I was actually close to being happy.  It looks like we’re going to get some form of health care reform soon, as to whether it’s perfect, who knows, but it’s a start, and we’ve started pruning.  While pruning may appear to be, and can be work, there isn’t anything that is more gratifying than looking back over a well-pruned row, and no better way to beat the recession blues than being the one who pruned the row.  The guys love to prune and they are very good at it, which is good, as pruning has to be the most important annual vineyard task.  According to Prof. Ron S. Jackson: “It [pruning] permits the grape grower to establish a particular training system and regulate individual vine yield.  Pruning can permit the selection of bearing wood (spurs and canes), and thereby influence the location and development of canopy growth.  This can affect grape yields, health and maturation, as well as pruning and harvest costs.”

Note carefully the underlined word, ‘affect.’ Recently an accountant was surprised how we can’t seem to program our blocks to consistently yield five tons per acre.  Please understand accountants are not bad, often they are good, this one accountant, meh, he clearly fails to grasp the challenges of growing Pinot Noir and Chardonnay in the cool, cool, Green Valley of Russian River Valley.

For more please go to

http://www.ironhorsevineyards.com/about-us/biographies/laurence-sterling-blog.html

There is an old, but apt, Chinese curse, “may you live in interesting times.”  These are obviously interesting times, in an obviously cursed kind of way.  By which I mean for every day we get a rainbow, expect a storm cloud too.

Yet, to keep it all bearable, once in awhile, some good news comes along, like the recent offer that came in the mail from the Trident Society for “free pre-paid cremation,” and even a beautiful, productive and interesting day can happen, just as it did on October 28, 2009; productive and interesting in the sense that, at least in the field, it all had to do with the future.

For more and the official version go to

http://www.ironhorsevineyards.com/about-us/biographies/laurence-sterling-blog.html

It’s not only starting to look like Autumn, with changing leaves and bizarre gourds from the garden, it’s starting to feel and smell like Autumn, meaning, after a few frosts and the first real rain of the season, time to bring and put up the tomatoes.

Another sign of autumn, the annual health insurance renewal along with the unveiling of the premiums.  For those who have read the ‘blog’ this year, 2009 has not been fun all of the time.  Between the Great Recession and what turns out to have been a bad ‘set,’ I often felt like I was being beaten on the back of the head with a wet sock filled with sand, which means I’ve got it a lot better than most.  However the latest whap to an already sore neck was the proposal for next year’s health coverage, both for myself, my family and our employees.

For more and the official version go to

http://www.ironhorsevineyards.com/about-us/biographies/laurence-sterling-blog.html

But before I continue on about ‘09 at Iron Horse Vineyards, the moment is ripe for a rant.  Bad enough I have to deal with people telling me we have to be ‘organic,’ biodynamic,’ or even ‘sustainable.’ All they are really telling me is what I can’t do, and, sadly, not how to make better wine.  Now, to make matters worse, a new movement is rearing its ugly head, ‘Natural Wine’ and ‘Natural Winemaking.’ For starters all of our grapes are hand picked, and I admit native fermentations (one of the key tenets of Natural Winemaking) can be great.  About 30 barrels or 600 cases or so of the 2009 Chardonnay are undergoing native fermentations.  However, they need constant monitoring and stuck fermentations can be scary and taste pretty nasty.

In addition to hand picking and native fermentations, natural wines are made without added sugars, adjustments for acidity, and are, preferably, unfiltered, un-fined and un-sulfured.  There are those who have concluded that it’s best to ferment wine in buried amphorae, as oak is too new an innovation.

Back to ’09 and Iron Horse.  My guess is that most growers and winemakers will agree that if the goal is an ultra-premium wine, then we need to pick at the exact moment when the grapes are at ‘optimal physiological ripeness’ (or OPR).  We may not agree as when we have OPR, but, if the grapes have been properly cultivated, and picked at the right time (and properly picked, see above), then only minimal intervention on the part of the winemaker will be needed to make a great wine.  Look at the quality of the juice below.  That is Chardonnay, Hyde –Old Wente Clone, from Cb, Cc, Cd and Ce.

Clearly, winemaker David Munksgard won’t need to intervene much to make a great Chardonnay.  On the other hand, when we ready to harvest M Block (Stony Hill clone Chardonnay) we had a problem.  As M is going to be replanted, I had, it turns out, over-cropped the block and a significant portion of the grapes were stuck at 20 degrees brix, meaning no chance of reaching OPM for Chardonnay.  Luckily, we have another option, pick for sparkling.  However, there are few wines that involve more winemaker intervention than Sparklings and Champagnes.

As I see it, the history of wine is one in which we are constantly trying to find ways to make better wines and cope with differing conditions.  For example, in a relatively cool region like Champagne it is hard to get the same degree of ripeness as in Burgundy to the South.  Second fermentation in the bottle is a way to deal with the situation, just as it solved our problem in M Block.  If “natural Winemaking’ is the only permitted way of making wine then there would be little or no Sparklings, Ports, Cognacs, Sherries, etc. It’s as if a hunting party at the start of the bronze- age came back to the settlement after a successful hunt, and the rest of the band refused to eat the meat because the spears and arrows had bronze tips.  “No sorry, won’t eat anything not killed with stone – bronze just isn’t natural.”

For the official version go to

http://www.ironhorsevineyards.com/about-us/biographies/laurence-sterling-blog.html

August 16, 2009

Harvest ended on September 14, 2009 at about 1:20 p.m.  Of the 26 days between start and finish, we picked on 25 of them.  I got to sleep in on Labor Day.  Total haul was over 310 tons, just under 185 tons for sparkling, 112 for Chardonnay and 13.83 for Pinot Noir –hence the new pronunciation of Pinot as Pi-NOT – and tad better than last year, which isn’t saying much.

For the rest of the post, go to http://www.ironhorsevineyards.com/about-us/biographies/laurence-sterling-blog.html