09/15/2008 

By now we’re usually picking. The weather has been some of the coolest I remember in September, which is our warmest month of the year in the Santa Rita Hills. But with all the frost problems we had early in the season and persistent fog and cool weather, the only grapes we’ve picked have been for cluster samples. With a bit of time on my hands before picking, I thought it would be nice to blog on sampling and how we make the decisions on when to pick.

From my earliest years here at Clos Pepe I have been using internet technology to reach out to producers and consumers.  While it’s probably pretty common today to email out field samples and post them on Web sites, back in 1998 it was a pretty new thing.  Our Web site was up back then too, and even though it was a mess, it was a great resource for winos who liked to see how grapes were grown.  I’ve never thought of anything I do here at Clos Pepe as a trade secret.  We grow the fruit, minimize chemical inputs, treat our workers well, allow the grapes and the vintage to inform us during harvest and crush, and try to make wines that are restrained, balanced and food friendly.  The secrets of Clos Pepe lie in the soil, aspect, weather and altitude.  Everything else is transparent: just like Pinot Noir itself.

This morning we got up early (work day early, not harvest early) and took cluster samples from nine different blocks, seven Pinot Noir, and two Chardonnay.  These results have already been emailed to our ten producers for 2008: Brewer-Clifton, Diatom, Ojai Vineyard, Ken Brown, AP Vin, Loring, Siduri, Roessler, Tyler and Clos Pepe Estate.  Yes, I email the results to myself.  It’s awfully weird being both a vineyard manager and a winemaker during harvest.  I have dreams where I call my home number on my cell phone and chew myself out and openly question the cluster sample results.  That’s an inside joke you may not understand if you don’t make wine.

Cluster samples at Clos Pepe are collected with a fairly exacting protocol, which can be described thusly:

1)  Load buckets on an ATV, Gator or Golf Cart.  Each bucket is marked with a Sharpie with the field it is going to be used for.  For instance the bucket might say: Pommard 4 or Dijon 76.  At this point, when the grapes are still a few weeks away, we take samples from larger fields that are shared by winemakers (Pommard 4), while in a few weeks I might take separate samples from the Ojai Pommard, the Ken Brown Pommard and the Brewer Clifton Pommard).

2) Drive down at least two different sections of the same block, often 3+.  We choose a random number of vines and clusters – say 17 and 3.  Every 17 vines we stop the cart and retrieve the 3rd cluster on the right row, and then turn to the left row, count three clusters in and grab that cluster.  Repeat this process until we have around 25 clusters from throughout the field.  Equal amounts of clusters should be collected from high hillside, mid-hill and in swales.

3) Examine the clusters collected and then crush them with a closed fist in the buckets.

4) Bring the buckets inside (I suggest doing this while the wife’s not home) and begin testing the fruit.

5)  Extract the juice from the skins using a pasta drainer.

6)  Pour enough of the juice into a piece of small glass lab-ware and test the pH after calibrating the meter for accuracy.

7)  Test the Brix by floating a hydrometer and/or putting a drop of juice on a refractometer, closing it, and checking it under good light.  Calibrating the refractometer with 20-Brix standard is recommended as well.

8)  Record Brix and pH for each sample.  We also taste the juice and make notes to help us reference certain flavors in the final wine.  For instance, when the kiwi disappears from the Chardonnay juice and it tastes of ripe apples and spice, the grapes are ready (in my mind) to make wine.  Numbers tell a story too, but people don’t drink numbers, so I like flavor references as well.

9)  Rinse the containers between samples with the new juice to be tested, roll the bit of juice on all surfaces, dump, then refill.

10)  Put the results in a safe place and do all the dishes.  Clean everything to the point that the wife won’t know that you used the kitchen when she returns.  Sticky floors WILL be noticed. 

 667 Fruit on September 15, 2008

 

115 Clone Pinot Noir on September 15, 2008.

 

Pommard 4 Clone Pinot Noir, Clos Pepe Vineyards, September 15, 2008.
Once the fruit is all collected we beat it like it owes us money.

 

Squishing the cold Pinot clusters with the fist--the sound, smell and feeling cannot be replicated. Now it’s time to separate the juice from the skins:

 

Skins stay, juice goes into stainless bowl, then into a measuring cup.

 

We drip some juice on a refractometer and then check the reading with light.  The device measures how light refracts through the juice and gives a reading in °Brix through an eyepiece. Lastly, we check the juice with our brand-spanking new pH meter (after calibrating it).

 

The refractometer right out of the box.
The samples today, all totaled, produced about 2-3 liters of juice.  We have attempted to save all the juice and make a Rose or a Sparkling base, but the stuff always gets neglected during harvest.  Our German interns in 2001 managed to make some decent ‘feather wine’ (half fermented) which we drank and got tipsy, but in general we either toss the juice or make popsicles with it. Mmmm…pinotsicles.

 

Foggy September 15th morning at the Clos (9 am):

 

And for good measure, a greyhound.  Has nothing to do with Pinot Noir, but if you need a dog you should rescue one.  They’re super sweet, don’t smell, don’t bark and sleep 20 hours a day. Here is Indy, our Alpha Hound.

 

 
  

 

 

Today marks a very important milestone in my career as a winemaker. A reefer truck is arriving to take all 831 cases of our 2007 wine to terravant in Buellton and my brand spanking new press, crusher/destemmer and a hopper that slides over both, are arriving on a flatbed truck. This heralds our complete independence as winemakers with our own bonded facility. The last 8 crushes we've been

15 separate frost events really decimated the crop this year at Clos Pepe. I ran frost protection 22 nights, used over a million gallons of groundwater (I put it back), and got so depressed about seeing the vineyard burn over and over (80% of the Clos is not frost protected and has never been frosted previously) that I really considered going back to my previous career of teaching.

But now things

I always say that making beer is like writing a poem while making wine is like writing a novel. It should take you to a time and place and be a narrative of flavor, passion and craft. Wine, when correctly considered, takes two to three years of my professional life. If I make a bad wine, it would be like three wasted years. That's an odd thing to say professionally-so I prefer to make good

I'm sitting here at the Clos looking at the drizzly fog over the hills and dales of green pinot canopy, waiting for my filtration expert to show up and lead me through the first filtration using a shiny new cartridge filter. We were able to get all of the 2007's racked clean out of their barrels into 3 sterile tanks. The new ozone machine and the new pump performed admirably (I love all my new

Wes Hagen received his viticultural and winemaking training from the University of California at Davis extension program. He is the Vineyard Manager and Winemaker for Clos Pepe Vineyards in Santa Barbara County, California, where he grows Chardonnay and Pinot Noir for a variety of wineries including his own. Wes’ Pinot Noir was recently ranked as one of the top 30 Pinots in California