...out on the farm

I apologize for the hiatus...I'll try to be more frequent...the token statement of the rookie blogger.

First off...MAN, I LOVE DAYLIGHT SAVINGS! Sure...the first morning is a little weird, but it's great having that extra time to wrap up projects at the end of the day and still get home in the daylight.

Out in the vineyard; well, about 3 weeks ago we had a little bit of snow, it all melted off, and now we're back to a spring pattern with the buds in the Chardonnay starting to swell...harvest is around the corner!

Tannins 101-A (caution...very long post)

Many wineries work very hard at maximizing their tannin extraction during fermentation. Their customers want big, juicy, extractive wines with complex tannins. Up in the mountains, we have a wealth of riches in the tannin department, mostly because of our fruit (more on this in a future post). One of a mountain winemakers most important jobs is Tannin Management…keeping the wine in balance. One of the ways I achieve balanced tannins in our wine is by performing punch downs…perhaps a digression is in order:

Most of the flavor and color in your red wine varietals is in the skin. During fermentation, these skins (whether crushed or whole berries) float to the top of the fermentor. To extract the color (and tannins) and flavor (also effected by tannins), you need to get the skins back in contact with the liquid. This is commonly accomplished in two ways: punching down, or pumping over.

• Pumping Over is the most common technique used in the United States these days. It involves pumping the liquid portion of the fermenting must out of the bottom of the tank, over the cap of skins that has formed at the top. I often use a coffee analogy…think of a percolator.
• Punching Down (sounds violent…and violence never solves anything…) is much gentler than its name implies…it’s more of a gentle pushing down. For our smaller fermentors we use a small Teflon cutting board on a stainless steel rod. We punch down our larger fermentors with a pneumatic ram. Both techniques gently submerge approximately 1 square foot of the cap at a time just below the liquid level of the tank without going too deeply. Back to the coffee analogy, think of French Press coffee.

These two different techniques offer their own benefits and drawbacks, for the purpose of this post, I want to focus in on tannin extraction. Regardless of the technique used, the bottom of the tank is going to have a layer of seeds that have squirted out of the berry (this even happens in ‘whole berry’ fermentations.

I’m going to engage in a very gross oversimplification. Seeds contain fixed monomeric anthocyanins…lets just call them ‘fixed monos’…and that’s it for them in the tannin department. Skins (and the oak we age our barrels in) contain a very miniscule amount of fixed monos and are rich in both ‘free monos’ and ‘free short-chain polymerized tanins’ (‘free polys’). These ‘free polys’ started out as free monos, but have already gotten a head start in their aging.

If you pump over your tank, you are encouraging extraction of ‘free monos’ from the seeds…much like putting a tablespoon of cocoa powder in a sippy cup, filling it gently, closing it (important step) then shaking it vigorously. If you punch down, you aren’t disturbing that bottom layer…you’ll still extract some ‘free monos’, but not as many. Take our sippy cup from before…only don’t put the lid on it, and stick a spoon in a quarter of the way, stir gently…the cocoa doesn’t dissolve.

Ok, that’s nice Andy…but what’s that mean. BOTH ‘fixed’ and ‘free’ monos are responsible for the coarse, cotton-mouth, chalky sensation often mistakenly associated with young wines. Over time, the ‘free’ tannins will polymerize, forming long chained polymeric tannins which are responsible for the silky mouthfeel we associate with an elegant red wine. The catalyst for this reaction is air…which is the primary reason aging in small oak barrels is preferable to the newer trend of aging amongst the “wine factories” out there in stainless steel and adding oak chips (a tank is sealed and can’t allow air entrainment…a barrel does).

Here’s a little fun thing you can do at your next party if you’re feeling a little socially inept and need to come up with a conversation starter. Go buy about 12 ping pong balls , 12 Styrofoam balls and a box of toothpicks. After reading this post to your friends…man you need a life, designate one friend as the punch down winemaker and the other as the pumpover winemaker. Dump the ping pong balls at the feet of your pump over winemaker, the Styrofoam balls at the feet of the punch down winemaker. These are their ‘fixed monos’ and ‘free mono’s respectively. Now…give them each a handful of toothpicks…the air to catalyze the polymerization reaction while their “ballsy” wine is aging…Mr. Pump Over will be stuck with ‘fixed monos’ while Mr. Punch Down will have some nice kindergarten grade artwork.

And that illustrates my final point on this subject for the day…’fixed monos’ stay fixed. Period. No amount of aging will remove them. You can fine the wine with various protein based compounds (another subject for another post), but with the removal of these tannins, you run the risk of removing fruit components. If you choose to try to age them out…well, Mr. Pump Over winemaker (exaggerating to make a point) will leave his children a legacy of wines that are hard and bitter, and the fruit has fallen apart.

When you hear somebody mentioning their wine is pumped over…it is not a marketing “talking point”. It is an indicator of the quality of the mouthfeel.

Baby it's (as in was) cold outside

Back in mid-January we experienced some record breaking lows for this region...many people have asked me how this would effect the vines. Actually, the cold is beneficial for many reasons. First off, the cold helps delay budbreak. In the past we've occasionally had very temperate Januarys and Februarys which have resulted in unusually early budbreak, leaving us susceptible to frost damage should cold temperatures return. Also, any overwintering mold spores on the cane wood can be inhibited or even die in these cold temperatures, making for a much cleaner vineyard in the upcoming season. Finally, there is the old farmer belief that the cold helps sturdy the buds for the next year.

So, all things being equal, the cold, the rain, even the occasional snow...it's all good. Now, if it happened in May, you'll hear me singing a different tune.

Welcome

With the encouragement of a few friends, old and new, I've decided to start a blog on what is happening in the Napa Valley, specifically at Schweiger Vineyards. It is my hope to share with all my readers the fun changes of the seasons, the thrill of crush, the drama of bottling, the monotony of sales trips, and the euphoria of world class wines.
It is my hope that I will be able to provide readers with a unique insight and opinions as well. If I should offend in the process, please realize that these are solely my opinions, and not necessarily those of the ownership of Schweiger Vineyards.
Cheers!
Andrew T. Schweiger,
winemaker, vintner