Whoa, we just skipped through the toughest months of the year for the winery. January through March is make or break for the winery (every year and this year in particular). Luckily, back in September I figured I would need to attend some of the charity tasting events, and pour wine in wine shops. That was a good strategy, though it extends my hours considerably. But, I just had one of my best January through March quarters ever!
I participated in tastings at West Seattle Wine Cellars, at the Poverty Bay Wine Festival (in Des Moines), at the Old Time Tacoma Wine and Jazz Festival, and just this last weekend, the Capitol Food and Wine Fair. At the charity events I usually pay a booth fee, and I am paid for wine I serve as samples and then wines that people purchase as glasses of wine, or bottles to go.
It is really tough though: long hours on my feet, and usually numbing music that I have to yell over. Fortunately, I get to expose my wines to a lot of new people and also it is fun interacting with people or just watching them as they socialize.
The biggest event is coming up this weekend, Taste Washington, where attendees can sample any of 200 wineries’ offerings. Plus the food is usually excellent. I find the most interesting thing is to watch how restaurants choose their dishes which is critical to attendees holding a glass of wine in one hand. I think my favorite was a restaurant that put a savory meat filling in a miniture, bite-sized, rice cone which they stuck into a some kind of edible sand-like material. People could just help themselves and the cones could be consumed in a couple of bites.
I’ll be serving my Semillon, Right Bank Red and my Tramp Harbor Red. All have done well at other tasting events, especially the Semillon and the Tramp Harbor Red. I think they are priced right and once people try them, they buy them.
Not much has been happening at the winery. The wines are sleeping right now and frankly it has been bone-chilling to work in the winery. However, the wines like the cold, it helps to stabilize the color and to drop out some of the potassium as cream of tarter.
Surprisingly, the wine changes quite a bit during this time. The most remarkable thing is that the acidity of the wine stabilizes and becomes slightly higher. Correspondingly, the color starts to get darker. I think both are related to the potassium reduction.
I have had a hard time with this concept with a seemingly increase in the acidity of the wine, measured as TA which can be expressed as (take your pick) Total Acidity, Titratible Acidity, or Tartaric Acid (which is the main acid that is measured). I have to be a little careful as I tend to like grapes with a slightly higher acidity and a corresponding lower pH. Sometimes I have added too much acidity (as tartaric acid) to the young wine and then watched as the pH started moving too far down.
The wine’s pH is a measure of the strength of the acidity. The lower the pH, the stronger the acid, usually measured by the amount of tartaric acid in the grapes. I find it a conundrum that doesn’t seem to bother other wineries. They generally go ahead and produce and sell their wines with unusually high pH levels and I assume correspondingly lower TAs. The wines will naturally drink better younger but the winery risks the wine being infected by bacteria and yeasts that thrive at higher pHes, generally above about 3.6. Also, the wines won’t age well as they don’t have the acid necessary to develop. For that is the key to aging (we’re talking wine here, not us), having good acidity, lower pH, and enough tannins (but not too much), and having sufficient fruitiness (or flavors from the grape).
I don’t think you can have it both ways: to produce a soft ready to drink wine while still also producing a wine that will age, let alone all of the other problems that can be encountered in the winery, while the wine is in barrel such as brettanamyces, a yeast that adds a barnyard character to a wine. Once in the winery, it is hard to get out.
So, that is not a rant, just an explanation of my dilemma, and how I am still trying to figure out the best way to make my wine.
What else?
I have just assorted a new blend of Tramp Harbor Red which I refer to as THR(4). Here’s what I do: I take a barrel from the previous blend of four barrels and add it to three barrels. THR(4) therefore has one barrel of THR(3), then one barrel each of ’07 Accidental Red, and a barrel each of ’05 Cabernet Sauvignon and ’05 Merlot. The Accidental Red by the way is a blend of 50% Malbec and 25% each of Cab Sauv and Merlot. The Accidental Red is an unusual wine in that I co-fermented all three grapes together to achieve a better balance of acidity and pH. And also to lower the potential alcohol. I will also be releasing the Accidental Red as a separate wine sometime later this year.
Finally, I have to tell you about a couple of events I am working on. First, is the Vashon Poetry Fest which I conceived at the end of last year following a poetry reading by Samuel Green at the winery. Green is our state’s poet laureate and he offered to bring an Irish poet, Tony Curtis, to the island. This has turned into an island-wide event way beyond my little winery. Which is okay with me as I wanted to help enrich the entire community. I figure I’ll sell as much if not more by selling my wine to island retail shops and restaurants and many more people will benefit. I am working with a terrific group of people that I feel are like-minded.
Likewise, I am trying to organize an island-wide jazz festival. I am a bit busy with the Poetry Fest but hope to concentrate on jazz shortly. My vision is to re-create the main highway in the town of Vashon into Bourbon Street with music emanating out of numerous venues on both Saturday and Sunday of Labor Day Weekend.
Finally, Wally Bell is helping once again organize the 2nd Vashon Winery Folk Festival, an entire day of folk music at the winery, outdoors in the apple orchard. This takes place on Saturday, August 22. I think Wally has ten bands playing from noon until about 10pm.
I have to go sell some wine.
