--- in which Wes discusses dropping fruit on the ground (ouch!), irrigation, interns and their crushes (giggle),  a good example of why biodynamics are mostly bullshit, and an intro to our new interns!

Year in the Vineyard, Week #20

August 7-13, 2009

By Wes Hagen, VM/WM Clos Pepe Vineyards, Sta. Rita Hills CA

Has it really been twenty weeks since my first blog?  Nearly a half year has come and gone, and we’ve had a thrilling and fun ride through frost protection, vegetative growth cycles, flowering, fruit set, bunch closure, and now we’re finishing verasion, dropping some crop and tying nets.  It’s almost as if we’re going to make some wine this year! 

This week we’re going to discuss:

• Dropping crop for balanced vines and good concentration in the wine.
• Irrigation and how it relates to ripeness at the end of a growing year.
• Meeting with producers to fine tune the vineyard.
• Lost in translation? …a French vintner’s explanation of biodynamics..a good example why I think a lot of BD is total BS.
• Introductions of our new interns

Clos Pepe Statistics: 

Number of full time workers manicuring the vineyard:  5

Acres Planted at Clos Pepe: 25 Pinot Noir, 4 Chardonnay, 6 Olive Trees for Oil.

Producers Making a 2009 Clos Pepe wine:  10, including the Estate program. AP Vin, Brewer-Clifton, Siduri, Ken Brown, Loring, Tyler, Diatom, Flying Goat (Brut Rose’), Roessler and Estate.

Veraison: About 80% of the clusters have colored up.

How long before harvest?  A week or so for sparkling wine, and then 3^rd week of September (maybe) to really get into the business of picking and making wine.  Some producers will likely wait until October.

Irrigation:  Usually 4 gallons/week/plant in cool weather, 5-7 gallons/plant/week when weather warm into the 80’s +.  (See below for a full discussion on irrigation at the end of the season.)

Dogs:  4 (Greyhound, Italian Greyhound, Border Collie and Australian Kelpie)

Accents on the property:  California (Wes, Chanda, Cathy), New Jersey (Steve, whose accent got a little more pronounced with his family at the ranch), Australian (Jackson, Intern #1), Irish (Liam, Intern #2)

 

 

Vineyard Practices:  Dropping crop at veraison.  With veraison (fruit softening and coloring up) about 80-90% completed, we’re running the crew through the vineyard to drop precious clusters of pinot noir on the ground.  Why would we do such a horrific thing to those poor clusters that had no greater goal in life than to be crushed and fermented?  The answer is simple: we want to thin the crop from vine to vine to be sure that all the fruit matures evenly and completely. 

Here’s our thinning protocol:

1)      Remove crop on small or stunted shoots.

2)      Remove clusters that are nested and bunched together to allow more sun flecking on the fruit and to reduce botrytis pressure.

3)      Remove clusters that are compromised by early bird pecks, early signs of botrytis, or any other pest damage.

4)      Remove clusters that are lagging behind on color (green, hard clusters)

We’ve dropped a good few tons of pinot out there, and the remaining crop will surely benefit.  Some producers asked for a little more or less to be dropped, and we of course will custom farm the fruit in any way our clients wish.

Irrigation:  There is an anecdotal belief that pinot noir grown without irrigation is superior.  Most of the proponents of such a theory are those that live in areas where dry-farming is possible, which isn’t surprising.  I feel that irrigation is a fabulous tool for fine-tuning ripeness and vegetative growth in the vineyard.  Each Sunday night I look at the weather for the next two weeks and decide how much water to apply to the vines and the olive trees.  If we received over 12” of rain in the winter we can usually hold off watering until May or even June, but you want the vines to have all the water they need to grow to the proper size to ripen the crop (12-15 leaves per cluster), and then at flowering it’s wise to cut back the water until the beginning of veraison to limit the size of the berries.  Small berries with thick skins make the best wine—and in the Santa Rita Hills we tend to have tiny berries, tiny clusters, low yield and extremely thick skins.  This is one reason why haters (Orgeon, I’m waving my private parts at your auntie) like to start rumors that we put Syrah in our Pinots for color.  Nope, we just have that much game naturally.  Deal with it.

Near the end of the growing season, like right now, we begin carefully balancing irrigation to keep the vines from growing more, to focus them on ripening, but also to keep the vines green through harvest.  It’s lovely to see the Fall colors in the vineyard while picking grapes, but keeping the vines green keeps flavors maturing and ripening, not just dehydrating and accumulating sugar.  Evolution of flavor is the key, not dehydration.  It’s like the difference between a strawberry that ripened in the supermarket and is white inside and a strawberry left on the plant until it was soft and blood red to the core.  So I tend to water a little more at the end of the season than most vineyardists.  If I see a heat wave coming, I’ll water deep to keep the vines from shutting down.  If I see a cool streak developing, I’ll give the vines a week off from water.  Irrigation is a wonderful tool in an arid area like the Santa Rita Hills.  In 14 years at the vineyard I have never seen any significant rainfall between May and October.  Take that Oregon!

Meeting with producers:  About once a week one of our client winemakers shows up in the morning to walk their rows and discuss farming, fruit, winemaking (and sometimes coffee).  Wise winemakers know that the more they walk the vineyard and ‘ride’ the vineyard manager, the quicker their sections get manicured and dialed in.  Since we charge high tariffs for our fruit, a lot of the winemakers we sell to show up quite often to make sure they are getting good value, and that the wines will end up outrageously good.  This morning I welcomed Adam Lee (Siduri Wines), who was traveling with a lovely Paso Robles winemaker named Shannon.  We walked all three of Adam Lee’s rows that will make Siduri Pinot Noir, Clos Pepe Vineyards, and checked in with the crew as they were dropping fruit in Siduri’s lower section of 115 Pinot Noir.  It was there that Shannon met Liam, was charmed by his accent, and as we walked away I informed her that Liam is an ex-steeple chase jockey, a very nice guy, and more importantly, single.  We all plan to go to the ‘Wet Zeppelin’ benefit for Cal Poly’s Wine Scholarship program next month, and I’m happy to play matchmaker to add cache and ‘fringe benefits’ to the intern experience at Clos Pepe.  Stay tuned: if a romance develops I’ll be sure to blog vicariously about it.

Biodynamics: The manure isn’t only in the cow horn…  Rudolph Steiner was an Austrian philosopher, Goethe scholar and a self proclaimed ‘esotericist’.  His writings and lectures on a farming system he titled ‘biodynamics’ has become inflated by the Green Revolution into an increasingly popular, if not misunderstood,  system of growing grapes.  The main thrust of biodynamics is that properly fertilizing with special compost, not using chemical fertilizers or sprays, and building natural immunities and protections in the grapevine expresses the ‘terroir’ of a vineyard admirably.  An unnamed winemaker friend of mine told me that he was having lots of drinks with some French BD farmers, who under the influence of ‘in vino veritas’ admitted to him that most BD farmers keep a secret closet of chemicals in case the shit hits the fan.  So much for the atheist in the foxhole…

Steiner wasn’t a scientist, in fact he made it clear in his BD lectures that none of his theories had any basis in replicable scientific experiments, and he hoped others (with more time, I guess) would take his theories and test them in fields and labs.  I believe BD compost does have a wonderfully positive impact on soil tilth and fertility, and I do believe building healthy vines from the soil up will reduce our need for chemicals in the vineyard.  But there’s a lot about BD farming that seems to me purposefully Pollyanna-ish at best, and straight voodoo at worst. 

To illuminate the ‘goofy religious’ side of biodynamic farming, I offer this email that was written by a French BD winegrape farmer.  Granted, if I had to write about farming in French, it would be as disjointed as the following selection, but I find the tone in the passage an excellent example of why I think BD is mostly BS—good marketing, perhaps, but…

“There are no biodynamic composted preparations.
But there are biodynamic preparations for the compost. In their making, they follow a process of evolution through Time. Once they have acquired the ability to store order, they are added to the compost. And the compost then, as a whole, follows a process of evolution through Time: chemical reactions of decomposition which produce warmth/intense gaseous exchanges with the atmosphere/emergence of humid conditions which allow the development of an animal life/ripe compost, which has acquired the ability to store order and is then brought to the soil. Bringing a renewal of life which can enhance and guide the decomposition processes of the “old” soil. Through Time. The overall gesture can be understood as the expression of a musical pattern: A-B-A’. Where A (the biodynamic preparations for the compost) brings a renewed form (A’) only once it has itself gone through a process of decomposition and dissolution in B (the compost, or in music what is called the development, harmonically always unstable).
There are also the goats. With their inquisitive nature. Jumping from here to there.
Or the intellect, with its inquisitive nature, always delighted to jump from one concept to an explanation. Without much awareness of its own cognitional foundations.
-Where is the goat?
-Over there, in the world!
-Where is the thought of the goat?
-In here, in my head!
-Where is the head? ...
It could be that the head also is in the world.
And the open idea and understanding of man also within the world. Rather than some closed concept of man somewhere over, or under, or behind, in a sort of construct, not zen at all.
There are also the sheep. I love the sheep. They are so closed to their environment that they have a reputation of stupidity, while they are in fact so busy concentrate the warmth inside. Ah! Another maturity process… This one brings the wool. Very useful during the sometimes long hours of study and silence required by the mathematical, musical thinking of Anthroposophy/Biodynamics.
But [Name Omitted], there are definitely no biodynamic composted preparations."

If your head is going to explode, drink a quick glass of something alcoholic and you'll feel better.  It worked for me last night.

Intern Corner:  Jackson and Liam, our two interns for the year, are a great addition to the 2009 vintage.  It’s been a while since we’ve had multiple interns, and we’re enjoying their company.  Two interns in the single-wide intern trailer is a great thing—most interns are a bit disappointed that Chanda and I don’t drink every night (maybe a glass or two of wine with dinner), but now they have each other to drink with and watch Aussie Rules, Hurling, or EPL Soccer on their fancy new satellite channel (a fringe benefit, for sure).  Liam is traveling the US extensively and has worked in the cellars of Williams-Selyem as well as wineries all over the world.  He received a 2000 pound college scholarship many years ago, but took the money and bought a racehorse.  We suspect this could be the reason that he’s in the US.  Jackson has a degree in enology from Christchurch, New Zealand, and has worked in New Zealand, throughout Australia and has been working down in Pasadena as a vodka maker for Modern Spirits LLC.  He is also one of the few human beings I’ve met that have seen a thermometer read 50 degrees Celsius in the shade (about 130 degrees).  I plan to urge Jackson to teach me how to distill, which could be the beginning of the end for my liver—or a new product line of grappa/marc from Clos Pepe—who knows?!

For Locals that are Just a Bit Crazy About Wine:  Would you like to get on the Picking List for Clos Pepe?  You can come harvest one day or a dozen days, and we’ll pay you in Clos Pepe Estate wine.  Send Wes and email:  wes@clospepe.com and we’ll keep you up to date on when we’re picking and what you need to do to participate.

Wine of the week:  Siduri Pinot Noir: 2001 Pisoni Vineyard, Santa Lucia Highlands from magnum.  Consumed with gusto at Root 246 (Bradley Ogden’s Solvang eatery) with a delectable braised lamb shank.  Adam Lee was in attendance from Siduri, so we all took a pour and gave him the rest of the mag to walk around the restaurant with.  (There was a rumor that he and Bradley were seen slugging the remnants in the kitchen with bites of pulled pork).  I do not take notes at table as a fast rule, but I can clearly remember a wine near maturity with good grip, nice dried cherry and hints of pomegranate fruit, good loamy earth mouthfeel, good acidity and only a hint of backend warmth from the ripeness.  There’s no doubt Pisoni can age, and in a big bottle it only gets better after 10+ years in our cellar.

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