Note the blurry hands as Eleuterio “Teo” Gonzalez cuts each Pinot cluster off with lightening speed. Eleuterio, a Trefethen team member since 1996, has always been one of our fastest pickers. And that’s saying something. This morning, across the three crews, we averaged 600 pounds per picker, per hour. Considering that these clusters weigh about 0.20 lbs each, that’s an incredible 3,000 clusters per hour or 50 per minute! And Eleuterio is going faster than average!?!

We expect to continue picking Pinot for sparkling wine over the next few days and then enjoy a brief break before we get into Chardonnay and Pinot Noir for still wines. Looking at the sample numbers from this morning, Malbec is already reaching 20 degrees brix and may be coming in with those other early varieties. As has been widely reported, this has been a relatively cool vintage with the notable exceptions of last week’s heat spell and a nice warm forecast for this week. Here at Trefethen, we took action early in the season to accelerate ripening after seeing some delay as early as April and May. These steps, such as leaving cover crop growing, severely limiting irrigation and thinning both earlier and more aggressively than usual, have helped the vines progress nicely.

Given the cooler summer, we expect to be picking each block 7-14 days later than usual. That said, there really isn’t such a thing as a “typical” or “average” year. Looking at the 42 years of weather data on my office wall confirms this. Every year since the Trefethen family purchased the estate in 1968 has been different in one way or another. Such is the nature of the beast. And, because of that, we never farm for an “average” year. Instead, we farm in real-time, constantly adjusting to the weather at hand – and that’s how great wine is crafted, year in and year out. Okay, time for me to get off my soapbox and back into the vineyard.. Cheers to vintage 2010!

Jon Ruel
Director of Viticulture & Winemaking

Recently, on the second day of an El Niño downpour, I laced up the shoes and hit the vineyards. I had missed a run the day before and, like many runners, the thought of missing two days in a row filled me with a bit of anxiety. As I ran that day, the French word “terroir” came to mind. Terroir—often translated as “a sense of place”—is used to describe the soil, topography, and climate of a grape-growing region. The feeling is that the terroir of a vineyard will impart a quality or a certain personality to the wine that is unique to that vineyard or region. American winemakers will occasionally roll their eyes at the mention of the word (I admit I can’t help but use “air quotation marks” every time I say it). That’s because terroir is often used by Francophiles to argue that, regardless of the quality, Napa Cabernet will never be as good as Bordeaux because Napa doesn’t have Bordeaux’s terroir. That argument aside, the idea that certain regions grow certain varieties of grape more successfully than other regions makes perfect sense.

Trefethen Family Vineyards has 440 vineyard acres and extensive soil surveys over the years have identified over a dozen different soil types surrounding the winery. Although each vineyard block experiences the same climate, drastic differences in the fruit produced can be seen between adjacent vineyard blocks, and these differences, for the most part, have to do with the type and structure of that soil. To my mind, the biggest factor in determining which soil is suitable for a grape variety is the water retention of the soil. For instance, Cabernet sauvignon needs well-drained soils in order to completely ripen its fruit before the vine goes dormant for the winter. When grown in deep and heavy clay soils you get what the old-timers call “wet-feet Cab”—Cabernet that never ripens and makes a wine that tastes like canned green beans. On the other hand, earlier ripening varieties like Chardonnay or Merlot, grown in that same soil will fully ripen and make a beautiful wine. My rainy run that day gave me an unexpected lesson on how all of those soil surveys helped the vineyard team choose which varieties of grapes to plant in each section.
Cabernet Sauvignon
Patting myself on the back as I exited the winery building—it’s pretty hard-core for a Californian to run in the rain—I headed down a muddy vineyard row into the area where most of our Cabernet Sauvignon was planted. There’s a winter creek at the north end of the property that, before we had levees and storm-water control, would jump the bank and carve new routes all the time. This land has lower clay content, and if you dig down a couple feet, you will find the subsoil full of old, gravelly river rock deposited by the creek over the centuries. This rocky subsoil means good drainage and rarely a puddle. The traction got better the closer I got to the creek leading me to conclude that what’s good for Cab is good for running.
Chardonnay
I veered away from the old creek bed and realized that I was in for it. Soil surveys showed a line of subsurface gravel that runs through this block that allows for decent drainage but the topsoil is a clay loam that soaks up water like a sponge. Because of the subsoil, the ground will dry out before summer and the Chardonnay planted here ripens earlier than in other parts of the property. Unfortunately I wasn’t running on the subsoil.  An El Niño winter combined with the clay loam topsoil to make a spectacular mud puddle. This was a special kind of mud—the kind of mud that you could use to mortar a brick wall or to trap a mastodon. I was growing taller with each step as the clay caked into the tread of my shoes—building my own pair of mud stilts. My shoes were as heavy as cinder blocks. Every once in a while I would kick out a foot and send a couple pounds worth of clods sailing into the dormant Chardonnay vines.
Riesling
As I struggled out of this Chardonnay block, the clods started disappearing from my shoes but I encountered a different problem. Glancing ahead to where the majority of the Riesling is planted, I was startled to find a wetland transplanted into the vineyard—complete with egrets and ducks wading through ankle-deep water. This block has an even heavier soil with a water-holding capacity that allows us to dry-farm—we don’t irrigate all summer. Even with dry-farming, the Riesling in this block ripens later than Riesling in other areas—giving the fruit from the different sections distinct characters. Rather than join the water fowl, I detoured onto a gravel road to the southern end of the property.
Merlot and Pinot Noir
I was now at the opposite end of the vineyard from the winter creek and running through Pinot Noir and Merlot vines. I was cautiously optimistic—no big puddles but what should have peaked my curiosity were the ruts where farm equipment had gotten stuck. Everything seemed fine until I decided to kick up the pace and almost kicked myself in the back of the head. To say that the ground was slick would be an understatement. We’ve dug pits in this area and found a hodgepodge of different soils, and I felt it—two steps fine, one step like running across bacon grease. The land had good drainage, but something about the water-saturated silt-loam lacing this topsoil made for groin-pulls.

The grapes from these vineyard blocks ripen with that same variability, so our vineyard team has split up these blocks into two dozen independent irrigation zones to try to even things out a little. Even with this kind of precision farming, these vineyard blocks are usually harvested in several passes due to the soil variability. It is always interesting to see such complexity in what, from an aerial photo, looks like the same land. Food for thought, as I gingerly high-stepped along this section—trying to run without fully committing to each step. I was wondering how I would convey how far I ran in my running log. Technically, this section was a half mile long but it felt like I was running the wrong way on a people-mover. That has to be worth an extra quarter mile, right?

As I pulled back into the winery, and hosed the terroir off my shoes, I thought about how lucky I was to have the opportunity to experience wine from its creation to appreciation. There certainly is much to learn about wine, and each harvest teaches me a new lesson. I also decided that, in the future, I’d rather learn about soil structure from a survey map than a mud-run.

Cheers,
Zeke Neeley
Winemaker

Now this is not an unfamiliar place to me, I learned how to drive manual on this track, but I have to admit I haven’t spent much time there over the past few years. Yet I happily spent every moment of this past weekend watching and timing my Dad, Brother, and two other racing friends in a 7 hour enduro race. Seven hours is a long time for any car to be racing on a track, to be put under the pressure of four different drivers. But this race was special, and this car was new to these four drivers.

The boys of the Trefethen family (they really are boys at heart you will quickly learn) participated in the Chump Car World Series, where every car on the track can only be worth $500 at most. That meant some great American mechanical ingenuity was needed. So to conserve money, they forewent a gas gauge, speedometer, and didn’t limit themselves to just one car. That’s right, I can’t tell you how fast they were going, because I haven’t a clue. They didn’t know when they were running out of gas- they simply waited for the car to give a little sputter and then came in for a pit stop and driver change after about 1 1/2 – 2 hours. And the track announcer wasn’t quite sure what to call this car, because you see it was a Camaro in front… but a firebird in the back, with an engine from an all together different car.

And after all that these “boys” in my family drove that car into the lead on saturday, and then proceeded to lap everyone a good 5 times before the 7 hours were up. They won $1000!
Cheers,
Hailey T.

Pressing off the Pinot Noir.I know Omar's shirt says 2008. What I don't know is how he keeps it so clean.

As we enter the final couple weeks of harvest, I realize I haven’t posted to this blog nearly as often as I hoped..  but I guess that’s to be expected.  Harvest usually starts off at such a reasonable pace allowing  me to maintain such niceties as sleep and time with the family.  But, by early October, the pace picks up and my head is spinning,  obsessing about the grapes and the wine, 24/7.

At this point, a number of the early picks have already fermented to dryness and are resting in barrel.  We purchased a small basket press this year which has been very handy as we continue to micro-manage the vineyard, picking each small block at the peak of perfection.  I’ve included some photos here of the press (and the crew) in action.  We have been delighted with all the wine lots brought in so far.  The Riesling is extremely aromatic, the Chardonnay bright and fresh and the early reds like Pinot Noir and Malbec are quite fruity.  We were checking on the barrels a couple days ago, and this one barrel of Pinot smelled so much of raspberries, I wanted to drink it all right then and there!

Here comes the wine! The screen catches any skins that escape the basket.

We do still have some grapes on the vine which is not unusual, considering the cool year we’ve had.  I fretted a bit this past week as the remnants of a typhoon headed our way.  We ended up with over 5 inches of rain in just 12 hrs!  We don’t till much at all, so we didn’t lose any soil to erosion.  And these remaining grapes are Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, both varieties that can handle getting wet.  In fact, it often rains as much as 7 inches during harvest in Bordeaux.  And I’ve heard they make some decent wine there on occasion.

We are walking in the vineyards daily during these final weeks,waiting for some final ripening and the crew is ready to pick at a moment’s notice.  Today the sun is shining and it’s over 80 degrees.  A few more days like this and we can bring the rest in.  And then I can reacquaint myself with the family…

Cheers,

Jon Ruel

Assistant winemaker Bryan Kays and winemaker Zeke Neeley out tasting some young malbec vines.

During harvest, we walk in the vineyards every day, tasting grapes from clusters to get a better idea of whether the block is ready for harvest.  We make a couple of passes through each vineyard block, popping a grape into our mouths every so often.  We are tasting the grapes to not only see if they are flavorful but if the seeds are mature (crunchy and brown), if the skins are mature (red grapes skins should have some astringency) and if the acidity and sweetness seem in balance.

Wine grapes are much sweeter than the Thompson Seedless that you get in the supermarket.  So to avoid the physical ailments that would arise after eating a couple hundred grapes we make a habit of spitting the grapes out after tasting them.  Even so, you can’t avoid swallowing a significant amount of juice.

Anyway, earlier this week, after inspecting several blocks which involved a couple of miles of walking and sampling a bucket’s-worth of grapes, Jon Ruel, our Director of Viticulture and Winemaking, wondered out loud whether we were gaining or losing weight on these trips.  Intrigued, I did a little research.

Based on the following assumptions:

1. A single grape weighs a gram
2. 20% of a wine grape is sugar
3. While sampling the grape we consume 1/2 of the sugar
4. sugar is 4.5 calories/gram

We consume 0.45 calories for every grape sampled.

Walking at a brisk pace, a 160 lbs man burns 80 calories per mile.

A mile has 1760 one-yard steps.

80 calories per mile divided by 0.45 calories per grape = 178 grapes could be sampled per mile.

1760 steps divided by 178 grapes means that we need to take roughly 10 steps between each grape sampled to not lose ground in the our endless struggle with our waistlines.

Add to that some spastic pin-wheeling after walking through six-foot wide spider webs and we’ve got ourselves an exercise program.  Now, if I could only figure out how to avoid eating donuts during harvest I’d be sitting pretty!  Well, I’d better get back to work before people start getting the idea that winemakers have nothing to do during harvest!

Cheers,

Zeke Neeley

Winemaker

The family joins the crew in celebration as the first grapes enter the hopper!

We brought in our first grapes of the season this morning with the vineyard crew picking a  1.26 acre block of Wente clone Chardonnay in the chilly morning hours.  This particular clone has a lot of muscat character and had just reached the point where the berries were singing with flavor!

When the fruit arrived on the crush pad, the Trefethen family joined the crew in celebrating the start of the 2009 Harvest. Nothing like popping the cork on a bottle of sparkling wine at 8:30 in the morning!  None for the forklift drivers, of course….

After loading the press with grapes, we headed back out to the vineyard to taste grapes and discuss harvest plans for the rest of the week. We have another Wente clone selection that is nearly ready. This one is called “Hens and Chicks” for its tendency to produce large and small berries on each cluster. We’re also looking at some Dijon clone Chardonnay as well as some Pinot Noir for later this week.

Happy Harvest!

Jon Ruel

Janet, Bella and Remy

By Janet Trefethen

I received a surprise in the mail.  One that I hope I don’t receive again.  It came quietly, in a white envelope; no siren screaming or red light flashing – it was a traffic violation.  Weeks ago, while driving to Santa Cruz, a quickly changing yellow light snuck up on me.  It was one of those occasions where you quickly decide whether to slam on the brakes and end up in the middle of the intersection (with the dogs in the front seat rather than the back) or take a deep breath and hope you make it.  I opted for the later.  Little did I know that there was one of those sneaky traffic cameras filming the entire thing.  But, a few weeks later, via the mail I learned they got it all – complete with photos.

I write this to our visitors who we hope will be coming to our beautiful valley soon to share the joy of harvest with us.  There is a traffic camera at the intersection of Hwy.29 and Hwy 221/Soscol Avenue just as you enter the Napa Valley.  It is right before the wonderful crusher statue on the east side of 29.  You may want to make note of it and also remember the state is broke.  This is a revenue generating camera.

Cheers,
Janet

(or Wine Writers Will Beat a Dead Horse)

By Zeke Neeley, Winemaker

In the wine media, the term “high alcohol wine” has a very derogatory connotation.  That phrase is often used to express disapproval regarding a certain style of wine characterized by over-extraction, huge tannins, overt oakiness, and a cloying body.  But, as I’ll argue in this blog, any relation between those traits and alcohol is not causative.  A wine may be both high in alcohol and over-extracted, but the two aren’t joined at the hip.  A wine might taste slightly sweet but don’t immediately blame the alcohol, sometimes the sweetness is something much more obvious . . . like residual sugar.

Let’s take a step back and look at where the alcohol comes from.  Wine is a product of natural yeast consuming simple sugars and converting them to both ethanol and carbon dioxide.  A higher concentration of sugar in the juice will theoretically yield a higher concentration of alcohol in the resulting wine.  Grapes naturally develop high concentrations of sugar which is one reason why grape wine was originally prized over other types of fruit wine.  Because sugar production in fruit is a result of photosynthesis, the amount of sunlight a grapevine receives is directly related to the concentration of sugar in the grape.  Centuries ago, the most prized wines were from warmer, sunnier climates, ergo the wines with the most alcohol.  Wine drinkers liked their Malmsey hot!

Not only did people want more bang for their buck, they also wanted the wine to last until they got home.  The standard ranges of alcohol we see today (13% to 15%) help protect wine from a myriad of spoilage yeast and bacteria.  Occasionally, the antimicrobial properties of alcohol, combined with poor fermentation management on the part of a winemaker, work too well and the wine will “stick”, that is the yeast will die off before consuming all of the sugar leaving the wine slightly sweet.

Most California wine regions, like coveted wine regions of times past, have intense sunlight throughout the growing season.  Although sugar accumulation is related to photosynthesis, many flavor and aroma compounds arrive in the grape independent of the amount of sunlight the vine receives.  By the time our California grapes have the intense flavors and characteristics that we are looking for, they will usually have more sugar than grapes harvested in cooler climates like northern France or Germany.  It is in the best interest of California winemakers to pick the grapes at the lowest possible sugar level to avoid “stuck” fermentations due to high alcohol, but it is also in our best interest to avoid picking unripe grapes full of “green” vegetal characteristics.  Honestly, you don’t have to like California wine, just don’t blame the winemaker when it’s our Terrior!

People, I included, will refer to a wine as “hot” if it appears to have a higher than normal alcohol concentration.  To me, this is characterized by a sharp, tickling sensation in the nose along with chemical fume aroma.  Another related cue to high alcohol content is bitterness, which has been shown to be accentuated by increasing the alcohol content in a wine.  I, and some other wine industry friends with whom I taste, have often arrogantly assumed that we could taste different levels of alcohol in wine.  Some skeptics in the group started testing us and we found that we were right about 50% of the time, but unfortunately we were also wrong about 50% of the time.  After much discussion we felt that we, like some wine writers, were falling prey to our own expertise.  Our most common assumptions were that a lack of acidity, bitterness, and raisin or jammy flavors were signals that the grapes were overripe—had too much sugar—when picked and, ergo, the wine must be high alcohol.  A recent study by Researchers at the University of British Columbia found that their subjects could only distinguish a spiked wine when the alcohol difference was greater than 1% (i.e. 13.5% to 14.5%) over the control wine.

I have also heard wine writers lament how they can no longer finish a bottle of wine without becoming completely smashed.  Punching it into my calculator, a 750mL bottle of wine with 14.5% alcohol has the same amount of alcohol as 805mL of 13.5% wine.  This means those 4 glasses of 14.5% alcohol wine equal 4 glasses and 3 tablespoons of 13.5% alcohol wine.  I think the wine writers, like the rest of us, are just getting older.

Anyway, I have no problem with wine writers or aficionados having opinions.  I, too, find many New World wines to be over-extracted and cloyingly sweet.  The goal at Trefethen Vineyards is to achieve balance in our wines.  If a wine has flavors, mouthfeel, tannins, and alcohol working in symmetry then we have reached our goal.  My only request is to please avoid maligning poor alcohol whose only desire is to lighten your mood, keep your ticker ticking, and keep your Trefethen Cabernet sauvignon from going bad.

Cheers and sorry for the rant,

Zeke

“In spite of being the only contestant to arrive with his own safety glasses, I’m ashamed to admit that I managed to tie for last place in the winemaker ribs eating contest. Showing a pathetic lack of gluttony, I was only able to eat 19 ribs in the allotted 10 minutes while two guys each devoured 31. I apologize for any dishonor that I may brought to the winery and to the pigs that gave their ribs in my lackadaisical effort.”

Better luck next year, Zeke!

Zeke, the not-so-master ribber.

Winemakers and coopers are often asked “what is the difference between French and American oak barrels?”  The simple answer is that they come from two different species of tree, but the real question is probably more accurately put “why would someone use French oak for one wine and American oak for another?”

First, a little history regarding oak barrels may be useful.  In the past, wine barrels have been made from many different types of wood including chestnut, acacia, and redwood.  Although I have seen the occasional acacia barrel, white oak has won out for two reasons: mechanical and aromatic.  White oak is easy to split, though I’ve never tried it myself, it can be bent and maintain a curved shape with good mechanical strength, and it doesn’t leak.  Oaks are generally quite porous which would lead you to assume that as soon as wine soaked into the wood it would pour out one of the stave ends.  What makes white oaks suitable for barrels is that its pores are blocked by woody plugs called tyloses.  Wine will soak into the barrel but rarely leak from it.  Aromatically, white oak is superior to other woods because, in spite of what critics may say, it is a relatively neutral wood.  I will, at times, complain about a wine being “over-oaked”, but I will take “over-oaked” wine over “over-pined” retsina any day!

The oak forests of France play a part in the history of France itself.  The main reason why France still has such extensive forests of white oak is due to a conscious effort of the French government almost 400 years ago to ensure that the French Navy had an ample supply of material for shipbuilding.  In the early 17^th century, the French government started the Bureau of Water and Forestry, which used ingenuity and a bit of arm-twisting to ensure that these forests lasted for centuries.  The amount of foresight needed is astonishing when you realize that the trees they planted in the 17^th century wouldn’t be useful for building ships (or barrels) for at least 200 years!  To increase quality, the Bureau instituted some clever strategies.  For example, for ship and barrel building, you want a tall straight trunk.  To achieve that goal, they planted chestnut trees around the oaks so that the oaks would have to grow tall to get sunlight.

American white oak, Quercus alba, had a bad reputation for years because winemakers were using used whiskey barrels which were heavily charred on the inside.  Now that American oak is being coopered similar to French oak, we have seen some interesting differences between the two.  In general, French oak releases more tannins, phenols and solids in into a given wine.  This adds to what people call the “structure” of a wine—the tactile sensations of body and astringency.  American oak will release compounds like oak lactones and vanillin at a much higher rate than French oak.  These are responsible for some of the “oaky” flavors that you get in a wine like vanilla, clove and coconut.

Because of the stronger flavoring, many feel that more delicate wines like Chardonnay and Pinot noir are overwhelmed by American oak.  It is generally more accepted for use in robust Cabernets or Zinfandels.  I have nothing against American oak, but in my opinion it is the wrong choice for Chardonnay.  When we at Trefethen Vineyards barrel ferment Chardonnay, we are looking for flavor and structural contributions from the barrel.  In my experience, Chardonnay aged in American oak is often disjointed—it has more oak flavor than we want before it has gained the desired structure.  To get the desired structure, we would have to leave the wine in barrel longer, with the very real risk of the flavors and aromas of the oak overwhelming the fruit.

That said, scientific studies (yes, scientists study oak barrels) have shown wide variation between individual barrels that confounds broad generalizations about American vs. French oak barrels.  Some highlights that confuse the situation:

• The variation between barrels made from trees from the same forest is often greater than the variation between barrels made from different species of tree.
• The amount of extractable flavors and tannins varies within the same tree depending on how far up the trunk the stave is taken.
• The width of the grain in the wood is a determining factor on how quickly flavors are extracted into the wine.
• After splitting, the staves are left in stacks to dry in the open air for two or three years to “season.”  The climate in which the wood is seasoned impacts the future flavor of the wood—you can imagine that the climate and microflora of Bordeaux would be different than that of Missouri, both locations where cooperages source their lumber.
• I haven’t even touched upon the different methods of building and toasting a barrel that cooperages practice.
  • Does the cooperage bend the staves in water or with dry heat?
  • Do they perform a fast and hot toasting or slow, warm one?
  • Do they toast with the barrel head in place or absent?

So, perhaps the best course of action for winemakers is the route we take at Trefethen.  We experiment with our barrels.  We can make an educated guess which barrels will work best with our different wines, but there is no substitute for tasting.  We may put a given lot of Cabernet sauvignon into barrels from up to six different coopers then taste them over the next year.  We find that our Petit Verdot can stand up to a barrel that would overwhelm our Merlot.  Our Chardonnay and Pinot Noir require fewer new barrels—offering only a subtle touch of oak—than our Cabernet Sauvignon, which is complemented by the spiciness and structure of new French oak.

We experiment with a couple new coopers every year and maintain a dialogue with our current coopers.  We let them know which barrels worked best the previous vintage and ask these expert craftsmen to replicate their magic every year.  Come to think of it, that sounds a little like winemaking.

Cheers,

Zeke