A week of rain and high humidity

Last week's storm has brought much needed rain at the expense of the remainder of the 2009 grape crop. Mind you the rain itself -all 5 1/2" of it- was not the worst part of the storm that moved through...

...the worst part has been a week of high humidity, and bunch rot compounding the problem.

Most growers and wineries pushed hard through the previous weekend to get as much of the crop in as possible, and maybe only 15~20% remained out on the vine through the storm, most of them reds which would fare better than whites. I would've given the fields a few days to dry out after getting 5.5" of rain, but the rush was on, and I saw people harvesting Chardonnay on Friday mud or not, hoping to get their fruit out before mold set in. Now it wouldn't have been preferable to leave a white grape out there for the storm in the first place, but I imagine it was due to their having too many blocks to harvest before the storm came in. They probably picked what they absolutely had to first, and put a few blocks off until after the storm hoping it wouldn't be as bad as predicted. Sadly, it was, and even if they avoided any rot issues they still have to contend with lower Brix due to the weather and water.

It started with the rain on Monday night a week ago, with rain falling continuously through Wed night. Thursday was supposed to be a day of drying out after the storm passed...instead we got another 1/4" of rain. When it finally got sunny on Thursday, it was 4 PM, and the humidity jacked up through the roof.

This takes us to Friday of last week....and sun, Finally!
However there was no wind and it remained near 50% humidity with highs in the mid 80's. NOT GOOD for the remaining grape crop out there, but a perfect environ for molds.

As we see in the satellite picture from Saturday, a large bank of clouds remained overhead and denied us the full sun we wanted. It was humid again, with broken clouds at the middle of the day and highs in the mid 80's. No help for the remaining grapes there...

Yesterday was better in a way as the temps remained lower, but no sun again as a marine layer sat over most of the area all day. The breeze was light, when there was one, and at least it wasn't as warm as Fri or Sat.

Today's water vapor map shows us smack-dab in a bunch of moisture, but hopefully this will give way to sunnier drier weather for the remainder of the week.
But it's raining now, and we're forecast to get 1/4"....hopefully that's all until the remaining grapes which are still viable are brought in.
Again, if you're into challenging fermentations, there is a lot of fruit which won't be harvested commercially this year, and you can probably still get a ton or two for a song.

Anniversary of the 1906 Earthquake

Here we are 102 years after the 1906 San Andreas earthquake which shattered San Francisco.

I hear some of you saying..."so what does that have to do with wine?"

Plenty!

But first- attached are a few stereo-optic photos taken right after the 1906 earthquake: notice how everything is pretty much gone (fires consumed most of the wood the quake spared), how the people are living in the streets, and how the then destroyed Fairmont Hotel was reported to have cost JUST $4,000,000 to construct in the first place! These days you can't even look at a lot the hotel occupies in SF for that much cash.
(Thanks to Stuart for sending these photos in...
Click on the photos to see a bigger version, and look at the center of the photo and cross your eyes slightly...and the photo should magically pop out at you...)

...and isn't it nice how the Keystone-esque cops are guarding the safes from the banks?...
And still more damage & people living in makeshift shacks and tents, with no water and no sanitation...(please note how the shack has a horseshoe which is placed the wrong way up for luck...)...
Again, how does this tie into wine?
One of the most common questions when I see people tour wineries is "what happens when there's an earthquake?"
It's usually asked as people are shown around barrel rooms - especially rooms which have the barrels stacked high above the tourists heads...and by people from back east, or at least people whom haven't experienced an earthquake or two.

Well, here's a video of what's possible when you take a stack of barrels 6-racks high and place it on a shaker table for a simulated quake. I should note that in my book, wineries really worried about this possibility use 4-barrel racks for stacking as they're much more stable than the 2-barrel variety are in earthquakes...notice how they fail in the front-back (linear) direction and not to the sides (laterally). (I didn't get any sound on the video...)

As you watch the video and look at the photos, think to yourself of how much it would cost to repair the damages from a quake in these current gloomy-economy times...I mean even the smallest mom & pop winery is worth $10~20MIL.
And even the cheapest house in Napa or Sonoma counties is a half-million dollars each....

Inventory losses for winery case goods alone could reach the $500MIL mark, as they're also stacked high and might be damaged in a quake. Tack on all the costs from damaged buildings, losses to equipment and lost time working the wines, as well as possible losses to life, and the place is pretty much a shambles. Transportation chains broken due to injured workers, damaged highways, overpasses and bridges, etc...
In fact, just a few spots of Silverado trail, highways 29, 12/121, and highway 101 being damaged would cripple the ability for National Guard relief to get through.
If there was also damage to the local airports, we'd be pretty much screwed for a week or two.

What is there for you to do to prepare?
Definitely put together an earthquake kit with all the food & water you'll need for 4~7 days, but also slip a few bottles of your favorite wines in as well...after all, you can't be sure when your favorite wine shop will reopen (if ever), and the comfort you'll get from having something as simple as a good bottle of wine will be priceless in a major event like that (you could also barter it for something else, should the need arise!).
[check out the ABAG website for additional preparedness info]

Shat would the total monetary damages be? The final number would vary greatly depending on the type of scenario that plays out, but it could easily be in the billions.
It might even approach the total from, say, a Katrina-type disaster, though the area affected would be much smaller in scope. But still the possible consequences of a strong quake scenario in the North bay area are drastic.

March: out like a lion

And here just a few weeks ago I'd jinxed the season by mentioning that it didn't feel like we were likely to get a frost this season.
And then the weather report came out on Saturday night suggesting that we might drop well below freezing on Sunday night...

And so we did....the frost alarm here went off just after midnight.
Not that it woke me up. Frankly, when I know it's coming I can't really fall asleep anyway.
I already had the coffee pot ready to go, and as I was only drowsy I knew it'd only take a quick cup to go with me in the truck to get me fired up. There's a lot of adrenaline that shoots into your system when you have 2" shoots already out on the vines and the temp's dropping below freezing - fast. This really is the danger zone for all growers, a time when everyone needs to be extra cautious to make sure your crop isn't lost to a late frost which kills the buds off. Those shoots in the photo above are really in danger on a night like Sunday's.

I turned on the sprinklers at midnight when it was just dipping past 33°, as I knew that was just the start! The lowest temp I registered was 27 °F @ ~4 AM, and even at sunrise the temp hadn't climbed back out of the danger zone yet...
It wasn't until a little after 9 AM that I turned off the water system, and by that time I had used about a foot of water out of the irrigation pond.

Luckily we've had a decent amount of rain this year (so far...we still need another 7.5" to be at our "normal" level), and the pond has plenty of ammo in it to fight a snap frost here or there.
But my frost protection pond is also my irrigation pond for summer, so I'd rather not see too many of these incidents - not only because it puts the shoots in danger of getting frosted & wilting, but also because it means I don't have as many options when we hit a warm dry snap in the summer or just before harvest. As it is, there's no harm done...this time.
Woe to those whose system fails, whether it is a fan system or irrigation setup, as there's no real way to recover from losing your most productive buds to frost... once the cold air has done its damage, your coming harvest is pretty much shot for the affected vines....

So here we had March, which came in like a lamb with warm temps, heading out like a lion.....albeit a quiet lion, without much in the way of noise (storms), but certainly a dangerous situation for the coming crop.

The Noble Fluid: time & place

I spent a few well earned weeks on a trip to Italy in the past month. Mostly it was for pleasure, but I did manage to get some wine tours and meetings with vintners into my schedule.


Primarily I was in Rome for the wedding of a harvest intern who came over to work with us for two consecutive harvests. Vittorio was extremely talented, and when I got the invite to see him & Annalise get hitched in Rome I took the opportunity for yet another Italian road trip.

I mean, who could resist, right? Even if I did think they were crazy for having a wedding in February (they got lucky & the weather was gorgeous for the ceremony & reception) - I think the main reasons they didn't wait until early summer was that Anna's father is in poor health...and probably the fact that Vittorio didn't want to wait any longer...

As always, I found the Italians welcoming and willing to share every aspect of their culture. And I also met a wonderful older German couple which hit it off really well with my party...so much so, that we altered our plans a bit so we could spend the last part of our vacation with them.
And it was over wine and fantastic food that I heard some great stories about how they grew up (both were born ~1940, and lived in what was to become West Germany) in a post WWII Germany, how they had family on both sides of the Iron Curtain, and (unbeknown to me) how in the first few years after the war people could go back and forth over the border and trade relatively freely with each side.

The most interesting stories were about how they still had wines from the eastern side in those early days, but were sending more to the other side than ever came west...
Eventually, the "curtain" was lowered more forcefully, and people really couldn't cross the border anymore - if you were able to get permission, you certainly didn't return to the eastern side!

"You are born into a certain time and place...it becomes you, and you become it. There is nothing you could ever do to change that..."

On the topic of European history, I count myself as "informed", but certainly not an expert...and it was fascinating to have such eager teachers with first hand experience ready to answer each and every question of ours. They had been wine buffs since their early adulthood, and started our conversation about "the Noble fluid" (a phrase at which I first cringed) with the feeling of history which permeates everything the Europeans do. After all, they asked, how can you separate yourself from the context of your own life?
Every action in their home towns when they were growing up was juxtaposed upon a cityscape made up of new buildings right next to older sections of town where the buildings were more than a thousand years old...

"(The weight of history) is really wonderful, yet it can suffocate, too."

They said many times that they didn't really wish to change anything, but that when change was needed, it tended to take longer because of "everyone's sense of history", and that it was especially true of the wine industry.
And while they talked of their new found love for an occasional California Sauv Blanc, they also flatly rejected wines which were too ripe in their opinion as trash - but that mostly came down to the prices they pay for New World wines in Germany, as they said they wouldn't feel too bad getting a bottle every once-in-a-while they didn't like, if they hadn't just dropped so many euros to pick that disappointing bottle up.

Great people, and fantastic wines.
More later on this when I have some time to look back at what we drank & where (some of it is still blurry!).

AVA's: can't see the forest for the trees?

Fermentations had a lovely post last week on AVA's and what Tom thinks should be done to further hinder wine sales (and keep himself employed) in California's wine industry.
Gawd knows I luv ya, Tom Wark...but I think you need to seriously re-think what you're proposing, and stop smoking the whatever-it-is that brought this point of view on.

The biggest problem I see with his post is that he's willing to add even more confusion to the AVA system to validate his belief that soils should hold as high a regard as prevailing weather and climate, etc, in describing where grapes are produced. He goes so far as to claim that only areas which have a consistent soil should be allowed to be an AVA, and that "smaller is always better" when talking about AVA's.

The bad news is that sometimes soil types change within walking a 50' line.
And shall we dig test pits? What strata is important: do we consider all layers, or just the top?
Maps don't include gravel beds, serpentine outcroppings, etc...which throw the whole thing off...they're general in nature (usually) when available from the County or State, and it's up to the farmer to verify and elaborate on what the state geologists make available.

I'd suggest anyone interested in this topic pick up a Soil Survey map or other geologic map of both Napa & Sonoma counties and look at how much variation there is within the already approved AVA's...
Shocking!

And that will no doubt embolden people whom hold Tom's view to try to get even more micro-AVA's created.
However, the model where soil is so paramount in viticulture is France...almost all others approach grape growing with a philosophy that states climate and geography are the biggest determinants to the final grape quality. And one has to point out that the biggest obstacle the French currently face is the consumer's inability to understand (or even care?) about the vast majority of the multitudinous appellations they have in place. Those micro-AVA's they have serve some of the same purposes we use "branding" for...which is one reason why branding hasn't taken off with them for the most part.

What people in Tom's camp are advocating is the creation of an AVA for each & every different combination of soil & climate...
Does this make sense to you?
It doesn't to me...I mean if grapes can be grown in such different soils as occur in Israel and Syria, to Canada, Australia, China, etc., and each of those areas can produce some quite nice wines, then I think we can start to discard the vital importance which some people claim for soil.
Provided the soil doesn't contain minerals or substances harmful to the vines, it (soil) becomes a third-order influence (the first-order being overall climate, weather and exposure choices; second-order being a combination of water availability, clone and varietal, and viticultural choices).
So, should we give a minor player a deciding vote in how we describe our AVA's?
Look at the attached geologic map of Rutherford and see what you think...each of those different colored areas would need their own AVA by the logic of those who regard soils as such an important factor:


This one's for Tom - the soil map of Glen Ellen:


So what's the problem, you might ask...
Plenty!...unless you think the lower half of the Napa Valley should be divided along the following lines:

While I can see such a simplistic argument coming from a first or second year viticulture student, it makes me pale to hear a wine marketer/PR guy jump into that camp.
What a mess!

Soils available are not as simplistic as these general maps lead one to think. I'll round up a few examples to illustrate what a site specific soil map looks like, hopefully including sub-surface strata. And by the way, has anyone bothered to even ask if all these differences are real to the consumer, or if we're about to throw consumer clarity under the bus for the sake of a minority of wine buyers (say 5% of the total purchasing population) who would love the info?
Winegrowers and vintners are already managing this info by using different vineyard blocks and branding - so why get the government involved? How will that help out everyone?

Why the TTB freeze is good

Many industry bloggers have noted the TTB freeze on granting new AVA's within AVA's (they've actually suspended the whole process for the moment), and some have cast it as a reaction to moves by "money" from existing producers in the proposed Calistoga AVA who would be adversely affected by the granting of that petition...and that not withstanding as a possibility, I think of the freeze differently.
[link to Appellation America article]
[link to Wines & Vines article]

As a marketing tool, the idea of an AVA is excellent: it allows producers who can demonstrate climatic, geographical and historical significances in their wine region to differentiate it from the hoards of other producers...
...but the spot where AVA's fall short is in their over-application: if everywhere one turns you find a new micro-AVA, what happens to the publics' ability to distinguish one product from another? And what happens when we create an AVA which doesn't really show any discernible characteristics of place - even when tasted by a panel of respected judges and producers from that area?
[AppAm looks into Carneros "regionality" - finds nothing conclusive]

Logically extending the current swift creation of 180 AVA's into the future, we come to a point where there are thousands of micro-AVA designations, and the consumer is not served by the vast majority of it...

Those questions and that imagined dark future (hopefully avoided) bring the idea of smaller and smaller AVA's into question, and the TTB is right to try to establish some rules which will make sense not only in the here and now, but into the future as well. [The current list of requirements can be found @ the TTB site as well as the restrictions on how labels can be used]

U.S.Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Napa) sent a letter asking about the delay in the rulemaking process, and you can read the TTB response letter here, but allow me to highlight what I think the best passage is:

It is exactly that "AVA within AVA within AVA" dilution (logically extended, ad nauseum, into the "AVA within AVA within AVA within AVA within AVA, etc") which begs the TTB to take action now rather than later.

What I mean is that the future as it stands today has the US heading directly into the situation that France is in now due to its reliance on marketing from the nineteenth century appellation and classifications of its industry - which frankly, has done it service when it was the primary player in the world, but have sharply hindered it in the current era of global competition. Do we want to have people buying appellation maps & rote memorizing the viticultural areas of California & the US in general as they currently NEED to do to understand French wine areas?
Is the future world you desire one where you'll need a somellier certificate to be able to understand all the micro - Nay, nano is a better description- appellations which California will be carved into?

This is the time for us to drop back 10 yards and rethink what we are trying to acheive, and while marketing tools are never wasted energy in my mind, I believe the TTB needs a coherent directive for the future. Maybe proposing a minimum acreage for any AVA (say for argument purposes that could be 64,000 total acres in area, e.g. a 10 mile x 10 mile square), and that there then is some industry and consumer consensus that the area in question provides some distinctive qualities from the areas adjacent to it, etc...

And what about noted industry personalities who have challenged the idea of some of the most revered sub- & micro-appellations anyways? [Chuck Wagner of Caymus comes to mind]...certainly, that might be cited as evidence that we may have already over applied this tool?
And currently the TTB reg's have a process for creation of an AVA, but what happens when everything is carved up and people start to realize that what was created was in fact incorrect - how do we "undo" what is already "done"?
What's the petition system for removal of an AVA once it's been granted?
Do we then "grandfather" those producers who have built brands based on those "previous" and then retracted AVA's?
What a mess that would be...obviously, this system needs a bit of tweaking, and the time to do it is now, before it spreads even further...

Say "NO" to pretension, and "YES" to simplicity...the AVA system needs to augment the consumer's ability to select products, not hinder it with minute designations which in the end will only add confusion...
...the TTB is right and prudent to try to further define what it is doing...

EU subsidies...and reform thereof...

I've got to hand it to the social commentary of Berke Breathed's Bloom County back in the late 80's...still as acerbic and hypocritical as it was then.
( I believe the cartoon was penned when the massive Farm-Aid concerts were being put on all over the country...of course there's a subsequent panel where Opus accounts for all his expenditures and realizes he's spent $37.75 million dollars to produce "two pounds chemically fattened tomaters"[sic], one-half bushel of corn, and a yam, and then proudly exclaims "God help me, I'll NEVER give up this distinctly American way of life!"...yet another panel elapses and then the ridiculously excessive Gov't handouts arrive...).

Anyways, it seems we ALL love our subsidies regardless of where in the world we reside...and we ALL resist having any strings put on them via performance requirements, production quotas, legislation, etc...
We hate to see those subsidies stop so much that we sometimes find ways to try to keep collecting after we die! (MSNBC: Dead Farmers get $1.1 Billion from USDA)
Indeed, one of the biggest problems with any subsidy program is attempting to apply it with a semblance of equity, and then to ensure that those monies are no longer spent when relief's no longer needed.

For the EU there are tough times ahead given the need for reform and the position it finds itself in currently. Those choices they need to make and the sacrifices they will entail, while fairly obvious on the whole, are painful to all.
But do nothing, and you commit yourself to continually spending 1/3 of your collective budget to bail out the wine sector by distillation of surplus products when that money would be better spent on programs increasing quality or marketing. How does one assign areas to be "grubbed up" (removed) - look at yearly excesses? Look at the ratio of production to revenue, and keep only the vineyards with the best returns? Certainly, the vineyards with the least revenue and most yearly excess not turned to table wines would be candidates...but the vignerons with such are not REQUIRED to grub up, unless the vines planted are NOT of approved varietals for that area.
In fact they're trying to be a little too egalitarian in their approach: designate vineyards that produce little revenue (and absorb subsidy money), and leave them the option to grub-up or not, but cut off the subsidies if they choose not to after a short period.
The EU is looking to "grub-up" ~200,000 ha (~494,200 acres) in total.

And where would that leave whole regions like Spain, which produces ~25% of the EU product, but claims only ~8% of the EU revenue monies. See the problem here?
Many of the Spanish wines, sound but without the prestige of the French & Italians, don't garner the same amount of cash (which is good for consumers who continue to look to Spain for great bargains...).
Also unfortunate for Spain is that it just lost its place in the UK to Chilean wines, who can use newer fermentation methods than those allowed in Spain....
Hopefully, the Spanish will be behind the reforms and use those changes to help regain competitive position in the market.

Now, there are detractors to the plan within the EU -namely the biggest names in the game, who have some of the best reputations - and misinformation about the proposals abounds. Many articles I've read in the past few months claim the proposals will end chaptalization (adding sugar to must for alcohol & body).
In fact it will not end the practice of adding sugar in the form of must (up to 2% by volume for cooler areas, 1% for warmer areas in France, Spain, Italy, etc) ...so the vignerons will still have some relief for cooler years with less ripe fruit.
It WILL end the use of beet sugar (& other non-grape source sugar) for that purpose.
Many claim that it will lead to "a loss of tradition", which is dubious...I mean, if your "tradition" no longer garners you much respect in the marketplace, and your sales tank, then what's the point?
Besides, as I said back in September, 2004: tradition sometimes sucks!

The reforms look to help codify geographic place names along the lines of the WTO policies...something the well established AOC & DOC producers don't see as being needed (for them). [see this from the EU's website: Reform of the wine sector- Commission proposal]
Also, see this site from the EU with a summary fact sheet regarding the reforms.
Several variants of the proposals exist, and hopefully the member states of the EU will be able to get something together which serves their common interests.

Personally, if they don't get this reform going now, I feel they'll continually lose market share on the whole, and perhaps even be too far behind the curve to really catch up in the next decade - which is really scary.

Land use scars (Rutherford)

Saw this the other day on Google Earth (click either pic to enlarge):


Of note is the vineyard in the lower left at the corner of Whitehall Lane & S. Whitehall lane. There's a diagonal line running NW to SE across the vine rows (which run roughly East~West).
The vineyard is just North of the Rubicon/Inglenook vineyard. Originally it was owned by Gustav Niebaum, later sold to the John Daniel family, and then sold to Hublien, which eventually portioned it off to other owners.
Click the close-up below for a bit more detail...

So why is it there, and what's it from? It's an old airstrip form decades ago...
John Daniel used to fly his plane into "Rutherford International" - as it was nicknamed - just North of their winery. The fascinating thing about it is that after all these years the compacted soil foundation of the strip is STILL visible to the naked eye, even though the hard surface was removed. The airfield can still be found on some old maps of the area.

Anyone wanna bet it produced at least a little variation in fruit set, ripeness, root depth, etc, when the vines were planted? Perhaps some of that variation still lingers today...

The vine rows are planted across the strip, and the only way to exclude it or vint it differently would be to pick around it, or possibly that people would travel down most of the row picking, then pick the dozen-or-so vines into a separate bin and continue down the row to the end. Then turn down the next row & repeat...
Requests from winemakers to pick those portions above the old strip separate - although a valid request - might be what we call in the biz "anal", or less PC usage would be "a Bitch"...

Not all that easy on the pickers' or managers' time, but something that could be done. Hopefully the vines above the strip don't have too much variation these days from the vines planted elsewhere in the vineyard, and they don't have to pick it separate.