SIP-ping the Good Life

Our annual SIP audit reminded me that I haven't done a blog post in a while about this wonderful program. It's time.

Three years ago, Riverbench Vineyard became SIP (Sustainability in Practice) certified by the Central Coast Vineyard Team. The process was lengthy, involving a full record inspection, questionnaire, and paperwork audit.

We at Riverbench chose this program over other certifications because it supports many great things. It limits our use of harmful pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides. It makes us pay attention to natural resource use and conservation. And, importantly, it considers our reputation in the community and the safety and attention we pay to our employees. People matter at Riverbench, as much as our vineyard, so the program was a perfect fit for us.

We're proud to have our vineyard and wines certified by the program. It does so much, more than I could ever describe, so for more information, check out www.sipthegoodlife.org.

In talking to Jim about the audit this year, he said he was asked lots of questions to make sure we are keeping up with our commitments.

"Like what," I urged, always bugging him for more information.

"Like...owl boxes," he said.

Wait, we have owl boxes?! How have I worked here six years and not known that we have fifteen...count 'em!...fifteen...owl boxes! How cool is that? I've known owls were great for rodent control (you know, mice and gophers) but never considered they were so vital that SIP would include questions about them in our audit. Very cool!

Photo credit: Stolli, taken early one morning before he had coffee.

New World Meets Old World: Wine Girl Goes to France

I was born a francophile. My mother instilled in me a love of anything French, and my father made a career of selling French wines. So my recent trip to France was a special treat, as I absolutely love spending time in that country. The food, the language, and oh-my-gosh the wines just all make me so happy.

This trip, we concentrated on an area I hadn't visited before: the Dordogne River valley and Bordeaux. To start we spent a few days in Paris indulging in the gorgeousness that is the city of lights. When in northern France, I always try to order wines from the Loire region which is nearby and focuses on pretty whites made of Chenin Blanc and lighter, more acidic reds primarily made with Cabernet Franc. These wines tend to pair so very, very well with food, making our experiences at each place even more magical. Additionally, Champagne is always allowed, anywhere, anytime. In fact, I personally find it a necessity as an aperatif at each meal. In Bordeaux, I have found that the younger wines tend to be a little rougher for my tastes, so they need some bottle age. Or maybe I'm just weird like that since my birth year is 1982 and that's the most amazing vintage there on record. You be the judge!

I found myself thinking a lot about wine and food each and every day. I've made it my mission in life to study the two, and their relationship to each other. The perfect meal doesn't have to be fancy or planned; all you need is a great bottle of enjoyable wine that doesn't overwhelm the senses and lets you enjoy what you're eating along with it. Food and wine should work together to create the ultimate sensory experience. And when they do...oh my, that's what makes life worth living.

Show Some "Spirit!"

Being a part of the Anacapa Project in Santa Barbara has been eye opening. We have delicious beer thanks to Figueroa Mountain Brewery, amazing wines (especially imports-yay!) thanks to Les Marchands Wine Merchants, outstanding food a la Lucky Penny and The Lark, and artisan spirits made right on site by Ian Cutler.

It's been a pleasure getting to know all of the people involved with these various entities, but Ian of Cutler's Artisan Spirits struck a chord with me and the Riverbench owners for different reasons. My family is from moonshine country, so distilling has always fascinated me, and one of my owners loves (loves loves loves) grappa. We have been making a small amount of honey infused grappa through Riverbench for the past year or so.

Last Thursday, Ian granted me the extreme privilege of allowing me to shadow him for a few hours to watch him in action. His chemistry know-how is mind blowing, and it was pretty cool to see the commonalities and differences between making spirits and making wine. Ian's place is like a mad scientist's lab, except he's methodical, organized, and deliberate (aka, not a mad scientist). Not to mention he's super talented and making truly remarkable spirits. (Try his Apple Pie. Seriously. Try it.)

The main takeaway was that making spirits requires the distiller to taste and smell to find the best balance through the distillation process. The first distillation is reputedly foul (Ian uses it to clean his car parts!), but as a liquid is distilled more and more, it becomes more refined and pure, with more concentrated flavors. The art is knowing how to find the balance, which is a sensory judgment. I loved that the three stages of distilling are called heads, hearts, and tails. How cool is that? Overall, it was a really interesting explanation of mashing, fermenting, and distilling that just made me want to learn more.

This harvest, Ian has agreed to experiment with grappa. Having never done it before, we'll supply him with various types of pommace to see what he can do, as we'd love to make our grappa locally. Do we have the best neighbors ever or what?

Taste Testing

I always love it when Clarissa lets me tag along on her frequent grape tasting expeditions during harvest. She's got such an amazing palate and it's absolutely fascinating to hear her talk about certain flavors in ripe grapes and not-so-ripe ones. She likes to walk a whole row at a time, tasting grapes every 10 to 15 steps. She says she carefully but randomly grabs them off each cluster, but I end up choosing the prettiest one each time because I like pretty. (Which is probably why I should never be a winemaker. That and the whole "gotta be patient" thing. Ugh.)

We tasted the blocks she uses for Rosé. She noted that color seems lighter than normal this year, so she might have to soak the juice with the skins a little longer to make sure our rosé is pink. The grapes weren't quite ready: they were still rather simple tasting and lacking that "hint of rose petal" Clarissa looks for in riper Pinot Noir.

Next, we headed to the Tributary block, where we get rows 12-16. She noted the drying leaves around the fruit zone, which is a sign that the grapes are ripening. She anticipates picking these grapes early next week, so she has already asked Jim to cut off the water so that they don't get diluted. The flavors here were lovely: That rose petal and some red cherry. She pointed out the slightly dimpled berries, and a few areas of botrytis, which seems to be more common this year than most. That means she's planning to sort the grapes not only in the vineyard but also on a table once they get to the winery. Extra work, but it's worth it to get all of that botrytis out.

We checked out the Riesling and some Chardonnay, too, neither of which was quite ready. She did mention that the Chardonnay tends to be ripening right there along with the Pinot Noir, which is rather unusual considering we typically have about two weeks between the two varietals. 2013 is shaping up to be a different harvest from years past, which is always what keeps us on our toes. :)

My favorite vineyard block, where our Clone 115 grows. Love that view!

And here is me as an excellent gate opener for your viewing pleasure:

Harvest 2013 Begins!

Warning: I pulled an all nighter by accident; too excited about harvest beginning! So this blog post might seem rather...delirious.

I dragged myself out of bed at 4:30 after finally falling asleep around 4:27 to meet Jim in the vineyard. He had been there since 1 AM, so I really couldn't complain. First pick: our Mesa Pinot Noir for our sparkling Blanc de Noirs. Since this is my favorite wine, it's a thrill to see it get started every year. The fruit looked really gorgeous - tiny berries, tight clusters. There is apparently a little more botrytis this year due to these tight clusters (if a berry breaks, this can cause botrytis to rock and roll), so the pickers have been more careful than usual looking for this.

Clarissa likes the bins to be super clean, so two guys oversee the clusters being put into the big bins and pick out anything that doesn't make the cut, plus leaves and stuff. The thing that always amazes me about picking crews is how fast they go. Literally, they're a blur! I get in the field and cut about 3 clusters, and they've already filled up a cajone.

This morning was cool and the fog strangely didn't roll in until around 5 AM. How gorgeous does this fruit look? Lucky harvest 2013...will this be some of our best wine yet? Time will tell!

Happy Harvest, everyone!

It Was Just Meant to "Bee!"

Jim and his vineyard assistant, Will, came running into my office the other day all excited!

"Will found a beehive in the vineyard! Can you move it?" Jim asked.

Wow. Wowwowwowwowwow. Ok, so I've had multiple opportunities to move wild hives before through some other local beekeepers, but haven't had a chance to learn because I've been at Pepperdine every single time something like this has come up. Now, just a few days out of school, and there's a hive of Riverbench bees just for me! Ecstatic!

Immediately I emailed and called my local bee resources, asking for instructions, advice and help. They responded with all of the above and, most surprisingly of all, seemed confident I could handle it alone. The hive was small and completely exposed, just hanging right off of a vine. They all talked me through various methods, and I decided to go for it.

Last night was the night (you want to move them at night so most of them are "home"). I suited up, got my supplies, and drove out to examine the hive. With just the light of Jim's trusty headlamp, I found that the hive was actually attached to three separate grape clusters. I started dissecting, cutting the clusters one by one. The hive buzzed but not a single bee moved.

Then the action started. Once I cut away one cluster, the hive became unstable and started to fall. I got the bucket underneath and caught it just in time. A few more clips and most of the rest of the pieces fell in, too. The bees remained relatively calm until I covered the bucket with a lid to seal them in. The buzzing that ensued was angry and not just a little terrifying.

I carefully transported them in the backseat of my car, then dumped them into their new home. About 15,000 bees were at this time flying all around me, landing all over me. My gloves were black, completely coated in them. The light buzzing sensation on my hands was pleasant, though I was still a little nervous about hurting them or messing things up.

I closed up the hive, let the rest of them fly off, and left the scene. They were still there this morning, buzzing around and holding my bucket hostage, but they seem to be settling into their new home. Their view is really gorgeous, actually, overlooking Block 44 and the San Ramon Chapel.

Successful bee extraction #1. (I hope.) That enough excitement for this week.

Note: I'm an idiot and didn't take pictures. I thought I'd have time but things got crazy pretty quickly. Next time.

Nostalgia

Last night, we held our very first staff meeting for the SB team. It was a chance to get all of us in the same room and talk about things, mainly of course, wine. While we do a pretty intense training program for new employees at Riverbench, we hadn't had a chance to sit down as a group and taste through ALL of the wines together. We took the time to do this last night.

Telling stories about my first days at Riverbench six years ago, and the history of the property and the owners, made me a little nostalgic. I found myself remembering the evolution of the Mesa Pinot Noir and missing our former winemaker Chuck Ortman a bit.

I was sitting in the dusty back office (while Riverbench North was being renovated, I worked in the back building with the mice and forklift) my first October at Riverbench in 2007, and Chuck came by. He was going through the vineyard to taste Pinot Noir and asked if I'd like to come along. Of course I jumped at the chance. Tasting grapes with a winemaking celebrity? Yes please.

We tasted row by row and block by block, ending up at the four acre Mesa block. Even to my untrained palate, I could tell those grapes tasted different from everything else we had tried that day.

"Why don't we make this on its own? These grapes taste...different," I asked him. Chuck just smiled his mischievous little smile.

"We could, and they do," he said.

I still don't know if he took me to the Mesa block last on purpose just to see if I'd react. It's long since been, according to Chuck and Jim, the most highly demanded fruit on the vineyard. So that year we kept those grapes separate from the others. The resulting barrel samples that spring blew us away, and the Mesa Pinot Noir become a staple in our wine portfolio.

I miss Chuck sometimes, and he usually somehow senses that and gives me a call to check in. He was such a legendary talent not only on the Central Coast, but in California's wine history. And certainly he was a big part of shaping Riverbench early on. What a sweet and funny man. We miss his goofy sense of humor now and again around here. I count myself super lucky to have worked with him; experiences like the one above will be the things I remember forever.