December 16, 2011                                                                

You don’t really need a weather station to tell you its cold when there is a heavy frost outside, but it is still interesting to look at the temperature data at Savoy vineyard for the first two weeks of December. We had a ten day run of clear nights and hard frosts in the morning while the afternoon temperatures warmed to around 60°F. This week, the fog has rolled into the valley most nights keeping the temperatures well above freezing.

December 13, 2011

Our Donnelly Creek and Filigreen Pinot Gris are now done fermenting and the blending trials to put together our 2011 Anderson Valley Pinot Gris are underway. There are a number of components to play with including, lots fermented in stainless steel tanks, neutral French oak barrels, our 900 gallon oak cask, and our Nomblot concrete egg. Most of the lots in tank and cask fermented completely dry while the barrel ferments still have a small amount of residual sugar that helps add weight and texture to the wine. We will put together dozens of blends over the next two months with a final blend going to tank in March.

The odd looking machine in the background of the photo is an old centrifuge we use to spin down samples of wine. Having only just finished fermenting, the wines still have lots of yeast suspended in solution, resembling something like a Hefeweizen. Centrifuging settles out all of the cells and gives us an idea of what the wine will taste like once all of the yeast settles out.

November 14, 2011

As soon as harvest is complete each autumn, vineyards are typically sprinkled with a cover crop that grows throughout the winter.  These seeds help build soil structure, prevent erosion, and return nutrients to the vineyard. This year we are experimenting with an insectiary mix of seeds that includes native flowers, which attract beneficial insects that prey on many of the pests that give us headaches in the vineyard including leaf hoppers, thrips, and mites. Bringing in these beneficial insects to control pests is an important part of sustainable farming, allowing us to avoid using insecticides at Savoy.

Fermenting Pinot Noir must from Donnelly Creek is pumped through an irrigator which gently splashes the must over the cap of grapes that forms during the fermentation. Pumpovers improve extraction and help keep the cap from over heating.

Pressing Ferrington Pinot Noir in our Coquard Bucket Press.  We harvested our first Pinot on September 23 and after 19 days on the skins it is ready to press. I find that long maceration help build intensity and texture in our Pinots.

For our harvest luncheon the caterer paired three delicious cheeses with clusters of Chardonnay grapes from Savoy Vineyard. We picked the Chardonnay early in the morning and were loading the press when our guests arrived. In addition to eating the grapes with cheese everyone got to try the fresh juice straight from the press and watch as barrels were filled.

Our Cellar Master is loading the press with Ferrington Vineyard Gewürztraminer. Our first grapes of 2011! The juice is pressing at 22.7° Brix and tastes great! From the press the juice is pumped into a settling tank where it will chill over night and tomorrow be racked to neutral French oak barrels for an indigenous fermentation.

Unlike most other varieties, we pick Gewürztraminer on appearance as much as flavor or chemistry. With Pinot or Chardonnay, I typically walk the vineyard tasting berries for flavor and acid balance. But with Gewurztraminer, many of the aroma compounds that make the variety so distinctive are bound to sugars and can’t really be tasted until after fermentation. The surest way to know the flavors are ready is to look at the clusters and when the berries turn from greenish yellow to a lovely shade of pink it is time to pick.

Walking through Savoy this afternoon I came across this little bird nest tucked in a Pinot Noir vine. A nice reminder of the many benefits of sustainable farming!

Last year we purchased a 900 gallon oak oval fermenter. Ovals are traditionally used in Alsace and Germany for fermenting and aging aromatic whites and we loved the idea of trying one out on our Anderson Valley Pinot Gris. Large oak fermenters are usually only very lightly toasted and don’t impart nearly as much oak flavor as a regular barrel. Even so, I decided to temper the oval by fermenting Savoy Chardonnay in the oval for about ten days, once the Chardonnay was nearly dry, we put it down to barrel and refilled the oval with Pinot Gris juice. After we bottle our Anderson Valley Pinot Gris in the spring we filled it with 2010 Anderson Valley Chardonnay that we had fermented in small barrels. Aging our Anderson Valley Chardonnay in the oval for five months helped preserve the purity of fruit and build texture.