I got persuaded to work on a bottling line at Fiddlehead Cellars last week. It was a pretty easy run of bottling as those things go and Fiddlehead owner/winemaker always provides a killer lunch spread (I think I must have gained 20 pounds in the 2+ years I worked for her.) We bottled 4 different wines including 2007 Pink Fiddle just in time for the annual Pink Fiddle Party at the winery. I think I’ll be there. Wearing Pink.
If you want to get a hold of some Fiddlehead Wines, email sales@syvwinecountry.com or call us 805-686-9699 and we’ll let you know what is currently in stock.
I’m sitting here in my own personal cellar and trying to pick out some wines for the Thanksgiving gathering at my In-Laws house. There is always so much pressure being the only wine geek in a room, it’s always much easier when my family is around with all of their knowledge and opinions (whether I agree with them or not). In any case, I’ve got to figure out a way to sneak some more Thanksgiving-appropriate wines into a very cab-o-centric environment.
Dry Rosé is always a good choice for the varied foods available at most feasts that do not feature hearty red meat. I’m always partial to Vin Gris (Pinot Noir Rosé) or sometimes a Syrah Rosé. For those of you who have missed the Dry Rosé revolution over the last few years, I wonder what you’ve been doing. There are now a plethora of serious boutique attempts at this european staple. Nearly every small winery winemaker worth his or her salt is open to making a bit of pink wine to enjoy. Some people just can’t overcome the painful memories of cloying White Zinfandel from the 1980’s. But it really becomes easy to get into the pink stuff when you consider it to be just like a white wine, except white wine has citrus and green fruit flavors like lemon, gooseberry, apple and pear and Dry Rosé has red and black fruit flavors like strawberry, cherry, plum, and rhubarb. Get over White Zinfandel. The 80’s were 20 years ago. When was the last time you heard Phil Collins?
Beyond Rosé, there are a few more choices that I always seem to reach for come Thanksgiving time. One is Cabernet Franc. The slightly less tannic and more spicy elements in the taffeta wine of Chinon or in a domestic Cab Franc is a nice complement to the root vegetable and savory flavors of a harvest spread. I’m taking a 1999 Buttonwood Cabernet Franc, but if harvest 2007 wasn’t taking up all of my time I would be taking a bottle of my own 2005 Cabernet Franc. Maybe it will get bottled before Christmas.
The is also possibility of taking Grenache or Pinot Noir. There is something very appealing about quaffing these medium-bodied gems with turkey, stuffing, gravy, and pecan pie. I’ll take the 2003 Beckmen Purisma Mountain Grenache and 2005 J Wilkes Solomon Hills Pinot Noir.
Hopefully that will be enough for everyone. To me it is still harvest time, which makes me want to drink beer. I’m currently stuck on the Allagash White Beer and a Kloster Biere from a convent in Bavaria called Reutberg. Both are available at our store as well as a plethora of Dry Rosé and some of the other wines mentioned. Call us at 805-686-9699 or email me at tim@syvwinecountry.com and we can help you find some good libations if not for Thanksgiving, then for the rest of the year’s holidays.
I’m into my 11th week of Harvest 2007 of Star Lane and Dierberg and it occured to me that 11 weeks is a really long time for harvest to last. We still have about 25% of the Star Lane Ranch fruit left to pick and then a few more weeks of fermentation and barreling. We just might be done by December. Part of this is due to the long steady and not really very hot end of the growing season this year. But what I really think is the prevailing factor is that Dierberg Vineyard is in the Santa Maria Valley and Star Lane Ranch is high in the hills above the Santa Ynez Valley.
Although they are only 30 miles apart the elevation, climate, soil, geography, and thus the grape ripening are completely different. And to me that is what makes Santa Barbara County so dynamic as a wine region - dramatic diversity in what can and will grow well from place to place. The cool marine influence and sandy soils of the Santa Maria Valley make it a chardonnay paradise. The dark clay and steady climate of the Santa Rita Hills allow for incredibly complex and intense pinot noir. The Santa Ynez Valley has a beautiful balance of minerality and warm days and cool nights to make sauvignon blanc. And out in Happy Canyon the climate, terrain and earth make it a nearly perfect place to make Bordeaux-like wines our of cabernet sauvignon and merlot.
That isn’t that other grapes are not grown and made into great wines in any of these regions. I’ve had sone rhone-inspired and cal-italian wines from this area that will knock your socks off. My entire point is that the long, endless harvest season that moves across the transverse valley in Santa Barbara County makes for unrivaled diversity and excellence in the realm of cutting edge California wines. I’m glad to be here.
So as I’ve been doing every year for the last several, I’m working as a cellar worker at a local winery for the harvest season. This year I’ve landed at the Star Lane Vineyard makers of Three Saints, Dierberg Estate and Star Lane Estate wines. My body is finally starting to adjust to little sleep, lots of physical activity, and very little time to get anything but grape work done in a week. So this may be an inopportune time to start a blog about the wines we love at Wine Country, but that is just the way the dry ice sublimates. No really, here is a picture of us cooling a fermentation of Pinot Noir down with some solid CO2 just this week.
Pretty weird isn’t it. I’ve only been at Star Lane for a little over a month, but what I’ve seen so far is very impressive. Right now Wine Country currently carries the Dierberg Pinot Noir & Chardonnay and also Three Saints Pinot Noir, Merlot, & Cabernet Sauvignon. They are all very, very good, which is part of the reason that I signed on to work there. There will be more to follow on my trials and tribulations out in Happy Canyon this fall.
