1997 No. 4

Dear Faithful Subscribers:

Despite the psychic joy of using one of the earliest agricultural implements, the satisfaction of achieving closure on a project and the joy of using one’s arms for something other than holding a writing instrument or a wrist watch, hoeing does get old after a while. Moreover, those pesky weeds seem to grow — well, like weeds. Once you finish hoeing the vineyard, it is time to start over again. (The Vigneron recognizes that he may not be the first agriculturist to observe this phenomenon.) Hoeing, while organically and environmentally positive, is also more costly than herbicides. But, preferring to avoid the use of herbicides, the Vigneron set about finding an alternative to both. While perusing one of the multitude of wine publications the Vigneron receives, he saw an ad for an "in-the-row" tiller which included a promotional video cassette. The Vigneron called the 800 number and ordered the video, which impressed him so much that he ordered the tiller. The tiller is a circular apparatus with two concentric circles of 6-inch rotating tines. The operator just attaches it to the front of the tractor, places it in the space between the vines-cranks up the tractor and drives down the row. The circular tines till the ground to about four inches, eliminating the weeds. When the sensor arm hits the grape stake — like the brushes in a car wash — it moves the tiller around the stake and then back between the stakes. What a wonderful machine! Its cost is about equal to one year’s hoeing or two years of herbicide. Needless to say, the Vigneron’s back greatly appreciates the wonders of the 20th Century.

The 1997 Santa Barbara County Vintner’s Association Wine Map is out and we are listed in the grower’s section. The Vigneron has already had to deal with several tourists who wanted to know "where’s the wine?"

The plans and preparations to prepare the property to plant the pinot noir vineyard in the Spring of 1998 are in full swing. The plants were ordered in the Fall of 1996 and the Vineyardist has been dutifully making his periodic progress payments. Observations pits were dug to the depth of 6 feet and three soil samples from each were sent to the laboratory for analysis. The results have been received and bids are being solicited to add the soil amendments recommended. The observation pits disclosed that we have a hard pan layer of 6-18 inches at a 2-4 foot depth. Unless disturbed, the vines’ roots will not penetrate the hard pan and will go sideways instead of down. Thus, the hard pan has to be broken up. The usual two pronged ripping depth is 42 inches so it might not do the job throughout the vineyard. The choices are a slit plow and then rip or use a 48-inch single pronged ripper first followed by the two pronged 42-inch rippers. After consulting with the Ripper - no relation to Jack that he will admit to - we have decided to use the 52-inch instead of the slit plow. Meanwhile, the drip irrigation installers have been contacted and the water consultants have submitted their suggestions as well. All was prevailing pleasantly until El Nino raised its watery head.

The predictions are for 30-40 inches of rain in the December to March time frame. This could cause severe erosion problems to ripped land, washing away valuable top soil and causing flooding.

Thus, do we rip now, plant a cover crop and cover it with hay and hope El Nino goes to Napa? Or, do we wait until March when the vineyard dries out to permit the tractors to work and condense 3 months of work into 45 days since the plants will arrive mid-April and either have to be planted within a week or placed in cold storage. Of course everybody else who makes the same decision will be beating on their drip irrigation installers and end posters to get their work done during the same time frame.

As you might expect, there is no universally agreed to right answer and everyone who is planting in 1998 faces the same quandary. After consulting with our neighbors, other growers, viticulturists, water consultants, etc., the Vineyardist-in-Training and the Vigneron were perplexed. They decided to get an impartial expert opinion and asked L’Agent. She pondered the matter while stitching a rug for one of her doll houses and then remarked on the number of occasions that the Vigneron got the family car stuck when he strayed off the road in the December to March time frame and recalled that we got two tractors, ours and Babcock’s, plus the Vineyardist-in-Training’s pickup truck stuck in the vineyard last March in a normal year. She opined - "RIP NOW". So the die has been cast and off we go.

L’Agent has decorated and accessorized the Long Beach house and made it "just darling". She would like to be working on the "real" house at the Ranch, but all the cash from the day jobs and then some, is being put into the ground - literally and figuratively. In this void L’Agent has stumbled across the world of miniatures. For the unwashed and unread it is not dollhouses. These miniatures are on a 1-inch = 1-foot scale. The Vigneron has learned that, unfortunately, the cost difference between a real house and a miniature is not 1:12, but close to equal. L’Agent has dragged the Vigneron quietly, but not willingly, to search out the miniature stores and vendors in the continental United States. Unfortunately, the supply seems endless.

L’Agent now has five houses more or less complete with wallpaper, handmade needlepoint rugs and wall coverings, paint, crown moldings, chair rails, and fully accessorized. L’Agent has noted that the nice thing about miniatures is she can make them perfect and no one - read the Vigneron and Bud - messes them up or tracks dirt in on the floors or moves things around. The five miniature houses have taken over the Long Beach house piano, kitchen table, stereo cabinet, den bookshelves and bedroom side table. They are all on turntables for easy viewing. L’Agent has just about finished all the insides and is now making window boxes and planters for the outside.

The space under the Vigneron’s bed is becoming a miniature lumber yard and staging area. There are jars of paint, thinner, brushes, pieces of crown molding and chair rail, flooring of various colors and types, bricks, shingles, plus endless supplies of chairs, tables, lamps, sofas, candlesticks, etc.

The miniature world seems to fall into two personality types - those who buy everything and those who create as much as they can and buy only as a last resort. Faithful readers know where L’Agent falls and may be surprised to learn that besides her thread talents (needlepoint, quilt making, wall hangings, etc.) she is also quite creative in making pieces for the houses out of very ordinary items. She has found the top of the Vigneron’s Scope mouthwash bottle makes an excellent kitchen table when she covers it with fabric or by painting the outside it also makes a "darling" planter for trees or shrubs. Tops of the Vigneron’s cologne and electric shaver bottle are just the right size to cover with fabric for end tables or paint and use as flower pots. The Vigneron’s protests that all of these capless bottles result in evaporation of his cologne, and damage the environment etc. have fallen on deaf ears.

The Vigneron also manages to find fabric or paper in regular stores with patterns small enough to use in the houses - it is too easy to buy such paper from the miniature sellers.

L’Agent has discovered a whole under world of specialized services. Thus, for the Ranch miniature house she sent a picture of the Vigneron to a miniature dollmaker and back comes a farmer in overalls, pitchfork in hand with the Vigneron’s head on it. L’Agent has observed that not only is the miniature of the Vigneron better looking but she can put him wherever she wants without any squawking. The Vigneron regularly inspects this doll for pin holes.

At Bud’s suggestion, L’Agent entered her four-story townhouse with the Dalmatian bedroom in the L.A. County Fair’s Home Arts Competition. For two weeks prior to the Fair’s opening, L’Agent haunted the mailbox and when she received no notification from the Fair, she was sure her house had been rejected. The Vigneron, who as part of the day job, does some work for the Fair, was invited to the Fair’s opening night party. After pressing the flesh with present clients and passing out business cards to prospective clients, the Vigneron and L’Agent went to Building 4 to view the Home Arts exhibits. The Vigneron and L’Agent walked around and around and they saw half a dozen doll houses with first, second or third place ribbons but not L’Agent’s. She became more depressed and resigned herself to the fact that her house had been rejected. The Vigneron who always sees the glass as half full, rejected such a notion. The Vigneron finally walked to the front of the exhibit where there was a special case for all the Best of Show winners and lo and behold he saw L’Agent’s house had won the Best of Show prize for the miniature collections on her first try. The Vigneron suggested that she ought to quit while she was ahead. L’Agent is now developing a five year plan to enter the rest of the houses so that she can get consecutive Best of Show awards. She also noted that the best the Vigneron and Frank G. could do in five or six years was one puny gold medal and she suggested they probably needed a woman’s hand in their wine making.

September is a special time in the Santa Rita Hills. The morning fog that clung to the sky all summer stubbornly concedes to sunshine, the grapes ripen quickly, and the growers and winemakers ply their chaotic harvest-time craft. With another year to wait before the first commercial Chardonnay harvest at Clos Pepe Vineyards, I might feel a little left out of the madness, if not for the countless hours of planning I’ve put into the Pinot Noir vineyard, which will be amended and ripped this week (Sept. 20-24). The Pinot vines (all 19,600 of them) will be in the ground come Spring. (Which, at the current snail-pace of publication, will be around the time you’ll be reading this addendum.)

Last September I was deep in crush at Babcock Vineyards and Winery, and although I have spent a good amount of time there this season, I miss the ‘never-a-second-to-spare’ rush of making a whole year’s wine in only a few weeks. I hope to get a month of full-time employment there before the crush subsides completely.

Saturday, September 20, 1997 marked our first smallscale harvest, picking those grapes that were lovingly netted only a few months ago. Steve and I hope to glean enough Chard to make 10-15 gallons of wine, and with the help of Rob, Stacy, Jennifer and Nicole Hagen, the day should prove to be as festive as it is monumental. If we do get 15 gallons, we’ll produce about 5 cases of the first Clos Pepe Estate Chardonnay. Distribution might be difficult, and we figure we can break even this year if we can sell the bottles for $17,000 apiece. Down payments should be sent directly to L’agent to partially finance her increasingly costly (yet award-winning) doll-house habit.

(Addendum’s addendum: 600 lb. of Chardonnay was harvested from Davis-4 vines on the morning of Saturday, September 20, nearly double the expected yield. The fruit came in at 24.5 degrees Brix, 3.15 pH, and was crushed, destemmed, and pressed with the aid of family and friends. The Viticulturist and the Vigneron were the only two members of the family that took no breaks, naps, or meals during the seven-hour process from vine to juice. We did sneak a few bottles of wine from the Viticulturist’s cellar, as L’agent was too busy entertaining grandchildren to complain about the conspicuous consumption of aforementioned libations. As of 9/25/97, the 30 gallons of fermenting juice was at 7% alcohol and 13 degrees brix. The juice is highly concentrated in both flavor and mineral component, and even though the vines are young, I believe the wine produced will be tasty. Because of the bumper crop, discounted 1997 Estate Chardonnay will be available at only $10,000 per bottle. Order early, L’Agent has her eye on a 1:1 scale Spanish Style doll house to replace the horse barn at Clos Pepe.)

THE GROUND IS OPEN AND VINES AWAIT

Luke 20:13

After listening to the wisdom of every farmer and consultant who had lips to flap, Steve and I came to the conclusion that we’d try to beat El Nino to the punch. The warm water that continues to flow up the West Coast seems to spell trouble, but we’re confident we can lay rye, barley and clover seed on the new 14.2 acre hillside Pinot Noir development before the storms hit, and that erosion will be held to a minimum. El Nino was named for Christ, because the system often comes around Christmas, and we hope that He will live up to His name and be ‘meek and mild’. Our goal is to have all the irrigation in the ground before the first major storm. With twenty-two sprinklers an acre, we will be able to keep a vigorous cover-crop watered between storms--and come Spring, we hope to have everything ready for the dormant vines when they arrive. A third of the Pinot Noir fruit is already contracted by Babcock Winery and Tensley Wine Company (‘Wines from the Ground Up’). Tensley is owned by the infamous J. Tensley, who nearly died a few weeks ago as a result of a terrible allergic reaction to a yellow-jacket bite suffered on the crush platform. (See ‘Tales from the Vineyard’ for more romantic tales of winemaking.)

Planning the new vineyard has been a task that expands in complexity every day. I tested the soil at five different sites, (three from 8’ backhoe pits and two with a hand auger) and the lab results were turned into a ‘soil map’ that allowed me to decide what amendments and fertilizers to spread on the future vineyard blocks. Changes in soil composition and structure dictated specific planting locations of clone/rootstock combinations. Amendments, such as lime, alter the soil pH (acidity/alkalinity) and the nutrient availability, as well as increasing potential for establishing a cover crop to retard erosion. Nearly eighty tons of sugar-beet lime, mixed with a secret potion of nitrogen and zinc, were broadcast over the 14.2 acre site, which was then disked and ripped (I can hear the massive Caterpillar D8 tearing into the hill with a 52" blade right now). The backhoe pits clearly showed that we have a clay restrictive layer only 20"-30" below the topsoil, (which looks like dense oily toffee), and as a result I decided to rip deeper to loosen up the ‘profile’ and give the young plants a better chance to root. The most important task ahead is to open trenches and get the irrigation system, as well as a new 2-pump assembly that will separate the domestic from the agricultural watering architecture, in the ground and operational.

I have learned quickly, and by pure necessity, to talk to irrigation experts about my exact needs for the Pinot Noir development. Lizanne Wheeler and Pat Brown of Vineyard Water Consultants have been both patient and instructive as they’ve led me through the processes of developing evapotranspiration rates, acre-foot necessity, sizing pumps for efficiency, and determining our pounds-per-square-inch and gallon-per-hour requirements for each of 10 blocks of vineyard. I don’t like to come across as being wet behind the ears, so I’ve been absorbing facts and vocabulary quickly from whoever will school me. There’s plenty of good textbooks I’ve found, and I’m moving through them at a fairly rapid pace.

Where’s the Romance I’ve Heard so much About??

Most books on winemaking include pictures of a professorial winemaker in a clean oxford and khakis, wine thief in one hand, Riedel stem in the other, poised thoughtfully over a barrel. The expression on his face is philosophical, trying to deduce whether the flavor in his barrel-fermented Vigneron is strictly floral, or has elements of citrus fruit. I wonder...where do photographers find these guys? Maybe the wineries or the publishers hire models from Eddie Bauer catalogs.

The winemakers I know and respect never wear clothes without stains. Their hair becomes unkempt during crush, their faces become grizzled and weary, their hands puff and flake from dermatitis and yellow-jacket bites. They stink like sweat and the gross lees crusted into their denim shorts. While plying their craft, winemakers look more like the helpless than the ascot-wearing bon-vivant communing with Bacchus over a barrel. What I’m trying to get at is this: grape-growing and winemaking may seem romantic and glorified, but when the season hits and the grapes roll in by the ton, the pretension evaporates like a barrel of brandy without a bung.

It may be romantic to see someone else picking grapes for ten hours a day, it may bring a smile to see someone else thigh-deep and dizzy in a vat of Pinot Noir must, shoveling the last half-ton of seed-laden pommace into a picking bin — but get your booty into the field or up on the press platform and the romance is short lived. Sure--maybe in the midst of it all you’ll have time to think, ‘I’m making wine. I like wine. This is good.’ But as soon as your mind starts wandering...’snip’. Your pruning shears mistake a finger for a peduncle, or your head smacks into the crusher/destemmer, or that pesky yellow-jacket decides to explore the cool shade inside your shorts; reminding us once again that romance in the vineyard is usually reserved for spectators. Until, that is, the wine is dry in barrel and the photographers arrive with a razor, an array of props, and a complementary wardrobe from the Eddie Bauer catalog.

Steve, Cathy and Bud

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