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!