Vino In My Dino

Dear Dino 2014

October 7, 2014 15:20

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A discussion on cooking with wine from my point of view.

One of the things I learned, besides pouring myself a glass, is to keep things simple. I have loved to cook almost as many years as I have loved wine, learning from my grandmothers and mom. They always kept it simple and delicious. I'll grab an onion out of the pantry and imagine the possibilities—sometimes I don’t know what I’ll be making until the onion hits the pan. Simmering stews and pasta sauces are the perfect way to introduce some Zinfandel or Merlot-a half cup usually does it for added zip. The longer it simmers the better the flavors meld. Too short and you have some alcoholic flavors I don’t find very complementary. Or if you have some leftover Port, add a 1/4 cup to the pan after browning meat and, along with a chopped shallot and a dash of balsamic vinegar you'll have a savory sauce to pour over your pork tenderloin or chicken breast. I have found it is easiest to experiment with all kinds of wine in different dishes-chili, cakes, soups-well everything but my morning eggs that is. From my kitchen to yours, enjoy a sip in your Dino while dinner is simmering away.

Click here for some wine friendly recipes-enjoy!

Tags: Pedroncelli, Recipe, food and wine, family
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BW 113

October 2, 2014 15:26

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You could say we inherited a piece of history when my grandparents purchased the property in Geyserville in 1927. We were the second family to own a winery and vineyard here. The first one, who were also Italian, applied and received the Bonded Winery number from the Federal Government.They made wine from 25 acres of grapes for their store in North Beach in San Francisco. Why do we need a number to produce wine? "Bonded winery licenses are issued by U.S. Tax and Trade Bureau for the purpose of designating a tax-paid environment for wine." (thanks to the Wine Institute for the verbiage) This means we pay tax on wine before it leaves the winery. The amount ranges between wine made under 14% alcohol where we pay $1.07 a gallon to wines over 14% but under 21% cost $1.57 a gallon. We make around 165,000 gallons of wine each vintage, to put this in perspective.

So how did we 'inherit' the original bonded winery number? When my grandfather purchased the property mid-Prohibition he bides his time selling grapes until Repeal in 1934. He set about making wine under his name and applied to the government for the original number. He received a letter, the framed version hangs in our tasting room, granting him the use of BW-113. The heritage of this place began with the Canata family and continues through four generations of Pedroncellis, 110 years of winegrowing.

Fun fact: by 2012 there were 3754 wineries in California and 8806 in the U.S. The year I was born, 1960, there were 256 wineries in California and 500 in all of the United States. The year my grandfather started his winery there were 3 wineries in Dry Creek Valley. All these numbers make me thirsty, I'm pouring some Vino in my Dino.

Tags: Pedroncelli, family business, California, Prohibition
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Time in the Bottle

September 30, 2014 15:31

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Library wines, cellar picks, those wines you’ve saved but now don’t know how they have fared while in your closet, basement or beside your fridge. I have received many emails over the years about our wines they have found in their parent's cellar, in a dusty corner of a store or they have received as a gift. Usually the sender asks about quality of the wine giving me the vintage and name in order to find out more.

Rule of thumb when it comes to that dusty jewel from your basement: check cork for leakage, check fill level in bottle (should be ½ to 3/4 inch from cork), ask yourself what the temperature was in the storage area: constant and cool or was the wine put through the seasons with ranges in temperatures matching the cold or heat outside. Usually you'll see signs of leakage around the capsule or a low-fill level in the bottle-these don't always mean it is a lost cause but can be indicators of a wine beyond its' time.

What does an older vintage wine smell and taste like? Nothing like the 2012 Zinfandel or Cabernet Sauvignon you just drank. Time in the bottle means some things change: ripe fruit often turns to dried fruit notes, toasty oak turns to cedar or tobacco, the wine softens as the tannins age gracefully and move on to a supporting role. The taste is different too—more delicate, less overwhelming in some cases. Aged wines aren't for everyone because so often we enjoy the flavor of wines just released or a year or too older. Here's to older vino in my Dino!

Tags: Pedroncelli, Vintage Year, Vintage Wine, Cabernet Sauvignon, wine tasting
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Harvest 2014 Ends

September 25, 2014 15:34

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To recap, we began on August 19 with Sauvignon Blanc and ended with Cabernet Sauvignon on September 24, 5 weeks and two days later. One of the great things about writing a newsletter since 1990 is I have copious copy illustrating our harvests year after year. There is quite a bit of talk about this being a super early vintage so I looked up the ‘earliest’ harvest we have recorded which is 2004 when we picked Sauvignon Blanc on August 11 and I see we brought in Cabernet Sauvignon over Labor Day weekend. We finished early in the third week of September.

This year it was a very compressed harvest for a couple of reasons: the weather stayed with us and didn’t cool off or heat up too much and some vineyards ripened ahead of schedule. For instance we picked estate Merlot before our growers harvested their Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. The second reason has to do with availability of picking crews. Manuel Diaz, Vineyard Foreman, said he had a steady supply of men and women to do the picking-in other years we had to wait until a full crew could be mustered, hoping the grapes would hang in there until they could bring in the fruit. While it is a few more days until we finish fermentation, here's a toast to all of our hard working crews in the vineyard and cellar on our 87th harvest!

Tags: Pedroncelli, Harvest, machine harvesting, weather, fermentation
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Pomace Me

September 23, 2014 15:40

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If I had the ability to provide scratch and sniff blog posts then I would bottle up the smell of fermenting grapes and share with the world. The pungency of these aromas is a large part of my love for harvest time and the late summer and fall in wine country. In many other areas the autumnal smell of mulch among the trees can be just as pungent after a first rain, but I am partial to the byproduct of young wine in the making. Another physical byproduct of winemaking is pomace, ahh the aromas that go back to my childhood…pungent, cloying, fruit-fly attracting. In case you didn’t know, it consists of the skins and seeds left over from the fermentation process. Upon completion, the hose is attached to the tank and drained into a wine press. The skins and seeds are separated at this time and conveyed into a truck that brings the spent skin/seed mixture to a hillside to ‘age’ or dry out. Once the pile has ‘taken the cure’ it will be used in our vineyards to provide fertilization. I remember we even used the dried pomace in the vegetable gardens, putting it around our zucchini and tomato plants to enrich the soil. All this talk of fermenting has me thirsty—I'm pouring a little vino in my Dino to toast another day.

Tags: Pedroncelli, Harvest, sustainability
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Weighing Grapes

September 19, 2014 15:47

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Our weigh station is the first stop our grapes make after they are harvested. It is one of the many requirements by the government to report tonnage since we are in the business of making wine, an alcoholic beverage—we call it part of everyday life. We are meticulous in sending the correct information, nevertheless. My dad Jim remembers the scale was installed in the late 1940s to weigh in trucks loaded with grape boxes and later gondolas overflowing with fruit. The building has expanded a bit, like the other parts of the winery, to make room for our growing production. During the early years, it was the epicenter of the winery with side-by-side offices for both Jim and John (the building is about 100 square feet!) and has played an important role in both marketing and winemaking over the years. I remember when my mom used to weigh in the trucks and gondolas as she balanced (pun intended) raising my three sisters and me. Our home, now our marketing offices, was just steps away. You can see our former home through the window! My Uncle John’s office and wine lab that he shares with Montse is now across the yard. The weigh station also contains our Cellarmaster Polo’s office today. As you can see, this is no digital scale--we prefer the ‘hands on’ method even when weighing our grapes.

Montse, associate winemaker, is at the ready for another load of grapes in the photo below. I can see we’ll have some delicious vino for my Dino in the next year or so.

Tags: Pedroncelli, Cellar, Harvest
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Barking up the right tree

September 11, 2014 15:51

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I am taking a moment, a bit of a breather so to speak, during harvest to bring you this blurb on just where corks come from. We bottle two thirds of our wine with them. Wine corks have been around for a long time, shortly after the goat skin and right around the time winemakers wanted to securely stopper the containers. They are harvested from the bark of the Quercus suber or Cork Oak Tree. In the photo you will see how the corks are punched from the bark. It takes about 9 years for the bark to attain the right thickness to produce a 1 ¾” cork. A lot of patience goes into these cork forests mostly planted in Portugal, the multi-tasking country that also brings you Port, and Spain. It is akin to waiting for a fine Cabernet Sauvignon to age. For all kinds of background on cork oak and the harvesting of them please check the Cork Quality Council’s website here.

While you peruse the pages, I’ll pull a cork on some vino and enjoy!

Tags: Pedroncelli, wine, Cellar
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Harvest 2014 Begins

September 5, 2014 15:58

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We’re weighing in our 87th harvest and our harvest t-shirts say it all: ‘Keep calm and crush on’. We kicked off our 87th vintage with our Sauvignon Blanc on August 19. While this is a bit early, I checked our records from last year and I see we brought in fruit from the same vineyard on August 22—very close! The earliest picking on record for this vineyard, located on the valley floor just a mile from the winery, is on August 12,2004 (if anyone is keeping count). I have to say, as a family owned and operated winery, the weeks leading up to this day has everyone on pins and needles the month or so before the first grape is picked. It is like waiting for your baby to be born. And we have been waiting each year through 87 harvests.

Sounds like a toast is in order, to the generations working together and our loyal crew who always gets the best out of the harvest. Pour some vino in your Dino and join me!

Tags: Pedroncelli, Harvest, Crush Report
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Veraison Pt. 2

September 1, 2014 16:02

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Last month I talked about veraison, a key moment in the vineyard when the grapes start to turn color, develop and ripen. I thought it would be fun to follow the same vines over the next couple of months as they get closer to being harvested. The first photos were taken on July 11. I sent Ed out to take photos on August 11. You can compare the two here and see what a difference four weeks makes in color and size. We have had near-perfect conditions for the third year in a row and are happy with the quality we are seeing on the vines. We were out tasting the grapes right around the time of the photos with Lance, our vineyard manager. When discussing our picking philosophy he said “while we rely on taking samples (from different areas of each vineyard and testing them at the winery for sugar, acid and pH) it is actually tasting the grapes I find most important when deciding to pick.” It becomes second nature to know when the grapes are ready. Just ask John or Jim—they’ve been tasting these grapes longer than any of us here.

Tags: Pedroncelli, Veraison, vineyard, family
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Veraison Pt. 1

August 1, 2014 16:06

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Turning color

Veraison, the moment in the vineyard when it all becomes real for vineyard owners. We have 6 weeks, give or take, before we start to pick. It is the Ready, Steady, Go in the wine world. I chose two grapes to talk about this month: Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel. Typically they are between 3-4 weeks apart when we do pick, Zinfandel ripening before Cabernet Sauvignon. The pattern begins with bud break in March, followed by crop set in May and finally veraison. The growing season is then dependent on the weather with balanced amounts of daytime heat and cooling evening fog. Hopefully the season will develop without extremes in order for the grapes to ripen at full maturity. The photos were taken on July 11 and, as you can see, the color change is substantial in the Zinfandel while the Cabernet Sauvignon, which experienced bud break later is also scheduled to be picked later. You’ll also notice the difference in the bunches with a range of smaller and larger, tighter berries in our Zin and small berries and looser bunches in the Cabernet.

Right now I’m told picking will commence mid-August as our Sauvignon Blanc is ripening up nicely. This is about one week earlier than ‘normal’ for us but not unusual. In September’s edition, we’ll likely be in the thick of harvest, our 87^th!

Tags: Pedroncelli, Veraison, vineyard
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