Monthly Archives: February 2010

Organic Viticulture in the Rogue Valley

1
Posted by Gus on February 26, 2010 – 10:03 pm
Filed under From The Bike, In The Vineyard

I just got back from my first visit in several years to Upper Five Vineyard in Talent. Terry and Molly Sullivan have been farming this five-acre parcel of vines since 2003, and they’ve been doing it organically from day one. I’ve always thought the site showed promise, but when you combine a great site with the kind of attentive care these two bestow on their vineyard great things can result.

They have planted Tempranillo, Syrah, Viognier, Grenache and Sauvignon blanc in classic Rogue Valley fashion, spanning the globe and a taster’s palate with their varietal choices. To round things out they have embarked on small scale organic pear production, as well as raising organic melons for the local market.

The ground springs underfoot as you step down a vineyard row, indicating healthy, un-compacted soil. Our conversation drifted back and forth from the technical (clones, rootstocks, mechanical weed cultivation, compost, pruning) to the philosophical. Terry likes to say that his strongest argument for farming organically is “because people live here.”

Of course I had to ride my bike out for the visit, to challenge my “intimate knowledge of the land” hypothesis. Unfortunately, this meant riding through a thick cloud of putrid lime-sulfur spray as I passed one of the orchards about a half-mile down the road, so it was a relief to breathe the clean higher-elevation air at Upper Five. My conveyance also created an unexpected limitation when Terry gave me a bottle of Grochau Cellars 2008 Sauvignon blanc, made from Upper Five grapes.

Anyone who has bike toured in wine country knows that a tall, narrow claret-style bottle slips easily into one’s water bottle cage with little more than a mild rattle as one rolls along, yet this bottle resisted the standard approach. My first attempt at securing my gift proved ineffective, as I was only just out of the dirt driveway when the bottle leapt out and clattered down the road. The results were nearly disastrous:

I figured out a better, albeit precarious, way to hold the damaged bottle, and made my way home against a headwind. It has always been my contention that wine tastes better when enjoyed close to its source, and this particular bottle enjoys the distinction of literally touching the ground from which it came. I will give it a week to recover from its rough treatment before sampling, and will report back on how the wine fared.

2009 Vintage Honest Appraisal

0
Posted by Gus on February 24, 2010 – 3:15 pm
Filed under Uncategorized

I’m back from the cellar and can honestly say I’m a bit confused and disappointed. The 2009 reds were simply not tasting all that exciting today. Still, wines do go through these dull periods, especially post SO2 addition (check) and when eager for a racking (check). After agonizing for a bit I simply decided not to decide.

I’ll go back in a week or two and we’ll see if they are friendlier. I may also draw off some samples and let them rest/breathe for a day before subjecting them to more critical evaluation.

Or maybe it’s just me. Or the weather.

On a positive note, the Viognier/Marsanne is tasting fabulously of peaches and cream, and the 2008 Velocity is a joy.

Blending 2009 Velocity and Velo

1
Posted by Gus on February 24, 2010 – 9:39 am
Filed under In The Cellar

It’s time to head back into the cellar. In these winter months it is easy to be distracted by the unfortunate necessities of business planning, marketing, and other dreary desk-work, but the wines are calling.
Barrel tasting at this stage actually becomes (yes, it’s true) hard work. Over the next few days I’ll be individually sampling each barrel from the 2009 vintage in preparation for one of the most crucial steps in the élevage (upbringing, or raising, of wines, as children more or less) of the new wines: blending.
I like to blend early, to encourage integrated flavors and stable wine, so the blending decision is a bit like deciding what you’re going to be when you grow up, except that you don’t get to change your mind later. So, I go through the barrel stacks and look for wines that show structure, intensity, purity of fruit and age-worthiness; those barrels are put into consideration for the Velocity bottling.
If the wine tastes friendlier, yummier, perhaps a bit softer and more vigorously youthful, it is a clear candidate for bottling under the Velo label. Then comes the fun part – assembling the components. Just because, say, seventeen barrels show Velocity-level promise, that doesn’t mean that those should simply be tossed together and called a wine. Now I get to play with the proportions in an attempt to blend a wine which will display the kind of balance, elegance, and focus I strive for. Perhaps a bit more block B, or less block A; maybe a dash of Cabernet franc will spice up the Malbec, but which barrel is best suited for the job?
So, off I go armed with my palate, my instincts and a sturdy glass, to start clambering around the barrel stacks.

Velocity Cellars Supports Rogue Valley Farm To School Fundraising Dinner

1
Posted by Gus on February 5, 2010 – 2:03 pm
Filed under Open Bottle

Julia and I were fortunate enough to find ourselves invited last Sunday night to the second annual Rogue Valley Farm To School fundraising dinner at New Sammy’s Cowboy Bistro in Talent. It may have helped that I donated one of the wines for the dinner, but it seemed like we got the best end of the bargain by being seated at the bar and getting to enjoy an astounding meal. The food alone would require pages to describe, starting with an extraordinary array of tapas, moving to an elaborate paella, a cheese course and chocolate-cinnamon olive-oil cake with homemade almond ice cream for dessert. Perhaps best of all was the fact that every dime of the proceeds went to an extremely worthy cause, the above mentioned RVFarm2School, which provides locally-grown food to school cafeterias. Even the very gracious servers donated their tips.
Thank you, Tracy Harding, for including my wine, and thanks to all the staff and volunteers at New Sammy’s that night for your hard work. We had a ball!

Viognier Barrel Tasting

0
Posted by Gus on February 2, 2010 – 2:17 pm
Filed under A Matter Of Style, In The Cellar

Yes, the cat is out of the bag, so to speak. I am making a white wine. The reasons are many, but the strongest one may be simply that my middle name is, in fact, White.

Since coming to the Rogue Valley I’ve made Chardonnay, Pinot gris, Pinot blanc, Viognier, Roussanne, Marsanne and even a little Grenache blanc, but always for wineries and labels other than my own. Settling on a style for my own white, I started with Viognier, which I feel has demonstrated a real affinity for the dry, sunny growing conditions here, and supplemented it with a bit over 20% Marsanne, which is a relative newcomer to the region.

Winter sample of Viognier/Marsanne

The Viognier is from Gold Vineyard in Talent, where Randy Gold has been reliably growing the Malbec and Cabernet franc for Velocity since 2002. Having nibbled some grapes the previous fall, and having tasted some of Trium Winery’s Viognier bottlings from the site, I felt confident that the moderate elevation and easterly aspect, combined with Randy’s skillful farming, could yield the kind of fruit I was looking for. The 2009 vintage did not disappoint me; we were able to bring the fruit in at a civilized 23.0 Brix, with plenty of tropical and stone fruit flavors, sufficient natural acidity, and the kind of balance I am looking for when trying to produce a moderate-alcohol wine.

We harvested the Marsanne on the same day from Crater View Vineyard over by Jacksonville, and went ahead and pressed the fruit from both vineyards together into one tank. I just closed my eyes and trusted that the blend would work. As I had hoped, the Marsanne brings some additional roundness to the wine, and a pleasant melon character. I had expected the Marsanne would also provide some additional acidity, since my experience with the grape from the previous vintage was that it held onto a nice low pH well into maturity, but for this year it wasn’t to be, and I had to be satisfied with the natural acidity of the Viognier.

Barrels for my White Wine
My goal with the wine is to bottle it unfiltered, and to give it plenty of lees contact for mouthfeel, complexity, and stability. So right now it is moving slowly through malolactic fermentation in barrel, has yet to be given any SO2 (even at crush I avoided SO2) and is, as the picture suggests, in 100% two and three-year old French oak barrels. I bought the barrels from Far Niente winery in Napa, where they were used to make a three-year barrel aged late harvest Sauvignon blanc called Dolce, which explains the filigreed decoration on the barrel heads. I am just happy to have some clean, fairly neutral barrels to age my new project in.

Now come the two toughest questions. What should I call it, and how much should I make next year?