Coombsville is HOT!

Well, actually it's cool (temperature wise) and that is why it is turning into one of the most desirable spots for Cabernet in the Napa Valley.  Check out this article by Appelation America.  It does a great job pointing out why Coombsville is special as well as all the winemakers that have now realized that fact.  I like how Mr. Pott describes Coombsville as a series of ranchettes.  This is very true, our Midoriya vineyard is only about three acres (at 700' elevation by the way).  Compare this to Oakville and Rutherford where you have corporate mega vineyards that are hundreds of acres each.  I have been focusing on Coombsville for Prime Cellars since right after the 2006 harvest, now it looks like we have a lot of company.   

That's it for '08!

The 2008 vintage will mostly be described by one word; small. Everything was either devastated by early season frost or unbelievable heatwaves (I believe Al Gore would have a comment to explain this). Anyway, our harvest at Prime Cellars has ended with 1.8 tons of Chardonnay, 4.45 tons of Cabernet Sauvignon and 1.04 tons of Cabernet Franc (a new addition!). The usual rule of thumb that the more the vine suffers the better the quality should apply here. Initial tastings are looking very promising. Here is a photo of the crushing of our 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon from the Midoriya Vineyard in Coombsville...Next step-to barrels!

Getting close!

Our first ever Prime Chardonnay is sitting at 23.1 Brix (fancy way of saying % sugar) with a pH of 3.13.  This means the grapes still have a bit of acid to convert to sugar before they are going to be ready to pick.  I am excited about Chardonnay this year, I have a very good source of Coombsville fruit that also goes to some of Napa's big name wineries as well.  (Will spill said names when properly bribed with enough wine).  The Cabernet up at Midoriya is ahead of the Chardonnay right now at 24.3 Brix but a very low pH of 3.05.  I am going to try to keep that Cab on the vine as long as possible but this years weather is not helping.  I'm hoping for a couple of weeks of nice cool temperatures but we will see what we get...

Wine Spectator busted?

It looks like the Award of Excellence from Wine Spectator is not such a tough thing to achieve. The award that recognizes a restaurant for having excellent wine selections and service was given to a restaurant that does not exist. The fake restaurant was made up to prove that the awards are not really awards but paid advertising ($250 "entry fee"X4000 entries=a million bucks). Even better the fake restaurant's fake reserve wine list was made up of some of the lowest rated WS wines. We are talking a list of 50 point wines, not quite an excellent list. Dr Vino blogs about it here.

Veraison!

Veraison is the French term for the softening and coloration of the grape berries. It is happening right now in Napa on most varieties. The green grapes turn purple in random order leaving funky tie-dyed looking clusters. Soon the clusters will be uniform for the most part. In a week or two we will go out and cut off any clusters that have failed to fully turn purple. This is called a "green harvest" and it is done to avoid getting any underripe fruit in the wine. The green clusters that we drop would eventually turn purple but they will never catch up to the ripeness of the rest of the crop.

Grape Sourcing

Ted's been working hard on lining up grapes for this years harvest. We noticed these voluntary grape vines growing in the trees near our house. They were probably planted courtesy of some birds snacking on nearby vineyards. Based on the shape of the leaves, Ted thinks there is a chardonnay vine and a cabernet vine intermingling in the tree. Don't worry, you won't see any mystery wild blend table wine from Prime, we just thought it would be fun to share nature in action.

Barrels!

Yes, its time to buy up all the barrels needed to house the 2008 vintage wine. The fact that I have to pay in Euros makes this process very painful. With the exchange around 1.6 right now that 750euro barrel is costing $1200. Just 5 years ago that 750euro barrel was about $825.

That barrel holds about 23 cases of wine. Quick math tells us that that tacks on $52 a case. I guess this could be proof that Two Buck Chuck never sees a barrel.