The End of Something. Ruminations on Crush 2009

While on “lunch”, sitting under the coal black dark skies of an unusually cool September Sonoma night, a veteran lab tech took off his nicotine patch, cuffed his weathered hands close to his face and lit a short filter-less Camel. Before he could fully exhale, he wrapped his same weather beaten hands around a perspiring can of Bud Light and exclaimed, “It takes a lot of shitty beer to make good wine”.

Ed pulled hard on his cigarette and regaled us young aspiring winemakers cum cellar rats on the intricacies of the business, but mostly lambasting past and present winemakers who were also his bosses. “It sounds very sexy”, he says of wine making. “If you don’t know any better, it is easy to romanticize”. We laugh and all nod in agreement, our necks soar and stringy from carrying hoses and gamma jets around the vineyard all day. “I mean you meet a girl at the bar and you tell her you work in the wine business and it sounds mysterious and interesting. And she asks where you work and being mysterious you reply, Sonoma. And you can tell from her smile and her unforgiving gaze that she is truly interested. And she wants to know what your work actually consists of, so you tell her that you run lab tests on wine, checking ph levels, inoculating yeast strains, measuring brix, and occasionally swirling the glass and sometimes swallowing but mostly spitting. And she smiles half wittingly as you say this. And you tell her you are a Sr. Lab Tech and of course being from Northern California herself, she has a friend or an ex or a neighbor who is … was a lab tech. And as her smile fades you know that she knows that you make around 50k a year.”

Ed lights another cigarette from the butt of his Camel and passes around the beers. “I should have stayed in pharmaceuticals.” The magic ceased to be magic. Ed confirmed what I had suspected to be truth. I already knew I would not go with the rest of the guys to work the 2010 crush. I did not know too much about Ed..that he worked more harvests than most people at the vineyard, that he had two kids, that he may or may not have been divorced once…twice, that he had a small place in Santa Rosa that he may own but probably rents. I liked Ed and I liked wine but I knew I did not want to become Ed. And no one plans to become Ed but the more and more time I spend hanging around Sonoma, the more Ed’s I meet.

I looked down at my own hands, which were hard and dry and stained with juice, and felt glad I was holding a cold can of beer in one of them. I sat perched on top of the old wooden picnic table in silence taking in large breathes of Sonoma earth mixed with recycled Camel carbon and watched the bats fluttering around against a speckled mountainous backdrop that stared into oblivion and I wondered what the bats looked like in New Zealand.

Harvest Begins: Pinot and Pumpovers

This week our first grapes came in to the vineyard. Pinot Noir is slightly faster to ripen than other varietals and thus the first to be picked with Sauvignon Blanc expected to follow.

When the first grapes came to the crush pad our winemaker Margo Van Staaveren gave a small speech and superstitiously christened the grapes: think native American farm ceremony appealing for a generous Harvest. All of the winemakers and cellar workers gathered around and toasted a CSJ 2007 le Petite Etoile Pinot Noir which was then poured on the new 09 Pinot grapes, Ahem!

I am not sure whether we struck a chord with the wine gods or if it was just a particularly hot day in the hills but an odd number of rattle snakes were found around the winery trying to snag some shade. I encountered a baby rattler and being from the east coast did a double take…first one. We grabbed the snake and let it out into the fields…in reality someone else did as I stood with my jaw slightly agape. I was latter told baby rattlers are a bit more aggressive than adults and can’t control their venom release very well…in other words do not get bit by a baby.

The last week we have been eagerly preparing for the arrival of the new grapes in much the same fashion as one awaits the first day of school. Instead of a summer reading list, crayons, and a lunchpal…we are prepared with hoses, rubber boots, and gamajets. For the majority of the last two weeks we have been feverishly sanitizing away in the cellar. One day I personally hand cleaned 30 tanks…and we are talking 6,000 to 8,000 gallon tanks. For homework, we practice pump-overs, rack-and-backs, ozoning tanks, gassing barrels etc… Needless to say, all the cleaning and sanitizing made us thirsty to work with some real juice.

This harvest I am working mainly on pump-overs and punch downs with the occasional adding of chemicals to the juice. A pump over and punch down are two different processes with essentially the same ending…to cycle the fruit through the juice to extract flavor, color, tannins, etc. Punch downs are typically done in open top tanks with a large hydrolic arm to “punch down” the fruit. Pump over’s are done with air pumps and large hoses. We essentially drain some of the juice from the tank then pump that juice back over the top of the tank and wet the fruit.

This week we started fermentation on the new Pinot using Burgundy yeast. Since fermentation is just begging there is little CO2 emanating and the grapes are still maintaining position toward the bottom of the tank. Thus, pumpovers can get exhausting when shoveling all of the grapes that get pumped out and carrying several a large bucket to the top of the tank to dump back in the juice. Luckily for my arms and legs fermentation usually gets underway within a few days and the CO2 that is released pushes the grapes to the top of the tank.

We oddly have this weekend off...some impromtu tasting runs may lay in my future...

A Very Pithy Recap...

Day One (Tue): Arrive in Sacramento from Buffalo. Drive two hours to Sonoma- have lunch in town outside. Weather is 75-sunny. Drive to Santa Rosa, unpack, grocery shop, make dinner, uncork local Syrah, eat with Mike and Marty.

Day Two (Wed): Woke early. Met Rob at Select to fill out paper work etc. Got physical, passed. Walked around Jack London Park. Went on a wine run, grilled dinner (portabella’s, corn, veggie medley).

Day Three (Thursday): Spoke with Alex (asst. winemaker) at Matanzas Creek. Alex schooled us on the wine biz. Met Chris (from Boston) at tasting room and tasted entire list- walked in lavender fields…it is 11am. Went to smog car. Arrived at DMV for 2nd time that day-spent 2 1/2 hours there to get CA license. Surprisingly had to take written driving test, hilariously almost failed.

Day Four (Fri): Woke late. Drove to Guerenville (sublime scenic drive- back roads and woods) and spent day at Johnson Beach- Lots of loud kids, families, water was refreshing. Stopped at fake farmers market. Cooked pasta dish with mike, had a killer 07 Zin from Ridge.

Day Five (Sat): Tasting at Arrowood. Stopped in Sonoma town. Tasting Bartholemew-tasted entire list-met a gent from Wellsley. Bought a big Zin with industry discount. Picnic on estate.
Stopped at grocery to grab food and video (The Savages). G&t's -dinner-movie with marty and jackie-bed

Day Six (Sun): Late start. Best Western Sonoma Pool Side. G&T's on the patio. Pasta and salad w/ syrah. Scotch to end. Read 100 pages of "The Road". Watched Bourdain and Blaine. Finishing "Funny People". Downloading "Informers" soundtrack. Work starts tomorrow.