Riddle me this

Winter at Wiemer winery is a time for catching up on records, monitoring fermentations, and riddling sparkling wine. We pulled out the riddling racks 2 weeks ago and set up to riddle the 3rd disgorging of our 2006 Cuvee Brut, a dry sparkling wine comprised of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. We are experimenting a little with this sparkling wine to see how varying amounts of time on the lees affect the flavors. Aging on the lees tends to impart classic Champagne flavors to a sparkling wine, like brioche and biscuit. The current release of 2006 Cuvee Brut was disgorged in 2009, and it has some really lively, toasty flavors. The process of riddling includes a partial turn of every bottle each day for 3 weeks, with the intent being to force the yeast sediment (the lees) from the second fermentation into the neck of the bottle so it can be removed during disgorgement.

With each turn the line of sediment gradually cleans the inside of the bottle, resulting in a clear wine. After the riddling cycle has been completed, the bottles will be stored completely upside down until it is time for disgorgement. During disgorgement, we'll take the bottles outside in the dead of winter when it is good and cold so that the sediment in the necks freezes. Then we'll open the bottles, the yeast plug will shoot out, and we'll top off, cork, seal, and label the bottles. This should happen sometime in January or February. In the meantime, I'll keep turning.

Top 100 Wine

Wine Spectator has announced its Top 100 most exciting wines of the year, and Hermann J. Wiemer's Dry Riesling Reserve 2008 made the list! 2008 was an exceptional vintage for the Finger Lakes and for us. Our wines have been scored the highest in our history by the major trade publications. We are very proud of this recognition and the wine - we just wish we had more of it! A limited quantity still remains; I'm glad I bought a half-case before we even knew about the award.

Pre-Thanksgiving dinner

Last night at my boyfriend's parents' house we had a decadent pre-Thanksgiving dinner, featuring rack of veal and 2 cellar treasures. Both wines were twenty years old and the corks were a bit soft. So, after they crumbled under the corkscrew we ran the wines through a coffee filter and into a decanter (and vase, as the case was for the second bottle!). I don't know if there is a gizmo out there to filter out disintegrated cork but if not maybe this is an invention waiting to happen. The filtering and decanting exercise was actually great for aerating the wines. Older wines tend to need a little time to open up so this was perfect.

The 1990 Ridge Monte Bello from California was a mix of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Petit Verdot. It was expressive and fruity with a little spice and really smooth oak. The 1989 Lynch-Bages from Bordeaux was more complex and richer, with deeper tobacco and coffee nuances layered over the dark fruit.

Both wines went great with the rack of veal.

Happy pre-Thanksgiving!

Second Harvest

When I hear Second Harvest I think of the Wiemer Nursery, which we harvest in early to mid November after all the grapes have been pressed to tanks and the reds are fermenting in bins. But for wine, some consider the harvesting of botritysed fruit or fruit left on the vine for another reason to be the second harvest. Seneca Lake's Bloomer Creek vineyard, located on the 'other' side of the lake (the east side) makes a dry second harvest wine from botrytised Riesling. Where we would make dessert wine from this fruit, they let it ferment dry instead of stopping the fermentation and leaving the high residual sugar that makes some of the best dessert wines. I tried this wine at Stella's, a bar and restaurant in Cornell's collegetown. It smells typical of a late harvest wine, with apricot, honey, and some botrytis spice. But then on the palate it is dry, with rich flavors that are not quite in balance with the crisp acidity and high alcohol for a Riesling. Interesting - but I think this fruit is better suited to the dessert wines so cherished in Germany, Sauternes, and at Hermann J. Wiemer.

Wiemer vs. old and new - a wine dinner

This week some friends of Wiemer winery hosted a dinner for us featuring our wine. It was meant to be a comparison of old world versus new world for 3 varieties that we make: Riesling, Cabernet Franc, and Pinot Noir. We started with a tank sample of our HJW Single Vineyard Riesling, in the early stages of fermentation. Wine at this stage is called Federweiser in German. It is sweet and effervescent and very exciting at this stage.  With the traditional German onion tart, it was a delightful way to begin the evening.

The food was all delicious, and the pairings were excellent. Now for the wines...

The first course presented our 2005 Riesling next to one from Alsace, France (old world) and one from Oregon (new world).  Hands down, I enjoyed our Riesling the most, with its vibrant acidity and impeccable balance - a great compliment to the smoked rainbow trout. The Alsatian Riesling fell a bit flat, and the Oregon Riesling was a bit too rubbery for me.

The Cabernet Franc comparison was great, with our Reserve standing up quite well to the classic home of Cabernet Franc - Chinon, France. The California Cab Franc was very fruit forward but lacked the complexity of the other two. I'd say we tied with France in this comparison.

The last course was interesting and the results surprised me. Having taken a trip to Oregon a few years ago to explore their Pinot Noir, I had high hopes for the Benton Lane. However, I was taken with the German Spatburgunder (their name for Pinot Noir) from Baden. This was my favorite wine of the evening. Earthy, luxurious, balanced - it was a pleasure to drink. I believe this is the style we are going for with our Pinot Noir, and our 2008 is showing great promise. The Benton Lane tasted over extracted and thin, which was disappointing.

I've always known that I prefer old world wines - they tend to be refined, balanced, comfortable. This exercise reinforced the fact that we are going for this style at Hermann J. Wiemer, and I think we are heading in the right direction.

Thanks again to Ross and Heide for hosting such a delicious and educational dinner!

Cellar Treasures

I thought I didn't like Cabernet Sauvignon until I had a 22-year old one from Caymus Vineyards in Califonia that was as smooth as silk. I thought Merlot was a simple, fruity, easy-drinking wine for burgers until I had an old one from Washington that was so complex I thought it was Bordeaux. I thought Bordeaux blends had no comparison until I had the 1989 Ridge Monte Bello from California (Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Petit Verdot).

So, I guess what I've learned is that for me, Cabernet Sauvignon should be at least legal before I drink it; well-made wines may be even more rewarding/exciting/complex if you wait a decade or two to drink them; and finally, try anything, because you never know what you may like (or love!).

Machine harvesting do's and don't's

DO follow behind and pick up what gets missed - the machine is not perfect and every little grape helps

DON'T follow too close behind or you'll miss the fall foliage and the fresh air in the vineyard

DON'T let the picked grapes sit too long after harvesting - their close contact with the leaves and stems can impart an unwanted 'steminess' to the juice

DO sort quickly, removing as many leaves and stems as possible, as well as any other M.O.G. (Material Other than Grapes)

DO run the grapes through the Crusher/De-stemmer to further eliminate M.O.G.

Finally, DON'T machine harvest unless you are under time pressure! Hand-picking is usually best.

Harvest mascots

Since I've been working at a winery I am now very much at home with nature. Snake in the vineyard - big deal. Bugs and worms on the sorting table - no problem. Recently there have been some cute animals wandering into the winery.

First day of harvest - this guy jumped in:

The frog eventually hopped out when he saw how busy we were bringing in the first juice of the harvest.

And the other day, this pretty lady flew in:

Sarah, our intern from Germany, caught this Hummingbird and set it free.

Gewurz me

Last week we harvested the first block of Gewurztraminer from our Josef vineyard up in Dresden, NY.  For the first picking of Gewurztraminer we focus on capturing crisp, natural acidity in the grapes. Usually 2 weeks later we will harvest the rest, giving it time to develop more rich, ripe flavors and higher natural sugar content.

The Magdalena block will hang another week or so before we harvest it:

Gewurz grapes are my favorite wine grapes to eat, so I don't mind the fact that the sorting takes a long time. I eat my way through it. Sometimes you just have to sample the grapes to make sure the bunch is good enough to go into the press. If it's underripe, we reject it. Good grapes in, good wine out.

Do you remember?

Just as harvest was beginning we went back to bottling - just the wine for sparkling was left for this bottling cycle.  We had added the sugar back in August (remember this is a crucial step in sparkling winemaking because the yeast need something to eat in order for the second bubble-producing fermentation to occur) and were waiting for the yeast. Once we added the yeast, we inoculated by adding a bit of wine to the right amount of yeast to get things going. We let it sit overnight and then for another full day before we added it to the tank and mixed it into the wine. Then we were ready to bottle - first the Chardonnay for Blanc de Blanc, and then the Pinot Noir for Brut Rose. This time bottling was a little different since instead of using corks we use metal caps. This closure ensures a tight seal so the wine can undergo the second fermentation in the bottle without losing any of the carbon dioxide (or exploding/leaking). A team of 5 of us carefully ran the bottles through the line and the capper, and then arranged the bottles in horizontal stacks in wooden bins. The bottles will stay like this for about 2 and a half years. The actual fermentation will only take a couple of weeks, but then the wine will sit on the dead yeast cells, or lees, for an extended period of time. (In French this position is called en tirage.) The contact with the lees actually contributes to the classic Champagne-like flavors that are so desired in a sparkling wine - toasty, biscuity, brioche characteristics.

The Chardonnay Blanc de Blanc is in the classic green Champagne bottle:

The Pinot Noir Brut Rose looks so pretty in its clear bottle:

Dancing in September

 
It's the most wonderful time of the year - not Christmas - Harvest! 3 weeks earlier than last year, we started picking. First up was the Chardonnay for sparkling wine. We usually do this first to capture the natural acidity that is so necessary for wine that is meant to sparkle. Because of the warm spring and summer we had to start before Labor Day. Starting Friday and throughout the Labor Day weekend we picked from an old section of the HJW vineyard that hadn't bore fruit since 2003. We got about 7 tons in total from those vines! I spent the first day preparing for the grapes by getting the presses cleaned and ready. We weren't totally prepared since we'd just come off 3 weeks of bottling. So it was a bit of a triathlon to get everything ready for harvest. We had a very productive (if long) weekend but I didn't mind because I am so excited for harvest! Stay tuned for more as we gradually start bringing in the 2010 vintage.

Bottling - what a workout

Who needs a gym? Lifting, lunges, squats and cardio - you can get it all on the bottling line. The last few weeks we have been furiously bottling the 2009 white wines at Wiemer to free up tank space for the fast-approaching 2010 harvest. I'm at the beginning of the line, putting the bottles on and controlling the flow of the wine. Sounds easy enough, right? The challenge is keeping up with the line while monitoring fill heights and making sure everything runs smoothly - the spouts, the corker, the conveyor belt, and of course, the bottles. There's a lot of back and forth and eyes darting. My favorite part is when I breeze by the part of the line where the bottles have just been filled and are about to be corked, because at that point you can get a whiff of the wine and it smells so good! But I always hope I don't have to take a bottle off around this stage because after putting on so many empty bottles a full one feels like it weighs 10 pounds.

On a full day of bottling we can fill over 10,000 bottles. You can't get this kind of workout anywhere else. I'm ready for a nap now.

Getting Tanked

One of my favorite things to do at Wiemer is to get inside the tanks to clean them. We've been doing that a lot lately, since we're preparing to bottle the wine. The technique for getting into a tank varies from person to person (mostly because of our varying heights), but I tend to dive in head first and come out feet first. Here are some pics of me getting ready to clean a tank.

Made in Vermont

Hermann J. Wiemer Vineyard is going to be featured in the Hubbardton Forge spring catalog! Hubbardton Forge is a light fixture company in Vermont. Their stuff is really classy and unique. They chose our winery as a set for featuring their new line of fixtures, so last week they installed new lights in our winery. This week they'll take photographs for the layout, which will appear in their March 2011 catalog.

It was really cool to see the guys installing the lights in our huge, scissor-trussed barn:

And the result is tons more light and a world-class design:

Wines from Alsace

Over the past few weeks I've tried some interesting wines from Alsace. They have a similar wine-growing climate to us and are known for Riesling and Gewurztraminer, so it is interesting to compare the wines.

This is a super high-end Riesling that retails for around $240:

It had a petrol nose that opened up to floral and stone fruit. Crisp acidity mingled with a smoothness on the palate as it sat in the glass.  Alsatian Riesling is generally more dry than in Germany, and this too was a very dry style.  This 2002 is their current release, so it has already been aged and now could be aged another 30 years.


We also tried a couple of Gewurztraminers next to Wiemer's 2002...

The 2007 Emile Beyer was surprisingly similar in taste to our '02 - with a mellowed creaminess balanced by the still-refreshing acidity. The 2000 Domaine Zind Humbrecht was viscous and sweet, the sweetest Gewurz I've ever tasted. That winery is the gold standard in Gewurz, so it was cool to try it, but I preferred the crispness of the Emile Beyer and ours.

Barrel Fever

This week we moved the 2009 reds out of barrels so we could get them off their fermentation lees and start blending the Field Cuvee and the different parcels of Pinot Noir and Cabernet Franc.

Moving wine from barrels is much more logistically complicated than moving wine from a tank. The barrels are each 60 gallons. We pumped them into holding tanks one by one; Cab Franc in one tank, Pinot in one, the elements of Field Cuvee blended together in another. We let the wine stay in the tanks overnight to settle out. Meanwhile, we cleaned the barrels and arranged them for re-filling.

Barrels are heavy even when empty so there is some strategy involved in moving them around. Cleaning barrels is the fun part but it can get really tiring after a while. It is important to clean them well since the wood is porous and exposed to the elements. To clean them we fill them with some water and then roll them back and forth in a swift motion, creating a wave action inside that agitates any solids and splashes the whole area. We do 3 rinses: cold - hot/steam - cold. After they're rinsed we dry them out overnight and fill them the next day.

I cleaned 34 barrels in 2 days, 17 per day! The third day we set and filled the rest. And on the fourth day I rested.

Sugar Rush

We've been preparing to bottle our 2009 wine designated for sparkling. We're making a Blanc de Blanc (from Chardonnay) and a Cuvee Brut Rose (from Pinot Noir). We've filtered the base wine and last week we added the sugar, moving the wine from one tank to another and mixing the sugar continuously so it dissolved. This was fun :) Next we have to add yeast to the base wine to kickstart the second fermentation, which will convert the added sugar to alcohol and carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide will be trapped in the bottle, and this is what makes the wine bubble. We'll also add riddling agents to help the yeast coagulate once they have finished their task.

Sugar: check
Yeast: on deck
Riddling agents: on deck

Child of the 80's

Yesterday a customer called and said he had a bottle of Hermann J. Wiemer's 1987 Bunch Select Late Harvest Riesling (this is our TBA style dessert wine where we hand select every single botrytised berry) and he wanted to come to the tasting room and share it with us. We were so excited! Steve arrived with two bottles and we opened one. The cork was in great shape and the wine was a gorgeous golden color. It smelled like apricot with a touch of gasoline - very pleasant for those who love the smell of pumping gas, like me. It was a touch oxidized on the palate and tasted very Sherry-like, with a creamy nuttiness and a bit of stone fruit pitiness. Very interesting. It wasn't as sweet as I expected it to be, despite the 9.8% residual sugar. Perhaps that had something to do with the oxidation. The label was one we hadn't seen before from the Wiemer collection. I personally had never seen such an old bottle of Hermann's! This was a great way to end the week. Thank you again, Steve!

When you're quite finished!

Last week we finally called it quits on our last 2 fermenting tanks. 2 tanks of Riesling were still going, after 9 months of fermentation! We like to let the wines ferment as they will, so usually in the winter they'll slow down or stop, but instead of adding yeast to get them going again we'll just wait - and then without fail they'll kick up again in the spring. Maybe it's the spring moon or just the rising temperatures, but either way things kick up. So after putting together our various Rieslings from all the different tanks we decided these last 2 were ready to stop. Now they've joined their friends in going through cold stabilization. Which I have to say is like natural air conditioning for the winery in these hot temperatures.

Blend, baby, Blend

This week we released a new wine: Field Cuvee 2007. This is a red blend that until now used to be called Estate Red.  Field Cuvee 2007 is dominated by Cabernet Franc and Merlot, followed by Lemberger, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Pinot Noir. Hermann originally planted some of these varieties for the nursery business to provide bud material for grafting. We vinify Cab Franc and Pinot Noir as single varietals. Depending on the vintage we'll also do a Merlot. But we'll always have a blend with these 5 grapes, and from now on it will be known as Field Cuvee. It's a medium-bodied red with a lot of bright fruit that is easy to drink and will go well with many foods from BBQ to pizza.

The Cuvee line of wines is our blended line, with a different label to distinguish it from the rest of our wines - which are single varietals that are named on the label. It was first unveiled last summer with Frost Cuvee 2008, a white blend of Riesling, Gewurztraminer, and Chardonnay.

Blends are nice because they can bring out the best of each variety. If you can't decide on one grape, blend, baby, blend!

Unrelated: Apparently John Travolta has bought a house on Keuka Lake, which is west of Seneca. I've called dibs on his tasting if he comes to the winery!

Gewurztrameeter

Over the weekend we hosted a great event at Hermann J. Wiemer Vineyard featuring tank/barrel samples and a live jazz band. We focused on Riesling, Gewurztraminer, and Cabernet Franc - the 3 top varietals of the Finger Lakes. We offered 3 vintages of each, including the current 2009 release still in tanks/barrels. I hosted the Gewurz table, where I poured the 2006 and 2008 vintages plus a tank sample of the 2009 vintage, just filtered on Friday. I first had the 2006 Gewurztraminer in February when I brought a bottle down to Argentina and loved it. The 2008 Gewurz is one of my current favorites. And the 2009 Gewurz is going to be great - it's got a lot of concentration. These wines paired great with Chef Michael Murphy's spicy shrimp and his tarragon and mustard seed chicken salad.

Here's what one fan and fellow blogger had to say about the event:
http://www.livelifeeatright.com/2010/06/27/let-there-be-riesling/

Pictures to come!

Who's your Pinot?

The other night after a long day of work we did a Hermann J. Wiemer Pinot Noir flight that was really interesting - 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, and barrel sample 2009. The 2009 barrels are tasting very complex and interesting; they won't be blended and bottled for some time still. The 2008 has been bottled but it isn't released yet; the flavor is really intense and it's going to be a good one. (2008 was just a great vintage all around for us). 2007 is the current release that is out now, and it overflows with bright cherry and spice - actually very similar to the 2008. 2006 was a cold, wet year so this Pinot is very light with some muted cherry and a bit of earthiness. 2004 was fantastic - very smooth with velvety tannin and a lot of beet and blackberry - very different from the others.

We had an event at the winery over the weekend and Fred brought out some of the 2004 Pinot Noir - it was a huge hit. There are still a few more bottles left at $30 each...

So hot right now

Can the FLX get any better? The west side of Seneca Lake, with its many wineries dotting Route 14, now has its very own WIENERY, and it is just 5 minutes from HJW! I could not be more excited.

I have been driving by this property for a week waiting for the "Coming Soon" sign to read "Now Open" and today was the day. They serve 6 different types of hot dogs, including 2 varieties of Hofmann's from Syracuse. I got a Hofmann's White with a side of honey baked beans (which I then put on the dog) and it was delicious - salty, sweet, and a little spicy. They also have root beer on tap and Hershey's ice cream. This is going to be bad, having this wienery so close to the winery, and on my way home from work too...

Filter this

Last week at HJW we started filtering! This was very exciting. Filtering is one of the last steps before bottling. Essentially, in the simplest terms, the winemaking process goes like this: pick the grapes, press the juice, rack (transfer) the juice off the solids, ferment the grape juice (thereby converting the sugar to alcohol by action of yeast), rack off the fermentation lees and tartrates, cold stabilize (lower the temperature of the tank to about 35 degrees F) to further precipitate out any tartrates, filter, blend and bottle. So filtering is a big step. We use a very fine (0.2 micron) cross-flow filter:

We started on Wednesday and in 3 days we filtered the components of Frost Cuvee (our white blend), a couple of tanks of Riesling, and Gewurztraminer. We still have a lot of tanks to go, but it's very exciting because once the wine is filtered we will make final blending decisions and then bottle it.

Hey Mr. Postman, look and see...

Finally we finished putting the posts in the second new vineyard plot at HJW! This plot, like the first one, is all Riesling. Just north of the winery you can see this new vineyard along Route 14.

But there was more... a small section in the Magdalena vineyard. This was a quickie - only took a day and a half. Here we have Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Cabernet Franc.  All our reds are planted on the Magdalena site since it is the warmest. We have Chardonnay at HJW and Magdalena.

The plants look great and are all tied and contained. In 3 years we'll be able to make wine from these sections. Wine from young vines can be very interesting and great - in fact, I recently learned that our Reserve Cabernet Franc 2007 came from a section of the Magdalena vineyard site that was planted in 2004, and you can taste the difference from our regular Cab Franc that was planted in the late 90's. The Reserve Cab Franc is very complex and rewarding, with smooth tannin and flavors that will definitely age well in the bottle.

Speaking of vineyard plots, we're continuing to move wines from the 2009 vintage that have finished their fermentations and making blending decisions. Since we vinify vineyard plots separately, around this time of year its time to decide how to blend the final wine. We base this on the varying flavors, sweetness, and acidity of the different tanks. Fred, our winemaker, is a master blender. In France he would be called a Chef du Caves. It is fun to taste the different components of a blend and then the way they come together.

Last week we worked on the Semi-Dry Riesling. This is one of our top sellers - we'll make about 3000 cases of it. We're also getting the Chardonnay cuvee ready to become sparkling blanc de blanc - which literally means white of white but refers to sparkling wine made from white grapes.  So, we moved the Chard cuvee from barrels to tank for cold stabilization, which helps with tartrate precipitation. Then we'll filter it and bottle it for the second fermentation, which will make the still wine sparkle.

Btw, I've been getting into stainless steel tanks to clean them and it is pretty fun. When I was a kid growing up with 3 siblings I fashioned a solitary space underneath an end table in our living room and hung out there with my books and toys. I find a similar comfort inside a stainless steel tank. Except instead of books and toys there are tartrate crystals, fermentation lees, and a lot of water :)

Nursery Rhymes

Just as temperatures spiked to 80 degrees in the FLX it was time to get the grafted plants into the Hermann J. Wiemer Nursery, aka the ground. After grafting and waxing into spring, we packed the plants in boxes with peat moss and sand and kept them in a warmed room for two weeks so they could develop a callous around the graft, thus protecting it. While they were warming up in this phase we would brush the sand on top to fill in any holes to keep the plants packed in tightly. I called this the Zen Garden because brushing the sand was very soothing. During the second week they started sprouting some greenery, and then it was time to get them into the real world.

We carefully unpacked the plants, checked the callouses to make sure they were sound, re-dipped the tops in wax, and re-packed them in large bins for transport up to the nursery about 15 miles north of the winery. With a crew of 10-12 people, we got 100,000 plants in the ground by hand in 3 days: 2 people unpacked the plants into hand-held picking boxes; 1 person drove the tractor, which pulled a 6-seater trailer; 2-4 additional people followed behind filling in the spaces that were missed.

It was sunny and hot and essentially backbreaking, but what an accomplishment! The babies are doing well and they'll stay in the ground until November, when we'll harvest them and get them ready for shipping across the country to vineyards in need. (I did the harvesting part last November, so now I've gone backwards to the beginning).

Meanwhile, we still have some 1 year plants that are ready for planting if you'd like to have your own backyard vineyard. On our patio outside the tasting room you'll see potted plants of varieties including Riesling, Gewurztraminer, Chardonnay, Gruner Veltliner, Viognier, Pinot Noir, and Cabernet Sauvignon.

Wine Bloggers Unite!

TasteCamp EAST 2010 was held last weekend in the Finger Lakes. TasteCamp is a regional wine event aimed at getting enthusiastic journalists and bloggers together in a region that is new to them to taste as much wine as possible and speak to as many winemakers as possible over the course of a weekend. It had its inaugural weekend last year in Long Island, and this year they hit the Finger Lakes.

We hosted a group of 36 at Hermann J. Wiemer on Saturday, and Fred Merwarth, our winemaker, focused our tasting on the evolution of our vineyard sites and how we make blending and bottling decisions. We started off with our 2008 Frost Cuvee, a blended wine of Riesling and Gewurztraminer accented by our cuvee of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir - a second pressing from grapes originally designated for sparkling wine, where we only use the first press juice (sparkling wines are very delicate so you only use the first pressings, whereas with other still wines there may be 2 or 3 pressings total). Then we poured the '08 Dry Riesling and the '08 Gewurztraminer to illustrate examples of wines that are blended from different pickings. Next was the Reserve flight - the '08 Dry Riesling Reserve, a blend of the best tanks in the winery, and the '03 Dry Riesling Reserve, which was 100% fruit from the HJW site, Hermann's original planting and a very slatey site. After that we poured the 2008 single vineyard bottlings: Dry Riesling HJW Vineyard and Dry Riesling Magdalena Vineyard. We finished with tank samples of these single vineyards from the 2009 vintage, still fermenting.

It was a great event, but obviously I'm biased. Here's what some of the bloggers had to say:

New York Cork Report: http://www.lenndevours.com/2010/05/when-a-winemaker-asks-if-you--need-to-be-anywhere-the-answer-should-probably-be-no-when-that-winemaker-is--fred-m.html

The Wine Case: http://winecase.ca/2010/05/09/tastecamp-day-2-quick-notes-from-seneca-lake/

Wine Lover's Journal: http://www.examiner.com/x-17620-Manhattan-Wine-Examiner~y2010m5d11-Hermann-J-Wiemer-German-precision-gives-rise-to-fine-wine-in-the-Finger-Lakes

Going Postal

For the last couple of weeks we have been putting posts in the 2 new vineyard plots of Riesling that were planted last Spring on the HJW site at Hermann J. Wiemer Vineyard. This task requires a good eye and a bit of upper body strength, since this site is very slatey and we have encountered many rocky interruptions. Sometimes there's a bit of rock just where you want to put the post, and the post either has to be jammed hard enough to break it or the rock has to be dug out. (Last week one of the guys dug out a rock about the size of a small child. Maressa took it home to put in her garden.) The posts have to be in line with the plants, the end posts, and each other. Usually 4 of us are working together to make this happen. It's been pretty windy lately, so we've had to do some correcting along the way since the posts are not completely set until they are pounded into the ground via tractor machinery. While it is difficult to get them all exactly perfect, we are still obsessively trying (I've even been dreaming about posts lined up nice and straight), and I'm pleased to say we have completed 1 of the 2 sites and it looks pretty darn good. Next step there is to finish stringing the wires and getting the plants tied so they don't grow all over the place as they would like to do.

This week we hope to finish the posts in the second site. After the past weekend's gusty winds I am afraid to see what has become of our work so far, but I am trying to be optimistic :)

Pink Pinot

We had a nice summer-like spell here in the FLX about a week ago and it reminded me that people like to drink pink when it gets warmer. I enjoyed a bottle of Wiemer's Pinot Noir Rose from 2006. This is a Pinot lover's pink wine - a rosey nose with bright strawberry fruit and nice body. I had it with pizza and again with broiled salmon and it paired well both times. At $11.50/btl it's a serious steal.

Updates on my favorite Argentine wine - Los Vencejos

The Los Vencejos Aleteo 2006 is now available! This Reserve Tempranillo from Argentina spent 2 years in barrel and 2 years in bottle before release. I blogged/raved about it in February when I tried it. It's $22/btl and available at www.losvencejos.com.

Also, the delicious Los Vencejos Malbec 2007 is on sale for $18/btl. Remember this one got 90 points from Wine Spectator. A steal now and definitely one for the table and the cellar. Salud!

That girl is poison

Well last week we had bud break, a bit earlier than expected and a bit unnerving since the threat of frost in the FLX still looms. But still, it is exciting since it means that soon we will have new growth. We're preparing the vineyards for flowering, and lucky me, I took home a little poison ivy as a souvenir. Since at Wiemer we don't use herbicides it can get a little wild out there, but I didn't think anything was really sprouting yet since nothing is green. Silly me - the poison ivy is red; I should have noticed it. Oh well - now I know. It's not so bad, just on my forearms since the rest of me was pretty covered and I was wearing gloves. I saw a snake too, but I'm way over that already.