At the Christmas celebration, we took advantage of the fact that all were present, for a group photo.
Archive for December, 2006
Today is the last day that FedEx guarantees before Christmas delivery, and our crew is furiously packaging. We have had an extraordinary amount of shipping this year - last monday was a record day - over two hundred packages.
This may be the last day but I think it is awfully satisfying to open a gift a few days after Christmas, it doesn’t get lost with all the others and wine can be enjoyed any time.
Our packers have had a lot experience in shipping bottles, wooden gift boxes and baskets and I can’t remember a single breakage. Take advantage of our low flat shipping rate, 6.50, and send a present to yourself.
The second photo is the Santa Barbara Winery Tasting Room taken today.
After removing 30 year old vines - these are vines on their own roots and susceptible to all sorts of parasites - we are preparing the block for late spring planting. Winemaker, Bruce McGuire, has selected four different clones, grafted to special root stock.
One of the clones selected is the Wente clone which now produces our finest Chardonnay. This block looks very promising, the soil, the orientation. the climate - everything looks right. First harvest 2009.
Shown is the bulldozer doing the final grading.
Tasting Room manager, Mirella Valdez, has been very busy - decorating the Tasting Room and filling orders. Here she is in her office discuussing shipments with a customer and below a corner of the Tasting Room. In the background Jesus is filling barrels.
Winemaker, Bruce McGuire, has kept several small lots for extended maceration - keeping the wine that has finished fermentation in contact with the grapes. This may last several weeks and this year the last lots will be pressed the week before Christmas.
With extended maceration the wine absorbs many of the elements present in the skins that add to the complexity of the wine. Not all varieties benefit from this practice.
Picture of Bruce tightening the the rings in a new barrel and below Jesus filling barrels.
We are replanting our 30 year old Sauvignon Blanc block. The vines, like most vineyards planted at that time, were planted on their own roots. Vines on their own roots offer very little protection against nematodes, especially in sandy soil, and the vines are slowly dying.
An adjacent block, with similar soil and conditions, that is producing very high quality fruit - our Lafond vineyard designated Chardonnay, convinced us to replant the block in Chardonnay. We are planting four different clones, all on nematode resistant root stock which are bench grafted in the nursery so that what we plant are, in fact, one year old vines.
All conditions are right for an exceptional Chardonnay from these new vines, but the proof is in the pudding - we make our first wine from this planting in 2009. Meanwhile, as we remove the old vines, it looks like a battle zone.
We couldn’t pass up this image of Bert unloading barrels of Syrah and Grenache in 75F weather, in December, at the Santa Barbara Winery and under protective palm trees.
Although we store over 600 barrels at the Lafond Winery it is not enough. We move barrels gradually, throughout the year, to Santa Barbara both for storing and bottling. Our Barrel storage rooms are air conditioned, humidity controlled and regularly checked. Each barrel is numbered and logged in a computer spreadsheet and its progress recorded.
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