Gryphon Wines Harvest 2007

By Zabie Johnston (aka Marie)

My husband, Jonathan, is a busy man. He drives all over the state for wine and CFL's (Compact Florescent Bulbs). He picks fruit and then puts up jams and jellies (last Sunday it was Quince from our Larklinn vineyard property), he even tends our vegetable garden which is still producing tomatoes - in November!

Just this last Wednesday Jonathan left at the crack of dawn for Philo (where Larklinn vineyard is) to check on the fermenting progress of this years harvest. Upon his return, I begged Jonathan to jot down a few notes so I could post them on Niglo's blog - as Niglo's been pretty busy himself (he's in France at the moment doing research for a 'Great Truffle Hunt' we are planning for early February - more on that later) so he wasn't able to go with Jonathan on this trip, or the harvest for that matter. But, here you have it, harvest notes and some really wonderful photos taken by my busy husband.

Enjoy!

This is a photo from the vineyard crest - if you look carefully, you can see yellow headlights in the mist: the pickers arriving!

October 6
Stephen and I rose in the almost dark and looked out to where we knew the vines waited. I had slept in the old trailer and he had chosen an air mattress and sleeping bag outside. High above, a crescent moon and Venus still shown in a starless sky.

Harvest began at first light as frost crunched under foot and a cold mist rose from the frozen ground . It would be a clear sunny day and the race was on to bring the the grapes in still naturally cold. The crew raced up and down the rows and by 10:30 am the bins were full… of perfect fruit. We immediately drove the bins to the de-stemmer
and by noon the grapes were cold soaking in a tank at 50 F. The color of the free run juice already gave a hint of the rich robe this vintage will have. Now it would rest while we waited for the native yeasts to began to work. This would take many days.

As small as this harvest was, I’m grateful for another year of fabulous quality grapes. Stephen, our Supreme Optimist and Kiwi 'Seer', gave the grapes 100 points!










October 13
Today the wine has begun to actively ferment. The sugars are still high but the color has come out of the skins and it is time for the cold soak to end. We all took turns punching down the grapes and tasting the juice… it was delicious!




(This is me, tasting the juice on day 7 of fementation - Yumm... it was a mouthful of berries, an explosion of flavor that was sweet but not cloying with a lingering taste: great promise of good things to come)




November 7
I've just returned from a visit to the vineyard and it looks beautiful. The vines are dropping their leaves for the winter and the fields are green with the first rains. Thirty ducks were swimming on the lake and fish were jumping.

In the winery, the Pinot Noir 2007 is now in barrel quietly going through malolactic fermentation . The color is deep and vibrant showing the promise of an intensity that is really exciting. The alcohol in this vintage will be naturally moderate and when this is matched by great color and body the wine can be truly exceptional. We've got something special to look forward to.

Why I hate Paté

I know there is a is a cult of Paté lovers out there: Paté of Foi Gras, Paté of Canard, Paté de Campagne... Cook books are devoted to the stuff - how to make it, what to drink with it, what to eat with it... The finest restaurants have Charcuterie plates featuring Patés... HA! To me, it's all just glorified meatloaf!

I have watched Paté being made in a multitude of kitchens. Line the terrine with belly fat, grind the ofals and meat, season the mixture, layer it with what ever the region calls for: a tender duck liver, a black truffle, a hard boiled egg - bake it in the oven and Voila! A slice of heaven. No, nope, not for me... where's the ketchup?

Pate is something I will never understand. It's right up there with Corned Beef Hash... something people make to deal with what no normal person would ever eat in their true form (or in their right mind) I don't care how perfectly poached the eggs are, or how tiny the cornichons. I like cornichons and I like poached eggs; I also really like Foi Gras just not served all ground up, mixed with other stuff and loaf shaped.

Sometimes our culinary likes and dislikes are built upon childhood experiences. My mother had a tendency to overcook vegetables, as a result, I like them al dente. We all know someone who eats only beige food, no vegetables at all, or nothing spicy. I feel sorry for those people.

Back in the day when I went to a French boarding school with priests and nuns who wore the traditional black and white habit, dinner would frequently be paté served with a little green salad and water mixed with local red wine, cornichons and spicy mustard. To me it tasted the way canned dog food smells. Yuck. Mind you, this is the same school where we were served, coincidentally of course, creamed spinach when ever the lawn was mowed. No,I don't like creamed spinach either. I think those saintly nuns made the paté out of all the left over meats from the week, and then compensated by serving a delicate little apple tarte for desert. I love apple tarte.

Go ahead. Eat all the paté you want. I'll never object. Perhaps you may convince me to taste (in the hopes of getting me 'on board' with people I respect and admire) but never, ever, for a moment imagine that I will fall under the spell of some Paté en Croute. I am doomed to be Paté Philistine. So be it.

Children of the Corn

Stopped by Earth Bound Farms in Carmel Valley on Sunday afternoon. Sarah Lacasse is the chef there; she let me know that it was the first day to walk this season's Corn Maze and i could grab a bite of lunch too. How could i resist? Apparently a lot of others couldn't resist the Corn Craze call either, the Farm Stand was packed!

While waiting for lunch i ran into a few folks that I know: Todd West from Inertia Bev. and Jonathan O'Bergin from Gryphon Wines were hanging out discussing the benefits of cooking corn in the husk, on the grill vs boiling it. It was a lively discussion between bites of grilled organic burger (with yellow Heirlom tomato slices) and calico corn slathered with butter and chili powder.



Fortified by lunch i decided to brave the maze; 8' high, inpen-etrable and missing the escape hatches one would find at season's end. There were a lot of small children in the corn, running around, loving being lost. To my dismay, short cuts through the corn were not only discouraged but severely punished: banishment. To be banished by Farmer Mark (Marino) would be a tragedy of epicurian proportions.

Plunging into the thicket of cob laden corn, i promptly got lost. After wandering for some time down what turned out to be a dead end, I came across Marie Johnston who had been abandoned by her daughter, Davis, in the midst of the maze and had been wandering for some time. We joined forces. Using my Eagle Scout skills to lead the way, we eventually found our way out. It was a fun afternoon. FYI: The Corn Maze is open through Halloween.



One doesn't need the excuse of an event to enjoy the pleasures of the Farm Stand. Sarah serves lunch daily, the herb garden is beautiful. Why, the whole setting is gorgeous - surrounded by fields of flowers, fruits and vegetables. Plus, you can take it home - prepared meals, flowers, corn, heirloom tomatoes. The folks who live in Carmel Valley are very fortunate to have Earth Bound Farms in their back yard. For those of us who don't live there, we need to make the effort to visit more often so we can remember how life felt when things were simpler and every community had it's own 'farm stand'.

Food, Travel and Song

Bonjour. My name is Niglo Flunch. When the lovely folks at Smashed Flat Wines asked me to author their Blog I was, naturally, flattered yet hesitant - at first. Then, after spending some time exploring other Blogs it became very clear to me that this method of communication is the ultimate social networking machine... and I love to network socially.... which is why I travel the world looking for new food, wine and music adventures.

I met Marie and her fun family at a cafe in Tours a few years back. They were on their way to Switzerland with no map. No map! What a way to travel! They seemed to be having a lot of fun. Used to be that all travelers ventured out without maps - there were no maps and waters were uncharted. Yet people left the comfort of their homes for parts unknown to explore, see what was out there and in doing so, discovered wines and foods they had never tasted, much less seen, before. Lucky us! They brought these treasures home. Thanks to people like Marco Polo the Italians have pasta now enjoyed the world over. Spaniards found tomatoes in the New world and brought them back to grow in the Mediteranian regions as early as 1560. Potatoes were brought to Europe in the 1400s from the Andes. Yes, that was a long time ago... but what about Sushi? This is a fairly recent western discovery long enjoyed by the Japanese - the infamous California Roll came to being in the early 1970s - food historians credit Ichiro Mashita, sushi chef at the Tokyo Kaikan in Los Angeles with inventing the roll... And what about wine? The earliest evidence of wine production is about 6000 BC in Iran! Iran? Wow! you've come a long way Baby!

We don't much get the 'travel with no maps' opportunity these days, but it seems to me, in this brave new world of Blogging, that time has come again. We can share so much with so many, and we don't have to suffer the indignity of not bathing for months to bring a wonderful discovery into the homes of friends. Very cool.