In the vineyard with Anthony Austin

Part 3 of a series

Just days before harvest, I visited one of our Extreme Sonoma Coast vineyards with Sonoma Coast Vineyards’ winemaker, Anthony Austin, to walk with him as he showed us what he looks for in the fruit. In this first of several videos in the vineyard, Anthony talks about the color of the fruit, how the leaves on the vines are pruned to allow air circulation around the grape clusters and other factors that affect the quality of the grapes.

Anthony mentions some terms in this video which may need clarification:

Botrytis – scientifically known as Botrytis cinerea or commonly referred to as the noble rot, is a sometimes desirable fungus which removes water from the grapes, leaving behind a higher concentration of sugars, fruit acids and minerals. This often results in more intense aromas and flavors in the wine. While it can add complexity to the wine, as Anthony states in the video, it can also add complexity to the winemaking process since Botrytis can sometimes stop the fermentation before enough alcohol is created.

Baseline – setting initial values of key measurements of the fruit such as sugar levels, acidity and pH from which to gauge the progress of the grape. While this may be useful to know when grapes are ready for harvest, it doesn’t measure such things as flavor and aroma, which can only be tasted by a person such as the winemaker.

It’s November & We’re Feeling Crabby

Fisherman’s Wharf, Bodega Bay and Dungeness Crab. The opportunity to have fresh seafood is one of the tastiest benefits of living in the wine country, so close to San Francisco and minutes from the Pacific coast.

Here at Windsor Vineyards, we’re excited because it’s almost that time again! No, not the holidays; its almost crab season again, which begs the question: which wine should I pair with crab? Well, that depends on how you like to eat your crab. Do you like to dip your crab in melted butter? Then one of our rich, creamy Chardonnays will pair nicely, enhancing the buttery flavors. But if you’re like me, and you like crab with a tangy seafood sauce or simply a squeeze of lemon, then a crisp Sauvignon Blanc, with its grapefruit and citrus flavors and soft smooth finish would be the perfect pairing.

To get you ready, here’s my version of tangy seafood sauce:

3 T. catsup
1 T. grated fresh horseradish root or 2 tsp. extra-hot prepared horseradish
½ tsp. lemon juice
¼ tsp. Tabasco sauce
4 or 5 drops of Worcestershire sauce

Combine all ingredients and serve with crab, shrimp or oysters. Makes about ¼ cup of sauce.

And for a truly special treat, you couldn’t do better than a Sauvignon Blanc from the extreme Sonoma Coast, just minutes from Bodega Bay. I’d recommend the 2007 Sauvignon Blanc from Sonoma Coast Vineyards, one of our excellent sister wineries.

And speaking of Sauvignon Blanc, I recently made some short videos of our winemaker, Anthony Austin, talking about barrel fermentation and how that improves the wine. After watching that, you’ll definitely want some of the 2007 Sonoma Coast Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc to have on-hand for your next seafood feast.

…now where did I put those crab crackers?

Anthony Austin – Using all the senses

Part 2 of a series

In our last episode, winemaker, Anthony Austin, part of the Vintage Wine Estates winemaking team, spoke about how and why he chooses to barrel ferment the Sonoma Coast Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc. In this video he shows us how he uses sight, smell, taste and even sound to check on the progress of the fermentation. Yes, you read that right: sound. Listening through the bung (the hole on barrel), he can tell you what’s happening inside. I’ve never listened to wine before and last sound of wine I remember is the pop of the cork, so this was a really unique experience worth recording. So put your ear up next the computer speaker and imagine it’s an oak barrel and give this video a look and listen. Ahhh…I can almost smell the aromas right now.

A couple terms used in this video may need an explanation.

Headspace: The air space in the bottle (or in this case, a barrel) between the wine and the closure.

Reduction: A fault during fermentation that occurs due to a lack of oxygen in the container, resulting in a suphide (rotten egg) smell.

Wine Thief: Someone who steals your wine. No, seriously, in winemaking, it’s a tubular instrument used to steal a taste of wine from a barrel.

Winemaker, Anthony Austin on barrel fermentation

Last week, I had the pleasure of following winemaker, Anthony Austin, part of the Vintage Wine Estates winemaking team, as he made his rounds checking on the barrel fermentation of the Sonoma Coast Vineyard’s Sauvignon Blanc. This is the first of several videos featuring Anthony and in it he explains the process of barrel fermentation and why it is used. Take a look and see why the Sauvignon Blanc tastes so good. And if find yourself a little thirsty after watching the video, you can go to the Windsor Vineyards website and order a bottle of the 2007 Sonoma Coast Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc and taste the benefits of barrel fermentation yourself.

Windsor Vineyards Night at KRCB

This past Saturday, Windsor Vineyards gave back to the community by participating in the KRCB Wine & Epicurean Auction. In addition to staffing the phone lines, Windsor Vineyards donated wine and a tasting event for 6 people. Our own Jonathan Kesser, Sr. Director of Sales, was the auctioneer for the evening and helped to make the evening’s auction a success.

We’d like to thank everyone who called or went online to place a bid. Your support is very much appreciated. Windsor Vineyards is proud to be part of the community that KRCB serves and we enjoyed being part of the wine auction to help keep KRCB on the air.

Meet the new guy

Greetings. I’m Eric Hwang, and I am the new Social Marketing Manager for Windsor Vineyards here in Windsor, California. It’s been nearly two weeks since I moved down to Santa Rosa from Seattle and started working here. I would have written this sooner but I’ve been in the spin-cycle since I arrived and it doesn’t show any signs of slowing. Since I’m going to be communicating with you through this blog, I think, at the very least, I should introduce myself to you, tell you a little bit about me and find out what you think I should be blogging about.

I’ve been a serious wine drinker for about 9 years now (and a casual drinker for even longer.) Combine that with over two decades in the technology field and you get a serious wine geek in every sense of the word. I started a wine blog at the beginning of this year and quickly became proficient with all the latest social media tools and platforms. This past June and July, I participated in another winery’s search for a Wine Country Lifestyle Correspondent which gained enough notoriety for me to be recognized by other wineries and eventually landing me a job here—smack in the middle of wine country—doing my dream job: learning about wine, winemaking and the wine industry and using social media to share it with others. Along the way, I’ll introduce you to some great wines, notable winemakers and, hopefully, share some useful information.

That’s all for now, but stay tuned for more postings coming soon. Thanks for visiting. Here’s a little video of my drive down from Seattle to Windsor:

Some cheesy advice: tips for pairing wine and cheese

Cheese has been enjoyed with wine for centuries. Part of the reason for this affinity is they are both the product of fermentation and they can be aged for extended periods to produce complex flavor experiences.  But like wine, most cheeses are meant to be enjoyed in their youth when freshness is at it’s peak.

Like many wine-related subjects, there are many rules of thumb when pairing wine and cheese. You might have read that white wines go best with soft cheeses while reds pair well with hard cheese. And this might be right most of the time, but there are exceptions (remember, red wines can go with fish). Another approach is to match the flavor profile of the wine with the intensity of the cheese. Mild cheeses tend to go well with more delicate wines and a strong cheese needs a wine with bold flavors.

We have prepared a few pairings below with a selection of our wines to get you started but there is nothing better than tasting different cheeses with wines to find your own favorite pairings.

• Young, fresh cheeses such as smoked mozzarella match well with our Unoaked Chardonnay where the freshness of each is accentuated.
• Creamy cheeses like Brie pair well with sparkling wine such as our 2001 Windsor Brut where the acidity of the wine and bubbles refreshes the palate.
• Sharp, acidic cheeses like goat cheese matches nicely with a crisp white wine such as our Sonoma County Sauvignon Blanc where the acidity of the cheese and wine complement each other.
• Strong, powerful cheeses such Blue or Gorgonzola go well with young Cabernet such as our 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon from Mendocino County.
• Hard cheeses like Swiss, Dry Jack or Cheddar need a powerful wine such as our bold Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel.

If you are hosting a wine and cheese party, here are a few tips for maximum enjoyment:

• Buy a variety of cheeses of different types but make sure some will pair well with the wines you are serving.
• Pull your cheeses from the refrigerator an hour or two before your party, as they are best served at room temperature.
• Make simple tags to identify each cheese.
• Serve your wines at the proper temperature; for white and rose wine this is between 45-50°F (7-10°C), for reds it’s 50-65°F (10-18°C) and for sparkling wine 42-52°F (6-11°C) is optimal.
• Decant young or tannic red wines for 1-2 hours before serving. Our friends at IWA have a good selection of decanters to choose from.
• Serve your wines in quality stemware such as “The One” Glass by Andrea Robinson.

A Peek Behind Inside the Barrel – The Art of Selecting Barrels

The following is from a recent email sent to Windsor Vineyards email subscribers by our Director of Wine Education Steve Ross. By popular request, we’ve reprinted it here.

Color, clarity, aromas, flavors, tannins, acidity, balance and mouth feel; when we discuss the traits of a particular wine, we often overlook the vital contributions of the oak barrels in which the wine was aged. Truth be told, the oak barrel, working in concert with the wine, contributes greatly to the final product in your wine glass.

Overview of the Oak Barrel

Windsor Vineyards Barrel Room

Oak barrels used at Windsor Vineyards come from forests in the United States and France. The American oak tends to have larger grain and pores, thus imparting more intense characteristics on the wine than its French counterpart; the French oak, having smaller pores and grain, has a more subtle impact on the wine.

Ergo, when our winemaker, Marco DiGiulio, makes the determination of which country’s oak to use on which wines, the decision is fairly straightforward: French oak for the more delicate Bordeaux and Burgundy varietals (Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Malbec, Petite Verdot and Chardonnay) and American oak for the more rustic and rugged varietals from the Rhone Valley and California (Petite Sirah, Syrah, Grenache, Mourvedre, Carignane and Zinfandel.) The American oak has such a heavy-handed affect on the wine, it is used sparingly, typically in the 15-20% range, with the balance being French oak.

Selecting a Cooper

The companies that produce wine barrels are called coopers, and the cooperage selection process can make or break a winery. Ideally, the winemaker wants consistency in the aroma, flavor, tannin and toasting qualities of the wood staves that ultimately comprise the wine barrels.

Hey, it’s just wood, right? You go out, chop down some oak trees, whittle away at the lumber to produce flat slats and voilà, you have wine barrel staves. Wrong Pinocchio! Like any other industry, all coopers are not created equal; everyone probably suspects Marco researches the heck out of prospective vineyards for our wines, and they would be right; well, he does the same thing with our coopers and the forests where the oak trees are grown.

Windsor Winemakers Marco DiGiulio & Zach Long

Marco has made numerous trips around our country and to France, inspecting the forests and interviewing prospective coopers; his goal is to select forests with rigid maintenance programs and coopers that are serious about their business and treat the staves with the utmost of care and dedication.

The characteristics of each cooper’s barrels are dependent on the terroir of a given forest, the cooper’s care and maintenance of the staves and finally the cooper’s toasting (charring of the inside of the completed barrel) practices. Marco has selected over a dozen French coopers and a few American coopers for use in our barrel program; this impressive array provides for maximum flexibility in matching every vintage with the proper set of barrels.

The Chemistry of Winemaking

Due to annual climate fluctuations, no two vintage years are the same, even from a single vineyard; changes in grape tannins, body and flavor necessitate the wine being aged in a different mix of cooper’s barrels from year to year. Another important decision is the percentage of new versus used oak; the used having a more subtle impact on the wine.

The percentage of new versus used and which coopers to use for aging is made during the primary fermentation portion of winemaking; Marco samples the fermenting wines daily and once he sees where that particular vintage is heading, he specifies the barrel protocol.

During the aging process, organic chemistry comes into play with the polymeric interaction between the toasted oak and the wine. The intrinsic aroma, flavor, and tannin components of the toasted, oak barrel marry with the natural aroma, flavor and tannin components of the wine to produce the complex, layered and integrated wine that ends up on your table.

Final Thoughts

The next time you read the back label of a wine bottle or the winemaker’s notes and come across descriptors like: coffee, caramel, vanilla, roasted nuts, butterscotch, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, chocolate or smoked meat, you should understand those attributes didn’t come from the grape or the terroir, they came from the oak barrel.

Cheers!

Steve Ross
Director of Wine Education

Timeless Words of Wine Wisdom from Rodney Strong

By Katie Ambrosi, Wine Club Manager

There was a fun article in today’s Napa Valley Registrar about a staff writer in a monthly St. Helena Star/Napa Valley Vintners Wine Tasting Panel, who found herself slightly unprepared and a bit intimidated on the subject of Zinfandel.

Surrounded by a room full of glass-swirling, aroma-sniffing wine experts, equipped like a true Oenophile Regime with the jargon necessary to fill up an entire wine tasting dictionary, she quickly doubted her own wine judging expertise then realized, wait, she was the consumer in the room, perfectly qualified with the most important wine knowledge – what tasted good to her and what didn’t.

Rodney Strong (far left) & friends at the 1981 Windsor Vineyards holiday party.

It immediately brought to my mind an article that Windsor Vineyards’ founder Rodney Strong wrote for a wine club newsletter way back in 1982.  For those of you who aren’t steeped in Windsor Vineyards’ history, we were founded in 1959 by Sonoma County wine legend Rodney Strong, which means we are celebrating are 50th anniversary this year. As a result we (and me in particular), have been spending a lot of time reviewing our past and have been lucky enough to come across some gems.

Here is the article I mentioned, like today’s Napa Valley Registar article nearly 30 years later, this is a good reminder of what’s most important about wine – that you like to drink it!

One good Term Deserves Another

The wine world, just like the worlds of basketball or ballet, has its own language, its own dictionary of symbols and cliches. In part this language allows communication among the workmen of the industry. It also serves the wine drinking layman– to expand his or her sensory delight and understanding of the way many subtleties of fine wine, and…occasionally…to indulge that perfectly human impulse to impress one’s friends!

Sometimes wine language is born among the white coats and test tubes of the laboratory… too little pH, too much tartaric acid, centrifuge, heavy S02, too much (or little) tanning, Brix, degrees… Spoken by winemakers or critics, wine language sounds more like poetry– intense and personal.

And just as there are wines of dubious merit, there are terms to describe them: a thin Chardonnay, a flabby zinfandel, an insipid Grenache Rose, a weak-kneed Petite Sirah. We wouldn’t like them as wines any more than we’d like them as friends! And then on the positive side, there’s an august Cabernet Sauvignon, a noble Pinot Noir, a supple Johannisberg Riesling, a lean French Colombard…wines– or friends– we’d enjoy and admire.

A whole wine vocabulary now exists– words like flower, soft, silky, satiny, clean (overused word #1), crisp (overused word #2), herbaceous, aristocratic, disarming, light, fruity, flinty, fleshy, (the three y’s), fresh, cloying, intense, graceful, lush, rich, muscular, varietal, luxurious, sumptuous, green apple, green olive (salad anyone?), berry-like and so on and on… Sometimes these words say what we mean, and sometimes they fail completely, trying to translate into language what can really only be understood through seeing, smelling and tasting.

Only rarely do we hear a Wine Authority simply say, “I like this wine.” Period Just as we sometimes need to say to a friend, or hear from one, “I just like you, without qualifications or explanation, so with wines.

So, I like these wines, just because I like them. Without excess verbiage, let me mention them: 1978 Cabernet Sauvignon River West, 1978 Merlot River West, 1981 Chardonnay Garfield Estate, 1981 Johannisberg Riesling River West, 1981 Gewurztraminer, 1978 Pinot Noir Special Reserve and the 1981 French Colombard River West.

Maybe wine writers miss the point, trying to find just the right word and losing sight of the wine while looking for the descriptive phrase. It’s really simple––these wines I admire. I like them. They please me. I think you’ll share those feelings.

-Rodney Strong, 1982

Vineyard Report: Wet Weather, Little Frost

Posted by Marco

We’ve been experiencing a relatively wet Spring this year. This follows an oddly schizophrenic winter in which we saw the warmest and driest January on record as well as sustained rain and cold weather in March.

Unusually heavy late-season rains over one of Windsor's old vine vineyards

The main concern for us this time of year however, is frost.  Last year saw us have record frosts that resulted in crop loads being as much as 30% below normal.  While the wet weather we’re currently experiencing has some drawbacks, mainly the increase in mildew pressure, it also insures that the temperatures remain moderate which keeps frost away.

Another, more obvious benefit, of course is the added water to our relatively dry state.  This added moisture coupled with last year’s short crop makes me think we may have an abundant crop this year.  Here’s hoping that the weather allows us to take full advantage of that and make some great wine. Only time will tell.

Cheers!

-Marco