UC Davis releases five new modern grape varieties

These are the kinds of grapes that will save the wine world. Read their description here.

None of these are early-ripening enough to grow here in the PacNW. Instead, they were bred (and it took 20 years!) to resist Pierce's Disease, a bacterial catastrophe that kills vineyards in the SE US and also in southern CA. As far as I know, these new varieties don't have immunity against powdery mildew, so that's another reason they wouldn't do well here (unless they were treated with soil fauna-killing inorganic sprays or expensive organic sprays).

The commentator in the linked article thinks the wine drinking public won't cotton to these new grapes. I think he's wrong. Although maybe half of  my wine customers aren't open-minded and don't order or even come to taste my wines made from modern grape varieties, the other half are interested, and will taste and often buy the wines.

In order to save the world of wine from the effects of climate change and environmental degradation, we growers and winemakers need to work hard to make great wines from these new grapes.

Surprise, surprise! Insurance companies refuse to cover "smoke taint" in wine, from forest fires

Read this article about it.

If Smoke taint is severe, it ruins a wine. Who knows whether the insurance companies specifically excluded smoke taint, but I doubt it. Another interesting example of how having insurance does not mean you are protected. I wish I could say something nicer about insurance companies.

(photo credit: Getty Images)

Climate Change Challenges Napa Wineries

It's not just the heat. it's the early Springs, late freezes, early Fall rains, wildfires, and power outages (as PG&E shuts down the grid to avert fires, even as wineries need power then).

This article makes it clear just how daunting it is to be a winery owner now, especially in a region such as Napa Valley, where wineries are losing fruit, business, and profits to accelerating climate change.

It's a bit easier up herein the PacNW. In most summers it doesn't get too hot, though we are seeing early rains in Fall, which are bad news. We haven't seen many killing late frosts, but we sometimes have late budbreak. Irregular weather presents many challenges. 

But we are an adaptable species. We'll see what happens. Meanwhile, all of us should be doing more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. (photo credit: JIBC)

2019 Grape Harvest Report, SW Washington

Harvest 2019: The Good, The Ugly

1. The Ugly: 

a. Bud break was two weeks late here on the Wet Side (of the Cascades), and summer was cooler, so we didn't make up the late start. Then, we had rains come three weeks early and they were record heavy rains (at our farm, we saw 6.8" rain between Sept 7 and Sept 22, when normally lighter rains wouldn't start until after Sept 22). We all saw record bird damage, as the birds were starving due to the early rains' rotting the wild blackberries. Other area growers have told me that even with nets, they lost over half their crop, as birds found ways in but couldn't get out, so they just hung out inside the nets and ate more and more. Wasp damage was also very high, and some clusters saw some rot--wasp and rot berries had to be hand-removed from each cluster, greatly slowing harvest speed.

b. I've learned which modern grapes can hang through rain, and even resist some bird damage, and which cannot. But every grape saw its Brix fall (a very bad thing here) when the rains came.

c. Many growers on the Wet Side abandoned their grapes this year, or harvested only about 25% of normal yields with far-reduced ripeness. Higher-elevation vineyards fared the worst of course.

d. On the warm side (east of the Cascades--as in Walla Walla, Yakima, TriCities, and Red Mountain), it was a nice-but-cool summer. They had more rain than usual (Yakima saw 1.5" in a day, in early September, when they get only about 8" in an entire year! But their worst issue has been early frost: 24F tonight in Yakima and Tri Cities (Walla Walla is being spared that).  Grapes can withstand some freezing, as sugar-water freezes at a lower point than just water, though any heavy frost will kill the leaves, ending any further ripening. Growers there couldn't harvest early because it was a cool summer, and are scrambling to get their grapes in before the berries freeze and burst. 

e. This is a year when you will need to be a very careful consumer. Look for wineries/sellers who are frank about their wines--try to look past the marketing BS. I pledge to you that I will be as honest as I possibly can, to tell you what my wines taste like. I am pretty optimistic about this year's wines, given the horiffic circumstances of their birth. Perhaps grapes are more adaptable to wine than I knew.

2. The Good: 

a. At our Epona Vineyard, I picked my Leon Millot and Labelle at pretty good chemistry, the day before the heavy rains hit; they hit 22 Brix and had great flavors, and will make good wine. The advantages of my steep-south-slope vineyard, coupled with my choice of early-ripening grapes, made a huge difference in this cooler, shorter year. My Cayuga hung through the heavy rains and avoided most of the bird and wasp damage, and while its sugars were less than normal, it has a wide range of good flavor profiles, depending on the weather. This year, it's showing grapefruit and good nuance and zing. 

b. All of us winemakers on the Wet Side are honing our rose-making skills. I picked many red grapes at about 16-18 Brix (when you want 21-24), and so far it appears they will make a nice, big, darker rose wine. 

​c. Some growers on the Wet Side saw their varieties hang well through rains; these included Marechal Foch and Cayuga. The ability to hang through heavy rain is a prize attribute in a year like this.

d. The Cab Franc I just got in Yakima (Noel Vineyard) is great. 25 Brix and magnificent flavors--as in 2017, I was "last one out" of the vineyard, and all that ​hang time let the fruit shed its green bell pepper notes (pyrazines) and attain fantastic fruit flavors.

e. I also bought Cab Sauv from that vineyard. Was a bit skeptical because the great Cab Sauv usually comes from further east, in W.Walla or Red Mountain. But I read there have been many great Cab Sauvs from the Yakima area. The Cab Sauv I just bought is known for its rosy/floral notes and softness--still fruit-forward and fairly big, but more restrained than a big, powerful Cab. It also hit 25 Brix and had loooonnnnggggg hang time. Can't wait to work with it.

 Kenton

US slaps 25% tariffs on European products including French wine, olive oil, cheeses, Scotch

Oh, now this has gotten personal. Trump hit European products with a 25% tariff, reacting to their tariff on US airplanes. This affects many products that we cannot easily find elsewhere: olive oil, French wine, Scotch, many cheeses! But French wine? Really? Ugh. I don't see how anybody wins, in a tariff war.

Dona Paula 2005 "Selecction de Bodega" Malbec

The dinner we made was outstanding: Cuban-style pork, slow-cooked with lots of onions, garlic, carrot, celery, tomato, and enough smoked paprika to outfit the Hungarian army for a year. Over our own potatoes smashed wtih our chives and some vegan butter and roasted our garlic. Bueno!

But the (expensive) wine didn't rise to the occcasion:

Here is Robert Parker's 94-point review of it:

"The 2005 Malbec Seleccion de Bodega received 24 months in new French oak. It has a splendid nose of pain grille, pencil lead, plum, black cherry, and earth notes. This is followed by an opulent, rich wine with gobs of flavor, incipient complexity and a 45-second finish. This wine will develop for another 6-8 years with prime drinking from 2015 to 2035."

All I can say is that, in 2019, with the wine 14 years old, is that none of that review is true. It may have been true once, but not tonight.

Be careful, my friends! If you lay down a plethora of wines with high scores, be prepared for the fact that not all of them will age well. You know that I like finding good wines that aren't so expensive. I wish I had a dollar for every time I carefully researched a wine and laid it down, only to find later that it doesn't do it for me.  This one didn't have much fruit, even thought its color suggested it's still young. It had a faint whiff and taste of wet newspaper (probably a little Brett). It just didn't come together. What's wrong with me? I found a similar result in another Walla Walla big red that I opened last week after years of cellaring. 

Could it be that it's better to find good cheaper wines, and drink them within a year? I think so. I think the lure of laying down great wines is not quite all it's cracked up to be. Yes, there are glorious successes. When I turned fifty, we had a party where I opened fifty-year old Lafite and Haut Brion; both were very interesting (though not great), and what was REALLY interesting was how different each of them were, when both were made in 1957 only miles apart. Old wines see the fading of fruit, and tertiary flavors come forward. Did you see Parker's reference to burnt toast and pencil lead? How much do you want to pay for pencil lead and burnt toast in your wine? Just asking. I had a fight once in elementary school, and the other guy jammed his sharp pencil into my hand. The tip broke off in my skin. I asked the teacher, "If it's lead, isn't it poisonous inside me?" and she said we call it lead but it's just carbon. Until a few years ago, you could still see its green spot in my knuckle. Fun memory, but in your wine????

To be fair, Jane liked this wine. I guess the further I go, the pickier I get. That dish was GREAT! And tomorrow, or the next day, the wine will be, too...

(Photo Credit: Cookpad)

On sheds

Somehow, it is true that we live in shed country. My Vancouver neighborhood was built in the 1930s, with large lots. Plenty of space for auxiliary construction, and nature abhors a vacuum!

When we lived in (fill in the blank:) Tulsa, or Houston, or Nashville, there were a few sheds in those cities (maybe; not sure), but not two in every yard! I love my neighbors, because they are great friends and cool people. But also because they have a lot of sheds. It's a new way of life to me. It's a way of expanding your reach over your land. It's a way of making a CAMPUS of what would otherwise be, well, a HOUSE. Jeff told me that in Vancouver you can built a shed, up to 200 square feet, without a permit, and I suppose that rule feeds Shed Fever. It doesn't hurt that he and Jose have excellent construction skills. They have constructed what might be called Taj Mahals, but for that pesky 200' requirement. Such attention to finish detail! Straight lines; good materials. Over the fence, I see: a massive grape arbor/outdoor patio, a huge and lovely grape-covered patio, yet another (uncovered) outside patio, and a shed that served as a teen boy hangout, and a shed that is a fine artist's studio (with a vew of the Fremont Bridge!), and a high-ceilinged garden shed to die for, and two detached garages, and a new wraparound deck that's covered and has surround benches, and the list goes on. That is just in TWO properties.

I built a carport (to ward off hot summer sun and bird poo). Sort of like a shed. We're building a metal shed now, from a kit (as the many sheet metal cuts to my hands can attest). Because the outdoor table and chairs, and the fire pit, and the wheelbarrow need a place. That kit has about 10,000 parts, so shedbuilding is not a matter to be undertaken lightly.

You get to the point where any open space starts screaming for a new shed. Just so, there is another space where I could build a 10x20 shed, tricked out as a spare bedroom, with electricity and a chamber pot and wraparound deck. It could even have a secret door to an underground wine cellar. And a rooftop sun lounge! Maybe a small antenna to listen for extraterrestrial signals! ("Is anybody out there?" thank you, Pink Floyd).

It's not like we don't have nice homes. Each of us has a very nice home. If we were normal like you, we could just sit inside our homes and not even think about sheds. But there is a Lure of the Shed here, be it She-shed, or He-shed, or They-shed. It's enough to make you shed a tear. It beckons the hammer, the saw. You get your dream juices flowing. You are charmed by the Siren Call of The Home Depot (is that a rail stop for houses who travel by train?), or the Lure of Lowes. Eagerly you reach for the bait, only to find the hook in your mouth. The new shed rises. It's almost like San Gimignano, where it was fashionable to make your home as tall as you possibly could, only here it's about making the campus of your dreams, a network of locii for your luxurious livification.

We climb mountains because we can (well, some of us can). We "shed" because we can. Some say that experiences are worth more than "stuff," and there is the truth of it. Building a shed is about the design, the building, and the pride in a job well done. The fact that you can store stuff in it is ancillary. Right? Right?

But build it well. Because the World is Watching. And, who put the "shed" in "dashed," as in, "the shed failure dashed his hopes?"

(photo credit: Dutchcrafters.com)