Special Feature: Ted Osborne, Winemaker's Journal
Sidetracked at Crush Time, Part 5
A multi-part series from winemaker Ted Osborne of Olabisi Wines sharing harvest notes from the grapefields of Napa Valley.
Read the Winemaker's Journal, Part 1.
Read the Winemaker's Journal, Part 2 and 3.
Read the Winemaker's Journal, Part 4.
I started writing this three weeks ago then found myself adrift in the sea of harvest, winemaking, business running, and child rearing. When I went back to read through what I'd written, I realized that while lacking in clarity, focus, and content, it does reflect one's state of mind during harvest. It can be like trying to ride one wave while simultaneously catching the next.
A Winemaker's Journal, Part 5
These are cases of glass left over from last year's bottling. We'd been storing them for a year at the warehouse and shipped them up for the Chardonnay bottling in September. Some guy there wrote our name across the stretch wrap and did a pretty nice job.
Monday, October 5, 2008 - Picked 4 tons of Petite Sirah from Roger King's vineyard in Suisun Valley this morning. As usual, the fruit looks ragged, but tastes delightful. Incredible color, juicy flavors, African spices. While waiting for the sorting table and destemmer to get setup here on the crushpad, I find I'm distracted by thoughts totally unrelated to wine, like, "What kind of logo gear should we have made up for our grand opening party?" Definitely want some baseball hats. Love to go organic, but some of those are not as aesthetically pleasing as we'd like, and they're made in Vietnam. Some are not organic, but look great and are made in the USA. I'm thinking that local is better than, or at least equal to, organic. They're ready for me at the sorting table. Time to sort out any raisins or under ripe fruit and taste my way through the entire four tons. The tasting is the most important part. That way I can really get a feel for what we've got in the tank and formulate my recipe for vinifying it.
Sorting table. Looks like one green grape got past the sorters, right there in the middle.
Monday, October 13, 2008 - Walked the three remaining vineyards this morning--the ones we haven't picked yet. One in Pope Valley, one on Howell Mountain and one in Suisun. The good news is that fruit is tasting nice and I was able to make picking decisions on two of them. After Friday I'll only have one vineyard left to pick.
And that Petite Sirah that we picked last Monday, well after cold soaking for six days, the wine has fermented down to about 7 Brix. It started at around 26.5 Brix. Just letting the wild yeast ferment the grapes, the tank went from 50F to 85F in a matter of four days. Incredible amounts of heat energy can be generated when those yeasts start chowing down on all that sugar.
French Oak Barrel in Prius - Apparently I'm proud (and surprised) to have fit it in there.
That's a 60 gallon French Oak, Burgundy style barrel in the back of my Prius; booster seats for the carpool; down sleeping bag to keep cases of wine cool on the way to the shipper. I'm one of the few winemakers in the valley who doesn't own a truck and sometimes that can be problematic. But we made it through another day. I guess I could have had this barrel delivered from the warehouse, but I saved a few bucks.
More on barrels: This little French Oak barrel was coopered in France and shipped over to Oakland, California, then trucked up to Napa. It was made just for us, for our Petite Sirah. It costs $1,200 US dollars. It weighs 100 pounds empty and 600 pounds full. It holds 60 gallons or 300 bottles or 25 cases of wine. This is one of five new French Oak barrels we'll use for the Petite Sirah this year. We'll also use five used, or neutral, French Oak barrels. It's the new barrels that contribute the toasty vanilla, cocoa, spice, and smokey characters to the blend. but you don't want too much.
Monday, October 27 - All the grapes are now in. Picked the last of 'em a week ago. It's quite a relief to have all the grapes "in the barn," and yet a bit disorienting to suddenly not have that nameless worry clouding your brain. It takes awhile to get used to the new schedule and the new priorities, now that the most important decisions of the winemaking process have been dealt with. There's still a lot to do, but not with the same intensity and urgency of harvest. For most of the residents of this valley, we can now afford to truly enjoy the arrival of the winter rains that settle the dust and soak the earth and prepare the ground for the cycle to begin again.
Ted Osborne is a 42-year-old winemaker based in Napa Valley. Ted and his wife run Olabisi Winery, a boutique label of vineyard-designate, small production, hand-crafted wines.
Related Articles:
Read Past Articles · the Archives
Fun Thumbs
