Tannat preview

During my last shift at W.I.N.E. in NYC I got a little preview of what I might expect to drink in Uruguay. Coincidentally we featured a Tannat-based blend from the Irouleguy region of France, way down in the south-eastern corner of the country, as the wine of the day. Tannat is the national grape of Uruguay and it actually means 'tannin.' So naturally it has a reputation for being a tannic wine. In Uruguay I have heard it tends to be a bit softer than traditionally in France - I will be finding this out for myself next week when I tour Uruguay's wine country. In this Irouleguy wine the Tannat is blended with Cab Sauv and Cab Franc. It was a nice bottle with dark fruit and pepper - I could definitely notice the Cab Franc characteristics. As for the Tannat, I have no idea what it's like but I soon will. Happy New Year! Feliz Año Nuevo!

Que Syrah, Syrah

I had a great bottle of Syrah recently at the wine shop where I worked. It was from the Northern Rhone region of France, Crozes-Hermitage more specifically. The producer is Maxime Graillot, son of Adrian Graillot - a very well known producer in that area. Apparently Adrian gave his son a decrepit vineyard and said, 'Son, if you can't make wine from this, then get out of this business.' 2004 was Maxime's first vintage, and he didn't disappoint. Great wine starts in the vineyard, and notably he de-stems nearly all of the grapes in his small production. This prevents harsh stemmy flavors from entering the wine.

2007 was supposed to be an amazing year in the Rhone. This wine was bright with black fruit and tea characteristics. It prices in the mid- to high- 20s. Naturally I love the purple label.

Happy Holidays!

I've been obsessed with the Wiemer Magnums of 2008 Dry Riesling. They were a great way to spend the holidays, celebrating life with family and friends. Hope everyone had a great holiday season!

How funky is your Pinot

I recently tried the funkiest Pinot Noir. From Alsace, France, the wine is made biodynamically, unfiltered and unfined. Biodynamic winemaking processes rely heavily on nature and phases of the moon and such. The winemaker tries to interfere as little as possible with the natural process of grape to wine. This Julien Meyer 2005 Pinot Noir is a murky ruby red whose flavor profile evolves quite uniquely in the glass. It starts off with strawberry and a bit of that nice earthy funk that Pinots can be known for. Then you begin to notice fresh dill on the nose and palate, which eventually turns into dill pickle flavors. A fascinating wine! Also interesting is the fact that it is sealed with a glass cork (yes, it looks like a nipple) encased in a metal twist cap. I had never seen this before - very interesting. At around $35, this is definitely a wine I recommend if you like funky Pinot. It is available at Eli's W. I. N. E. on the upper east side.

Burgundies and such

The wine shop I am working in is geared mostly to Old World wines. Lots of Burgundy, NO Bordeaux, a good amount of Southern France, Italy, Spain; some Portugal, Austria, Slovenia.  There are a few Californias and a couple Oregon Pinots. Oh, and I should mention that the only New York label they carry is Hermann J. Wiemer. Coincidence? Of course not.

Anyway, it happens that I am one of those people who does not like oaky Chardonnay. Perhaps worse is the fact that I almost always make an exception for white Burgundy. White Burgs tend to have lower alcohol and higher acidity/minerality than their California cousins. Maybe they use older oak too? I should look into this further. Here's one that I tried on the job and liked for it's  crisp yet smooth taste of fig and apple:

Alcohol:12.8%
Price: under $25

Blizzard of '09 - a chili night

So the weather outside is frightful as we are getting a little preview of the snow to come tonight. Virginia and DC are getting the big stuff now and it's heading north. While my mom and I were out braving the malls today like the crazy people we are, my sister Zara was making turkey chili for dinner. We had it with some Wiemer 2008 Dry Riesling and it was a great way to come in from the cold and crazy and warm up. Who says white wine is just for summer?

Exploring the wine world

Happy Holidays! I'm back in the tri-state area and I've been busy planning my trip to Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay for the new year. I've also been working at a wine shop in Manhattan, which is a great way to keep learning and drinking. A couple interesting wines that I tried and liked included a 2007 Petit Rouge (similar to Pinot Noir) from northern Italy and a 2008 Tempranillo from northern Spain:

Both wines were light and easy to drink and retail for around $20. I'm finding that you can get a lot of good wines from all over the world at this price point!

Congrats, Peter!

Peter's Malbec got 90 points from James Molesworth in Wine Spectator! Here's the review:

Los Vencejos
Malbec Uco Valley 2007
90 points | $28 | 119 cases imported | Red
Very ripe and nicely rounded, with a lovely floral aroma leading
the way for enticing blueberry, fig and plum fruit flavors. Long,
lush finish has nice focus too. Drink now through 2011.—J.M.

Danke!

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Oskar, Fred, and Maressa - and Tim and Sandy too - for welcoming me to their team at Hermann J. Wiemer Vineyard. I had a fantastic experience and its end is bittersweet. I learned a ton about winemaking, the industry, and myself. I met some incredible people and had a great time working with them - thanks also to the interns, sorters, tasting room staff, and the other essential players. Hermann truly left a wonderful group in place to carry out his legacy and I am honored to have been a part of it. As I move on to other experiences I will think fondly of the HJW crew and hope to have the chance to work with them again in the future.

You guys rock!
-Melanie

Spotlight: Every Man Joe

As I say goodbye to my friends at Hermann J. Wiemer, I dedicate this post to the guy who was there at the beginning and remains at the end - Joe. Every-man Joe was super helpful to us interns when it came to knowing how things are done at the winery, since he has been working here since March, and in general, since he worked a harvest in Oregon last year. Joe could operate every forklift, tractor, truck, press - you name it. He cleaned like a champ, even though his wetsuit was never sufficient to keep him dry. On a late harvest night we would often fight over the last slice of pepperoni pizza. When Peter and I would propose a bet to keep everyone going into the night shift, Joe was always good for a wager. He was also good for a chat on the labeling line, in the field, and on the sorting table. Hope our paths cross again in the winemaking future, Joe!

Hi deer, how are you?

It was bound to happen. After almost 3 months of zipping around the Finger Lakes I was bound to hit a deer. I just didn't expect it to hit me on a pretty main road at nightfall when there were tons of cars out at the same time. It came out of nowhere, and suddenly I saw a flash of fur against my window and heard a piercing crash as it knocked my rearview mirror off the car. Luckily that was really the only damage my car suffered...

I screamed like a baby but I am fine now. I think the deer made it too. I looked for it the next day and didn't see anything.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Turkey, cranberry sauce, butternut squash risotto, and Wiemer Rieslings... yum!

We had the Dry Riesling '08 and the Semi Dry Riesling '07.
The Magnum looked awesome on the table...

(I had it autographed by Fred, the winemaker)

Hope everyone had a great holiday with family and friends.

Can't wait for '08

We've been slowly rolling out the '08 vintage and they have been fantastic - I've mentioned how much I love the '08 Gewurz and the '08 Late Harvest Riesling. Last night I got to taste some more '08s, including the Dry Riesling, Reserve Dry Riesling, HJW Dry Riesling, and Magdalena Dry Riesling. What a crew! These wines are delicious. I particularly love the HJW and Magdalena single-vineyard bottlings. It is so interesting to taste the differences due to the variances in these 2 vineyard sites. Soil and mesoclimate are the main factors that contribute to the contrast in these 2 wines - the Magdalena site is a few degrees warmer, and note the soil differences here between all 3 sites: 

Of course, it's the blending from the 3 sites that results in the consistency and vibrancy of the Dry Riesling and the elegance of the Reserve Dry Riesling.

Check out what James Molesworth of Wine Spectator had to say about these members of the 2008 Riesling lineup:  http://www.winespectator.com/blogs/show/id/41236

A couple more unreleased wines that I got to try: 2008 Select Late Harvest Riesling (a beautiful dessert wine with honeyed apricots on the palate) and 2003 Blanc de Noir (85% Pinot Noir and 15% Chardonnay - sparkling wine) that sat on the lees for 4.5 years before disgorging (nutty, brioche character with really fine, well-integrated bubbles on the palate).

Harvesting Roots

Thought the harvest was over, didn't you?! The last 2 days we spent harvesting rootstock in the Wiemer nursery. Grafting rootstock is a big part of Wiemer's business. Vineyards around the country source their rootstock from us, and this is a continuation of Hermann's legacy. Not only was he a pioneer in bringing Riesling to the Finger Lakes, he was also responsible for supplying the Finger Lakes and other areas with quality grafted vines. Now for a brief wine geek history: in the late 19th century European vineyards were wiped out by the root louse, phylloxera. Native to American rootstock, our vines are resistant to it. But, European grapes (vitis vinifera) make better wines, so we and the rest of the wine-making world now use grafted vines of vitis vinifera on American rootstock.

Grafting at Wiemer takes place over the winter, and then the grafted plants go into the ground in the spring so they can develop a root system. In late fall (now) the young roots are harvested and then distributed throughout the country for new vineyards or replacements. Harvesting these little plants is what I imagine harvesting Cabbage Patch Kids would be like (minus the tractor and plow).

So the tractor/plow pulls up all the rootstems and then we follow it to collect and bundle them. Funny enough, a lot of the plants have 1 or 2 shoots already, so they look kind of like the ridiculous antlers that the Grinch puts on his dog before he rides into town to steal Christmas:

These are the types of things that go through my mind when I am doing fieldwork. Anyway, we were lucky to have 2 gorges days of sunshine for this harvest. We also had 3 Mennonite boys helping us; I wondered yesterday why they weren't in school, but I learned that the Mennonites are only schooled through 8th grade. After that, they just work and get married and have babies, or whatever. Fascinating.

Wines of Spain - que ganga!

Over the weekend my sister Zara came to visit and experienced dinner and wine tasting with the Wiemer crew. Usually people bring random wine and we blind taste and try to see who can get the most points for the best guesses. But, this time we decided to organize the education process a little bit by focusing on wines of Spain. Maressa made delicious paella and we each brought a Spanish wine. We learned the following: 1) most mainstream Spanish reds are made from Tempranillo and Garnacha, 2) the Spanish white grape Albarino is pretty reliable, and 3) Spanish wines are a great value! Not 1 bottle cost over $20, and we enjoyed all of them. Zara was a little nervous about her wine (I sent her to get a Garnacha) but it was a hit - 2007 Tres Picos Borsao ($16.99). Joe brought the only white - 2008 Martin Codax Albarino Rias Baixas ($12.99), which we both really liked. I did pretty well too with a classic - 2005 Marques de Caceres Rioja Crianza ($14.99). So glad Fred thought of this theme! Maybe Italy will be next... I could use a refresher on that country too.

Spotlight: Peter, the Argentine

This post is dedicated to Peter, who left a week ago to go back to his vineyard in Argentina. Peter is actually from the States originally but bought a vineyard in Mendoza about 5 years ago. He grows Malbec and Tempranillo and came to Wiemer to learn about white wine production and sweet wine production - he loves the sweet stuff and is considering planting Torrontes, a white grape, in his vineyard for sweet wine production. So our little mini cuvee of TBA Gewurz was a special project for him. (As a side note, we got a little more than one 375 ml bottle, so we had everyone here sample the extra. We are going to let the bottle chill out for a couple months and then meet up to share it. We suspect that the alcohol is around 12%, which is a little higher than we would have liked, but the wine has pretty aromas of lychee and grapefruit with a nice texture and sweetness on the palate. We are pretty proud of our efforts and the result!)

Peter's vineyard is called Los Vencejos, and it is named for the white-collared birds who swoop in after rainfalls. We tried his 2007 Malbec before he left and it was just beautiful - a full-bodied red with blackberry jam and spicy notes rounded out by vanilla flavors from new and old French oak. Peter imports the wine to California for shipping to certain states around the country - including NY! (http://www.losvencejos.com/)

At the winery we could always count on Peter to brew a pot of coffee before the night shift, and he was a champion when it came to polishing off the locally-baked donuts that Tim and Sandy would bring us. Although, I once ate 5 donuts in a day and everyone seemed to think that was excessive, but I bet Peter came close on some days and just never counted. On the days that he wasn't at work they never seemed to go quite as fast. Hope you aren't missing the donuts too much, Peter! I think we decided the closest Argentine equivalent would be churros... not quite the same...

A noble end to the harvest

This week we finished harvest by scouring the vineyards for botrytis. We had left certain bunches on the vines to allow the botrytis to develop so it could be saved for Bunch Select Late Harvest Riesling (a TBA style). Maressa and I trolled Magdalena and Josef to collect the last shrivelly bunches, and then the rest of us spent a couple days sorting for the best stuff. We used the old Rotapress to press the bunches, and the thick syrupy juice tasted so good. This is going to be a great dessert wine.

As the harvest has now officially ended, I can say that I am really excited for the 2009 vintage to come out next year and in the years that follow; we brought in some beautiful fruit, and the juice and now-fermenting wines have been tasting amazing. So excited!

Hotelie Dinner

Last night I attended a student-run dinner at Taverna Banfi in the Statler Hotel at Cornell University with Fred and Oskar. It was a 3-course dinner featuring Wiemer wines as part of a restaurant management course in the School of Hotel Administration. The students were very professional and did a great job executing the dinner. The pairing was delicious, starting with the 2003 Blanc de Noir + cheese course and followed by this lineup:

These 2 Rieslings are among my favorite Wiemer wines, but I particularly appreciated the Pinot Noir + lamb pairing, and I don't think I've ever enjoyed that wine as much as I did last night. Special thanks to Fred and Oskar for taking me to the dinner and to the HA 3305 class for a memorable dining experience!

Blueberries?

Over the weekend we harvested the last of the reds - Cabernet Franc, Lemberger, Merlot, and Cabernet Sauvignon. After seeing all these grapes I can now appreciate all the pretty colors that appear in red wine making. The berries are blue upon picking...

...and turn purple as they go through fermentation. The juice goes from virtually clear to pink to red, depending on the amount of skin contact and whether the fermentation occurs on or off the skins (rose vs. red wine). Here, I'm punching Cabernet Franc that is fermenting on the skins:

Punching the reds is a great way to warm up when you are freezing from sorting and cleaning outside. In terms of snacking, the Lemberger grapes were my favorite - I could eat those any day. Would be a healthier alternative to donuts :)

Sounds of the Sorting Table

As you now know, sorting the grapes before they go into the crusher/de-stemmer and/or the press is an important part of the winemaking process at Wiemer.  You can imagine that we have bonded over this process. Following is a little sampling of the sounds of the sorting table:

- Oskar breaking into random song
- Peter humming tunes he makes up in his head
- Alex practicing his V's
- Political debate followed by Maressa shouting "No politics at the sorting table!"
- Cries of "Wait! I heard a rock!"
- Random trivia on world geography
- Bets made over baseball scores, number of boxes of grapes picked, whether Tim and Sandy will bring us donuts, timing of the arrival of grapes from our 3 vineyard sites, and timing for Fred to say, "I think we're in good shape here," which means we can go home to bed :)

Cheers to the Sorters!

The Tresterband

The Tresterband is a machine that pushes grape refuse up and away, into a bin placed strategically next to it. It is particularly useful for catching grape skins when we clean the presses and stems when the grapes go through the crusher/de-stemmer.  Peter has said in the past that The Tresterband is overrated; he thinks the job can easily be done by man using a shovel. I think the Tresterband is pretty cool, and why kill your back shoveling the stuff when the Tresterband can do it so easily for you? Well today I tried to prove to Peter (not so much on purpose) that the Tresterband rocks - I miscalculated the amount of skins still left in the press, so when we moved the Tresterband away and turned the press, a whole mess of skins came out that had to be shoveled out from under the press. This job took both Peter and me, yet he still insisted that the Tresterband is overrated. Maybe I better screw up again tomorrow so he can see how old shoveling out from under the press gets :)

Spotlight: Alex, the German intern

This past week we were sad because Alex went back to Germany. So this post is dedicated to him. Alex is studying at the Geisenheim, and his family owns Stauffer Winery (www.weingutstauffer.de). We had a lovely bottle of his the other night made from the Fruhburgunder grape. It is a cousin of Pinot Noir so it had similar characteristics on the palate and a nose of cherry and black tea that I loved.

One of Alex's jobs was to clean the presses every day - he would often get inside them to do a thorough job. The presses are German-made and have their commands in German, so who better for the job?

My favorite thing about Alex was that when he ran out of groceries he would stop at Dunkin Donuts in the morning to load up for the day - 3 donuts for breakfast and 3 donuts for lunch. Sometimes he would throw in a banana or apple and a Red Bull. Wunderbar! (Pronounced 'voon da bah,' means "Wonderful," and is my favorite German word.) Miss you, Predator!

Feelin' Gewurzy

On Halloween we released Wiemer's 2008 Gewurztraminer. In an earlier post I mentioned that I had tried this wine. I have been asking almost daily when it would be released, and the day finally arrived! Previously I had been in a 3-way tie with myself for which Wiemer wine I liked best - '07 Dry Riesling, '08 Late Harvest Riesling, and '07 Gewurz, but now I have a new favorite in the '08 Gewurz. I LOVE this wine. It is beautiful and flowery with tropical fruit on the palate and just a touch of sweetness. I bought a half case yesterday. Keep your eyes open for this one in your 'hood!

Great rot

This week has been busy with sorting, pressing, and racking Riesling. After sorting out the 'bad' stuff - bunches affected by botrytis, or noble rot - we've then been sorting through that to find the 'best.' The best botrytis bunches are the shriveliest and fuzziest because they have the most concentrated juice and will make the best dessert wine. This is the same sorting process that Peter and I went through for our Gewurz, which I'm happy to say is finally fermenting, a week after inoculation! To get it going, we simply added some already-fermenting 2009 Gewurz to our juice. After no action, we transferred it to a clear bottle, gave it a good shake, and let it sit overnight. Next day, we could see bubbles and knew that fermentation had begun. We are so excited! Now we just have to decide when to stop the fermentation based on alcohol and sugar levels. Stay tuned!

As for Wiemer's 2009 TBA Riesling, there is still more sorting to do.

Nice rack

Winemaking is so glamorous. We pick grapes, sort through them to eliminate rot and other bad stuff, put them into a press that extracts the juice, and then run the juice through hoses and into tanks to settle out and blend before fermentation. Pre-fermentation, racking is the process of running off the good juice from the solids that have settled out. Once the juice is solid-free, it goes back into a tank to be fermented into wine. What I've found is that this process involves a lot of cleaning - cleaning presses, cleaning hoses, cleaning tanks, cleaning buckets, cleaning the floor. Every time we go through this process we clean for the next turn. On an average harvest day we may go through this process 2 or 3 times. Joe was the lucky guy on this day who got to climb into the huge stainless steel tank to clean it. I hope I get the job next time.

One in a thousand

Wiemer is featured in this book! We have this poster displayed behind our tasting bar. I should get commission on sales of this book because I am always telling people that Wiemer is in it and then gushing about what a great travel guide it is. I got it as a gift a couple years ago and started marking off places that I've been, and then when I was planning my trip down under I photocopied all the pages on Australia and New Zealand and took them with me to reference as I traveled. So I guess a goal of mine should be to get to every place in the book... come visit and you can cross one off too!

It snowed through the night too!

But there is definitely something to the lake's moderating effect on temperature. As I got closer to Wiemer from where I live in Dundee, 5 miles west of Seneca lake, the snow was gone.

It snowed today

I have no other words.

Magdalena - what a hottie

Today we picked some Sauvignon Blanc (yes, we have 2 rows - who knew??) from Wiemer's Magdalena vineyard, which is the warmest vineyard site by about 5 degrees. Not that we could tell, because it was only about 40 degrees today. Tomorrow it's not supposed to get out of the 30's and there is snow in the forecast for tomorrow night! Thankfully I got out of work a little early today and was able to go shopping for warm clothes so I'll be ready for picking and sorting in freezing temperatures. Tomorrow I'm hoping to get a dull pair of shears so I can avoid "picking" another finger - my left pinky is still throbbing from today's mishap. Three of us have mistaken fingers for grapes in the last week, but we consider these minor injuries sacrifices to Bacchus, god of wine!

Winemaker-in-Training

I mentioned in an earlier post that Peter and I are making a mini-cuvee of TBA Gewurz. The process is going great so far - after letting the grapes sit on the botrytis skins overnight, we found this old-school basket press that belonged to Hermann and used it to press off the juice. We wrapped the grapes in cheesecloth first to filter out the juice, and then we pressed it twice. We were happy to get about a liter of juice, almost filling this gorgeous magnum bottle. We then let the juice settle out for a few days, and last night we siphoned off the good juice and left behind the murky sludge. This was not an easy task, and we still have some sludge left so we are letting it settle out again today before we ferment the batch. (Btw, the juice tastes amazing, even the sludge, so if it ends up not being crystal clear we are confident the wine will still taste good!) Over the next few days I'll be keeping my eye on the recycling bucket to look out for a couple of 375 mL bottles, since we're going to need them soon. In the meantime we have some tough decisions to make, like how long to ferment, how much sugar and alcohol we want to have leftover in the finished wine, and what to call it!

Happy Columbus Day

I've been delinquent in my posting. It's mainly because Columbus Day weekend is one of the busiest at the winery. Tons of people come to wine taste and see the beautiful fall foliage, which is starting to look really pretty. My family came to visit me, which was awesome! They brought the puppies and we had a blast. I had them try all the wines we have available for tasting and I now know everyone's favorite. Since I worked all weekend I just had a short time with them, but they got to sample the finest wine in the Finger Lakes and the best of Watkins Glen take-out: pizza and Chinese.

The days are starting to blend together a bit as I go from full days in the tasting room to nights on the production line. Temperatures have dropped, and last night on the sorting table it felt like we were sifting through little grape-shaped ice cubes. Tonight we rigged up a 40ft tarp over the presspad so we could sort into the presses without the grapes getting wet from the rain. We had a great system going and went through the batch pretty quickly. Go team! Then we blind tasted a Riesling from Idaho that was surprisingly good. It's going to be intense like this for the rest of October, but at least I know there's a lot of great wine in my past, present, and future. Hope everyone had a nice holiday!

Punching Pinot

Today one of my tasks was to punch the Pinot every few hours. Red wines need skin contact for a certain amount of time because their grape juice is clear - the color and most of the polyphenols (tannins, flavonoids, antioxidants) are in the skins. So Wiemer's 2009 Pinot Noir is in these white bins, fermenting on the skins. It needs to be 'punched,' or pressed down, every few hours to macerate the skins and maximize the contact with the juice. I love this job because the Pinot smells really good, and I like seeing it all bubble and fizz when you punch it!

I heart my job

(Joe, Oskar, me, Maressa, Peter, Alex)
Even though my whole body aches from picking, pressing, standing and bending, and even though I just cannot get the dirt off my hands, I love my job. Today was a great day. We chased the Riesling for several hours and had lunch on the back of a truck overlooking the Magdalena and Josef vineyards with Seneca lake in the background. Even though picking grapes is labor intensive, it is also quite relaxing because you can chat with each other or get lost in your thoughts. Either way there is fresh air and it is a beautiful setting. After picking we sorted the Riesling and the rest of the Gewurz that the Mexicans had picked. Since we machine harvested the Riesling today we had to look out for staples that may have gotten picked off the rows. We also had to be on the lookout for these ginormous caterpillars that are red/pink with white spots. Literally they are bigger than slugs. I actually spotted the only one today and had to remove it from the bunches - it was so gross, let me tell you.

(Alex, the German intern, looking for staples and other non-grape objects)

For the Gewurz we just had to remove the unclean or unripe fruit. Peter had set aside the botrytis-infected Gewurz bunches to make a mini-cuvee (special blend or selection), and he asked me if I wanted in on it. So once we were done cleaning and the grapes were being pressed, he and I sorted through it. We're going to make a TBA dessert wine (TBA is a German abbreviation for trockenbeerenauslese, which is a type of very sweet wine made from grapes that have been affected by noble rot, or botrytis). We're hoping we have enough to make a half bottle for each of us, but that may be ambitious.

Meanwhile, Wiemer is going for employer of the year with a new employee dining area and these silly pins:

Harvest moon

The harvest moon is officially out! Last night it was so bold and bright that you could see moonshadows. What better timing for me to resume my production duties - particularly picking and sorting. I missed a couple days from being in the tasting room all weekend. Today we picked Chardonnay from HJW, the oldest Wiemer vineyard site. I picked for an hour this morning before working the tasting room for the rest of the day, and then I joined the production team this evening to sort the last batch of bunches. It started raining in the middle so we threw a huge tarp over the sorting line and continued under it. It was fun and the rain only lasted a little bit. The juice pressed for a while and we did some blind wine tasting, and now we're waiting to have a dinner that some culinary students are preparing for us at the winery. I can't wait to eat! Tomorrow we'll start picking the Riesling. We're going to be using a machine harvester so I am looking forward to seeing it in action. My job will be to run after it and cut off the bunches that get missed. So psyched!!!

Watkins Glen is Gorges too

Today I had the day off because it is still too wet to pick grapes so I hiked the gorge at Watkins Glen State Park with my fellow intern and housemate, Peter. (Peter owns a vineyard in Argentina and makes Malbec and Tempranillo - more on that later.) I wanted to show him how cool the gorges are, and I'd never been to the ones in Watkins. It was a great hike and luckily it didn't rain on us. I told him next is Ithaca and Taughannock Falls! But that will have to be saved for another day. Now it's naptime before we join the other interns tonight for pizza, beer, and of course, wine tasting.

We can do it!

Best. Poster. Ever.

That's me making a muscle after another full day of labeling, and I'm threatening you to drink local with my big guns. Today it was 10 palates = 560 cases = 6,720 bottles of Wiemer's 2007 Chardonnay. The best part was that the labeler was on its best behavior and we hardly had to fix any labels. Even when we did the labels peeled off much easier than the Riesling ones - YAY. I went on a little field trip today to get more glue for the boxes at the "Mennonite store," which is a farmer supply store. There are a lot of Mennonites here. They look like regular people but they ride around in horse-drawn carriages - for serious. The carriages look like a cross between the horse-and-buggies in Central Park and the pedi-cabs in midtown. I hear one going down my block every morning around 7:30am. I guess the Mennonites are not about being flashy or something. I wonder if those things are heated... or do they not believe in heat either? I'll have to explore this further. Will keep you posted.

Chasing rainbows

I got out of work a little early today since we didn't pick grapes because of the weather. As I was driving I saw the most incredible rainbow! I pulled over to get a better look but this shot was the best I could get. I drove on to see if I could get a better view that included the lake and then I saw 2 rainbows side by side! Amazing - don't think I'd ever seen that before. I was on my way to Anthony Road, a winery on (take a guess?) Anthony Road and Rt 14. We often recommend this one to people who visit Wiemer and want suggestions going north, so I figured I'd take the opportunity to check them out before closing. I wanted to try their '08 Gewurz specifically since I had just had Wiemer's '08 Gewurz. On comparison both of these were really pretty and I'd drink either in a heartbeat. It would be interesting to taste them blind side by side because I noticed many of the same characteristics. If I could just get my hands on another bottle of Wiemer's...

My new weekend hangout

is behind this bar - or at one of our satellite stations further in the winery or outside on the patio. Working the tasting room you meet all kinds of people. A pharmacist helped me decide what to take for my allergies and in return I gave him biotech stock picks (and wine, obvi). I met a guy who rents buildings on the upper west side of Manhattan and I got his card in case I decide to return to that area. Mostly though I just love when people come in either already loving the wine at Wiemer or discovering it for the first time and saying it's the best they've had in the area. I had 2 couples come in and they said they never like the same wines. What one couple liked the other didn't and vice versa. That changed when they tried our 2007 Dry Riesling. Now they can finally share a bottle of something!

Saturday night after hours I had the chance to try the 2008 Gewurztraminer, which hasn't been released yet. What a beautiful wine this was... Most of the '08 releases should begin rolling out in November. The '08 Late Harvest Riesling is already out and people are loving it. It is really luscious and fruity with a nice acidity. Customers over the weekend were buying it by the case!

Tomorrow I'm back in production. Hopefully we'll get a break from the rain so we can do more harvesting :)

Waiting for tonight

The sun is setting over the Finger Lakes and we're waiting for today's second batch of Chardonnay to finish pressing so we can begin sorting the third batch. Meanwhile, I locked my keys in the trunk of my car when I was getting some stuff out for the night and it closed by itself. I can't find the extra set - I have a feeling it's in my computer bag, which is also in the trunk - so I'm also waiting for a locksmith. Oh the joys of being a car owner. At least I have a fun night of winemaking ahead!

First harvest

Today I picked my first grapes! They were Gewurztraminer. Aren't they pretty? Gewurz is cool because it's a white grape but the skins actually get to be a nice pinkish color. I filled 3 bins like this one. After we picked we sorted out the grapes that were affected by rot or victim to birds. I missed pressing because I was doing a tasting at a hotel in Watkins Glen, but when I got back tonight I tried some of the juice and it was delish. Very fruity with great acidity. The lot of us had picked Gewurz from 2 of our vineyard sites, HJW and Magdalena, and you could really taste the differences in the juice - that's terroir for you. What a great start. More to come!

Labels or Love

Why not both? Today I spent most of the day labeling Wiemer's 2008 Semi-Dry Riesling. There's a machine of course, and I was on an assembly line with 2 nice Mexicans (I'm not being derogatory - they are from Mexico, they told me). I practiced my Spanish on them (Como se llama? Me llamo Melanie.) We handled approximately 8 palates = 448 cases = 5,376 bottles! I can't even believe it. Plus the workout - I know a bottle of wine is only a couple pounds but handling over 5 G's of them fairly quickly was a great muscle and cardio workout! I love cheap exercise. 1 bottle did break though - it just clanked into some others and broke right in half! Not my fault, I swear.

Yesterday was officially the first day of the 2009 harvest - the guys picked and pressed some of Wiemer's Pinot Noir grapes to make sparkling wines. I missed this exciting day because I was traveling :( and we didn't pick today because it rained. But I am not super bummed because there is plenty more to pick and do. Like this morning I got to hose out the crusher - those Pinor Noir skins smelled amazing! And I got my shower for the day (kidding).

I am the only woman working in "production." I don't mind of course - it is just interesting to note how few women are in this business aside from in the tasting room. On another note, today I watched 7 men move an 800 kilogram stainless steel tank from outside to inside, and I didn't do much besides hold the sides of it as we were moving it into the warehouse. But, this could be because I came late to the party and tasks were already assigned and/or because I cannot drive a forklift.

The Search for Sauvignon Blanc

Many of you who know me know that I love Sauvignon Blanc. I have even gone as far as saying it is my favorite white. I know that the Finger Lakes is known for Riesling (thanks in large part to Hermann J. himself), and I love the many personalities that grape can take on, but I have to say I am psyched to see that some producers here are making Sauv Blanc. At Ravines I was able to compare their 2007 and 2008 vintages - '07 had some great citrus flavors, but the '08 had more of that grassy herbaceous character that I love (much like the New Zealand style I covet). This week I tried Billsboro Winery's 2008 Sauvignon Blanc, which is their first vintage SB. It actually had many of the qualities similar to the '07 Ravines, with crisp acidity, grapefruit on the palate and a smooth finish. All of these SB's retail for around $17. There are probably over 100 wineries around Seneca lake and there must be a few more Sauv Blancs... the hunt is on!