Monday, October 26, 2009

Hand made from start to finish

How's this for hand made wine? A few Rockroom wines get a dot of wax instead of the usual tin capsule right before we put them into bottle aging. We pull out the deep-fryer, melt a batch of wax and drip it on one bottle at a time. Is all this fuss necessary? Probably not but it seems to make sense to add this little hand-crafted reminder now and then. Like on this La Encantada pinot noir that was so carefully grown in an organically farmed vineyard in Santa Barbara's Santa Rita Hills. Hand crafted from start to finish.

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Last pinot pick of 09

Yesterday we sorted our pinot noir from this vineyard - Bohemian in Freestone. Here we are walking the rows with Tom the vineyard owner and Chris our consulting winemaker. This chilly site had a challenging season this year with all the Asian typhoon rain swirling around, but thanks to some quick pruning action and warmer dryer weather it looks like we got some nice fruit.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Pressing syrahhhhhh

Santa Barbara County syrah came in beautifully ripe a couple weeks back and we pressed it today after a textbook fermentation. I just never get enough of that deep purple that syrah does so well.

Wednesday, October 07, 2009

Beached Syrah

Our syrah was harvested from White Hawk vineyard in Santa Barbara County after last week's dash to the vineyard showed the grapes to be in great condition for the pick. Check out this shot of the vineyard when I visited it and youi can see that it looks like the vines are growing on the beach. Sure enough, while the vineyard is miles inland the soil is pure sand. It took a visionary grower to plant in this stuff and boy did it pay off - this fruit makes amazing wine.

Saturday, October 03, 2009

Santa Rita harvest

A 5 hour drive south of the winery we get our most distant fruit from Sanford's La Encantada vineyard. This beautiful hilltop vineyard is organically farmed and even went to the trouble to become the first certified organic vineyard in Santa Barbara County. We will pick pinot noir this week for the 2009 wine. Three different Dijon clones for those of you keeping score.

Thursday, October 01, 2009

Howell Mountain crush

Today our Napa cab was picked and hauled down from Howell Mountain for winemaking in San Francisco. We hand sorted the clusters and then sorted berries on a shaker table after destemming to pull out any fruit that was over or under the ripeness we are looking for.