Spring 2008 Newsletter
2008 in the vineyard—a few cut worms here, some black rot there but nothing major - so far so good. May 5th is the day generally accepted as the day after which the risk of frost approaches nil, but like all general rules they are there to be broken.
IN THE VINEYARD
The vineyard is bursting
with the beautiful burgeoning buds of May. Bud break was spot on time this
year. The buds break on the day we are supposed to pay our taxes—usually
April 15th plus or minus a few days. We have had enough rain already, now
we need endless days of drying sun.
Fruit set is usually about four weeks after bud break—and that’s
when we need the sunshine. The vines flower and all the energy of the plant
is diverted 
to
the fruit growing regions. If the weather is dull and overcast (with or without
rain) then the flowers, which by the way are self-pollinating,
will “shatter.” The French call the process of poor fruit
set coleur, which translates roughly into “flowing
of the flowers off of the shoots.” Certain varietals are more susceptible
than others; the biggest culprit being Petit Verdot. Remember the bad old
days of 2003, when it rained throughout the month of May? That was the year
when we did not make a single varietal Petit Verdot because the fruit never
set – one
of our neighboring vineyards lost their entire crop of Petit Verdot. So we
do not actually need bees because vines are self-pollinating despite the fact
that Emily has two hives of bees that so far have not defected or collapsed.
Our new plantings of Petit Verdot (replacing Cabernet Franc) and Musquee Sauvignon Blanc (replacing clone1) had a tough time with the inclement weather last Easter, so it looks like we will not be fruiting from them this year.
CELLAR NEWS
Sparkling wine is
always a good topic to bubble on about. In the good old days, before globalization,
we used to call Champagne, “Champagne." At Veritas, we are still
using the time honored method of making the sparkler in the bottle – which
as you can imagine is horribly labor intensive. We also used to call the
way we made the wine “Methode Champenoise” which, believe it
or not, on our first production I spelled incorrectly which cost
me three thousand bright red useless labels. Anyway, now
we have to call the process of production “Methode Traditionale” — just
to please our French colleagues.
Claude Thibaut, our friend and internationally renowned Champagne maker, and I mean Champagne, is now fully in the swing of making his own Sparkling Wine under the Janison – Thibaut label. Claude works with us to produce our not so internationally renowned Veritas “Mousseux.” Mousseux is a term that sort of covers anything that is bubbly and foams out all over the place. At least the word and the image evokes a response from the customer – along the lines of “What the heck does that mean?” Bingo - we’ve captured their attention!
This year, for the first time, we have been regularly bottling 2-3000 bottles of bubbly every other week or so. What does that entail? For those of you who have yet to do Sparkling Wine 101: First we create a base wine or cuvee, usually from Chardonnay, Pinot Noir or Cabernet Franc. How does one make white wine from red grapes is a frequent trick question – the answer is an easy one! One just pops the grapes in the press and squeezes the living daylights out of them. The result is clear juice that we ferment into the base wine - the starting point of the bubbly. This is the wine that we put in a bottle with a dollop of yeast and some sugar, seal with a cap, and the added yeast and sugar undergo a second fermentation with the production of natural carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide builds pressure up inside the bottle to five times atmospheric pressure! That is about twice the pressure of a fully inflated tire (1 atmosphere pressure equals 14.69 psi - pounds per square inch). No wonder the champagne bottles are so thick and heavy. Now, the base wine has to have certain characteristics that allow the second fermentation to occur. For starters, the wine has to have a relatively low alcohol level or the yeast will not ferment. In fact, we have to gently culture the yeast in increasing concentrations of alcohol before we add it to the cuvee as the sugar level in the wine has to be on the low side to make room for the added sugar. Last but not least, the pH, which is a measure of the amount of acid in the wine, has to be low which actually means the amount of acid is high. Not only that, but you have to also have exactly the right number of yeast cells. Otherwise you create too much pressure and you can literally blow it (groan).
When we “bottle” the sparkler, we have to create
this “brew” of base wine sugar and yeast, put it in the bottle and
then wait for the second fermentation to occur. But remember that we
are going to produce high pressure stuff, so we have to seal the bottle pretty
darn tight. We
use a metal cap rather like a cap on a beer bottle and a bidule. 
Bidule
is a French term for a little thingamabob that we use to seal the cap. We
are achieving five times normal atmospheric pressure, so the cap has to fit
pretty snugly to hold the pressure. Right now we have to stick the bidule
in the bottle by hand, or if you want to be technical about it – manually.
It usually takes two people standing in the bottling line pushing
these little critters into the bottles. It does take some skill and
some pretty tough thumbs to do this for hours on end. In fact, Stu Harvey
will tell you that when we started bidulating, it took the two of us to keep
up with the pace of the bottling line. The point of all this stuff is
to tell you about Jolie! Jolie has worked with Emily as her lab technician
for over a year now. Not only is Jolie a splendid lab technician and mother
of two, she is also the official champion bidulator since she is able to keep
up with the bottling line single handed at the same time as waving occasionally
to admiring on–lookers. So, with the increasing
load of sparkling wine production, Jolie takes her place with our star employees
who, incidentally, usually get all the limelight from the tasting room.
IN THE TASTING
ROOM
It had to happen. As Geo-political factors, global warming
and the price of light – crude hit record levels on May 1st so we
have started charging for a tasting of wines in the tasting room. However,
with the mere purchase of a bottle of wine, the charge evaporates into the
expectation of the enjoyment of the purchased wine.
New Wine Releases:
Sauvignon
Blanc Reserve (SBR)
I am so happy with the SBR, as monthly wine club members probably
have already found out! Sauvignon Blanc has the closest place in my heart,
second only to my dear wife. To me, there is something very exciting
about the flavors of this varietal. In 2007, we kept the Musquee clone separate
from the regular Clone1 and Sauvignon Blanc Reserve is the result. I know
I sound like a broken record but I say it every year “It’s the
best we’ve
done yet!”
Red Star
I
don't have tons to say about the Red Star
except that it is a blend of roughly 75% of our 2005 Cabernet Franc and 25%
Chambourcin. Chambourcin is a French hybrid and little
is known about its exact parentage. Joannes Seyves, the
same character that helped develop Traminette (the only hybrid that we grow)
using the Siebel grape, introduced the hybrid in the early 1960’ s to
the Nantes region of the Loire valley in France. We had to buy the grapes
from Ingleside Vineyards and we only plan on making a single vintage. I like
to call it a “comfort” wine. The Chambourcin adds a really
full body and a great structure. The back
label tells it all! It is, by the way, our first red wine
to be bottled with a screw cap. If men are from Mars and
women from Venus, Red
Star is the wine to bring them together; whatever the stars predict, Red Star
is for Starry Nights, the star spangled banner and any star you care for!
FAMILY
STUFF
First, the BIG NEWS: Charlotte Lewis Pelton was born at 8:20am by lower
segment Caesarean section on May 14th, 2008. She was 7 lbs 15 ozs. , 20.5
inches in length. Beautiful Baby, Beautiful Mom and Proud Edward are all
doing well.
We’ve had an exodus from the farm house. Grand Ma and Grand Pa are now happily occupying their “Saddleback Cottage” which is the old horse barn refurbished. I don’t think we can say they have been put out to stud, but I think you know what I mean! You can imagine we had a good old bash for their 60th Wedding Anniversary. Everybody was touched to see how 60 years of love and companionship naturally shone through their happiness at being in the bosom of the family that they nurtured and now, in full circle, that same family can nurture them.
That’s it folks! All the news
from Veritas - where all the men are good looking and all the women are above
average (did I get that right?).
CHEERS!
Andrew Hodson and the Veritas Family