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Hosted by Director of Winemaking Dirk Hampson, (that’s me), our blog does not aspire to particularly deep thinking, linear thinking, or even insightful thinking. (Of course, since this is about wine, we can aspire to pretensions as needed.) We are approaching this blog as an opportunity to share some of what is going on at our wineries, in our vineyards or in the area along with any fleeting thoughts that happen to get captured in these electrons to be spread across the internet like so much chaff in the wind. (It is faster than sending notes in a bottle but technically far more demanding.) We will try to post a cross section of your comments and even respond to prove that we are alive, alert, and still have a working internet connection.

Date: March 11, 2010 8:24 AM

On your marks...

You may not have thought of this, but, it is hard to look graceful when wearing snow shoes. Worse still if you are racing…late at night…by starlight…and candlelight. (You have to like a race that has better candles than some French restaurants.)

Beth Nickel, our resident arbiter of all things stylish, did “Book Across The Bay” last month. Snow, ice, dark of night, (almost sounds like mail delivery doesn’t it?) and snow shoes, 10Km. Imagine (more...)

Date: March 05, 2010 10:31 AM

Spring Flowers

When I think about “bloom” in Napa Valley, I normally think about when the vineyards are blooming to set the crop for the year (usually in May but it changes by variety, location, rootstock, exposure, soil, vintage…you get the idea). I happen to love it when the vines bloom, but it isn’t much to behold. They are nearly invisible at a distance. You could drive past all of our vineyards and never notice the grape (more...)

Date: February 19, 2010 8:33 AM

Pruning Away

February is one of my favorite times in Napa Valley. There isn't as much traffic. (Locals are supposed to complain about the traffic, but chances are, we would hate it if the traffic wasn't there to support wineries, restaurants and more.)

The mustard is in bloom and it is spectacular. Last weekend there were cars trying to find parking spaces at Rock Cairn Vineyard so that they could get out and take pictures in the mustard. (more...)

Date: February 12, 2010 1:24 PM

Back to School

I attended law school last week. (While shocking, that is NOT a lie!) Given that my dad and grandfather were lawyers, it wouldn't seem that far out of line unless you know me. I am a winemaker, never took the LSAT, and the Berkeley admissions staff would have justifiably assumed any application from me was submitted as a prank and been forced to check their calendars to see if it was April 1st.

They have a (more...)

Date: January 22, 2010 8:42 AM

Espresso

Maybe you are like me, and you like coffee but don’t know that much about it. People who are “into” coffee are as crazy about their subject as wine geeks are about what we make (wine). The coffee master studies it and knows: who makes it, where it is grown, how it is roasted, stored, brewed, (if the water was blessed by virgins), was it organic, the fiber count on the burlap bags, etc… It (more...)

Date: January 13, 2010 2:19 PM

Tasting Teeth

It’s January and we are busy evaluating our next moves with the 2009 red wines. It’s time. They are in barrel. They have dropped a lot of their sediment. They have finished malolactic fermentations. They have lost the “fermentation” character. (Oh…and they are very good.)

Tasting wines this young can sound great…even romantic in a wine-geeky sort of way, but, like teenagers, they can be aggressive and rebellious. (They are supposed to be like that…the wines, (more...)

Date: December 08, 2009 9:41 AM

Plaid Tidings

Plaid happens to be “in” around St. Helena right now. You don’t have to be Scottish or read Alexander McCall-Smith books to like plaid and we aren’t going to explore any of the kilt jokes here.

Our own Tim Setzer – otherwise known as “Sparky” -- is one of The Plaids who is performing at the White Barn in St. Helena in “Plaid Tidings.” We caught him last weekend, which leaves this weekend in their limited (more...)

Date: December 04, 2009 11:57 AM

Christmas Lights

It’s that time of year again…

The cynical side of me can say that I heard the same Christmas CD playing in the grocery store, the bookstore, and the gas station. (Who organizes that sort of coordination and could we put them in charge of fixing the economy?)

The (what is the opposite of cynical?) optimistic side of me can say how much I enjoy the Christmas lights. I am biased, but my favorite lights, after all (more...)

Date: November 23, 2009 10:00 AM

Fall Color

Even though harvest is over, it still looks like fall around here. The vineyards are all shades of yellow and red. (The red means that the vines have a virus… but it looks good…even “mahvelous”.) My favorite Napa Valley fall color isn’t related to vines.

If you haven’t seen the Far Niente entrance when the trees turn, you owe it to yourself. The driveway is a long allee (al-LAY…French word for lining the sides of the (more...)

Date: November 11, 2009 8:19 AM

MLB...Not Baseball in November

This is the time of year that wineries are dealing with MLB.

OK, the Yankees won again (for the bazzilionth time). They are part of MLB. (Some in NY might argue that they ARE MLB “Major League Baseball” which is a major reason to drink beer in the fall.) But, in this blog, today…MLB…we are talking bacteria…Malo-Lactic Bacteria. (Pretty wine-geek esoteric stuff.)

Once the yeast have completed their fermentations and the pressing is over, we pay attention (more...)

Date: November 04, 2009 8:22 AM

Einstein in the Vineyard

While grape growing has become far more of a science than it used to be, (they study calculus, physics, biology) even we were shocked by the recent cameo appearance of Albert Einstein in our vineyards. The camera doesn’t lie.

The ghost of Albert Einstein (Grant Hemingway, Far Niente Vineyards, Vineyard Manager)

We worry about getting plenty of light in the vineyard but the speed of light (Einstein said it was an absolute at about 300,000 kilometers per (more...)

Date: October 26, 2009 9:18 AM

Pumping Over

It is pump-over season in Napa Valley. Our visitors think of it as harvest, and we are finishing up the Cabernet harvest this week, but all these red grapes take quite a bit of time and work to become wine.

What’s a pump-over? It is the act of taking the juice from the bottom of the tank and pumping it over the grape skins that have floated up in the tank to create a cap. (more...)

Date: October 13, 2009 11:53 AM

Add Bacteria and Engineering...Remove Hydrogen

Harvest is in top gear…or at least it was until this huge storm arrived last night and stopped the picking for a few days. We have a number of blocks of Cabernet that still need a little more time to reach full ripeness. Fortunately, Cabernet has thicker skins and looser clusters to make it more resistant to rain. We have picked all of the other varieties (except Dolce which can use a little rain about (more...)

Date: October 09, 2009 8:46 AM

Le Mistral

The Mistral comes to Oakville. What is it doing here? Isn’t Le Mistral French?

I first heard about Le Mistral when I was a kid. It’s the legendary, perhaps infamous, wind that attacks southern France for days on end. Rumor had it that it was so irritating that it was used as the source of an insanity plea in a case of murder. (It sweeps down from the north and can last for over a week.)

Date: October 07, 2009 10:56 AM

Cameo Appearance

Harvest may be a great time to visit Napa Valley but what are you going to do when you aren’t visiting wineries or eating at great restaurants?

Maybe you should try going to the movies! Sure, you have the same movies playing at home, but do you have The Cameo? (Notice that it is singular. It is not a multiplex.) This is the type of theater that added to the mystic of films and the stars (more...)

Date: September 30, 2009 10:26 AM

Harvest Update

We have been walking so many vineyards, tasting and deciding when to pick, that I have overlooked this blog and should be typing something…even if it makes sense.

So, where are we with the harvest of 2009?

The short answer is that it is looking great, but there is a long way to go.

Far Niente has brought in half of its Chardonnay and most of the rest is nearly ready to harvest. However, the winery (more...)

Date: September 15, 2009 9:01 AM

I scream...You scream...

I tend to appreciate things that are hand crafted. (It goes along with the wine maker thing.) I happen to love ice cream. I believe that ice cream really doesn't go with wine. (That was the wine tip for this blog.)

Our friend, Brad Morgan, managed to surprise several of us recently with a gift that combined ice cream and hand crafted in a manner that didn't include making the ice cream himself. Smart!

Have you heard (more...)

Date: September 11, 2009 8:41 AM

Dry Ice

Our Harvest started Friday. We picked Napa Valley Chardonnay for Far Niente and Russian River Pinot Noir for EnRoute.

This is the one time of year that we use dry ice. In case you don't remember, dry ice is not the type of ice required for James Bond-style martinis (very dry…shaken not stirred). It is ice made out of frozen CO₂. (I assume it is dry ice because it has no water...Wikipedia might set me straight.)

Yes, (more...)

Date: August 31, 2009 1:40 AM

Starlight Dinner

Do you remember what you used to recite as a kid? You had to do it when the first star of the evening appeared. In my case, I think that I often was reciting it to the glow of a planet instead of a star. That may be my typical confusion and a small indication as to why I am a winemaker and not some sort of astrophysicist.

Star light, Star bright, First star I’ve seen (more...)

Date: July 30, 2009 11:28 AM

How many bottles of wine are in your future?

Have you ever stopped to consider how many bottles of wine are in your future? You should. It may surprise you that it isn’t as many as you might think and that you should be making good choices.

Recently I was at lunch with fellow winemaker, Bruce Cakebread, who said that people are getting tired of this recession and of trying to find something drinkable in the world of “Two-Buck-Truck Econo-wines.” He did a survey and (more...)

Date: July 23, 2009 9:32 AM

New Color

Have you ever seen grapes change color? (The term is French; Verasion and has been successfully designed to be impossible to pronounce in other languages.)

The Cabernet at Dragonfly (usually the first to ripen) has started changing from hard green berries and clusters to purple berries and clusters. This means a whole lot of things such as increased color accumulation and increased sugar accumulation, but what it really means is that harvest is coming! (Not today, (more...)

Date: July 13, 2009 10:29 AM

Extreme Vine Spacing

Some think; the more vines per acre, the better.

When I started at U.C. Davis, it was common to see vineyards that were on spacing of 8' x 12'. It was nearly radical when we put our vines on a 5' x 8' spacing in the 80's. Understand that there were places in France where the spacing has been 1 meter x 1 meter for generations. (But, that is France where the soils and conditions are (more...)

Date: July 09, 2009 2:00 AM

Lateral Thinking

Lateral? Wasn’t that a football term where the ball went sideways or backwards? (Think The Big Game…Berkeley…Stanford Band…the wildest end to a game ever!) We have laterals on the mind, but we aren’t messing with the gridiron. We are dealing with the vineyards in a year where the wet and moderate spring has allowed the vines to grow like crazy.

A lateral is a shoot that comes off of the main green growing shoot, which carries (more...)

Date: June 25, 2009 8:57 AM

Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie and Chardonnay

Napa Valley has baseball. OK... it’s actually softball I am referring to. Remember, it’s June and baseball is America’s game. When I was growing up, this month’s name, June, was always followed by “swoon.” BoSox fans know what I am talking about but other teams have subjected their fans to the midseason flop.

In Napa, we solved that crisis. June is playoff time here. We can’t wait for September. (Either we are really ahead of the (more...)

Date: June 16, 2009 3:11 AM

Bees for Hire

We see lots of critters in our vineyards. Cows (see earlier blog), wild boars, deer, hawks, owls, gophers, bobcats, mountain lions, bears, goat, sheep, horses, wild turkeys, eagles, squirrels, bunnies, etc…you get the idea. Last week, it all swarmed on us...literally!

Stelling Block 5 (where we grow the Cabernet Franc that goes in the Far Niente blend) was the spot that a swarm of bees chose for their “worker housing.”

The bees work plenty hard. It’s (more...)

Date: June 12, 2009 8:45 AM

Too Many Barrels

My recommendation for the best place to get overwhelmed by barrel samples is at the Napa Valley Wine Auction. If you weren’t there last week, you’ll have to wait for next year. But, it was a great tasting and it raised a pile of dough for local health care.

I didn’t count all the barrels (more than one hundred) but they were lined up on both levels of Mondavi’s Cabernet fermentation cellar. (That is the (more...)

Date: June 08, 2009 1:14 AM

Oh-Thirtynine-Sixteen

039-16…Nope, it’s not a zip code. It’s a rootstock. How often do you think about rootstock? Perhaps the real question for some people is, “What’s a rootstock?” (My generation had Woodstock and we had Roots – those goofy shoes that made you lean backwards.)

The rootstock is the part of the vine that doesn’t show and isn’t the grape variety, like Cabernet Sauvignon, which ends up with all the fame and glory on the label. However, (more...)

Date: May 22, 2009 8:41 AM

We are EnRoute

If being en route implies being on a journey, we qualify, or at least we made it officially public, that due to our love of wine we have embarked on a new winemaking adventure. We have started EnRoute Winery to make Russian River Pinot Noir and now Mary has removed the gag order so we can talk about it. (If you are a Pinot geek, the EnRoute 2007 “Les Pommiers" will get released this fall.)

Date: May 14, 2009 1:53 AM

Running Shorthorns in Napa

Yesterday, we had critters that we hadn't ever before seen in the Carpenter vineyard. I don't know if it is a new pest or just one step closer to "complex organic" farming.

I have been surprised to see great horned owls, barn owls, golden eagles, wild turkeys, mountain lions, bears, bob cats, skunks, moles and all sorts of jack rabbits and rodents, but this is the first time that we have arrived to find a herd (more...)

Date: May 05, 2009 2:01 AM

It's a Pile of...Compost

We had a compost pile when I was growing up. We loved dropping our plant and food scraps into it and we hated “turning” it. But, when the bacteria had done their thing, there was no denying that it made something that was wonderful for my mom’s flower beds and provided chores that my brothers and I could complain about.

Composting has gone big. You likely have one of those yard recycle bins that gets rolled (more...)

Date: April 21, 2009 2:43 AM

Meet the "Futures"

Yes, we know that there is more than one “Future.” In fact, this year, we have 13 “Futures.” (Multiple “Futures” sounds like some sort of vino-schizophrenia.)

(Did you read “Popular Science” when you were a kid? It was always predicting how we would live in the future. I don’t have a flying car…and I could use one! They never mentioned the internet…) You get the idea, they were wrong. (but it was fun to read and (more...)

Date: April 03, 2009 8:38 AM

Tractor Jam

There was a tractor jam at Dragonfly Vineyard this week. There aren’t any traffic lights and Aaron didn’t have a traffic copter in the area but it might have been needed. Four tractors on a four-acre vineyard seem like a lot, but each had its purpose to fully integrate our cover crops.

It is the time of year when we have to knock down the cover crops to help the soils and aid in frost protection (more...)

Date: March 27, 2009 11:49 AM

Don't Read too Much about Food...(It is better to enjoy it!)

I just finished reading Michael Pollan’s book “In Defense of Food.” In spite of being dangerously close to qualifying as a “self help” book, it was very good. (I tend to avoid self help books because there would be no logical place to stop if I ever started in on that Herculean task of my own self improvement.)

Michael (now that I have read the book, we are on a first name basis…other than the fact (more...)

Date: March 24, 2009 1:57 AM

Half-Track Takes on Vineyard

When I was a kid, I had a toy half-track. It was a WWII truck with tires in the front and treads in the back. (That’s why it is called a half-track.) They were probably in a lot of those movies about D Day, A Bridge Too Far, Saving Private Ryan, Kelly’s Heroes…

I never expected to see a half track in our vineyards but we have one (It’s orange instead of green and comes (more...)

Date: March 13, 2009 12:14 PM

Spring Release

In spite of it being frost season, spring has arrived. I know that spring is here because the change to daylight saving time has zapped me.

We have had a bunch of frost recently (For Californians, that means we had to defrost the windshield for a couple of minutes…or even scrape it!) but the vines haven’t pushed out quite enough to require turning on the frost protection sprinklers or fans. We are hoping that we get (more...)

Date: March 04, 2009 10:17 AM

Breakfast with Tiffany's

Wine blogs don’t normally talk about breakfast but these are hardly normal times. You may even harbor views about someone who would drink wine in the morning, but sometimes it is fun to break the “rules.”

At the Food Network South Beach Wine and Food Festival, Dolce paired up with Tiffany’s for a wine breakfast. Call it the ultimate breakfast if you must. (It was the first event to sell out and up to the last (more...)

Date: February 27, 2009 10:16 AM

Open That Bottle Night

When a winery says “Open that bottle”, we may start to sound suspect but the words come from Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher of the Wall Street Journal. Ten years ago, they started “Open That Bottle Night” as a way to get people to open a special bottle of wine that they were saving for a special occasion.

I love their idea. It gets to the heart of what counts in wine; sharing it, drinking (more...)

Date: February 24, 2009 8:26 AM

Pull Up The Covers

Things are growing in our vineyards. But, the “things” are not vines. In these times of financial crisis, it is nice to know that something is “up.” Aaron, our viticulturist, says, “cover crops are up.”

Yes, they have been growing throughout the winter, but it is the purpose and the importance of cover crops that is up. They have become critical.

It is almost like farming two crops; grapes and cover crops. Each requires its own (more...)

Date: February 12, 2009 9:00 AM

Smart Phone

Why is a wine blog commenting on cell phones?

Winemakers use cell phones a lot. My first one was about the size of a big lunch box…(but it was cool!) Everyone knew you had a “cell phone” because you grunted so much trying to lug it around and your forearm got big enough that everyone thought you played tennis.

The novelty wore off. Phones got smaller. We didn’t hesitate to make short calls although the call from (more...)

Date: February 10, 2009 4:08 AM

Oakville Taste Treats

At Far Niente

There is something about releasing a new wine that is fun. It’s even better when that vintage is outstanding, as in 2006, and best of all when it is with lots of people who are having a great time.

On Saturday, we filled the caves with wine club members who got a first taste of the Far Niente 2006 Estate Bottled Cabernet Sauvignon. (Sort of like Mikey with Life cereal, “They liked it!”)

Date: February 05, 2009 1:45 AM

Haiku

I didn’t know it, but the burning question in some poetry circles has been what goes with Haiku? While I assumed that the answer had to do with some sort of minimalist insight into the meaning of life, it turns out the answer is online.

Red wine goes with Haiku…sort of…

If you have gotten tired of standard wine reviews… If you don’t need to see shelf talkers with wine scores… If you want to (more...)

Date: January 30, 2009 3:21 AM

Tasting Quiz

Didn’t you always groan when the teacher announced a pop quiz? (Maybe I should have studied beforehand…) Today, Tim, a Nickel & Nickel wine educator, just put on a tasting quiz. Fortunately, we grade on the curve and it was more fun than trying to recall what happened in 1066. (Battle of Hastings)

Tim’s background includes being a chef so he decided to have us try to identify 25 different edible items…by smell alone! He used (more...)

Date: January 26, 2009 2:03 AM

Bonfire Smores

On Friday we had a bonfire with the old vines at the Sullenger Vineyard and did the only logical thing. We made Smores.

There is something timeless about a smore. I know lots of people who think that they know how to make the “perfect” smore. (Surprise, I am one those people! But in my case, rest assured that it is true!)

If you don’t know what a smore is, you may have been drinking wine (more...)

Date: January 16, 2009 8:15 AM

Corkscrews

Those of us who are winemakers tend to notice corkscrews. You don't pay that much attention to them at home but it only takes renting a place to bring the subject front and center.

I guess it is a pretty good rental if it has a corkscrew. (I have spent considerable time searching for one where it didn't exist.)

There are a whole mess of wine books that can tell you everything you need to know (more...)

Date: January 13, 2009 2:13 AM

Tasting is Work

It's a new year and I have been avoiding my blog responsibilities so I could focus on other things. Specifically, snow! Now that I have gotten a bunch of turns in, it seems I should pay attention to other things even though we do need more snow.

We have been tasting. In case you think that means we are on holiday, tasting is work for winemakers. Not a single wine tastes all that alluring at 8:30am. (more...)

Date: December 12, 2008 8:18 AM

You Did What?!!!?

Why is it that some people forget that wine is for sharing and drinking? I have always believed that wine was supposed to taste good. (Kind’a obvious eh?) The pleasure comes from the expression of flavors, texture, volume and harmony. Like music and food, those pleasurable sensations are best when they can be shared.

It seems that Christie’s, the famous auction house with the upper crust accent, thinks that rare wines are to be “traded” and (more...)

Date: December 08, 2008 2:34 AM

Nuts...a small warning

It's funny what you notice on an airplane. Being confined for four hours to a seat that was originally designed for kindergartners always causes me to look around in a feeble attempt to stave off claustrophobia.

You probably know all about Boeing aircraft; the exits are still in the front, in the back, and over the wings. The overhead bins are full and all seats and tray tables usually return to “their full and upright (more...)

Date: November 20, 2008 1:31 AM

It's Only Rotten Mold... But I Like it, Like it!

We are harvesting Dolce. I haven’t heard of anyone else who is picking right now but there may be one or two others who have waited this long for the grapes to be perfect for making late harvest wine. (Then again we may be the only ones around here who are either patient or crazy enough to do this.) Mid-November is a lonely time to be picking.

Picking Dolce is not like any other sort of (more...)

Date: November 11, 2008 4:09 AM

Cooking for Chefs

Who wants to cook for chefs? No one willingly invites a chef to his house. You take them out. That avoids all that anxiety.

We just received a bunch of Texan chefs at Nickel & Nickel. (If they had been in the kitchen it would have been a “too many” of chefs…sort of like a “pride” of lions. But, they took a tour and settled into the Gleason Barn for lunch. Abi, our chef, and (more...)

Date: October 31, 2008 12:54 PM

Pressing Issues

All the grapes are in…(unless you count Dolce!) While that means that harvest is “over” and the cellar teams are already planning their “return of paintball” post-crush outing, harvest isn’t really over-over.

The red wines have to get pressed. Once they are pressed and in barrels, the “Fat Lady” can sing. Judging by the fermentations and all of the improvements we are seeing during maceration, it may be quite a while before we hear from the (more...)

Date: October 24, 2008 8:39 AM

BBQ Break

Harvest is almost over (except Dolce…it is one good reason to “Think Rain”…the other would be California’s drought). About the time harvest is over, we start thinking about food.

On my way back from the Dolce vineyard I stopped in at BarBer^sQ in Napa. (Doesn’t that name sound better if you say it out loud with a southern twang? Maybe even add a token “Y’all” too.) You have to get past the massive presence of Whole (more...)

Date: October 22, 2008 12:42 PM

Pairing Golf and Wine

We are almost through picking grapes for this harvest. So, what did I do? I went golfing on Monday. Technically speaking, I wasn’t avoiding work. This was a pro-am golf outing that was auctioned at the Napa Valley Wine Auction that we donated along with IMI. (We had the wine covered, they have the golf covered).

The group met up at Mayacama, a golf club that defies my limited ability to describe its magnificence. It is (more...)

Date: October 10, 2008 3:33 AM

Pump Over

This is the season of the “Pump-Over.” It seemed like a good time to clarify the subject in this blog so I decided to see what Wikipedia had to say about the pump-over. (Our private librarian, Carol, rolls her eyes at the mention of Wikipedia, while my son, Trevor, may define the wiki-enabled generation who wants the information even if it is from unverified sources…which may leave him better prepared for modern political advertisements.) Wikipedia (more...)

Date: October 03, 2008 3:44 AM

Forcast...

This year’s harvest has been working out a lot like how it is forecast in the oenology text books at U.C. Davis. I mean that the early ripening Chardonnay came in and now the later ripening Cabernet is starting. That never happens…OK, almost never. To me, that indicates just how unusual the 2008 season is.

Bins of Martin Stelling Cabernet
just waiting to be sorted.
I am thinking about this because yesterday we only started harvesting (more...)

Date: September 26, 2008 4:22 AM

No More Wet Feet

If you are around viticulture types long enough, you hear them say that vines don’t like “wet feet.” Sounds like good advice but we literal types don’t think that vines have feet. On top of that, I learned on Outward Bound that I, too, don’t like having wet feet.

While hikers can change socks and leave their nasty boots somewhere to dry, vines don’t have any great ways to dry out their roots (feet). Good drainage (more...)

Date: September 22, 2008 1:48 AM

Punching can be good

Reds are coming in and we are into punching the heck out of them. Of course we practice extremely gentle winemaking with these perfectly ripe grapes…we just “punch” them… a lot. (Don’t you love an oxymoron? – Gentle punch.)

It used to be that a punch-down was only for Pinot Noir. No more. It is a technique that we use on other varieties. It brings different benefits as compared to the more standard pump-over and has (more...)

Date: September 17, 2008 11:07 AM

It's Harvest...8 Ball in the Corner Pocket

Harvest creates its own form of stress. It’s supposed to do that. Growers feel it. Vineyard managers feel it. Winemakers feel it…and everyone has different ways of dealing with it. While a doctor would recommend more sleep and more exercise, we had to get real.

Face it, we don’t have any beds at the winery and we didn’t have the foresight to install a gym. (Who would be our on-staff personal trainer? I hate those elliptical (more...)

Date: September 11, 2008 4:06 AM

100 Reasons for Blogging about a Blog....

Last week one of our wines received a wonderful review. That isn’t really news. But, it was the first time that I remember one of our wines getting 100 points.

Robert Whitley has quite the track record as a wine writer. However, the first time we met, I think that we spent time discussing the perfect Ramos Fizz. He is a recognized authority on spirits and I rely on his advice when trying to find (more...)

Date: September 08, 2008 11:21 AM

Dining by Starlight...

You don’t have to know astronomy to be able to enjoy dinner under the stars. We know because we did it on Saturday and proved how little we knew about the night sky. (The first star we commented upon was actually a planet…but it looked good.)

Last year we had a true astronomer there to show us Jupiter’s moons and other cool things. This year, Aurelien, the last of the evening’s performers from the brand (more...)

Date: September 05, 2008 11:46 AM

Blessed...

Yesterday we blessed the harvest at Far Niente. I love that moment each year. It is a tradition that dates to the earliest times of farming. It is simple and touching.

We always do it the same way.

All of us gather beside the picked grapes in the shade of the middle road behind our old stone winery. The Carmelite Father conducts a few readings and prayers before dousing the grapes and the rest of us (more...)

Date: September 02, 2008 3:07 AM

Fall Has Arrived...Time to Prep Barrels

I tend to remember years from Fall to Fall.

Lots of different activities define Fall. School buses, (back to school sales…everywhere), soccer schedules, cool mornings, yellow leaves, political conventions and their surprises (not going there), Labor Day, and especially HARVEST!!!

We will start picking this week. It should be enough to get the equipment dirty but it won’t make much of a dent in the work to come. Most people think that harvest is all about (more...)

Date: August 29, 2008 3:09 AM

Free Samples in the Vineyard

What is it about those "Free Samples" at Costco that get people to load up their super-sized carts? Face it, Americans like sampling.

Winemakers like sampling grapes. Of course, winemakers have to sample grapes in the vineyard (they have already decided to buy the crop). We just sample to determine the best moment to pick for making the best wine possible.

Since sampling grapes is a bit more involved than the free gobbling of an eighth of (more...)

Date: August 25, 2008 10:08 AM

Wine on Rails

Sometimes I have seen special wine tank containers which are used for shipping wine on trains (and ships). "Wine on Rails" (think of it as a gigantic bottle). I have just participated in a modest but exciting and innovative pilot program. "Single Vineyard wines on Rails".

I brought a bottle of 2005 John C. Sullenger Cabernet from the cellars of Nickel & Nickel. (yep...this whole program, which could become a trend, maybe even an entire (more...)

Date: August 20, 2008 2:08 AM

Far Niente Icebergs Vanish...'til next year

What comes to mind when you think of icebergs?

Practical: They are best to avoid when in a boat. (Titanic)
Philosophical/Physics: Ninety percent of it is out of sight. Environmental: Global warming: Pretty soon the North Pole is going to be underwater if all that ice keeps melting.
Wine: That wine is really cold!

Ice melting events aren’t normally associated with wineries, but ice happens. Actually, it happens at bottling for a very good reason. It (more...)

Date: August 15, 2008 3:54 AM

Jean Luc Trapet

I wrote about visiting Jean-Luc Trapet in Burgundy (see July 8^th blog). You can see them at www.domaine-trapet.com. Last week he gave us a wonderful surprise when he and his family unexpectedly dropped in to visit both Far Niente as well as Nickel & Nickel. The wine world is small. We always value the friendships that have formed here and abroad. It is part of what makes the wine world so special.

While we didn’t (more...)

Date: August 14, 2008 9:32 AM

Waiting for Dessert Would be a Sin

Do you have certain images that come to mind when you think of a particular wine? If you are into wine, try this:

-Dom Perignon…. Bubbles? Monk Drinking the stars? James Bond?
-Y’Quem…Tsars? One glass per vine?
-White Zinfandel…Sutter Home?
-Chateau Montelena/Stags Leap Wine Cellars…French tasting winners 1976
-Dolce… (It’s the best…and no one really knows about it…hmmm) (Makes it sound like a stealth wine…you know where this is going.)

Tell A Secret… Dolce

(Of course, once you tell “it”…It (more...)

Date: August 12, 2008 8:38 AM

Shocking...

All sorts of people are talking about “Bottle Shock.” I used to think that it was the illness a wine showed right after bottling (before it recovers) but this year, it is a movie. Larry and I saw a preview copy – he knows movies…I don’t.

It is a good thing that I am not qualified to be a movie critic. Wine lingo is too snooty to translate well for the screen. And, how often am (more...)

Date: August 07, 2008 11:02 AM

V Day Oakville

The V Foundation took over Nickel & Nickel on Saturday. It was a peaceful take-over…but loud, raucous and fun. What would you expect with several hundred people enjoying the wines, food, auction, and dancing. If you don't know the V Foundation, you should.

It was started by Jimmy Valvano (hence, the "V" without having to buy all those pesky vowels.) He was one of the greats in coaching (especially if you are into college basketball). All (more...)

Date: July 28, 2008 3:48 AM

The Color of Grapes

The grapes are changing color in the vineyards. This is not some sort of light wave-length phenomenon. There aren’t special lenses involved. There aren’t any recreational aids. They really are changing color and it happens every year about this time. When they go from hard green berries to softening and turning red (if it is a red variety), it is called verasion. Since the French already had a fancy sounding word for it, we used (more...)

Date: July 23, 2008 12:45 PM

Secret Fizz Recipe Revealed…

I know I am supposed to talk about wine but sometimes other beverages fit the time and place too perfectly to ignore. Don’t leap to conclusions and assume that I am a lush but… last weekend a bunch of friends and I conducted some research into “morning drinks.”

While some love Champagne in the a.m., I am not one of them. It seems too acidic and the bubbles tickle. On top of that, some hotels and (more...)

Date: July 17, 2008 2:14 AM

Panini…That’s Italian for Sandwich

My kids are comfortable asking for a panini. At their age, I hadn’t ever heard of a panini…let alone tried one. Hey, I grew up in Oregon where we may have missed some things but we knew beer! (I also missed out on cappuccino, latte, and all the other things that make Starbucks a universal source of caffeine. I still like the scene from You’ve Got Mail…no, not the Meg’s food scene in When Harry (more...)

Date: July 15, 2008 4:29 AM

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes...

Lately, we have been having magnificent sunsets in Napa Valley. The days have been ending with a surreal display of orange and red that seems to have been lifted out of one of the Star Wars movies (…before they introduced all those annoying characters).

Why red?

Simple, it’s smoky. A physicist can explain wave lengths, absorbance, reflection and refraction…but I can tell when it is smoky (because it has been on the news and I can SEE (more...)

Date: July 08, 2008 9:07 AM

Winemakers go on wine tours…in France

I admit it; I have been avoiding this blog because I was travelling. I tried…really…but was unable to overcome the complexities of a French keyboard. Try one. They moved the letters and added all sorts of accents. (Just who needs a cedille anyway?!) These problems lead to the dreaded “bloggus interuptus.” I have heard that it can take a while to really get going afterwards.

France was great…the dollar wasn’t. Internet cafes in Paris have computers (more...)

Date: June 06, 2008 9:33 AM

Slow Aging - Red Wine - 100 bottles a day...

The New York Times got our attention with a recent story that “red wine may be much more potent than was thought in extending human lifespan.” Actually, I first noticed the story while I was on the internet admiring the wave of interest in our “Floatovoltaic” solar system, (see last week’s blog).

There was a short intro to a story being covered by the New York Times. They are reputable, so I clicked on it. Wouldn’t (more...)

Date: May 30, 2008 3:50 AM

What floats?

“Ducks” and “rocks…little rocks” were the right answers to that question…if you know the proper scene in Monty Python’s The Holy Grail.

It turns out that electricity can float, too. At least it can float on top of our pond.

Ever since James Bond zapped the bad guy by tossing an appliance into the tub, surveyed the scene and uttered his classic line, “shocking,” I have understood that voltage and water were a bad combination.

But, (more...)

Date: May 20, 2008 8:53 AM

Bob

Sometimes it feels as if everything has already been said or written about Robert Mondavi. Understand, he was already an icon when I was trying to get into the wine industry 25 years ago. To read about him while I was at UC Davis was to be presented with a personality that was wine royalty; as far away and mythical as Baron Philippe de Rothschild.

It would be easy to talk about what a tireless and (more...)

Date: May 16, 2008 4:08 AM

Hot Update…

Farmers like to talk about the weather. Actually, we prefer to complain about it. Some of us aren’t into discussing sports…the weather is easier, it’s always changing, and we know that steroids aren’t involved in all those weather records.

A few weeks ago, we were protecting our vineyards from frost. Aaron and crew proudly wear their “ Battle for Barrow –Frost 2008” hats (in reference to a vineyard that needed particularly vigilant care.)

“Weather…Wait a few minutes and (more...)

Date: May 12, 2008 4:20 AM

Look at the Sunflower

After my brief discussion last week of “Biodynamic wine-writing,” it seems like a good time to look into the vineyards. We are attacking weeds, (organically).

You remember from your childhood that a weed is defined as anything that is growing in the wrong place. (For instance, I love redwood trees…I just think that they are best near the coast, well away from Oakville Cabernet vines...where I would classify them as “weeds.”) If we are attacking weeds, (more...)

Date: April 30, 2008 1:17 AM

Oakville Wine Growers

The Oakville Wine Growers just had their annual Taste of Oakville tasting. I think it is as good a showcase of an appellation as can be found. Even though Oakville is tiny – about 2400 acres – it has remarkable variation in soils, drainage and exposure. The resulting wines reflect these differences. The vineyards and the wineries are among the most sought after producers of cabernet within Napa Valley. In short, Oakville = Cabernet. There is likely more (more...)

Date: April 25, 2008 10:56 AM

Before and After…

What is it about “Before and After” pictures that always makes us look? Maybe it is just the “people watching” nature that lurks inside each of us. It could be our societal obsession with diets.

Since most of us don’t check out vineyards or viticulture magazines, I thought it was time to mention that we are thinning (This is not a personal weight loss statement nor is it any indication of how “folliclely challenged” I (more...)

Date: April 22, 2008 4:29 AM

Waiting for Bloom

Winemakers love to talk about bloom. It sounds so dramatic. None of the vineyards are close to bloom yet. That starts next month…assuming we can get through this frost season which has been among the worst in 30 years. I would complain about our frost (and it has damaged this year’s shoots and crop) but Sunday I got a call from my brother in Portland and it was snowing up there. I am sure that (more...)

Date: April 18, 2008 4:26 AM

Lost and Found...

This is the last entry this week about desserts. (Next week I may be able to get back to what is going on in the vineyards.) I thought you should see something that came out of our tasting group that includes chefs, winemakers, hospitality and even management!

Face it, when Abi said that he was going to make “French Toast”, we didn’t do back flips or say “stop the presses”. Actually, he was too cultured and (more...)

Date: April 16, 2008 3:36 AM

Beware: Dessert Development in Progress

After mentioning Mustard’s desserts last time, I thought I should say that we spend a lot of time thinking about desserts, and even more time about what desserts go best with Dolce. (I fall into the school that sometimes Dolce is dessert enough on its own…)

While I am used to tasting wines for work, (It is part of my career and it lets me complain about how unpleasant young red wines are at 8 a.m.) (more...)

Date: April 14, 2008 2:51 AM

Recommendations from a Sweet Tooth

Do you ever get a craving for dessert? I have a sweet tooth. (Since it has always been that way, it must be genetic and I can blame it on my parents.) It could explain the creation of Dolce...a good thing. Heck, as a kid, I used to sell the marbles I won at school so I could finance my after-school pastry habit. (Eclaire, Mille Feuille, Pain au Chocolat were the pastries of choice.)

My wife (more...)

Date: April 10, 2008 1:42 AM

Your Futures…(A Baker’s Dozen)

We tend to believe that we can have but one Future and it is mercifully unknown.

Maybe I have read too much fiction, but we can prove that you can enjoy multiple Futures – at least 13 to be precise. No, you don’t have to be schizophrenic to enjoy all of them but you do have to make arrangements between now (April) and then (August 31^st). You even get to choose your own “Futures”!

Each spring we (more...)

Date: March 31, 2008 3:16 AM

Sounds Like...

Do you ever think about the sounds of a particular place? How about the sounds of a particular time? I just got back from skiing (actually, FANTASTIC spring skiing in Sun Valley with six inches perfect powder on Friday night…). These two valleys, Napa and Sun Valley, sound completely different.

Beautiful Bald Mountain in Sun Valley, Idaho
© Sun Valley Resort

This morning in St. Helena, it was cold. That is, cold for Napa Valley with tender shoots exposed. It was cold enough for (more...)

Date: March 21, 2008 3:39 AM

It's Not Broken

“Bud Break” What’s that? Usually when something “breaks”, it is a bad thing. In the case of buds in Napa Valley, it means only one thing; Spring is here. It means that pruning better be about done, and the frost systems better be working. (Sometimes we don’t prune until we see growth because late pruning delays the real growth by a week or two (or it means we are behind and it gives us more time (more...)

Date: March 12, 2008 12:30 PM

Gotta Love It…

Last weekend we had Nickel & Nickel’s Spring Release tasting. There were lots of our wine club members, friends, and even those new recruits who were curious enough to stop in and try our latest single-vineyard wines.

The wines were great and people had fun (I think) but there was one conversation that day that stands out in my mind. It reminded me why we work at these wineries. It’s simple. We love wine. It seems (more...)

Date: March 05, 2008 2:28 AM

What Counts

I admit it, I am organizationally challenged. I could be part of a self help group, “Hi, my name is Dirk, and I am messy.” But, it wouldn’t work. My desk is in need of a small fire, (nothing above three alarms). No amount of suggestions, cognitive behavioral therapy, or guilt has overcome this trait that I realize is genetic. (It’s great to be able to pass on the blame to someone else.)

My desk drawer

Date: March 03, 2008 11:41 AM

Over a Barrel

I should be writing about the spring release wines because Nickel & Nickel will be showing its newest wines next weekend, but they will speak for themselves, and I had barrels on the brain today.

I love barrels. It’s hard to be a winemaker and not be fascinated by them. Barrels haven’t changed much over the last few hundred years, except that they sure have gotten more expensive. (I know that noticing the price of things (more...)

Date: February 25, 2008 8:12 AM

Finishing School

While great wines must have a long, even lingering, finish today’s blog is addressing the questions people have been asking about our horses that should be in the corrals by Highway 29.

Our horses are off at “finishing school.” If you ask me, “finishing school” is a misnomer. It seems that the whole idea of “finishing school” is to get one “started”…not “finished.”

Penny and Pearl , who started as cute little colts last year, have turned into cute (more...)

Date: February 22, 2008 3:30 AM

Premier Napa Valley

Have you heard of Premier Napa Valley? (PRE-MEER) (They pronounce the second “R” here while in France it would sound like ‘prem-ee-yah’)

In Burgundy they have the Hospice de Beaune (pronounced Bone). They call “Futures” En Primeur (PRE_MUR) Here we have pre-meer! (Confusing) It is a really cool barrel tasting and auction…of course you can’t actually attend unless you are a wine professional. (I think there is a chance that you could injure your palate on all these young barrel samples (more...)

Date: February 08, 2008 4:15 AM

New Barn going up…Pass the Trunnel

If you have driven up Highway 29 recently, you have probably wondered, “What’s going on at Nickel & Nickel?” While I would like to think that everyone is thinking thoughts like this, all the time, it’s because it’s hard to miss noticing the post and beam frame going up behind the Sullenger House.

New Fermentation Barn Constrution at Nickel & Nickel

Last weekend we had a lot of wine club members stop by to taste. They (more...)

Date: January 31, 2008 3:14 PM

Time Flies…or Crawls, when you are enthusiastic

Far Niente is releasing its 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon on Saturday. There will be lots of wine lovers, friends and believers in our caves enjoying their first encounter with this special wine.

It feels as if it was only a few months ago that we were so thrilled with the grapes and the fermentations that we couldn’t wait to tell everyone and have them try this incredible vintage. It also feels as if we have been suppressing (more...)

Date: January 25, 2008 12:32 PM

Hybrid...ization

News Flash: Hybridization happening in Oakville . Seven affected! Nickel & Nickel winemaker adjusts to hybridization. Far Niente winemaker soon to be hybridized too.

My grandfather was a California farmer who loved to hybridize roses and fruit trees. (He went to Davis before it was a UC!) Of course, I didn’t know what a hybrid was. Instead, I was fascinated by his apple tree that had several varieties grafted onto it.

Stay away from me, fossil fuel!

Have you ever asked or even wondered (more...)

Date: January 17, 2008 3:00 PM

It's supposed to look like that.

When I look at Far Niente, I think "it's supposed to look like that." After all, it does look like "that." (Logical, eh?)

We just found some of the original studies from 1980 when Gil was setting about restoring the beautiful stone winery.

Ron Nunn was the architect. (Later on, Ron would design the Far Niente "Carriage House" as well as the villa Gil and Beth called home.)

We tend to gush when we talk about Ron. (more...)

Date: January 11, 2008 4:30 PM

Pioneer Wine

I love running into our wines when I am on vacation. (I don’t think it is the greedy commercial side of me, but who can be certain?) Actually, finding our wine leads to sharing and making friends. Isn’t that at the heart of wine’s place throughout the ages?

The Pioneer Saloon in Ketchum , Idaho loves Nickel & Nickel. Just about everyone who goes skiing in Sun Valley ends up in The Pioneer Saloon. You should check it out whenever (more...)

Date: December 20, 2007 2:16 PM

Internet May Eliminate the Corkscrew!

I have seen the future. It is in France and it is on the internet. I could even say that it is the internet. Wine on-line isn’t new. Wine in-line is! Even more compelling, it could provide the perfect gift for that wine person in your life.

Of course, I am talking about USB-Wine.

USB-Wine is the perfect size item to fit in a stocking. It shows clean design and is made out of the highest quality stainless (more...)

Date: December 12, 2007 2:00 PM

Flying Pump

It usually takes pumps to make wine. Therefore, winemakers notice pumps. We know they are cool…we just don’t say it in public because people will look at us in strange ways.

Last weekend I got to talk with one of my heroes. Of course, I didn’t really know that Guy was one of my heroes until I found out what he does. He flies helicopters and fights fires. How cool is that? He gets to fly (more...)

Date: December 04, 2007 4:10 PM

Stress Relief Mystery... Dolce Winemaker Blows a Gasket

Winemakers have plenty of stress. Everyone’s job has stress. Even Wile E. Coyote has stress in…a comic sort of way.

Making Dolce has the added stress of never knowing if we will get fruit until it is picked. The early fall rains along with the dry Indian summer helped Dolce this year. Greg finished picking just after Thanksgiving.

Until Greg started branding barrels, we didn’t realize the extreme pressure that had built up. He was saved by (more...)

Date: November 30, 2007 3:30 PM

Triangle Tasting 101

Winemaker types have plenty of tastings at the winery to help us make wine. We have tastings that help us learn about ripeness, fining, pump-overs, vineyards, etc. Over Thanksgiving, I was faced with a new tasting quandary. Can you taste something that is tasteless?

I don't mean that it is in bad taste like daytime TV with Jerry Springer. I mean that it is devoid of flavor. Light beer doesn't have flavor. I know, it is (more...)

Date: November 20, 2007 10:45 AM

A Different Kind of Harvest

While we have been picking Dolce in recent days - whenever Greg finds the perfect fruit and conditions - today’s blog is about a different harvest. We have started our first ever olive harvest at Nickel & Nickel. (We are not going into the olive oil business…it’s kind of greasy if you ask me…and we don’t know the price of a barrel of oil.)

A few years ago, we transplanted a bunch of olive trees around (more...)

Date: November 14, 2007 4:01 PM

Colors

How to make everyone look like he came out of a Jackson Pollack painting!

Cellar types love to celebrate the end of harvest. (Of course, Dolce isn’t done with harvest but why let that get in the way.) In previous years, we have had outings to other wineries, lunch at fancy restaurants, and even a day at the go karts (Nicole remains the most “polite” racer of all time – she kept checking for her turn indicator (more...)

Date: November 08, 2007 1:07 PM

Shovel Faster!!!

Since it is November, it would be reasonable to assume that harvest is over. Wrong…

We are still pressing off the last of the red fermenters. (Actually, harvest is going strong because we just started harvesting the first botrytised berries this week for Dolce.)

You may think that the pommace, (fancy word for fermented grape skins), arrive in the press by magic. In fact, someone has to get in each tank and shovel everything through the (more...)

Date: October 29, 2007 12:24 PM

Wine and Baseball???

“What wine goes with that?” That question is usually reserved for pairings with food, but it can apply to events, too.

I was in Boston last week. (I was in Concord, too, but didn’t see a single red coat there.) It was an exciting time and place to be conducting a tasting featuring the 2004 Nickel & Nickel Cabernets that were released last month. (While the Cabs taste great and are almost sold out, all the excitement was (more...)

Date: October 17, 2007 3:09 PM

Harvest Time = Time to Eat

Harvest is nearly complete (except for Dolce, which takes some sort of perverse pride in coming in LAST). (OK, so Dolce comes in last each time…but it has great self esteem!)

Everyone is tired. What is the solution? Let someone else do the cooking!

A couple of days ago, Beth brought dinner for all of the Nickel & Nickel cellar guys. The family recipe resulted in total quiet and cleared plates. (It was a heck of (more...)

Date: October 15, 2007 1:38 PM

Feel “The Force”

Did you feel a tremor in ‘The Force’ on Tuesday of last week? You may be wondering what caused it. We did! (We didn’t need the help of Jedi knights either.)

Nickel & Nickel threw the switch and is now solar powered. According to Greg, our Dolce winemaker and resident royal solar geek, we are capturing and converting enough sunlight to cause a 330kW tremor in the force. (Please remember that we are past the crusades, (more...)

Date: September 26, 2007 4:18 PM

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream.

Winemakers never sleep well during harvest. When I was dreaming of becoming a winemaker, it never occurred to me that sleep was one of the ways to pay for making a dream become a reality. Perhaps midnight worrying is how we care and make it right.

The 2007 harvest is going great. The grapes are slowly ripening. Our winemakers are on top of it. And still, last night I had a hard time sleeping. Why? I (more...)

Date: September 19, 2007 3:55 PM

Tasting Grapes & Burrito Time!

It has been cool here. At the risk of being politically incorrect, we could use a little global warming for the next week or two so the crop can get fully ripe. I know, that is soooo short sighted. (We don’t need more CO2, just a little bit of heat here and leave all glaciers intact.) Since it is only mid-September and the vineyards look perfect, this is the usual thing winemakers like to do: (more...)

Date: September 18, 2007 2:05 PM

Permit Me...

We have our permit. Not just any permit. (In wine there are about a bazillion permits that are required.) Today’s permit is a building permit. With it, we can start building another fermentation barn at Nickel & Nickel. That may seem like a yawner but for those who have dealt with jumping through all the hoops for a use permit or a building permit related to wine in Napa Valley, you know that this is a major (more...)

Date: September 07, 2007 11:01 AM

News flash...Harvest...Under the Lights

When we were young, only the BIGGEST games were played "under the lights." Guess what? Our grapes are getting picked "under the lights." (You have to conclude that this is BIG.) You have to also realize that this isn't so much a nighttime event as it is an early morning start. I am not quite certain when night becomes morning, but it is early enough that I would rather be in bed trying to hog (more...)

Date: August 27, 2007 3:28 PM

Lightning Strikes…TWICE…

When I hear about lightning striking, I always think of pro golfer Lee Travino. He was struck twice! What are the odds on THAT? (Internet sources put getting hit once at 1:280,000 to 1:700,000 and I don’t know the math for the second electron blast.)

During the harvest of 2004, it felt as if lightning struck us when we accidentally blended two tanks during the hectic period of pump-overs. Unfortunately, our one tank of 2004 (more...)

Date: August 15, 2007 3:05 PM

Blue Smiles...

If you are in our wine club, you may have noticed that you have already been receiving (and if all is going properly, even consumed) some of our Nickel & Nickel 2004 single-vineyard Cabernets. If you aren’t in the club, then last weekend marked the release of that small but very ripe vintage. All of the blue smiles could only mean one thing… they liked the wines! We had a bunch of people come to (more...)

Date: August 09, 2007 2:21 PM

Surf’s Up…Catching the Wave on CNN

Normally, when someone says, “Surf’s Up,” I think about Southern California beaches. Yesterday, we saw that Far Niente was being covered in the Travel section of CNN.com. Of course, I couldn’t figure out how to surf to the right place until someone gave me a link, the technology version of training wheels. (Here, you may use my training wheels by clicking on this link: Far Niente on CNN)

How is it that I can read an interview about (more...)

Date: July 31, 2007 10:44 AM

V Week…

At this time of year, “V” usually makes winemakers think of veraison. (That is the viticulturist term for when the grapes turn color and you are into the home stretch of ripening for harvest.)

At Nickel & Nickel, V Week is when the V Foundation has its annual fund raiser to get the dough to fight cancer through research. What they and their benefactors do is as inspirational as it gets. The V Foundation was started (more...)

Date: July 24, 2007 4:08 PM

Nice Fiddle…

Joshua Bell (very famous violinist whose name you should know how to drop) wowed us on his fiddle last week before a late night dinner under the stars at Far Niente.

I am not positive, but I am reasonably certain, that you aren’t supposed to call a Stradivarius Violin a ‘fiddle’. While the instrument is beautiful, it is how a master uses it that really counts. Joshua Bell showed us why (and HOW) he gets to (more...)

Date: July 17, 2007 1:23 PM

Lights... Camera... Action?

Greg, our Dolce winemaker, and I were recently captured on video. No, it was not a store security camera, but we have since been released on our own. No, it doesn’t have any bearing on the existence of Sasquatch, Nessie, or alien activity. The link to view the video is at the end of this post.

We aren’t exactly candidates yet for America ’s funniest home winemaking videos. No one trips, plays with food, or gets hit (more...)

Date: July 11, 2007 11:48 AM

Far Niente Sponsors

Far Niente Sponsors "Golfer" for AT&T Pro-Am Tournament

Who cares about trophies? (In the wine world there are bronze medals, silver medals, gold medals….Double GOLD medals, even BEST OF SHOW medals and more) but those aren’t a TROPHY are they?

Larry has a TROPHY! It’s on his desk and it is cool, but we can’t tell him that. (If my kids were writing this they might say it’s kewl, but I am too old to ever get (more...)

Date: July 06, 2007 10:58 AM

Tools of the Trade

I use many tools that help me grow our grapes. I’ll bet you could guess some of the more obvious ones, like a tractor or shovel. Those are reasonable choices. But, what about my weather station, pressure bomb or sunflower? These things are super important to my job, and you could probably never guess what they do, (especially since their names do nothing to describe their function). In order to add to your grape-growing lexicon, (more...)

Date: June 29, 2007 2:01 PM

You Want Me To Do What?

Dirk is away on vacation for the next few weeks. He is off to Sun Valley to join the other dudes at the ranch to learn about ropin’ animals, livin’ off the land, and being an all around cowboy…howdy y’all. As I have been the “star” of several of Dirk’s blogs, he thought I would be the perfect person to fill in for him during his absence. My name is Aaron and I am the Viticulturist for (more...)

Date: June 21, 2007 3:00 PM

Descartes

I just finished a book on Descartes, the French mathematician and philosopher. (I mostly wanted someone to know I had read a book that sounded as if it were intellectually significant and might be otherwise as dry as saltines without milk.) Descartes was the guy who managed to inter-relate algebra and geometry, about 500 years ago, but may be best remembered for writing, “I think, therefore, I am.” Obviously that is more significant than “Bibo, (more...)

Date: June 11, 2007 11:58 AM

Beware: Wildflowers Encroaching on Highway

Without knowing it, we ended up needing an “Encroachment Permit”! I can hear comedy fans saying; “Riiight…What’s an Encroachment Permit?” Of course, none of us knew we were headed towards this official bureaucratic entanglement process because… we were only planting wildflowers between our horse corral and Highway 29! (This may be another classic case of “no good deed goes unpunished.”)

In a wintery moment of unbridled (that is a horsey reference) enthusiasm, Daniel, our landscape wizard, (more...)

Date: May 25, 2007 4:02 PM

You Are Here…

Don’t you hate those signs at malls that have a red dot on the map and read, “You are Here”? Of course, I am here…where else could I be while I try to look at the map and find where I WANT to be! Duh… (In spite of popular opinion, guys do stop to get directions. We just don’t do that while we could be driving.)

We have just started using a GPS unit to start (more...)

Date: May 17, 2007 8:10 AM

April Showers Bring May Flowers…also…(Skunks still Stink)

I was going to write this blog entry about Aaron taking a direct shot from a skunk, but it turned out the grower’s dog took the blast, and qualifies as “Man’s ‘Smelliest’ Best Friend.” (Aaron did the only intelligent thing. He ran away!) Almost made us want to sing the song about “Brave Sir Robin” from “Search for the Holy Grail” (but people pay good money to be sure that I NEVER attempt to carry (more...)

Date: May 07, 2007 3:41 PM

Whoooooooo...

Ornithology is gaining momentum at Nickel & Nickel these days! Owls are the hot topic here. (Actually, they help the vineyards.) Last year I told our wine club about a family of Great Horned Owls that nested in the old valley oak beside the Sullenger House. “They’re Baackkkkk!” From my point of view, this offers some of the best bird watching anywhere. Granted, we don’t have that many different types of birds to identify but (more...)

Date: April 19, 2007 2:33 PM

Back to the “Futures”!

While we didn’t have a stainless steel DeLorean with a “Mr. Fusion” to take us back to the “Futures,” we did have plenty of single-vineyard Cabernets from the wonderful 2006 harvest to reserve as futures at Nickel & Nickel this past Saturday, April 14^th. The official start of the futures season at Nickel &Nickel is on the 28^thof April. However, we arranged a preview tasting on the 14^th for those who bought futures last (more...)

Date: April 13, 2007 4:20 PM

Fun Fund-Raising in Napa Valley

Napa Valley's biggest and most famous fund-raiser is The Napa Valley Wine Auction. (There must be at least a dozen wine auctions in Napa each year.) However, there is a smaller auction that I like to recommend: "Festa," put on by the parents of the St. Helena Montessori School. This is not the bake sale of my youth! There were over a dozen outstanding local restaurants and two dozen equally prestigious wineries at this year's (more...)

Date: April 03, 2007 9:42 AM

Opening Day

"Baseball, Hotdogs, Apple pie and Chardonnay" if you remember the old Chevrolet jingle, you will know how to say that line..

Today is opening day for the Giants. Wish I were there! If you haven't ever been to Pac Bell Park...alias SBC Park now going through another identity crisis as AT&T Park, YOU HAVE TO GO.

I am not a crazed baseball fanatic. Sure, I grew up reading about Dizzy Dean( a pitcher who later became an (more...)

Date: March 29, 2007 1:47 PM

The Wine & Golf "Top Ten"

We did it! We succeeded at combining wine and golf, or I should say golf and wine? Let me explain. (…or I could just ‘whine’ about my golf)

At last year’s Auction Napa Valley, which combines wine, fun and excitement to benefit local healthcare, and others, we donated a pro-am golf event that was combined with a special dinner prepared by our winery executive chef, Abi Martinez. We then matched it with a number of our wines. Our friends (more...)

Date: March 23, 2007 11:39 AM

Tractor Blight

Before school yesterday my daughter noticed an over sized tractor in the vineyard beside Dragonfly. She noticed that it kept running into the vines and said, “He is a really BAD tractor driver!” (After all, each collision was popping another cabernet vine out of the ground.) Usually it is called ‘Tractor Blight’ when vines are lost to bad driving…

Our neighbors were ripping out the last of their old head-trained cabernet vines to make room for (more...)

Date: March 16, 2007 4:26 PM

When is Harvest Over?

You may think harvest is over. If fermentation counts as part of harvest (and for winemakers, it does), then Dolce is the Energizer Battery Bunny of the harvest world…”Still Going!!!” Greg and I just looked at the 2006 Dolce.

Yes, we stopped crushing last fall. All of our Far Niente and Nickel & Nickel wines have finished fermentation. They completed ML fermentations (I generally avoid any talk of pH and ML since they are proven ‘wine-geek’ (more...)

Date: March 07, 2007 11:33 AM

FUELing Our Desire for Tanks

We are ordering tanks for a new fermentation barn. Of course, we haven’t started construction yet…details! At least we know where we are going build it.

You would think that ordering a new wine tank would be easy. Actually, it is easy. One purchase order and a dump-truckload of money. However, getting it can be a tad more challenging.

Since most of us have less experience buying wine tanks than, say, something like a car, let’s review (more...)

Date: February 28, 2007 10:19 AM

Boring....

OK, I admit it. We are Boring. (Today only) Actually, today Greg, our Dolce winemaker and resident engineer geek, is the one who is really boring! It's not what you think. He hasn't descended into terminal wine-talk that relies on the recitation of all his Spectator scores over 90 points. (While lengthy and impressive, it is hardly more educational or interesting than my vacation slide show.) But I digress...often.

Really, we are boring. It is a (more...)

Date: February 22, 2007 2:13 PM

It’s February. It Must be Napa Valley!

What is my favorite month of the year in Napa Valley? Since I am not getting married (fortunately, the right gal had a moment of confusion and said yes a long time ago!), I don’t have to consider August and September when the weather and the traffic are legendary. Since I am a winemaker by training, I am often too busy to marvel at the special spot we call home during the months of October (more...)

Date: February 20, 2007 9:20 AM

New Math 2007=4705?

As I drove to work this morning, I learned that it is the year of the Boar. There are about to be all sorts of Chinese New Year celebrations to mark the start of the year 4705. I hope that I am not the only one who is confused by dates, times, time travel, etc. But they did say 4705!!! (I have trouble keeping track of vintages! But, I know we just finished the harvest (more...)

Date: February 12, 2007 1:16 PM

A Guy's Guide to Avoiding a Train Wreck

I recently read an article on what to give for Valentines Day. It is abundantly clear that "guys" need these sorts of advice columns. Of course, the average guy may have to start with the basics, Feb 14^th is Valentines Day! (For those of us who have flunked Anniversary Recollection 101, just remembering the date for a valentine can be a major victory.) Genetically some of us are also "consumer challenged", even I, your Valentine (more...)

Date: February 08, 2007 11:14 AM

Spelunking Leads to Treasure!

Last Saturday hundreds of intrepid spelunkers were rewarded for venturing underground in Far Niente's Oakville caves. They knew what they were looking for. It was the unveiling of the Far Niente 2004 Cabernet. You should have been there. It is the first time that we welcomed our wine club to taste the new wine while they could explore throughout the maze of caves.

I avoided the valet parkers (not ready to trust them with my new wheels (more...)

Date: February 02, 2007 12:04 PM

2004 Far Niente Cabernet Release!

Tomorrow we are releasing our 2004 Far Niente Cabernet. To state the obvious, time seems to be going faster. While I am sure that relativity applies, and that the speed of time and light haven’t changed in Oakville, I am terrible at physics so I’m comfortable with knowing it has ended up faster FOR ME!

Winemakers tend to think of years in terms of vintages. Instead of assessing a year from January through December, I am like (more...)

Date: January 25, 2007 8:17 AM

Future of Soccer in America Linked to Far Niente

This week we found out something about our wine from Sports Illustrated. Wine is important in sports! Dare I say in this case that…wine may be critical to a turning point in sporting history, even though it does not contain steroids?

The BIG news is that David Beckham is coming to play in LA. (If you didn’t know, he is a soccer megastar…or as it is known in the rest of the world, football.) If you (more...)

Date: January 18, 2007 3:54 PM

2006 Nickel & Nickel Cabernets

Yesterday morning we tasted over 30 Nickel & Nickel Cabernets from the 2006 vintage.

Wine in the morning?!! Erggg it is such an assault to one’s palate. (Maybe that extra sensitivity is why we are better tasters in the morning.) Any thought that wine tasting for production is glamorous, only needs to meet young cabernet at 8 a.m. to have a reality check.

The first sip, as usual, caused my eyes to squint shut as my (more...)

Date: January 11, 2007 3:21 PM

Snow Fever

Due to “Snow Fever”, I haven’t had anything to add to our blog in a few weeks. Most people at the winery know that I get snow fever.

Sun Valley Idaho may be the best place to deal with that particular affliction. Writing a blog is difficult while on vacation, especially if I don’t bring the computer and don’t have internet. Actually, we don’t even have cable TV which may disqualify us from being part of (more...)

Date: December 20, 2006 9:53 AM

Great Cellar Rip-off

The Great Cellar Rip-off has always happened at the end of the year. We haven't ever reported it to the police. I guess you don't report traditions that include willful and assisted grand larceny. Years ago Gil, the founder of Far Niente, used to invite Larry and me to "The Great Cellar Rip-off". Our thinking was that we had survived another year in the wine business so, whether it had been a great year...or a tough (more...)

Date: December 13, 2006 3:02 PM

Abi..."What's for Lunch?"

We enjoy work. Actually, we love making wine but sometimes work is more fun than other times. (Its NOT fun when the grapes are almost ripe, and it starts to rain.) Obviously there are plenty of things we do that are not directly related to grape growing and winemaking. (Everyone in business, except Laura, (our CFO who professes to have a small but persistent problem with addition,) would rather have a root canal than do budgets.)

Then there (more...)

Date: December 07, 2006 2:18 PM

Saint Nicholas Day

Today is Saint Nicholas Day but I won’t get this posted until tomorrow…so you missed it! We have a thing about St. Nick’s day. This day captures a little wine whimsy. (That is a characteristic that can be in short supply in the wine world. Get Serious!) Ask the average person, “What is the date of St. Nicholas Day?” and he will likely stare blankly before quietly asking if it is December 25th. (Nope…December 6th, (more...)

Date: November 29, 2006 11:54 AM

Bonfire Destroys Vines!

Part of Stelling Vineyard burst into flames yesterday. That sounds pretty dramatic… Of course, vines don’t just explode into flames (except when Hollywood is involved). OK, it was on purpose. But, vines did burn.

We pulled the vines after harvest and piled them up to dry…waiting for the BIG day. I had never appreciated the repressed pyrotechnic fascination that lurks inside most viticulturists. They like bonfires. BIG BONFIRES!

Thinking back to my childhood, maybe I should have (more...)

Date: November 22, 2006 3:11 PM

What to Choose...

Everyone talks about turkeys. What wine goes with turkey? The real question should be, “What wine doesn’t go with turkey?” This is such a wine-geeky area. We talk about choosing wines for the holidays. There are lots of ways to choose. Big wines, food wines, big bottles, wine-in-a-box, cheap, expensive, impressive, obscure, old, red, white, (pink too), new-world, old-world, variety, single-vineyard, winemaker, label art, etc.

Wine is to be shared. It is to be enjoyed. It (more...)

Date: November 16, 2006 4:13 PM

Wanna Bet?

Some people make wagers for money. We take our bets very seriously. We have to bet for something more meaningful than greenbacks. It’s important. So what is more important than money?

Easy…we bet for milkshakes! Not just any milkshake, we are talking milkshakes from Taylor’s Refresher, www.taylorsrefresher.com. (Remember, we make wine and we pay attention to flavors and texture to a ridiculous degree.) It’s our job. A Taylor’s shake is the only one that counts (more...)

Date: November 09, 2006 12:20 PM

Time to Press

We are pressing off Cabernet. There is plenty of debate between winemakers, marketing people, and equipment suppliers as to what is the best way to press. Basket press versus membrane press? Moderate press versus heavy press? Heck, there may even be biodynamic pressing that waits for a full moon…(let’s not go there.)

We aren’t waiting for cow’s horn, snake oil, or the phase of the moon. It is time to capture the best flavors possible from (more...)

Date: November 03, 2006 1:30 PM

Time Out from Pump-Overs for a Drive!

(All the Cabernet is in…lots of fermentations…Dolce harvest underway)

We had some “WOW” cars visit Far Niente this week. As you may know, we enjoy cars at Far Niente. Gil loved and raced cars. The faster, the better!

Boys-n-Toys! What ever you call it, we feel some of the same passion and craftsmanship that is in fine wine is equally present and enjoyable in special cars. (Separately of course.)

Robb Report magazine is trying out 10 of the (more...)

Date: October 31, 2006 2:22 PM

Ending Cabernet Harvest

Far Niente and Nickel & Nickel are in a rush to get the last of the Cabernet picked in the next few days. There’s a chance of rain later this week. To fit it in, we have to make room by pressing off some tanks that have completed fermentation.

The Cabernets taste fantastic! (That is my unbiased opinion…you wouldn’t want to hear it when I get really enthusiastic.) I ran into another winemaker at the Oakville (more...)

Date: October 24, 2006 8:29 AM

Tasting Grapes

I have been out in the vineyards with our winemakers. Sure it is fantastically beautiful, but we are spending most of the time concentrating on the vineyards, the state of the vines, and mostly on the grapes themselves. Although we’re finished with Chardonnay, most of our Cabernet is still out on the vine. We are asking ourselves what do the grapes taste like and will these make the best wines? Is it going to rain? (more...)

Date: October 20, 2006 1:17 PM

Harvest Beginnings

We have started harvest. We knew it was going to be late, but we also thought it was going to be a quick one. This cool weather has us still waiting…and waiting…and waiting for perfect ripeness to develop. So much for quick, but great may well be possible.

Actually, it is still too early to have very strong convictions as to how great we think the quality of 2006 will prove to be, but we (more...)

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