|
You are welcome to send us your email address - it stays with TexaCali Wine Co.
and will never ever be given to a mailing list. Right now, the Inner Circle receives monthly "insider" email news regarding special wine events, new releases and anything important going on at TexaCali Wine Co. In the future, look forward to wine country trips lead by TexaCali Ali & offered exclusivly to The Inner Circle. Inner Circle members receive first priority when it comes to all winemaker dinner reservations and highly allocated items sold in retail. It's fun and painless to join - come on in! |
|
...you are Among the TexaCali Inner Circle BABY!
Please pour a big’ol glass of one of your favorite TexaCali producers, sit back and take a trip through Harvest 2007. The report below is full of 2007 Harvest notes sent over the past week from the winemakers (September 26-October 1) - so just about as close as you can get without actually being there. And so it goes…this is an imaginary trip about YOU, my real friend Mulan Chan, with REAL notes, REAL time and quotes from REAL winemakers – oh yeah! Once upon a time - during the 2007 Harvest season on the West Coast Pretend you just stepped off the airplane at SFO… now grab your bags and climb into your chauffeured car – and start heading North through San Francisco on Highway 101. The car is loaded up with a few wines from Storrs . Mulan - your wine-whipper-snapper-driver for the next two days leans over and tells ya “sorry we couldn’t make it down to Storrs, they are in the thick of things since harvest began a little early – it was a dry year for the Santa Cruz Mountain producers, but they are having a good and solid harvest!”. You agree, would have been awesome to meet winemaking pioneers Stephen and Pamela Storrs. … Ahh, the smell of the leather interior escapes when you slide the sun-roof open while driving over the Golden Gate Bridge – the sea breeze quickly consumes your senses. WOW what a view! Hang on tight, Mulan guns her shiny sports car onward towards the vines of Northern California. Over the hills while winding down Hwy 101 with the landscape of the prestigious Marin Headlands surrounding, you pass by the boats in the Sausalito harbor (of course wave to the offices of Vine Connections), a push onward through a slight traffic jam in San Rafael, and speed right through the stinky-dairy valley of Petaluma…then it hits – thousands of grapevines suddenly take-over your view - everywhere you look east west north and south, you are surrounded by vineyards. You go for the auto window switch on the inside of the leathery car door and SHAZAAM – swirls of sweet grapes fill the air. Welcome to 2007 Harvest in California. Southern Sonoma County Making a quick stop on the east side of Hwy 101 you meet up with winemaker Michael Sebastiani who is behind “Generations of Sonoma”, all new and cutting edge estate wine he’s making in Sonoma. Michael quickly starts talking harvest…“As of September 28 we are 85% complete. Still waiting on cooler climate Syrah and Merlot and our late harvest Aleatico. We crushed Cab Sauv, Cab Franc, Merlot, Pinot Noir, Zin, Syrah, Primitivo, Sangiovese and Chard from Sonoma Valley to Carneros to Sonoma Coast. Initially it seemed awkward crushing cabernet before some of our chards…yet the quality in each far surpasses this abnormal wine country sequence of events. It was an early harvest by calendar standards but everything around us beyond the vineyards followed suit – Fall was early for everything it seemed. Things jumped up to ripeness quickly and now have leveled off. Fruit quality has been very nice and clean.”, says Michael with a very confident smile about Harvest 2007. Russian River Region Mulan signals it’s time to load up, back to Hwy 101 - a few miles north then West on River Road to find the prestigious Olivet Lane street sign. Mulan hangs a left heading south on Olivet Lane driving straight into the heart of the Russian River region. As soon as you open the car door, you smell a mix of ripe grapes and hearty marinara sauce in the breeze…you walk up to the big bright Pellegrini of Sonoma winery door to where you are greeted by Ida Pellegrini, the matriarch of the Italian Pellegrini clan that put down roots in Sonoma over 75 years ago. As you walk through the barrel room, Robert Pellegrini, and his winemaking team hand you a big glass full of their newest release “Pellegrini Milestone”. Robert Pellegrini quickly catches you up on harvest particulars…” Harvest started about two weeks early with the Alexander Valley Cloverdale Ranch Merlot. Picking Merlot the last week of August is not typical. The crop set poorly during bloom and came in about 30% below normal. Quality looks good though, with small concentrated berries and good suger/acid/ph balance. Should be very concentrated Merlot. We had dry, above average temperatures for the first two weeks of September, so things were rather frantic, resulting in a string of 16 hour days with PN, CH, and even some Cloverdale Ranch Cabernet coming in the same week. Leveroni Sauvignon Blanc is already finished fermenting-looks lovely, but 25% short. I'm most pleased with Olivet Lane Pinot Noir, great color. Most lots are now being pressed and going to barrel. Alas, PN was 10% below last year. Last week, the weather cooled off and we had a 1/4 inch of rain on Saturday. Just enough to get the dust off. We didn't have any more fruit until yesterday, when we brought in 38 tons of Cabernet. Harvest at Cloverdale will be finished today. The fruit looks and tastes great, and production may be + 10% over what we harvested in the last two years. We should be completing Olivet Lane Chardonnay by this weekend. We've been letting it hang, since the numbers weren't moving and the clusters are clean with no sign of botrytis. Should make for some rich Chardonnay. We're doing more barrel fermentation on native yeast for our Reserve Cuvee that stays in barrel for 18 months. There are only 240 cases made, but Texas will see a few of them. Our Eight Cousins Zinfandel is starting to show some shriveled berries, but the flavor is not there yet. We expect that to come together in the next week to ten days. The weather report says that there's a cooling trend coming and a chance of rain on Monday. I think this will all be behind us by October 10th. Any time I get stressed about the weather during harvest, I remind myself how lucky we are to be in Sonoma, especially when I see weather or harvest reports from other regions that may be getting bad rain storms.”, said Robert Pellegrini along with many heads noding in agreement and high-fives from his team. Moving right along, after a quick bite of Ida’s superb brunch she cooked up for ya, you head directly west and stop to check Davis Family Vineyards out. It’s just about 2 miles directly east of the Pellegrini winery. Surprisingly Guy Davis and his son Cole are at the bottom of the vineyard (the Pinot, Syrah and Zinfandel vineyard is on a long and steep slope facing east), checking out their Zinfandel vines. “Hey there – man harvest is going great this year! Let’s just say a moderate, consistent growing season was put into high gear with very warm weather the last half of August --- just as everyone began to scurry towards an early harvest our Russian River Fog machine kicked-in and we have had a very cool, well paced September. Almost all our Pinot is in, our Dutton Ranch Chard is about half way there, with the balance coming in this next week - the first of next week begins Zinfandel and then into Cabernet and Syrah - last year we picked the Syrah on Halloween and November 3rd as our final Harvests - we will likely be 2 weeks ahead of that this year - flavors are really tasty, acids are fairly racy, and I'm not any more crazy than usual -- These are some of the best wines I have ever seen at this point. It really feels like Fall now as the mornings are cold and the leaves are showing the first signs of color change." , Guy Davis said. Guy then looks at his watch, then says he’s got to head over to Spring Mountain to check on the Cabernet that goes into his award winning Barn D’Or red wine blend. More for Texas next year for certain! Oregon on the line! Ring-RING-Ring – your cell phone goes off and it’s winemaker Jesse Lange of Oregon’s Lange Estate in Dundee. “Hi, TexaCali Ali gave me your cell number, didn’t want you to miss out on the Oregon harvest going on up north of you right now! I’m up to my ears in fruit – brought in 100 tons over the weekend - so not a lot of time to talk, but help me spread the word about harvest back in Texas - The OREGON harvest has been great so far....we picked about half of our tonnage prior to the first of threatening rains, and that decision has proved to be wise thus far. Flavors are spectacular....with great sugar numbers, low ph, and higher acids, these wines remind me a bit at this point of the superb 99 vintage. Also, we have great potential for aging in these wines. The remainder of our fruit will be coming in here in the next 14 days most likely. We’ve been working our tails off, but the resulting wines show tremendous potential!”, Jesse says with sharp enthusiasm then takes off running after a truck pulling into the winery. “Well okay then, 20 years and growing for Lange Estate, it’s good to hear such passion from 2nd generation winemaking”, you think to yourself while sitting back in the car. Off directly west where the Russian River runs into the Pacific Coast. Site Driven Harvest - Durell, Heintz,Hirsch, Klindt, Michaud, Stuhlmuller, Tollin A twisty & curvy road shaded by ancient redwoods guide the car along the river, suddenly Mulan slams on her brakes “what in the ^%$!”, you scream! Then she pulls a Dukes of Hazard U-Turn and flags down the car that just whizzed by… "Hey Matt – sorry we missed ya on top of the ridge – how’s is looking up there?”, Mulan yells out after pulling off next to a dusty Land Cruiser. “I’m taking one of TexaCali Ali’s Inner Circle members around to see harvest in full swing”, what’s the story with LIOCO harvest? Matt Licklider who is the co-owner of LIOCO steps out of the car to chat, “it’s a fantastic crop this year – much smaller 20-40%, but the flavors are incredibly concentrated. Carignane and Petite Sirah up in Mendocino – that’ll probably come in early November. Fermentation is very active, healthy and aggressive – 2007 looks to be an outstanding vintage for LIOCO Chardonnay and Pinot Noirs thus far!”. Then Matt jumps back into his car and races off to another vineyard site LIOCO buys fruit from. So instead of driving all the way up to visit Fort Ross Vineyards, you and Mulan decide to head east then north towards Dry Creek Valley. The Fort Ross vineyards are incredible steep and complicated to maneuver without a big 4-wheel drive, so Mulan leaves a message with the winery to obtain an update soon. Stay tuned... Dry Creek Now you have turned onto Westside Road heading North and make a few twists east towards the Syrah vineyards of Duchamp Winery. Right through the gates, you see the lovely Pat and Peter Lenz, the owners of Duchamp waving to say hello! “Harvest 2007 has been Incredible !!!!! We just put our wine into barrels yesterday, we are about three weeks ahead of schedule. The earliest ever. But even better, the vintage is also probably the best ever. The wine is black as ink, full-bodied and silky smooth. We let some tasting room visitors to try it yesterday (something we would normally never do), they would have bought a bottle on the spot.” You stop to sip and agree - absolutely stellar Syrah. As you drive away, Pat is perched on her porch sculpting her latest masterpiece – what a fabulous winery to visit! Mulan heads straight into Healdsburg to meet Dan Donahoe, who is tasting Doralice who owns The Cheese Shop on his new Teira wine releases. Mulan and Dan worked together back in the day, so Teira Zinfandel has been a top pick for years now. You ask Dan how harvest was going, Bill Knuttle of Dry Creek Vineyards makes Teira and just left the store with a big basket of cheese…Dan continues to talk about the 2007 harvest ”The heat spike in early September got the sugars on our Merlot vineyard up to nearly 25 brix. Then the weather cooled and they went back down. We got 7 hours of rain on Saturday which did not help. Warm weather again this week looking like we’ll pick by tomorrow. Below normal crop all over Sonoma County and Northern California.” Come by the winery tomorrow and check things out with me!”. So after a quick tasting of both fabulous cheese and Teira wines, you and Mulan high-tail it to Medlock Ames winery. Above Chalk Hill Road – the GREEN Winery Way above Chalk Hill Road you drive into Medlock Ames to see a team hard at work in the vineyards on top of Bell Mountain Ranch. Kenny who is the GM at the winery rushes over to fill you and Mulan in… “Harvest kicked off slowly for the lads at Medlock Ames – a delicious crop of young Sauvignon Blanc was followed by our Russian River Chardonnay which came in only last week. Some scare-mongering gossip about rain didn’t faze us as we waited for those golden clusters to mature properly. Nerves of steel! Our first Merlot and Cabernet won’t be ready to pick till the first week of October – unlike the rest of the Valley where the bulk of the vintage is already in. We like it that way – better flavors are beginning to develop now and the recent cooler weather is helping us to attain more of the concentration and the even ripening we love. Yields look like they might even get close to the dizzy heights of 1.5 tons on some blocks!”. The excitement of the day ends with a great harvest dinner, wine and a nice over night sleep at the Medlock Ames guesthouses – complete with a dip in the pool after dinner under the stars – IT'S GOOD TO BE IN THE INNER CIRCLE! Anderson Valley Beauty After a solid night of sleep, you wake to a beautiful sunrise on top of The Bell Mountain Ranch at Medlock Ames. It’s a good thing there’s no fog up this high, you’ve got to move it – breakfast with Milla Handley of Handley Cellars then off to Napa for the day. A nothing like a tall cup of Flying Goat coffee for the road, Mulan zips you inward from 101 along the most windy roads you’ve ever driven into the magical Anderson Valley. As you pull up to the winery, a young couple is leaving the tasting room with a bottle of the 2005 Handley Pinot Noir…they hold the bottle up in the air and say to you “it’s the best in Anderson Valley!”. Walking into Handley Cellars is like walking into Foodie-Heaven, Milla’s great team cooked up an incredible brunch, which included all fresh ingredients for the winery garden and local dairy products. This was a great chance to actually get Milla to sit down and explain the 2007 Harvest for Handley. “2006-2007 rainy season: Rain fall ~ 25%-30% below average, Milla starts out with notes on the Vintage Weather. The weather this spring was mild, fairly dry, with no hard frosts. Bloom was a little early and there was good weather during fruit set. Even though the weather was good, fruit set in many vineyards is average to below average. Cluster and berry size are small to moderate. The summer weather was moderate with only a few hot spells until mid to late August when we experienced two short hot spells. There was a little rain in July, very unusual. Even though summer temperatures were mild a hot spell in mid-August jump started the grapes making a fairly early start to the 2007 harvest; a week to 10 days earlier than 2006. In mid September the weather cooled with highs in the 70’s to low 80’s which slowed the harvesting and allowed the grapes to mature and develop good flavors. A short warm spell the last week in September bumped up the sugars and we’ve started picking fruit at the “deep” or cooler end of Anderson Valley. Most years the wind-protected ridges above the valley floor are much warmer at night and see little fog. The valley’s geography, which is fairly narrow with nearly 1000 ft elevation difference between the valley floor and the ridges, encourages a temperature inversion that in the late night and mornings can create a 20ºF difference between the valley floor and the ridge temperatures. This year there was more air mixing and the temperature difference was very little. Handley Vineyards, Fruit and Wines Although Handley Cellars is over half way through our harvest, the majority of the fruit has been from the Handley Vineyard in the Dry Creek Valley. About a third of the Pinot noir and Gewurztraminer are in and nearly all the Pinot Gris. Most of the Anderson Valley grapes harvested so have been from the warmer, Boonville end of the valley. Today, Sept 27th is the start of our harvest at Handley’s Estate vineyard in the cooler, “deep end” of Anderson Valley. Next week we hope to finish the Estate Pinot Noir and start harvesting out Estate Gewurztraminer. We are a still few weeks away from picking our Estate Chardonnay, which is usually harvested in mid to late October. The slow ripening and the long hang time have given us the opportunity to harvest fruit with mature flavors and good balance at moderate sugar levels. The grapes are ripening and maturing slowly; fruit has been ripening from photosynthetic energy rather than from dehydration cause by intense heat. So far I’m very happy with the flavors and the quality of the fruit we’ve received. Yields are lower than average. Flavors are good and I expect good balance and concentration in the wines from the 2007 vintage. At this time if the weather holds this could be a wonderful vintage, long hang time, good fruit concentration with balanced sugar, acid, and flavors.” Milla ends with such delight! Pulling out of the winery, you daydream about turning in your two-weeks, selling all your stuff and working in Anderson Valley for the rest of your life. BIG SIGH… Eastward to Napa Mulan wakes you up from your nap in the car and pulls up to the Herb Lamb vineyard, to meet winemaker Allison Tauziet of Colgin Cellars. “ The 2007 harvest is in full swing, and the quality is fantastic. After a picture perfect spring and summer, we began our earliest harvest to date on August 31, starting with our IX Estate Merlot. The moderate weather we have had in September has allowed us to bring in the syrah, cabernet franc and cabernet sauvignon at a very even pace. Overall, this appears to be a stellar vintage that is both rich in flavors and color, and balanced in acids and sugar. The intense flavors in the 2007 wines we have produced so far is absolutely off the charts.”. Allison had to take off to get back to the winery, so you spend an hour walking the vineyard and learning about the history of Herb Lamb Vineyard guided by Jennifer Lamb. You recently read on the Colgin Cellars website that Herb Lamb Vineyard is owned by Herb & Jennifer Lamb, who purchased the property in 1987. It consists of a 7.4-acre parcel on a rocky hillside with a Boomer series soil type, ranging from 600-800 feet in elevation on the eastern hillsides of St. Helena. What a breathtaking vineyard. Pioneers of Napa Valley Times a tickin’ and you’ve got a late lunch scheduled with Dave and Doug Wight of Lewelling Vineyards just down the road in St. Helena, so you forge ahead. Doug meets you in the yard that is surrounded by Lewelling Cabernet Sauvignon vines…your own private showing – so many wine lovers would so love to experience. As Doug uncovers the lunch spread from the Oakville Grocer, he begins to talk harvest and wines begin flowing over a phenomenal lunch in the vineyard. “A dry winter set the tone for the 2007 vineyard year. With only two-thirds of normal rainfall, all coming before the middle of February, our vines were awakened 10 days early in March by a burst of warm weather. Indications soon pointed to a September harvest as we were blessed by minimal spring frosts and ideal conditions during bloom in May. Shoot growth slowed nicely in June due to depletion of soil moisture and the vines showed an excellent balance of crop size and canopy development; berry expansion slowed early as well. (Smaller berries excite winemakers because they mean more grape skin surface per volume of juice, yielding concentrated color, flavor and tannins in the wine.)." Doug goes onto say, "Over the course of the summer we received the benefit of extended periods of natural air conditioning, the Pacific marine influence that brings cool night and morning temperatures and moist ocean air to the Napa Valley. Instead of the possible 100+F temperatures and very low humidity that would severely stress the vines and lead to a premature harvest, our vineyard experienced 80F days and foggy mornings. Veraison began at the end of July and finished in the first 10 days of August. At the beginning of September we completed a second round of crop thinning and harvest began for early varieties in the Napa Valley. After a hot spell, a period of cool weather slowed the progress of maturity in mid-September and allowed more hang-time, the hallmark of a superb vintage. With a slightly smaller crop than in prior years, our Cabernet Sauvignon clusters are deeply colored, the flavors are intense and the tannins rich, round and mature. We are excited about the quality of the vintage and anticipate picking optimally ripe, superbly-flavored grapes tomorrow, October 2nd, for Lewelling Vineyards 2007 Cabernet.”, reported Doug over this long lunch. Thrilling to know! Back to Hwy 29 heading towards the Golden Gate Bridge and the back to the reality of non-harvest life with a nice content smile on your face. What happens during the 2007 Harvest, is shared with TexaCali Wine Co. loyal supporters! A final recap for you in November…a great trip indeed! The END - thanks Mulan! |
|
|
