Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Pressing Pinot in SF

We pressed off our first batch of Pinot Sunday evening and press the second batch tomorrow night. First was Lone Oak Vineyard and the next is Split Rock. Using a large Euro Press we went to 1.3 bars and stopped as the first sign of bitter tannins showed up at that level. Super high quality wine this year, which makes three years in a row. One of our winemakers estimates 5-10% better than 08 which was also a very good year. Hearing great stories about the "old days" in Napa. Tell a few on the next post! Gotta run. Harvest crazy time!

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Euphoria Food and Wine Weekend

It is late Sunday morning and the Euphoria event is winding down now. Calicaro was honored to be offered the opportunity to pour wine for the Thursday night welcome to the food and wine media people. Calicaro supplied all of the red wine and Schug supplied all of the white wine for this event. We hope to get some nice media coverage from that of course, and will post links on the blog if possible.

We also poured at the Saturday afternoon Grand Tasting alongside other wines from all over the world.

Although somewhat hampered by rain most of the weekend, there was great attendance at the events in which we were involved.

Our wines all showed very well and folks loved all three, with our 08 Paris Mountian probably the favorite, followed by our 07 Poinsett and the 08 Liberty Bridge, which needs another 9-12 months of bottle age before it will really hit its stride.

Tim Graham, executive chef from Tru in Chicago, one of the celebrity chefs in town, told me we had the best Pinot Noirs at the event. Similar compliments came from wine writers and educators, restaurant managers and retail wine shop owners.

My response: we hand make each of our wines one barrel at a time. I don't think any other winery at Euphoria could make a similar claim. It makes a huge difference, especially with Pinot Noir.

Dave
Calicaro Wine

Friday, September 18, 2009

In the Midst of Crazy Time

Lone Oak Pinot is in and cold soaking now. Fermentation will begin in another day or so. Fruit came in in great shape and with nice balanced numbers on the brix, pH etc.

First batch of Split Rock Pinot came in yesterday and is also in cold soak. This was our Clone 115. We were going to pick on Tuesday but had a minor rain delay- not a problem and fruit and numbers look fine. The Clone 667 from Split Rock gets picked tomorrow. These will also cold soak for a few days before we start fermentation.

Our Doctor's Vineyard Pinot will come in on Monday. Cabernet Sauv from southern end of Napa (Coombsville area) has a few weeks to go before it will be harvested.

After pouring wine at the Euphoria event this weekend I'll be in San Francisco at the winery for two weeks making all of this fruit into great wine. Lots of bubbling fermentations, punchdowns, wine pressing and barreling. The winery will be going 18-20 hours a day or more as Calicaro's fruit and fruit for other winemakers all get made into wine. Crazy fun.

Cheers!

Dave

Sunday, September 13, 2009

2009 Harvest- The Fruit is Coming In

We harvested our first vineyard yesterday and sorted, destemmed and began cold soak on the fruit today. In another five days or so we will begin the fermentation. The first fruit into the winery this year was from Lone Oak Vineyard in Santa Lucia Highlands. Fruit was in great shape and chemistry numbers were right where we like them to be. I know we can make some fine wine with this good juice.

This year has been close to picture perfect. There were some concerns earlier about getting fruit to sufficient ripeness. There have been a few minor concerns about "hens and chicks" which are berries of varying size. I don't think either of these will present any problem for us. We had excellent even ripeness on our Lone Oak fruit and our two other Pinot vineyards- Split Rock in the Sonoma Coast and Doctor's Vineyard in the Santa Lucia Highlands are progressing very nicely. We will be picking both within a week to ten days.

Our Cabernet vineyard is in the cooler southern part of Napa Valley and we will be able to get a little more hang time on it- probably the pick date will be into October.

All in all, a great year and it is nice to breathe easier vs. the wild weather in '08. The '09 vintage has shaped up alot like '07- steady and slow with long periods of relatively cool weather and no heat or cold extremes. '07 was an easy and consistent year and it was not hard to make great wine. Anyone tasting the 07 wines is likely to agree with the consistently high wine quality across all of California and across many of the wine makers.

'09 may even be better than '07- there is every possiblity for this result.

Looking forward to making some amazing wines!

Cheers,

Dave