Central Coast Wine Blogs

The Art and Angst of Winemaking

I have this recurring daydream about being invited to a famous wine writer's house for dinner. I would be awful, and I would take great delight in being so.

• "I'm afraid the salad dressing is a little on the acetic side."
• "The lamb is a little overdone, somewhat dry, don't you think?"
• "The asparagus, is, well, wonderfully green. Perhaps it needs some cheese."
• "I'm sorry, I'm sure your raspberry chocolate soufflé is wonderful, but I find sweet food so cloying."

When you criticize a winemaker's wine, you are, in essence, criticizing his cooking. Nearly all winemakers are intensely interested in food: fresh ingredients, gentle techniques, attractive presentation. The same things that go into making wine.

Cellars are generally tidy places. The wines move in routine and carefully planned stages through pressing, tanks, barrels, adjustments, bottling. Winemakers shuffle around in the cellar tasting the wines as if they were pasta sauces, waiting a little longer on some, blending here and there, time to finish up on others. They also put a lot of energy into choosing their bottles and designing their labels. Some winemakers shop for glassware with the fervor of a bride looking for china. If the winemaker is also the owner, you can deduct much about him from his label design.

Winemakers, however, don't think of their wine as "product" unless they're talking to their CPA or marketing director. They think of wine as a process--the elegant presentation of a whole food, fermented and finished in oak.

Dessert Wines

Dessert wines - Many people just pour them over high-quality vanilla bean ice cream with fresh berries or shaved dark chocolate atop. But a quality dessert wine is so much more than just a sweet pick-me-up or a syrup for frozen milch. During the holidays you should have a few bottles on hand.  Don't be shy about using them as after-dinner digestifs enjoyed in a tiny glass, as the basis for meat marinades and vinaigrettes, to splash into Spanish cava or champagne for a festive flair, and to accompany holiday desserts.  At the end of a meal, a complex, layered dessert wine is both dessert and digestif, particularly if you serve it with some crisp fruit and mellow cheeses. Some dessert wines, particularly whites, are mellow enough to be served with roasted quail and other savory treats. During the holidays, a good dessert wine makes an instant course for a quickly pulled together dinner, and can even be used as part of the preparation.

Some easy pairings for late harvest and port-style reds:

• Dates stuffed with cream cheese and topped with a raspberry
• Small puff pastry circlets topped with cream fraiche, berries, and shaved chocolate
• Sesame glazed walnuts
• Slices of pear and apple
• Savory cheeses—Gorgonzola, Stilton, Manchego

Quick pairings for white late harvest and dessert wines:

• White chocolate brownies
• Puff pastry cups with fresh peaches, crème fraiche and toasted almonds
• Baklava
• Fruit and cheese quiche
• Tapioca or pudding topped with fruit and crème fraiche

While most people instinctively pair a sweet with a sweet, the oils and sugar in chocolate and dessert dishes coat the palate and subdue the layered flavors of a great dessert wine. When I want the wine to star, I serve nuts, cheese, and savory bites.   

Try basting a quail with a dessert white or red while roasting, and prepare a long-grain rice stuffing with fruits that have been steeped in a cup of the wine—dark fruits for a red dessert wine, white fruits like apricots and blood oranges in white dessert wine. The savory elements of the fowl and rice are a great marriage with dessert wines. Look for dessert wines that are not too rich and pruney—they should have lifted acidity and clearly definable varietal flavors.

"It takes a lot of good beer to make great wine."

Harvest season in the wine industry is hot, thirsty work. The vines are covered with a summer's worth of dust, and inhabited by black widow spiders and other crawling, climbing, biting insects. Workers who peel back the bird netting draped over the vines have the pleasure of removing dead birds, squirrels and possums entangled in the net. Driving the tractors which tow the picking bins up and down the rows is hot work too, and bees follow the picking bins in swarms, lying thick on top of the sweet, sticky grapes.

In the winery itself, cellarmen drag heavy hoses from one tank to another, even up onto the catwalks, so wine can be pumped up to the top of a tank and sluiced over the grapeskins floating near the top. Others are standing inside fermentation tanks, shoveling out the heavy pomace, the residual grapeskins left after the wine has been pumped off. Everything needs cleaning, all the time. Tanks, barrels, buckets, hoses, fittings---everything is washed, brushed, scoured and sanitized in a continual war against nasty organisms and fruit flies.

This time of year, you are likely to find local winemakers enjoying a hot dinner at Papi's Mexican restaurant, arguing the merits of various yeasts with a hot tostada in one hand and a cold beer in the other. Cellarmen and winemakers sit in the shade at the end of the day with--you guessed it, a cold beer. The cellar refrigerators hold equal parts of yeast, bottled wine samples, steaks, and beer.

Crush, Continued

It's that time of year again. Time for grapes to be harvested and turned into wine. Do we call this time of year "crush" because the grapes are poured into hoppers and dumped into crusher-destemmers to be de-foliated and mangled before fermenting? No, we call it "crush" because this is the time of year when forklifts are backed into doors and tanks; tractors roll down terraced hillsides; hoses get plugged up, tanks overflow, and the winery dogs sleeping on warm cement get run over.

This is how wine is made. When a winemaker refers casually to the "blood and guts" of his winery, he is probably not referring to accounts receivable or distribution channels. He is likely referring to a dismantled crusher, sitting like a beached ship among a sea of littered parts---or the last cellar worker to explode the head off a barrel of wine.

Wayne's Tire does a thriving business this time of year, catering to the ag industry, making road calls nearly 24 hours a day to replace forklift tires, tractor tires and truck tires. The wine industry here is not a tidy, large-scale industry with predictable sizes and types of mobile equipment. Small vineyards and wineries use whatever they can find and afford; picking bin trailers have varying sizes of wheels and tires, and of course they don't just go flat---they shred themselves completely in inconvenient places like terraced hillsides and highway intersections.

Electricians are also highly popular this time of year, as every critical piece of equipment except the punchdown tool runs on electricity---and huge amounts of it. And of course all these generators and presses and whatnot have signs plastered on all their panels saying, "Do Not Open" or "Hazard--Danger," so who wants to go poking around in there?

Forklifts are definitely the most popular piece of equipment during crush---being used for forklift races, diving boards over winery fire protection ponds, to hold basketball hoops, as tire jacks, and for subtly chasing snoopy tasters who wander onto the crush pad.

It's not always fun and games however, as cellar workers wade through hordes of yellow jackets, faint from fermentation fumes (whenever a cellar worker is missing he's presumed sleeping, but we all check the fermentation tanks for floating shoes), drop heavy tools, and yank the barrel washers out without turning off the hot water.

The Magic of Crush

In late summer, there is a moment in vineyards known as "veraison," which translates roughly as "moment of truth." It is the moment when grapes begin to turn from hard, green beads into sweet, plump fruit. From that moment until harvest the vineyards are at their most vulnerable. The hazards of the early season--heavy rains, late frosts--are minor compared to the dangers that haunt the last few weeks of vintage. Hordes of deer and birds descending on tender fruit can wipe out an entire harvest in a few days. Late season heat ripens grapes too quickly, robbing them of flavor. A lack of heat delays harvest into late fall, when freezing nights can turn grapes into tasteless mush. Late season rains swell grapes with water, breaking the skins and infecting entire clusters with mold.

During these last few weeks of summer, winemakers are in the vineyards, looking at the clusters, crushing grapes between their fingers, tasting the fruit. The winemaker's phone rings unanswered, mail piles up in messy stacks, and deadlines are missed. In the winery itself, cellarmen spend weeks draining barrels and tanks of previous vintages, bottling and labeling wine and shipping it out, cleaning tanks, barrels and equipment. Like the unveiling of a statue, cloth covers are pulled off the crusher and the press, and the huge machines are rolled outside, cleaned, and tested. Truck-size scales are pulled out of storage, assembled and calibrated to receive incoming fruit.

But to those of us who have been through this before, these busy weeks seem quiet, sounds seem muted. The vineyards are full and leafy, and heavy with fruit. Vines sag over their trellis systems and trail on the ground. Heat waves dance over the vines and an occasional breeze lifts the aluminum strips which are meant to frighten birds. In the winery itself, empty tanks stand with their doors hanging open. Barrels are turned upside down in their racks and the whole winery has a strangely hollow feeling.

Like survivors of a storm who smell another forming, we move through our preparations quickly with our minds focused on the horizon of late summer, waiting as the rising sugars and flavor of the vineyard slowly escalate--because all of this activity is only preparation for the season we call "crush."

The Deck Party Cookbook - Available Now!

 

There’s just nothing more fun than having a deck party. Fire up the grill, prepare a big salad, open some wine, and put out some appetizers. Let the party begin!

The Deck Party Cookbook is a collection of easy dishes that you can prepare at home for guests and family, and every recipe has a suggested wine pairing.

(View the entire table of contents here.  Just click on 'Preview' under the cover image.)

Learn how to grill lamb ribs with a lavender rub, smoke a duck, and make vodka gravlax. It's easier than you think!  Having friends overnight?  Start the party with grilled appetizers and dinner on the deck, and continue the next morning with our brunch ideas and creative Bloody Marias. Every recipe uses easy-to-find ingredients, so no matter where you live, you can cook, dine and wine as if you are in wine country!

There are 3 easy ways to order:

Order a paperback copy direct from Lulu.com and get 5% off

Get an autographed copy from me ($18 + $5 shipping):  mary@centralcoastwineblogs.com

Or download a digital copy now for only $12.95 and prepare an easy recipe tonight!

Blending Trials

 

  
 
We face each other over two glasses of wine. He asks for my opinion first. My wine repertoire consists of "I like it," or "I don't like it," and maybe a comment on the acid-fruit balance. But this is all he needs—the gauntlet thrown down.

Examining wine is this man's sport and passion. He doesn't just taste, or smell, or see. He views wine as a chessmaster views the board, or a sailor his boat. Every tiny detail is vital, and my opinion is only a catalyst, a challenge that invites him to step closer and lose himself in yet another brief but passionate relationship.

If I say I like it, he looks surprised, as though I couldn't possibly be serious, but bravely he says nothing, going back into the glass to re-examine it dubiously for positive qualities. After a moment he says, "But the phenolics are a bit high, don't you think? And there is a definite brassica component that detracts from the varietal character of the wine."

A New Year in the Vineyard

 

Winter, even here in our relatively mild central coast, is a time of dormancy. Barbecues are covered or rolled into the garage, basketballs and baseballs lie forgotten in dusty corners, roses and grapevines raise bare arms against cold and shredding skies.

Like most fruit trees and vines, grapes require this period of dormancy to build strength for the coming vintage. In a way, this time of year is truly the beginning of the next vintage, just as January is the beginning of our new year. A vine is impacted by its past—the type of trellising selected, the demands of past years in terms of water and heat and production, and the amount of tender care and handling it may or may not have enjoyed. But that is in the past. Now the vine is resting, rebuilding, getting ready to produce a new "leaf," as a year is often referred to in viticulture. A new leaf, new buds, new clusters as if nothing had gone on before, as though nothing can deter it from beginning fresh.

Like all plants, a vine is mindless in the sense that it will joyously burst into life in the spring and given its own way it will sprawl, climb, and spread like the weed it is, until, exhausted by its summertime orgy of sun-chasing growth, it finally produces some wild clusters of bird-size fruit.

It is up to the husbandman, gardener, or vineyard manager to prune, shape, domesticate, and tame those shameless vines into tidy rows of well-branched vines dripping with the appropriate number of grape clusters per acre—discipline bringing order and strength into nature.

How to Tell a Wine Geek from a Cork Dork

 

The following post is a reprise of a newspaper article I wrote in 1992.  It was subsequently published on the Dover Canyon Winery blog (which no longer exists). The post enjoyed viral hits and backlinks from all over the world.   I'm sure poor Roger (pictured above) never expected to see his photo reprinted on hundred of sites.  I hope he can take comfort in my opinion that he is not a cork dork, but a true geek. 

Recently, at a dinner with friends, one man's date turned to me and complained, "He's so boring.  All he ever talks about is wine.  All day long he talks about wine."

I probably  looked hurt, because I was just as engrossed in our discussion of Syrah as he was.  Lorraine leaned toward me and whispered, "She's right, you know.  We're all hopeless wine geeks.  Look at us from an outsider's point of view."

But the deeper I get into the world of wine, the harder that is to do.  I think moving our discussion from Merlot to Syrah is a total change in conversation.  Have I been slowly losing touch with reality and drifting more and more into a fascination with varietal differences and degrees of oak, malolactic overindulgence, and varying theories on wild yeasts? 

I must, however, point out the vast difference between a wine geek and a cork dork.  In my lexicon, a wine geek, like a computer geek, is consumed by his field.  He likes dry and sweet wines, white and red wines, French and American wines.  He is an experience junkie, always looking for a new and vinous adventure.  

A wine geek will look at an untried varietal like a biologist discovering a new phylum.  "What's this?  A pinot verde?  Get out the Riedel, we must examine this!"

A cork dork, on the other hand, will hold his glass by the base.  He'll swirl a wine until it's exhausted, and after a long speech on the supposed characteristics of a wine he has yet to taste, will finally sniff it and announce his disappointment in its aroma.  A cork dork will aspire to all things French, and the barrels must be new, the women young, and the wines very old—although any one with any experience knows that these choices are not necessarily the best.  If you try to pour him some dessert wine, he'll snatch his glass away in horror, leaving you in the foolish position of pouring wine on the table.

When visiting wine country, you will inevitably encounter both wine geeks and cork dorks.   Therefore, I suggest these ten guidelines for differentiating between poseurs (dorks) and real geeks (us). 

1.   A dork will make you feel uncomfortable.  They are supercilious, punctilious, and from my point of view, just plain supersillious.  A geek, however, will make you feel comfortable, and value your opinion of his wines.

2. A dork holds his glass by the base, or with his fingers curled sensuously around the body of the glass.  A geek grabs his glass by the stem and just sticks his nose in.  All business.

The Memory Garden

 
 
"How do you come up with all these aromas and flavors?" is a question I am frequently asked about wine. 

One fall, as I was barrel sampling some wines a particular scent eluded me.  I knew I had encountered it before, but where?  I finally found it in the pantry of my "memory garden"--it was the yellow-ish green lace that is found on whole nutmeg cloves:  mace.

Based loosely on the concept of The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci, I have created a memory garden in my mind that I visit when seeking the scents and flavors in a wine.