Tasting Room Talk: Sauvignon Blanc

As I drive to the dry cleaners today I am reminded of Sauvignon Blanc. Here's what www.epicurious.com (one of my favorite online wine dictionaries) has to say about it:

"[SOH-vihn-yohn BLAHN, SOH-vee-nyawn BLAHNGK]
White wine grape that is widely cultivated in France and California. It's also grown in Italy, eastern Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and South America. Sauvignon Blanc wines have noticeable acidity and a grassy, herbaceous aroma and flavor. They are crisp, flavorful wines that generally should be drunk young. The best of the French wines made from 100 percent Sauvignon Blanc grapes are produced in the Loire Valley at Sancerre and Pouilly-Fume. They are crisp and tart, sometimes with a noticeable flinty characteristic. The elegant dry wines from Bordeaux-primarily from Graves-are a blend of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon that's been aged in oak barrels."

So why does this come to mind now? Well, what epicurious.com doesn't add here is that Sauvignon Blanc can also take on a slight "cat-pee" odor, which is not entirely objectionable by some. I, on the other hand, do object to the strong cat pee odor which comes from real cats. Namely our cat, "Shadow" who has managed to cost me another $45 to dry clean our bedding. Thus, if any of you have a abnormally high penchant for this aroma in Sauvignon Blanc, boy do I have a cat for you.

Tasting Room Talk: Great Tasting Weather

What a perfect day on the Central Coast. There was not a cloud in the sky, no wind and the temperature was perfect. People came into the Harmony Cellars tasting room fresh after walks on the beach with their dogs, or hung out on the back patio with a crisp bottle of chardonnay and some afternoon snacks. Every other car that came in seem to be a convertible. Yes, indeed, the white wines sold well today. Folks were getting cold ones on their way up the coast to watch the Elephant Seals or to find a vantage point to view the migrating California Grey Whales.

Cellar Stuff: Racking Cabernet, Tasting Zin

Question: What happens when you pump wine at 35lbs of pressure through a hose rated at 20lbs of pressure? Answer: You look and smell like wine.

Yup, I had a regulator-valve on a trusted pump fail on me today. Which meant I was drenched in a very tasty 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon (there are worse fates). The poor hose couldn't handle the pressure and spewed a goodly few bottles of wine all over the cellar (and me). Talk about alcohol abuse! Ultimately, we replaced the hose, fixed the valve and finished racking the 2005 cabernet sauvignon without further incident.

We also put our 2005 Creston Hills Vineyard (Paso Robles) Zinfandel barrels out in the sun to help expedite the malolactic fermentation. We couldn't help tasting a bit (hey, the barrels are down from the stacks and we needed to do a little quality control tasting, didn't we?). It was so delicious we took a sample bottle over to Sharon (she and Mike own the vineyard where these grapes come from). You should have seen her eyes light up! She said tasting this wine has made all the cost and time involved with managing a vineyard worth it. I credit them. They are truly committed to making great fruit on their property. I am glad we have to opportunity to extract some tasty vino from there diligent farming. The wine still very new yet. I can only imagine how wonderful it'll be in a year or so! But when we rack it, I'll make sure the pumps are in good working order.

Cellar Stuff: Racking the 2004 Merlot

Today we dug out the 2004 lot of Merlot from the back of a deep row of barrels.

I'm pretty careful about moving full barrels about with a forklift. I have this recurring nightmare that I'll klutz four barrels off the forks and lose half of one of my vintages in a single bone-headed maneuver. Mind you, I've seen it happen with other wine makers. I've seen 30 gallons of wine pour from the cracked head of a misplaced barrel. And at the price of that wine it was like watching blood ooze out of a dying man.

In another incident, I've witnessed the dismay of a sheepish winemaker as he approach me with the whimper: "I...uh...could use some help...I kinda screwed up...I was moving too fast..."

Sure enough, there high in the stacks, would be a couple of barrels teetering on the brink of disaster. The barrels were jarred out of their racks by an errant jerk of the forklift. I then had to lift the winemaker up on the forks (a move severely frowned upon by OSHA), whereby once aloft, he'd fashion a cradle out of some old polypropylene rope. I, below, trying to manage the forklift with extreme delicacy, would wonder who would die first (the winemaker or me) and how it might occur.

He could easily tumble down to the hard concrete or somehow slip between the barrels wedging himself in some oakened crevasse only to have another barrel shift in the stacks to crush him. Or, barrels could topple forward and hurdle themselves at me! At 500 pounds apiece, these containers are to be respected. If, somehow, the rollcage of the forklift managed to break the falling casks, I could still imagine drowning in the hundreds of gallons of Chateau D'Gravity.

Oops, I digress. All I'm saying is that it was a long day. That's because I'm careful. I don't want any bruises on my body, or my wine. I am here now to tell you, that the 2004 Owl's Ridge Vineyard Merlot was racked gently today and was put back to bed this evening. We'll wake it up soon, maybe this summer, and put it back to bed in bottles. Then, it'll be up to you when to wake it again.