This Weeks Feature
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Winemaker's Page
Paul Smith, Winemaker
Vermeil Wines and OnThEdge Winery
...A Cabernet Sauvignon Rose' by any Other Name...
....Would simply be called Cabernet Sauvignon.
There are various reasons to produce or not to produce a rose'.
Here is a thumbs-up, thumbs-down thumbnail.
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| GOOD REASONS TO PRODUCE A CABERNET SAUVIGNON ROSE’ | GOOD REASONS NOT TO PRODUCE A CABERNET SAUVIGNON ROSE’ |
| Early release=early sale | $20 per bottle vs $40+ per bottle, same grapes |
| May be a good use of marginal fruit | Calistoga fruit costs are prohibitive for long-term rose’ production |
| Lower processing and aging costs | Limited market for high quality, luxury rose’ |
| Removal of free-run, clear juice from red grapes may concentrate flavors | Packaging costs may be as high as high end red and white wines |
| A good rose is juicy, fresh, snappy, quenching, bright, pink and luscious; People like it! | A good rose is still $20 per bottle vs $40+ per bottle using the same grapes. |
| I like a good, dry, serious rose’. | Most don’t consider rose’ “serious”. Many like myself like the stuff but find it hard to spend what it costs to produce a good one |
Our vintage 2011 Cabernet Sauvignon Rose’ is the first I produced under our Vermeil Wines label. It is a blend of 75% Cabernet Sauvignon (from Luvisi Vineyard) which provides the bright pink freshness, 12% Zinfandel (from our 1956 Frediani Block) which contributes a sense of meatiness and perception of depth and 13% Semillon (also from Luvisi) which provides the broad and silky roundness in the mouth. While this is about as serious as rose’ can get, please don’t take it too seriously. It is not a wine of pretense, for pondering, analyzing or comparing. And heaven forbid don’t seek or believe any numeric score anointed by some wine pundit. Just drink the stuff!
Vintage 2011 - One for the Books
November 20, 2011
All the fruit is in, fermentations are completed and the wines are settling down in their barrels. With every chance encounter, growers and winemakers constantly update each other by swapping harvest stories. Our experiences seem identical: 
- While gassing the flatbed: "I've never seen a tougher harvest - brutal."
- At Sunshine Grocery: "I had to leave a lot of fruit in the vineyard-never seen so much rot."
- Down at Steve's Hardware: "The vineyard never recovered from that 3" of rain during crush. It killed us."
- At Calistoga Roastery: "We were way lucky to get the Zin off in the morning, only minutes before the first rains hit."
- At the Silverado Brewery: "Had to reach deep into my bag of tricks to 'repair' the must."
And...
Just about everywhere: "Given the difficulties, we do have some amazingly nice wines in barrel."
We've racked and blended our Sauvignon Blanc last week. Crushed first, way before any reds and way before any rains, the typical bright banana and fresh grapefruit smells still dominate, however the rich and yeasty complexity from fermentation in new French and Hungarian barrels is starting to peek through. Our V-11 Sauvignon Blanc will be similar to our popular (and sold out) V-10. Chill.
A standard technique used regularly by many to increase and concentrate flavors of red wines in a distressed vintage is to bleed off white juice immediately after crushing. We had a small block of Zinfandel which, for the first time, we had to harvest at a barely-lower-than-normal-for-us-sugar to beat the rains. Fortunately, we will now have a few cases of bright fresh and juicy Zinfandel Rose', (smells a lot like strawberries!) as well as our typically concentrated and rich dry red Zin, respectively, both the lemonade and the silk purse.
Rarely is our Charbono not the last fruit harvested. However in V-11 multiple rains interspersed with humid conditions forced us to pick it before our Cab Franc and Cab Sauvignon. We've come to know Frediani Vineyard Charbono quite well and expect it to be black in color and rich in flavor, even if typically low in alcohol. This my friends, is the beauty of Charbono and the reason we continue to grow, crush, bottle and drink the stuff.
Usually we have 3 lots of Cabernet Sauvignon however Mother Nature convinced us that V-11 was finicky enough to demand 6 separate lots . All picked after the rains, the qualities of each lot, harvested separately from blocks within a half square mile footprint, vary significantly allowing a broader range of blending opportunities than normally available. Typically, I've never experienced a vintage from our vineyards which has failed to provide robustly flavored, richly colored and distinctly "Calistoga" terroir. In this regard, V-11 will be "typical".
Frediani Cabernet Franc never surprises me. As in previous vintages designated as "excellent" by the "pundits", it will shine as the Star of the "difficult" V-11 Show.
The Romance of Winemaking - October 5, 2011
Its Saturday, October 1, 4:30am. The first winter storm is due to arrive on Monday and I've spent the past two days in the vineyard wringing my hands evaluating fruit maturities and in the winery determining harvest sequence and target tanks. I'd like to leave the Zinfandels on the vine a bit longer but the drastic change in the weather from a sunny 98 last week to a predicted overcast 73 today and the inbound storm tell me its time to bring in the Zin. The sugar has been there but the tight-clustered Zin won't tolerate rain at this point and without additional time to even out maturities within our two Zin blocks we'll need scrupulous field selection sorting to cull any under-ripe fruit.In an hour I'll be out the door with a second cup of coffee; an hour later I'll greet our arriving crew at sunrise in the vineyard and attempt to communicate picking standards in my inadequate Spanglish while sorting through each 40lb box . Two hours later I'll be at the winery for a second hand-sort as the clusters are conveyed to the destemmer.
Isn't winemaking romantic?
Verasion - August 2, 2011
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| The above assessment is a real-time snapshot of 2011, though it is subject to many caveats. This year those caveats are abundant and include the wet winter, the late spring, and the cool summer to date. This places incredible importance on the weather conditions for every remaining day of the growing season. Unquestionably, this year's harvest will be late. At this point in the season, our key vineyards appear to be a couple weeks behind. In addition, I've walked other vineyards in the neighborhood I'd guess ours could be up to a month late. Meanwhile, this year's wet weather during bloom has triggered severe uneven ripening. Many of the best growers in the area are removing "second" crop which optimizes the maturity and speeds up the ripening of the "first" crop. In the case of Frediani, this is a significant crop sacrifice which must be done to insure the best quality. |
 "Dropping Crop" -Petite Sirah 8-2-11 |
July 7, 2011
Vintage 2011 Update; or, Every Year is a Vintage Year in California
When I first became concurrently interested in wine and winemaking there were no fax or even answering machines and the mobile phone was a fantasy reserved for Dick Tracy in the Sunday funnies. No internet meant a visit to the library for anything requiring research. And any calculation beyond addition and subtraction required a working knowledge of the slide rule. So, as a physics major I took the mandatory semester of Slide Rule Theory and Practice, though I carried, used and favored the ancient Eastern abacus for digital calculations—amazing device. I now have a phone that crunches complicated programmable calculations, takes great pictures, sends and receives mail, plays music, shows movies, tunes my guitar, tells me where I am in three dimensions and where I should be in four dimensions and fits neatly into my shirt pocket!
Also back then, “Every Year Is A Vintage Year In California” was the mantra of the California Wine Institute.
I’ve since had the benefit of nearly forty vintages on four continents in both hemispheres. California has hundreds of micro-climates across its length and breadth and overall we are truly blessed with growing conditions that are quietly envied by wine producers throughout the world. While the Wine Institute mantra is true and there is a vintage every year, the naive implication that every “vintage year” is as perfect as the wines it produces has been eclipsed through time, technology and importantly, the education of the consumer pallet.
Vintage 2010 has so far been given a bad rap by the pundits. True, it was a very difficult harvest with late spring rains causing significant rot in some cooler areas, though not here fortunately, followed by a warm summer and a devastating heat spell just prior to harvest. The heat hit our Cabernet Franc and Zinfandel hard with scorching sunburn. We lost close to 75% of our Cabernet Franc and needed to coddle all varieties with special sorting and vinification techniques. Nevertheless the fruit that we crushed was excellent and the wines we’ve bottled (Sauv. Blanc, Semillon) are fresh, well balanced and accurate. The reds in barrel too are excellent and flavorful and should be very well received though I expect they will likely not be as long-lived as particular other vintages 03, 07, etc.
So, what can we expect in 2011? We’ve had a very wet winter followed by a very cool, late spring. The flowers (top right photo) sputtered through a long, cool bloom climaxing with an inch of rain (top left) in, yes, late June! This has resulted in the need for additional cultivation, additional manual visits to each vine, added pest control, additional hand-wringing anxiety and of course added expense. While it is too soon to comment on quality, frequent sunrise vineyard walks tell me our Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon will have a light crop, Zinfandel yields will be slightly below average. Our Cabernet Franc (top center) appears normal to slightly above however berry “set” is uneven which will likely require more cluster thinning, de-leafing and judicious sorting at harvest. Jim Frediani, Don Luvisi and I all pray the weather through fall will continue as it has during the past two weeks—warm days, breezy afternoons and cool nights—perfect! This will go a long way to promote even ripening, minimize operations (and costs) and provide top quality.
Grapes are a perennial crop requiring perennial optimism from every grower and every winemaker. There is still a lot of growing remaining before crush and every grower and winemaker I have spoken display excited optimism over the quality prospects of Vintage 2011.
It is after all, a fundamental requirement of the job: “Pessimists need not apply.”
June 28, 2011
Vineyards hit hard by rain
Vineyards hit hard by rain
Vineyards hit hard by rain
from "Vineyards hit hard by rain"
by Nathan Halverson
for The Press Democrat
Grape growers are basking in the sunny weather — at least emotionally.
Physically, they are sweat soaked and tired from working long days to catch up on rain-delayed tasks and assess the damage from an unseasonably wet spring.
Click here to read the rest of "Vineyards hit hard by rain."
May 24, 2011
Wet Weather
I’ve been asked repeatedly lately about the impact of this winter’s heavy rains on the upcoming vintage. Rainfall is only one of the many factors which influence both the quantity and quality of any vintage. Grapevine physiology dictates that one of the important factors governing the 2011 vintage is the conditions and crop levels during V-10. Commonly, if last year’s vintage was light, we expect a heavier crop this year. So, if last year we crushed a mere 7 tons from a Cabernet Franc block in which we expected 27 tons should we expect a huge crop this year?
Nope. I wish it were that simple!
During late summer 2010, a heat wave hit the Napa Valley during a critical ripening period for several varieties, particularly Cabernet Franc. Most of the CF in the Upper Valley experienced severe sunburn, desiccating much of the almost-ripe fruit. It was heartbreaking to see cluster after cluster, vine after vine and row after row of scorched and dried berries. The crop loss was due to severe dehydration (rasining) as well as the growers and winemakers elective decisions to “drop” the crop rather than harvesting and crushing such severely distressed fruit.
Back to the rains: as our vineyards are dry-farmed and we rely on annual rainfall to “bank” the necessary water required for each vine, we need a wet winter. However once the buds “push” and the vines emerge from dormancy, rainfall can cause problems affecting both the quantity and quality of the vintage. Rains during the early season can encourage vineyard disease, primarily molds and mildews which can devastate a crop. Likewise early fall rains during harvest can delay maturity as well as encourage damaging molds.
Take a look at this photo of the Zinfandel flower. Each one of those tiny spheres, about the size of a pin-head, is a complete, though immature, grape berry flower. With moderate warm weather, the cap covering the stamens and pistil of each flower will dry and “pop” off, the flower will fertilize (bloom) and, given a normal growing season, each flower will mature and ripen into a plump, blue-black, juicy and sweet Zinfandel berry! However extreme heat during the critical “bloom” can cook the stamens preventing fertilization. As well, rainfall during the critical bloom period can encourage molds which will also destroy the fragile flowers. Excessive heat or moisture during bloom are two of the conditions that can lead to infertile flowers and cause “shatter” which can significantly affect the crop level.
So, it’s not merely the amount of heat, cold, and wet or dry that concerns us. The timing of each of these weather conditions is equally important to both the quantity and quality of any given vintage.
April 28, 2011
VERMEIL
VINTAGE 2010
LUVISI VINEYARD
SWEET SEMILLON
LATE HARVEST
I regarded the challenging 2010 harvest as history when Don Luvisi phoned me moaning about a couple rows of Semillon another winery left rotting (and unpaid) in his vineyard. I told him my tanks were full, I’m out of barrels and I’d winterized our crush equipment. As much as I anticipate each and every crush, I equally anticipate it’s end (always celebrated with an incredible Thanksgiving feast at Jeanne Frediani’s). “So Don,” I said, “I’ll look at your rotten fruit but I can’t get too excited particularly when crush is over and I’ve started to personally decompress.”
I needed to discourage Don with plausible justification allowing both of us to walk away from what at that time, was a significant effort for the winery. You see Don is my friend, my wife’s first cousin, a Calistoga High School classmate of Dick Vermeil and has one of the best damn Zinfandel vineyards in California. Oh, he is also a winery partner. There was no way I could simply ignore his plea. My only hope was to make abandonment his decision. So as I wound down the mountain to meet and kick a few clods with him, I invented rationalization to satisfy him that walking away from his rotten Semillon was the only solution. I fully expected we would together anoint vintage 2010 “one for the books.”
“Well lessee Don, this stuff’s way beyond hopeless. Look at all that grey fur growing on the berries. …grey…uhhh…er…hmmm…furry… BOTRYTIS!”
Yikes Don! Why didn’t you tell me you had a botrytis infection? We gotta move fast! We’ll need to pick a couple times starting at sunrise tomorrow. And we’ll need to select individual berries. It will take mucho tiempo and mas dinero and I’ll need to find a couple new barrels. It’ll be an expensive effort for both of us. But if you’re up for it and if we can sell the wine, we’ll pay you for the fruit. Whaddya think?
On the following sunrise, November 4th, we picked, individual berry selected, de-stemmed, cold-soaked and gently pressed the golden syrup into new Hungarian oak barrels to be inoculated and nursed into the viscous, honeyed nectar. Following four months of sur lie ageing later, we bottled our four barrels of this late harvest Semillon.
I prefer it with something warm—strudel, or maybe with something warm and cold--strudel mounded with a soft vanilla ice cream or atop a puddle of crème fraiche. Pair it with sinful chocolate decadence. The possibilities are endless! You’ll see.
And don’t worry about Don, he’s been paid.
April 25, 2011
About "Old" Vines
It has become quite popular for wines to carry designations such as “Old Vine”, “Ancient Vine”, “Mature Vine”, etc., ostensibly indicating that the wine was sourced from so-called “old” vineyards. Sure, we understand and acknowledge the increased quality potential from bona-fide “old” vineyard.
Maybe these special vineyards survive simply because the original grower somehow divined the rare matching of variety to site resulting in the consistently high quality required to maintain the demand and economic viability necessary to discourage every subsequent generation’s temptation to trend-plant Chardonnay, or Merlot, or whatever sexy flavor happened to be the darling of the era.
Other reasons for improved quality include balance with the environment, broad and deep root systems developed through many wet and drought years, well-established trunks and arms allowing vine-managed canopy and modern crop management techniques.
Perhaps it is the fact that most of the old vineyards are head or “goblet” pruned, which was the accepted technology until the ‘70’s.
And we can’t ignore that most of the older vineyards are not equipped with modern irrigation systems tempting one to over-crop.
Whatever the reasons, lower crops and higher quality are associated with genuine older vineyards. Thus, bona-fide “old vine” fruit, in particular Zinfandel is increasingly high demand.
So, just what exactly is an “old” vine? Surprisingly, there is no required legal minimum age for a vine to be deemed “old.” This results in subjecting the term “old” to many wide-ranging definitions. One winery may deem a vineyard old after 75 years, while another may apply the “old” term to identify their oldest block which may be a mere 15 years old.
In our opinion such vague definitions and inconsistent use has rendered the term “old” meaningless. This is why we accurately designate the age of our vineyards with the year of their establishment on our label. We currently have two Zinfandels with this designation. Our Luvisi “1908” Vineyard, and Frediani “1956” Vineyard Zins are sourced from vines planted in 1908 and 1956 respectively. Both the Luvisi and Frediani families (the current generation are first cousins) have farmed these properties since the turn of the century. While each is an individual, both can be relied upon to provide dark colors with rich, lingering flavors.
Luvisi “1908” Zin and Luvisi “1956” Zin
Perhaps if the US Government ever develops a unified definition of “old vine” we may use such designation on our labels. Until then, rest assured the age of our vineyards are designated by the year in which they were planted.
November 23, 2010
Back in ’99 someone asked me why do I want to produce zinfandel. I told him I feel Zin from Calistoga has a distinctly regional character and a quality equal to those from Sonoma’s Dry Creek area and that the Silverado/Pickett Road area produced some of the best in the entire Napa Valley. Now that the Calistoga AVA is approved it won’t be long until the wine press and enlightened Zin fans acknowledge them.
We should help in this effort.
We were once members of ZAP but allowed our membership to lapse due to the requirement that all members are required to pour at their annual tasting. At that time it was clear the all-day tasting, commonly attended by 8-10000 Zin fans, deteriorated into a drunken brawl by early afternoon. There were multiple events at the annual ZAP festival in San Francisco, some elective some a requirement of membership. The most of these is the trade tasting wherein only professionals (distributors, retailers, restaurants, journalists, etc.) attend. Then there is the grand tasting open to everyone. At this tasting, those who sampled early were sharp, focused, some became customers, and most left the tasting prior to its degeneration into a basic staggerfest. Being new to marketing and believing we must pour at the entire tasting, we’d waste several cases of wine on the afternoon’s indiscriminate drunks.
I still believe in the future of Zin in Calistoga and would like to re-join ZAP as it is the pre-eminent Zinfandel champion in the marketplace. Our approach should be to participate fully in the elective, more intimate opportunities (they take the zin show on the road and have had events in KC for instance) and if we do happen to run short of wine prior to Act II: The Staggerfest, well gee, ain’t that a shame.
For more information visit zinfandel.org.
October 18, 2010
Cabernet Franc
October 1, 2010
Cabernet Sauvignon Luvisi
September 27, 2010
Harvest Update - Frediani Syrah
V10 Frediani Vineyard Syrah
Picked and Ready for the Destemmer
And they’re off…finally! Sauvignon Blanc dominated the mostly white deliveries last week. Forecasts for weekend heat followed by a scorching mid-week brought out the towers of white bins and the legions of men anxious to fill them with finally ripe Zinfandel, Syrah, Petite Syrah and, by Saturday, some of the earlier Cabernet Sauvignon. Initial blocks are lighter than expected with good sugars. Some wineries are waiting for the acids to drop while others are excited about the “perfect balance.” This year sunburn will force a significant portion of the crop directly to the ground. The earlier buzz anticipating high levels of rot has been replaced by the louder buzzing over a potentially compressed harvest should the heat hold. True to form, always needing something to complain about, the same growers and wineries who moaned about the extended ‘09 vintage (the “stretch” vintage) are the first and loudest to moan about the possibility of a compressed V-10!
September 20, 2010
Harvest Update - Frediani Zinfandel
Frediani "1956" Zinfandel
Approaching Ripeness
As suspected, today’s block visits confirmed last week’s cool weather ending in this weekend’s cool overcast generally stagnated maturity while the heavy mist was barely enough to settle the dust. Some noted that Zins previously approaching harvest sugar levels were plumped by the cool, humidified air, dropping up to two degrees Brix. Harvest activity remains unusually low for the third week in September as we anxiously await with one eye to the sky is still the name of the game. Growers and wineries welcome today’s drying breezes and the encouraging warming trend predicted later this week. Optimism remains high as all eagerly anticipate significant harvest activities next week.
September 13, 2010
Harvest Update - Sauvignon Blanc
Sauvignon Blanc
Frediani Vineyard
Approaching Ripeness
With a bit of sauvignon blanc and Semillon last week and some early zinfandel this week Calistoga started easing into the 2010 vintage. Early reports of slightly to significantly below average yields across all varieties include comments about the late spring, cool summer and the resulting late, slow, uneven ripeness and severe sunburn from the 113deg high a couple weeks back. The sunburn damage is scattered about the area with unaffected blocks adjacent to others that, according to one grower, have lost 40% of its crop. Vintage expectations are cautiously optimistic.
September 10, 2010
Semillon Healthy Zin
June 2, 2010
THE DIFFERENCE
My first vintages spent walking the Sierra snow-melt fed vineyards on the CSU Fresno campus contrasted starkly with the surf and salt-water saturated sands on the beaches of San Diego and Hawaii where I grew up. As a kid it was common for my brothers and I to walk-swim-surf a round trip from La Jolla Cove, through the Scripps Pier pilings to Blacks or from the Alawai outlet, slip-sliding atop the DeRussy Waikiki breakwater, platform diving into the Natatorim then u-turn at the foot of Diamond Head for the walk-swim-surf-snorkel return to Alawai. The ocean and sands, and the fascinating living things upon and within were never the same. Grab a handful of wet sand from under a retreating wave, sift it through your fingers and feel a dozen or so sand crabs tickle your palm, clawing in vain for the protective cover of white sand. Were I surf fishing, the fattest or liveliest in my palm would become bait, with the balance set free. During my 35 plus vintages my long walks have been through vineyards. I’ve worked with small, “hands-on” growers and also observed the large, corporate operations. There is a clear difference in philosophy that can be measured in miles walked, footprints left and often wine quality. It seems the number of footprints in the vineyard can be inversely proportional to the cases produced by the winery purchasing the fruit. I once used to greet a particular corporate “grower rep” by claiming only half-jokingly, that I couldn’t recognize him unless he was wearing his truck!
May 15, 2010
ABOVE THE FOG
Typically, following our warm days, the cool marine influence of San Pablo Bay penetrates the entire length of the Napa Valley during the growing season bringing refreshing, night-time fogs. Our warm days ensure ripeness while these foggy nights preserve the natural fruit acids in our grapes which in turn enhances the rich red colors and full tannins. In particular, the Calistoga Appellation has the widest variation in daily temperature swings in the Napa Valley. These swings are greatest during the fall ripening and can range from night-time lows of 45 degrees to day-time highs of 105 degrees or higher. This 60 degree daily variation is not uncommon and of course, contributes to the unique character of wines from our long-awaited and recently approved Calistoga Appellation.
INCOMING!
It has been a cool, wet spring and while a chance of rain is predicted for early next week, the following photo of this morning’s fog signifies the summer growing season has finally arrived. As the temperature in our below-grade cellar rises, the barrels in our cellar likewise welcome the advent of summer and celebrate their emergence from winter’s hibernation by blowing bungs.
In addition to dodging, chasing and replacing bungs, we have been very busy this past week racking the 09 reds (yummy!) and assembling our final 09 Sauvignon Blanc and two Semillions in preparation for bottling in a few days. We are very excited about these whites and especially the few cases of a rare Sweet Semillion in .375 bottles we will be able to offer to our Coaches Club members (first come, first served basis). If you’re like me and have a sweet tooth for stand-alone dessert wines, or maybe wish for something to serve with a slice of warm apple pie, you should tuck away a few bottles off this Sweet Semillion.
April 30th, 2010
Though this winter’s average rainfall has been most welcome, so too is a glorious day like today when the sky clears making today’s visit to the vineyard a short-sleeve celebration.
Zack is in the cellar completing the final racking and blend of our 2009 Sauvignon Blanc which, for the first time, we are blending with a small portion of Luvisi Vineyard Semillion. Both wines were barrel fermented in a combination of new French and Hungarian oak and left on the yeast lees and lightly fined. The blend will be bottled in the coming days for late spring release. We will also bottle less than two barrels of a dry varietal Semillion and if we can keep our hands off the juice, a couple barrels of ultra-sweet dessert nectar which Don Luvisi offered us very late last fall -- Smacky
It is a young shoot with immature flowers (future grape clusters) from the Frediani 1956 Zinfandel block. As the skies clear, we cross our fingers and hope for both warm days to raise the soil temperature and help hold night temperatures above freezing for the next few, critical weeks. A frost at this time would freeze the shoots including the flowers and reduce or eliminate our potential 2010 Zinfandel crop. This 54 year-old dry-farmed block is balanced and produces excellent quality at around 2 tons/acre and in our experience, a lower crop level won’t necessarily result in a higher quality wine.
I hope to update this “Winemaker’s Page” frequently with current activities both in the vineyard and cellar. As well, I’ve asked my brother-in-law Jimmy Frediani, to resume his contributions to our site with his always informative and uniquely entertaining “Out Standing in My Vineyard” page!