Vino In My Dino

Rain!

March 29, 2018 10:07

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March really did roll in like a lion and brought us much needed rain for the vineyards and even delayed bud break by 2 weeks. As the month ended we had temperatures in the 80s and spring had sprung with cover crop as high as the vines in some places and bees buzzing around the rosemary bushes.

We received over 7 inches of rain in total for the month pushing us closer to an average rainfall and away from full on drought. In fact we are officially not in a drought because of all the rain. Yahoo-we weren’t looking forward to that type of challenge so soon after the last one.

Vines typically begin their growth in spring which usually begins by mid-March. A few early starters pushed some buds like our Sangiovese-which acted like a race horse this year raring to go. It is often the first out of the gate or just after our Zinfandel. Our Mother Clone Zinfandel wasn’t far behind. Once bud break takes place the growing season begins. Bloom sometime in May followed by crop set in June and through the summer we'll watch as the grapes color up and ripen. Before you know it the grapes will be ready for harvest.

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Calling All Cheese Fanatics

March 1, 2018 09:51

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I have been following Janet Fletcher for several years and receiving her newsletter Planet Cheese. This week she had a wonderful post about cheese trivia. So are you a cheese fanatic like me? Read on for some very interesting facts from Janet Fletcher's newsletter post "Trivia but not Trivial" where a young man named Pat Polowsky instructs us with answers to cheese urban legends. Sign up for her newsletter if you want the latest in cheese news at www.planetcheese.com Don't miss her classes held in Napa or at The Cheese School in San Francisco as well as other spots around the Bay Area. I am a big fan of cheese and I can't think of another way to become educated on the artisan cheese world.

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The D Word

February 28, 2018 14:15

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Drought. The word is bandied about these days as we look to the last significant month in our rain cycle. March is usually the final frontier when it comes to the rain season. If we haven’t had enough (and we haven’t) then this is the last stand to make up for the small amount we have received so far. In fact the warm weather (in the 70s) we had in February almost made our vines think it was spring.

We’ve had between 12 and 13 inches of rain this season. Average rainfall is around 30 inches. That’s why the dreaded D-word ‘drought’ is now being used. While considered moderate we’ll need a few more inches to even get close to normal.

From the California Department of Water Resources comes this when defining drought for our state, “California is no stranger to drought; it is a recurring feature of our climate. We recently experienced the 5-year event of 2012-2016, and other notable historical droughts included 2007-09, 1987-92, 1976-77, and off-and-on dry conditions spanning more than a decade in the 1920s and 1930s. Paleoclimate records going back more than 1,000 years show many more significant dry periods. The dry conditions of the 1920s-30s, however, were on a par with the largest 10-year droughts in the much longer paleoclimate record.”

The great amount of rain we received in 2017, while a distant memory, is something that isn’t repeated too often. The good news is it filled up reservoirs and even recharged groundwater storage in some places which is an important if unseen effect-without underground water the wells so many of us rely on for farming would affect our ability to deliver water when most needed.

It remains to be seen what March will bring. We all hope for more rain to give the vines and other agricultural crops the water they need.

Tags: drought, Dry Creek Valley, California, Sonoma County, vineyard, vines
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WOW: Pedroncelli is a Women Owned Winery

February 27, 2018 16:38

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Family businesses are different than others because most of our co-workers are spouses, siblings or cousins. You know, when we were growing up here at the winery, women outnumbered my Dad 5 to 1. With four daughters and my Mom he survived but as my sister Lisa put it “his lifetime achievement award was well deserved-he survived four teenage girls”. He was raised in part by his sisters Margaret and Marianne who were 10 and 9 years older than he was so he had a good start in the girl department.

Women over the years have played an important part in this family business of ours. My grandmother Julia helped everywhere from the vineyard to administration to maintaining the family home and the countless dinners they hosted. Don’t forget my aunts who not only took care of my dad but they also worked with their parents to run the vineyard and farm. Later on Margaret and my uncle Al grew Zinfandel and Petite Sirah for the winery. My mother Phyllis and aunt Christine, from the second generation, also had roles in the running of the business from market visits to weighing in grape trucks, bookkeeping to hospitality.

Because of the hard work and dedication of the first two generations the third and fourth generation became owners. Those generations are predominately women (see note above about me and my three sisters and includes cousins too).

I was asked a great question at the #winestudio discussion earlier this month when the tweet up was the subject of women owned wineries. How did I find my voice and my calling amidst a family business? When I was attending college my parents encouraged me to do what I wanted to do-to pursue my dream. I majored in English with a Writing Emphasis and thought I’d go into the publishing world. A weekend side job of helping my sister in the tasting room had me commuting between El Cerrito in the East Bay to Geyserville-where I realized how much I missed Sonoma County. A few months later my dad and I had a chat in the case goods warehouse and he asked me if I’d be interested in working for the winery. I had had enough of the city life (cue Green Acres music) and came back home armed only with an English degree and willingness to learn.

Part of the blessing of a family business is when we are hired we are encouraged to take a part of the business that speaks to us-sisters Cathy and Lisa work with administration-they are numbers ladies. I found my voice by writing for the winery-newsletters, background stories, fact sheets, press kits and a blog. Good thing I majored in English w/writing emphasis. I was also afforded the freedom to find my passion about wine not only by writing about it but also traveling around the U.S. markets. When I was growing up in the heart of the winery operations I took for granted what takes place in the vineyard and the cellar. I don’t anymore—I have learned much about the process and if it is possible I have become even more of a wine fan than ever before because there is a world of wines to discover.

Amy Bess Cook has started a WoW: Women Owned Wineries website highlighting Sonoma County WoW. Check it out here.

A toast with a splash of Zinfandel in my Dino-the first wine I ever tried.

Tags: woman, women, woman owned, Dry Creek Valley, generational, generations, wine, family business, siblings, family, zinfandel
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Barreling Through The Years

February 27, 2018 15:30

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Barrel time in wine country is important enough to have its’ own celebration in the form of two Barrel Tasting weekends in March. 41 years ago the Barrel Tasting, originally sponsored by the then Russian River Wine Road (now simply Wine Road) a group of wineries located near the Russian River, began as a way for people to discover northern Sonoma County. 41 years ago there were less wineries hence wines to try-it was at the beginning of the wine renaissance here. Today you have the joy of discovering new and old friends in the mix with over 100 wineries thieving samples out of the barrel for you. The event takes place between Alexander, Dry Creek and Russian River Valleys.

Back in those early years there were less than 30 wineries participating. I have been here for 33 years and have worked a majority of those weekends. We went from trying to keep up with cleaning glasses to having folks ‘BYOG’ followed quickly by the first branding efforts with an official logo glass for $5. Numbers of wineries now range over 120 participating! Futures were added later on and not much has changed except the number people attending going from 100 to 25,000 at the peak in 2008. These days we see less people than at the peak-much less-which in turn gives us more time for visitors to taste and ask questions. Winemakers and cellar crews stand at the ready to talk about the wine and process of barrel aging. Join us this year as we feature the Past, Present and Future of our Alto Vineyards Sangiovese-a library release, our current 2015 vintage and the 2016 still in barrel. A splash of Sangiovese in my Dino with a toast to 40 more years of barrel tasting.

**You still have time if you want to attend, tickets are sold at the door.

Tags: Barrel Tasting, Sangiovese, Dry Creek Valley, Wine Road, Barrels, Barrel aging, Barrel, Sonoma County
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Midwinter Check Up

January 27, 2018 14:42

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Time for a midwinter check-up from world headquarters of Pedroncelli Winery Inc-aka my office. The vineyards are in full dormancy and the crew has finished pruning the vines back to their two buds-next vintage’s crop. The cover crop has grown lush with the rain and the mustard and bell beans are set throughout the rows.

We’ve received a smidge just over 13 inches of rain as of the end of January. The average rainfall is at 16 inches or so. We’re off by 3 inches and remember we can’t compare with the deluge of rainfall received last year. And we haven’t gone all the way back to a drought—we’re pinning hopes on the rainfall in the next two months to help fill in the reserves. And the good news from the Corps of Engineers that monitor outflow from Lake Sonoma and Lake Mendocino is they have slowed the outgoing water so they have enough in reserve. At this point the lakes are 82% and 89% of capacity thanks to last rain year’s contribution and their need to protect our water resources.

Snow fell in the Sierras the last week of January and the hope is to recoup our snowpack in the next couple of months because it is the all-important water supply to many of us in California. I’ll have another weather report in April-which is also Down-to-Earth month where I’ll focus on our newly-minted Sustainability Certification and what that means to our vineyards and wines.

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#tasteup1

January 27, 2018 14:26

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We’ve planned our second year of what we call ‘Taste Ups’ known in the twittersphere as Tweet Ups. In January we hosted the first of five and each one focuses on a three bottle line up of our wines. This time we featured our Signature Selection Chardonnay, friends.red and Mother Clone Zinfandel. I chose a recipe for this grouping from chef and author Michele Anna Jordan (@saladdresser), one of my favorite go-to wine and food pairers. Is there such a title? She publishes her recipes weekly in the Press Democrat and I have a file I keep with her creations as well as others I run across in the world wide web-it’s like clipping coupons only better.

The choice I made was Spaghetti Squash Carbonara and made it at home first to see which wine it would go best with out of the three I had at home. I picked the Mother Clone Zinfandel at the time and while it paired well at the taste up many of the participants also liked the Signature Selection Chardonnay. One of the ingredients that would be hard for some to find was Vella’s Mezzo Secco, a local artisan cheese, which is a dry Monterey Jack flavorful enough without being too overbearing for this carbonara and I included a wedge with their shipment of samples. Another reason I picked Spaghetti Squash is I have been following a low carb way of eating for some time and no longer eat things like pasta (I can hear you gasping). It doesn’t mean that every recipe I pick will be low carb but I have found many ways to incorporate the tenets without sacrificing flavor or satiety.

We had 14 people online at one time across the U. S. which resulted in over 234,000 tweets about our wines during the one hour session which took place at 4pm PST. I was at the winery with Thea (@winebratsf) and Robert (@RobertLarsen) while Ed was somewhere deep in Florida participating as well but from a hotel room without the wines or food. We momentarily felt sorry for him but hey he was in warm Florida and we were in cold northern California. I made the dish for those of us at the winery as did all of the others from Texas to Iowa, Oregon to New Jersey. You’ll find the whole discussion along with my notes at this link and peruse the comments, photos and banter. We have a great group and look forward to our next taste up in March.

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History Lesson: The Family Home

January 26, 2018 17:05

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I write my blog posts from my office which was also my bedroom when I grew up here at the winery. It is the family home to two generations. Thanks to my cousin Ken Walker I have a clipping from January 22, 1937 about our home. There weren’t too many catastrophes over the years-although I remember watching the hill next to our house give way after a rainstorm while at breakfast one morning-it only slid enough to form a crevice along the top third of the hill; I remember feeling the 1969 earthquake that damaged Santa Rosa as well as the 1989 earthquake when only John Pedroncelli and I were here as it shook both the office and cellar without doing any damage.

On January 22, 1937 this building took a direct hit. As you’ll see by the headlines it was a school bus full of children (including my two aunts) that saved it from burning down. My dad was 5 years old at the time, Uncle John was 12 and aunts Margaret and Marianne were 16 and 14 respectively. My grandmother Julia, as reported, was the only one home at the time and she didn’t know the house was on fire.

The children and bus driver got to work putting out the fire even before the fire department arrived! I remember Bill Black-he was the same bus driver I had when I was in kindergarten attending Geyserville Elementary School. I am so glad they all were able to help out and save our home and, later, office. It was originally built around 1904 and at 113 years old it is the oldest building on the property. It's still here through all those trials and happier times of family gatherings. Its' windows look over our Mother Clone vineyard like it has been all those years and will keep watch for more years to come.

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The Finishing Touches on 2017

December 27, 2017 16:54

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Buttoning up as the year draws to a close I came across a harvest report, rainfall totals and some other information pertinent to some updates and review. Now my desk is another story-well many stories. Here are some of the interesting snippets I came across.

I get my rainfall numbers from the Sonoma County Water Agency who kindly sends an update each month. We have received 6.27” of rain (average is 7.78”) and this finds us at 80.59% of average for rainfall so far. They also include the numbers for Lake Sonoma, the man-made earth dam at the north end of Dry Creek Valley which releases water throughout the year and part of our vineyard is located along the banks of Dry Creek. At 203.848 acre-feet the water supply there is at 83% thanks to the rainfall received in the 2016/2017 rain year. It remains to be seen if we are indeed headed for a drought year. My hope, like many others in the Sonoma County agricultural scene, is we will be blessed with enough rain. We’ll know soon enough.

The official harvest report for the state of California was issued mid-November by the Wine Institute. I always double check our county to see if anything has changed from what we experienced. They reiterated the record-breaking winter rainfall that kicked off the growing season. No early budbreak due to drought or a summer-like February like the previous years so we were back to normal conditions. Things were looking very good as summer began-crop levels up, even growth. We had a nice warm July and August providing the grapes with even ripening. The kicker was the huge heat spike we had over Labor Day weekend, reminiscent of the one we had in 2010, and it sped up harvest to the tune of 7-10 days and we lost some weight in the berries due to the excessive heat. This translated into a lighter crop literally. One side effect of lighter crop at this time is we see more concentration of fruit in the wines. We were finished picking by September 28-which now in retrospect was fortunate due to the firestorms that would overtake parts of Sonoma County on October 8. All in all a good if not great vintage at Pedroncelli.

I came across a few items in my blog file about the firestorm, specifically the money raised for the firestorm damage to wine country by people across the globe and it was, in a word, amazing. From London, where the proceeds for the Master Class Ed and I did for Amathus Drinks was donated; In Japan our wholesaler Nakagawa Wine Company raised $60,000 for the Sonoma County Resilience Fund & Redwood Credit Union Fund, Napa Valley Community Disaster Relief Fund & The Community Foundation of Mendocino County Disaster Fund; Oregon Cares Disaster Relief fundraiser held at The Allison Inn raised $35,000 (I read about this in a post by wine writer Karen Macneil who wrote “I got pretty choked up when the Oregon producers called to say they wanted to do this, and I offered to come up here to help. The wine industry is after all, ONE industry...and it feels good to know that people are remembering that.”) to Paso Robles wineries donating $1 per bottle for wines sold in October. There are so many more and you can visit here for the list. Local columnist Heather Irwin began Sonoma Family Meal to help feed those who lost everything-which is still serving the families in need! I met a visitor today who said “it’s not as devastating as I had seen on TV-she is from Kalamazoo MI-and I agreed there are pockets of our counties destroyed but there is plenty of beauty too.

We need the rain, we have had a good harvest year and people help people-what more could I ask for in the coming New Year. A toast to you and yours with a splash of Zinfandel in my Dino!

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What Wine Goes With This?

December 27, 2017 16:51

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A cookbook was written in 1989 (the year we were married by the way) called Red Wine with Fish by David Rosengarten and Joshua Wesson. Up until then it was widely advised to pair fish with white wine-this challenged the old view and helped people think outside of the wine box when pairing different foods. At times I think the whole concept of wine and food pairing can get complicated. I try to take a casual informal view of pairing as I like to read a recipe and then start to pair up which of our wines I think will go best.

I do have a couple of internal rules I follow. There must be a good amount of fat to help bridge the dish with wine which is on the acidic side. The simplest explanation is pairing wine with cheese-each style of cheese has an affinity for a certain varietal. But don’t stop yourself if all you have is Brie and Cabernet Sauvignon-add some roasted mushrooms on top of the brie and between the three you have a nice match. In fact I think roasted mushrooms will hold their own against any red wine-the roasted quality caramelizes the shrooms and you have a great flavor combination from Pinot Noir to Petite Sirah.

The other rule is not to go overboard on spices and herbs—I don’t subscribe to ‘if one clove of garlic is good how about the whole head’ i.e. garlic is not the main feature but a complement to a recipe (just ask Lidia Bastianich) or ‘I like pickled jalapenos so I’ll just add a few’-STOP! they have too much vinegar to play nicely with wine. How about a nice long cooked ragout with meat, tomato, Italian herbs and hints of garlic paired with Zinfandel-my go-to wine for tomato based sauces as is Sangiovese. Make sure to finish the sauce with a pat of butter for that bridge effect to take place-or a swirl of olive oil would work as well.

Keeping it simple with any grilled or roasted poultry, pork or lamb goes nicely with wine too. Vegetables pair better when roasted or grilled so the caramelization makes the pairing ‘sweeter’. Some of those ‘hard to pair’ veggies like asparagus or artichokes can be tamed by use of an aioli or plain old mayo, once again the fat is the bridge builder. Butter sauce with hints of herbs can do wonders as well.

For me it is breaking down the recipe to find out the base of flavors in it-does it have herbs or spices? Citrus of some sort? Root herbs like garlic, shallot, or ginger? How do these interplay with the center of the dish like the protein? Most importantly serve it with something you like-the odds are you’ve chosen well and the wine should go with the meal. If it doesn’t fight the flavor or clash with the spices you have a winning combination.

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