Basic turkey

Thanksgiving pasture-raised roasted bird is good with a complex and elegant pinot noir. Like the 07 La Encantada Vineyard.

Last press of 2011

Atlas Peak cabernet sauvignon is in the press today.

catch this cab

Gorgeous Atlas Peak cabernet sauvignon finally began fermentation today. Look at that color! Smells like blueberry pie.

Cab loaded and ready

Our Napa cabernet sauvignon ready to head to the winery. Mix of clones 337 and 8.

Last Rockroom pick

Up on windy Atlas Peak we are picking cabernet sauvignon today.

Happy Hallo-wine

Cheers!

Cold ferment chardonnay

Bucking the no-oak trend, we are letting some nice Russian River chardonnay do its fermenting in French oak that has been used for previous wines. This allows for the benefits of traditional barrel fermentation without risking excessive oak flavors or aromas. And risking a slow (or stuck!) fermentation, we are doing this in a coldroom at 55 degrees in the hopes of preserving delicate aromatics that can blow off at high temperatures. Let's see how it all turns out - stay tuned.

a harvest saturday

Wine with lunch as the new wine makes itself all around us. 2007 rockroom chard tasting mighty fine these days, as is the Zepaltas 2009 pinot on the table

Key winemaking skill

After driving the truck back from the vineyard with a load of freshly picked pinot noir, Julie Lin hops down from the cab. Can't make the wine unless you can get the grapes! All of the Rockroom California pinot is now safely in the house. Fortunately Julie won't have to drive to Oregon for that fruit - the truck will be bringing it as soon as next week.

Press-zin

Our Russian River zinfandel went to press and then to American oak - our first (and probably only for 2011) move away from French oak barrels. Zinfandel is the "all American" grape (OK, I realize it really hails from Croatia) so thought we should use some Missouri oak. While this bold spicy oak might be excessive for pinot noir it should work just fine for the zin.
Can't wait to find out.

Some special pinot gets pressed

Today we pressed a small lot of pinot noir produced entirely from biodynamically farmed grapes. Beautiful Van Der Kamp Vineyard sits high up on Sonoma Mountain. Here you see a photo from today's result - Luke the master of the wine press hugs a press barrel before it heads to the cellar for a well deserved rest.

First press of the season

Our first finished fermentation of the harvest is going to barrel bright and early this morning. Russian River pinot noir is in the press. .

Our last pinot pick for 2011

The pick started at 2AM and by 6:30 we had our fruit. Clone 23 pinot from a Sonoma Coast vineyard in Occidental.

Wine Country Saturday

Weekend at the winery is pretty laid back as we wait for our next pick on Monday: chardonnay from a new vineyard. Meanwhile we enjoy some summer tomatoes from an organically farmed vineyard and farm that we pulled fruit from last week. Van Der Kamp Vineyard - a very exciting source. Cheers.

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.