Ooooommmmmm

One in four Americans garden as a hobby.

Some people point to the satisfaction of seeing something grow.

Dr. John Ott actually showed us how things grow when he worked for Disney. (click on the photo)

But usually we see the differences, day to day. And to some degree this is satisfying.

But I've always believed and experienced a different kind of satisfaction.

It's just digging in the dirt. The smell of it, how it turns, what in it that works, the worms, larvae, compost, stones, insects and its texture. All this working together to sustain and promote the myriads of greens and browns and colors that dazzle our eyes and our taste buds.

Digging in the dirt is lake a mantra, digging, turning, breaking it up and turning it again.

Making that connection, with the dirt, starts the vineyard.

Passion

This word is bandied about on many sites talking about blogs, business, websites, etc.

It is essential to be passionate about what you're doing they say.

But everyone knows that there are days when the entire day does not hold up to anything close to passion.

If we read the word passion as indicating "strong and barely controllable emotion' then we may be misled.

But if that 'thing' is something that we can't let go of, keep coming back to, always seems to hold our interest and has an endless variety of nuances and variations that seemingly never gets satisfied than we might be getting close to a better definition.

Not everyday is filled with passion but when that idea pops up the next day and you have to find out something more, do something more, try it again no matter how many failures, then you may have what these people are talking about.

Board Meeting

One of the great things about the family is its spontaneity.

We had our first board meeting during Christmas. Not everyone was there so not all ideas were heard. But it was nice to see the excitement.

The discussions went from where should the vineyard be, what to start with first (amphitheater, vineyard, restaurant, etc.) vineyard names (Faultline seemed to come out ahead), who should be the CEO and why and who would herd the cashmere goats.

The discussions got rather heated at times and someone pointed out that this is why they stay from family businesses. But we are a magnanimous group and emotions rarely last any length of time.

Spice of Life

Sometimes half a phrase is better.

There are a lot of grape varieties. I really don't know if any were lost in the great phylloxera blight in the late 1800's but I am sure many people are working to make sure that none are lost again. At the same time there are new crosses being developed. Certainly some of these are for better taste and/or production as well as adapting to local environments.

In rummaging through the web for a good site that describes the vast variety of grapes I came across this fantastic site.

The artwork is great.

The writing is very interesting and informative.

Sangiovese
You’re a modest boy from Tuscany, seeking fame and fortune. You shed your woven straw attire for more austere threads of tannin with silky orange accents. At home, you began to turn your back on the rough childhood companions from the neighborhood, preferring to hang out in the cafes of Chianti with the French nobleman, King Cabernet. Now in America you’re the most stylish of a new generation of Italian immigrants. It appears that unassuming little boy named after the ‘Blood of Jupiter’ always was a would-be king himself… Italian royalty.

and the grape photos are terrific along with very good technical information

I hope there is no objection to using this information here. If there is let me know and I will delete it. But my intention is to promote the site. Appellationamerica.com, a great site.

Colors and Materials

Here's a little discussion about the architecture of the vineyard.

I have walked and driven the vineyard in my mind trying to understand the physical possibilities. There's that long road to the main house lined with the traditional poplars. But of course they could also be olive trees. Somewhere there has to be olive trees even though they would take 10 years to mature. They become a legacy.

But the architecture needs color and the great earth tones of Tuscany are very appealing: raw sienna, yellow ochre, burnt umber and terra-cotta. I've never been really good at color but touring Florence, Sienna and Venice makes a person aware of the vibrancy possible.

I'm trying to discover how these colors are applied. It appears that the technique is fresco. That's where a lime based plaster is tinted and applied directly to the surface of the building.

Anyway it's a start.

Have you seen the stars tonight?

OK I know this is off topic but I just couldn't resist.

Maybe it's not off topic.

Have you seen the stars tonight?
Would you like to go up on A-deck and look at them with me?

Have you seen the stars tonight?
Would you like to go up for a stroll and keep me company?

Did you know
We could go
We are free
Any place
You can think of
We can be

Have you seen the stars tonight?
Have you looked at all the family of stars?

Sulfite

There is sulfite in all wines. When the amount exceeds 100 parts per million (ppm) the Food and Drug Administration requires labeling.

Adding sulfite to wines reduces spoilage.

At one point there was little control over the amount of sulfite added to wines. The wine industry has reached a level of sophistication that allows them to use less than 100 ppm and still achieve the excellent results.

Sulfite also exits in many foods. At the same time it is estimated that 1 in every hundred people are allergic to sulfite.

Terroirs are important.

If you've bounced around wines for awhile the term 'terroirs' has probably come up. Last Christmas my daughter gave me a beautiful book titled Great Wine Terroirs. As I flipped through the book a photo caught my eye. It was a vineyard in the Rhone Terraces. The vines, untrellised, were growing out of a bed of rocks.

What I learned later is that the rocks slowly give off their warmth at night keeping the roots warm. OK that's positive for what looked like an impossible condition.

But the idea with terroirs is to understand how the soils, terrain, orientation of slopes, contributes to the quality of the grape and subsequently the wine.

A nice proof of this value is described on page 155 of this book discussing Cabernet Sauvignon.

"Regardless of the terrain or climate, most Cabernet Sauvignon wines have an unmistakable aroma of bell peppers that may be more or less marked. This aroma, known to botanists as aristolochia and to chemists as pyrazine, is comon to all grapes in this family (the Merlot, Cabernet Franc, etc.) but it is always pronounced in the Cabernet Sauvignon."

But this pepper aroma changes to "ripe black currants, cedar spices and sometimes licorice" when grown in the gravel terraces of Gironde and Medoc.



So when selecting grapes to be grown in a particular region it is very important to understand what effect the 'terroir' will have.

Is there value to cute wines?

My wife used to collect recipes from the newspaper. There are still a lot that we've used and still more that we are still trying out even though some are many, many years old. Of course now, new recipes come from the internet. It's more convenient since one can match inhouse ingredients with existing recipes.

On one that she showed me had a wine review on the other side. It talked about a recent trend (2005) of cute wines. You know, ones with crazy labels.

This article was clipped just when it was getting interesting. "Putting aside personal, tomboy distaste, wines designed by focus group tend toward lowest common denominator blandness. They lose all relation to the living, ever-changing mystery in a bottle, and then wine ceases to be the most interesting of all drinks and becomes ..........." That's where it ends, but I'm sure you can fill in the rest.

I keep trying different wines paying attention to the labels as well as their age and where they come from. More and more that "ever-changing mystery in a bottle" comes from those less than faddish labels.

Looking for an inexpensive wine? Maybe 'fifth growth"?

Here's a bit of divergence.

While reading an article in a recent issue of Wine Spectator I came across the term 'fifth growth'. It was new to me so I hunted around the internet and found how Napolean III rated Bordeaux's about 150 years ago. Fifth growth refers to the lowest quality of Bordeaux. Obviously first growth, Château Mouton Rothschild, is among the best.


The article, about Chateau Lynch-Bages, a classic Pauillac (check the map) estate is a fifth growth. It's wines are well regarded and often obtain very high ratings. High enough to command an auction price of a 1961 vintage of more than 1,900 a bottle.

Although dollar value in not always a predictor of quality wines it is nice to be appreciated.

There's Numbers in the Vineyard

Sometimes numbers are comforting. They get kicked around lot but I've been able to settle on a few for the typical vineyard.

Iowa State University Extension has good information about vineyards.

link

545 vines will cover an acre very nicely. There can of course be more or less depending on spacing of vines and row width. It costs about $10,000 and 3+ years to get one acre of vines to produce a good crop.

Then there's about 4000 bottles of wine in an acre of grapes.

link

This site shows 400 vines per acre and the Benzinger site show 1089 vines per acre. I'm comfortable with 545.

Incidentals

The discussions went from spa, to restaurant, to pet care for visitors, to art gallery and yes, well there was also ...................... well maybe not yet. That's a discussion for another time.

It's a little like wine tasting. You can talk about wines as being good and bad but the appreciation comes from the subtleties of aroma, color and taste.

And what might seem like typical components of a nice vineyard/winery, the quality comes in the details.

Conversations about the vineyard.

Considering the diversity of interests in the family it was a surprise listening to how each person was interested in participating.

Maybe it was the excitement of the holiday gathering, the good food and drink.

Certainly it was vines and wines. I guess that's my basic interest. A chance to work outside, everyday. To get familiar with the land and the vines and all the interactions of life around them.

But there were other interests: art, music, food, craft and other, rather unusual incidentals that could nicely compliment a vineyard.

Everything seems to start with a crazy idea.

This is about family. And attempt to keep it together, close.

Over the years this family has learned how important each of us is to one another. Sometimes in small ways and sometimes in very big ways.

And it seems that one of our characteristics is that no one is ever abandoned.

We've invited others into this family with various degrees of success. It's hoped that anyone who experienced some time with us enjoyed it.

So an idea arrives at one of our large gatherings. Sort of a crazy idea and sort of interesting.

A family vineyard.