Good News

After fourteen months of being my "finicky mistress" (see post from 10/15/08), the '07 Zinfandel has finally finished mlf and is now completely dry. Eric has sulphured the barrel for me so it will rest comfortably until bottling in February. Now, we are having some fun creating some labels and hope to have them ready in time. Our excitement was really kicked up a notch last week when Ed's Sandler wines arrived and we were able to try his Buck Hill Zin from bottle. Not surprisingly, we love it!

Also, the '08 Keefer pinot noir is finished as well. No residual sugar (rs) and mlf is done. Everything about this wine has been perfect so far. I simply cannot wait to pull a sample in February. Recently, I have been opening up Keefer pinots from wineries such as Failla, Siduri, AP Vin and Loring (as you might imagine, I am pretty familiar with the Freeman Keefer's ;-) ) to get a feel for the flavor profiles with various clones etc. Tough research but it needs to be done!

It's been a great year in wine and life. I want to wish everyone well during the holidays and the new year. Merry Christmas!

Zinfest

We had a great party with 60-70 folks attending. The blind tasting I set up attracted about 25-30 participants and the results were very interesting. I asked everyone to rate five wines from their favorite to least favorite. My '07 Zin was clearly the most controversial wine in the lineup. While five people rated it their favorite, nine people thought just the opposite! One fellow kept commenting on how much he hated it! lol

I guess such differing opinions are likely when I chose to serve a non-finished barrel sample alongside some zins from some of the best winemakers in California like Mike Officer and Ed Kurtzman. So, while it was a fun tasting, I'm not sure I gained any valuable information from the experiment. There didn't appear to be any clear-cut favorite with some people liking the $11 Cline Zin more than the Carlisle (a 93 point Parker wine). Others preferred a Maryland zin that I personally didn't care for at all.

All in all, we had a great time and that's I all I was really hoping for.

Prep for Zinfest

Before we left, I made sure to pull some barrel samples of the '07 Zin for the upcoming Zinfest party back east. I think I will serve it in a blind tasting with some zinfandels from existing, established wineries and see what people think. Should be fun! Also, we now have confirmed our bottling date in early February to coincide with our trip to the Freeman Cave Dinner so that's exciting!

Party Time

Harvest was over so it was time to party! We had an amazing dinner Friday in SF at Sociale with some fabulous Italian wines. We had barolos and barbarescos from Conterno, Giacosa and others from '61, '90, '96, '97 and '98. I'll remember that dinner for a long time thanks to the generosity of the Freemans.

Saturday, I shipped in some live blue crabs from Baltimore and steamed 'em up baby. That was a blast and it was a great party at Ryan and Amanda's house.

Sunday, we went to the Pinot on the River Wine Festival and got to taste dozens of wines and met lots of great people. Another dinner at Zazu and Eric was ready for me to check out of Chez Buffington!

Work Ends

(BEFORE)

(AFTER)

We are done. Almost two full months of work, about eighty tons of fruit, a backache (lol) and we are done. All the 2008 wines are resting comfortably in barrels stacked neatly in the cave. It's a cool feeling accompanied by a sense of accomplishment to have been part of a great team to make all of this happen. I worked hard, learned a lot and met lots of people. I saw old friends (does a year and a half count as "old"?) and made new ones. I saw people truly dedicated to the craft as well as the occasional pretender.

To me harvest was long hours, sore hands, aching muscles, wet clothes, Andy's coffee, Tacqueria Santa Rosa, foggy cool mornings, warm (sometimes hot) afternoons, long evening phone calls home, Racer 5 IPA, text message updates, great fruit, lots of laughs, and teamwork.

It's too early to say how the '08 wines will turn out - those judgments come much later. Whatever the verdict proves to be, we did the best we could under the circumstances and that will have to do for now. As a trial lawyer, it's me standing alone before the jury. This fall, it was me standing as part of a great team. I will miss it and I will be back.

I'll post again with pics from our weekend partying like rock stars - where this blog goes from there - I dunno!

No More Tanks ... Then "click"

Well no more tanks to clean at Freeman Winery. They are all empty. It seems like yesterday when we had all of our fermenters full and dozens of t-bins in use for the overflow. It's a little strange to walk into what was just recently a winery bulging at the seams with new wine on the skins to what is now a room full of cold, empty stainless steel fermenters and neatly stacked and empty t-bins.

And then it happens. I heard the "click" before I felt anything. I was loading some barrels onto racks like I have done dozens of times this harvest when my back said, "Enough!" The next to last big working day of harvest and my back goes out. Damn. I was pretty upset as the following day we were facing the daunting task of barreling down and pressing our last 19 t-bins. The next morning I figured I could at least help out by driving the forklift so that's basically what I did and we got through it in about twelve hours thanks to Eric and Akiko. By the way, I doubt many winery owners work as hard as Akiko Freeman. Simply awesome. She took us out to a great lunch yesterday at K & L Bistro and I felt like I was the one who owed her the lunch. After the lunch, Eric and I finished up some stuff back at the winery and then hung out and just enjoyed the beautiful day. Talk about an office with a view - I'll remember days like those this winter when I'm hoofing it in the sleet and freezing rain on my way to court!

What Does it Take . . .

. . . to make great wine? BEER. Very cold BEER. And ibuprofen, coffee, band-aids, good music, sleep when you can get it, and BEER. Ironically, the last thing you want to drink after making wine all day is a glass of wine. Give me a Racer 5 IPA everytime. In wine country, the grungy guys sitting at the bar drinking beer in the wine bars are usually winemakers (and interns)! Don't get me wrong though - it's not like we are drinking beer all day - that would be bad when operating forklifts, moving barrels around etc. In fact, the other day I calculated that if I dropped the four full new barrels of wine I was forklifting, it would be about a $50,000.00 accident. Yes, there is insurance but I really don't want some weasel subrogation insurance lawyer coming after me because I had been drinking beer while operating a forklift.

Barrel Down, Press, Clean, Repeat

That's pretty much our lives right now as harvest heads towards a conclusion for us at Freeman. Still, we find ways to have fun and we just had a cool weekend. Yesterday we had another catered lunch and some great wines including a mini vertical of four vintages of Beaucastel - including the '90. Thanks Eivind and Ken! Somehow pressing and cleaning out three tanks with the remnants of 14 tons of fruit didn't seem too tough. :-)

Today we enjoyed a light morning of punchdowns and then headed down to check out the Raiders game thanks to Freeman supporter Chris P. I've had some great times at Ravens tailgates, but I have to admit that Raider Nation is unlike anything I have ever seen. Mardi Gras meets San Quentin is the best I can describe it. Mix in some of the best grilled ribs and tri-tip ever, and I was a Raiders fan for at least one day. Of course, next week the Ravens will absolutely crush them 10-6 or something. Thanks again, Chris!

With Monday comes more barreling down, pressing and cleaning but it's outside work in one of the most beautiful wineries around so I am not complaining!

Barrel/Press Day for '08 Zin and '08 Keefer PN

If this is work, then put me in coach. Wow, what a day we had on Thursday. Arriving at dawn is always pretty cool (especially with a full moon still shining bright) and it was no different on this day. In fact, I must admit that while I consider myself a loyal Freeman Winery guy, I was just a little bit more pumped than usual since we were putting the '08 Fones Zin and '08 Fones Keefer Pinot Noir (lol - fyi - there is no Fones Winery - it's just easy - and fun - to call it that) in barrel. After the free run juice from the t-bins went to barrel, the remaining juice and skins went to the press and then was barreled down. It all went smoothly and we got great yields from both the zin and the Keefer PN. Between me and Amelle (Eric and Ryan's label), we got 3 barrels of the Keefer PN (1 new - 1 one year old - and 1 two year old barrels) and 4 barrels (all neutral) and 3 carboys of the zin. I can't remember if I already mentioned it, but we got less zin than we were expecting from the vineyard this year. I was hoping to get a ton of fruit - wound up getting about a 1/2 ton. We all got less than we were hoping for but that's a long story. Bottom line is it looks like about the same amount of '08 zin as in '07 - around 24-25 cases. It will be fun to compare the two vintages as they develop.

A Finicky Mistress

Finally, the long promised information on the '07 zinfandel. I have one barrel of zin from Buck Hill Vineyard which should make about 24-25 cases when it gets bottled in February. It's a big wine with lots of dark fruit flavors and a bright, clean nose. It tastes great and, for a wine hobbyist like me, has been a source of much fun and interest. It has also, at times, been a perplexing beast. As recently as last Friday when we pulled a barrel sample (for research purposes :-)) it was quite worrisome - I thought I had lost the wine. The flavors were off and it simply wasn't showing well at all. Then we tasted it again Sunday and it was better than ever. Wine in barrel can make for a finicky mistress.

But here's the real issue I have been dealing with. It still hasn't finished malolactic conversion (often referred to as malolactic fermentation - MLF). This process, after the initial fermentation which converts the sugar to alcohol, converts malic acid to lactic acid. (Actually it's the conversion of L-malic acid to L-lactic acid and CO2 . . . or C4H6O5 = C3H6O3 + CO2) In lower concentrations, the various compounds produced by MLF are believed to add complexity to the wine's flavor and produce a smoother mouthfeel. When MLF is complete, the wine is considered dry. Well, the zin is still not completely dry - you can tell this by taste when you get a little spritziness on the tip of your tongue. The fact that it still hasn't finished MLF isn't great but isn't necessarily a problem. In fact, when I had a chance to visit one of the greatest zinfandel winemakers in California last July, Mike Officer of Carlisle Winery said he still had several '07 wines that still hadn't finished MLF and he wasn't particularly concerned about it. That was reassuring. (I'm actually drinking some Carlisle zinfandel right now - killer stuff).

Still, you want the wine to finish MLF so the question becomes how do you accomplish this? First, it helps to identify whether it's just going slow or is stuck. In early September, I sent a juice sample for analysis to a lab in Windsor called Vinquiry. The report indicated the malic acid was 144 mg/100 ml. A wine is considered dry when it's 20-30 mg/100 ml. Now it was time to see if we could get that number down. After the barrel had been topped with wine that had finished MLF, we brought the barrel out of the cave and sat it in the sun for a couple days. That's the picture above. On the second day, some juice began to spill out from the bung hole. No big loss of wine - it just showed that the wine had expanded after catching some Sonoma County rays. In other words, we just tried to wake it up so it would finish it's job!!

A week later, I sent another sample to the lab and the results showed the malic acid at 114 mg/100 ml. So, the wine is moving in the right direction which is encouraging. The barrel is now back in the cave and topped up again with press juice. The concern now is to watch out for oxidation - that would be no bueno. At the first sign of oxidation, we'll likely have to hit it with sulphur to protect it but that can slow or stop MLF. Tricky stuff.

So, that's what is up with the '07 zin. It sure helps to have great winemakers like Ed and Eric around to lend a hand or an idea or two. If I hadn't listened to Eric, I would have sulphured the wine already and it might never finish! Since I haven't hit it with sulphur yet, I plan on pulling a couple bottles of barrel samples and bringing them home with me to pour at next month's Zinfest. Should be fun!

Tomorrow we barrel down the '08 zinfandel and the Keefer pinot. As a wine hobbyist, it doesn't get any better. Pics to come!

How in the World?

- Did I happen to get my hands on some Keefer Ranch Pinot Noir grapes? I'm still not sure but it is true. Eric and I scored some Keefer fruit and have been quietly taking care of it. So, in addition to the zinfandel, you can look for a 2008 Fones (lol) Keefer Ranch Pinot Noir and an Amelle Keefer Pinot Noir. "Amelle" is going to be Eric's private label he is starting with a few friends. As you can imagine, I am beyond excited.

At the end of their harvest, Keefer Ranch had what they believed to be around 1/4 to 1/2 ton (it turned out to be just over a full ton) of "extra" fruit in their entire vineyard. This included grapes from the vines at the end of rows and grapes from vines throughout the entire ranch which hadn't been picked earlier because they just weren't ready for other wineries. Some may call these "scraps" - we call them an amazing field blend of several different clones picked at optimal maturity. The fruit looked awesome from the beginning and after a 5-6 day cold soak has gone through a perfect fermentation. This stuff just looks and smells amazing.

We're going to barrel it down and press it this week into three barrels - one new. We will likely bottle late next summer. I still can't believe it!!

A Quick Shoutout

to my oldest friend (and former marathon coach!) Steve Kartalia for knocking out a 2:35 marathon on Saturday in Baltimore. Steve finished 24th overall out of 3114 finishers and 2nd in the geezer category for a nice payday. Very well done!!

Guess Who . . .

. . . showed up yesterday? We put her immediately to "work" and gave her a turn in the bin. We don't normally use this method :-) but this was the last of the fruit this year and Eric is gonna make a whole cluster barrel of pinot. So, it needs to be crushed!

Are You Scared . . .

by the screaming of the lees? Apologies to Sir Tony. The chardonnay barrels are making quite a ruckus now as they go through barrel fermentation. Get of a few of these going and it's a carbon dioxide symphony. Yesterday morning when I opened the cave, the CO2 smell was overwhelming from the chard barrels and many T-Bins going through active fermentation. By the time I reached the center of the cave to turn on the exhaust fan I wasn't a happy camper. I should have just opened the cave doors and let it vent outside for a few minutes before I charged in. It's actually a situation to be taken seriously. A heavy dose of CO2 can ruin your day or worse.

Battonage!!

Voici une image de M. Ray Walker (mon interne semblable) démontrant la technique bourguignonne du battonage.

Well my French may be a little rusty so please excuse any errors but I am trying to say this is a picture of my fellow intern, Ray Walker, demonstrating the burgundian technique of "battonage." Battonage is the stirring of the lees in barrel. While we are fermenting the chardonnay in barrels, yeast sediments collect at the bottom. Battonage involves stirring up these lees with a stainless steel rod inserted through the barrel's bung hole. This stirring of the lees can add to the texture of the wine by adding a creamy or rich nutty note without affecting the wine's acidity. Stirring up the yeast lees also helps to protect the wine because they help to eliminate unwanted oxygen.

One for the Ladies . . .

Cue the Barry White music. Thought the ladies might like these pictures from some older Chardonnay vines at Keefer Ranch. The heel to the boot (if you will) was grafted onto the vine as a way to protect the vine from a nasty disease called phylloxera (sp?). The graft is phylloxera resistant which would hopefully prevent the disease from travelling down to the roots and killing the vine - at least I think that's how it goes. :-)

This Job is For the Dogs

Pugs, actually. Pebbles the Pug! Makes me miss my little guy back home.

Well after an extended two day cold soak (ha ha) the zin is fermenting. Sometimes, those native yeasties just can't wait and get real hungry. So, yes. We can now say that the zin has gone "wild". Much more later . . . Go RAVENS!!

This Job Is For The Birds

Actually, turkeys. Wild turkeys that is. We have been working into the night this week bringing in the remaining fruit for this year. Now, we have about 95% of the grapes in tank, T-bins, or in barrel. All the fermenters are full and we have about 34 T-bins working. It's due to rain today/tonight so all is well.

More info this weekend . . .

A Quickie

The zin is in. The cave. In a T-Bin in the cave is the zin.

Harvest Peaks Today

Today may be the high point of the 2008 harvest for us. We will process over 17 tons of fruit from five vineyards. This includes two different pinots, two different chards and the Buck Hill Zinfandel! We visited Buck Hill again over the weekend and the vines were beginning to shut down so it was time to make the picking decision. The fruit looked and tasted great - can't wait to bring it in this morning. This year I'll be making two barrels of the zin instead of one - around fifty cases!

The picture is from Monday tasting the Heintz Vineyard chard straight from the press. It may look weird now but it's going to be tremendous. This vintage has really turned around - a little schizo if you will. Well, got to go - more later with pics of the zin.

Fire!!

On the 25th, Eric and I were heading south to San Francisco and came across this field fire which looked like it had just started. It was moving pretty fast towards us on Stony Point Road. I snapped a couple of shots and then we got the heck out of there. Scary. http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/article/20080925/NEWS/809250260

So when we made it to Ed's place in the City they were already in the process of processing a bunch of Rosella's and Garys' Vineyard Pinot. For lunch, Ed pulled some corks (a major fringe benefit of working harvest) and I was knocked over by the 2007 Roar - Garys' Vineyard Pinot Noir. The best Pinot I have had in a long time. Thanks, Ed!! Ed is pretty busy at his facility in the City making wines for Roar (as of the 2007 vintage), August West and Sandler. You should check them out and buy some!

http://www.roarwines.com/

http://www.augustwestwine.com/augustwest/index.jsp

http://www.sandlerwine.com/index.html

Well, we are in the middle of our biggest week at Freeman (yes, to me Monday feels like the middle of the week!!). We will be bringing in fruit from six vineyards this week starting with the Heintz Ranch Chardonnay this morning. On Wednesday, its the fruit from Buck Hill for our 2008 zinfandel - I am very excited for that!

Well, I've got to go. By the way . . . WHAT TIME IS IT? GAME TIME! GO RAVENS! (and thank goodness for Tivo).

I almost forgot . . .

. . . to tell you a quick story from today. The picture is of the press machine - a large contraption used to squeeze out valuable juice from the grape skins after you have already drained off the "free run" juice. After that is over, it must be cleaned out and that's a big job. Tonight, while I was completely inside of the big cylindrical tube, the lower doors shut and wouldn't re-open. No big deal except I had just used hot, steamy water to clean it and I was now trapped in my own little steam bath. The good news . . . I may have lost a few pounds and I discovered that I am not claustrophobic. When Eric rescued me from my winery cage, that sucker was clean - I can promise you that.

Chardonnay Soon

These pictures are from Heintz Ranch. Notice the old gnarly twisty vines? Pretty cool. At the end of a nearly twelve hour work day, taking a vineyard sample at a place like this hardly seems to qualify as work. Half the fun of taking vineyard samples to determine if the fruit is ready for picking is the drive to the vineyard. Although most of the vineyards Freeman sources from are only a few miles from the winery, the drive to the vineyards often includes winding, twisting roads which are sometimes reduced to a single lane or even dirt/gravel. Sure beats the Beltway.

Tomorrow, after another early start at the winery, we head to the City to help out Ed down there. It should be a fun change of pace. BTW, around here, when folks refer to 'The City', they are always referring to San Francisco. It's never Oakland, Sacramento or any other city. While San Francisco may technically be closer than the other major cities in northern California, the reference isn't simply a matter of geography. It's a recognition that San Francisco is just a special place.

More Pics

Gualala, CA Trip Pics

A Day Off

Well, as you can see its been a few days since my last post. I chose to spend them with Katie rather than by a computer. :-) Katie got to see the operation in full swing Thursday afternoon and Friday. She was a trooper - even punching down Tank 2 which had just begun to ferment and was very hard to punch down and through the cap. We were able to get away on Saturday (my first day off!) and head north along Route 1 on the coast. If you have never travelled along the Pacific Ocean on Route 1, you need to add that to your "TO DO" list. Stunningly beautiful scenery. We got back in the area in time for Katie and I to knock out the Sunday afternoon punchdowns. Tanks 2 and 3 were quite a workout - a nice jolt back into harvest reality. We have all 8 of the five-ton fermenters full (plus LOTS of T-Bins) so when they all start to ferment its going to be lots of hard work. Like I mentioned in an earlier post, bringing in the fruit is easy . . . working with it in the winery is the hard part.

Great Days

We have had a few great days. The weather has been perfect, the work has been going smoothly and we've had some good times. Monday, although the amount of fruit we brought in was less than expected, some friends of the winery helped out and then made us a catered lunch. I'll just say this - duck fat fries. Awesome!

Tuesday we didn't bring in any fruit which allowed us to start barreling down the first 2008 Pinot out of one of the 5 ton tanks. Amazing dark color to the juice - almost looks like syrah. That afternoon, some friends from back east stopped by. Talk about perfect timing (the winery usually doesn't accept visitors during harvest). We were just slowing down and finishing up so we were able to put some glasses in their hands and show them around. Three hours later we let them leave. :-) I think Scott and Ann may be fans of the winery now!

Yesterday was another great day. While putting the rest of tank one into the press, we also brought in ten tons of Keefer Ranch Pinot (with more still to come). The fruit looked and tasted excellent. In a year when many growers were hit hard by frost (including Keefer) it's remarkable how they have farmed such high quality fruit with large yields. Well done. We finished off the day with dinner at The Underwood in Graton. I love that place.

I am in a great mood today as you can probably tell. I'm expecting a visitor . . .