Tag Archives: Pinot Noir

Our Big Crush Last Weekend

Posted on by Hank Smeal

Close to one-quarter of our entire fall harvest arrived last Saturday. Needless to say, it was a long day for us, but it was also filled with high expectations. We were not disappointed. The grapes arrived in top condition ready to fill our hungry tanks. In the Pinot Noir department, we received grapes from the Bien Nacido vineyards in the Santa Maria Valley and the Bacigalupi vineyards in the Russian River. Petite Syrah and Zinfandel arrived from Lodi as well.

Assistant Winemaker Bill Anton delivered pallet after pallet of grapes to the loading dock where Sikou Nakate and his trusty pallet jack were waiting to lift and pull each one-ton stack to the loading station. In the case of the Petite Syrah, whose clusters tend to run somewhat large compared to other varieties, the stems had to be snipped into smaller pieces so that they would go through the destemmer properly. Working in shifts, the sorting table was kept busy all day long, with only short interruptions in order to move from one tank to the next. Purple hands and sticky fingers were in abundance.

With our second crush of the season now finished, three-quarters of our fermenters are already full.  It is now up to the hard-working yeast cells to transform all that sugary must into wine. We tend to them day and night making sure they complete their important task on schedule. This means regular pump overs, punch downs and temperature regulation. Our lab technicians are busy monitoring the progress and if all goes well, we will start to press and barrel down during the next two weeks. As you can see, timing will be very important so that tanks are available for more crop as it comes in. We are excited about breaking in our new press that will make this process more manageable. Stay tuned for updates.

 

 

World’s Fastest Winery

Posted on by Hank Smeal

Last Saturday we had one of our largest crushes ever — 20 tons of grapes! Thanks to our dedicated members, staff and friends, it was processed in record time without a hitch. In fact, they managed to sort the grapes with such precision and care that David’s high standards of winemaking were held in the highest regard. In the time lapse video below, you will see most of the day’s effort compressed into two and a half minutes.

 

The World’s Fastest Winery from Hank S on Vimeo.

 

First Crush of the Season: 2012 Carneros Vineyards

Posted on by Hank Smeal

This past Sunday we arrived in the pre-dawn hours for our first crop of the season: 6 tons of Pinot Noir grapes from Carneros. Within the Carneros AVA, these grapes were harvested from two vineyards: Poseidon and Beckstoffer. They were in excellent condition and the sweet aromas made us feel like a part of each vineyard came with them! As a matter of fact, if you closed your eyes on this quiet Sunday morning and felt the warm, bright sun shining on the pallets loaded high with moist grapes, you might have thought you were in the middle of a vineyard.

This delivery was more than just grapes, however. It included our new 5-ton press: we call it the Beast. It will allow us to dramatically increase the amount of grapes we can press in one day. Pressing is actually one of the most time consuming and labor intensive procedures. With our old press, which was quite a bit smaller and not programmable, it would take much longer to press a tank than to fill it with the crush. Below you will find our gallery of photos from the day.

 

The Grapes are Coming! The Grapes are Coming!!

Posted on by Hank Smeal

Poseidon Vineyard-Pinot Noir 2012

 

As I sit here at my keyboard in Soho, our first crop of the season is being hand harvested at the Poseidon Vineyard in Napa. These luscious Pinot Noir grapes have reached the point of optimal ripeness and will soon be on their way to City Winery. The small yellow bins that you see above will be stacked high in a refrigerated tractor trailer and covered with a protective blanket of argon gas to retard oxidation. If all goes as planned we will have them in our hands this Sunday! Six tons are expected and will make for a gentle opening to our fall crush (We have been known to crush as many as twenty tons in one day!).

The Poseidon Vineyard, situated in the Carneros AVA at the northern end of San Francisco Bay, was first planted by the Molnar family in 1973 where the cooling winds from the Pacific temper the summer heat. This maritime climate is ideal for growing Pinot Noir grapes so that they ripen slowly and develop phenolic ripeness at the same time as sugar ripeness. Phenolics are a vast group of organic compounds that are responsible for the color, tannins and complex flavors found in wine. Over the years, the quality of this vineyard has been so remarkable that many of the big names in Napa purchase grapes from it, including Joseph Phelps, Heitz Cellars, Sterling, Pride Mountain, Acacia, and Mumm (The PinotFile, Volume 9, Issue 11, September 11, 2012).

Those of you who read my last post know how busy we have been preparing the winery for the biggest crush of the year. Time is of the essence so that when the grapes arrive they are crushed and placed into fermentation tanks without delay. Today we finished cleaning and reassembling our conveyors and made sure the tanks are fully cleaned and sanitized. As you can see below, these are big tanks (6,500 liters or 1,717 gallons) and require a person to actually get inside to do the job thoroughly.

Sikou Nakate preparing to clean one of the 6500 liter fermenters

 

Cleaning a stainless steel fermenter in preparation for Sunday's crush

 

Work schedules are being drawn up and provisions made to have the fermenting juice, pulp, and skins, aka the must, attended every day from early morning to late at night. For the next two weeks or so, it will be like incubating very precious farm eggs: keeping the temperature just right, making sure there is proper ventilation (or circulation in this case), and constantly monitoring the development. And this is only the beginning of what we hope will be our most phenomenal harvest to date!

 

Bring on the Kosher Pinot Noir! [VIDEO]

Posted on by Erica Swallow

Kosher Assistant Winemaker Yanky Drew pressed two puncheon barrels of kosher Pinot Noir grapes today.

Check out the video above for a look at how Yanky emptied the puncheons to get the pressing started.

After all of the juice flowed out, Yanky emptied the barrel of its grapes using a metal tool (as seen pictured above).

The small batch of Pinot Noir grapes was placed in the winery’s basket press and voila, there was pressed wine! (For more background on pressing, learn how to press red wine grapes here.)

After the pressing, the dry pomace (pictured above) wasn’t as dry as usual — because the batch was small, the piston wasn’t able to fully compress the grapes. We lost out on a little bit of wine, but rest assured, you’ll be drinking some quality kosher wine when we bottle this next season.

Cheers to that!

Video courtesy of wine aficionado Henry Gonzalez. Photos courtesy of Henry Gonzalez and Erica Swallow

City Winery Kosher Pinot Noir Oregon 2009

Posted on by admin

Variety: Pinot Noir
Vintage: 2009
Vineyard: Hyland & Olsen Vineyards
Alcohol: 13.5% vol
Volume: 750ml
AVA: Willamette Valley, OR
Cases production: 98 cs bottled

Vineyard description: Blend of 3 barrels from Olsen vineyard and 1 barrel from Hyland Vineyard, both vineyards are in the Willamette Valley.

Winemaking Info: 12-day maceration into open top tank, daily punch down and few pumping over, partial press blended back into free-run juice. Full malolactic fermentation. Gravity pumped into a combination of 1/3 new Dargeau & Jaegle and 2/3 used Taransaud and François Frères for 8 months. 75% 2009 Pinot Noir Olsen Vineyard, 25 % 2009 Pinot Noir Hyland Vineyard.

Wine Description: Bright ruby color with a complex bouquet of black cherries, fresh earth and herbal notes of sage. Shows a restrained power and richly expressive fruit. A fine acid backbone balances a medium plus -bodied palate, complex Côte de nuit-style wine with immensely succulent cherry fruit, velvety texture.

Aging Capacity: 5-7 years.

Food Pairing: Can be sipped by itself if decanted for few hours. Salmon on bed of cracked barley and pearl onions. Arctic char on arugula pesto potatoes.

Buy the City Winery Kosher Pinot Noir Oregon 2009 here.

City Winery Pinot Noir California 2010

Posted on by admin

Variety: Pinot Noir
Vintage: 2010
Vineyard: 86% Bacigalupi Vineyard (not specified on label)
Alcohol: 14.1 % vol
Volume: 750 ml & Tap
AVA: Russian River, CA
Cases production: 110 cs bottled & Kegs

Vineyard description: Owned by Helen and Charles Bacigalupi since 1948, this is a benchmark vineyard in Sonoma County and the Russian River producing some of the best Pinot Noir in California. The terrain ranges from gentle rolling hills to extreme hillsides. City Winery’s grapes are planted in the alluvial soils close to the river. David Ramey and Williams Selyem are long-time clients.

Winemaking Info: 12 day maceration into open top tank, daily punch down and few pumping over, partial press blended back into free-run juice. Full malolactic fermentation. Gravity pumped into a combination of 1/3 new Dargeau & Jaegle and 2/3 used Taransaud and François Frères for 8 months.

86% 2010 Pinot Noir Bacigalupi Vineyard (Russian River)

7% 2010 Pinot Noir Hyland (Willamette, OR) to provide aromatic freshness and acidity.

7% 2010 Pinot Noir Bien Nacido (Santa Maria, CA), to provide mid-pallet richness.

Wine Description: Bright ruby color with a complex bouquet of black cherries, fresh earth and smoky spice. A refreshing, fruit-forward Pinot Noir. Shows a restrained power and richly expressive fruit. A fine acid backbone balances a medium-bodied palate, complex Côte de Beaune-style wine with immensely succulent cherry fruit, velvety texture, and a silky finish.

Aging Capacity: 2 to 3 years.

Food Pairing: Can be enjoyed by itself. Also pairs nicely with speck-wrapped duck breast on bed of cracked barley and pearl onions. Arctic char on creamed arugula pesto potatoes. Soft goat cheeses, semi-aged cheddar, mild cows milk cheese.

Buy the City Winery Pinot Noir California 2010 here.

Bacigalupi Vineyard

Posted on by admin

City Winery has establishing relationships with a number of premium vineyards for the 2011 harvest. Here’s a look at one of our partners, Bacigalupi Vineyard.

VARIETY: Petite Sirah
LOCATION/REGION: Russian River AVA, Sonoma County
CLONE: Clone 3 over 101-14
TERROIR: Alluvial soil from russian river
OTHER INFO: VSP trellising
PRICE: $3,000 per barrel

DESCRIPTION: Petite Sirah (which is neither petite nor Syrah) has become something of a cult grape in California among lovers of massive, teeth-staining red wines. This site, owned by Helen and Charles Bacigalupi since 1948, is a benchmark vineyard in Sonoma County and the Russian River Valley. The terrain ranges from gentle rolling hills to extreme hillsides. City Winery’s grapes are planted in the alluvial soils close to the river.

WINE STYLE: This vineyard turns out pedal-to-the-metal, powerful, intense Petite Sirah, possessing a blue/black color as well as an exceptional perfume of acacia flowers, crushed rocks, blueberries, blackberries, and incense. Monstrous in dimension with powerful fine-grained tannins.

City Winery also sources Pinot Noir from Bacigalupi. Here are some key details for that variety:

VARIETY: Pinot Noir
LOCATION/REGION: Russian River AVA, Sonoma County
CLONE: Dijon clones
TERROIR: Alluvial soil from russian river
OTHER INFO: VSP trellising
PRICE: $2,996 per barrel

DESCRIPTION: Owned by Helen and Charles Bacigalupi since 1948, this is a benchmark vineyard in Sonoma County and the Russian River producing some of the best Pinot Noir in California. The terrain ranges from gentle rolling hills to extreme hillsides. City Winery’s grapes are planted in the alluvial soils close to the river. David Ramey and Williams Selyem are long-time clients.

WINE STYLE: Medium-bodied, complex Côte de Beaune-style wines with immensely succulent cherry fruit, velvety texture, and a silky finish.

Bien Nacido Vineyard

Posted on by admin

City Winery has establishing relationships with a number of premium vineyards for the 2011 harvest. Here’s a look at one of our partners, Bien Nacido Vineyard.

VARIETY: Pinot Noir / Q block
LOCATION/REGION: Santa Maria, Central Coast, CA
CLONE: 777 & Pommard Clones on its own root.
TERROIR: well-drained sandy loams that have a cobbly clay loam subsoil.
OTHER INFO: Single cane on VSP
PRICE: $2,780 per barrel

DESCRIPTION: Bien Nacido has the distinction of being one of the major viticultural nurseries in the state for certified, varietal budwood. Most of the vines were originally from stock grown by the University of California at Davis. While the average increase block in California is less than 10 acres, Planted 37 years ago, the Bien Nacido Vineyard is one of the oldest Pinot Noir vineyards in the region, consisting of over 800 acres of planted vines. The maritime-influenced climate is conducive to growing the finest Chardonnay and Pinot Noir in the state.

WINE STYLE: Lovely juicy plum and red cherry fruit with rich flesh and spice; complex, dense and exquisite with balance and style.

Hyland Vineyard

Posted on by admin

City Winery has establishing relationships with a number of premium vineyards for the 2011 harvest. Here’s a look at one of our partners, Hyland Vineyard.

VARIETY: Pinot Noir
LOCATION/REGION: Willamette Valley, OR
CLONE: Ungrafted Coury clone
TERROIR: Well-drained Jory & Nekia soils
OTHER INFO: VSP Trellising
PRICE: $2,909 per barrel

DESCRIPTION: This vineyard is located on a 200 acre property in the Willamette Valley in Oregon. Originally planted in 1971, it is one of Oregon’s oldest and largest vineyards. Hyland fruit has been used as a primary element in several wines that have garnered 92 scores from Wine Spectator. With a cool, moist climate and a variety of sedimentary and volcanic soils. Oregon’s largest AVA is recognized worldwide for its Pinot Noir. Cool night air moderates the hot summer days and tends to preserve acidity in the grapes during the latter part of ripening thus producing high quality fruit that creates a last impression on the palate.

WINE STYLE: Racy pinot noir. Light in color but high in character. Dark cherry notes with mellow mid-palate completed by an endless finish.

Poseidon’s Vineyard

Posted on by admin

City Winery has establishing relationships with a number of premium vineyards for the 2011 harvest. Here’s a look at one of our partners, Poseidon’s Vineyard.

VARIETY: Pinot Noir
LOCATION/REGION: Carneros AVA, Napa Valley
CLONE: 667, 777, 115
TERROIR: Gravel mixed with clay
PRICE: $2,575 per barrel

DESCRIPTION: Poseidon’s Vineyard, planted in 1974, lays at the confluence of Carneros Creek and the Napa River and is the southernmost vineyard in Napa Carneros. This block has produced a series of highly scored wines including a Wine Enthusiast 93 for the Pinot Noir.

WINE STYLE: The wine is silky in texture. A focused black cherry flavor hits the palate, after which an elegant dash of vanilla sweetens the wine for a long, inviting finish.