Wherein Wes describes another fabulous week at Clos Pepe Vineyards and Estate wines, including sheep shearing, focusing on balance in the vines, ordering bottling supplies, getting ready for flowering and losing gracefully at Bocce!

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My plan is to keep this week's blog short and swee, so I can add part two once I'm up in Napa Valley tomorrow for the WineMaker Magazine Conference.  But even when I try to be terse, I tend to go on and on. 

Let's try bulleted items with lots of purity pitchers:

•  Sheep shearing:  Last Saturday and Sunday our forklift salesman/sheep shearer came out and gave all the sheep a buzz cut.  Interestingly, a flock of sheep that has lived together for almost 5 years lacks the mental capacity to recognize their flock-mates after shearing.  So as each sheep is sheared and put back in the pen, the rest of the sheep ram and knock them around like an outsider until they forget why they're being jerks and go back to their cud-chewing and bleating.  Why it matters:  Chanda needs the wool, and the sheep are much more comfortable in Summer when they're naked.  Just like us!

• Flowering in the vineyard/crew checking.  As I increased the crew in the vineyard this week by two workers (the vines are really charging fast this year), I noticed something very exciting:   caps are falling off the berries, the small yellow flowers are emerging around the central berry (with a speck of stickiness to attract the pollen).  The crew continues to do three things: knock suckers off (again), shoot thin down to about 24 shoots per vine and remove double shoots emanating from the same bud and (as they move the shoots), leave the shoots that are ready in between the shoot positioning wires to keep them growing vertically (so they don't droop over and shade the fruit zone.  Why it matters:  Spaced shoots means each cluster has space to grow and be sunflecked.  Neste, congested clusters stay shaded and can have vegetal/herbal flavors.  We'll likely drop 10-15 tons of fruit on the ground during this period, which equates to nearly $80,000.  It's tough to do, but keeping our reputation of a California 'Grand Cru' is worth it to us.

 

• Deciding on a spray regime.  As the vineyard is set to start flowering in earnest, it's time to get one last mildew spray down so we don't have to spray the vineyard while its in full flower (which can negatively impact pollination).  This time around I'm looking for a long period of control, so I'm using a low-impact spray called Flint, which will give the vineyard a full three weeks of protection from powdery mildew.  I'm also putting in a cocktail of zinc citrate, as a foliar zinc fertilizer has been shown to improve pollination and flowering by up to 10%.  Why it matters:  Good wine is made from clean fruit...fruit that is free from mildew and rot.  Keeping a tight spray program keeps the mildew off the vines and fruit, which helps us stay clean not only this year, but in future years as well, as pockets of mildew are eliminated completely before they can grow and make colonies that overwinter during dormancy.

• Ordering bottling supplies, topping, tasting.  This was the week where we top the barrels, so I tasted through a number of them earlier today (/hic), made some notes, counted barrels and gallons in the topping tanks, and made a sheet with total gallons of 2008 vintage wines we expect to bottle in September.  I then crunch some numbers carefully.  12.5 barrels of 2008 Clos Pepe Estate pinot noir.  At about 24 cases per barrel, I use 25 cases to be careful.  12.5 x 25 = 313 cases.  313 cases x 13 bottles = 4069 bottles. (I add 1 extra per case for breakage, bad corks, damaged label or capsule)  So I decided to live dangerously and order 4000 bottles, 4000 corks, 4000 labels and 4000 capsules.  Doing this for each wine in production helped me get everything ordered for our September 1, 2009 bottling date.  Why it matters:  Bottling day is overwhelmingly nerve-wracking.  Getting the wine from a tank to a format where it can be taken anywhere in the world and enjoyed is an amazing process, but I'm constantly worrying about the shrinking glass pallets, cork bags, label rolls and capsule trays (is there enough??  What happens if we run out?)  Wine can't stay in a tank indefinitely, and we have never had a serious issue in bottling, and I'd like to keep it that way.  We've also decided to use screwcaps (stelvin)for our second-label syrah (Axis Mundi) this year, so we ordered a bunch of samples and carefully chose a style and color that matched our anticipated label and branding.

• Bocce League.  Our bocce team,'The Balls of Bacchus', had our first official game of the season--squaring off against the 'Ball Busters' of Santa Ynez.  We were able to compete and even lead both games, but wilted in the end.  But, in the final summation, we got to stay in the Santa Rita Hills, and they had to drive back to the Eastern Valley where they can't even grow pinot noir.  It's like when the Lakers play Utah--win or lose, the Jazz still has to go back to Utah, so we win. OK--maybe the East Valley isn't Utah, but you get my drift.  The wine, food and conversation were excellent--I got to smoke a nice Romeo y Juleita Habana cigar, and got in home in enough time to watch the end of the Lakers making up for embarrassing their mothers last Sunday. Why it matters:  It doesn't impact wine quality, but it is nice to get off the ranch and have fun with neighbor wine growers.  We discuss weather and equipment and drink wine--so I suppose you could argue it impacts the farming, but that's not why we go (q.v. alkeehaul).

• Website review and updates.  I try to update our website a few times every week to keep the content fresh.  This week we received some rocking new reviews from the PinotFile, and we put the best parts up on the site to share.  I especially liked that part where Rusty says our wine was a dead ringer for a Grand Cru Chambertin of the same vintage.  I don't try to emulate Burgundy with our production methods, but when it turnsd out that way I don't mind.  Why it Matters:  Selling wine by getting people on the website has always been an important aspect of our business plan.  Our vineyard website has been up and running since 1995, and only began selling wine in 2001.A Nice Wine that I Drank this Week: (at the risk of being self-serving, I really do like this wine, and feel that it's an excelent value.)

 A Wine I Liked This Week: (at the risk of being self-serving, which seems to be a good idea, so I'll serve myself some rose' right now!)

Clos Pepe Estate 2008 Rose' of Pinot Noir: Sourced from the fruit that the pickers missed the first time around, the grapes (85% pinot noir, 15% chardonnay) were crushed cold without skin contact, the juice (19.5 degrres brix @ 2.94 pH and 10 g/l TA) was barrel fermented with Champagne yeast, and the final product is very similar in style to a sparkling wine base in the 'Brut or Extra Brut style (less than .5% residual sugar). The wine shows bright and enticing aromas of watermelon, strawberry and cherry, with a brisk and fresh structure. Try it with cracked crab with garlic butter, with sushi, cheese, or by the tall glass-full on the patio during Summer. Not a wine to be discussed or geeked-out over, just a solid summer sipper to drink and drink some more. At 11.7% alcohol, you can really drink this one...even to sober up.  Only 40 cases made, this will be gone by next week, sooner if I make more time to drink.  Available on the clospepe.com website for about $20.

Not bad! I kept this week's blog down to 1300 words.  I'll check in Saturday-ish from Napa...watch my Facebook or the WM Mag website for an extra edition of 'Year in the Vineyard, North Coast Edition'.