Happy Halloween.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Happy Halloween.
Happy Halloween.
Labels:
Clos du Val,
Halloween,
Pumpkin brittle,
Zinfandel
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
It's raining Cabs.
Resembling one of Macbeth's demonic witches, Vinomaker is down in the winery twice a day working his magic. Performing punch-downs, taking temperatures, and spinning hydrometers in cylinders of adolescent wine; whilst all the time invoking the beneficence of Dionysus (or St. Vincent if I were the winemaker), in the successful transmutation of grapes into wine. There are handwritten notes, Excel spreadsheets, textbooks, website printouts, and industry catalogues strewn all over Vinoland. Where all of this wine is going to be aged, stored, and blended is still a mystery.
What is clear to me however, is that it is making it even more likely that the Vinodogs and I will have to look for an alternate living space...for a short spell.
Labels:
Alchemy,
Cab,
Liber Abaci,
Tongue of Dogge
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
The black grape of Avola.
Cusumano's 2007 Nero d'avola (the most widely planted of Sicily's indigenous red varietals), is a fruit driven, surprisingly high alcohol wine with a distinct Mediterranean character. Dark cherries and damsons abound, buoyed by a bright acidity. The pleasant spicy-plum finish is ample consolation for the fact that the wine is a tad unbalanced (due to the heat at the end.)
All in all, this offering of Nero d'avola was very entertaining because of it's unique closure, and was eminently quaffable because of the high standard of winemaking .
I hope the next bottle will be just as enjoyable. Never buy just one.
Labels:
14%,
Damson jam,
Marsala,
Nero d'avola
Monday, October 26, 2009
Vino-seal.
One of the wines Vinomaker, I and everyone else drank after the christening, a week last Sunday, was a tasty offering from Sicily. It didn't really matter what the grape varietal was, we were all so enamoured with the Vino-seal closure that the contents of the bottle became secondary. Small things amuse...
Labels:
DuPont,
Nero d'avola,
Philistine,
Sicily,
vino-lock
Friday, October 23, 2009
Blue velvet.
Labels:
CS,
Harvest '09,
leaf pulling
Sunday, October 18, 2009
One more for the team.
The St. Helena R.C. Church is a small, picturesque stone structure that just underwent six months of earthquake retrofitting...it's all better now and thus was the perfect setting for one of life's rites of passage...if you're Catholic.
It was a beautiful, joyous day filled with close family, well wishes, good food and of course, good wine...which was just as well, seeing as sacramental wine is no longer an option due to the threat of swine flu. I swear to God.
Labels:
Baptism,
Godmother,
leftfooter,
Msgr Brenkle,
St. Helena
Friday, October 16, 2009
Gathering nuts.
Every 3 or 4 years we seem to get a bumper crop of acorns, 2009 is one of those years. The recent rain aided and abetted in the dumping of a massive amount of acorns onto the driveway. Of course, they drop at any old time but primarily when I am making a trip out to the dustbin...ouch!
Vinomaker is also busy stockpiling for winter, however his stash, ahem, is in liquid form! He has so many fermentations going on right now that the Vinodogs and I may have to move into a hotel, temporarily, to make way for all the fermentation bins.
Labels:
acorns,
sprains,
woodpecker
Thursday, October 15, 2009
My girdle is killing me.
A ha! As I expected I found insect damage: girdling of the petiole. Now in this neck of the woods there are two main suspects for such crimes against vines; the Buffalo Treehopper (Stictocephala bisonia) and the Three-cornered Alfalfa Hopper (Spissistilus festinus). Damage to the vine occurs when continuous feeding punctures, resulting in the interruption of the movement of materials to the leaf, reduce chlorophyll production and cause anthocyanins to become the dominant pigment remaining in the leaf. The reddish leaves look like those of Leafroll virus, hence my concern upon espying the offending leaf.
It is obviously not a big problem, seeing as this is the only red leaf I have seen in the vineyard, but it was a momentary cause for concern. After all, you need healthy vines to make yummy wines.
Labels:
anthocyanins,
girdling,
Leafroll virus,
Playtex
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Rain, rain, go away!
It rained all day yesterday. Let me qualify that...we just experienced, in the San Francisco Bay Area, the worst October storm since the 1960s. Vinoland looks like a battlefield. Mother Nature has deposited her detritus everywhere, the autumnal colours of which are pretty, but the acorns make walking around extremely difficult. Our creek is full, there are puddles everywhere, the firewood is wet, and the Vinodogs are bored.
Last Sunday I did a quick sugar reading of our Cabernet grapes. They were only up to a rather disappointing 22.8 degrees Brix, nowhere near ready to harvest...and now wet, grey weather.
My poor grapes!
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Frequent flyer miles?
This has to be the most traveled bottle of wine I have ever had (next to the bottle of 1994 Opus One Thud purchased in Costco, Liverpool). And guess what?...it was delicious...even with jet-lag.
What a great combination; Pinot grigio and, one of Vinomaker's and my favourites, Torrontés. We frequently drink Susana Balbo's Torrontés but this blended offering from Familia Zuccardi is wonderful, combining the best characteristics of these two eminently quaffable varietals.
Thanks Monkey and Thud.
Labels:
Oddbins,
Pinot grigio,
Torrentés
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Breaking bread.
Labels:
Black cat Vineyard,
Mi Sueño,
Syrah,
Wisconsin Winos
Sunday, October 04, 2009
Hello Syrah!
Vinomaker left at the crack of dawn to drive, once again, to Courtland to collect some Marsanne he had contracted to buy. I stayed in Vinoland and supervised our Syrah harvest. The Wisconsin Winos had arrived early, on this cool October morning, to assist with the day's activities. I stayed as long as I could and picked away with them but had to leave to collect Family OTW from San Francisco International.
Unfortunately, I didn't get to see the Marsanne and will have to be content with watching it ferment, but I will make sure I am around to drink the finished product.
Labels:
Hello Wisconsin,
Marsanne,
SFO,
Syrah
Thursday, October 01, 2009
Many happy returns of the day V2!
It is with some astonishment that she is still here in Vinoland, after many threats to send her back to the pound for generally terrorising the vines, the neighbourhood, and last but not least, poor old V1.
The fact that she is so cute and constantly provides pure, unadulterated canine-comedy makes her a keeper.
Happy birthday V2.
Labels:
Birthday,
bones,
chews,
squeaky toys,
V2
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