Sunshine returns - so back to the vineyard

Loading the truck with Russian River pinot noir to sort back at the winery. Hand picked in the morning and hand sorted all afternoon. Between sips of cold beer of course. Hey, it is Friday.

Harvest 2011 begins!

With old vines zin! Each of these old "knarled head" vines struggles to produce 5 to 10 clusters of ripe zinfandel.

Bottling the 09 syrah

Good times as the 2009 White Hawk Vineyard syrah goes to bottle. Note the sporty new capsule! Now for a few months of rest upside down in the bat cave...

Slow Food Austin considers Rockroom wines

Rockroom and Greenling teamed up to present wines to the Slow Food Austin group as we discussed the various aspects of sustainably produced wines. From Rockroom we sipped an "experimental" chardonnay that was 100% natural processed (nothing added to the fresh-pressed juice as it fermented all on its own with no added sulfites and it was bottled unfined and unfiltered), then we sampled the 2007 La Encantada pinot noir made from organically grown grapes, and finally we tried another experimental wine: a 2005 cabernet sauvignon produced from grapes grown just west of Austin near Hamilton Pool. Greenling supplied some wines produced from organically grown grapes and there was some great discussion by the 30 or so foodies in attendance. I wonder though, did we resolve in any way the questions of what wines can we as a Slow Food community consume in Texas? Is it really time to start mead production in earnest?

A Giant Falls

This 2001 Siduri Rosella's pinot was a big wine (pun intended). Fun to tap this Jeroboam and find the 9 year old beauty within! Those rumors about how large format bottles better preserve a wine for aging seem to be true.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Westlake's only California winery

Today was crush for some very unique California cabernet as Cross Creek vineyards owner Richard Schwartz airlifted his Sonoma cab picked yesterday into Austin for crush today. Family and friends turned out for gourmet snacks, grape destemming and a fun sampling of vintages back to 1999. Here is Dave from The Grove taking his turn at the hand destemmer. Good times as the 2009 grapes look nicely ripened and prior vintages are tasting impressive. Standouts were the 2000 and 2004 and a 2007 barrel sample shows promise with some time for tannins to soften. There will soon be a way to try Richard's grapes in action as Spann Vineyards has done a 2007 Cross Creek Vineyard designated wine so watch for that. Maybe at The Grove?

wow - special occassion wine

Special occassions like, say, an anniversary, deserve something special to sip. Two ways to do that: pull something from the cellar or pick a special bottle from the shelf or wine list. Tonight we popped a bottle of 1994 Gran Reserva tempranillo from Torre de Oria. Not a true Rioja as it sits outside that region of Spain, this beauty sure had me fooled. Well worth the $40 price tag and 8 year wait. When is your next occasion for a special bottle?

Takes a lot of beer to make wine?

Today we finished bottling 2008 pinot noirs and to keep the machinery humming we cracked open a few Texas brews. And it struck me that every step along the winemaking path seems to involve beer. Which begs the question, what do they drink at the brewery? Beer I guess.
Anyway, with bottling out of the way we are ready for harvest. First grapes should be in two or three weeks!

WOW Club Seghesio

Wine of the week this week is well known Seghesio but not the zinfandel you would expect. As a member if their wine club we get occasional shipments of their awesome zins of course, but this 05 Alexander Valley cab was included in a Spring shipment. A nice surprise wine that just goes to club members and winery visitors. Clubs are fun that way. Hmmmm - maybe Rockroom needs a club.....

Tasting in good company

The wine of the week this week is one you will not find on the store shelf and probably not on the wine list of your favorite steakhouse. It is the Lail Bluebrint 2005 cabernet. A luscious big "cult" cab with demand far exceeding supply, this magnum was consumed as part of a tasting that Rockroom participated in about an hour west of Austin overlooking beautiful Lake LBJ. A hundred or so folks turned out to try this wine, along with our own 07 chardonnay and 07 Bohemian pinot and a few other treats. We also discussed the idea of a restaurant on the site to take advantage of the great views. I like the idea and saw a lot of enthusiasm among the folks attending. Could it really happen that we could get a taste of the Tuscan experience this close to home?

WOW - this wine is spot on

Spot On is actually the winery name and this syrah is a beautiful fit with the name. It is a 2006 whole cluster fermented wine and it has all the funky complexity a good syrah should with minimal oak so the good stuff really shines. Outstanding wine. The only problem is tiny production so it may be a while before a Texas distributor picks it up. Watch for it though. We have a co-op member workin to get it here

Co-op bottling day

After fining with a little bentonite we bottled our experimental Napa sauv blanc today. A nice bright wine but just not sure this source is worth taking in a commercial direction. For now this one will be co-op only wine, great for light seafood pairing on a hundred degree day. Plenty of those this year!.

2007 Cabernet bottled

We had a great day bottling the Howell Mountain cab today. The label for 2007 features a painting by Austin artist Nancy Hoover as our first cabernet art label. With the wine bottled now comes the hard part: waiting for the release!

Bottling the first of the 08 vintage

We lined up some barrel samples to get down to the serious work of coming up with our 2008 Rockroom pinot noir lineup. For such serious work it sure was fun as 08 gave us some really nice stuff to work with! The first went to bottle today: Bohemian Vineyard from Russian River Valley.