Archive for the 'Articles on Wine and Vineyards' Category

Quake Damages Chile’s Wine Business

Waking up to headlines about earthquakes in the far reaches of the globe (Haiti, Chile, and now Turkey) seems to be becoming an frightening trend.  Seeing the numerical quake magnitude is a far reach from registering what those who are experiencing the disaster are going through.  They seem so far away, yet they could happen right here in California, and will.

I came across this article in USA Today on how Chile’s most recent earthquake has affected its wine industry (Southern Hemisphere wineries harvest on opposite sides of the calendar as the Northern Hemisphere because of the polar seasons).

SANTA CRUZ, Chile — Samuel Castro, a security guard at Bisquertt Winery’s 1,400-acre vineyard here in the Colchagua Valley, arrived at his job at 7 a.m. last Saturday and couldn’t believe what he saw.

“The road was turned into a red torrent; the wine was streaming down the irrigation ditch,” he remembered.

Five days after the massive magnitude-8.8 earthquake that hit Chile, the more than 300-foot-long dirt road that leads to Bisquertt’s main cellar was still soaked, had a dark-purple color and emanated a smell of putrid wine.

Several storage tanks cracked, dozens of barrels burst and hundreds of bottles shattered, releasing about 20,000 liters of red wine, said Jaime Araya, a manager at Bisquertt.

Similar devastations struck most of the wineries in this valley and many more along the central-south region of Chile, which is home to 70% of the wine production in this country and which the quake hit hardest…

To read the rest of the article, Quake Puts Dent in Chile’s Wine Business, click here.

Joanie Hudson, Director of National and International Marketing, Santa Barbara Winery / Lafond Winery & Vineyards

California Travel – Happy Canyon

Santa Barbara County’s newest AVA, Happy Canyon of Santa Barbara, has long been a source of high quality fruit for us here at Santa Barbara Winery.  Check out this fun article (‘Near Santa Barbara, California’s New Wine Country’) on our newest wine country destination.

From California Travel Girl website

I know why it’s called Happy Canyon. It’s because this little corner of Santa Barbara wine country, in the east end of the Santa Ynez Valley, has just become California’s newest AVA (American Viticultural Area). On the Los Padres side of Highway 154, this broad, sunny cleft is home to horse ranches and hillside vineyards.

To become an AVA, a wine region has to be significantly different from other winegrape growing areas, and Happy Canyon qualifies: hotter temps, less fog, and a mineral terroir (serpentine soil lace with high magnesium content) make it distinctive. It’s also pretty small, with just six major vineyards and two active wineries (a third is due next year), but note: none offer public tasting.

Still, you can make your own tasting tour of their wines (mostly Bordeaux-styles), by visiting winetasting rooms like those listed below. Or visit the better known area Santa Barbara wine regions. And don’t miss Santa Barbara’s downtown Urban Wine Trail, with stops at eleven wine hotspots. Happy now?

Planting Cover Crop at Lafond Vineyards

When harvest is over it is time to prepare the vineyard for the winter rains. The photos below show the discing, which prepares and creates the furrows, followed by the seeding. The seeds are a combination of grasses which protect the vineyard from erosion.

The vineyard staff was very proud of their planning abilities. The disc tractor moves at 3mph and the seeder at 5mph. How much leeway to give the disc tractor so that the seed tractor does not bump into it? Apparently it has been calculated with precision and it never happens.

Click images to enlarge:

Expectations for the 2008 Vintage

What can we expect from the 2008 vintage?  An entire year of weather is reflected in the wine that is produced in a particular harvest.  Certain weather patterns produce specific varietal character and expression, and in most cases affect the amount of fruit that comes off of the vine and into the winery. 

2008 will be a low fruit yielding year, just like 2007 was.  Extremely low rainfall produced small berries.  What is lacking in quantity can be made up in quality.  Low yields mean less fruit, but vines put more effort into the hanging berries making for concentrated fruit (“more flavor per berry”).  According to Assistant Winemaker Ryan Ralston, “When you have a vine putting all of its power into less fruit it’s going to really concentrate those flavors.”

If you have had your radar on Santa Barbara County in 2008 you recall that we were hit hard with frost damage in April (temperatures dipped below freezing on April 20).  So what actually happens in the vineyard when there is frost damage?  A recent article in the Pacific Coast Business Times explains, “the freeze slowed vines’ bloom, which in turn meant that fruit hadn’t set when spring winds and May heat waves arrived.”  Some growers were hit harder than others.  This season’s weather also led to uneven ripening, requiring more hand sorting through grapes to weed out berries that were not fully ripened. 

Thicker skinned red grapes will continue to be harvested through November.

http://pacbiztimes.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=388&Itemid=1

Joanie Hudson, Assistant Tasting Room Manager, Santa Barbara Winery

Ode to Harvest

Ode to Harvest by Rose Moradian

Too much is never enough, I suppose. The golden light, the green to yellow, the purple heliotrope peeping thru the white picket fence at the end of the day. The noble faces of the sunflowers nod downwards to the soil to where they sink the seeds, to be revived or eaten by the birds, either way, it is all a part of the cycle. This is everlasting, this cycle. This is where life begins and ends, every day, year, and decade.

The heart shaped leaves, the triumvirate cross harvesting the opal grapes, deliciously sweetening with every drop of the suns ray. The shadows grow long; the silken stalks of Indian corn braid and the hulls shrivel to a silhouette, the lily ponds erupt in a blue explosion of lotuses, the birds spend their vacations south.

The rolls of hay and oats bounce with the anticipation of the October quarter, yet it is all very calm as the tadpoles snatch at the mosquitoes, the frogs rival one another in a chorus of madness and the owls march along the rows deftly enjoying the buffet of rodents.

The ponds pebbles slathered with ancient algae, dried and bleached like a horses tail, hides a haven of salamanders and the sandstone boulders that have built heat all day slowly release the diurnal fixation
into the ever clear soft and sweet night.

Never has a rosé tasted or smelled so dry and vernal as today, with solar fusion cascading thru the glass as it is held to the sunset sky, the beading of moist pearls like fog appearing with the onset of the suns good bye, golden red and begging to be drunk right now. This is it, this is the moment, and this is the finest hour before the harvest begins.

The scythes and coronas all working together, brass and brown, snip of this and a snap of that, falling to the ground in a surrender to the soil, and sacrifice to the grape. The work of the terrain is done, it is all heaven from here, acceptance of the holy heated sun soaring high like the buzzards that eat the remains of the dead, casting a shadow of elsewhere on the adobe known as the growing grounds.

It is on the honor of the earth that we bring upon ourselves this hard work. It is a necessary region of cerebral activity, the marriage of sweat and history, knowledge and skill, and endless bounties of satisfaction, this work of single-minded artistry labelled enology. This sweet perspiration is in anticipation of the calling of the sugars, the tannins of taste, the skins of inebriation, the stems of legs.

This harmony of nature echoes in joy, the readiness of a virgin at the wedding altar for her beloved these grapes to be picked with tender tactility, the firm pluck of a boy and the kindness of a man, simple in nature, profound in duty with the acceptance of honor, paid in due by the patience of time. Lighted with the efforts of last year’s bounty, lift the chalice high and enjoy the mighty! Written by Rose Keppler~Moradian September Third, 2006.

Rose Keppler-Moradian Gardener/Poet

Thompson Vineyard Trip

Los Alamos’ Thompson Vineyard is where we source Pinot Gris, Petite Sirah, and some Chardonnay. I took the hour long trip up to the steep sloped vineyard to check out grapes yesterday evening and got to walk through Syrah, Grenache, Petite Sirah, Mouvedre, Grenache Blanc, Pinot Gris and Chardonnay vines. To get to Thompson Vineyard, which is planted to 37 acres, you take the 101 north from Santa Barbara to Alisos Canyon Road. They are one of the most respected vineyards in the valley and consistently produce richly concentrated wines because of their low tonnage per acre that is farmed.

Walking through the vineyard you can see that each winery who sources fruit from there farms there fruit to their own specific standards. Clusters hang from the vines like Christmas ornaments, heavy and tugging their support vines down with them. Clusters such as Grenache have berries so tightly pressed together they look like they are about to pop. Pulling individual grapes from the clusters we could see how some are riper than others at this point when harvest has started for some, but will continue through as late as November. We used a tool called a Refractometer to test brix (sugar levels) in the grapes, which increase as the grapes get riper and is a huge determining factor when winemakers are deciding when to pick. Another test is acidity (or pH). Acidity is higher when the pH number is lower. That tangy liveliness that you get from the fruit is reflective of the acidity in the fruit, which is result in a more vibrant wine. On the flip side grapes can be undesirably flabby and lacking character if they don’t develop properly.

Right now all of the vines are netted so that the birds don’t pick at the tiny berries. We found and a released a hawk that was caught inside of the nets and it calmly glided out to freedom. While Thompson got hit hard by frost damage this year, everything that remains in the vineyard looks beautiful. The Petite Sirah berries were my favorite, with skins that are thinner and softer than Syrah, yet have more tannin. If you are curious, Petite Sirah berries are about the same size as Syrah and possess a deep inky purple color.

If you ever have the opportunity to go on a vineyard trip, take it. Being able to identify the site where your wine comes from adds to the tasting experience.

Joanie Hudson, Assistant Tasting Room Manager, Santa Barbara Winery

Online Wine Video Theater

I have always been a visual learner.  Lately I have taken up to watching informational videos on wine to increase my knowledge.  Two of the best sites that I have found to do this are winelibrarytv.com and the video theater section on Wine Spectator’s website.  These are great ways to focus in on specific areas that peak your interest as well as to learn about something you had no previous knowledge whatsoever about.  On winelibrarytv.com Gary Vaynerchuk takes viewers through a live blind tasting.  He will choose either a certain varietal, a specific region, or diverse price points (to name a few) and then line up a few wines and taste them in front of a camera.  Viewers can see his honest reactions and develop their wine vocabulary and flavor profiles (your spice cabinet of wine descriptors).  

Wine Spectator’s videos are put together by their editors.  James Laube, a senior editor, put together an interesting piece on Russian River Pinot Noir that I just watched where he speaks to the winemakers of famed cult winery, Kosta Browne.  They discuss the ideal climate for pinot noir grapes to flourish in, pointing to cool nights as an integral part of the process.  The fog rolls in at night to the Russian River Valley, like it does in the Sta Rita Hills, to keep the area from getting too warm.  Pinot is a delicate grape that does not do well in areas that have hot days or warm nights.  These cool nights allow the grape to develop its vibrant acidity to the full potential and the purely seductive bright fruit that it brings to the palate.  

Check out both of these sites to learn more about your favorite grape or region.  Or if you’re just a wine nerd like me…

Joanie Hudson, Assistant Tasting Room Manager, Santa Barbara Winery