Category Archives: From The Bike

Velo rides the San Francisco hills

0
Posted by Gus on May 29, 2011 – 9:39 pm
Filed under From The Bike

Besides being the coldest, wettest spring in a decade or more, this has been the spring of the traveling winemaker. I’ve made an effort to get up to Portland, down to the Bay Area, and will next week be off to Seattle to meet face-to-face with the people who out there are buying Velocity wines and introducing them, bottle by bottle and glass by glass, to brave wine drinkers, willing to venture from the beaten path and try such brazen undertakings as Malbec and Viognier from the Rogue Valley.
These trips can be fun, educational and humbling for me, but this past trip to San Francisco was particularly enjoyable because I brought along my bicycle. The weather and traffic were cooperative, and I squeezed in two short rides between my duties in the marketplace. Thanks to a Charlie Morgan, a local friend, I was invited to join the Headlands Raiders for their Thursday morning jaunt throughout he city, out across the Golden Gate Bridge, up into the Marin headlands, and back again for coffee with ample time to head to work.
This is what they look like at summit:

Yes, that is the Golden Gate Bridge in the background, visible now that the sun is up.

Despite my advancing years and inadequate training, these kind folks allowed me to tag along and feel alive for a couple of hours. Charlie bought me coffee at Velo Rouge Cafe which used to carry my Velo red wine but no longer seems to. I forgave them because their coffee was so good, all french-pressed just like in Portland. The roaster is Blue Bottle Coffee and is memorable because it kept me awake and inspired, perhaps foolishly, to tack on a little solo ride afterwards up Twin Peaks and around the Noe Valley in search of some of those famously steep streets to test my mettle.
Oh, and wine sales went quite well, too, thanks to my hardworking friends at Real Wines Company.

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.

New Bicycle

2
Posted by Gus on January 6, 2010 – 3:43 pm
Filed under From The Bike, In The Vineyard

I got a new bike for Christmas!

What does this have to do with winemaking? It happens to be my personal philosophy that winemakers should make wines only from vineyards they can readily visit by bicycle. This is my “intimate knowledge of the land” principle and is by no means practiced by myself alone, except maybe for the bicycling part. Walking is fine, too, but in the Rogue Valley our vineyards don’t neighbor one another as closely as in some more established regions, so I use a bike whenever possible. Besides, it’s fun.

This bike has a history. The deep wine-colored frame was originally custom built for Sherman Lamb in the early 1980s by Roland Della Santa, who was also busy at the time building frames for Greg Lemond, who was busy becoming the first American to win the Tour de France. Sherman, who was one of the first winegrowers in the Rogue Valley to plant Syrah, sold the bike to his friend Randy Gold a couple of years ago, but it was the wrong size for Randy so he stepped up to a brand new Felt road bike late last summer. Out of curiosity or desire I measured the frame when Randy said he was going to sell it, and voila! A frame custom sized for me.

Randy, of course, is the owner and manager of Gold Vineyard in Talent, from which all grapes for Velocity and Velo wines (and even my new white wine project – more later) are now sourced. How many bicycles can claim such a viticultural pedigree?

My wife, Julia, was kind enough to listen to my irrational explanations for having two bicycles, and presented the new bike on Christmas with a red bow around the handlebars. Thank you, Roland, Sherman, Randy, and Julia. I will try to be a worthy owner of such a machine.

I did get out for a quick ride when some sun broke through after Christmas. It rides like a thoroughbred, or as I imagine one must ride. Lucky me!Bike