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Ways to tell it’s Harvest

Saw this wonderful article on how to tell it is harvest time in Wine Country by Peg Melnik…if you have never experienced a wine grape harvest, you are missing out on the excitement. Here at Turtle Vines we expect harvest to the around September 20th, give or take…will see how the next months weather cooperates!

PEG MELNIK

FOR THE PRESS DEMOCRAT | August 11, 2017, 2:21PM

Ernest Hemingway said “Wine is the most civilized thing in the world.”

The famous writer obviously forgot one important caveat: except during harvest.

As the decidedly uncivilized harvest season unfolds in Sonoma and Napa counties over the next few weeks we’ll see the signs –– the media circus, the gawkers and the tourists –– all craving a glimpse of how wine is birthed.

Their photos, of course, won’t capture the spectacle — the joy in the midst of the contractions. And it’s a messy, long labor, not unlike that of comedian Rita Rudner who complained “life is tough enough without having someone kick you from the inside.”

The gawkers, may not realize it, but the locals know who calls the shots when it comes to harvest: the grape. It’s that’s bossy diva who’s running the show and has everyone working ridiculous hours, causing sleep-deprived winemakers, growers and their crews to resemble the walking dead.

Sleep deprivation, of course, isn’t the half of it. These harvest pickers often risk their lives, and most certainly their sanity, for the optimal pick.

Case in point. For more than two decades 78-year-old Lee Martinelli has teetered on his tractor, defying gravity on Jackass Hill that, with a 60 percent slope, is the steepest vineyard in Sonoma County. Keep in mind this steep slope isn’t even legal in Sonoma County anymore, but the hill at Martinelli’s winery in Windsor was grandfathered in. The vintner keeps his boots loose when he harvests his prized zinfandel in case he needs to jump ship should the tractor take a spill.

If the quirky name — Jackass Hill — leads you to assume that a donkey was involved in plowing the 3-acre vineyard, you’re wrong. Martinelli said the name dates back to the 1970s, and it has to do with a two-legged creature, a snarky one at that. Helen, late second wife to Martinelli’s late father Leno, once groused “only a jackass would farm that hill.”

Like the hijinks of Jackass Hill, there’s a hilarity to harvest, whether you love it or you hate it, whether you want to curse the diva or celebrate her. Clearly harvest time makes strange bedfellows. It’s that odd mix of strange and wonderful. Just when winemakers think its intensity will send them over the edge, they’re spared by exuberance.

Perhaps you’re already beginning to feel the impact of that bossy grape. If not, keep your eye out. Here are the 10 ways to tell it’s harvest.

1. Stocking Up — You’ll notice some Type-A winemakers making a Costco run to buy ungodly amounts of frozen dinners. The jury is out on which brand is more popular — Amy’s, which is vegan-friendly, or Stouffer’s, which offers full-on, soothing comfort food. Whatever the case, these winemakers have it all dialed in. They refuse to cook during harvest — they thaw.

2. Traffic Jams, Literally — You’ll likely get caught behind grape-laden trucks during harvest because it’s next to impossible to avoid them. They’ll slow your pace so you have to factor “truck traffic” into your time of arrival. What’s more, you’ll notice a purple residue trailing behind these trucks. A few grapes always fall off the trucks and create their own sauce when you run over them. Just beware because this special sauce is slippery.

3. Oooh-oooh, that Smell — Imagine sitting in a steam room, with a punch bowl of fermenting grapes. That’s about how potent it can smell in certain swaths of Wine Country. Academy-Award winning director Francis Ford Coppola, once said that what’s so compelling about harvest is the aroma of fermenting grapes throughout the valley. Who can argue with the man who made “Apocalypse Now” in a steamy jungle in the Philippines? It definitely beats the smell of napalm in the morning, but after a few weeks, not by much.

4. Harvest Groupies — Here’s your clue. You’ll see a crowd of people on winery launch pads, snapping a picture every nanosecond, straining to capture every angle of the grapes en route from delivery to the fermenting tanks. It’s true: the harvest season reels in the most travelers because they’re hell-bent on witnessing the authentic process. Can you blame them for wanting to be the ultimate insiders? For wanting an invitation to the harvest lunches, where vintners beef up their crews with hearty barbecues? No, you can’t. And alas, these tourists probably won’t find themselves on the guest list. Alas, neither will you.

5. Starfleet Academy — When you hear five languages across seven barstools in Healdsburg, that’s when you know they’ve arrived — this year’s international class of harvest interns. While their motto isn’t “Ex astris, scientia” — “From the stars, knowledge,” the sentiment is the same. They aim to drink in knowledge by day, and drink in everything else by night.

6. The Ripening — It’s not a horror film — yet –– but The Ripening movie could be filled with the same supernatural intrigue. Winemakers see ripening as magic and they use it as a clock to tell time. They know they’re getting close to harvest when grapes in the vineyard go through the process the French call veraison (verr-ray-zohn). In this mysterious transformation, green grapes turn red, while white grapes become translucent. Other telltale signs from the cosmos include ripe blackberries and tomatoes on the vine, and that sexy flower, Naked Ladies, popping up all over the place.

7. Cursing their Mother — You’ll hear murmurs of winemakers’ prayers, asking for Mother Nature to rein in her evil and unpredictable impulses. When she doesn’t comply, they’re left with no option but to curse her. The logistics of harvest are hard enough without heat spikes or unexpected rains. Lee Martinelli said the weather forecast can be scary, especially when it forces you to put off picking for a couple of days. Sure, there are some winemakers who aren’t intimated by the whims of Mother Nature. Nick Goldschmidt of Sonoma County’s Goldschmidt Vineyards is one of them. He said winemakers’ experience is greater than conditions, that they have techniques to override whatever Mother Nature dishes out. Goldschmidt must be an anomaly because there sure is a lot of cursing going on.

8. The Walking Dead— You’ll see people who are dazed and confused, the delirious who can no longer separate their days from their nights. Sadly, it has just occurred to them that there’s no clocking out in harvest. Keep in mind that sleep-deprivation is a form of torture. Winemaker Nico Cueva of Sonoma County’s Kosta Browne acknowledged some people can’t take the toll of harvest. He said “every year we have at least one intern who can’t take the pace and has to leave.”

9. The Hills Have Eyes — You’ll think Lady Gaga is having a wild party in Wine Country when you see a hillside strung up in lights. No such luck. The floodlights streaming through the vineyards are actually night picking. Here’s the skinny: cool nights keep crews more comfortable and keep the bees and rattlesnakes away. But the most compelling reason for night picking is it delivers a firmer, more robust grape.

10. Euphoria — During the fits of frustration, the convulsions of harvest, there is the inevitable joy. Winemakers who have been hibernating in their cellars most of the year, get to commune with nature. Goldschmidt said he loves harvest because “I get to experiment and create and that’s really what we do best.” Mick Schroeter, who makes wine for Sonoma County’s Sonoma-Cutrer Vineyards, said the coolest part of harvest is the excitement. “The pace of harvest builds and all hell breaks loose. Everybody is working full-tilt, crazy hours, weekends and you think ‘when is this craziness going to end?’ But getting out into the vineyards, watching the final stages of ripening and making those first picking decisions, it’s exhilarating! Is it worth the fuss? Absolutely.”

Russian River Applellation – History of Exceptional Pinot

You can find good examples of pinot noir in nooks up and down the California coast — it’s a big place — but one of the state’s most renowned spots for the beloved wine style, if not the single-most renowned spot, is the cool-climate Russian River Valley appellation in Sonoma County.

With its coastal influences (at its closest point, it is less than 10 miles from the Pacific Ocean), including the maritime fog that creeps in daily through the coastal mountain range opening known as the Petaluma Gap, the Russian River Valley provides just the right conditions for the notoriously fickle grape variety.

To clarify, there’s the Russian River (a waterway), the Russian River Valley (a long, inland plain that is home to several appellations), and the Russian River Valley AVA (American Viticultural Area), which sits within the larger Russian River Valley. All clear? I don’t want to hear anyone out there saying, “It’s all Russian to me.”

Stretching from Healdsburg in the north to Guerneville in the west, and all the way down to Sebastopol and Santa Rosa in the south, the appellation covers close to 170,000 acres of low plains, and 15,000 of them are planted with vines.

The actual Russian River is named for the Russian immigrants who settled in this part of California in the early 1800s and traded furs at the coastal Fort Ross. It is believed that Sonoma’s first wine grapes were planted there, and eventually the Russian pioneers migrated inland and south, to spots near Sebastopol, to continue their agricultural pursuits.

Part of that agrarian grand plan was to grow wine grapes, and by the late 1800s an estimated 7,000 acres of vines had been planted. The 1960s ushered in the area’s modern winemaking period, when grape growers began relying more on the cool-climate grapes that would eventually do so well there — chardonnay and pinot noir. Today 70 percent of all grapes grown in the Russian River Valley are either chardonnay or pinot noir, with pinot noir accounting for almost a third of them.

The Russian River Valley appellation was established in 1983, and by the 1990s, the area had built a reputation for producing consistently exceptional pinot noir. In 2005 and again in 2011, the borders of the appellation shifted, making an already large region even larger. There are also two smaller appellations within its boundaries: the Green Valley AVA and the Chalk Hill AVA. More than 100 wineries call the Russian River Valley appellation home, and even though the renowned grapes of France’s Burgundy region are the area’s bread and butter, close to three dozen other grape varieties are grown there.

But, of course, the pinot noirs stand out. Don’t count on strawberry-kissed fruit explosions in every bottle, but do expect consistent ripe cherry, tangy cranberry, some earthy and savory elements, refreshing acidity, a velvety mouth feel and multilayered, long finishes. These are elegant wines, often with enough bright New World fruit to please the folks whose tastes veer toward the jammier styles of pinot noir. They’re not cheap. Considering that they are among the best pinot noirs our country has to offer, though, they don’t seem so expensive after all.

Flextanks – Press Democrat

Plastic tanks catch on in wine industry

Mitch Black, owner of Black Knight Vineyards, maneuvers between plastic tanks and wooden barrels of fermenting wine while bringing a bottle of wine out for a taste at his barn in Santa Rosa. (ALVIN JORNADA/Press Democrat)

Like many winemakers, Mitch Black scrambled to find a place to store his wine last year when the largest grape crop in California history unleashed a flood of wine.

Companies that make wooden barrels and steel tanks couldn’t churn them out them fast enough to meet demand from wineries and growers, like Black, who were looking for a place to put their juice.

So Black, along with a growing number of winemakers in California, turned to plastic containers to ferment and store his valuable crop.

“I went big into Flextanks last year, because I didn’t have another option,” said Black, owner of Black Knight Vineyards.

In an old barn surrounded by vineyards on his Santa Rosa property, Black keeps several plastic cylindrical barrels that he uses for his personal winemaking. A batch of pinot noir grapes ferment in a thick, blue plastic olive barrel that holds about 55 gallons of grapes and their steaming juices, while a series of 70-gallon Flextanks, made of a oxygen-permeable polyethylene, hold maturing pinot noir from the 2012 and 2013 crops.

For his commercial operation, Black has a series of larger, stackable Flextanks that hold up to 300 gallons.

Flextank, one of the main domestic manufacturers of plastic tanks for wine, has increased its sales about 20 percent a year since 2006, said Mike Humes, vice president of operations and marketing for the Athens, Ga., company.

“Once we get a foothold, our sales keep growing as people stack them up,” Humes said.

The Flextank vessels are free of BPA and phthalates, a group of chemicals that make plastic more flexible, he said.

“We thought we were doing something unique, but oh no, it’s becoming more mainstream,” said Erik Overholt, winemaker and vineyard manager atLinde Vineyards, a small winery in Cloverdale. “Many wineries are not wanting to mention it, because it doesn’t fit in with the romantic notion of wine.”

Overholt, a grower-turned-vintner like Black who began making wine when it was tough to sell grapes, now makes about 500 to 600 gallons of wine per season, he said.

When Overholt was comparing prices for plastic and stainless steel tanks, he found a steel tank that held about 150 gallons cost almost the same price as a plastic vessel that held 300 gallons.

“If you want to maximize your storage capacity and minimize your cost, obviously the plastic will be much more cost-efficient,” Overholt said.

The plastic tanks come in a range of sizes that make winemaking more manageable for small to mid-sized wineries, vintners said.

“A lot of the wineries are really gaining some acceptance in using this,” said Ron Althouse, director of sales for Tanks for Wine, which sells Flextanks. “At first it was kind of slow.”

Plastic tanks are being used by winemakers for fermenting the grapes, a process that can take several weeks depending on the varietal, and for aging wines, which can take about a year for some white wines or several years for reds. The wines are moved to bottles after they’ve spent time maturing, and can be aged further in the bottle.

After the oversized crop in 2012, when a record 266,000 tons of grapes were harvested in Sonoma County, many wineries still had juice in tanks and barrels when the 2013 crop — which many are predicting will be just as big — started to roll in.

That sent some shopping for alternatives to traditional new or used barrels, which have been more expensive since supply ran low last year.

“You used to be able to buy a used barrel from $20 to $60 depending on the conditions,” said Christopher Christensen, owner and winemaker for Healdsburg-based Bodkin Wines. “Those prices effectively doubled as barrels got snapped up over the summer. To a certain extent, barrels became cost-prohibitive.”

Christensen chose to invest in plastic containers for fermenting grapes after working in Australia, where the practice is more common, he said. He still ages wines in wood barrels, but is considering purchasing a plastic, egg-shaped vessel that can be used for fermenting and aging wines.

“I know concrete egg tanks are all the rage, but I didn’t exactly have the capital to spend on a concrete tank,” Christensen said.

Meanwhile, oak “staves,” which are wooden slats or chips that can be used to impart oaky flavors in wines aged in plastic, stainless steel or older barrels, have been growing in popularity, according to Alicia McBride, general manager of Innerstave, a Sonoma-based company that makes oak inserts from American and French wood.

The interest in alternatives to traditional oak barrels often comes from younger winemakers or those that aren’t “hung up” on wine being in a barrel, she said.

Many premium and ultra-premium wineries are using plastic tanks and oak staves, but most don’t want to talk about it, she said.

“There are a lot of winemakers that want to remain traditional, and I completely understand that,” McBride said. “There’s a certain sexiness about the barrel. You don’t really want to walk your tourists through the cellar and show them all these plastic containers around and then ask them to buy a bottle of wine.”

Turtle Vines

Pinot noir – great grapes make great wine