In which Wes, Chanda and the crew get two real days of work in, the weather gets hot again, we apply a lot of water to the vineyard and the 2008 vintage gets bottled.

Year in the Vineyard, Week #23

By Wes Hagen, VM/WM Clos Pepe Vineyards and Estate Wines

August 28-September 4, 2009

This week:  Picking Phizzy Pinot, pH and the Puppy

Photos this week by Jeremy Ball and Wes Hagen.

Today is supposed to be the first day in four days when the temperatures are supposed to come down into the high seventies/low eighties.  The few days of hot weather in late August helped some sugar levels in the fruit spike a bit, and though we thought we were done with heat for a week or so—it came back like a bad house guest who forgot their third suitcase.  You may also notice I didn’t get the blog posted on Thursday, as usual.  I’ll get to the reason in good time, but know it’s a very cute, very fuzzy reason.

Jackson and Liam are in the field right now collecting field samples to see how much the heat has affected sugar levels, and to see where the pH and flavor of the fruit are after our double mini-heatwave.  The pH and flavor are the main focus right now—we have plenty of sugar to make great wine, but it’s not sugar that makes pinot noir great.  You can sprinkle sugar on an unripe strawberry and it will taste sweet, but a blood-red to the core strawberry always tastes better off the vine than a barely-red strawberry that is white and hard in the middle.  We call this phenolic ripeness, and even though it’s the warcry of a lot of fans of overripeness (“I have to let it hang to 18% potential sugar to get adequate phenolic ripeness”), there is some truth to the idea that the fruit has to hang and ripen to a point where the pH rises to at least 3.3 for pinot, and the juice needs to really speak to me, “I’m ready Wes: pick me, crush me, inoculate me—make me wine, bitch!”  The last field tests we did showed promise, but not the character I’m looking for (yet).  Last week the fruit screamed: “Pick me, press me, make me rose’, or make me bubble.”

Last week’s samples went out to our producers (remember we sell 75%+ of our fruit toother winemakers) looking something like this:

“Picking sparkling Wednesday for Flying Goat---most other fruit needs some time to ripen and allow the sugars to adjust to the irrigation.

Fruit is still very sound, only slight dimpling on some fruit.  Nets are up, cannons firing.

Lower sections lagging way behind—hillside soaked up more heat and sugars are higher.

No picks scheduled after this Wednesday.

667 (Loring/Estate): 24.4 Brix @ 3.05 pH.  (irrigated today)

115 Siduri (Hill): 23.7 brix @ 3.12 pH (irrigated yesterday)

115 5C Estate:  23.7 Brix @ 3.15 pH.

Pommard 101-14 (Ken Brown, Roessler, Estate): 23.8 Brix @ 3.18 pH  Irrigated today.

Pommard 5-C (Estate, BC, Siduri): 23 Brix @3.15 pH

Lower 115 (Tyler)  21.7 @ 3.02 pH  (Irrigated today)

115 long rows to pond (LWC/Siduri): 21.5 @ 2.99 pH.  Irrigated today

115 pond to gate (AP Vin): 21.4 brix, @ 2.99 pH.

Chardonnays will be tested next week, likely.”

*********

And today's numbers:

667 (Loring/Estate): 24 Brix @ 3.16 pH.

115 Siduri (Hill): 25.4 brix @ 3.17 pH

115 5C Estate:  25.4 Brix @ 3.17 pH.

Pommard 101-14 (Ken Brown, Roessler, Estate): 24.8 Brix @ 3.21 pH  Irrigated today.

Pommard 5-C (Estate, BC, Siduri): 23.9 Brix @3.18 pH

Lower 115 (Tyler)  22.7 @ 3.06 pH

115 long rows to pond (LWC/Siduri): 22.1 @ 3.0 pH. 

115 pond to gate (AP Vin): 22.2 brix, @ 2.97 pH.

For those without experience with Brix/pH relationship in pinot noir, these numbers show very high sugar (Brix) totals and very low pH.  In other words the fruit is very sweet, but also very acidic.  Awesome for sparkling wine, but even an acid freak like me needs the fruit to respire (lose) some acid to make the wines more balanced.  Acid/pH balance comes with hang time and cooler weather.  In super hot weather the vines can shut down, the fruit dehydrates, sugar goes up but real ripeness is not developed.  True ripeness comes from an evolution of flavor via photosynthesis, not from losing water to the hot sun.  So we continue to wait for profound flavor development  and cool weather —which is expected until at least next Wednesday—and if the pH comes back around 3.25 or more in some estate sections today, I will be comfortable crushing some pinot noir Tuesday and Wednesday next week.

Bottling:  On Tuesday, the crew got to the winery early (where all the 2008's were safely in stainless tanks topped with argon gas for stability), and the Bottlemeister truck arrived before 6 am.  The bottling went perfectly--there was one hiccup when a palate of pinot noir was spilled being moved into the winery, which resulted in a few bottles breaking and making a bit of a mess, but all in all it was a very good day of bottling.  There's an emotion involved with the bottling process that's unique:  the wine  becomes very 'real' when it gets into bottle.  it's like a novel becoming published.  Two years of work (one growing, one making the wine) is suddenly encapsulated in a package that allows it to be shared with friends and family (and eventually some customers!).  Even though bottling day is a bit stressful, it's awesome to see the barrels and tanks empty.  But this year, the winery was only free from wine in barrel for just over 24 hours.  So much for relaxing and drinking!

 

First Day of Harvest:  On Wednesday, the 2^nd of September, Clos Pepe harvested its first acre of pinot noir.  The fruit was destined for Norm Yost at Flying Goat Cellars, who will use the fruit to make a method champenoise sparkling wine in the style of a Brut Rose.  Picking started at 6:00 am, and we were pleased to have almost a dozen wino volunteers to help us out.   There are a LOT of clusters out there, especially in the sparkling section, which is the only pinot noir section we did not crop thin.  The clusters are light and tiny though—miniscule berries, between 7-10 clusters per pound! 

The pick took a little longer than expected, and the weather was much hotter than forecasted.  Fortunately we finished the pick around 10:30 and got all the fruit in Norm’s cold room without incident.  Norm got his 6 (1000 lb.) picking bins, and I finished the pick by taking a few bins of the same pinot for our Rose’ program we started in 2007. 

The weather was hot enough that we decided to wait until evening to start work on the pressing, so we started organizing barrels and hoses around 5:45 pm, and the press was ozoned, open and ready to take some cold pinot clusters around 7 pm.  The fruit was loaded directly into the press, stems and all, and then pressed gently.  A pale, salmon-colored juice was produced at the beginning of the press cycle, which was gently pumped into waiting neutral (used at least 4x) French oak barrels for fermentation.  By the end of the two hour + ferment, the juice was being forced through all the skins in the press, and the liquid was dripping into the pan with the color of a Russian River pinot noir.  Color should be no problem this year!

 

 

The press load was finished around 11:00 pm, and while the interns started cleaning up, I did my additions to each of the 5 barrels of juice (each barrel is only filled 2/3 so the ferment can foam without spitting out of the bung hole, yes I said bung hole).  The additions were a tiny amount of sulfur dioxide to stabilize the juice and shock the native yeasts to make way for the yeast I added, and a gram per gallon of ‘Fermaid’, which is a yeast nutrient that helps the yeast finish a clean and proper ferment of the juice.  Then we added the yeast—EC1118, which is an isolate from Champagne.  With the winery cool, spotless and 5 barrels of wine fermenting, we headed back to the Clos around 12:30 am—a solid seventeen hour day behind us.

Picking Up the Puppy, 2008 Lorings rock:  After a hot morning picking and a long-ass night making wine, I have to admit that a day driving to LAX and back in an air conditioned Honda Element sounded like heaven.  OK, maybe not heaven, but a relaxing way to spend the day with my lovely wife.  Our flock protection dog, he who will be named ‘Puppy until we understand him enough to give him a real name’, was flying in from St. Croix, Wisconsin.  He’s a blend of three kinds of Mastiff breeds: Italian Maremma, a Polish Tatra and a Spanish Ranch Mastiff.  We left at 10:00 am, got to the Northwest Cargo hold around 1:30, got the dog at 2:30, and got back home at 5:30 to find Mama Pepe and Steve putting together a delicious dinner of Beef Bourgogone over whole-grain pasta, a Greek salad, s’mores and tons of new 2008 Loring pinots.  We drank a 2008 Loring Clos Pepe, Cargasacchi and a Rancho Ontiveros—all three were delicious, but to be fair the Clos and the Carg were brooding beasts needing some cellar time, and I preferred the Ontiveros for drinking that night—loads of bright cherry fruit and a youthful exuberance that justified the slaying the bottle in its infancy.

We checked on the puppy before heading off to bed, and he was happily snoozing on top of a sheep fleece that we put into his lambing jug so he could acclimate to the smells of his new flock.  This dog will never be a pet.  His family will be the flock of sheep, not the people, so we can’t smother him with affection and do the normal puppy thing.  Once or twice a day we will approach him and give him a treat so he will be friendly with humans, but his job will be dependent on him thinking he is a sheep in our flock and staying close for their protection as they work in the vineyard and the olive orchard.  He’s ten weeks old at this point, and almost 30 pounds.  His feet are the size of pink pong paddles.  According to the breeder, he may be a giant—160 pounds is possible, but most likely he’ll top out around 130-140.  (“At least 10 stone”, I told Liam).

Well, you may notice the blogs will be a bit shorter and sweeter through harvest, but I’ll continue working to get some info out to all of my readers and supporters.  As always, thanks for passing these blogs along to your friends, and make sure (if you haven’t) become a fan of ‘Year in the Vineyard’ on Facebook to have the blog links sent to your email/inbox automatically.  Cheers and happy harvest!

For LA area folks, I’ll be teaching wine education classes at the LA County Fair THIS WEEKEND, evening class on sat night, and early classes this Sunday.  Come on out and say hello, learn some stuff and taste some Clos Pepe!

Also, follow weshagen, clospepe, axismundi and staritahills on Twitter!