Tuesday October 4th - Its Raining in the Napa Valley - But no worries - yet.

Rain Rain go away.

I saw something on the national news that suggested that due to the rain, the Sonoma (and presumably with it Napa's) grape crop was in serious jeopardy. We got .33 inches of rain overnight and it hardly wet the soil.  When we do our irrigation calculations to determine how much to water to use on the vines, we literally ignore the first .25 inches of rain because it gets used up immediately and absorbed by the dust on top of the soil. However, the real issue will be what happens over the next couple of days. We really do not expect it to be a problem.

Today we received the following special weather alert.
.
STRONG EARLY SEASON COLD FRONT EXPECTED TO MOVE ACROSS
NORTHERN AND CENTRAL CALIFORNIA TONIGHT AND WEDNESDAY...

A STRONG COLD FRONT...ESPECIALLY FOR EARLY OCTOBER...WILL MOVE
ACROSS NORTHERN AND CENTRAL CALIFORNIA TONIGHT AND WEDNESDAY. A
BRIEF PERIOD OF HEAVY RAIN IS LIKELY WITH THIS FRONT...OCCURRING
TONIGHT IN THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA...AND ON WEDNESDAY MORNING
IN THE MONTEREY BAY REGION. IN ADDITION...LOCALLY STRONG AND GUSTY
WINDS ARE LIKELY ALONG THE FRONT. THUNDERSTORMS ARE POSSIBLE IN
THE COLD AIRMASS BEHIND THE FRONT WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON AND EVENING.
SOME OF THESE THUNDERSTORMS MAY BE ACCOMPANIED BY SMALL HAIL.

But...only .1 inch of rain is forecast during the next 24 hours (as of 6PM Tuesday).

Not too much to be worried about.

Today some more barrels arrived and we only have about a half dozen left to get. We received a few Ermitage Barrels from France today and only one Canton Barrel of American Oak, made by the same company that makes Tarransaud barrels in France.  Speaking of which, our Tarransaud barrels will be the last to arrive, but they should be here in plenty of time. I have probably mentioned before that almost all of the barrels we use are French Oak which costs 2.5 to 3 times the cost of American oak, but they simply make a more refined wine. We use a few American Oak barrels much they way you would use a spice in cooking; just a little bit to add some complexity to flavor.

We also received a dozen plastic barrels today from our friend Steve Zellar at Parley Lake Winery in Minnesota. Steve buys grapes from us to use in some of his wine-making. It is actually in interesting process. We pick the grapes and crush them in our winery, then we put the crushed grapes (called "Must") in the plastic barrels, add a little sulfur to protect them along the way, and by early afternoon the barrels are in a cold storage warehouse in Sacramento.  The barrels are quickly cooled down to 35 degrees and then shipped nontop to Minnesota.  In effect, Steve does his "cold soak" in a refrigerated truck. Once they get to Minnesota he warms up the must, adds the yeast and he is on virtually the same footing as we are when we start fermentation.  The great thing about crushing the grapes before they ship is that we remove the risk of premature fermentation and spoilage of the grapes along the way.  We will pick Steve's grapes within the next week or 10 days.

We also did a bit more organizing today. Our plan is to pick the grapes for our 2011 Scherzo Cabernet Rosato on Friday when we have a number of friends coming to help with the pick and crush. We are hoping to have those grapes "In the Tank" by the end of the day on Friday.

Our friends Ralph and Lindsay Bashioum also arrived.  They are partners of ours in this wine adventure and are here to help with our harvest party on Saturday. We have a great harvest party for our wine club members each fall. If you are not coming this year, Join the wine club and come next year.  Ralph is a cosmetic surgeon from Wayzata Minnesota and he has a very interesting and creative web site, check it out. http://nipntuck.com/http://nipntuck.com/.

So long for now, more tomorrow.  Another day of organizing and getting ready for the big harvest yet to come.

Kitchak Cellars Harvest Monday October 3

This is a quiet day in the winery.  We do our first pump over to circulate the juice to insure that it is all being cooled evenly. We use a special pump that is big enough and slow enough so it will pump both the juice and the grapes without breaking the skins or crushing the seeds.
We finished up the cleaning that didn't quite get done on Sunday evening and take samples of juice out of our tanks for analysis and some new barrels arrive.The samples will get sent to ETS Laboratories and we will have the results by tomorrow evening.  At  this point we are primarily interested in the amount of yeast nutrients there are in the wine.  Once we add the yeast, it needs amino compounds to be adequately nourished during the fermentation and if it does not have enough we will have a risk that the fermentation will "stick" before it is completed. So, once we have the results tomorrow evening we will report on that.  Chances are we will add some "Superfood" and some Diammonium Phosphate (DAP) to make sure the yeast can complete its work.

New and full barrels sit side by side in the winery.

We still have quite a few barrels to get. By the time we get them all we will have around 30 new barrels, all but three of which will be French Oak.

I actually had time for a tasting today and we have 4 great people from Atlanta, Tripp and Jan Kay and Chris and Debbie Pike, in the tasting room in the later afternoon. They arrived around 3 and didn't leave until 6. A good time was had by all. And, Kitchak Cellars has two new wine club members. We have added 25 new members in just the last month.

The only downside of the last couple of days is that I have managed to wreck my shoulder doing something. It hurts like hell and will be a problem with tomorrow's activities, but all in all things are going well.

Except:  It is starting to rain today.  We are not overly concerned but will report back on the situation tomorrow. Contrary to common belief we would still be adding a bit of irrigation to the vineyard with 2 weeks to go for the Cabernet, so the rain may, provided it is not too heavy, save us the electricity we need to pump the water from our well for that irrigation.

So long for now.
Peter

Sunday October 2 - Harvest Begins

We started to harvest this morning.  8 men from our venerable picking resource Servin Lopez vineyard management started before daybreak. Our goal today is to pick 5 tons of Merlot.  At 8 AM the grapes begin arriving from the field and we start the sorting operation.

As the grapes arrive they are sorted first in a general sort to remove leaves and bad clusters and then in a very detailed sort where we sort every single grape.  All of the grapes are picked in the little yellow bins you see above and below. Each bin is weighed and the weight recorded.  By the time the day is over we will pick 5.3 tons of grapes. 327 Boxes! 

36 Pounds 14 Ounces.  This one box will make 12 bottles of wine.

As we begin the "crush" we "christen" the first load of grapes with a bottle of our very first wine made from our own vineyard.  A bottle of 2006 Scherzo Cabernet Rosato.

Peter and Patricia celebrate the commencement of the Harvest.

The first step is to take the grapes of the stems. Destemming. The photo below shows how clean the stems are when the come out of the Destemmer.

Grape Stems in a bin as they fall from the destemmer.

As the grapes come out of the destemmer, they fall on to a "shaker table" where the sorting crew gets out every piece of stem and every bad berry.  What an amazing crew we had today.  They did a magnificent job. Thanks ladies!  See the Video below to see how they work.

Watch our amazing sorting crew.

Patricia Kitchak, who usually mans the last spot on the line was busy planning our upcoming harvest party so she was unable to participate.



The tank is cooled to freezing before the gapes are loaded in.  We are doing a "cold soak" where the grapes will sit quietly in their juice and soak for a few days before we warm the mixture up and start the fermentation.

 Ice Crystals on the wine tank.

The patterns in the ice crystals are always beautiful and serve as a harbinger of the entire artistic process of making the wine.

220 V Power for almost everything

If the number of plugs for the equipment we are using is any indication, this is going to be a "powerful wine."

The grapes are then gently elevated into the tank - no pumping.

So as they say, "The grapes are in the tank" but the day is not over.  We finished the sorting at about 5PM and we still have 4 hours of clean-up so we can start all over again in the next couple of days. Each piece of machinery, the destemmer, the sorting tables, the elevators and everything else will be spotless and sterilized before we hit the hay. A big day for us, but a real reward after a long season in the vineyard.

Wine Making Begins at Kitchak Cellars

This morning, October 1, we tested these grapes. They are perfect and we are ahead of the rain that is forecast for this week.  BRIX (sugar content of the grapes is perfect at 25.2.  That should give us an alcohol level in this wine of about 14.8. pH of the grapes is 3.47 and the Titrateable Acidity is 6.2. Virtually perfect numbers.
The acid will go down as we ferment and the BRIX may go up just a bit because we can't really check the the amount of the sugar in the skins.

We will begin our pick tomorrow and will try to keep you up to date on what is happening and how. Hopefully we will be able to give you an update on the harvest and the development of the wine daily.

So, tune in tomorrow for the first day of the 2011 Harvest.

Getting Ready to Pick Sauvignon Blanc - We are getting close

A Foggy Morning in Napa - September 6 - Temp 54 degrees

This is an amazing part of the world.  At 6AM as the sun started to rise, it was clear. Now, at 7:05AM it is foggy and will probably stay that way for a couple of hours. Yesterday it was 85 degrees at the end of the day but the sun did not get completely "out" until 11AM.  That is one of the reasons the Napa Valley is so great for grapes.  Warm sunny days and very cool evenings, nights and early mornings. Everyday about 3PM the breeze from San Francisco Bay starts to blow, gently at first and then a bit stronger as we move toward evening.  It is the diurnal temperature variation that lets the flavors and sugars settle in the grapes and that gives us the great wines that only the Napa Valley can produce.

Picking up Sauvignon Blanc (SB) barrels today and testing the glycol in the chiller and tanks.

We will pick up the French Oak barrels (from Demptos) for the SB today and get them ready for use.
We will ferment the SB at cool temperatures (about 55 degrees) in the french oak barrels and following fermentation we will rack off the wine, clean the barrels and age the wine in those barrels for about 6 to 9 months.  Yesterday was spent adjusting and testing all of the tanks to make sure that we had the correct fittings, that the seals and valves worked and that they were clean.  Spotless.  We are getting close.

Picking SB on September 9.

The Brix was 24 yesterday so we will wait out this week but probably pick on Friday.  Stay tuned. This is starting to get exciting as we move forward to harvest.

Getting Ready for Harvest -2

Preparation for Harvest in Full Swing at Kitchak Cellars.

We are back in Napa and getting ready for harvest. All of the grapes in our vineyards are now in their final color.

Testing BRIX.

Yesterday we check BRIX of the grapes for the first time.
BRIX is a type of measurement of of ripeness.  BRIX is actually a measurement of the amount of sugar in a grape, and it is the sugar that makes the alcohol.  Grapes will naturally produce at full maturity a BRIX of around 25 or 25.5.  That means that the grape is 25% sugar or 25.5 sugar.   At 25% BRIX, grapes will produce an alcohol level in the wine of 14.5%.l  We get there by multiplying the BRIX by .58.  That formula gets us very close and is very reliable.

Sauvignon Blanc Grapes almost ready to pick.  
Notice the translucent yellow color

Yesterday the BRIX Sauvignon Blanc was 23. We are getting very close.  The Merlot was 19 and the Cabernet was 18.  Both have more than a month to go.

 Great Color in the Cabernet Sauvignon on September 3, 2011.  
Another month to go.

Bottling the Red Wines September 15.

On September 15 we will be bottling many of our Red Wines. So we have to get ready for that.  We have already done all of the sampling and test blends so we will be getting tanks ready this week and getting the blend wines into the tanks for the blending and they will stay in the tanks until they go into the bottles on the 15th.That day we will bottle the 2009 Adagio, the 2009 Franc and the 2009 Piacere. You may not have heard about our FRANC or our PIACERE.

FRANC is a Napa Valley Cabernet Franc that we do a small amount of and sell in the tasting room. Cabernet Franc is regularly used as a blending wine in Bordeaux Blends and mixed with Merlot and/or Cabernet Sauvignon.  It is seldom used as a "stand alone" wine.  But we are making a small amount and it has been quite popular in the tasting room.  It is very interesting and sells for around $48. It is aged in oak and it gets the same high quality wine making and handling that our other best wines get.  Is not presently included in any of our wine club shipments, but you can order it direct from the winery.

Introducing PIACERE (pea-a-chair-ay).  

PIACERE is an Italian word meaning "to enjoy" or "to have pleasure." In music it is a phrase indicating that the piece may be played at a tempo in the discretion of the performer. Blended from estate grown varieties of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot, this wine has been made to enjoy now, or it will age for years...at your discretion. It is designed to be more approachable early than its big sister ADAGIO. It sells for about $45.  Like the FRANC it is not presently included in any of our wine club shipments, but you can order it direct from the winery.

Tours and Tastings by Appointment.

We are open during the harvest season for Tours and Tastings; by appointment only.  They are always private, one group at a time. We do 3 tours per day, one at 10:30, one at 1PM and one at 3:00. If you are a wine club member or a follower of our blog, just mention it and the tastings are complimentary.  Call 707-225-2276 for an appointment or send an e-mail to tours@kitchakcellars.com.

Bring a Picnic.

We have a beautiful picnic patio on the shores of Lake Cynthia in the middle of our vineyard. It has picnic tables and overlooks the lake. Come for a 10:30 tasting, bring your lunch, buy a bottle of Kitchak Cellars wine and enjoy a picnic in the vineyards overlooking the lake under the spreading branches of a 200 year old Oak Tree.  Or come for a picnic and follow it with a tasting at 1PM.  Either one works. But, you need an appointment. Call 707-225-2276 for an appointment or send an e-mail to tours@kitchakcellars.com.

Getting Ready for Harvest - In the Alps

Harvest is Coming

We are now getting ready for Harvest and plan to be much more regular about Blog entries from here on this fall. The grapes started turning color in early August and looked like this at the beginning of the first week.

By mid - August they had really started to turn color. 

Count ahead 60 days and they will be ready to pick. Probably around October 15. The grapes in these photos are Cabernet Sauvignon and this year they are quite a bit ahead of the Merlot.  We probably won't pick the Merlot until sometime near the end of October and we already have our fingers crossed, hoping that we can get them picked before it rains.

Training for Harvest in the Alps

The Kitchaks and the Bashioums (Ralph is our partner and Cellar Master you will recall) took a little time off to train for the all of the hard work Harvest is certain to bring.  We decided a hiking trip in the French and Swiss Alps would provide some needed exercise and some real food so, off we went.

First stop was Chamonix in the French Alps.

Here we are, high in the Alps above Chamonix with Mt. Blanc in the background. L to R -Patricia, Peter, Lindsay Bashioum and Ralph Bashioum.

Kitchak Cellars was well represented and advertised as we traveled,

with both Patricia K and Lindsay Bashioum wearing their Kitchak Cellars hats everywhere. Surprisingly enough, a number of people noticed, we handed out business cards, added a number of people to our mailing list and had a few people tells us they would be sure to stop at the winery on their next trip to Napa.

During the trip, we, according to our normal practice when traveling, drank only local wines. While Swiss wines are probably not among the best in the world, they are interesting. The Swiss have actually been making wine since Roman times, long before anyone even thought of wine in the US. We drank a local Sauvignon Blanc, a Merlot and a Merlot/Cabernet blend. But even more interesting we drank a white wine from a grape called Heida (a clone of Sauvignon Blanc I think), and a red wine from  the Humagne Rouge Grape. According to the Swiss Wine association's web site, the Humagne Rouge is a late-harvest and robust grape variety, whose cultivated surface has largely increased during the last 20 years. Its distinguished wines are not very tannic, have wild berry aromas and are an ideal accompaniment for game dishes.

The Beer is Better in Switzerland

But we also drank the local beer. Feldschlösschen or Cardinal. And, a fair amount of it. Frankly, after a long hike the beer was a much better accompaniment at lunch than wine.  The photo below was taken at a mountain restaurant above Zermatt with the Matterhorn in the background.

This photo was taken about 2PM.  We started hiking that day around 9:30AM and finished just before 6PM. With a great one hour stop for lunch. A formidable day in the mountains.

So...we are now relaxed, in shape; waiting for harvest and ready for all of the hard work we will have to do over the next few weeks to get ready. Stay tuned.