The boy's toys.

I eventually made it home to England after surviving being served a loathsome glass of 2002 Lanson Gold Label Brut on my transatlantic flight, and a tortuous 5 1/2 hour layover in Frankfurt...phew!  It's good to be finally home; familiar faces, places and foods.  

The main purpose for this trip was the celebration of my nephew's first birthday.  Baby Thud has been walking for four months now and those little feet must've been getting tired, so something peddle-powered was just what the boy needed.  And, on the off chance that I was feeling a tad homesick for Napa, Thud provided a smattering of a familiarly distinctive, green and yellow hardware about the courtyard.

Cheers, John Deeres all round!

Get back...

...to where I once belonged,  Part 3.
~
Oh, to be in England
Now that April's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England - now!
~
Home thoughts from abroad, indeed.  Soon.  Tomorrow to be exact.
Get back JoJo!

Happy St. George's Day, 2012.

Vinogirl: British by birth, English by the grace of God.

Happy St. George's Day to my family, friends and anyone who loves England as much as I do.

Ol' Blue-eyed.

Just when I thought I'd discovered every last blue-coloured weed growing in or around Vinoland, I came across  this little beauty. The Californian Blue-eyed Grass (Sisyrinchium bellum) is not a true grass although it does resemble one, inasmuch as it grows low to the ground and has long, thin leaves.  In fact, when I walk the Vinodogs in the mornings the two Sisyrinchium plants on our route are hard to spot amongst all the other grass varieties.  It is not until our late afternoon walk that I can easily espy their location as they are by then in full bloom.  These simple, blue-purple flowers are so pretty that I love to look out for them as the girls and I promenade by.  I think the spotted cucumber beetle (Diabrotica undecimpunctata) in the photograph loves these pretty little blossoms too.  Of course, he can get a little more up close and personal with the flowers than I can.

Redempt-zin.

Perhaps, in an effort to make up for bringing a Charbono to Vinoland's recent Zinfandel tasting, Sky King appeared last night for a BBQ rib dinner with a fairly decent bottle of the aforementioned wine-tasting varietal.  The Trecini 2007 Rockpile (Rocky Ridge Vineyard, Sonoma) wasn't the most typical Zinfandel I have ever tasted, and at $40 it wasn't the cheapest either, but when it came to pairing it with pork ribs it performed rather admirably.

To further redeem himself, Sky King also brought dessert, a Raspberry Frangipane tart from the Basque Café (Sonoma's 'Bistro on the Square'). But wait, Sky King wasn't finished - he paired dessert with a Fritz Winery 1998 Late Harvest Zinfandel (also Sonoma) which was delightful.  Oh yum!
Sky King - he's a good lad!

Love me tendril.

Now that the Orange muscat vines are at enough of an advanced stage that one can discern some distinct features of the grapevine, I thought I'd take a closer look at the various goings on at the tip of the new shoots.

In botany, plant morphology is the study of the specific forms and shapes of an organism.  A tenet of plant morphology is that there are three basic components of a higher plant (those having a vascular system); stem, leaf and root - all other plant structures are modifications of this trio of fundamental building blocks. Morphologically speaking Vitaceae, the family to which the grapevine belongs, is characterised by the occurrence of tendrils and inflorescences (both homologous organs) that emerge opposite leaves. The tendril of a grapevine is in actual fact a modified leaf whilst the inflorescence (or flower cluster) is a modified tendril.
The tendrils themselves are extremely interesting structures: pressure-sensitive modified leaves that reflect the climbing habit of the grapevine and occur in a repeating pattern (two on, one off) along the entire length of a shoot...blah, blah, blah!  It is the appearance of the modified tendrils, that usually form at the second and third position on a shoot, that I am most interested in and happy to see.  The modification of a tendril into a grapevine's flower cluster, and the successful pollination of those flowers, is the little miracle that translates into a future glass of wine.
Morph on little tendrils!

My cab just arrived, gotta go!

That's it, all Vinoland's grape varieties are up and running.  Now, if the Cabernet vines can just put on a few inches of growth without damage from a severe frost, the 2012 vintage looks like a go.  Of course, it's early days yet, but with the production of more and more green tissue the grapevine increases it's cold hardiness.  The accumulation of soluble sugars, which actually begins the preceding autumn, acts as a type of antifreeze.  These reserves of carbohydrates, stored in the roots and the dormant buds of the grapevine, are what the winegrower, who has no frost protection system in place, relies on to avoid frost damage.

Among soluble sugars, raffinose appears to be the most important to cold hardiness.  The elevated concentration of this carbohydrate in the basal tissue of a grapevine, exactly where the new budettes appear, apparently increases the tolerance to freezing temperatures in Vitis species. The nascent leaves then begin the process of photosynthesis with gusto, producing additional soluble sugars that further help to stave off tissue death and, additionally, synthesise light energy to accelerate vegetative growth.  An amazing process.

Go little buddies!

Mondavi's folly.

Have you ever woken up in the morning and thought, what I really need is a life-size statue of legendary Napa winemaker André Tchelistcheff?  No? Me neither.  But, just on the off chance that you have, beginning this Saturday the 14th of April, you might be in luck. Copia:  The American Centre for Wine, Food and the Arts, closed since December 2008 due to bankruptcy, is about to auction off the entire contents of the mothballed 80,000 square foot centre.
What was Copia?  Well, no one was really ever sure exactly what Copia was, or aimed to be.  Conceptualised by Robert Mondavi, who gifted some $20 million in seed money, the not-for-profit (and therein lies a problem) discovery centre struggled to define it's mission.  With a 700 seat outdoor amphitheatre, 13,000 square feet of gallery space, a demonstration kitchen, a 3.5 acre edible garden and a restaurant named for famed chef Julia Child (I ate there, once) Copia potentially had a lot to offer the community.  However, what Copia did not have was a supporting foundation, an endowment, or incontrovertibly any funding to keep what was a lofty enterprise afloat.
When Copia filed for bankruptcy it had amassed a staggering bond-financed debt of more than $78 million.  The centre had struggled financially since day one.  The projected 300,000 annual visitors never materialised and the support of Napa Valley residents was virtually non-existent: for many locals the lure of gourmet salt and internationally sourced mustard tastings did not prove to be a strong enough enticement to get them through the doors in any great numbers.  
As part of the bankruptcy process, the administrators of the Copia liquidation trust are holding onsite and online auctions to rid themselves of everything - from the gift shop's retail inventory and the centre's 4,000 bottle wine collection to serving dishes and office equipment - and in the process perhaps put a small dent in that $78 million debt. In order to facilitate a good turn out on auction day, many Napa residents were sent a large postcard in the mail advertising the "truly...one of a kind collection of assets to be sold to the highest bidders."  I won't be bidding on anything. For instance, I can't imagine wanting any white wine from Copia's bottle collection.
Copia was an ego driven idea with no concept of reality.  From the onset, there was really no way this particular business model could work.  A shrine to wine (amongst other things), really? With approximately 175 tasting rooms in the valley, beginning a mere 2 miles from Copia's downtown location, I think most visitors would want to pay homage to a living and breathing wine at it's source.  Copia, was plainly a folly.
Of course, there is that life-size statue of Mr. Tchelistcheff (although I read that it may not actually be included in the auction), just in case you need one.

What's up buttercup?

Having seemingly exhausted the supply of blue-flowered weeds in Vinoland, my favourites, I am moving on to weeds with yellow coloured corollas.  I suspect, however, that there will be some little blue beauty that will catch my eye later in the year. There are plenty of lilac/lavendar coloured weeds flowering right now, like filaree, wild radish and mallow, but it's on to the yellow weeds I go.

First up for spring is the California Buttercup (Ranunculus californicus).  Bright and cheery, this unassuming little blossom is currently dotting the hillside that extends behind the Vinoland residence.  Not to be confused with the familiar Creeping Buttercup (Ranunculus repens) that is invasive in English lawns, this California Ranunculacea can grow up to 70 cm in height and has as many as 7-20 petals per flower.  Very cheery indeed.

Happy Easter, 2012.

Happy Easter to everybunny!

Eat chocolate!

Frost season.

Having a cover crop in a vineyard is generally a good thing for the vineyard's health.  However, a tall cover crop (like the 5' tall mustard in the above photograph) can artificially raise the vineyard floor, thus encouraging frost to settle on the new plane which is what the top of the cover crop has now effectively become. Unfortunately, that can be right in the bud/fruit zone. Napa had a fairly hard frost event yesterday. Currently, it's 31 degrees F as I type and the roof of Vinoland's barn is white with frost - it faces west.

The folks at Far Niente mowed down their cover crop yesterday. Just when the bell beans, field peas and vetch had started to bloom and look very pretty, the rain ended, took the clouds with it and opened the door to usher in frost season.  A disked, vegetation free, dark-soil vineyard floor is the best condition in which to capture the sun's daytime warmth.  In my opinion, a cover crop is essential to soil health, but for frost protection the timing of mowing down a vineyard's cover crop is crucial to saving the grape crop.  And, that's the conundrum of cover cropping.
By the way, Happy California Poppy Day!

Beginnings and ends.

This morning, after I had finished clearing up last night's tasting score-sheets, wine-sticky pencils, runaway corks and a seeming million grains of rice (that, inexplicably, the Vinodogs had not hoovered up) I, and the aforementioned canines, went for a walk.
Whilst enjoying our promenade I noticed that the nearby Far Niente Chardonnay vineyard is experiencing budbreak - the exact same timing as last year.  Far Niente's vineyard fans were running long before daybreak, but with the temps only getting down to 36 degrees F the little budettes were not in danger of frost damage.
I was going to go back and take a photograph of the Chardonnay vines this afternoon, but I noticed Vinoland's Syrah is well and truly on it's own way through budbreak, so I photographed one of my own little buddies instead.

Also today, I finished tying down all the Cabernet sauvignon canes. That means I am finished with pruning.  Whoo hoo!  I am sitting here with a glass of bubbly as I type.

Go grapes!

Don't judge a bottle by it's cover.

A hastily organised Zinfandel/chili pairing, in Vinoland tonight, was quite a success.  Ten mystery wines - and I say wines as two bottles turned out to be something other than Zin - vied to be top dog, or rather in this case, top animal.
When Vinomaker tastes wines blind, he likes to use combinations of numbers, or animal names, written on plain brown paper bottle bags to identify each wine, instead of the simpler numeric system of numbering the bottles 1, 2, 3, etc.  Vinomaker, and his friend Sky King, believe that tasters experience some sort of number/cognitive bias when faced with a wine numbered 1, versus a wine numbered 10.  I don't think I have ever had a problem with number bias (although I am fond of the number 3), but apparently some people do.  So, when faced with ten bottles of wine - sporting animalia monikers such as pig, sloth, Bluetick Coonhound (a late entry, don't ask), and eel - I displayed no bias towards ugly creatures when I picked toad (very closely followed by lemur) as my favourite wine.
The terrific toad had the good fortune of turning out to be a delightful 2009 Joel Gott Zinfandel from Amador County; extremely varietal like, pepper, raspberries, red currants, and superbly smooth.  The lovely lemur was a 2010 Black Cat Zinfandel from Howell Mountain; redolent with oodles of vanilla, and the bouquet, and matching palate-pleasing taste, of the best cherry pie ever.  Yum!
My least favourite wine was bat (and I'm really quite fond of that particular mammal) which turned out to be a 2009 Ravenswood California Zinfandel ($10); mystery spice, mystery fruit, some oak/vanilla, and hot.
Moral of the story?  None really, except perhaps that a lowly toad may just turn out to be a prince of a wine.

Progress report.

The Orange muscat vines are seemingly full of the joys of spring and are racing, bud first, towards their initial sulphur application of the 2012 growing season.  The vine's leaves don't look like they were damaged by the two most recent frosts in Napa.  However, frosts this time of year are an ongoing threat to winegrowers the length and breadth of the valley. Back on April 21st 2008, Napa experienced it's latest spring frost in 35 years, causing widespread losses to growers of white and red grape varieties.  Nobody wants to see a repeat of those particular climatic conditions.
I finished pruning the Syrah vines today...whoo hoo!  Like last year, the buds were already pushing which made tying the canes down a little difficult.  I still have to finish tying down the canes in the Cabernet sauvignon block and weather permitting I hope to be all finished by Sunday.  At least, that's the plan.

Smile!

In a small, personal effort to stimulate the sluggish US economy I decided to buy, as a birthday pressie to myself, a new camera.  I didn't really need a new camera, but a new camera I now have.

The Nikon D3100 is a bit of a step up from the D3000 I have been using for the past 18 months, but it's still just an entry level DSLR. I have a Nikon D50 which is a more serious camera, but more importantly perhaps is the fact that the lenses I use with the D50 are much more serious lenses than the kit lens that the D3100 comes with.  Not being too expensive a DSLR, this is the camera that I am most likely to throw into my handbag and take everywhere with me.  And yes, I am more often than not to be found out in the vineyard with this camera slung about my neck, on the off chance I spy something that may be of interest for me to blog about.  Besides, this camera is very pretty and comes in a snazzy Vinogirl Red.  

Love it!

Ristorante Allegria.

For my birthday dinner, Vinomaker decided to take me to Ristorante Allegria in downtown Napa.  We have been there many times before and have always enjoyed it: we are done with experimenting with new restaurants for the time being.  Allegria is a comfortable, unpretentious establishment.
Located in an old bank building, Allegria features California cuisine with an Italian influence: actually it is quite far removed from authentic Italian food, but the food is always of the highest quality. Vinomaker and I began the evening with a glass each of Villa Sandi Prosecco, which was a very pleasant tipple, whilst we waited to order.  For my main course I ordered the mahi mahi with garlic mashed potatoes in some sort of mango sauce.  I was too busy (thinking about chatting), to really listen to the waiter's description of this dish which was one of the evening's specials, but he had uttered those magic words garlic mashed potatoes, so I was completely sold.  My fish and potato combo was delightful fare and Vinomaker thoroughly enjoyed his Pappardelle Allo Zafferano.
Our wine selection was a bit of a disappointment, so I will abstain from besmirching the winemaking abilities of a certain Napa winery.  All in all it was a very pleasant evening.  Thanks Vinomaker. 

They say it's your birthday...

...We're gonna have a good time!  Yes, once again, it's the anniversary of my birth (thank you, mother).

Aren't birthdays great?  I had a bit of a lie-in this morning, and then the festivities began.  Over a leisurely breakfast, I opened my cards and my presents - jewellery (including the antique spoon-ring above) and bubbly. What more could a Vinogirl ask for?
Oh...and Happy Birthday John Toshack.
Vinogirl loves birthdays.

A helping hand.

I started to prune Vinoland's Syrah vines yesterday afternoon, but rain stopped play!  Today, when I finally made it out into the vineyard, after my weekly phone call to Blighty, I was joined in the Syrah by a Pipevine Swallowtail (Battus philenor).  This beautiful butterfly fluttered from the vine on to my sleeve and then proceeded to get quite comfortable on my hand, then a vine, as I took his photograph.  Most likely docile because of the 31 degree temps this morning, he was quite content to rest on my thumb, in the sunshine, until I got bored and unceremoniously dumped him on a stray daffodil - a Vinogirl has to prune!

Happy St. Paddy's Day!

I didn't think it fair that I should ignore the Patron Saint of Ireland when I had already feted the Patron Saint of Wales, St. David.  And, it's not as if I'm going to ignore St. George now is it?  I suppose that means I'll also have tip my hat to St. Andrew in November.

Americans love St. Patrick's Day.  I don't get it.  I grew up veritably surrounded by people of Irish descent in Liverpool, and I've got to say, not a whole lot of attention was paid to it as a holiday. Personally, the closest I ever got to celebrating on Paddy's Day (and by close, I literally mean proximity) was when, as a teenager, I accidentally bumped into an  inebriated old dear, complete with shamrock festooned lapel, exiting the Irish Centre on Mount Pleasant in Liverpool city centre.
However you feel about St. Patrick's Day, I hope you have a good one. I'm off to have a glass of Sauvignon blanc. Diddly, diddly, diddly, diddly...

It's so good!

Vinomaker was given this wine by an attorney friend after a tennis event they both played in: Long story short, it's a delicious wine. I'm not going to get all boring by describing this wine myself, instead I'm going to pilfer the 2007 C'est Si Bon's tasting notes directly from the Elyse website because their description of the wine is possibly the closest description, to actual taste, I have ever come across.
C'est Si Bon (It's so good!), is made from grapes indigenous to the Rhone Valley in Southern France. This medium body wine has delightful aromas of dried raspberries, tangerine peel, white pepper along with hints of earth and dried herbs. On the palate, flavors of wild plums, raspberries, currants and a hint of minerality lead to a creamy mouth feel and genuinely long finish – and is way too easy to drink. 
OMG!  Way too easy to drink is a gigantic understatement.  This wine is so smooth, the soft vanilla characteristic on the palate is so moreish and - oops, I said I wouldn't wax lyrical with my own particular descriptors of this wine.  But, priced at around $28.00 retail, this is a great wine.  It really is so good.