Vineyard Triage

Hedged Vines

Can good wine be made from hedged vines that have 6 only leaves per cluster in midsummer? Can a cocktail of Rubigan and organic JMS Stylet Oil be applied to combat and eradicate existing mildew on grapes?

Make no mistake. This vineyard is loved. But there comes a time in a man's life when it's difficult to walk up and down that hill, when it's difficult to raise those clippers, when it's difficult to lift that 5-gallon carboy and when it's time to say enough. It was a good run and it's time to pass the baton.

Half the vineyard is a jungle providing shelter for mountain lions, bears and you can imagine the rest. But the other half was hacked, macheted and hedged into submission. "I like to look at it," says the owner about those neat, cleanly shaved rows. The Queen often says the same, "I just want a vineyard to look at," she says, singing a song about how all I ever talk about is temperature and the mildew index. There has been a good grape set (the owner did manage to prune the rows during Winter), but there are only 6 or so leaves per cluster, instead of the usual 12 - 15 after the rows were given a crew cut.

Jungle Vineyard 

Can good wine be made from hedged vines that have 6 only leaves per cluster in midsummer? Can a cocktail of Rubigan and organic JMS Stylet Oil be applied to combat and eradicate existing mildew on grapes?


Beware the Prayer of Jabez, the one that goes "Lord, please increase my land, please multiply my blessings." Be careful what you wish for. I will grab that baton. I will step up. I will take care of this vineyard for you. Behold, my land has been increased.

The clusters of Petit Verdot and Malbec are plentiful, but the vineyard has not been sprayed all year and powdery mildew, something I know much to much about, is in evidence. Since we have Rubigan left (in abundance), I'm thinking a good shot of Rubigan will offer mildew protection for up to 3 weeks, so that one spraying may get us through the season. And, Stylet Oil is said to be an eradicant for mildew.  Can they be combined for one spraying?

Very Neat Rows - Eye Pleasing

I adore this vineyard. It is scenic and the vines, now in their 13th year, are mature and have produced subtle, delicious nectar. We have spilled sweat and blood over this vineyard and Bluey, the Australian Shepherd, cellar master of our winery and our muse, overindulged on grapes from these same vines and somehow survived to tell about it. And the wine, that floral Petit Verdot that inspires scentologists to replicate its fragrance, this is worth the effort.

The vineyard was "dry farmed" last year, meaning no irrigation was used in summer, and plans are to continue the same this year.  With the winter rains we had, and based on last year's results, I don't believe irrigation will be necessary. And the owner says since they were hedged, the vines have been growing back.  On average, about 6 or so leaves per cluster now. My guess is that more leaves will emerge and that in a month there will be longer shoots and that there is a possibility these grapes will ripen and who knows, produce the vintage of a lifetime.

What do the experts say?

My Unrequited French Love: Petit Verdot

Gerry,

When I was living in Paris in my early 20s I always knew that I would marry a French woman. I imagined she would be petite like so many mignon gals from France I knew at the time but I never foresaw her surnom would be Verdot. At last, I have found her, the most fragrant of the fair. Maligned in Bordeaux where she is used only sparingly in blends, she has blossomed in San Diego County in your vineyard. I can't think of anyone who doesn't like la mademoiselle who has tasted le vin we have made from the Petit Verdot grapes of your estate. Ma maitresse que je l'aime!

As for the 2010 vintage, she presents certain issues. As Coyote Karen would say, perhaps it's menopause. Namely, in your attempt to restructure your vineyard this year you have been more than parsimonious with water. You have been Robespierre and simply cut it off and the vines have had to make due. What you have achieved are berries that are small, indeed, we could say petit. And, if your aim was to stress the vines, that too has been achieved. In the three previous years we have picked these grapes on average in the middle of September. Now we are in the middle of October, and we will be fighting the bees and the yellow jackets for more than our fair share. Yet, despite the long hang time and the mini heat waves, the sugars just don't seem to mount with these grapes. Last year, they reached 23 brix. But, a week ago, you were still at 22 brix. The bees, causing damage now with each berry invaded another pimple on my lady's complexion, tell me it's time to harvest. Just to be sure, we walked the vineyard, taking a random sample of 60 berries, 10 each from the six rows. The refractometer indicates a shade over 22 brix. The pH meter says 3.53 and the acid TA measurement is .68 The pH and acid readings are good and although the brix are a little less than perfect, what woman is? I'll take her, and perhaps by grabbing those raisins from lack of water and throwing those into the mix she'll become a little more sweet, like giving your date a box of chocolates.

We have learned from experience it's a challenge for Lady Petit Verdot to stand on her own. But with just a slight touch of make-up she is airbrushed to absolute perfection achieving supermodel status. Our aim this year is to take that dry-farmed Cab of yours, which we just pressed the other night and is so full of promise, and blend some of mademoiselle Verdot with it and with some of the Malbec to achieve the finest "Merleatage" ever created by a dog (or at least by a Blue-Merle Australian Shepherd). And, if it turns out as well as I think it can, I'll commission our tres chere amie Kelly P. of Salud Scent Studio to capture its fragrance in a tantalizing perfume worthy of the First Lady of France.

We're sorry you won't by able to join us for the pick but do keep resting that gash in your head and if the doctors allow you to drink a glass of wine I hope you'll do that as we travail. Enjoy the view from the window as we battle against the bees and the yellow jackets and the rising heat to bring these grapes home to the barrel. If, as you did during the Cab harvest a month ago, you are able to bring us a container of your 2009 Meritage wine, or for that matter any year, it makes a fitting winemaker's lunch with a pleasing taste that lasts all afternoon. (Hey Google, when are you going to add scratch and sniff to Blogger?)

(Photos of the Petit Verdot vineyard, vines and berries.)

Need Your Input To Create the Next Best Thing

Would you help us?

We're asking our fans, friends and followers to help us create an exceptional wine. We have a dozen or so different 2009 wines in bulk storage and we'd like your input into which blends to create. I'll provide a brief summary of each wine then a few ideas to get things started.

This weekend, we're welcoming a group of fans from San Diego to come here and concoct some of your blending recommendations (plus their own ideas). Then we'll taste, tweak, then taste again in search of the perfect vino-nectar. I'm thinking of dividing the group into four teams to create a little competition, something like a World Cup of Wine, with the teams being The Spanish, The French, The Italians, The Californians, tasked with blending traditional (and not so traditional) wines from their region. The winners will have the honor of seeing their wine blended as an official Blue-Merle offering, and of course complimentary bottles for their efforts.

The Spanish Wines

Tempranillo (Estate): This is a big, bold, dark wine. It can stand on its own. Some could be blended with a weaker wine.

Garnacha (Estate): Otherwise known as Grenache in France, a lighter red wine.

(Spanish Team Ideas: Trying blending a little Tempranillo with the Garnacha. Try blending wines from other regions with the Tempranillo to create a "Super Spanish Wine."

The Italian Wines

Nebbiolo (Guadeloupe): A big, bold red. This vintage a little salty. The 2006 Nebbiolo we made is one of the most liked of all our wines, but I'm not so sure about the 2009. Should be good for blending.

Montepulciano (Guadeloupe): Generally, this wine tastes good mostly on its own, but the 2009 grapes may also be a little "salty."

Aglianico (Guadeloupe): A very bold wine. Good for blending. Alas, some salt.

Brunello: (San Diego) The Brunello (Sangiovese) from San Diego has its own unique taste. We've blended it already with Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot which made it much more palatable to our liking, and could be the basis for creating a fantastic "Super Tuscan" wine.

(Italian Ideas: Blend the Brunello with some of the "French" wines to create a "Super Tuscan." Create a "Super Italian" wine using the Italians as a base, and improved with some of the other varietals in the winery.)

The French Wines:

Mouvedre (Paso Robles): The grape of Bandol. Very fruit forward. Floral. Delicious. But high pH.
Grenache (Estate): The grape of Chateauneuf du Pape, in this case from young vines.

Petit Verdot (San Diego & Paso Robles): There are two batches of Petit Verdot, both delicious. The Paso Robles one is very fruit forward with high pH. The San Diego one (a local vineyard below us which has been the source of our past Petit Verdots which is much adored) is more subtle and lower pH. Both are very, very floral. One idea is to combine the two into a very complex Petit Verdot.

Cabernet Franc (Paso Robles): Another "fruit forward" wine from Paso Robles. May have been slightly oxidized after the fermentation process (whoops!) so the team will be asked to judge if it is worth standing on its own, to be blended or to be dumped. Also, high pH.

Petit Sirah: (San Diego): This PS was picked at low brix (22.5) and is not as bold as previous Petit Sirahs. Given its low pH, it's a good candidate for blending.

(French suggestions: Thinking about pH--high pH equates to shorter aging potential--it may make sense to blend some of the lower pH wines with the higher ones. Not wanting to lead the witness, I expect your suggestions to create the greatest "Merleatage" ever!)

The Californian Wines

Tempranillo/Petite Sirah Blend (Estate): Big, bold, dark, purple, New World wine, with ripe Petit Sirah grapes from the Blue-Merle Vineyard providing hints of persimmon. Currently, it's a 50-50 blend. with the Petit Sirah overpowered by the Tempranillo.

Zinfandel (Estate): This is a high acid wine, with low pH from young 3rd leaf fines. It can't stand on its own, and should be blended.

(Ideas for The California Team: Be creative!)

Final thoughts:

"Good wine is made in the vineyard. Great wine is made by blending."

"The objective of blending is to create something better. If blending lowers the taste of one of the wines, don't blend it."

What would you suggest?

The Art of Wine Blending & Another Disaster Narrowly Avoided

Definitions:

PV = Petit Verdot.
PS = Petit Sirah
Queen = the woman who runs this place, whose dream it was to own a vineyard
Phoenix canariensis = my favorite palm tree
Disaster = when you mistakenly turn a barrel of wine (street value $7,000) into vinegar
PP = Petit Sirah / Petit Verdot blend in approximate equal amounts
pp = what the dog does when he goes out, as in: "Le chien fait son pis-pis…."

(Editor’s note: I assure you there is no pp in the PP but we guarantee "hair of the dog" in every bottle.)

Since planning the layout of our vines, our rule for making decisions has been: "Vineyard is Art." More so for the blending of wines. For over a year I have been raving about the "floral characteristics" of this Petit Verdot (PV) we were fortunate enough to source from Gerry Meisenholder, owner of Arroyo Vineyard in nearby Bonsall, CA. I liked the fruit so much, we invested in a French-oak barrel for it. The general consensus about PV is it’s a great blending wine, but not strong enough to stand on its own. I thought we would buck the trend, and produce something different – a unique PV with enough character to star as the main attraction. What’s more, since PV is fairly uncommon, it would be a good marketing niche. In May 2008, just 8 months after harvest, I entered the PV into competition at the San Diego County fair. An 8 month old wine, mind you. Knowing full well that it had not fully matured, I added character to it by blending in some Nebbiolo – a prince of Italian grapes, which I nicknamed "Petit Verdot Plus." The result: a wine fit for royalty, and a 2nd place ribbon in the "blended red" category. (This for an 8 month wine that had no bottle aging…) I felt I was on to something. The plan was simple. I had 5-gallons of the 2006 Nebbiolo left, and decided to blend this with 15 gallons of PV. This would leave me 45-gallons of pure, 100% PV to market as a stand alone wine, and giving consumers a chance to sample a wine that normally they wouldn’t have an opportunity to taste. The problem was this: as good as the PV is, it just didn’t have the "complexity" that one would expect in a fine wine. The decisive moment came three weeks ago, when Mick from Belle Marie Winery, Coyote Karen, Merlot Mike and I met to discuss San Diego wine politics, and I pulled a sample of PV from the barrel to share. The silence was defining. I had hoped to share the PV with Mick to create a joint-venture "Opus One" – no such offer was forthcoming. Merlot Mike took me into his winery and gave me a jar of "tannin" – add this, he suggested, as if to spice it up. It was as bland to him as rice without sushi, as oatmeal without milk, as Merlot without the "fine."

Back to the drawing board. Once the decision was made that something needed to be added, the next question was what? We had some Brunello that would blend nicely – but from a marketing point of view didn’t make much sense. I tried blending in some 2007 Merlot – but the Merlot’s dominant characteristics overpowered the PV. And then there was the barrel of Petit-Petit, the 50-50 blend of Petit Verdot & Petit Sirah. That Petit Sirah, invented by Dr. Durif, so purple, so powerful – and that blended combination, so promising.

Saturday (September 27th) was the hottest day we have had in September, and was bottling day. The marathon started at 7am and continued until 10pm – requiring the stamina of a 26 mile race, but no need to throw-up. It’s a dreaded day…. Like driving from North Carolina to New York… but the rewards await. The first part was easy … use the siphon hose to pull 15 gallons of PV from the barrel into a storage container, then rack in the 5-gallons of award-winning 2006 Nebbiolo. 103 bottles produced … folks, this is a winner, as the judges have already declared.

If bottling were just bottling, it might not be so bad. But, there’s preparation, then racking. When you empty one barrel, you need to immediately fill it up with the new wine because empty barrels invite microbes. And, when it’s all said and done, there’s cleaning up.
Next, I pull 10 gallons from the Petit-Petit (PP) barrel (which was 50% PV and 50% Petit Sirah) for blending with the remaining Petit Verdot. But, in order to keep the PP barrel full, I pull out 10 gallons of PV, then siphon it over to the other barrel, to keep it topped. All of this takes time.
(Time for a math exercise: … 35 gallons of PV blended with 10 gallons of a 50%-50%- PV/PS blend results in 45 gallons, 5 of which are PS and 40 of which are PV, and 5/40 = 12.5%, except, it didn’t exactly happen that way and the actual mixture is one batch with 10% PS and another batch with about 15% PS and the batch with 15% Petit Sirah (PS) tastes better and we labeled that one PV (good) for internal purposes while the other is just PV. [Do all winemaker’s go through this?]

This is how I almost turned $7,000 of wine into vinegar. The pump is the greatest invention since the wheel, at least for winemakers. Using a siphon hose used to add hours to the bottling/racking marathon, but a pump can empty a barrel of wine in minutes (or fill a barrel up with new wine). As I was setting the pump up, I accidentally hit the on switch, which disgorged a reddish, brown liquid. "Vinegar!" Somehow, I had not cleaned it out properly the last time I used it, and had it not been for the accident of turning it on, that vinegar would have been injected into the batch of Petit Verdot, with unthinkable consequences.
In summary: This PV with a touch of Petit Sirah is better than 100% PV, while the PP (which is now about 60% PV and 40% PS is better than both) and the PV Plus (with 20% Nebbiolo is already a proven award winner. All of this is back breaking work and the Queen whose dream it was to own a vineyard never dreamed about this and is singing a lot of songs about how this is not what she dreamed about.

I am saved from a knockout punch by the bell. The door bell. It’s Lera from Colorado with her brother Micah and his fiancée Megan who’ve flown in for a "tour" of the little vineyard on the mountainside and the so-called winery in the garage on Sunday afternoon. Special guests deserve special wine and we open a bottle of the 2006 Nebbiolo – it has become silky smooth and it tastes great and I’m thinking that the price has just gone up another $5 to $39/bottle. We also serve some of the leftover PV from the night before, and I’m thinking the initial taste is good, but I’m not sure about the finish and we’ll need to see what 6-months in the bottle does to this. Still, the company is great and the wine is delicious and there goes Sunday afternoon and here comes the heat wave. Summer has arrived and it’s almost October. The chain saw will have to wait.

Fast forward to Friday …. The Queen said she wanted to bottle the PP on Friday night. We started at 7pm and finished at 2:30 am and got it all bottled, close to 24 cases and 280 bottles and Saturday started out as a slow day and turned into it’s own marathon, death by 1,000 cuts from palm trees.

The Queen is always singing a song about how the vineyard is her dream, not mine, and how dare me for usurping her dream. Well now we’re even, because since we moved to San Diego 14 years ago "my favorite palm tree" has been the Canary Island Date Palm and every time we drive by one I’ll raise my hand, point, and say, "That’s my favorite palm." The Princess will say, "Dad, you’ve told me that already," but it doesn’t stop me from saying it again when we pass the next tree. When we moved to Blue-Merle country and started clearing the land my parents offered to purchase us a tree as a gift. "Thanks dad – I’ll take just one of my favorite palm trees." I then told him they cost $10,000 (plus delivery, which requires a crane.) He sent a $150 gift card instead and we bought a dozen Macadamia trees (another dream and another story).

I’m going on and on about winemaking and blending and vineyards but we live in interesting times and we’re one whoops away from the Great Depression of 2008. Stocks have dropped 20% and college tuition has gone up to $50,000/year and there’s no money in my bank account and the princess calls from New York City saying there’s no money in her bank account, and Bluey the dog growls "hungry" and there’s no food in his bag and there’s no money to buy any today. It’s all the fault of our greedy mortgage broker who put us into a house we couldn’t afford so we could pursue the cock-eyed dream of a vineyard. Because of his greed the world economy is about to collapse. But, there’s hope (besides the fact that we can live off the land, have our guns to hunt game of rabbit, squirrels and gophers and there’s a church at the bottom of the mountain where we can cling to religion): The Queen saves money like a smart squirrel who hoards acorns. She has $1,677 in her savings account and she has taken that, plus my last $100 and assembled $1,777.77 which was the bill for 46 Canary Island Palm trees, given to our daughter on the joyous occasion of her 20th birthday. Does this sound like "Jack and the Beanstalk"? This is either extreme foolishness or genius.

"I’d go to Las Vegas," said the salesperson at the nursery who unloaded the palms for quick cash. "Buy a lottery ticket. It’s not every day that a receipt has five 7’s in a row." Perhaps a roll of the dice would have been a wiser investment?

The 46 palm trees are delivered on Monday and at $10,000 each (future value) we now have an additional $460,000 in assets (future value) less:
The cost of hauling them to designated points on the property
The cost of digging holes and planting
The cost of chiropractic care (for my back)
The cost of watering
The cost of making boxes (and of dirt) for those we don’t plant
And, 50 years from now, when our "bonds" have reached their mature "face value" of $10,000 each, the cost of building roads and renting a crane to pull these puppies out of the ground (this should be slightly less than drilling for oil in the Arctic wilderness)
Less the cost of sales (in case the Princess is unable to sell them direct to consumers and goes through a wholesale nursery)

After pulling a near all-nighter on Friday night bottling, I am pressed to plant palm trees on Saturday. And Sunday. I go to sleep with my clothes on. I plot on getting even: "These palm trees are my dream," I inform the Queen and, "They’re half mine." I explain how I’ve earned 50% sweat equity from planting them and suffering a thousand piercings from the needles. Given the fact that stocks are likely to go lower next week – at least our stocks --the palm trees, now worth more than our house, are looking like a pretty good investment, guaranteed to grow. Just add water.