An Affectionate Mondavi Story

Had dinner the other evening with a gentleman who wrote the Mondavi Winery's newsletters for several years. He had graduated from my alma mater a year after me so we swapped a few stories about college as we split a bottle of Calicaro Lone Oak Pinot.

He then started in on Mondavi stories. Robert Mondavi was one of the most well loved and influential figures in the American wine business. As their copywriter, Jeffrey was frequently able to have dinner with the family.

At one dinner, Robert Mondavi, who was well along in years at that point, swirled the wine in the glass so hard that it splattered everyone else at the table with a chest high horizontal spray of red wine. Mrs. Mondavi said with some alacrity, "a little less enthusiasm, my dear!"

Jeffrey also said that the first time he met Mr Mondavi it was a 7am breakfast meeting. Mr Mondavi had personally gotten up early and gone to the Oakville Grocery to pick up sweet rolls and coffee for the meeting. Jeffrey said this was typical for him- no pretension, so down to earth.

The wine business is full of great characters and clearly he was one of the greatest.

Cheers,

Dave

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!

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

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

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

Pinot Blending Part Two

After blending the Lone Oak Pinot we moved on to the Split Rock Vineyard Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir. We again started with a base wine made from Dijon Clone 667 that had spent about 11 months in 50% new Francois Freres and Remond oak. We added varying percentages of other Dijon clone wine from Split Rock, including 115, 777 and 828. Here is our final blend: 79% 667, 10% 115, 10% 828, 1% 777.

The final Split Rock wine is really intense and fruit forward with a strong acid backbone that will benefit from another 1 to 2 years of bottle aging. The dark cherry and berry flavors are delicious in this wine.

Our final blending was a Pinot Noir from La Encantada Vineyard in the Santa Rita Hills (which is abbreviated as Sta. Rita Hills). Our objective on this wine was to make a more elegant and restrained Burgundian style Pinot with less obvious oak. However, we still wanted a high level of intensity, with a broad range of complex flavors. We really went all out, pulling in lots of different barrels and Pinot clones on the final blend. Here it is: 75% 115/777 co-fermented in a neutral barrel, 10% new Radoux barrel of 115/777 co-fermented, 10% 115 from a 1 yr old Francois Freres barrel, and 5% Swan (an older "heritage" Pinot Noir clone named for Joseph Swan) from a neutral barrel.

This wine is drinking very well young. Tons of wild berry and cherry flavors- the wine has the intensity and vibracy of tiny wild fruit. It also has the crispness and acidity associated with a very cool climate vineyard.

My recommendation would be to drink the Lone Oak 2009- 2014, the La Encantada 2009-2018 and to lay down the Split Rock for a year, say 2010-2020 since it has the acidity and tannic structure to go longer.

We are very very happy with the final wines and hope you will try them and like them too!

Cheers,

Dave

Pinot Noir Blending- High Art!

Not for nothing do winemakers say that blending the final wine is the highest art in winemaking. Part aesthetics, part science and clearly part alchemy, I watched our winemaker Chris Nelson, fill vials and beakers with measured quantities of wine to be blended together into test batches. Butcher paper covered the table so notes could be taken as we tasted our way through various blends.

Spitting was mandatory- no way could the palate withstand such an assault otherwise. My acid test for the finished blend- if it was too good to spit then I thought we were getting very very close.

The basic process is to start with your base wine and note gaps or shortcomings in the wine that could be filled by blending in other wines. Since we were making single vineyard designates it was important that all or almost all come from the same vineyard and varietal (Pinot Noir). But for those prerequisites, we could mix and match and blend to our heart's content. Once the gaps in the base wine are noted- perhaps there is not much in the way of a finish or the aromatics are weak or the wine shows a hollow midpalate, then you set about figuring through trial and error tasting how to close the gaps to make a complete wine.

It is not pure trial and error. Chris knows his wines and barrels very well and where to go to help make a better wine.

For example, our Lone Oak was tasting really great just as the base wine made from 667 Dijon clone fruit aged in 50% new Francois Freres oak. We tried 8 or 9 blends, adding other Dijon clones such as 115, 777 and 828 with different barrel spice box notes but everything seemed to detract, not improve on our base wine. A further insult was that the additions detracted from the incredibly smooth and full mouthfeel of the Lone Oak 667.

At Chris's suggestion, we then added varying percentages of a heritage clone called Swan known for soaring aromatics- a very heady perfume of fruit and flowers that also adds some higher notes in the taste to balance the darker heavier fruit. WOW! We were in a very sweet spot at 5% Swan added to the 95% 667. This was our final blend on the Lone Oak, but it took us much trial and error to get there.

Over the course of a couple of days we did this for two additional single vineyard designate Pinot Noirs, Split Rock on the Sonoma Coast and La Encantada in Sta Rita Hills. Here the blends were considerably more complex, involving 4 to 6 Dijon clones and various barrel spice box notes.

Did I mention yet how fun this was to do? And to think that Chris gets paid to do this as a regular part of his job as a consulting winemaker for various small Pinot Noir brands! He did say he NEVER complains about his job!