(NOT USED) https://westwines.com Fri, 01 September 2023 09:11:00 Fri, 01 September 2023 09:11:00 https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2023/09/01/west-wines-25-years/ Buying the land 25 years ago, we were driven by the beauty of Dry Creek Valley and a deep interest in wine. We had taken serious classes in wine tasting but we knew nothing about what really goes into the process of farming, winemaking, packaging of wine products and the many obstacles in the winery industry. Luckily. As we walked the vineyard after taking ownership, our vineyard manager told us about all the diseases, pests, insects, frost, rust etc. that can obliterate a harvest. What had we done? However, we got off to a good start and the first vintage was 1999 Cabernet Sauvignon. As we loved Bordeaux wines, we wanted to learn creating wines with long aging potential. We started by hiring Julia Iantosca as our winemaker. Julia was also the winemaker at Lambert Bridge creating excellent Bordeaux style blends and Cabernet Sauvignon wines. We worked our way through testing various types of barrels and the art of deciding when to harvest. Katarina started a winemaking degree at UC Davis to really get to know the trade and the science. She did it one class at a time over many years, and practicing alongside Julia and later Phyllis Zouzounis. Phyllis joined us in 2008 and has become a dear friend. Katarina continued to work with Phyllis and then gradually took over the winemaking completely. Cabernet Sauvignon continues to be our flagship wine and we now have the process perfected to 30 months in French oak barrels after manually harvesting the grapes while they have lots of tannins and acidity left for long aging potential. This is the basis for another four years of beauty sleep in the bottle. One highlight was of course when, in 2010, our Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve was chosen in a blind tasting to be served at the Nobel awards banquet. We think of it as the “Stockholm Judgement” moment as there had never been a non-European wine at the banquet before, and it took a blind tasting to change that. A wonderful honor which also kicked off exporting wine to Sweden. The history of the area is always visible around us. Of course, we have the Blue Barn, a 120-year-old barn put in place by the Guidi family who farmed the land until the 1980s. The barn served as canning factory when the fields were planted with apricots and plums during prohibition. Now the barn is home to our 1932 flatbed truck, beautifully restored 20 years ago. The truck was used at the Borden Dairy farm (still active dairy to haul milk most of its life. Now it has traded up to haul wine barrels. Another fun memory is preparing to make sparkling wine. We spent a year tasting various champagnes, mostly blanc de blancs, i.e., made from chardonnay. Our daughter even complained that she always had to drink champagne each time she was home from college. 2014 was our first vintage and we made sure it got several years of aging sur lie in the cellar. it was served four years later at our daughter’s wedding. It was not until 2012 that we started a tasting room. Before then we sold uniquely to restaurants and resellers. Now we have no resellers, except for the Swedish Systembolaget as that is the only way to sell to consumers there and love meeting our customers directly. Cats have been part of our team since almost 10 years back. They have come to us as orphans or decided to move from a neighbor to us. Most recently, four and a half years ago, we got Jane Bond who showed up a stormy week in our barn. She was just a kitten. We actually thought it was a male cat but it was too shy to let us pick it up. With the black and white tuxedo coloring we decided to name it James Bond. Three weeks later we had to change the name to Jane Bond. She is very much in control of all things these days. The last years have been more challenging with fires, pandemic and the temporary closures on and off that followed. Fall of 2020 was particularly hard with the fires just west of us and being evacuated for 10 days in the middle of harvest. It’s been an amazing 25 years. The most fantastic part of this journey is to have met so many wonderful people in the winery industry, neighbors in the valley, customers who come back again and again and are like friends these days. https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2023/09/01/west-wines-25-years/ https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2023/09/01/west-wines-25-years/ Fri, 01 September 2023 09:11:00 Dave Wertzberger https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2023/07/31/my-aha-wine-experience-guest-post-by-dave-wertzberger/ Working in the tasting room, I often ask guests if they can point to an impactful wine experience that increased their interest and appreciation for wine.  My personal “aha!” moment occurred back in 1993 when my wife and I were living in London.   More of a beer drinker back then, I could name some of the classic grape varietals and wine regions, but I had yet to be motivated to expand my wine palate.  That changed one night when we had dinner with an old family friend, Phil, who was visiting from California. We settled into a charming French restaurant in Covent Garden called "La Stamine."  Phil appreciated wine, and he needed little time to select a 1982 Chateauneuf du Pape for the table.  A Granache-based blend from the Southern Rhone, this wine was full bodied with generous aromas and flavors including dark fruit, earth, herbs, toast, and spice.  Still possessing good acidity and structure, this wine was a perfect complement to the decadent lamb cutlets on my plate. The wine was drinking so well, we ordered a second bottle.  For the first time drinking wine, I had noticed a broad array of flavors with depth, intensity, and harmony.  Every drop was like an epiphany.   I was also fascinated to learn a little about the history of the Chateauneuf du Pape region, and the local Papel residence which contributed to the quality and the reputation of the wine.   Now that’s what I call an “aha!” moment! Suffice it to say, that experience with Chateauneuf du Pape challenged me to seek out new wine regions and styles.  It was the start of a most enjoyable journey and going strong for 30 years.  I have to say that wine education is a wonderful thing.   It’s where drinking wine and studying are the same activity! Thanks for letting me share my “aha!” wine moment.  I invite you to visit the West Wines tasting room and try our hand-crafted wines from Dry Creek Valley.  There you will taste wines with character, depth, balance, all of which are excellent examples of the Dry Creek Valley and Sonoma County regions.  Maybe you'll experience an “aha!” moment yourself.  Cheers! https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2023/07/31/my-aha-wine-experience-guest-post-by-dave-wertzberger/ https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2023/07/31/my-aha-wine-experience-guest-post-by-dave-wertzberger/ Mon, 31 July 2023 00:00:00 https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2020/11/30/pairing-holiday-food-with-wine/ The holidays are filled with good food and drinks. In our case, mostly wine. The challenge is that there are so many different flavors in the food that we serve during this time of the year which makes it hard to pair with a single wine. Often it is buffet style with many dishes and favorite family recipes.  So how do we go about it? Well, you can of course make a buffet of different wines too! If you are just a few people, which will be the case for many during 2020, that will probably be too much wine (though a tasting party is never a bad option.)  The traditional holiday menu offers such a wide variety of flavors. The honey glazed ham offers sweet and salty, while the turkey, tart cranberry sauce, and sweet potatoes with marshmallows bring sweet and sour. So how do we pick a wine? In general, salty food will enhance the acidity and tannins in a dry red wine. It is better to pick a fruity white wine such as our Viognier or a less oaky, more slender, but still fruity Chardonnay . You can also look for a lighter, less tannic red wine, maybe a light Zinfandel or light red Rhone wine such as Grenache. Cranberry sauce and sweet potatoes at the same time is also a challenge. As there are a lot of flavors, I look to the bright fruity acidity of an Italian Sangiovese. To play with the sweetness and creaminess of sweet potatoes and butter in many of the side dishes, I go with our Tuscan Cuvee which blends Sangiovese and Cabernet Sauvignon into a festive wine. A European style Pinot Noir which has had the time to age a bit is an excellent choice as well as a dry Riesling or Viognier if you want to pair it with a white wine. The desserts this time of the year tend to have nuts, pecans and walnuts, sweet and spicy apples, or pumpkin flavors. A sweet white dessert wine, such as our Late Harvest Viognier , will go very nicely with this. If you end up with a big dark chocolate cake on your table, bring out the red port wine. My favorite wine, a big, complex, well-aged Cabernet Sauvignon will either wait for the cheese platter to come out ( read my blog about cheese ) or wait until another evening when we make a nice prime rib steak with mushrooms, wine sauce and winter greens, or my favorite winter meat, venison. Or I may just take a generous glass of a 15-20 year old Cab, put my feet up next to the fireside and enjoy. Happy Holidays! https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2020/11/30/pairing-holiday-food-with-wine/ https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2020/11/30/pairing-holiday-food-with-wine/ Mon, 30 November 2020 14:25:00 https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2020/03/04/carménère-the-almost-extinct-bordeaux-grape-rediscovered-in-chile/ Chile is the wine country that can brag about rediscovering the Bordeaux grape Carménère. After the phylloxera bug killed off a lot of the vineyards in Europe in the late 19 th century the Carménère grape was not replanted in Bordeaux since it was already hard to get to flower and ripen in the cool and humid Atlantic climate. It was thought to be mostly extinct when it was rediscovered in 1994 in Chile. It had been masquerading as Merlot. Cuttings had been planted around 1850  from pre-phylloxera Bordeaux since Chilieans wanted to create European style wines. The vines were planted together without paying much attention to separating varietals as they were producing blends anyway. For a long time what was thought to be Merlot had many vines which simply didn’t ripen until weeks after the Merlot, but they were harvested and vinified together. Unfortunately unripe Carménère has a lot of green pepper and herbaceous notes. Long story short – French researcher Claude Vallat in 1994 could identify these vines as a strain of Carménère and Chilean winemakers started to figure out how to make the best wine from it, rather then adding it as unripe grapes in their Merlot wines. The warm and dry climate in the middle of Chile has proven ideal for this grape and beautiful wines are produced now that the varietal is allowed to ripen to its potential. Bengt and I visited some great vineyards and our favorite was actually the smallest. Vina La Torina www.latorina.cl . With 75 acres planted to Cabernet Sauvignon and Carménère they are producing award-winning wines. I particularly liked their smooth, deep soft tannin 2015 Carménère with flavors of raspberry, licorice and some spicy notes as well. The whole family took time off their Sunday to show us around and we had a wonderful tasting in their winery. They are now preparing to build a Tasting Room on the hillside of their vineyards and I look forward to go back and visit next year. Bravo!! On the other end of the spectrum we visited Vina VIK www.vikwine.com   which has 1000 acres planted and makes three different blends in a Bordeaux style.They are a bit overpriced for being nice but not outstanding. La Piu Belle has a very cool bottle design - so I had to get some bottles. This gigantic project started in 2004 by Alexander Vik and the winery has a very impressive winery and cellar using streaming water and underground location for cooling. This is a design adventure and the boutique hotel on the property is a destination by itself and has a very cool restaurant as well. I did go running in the early morning around the vineyards and found that there is some neglect in the vineyard management, not sure why, maybe it is too big of a project.   I am definitely going back for more discovery next year. https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2020/03/04/carménère-the-almost-extinct-bordeaux-grape-rediscovered-in-chile/ https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2020/03/04/carménère-the-almost-extinct-bordeaux-grape-rediscovered-in-chile/ Wed, 04 March 2020 06:41:00 Katarina https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2020/01/06/what-happens-in-the-barrel-room/ Now is the time when the wine harvested in October has both fermented and also gone through the malolactic fermentation. The latter is not a fermentation, but is the process which softens the red wine by transforming malic acid to lactic acid. The result tastes less harsh to our palates and is a typical process for most red wines and sometimes white wine and takes about a month or so. Our red wines are resting with us for another 2 years, aging and getting more flavorful all the time. There are plenty of barrels this time of the year in the cellar. The new barrels from 2019 are resting next to the 2018 vintage and the 2017 vintage, soon to be bottled. Every month we say hello to each barrel, tasting and testing the vital characteristics of the wine. We top up the barrels which means that we fill up the empty space caused by evaporation during the month. Those air pockets create too much air contact for the wine. Every 6 months we do something called racking. This is a process which clarifies the wine. We remove the wine gently, pumping it out of the barrel, leaving half an inch or so of sediment at the bottom. We turn the barrels to empty out the "slush" and then use 180F hot water cleaning out the inside of the barrels.Then the wine is carefully hosed back into the barrels. . This will clean the wine from particles, e.g. dead yeast cells, grape solids, tartrates etc.. Racking each wine 4 times over the course of two years works just as well as filtering but leaves more flavors in the wine. You can say we use gravity as a filtering system by letting particles fall to the bottom over months and then cleaning them out. This allows us to minimize filtering and keeps the flavors. Since you need a lot of time in this process it is best used for wines which have a long aging process. I hope you come and visit in March when we open up a barrel or two for pre-bottling tasting. Then you can compare with the finished wines and see what happens in the life of a wine. https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2020/01/06/what-happens-in-the-barrel-room/ https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2020/01/06/what-happens-in-the-barrel-room/ Mon, 06 January 2020 02:09:00 https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2019/11/2/the-cheeses-i-love-to-pair-with-our-wines/ We are big cheese lovers in our family and usually have at least 4-5 different cheeses at home at any time. Whenever someone drops by unexpectedly we bring out wine and cheese, some good crackers, fig marmalade (my own recipe – figs, pears and cinnamon – I make a lot in the fall). I like to have a hard cheese, a blue cheese, a brie or camembert, some washed rind cheese, a goat cheese and something stinky. Sometimes we do a wine and cheese pairing with several wines and a different cheese for each wine. With the Coravin tool it is easy to pour samples from many bottles, or with many guests we just open all of the bottles. Here are some of the cheeses I often pick with our wines: Sauvignon Blanc is a dry white wine with more acidity and a mild goat cheese or fresh cheese will work nicely. Black olive tapenade is also nice to add to the plate. With Chardonnay we can go for a little more flavor and less acidity. A hard cheese like Comte, or a softer mature Brie, or a Port Salut all work well with rounded Chardonnay. There are many US creameries making their own versions of these French cheeses. Our Viognier is flowery and crisp with pineapple, citrus on the nose and suits the aromatic flavors of washed rind cheeses with their red rinds. My favorite is Reblochon, which is a bit on the stinky side . Unfortunately the Reblochon, cannot be purchased in the USA since it is an unpasteurized cheese which is not allowed to be sold here. But I enjoy it when I go to Europe. Alternatives are Munster, a German semi soft cheese, or French Pont L’Eveque. Local alternatives are many e.g. Nicasio Square from Nicasio Valley Cheese in Marin County, here in California. Nicasiocheese.com. If you cannot find them, just ask your cheese shop for another washed rind cheese. The Port Salut mentioned above is also a washed rind cheese, but very mild. Our Tuscan Cuvee is a blend of Sangiovese and Cabernet Sauvignon and has the fruitiness of an Italian wine and I really like to pair it with a crumbly Parmesan, or fruity tangy Taleggio, both Italian cheeses. Or a mild blue cheese, e.g. Fourme d’Ambert. For our Bordeaux style wine, West Crest Cuvee, I will pick Morbier, rich and flavorful, the cheese with a horizontal layer of ash inside. I might also pull out a nutty Manchego or Red Hawk from Cowgirl Creamery. www.cowgirlcreamery.com An even bigger wine, the 100% Cabernet can use a companion like a well aged Gouda, minimum 18 months, or a big blue cheese like Roquefort or medium blue like Bleu d’Auvergne. The fig marmelade is always out together with these cheeses. The finale with Late Harvest Viognier I would serve either a Gorgonzola, buttery and salty with blue veins, a very nutty caramelized aged Gouda, 2-3 years at least, where it crumbles in shards or a similar sheep milk cheese like Pecorino. To top it off I use a tiny bit of blueberry jam and some pecan nuts. Enjoy! https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2019/11/2/the-cheeses-i-love-to-pair-with-our-wines/ https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2019/11/2/the-cheeses-i-love-to-pair-with-our-wines/ Sat, 02 November 2019 10:58:00 https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2019/10/02/great-food-pairings-with-red-wine/ Open a delicious bottle of red, pour a glass, take a sip, and then let it sit while you prepare the food. For an appetizer or light lunch I prepare Figs and Ham , especially this time of the year when there are fresh figs available. I also pour a glass of my Tuscan Cuvee, our Italian blend of Sangiovese and Cabernet Sauvignon. Then I start making Truffle and Mushroom Risotto . This recipe was created by local chef Ken Rochioli to pair with my wine. Sangiovese has a beautiful raspberry scent which highlights the truffle oil and the tannins in the Cabernet are mellowed by the creamy mushroom risotto. An excellent vegetarian alternative is Portabello Mushrooms stuffed with Goat Cheese and Herbs . With our West Crest Cuvee, a Bordeaux style blend, I often make Lamb Chops with Rosemary, Sage and Lavender . When I do not have fresh herbs I make Pork Chops with Creamy Blue Sauce. It is a very easy to make recipe, you can make it while you chat with your guests, and sip a glass of wine. For a great dinner with friends, I choose a West Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve and depending on the vintage I think about my options. Right now I would chose the 2010 or 2012 and pair it with Lamb Racks and Roasted Root Vegetables with Chevre-Yoghurt Sauce . The creamy goat cheese and the crispy texture of the roasted vegetables are wonderful together and the meat has a friend in the big and structured Cabernet Sauvignon. For Sunday dinner, make Beef Bourguignon , beef stew from Burgundy, which can be made a day ahead, it actually tastes even better then. I will pair it with our 2011 Cabernet Sauvignon which started out with a lot of tannins and is now getting more exciting every day. Still hungry? How about some cheese with a beautifully aged 2006 West Cabernet Sauvignon, or if you still have some, the 2003 (I have a few bottles still, carefully guarded in my cellar). The 2006 vintage was packed with tannins when we released it and it is now a very exciting wine with an abundance of deep dark plum, bay leaves, cloves, coriander, coffee, leather and earthy tones. More recipes at www.westwines.com/recipes https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2019/10/02/great-food-pairings-with-red-wine/ https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2019/10/02/great-food-pairings-with-red-wine/ Wed, 02 October 2019 07:40:00 Katarina https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2019/09/03/great-food-pairings-with-white-wines/ Wine is meant as a companion for food and I love to try new combinations. I just created a new seasoning  for scallops to go with our Seafoam, sparkling chardonnay. If you want to try it, here is the recipe: Pesto Marinated Scallops .  Just as a blanc de blancs champagne, it is light and frothy with a slight hint of green apple and brioche. Pouring bubbles is a great way to start a party. And if you do not want to cook, just make some popcorn and flavor with lemon olive oil and a little salt to go with the sparkling. For lunch I suggest a Spinach and Sweet Pepper Frittata . A refreshing Sauvignon Blanc is a perfect companion to the fluffy egg and vegetable concoction. Frittata is a type of Italian omelet and you can make individual ones for each guest or a bigger one. With our Viognier I recommend Seared Ahi Tuna with Avocado and Mango Salsa . The inherent pineapple and citrus flavors from the Viognier grape is accentuated by the salsa and is contrasted by the steeliness of the Ahi. This is one of my favorite pairings. Now for dinner put a West Chardonnay in the fridge and get going with an easy and elegant Sesame Salmon . We are using sesame seeds to coat the salmon while it bakes in the oven. Still hungry? How about a fruit tart or a Tosca Almond Tart with some Late Harvest Viognier ? Almonds go really well with the mature peach and mango flavors in the late harvest wine. When the grapes get an extra month on the vine they are sweeter and almost like raisins. Some years we leave some grapes after the main harvest so I can make a dessert wine. More recipes at www.westwines.com/recipes https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2019/09/03/great-food-pairings-with-white-wines/ https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2019/09/03/great-food-pairings-with-white-wines/ Tue, 03 September 2019 12:32:00 https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2019/07/15/what-and-who-is-behind-our-labels/ Our wine labels have our golden W in a ring, but also a red arrow. That is our West pointing arrow. The west pointing arrow in a compass rose. Please always place our bottle so the arrow points west and you know where you are . We picked West as the name because we are West of everything. Our Cabernet vineyard is high up on a west facing slope west of West Dry Creek road. For our two most recent labels we have engaged a creative young designer, Linnea Gidlof, who we started working with when she was at the Academy of Arts University in San Francisco. For our champagne style sparkling I had a notion of the frothy foams at sea and gave it the name Seafoam. Linnea picked up on this and created a beautiful turquoise label with gold and a hint of waves and bubbles. Very modern and classy. So obviously I turned to her when we just finished making our first Grappa, Seafire. She chose a beautiful orange color which goes so well with the gold capsules and the clear liquid.   Our very first label, 1999 Cabernet Sauvignon, was based on a wood print that our daughter made when she was 11 years old. Here it is. Valhall Vineyards called after Valhall, the hall of the Nordic gods, where they ate and drank in eternity. It is still the names of our vineyards, even though our wine brand is now West Wines. We then changed the brand to West Wines and used a west pointing arrow, part of a compass rose as a symbol and our first label for West was created for the 2003 vintage of Cabernet Sauvignon. We only used it three years. Here is the 2005 vintage, which was served at the Nobel awards banquet.   As we started making other wines, Chardonnay, Viognier, red blends we needed a design that would work with different wines. The current label allows us to have a color code for each wine and the border color on the label match the capsule. It makes it easy to pick the right bottle even if it only the capsule sticks out form the wine rack. https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2019/07/15/what-and-who-is-behind-our-labels/ https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2019/07/15/what-and-who-is-behind-our-labels/ Mon, 15 July 2019 15:56:00 https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2019/03/30/water-soil-sun-and-wine-flavor/ Now that the new growing season has started again, I think about all the factors which contribute to the taste of grapes. We have had an unusually rainy winter which means that there is plenty of water for the roots over the coming months. That is good news since we want the vines to get the water from below once they start flowering. The vines need just the right amount of water throughout the season. During ripening it is important that the vine never goes completely dry and leaves start drooping. The vine needs to use its energy to ripen the grape not just trying to survive. A little water stress tends to bring out more intense flavors, but too little water stresses the vine to shut down, stop producing sugars and we get immature grapes with less desirable flavors. This is where the composition of soil comes in. If the soil can hold water for longer times the water from above will come to better use. Silt and clay hold water better then sandy soils and gravel loam also has decent water holding potential. Our steep hillside where the Cabernet grows is a red mineral rich clay which holds water well which is essential since water runs off a hill faster than on the valley floor. Our Cabernet grapes struggle more to get the water out of the ground and there is less of it. On the valley floor our gravel clay loam is deeper and holds water quite well. We also enhance the water holding property of the soil by growing cover crop which brings a number of other advantages as well. Besides holding water, it aerates the soil through the many tiny root holes and it bring additional organic matter to the soil. The amount of sun also makes a huge difference to taste. Too much sun and there is an overly jammy flavor to the wine but too little can bring less desirable green vegetable flavors for example. We get more sun on our Cabernet grapes since they grow higher up and the fog primarily is below them in the morning. Our white grapes grow on the valley floor and get needed shade and cooling at night and morning when the fog lingers low in the valley. If you have too much sun one way of controlling that is through pruning the canopy of leaves so just enough sun filters through to the grapes. That is how we control the sun on our Cabernet grapes by making sure there are enough leaves allowing for sun dappled light to shine through. https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2019/03/30/water-soil-sun-and-wine-flavor/ https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2019/03/30/water-soil-sun-and-wine-flavor/ Sat, 30 March 2019 09:47:00 Katarina https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2019/01/12/a-winery-visit-in-myanmar/ There are wineries in so many different parts of the world today. Winemakers experiment with growing vines in places where the climate is quite different from that of Southern and Western Europe. One such place that I visited recently is in Myanmar, on the hillside sloping down towards Inle Lake in the south of Shan state. Red Mountain Winery is at an altitude of 1000meters, 3200 feet, above sea levels and the season are quite different. I wandered the vineyards in January and saw grapes which will be harvested in March. This is the dry season, but quite warm, once the rains start in May it will still be warm, but very rainy until October. I can just imagine the challenge both as a grower and as a winemaker. The Tasting Room is charming, a big terrace overlooking the lake down below and it is a popular place for wine tasting as well as a nice meal. The wines we tasted were very pleasant. While they have experimented growing various European grapes it seems that some have been favored such as Sauvignon Blanc, Muscat and interestingly Pinot Noir. The wines are well made, but do not have the same flavor profiles those grapes will give a wine from European or North American soil. The Sauvignon Blanc, made as a dry table wine, was unmistakably a Sauvignon Blanc, but had more exotic flavors, in particular I noticed some saffron on the nose and on the palate. The Muscat I tasted was the dessert version and had a lovely nose and quite nice after taste of mango. The most different one however was the Pinot Noir which was both spicy but also had a smokiness very different from classic Pinot Noir. While these wines do not have the same acidity that we are used to, they match the local cuisine quite well and I think that is the most important, to make wines to be enjoyed with local food. All in all it was rewarding to see that new versions of classic wines can be created in a very different climate. https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2019/01/12/a-winery-visit-in-myanmar/ https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2019/01/12/a-winery-visit-in-myanmar/ Sat, 12 January 2019 23:48:00 https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2018/08/02/what-is-the-stuff-at-the-bottom-of-the-cork/ What is the stuff at the bottom of the cork? Dark red, almost inky, deposits, sometimes crystalline in texture? You find it at the end of the cork which has been in touch with the wine during aging and it is actually a quality sign which shows that the wine has not been overfiltered which can strip away some of the flavors. When we crush and press the red grapes there are small particles from skins and seeds which form a sediment at the bottom of the barrels as the wine is aging. Four times during the two years of barrel aging we gently remove the wine and clean out the sediment at the bottom and then refill the barrels again. This process means that we need very little filtering at the end, leaving most flavors in the wine intact. However, after bottling, over the years as the wine ages in the bottle, microscopic sediment will form in the bottle. As a winery we store wine in cases and they are always oriented upside down to keep the cork in contact with the wine and not drying out. This means that most of the sediment will form at the bottom of the cork. If you store the wine lying on its side, which is case with most wine racks, you will find it along the inside of the glass. (The only way you should not store the bottle is cork up.) You may also find small crystals, like little sugar grains, at the end of the cork which are tartrates. They are formed by tartaric acid and potassium which naturally exist in grapes and come together to form tartrates as the wine ages. Sometimes you will find them in young wine if it has been refrigerated and there is more tartaric acid in white wines. The crystals have no flavor impact and are harmless. However, most wineries will cold stabilize white wine so no crystals form at the bottom of the bottle which can scare consumers. The process involves chilling the wine in the tank so the crystals form and can be removed before bottling. If you open bottles which have a lot of sediment you can simply decant the wine to leave the sediment at the bottom. If there is a lot of sediment on the cork you can also gently wipe around the opening of the bottle so sediment does not travel with the wine into the glass. Cheers! https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2018/08/02/what-is-the-stuff-at-the-bottom-of-the-cork/ https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2018/08/02/what-is-the-stuff-at-the-bottom-of-the-cork/ Thu, 02 August 2018 06:25:00 Katarina https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2017/07/31/viognier-the-queen-of-golden-aromas/ Peach, pineapple, pear, flowery yet dry, golden yellow and with a big smooth texture that fills your mouth – that is my way of describing Viognier, our Viognier wine. The grape is thought to have originated in the northern Rhone valley and probably quite a long time ago. It is found in many Rhone wines, both red and white but its big fame and the most exquisite wines made from Viognier are from Condrieu. Appellation Condrieu, the AOC Condrieu, can only contain 100% Viognier and it is a small area of steep hillside vineyards to the east of the river Rhone. Until just a few decades ago it was not well known outside of France and the grapes were not grown in many other places. Viognier has also been used in blends from other parts of the Rhone valley, with other whites such as Marsanne and Rousanne as well as in red blends. Another fascinating use of Viognier is for copigmentation of Syrah wines. Traditionally some Viognier has often been fermented together with Syrah grapes, especially in Côte-Rotie and it is thought that it deepens the red color of the Syrah wine. Copigmentation is a topic of scientific study and it has been shown that tannin compounds in grapes can enhance each other’s colors, even a white grape can have this effect. This method is also used by some winemakers in California nowadays. Today the grape is also grown in other parts of France, as well as in Italy, Australia, the US and more places, even though still in small quantities. At West Wines we grow our own Viognier and I make both a dry white wine from 100% Viognier as well as a Late Harvest Viognier dessert wine. I use the French Condrieu as my style icon and we pick early to ensure enough acidity. The grape has inherent big flowery aromas and a noticeable texture in the mouth feel, like a Chardonnay. It is a pleasant wine with pineapple, melon and peach on the nose and the palate. Contrary to many believes, it ages quite nicely as the young Viognier with flavors of green kiwi, pineapple and melon give way to mature peach, apricot and nuts when the wine is 4-6 years old. It is delightful to pair with flavorful fish dishes, seafood as well as chicken. In particular it goes really well with more spicy food, e.g. Thai food, Ahi tuna and my home country’s gravlax, cured salmon. Recipe here . Our dessert version of the Viognier is a Late Harvest. It means that the grapes are left hanging an extra 3-4 weeks after the  regular harvest. The sugar levels go up and the grapes shrivel so the volume of juice is about 25-30% per acre compared to the regular Viognier. I can only make Late Harvest wine when the fall weather promises to stay dry and warm so it is only made certain years. On the other hand, this wine can last a long-time due to its alcohol of 15.5% and sugar level of about 6%. It is a nectar of mature peach, mango, honeydew melon, almond and pairs beautifully with berry desserts, almond pastry ( here is one of my favorites ), aged Gouda cheese and goat cheeses. And when you open a bottle you can keep it in the fridge for a couple of weeks since it is a wine you drink in smaller amounts. Alas, it does not last very long in our house though. https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2017/07/31/viognier-the-queen-of-golden-aromas/ https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2017/07/31/viognier-the-queen-of-golden-aromas/ Mon, 31 July 2017 04:39:00 Katarina https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2017/06/30/time-for-thyme/ Low creeping thyme expands like soft pillows between the flagstones in my patio. Slow honey bees are humming, drawn to the purple little flowers. I really love the sight of it and the aromas. Just sitting next to it on the warm stones on a summer evening as the sun is setting is a peaceful experience. Thyme is one of the most widely used herbs. Already the romans wrote about its many uses, medicinal, for cooking and psychological. It was thought to make warriors braver so they were sent off with a sprig of thyme. Monks brought thyme to Northern Europe and it became a staple in the English kitchen and part of well-known songs: “Are you going to Scarborough Fair? Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.” A French “bouquet garni” includes thyme, basil, tarragon, laurel, pepper, parsil and rosemary and is used in many dishes, one being Boeuf Bourguignon, Burgundian beef stew. And it is a great enhancement in a French Country pâté. Here is my recipe for a duck pâté , with thyme of course. In Sweden it is garnish and spicing for the yellow pea soup traditionally served on Thursdays followed by Swedish thin pancakes. There was a tradition for women to keep a bouquet of flowers in their psalm books to smell during long sermons. Maybe the smell was supposed to keep you awake or camouflage the bad smell from other church goers, who knows. It has been ordinated for melancholy by putting it under the pillow or in your beer. I do not know if it helps to put it in your wine, I rather drink my wine and smell the thyme quite frankly. Carl Linnaeus, who came up with the modern system of organization of botanical plants, had a lot to say about thyme. He was both a physician and a botanist and studied the effects of thyme on various illnesses. He recorded among other things that it helped against headache, head cold and hangover! Make an infusion of the leaves and try it for yourself. Putting it in your steaming bath water is said to clear your lungs and head and focus your thoughts. The effects of various parts of the thyme plant have been studied in modern time as well and it shows that thyme has excellent anti-bacterial characteristics as well as helps in decreasing swelling which is probably why it is good for chest and head colds. But the easiest is simply to plant this hardy herb in your garden or in a pot, sprinkle its leaves, fresh or dry, on meat, fish and vegetables or just smell the aromatic air around the tiny flowers. And the wine to go along would in my mind be my West Crest Cuvée or West Tuscan Cuvée both suiting the Mediterranean kitchen well. https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2017/06/30/time-for-thyme/ https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2017/06/30/time-for-thyme/ Fri, 30 June 2017 17:18:00 https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2017/05/27/why-we-prune-vines-in-different-shapes-vineyard-talk/ Left to their own devices grape vines can grow to be 100 yards long in the wild. Like all vines they use ground formation, trees and other plants to climb up and find sun or along the ground to spread out. The trunk of a cultivated vine is the result of extensive pruning. Since farming grapes in long vines along the ground or climbing up trees is quite inefficient, humans started pruning vines to get more canes out of a single trunk so that the grapes are more clustered together. Vines are pruned in a number of shapes which have evolved to suit different climates, soils, grapes varietals and tools and labor used when harvesting. The colder the climate the closer to the ground you will usually find the grapes. When temperatures drop in the fall the grapes can still find some warmth radiating from the ground. At the same time, this is very inconvenient when pruning and harvesting so in more temperate climates you prune them at the perfect height for easy access. In hot a climate you have another problem which is to shield the grapes from too much sun. Trellising creates canopies of leaves where only some sun sifts through the leaves. One of the most common ways to prune the vines in California today is Vertical Shoot Position, or VSP.    It is very easy to work the vines, access to the clusters is at a comfortable working height for grape growers who harvest by hand like we do. Our Sauvignon Blanc (pictured here), Chardonnay and Viognier are trellised this way. It is also easy access for machine harvesting and other mechanical work if the rows are spaced at the right distance. We direct the rows to the northwest/southeast to make sure there is equal amount of sunlight on each side of the row. Our vineyard next to our Tasting Room is positioned this way and the almost flat valley floor makes it easy to manage. The steep slopes and many directions in our upper vineyard, 300 ft off the valley floor, makes it impossible for straight lines of vines so instead we are following the contour of the landscape. This is where we grow our high end Cabernet Sauvignon and we need a trellis system which gives more shade and sun coming from a multitude of directions. Enter the Ballerina! A beautiful name for a trellising system and when you look down a row it is if the vines had one hand over their head and a leg lifted to the side. The Ballerina system (a variation of a system called Smart-Dyson) trains every second cane up and every second cane is going down but loosely hanging like the lifted leg of a Ballerina. The upright cane is of course the upright body of the dancer. This gives the right sun dappled light to all the grapes growing up and down the slopes in this vineyard. You can see this in the picture above taken at harvest in our Cabernet Sauvignon vineyard. If you are interested in learning more about our vines, meet me for one of the Harvest Winemaker Tours in September or join one of our Saturday morning Vineyard Walks . https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2017/05/27/why-we-prune-vines-in-different-shapes-vineyard-talk/ https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2017/05/27/why-we-prune-vines-in-different-shapes-vineyard-talk/ Sat, 27 May 2017 15:22:00 https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2017/04/01/water-flooding-and-vines/ What about all this rain the past months and your vines? That is a question I have been getting a lot lately. Since October we have had 68 inches of rain, which is over 50% more than our normal rainfall. And a lot of it came in just a few months January-early March. Overall I am very happy about all the rain this winter for our state and for our vineyards. It means that the reservoirs are full, that the snow pack in the Sierras is deep and will act as a deposit of water for the summer season. Over time more rain is creating more water in the water tables so all in all it is a very good thing. As a matter of fact northern California is now officially drought free. There can be too much of a good thing and some winegrowing areas in California have been less lucky. Especially in places where the land is so low and close to rivers that the vines were standing in water and they could not be accessed for pruning. You need to prune the vines before the dormant winter stage is over.   Vines come to life again during bud break which normally happens in March. Then there are some areas which have had water flooding the fields for weeks which presents a real problem for grape growers there. Vines are resilient and a few days in water will not be a big problem, but if days become weeks it will impact even dormant vines. Vines that have their root systems submerged in water for weeks will suffocate because of lack of oxygen and important nutrients can be lost as they leak out of the soil. Vineyards on steep slopes on the other hand run the danger of erosion with lots of rain at the same time. At West Wines we have seen lots of rain but luckily no erosion in the upper hillside vineyard   and even our fields on the valley floor have had enough run off to dry out after a couple of days after each rain storm. That is a big relief since replanting; fixing damages and the loss of grapes for coming seasons would be costly. Now we are looking forward to the 2017 season with ample supply of water deep down in the soil. The nice warm weather of the last weeks has brought out buds turning to green leaves on all the vines. Soon the flowering will start and then we need to worry about frost at night. But then someone once told me “to farm is to worry”. In the meantime I will enjoy releasing our 2015 Viognier and our 2010 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve next weekend. Cheers! https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2017/04/01/water-flooding-and-vines/ https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2017/04/01/water-flooding-and-vines/ Sat, 01 April 2017 07:15:00 https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2016/11/15/age-your-wine-for-sublime-taste-experiences/ What happens when the wine ages? There are a lot of interesting flavors that can only develop if you allow the wine to age. It happens both during barrel aging as well as while bottle aging the wine. To experience this we need to let the wine age. For the winemaker the planning starts early since the impact comes from the grape varietal, how it was grown, how it was made and how it was aged. As time works its magic on the wine in barrel and in bottle you will get incredibly rewarding flavor experiences. This is not for the impatient wine lover! Drinking these wines young is like eating a dish before it is ready, you get a lot of raw ingredients, but not the blended final result with all the spices added. Fermenting with the skins, like you do with red wines, means that there are a lot of tannins in the final wine. This is why red wines age better than white wines since white wines ferment after they juice has been pressed and the skins discarded. You cannot find these flavors without taking the time to age the wine. You cannot use the microwave to create them! Factors that influence if a wine can age Phenols from grapes and oak barrels They create new flavors as the wine matures They act as anti-oxidants to preserve the wine Higher acidity and low pH will also preserve wine Stages that contribute to the taste Grapes on the vine - growing and developing flavors Wine in the barrel - flavors from wine and barrel combine Bottle aging which creates new flavors from reactions between   a huge number of compounds made up of phenols, alcohol and acids. Wine needs time to develop more flavors than what you get from the grape and from fermentation.   Aging wine in oak barrels will add and enhance additional flavor in wine such as butter, cedar, spice, nuts, raisin, and vanilla. Gather your friends and do a Vertical Tasting through several vintages of the same wine and see for yourself. Here is a blog post discussing how you do that . The most influential group of compounds for flavors in wine are the phenols. There are hundreds of phenols and one of the subgroups you hear a lot about are the tannins. Tannins are present in grapes, additional tannins are introduced by the oak barrels and they influence color, taste and the tactile sensation, the mouthfeel.   They also help preserve the wine so they are much wanted for a wine that you want to keep for a long time. They do need time to soften sense the astringency you perceive when drinking a young wine. If a big red wine like Cabernet Sauvignon tastes round and soft even though it is only 3-4 years old the winery has most likely used various enzymes to temper the mouthfeel and roundness of the wine. That wine will be drinkable faster but not show the same aging potential.   Barrel aging Oak barrels contain another type of phenol called lignin which interacts with the tannins in the wine. French oak barrels have twice as much tannin per surface unit as American oak – but they are 60% more expensive. They also impart different flavors since they are different species and grow in different places. Oak barrels are more efficient as new from a flavor perspective, but may still be used as aging vessels when they have been used many times. When they have been in use many years they do not impart much flavor but still add some to the mouthfeel in that they let air work on the wine to a small degree since they are not airtight like a stainless steel tank. We use 50% new French oak barrels for our Cabernet Sauvignon since we want to get the tannins from the oak to interact with the tannins and other substances in the wine. The toasting of the barrel is an important component as it drives flavors of vanilla, honey, burned caramel and more. How and where the oak trees grow will also differentiate the taste influence of the barrel. We take our barrels form three different coopers to get even more complexity to the wine. Tannins in both wine and barrel add to the aging potential and flavor profile and gives our wine an ability to mature a long time, often decades. Bottle aging Reactions between all the compounds in wine create new interesting flavors while it is aging in the bottle. As the fruity aromas of the young wine dissipates there will be mature flavors evolving. Complex compounds stemming from phenols, alcohol and acids create new flavors as they combine in the bottle. The tannins keep creating longer and more complex molecules that are softer on our tongue. Some aromas and tastes you can find in Cabernet Sauvignon are blackberry, cherry, sour cherry, blackcurrant, licorice, anise, violet, earth, coffee, tobacco, leather, vanilla, hazelnut, almond, butterscotch, herbs, eucalyptus, bay leaves, green bell pepper, grass. Some aromas are more obvious when you first smell the wine, some will come to you when you taste the wine the first time, some at the tip of your tongue, some in the back and some once you have swirled it in your mouth a while. You will also find new flavors as the wine warms in the glass and you taste a second time. This is because there are flighty compounds that hit your nose at first but then disappear in favor of the slower ones. You can find aromas of sweaty horses and stable which have long been the hallmarks of French old Bordeaux, which is why some wine lovers will pay enormous amounts for bottles that have been aged a long time. There is something for everyone in the world of wines. You could not find these flavors without the time component. You cannot use the microwave to create them! https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2016/11/15/age-your-wine-for-sublime-taste-experiences/ https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2016/11/15/age-your-wine-for-sublime-taste-experiences/ Tue, 15 November 2016 16:57:00 https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2016/11/14/how-to-do-a-vertical-tasting/ Gather your Friends for a Fun Vertical Tasting One of the more fun wine tastings to do is a vertical tasting. It means that you use the same wine, i.e. the same varietal from the same vineyard from a number of different years. Invite a group of friends who like wine, they do not have to be experts, neither do you. You are actually about to learn a lot from tasting the same wine from different years and you can do it just for fun and notice the differences and enjoy the wines, or you can go about it more seriously and take notes, discuss and compare. Which wines to choose? If you can find them, bottles from consecutive years are very interesting but it can also be years more spread out in time. You need to use a wine that has aging potential and which develops new interesting flavors as it matures. One of the best wines to use is Cabernet Sauvignon or blends with Cabernet Sauvignon such as Bordeaux wines. Use 3-5 wines from the same winery, the same vineyard, and preferably the same winemaking style, what is called vineyard designated wines. The point is to learn about the differences and similarities that come from the aging in barrel and bottle as well as the impact of different weather in different years. Some wineries make the same wine every year but get the grapes from different places and focus on creating exactly the same flavors. That means that you are not comparing the same grapes or growing conditions. So they would not be as suitable for a vertical tasting. You are most likely to find vineyard designated wines from smaller wineries with their own vineyards or, if a bigger winery, specific wines made from the same vineyard every year. At West Wines we make Cabernet Sauvignon from our estate grapes from the very same west-facing slope every year so they are indeed vineyard designated. I also use the same winemaking procedures ensuring that the differences are attributed to variances of weather patterns and the aging time. You will be surprised how much difference a year makes. We hold back a small percentage from every vintage for the purpose of enjoying the wines as they age and some are available for our clients as well.   How to arrange a tasting You can do this in a very small group or get a larger group together. For a tasting you only have to pour about 2 ounces of each wine so you can use a bottle each of four wines for up to 12 people. You would have enough to pour 2 ounces per person and still have a glass per person left of each wine if you are a group of four. That means you can continue to enjoy each ones favorite with dinner. Or you can be a bigger group of 12 people and let each one get a 2 ounce tasting of each wine. A regular glass of wine is about 4-5 oz. You do not have to be formal.   The purpose can simply be just to experience the differences and similarities of the wines, enjoy the flavors, take some notes, or not, and talk about what everyone thinks about the wine. And then get on with some good food. You can also structure the tasting so that each wine is sampled one at a time while everyone takes notes about what they perceive. Then you can discuss each wine briefly while tasting it and when they are all tasted you compare notes on differences, similarities and favorites. You do not need to be wine experts. This is about what you actually experience. Some guests who are more knowledgeable and some who are not is a fine mix actually. For each wine I like to note the color, the clarity, the bouquet, the taste. There are no right or wrong words but you can read some of the flavors that I am reminded of when tasting in this blog post about aging wine  and you should continue to create your own as well. When you taste you first look at the wine in the glass and note the color, is it bluish red, dark red, brick red? Is it clear? Does the wine have sediments in the bottom? You may have to look at the bottle as sediments are typically left in the bottle. Remember that sediments only shows that the wine was not heavily filtered and are actually a good sign since more flavors are left in the wine. Next you start smelling the wine. What do you think it smells like? Anything it reminds you of? When it comes to tasting you can take a small sip and swirl it in your mouth. What does it taste like? How does it taste on the tip of your tongue and how does it taste at the back of your mouth? How does it taste when you take the second sip? Some flavors come forward after the wine has been in the glass a little while, after you swirl the glass. The reason is that flighty compounds that are what you first perceive have taken of and left others to come to the forefront. Some people will want to spit so it is good to have a cup available for them. However, unless you are tasting a huge amount of wines, I do not think it is necessary for a fun evening tasting wine with friends. Here is a simple form to use to note your findings as you taste. You will want to have information about the wine handy. Either you let everyone read and learn about the wine you have picked when you start the tasting, or you do the tasting and then have information available of what you just tasted.   For our Cabernet Sauvignon we have information of every vintage available online to download . In what order should we taste? When tasting wines we are most often taught to go from white wines to red wines, from softer to bolder wines and from drier to sweeter. When tasting a vertical series of wines we usually divert from this since we advise to start with the youngest wine and work backwards in time. The younger wines tend to be more fruity but also more tannic and astringent but with each year the flavors get more complex but also rounder.   In a vertical tasting you are also looking to see what happens to that specific wine as it ages and what different years have in store. Therefore I suggest you start with the youngest and think about how the wine ages for each wine you try. You will be traveling in time! You will also find that it is fun to revisit the same vertical wines a year later and see what has happened with another year in the bottle. So you can make the vertical tasting to an annual event. Food During your tasting you will not want to have too much food to start with. The purpose is to explore the wines, so crackers or white bread and water are the best companions. But when you are done with your smaller amounts of samples you can add anything from cheeses and charcuteries to a full meal and continue to enjoy your vertical flight. Or you may move on to another wine. Red wines have tannins which marry specifically well with protein which is why we often pair them with cheese or meat. The proteins bind with tannins and create a supple round mouthfeel. A vegetable dish with a creamy sauce can also do the trick. Check out some of our recipes . https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2016/11/14/how-to-do-a-vertical-tasting/ https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2016/11/14/how-to-do-a-vertical-tasting/ Mon, 14 November 2016 16:53:00 https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2016/08/24/first-harvest-of-our-dry-creek-valley-sparkling-wine/ First harvest – Sparkling wine Excitement is in the air, as well as the smell of harvest. We kicked off our harvest early Friday morning with a crew of 10 people picking. The very first grapes we pick are Chardonnay for our sparkling Blanc de Blancs. I have been sampling grapes for measuring Brix (percent sugar in the grape juice) the last several weeks to reach the perfect level and tasting them to see that we have the flavors we want. If you use the traditional method to get bubbles you ferment a base wine which is then put in bottles for a second fermentation. You start by making a base wine from grapes low in sugar. I aim for about 18.5 Brix. In a couple of weeks we will start picking grapes for our still wines and they need a higher sugar level so I will continue to sample grapes for another 6-8 weeks. Every varietal matures at a different speed and even the same varietal will be picked at different times depending on the style the winemaker is after. After picking the grapes as whole clusters they went straight to the press and the grapes were gently pressed at fairly low pressure to make sure we don’t get the harsher flavors close to the skin. Now the grape juice is resting for a couple of days in a tank kept at low temperature. For a Champagne style sparkling we first make a base wine and then start the fermentation. We just did that Monday. When the wine is completely done we fill champagne bottles with the base wine and add additional yeast and sugar. The wine will ferment a second time and carbon dioxide created in the process is now trapped in the closed bottles, and that is how we get the bubbles. Then we have to wait, and wait, and wait while the wine is “sur lie” which means that the yeast cells remain in the bottle with the wine. Over a couple of years the wine will mature and pick up the unmistakable champagne flavors while resting in the bottle. When I think it is finally ready, a couple of years away, we need to do the last step in which the yeast is removed from the bottle and a real champagne cork with its wire cage is plugged in. We just did that with our 2014 West Seafoam Blanc de Blancs. We used 100% Chardonnay grapes which in Champagne is called Blanc de Blancs, white wine from white grapes. You can also use Pinot Noir to make a sparkling wine and then it is called Blanc de Noir, white wine from black grapes. It is really exciting to test the sparkling wine over the years as it gets better and better. Finally you are ready for the last step, disgorging the bottles, i.e. getting the yeast out and the final corks in. We did that last week, the day before we started harvesting. So we really have come full circle and now the next vintage  starts again. https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2016/08/24/first-harvest-of-our-dry-creek-valley-sparkling-wine/ https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2016/08/24/first-harvest-of-our-dry-creek-valley-sparkling-wine/ Wed, 24 August 2016 13:13:00 https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2016/05/29/vineyard-tour-a-winemakers-treat-to-herself/ A big treat for me, any time of the year, is to walk around our vineyards and the surrounding landscape. The seasons vary and the time of the day makes a huge difference.  Right now the small embryos of grape clusters have been through bloom but are still hard and green. The leaves are big and plentiful and it is an ocean of green as you walk between the rows. This time of the year the bees are busy and patches of flowers have come alive, each with a humming chorus. Especially the lavender turns the bees just crazy and they seem drunk as they plunge in. On the other side of the upper vineyard I smell the many flowering trees and the blooming cover crop as well. Early in the morning I encounter wild turkeys, the grey fox and only occasionally a coyote. The Sonoma jack rabbits are all over the place and when I get close to the edge of the forest there are squirrels, woodpeckers and blue jays. Later in summer the grass gets drier, more yellow and almost white.  You have to start early to escape the heat. Suddenly in July the grapes go through veraison and overnight they turn more translucent, turn a light yellow or red color depending on the varietal. Now they really start amassing sugar. This is when I start checking sugar and pH levels and of course taste the grapes. It is a sticky business, squeezing grapes to check the juice. The smell of grapes being picked and fermenting is everywhere and adding the sounds from tractors, grape trucks and people picking, you now have all your senses activated. One of my favorite times of the day is when the sun is slowly setting over our ridge to the west and the sky to the east above Mount Saint Helena turns pink and purple. In the fall this is the time of the day when the frogs start their concert and seem to have no end in mind. The fall is beautiful when it comes to colors as well. Dry Creek Valley becomes a patchwork of grape leaves in different colors from pale yellow to deep rust red depending on the varietal. And slowly the leaves fall and we get into the rainy winter months interspersed by days of sun when the naked vines look like sculptures of art. The vines are pruned and the remaining gnarly, twisted trunks look like they are dead. Then, unbelievably, on one of my very early spring hikes I will see the first little buds trying to push through the seemingly dead wood and it starts all over again. These are just some of the rewards of walking around the vineyard and the surrounding landscape. Coe and join me some time. https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2016/05/29/vineyard-tour-a-winemakers-treat-to-herself/ https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2016/05/29/vineyard-tour-a-winemakers-treat-to-herself/ Sun, 29 May 2016 14:25:00 https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2016/04/20/sangiovese-and-super-tuscan-wines/ I am very fascinated by the wine you get from blending Cabernet Sauvignon and Sangiovese. These are two very different grapes with very different flavor profiles and instead of clashing they accentuate each other in a beautiful way. Sangiovese has a lighter fruitier strawberry nose which floats above the heavier blackberry and dark cherry of the Cabernet Sauvignon. The depth in the Cabernet with earthiness, cedar and laurel spices are not drowning out the Sangiovese which holds its own with its lighter vanilla spiciness. It reminds me of a duet between a soprano and a bass singer, you can hear each one distinctly since they sing at different frequencies. This fascination led me to create a blend from the two grapes and our West Tuscan Cuvée is styled after the increasingly popular Super Tuscan wines from Tuscany in Italy. The wine classification system DOC in Italy defined Chianti wines , which was the main stream wine in Tuscany for centuries, as a wine including Sangiovese and some other stipulated regional red as well as white varietals. The wines were usually very easy to drink, sometimes a bit thin due to the amount of white grapes in some blends. They were often sold at very affordable prices in wide bottles enclosed in straw baskets. Remember using them as candle holders? Italian winemakers who wanted to create better wines started to experiment with other grapes and in the 1970s new wines were introduced where Sangiovese was blended with Cabernet Sauvignon and other Bordeaux grapes as well as aged in oak barrels. The result was outstanding wines with bigger, bolder and more complex flavors, but they were not allowed to be called Chianti. Instead the winemakers came up with their own names  and even though they could not be classified DOC, but had to be labeled as table wines, the result was outstanding wines sold at much higher prices than traditional Chianti wines. Today these wines are often called “Super Tuscans” and the best are sold at well over $100. Most of them contain Sangiovese, some 100%, some blended and some have no Sangiovese at all. My personal favorites are the ones with Cabernet Sauvignon and Sangiovese and that is what I try to emulate with my West Tuscan Cuvée. https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2016/04/20/sangiovese-and-super-tuscan-wines/ https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2016/04/20/sangiovese-and-super-tuscan-wines/ Wed, 20 April 2016 11:32:00 Katarina https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2016/01/24/bordeaux-blend/ Bordeaux is probably the most well-known wine region in the world.  The wines have had centuries to evolve into their current style.  They are blends of two or more of the five varietals Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Malbec, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. Carménère is also a Bordeaux grape but very little of it is still grown in Bordeaux. When making a blend the winemaker is like a chef, mixing the ingredients to create a balanced wine where all the flavors come together. Each winemaker, each winery is aiming for their particular style, but using the same ingredients. Just like chefs at different restaurants can create totally different meals from the same ingredients. This is really one of the more exciting aspects of winemaking. Only a wine from Bordeaux can be labeled Bordeaux, but many wine regions where the same five grapes thrive can create similar wines, they will just be called something else. In other wine regions they are sometimes called Cuvée or Meritage. We are lucky that Dry Creek Valley has many micro climates and great growing conditions for these grapes. My version of a Bordeaux wine is called West Crest Cuvée and I use slightly different ratios of the five Bordeaux grapes every year. The varietals are aged separately for two years in French oak barrels and blended together before bottling. In the next step I let them mature for three years in the bottle at 55F (13C) which allows the wine components to integrate and develop more interesting aromas. There are a number of factors to play with: how you grow the grapes, how you ferment and age the different grape varietals, how you blend them, and of course the weather, which plays with us more than the other way around. My West Crest Cuvée consists of  around 60% Cabernet Sauvignon. That is a style which is common on the “left bank” in Bordeaux. The rivers Garonne and Dordogne run through the region and meet as they flow into the Atlantic. Each side of the big river mouth has different wine styles. The left bank of the river is home to wineries that base their wines on Cabernet Sauvignon, blending in the other varietals, whereas Merlot is the dominating grape in wines from the right bank. A substantial amount of Cabernet Sauvignon creates a wine which is not readily drinkable right after bottling, but on the other hand allows for many years, often decades, of cellaring while new and more subtle flavors evolve in the bottle. This is what really fascinates me when dealing with this wine style. It is so fun to experience how the wine evolves; trying bottles year after year as they change and become more subtle and velvety but retain their vigor thanks to tannins that soften but still bring body and strength to the wine. The tannic young wine with dark ruby red color and cassis, cherry, coffee, spice and licorice on the palate over the years give way to more mature flavors of dark fruit, leather, truffle, caramel, a more silky texture and the color a warmer brick red.. I think I am going to open a bottle of the 2008 West Crest Cuvée and see how it is doing, right now. Cheers! https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2016/01/24/bordeaux-blend/ https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2016/01/24/bordeaux-blend/ Sun, 24 January 2016 15:25:00 https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2015/11/06/post-harvest-season-in-sonoma-wine-country/ Harvest is over - wine. food and rain ahead Harvest is over and it was a fast and furious one this year. It started earlier than ever and we were done with Cabernet Sauvignon at the end of September which is record early. But the season also started much earlier than usual, so the overall length of the season was normal. After several years of big harvests we had a lighter crop than usual. One of the reasons is a year of very uneven weather. We had a mild winter so bud break was early. Then followed a cooler spring and bloom dragged out for quite a while. This resulted in smaller or uneven clusters. And the grape berries were a bit smaller. But the flavor of the resulting wine is already very deep and intense which is probably due to the smaller berry size. The grapes are picked, they have been through crush and press and fermentation. The wine is now resting in oak barrels and for some of the white wines, in steel tank. It is time to reflect a bit. We have yet to see the big rains that are forecasted for this winter. We had about an inch of rain last week which gave the whole valley a clean look. Last year we did not do as bad as other areas in California; we had about 85% of normal rainfall for the season. But when it came down it really came as waterfalls. In particular we had a 24 hour period in December when we got 8 inches. That day, one of our roads up in the upper vineyard was almost covered by a mudslide from the steep side above the road. We got that whole side stabilized now. El Nino is the talk of the town and the conversation goes from fear of getting too much at once to fear of not getting the rains this far north and missing out on needed refill of our water reservoirs. As with everything which has to do with nature we will have to wait and see. Now we are preparing for the fun of “Wine and Food Affair”. It is a fun event weekend where many of the wineries in Dry Creek Valley, Alexander Valley and Russian River Valley participate with a recipe which is served in our tasting room paired with a wine. I have chosen our new release 2011 West Tuscan Cuvée and Ken Rochioli has created a great Truffle and Mushroom Risotto which enhances the wine beautifully. The recipe is now available here on our website in the recipe section. I am very excited about this new Tuscan blend which I make in the same style as the Super Tuscans of Italy with Sangiovese and Cabernet Sauvignon. And it is a great wine for a rainy winter evening, nestled up close to the fireplace. Cheers! https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2015/11/06/post-harvest-season-in-sonoma-wine-country/ https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2015/11/06/post-harvest-season-in-sonoma-wine-country/ Fri, 06 November 2015 11:28:00 https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2015/08/23/harvest-time-for-this-healdsburg-winery/ Harvest Time Harvest has started and you can hear the noise at night and in the mornings and smell it in the air and in the wineries.  At West Wines we are in the middle of picking Sauvignon Blanc. It is usually the first of our grapes to be picked since a good Sauvignon Blanc requires decent levels of acidity and not too high sugar and this grape variety ripens early. The exception is Chardonnay for sparkling production which happens even earlier. Our Chardonnay for still white wines is next and then Viognier. Viognier needs longer time to ripen and preferably not too hot weather. The Sauvignon Blanc is now at 22.5 Brix which we find ideal and the taste is just right and the other grapes are on their way. All our grapes are harvested manually, most of them at night. That is to ensure the grapes are picked at as low temperatures as possible and we don’t risk having warm grapes starting to ferment in the sun before getting to the press. Of course we need good light for picking so if you come by at night you will see big flood lights tugged by small tractors between our rows lighting up the vineyard. Cabernet Sauvignon on the other hand usually takes quite a while to mature.  We have harvested our Cabernet Sauvignon grapes as late as early November, but usually it is mid to late October. We are looking for about 24 Brix, a bit lower than some of the fruitier Cabs in California, but we are after a more European style. This year everything has been a bit early, but our Cab at this point is far from ready. Depending on the weather over the next month we shall see what happens. Our red grape vineyard is very steep and winds its way in many directions so night picking is out of the question. Instead we get started at the crack of dawn as soon as you can see just enough. This vineyard is pruned to 2.5 tons per acre to ensure the highest quality fruit, so picking takes longer time since there is less fruit per vine and of course the uneven terrain. It is really beautiful to be in the vineyard when the sky is getting pink from the sun behind Mount St Helena and finally gets up and the valley is finally bathing in sunlight. Combine that with the scent of ripe grapes and it is an experience which is hard to beat. https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2015/08/23/harvest-time-for-this-healdsburg-winery/ https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2015/08/23/harvest-time-for-this-healdsburg-winery/ Sun, 23 August 2015 15:48:00 https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2015/06/27/whats-in-the-shape-of-a-bottle/ Wine bottles can have many shapes and colors. Sine we tend to use traditional shapes for specific wines the consumer can often tell just from the shape of the bottle what it is. There are the straight bottles with sharp shoulders mostly used for Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Malbec and Bordeaux-styles blends as well as Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon. The wider bottles with gently sloping shoulders are traditionally used for Burgundy wines i.e. Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Rhone bottles are also wider but with slimmer longer necks in and some Italian wines, like Chianti, used to be bottled in very bulgy bottles. The extreme is of course the Champagne bottle with thicker glass and deep punt to withstand the pressure from the bubbles. It is typically 5-6 atm. or the same as 70-90 pounds pressing on each square inch of glass. As bottles became more commonly used as wine containers, in the 16 th- 17 th century in some regions, the bottles had a number of different shapes. Bottles were made by local glassblowers and each region developed its own style. A wide low bottle, like a big bulb, was easier to blow so that was usually the shape. Over time it was discovered that the wine held up better if the cork was in touch with the wine and a straighter bottle was needed to store the bottle on its side. Eventually new techniques and industrialized manufacturing made it cheaper to manufacture bottles and they became the standard container for wine. Various regions standardized on shapes and sizes, but based on what had been the tradition in the region. Burgundy used to have 800ml bottles and Bordeaux had 750 ml. In the 70s and 80s both European countries and the US created standards for the 750 ml bottle. It makes it easier to sell across regions, ship and store, and of course for the authorities to tax. Some shapes are very beautiful, like the tall thin bottles for Riesling from Mosel and Alsace. But they are also much harder to use in a fast moving bottling line. Our bottles for Late Harvest Viognier, which are half size (375ml), but as tall as our regular bottles require slower bottling speed since they can topple over more easily. We discovered that the hard way the first year we made our dessert wine! Color is another distinguishing factor. Again, because of regional differences in the sand and techniques used, bottles traditionally had different colors. I use the dark green Bordeaux color for our Cabernet Sauvignon and the Bordeaux blend and various lighter greens for the white wines. Some producers use clear glass for white wines. That is fine with wine intended for a shorter shelf-life. Wine research has discovered that wine is affected by exposure to light over time and strong light can create volatile sulfur compounds, obviously not great flavors in wine. So store bottles away from fluorescent light and of course from the sunlight as well. https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2015/06/27/whats-in-the-shape-of-a-bottle/ https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2015/06/27/whats-in-the-shape-of-a-bottle/ Sat, 27 June 2015 09:20:00 https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2015/05/09/a-wine-for-every-mother/ A Wine for Every Mother So how do we choose a wine for Mom tomorrow? I was thinking of this yesterday and deciding that I first had to figure out my Mom, what wine does she resemble? Is she crisp and cool like a Sauvignon Blanc? Composed in every situation with a fresh eye on what is going on? Will know what you are doing even if she has her back towards you? Or is she flowery and colorful like a Viognier, full of surprises? Takes you on outings, suddenly decides to get ice cream?  Or is she more mature and balanced in her parenting role and can handle whatever is thrown at her in stride?  Maybe Chardonnay for her, not too oaky though.  Maybe you find that she is a mix of everything you want a mother to be with depths of experience in her advice. Then she deserves a beautiful blend, a Bordeaux wine, a Meritage.  Maybe she is colorful and fun, has a sense of humor but with a spicy edge to it? A Zinfandel of course.  Does she keep her cool, but seems to have a mysterious past you cannot discern? A Pinot for her.  Maybe she is just the sweetest of Moms, makes everyone feel at home, comforting everyone. Then get her a luscious dessert wine.  But, if she is the Mom of Moms, who can handle everything, keeps you safe, is strong when times are tough, and is the hand to hold on to, saves every situation, but sometimes just gets so forceful it is scary. Well, just get her the Cabernet Sauvignon! Just like her, the wine will mellow over time, can keep forever, but never lose its nerve.  So I have the perfect wine for my Mom now (not telling, it will be a surprise for her).  I am wondering though, what wine will my children get me on for Mother’s Day? https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2015/05/09/a-wine-for-every-mother/ https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2015/05/09/a-wine-for-every-mother/ Sat, 09 May 2015 14:26:00 https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2015/04/06/enjoying-our-sonoma-cabernet-wine-with-music/ Wine and Music Wine and music are two topics very close to my heart. I have been into music longer than wine, probably because I have loved music since I was a toddler. Through years of classical music training, vocal and instrumental, I have come to love all sorts of music, classical, jazz, rock, House, EDM and more. I really love opera but also to let loose in some great rock song. So how to combine music with my passion for wine? Well, wine is a great companion when listening to music and the other way around. We often discuss what music we should play in the tasting room. This is when it gets tricky. Some people will like soft jazz, others want more upbeat music and according to experience and research different music makes you like different wine. There has been some interesting discovery around which wines you prefer depending on what you listen to when drinking it. This article http://www.wsj.com/articles/can-music-change-the-way-your-wine-tastes-1428071632 discusses the topic but does not really talk about how the senses are affected, yet brings up some interesting examples. More to the point, Clark Smith has done some interesting experiments checking out how wine and music interact for people, you can read about it here: http://www.sfgate.com/wine/article/Music-to-drink-wine-by-Vintner-insists-music-can-3235602.php The problem is that it seems very subjective. If music you do not like is played, you will not like the wine. If you like the music, you will like the wine!  In a tasting room we have very varying tastes. You cannot please everyone, so at the end of the day, we just play what we like. We make sure we have music at some of our events that is upbeat and fun. At Passport Weekend at the April every year, we like to get a band playing according to our theme for the event. We have had a 70s ABBA-style band, a jazz pianist/singer, and a Beach Boy surf music band. Jazz seemed to sell a lot of Cabernet Sauvignon and Beach Boys a lot of our Viognier as well as our dessert wine. ABBA appealed to all sorts of wine lovers. Now I am looking forward to the Steel Band playing at our Passport event this year April 25-26. It will be interesting to see which wines people seem to like the best with that music in the background.  Our stainless steel fermented Sauvignon Blanc s maybe? And if you have any experiences with wine and music, let me know at info@westwines.com . Katarina https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2015/04/06/enjoying-our-sonoma-cabernet-wine-with-music/ https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2015/04/06/enjoying-our-sonoma-cabernet-wine-with-music/ Mon, 06 April 2015 18:21:00 https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2015/02/21/cover-crops-in-bloom-in-dry-creek-valley-vineyards/ Mustards and yarrow and beans! Oh, my! Pretty colors light up our vineyards right now. The winter cover crops are sprouting after the rains in December. Yellow mustard, green barley, orange calendula cover the space between the rows of vines. The plants are not only beautiful but they also play a big role in creating the best grapes possible for our wines. There are so many ways in which they contribute. The plants are not only beautiful but they also play a big role in creating the best grapes possible for our wines. The roots perforate the soil and when some roots die, canals are created which aerate the soil so the overall composition of the soil improves over time. Beans, mustard and clover plants provide nitrogen and other nutrients are left by a number of plants as they decompose. It is all transported to the vines through the soil by water and mowing and tilling. And the more cover crops the less space for weeds to settle in. Cover crops also improve water holding capabilities, which is something we really need in the dry California climate and of course in our steep upper vineyard off of West Dry Creek Road it helps erosion control. Yarrow, fennel, sweet clover, and chamomile come later in the spring and they create a nice habitat for our friends, the benevolent flies and bugs which go hunting pest insects.There is biological warfare right in our vineyard between the good and the bad guys, just like a Hollywood movie. As you can see the combination of all these great plants creates an eye-pleasing backdrop while they work hard on all the other tasks for us. We are lucky to be part of this ever-changing landscape. https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2015/02/21/cover-crops-in-bloom-in-dry-creek-valley-vineyards/ https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2015/02/21/cover-crops-in-bloom-in-dry-creek-valley-vineyards/ Sat, 21 February 2015 16:02:00 https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2014/12/1/gloegg-christmas-in-a-cup/ The aromas from Glögg  (pronounced “glewgg”) simmering in a pot is the essence of Christmas for me. This brew has all the spices that I equate with the Holiday Season. If you visit Sweden in December you cannot avoid it - it is the welcome drink wherever you go that month. This mulled wine is served hot during the four weeks leading up to Christmas, the Advent time, together with ginger snaps and saffron bread. The tradition in Sweden stems from medieval times when wine could not be preserved for very long and by the time it reached the Nordic countries it usually tasted pretty bad. Herbs and spices were expensive and adding them while heating the wine both enhanced it and made it a very festive drink for the cold Holiday season. Already the Romans put herbs in the wine since the wines were usually quite sour and there was no good way of preserving the wine for long. In Scandinavia the name Glögg was adopted, which means “glowing hot” and it came from the tradition of burning cognac under a sugar cone, letting the sugar and cognac drip into the mulled wine and sweetening it. This is of course the perfect drink in the cold month of December in a country like Sweden. The main ingredients in Glögg are cinnamon bark, cardamom pods, and whole pieces of ginger, raisins and dried orange rinds which simmer in the wine as it is heated. You also add sugar and I like using brown sugar, it enhances the taste. It is also common to fortify with cognac or aquavit.  Once the brew has simmered for a while you let it sit for an hour or a day or two and eventually you sift out all the spices and pour it into clean bottles. Before serving it you heat it up again. Many families have their own variations of the theme, but it is most often served with raisins and slivered almonds in the cup and often accompanied by ginger snaps and saffron bread. You should not use your best wine for this drink, remember, this used to be a way to enhance the bad wine. Once you have added all the ingredients you cannot taste what wine you started with anyway. I use a very inexpensive wine from the grocery store for ths purpose. My Glögg recipe is in the recipe section on this web site. Enjoy! https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2014/12/1/gloegg-christmas-in-a-cup/ https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2014/12/1/gloegg-christmas-in-a-cup/ Mon, 01 December 2014 17:21:00 https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2014/10/09/the-end-of-harvest-in-sonoma-valley/ At the end of the harvest season... Almost all of our grapes are harvested now and we are at the end of a long period when I spend a lot of time monitoring the grapes' sugar level. Starting in July when veraison (see my blog from July) occurred we started testing Chardonnay grapes destined for sparkling wine. Sugar levels rise very fast after veraison and we went from 5 Brix (percent sugar in a grape) to 14 Brix in 3 weeks. Since we pick those grapes somewhere between 17 and 19 Brix we have to start checking more frequently at that point.  We harvested the first Chardonnay on August 18, and after fermentation the wine is now waiting to go through a second fermentation in Champagne bottles later in the season.  Depending on the wine you make you aim for different sugar levels. As an example I like Sauvignon Blanc grapes to be around 22.5 Brix but for red varietals I am looking for around 24-25 Brix. On Monday when we pick the last grapes, Cabernet Sauvignon,  it will be 8 weeks since the first grapes came in. And no more sugar analysis in the field. The refractometer for measuring sugar which I carry around all the time can now get a rest.  But sugar is just one aspect. Acidity is just as important and it decreases at the same time as sugar levels go up. While the sugar becomes alcohol during fermentation, the acidity stays in the wine and is both a great flavor enhancer and preserves the wine as it ages. I like to pick grapes at the lower end of typical sugar levels which keeps a little more acidity in the grape and makes for well-balanced wines.  However, the most important aspect in deciding when to pick the grapes is still taste. Our taste buds are fine instruments which are easy to bring along. I taste the grapes and look at the color of skins and seeds. Seeds go from green to brown, they lose some of the bitterness and the flavor of the grapes become more complex. At the end of the day the subjective taste of the winemaker is the most important measurement. https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2014/10/09/the-end-of-harvest-in-sonoma-valley/ https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2014/10/09/the-end-of-harvest-in-sonoma-valley/ Thu, 09 October 2014 13:12:00 https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2014/08/29/what’s-with-oak-corks/ I love cork! Cork is a fantastic material. I love it. A natural bottle stopper from the bark of the cork oak. The cork comes from the bark of the tree which is harvested and then grows back again. Each tree can be harvested 12-15 times during its life which can be up to 200 years. Cork oak forests, today mostly in Portugal and Spain, are also a natural habitat for many species, some endangered like the Iberian Lynx. Before cork stoppers, most wine was stored in barrels and when it was time to drink, a glass bottle would be filled often closed with a stopper made from wood or a piece of cloth drenched in oil. It would not provide a very tight fit but the wine was not going far and would soon be consumed, by the farmers, in a tavern or at the dinner table of a wealthy family with its own cellar.  Of course this was before the time when you would bottle the wine at the winery. Wine was sold by the barrel and poured into pitchers or bottles to be brought to the table when needed. Obviously the bottle did not have to be perfectly sealed. Sadly the wine in the barrel did not stay in great condition for very long since when it was gradually emptied the wine left in the barrel would be exposed to a lot of oxygen. So when cork started to be used as a bottle stopper in the 17th century in France, it also gave the opportunity to sell and transport wine in smaller quantities.  One of the characteristic of cork is its elasticity, and only in one direction. When you push it into a bottle it will try to expand against the glass but it will not bulge up or down which makes for an extraordinary tight fit. It is also the vehicle which allows that tiny bit of exchange with the air that helps mature a good wine over the years, a slow process but worth the outcome. We mature our Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve first in barrel for two years and then in the bottle for 5 years at least to get flavors of olive, cedar, smokiness, earth, coffee, chocolate to mix with the fruity cherry and plum flavors from the grape. I depend on getting the best corks for aging the wine this way.  While cork is a great material it also has some deficits. Mold and modern pollution can be absorbed by the bark on the tree and evolve into TCA, a chlorine compound. Wine where TCA has developed smells awful, moldy, flat and void of any fruity flavors usually referred to as "corked". As this problem became more widespread the cork producers started researching cleaning procedures for cork and today steaming and high pressure gas is used to clean the cork of TCA to a point where it cannot be detected. Getting the cork from a supplier with a rigorous quality process is very important for a winery. I spend quite a lot of money on really good cork since I know that our red wines will be aged for many years. Just as with a number of sustainable practices, the cork stopper is not 100% perfect, but I still think it is the best closure today. https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2014/08/29/what’s-with-oak-corks/ https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2014/08/29/what’s-with-oak-corks/ Fri, 29 August 2014 13:50:00 https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2014/07/13/veraison-a-time-for-change/ Time for change – time for veraison. This is the wonderful and dramatic stage when, in only a day or two,  the grapes change color, become soft and pliable and the sugar starts rising rapidly. It is happening right now in our vineyards. The word veraison comes from French and its origin is in a Latin word for change – variation. All grapes start out green, colored by chlorophyll, and until right now in July they all look the same regardless of whether they end up red or white grapes.  But at veraison the skin color starts changing to red or gold from the phenols. Early in the season grapes are very acidic and at veraison the sugar has not reached more than 6-7%, or Brix as we call it. At veraison the entire metabolism of the grape changes and sugar production increases much faster to reach the optimum for harvest, 22-24 %, in just the next couple of months.  From now on most of the flavors we want for making wine are developed. The acidity goes down and phenolic compounds are evolving which creates color and taste. And of course, without the sugar there would not be much wine to speak of either. Veraison starts at different times for different grapes and the timing is also dependent on the weather. Sun, rain and temperature during spring and early summer all play a roll. This year it seems like we are a bit early and veraison is just around the corner. Exciting times which really define the wine we will make for you this fall. https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2014/07/13/veraison-a-time-for-change/ https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2014/07/13/veraison-a-time-for-change/ Sun, 13 July 2014 14:25:00 https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2014/06/04/spring-at-our-dry-creek-valley-winery/ Roses, lavender and vines... Beautiful roses and lavender are now blooming everywhere in the valley. And in my garden low, white roses grow next to tall clinging red ones with lavender in between. The scents in the evening air are magical. We have roses at the end of the vine rows next to our Tasting Room. It's a beautiful frame for our outdoor tasting patio. But did you know there's also a historical reason for planting them by the rows of grapes? Both roses and vines are susceptible to powdery mildew.  So in older days they grew roses next to the vines. If the roses got infected then the vines were infected too and you needed to start treating them. Today we have much more refined ways to tell if there is risk for mildew. We monitor the vines, roots, leaves and grapes as well as the soil, and we get long range weather forecasts warning for wet weather so we can take precautions. We act before the vines get infected.  Viticulture is obviously not just watching the roses grow. But with a rosebush at the end of each row, you can at least stop and smell the roses every now and then. Roses are also used, as well as lavender, for medicinal purposes. Rose water is made from rose petals and used as a skin toner and is claimed to have a calming influence. It sure smells nice! Rose hips hold a lot of vitamin C, and they make a great tea.  Just pour boiling water over the rosehips and steep for 10 minutes. Use one tablespoon of fresh or dried rose hips per cup of hot water. You can also add a tablespoon fresh mint leaves or a teaspoon dried mint for a refreshing taste. Lavender is related to rosemary, sage and thyme. Lavender tea can be made in the same way by adding a teaspoon lavender and a teaspoon mint leaves per cup of water.  You can also use lavender stems on top of fish, pork or lamb when you grill just as you would use fresh rosemary. Or you can mix lavender flowers with sage, thyme, salt and pepper and rub it in as a crust on ham or salmon. Let it sit for a while before roasting it in the oven. Bon appétit! https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2014/06/04/spring-at-our-dry-creek-valley-winery/ https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2014/06/04/spring-at-our-dry-creek-valley-winery/ Wed, 04 June 2014 15:06:00 https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2014/04/18/can-you-serve-wine-with-your-easter-eggs/ Well of course you can, but it will not taste that great.  Not if we are talking about hard boiled eggs and especially not with red wine.  Now that Easter is here I am reminded how hard it is to pair eggs with wine. Eggs have so much savory umami flavor and also contain a lot of sulfur which creates an almost metallic taste in your mouth when paired with wine.    But there are things you can do to mitigate the problem and create a nice meal.  You can add something with fat or acidity and you will change the flavor experience entirely.  For example, Eggs Benedict are topped with sauce hollandaise which creates a flavor mix that pair well with wine.  Sauce béarnaise or mayonnaise will do the same trick.  Another approach is to add pan fried mushrooms, onions or melted cheese to your egg dish to add fat and acidity. This can be successful when doing deviled eggs where you can use a number of different toppings.  And for wine pairings, depending on how much cooked eggs you have in your meal you should stay away from the most tannic red wines and go with white wines high in acidity. Or maybe some festive bubbly with your Easter buffet?  Champagne and other sparkling wines will make a nice pairing to start off your meal. You will probably also cook some lovely spring asparagus. Oops! Here is another food item which is hard to pair with wine. Asparagus contains a sulfur compound which makes tannic and oaky wines taste metallic. So you would not want a red wine or an oaky Chardonnay. Stay with the bubbles or a Sauvignon Blanc. You can also use the same trick and add a creamy sauce or melted cheese to the asparagus and it will cut back the metallic taste phenomenon. On to the lamb steak and time to finally bring out the Cabernet Sauvignon. Happy Easter! https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2014/04/18/can-you-serve-wine-with-your-easter-eggs/ https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2014/04/18/can-you-serve-wine-with-your-easter-eggs/ Fri, 18 April 2014 20:20:00 https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2014/03/15/a-taste-from-french-oak-wine-barrels/ A Taste from the Barrel Tasting wine straight from the barrel is an interesting exercise. As a winemaker you do it often to see how your wine is progressing. You know it is not a finished product and you learn over time to gauge how it will develop based on how it smells and tastes at various stages. And in our case we know that two years of aging our Cabernet Sauvignon in French oak barrels is usually perfect. Then once we have bottled, I want the Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve to get another 4 years of bottle maturation before release.  The reason is that so many additional flavors come forward beyond the dark berry tastes and the tannins that you get from a younger wine. With time more of the laurel, olive and smokiness is brought to the forefront. Some vintages develop more towards coffee and chocolate, others will seem earthier and then we have the more smoky, cedar, laurel tones.  The type of barrel I use will also impact the flavors. Vicard and Seguin-Moreau both make great French barrels but their flavor profiles are different and by using both I get a more complex and interesting wine. And of course the most important ingredient when getting the most sought after flavors is time and patience. To offer barrel samples to our clients is not something that we usually do since we craft our wines for long maturation and the wine in a barrel is still 3-6 years away from drinking.  But once a year in March we participate in the Barrel Weekend event arranged by Wine Road and it is really fun to engage in conversation with our visitors about the wine and its journey in the barrel and in the bottle. Of course we make sure to have bottle samples from various vintages for vertical tasting at the same time. This year we opened a barrel of 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon and also had 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve as well as 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve to taste alongside. This gave us an opportunity to discuss what happens in the bottle as the wine matures. I really enjoyed meeting everyone who came to visit and discuss our style of wine. For the next 12 months the barrels will be tasted mainly by me and the rest of the West Wines team, but March 2015 it is time for more barrel convesations again. https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2014/03/15/a-taste-from-french-oak-wine-barrels/ https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2014/03/15/a-taste-from-french-oak-wine-barrels/ Sat, 15 March 2014 16:07:00 https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2014/02/15/raindrops-are-finally-falling-in-sonoma/ Raindrops are falling - finally We had no rain for 8 months.  I really started worrying in January since it is a month when we usually get only a few glimpses of the sun after weeks and weeks of downpour. A couple of weeks ago we had not seen real rain since before summer. While it is very nice to have 75 degrees and clear skies, after an entire summer, a long fall and the start of winter it does feel a bit eerie. And of course media with the dooms reports added to the sense of a looming catastrophe.  We are in a new era, new weather patterns clearly. And then at the very end of January the high pressure system which has been parked over California moved a bit south and the jet stream moved in from the North and now we have had over 11 inches of rain in two weeks. It feels really good; a slight green color is dusting our surroundings, little weeds, grass sprouting here and there. And the earth is getting soft again with water trickling through the wet ground towards the roots. Growing grapes is all about using resources of water deep down, not surface water. A normal year we get about 40 inches of rain, and we want it in the winter months. We still have quite a bit to go, but now we are back in a weather pattern with days of rain and days of sun in a nice mix. Today I hear the raindrops on our roof and it is a very pleasant sound. https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2014/02/15/raindrops-are-finally-falling-in-sonoma/ https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2014/02/15/raindrops-are-finally-falling-in-sonoma/ Sat, 15 February 2014 02:40:00 https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2014/01/11/bellet-–-a-small-appellation-in-provence/ Bellet is the name of a small “Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée” i.e. viticultural area in Provence, just north of Nice and the planted area is only 60 hectares (150 acres). We recently spent a day winetasting, talking to local winemakers and learning about new (for us) grape varietals with historic roots in the area. We met with the owner/winemaker of Domaine de Toasc, Bernard Nicoletti, who gave us a great tasting experience of his wines and we had a lively discussion of running a small winery in a small AOC. He has steep vineyards overlooking the valley and we felt immediately at home. Most of the Bellet grape varieties were unknown to us prior to this visit. Braquet is used to make Rosé wine and I really liked the flavorful Rosé of Domaine de Toasc. It has enough acidity to balance the flavors of exotic fruit and the nose has a pleasant hint of blackberry and carambola. The Braquet grape is apparently not so heavy in color which allows skin contact for 8-12 hours before pressing. That probably explains the nice flavors as there is enough time with the whole grape in contact with the juice. While I usually do not favor Rosé wines this became an instant hit with me and several bottles made their way home with me. Another red varietal in this region is Folle Noire which is used in red blends with Grenache and Braquet. These red wines have round tannins, radiant red colors, strawberry and cherry on the nose which continues on the palate in addition to an herbal tone of “garrigue”, a local shrub plant. A white grape variety, Rolle was also a new acquaintance for me and it is produced either in stainless steel for a more mineral style or in oak barrels adding floral and vanilla tones. All in all a pleasant day of tasting wines in a small AOC with delightful winemakers, beautiful views and new grape acquaintances. The proximity to Nice, it is literally just outside the city, means that you can make a daytrip to this area if you happen to be on holiday there. https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2014/01/11/bellet-–-a-small-appellation-in-provence/ https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2014/01/11/bellet-–-a-small-appellation-in-provence/ Sat, 11 January 2014 05:19:00 Katarina https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2013/11/21/old-world-winemaking-stomping-and-pressing/ Stomping and pressing delicious sweet grapes  I have long had a dream to make a Late Harvest wine. Last year we had the right conditions to accomplish just that: a long warm fall that seemed to just go on and on. We left the Viognier grapes hanging in the hope that they would gather enough sugar before any big rain storms came through. On Halloween, in early morning fog, we finally harvested the very sweet Viognier grapes. The sugar level was at 30 Brix (Brix is approximately the same as percentage sugar). Since the grapes were leathery and tough we needed to soften the skins before pressing the next day. We climbed into the bins with rubber boots on (sanitized, no worries) and stomped as best we could, then left the bins covered in dry ice overnight. The following day it was time to press. Since this was a small lot we had decided to use a manual wooden basket press. How hard can it be to press 3 tons of grapes manually? Turns out it took 12 hours. Bengt, Phyllis, and I took turns shoveling grapes into the press, pressing and then dumping the skins back out in the vineyard. Good friends who were visiting did not get the sightseeing I am sure they had hoped for, but were put to work pressing as well. The following weeks the juice slowly fermented in the cool, 55 F barrel room. After almost 6 weeks there was 5.5% sugar, 15.5% alcohol and a delicious aroma and taste. It reminded me of apricot and mango. Time to stop the fermentation and let the wine mature in barrels over winter. I spent some time thinking about the packaging of the wine. I found a thin, tall, clear glass bottle, so you could see the pale yellow straw color of the wine. I got the bottle screen printed in gold and used gold capsules to create a package that would stand out on a dinner table at time for desserts or make a very nice gift. So after designing the package and screen printing the bottles, the final step was bottling. This proved to be a bit of a challenge when the thin, tall bottle threatened to topple over on the moving belt during bottling. The whole process proceeded much slower than usual. Now we have released the wine, and I am happy to say that we are all very pleased with it. A true labor of love. I enjoy pairing it with various after dinner dishes such as almond tart, berry pies, apple tart, or gruyere cheese. And I am also finding that just sipping a glass is dessert in and by itself. https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2013/11/21/old-world-winemaking-stomping-and-pressing/ https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2013/11/21/old-world-winemaking-stomping-and-pressing/ Thu, 21 November 2013 10:44:00 https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2013/10/20/wine-tasting-in-sweden/ Munskänkarna - 23,000 winetasters in Sweden Last weekend I visited Munskänkarna in Östersund, Sweden (yes the dots are supposed to be there, nothing wrong with your screen) to hold a tasting seminar at a wine fair with over 1,000 visitors. I was blown away by the knowledgeable group which is part of a 23,000 members strong Swedish non-profit association. The members go through rigorous classes in winetasting to distinguish between wines from all over the world. They do it for the fun and love of wine  - they are not sommeliers or professionals, but beat many professionals with their professionalism. What a cool organization! Since 1958 this non-profit association has spread the knowledge about wine and winetasting and now has over 23 000 members in 150 Swedish cities. Expat Swedes have also set up groups in 10 cities in other countries. All voluntary work by knowledgeable enthusiasts! So there I was, in Östersund, a day’s drive north of Stockholm. The wine fair, open to the public, had over 1,000 visitors.  There were interesting seminars on a number of wine tasting related topics as well as an exhibit with wines from all over the world, probably over 350 wines were presented. And this in a small city in the north of Sweden where you cannot grow a single grape. Imagine then all the other 150 cities in Sweden and their activies. I was impressed with the member's interest not just in wine in general, but all the different styles and methods from around the globe and the resulting wines. They go through rigorous classes at increasing levels of difficulty in winetasting to differentiate between wines, grapes, wine styles, vintages and more. I did a wine tasting about the impact of time and oak in maturing wine. Fun and insightful comments from participants all along. And they travel! They visit all the wine districts in the world. Everyone I met had been to many different wine regions. Some even to West Wines and other Sonoma County wineries! Now I hope we will see many more of them in our valley. They add great perspective when they visit with an emphasis on combining fun with wanting to really learn more about wine. If you get a chance to visit Sweden, see if you can get to visit one of their events or wine fairs. Email to kansli@munskankarna.se , they all speak excellent English. Their website though is in Swedish, but if you understand some Swedish here you go www.munskankarna.se . https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2013/10/20/wine-tasting-in-sweden/ https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2013/10/20/wine-tasting-in-sweden/ Sun, 20 October 2013 07:20:00 https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2013/09/25/weather-during-the-sonoma-county-harvest/ Obsessed by Weather - Real and Virtual To farm is to worry they say. At least it is to be obsessed by weather. These days it is even worse since you can be obsessed not just with the real weather but you can live through a number of different virtual realities until the real weather hits. You can follow the weather forecast weeks in advance and see how the percentage chance for various outcomes change. So I spend lots of time checking www.weather.gov ,  www.accuweather.com and www.westernwx.com/Sonoma/  a great source for weather data in Sonoma. Depending on what they predict I may suffer through a 60% chance rainstorm two weeks from now a number of times over several days. Then sometimes that chance decreases to 10% and finally the day comes and it is sunny and beautiful outside.  We make plans, we make new plans, we have plan B, plan C etc. Once we get to the day of harvest or the day for a wine club event I will have lived through it many times already, in excessive heat, in beautiful sunshine, in drizzle, in pouring rain, in immense wind storm. I will have worried my way through all the various possibilities. It is great to have so good predictability of course and it does mean that we can make smarter decisions on when to pick our grapes and have alternative dates and plans. But I guess checking once a day would suffice but it is so easy with just a click on the phone. Next week we plan to pick Cabernet Sauvignon, now I need to check the weather forecast again, it could have changed since I started writing this. https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2013/09/25/weather-during-the-sonoma-county-harvest/ https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2013/09/25/weather-during-the-sonoma-county-harvest/ Wed, 25 September 2013 14:11:00 https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2013/09/12/dry-creek-valley-wine-harvest-in-full-swing/ Harvest is in Full Swing Harvest is in full swing, you can see it, hear it, smell it, taste it and sense it. In the middle of the night the picking crews move through the vineyards with headlights like lightning bugs and close up you can see the reflection of light on the blades of the harvest knives. We picked our Sauvignon Blanc last week starting at midnight. That way the grapes are cool when you start pressing in the morning.  Bringing in hot grapes in the middle of the day, maybe when it is 95F in the shade, is not a recipe for a great wine. We have an early harvest this year, for us it is over three weeks earlier than last year so far.  It is still too early to say when we are ready to start harvesting red grapes. We also have our late harvest project based on Viognier grapes which will hang much longer to be able to make sweeter “Late Harvest” wine. I am not sure when we will have the right sugar level in these grapes but it is several more weeks. We need the weather to stay dry until it is time to pick them and with an early harvest the chances are obviously better. I am so happy with the Late Harvest Viognier we made last year. It is a beautiful pale golden colored wine with 5% sugar and flavors of ripe mango, pineapple and more. It is great with almond tart, apples desserts and more. But we picked late so it was a nervous wait until we finally picked on October 31 in the early morning fog. So we shall see what happens this year with our late harvest plans. https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2013/09/12/dry-creek-valley-wine-harvest-in-full-swing/ https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2013/09/12/dry-creek-valley-wine-harvest-in-full-swing/ Thu, 12 September 2013 14:54:00 https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2013/08/27/launching-a-new-site/ Today we are finally launching a new website. It has been a long project, strung out since there are just 24 hours a day and 23.9 of them are already accounted for. So in that midnight hour I have tried to get copy done for this site and collaborating with the look and feel with the team at Kreck Design. I am sure there are typos and some links that were not quite checked out and fixed. If you find them let me know. I also realize that with all the opportunity to add pictures and information we could spend most of our time documenting and writing instead of making wine. It is an essential question in these times - how do we divide the time between documenting what we do and actually doing something? I hope we can get a balance to that equation here and I would appreciate hearing back from you, do you manage this well? Do you document or do you live or both? https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2013/08/27/launching-a-new-site/ https://westwines.com/katarinas-blog/2013/08/27/launching-a-new-site/ Tue, 27 August 2013 14:10:00