Reflections on Life as a Cellar Rat

Back from SF and reflecting on the life of a cellar rat. These are the people that do the day to day work in the winery and for two weeks I was proud to count myself as one of them.

"Cellar rat" sounds like a derogatory term but those living the life are a rather happy bunch. The pay is not good but the music is cranked up, the juice/wine tastes good and the fork lifts make beep beep sounds so it is easy to get out of their way, safety being a major winery concern.

The cellar rats range from people like me who are serious about making good wine and trying to learn everything about it, to the grizzled veterans who have worked many a harvest around the world. Some migrate with the harvest seasons, working in the southern hemisphere the other half of the year

There were several interns who were working on their enology or viticulture degrees and several folks who had been laid off and viewed this as an opportunity to change career directions. For the most part, the extra help is welcomed, as there is so much to do this time of year.

The winery owners such as myself, do not get paid for our harvest work. We hope to sell a little of our wine, of course.

A surprizing number of others do not get paid either. Many are happy to do it for the experience. Kind of the urban winery equivalent of a dude ranch. In fact, every evening was crush camp, in which folks with no experience had signed up and paid money to have the privelege of sorting fruit and punching down bins. Tom Sawyer has nothing on our winery! I will say that winery work is more fun than whitewashing a fence.

So...I miss the camaraderie, the energy and enthusiasm that people bring to winery work and the sense of pride in making something really good that you know people will savor and enjoy. As for the music...U2, Dr John, the Grateful Dead and Bob Marley I miss. The hip hop, not so much.

Bay Area Bits and Pieces

Back from San Francisco. Lots of good work in the winery but some free time to explore the Bay Area.

Here are a few semi-random thoughts and tips about the Bay Area.

Calicaro's winery, which we share with a number of other small brands is located in the Dogpatch neighborhood, adjacent to Potrero Hill and South of Market (SoMa for the cognoscenti). It is part of the new urban winemaking trend. Quite an interesting and diverse neighborhood and Dogpatch is such a great name for a Southern winemaker. Maybe we need to do a Dogpatch bottling!

Some good restaurants there tucked away inconspicuously. After wrapping up at the winery one night, a winery cellar rat handed me a split of White Hawk Vineyard Syrah and said "enjoy!" I walked up the street to Serpentine and had an amazing hamburger made from local Niman Ranch beef and an heirloom tomato salad. The peppery, meaty notes in the Syrah made a perfect pairing. White Hawk Vineyard is famous for its Syrah, and for very good reason. A memorable $20 meal.

Blue Bottle Coffee is all the rage in SF. Individual brewed drip coffee that takes about 5 minutes or so to make. Combine that with the frequent lines at these popular places and you have lost 20 minutes plus just to get a cuppa joe. Once was enough for me. I predict the fad will pass- sure the coffee is good but it just ain't worth that!

The Bounty Hunter up in Napa has a unique high testosterone approach to selling pricey Napa Cabernet. Animal trophies on the wall, a painting of a reclining nude female behind the bar and wine descriptions that sound like the bottles were tracked down by men on horses with high powered rifles.

I loved it- no snobbishness and the theme works here- it is the opposite of the tuxedoed waiter sniffing and sipping from a tastevin. And get there before 6pm and try the BBQ sampler plate for 10 bucks, made in house with their custom smoker. The meat falls off the ribs and you won't be hungry for the next 24 hours. While the wine focus is Cabernet, a big Zin or Syrah is the way to go with the 'cue.

Cheers,

Dave

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