The temperature of which wine is served is one of the most important and most overlooked parts of appreciating fine wines. The temperature plays such a huge role in the perception of aromatics, acidity and tannin.
I have been thinking about this a lot over the past few days since I heard a comment at the DC Food and Wine show we attended last week. There was a group of individuals that came to our booth from a local wine shop and mentioned that our Chardonnay was a bit too cold. They followed up by apologizing for being too picky?
First off I hope we do not give the impression at Tarara or at any wineries that someone is putting us out because they want to enjoy their wines in the appropriate ways.
Second, I am thankful that they let me know that the wine was too cold. It was!!! We immediately pulled the wine out of the ice to let it warm up over the next 30 minutes or so.
Most times when being at these shows you simply have two choices, put you wines in the ice bucket or not. Our Chardonnay had been on ice for about 45 minutes to an hour bringing the wine probably to somewhere around the mid to upper 30's. This is in fact where many people drink their Chardonnay, but if you are trying to get the best out of the wines aromatics and viscosity, it my be too cold.
A Chardonnay or other similar white wines that tend to be lower in acid with a fuller body (Viognier in many cases) can benefit from being served a little warmer. I tend to like my Viognier around 50 degrees and my Chardonnay even a touch warmer at around 55. If the wines are served too cold then with the lack of acidity these varieties just start to come off thin and not showcasing the viscosity they are known for. On top of that, the cooler a wine the less the aromatics will be perceived, so for a variety like Chardonnay that is lower in aromatics to begin with it will not only come off thin, but weak in aromatics.
The easiest way to solve this problem since most people do not have dedicated wine fridges or coolers, is to just take the wine out of the fridge 25-30 minutes before you plan on having it.
There are some white wines that do benefit from being cooler. Wines like Riesling or our Charval that define themselves strongly off their crisp acidity for balance when young can be served cooler. The cooler temperature will help put that acidity to the forefront and these varieties also tend to have s strong enough aromatic profile that it is not detrimental to the nose to be a little cooler. I love serving these wines around 45 degrees to really showcase that acidity and still keep the aromatics quite lively. You may want to pull these out of your fridge for 15 minutes or so.
Wines that are destined to be served cooler would be many dessert wines like a late harvest Petit Manseng or an Icewine since you want to increase the perception of the acidity to balance with the intense sweetness. Sparkling wines also benefit from being in the higher 30's to increase that acidity perception and helping define the mousse of the wine. The aromatics of classic sparkling wine is less important to worry about since it is strongly tertiary characters that will not be dumbed by the cold, like bready or brioche characters from the lees contact. These could be consumed directly out of your fridge.
Red wines often suffer the opposite temperature issues to white wine. It has been written on the back label of almost every red wine "Serve at Room Temperature". That has been the philosophy for hundreds of years. The downfall is when this suggestion first came about it was based on what the Europeans classify as room temperature which is about 64-65 degrees. I don't know about you, but I have my thermostat jacked up to 70+.
The big piece to red wines and temperature is there tannins. The cooler the wine the more the tannins will be perceived. If you have a young strongly tannic wine like a young Bordeaux or a current release of our Long Bomb or Meritage then the wines can benefit from being a little warmer to let the fruit showcase through the tannins. If you were drinking a wine with moderate tannins like our feature varietal reds or many new world Cabs then somewhere in that 64-65 range is probably going to work best. I would recommend just putting the wine in your fridge from about 15-20 minutes to get that slight chill.
There are some reds that should actually be chilled closer to what you might want to drink the Chardonnay at. Wines like a village level Beaujolais or lighter Pinot Noirs could be consumed at temperatures around 50-55 degrees to help showcase the acidity and increase the tannin perception since these wines are not classically firm structured on their own.
The last class of reds that some find controversial with the subject of temperature is the big, lush, fruit forward, new world styled Zinfandels or Shiraz's. If these wines are pushing the highs of ripeness with softer tannins you may want to serve them a little cooler like the lighter Pinots (maybe a touch warmer) to get better structure to balance with the fruit. The downside and the controversial part is that some of these wines are also high alcohol 15+% and the cooler temperatures will accentuate the perception of that alcohol.
In the end, you have to experiment with how you enjoy your own wine, since that is what truly matters, but there are some general rules of thumb that are shown above.
1) Cooler Temperatures will increase the perception of tannins
2) Cooler temperatures will increase the perception of acidity
3) Cooler temperatures will decrease the aromatic perception
4) Cooler temperatures will increase alcohol perception
5) Cooler temperatures will help showcase and define the mousse of a sparkling wine
So...go and experiment with a bottle of wine.
Sante.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Screw Tops - Friend or Foe
Being part of the younger generation in the wine industry I have a great advantage. So many people are stuck on what they call tradition in the wine industry and are willing to risk the quality of their product over it. When I confront many people in the wine trade about why they do not use screw top closures, I am often given the same five arguments:
1) Corks have been a tradition for hundreds of years.
2) Corks and opening the wine is the most romantic part of the wine.
3) Consumers are not willing to pay for wines in screw tops.
4) Wines closed with screw tops do not age as well.
5) Wines closed with screw tops have “reductive” issues.
In general I find these statements almost amusing at times. I do believe in understanding history in order to better ourselves today. Therefore, understanding corks and what positive attributes they have is essential in understanding how to make wine in alternative closures. That does not mean I need to stick with the “traditional” closure that causes between 5-7% of wine (equivalent to about 1 bottle per case) to be noticeably off. When I say noticeably off, I mean a wine that wreaks of moldy newspaper, or a musty old basement (musty basements are also traditional in the old world, now we have de-humidifiers). This odorous flaw to the wine is created by a chemical called TCA (2-4-6 Trichloroanisole) which can be found technically on any thing that contains phenols (woods, plastics, grape skins and therefore wine, etc) when it comes in contact with certain sterilizing agents and a mold. This tends to be the show most within corks because if it comes from somewhere else, it will ruin the entire vintage of the wine. The problem with the corks is that it creates an inconsistency and an unknown after the wine is bottled. Tricholoanisole is incredibly potent. Studies show that the average person can detect TCA at a level of 4 parts per trillion in wines. Some critics have proven to be able to sense TCA at levels hovering around 1 ppt. To put in easy terms, that is the equivalent to approximately one sugar cube in 100 Olympic size swimming pools. It must be noted however that TCA is completely harmless to human beings; it is only detrimental to the aroma and flavor of the wine. Just think if other industries accepted a 5-7% failure rate, how different the world would be today.
The second statement of opening the bottle of wine being so romantic is really strange. Most of the time this process works out to be quite the opposite. How many times have we all gone to open a bottle of wine and the cork snaps in half? Then we all have the opportunity to look silly trying to dig that last 1/8 of an inch cork out of the bottle before we finally end up just puncturing it into the wine itself. There is also the instance of when you are trying to pull the cork out of the bottle and you pull to hard and a splash of your favorite Syrah splashed all over your dates new white shirt. Ok, well maybe that only happens to me, but it could happen to any of us. This could be stopped by also using one of these new high tech corkscrews that look like they come from the space age, but then how could you argue that it is traditional or romantic. Lastly, what if you go down to your cellar and select the last bottle of a special vintage for your 25th anniversary, come up from the cellar and go through the whole romantic routine of opening the bottle, just to find that it smells of moldy newspaper? Is it still romantic?
The statement of consumers not being willing to pay for wines under screw top, particularly for ultra premium wines has never been substantiated. Many people in the wine industry have under-estimated our wine buying public. At Tarara Winery our currently top selling wine is the first screw top closed wine we have released. It is a red blend (current vintage is Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot) that sells for $25.00 per bottle. This is only the first of the Tarara lineup to be closed with screw tops; we will be 100% inside of a year when the 2007 reds and 2008 whites are released. In many areas of the world screw tops are just though of as routine now. Look at Australia and New Zealand, they have about 85% closed with screw tops and that includes top end Reds and Whites well exceeding $100 per bottle. There are now Grand Cru Burgundies, top Loire Valley and some top producers of North East Italy (Veneto) using screw tops. These wineries have done this because they realize that the consumer just wants a great bottle of wine, and if the odds are better with a screw top then that is probably OK with most of us. Besides, if the best part of a bottle of wine is opening it, then it is a bad bottle of wine.
Many people have told me that wines do not age well in screw tops. I have also been told that they have not been tested to have shown being successful aging. These closures are no longer new, and there are many examples of wines from the USA, Australia, and New Zealand that have been aging gracefully under these screw tops for well over 15 years. The beautiful part of these wines is that they in some opinions age better. They gain lovely tertiary characters that are normal from aging, while also retaining freshness and lively fruit creating a wine of better complexity and balance. Are they identical to the wine with a cork, NO.? But then again after 10-15 years no two wines with corks are going to be identical either, each bottle will age slightly different under a cork so there is very little consistency. With the screw tops there is much more consistency bottle to bottle, even after extended aging. Here at Tarara Winery we create many wines that we believe will age gracefully for well over a decade. Some of our first vintage (1989) are drinking beautifully today. We think that using screw tops is just one more step to ensuring that our wines will be great upon release and after aging for years.
The last comment I here normally comes from people within the wine trade, and cork producers. There are many believers that wines closed under screw tops suffer from Reductive qualities. This is when sulfides (naturally present in wine as well as being added at times) reduce down to create off flavors like rotten egg. This has happened in the past before winemakers became more knowledgeable about the newer technology. Today winemakers can be far more diligent in making their wine to be certain that there are no reducible sulfides in the wine before bottling through proper oxygen management and by using fewer sulfides. This is one of the huge perks to wine in screw tops. It is possible to create the wine with less sulfides (which protect against unwanted yeasts and microbes as well as oxidation) since it is a more anaerobic environment. Those that believe that wine with elevated sulfides may want to look at screw tops since there is not as much necessary to do the same job.
All and all, screw tops are one of many newer forms of closures for our wines. It is not about ruining tradition, the romance of wine or a cheaper way to close our entry level wines. Screw tops are a modern way to be certain that the wine ends up on the dinner table exactly as the winemaker meant for it to taste. It is about taking an age old beverage that makes so many of us happy, and using modern technology to make certain the consumer has the opportunity the fruit, the winemaking process and the terroir we are so happy to have without having to look through a musty newspaper aromatic.
1) Corks have been a tradition for hundreds of years.
2) Corks and opening the wine is the most romantic part of the wine.
3) Consumers are not willing to pay for wines in screw tops.
4) Wines closed with screw tops do not age as well.
5) Wines closed with screw tops have “reductive” issues.
In general I find these statements almost amusing at times. I do believe in understanding history in order to better ourselves today. Therefore, understanding corks and what positive attributes they have is essential in understanding how to make wine in alternative closures. That does not mean I need to stick with the “traditional” closure that causes between 5-7% of wine (equivalent to about 1 bottle per case) to be noticeably off. When I say noticeably off, I mean a wine that wreaks of moldy newspaper, or a musty old basement (musty basements are also traditional in the old world, now we have de-humidifiers). This odorous flaw to the wine is created by a chemical called TCA (2-4-6 Trichloroanisole) which can be found technically on any thing that contains phenols (woods, plastics, grape skins and therefore wine, etc) when it comes in contact with certain sterilizing agents and a mold. This tends to be the show most within corks because if it comes from somewhere else, it will ruin the entire vintage of the wine. The problem with the corks is that it creates an inconsistency and an unknown after the wine is bottled. Tricholoanisole is incredibly potent. Studies show that the average person can detect TCA at a level of 4 parts per trillion in wines. Some critics have proven to be able to sense TCA at levels hovering around 1 ppt. To put in easy terms, that is the equivalent to approximately one sugar cube in 100 Olympic size swimming pools. It must be noted however that TCA is completely harmless to human beings; it is only detrimental to the aroma and flavor of the wine. Just think if other industries accepted a 5-7% failure rate, how different the world would be today.
The second statement of opening the bottle of wine being so romantic is really strange. Most of the time this process works out to be quite the opposite. How many times have we all gone to open a bottle of wine and the cork snaps in half? Then we all have the opportunity to look silly trying to dig that last 1/8 of an inch cork out of the bottle before we finally end up just puncturing it into the wine itself. There is also the instance of when you are trying to pull the cork out of the bottle and you pull to hard and a splash of your favorite Syrah splashed all over your dates new white shirt. Ok, well maybe that only happens to me, but it could happen to any of us. This could be stopped by also using one of these new high tech corkscrews that look like they come from the space age, but then how could you argue that it is traditional or romantic. Lastly, what if you go down to your cellar and select the last bottle of a special vintage for your 25th anniversary, come up from the cellar and go through the whole romantic routine of opening the bottle, just to find that it smells of moldy newspaper? Is it still romantic?
The statement of consumers not being willing to pay for wines under screw top, particularly for ultra premium wines has never been substantiated. Many people in the wine industry have under-estimated our wine buying public. At Tarara Winery our currently top selling wine is the first screw top closed wine we have released. It is a red blend (current vintage is Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot) that sells for $25.00 per bottle. This is only the first of the Tarara lineup to be closed with screw tops; we will be 100% inside of a year when the 2007 reds and 2008 whites are released. In many areas of the world screw tops are just though of as routine now. Look at Australia and New Zealand, they have about 85% closed with screw tops and that includes top end Reds and Whites well exceeding $100 per bottle. There are now Grand Cru Burgundies, top Loire Valley and some top producers of North East Italy (Veneto) using screw tops. These wineries have done this because they realize that the consumer just wants a great bottle of wine, and if the odds are better with a screw top then that is probably OK with most of us. Besides, if the best part of a bottle of wine is opening it, then it is a bad bottle of wine.
Many people have told me that wines do not age well in screw tops. I have also been told that they have not been tested to have shown being successful aging. These closures are no longer new, and there are many examples of wines from the USA, Australia, and New Zealand that have been aging gracefully under these screw tops for well over 15 years. The beautiful part of these wines is that they in some opinions age better. They gain lovely tertiary characters that are normal from aging, while also retaining freshness and lively fruit creating a wine of better complexity and balance. Are they identical to the wine with a cork, NO.? But then again after 10-15 years no two wines with corks are going to be identical either, each bottle will age slightly different under a cork so there is very little consistency. With the screw tops there is much more consistency bottle to bottle, even after extended aging. Here at Tarara Winery we create many wines that we believe will age gracefully for well over a decade. Some of our first vintage (1989) are drinking beautifully today. We think that using screw tops is just one more step to ensuring that our wines will be great upon release and after aging for years.
The last comment I here normally comes from people within the wine trade, and cork producers. There are many believers that wines closed under screw tops suffer from Reductive qualities. This is when sulfides (naturally present in wine as well as being added at times) reduce down to create off flavors like rotten egg. This has happened in the past before winemakers became more knowledgeable about the newer technology. Today winemakers can be far more diligent in making their wine to be certain that there are no reducible sulfides in the wine before bottling through proper oxygen management and by using fewer sulfides. This is one of the huge perks to wine in screw tops. It is possible to create the wine with less sulfides (which protect against unwanted yeasts and microbes as well as oxidation) since it is a more anaerobic environment. Those that believe that wine with elevated sulfides may want to look at screw tops since there is not as much necessary to do the same job.
All and all, screw tops are one of many newer forms of closures for our wines. It is not about ruining tradition, the romance of wine or a cheaper way to close our entry level wines. Screw tops are a modern way to be certain that the wine ends up on the dinner table exactly as the winemaker meant for it to taste. It is about taking an age old beverage that makes so many of us happy, and using modern technology to make certain the consumer has the opportunity the fruit, the winemaking process and the terroir we are so happy to have without having to look through a musty newspaper aromatic.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Cold with Snow, Need warmth of V-Day
Whether or not you are a fan of Valentines Day there is one thing for sure. We are all looking forward to a little warmth and good reasoning to get out of the house after almost a week of being trapped by the white stuff.
We have a great time out here at Tarara in the snow. We have been building snowmen (although he met his demise pretty quick), running around with our crazy Great Dane Mia (who is too wimpy to go out today with the wind and blowing snow) and driving awesome equipment. Being from Canada, I have seen my share of snow, but I have always had to use the traditional shovel to move it. Here, we have the opportunity to drive big tractors, bobcats, and even bulldozers. That makes snow removal much more fun.
Since we are having so much fun removing snow we want to be sure everyone knows you can get out here this weekend. It is much rewarded and I am sure many of you need to re-stock your wine after this snow.
We will be celebrating Valentines Day with our Valentines Dinner which will include 4 courses of great food, four wines, and warmth. There are only a couple of seats left so if you are interested, click here.
If you are in DC and can't get out to Tarara, please visit us this weekend at the DC Food and Wine Show. Jon (our assistant winemaker), Rob (our sales guru) and myself will be there through the weekend tasting some pre-release wines and enjoying a wine community that has been stranded for almost a week.
I hope to see many of you this weekend in DC, at our dinner or in our tasting room celebrating the end of the Snow.
See you soon,
Jordan
We have a great time out here at Tarara in the snow. We have been building snowmen (although he met his demise pretty quick), running around with our crazy Great Dane Mia (who is too wimpy to go out today with the wind and blowing snow) and driving awesome equipment. Being from Canada, I have seen my share of snow, but I have always had to use the traditional shovel to move it. Here, we have the opportunity to drive big tractors, bobcats, and even bulldozers. That makes snow removal much more fun.
Since we are having so much fun removing snow we want to be sure everyone knows you can get out here this weekend. It is much rewarded and I am sure many of you need to re-stock your wine after this snow.
We will be celebrating Valentines Day with our Valentines Dinner which will include 4 courses of great food, four wines, and warmth. There are only a couple of seats left so if you are interested, click here.
If you are in DC and can't get out to Tarara, please visit us this weekend at the DC Food and Wine Show. Jon (our assistant winemaker), Rob (our sales guru) and myself will be there through the weekend tasting some pre-release wines and enjoying a wine community that has been stranded for almost a week.
I hope to see many of you this weekend in DC, at our dinner or in our tasting room celebrating the end of the Snow.
See you soon,
Jordan
Monday, January 18, 2010
Don't We Want Some Mystery?
This is going to be a more philosophical post then most that I enter. I have been tasting a lot with several different people lately, and have heard so many different thoughts.
It seems that there is this approach being taken by some that wine is a simple beverage that can be broken down into it's individual components for replication. Is this true? My guess is that yes, to an extent this could be done and is by some, but why?
A recent article stated that there is no such thing as minerality in wine. By scientific research it showed that no vine uptakes minerals from the soil and imparts them in the grape, and therefore it can not be tasted in the grape. OK...well I still have to ask then, why do I sometimes taste a loamy character, or chalky note or some other for of minerality? I can not be told, nor should anybody be told what they taste and what they don't. Is it possible that the combination of soil type, soil pH, slope, drainage, sunlight, etc combined is giving a different profile that may not be proven, or even needs to be? Also, is it not possible that some dust from the soil on a windy harvest day, or spores from nearby brush fell on the grapes themselves and therefore made it into the fermentation? These are the questions of terroir and I love that this is part of wine.
The unfortunate thing is that with new technology and winemaking methods lots of these characters can be minimized in order to craft a beverage for what the winemaker believes to be the market's profile. Through eliminating barrels and using oak alternatives and micro-oxygenation equipment, using specific enzymes for extraction of certain aromas, selected yeast to help mold the acids present or extract certain aromas, measures quantities of sugar, tannin, etc, yes, one could probably make a replicable homogeneous wine. This would showcase the cellar and the winemaker more then anything.
At Tarara, our goal is to produce wines created by nature, since wine is and has always been a product of nature and what it allows the grapes to do each year. We take a minimalist approach, avoiding any additions of yeast, sugars, etc whenever possible and we never add un-necessary additives like tannins or enzymes. Why? Two reasons:
1) We want our wines to have personality and show the character of the vintage and vineyard. This is done by letting those natural pieces speak for themselves.
2) As much as our wines might not have identical profiles year to year, by not over extracting any one character, or minimizing another, we allow the wine to develop it's own complexity. If we concentrate on extracting one character then it may be intense and enjoyable, but also slightly one-dimensional.
So the more I discuss and taste with people, the more I see how there is a separation in wine from those that are made into a set style with recipes, and those that are crafted with a minimalist approach to showcase what nature has to offer each year. What is correct? Great question, I hope some of you respond so that we can have some great discussion over the philosophy of wine.
It seems that there is this approach being taken by some that wine is a simple beverage that can be broken down into it's individual components for replication. Is this true? My guess is that yes, to an extent this could be done and is by some, but why?
A recent article stated that there is no such thing as minerality in wine. By scientific research it showed that no vine uptakes minerals from the soil and imparts them in the grape, and therefore it can not be tasted in the grape. OK...well I still have to ask then, why do I sometimes taste a loamy character, or chalky note or some other for of minerality? I can not be told, nor should anybody be told what they taste and what they don't. Is it possible that the combination of soil type, soil pH, slope, drainage, sunlight, etc combined is giving a different profile that may not be proven, or even needs to be? Also, is it not possible that some dust from the soil on a windy harvest day, or spores from nearby brush fell on the grapes themselves and therefore made it into the fermentation? These are the questions of terroir and I love that this is part of wine.
The unfortunate thing is that with new technology and winemaking methods lots of these characters can be minimized in order to craft a beverage for what the winemaker believes to be the market's profile. Through eliminating barrels and using oak alternatives and micro-oxygenation equipment, using specific enzymes for extraction of certain aromas, selected yeast to help mold the acids present or extract certain aromas, measures quantities of sugar, tannin, etc, yes, one could probably make a replicable homogeneous wine. This would showcase the cellar and the winemaker more then anything.
At Tarara, our goal is to produce wines created by nature, since wine is and has always been a product of nature and what it allows the grapes to do each year. We take a minimalist approach, avoiding any additions of yeast, sugars, etc whenever possible and we never add un-necessary additives like tannins or enzymes. Why? Two reasons:
1) We want our wines to have personality and show the character of the vintage and vineyard. This is done by letting those natural pieces speak for themselves.
2) As much as our wines might not have identical profiles year to year, by not over extracting any one character, or minimizing another, we allow the wine to develop it's own complexity. If we concentrate on extracting one character then it may be intense and enjoyable, but also slightly one-dimensional.
So the more I discuss and taste with people, the more I see how there is a separation in wine from those that are made into a set style with recipes, and those that are crafted with a minimalist approach to showcase what nature has to offer each year. What is correct? Great question, I hope some of you respond so that we can have some great discussion over the philosophy of wine.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Welcome 2010!!!
It is a new year here at Tarara and now that the dust has settled from closing down all of 2009, we can look at a year that promises to be great.
This year we have many changes that will be coming on line. We have our all new design, including a new website, new labels, brand, and of course some luxurious wines. The new brand/website should be live sometime throughout March.
This will be the year we release our 2007 Reds. This is the vintage to stock up on. It is the bet vintage we have seen here in Loudoun and at Tarara we treated it as such. We will be releasing our 2007 Meritage and Cabernet Franc.
We will also be releasing our 2008 Chardonnay (already out actually), our 2008 Viognier (will be released at our Fine Vine...Just Say Viognier event), our 2009 Charval, and 2008 Long Bomb ED2. While 2007 was the year nature gave us a gift, in 2008 and forward we are just better understanding our terroir from each vineyard. The 2008 Chardonnay and Viognier show lovely character and complexity that we have never before found. This was just from treating the fruit with the care it deserves and showcasing our vineyard. The wines show a great minty and anise note across our estate vineyard. You will have to taste for yourself.
The 2009 Charval is another year into trying to master the art of blending through this fun wine. It shows great fruit, complexity and a touch of sweetness just to balance the crisp acidity of the 2009 vintage. The blend is Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Sauvignon Blanc and Viognier. Exquisite!
The Long Bomb Ed2 has already been tasted by several at our Premier Tastings and pre-release tastings. Almost everyone has raved about the new blend of this powerhouse. It showcases the some of the best o our Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Tannat, and Petit Verdot. This wine is actually available in the month of January through the online store only and for every cases purchased you will receive a complementary Long Bomb football Jersey to celebrate the NFL playoffs (click here if interested). Too bad neither the Skins or my beloved Bills got anywhere close.
Two other great pieces to note about the releases in 2010 is that we will finally be 100% screwtops by the end of the year. The 2006 vintage was the last at Tarara to use cork in order to ensure the quality of the wines moving forward without the risk of the pesky cork taint. Also, and maybe the most exciting is the release of our Commonwealth Series. This is a series of three wines that will only be sold as futures and only 50 cases of each are available.
The Commonwealth series will include a Cabernet Sauvignon dominated blend with some Tannat and Merlot from predominately Tranquility Vineyard, a Merlot Dominated blend with small amounts of Petit Verdot and Tannat from predominately Mountainview Vineyards, and a Meritage style blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot from our Estate Vineyards. Each of these wines is a blend of the best 2 new barrels from their selected wines. The oak is dominated by Virginia Oak as the whole package is a step for us in our direction of supporting local to the furthest extent possible.
So many special wines to be released in 2010. It will be a great year and many more as we move forward expressing the terroirs of several local partner vineyards through our soon to come vineyard designated series of wines. Sante.
This year we have many changes that will be coming on line. We have our all new design, including a new website, new labels, brand, and of course some luxurious wines. The new brand/website should be live sometime throughout March.
This will be the year we release our 2007 Reds. This is the vintage to stock up on. It is the bet vintage we have seen here in Loudoun and at Tarara we treated it as such. We will be releasing our 2007 Meritage and Cabernet Franc.
We will also be releasing our 2008 Chardonnay (already out actually), our 2008 Viognier (will be released at our Fine Vine...Just Say Viognier event), our 2009 Charval, and 2008 Long Bomb ED2. While 2007 was the year nature gave us a gift, in 2008 and forward we are just better understanding our terroir from each vineyard. The 2008 Chardonnay and Viognier show lovely character and complexity that we have never before found. This was just from treating the fruit with the care it deserves and showcasing our vineyard. The wines show a great minty and anise note across our estate vineyard. You will have to taste for yourself.
The 2009 Charval is another year into trying to master the art of blending through this fun wine. It shows great fruit, complexity and a touch of sweetness just to balance the crisp acidity of the 2009 vintage. The blend is Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Sauvignon Blanc and Viognier. Exquisite!
The Long Bomb Ed2 has already been tasted by several at our Premier Tastings and pre-release tastings. Almost everyone has raved about the new blend of this powerhouse. It showcases the some of the best o our Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Tannat, and Petit Verdot. This wine is actually available in the month of January through the online store only and for every cases purchased you will receive a complementary Long Bomb football Jersey to celebrate the NFL playoffs (click here if interested). Too bad neither the Skins or my beloved Bills got anywhere close.
Two other great pieces to note about the releases in 2010 is that we will finally be 100% screwtops by the end of the year. The 2006 vintage was the last at Tarara to use cork in order to ensure the quality of the wines moving forward without the risk of the pesky cork taint. Also, and maybe the most exciting is the release of our Commonwealth Series. This is a series of three wines that will only be sold as futures and only 50 cases of each are available.
The Commonwealth series will include a Cabernet Sauvignon dominated blend with some Tannat and Merlot from predominately Tranquility Vineyard, a Merlot Dominated blend with small amounts of Petit Verdot and Tannat from predominately Mountainview Vineyards, and a Meritage style blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot from our Estate Vineyards. Each of these wines is a blend of the best 2 new barrels from their selected wines. The oak is dominated by Virginia Oak as the whole package is a step for us in our direction of supporting local to the furthest extent possible.
So many special wines to be released in 2010. It will be a great year and many more as we move forward expressing the terroirs of several local partner vineyards through our soon to come vineyard designated series of wines. Sante.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Vintage 2009 - Sigh of Relief
We are about to press the last of our Cabernet Sauvignon tomorrow. It has been a long and at times drawn out vintage this year.
Throughout the growing season we saw many ups and downs in terms of our vineyard. We had a mild ending to the winter that made our vines want to get rolling fairly early which gave us many days of worrying about late frost and damaging the buds that were bursting. Luckily...no frost!!! On the other note it did stay cool and wet through much of the spring creating very uneven fruit set leading into the summer.
The uneven fruit set means at harvest time there was an abundance of chicks and hens. Chicks and hens is when there is some very small (under developed) berries in a cluster. Sounds bad, but in doing some research some have found this to be beneficial in cooler years because many of these under developed berries have no seeds. With a reduced amount of seeds there may be less green astringent tannins to come off aggressive in the more elegant styled vintage. I am not 100% certain this will work completely as planned but based on the ferments I am incredibly pleased with the quality of tannins we are getting this year. I was under the impression that we would have to press earlier then normal this year, but in tasting through the ferments I have found I was wrong. We have been able to maintain our extended skin maceration's giving great structure without being aggressive or green. We did however have to bleed off more juice then normal from our reds to extract every ounce that we could from the skins during the fermentation's.
After the cool wet spring, we saw a cooler then normal June before finally getting into our normal warm weather in July and August and with some good sunshine. Interestingly though, the nights all summer and right through the fall were cooler then normal preserving the acidity and giving a great balance to much of the fruit, especially the Viognier and Chardonnay.
Near the end of July came our most challenging 10 minutes of 2009. We had a ridiculous and tiny storm front that came through acting with the power of a small tornado up rooting trees and whipping hail at us along the way. The hail heavily lowered the crop volume in the vineyard and forced us to cull out a lot of fruit from within grape bunches. This meant obvious low yields but also opened up the clusters a little which came in beneficial with each rain fall not causing the clusters to become overly tight.
Given the cooler spring weather and cool nights and some rainy days we also started to find veraison (when the skins of the reds change color) coming later then we could have imagined. This also forced another strong decision to thin even more crop in order to ensure the remaining clusters could fully ripen. It meant thinning in some places 50% of the crop in order to be certain the remaining fruit would maintain the quality we strive for our of our vineyards.
The harvest began the first week of September with our Pinot Gris for our Charval production. We then had a lull of a couple of weeks before having a brief rush of Viognier and Chardonnay. All the whites came in during great weather. Much of September was cool and sunny preserving the acids and keeping the potential alcohol to a reasonable level. We are segregating our grapes this year based on vineyards and will be releasing wine potentially based on vineyard instead of varietal or style for the 2009's. The Viogniers and Chardonnay's show these terroir differences beautifully for this vintage. We have fruit ranging fruit oily and tropical right to crisp and almost flinty styled. Should be an exciting year for many whites.
The reds just had to hang and hang. With the exception of the Tannat harvested early in September with just massive structure, all the reds were harvested after October 15th just trying to push for bigger, riper fruit. In the end, I think we succeeded. Much like 2008, I was not completely pleased with the fruit as it came to the winery and though it would be a very green year. Now that the ferments have come to a halt and the reds are all (except the one Cab Sauv) pressed I am realizing that it is a lighter more elegant year, but with great acid balance and fruit character. Some of the vineyards definitely show some bigger structures and bright fruit that will create longer lived wines, while others are going to be lighter and more subtle best for the earlier drinking windows.
The real excitement was with Syrah. We have seen that in both 2007 and 2008 the Syrah that came off our vineyard surpassed all other varieties giving classic meaty, smokey characters with ripe plum and pomegranate like notes. This year was the test. We had our first "real" crop meaning more the 1/4 ton per acre. This year we harvested 1.5 tons per acre and will have a few hundred cases and wow is it going to be great. Once again, it beat the odds and is just surpassing all our expectations. It shows those classic Syrah characters and velvety structure of the past years but also is showing more cracked pepper notes given the cooler vintage. This grape really is something special for our terroir.
So overall the 2009 vintage should be one that will be remembered. We had to take some bumps and bruises, but in the end, I think there will be some gems. I look forward to showing them to you as they evolve in the future starting with our crisp white blend Charval that will be due out in the spring. A great blend of Chardonnay, Viognier, Pinot Gris and Sauvignon Blanc.
Salute.
Throughout the growing season we saw many ups and downs in terms of our vineyard. We had a mild ending to the winter that made our vines want to get rolling fairly early which gave us many days of worrying about late frost and damaging the buds that were bursting. Luckily...no frost!!! On the other note it did stay cool and wet through much of the spring creating very uneven fruit set leading into the summer.
The uneven fruit set means at harvest time there was an abundance of chicks and hens. Chicks and hens is when there is some very small (under developed) berries in a cluster. Sounds bad, but in doing some research some have found this to be beneficial in cooler years because many of these under developed berries have no seeds. With a reduced amount of seeds there may be less green astringent tannins to come off aggressive in the more elegant styled vintage. I am not 100% certain this will work completely as planned but based on the ferments I am incredibly pleased with the quality of tannins we are getting this year. I was under the impression that we would have to press earlier then normal this year, but in tasting through the ferments I have found I was wrong. We have been able to maintain our extended skin maceration's giving great structure without being aggressive or green. We did however have to bleed off more juice then normal from our reds to extract every ounce that we could from the skins during the fermentation's.
After the cool wet spring, we saw a cooler then normal June before finally getting into our normal warm weather in July and August and with some good sunshine. Interestingly though, the nights all summer and right through the fall were cooler then normal preserving the acidity and giving a great balance to much of the fruit, especially the Viognier and Chardonnay.
Near the end of July came our most challenging 10 minutes of 2009. We had a ridiculous and tiny storm front that came through acting with the power of a small tornado up rooting trees and whipping hail at us along the way. The hail heavily lowered the crop volume in the vineyard and forced us to cull out a lot of fruit from within grape bunches. This meant obvious low yields but also opened up the clusters a little which came in beneficial with each rain fall not causing the clusters to become overly tight.
Given the cooler spring weather and cool nights and some rainy days we also started to find veraison (when the skins of the reds change color) coming later then we could have imagined. This also forced another strong decision to thin even more crop in order to ensure the remaining clusters could fully ripen. It meant thinning in some places 50% of the crop in order to be certain the remaining fruit would maintain the quality we strive for our of our vineyards.
The harvest began the first week of September with our Pinot Gris for our Charval production. We then had a lull of a couple of weeks before having a brief rush of Viognier and Chardonnay. All the whites came in during great weather. Much of September was cool and sunny preserving the acids and keeping the potential alcohol to a reasonable level. We are segregating our grapes this year based on vineyards and will be releasing wine potentially based on vineyard instead of varietal or style for the 2009's. The Viogniers and Chardonnay's show these terroir differences beautifully for this vintage. We have fruit ranging fruit oily and tropical right to crisp and almost flinty styled. Should be an exciting year for many whites.
The reds just had to hang and hang. With the exception of the Tannat harvested early in September with just massive structure, all the reds were harvested after October 15th just trying to push for bigger, riper fruit. In the end, I think we succeeded. Much like 2008, I was not completely pleased with the fruit as it came to the winery and though it would be a very green year. Now that the ferments have come to a halt and the reds are all (except the one Cab Sauv) pressed I am realizing that it is a lighter more elegant year, but with great acid balance and fruit character. Some of the vineyards definitely show some bigger structures and bright fruit that will create longer lived wines, while others are going to be lighter and more subtle best for the earlier drinking windows.
The real excitement was with Syrah. We have seen that in both 2007 and 2008 the Syrah that came off our vineyard surpassed all other varieties giving classic meaty, smokey characters with ripe plum and pomegranate like notes. This year was the test. We had our first "real" crop meaning more the 1/4 ton per acre. This year we harvested 1.5 tons per acre and will have a few hundred cases and wow is it going to be great. Once again, it beat the odds and is just surpassing all our expectations. It shows those classic Syrah characters and velvety structure of the past years but also is showing more cracked pepper notes given the cooler vintage. This grape really is something special for our terroir.
So overall the 2009 vintage should be one that will be remembered. We had to take some bumps and bruises, but in the end, I think there will be some gems. I look forward to showing them to you as they evolve in the future starting with our crisp white blend Charval that will be due out in the spring. A great blend of Chardonnay, Viognier, Pinot Gris and Sauvignon Blanc.
Salute.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Let the Harvest Begin
Well, it always amazes me how fast the time can fly. I feel like we just finished crushing our Cabernet Sauvignon. That was October 18 / 2008. Now we will be harvesting our Pinot Gris again on Monday or Tuesday, hopefully!!!
It was definitely been a trying year for growing grapes, which makes life fun sometimes, battling mother nature. We saw wet cool weather during flowering and fruit set so it made for some uneven sized berries and a slightly lighter crop. I have not dealt with clusters like this year many times in the past with the difference of ripening and berry size within one cluster. That said, several of the berries do not even contain seeds, which if they ripen will give far better fruit with less agressive tanins. Interesting.
Following the poor fruit set and flowering weather has not been a lot better. We did get some dry warm weather through the end of July and start of August to accelerate the the grapes entry into Veraison (when they start to change color) and getting us back on target for normal harvest dates. We have however gone back to having more then our share of rain and inclement weather. Early August saw one of the most brutal storms I have ever seen, even though it was tiny and fast. We saw 4 inches of rain in 10 minutes come with winds that up-rooted 11 trees on our property and hail that harmed a lot of our crop. Since then it seems at least a couple times a weak we have seen some dramatic amount of rain.
Do we feel defeated, absolutely not. We have gone out and thinned our crop by almost 50 percent knocking off all the green clusters that we do not believe would have ripened to our standards in order to make the remaining clusters ripen further and develop the character we have come to love from our vineyard.
As mentioned, our first fruit looks to be the Pinot Gris which should be harvested early next week as long as they dry out a bit over the next couple days. In doing our sampling of the fruit we are finding decent flavor developement, lower then average sugar and higher then average acid. One might think to let them hang longer, and normally I am that person giving the suggestion, but I think the fruit is in the right balance currently for the vintage. It should be interesting, it almost reminds me of the delicate styles Jon (our assistant winemaker) and I use to make in Canada. I think maybe our cooler climate winemaking history might give us a strong adavantage this year.
I am expecting most of our wines in 2009 to show lower alcohol levels and brighter acidity then normal years. My original thoughts if we start getting dryer weather through harvest will be whites with brighter acid and a little leaner, but with some good aging potential and reds that will be leaner and lighter with soft fruit and be best consumed young.
I will have to keep you posted on that as the grapes come in and as the wine is created.
So with that all said, I am off to the vineyard to keep an eye on the fruit as it comes in and i will do my best to keep you in the loop as we dredge our way through yet another harvest.
Sante.
It was definitely been a trying year for growing grapes, which makes life fun sometimes, battling mother nature. We saw wet cool weather during flowering and fruit set so it made for some uneven sized berries and a slightly lighter crop. I have not dealt with clusters like this year many times in the past with the difference of ripening and berry size within one cluster. That said, several of the berries do not even contain seeds, which if they ripen will give far better fruit with less agressive tanins. Interesting.
Following the poor fruit set and flowering weather has not been a lot better. We did get some dry warm weather through the end of July and start of August to accelerate the the grapes entry into Veraison (when they start to change color) and getting us back on target for normal harvest dates. We have however gone back to having more then our share of rain and inclement weather. Early August saw one of the most brutal storms I have ever seen, even though it was tiny and fast. We saw 4 inches of rain in 10 minutes come with winds that up-rooted 11 trees on our property and hail that harmed a lot of our crop. Since then it seems at least a couple times a weak we have seen some dramatic amount of rain.
Do we feel defeated, absolutely not. We have gone out and thinned our crop by almost 50 percent knocking off all the green clusters that we do not believe would have ripened to our standards in order to make the remaining clusters ripen further and develop the character we have come to love from our vineyard.
As mentioned, our first fruit looks to be the Pinot Gris which should be harvested early next week as long as they dry out a bit over the next couple days. In doing our sampling of the fruit we are finding decent flavor developement, lower then average sugar and higher then average acid. One might think to let them hang longer, and normally I am that person giving the suggestion, but I think the fruit is in the right balance currently for the vintage. It should be interesting, it almost reminds me of the delicate styles Jon (our assistant winemaker) and I use to make in Canada. I think maybe our cooler climate winemaking history might give us a strong adavantage this year.
I am expecting most of our wines in 2009 to show lower alcohol levels and brighter acidity then normal years. My original thoughts if we start getting dryer weather through harvest will be whites with brighter acid and a little leaner, but with some good aging potential and reds that will be leaner and lighter with soft fruit and be best consumed young.
I will have to keep you posted on that as the grapes come in and as the wine is created.
So with that all said, I am off to the vineyard to keep an eye on the fruit as it comes in and i will do my best to keep you in the loop as we dredge our way through yet another harvest.
Sante.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
