions and more keep reading. I was born to be an outlaw. When my fugitive ancestors (distillers of illegal Scotch) fled to this country from Scotland, they changed their surname to “Justice” to throw the law off of their trail. They settled in North Carolina and took up tobacco farming and moonshining. I have no license from the TTB (that’s the Federal bureau that regulates alcohol). And I don’t know my ABCs (that’s the state bureau in California that regulates alcohol). The reason I didn't attend President Obama’s inauguration and stayed on the farm allowing responsibilities of serving the nation to pass me by is my confirmation hearing would have gone like this: Senator: “When is the last time you mailed alcoholic beverages across state lines without a license?” Answer: “Your honor, I don’t recall ever mailing alcohol across state lines. We normally ship things via Fed Ex. If I had shipped wine to a friend, I wouldn’t be able to recall because our quality procedures require me to do a thorough tasting first and I would have tasted quite a lot and not remembered a thing.” Senator: “Why is it that your tax return doesn’t show withholding of social security taxes from the illegal aliens you hired at your vineyard?” Answer: “Your honor, I use the same tax advisor as our Honorable Secretary of the Treasury, so I’ll let him answer that question. But, for the record, we don’t employ aliens – we only hire human beings.” So, while the rest of you were at the inauguration – or watching it on TV -- Bluey and I stayed home and threw a “Wino’s Ball” in our garage opening up the barrels for the coyotes, grasshoppers, mice and black widows who came. I called my friend and neighbor Joe the Wino to join us. “Joe, we’re having a little shindig over here to celebrate the new era. Why don’t you drop on by?” He was livid. “This country’s headed in the wrong direction.” Before he could hang up on me I interjected, “Joe, I’ve got a suggestion. Since you’re convinced your taxes are going up, why don’t you leave the US? Come with me to Texas this Friday. You can visit W. while I attend a software expo and pour wine. What do you say?” Joe, who owns a high-tech company in San Diego, thought that was a good idea and suggested we go in his jet and bring Bluey along for the ride. Without Joe, the “Wino’s Ball” carried on as best we could and when it became clear at dawn that Barrack and Michelle would not be able to attend this time, we topped off the barrels and started packing our bags to go to Texas, where we were organizing a wine tasting for our fans. Yes, Texas. Bluey and I make a pretty mean wine. In the words of “Armadillo” Dave, a transplanted Texan who now lives in the Santa Cruz appellation, “F_ __[expletive deleted] this wine is good!” Armadillo Dave and his buddies call it “outlaw” wine, naturally, and they love it. After Dave made his comments, I suspected that we had a brew that Willy Nelson and his friends from New Braunfels would appreciate and made plans to conquer Texas with the Blue-Merle--what Texan could resist the charms of our Longhorn-herding-canine and award-winning winemaker? Bluey and Outlaw, headed to Texas. Hee haw! Recently, as our faithful readers have noticed, the Winemaker’s Journal has descended into debauchery writing on such prurient topics as “Sex in the Vineyard” and “How to Pick-Up a Vineyardista.” Recently, I friended three priest friends on Facebook who have since become subscribers to this Journal. They did not voluntarily subscribe, mind you; I laid guilt-trips on them. I reminded them of the years of Sundays I was tortured by their sermons, and, if they wanted to keep receiving periodic shipments of our wine for communion and their Sunday dinners, they’d better sign-up as subscribers. (I am now convinced that hell on earth for a priest is having to read the weekly sermonizing of one of their parishioners.) With clergy now making up the majority of readers of Winemaker’s Journal, I experienced an epiphany and realized it was time to clean up my act. First, I appointed myself “Winemaker to the Bishop”, donating a tithe of all the wine we make to the Episcopal Diocese of San Diego and the Rt. Reverend James Mathes. Next, I vowed to repent the sins of licentious writing and outlaw living to follow a righteous path, and, to get the permits I need to sell wine legally. With these resolutions in mind, I boarded Joe the Wino’s Lear jet and we took off for the Grand Hyatt hotel in Austin, Texas with a case of the Blue-Merle’s finest in the cargo hold and Bluey himself at the cockpit controls as soon as we entered Mexico's airspace. I brought Bluey’s airman goggles and scarf so he could pretend to be Snoopy, the World War I fighting ace chasing the cursed Red Barron, dive bombing against gophers in the vineyard and shooting the terrorists down from the skies. As we entered Texas airspace over El Paso, I asked Joe, “With the recession and everything, is your board of directors giving you any problems about keeping this jet?” “Naw, I pay their salaries, so there’s been no griping at all.” He then gave me some facts about fuel economy. “With all the rounds of golf I play, I walk about 900 miles per year. “ Then he asked, “About how many gallons of wine, beer and moonshine do I buy from you each year?” “I’m not sure, but I’d guess about 20 gallons.” “Well, don’t you see?” Joe asks. “With those 20 gallons of alcohol I get 900 miles on the golf course. That’s 45 miles per gallon – you could call me a regular hybrid!” Joe bursts out laughing. He thinks he’s funny – my friend Jon sent me that joke on the internet last week too-- but since it’s his jet, I must admit he’s pretty funny too. Joe flew off to Waco to meet W. after dropping Bluey and me in Austin. After checking into the hotel, we decided to check out the town since the night was still young so we crossed the bridge and headed to 6th Street where we took in the late show at “Esther’s Follies” which had Bluey howling at their songs and good humor. Walking the streets of Austin several bands paid homage to the Blue-Merle inviting him into their venues for a sip of wine and a dollop of music. There were moments when we felt like we were in little India and little Beijing as University of Texas students and international techies crowded the cafes and streets. I could see why Joe came here to recruit talent – you could roll a bowling ball down the street and hit ten geniuses. Here is an engine of future economic growth. Unlike the me generation of the US with its entitlements to BMWs financed by excessive venture capital (which has dried up in this recession), one rising class of entrepreneurs will be represented by Indian and Chinese immigrants who live on practically nothing as they bootstrap their fledgling businesses. I had come to Texas to attend a national meeting of sales reps of SHI Inc., known as Software House International, experts at software, hardware and integration, not to mention partying after hours. These are good people who service software buyers throughout the country and I was glad to be there to show them our company’s software. With some 50 other vendors in attendance, I knew we would stand out from the crowd by offering a little country hit from our little winery in Blue-Merle Country. To help me out, I hired me a professional wine pourer from San Antonio, Ms. Connie, known as Texas Hot Pants and the quickest pourer in the West. She pours a mean glass of wine, has more gun-powder in her personality than Annie Oakley and has a wicked gift of the gab to entertain the guests with the wine while I washed their brains with my software. When the Blue-Merle sets up its wine distribution in Texas later this year, she’s the one tapped to be in charge. While setting up before the event some of the SHI reps came up and greeted me with hugs. “What’s that for?” I asked. “We heard you brought your wine,” they’d say. “Well come on back during the show and I’ll pour you an extra glass for that hug.” The strategy was working. Just after Ms. Connie suggested we keep a low profile – lest there be some obscure Texas laws we run up against – the Banquet Manager, who had been so helpful during set-up finding me a power supply and extension cord—come up to me with a lovely smile. She looked like she was ready for a quick pour. “I heard that you’re planning to serve wine?” “I cannot tell a lie to one as beautiful as the Yellow Rose of Texas.” “Well you can’t.” She went on to explain that there was a bar operated by the hotel in the same banquet room as the SHI event and there was a law that prevented us from pouring our outlaw wine in the same room where the licensed bar was operating. “We can’t allow co-mingling of the wine,” she said. “Do you allow co-mingling of guests?” “If you want to invite guests up to your room for a private wine tasting, that’s allowed.” Now that was an interesting proposition. I could see it now, telling everyone who came to our table to see the software: Private wine tasting in my room after the show, room 1402, with a view of the river, Austin City Lights and the State Capital building. I asked the manager, “What time do you get off work?” “4:30 a.m.” “Perfect, we’ll have a sip before I catch my plane.” So not wanting to mess with Texas, I put the cork back into the bottle and the manager left. “Connie,” I asked, “Was that a yes?” “I don’t think so.” “Look, now that I’m living a straight and righteous life, if my mouth escapes my brain and invites you up for a private wine tasting please slap me!” I gathered up some boxes that couldn’t fit under the table top and took them to the 14th floor room to get them out of the way. I was riding down the elevator on the way back to the exposition when it stopped at the 5th floor and in walked a strawberry blonde with a glass of Merlot. “Miss, did you know that you’re in violation of Texas alcohol laws?” “Do you mean walking around in public with an open container?” “No, something more serious than that. Co-mingling. You’re carrying around a glass of wine and the hotel has a bar serving wine and it’s not allowed for you to have your own glass.” I then gave her my elevator speech about how I was an outlaw winemaker and was planning of having a legal wine tasting in my room after the exposition. (The astute reader will note that I did not invite her for a private tasting although I certainly thought of inviting her to Merlot Mike’s next grape crush where she could supervise and define the making of “fine Merlot.”) Back at the exposition the sales reps made their rounds and my outlaw instincts resurfaced as I thought of discretely pouring from a bottle to our fans. It would be good for my outlaw image. I reminded myself that the 3-priests would be reading this (if not watching) and I survived the temptation. We demonstrated the software for the next three hours and held a raffle for the bottles of wine and we were so busy there was no time to eat. As soon as the bar closed at 9pm I proposed to Ms. Connie that we enjoy a well deserved dinner at our little table top display so she rustled up some meat from the carving station and some fromage from the cheese station and some crackers from another station and we sat down at our little table as the other vendors were tearing their displays down around us. I placed a candle on the table while Ms. Connie reached down and pulled a bottle of the Blue-Merle’s finest Petit Verdot Plus right out of her boot and poured a round for us and a few lingering sales reps. “So that’s what you Texas gals keep in your boots!” She corrected me explaining that down in the no country for old men where she lives not far from Tommy Lee Jones a woman’s more likely to keep a revolver in her boot than a bottle of wine. My phone rang at 4:30am and I remembered my date with the banquet manager. “It’s time to get up you lazy cowboy.” It was Joe the Wino. “You told me to meet you at the airport at eight. What’s going on?” “W and I are going hunting this morning. Wanna join us?” “Is Dick Cheney gonna be there?” “Hold on, let me check.” A few seconds later, “W says Dick’s gonna be there.” “Look, give W my best, but Bluey can’t stay still if he sees a bird. He’s a wine dog, and W doesn’t drink. Besides, I gotta get back home and get this pruning started.” So Bluey and Outlaw left Texas, without breaking the laws, much, and started the task of cutting, twisting, bending and tying the vines. (Will the vines get pruned before bud burst? Will it ever rain again in Southern California? Will Texas Rangers raid the Blue-Merle ranch? What will Joe the Wino say next? Will Bluey catch Mr. Gopher before he meets Mrs. Gopher and baby gophers over-run Blue-Merle Country? Be sure to tune in next week for the continuing adventures of Outlaw and Bluey to find out.)

Grafting & Barrel Topping & Woodchips

John the Avocado Grower from New Zealand paid a visit to Blue-Merle Country over Thanksgiving weekend with his wife and son. I invited Joe the Wino to join us for some gophering and wine tasting. Joe likes New Zealand wine, and often flies to Wellington to go skiing during our summer (their winter.) Joe said he was playing in a golf tournament. I couldn't believe it. "You don't play golf well enough to play in a tournament."
"I've been taking lessons with Bruce," he replied. Macadamia Bruce is our local Macadamia tree grower and nut vendor who is a golf pro with a golf-course on his 4-acre plot that winds through his macadamia grove. Some of the holes are tougher than Pebble Beach.
"What tournament is this?"
"It's a tournament for handicapped and blind kids -- I think I have a chance to win!" he said erupting in laughter. Joe thinks he's a comedian.
"Yeah, I read that joke on the Internet too."
So, without Joe's humor or presence, we were left to entertain the Kiwis by ourselves. Although we didn't strike back at the gophers as planned (the gophers started this war in 2006 with a ruthless attack on the lone, surviving, 25 year old kiwi plant on our property), John's son the U.S. Navy helicopter pilot volunteered to lend us some napalm. We picked up our clippers and marched through the vineyard to the boutique avocado grove with me at the front of the line carrying a shovel just in case.
"Just in case what?" Mary asked.
"Just in case we meet Mr. Rattlesnake." It had turned warm again that day, and the Queen had spotted one in the area the week before. They don't have poisonous snakes in New Zealand. Nor do they have gophers. Just Hobbits.
After determining that our favorite avocado trees are "reed" avocados and not the "bacon" variety, then showing us how to prune the avocado foliage to let in more light at the top of the tree, John & Mary took some samplings of budwood to graft onto a free-range, volunteer, avocado tree growing out of control, but which would never yield fruit as it had never been grafted. One of the mysteries of this tree is how it grew so fast and so lush without watering? The general state of avocados in San Diego country is worse than Detroit automakers. Earlier this year, most San Diego growers cut back their groves 30% -- that is, they stumped 30% of their trees -- because of mandatory water cutbacks for growers on the agriculture water plan. One of our neighbors who grows avocados told me they were going to take out all of their avocado trees this winter, because the cost of water is forecast to increase significantly. So in the middle of avocado wasteland, a tree is growing. (I wonder if there's a spring nearby?) The tree had 3 shoots, so we tried 3 different grafting techniques in the hopes that one might work. John sawed off most of the tree, but left a large trunk which still had some branches. Then, he cut a wedge in the top of the trunk, and inserted into the wedge some budwood, which Mary had whittled to expose moist weed. On a different trunk which had been sawed, we placed budwood on locations around the perimeter of the trunk (this technique was recommended by the University of California, Davis). And, on the third, smaller shoot, Mary just simply sliced the shoot in half half and taped some budwood to the shoot, forming one, new shoot. As we walked back to the house, with Mary pulling out clippers faster than the Sundance Kid and snipping every rose bush in site, "Don't forget to go back there tomorrow and place some gauze around those grafts to protect them from the sun."

The next day was warmer and the sun was brighter. After Bluey and I taped some gauze bandaging (aka a paper towel) around the grafts, I started pulling some weeds around the nearby Aglianico vines when I spotted Mr. Rattlesnake slithering in slow motion on by me right down the middle of the row. The Queen had implored me not to behead the beasts. She says that they have spirits and to decapitate them is an ill omen. She could be right. In China, there are 1,000-year old, white, cultivated snakes, who assume human form. There are operas written about this. They are the scourge of men. I know about this, having met one first hand in the City of Hangzhou near the West Lake. Almost ruined my life. As I considered my dear wife's request not to harm the snake, I realized that my shovel was 10-yards away by Bluey, asleep in the cool shade of the wines. I took a step towards the shovel and Mr. Snake (or perhaps Miss Snake if she were a 1,000-year old spirit from China touting me to return?) picked up speed, and darted under a large boulder, hidden from view. I grabbed the shovel, and did what needed to be done since dogs and rattlesnakes don't mix, and thrust the shovel under the rock multiple times. My assumption is that the snake escaped through a gopher hole, and is out there, hibernating, growing larger, until Springtime.

And then there was winemaking. One of the ongoing tasks is to top the barrels (we have three wooden ones this year). Makes you wonder if you can really classify this as a chore? It involves: removing the bung, sticking your nose into the barrel. Inhale. Relax. Pull a sample of wine with the Turkey-baster-thingy and taste. Spray the bung-hole entrance with a mixture of potassium metabisulfite and water, then wipe the hole. Add a little bit of sulfite solution for good measure (typically, I'll mix in about a quarter teaspoon or so with each topping.) Next, open a bottle of topping wine, taste it, and fill the barrel to the top. (Normally, "the angels" in the winery will consume 1.5 - 2 bottles per month per barrel depending on the temperature -- the angels are more thristy in summer). I was pleased to find "sprtizyness" from the wooden barrel I tasted last night, indicating that malolactic fermentation had kicked in naturally (without me needing to inoculate the barrels with malolactic bacteria this year). And the 2008 Petit Verdot is "bolder" than the 2007. In fact, the 2008 wines are tasting great at this stage, and it's like Opening Day of the baseball season when any team can win and become the World Champion that year. These wines are promising and could win awards, until I do something to screw them up! This happened when I tasted a 3-gallon carboy of Petit Sirah pressings which I had been saving ... the bung of this container had been knocked off (I don't know for how long) -- when I tasted this wine yesterday, it had an "oxidized" taste to it... so I probably cannot use it for topping wine -- but it sure will make an excellent grappa when I find time to take it to the man with the licenced still.

We started a Winemaker's Forum on the business networking site LinkedIn recently, and I'm amazed by the number of business people out there who are planting vines and making grapes. (Misery loves company I suppose.) One of the discussion topics that came up this week was adding wood chips to wine. Lum Eisenman, our mentor in San Diego, uses wood chips all the time with his 15-gallon stainless steel beer kegs. It's an acceptable way for a small producer or hobbyist to make wine. When I was in Australia and NZ this summer (their winter), I met several winemakers using "oak staves" -- these work quite well also, in combination with breathable "flex tanks" -- these are "permeable tanks" which allow the wine to oxidize slowly (as if the wine were being barrel aged). Merlot Mike purchased several of them during this crush season, which are about $300/each for the 50 gallon size and $400 for the 100 gallon size. About small, 15-gallon wooden barrels, STAY AWAY FROM THEM! (It's a long story.) It's much easier to use the 15-gallon beer kegs. Hint: have a keg party and "forget" to return the keg (forfeiting the deposit as payment).

We used French oak wood chips in our "neutral" 60-gallon barrel last year. In the past, I would just put the chips through the bung hole into the barrel and let them settle at the bottom. (I would use about one pound of chips.) After bottling, I'd manage to get most of the chips out. (Remember, I'm the guy who always makes mistakes when making wine, so I'm not saying this is the best way to do it.) This year we tried something different... I had a very low-tech net/nylon type of stocking, and a special bung that had a protrusion, so that I could "tie" the wood chips in the stocking to the bung -- this kept the chips from going all over the place at the bottom of the barrel -- and made cleaning the barrel much easier when we bottled. In fact, we didn't clean the barrel at all this year ... we just put the new wine into the freshly emptied barrel this year -- because we were so tired at that point. Check out future editions of the Winemaker's Journal to see if that was a mistake, or resulted in award winning wine.

White Wine: A Turkey?

Some people think I don’t like white wine. What I don’t like is the thought of making it because making good white wine in large quantities typically involves refrigeration for which we just don’t have the equipment. After months of drinking thick, chewy Nebbiolo wine or rich, inky, Petit Sirah with every dinner, a little white wine would be a welcome relief. In fact, one of our favorite experiments this wine making season has been “Bluey’s Blush” -- we took a 40-lbs. basket of Petit Sirah,Tempranillo and Zinfandel grapes from our vineyard, crushed them (breaking the skins and removing the stems) then immediately pressed them (separating the juice from the skin and seeds) and began the fermentation process with pink grape juice. The result has been surprising. We love the rose color and there is a hint of “banana” —it was a wonderful use of the grapes, since this is just the “second leaf” of the vines planted 18 months ago and the grapes are not that complex, yet. This is a fun wine. Like Nouveau Beaujolais. Something not to be taken too seriously. But to enjoy.

As we had run out of food a couple of days ago and the cupboard was bare and oranges, pomegranates and lemons can only sustain you for so long, I made my first trip to the grocery store in months, a Trader Joe’s located in the valley 15 miles from the vineyard. The first thing that caught my attention was “white wine” for $1.99 which wasn’t white at all. It was labeled White Zinfandel, and it was pink as Bluey’s Blush, so I put a bottle in my basket as I wanted to give it a try to see how we compare with Napa winemaker Charles Shaw. And who do I see at that moment but none other than Joe the Wino, vintner and owner of a high tech company who’s seen me just make a selection of $2 wine.

“How ya doin’ there partner?” Joe asked.

“Doin’ fine. Doin’ fine, thank you. Spending all my money on women and wine and the rest of it I’m wastin’. Good to see you Joe.” We shook hands. “Whatcha doin’ here at Trader Joe’s – buying Two Buck Chuck to refill your empty bottles of Chateau Laffite for your dinner guests?”

“How did you know?” Joe winked.

Just then a cute little thing acting as a sommelier came up to the millionaire vineyard owner and asked, “May I help you select a wine?”

“I like Pinots; do you have any Pinot noir?” Joe asked.

“This one’s my favorite,” said the Trader Joe’s staff member pointing to a bottle. “And it’s only $9.95.”

“I like the picture on the label,” Joe said. Then he asked, “Do you have any Pinot more?”

“Pinot what?”

“I heard it through the grapevine. A new varietal developed by researchers at the University of California, Davis. A new grape designed for older people like myself. After drinking a whole bottle at dinner, it’s not necessary to get up in the middle of the night and go to the bathroom. It’s called Pee-No-More.”

My eyeballs rolled and the little thing blushed pinker than the rose wine and Joe The Wino just laughed at himself. It seems Joe must be on the same e-mail list as my father who sent me the joke earlier in the week. I asked the attendant if they had any local wines for sale. She said sometimes. I made a note that some of the wines were selling for $30 or more, and this would be a good place to sell Blue-Merlot – especially if the Trader Joe’s artists did a picture of Bluey in Technicolor on the chalkboard. Something like this:

Since John the Avocado Grower from New Zealand is planning to visit us this weekend, I bought a package of kiwi fruits. Our vineyard used to be a kiwi ranch 25 years ago but fell into disrepair as the price of kiwis fell lower than the cost of water, so the place was abandoned. When we moved in, it was a ghost town, navigating through remnants of the old kiwi trellis system, and the locations of a thousand kiwi vines. There was nothing left of the old vines, except for dried, rotted roots which we found as we dug up the place planting olives, persimmons, apples, avocados, macadamias, almonds, figs, guavas, blood oranges, palms and eventually end posts and grapes. Except for under the Man In the Rock. The Man In The Rock is a rock formation whose frown always follows you from whatever angle you look. Is he an Indian? The guardian of the property? Or just a rock? Under his shadow, we found a shoot. A remnant from an old kiwi root, which sprouted forth a few green leaves, unmistakeably those of a kiwi plant. Imagine that, after 14 years of neglect. A survivor. What were the odds? The Queen watered the baby vine very day, and it grew, and she covered it with a clothes hamper from the laundry to keep out the rabbits. When she arrived one day with her water bucket, the kiwi was gone. Nothing. Nothing but a hole. The hole of a gopher. And thus started The Gopher Wars, which will be rekindled after a brief Thanksgiving Truce, with John the Avocado Grower at my side. The Kiwis Strike Back!

Back at Trader Joe’s, I pick up a bottle of Nouveau Beaujolais which I’m delighted to see. The Queen and her species love Nouveau Beaujolais. Where she comes from, they think that this is high quality wine – but it’s Thanksgiving and I know it will make her happy so I’m willing to splurge and spend $8 for the bottle (well, if she drinks that, then I’ve saved one of our $39 in inventory and can sell that and make some money and pay off the Beaujolais purchase). I bumped into Joe The Wino at the checkout counter. His cart was full as he was shopping for Thanksgiving and I wagered the cashier, “I’ll bet you a bottle of wine there’s $200 of groceries in Joe’s cart,” and the cashier said, “You’re wrong – there’s $300.” And at the end of it there was $277.77 and I got to thinking there’s about a week’s worth of food in there and if there are 4 weeks in a month then that’s over $1,100/month for food and that just includes Two Buck Chuck and his $9.95 Pinot More and that’s what I used to spend on my mortgage and now food alone is that much. How is Joe The Plumber going to live let alone this guy who drives a Jaguar?

Back at the ranch there’s an e-mail from my friend Jeff who runs our local commercial winery Belle Marie, where I’ve entered a contest with my answer to the question: “What’s the best temperature to serve white wine?”

To which replied, in order to score a free bottle with at least the most creative answer: “When wine is involved, any temperature is good for serving and drinking!” Lum Eisenman, our master winemaker mentor, would like that answer.

Jeff writes:

“Well there's a sales guy's answer if I've ever heard one! Not that I take issue with your logic. Just so you know, in our opinion a fine dry wine is best served at about 55 degrees. Since most refrigerators are maintained at about 45 degrees, this means that a white wine served directly out of the fridge is too cold. The next time you try a premium white wine, such as our 2006 Paradiso or our 2007 Fume Blanc, try taking the wine out of the refrigerator for 15 or 20 minutes before you drink it... or pour a glass right away but drink it slowly, paying attention to how the wine changes as the temperature rises. In the end, the best serving temperature (just like the best wine) is up to you, the one doing the drinking and enjoying! Thanks for playing along with our challenge Craig. Since taste is subjective and your answer is at least our sentimental favorite, you are officially entered into our drawing to win a bottle of premium white wine. We'll look forward to seeing you again soon. “

I’ll need to remind Jeff that at our house, wine lasts about 15 seconds after being taken out of the refrigerator, and to all of you drinking white wine on Thanksgiving, I send you a toast, as we sample from our land pomegranates, persimmons, olives, oranges and gopher filled with Stauffer’s stove-top stuffing.