I caught something very special here in Sonoma County, the leaving of the Starlings. They have been gathering for a few weeks and Sunday they all got ready and left. The pictures I got, yesterday, were the readying stages. I didn’t realize it until today when I went out this morning to get more pictures and there was not a starling to be seen.

Richard told me that when they swarm and dance in the air they are harassing a predator; some of the photos, look closely and you can see them surrounding hawks, there were three in the area. The later shots of the small band and a hawk; they had flown through the hawk, disrupting his flight. The Starlings are incredibly fast, and the sound of the flock is the roar of a jet engine. Their agile and synchronized movents are amazing; some of the photos you can see the tunnels they form, like a tornado they swirl and flow, a river tumbling through the sky, disappearing through the horizon.
Picture # 9 through 16 you are watching a flock turn and start to drop to earth; the time between #9 and #16 is 13 seconds.

One more thing to see in the pictures, the colors the birds reflect as the sun hits them. Grey to brown to black. I made the pictures larger to help you see what’s going on.
The Starlings will eat bugs and left over grapes, and this many birds can leave a lot of purple poop behind. Some think they are a nuisance, but all that fertilizer with an acrobat and trapeze show, that’s pure entertainment, with a bonus.

Pictures

Well I certainally ate a lot, the roast beef melted in your mouth, and I made too many brownies; so I was forcing people to try a brownie with the pinot, zin and cab, to see what went best with what. I was getting rid of 3 brownies with each person.

Tom didn't really break all those glasses, it just looks like he was dropping them.

Pictures

It looks like everyone was having some fun. Even the Rueds were relaxing, harvest is completely over and wine is waiting for barrels. Folks even had fun trying to get my picture. The CHP cruised through, using the private drive and not the entrance, so there was some mixed feelings on his presence. I was told the pumkin ice cream went well with the 2005 Zin, but I never got around to trying it with the Zin; anyone coming to the pick-up party this Saturday (11-4pm) try it and let me know. They might be trying a cranberry ice cream, too, and I'm still bringing some brownies. Remember if I get you eating them with my camera, the rest of the world will see you too and these brownies are messy.

Pictures

Day 2 pictures.

When I took the last pictures, I took a couple of Sara (she will sell you your wine when you visit), but didn't include any of her on the last post. Tom told me she was very disapointed, and not liking to disapoint such a sweet and kind person here is a special look at her.

Are those some ugly grapes?

I reckon they weren’t done with harvest. They are making a late harvest Sauvignon Blanc, for the first time. These grapes are sweetly molding away; botrytis, a gray mold is consuming the flesh of the grape. The clusters of grapes fall to pieces when touched; its gets very sticky trying to work with ugly grapes. The Brix were 31.5° not too high for a late harvest, I’ve seen them reach over 50° Brix. This one looks good, a nice butterscotch caramel color, and once you get past the sweetness it is fruity with a lingering tartness, by next summer this should be a good wine.

Late harvest wines can be very tricky and must be watched very closely during the fermentation process. Most of these wines will get “stuck” during fermentation; fermentation stops and needs a restart before everything starts going sour. When there is too much sugar for the yeast to feed on they just eat like little pigs until they are too fat and hot, then they die. They (the yeast) can go along fine, converting sugar, warming up consistently, swimming in wine, when overnight they get a heat spike and they are nearly all extinguished. Yeast are very gluttonous creatures. Yeasts have alcohol limits also.
I’ve been told tales of 1000 gallon vats of late harvest going bad because they couldn’t get the fermentation going again. The higher the sugar, the harder the start; like an old Chevy, on a Montana winter morning. We will wait and see what happens.
They wanted to get 150 gallons, but it looks like they got twice that.

Richard has to add SO2 before the pressing, this will kill all the unwanted bacteria; CO2 fills the tank before the juice is added, the tank is sealed and the juice rests a couple days, hopefully all bacteria growth has ceased.

There is a lot of hope in winemaking.

Ugly Pictures

It’s almost Halloween and the fruit is in, finally.

The winery is quiet; the fruit is fermenting, and everyone is taking a deeeeepppp breath and relaxing. The muscles are aching, egos have taken a beating, and everyone wants to sleep for a week. The farmer will get up next week and start working towards the next harvest. the winemaker might sleep for another week or two. I’m just kidding about the winemakers, they could sleep for the next month or two, nobody would miss them. I have always feared offending winemakers; I worry that some night, on a shadowy street, in a dark corner a winemaker will leap out and assault me with a glass of Pinot..... and its horrific, a weak body, no legs, and I crumble with the olfactory perception of band-aids. Oh! what a nightmare. Happy Halloween.

The Rueds have some events coming up, first: they are particapating in the Wine Road: a Wine & Food Affair. November 7 -8. 11am to 4pm. I heard something about them bbqing some turkey, don’t hold me to it, I’ll update as we get closer. I’ll be there taking pictures and everyone will end up on this blog. More information: www.wineroad.com

The following weekend, Nov. 14 is their pick-up party. The one thing I know for sure I will be there, and I am bringing my gooie chewie ganache brownies with raspberries. And taking pictures.

The fall color brightly fading away. A few more days and the color will turn to brown and the vine will fall quickly to sleep, for a peaceful winters rest.

This is a great time of year, when the sun is shining and the hills are covered with a blanket of intense color.

About some of the pictures: The guys are cleaning out grape bins, getting ready for the last cabernet. Could be any day, the Brix went down from the rains and is now at 23°. The bubbles and fruit fly are some add ons from Phillip, The foam was being created by an after fermentation, it was coming from a bin that was full of pressed must, and sitting in the sun; a little yeast activity.

Pictures

The rains came and stayed, like an unwelcome visitor using your bath tub. This rain has brought mold and mildew to many vineyards (fortunately the Reud’s only have their cabernet left and it is looking pretty good). Bunch rot is showing up in some vineyards, and botrytis is not good for red grapes; you can get a great late harvest wine from a white grape infected by the “Noble Rot” but for red it is a sour rot. The weather stayed warm and moist after a very heavy rain, a sauna for bacteria.

The Rueds did some leafing to help the air keep the grapes dry, but they are pretty lucky their fruit looks good and clean, not much rot to be seen and any infected clusters will be sorted out at harvest. Richard thinks they will be picking on Monday, but more rain is in the forecast. If so trouble will be a brewing. The vineyards get very muddy, and trucks and tractors get stuck, pickers will quit, and everyone is wet, muddy, and tempers flare. A classic battle between farmer and nature. It’s a checker game that all farmers play and this year it looks like nature might beat several of them. Richard will be fine just as long as he can get his fruit into the winery sometime this week.

I apologize for the lack of pictures, but the weather hasn’t helped me either.

Pictures

I’ve been sitting here reading and thinking about if I should rewrite the email Steve sent me or just post the whole quote. If your not familiar with chemistry it might be a little confusing, but he is basically saying Richard and Tom did their job well and gave him some very fine fruit.
What he says about understanding the “feel” of the wine is true, it takes a lot of experience to get that “feel”; winemakers that taste barrel after barrel and can tell what each needs and when it needs to be added. I’ve made wine for two harvests and I haven’t a clue, I can guess, but I still need the numbers to tell me where I’m at with the balance in the wine. Steve uses the analytical results too, but I’m sure he tastes first, tests later.
Here is Steve:

"For the white wines I try to bring the TA to around .70 to .75 g/100ml. The pH of the juice will impact what TA number I adjust to. I make the decision in mostly an intuitive way

While I worked at Kenwood winery, I adjusted hundreds and hundreds (if not thousands) of juice lots. This gave me a great deal of experience and “feel” for the adjustments. In addition to tartaric acid adjustments, the other important adjustment is in the nutrient staus of the juice. These two analysis results (from the chardonnay) are both nutrient (nitrogen) analysis. They measure different types of nitrogen. Yeast, like plants, need nitrogen to grow well.

Ammonia 130 mg/L -
Assimilable Amino Nitrogen 279 mg/L

By adding these two numbers together (279+130=409) give a total amount of nitrogen available for the yeast. When the number is over 350 adding nitrogen is not really needed, although it is still wise to add a type of yeast food that contains some other nutrients. The understanding and ability to test for nitrogen is one of the biggest advances in winemaking in the last ten years!

All that being said, the chardonnay really has almost perfect numbers and all that will be added to it are yeast (Fermol Chardonnay) and some Superfood (yeast nutrient)."

Carbonic maceration

is when each little berry acts as its own little fermenter, Quite often the whole berries are actually nearly hollow, at this stage, the CO2 that is formed during the fermenting process forces out the wine. An anaerobic environment is created by pumping carbon dioxide into a sealed tank or barrel that is filled with the whole berry clusters. The CO2 permeates the grape skins and stimulates fermentation at an intracellular level. Studies show that unique chemical reactions take place that have a characteristic effect on the wine. Flavor compounds derived from volatile phenols like benzaldehyde, ethyl cinnamate, ethyl vanillate, methyl vanillate and vinylbenzene emerge and are emphasized in the fruity flavors. Also has been shown to reduce levels of malic acid.

The Rued’s used a 10% whole cluster and there were a high percentage of whole berries from the de-stemmer; when they sealed the tank and fermentation process started the juice from the crushed berries starts to produce a large amount of CO2. This CO2 will penetrate the whole berries and begin a partial carbonic maceration process.

Thirteen tons of zinfandel picked and crushed; all that beautiful, yummy fruit we saw last week. Sorted and cleaned; the waste material, leaves, stems, and too raisiny clusters are removed, (don’t put anything into the wine you wouldn’t eat yourself) and all of it will be used in a compost pile, and much later will be put right back into the vineyard as food for the vine.

Notice the color difference of the zin juice that is dripping out of the crusher vs. the Pinot Noir wine coming out of the press. The zin is slightly red because of the little contact between the juice and skins during the crushing, as it all sets in the tank together the color melds into the liquid. For those that don’t know all the color comes from the skins, only a few teinturier varieties have a red flesh, like alicante bouschet.
Tom is getting a shower cleaning the press before putting in the pinot wine and must. This is an area where Brett can get into the wine, so great care is taken to make sure the everything that the wine comes into contact with is very clean. No bits of left-over grape from the last pressing or any dirt.
The Pinot has been pressed, again a very slow gentle squeeze, taking a few hours. Everything that was in the tank goes into the press. They were pumping it into another tank, after pressing, either to let it settle or finish ML fermentation in the tank and send it to the barrel later. I’ll find out shortly.

Pictures

Is this the hand of a farmer or a winemaker? Maybe both? Many say winemaking is a Gentleman’s game, but this hand tells a different story. It’s a lot of hard, physical work.

The zin got picked and chrushed and the pinot was pressed, I’m still sorting through the pictures and will have the info and pictures up later today or tomorrow. I got too many good pictures and the Pinot Noir is now a wine, it is not juice any more. I especially wanted you all to see this beautifully tortured hand, so you’d understand the labor that goes into making a great wine. That hand says all work and no rest, for the whithered and tired.

Look at that zin. Those are some pretty grapes and tasty too. The clusters have ripened very evenly, which is rare for zinfandel. Beautiful color, a few a little raisiny, a lot of pumpkin and pea size berries; a zin’s zin. They will be picking these in a few days.

Here are the results from the first analysis of the pinot and Chardonnay, the most important numbers are the Brix, pH, and TA. This Chardonnay will produce a low alcohol wine, 13%+; the pinot will produce a higher alcohol, over 14%. The pH and titrable acidity are both good for their type of wine. The Chardonnay has a higher acid, which is something you want more of in a Chardonnay vs. a pinot. Steven will make adjustments during the fermentation process to balance the pH and acid to match the grape and flavors of the wine to be.

Pinot Noir September 28
Brix 24.9°  -  pH 3.82 - TA .485 g/100ml  -  M.A. 285 mg/100ml

Chardonnay Oct. 2
Brix 23.1 ° - pH 3.54 - Titratable Acidity 0.764 g/100mL - Ammonia 130 mg/L - Assimilable Amino Nitrogen 279 mg/L - Malic Acid 0.470 g/100mL

With todays pictures I’ve adds some from Philip Staley Custom Crush they are an up close look at the pre-fermenting must. Philip has open top fermenters making it easy for me to get some pictures, and this is they way they look inside the Rued’s tank, too. I just can’t get any good light inside their tanks. Philip and Richard have a long history. Philip buys grapes from Richard, and they were making Rued Wines with Philip before the winery was built.

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I’m starting to get jealous of Tom. Some kids have all the fun toys; he gets to drive giant trucks, huge forklifts and colossal tractors anytime he wants. He tries to tell me it is all hard work, but I’ve seen the smile on his face when he is playing with his toys; he is having fun.

They have picked and pressed the Chardonnay, very nice flavor and color to the juice. Chardonnay has a golden caramel color to the juice. I think they were processing about 10 tons of fruit. The press will hold about 5 tons at a time, and it takes about 2 hours of slow gentle squeezing to get the juice out. The slow pressing keeps the extraction of tannins from the grape seeds and skins to a minimum.

The Rueds have the Chardonnay they need, but Richard is a bit distressed, he has 150 tons of Chardonnay that needs to be picked but the winery who has the contract can’t have them picked yet, they don’t have any tank space. Remember last week I thought the chard was ready to be picked, and so did Richard, they are getting so ripe now that if it rained today, tomorrow they would rot. It is every farmer’s nightmare; his produce has reached its prime and it is time for them to go, so they can become the best wine possible.

Here are the pictures

This is Allyssa (left) and Nadya, Steve's daughters. Steve (whos in some of these pictures), is the winemaker and Richard and Dee's son, we will get to talking about him as this goes on. The girls have been doing this since Allyssa was just a toddler and they were ready weeks ago, asking when it was going to be time to stomp the grapes. Their feet were very clean, but think toe jam, next time tasting their Pinot, and when you visit the winery, taste the Pinot and tell them you can sense the toe jam in the bouquet. Some of the best Pinots in the world are stomped this way, it is the Burgundian way of making wine. Or think Lucy, its fun.

Here are more Pictures

I think he is looking for a lost grape.

At the winery the grapes are already here, the crusher and de-stemmer are lined up and getting a final rinsing before the grapes are added. Setting up the production line is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle where the pieces don’t quite fit together, but you make it work.
I didn’t get what the Brix, acid and pH were, I’ll get those numbers later and update the information. I did find out that they use 10% whole clusters in the tank. Meaning that of all the grapes processed 10% will keep their stems. This adds to the complexity of the character. The grapes will go through a cold soak for three days, before the yeast gets added. Then its off to the races as the yeast starts gobbling up the sugars and converting them to alcohol and CO2.

Check out the Pictures

Its 7 am

Richard arrives and the crew is ready to pick; a cow nibbles on an oak tree for breakfast and Richard has to navigate through the heard of cattle to get to the grapes. It is a bit nippy out, but as the day progressed some record heats were achieved in the area (farmers are still dropping like flies).
The picking went quickly, they were done by 10:30am. They needed only 5 tons, it was pretty easy picking for these guys, small tight clusters.
We will meet them all at the winery.

Check out the Pictures

Can anyone tell me what I shot here? I'm not sure I can do this, but if one person can tell me what this is I'll buy you a bottle of  the Rued's wine and only one to give, first receives. I'm an independent contractor (a disclaimer).

I thought to give a hint, but after a reflective up-look opening, I think not. Email Dee, it will be a surprise to her, and she will pass along the answers to me, I'll let you know sooner or later. It reminds me of a tropical moon rise. Maybe there is a glass of wine somewhere.

September 21

The picture on the left is the result of of a little sunburn. The right side is tan and shriveling, the darkside is green and plump. These clusters are along a roadway and get nearly a full day's sun, they will burn even more before they are picked. A little bit of over cooked chardonnay grapes adds a little structure to the wine. This will probably be picked in a few days; this is a very nice Russian River Chardonnay. The wine will have some very nice tropical fruits and a sexy earthy musk.

The seeds are nearly ready. The seeds are from different grapes on the same cluster. Two area very dark brown; the third still has a touch of green. The grapes are tastey, but still need to hang for a few days.

Well that mildew I was concerned about didn’t come to fruition, it is hotter then heck out there and farmers are dropping like flies. One hundred degrees in the middle of harvest, that’s killer weather, and the fruit is ripening quickly now; winemaker panic starts setting into the hearts of the vineyard. The lights powered by the energy of harvest are starting to dim now, farmers and workers have drained their resources. The heat of the day is unproductive, tiring and this is just the beginning.

The Farmer vs. the Weather: it’s never a fair fight and the Farmer never wins; the best they can do is the best they can do, the Farmer just tries to minimize the punishment or hopes nature will be kind.

Tonight will be warm, leave the windows open and have a peaceful slumber. The harvest air so tranquil with ripened grapes and their fresh sweetness or the fermenting must from the nearby winery. A susurrous wind caresses the gentle skin, cooling, soothing and the flesh relaxes. A long deep breath and Bacchus dreams; a fine wine is being made tonight. cheers!

more pictures.

September 17

Starting at 3 am, Richard and Tom were out with six farm hands picking their sauvignon blanc. Using a machine harvester they made very quick work of it, and I had trouble keeping up; ended up with a lot of blurry pictures. They were filling two and a half ton bins, but by the time I thought to get some pictures of Richard and Tom working they had already left to deliver the grapes to Korbel. They will be picking here through Saturday, their Chardonnay will be picked next week; the pinot and zin are still a question mark.

Dee came by at six with coffee and breakfast for everyone. It was more like lunch for the people working their day will be over by noon, Richard and Tom will keep up with other farming issues until it is time for sleep, which is about the time the sun goes down. It is a hard adjustment to have a regular routine for eleven months and then for a few weeks your schedule and the world gets turned on its head. But it is great fun at the same time, harvest is what the farmer prepares for during the previous eleven months. They spend a whole year getting ready for these few days, and it is a fine feeling when you have a good crop.
This is also the time of year when farmers love to talk about how old they are, I hear from everyone how they are too old for this or that, but once harvest is over they are all acting like a bunch of spring chickens celebrating life.
When visiting the wine (farm) country, say thank you to the farmer, because without them you would not be enjoying that great glass of wine.

Check the pictures.

September 14

The flock of finches finding fashion around the formed fitted netting found fresh grapes, freely! The unfortunate downside to using a netting is birds do get caught, but the fortunate thing for the birds is there is always someone walking through the vineyard, and hopefully, like this one, they will be found and released. So yes, after I got him to pose, I released the poor little critter. Today I happened to find this bird, later it would have been someone else, someone is always walking with the vines this time of the year. The pinot grapes are sweeter but not quite ready, the vines need to be watched closely, any attack on them could be disastrous.

If you would like to see many of the other vineyard critters, plus a few other types, check out my page. http://picturebookpublishing.com/stockphoto/critters/

Here I was just a few days ago talking about the dry spell we are having and over the weekend a nice thunder storm rolls through. This helped the water table a little, but it is going to help the mildew more. This was already a bad year for mildew for some farmers and this will help to make it worse. They can’t spray any sulfur this close to harvest, everyone hopes it will warm up quickly and dry everything out. At the Reud’s I saw only a couple clusters, in the pinot block that were infected, those will be dropped soon, I’m sure.

I had some fun with the rain on the netting, check out the pictures.

Richard was giving me a tour of his pinot and chardonnay vineyards, when he noticed a leaking water valve. The pasture in the background was being watered to keep the grasses growing for cattle. Even though they have a lake on the property and the water table in the area is pretty high, Sonoma County is in a third year of water shortage. We had rain early in the year, so we are not considered to be in a drought. More farmers are trying out dry farming this year, to conserve as much as possible.

If you want to get Richard talking, ask him about water and dry farming. Richard is very active in water and environmental issues, as are most of the small farmers of the area. They want to keep the land as healthy as it was when there grandparents were farming it.

Leaf Design
Leaves are like fractals, a repetitive harmony. Colors and shapes that go on forever, the deeper you look.
Each varietal has a distinctive face, but you need to look closely to find it. The zinfandel is one of the easiest, because of the red stem; with the deep lobes and regal shape it is very much like cabernet sauvignon. The pinot (left) is rounder, softer, almost doily like. Pinot Meunier (below) is shaped like the pinot noir but has a milled flour look to the surface of the leaf

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AUGUST 15, 2009

Starting in July and through August color, juice, and sugars are forming. Setting the stage for harvest. Now to harvest we want more hot days with only a few cool days (80°F 26.67°C or less) mixed in.

Veraison with pinot noir is very quiet and somewhat gentle, but at times the clusters will be from green to a ruby. Zinfandel (picture on right) is very uneven with the veraison. Zinfandel is fun to watch get its color, the vines seem to struggle so much just to sweeten up those grapes. Through this blog you are going to get to see these grapes go through all there changes (eventually to the bottle), but over the next few months they will ripen, be picked, crushed, and allowed to ferment, Then turning into one of natures finest pleasures.

The zinfandel is from a block above the winery, hidden away is a plateau of grapes. It is a ridge line hidden from most veiws on Dry Creek Valley, it turns into a sea of cabernet and zin.
The pinot is from the Russian River AVA, just east of the Lagoona de Santa Rosa, and north of Sebastopol. The same area where Richard’s grandfather planted grapes in 1882.

Check out all the grapes in the first picture gallery.