Stories started appearing locally about a week ago about budbreak here in wine country. This happens first with certain varieties (like Chardonnay) and in certain areas, but soon we’re seeing little green buds and leaves all over wine country. Click READ to see pix...
We woke the boys up early one day last week (can you tell?) to taste our biggest reds - the 2005 August Briggs Petite Sirahs from Napa Valley and the Red Hills of Lake County. These bottlings of 100% Petite Sirah offer an interesting comparison of how the location of the two different vineyards are reflected in the wine.
As Joe says, "It's never good when you have to handle a bottle more than once" when you're making wine. You may recall from my bottling post and video that we weren't able to put capsules on the Zin bottles that day as the new bottles we used (which were supposed to be exactly the same as the 05 bottles) didn't take the foil capsules we had in stock. Yesterday and today we had to take all those bottles and capsule them by hand...
I have to admit that I was shocked and dismayed the other day – on my travels I had the opportunity to order some wine off of a hotel wine list. The choices were somewhat limited, but a pinot noir from BV caught my eye, if only because I used to work there and still have a soft spot for this (once) great California winery and brand. I still have some friends working at the winery in Rutherford, and know they work hard to produce the best Napa wines possible. But what I saw when I actually received this bottle of BV pinot noir made me shake my head in disbelief...
Over the past several days our vineyard contractor Santiago has been working hard, pruning the Petite Sirah estate vines at the winery for the upcoming growing season. Pruning the vines, cutting off most of last year’s growth, is typically done as late as possible in the winter...
(Click READ for pix)
As we move through February and early March here in wine country, vine pruning really kicks into gear. Last week the 1908 Luvisi vineyard was pruned on a nice sunny morning here in Calistoga. You can see in the video how the workers move quickly but carefully, pruning these old head-trained vines back to two buds per spur to allow for this year’s growth. The clippings are gathered later and turned into mulch. Next blog I’ll compare this to our 3 year old head pruned Petite Sirah vines at the winery.
I’m talking to distributors in different parts of the country this week, as we’re considering opening up some new wholesale markets this year. As I related in my very first blog, the business for wine is getting mixed reviews from the holidays and so far this year...
