Santa Barbara Winemakers.
September to October 2007 Edition.

Featured video.


Harvest in Condrieu from our Foreign Office.
Crush in Condrieu from our Foreign Office. Posted 19 Sept. 2007 featuring the first glimpse of the 2007 Saint Joseph.
More Crush from our Foreign Office. Posted 24 Sept. 2007
Condrieu We continue the saga in France. Sonny is showing us how it is, learning a lot from the Cuilleron camp and still sending great footage. Posted on October 3 2007.
Morning in the cellar Part I . These videos are starting to remind me of the movie Das Boot. Sonny has gone from fresh berry on the vine to a macerated pulp. True commitment is not for the feint of heart. Posted October 15, 2007
Morning in the cellar Part II . Posted October 28, 2007


Something a little different this month. For all you Hospice fans out there, we have something too exclusive to keep to ourselves. Sonny Courtney is Joey Tensley's cellar rat, who found his way into the Condrieu this year with the plan to hook up with Yves Cuilleron. Being such a huge fan of this website he decided to send some exclusive footage of the weeks leading up to harvest with some peeks into the vineyards, tastings at Guigal, and tours around the area. He has a very unique take on all of his experiences there and the footage included on the homepage this month is one of many that will be posted up as and when they are posted to us here. We chose to keep the footage raw as Sonny is using his cell phone video. Sonny also has a weblog with photos and commentary on these pages . Drop him a line and let him know what you think of his journey.



October 26
This has been a strange month of weather changes that have sent a lot of vineyards through a loop. Last week the temps dropped, the vines started to shut down giving many the opinion that this was the end of harvest and pick continued when the syrah was hovering around 23, chilly mornings and cool days looked certain for the rest of the season. Reports of smaller yields, winemakers resigned themselves to lower alcohol and lower yields. Then the Santa Ana winds whipped up, causing a lot of devastation elsewhere in California. There was a new fire in the valley and plants started to dry up, then the temps went back into the 90's. Today, it cooled off again and still I'm watching trucks carrying fruit.
The heat spikes in early September brought the Burgundies in and having seen some of the racked off pinots so far they are going to be big and inky, with a nice tempered balance. 2 months later the harvest continues with the Rhones and Bordeaux awaiting full attention.
Granted, on the whole a smaller yield all round but the quality looks set to have a lot of winemakers declaring a potentially great harvest.
I have seen black seeds in viognier coming in at 23, immaculate sangiovese with flawless clusters on every vine, syrah producing inky black juice after 3 days of soaking and pinot clusters the size of sparrows with tiny berries, suvignon blanc being picked at 22 and soon the mourvedre and grenache will be ready and anticipate them being around 26 to 27.

October 13

This year has been a strange one as far as the weather and growth is concerned. The effect on the vines has been recorded by some as excellent, with exceptional yields. Others are saying that their yields are lower than normal but higher quality. Depends on the varietal, the management methods etc. One thing has been agreed upon: this is not a mediocre year. We are now 6 weeks into harvest. Think about that for a moment, you are making a riesling, a chardonnay, a pinot noir, a sauvignon blanc, a sangiovese, a syrah and have now got all them in tanks and you are still waiting for the rest of the syrah, some cab franc, grenache, mourvedre and possibly some cab. How do you measure eight weeks of a steady flow of juice and fruit?
Everyone I have talked to has been mellow, laid back but focussed, can be found wide awake at 7am and 11pm every day during this harvest so far.

October 4
Tasting notes are on their way this week, the heads up include a Daniel Gehrs port, Dave Corey's Mr. Mourved, some of Joey Tensley's Carina label and a possible surprise syrah from a reknowned pinot producer.
Stay tuned.

October 3

The harvest in the valley has begun in earnest. A majority of the whites are now mostly in, the pinots are about 90% home, but the Rhones are still on the vine. There was talk about low alcohol in the wines this year due to a sporadic change in climate over the past 4 weeks, highs of 120f to lows in the day down to 60f, rain, thunder kicked in during mid-September and then the sugars hung around 21.

The best berries I have tasted so far has got to be the Beckmen sauvignon blanc. If there are any winemakers using this fruit worth their salt, we could be looking at some killer juice. The Beckmen vineyard at Purisima Mountain is now coming of age and if we get to see some steel only no oak (minimal at best) on the sauv blanc, this will be an excellent vintage. In fact Beckmen's own '06 sauv blanc was one of my top 3 this year (behind Gary Burke and Mike Carhartt both using Faith Vineyard sauv blanc)

September 2
The day time high today reached 120f, yesterday hovered around 108f. Plants basically shut down, so too did most wine tasters I came across seeking a/c shelter.

Harvest is slowly starting, some pinot gris are being picked. I noticed bins being brought over to Tierra Alta, more than likely viognier is getting close.

September 1
August turned out to be a busy month. Too busy to update the site. The fire that started off Foxen Canyon on July 4th and eventually took down 250,000+ acres and caused a lot of lost business to the wineries is now pretty much over, so all you wine fans the gates are back open again.
I happened to be at the Tres Hermanas Winery that morning and got some of the first shots of the fire as it started, little did I know that a month later and 25 miles from the start of the blaze I would find myself evacuating and moving from the top of the 154 and into the Valley. The month of August turned into something like a scene from "Of Mice and Men".
I did manage to get to drink some good juice, not enough but in the next few days they will be mentioned.

Cheers


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