Organic Vineyards

Last week I was sitting and feasting and drinking and chatting with a very nice lady at one of the Michel-Schlumberger harvest luncheons.  Not surprisingly, the topic soon turned to gardening. 

She told me she had started a small vegetable garden in her back yard for the very first time and was quite dismayed when aphids completely decimated her beautiful broccoli plants.  She was asking me about problem pests in the organic garden and how we dealt with them – what the best organic pesticides were and how and when we applied them.  She was quite surprised when I informed her that we did not spray pesticides.  Nothing.  Ever. Not in the garden, not in the vineyard. 

We don’t spray pesticides because we don’t need to.  It’s not because we’re simply lucky or blessed with a special environment of some kind — it’s because we prepare a line of defense against the bad bugs well ahead of time.

As I’ve preached before, spraying the bad bugs is a bad thing.  Not only does spraying, organic or not, take care of only a fraction of the pest population but it also kills the good guys.  These good guys – the lacewings and ladybugs and soldier beetles – are the only ones who can and will control the pest populations in your garden.  Yeah, those aphids may get any early start your broccoli plants but if you step back and do nothing I promise you that, eventually, Nature will do what she always does and balance will be restored.

This is a promise with a catch.

Good bugs eat bad bugs and good bugs need a home.  That’s why anytime I start a veggie garden I start by planting flowers.  If we supply these beneficial bugs with the food and habitat that they need to flourish then these guys will do the dirty work for us.  Just one example of this is ladybugs.  A single Ladybug adult can consume up to 1,000 aphids in a single day!  Ladybugs also LOVE Queen Anne’s Lace (Daucus carota).  The obvious take-home message here is that if you plant some Queen Anne’s Lace to attract the Ladybugs they will return the favor by taking care of your aphids.  So instead of cursing those aphid outbreaks, rejoice!  It simply means that you have a nice food base for your Ladybugs.

The reason I’m addressing this issue now is that now is the perfect time to prepare your garden for next year’s onslaught of pests.  With the impending rains (at least in this part of the world) any beneficial insect attracting perennials should be planted now.  By Spring they should be well established and ready to provide good bugs with a good home.  The internet is a great resource to locate and learn about these plants.  If you are interested, here is a good place to start:

http://www.farmerfred.com/plants_that_attract_benefi.html

So plant those plants and attract those good bugs and enjoy feasting on luscious veggies in the Spring.  And if you have any questions or comments I’d be happy to try and help.

The nice thing, I think, about blogging is that it gives me an opportunity to rant about pretty much whatever I want once a week.  Maybe that’s not so good for the reader but if it’s any consolation it makes me feel just a little bit better.

Anyway, back to my rant.  This post has nothing to do with my usual focus on organic and sustainable farming stuff.  It has everything to do with a wine competition tasting I poured at last week.  Maybe I was just a bit grumpy from working harvest or maybe I was simply jealous since the wine I was pouring at this particular competition (not Michel-Schlumberger, by the way) did not win a medal, but I came out of the experience with a bad taste in my mouth and it certainly wasn’t from the extremely delicious, well balanced chardonnay I was pouring (and drinking).

Wine competitions (and for that matter, wine publication ratings) are an interesting and controversial thing.  For those maybe not familiar with the process, here’s how it works.  A panel of “qualified wine judges” sit in front of a table full of glasses.  Somebody opens a whole buncha wine bottles and pours a small amount of each into a glass.  The judges look at the wine, swirl and sip and spit and ponder.  Then he or she writes down some notes and assigns the wine a score.  That’s it in a nutshell.

To me, there are numerous and obvious problems with this approach.  First, it seems silly to render judgment on a wine based on one single sip & spit.  That’s like judging a movie after only watching the previews or choosing a spouse based on a single date.  Also, certainly when faced with a table full of samples even the most experienced taster will tend to notice the bigger wines – wines of finesse and character and terroir tend to get bulldozed under the ones with more oak and more ripe fruit and more alcohol.

Much more vexing, however, is the notion that the tastes of a few individuals should dictate the tastes of everyone.  I’m not saying that wine judges are wrong, I’m just wondering why their opinions are taken as absolute and applicable to the entire universe.

I am not a “wine expert” (and hope to never be one) but here is my simple suggested protocol on how anyone, expert or not, should judge a wine:  Take the bottle home.  Invite a few friends over for a casual dinner.  Cook up something that seems like it will go well with the varietal of wine you are drinking.  Greet your guests with glasses of wine and music on the stereo.  Sit on the patio and sip on the wine and chat pleasantly with your guests as you nibble on some appetizers and prep the entrée.  Move to the dinner table and eat and sip some more and notice how the aromas and flavors of the wine change over the course of the evening.  Check out the label.  Are you familiar with the appellation?  Is the wine organically grown?  How does it work with the food?  Have you visited the winery?  If so, how did you like the vibe there?  Ponder these things and drink up and enjoy your dining experience.  If there is wine leftover (yeah, as if..) then shove the cork back in and refrigerate the bottle and taste it again the next day.  There — that’s it. If you liked the wine, great.  If not, that’s great, too – it just means that particular wine is not your style.  Try again with another bottle of wine.

Congratulations!  You have just made a qualified judgement of the wine without the help of an expert.

But what would happen if everyone took this approach?  What would be the ramifications?  I guess that we, as a society, would have to eliminate wine competitions.  Major wine publications would be forced to either focus on the educational, enlightening and entertaining aspects of wine or go out of business.

I guess we couldn’t have that, could we?

I’m interested…how do you decide about wines?  And do scores & competitions influence your wine purchasing decisions?  Curious minds want to know…please feel free to add your comments — this could be fun!

What do the winemaking and cellar staff do on those days when there are no grapes coming in to crush? 

The better question is-what don’t they do since there are always tasks aplenty in the cellar of a winery.  Today I jumped in and tried to lend a hand in the Michel-Schlumerger cellar.  Really I was mostly holding things,  pressing on things, filling things and watching others do them much better than I could.   A picture is worth a thousand words — but everyone should try to volunteer at a harvest somewhere.  The hand’s on experience is irreplaceable.  And it gives one such appreciation for the artistry of this magical industry.  

Cool stuff.   Thanks guys for letting me hang out for the day!

One of the many things I do here each day is taste our wines.  Most of the time, it’s simply to check for any off aromas or flavors before pouring them for our guests.  But other times, I sit down and actively taste.  This process is more cerebral and I try to do it alone and in a quiet place where I can concentrate. 

As part of an ongoing series, I invite those of you who’ve had this wine recently to add your own tasting notes in the comment section below.

The name Deux Terres originates from the French meaning two lands or two soils and it’s appropriate for this wine because it unites our two ranches at Michel Schlumberger.  We take the two best blocks of Cabernet Sauvignon from the lower ranch and the best block of CS from the Upper Ranch on Bradford Mountain.  Keeping the wine from these blocks separate while aging allows Mike to pick the best barrels from each and then find the perferct blend.  In 2002, there is a dash of Malbec from a neighboring block.  

Color
Deep purple at the center with darker tones of falu red along with edge of the glass

Aroma
As I typed the intro to this post, I could smell wine a foot away from my computer. An intense bouquet of violets and cherry eminated from the glass and now fills the room.  Everytime I smell this wine I’m reminded that this place is special.  Diving into the glass proper now, an array of spice-nutmeg, lavender, rosewater-swirls around a solid frame of crushed red fruit-cherry, strawberry, raspberry.  There’s a touch of cedar spice but in the guise of pencil shavings and graphite. There’s so much going on as the wine relaxes, I get black tea and darker fruits like plum and blackberry.  These are the kind of smells that make me excited to taste.

Taste
Wow!  The interesting thing about the 2002 Deux Terres is what’s not there. It’s not overripe and loaded down with alcohol like a lot of modern CA Cabernets. It’s not jammy or cumbersome.  Texturally, it’s so nice. Slightly smoothed tannins alongside perfectly balanced fruit and acid. Six years in is a magical time for our wines.  Flavors of black cherry cobbler and strawberry pie come lushly across the palate followed by muted tannins and still bright acididty after all these years.  

Pairing Suggestion:   
I want a steak so bad right now, I can taste it!  But on further reflection, I think I would decant this wine at the beginning of dinner and serve alongside something more delicate like a cheese course.  It think it would go spectacular with St. George from Matos Dairy or maybe Mt. Tam from Cowgirl Creamery.

One of the side benefits of this post is that I get to take the rest of the bottle home with me.

“I’d like to see a nature film where an eagle swoops down and pulls a fish out of a lake, and then maybe he’s flying along, low to the ground, and the fish pulls a worm out of the ground. Now that’s a documentary.”

Jack Handy

Let’s face it – the lowly worm gets no respect.  They’re considered slimy and dirty and disgusting and they eat dead things.  But don’t we all have a friend or relative that you could say the same thing about?  But seriously, I realize that worms don’t have the same mass appeal as, say, a furry puppy but the thankless worm is nonetheless an incredible creature whose existence is indirectly responsible for that beautiful Michel-Schlumberger chardonnay you’re sipping on along with that goat cheese and tomato salad.

The worms that I am interested in are members of that huge and diverse group of organisms responsible for eating what most “sophisticated” critters will not – the stuff that’s too old and decomposed and stinky to be of interest to the top feeders. This group includes all sorts of critters — vultures and seagulls, lions and hyenas, sow bugs and earwigs, mold and bacteria.  And, of course, worms.  We’re lucky to have such an efficient group of waste management specialists working for us.  Without these guys (and gals) we humans would be up to our elbows in organic waste in no time.  Which leads me to the point of this blog – Michel-Schlumberger Wine Estate has just incorporated vermiculture with our viticulture.

Vermiculture (a.k.a., “worm farming”) involves a specific group of worms suited to consuming and breaking down large amounts of organic matter (similar but not the same as the much larger night crawlers most folks are familiar with in their gardens). The worms we raise are called “red wigglers.”  They are red in color and tend to wiggle a lot.  They also tend to eat a lot – about half their body weight per day.

The basic principle of vermiculture is simple – you put a whole buncha red wigglers (start with about 1,000 worms) into a multi-tiered bin filled with bedding (in our case, coconut fiber and manure) and you toss garden and kitchen scraps onto the surface where the worms come to the surface to feast.  Eventually, you can harvest the worm castings (essentially worm poop) to use as an extremely effective plant fertilizer which is very high in nutrients and beneficial microbes.

That’s the principle, anyway.  Our little bin has only been up and running for one week but our herd of worms seems to be adjusting quite well to the new home.  The golf ball sized chunk of half-rotten potato I tossed in yesterday is already almost half gone, replaced by a writhing mass of small, but fat, worms.

I admit, I’m kinda weird, but I think it really is a very cool thing to literally watch kitchen waste converted into the best plant food in the world.  And I’d love to share the joy.  Stop on by sometime, enjoy a glass of wine, ask for a quick peek in the worm bin, and revel in wormy goodness.

Weird Tony

Stargazing may seem a bit like a romantic past time, but it’s a great theme for a evening event if, like us you’re out where few city lights impede the breathtaking views of the skies on a September night above the vineyards.

Last year we had our 1st annual Stargazer’s Winemaker Dinner at the estate.  It was a great evening of a delectable 4 course meal with stellar (no pun intended) wines we specially selected for the event.  After dinner we headed out for a walk out onto the moon and starlit estate and in the vineyards with our trained astronomer host, Mike Brunson-our winemaker, and Jacques Schlumberger.  The skies were something unbelievable to behold out in such a remote location.  We pointed out constellations, caught multiple shooting stars whizzing by, and enjoyed the rare quiet calmness that comes in the evening after everyone has left the winery for the day.  

People liked the event so much last year-we decided to make it an annual event.  Saturday, Sept 27th is the date this month.  We’ll be meeting in the winery courtyard at 6pm for wines, appetizers, and conversation.  Our winemaker will be there, wearing his usual gleeful and mischievous grin and happy to answer everyone’s questions about this year’s harvest with his usual eloquence, patience, and humor.  Anyone who’d like to join us or to find out more can give me a call (707)433-7427.  You don’t even have to have a date-just bring yourself.  Juliana, Mike & I will keep you company!

Mike and I were talking one day about vintage variation-you know-those often subtle differences between growing seasons and how it affects the wine.  This is one area that it’s really difficult to make generalizations about. This is a good year. This is a bad year.  What is a “bad year” anyway?  Is the wine “bad”?  Who decides these things? More often then not, it’s the press.  Besides questioning the very methodology of determining good and bad vintages, Mike and I are more fascinated by the subtleties and it was my ascertion that even in “bad” years the wine is still pretty darn good. It’s just different. And aren’t those differences what makes wine interesting and fun.  I think so.

One of the tastings we do here illustrates this point precisely.  The reserve vertical tasting is the best of the best.   We line up three of our reserve cabernets from the same block, made in nearly the same way with the same blend and we let our guests decide what’s what.  The vintages are well aged from 1998, 1999, and 2000.  I believe our wines really start to show their stuff at about 8 years so these wines are in their prime.  This special tasting is available here daily and we’re always happy as your hosts to crack them open!  

As Mike and I were chatting we came up with a good way of describing vintage variation.  It’s like a thumbprint.  Our vineyard is as unique as the grooves on your thumb.  It is particular to this place and has definable qualities of soil, slope, spacing, and plant material. All of these things are the physical characteristics of what we call “Bloque Loco.” It’s one of the best spots for Cabernet on the lower ranch. Now the non-physical aspect of this block is how it responds to the growing season. That’s how hard you press down on the thumbprint.  When the vintage is easy and all things go smoothly, the imprint of the vintage is light. When we need to respond to certain challenges during the growing season, like frost or shatter or an increase in mildew, the imprint of the vintage is heavier.  

I think that is more illustrative way of defining the differences a vintage can have in a vineyard. Instead of writing off or presuming that “in this certain year” a wine is no good, this idea of a thumbprint engenders a willingness to taste, to experience a wine for what it is.  One of the coolest things in tasting wine is spotting those differences and appreciating that particular moment in time.

Jay Kell