Winemaker Bruce McGuire, shown here, is in the last stages of bottling before being overwhelmed by the harvest. Bruce is filtering Chardonnay. The wine has been cooled to 30F to crystallize the tartrates that are naturally part of the wine. The filtering is to remove the tartrates as well as any suspended solids that are still there.

The cooling requires about two weeks and once the wine is stable, that is the tartrates have crystallized, it is passed through a diatomaceous filter. Diatomaceous earth consists of ‘fossilized remains of diatoms, a type of hard-shelled algae’ (Wikipedia) and is universally used in the wine industry. After filtering, the wine will be allowed to warm up, and at bottling will pass through a finer membrane filter calibrated at absolute .45 microns.

This is a procedure we use for all white wines and very rarely for reds. Reds are chilled, as well, but are given more time to settle and the resulting clean wine can be bottled without filtration. Red wine is more complex and passing through a filter may damage the wine and its more nuanced flavors.

Develop a Wine Palate by Knowing Exactly What You Like

How do you figure out what types of wines you like to drink?  Think about flavors you find desirable, foods you like to eat, what flavors complement the foods on your plate?

But mostly, what works for YOU?

Celebration Of Harvest 2010
October 8, 9, 10, 11

The annual Celebration of Harvest is held in October each year, when we’re in the thick of the winegrape harvest and winery staff take a needed break to showcase their latest wines, many newly bottled! This year’s Celebration of Harvest will be held on October 9th from 1 to 4pm, and once again on the beautiful grounds of Rancho Sisquoc Winery in the Santa Maria Valley.

Local restaurants, caterers and specialty food purveyors will showcase their talents and the bounty of Santa Barbara County, while live and lively bands will fill the air with music. Add to that the silent auction, filled with specialty wines and large format bottles from members of the Vintners’ Association to benefit local food banks, and we definitely have a reason to Celebrate Harvest!

Be sure to take in the sights, sounds, smells and excitement of harvest by extending your stay for a few days. The Vintners’ Visa is a four-day pass to 12 participating wineries, each of whom are pulling out all the stops just for Vintners’ Visa holders. The Vintners’ Visa can be used at participating wineries from can be used Friday through Monday so make it a long weekend! And for the full celebratory mode, (and for a great deal!), order a “combo ticket” which gives you access to the Festival at Rancho Sisquoc and a Vintners’ Visa!

More to come… Click Here for more info and tickets.

(Click image to enlarge)

We are experimenting with a new concept for netting. Instead of using large nets which cover several rows at a time, are difficult to install and remove, we are using netting which covers only the fruit area and is applied to both sides of the vine. It installs very quickly using a three man crew and an ATV.

Removing should be just as easy since the net doesn’t cover the vine it won’t get entangled with growing canes. There is one dark cloud, however, since it fits tightly against the vine some of the fruit is pressed against the mesh. The question then is, will the birds realize this and pick off the available fruit or, is the netting sufficient deterence, and fly off elsewhere.

SFMOMA PROBES THE CONTEMPORARY CULTURE OF WINE AND PRESENTS HOW WINE BECAME MODERN

From November 20, 2010, to April 17, 2011, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) will present How Wine Became Modern: Design + Wine 1976 to Now. This exhibition explores transformations in the visual and material culture of wine over the past three decades, offering a fresh way of understanding the contemporary culture of wine and the role that design has played in its transformation. Organized by Henry Urbach, SFMOMA’s Helen Hilton Raiser Curator of Architecture and Design, How Wine Became Modern marks the first exhibition to consider modern, global wine culture as an integrated yet expansive and richly textured set of cultural phenomena.

The story begins in 1976, the year of the now-famous Judgment of Paris. There, in a blind taste test, nine French wine experts pronounced a number of northern California wines superior to esteemed French vintages. However apt the decision, later criticized and repeatedly restaged, the event released shock waves across the globe as it gave the nascent California wine industry, as well as winemakers in many other parts of the world, new confidence, credibility, and visibility. This, in turn, had multiple effects including the expansion of wine markets, growing popular awareness of wine, the birth of wine criticism, vineyard tourism, and a host of other manifestations. From this moment forward, the culture of wine began to accommodate and valorize new priorities such as innovation, diversification, globalization, marketing, and accessibility.

“In many ways,” Urbach claims, “wine has become ‘modern’ as it re-imagined its own representation and joined itself to other forms of culture,” including architecture, graphic and industrial design, visual arts, performing arts, and film. And it is here, he adds, “at this particular intersection between nature and contemporary culture, that the social meanings of wine reveal key issues of our moment, including the status of place and authenticity in a world increasingly structured by dematerialized, virtual experience.”

The exhibition, designed by the renowned architecture studio Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R), combines original artifacts such as architectural models and photographs with works of art, some newly commissioned, as well as multimedia presentations and interpretive text. Viewers will encounter artworks, objects, and information within immersive environments that engage multiple senses including smell.