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Yountville, CA

Temperature: 59°F
Humidity: 77.0%
Wind: ENE at 5 mph
Clouds: Clear Skies
Sunrise: 5:57 am GMT-8
Sunset: 8:14 pm GMT-8
Updated: 3:54 am GMT-8

May 2008
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Old World, New World…

May 9, 2008 in Answers. 3 Comments

Question from Lisa: Hi Nancy, I’m trying to understand the philosophical differences in wine making between old world and new world wines. Thank you for your time.

Reply: Hi, Lisa! Thanks for writing! Complicated question, so bear with me…

The lines between new world and old-world styles have begun to blur a bit but, classically, new-world wines are bigger, more fruit forward, softer of acid and higher in alcohol than old world wines. New-world wines may be more likely to display conspicuous oak but, with the powerful wine writers rewarding big, fruit-forward wines that have noticeable oak, some of the winemakers in Europe have adjusted their approach.

With the ease of communication and travel, there are fewer and fewer differences in winemaking. It’s extremely common for aspiring European winemakers to do internships at new-world wineries and vice versa. If I cite a general difference, old-world winemakers are more likely to rely on tradition and what they learned from Dad and Grandad in their approach. Most new-world wine regions don’t have the kind of history they do in Europe, so they tend to be more analytical about what they do, and why, and rely on research more than tradition. You’ll probably find a higher percentage of wineries with “high-tech” equipment, using cutting-edge techniques in the new world than you might in the old world. These are gross generalizations because you can find very traditional wineries right next door to cutting-edge ones in any wine region.

If you’re asking because you taste differences, the best explanation is weather. Many new-world regions, certainly most in California, are relatively warm climates. Most of the famous European regions would be called relatively cool. This absolutely makes a difference in the degree of ripeness of the fruit at harvest. What this means is that a cool year is a good year in most of California and a warm year is a good year in most of Europe. Climate change is having some interesting effects. Germany has had some of their best vintages, ever, in recent years because the weather’s been relatively warm. And they’re beginning to plant more wine grapes in southern England, an area that has been considered too cold in the past.

As far as the difference in the wines, warmer climates mean grapes that are often harvested at relatively high sugars, with ripe flavors and relatively soft acidity. That translates to very fruity wines (which some Europeans characterize as sweet) with relatively high alcohol and a soft finish. These wines are usually very approachable and go down easy, even when they’re young.

Cool-climate grapes may be harvested at lower sugars, higher acids and the flavors will probably not be as ripe. The wines are usually leaner, lower in alcohol, show more earthy and herbaceous character, in addition to fruit, and are often a bit tarter. Sometimes these wines are harder to enjoy in their youth, depending upon the level of acidity and tannin, but those components can also prolong the wine’s life.

The style we prefer is usually the one that we’re accustomed to.

I hope that helps! Please let me know if you have more questions. Cheers! Nancy

Colleen’s Special Mother’s Day Menu

May 2, 2008 in Food & Wine and Recipes. 1 Comment

If you don’t know Colleen, or at least her recipes, you really should! She’s always in the kitchen coming up with something new and delicious. She knows we’re all busy, so she keeps it simple, yummy and always tests each recipe personally. And, she and David painstakingly take the time to taste and make the wine pairing that they agree is the most delicious with each recipe!

She’s created a memorable, mouthwatering menu for Mother’s Day, so enjoy!

Perfect with Goosecross Chardonnay

Fruit Pizza

A gorgeous dessert that’s delicious with Goosecross Chenin Blanc

Happy Mother’s Day! Here’s to you, Mom!

PS: For over 100 recipes, paired with wine, just go to Colleen’s Kitchen.

Sleep Deprivation in Paradise

April 26, 2008 in Vineyard Update and Wine News. 1 Comment

As our Winemaker/Vineyard Manager, Geoff, remarked “This is global warming???”

Ya gotta feel for him. It’s become a regular thing, getting up at 2:00 or 4:00 a.m. to hang out in the vineyard checking temperatures and listening to the radio until the sun’s up or he’s convinced we’re out of frost danger. Then it’s back to the winery to do some odds and ends before collapsing on his desk to catch a few zzz’s about the time the rest of us come strolling in at the leisurely hour of 9:00-ish.

Geoff blearily acknowledges “I have to count my blessings. We haven’t had any crop loss, so far, but at this point I’m about ready to sell my soul for a good night’s sleep.”

He’s absolutely right. The Napa Register has reported over a million dollars in frost damage in Napa County so far this year, the worst year for frost in about thirty years - only the old timers remember a spring like this.

The buds for clusters appear almost the moment the growing season starts, and damage begins when it drops below 32 F. Some growers protect the new growth by turning on overhead sprinklers. If they have enough water, the ice insulates the tender shoots and buds as the temperature drops. We use a wind machine, a big fan, really, which mixes the warmer air, above, with the cold air that’s settling down on the vineyard to raise the temperature a bit. In many areas of the north coast, wind machines just couldn’t cut it when faced with temperatures in the mid-twenties, but we’ve been lucky so far. Some growers don’t have any form of frost protection at all.

A local vineyard management company estimates 27 frost nights over six weeks, since the growing season began in mid March. That’s bad. But it doesn’t tell the whole story. There are all those nights when it hits the mid thirties, which requires showing up at the vineyard just in case. So, even if it doesn’t actually freeze, you’re up in the middle of the night, driving around the vineyard sipping high-octane brew out of a thermos.

A little cloud cover, or rain or a good, old-fashioned warm front would provide some very welcome relief. We’re usually out of danger by about mid-May. Keep your fingers crossed and send some No-Doze…

Q: What is Terroir?

April 25, 2008 in Answers. 0 Comments

Question from Hank: What do they mean when they talk about “terroir”?

Reply: Hi, Hank! Thanks for writing - I think. This is a tough question, because there’s no one answer, so better get yourself a glass of wine… It’s a French term, with no direct English translation and, if you look it up online, you’ll notice that no one agrees on what it encompasses. But, here goes:

I think Jamie Goode, at Wine Anorak, gets the spirit of the thing very nicely. He says “… it can probably best be summed-up as the possession by a wine of a sense of place, or ‘somewhereness’. That is, a wine from a particular patch of ground expresses characteristics related to the physical environment in which the grapes are grown.”

There are lots of ways to look at it - on a macro level, you could say that terroir is the reason that Cabernet Sauvignon from the Medoc doesn’t taste the same as Cabernet from Napa Valley. The Burgundians tend to go by the meter when it comes to differences in terroir - I’d call that a micro-approach. On our 9-acre site here at the winery we see differences from the Cabernet that’s harvested in front of the winery and the Cab that grows behind it, several yards away - also micro - and we’d have to attribute that to differences in the soil. So, as Jamie would say, we’re experiencing “…site-specific differences in wines that are caused by factors such as soil types, drainage, local microclimate and sun exposure - some sort of link to geography…”

Uber-purists say that terroir has only to do with the soil. That’s a pretty small group. Lots of people think terroir takes in a combination of soil, climate, topography and exposure. And a few go on to include the intervention of man - the vineyard manager’s choice of rootstock or decision to pull leaves or thin the crop.

We know that soil can’t directly flavor the grapes. If it could, as Dr. Mark Matthews of UC Davis says in a quote to the New York Times, they’d “…taste like dirt. Any minerals from the solid rock that vine roots do absorb have to be dissolved first in the soil moisture. Most of them are essential nutrients, and they mainly affect how well the plant as a whole grows.”

You can see that all of this has nothing to do with winemaking. And that’s interesting because some of our most technically-astute enologists believe that we mistakenly identify sulfur compounds, which may be the result of fermentations with nutrient deficiencies, as “terroir” flavors or mineral characteristics. Hmmm…

The Europeans are very terroir oriented, in fact it’s the basis for the way their wines are classified. In most cases, instead of naming the variety that makes the wine, it’s named for the place it comes from and there are local regulations as to which varieties may be grown for commercial purposes, presumably because they’ve done well there historically. Could other varieties do well in the region? Of course they could, but that’s the way it works.

And, of course, there are those who think the concept of terroir is a bunch of marketing hooey because the term is so frequently abused as a marketing enticement.

So, it’s a complicated subject and I’m afraid I’m guilty of a two-glass reply, but I hope it’s a start. Cheers! Nancy

Don’t Worry, Be Happy

April 19, 2008 in Wine Education. 0 Comments

Fascinating reading. Many thanks to Appellation America. A wine-closure supplier released results of a research project on various closures and the rate at which they expose the wine to oxygen. This set off a rant by Dr. Richard Peterson, a highly-respected winemaker and scholar, intended to beat it into our little pea-brains that corks don’t “breathe”.

Many were put off by his vehement, more brilliant-than-thou approach but, more importantly, folks of equal education and experience contradicted him in the comments, which are easily as fun to read as the rant.

Takeaway message? They don’t know. PhD vs. PhD and they don’t really understand why or how wine ages in the bottle.

My personal takeaway message? If our foremost wine scholars are mystified by this stuff, and so many other facets of wine, then we shouldn’t worry too much about our own lapses of understanding.

Wine is there to make life more fun and meals more enjoyable, period.

And, if part of the pleasure, for you, is that it’s an incredibly complex subject, go for it! Learn all you can! But, no one knows everything because there’s just too darned much to know. They didn’t even understand what fermentation was until the mid 19th century, frevvins sake!

So, next time you’re feeling clueless about wine, as I often do, chill out and pour yourself a glass! Learn as much as gives you pleasure - and leave it there.

Tours and classes are starting up again soon!

April 14, 2008 in Wine Education. 0 Comments

As the weather warms up, I really look forward to starting up our tours and classes again. This, truly, is my favorite part of my job. I get to meet great people from all over the world, get to know them a bit, share a smile and a little wine!

Goosecross wine education in the vineyard

Here’s what we’ve got cooked up for this summer - and it’s all free for our Wine Club members (up to a party of 6) and our famous Wine Basics Class© is free for everyone that wishes to learn more about wine in a fun, relaxed and unpretentious atmosphere! Where better to learn than in our vineyard!

Wine Basics Class: Every Saturday from June through October from 10:30-11:30; reservations required.

Relax on the lawn, take in the gorgeous vineyard view and have a great time learning how to sharpen up your tasting skills. Here are some of the topics we cover:
» Proper tasting techniques
» Structure and components of wine
» Winemaking preferences and styles
» Industry jargon
» Serving hints
» Wine storage
» and much more…

As the name implies, this is geared toward beginners but we find that even experienced tasters like to come back for a brush up from time to time. We’ve made a lot of friends that way!

Each “student” leaves with our recently updated and expanded class handbook - something you’ll refer to over and over.

The good news is that the class is absolutely free. The bad news is that it fills up very quickly so you need to make reservations early on. Just call us at 800-276-9210 or you can make online reservations up to 1 day (24 hours) before the class.

Estate Winegrowing Tour: Saturdays at 2:30 from May through October; reservations required.

If you’re more interested in how grapes are grown and wine is made, and a semi-private kind of experience, this tour’s for you! We grab a glass of wine and head out into the vineyard to talk about what happens from season to season. We always take a look at what’s happening at the moment, whether it’s shoot thinning, cluster counts or getting ready for harvest. Then we head over to the production area where we talk about how production techniques can influence style and character. After all that walking you’ll be ready to sit down to our own private tasting, enjoy the wines and I’ll make sure you get all your questions answered. The tour is limited to ten people, so it’s smart to reserve well in advance.

Tasting Room: Of course, you know (don’t you?) that our tasting room is open year round, from 10:00-4:30. You get to taste in the barrel cellar and our tasting room crew is just amazing. They somehow manage to inform and make you laugh at the same time. And, a lot of the time, Geoff Gorsuch, our Winemaker, is right there working so you can ask him what he’s up to in the cellar that day. You hear about people feeling intimidated when they go into tasting rooms - there’s just no chance of that happening here. We do recommend reservations, so give us a call and come see us!

Private Tours: You’re always welcome to call me (800-276-9210) if you’d like a private tour, any time of year. Since it’s your tour, we can focus on whatever is most interesting to you. Whether you want your own, private Wine Basics Class or you’d rather talk about spacing and rootstocks, we can do it.

Epicurean Explorations: minimum group size of 6; held at the Napa Valley Grille, by request

For all you foodies, enjoy delicious Goosecross wines and an outstanding, multi-course, meal prepared by Chef Thad Lyman, Proprietor and Executive Chef at the Napa Valley Grille, while he and I lay out some of the theories behind food and wine pairing. Quite often the actual pairings blow some of the theories out of the water, but you’ll come away realizing that it’s fun and creative - definitely not rocket science - and you’ll take home some great ideas about how to put together some great pairings.

So - if you haven’t been to Goosecross before, I hope you’ll find your way out here soon! Or, if it’s been awhile, come on down! Give us a buzz and we’ll get you all set up for a really great time!

Cheers!

Spring has Sprung

April 9, 2008 in Vineyard Update and Wine Education. 0 Comments

We’re off and running with the 2008 vintage. The vines here at the winery started coming out of dormancy right on time, mid-March, and they’re growing like crazy! Usually Merlot and Cabernet Franc are the first on our estate to bud out, then the Cabernet and finally the Petit Verdot. The harvest will probably follow a similar pattern. When you consider the whole valley, Sauvignon Blanc is often the earliest to bud, with Chardonnay and Pinot Noir on its heels. The Bordeaux varieties tend to bring up the rear.

Early spring is called the season of “great growth” in the vineyard, because the new shoots seem to grow before our eyes. As soon as they bud out, I’m on call for frost protection because we can have freezing temperatures at night here as late as into May. The newly exposed, tender buds will be damaged if the temperature drops below 32° F.

Spring in the vineyard photo collage

Those of you who have come for a visit have probably noticed the large fans in the vineyard. These wind machines mix the warmer air, above, with the cold air, below, to protect the vineyard. Some growers also use smudge pots, which burn diesel or oil to warm the vines. Some years it’s no problem at all and others it seems like I’m up almost every night. This year is more in the latter category - I’ve been driving around checking temperatures in the wee hours a lot lately. I wouldn’t mind a little cloud cover to help insulate things at this point…

This is also the time of “great walking”! As you saw a few posts back, the pruning is severe. Now, it’s time to get out there and sucker. We prune with the idea that we’ll get a shoot for each bud, and a couple of clusters per shoot, but inevitably, the vines do as they please and if there are extra shoots, as there nearly always are, it’s important to sucker out the extra ones. Otherwise we risk over-cropping and crowding, which may exacerbate mildew problems.

Another reason to walk is that the best way to know how the new shoots are developing and to check for signs of insects or disease is to get off of the tractor and walk. As I walk I’ll tuck the new shoots up into the trellis wires.

The vines should flower around mid-May and set the crop by early June. Every season seems to go faster! Let’s hope Mother Nature smiles on us! Cheers!

Q: What’s a “Dry” Wine?

March 29, 2008 in Answers. 0 Comments

Question from Andrew: Hello. I’m confused about the term “dry”. What does it mean?

Reply: Hi, Andrew! Thanks for writing! That term is misused so often that it’s no wonder everyone is confused. There’s a common perception that if you ask for a dry wine, you’re asking for a “good” one. Maybe it goes back to the days when a proliferation of truly-horrible sweet wine was sold, following repeal of prohibition.

Dry is the opposite of sweet. It has nothing to do with the quality or character of the wine. It’s meant to communicate the absence of sweetness.

Most of us can’t taste sugar in wine if it’s less than about .4%, so that’s the working benchmark. Wine is capable of fermenting much dryer than that, but it would be hard for most of us to tell the difference.

Here’s the way it works: Say the grapes are harvested at about 24% sugar. Fermentation is a natural chemical reaction in which yeast consumes the sugar, converting it to heat, carbon dioxide gas and alcohol (figure on a bout a 50-60% conversion rate of sugar to alcohol). To make a bone-dry wine, the winemaker lets the yeast use up all of the fermentable sugar, and comes out with a wine that’s about 13% alcohol. Generally speaking (the EU regulates this, the US doesn’t), if it’s .4% or less, we call it dry.

The most common ways to make sweet wine are:
1. Add sweet grape juice or “concentrate” to dry wine (adding sugar is illegal in California; in most regions that permit sugar additions it’s limited to the role of increasing the alcohol - not the sweetness).
2. Stop the fermentation, before the wine is dry, by chilling the wine and/or adding sulfur.
3. Stop the fermentation by adding alcohol (Port wine, for instance). The yeast can’t tolerate much over 16%.

But, there are sensory things that can trick your perception. For instance, alcohol has a sweet taste, so a dry wine that’s high in alcohol may seem to be sweet. Fruity flavors can trick your tongue into perceiving sugar that isn’t there. Sometimes our guests describe our Viognier as slightly sweet when it’s actually bone dry. It’s just amazingly fruity and fragrant.

And then, we have to go and confuse the situation! How?

1. Wine that’s actually a little sweet is often referred to as “dry” - think Chardonnay under about 12 bucks.
2. Champagne terminology: Brut is supposed to mean dry (but some are dryer than others). “Extra Dry” is a little sweet! !$##*%!

So, that’s a long answer to a short question, but I hope it helps. Cheers!

2008 American Wine Blog Awards - Time to Vote!

March 22, 2008 in Blogging and Wine Blogs. 1 Comment

We’re very pleased and proud to announce that our podcast, Napa Valley Wine Radio, was a finalist in the 2008 American Wine Blog Awards! To anyone and everyone who nominated us, you have our heartfelt thanks for listening and for the nomination.

The awards were instigated by a fellow wine blogger, Tom Wark at Fermentation, and this has done a great deal to bring attention, and also credibility, to the wine blogosphere. Tom and his fellow judges take a very professional approach to the process and we are honored to be in the company of our fellow finalists. Cheers!

PRUNING 101: down to brass tacks

March 21, 2008 in Vineyard Update. 2 Comments

In the last post Nancy, our Director of Education, recapped our staff “Pruning 101″ session. It was a great morning - everyone caught on really well and it was a bloodless coup - no trips to the emergency room! The vines seem to be OK, too. ;-) Anyway, Nancy asked me to tell you a little bit about what I’m trying to accomplish by pruning.

I’m always sorry to see the end of pruning season because it’s great quiet time out there, just me and the vines. But - the buds are swelling. It’s time to finish so the vines don’t waste any of their energy on growth that’s just going to be pruned off later. So, here goes:

When: Any time from December through February. Once we’re sure the vines are dormant, we can start and it’s important to finish before the growing season starts again (bud-break), usually mid-March. I did the Merlot and Cabernet Franc first, because they usually bud out ahead of the Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot. Pruning at the last minute, like this, is great, when I can swing it, because it may delay bud-break and cut down on the number of nights I spend up, worrying about frost.

How: The vines need to be severely pruned, kind of like roses. From a wild tangle of shoots that are 3-4 feet long, I bring it down to what looks like almost nothing - just the vine “skeleton”.

Our vines are trained into what is called a bi-lateral cordon (two permanent arms) and we use what is called vertical shoot positioning (VSP), which means the shoots grow vertically up through the trellis wires. VSP maximizes light exposure to the leaves, which helps heighten fruitiness, and provides filtered light to the clusters.

I leave several small protrusions on the cordons, called spurs. The spurs contain the buds (growing points) for the next season’s shoots. The theory is that for each bud I leave, I’ll get a new shoot in the spring. From each new shoot, I can expect about two clusters.

The problem is that the vines don’t read the textbook, and I’m bound to have some surprises. So, I’ll go through in April, to see what actually happened, and inevitably do some shoot thinning. If there are too many shoots and the canopy is dense, it blocks the light and increases mildew and mold problems. Plus the excess shoots produce excess clusters, which can compromise quality.

In late May, after flowering, I’ll make cluster counts to see if I need to do some thinning. There’s nothing I can do about too few, but If there are more clusters than I anticipated, the grapes may not ripen properly and could lack flavor intensity.

Every year is a new ballgame, but one thing we know for sure: Quantity and quality hardly ever go together, when it comes to wine, so pruning and thinning carefully is critical to the quality of the vintage.

Now, we wait for the new growing season to begin and pray we don’t have too much frost this spring!