Today I took a group of people in my Hands-on Winemaking class at Curds and Wine up to Fallbrook for a preharvest Vineyard Visit. We picked a perfect day (read as sarcasm), as a heat wave recently hit and it was sweltering. But, it’s always a lovely, if not hot, day at the vineyard.

Mike Hoffman, a fellow gold-medal-winning winemaker, gave an overview of his vineyard then we took a walk through the vines to check out the status of our soon-to-be-wine grapes. We pulled a few random grapes from various points and checked out the brix readings on refractometers.

Besides checking the sugar levels with the refractometers, we looked for the physical signs of ripening:  the grapes pulling away cleanly from the pedicel, the seeds turning brown and getting cruchy, and shriveling or puckering of the grapes.

We then headed back to the shade to taste the 2009 vintage syrah and do some lab chemistry on a pool of random samples of the grapes from each block of the vineyard, ‘Este’ the lower vineyard, and ‘Cima Sur’ the upper vineyard.

After Mike demonstrated the proper technique for mashing up the samples, he strained out the juice from the pooled grapes to test the brix with the refractometer, pH with his pH meter, and TA with Accuvin quick tests.  The readings were as follows:

‘Este’: brix = 21.5, pH = 3.17, TA = 10

‘Cima Sur’: brix = 23, pH = 3.27, TA = 9

The numbers are very close to optimal; we are targeting a harvest at 24-25 brix, ph 3.5, TA 7-8.  Mike originally thought harvest would fall on September 11th, but it looks like we’ll be harvesting next weekend!  Time to get everything ready for the syrah crush!

By request, I brought some homemade cheeses to sample paired with their wines. I had some queso fresco, 1-month aged colby, and 3-month aged manchego. The manchego was the sharpest, and went very well with the 2006 Private Reserve Estate Syrah and the 2008 Private Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon. These 2 wines are grown on their own vineyards, whereas other wines may be from San Diego county or other parts of California. We tried several different wines, they were all great, but these two were definitely among our top favorites.

Sam then took us around the winery and gave us a little history. Her family bought the winery in 1927, during prohibition. The winery is surrounded by olive trees, which kept the winery going until it could legally make wine again.  Unfortunately, the olive trees are under attack by a fruit fly, so olive oil production is now on hold.

The original harvesting machinery and winemaking equipment is still on the grounds, which I found very fascinating and intriguing.  Below, the original crush pad.  On the right (now filled with barrel hoops) is the bin where the grapes were placed to be fed up the chute into the crusher destemmer.

The crushed grapes then fell down the shoot below and was carried to the fermentation tanks to the left.

The fermenting grapes were punched down and stirred with a big, heavy metal rod with a kind of rake at the end.

SoCal Wine Diva demonstrates heft of antique punching/stirring tool

Original wine presses

This is not the working crushpad, though, now they have really spiffy modern equipment in another barn.  They have been making wine with the same basic processes for 3 generations!  They will be harvesting several tons of five different varieties of grapes from around San Diego county in the next few weeks, including Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah.  A few weeks after harvest and crush they will press out the wine with their super-cool press.

Stirring syrah must

Uber-cool wine press at Bernardo Winery

Wine being pressed at Bernardo Winery

Behind the original crushpad is the original barrel barn.  Giant redwood tanks are now used to hold port, sherry, and vinegar.  A 65-year-old tawny port will be released soon, and Sam said it is incredible.  That is a long time to wait, for sure!

On the wall of the barn is the ghost portrait, where the original painting has faded into the wall.  Sam said at different times the eyes will be looking in a different direction than you thought it was before.  I had to agree, just from the few minutes we were there!

After our tour, we ate at Cafe Merlot. The food was great, the service entertaining. They make a mean sangria, too.  Then we cruised around the village a little more, checking out the glass blower.

We wandered out to the vineyard to check out the vines there.  Zinfandel and muscat were growing in the back, but most of the grapes used for the Private Reserve estate wines are grown in Ramona and other San Diego county locations.  The fruit hanging on the vines were quite ripe, ready for harvest.

It was a great day all around.  Bernardo Winery is definitely a great place to spend a few hours and taste some great wines.

We visited Fallbrook Winery yesterday with some of our friends.  It has been unusually cold and dreary around San Diego, but the sun eventually came out later in our tour.  We were greeted by Vernon Kindred, one of the winemakers at Fallbrook.  He walked us through some of the vineyards while describing the growing season and their vineyard management practices.

The sangiovese was just starting veraison, so the rows will be netted soon to keep out hungry birds.

Next we checked into the barrel barn, where the crush equipment is also housed.  Vernon walked us through what happens at harvest and crush.

Then it was on to the highlight of the tour — the tastings!  We tasted several wines, including the reserve sauvignon blanc, the reserve Chardonnay, the special selection Sleepy Hollow Chardonnay, Estate Grown rosato, reserve merlot, cabernet sauvignon, bordeaux blend BDX, and finally the estate syrah.  Why, yes, that is quite a bit of wine, why do you ask?

But, that was not all!  We also had the honor of tasting several barrel samples as well.  After the barrel tastings, we had a lovely picnic lunch out on the patio next to the tasting room.

We were also lucky enough to be there on bottling day, so we could see the 2009 Sleepy Hollow Chardonnay being bottled, labeled, and packed into cases.  We also got a sneak peak tasting of that wine (because we didn’t already have enough, of course!).  There was some detectable bottle shock, but it was tasting very nice already.  The Sleepy Hollow chardonnay is a more buttery, oaky style, whereas the reserve chardonnay is an unoaked, crisp style.

Overall, it was a lovely tour of the beautiful Fallbrook winery.  Their wines are exceptional in my opinion, so if you get a chance, definitely get yourself a bottle or 6.  There are so many hidden gems in San Diego county!

Our May SDAWS meeting was held at Milagro Farm today.  Jim Hart hosted us and gave us a tour of the vineyards and told us about his recent wine releases.  He is winemaker for Milagro Farm Vineyard & Winery and also at Hart Winery in Temecula.  Milagro Farm Vineyard & Winery is in the Ramona Valley AVA.

Old Vine Chardonnay

Old Vine Cabernet Sauvignon

The oldest vines on the property are Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon.  They started putting in more varietals in the past few years including Sauvignon Blanc, Petite Verdot, Barbera and Pinot Grigio, to name a few.  One of the biggests (almost literally) pests at the vineyard are the wild turkeys — they will eat any wine grapes at eye level, and one year they ate a substantial portion of the grapes before they were harvested!

The Farm itself is a lovely property.  There is a cellar cave build into the hillside next to the winery building, and a pond just down the path from that.  There are also peacocks roaming around the property, as well as the wild turkeys.  They are beginning to build a wine tasting room at the entrance to the property as well.

We tasted a few wines, including the 2009 Sauvignon Blanc, 2008 Chardonnay, and 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon while Jim told us about his winemaking process for each.  We also tasted the 2009 Chardonnay from the tank, it was lovely — loads of tropical fruits, especially guava and pineapple.  My hubby and I liked all of the wines, they were all very well balanced and really showed great varietal character.  All in all, another great day out at a lovely vineyard in San Diego county.

I saw a classified on the SDAWS site for local syrah grapes, and convinced Dave to go in on 500 lbs.  Paul is also going to take 500 lbs to make at home.  This syrah is grown at Live Oak Vineyard in Fallbrook, and we get to take part in harvest when the grapes are ready.

We were invited to come out and look at the vines and talk about harvest, so we all met out there.  The property is beautiful, and the vines look great.  This is the 4^th year of growth for this syrah, and the grower/owner, Mike Hoffman, said he held back water a little this year to stress the grapes – in a good way, to make them more concentrated.  He got his refractometer to check the brix:

The refractometer basically shows how much sugars the grapes have produced so far in degrees brix based on how much the sugars bend the refraction of light in the instrument.  It’s neat to look through.  Our grapes are at about 19 degrees brix, and we’re planning to harvest at about 24-25 degrees brix.  Mike said he’s also going to keep an eye on pH this year, and when it starts dropping dramatically that will signal time for harvest as well.

We tasted some of his first harvest wine, which is still bulk aging in VersaTanks.  It was really tasty, especially for a young wine, with lots of spice and smoke, light fruit, and good structure overall.  We’re really excited about this wine!