June update

Old Friends, New Winemaker
We are excited to announce that Chris Nelson, an old friend and
colleague, will be joining the Wineworks team as an on site consultant
for the 2012 winemaking season. Chris has been the winemaker behind a
number of premium boutique wine brands over the past few years and has
received high praises from the wine media including recent scores of
91-93 from James Suckling (not that any of us pay attention to scores
;-). While Chris is known for his work with Pinot Noir, he has a wide
range of experience working with all of the grape variatals that we
source here at Wineworks. Chris will be involved in monitoring
vineyards through the growing season, production plans and harvest
activities. In addition to the skills that Chris brings with him on the
winemaking side he also makes a mean pulled pork BBQ that hits the spot
during the long days of harvest. We are looking forward to having
Chris's winemaking talents and sense of humor in the winery this fall.

The tasting bar is OPEN
This past weekend we opened the doors to our tasting room featuring two
of our partner wineries wines. Jazz Cellars and Qualia Wines are
currently available by the taste, glass and bottle as well as a
featured flight. The collective tasting room will rotate wines produced
by our commercial clients which will keep the list fresh with new wines
to taste every time you visit. The next addition to the tasting room
line up will be Carlotta Cellars followed by... stay tuned.
The tasting room is open Fridays from 2-8, Saturday and Sunday 12-8.
For more information about the tasting room or hosting a private event
here at the winery please contact Carrie Crespo at carrie@dpwineworks.com

2012 Growing Season
It is still early in the growing season but so far all signs for the
2012 vintage look like we are in for a good year. Here's what Casey
Hartlip has to say about the year so far at our Anderson Valley Pinot
vineyard: "Compared to 2010 and 2011, ’12 is starting out like one of
the ‘normal’ years we’ve been wishing for. The past two springs were
wet and water logged and vines had a hard time getting started. Soils
were too saturated and root activity was hampered by low oxygen levels.
When we got a much needed 10 inches of rainfall in March (some refer to
it as ‘the miracle of March) we were starting to wonder if we’d keep
raining. Needless to say, we’re looking great. Vine health has been
even and strong. We’re just about done with bloom (maybe a week behind
normal) and flower counts and size looks better than average. Next
up…fruit set and berry development."
And here is what Sean Higuera of Atlas vineyard management has to say
about Napa: "The growing season in Napa is shaping up very well. The
onset of warm weather early in the season has spurred great growth and
set. We have completed suckering, and are now moving into leaf pulling
and hedging. So far the 2012 vintage is turning out great."
We have some great fruit still available to work with this year so
round up a few friends and join in the fun. Contact dave@dpwineworks.com for more information.
 
It's going to be a great year to make wine here in the city. There are
a ton of fun things going on and we hope you will join us.

Cheers,
The WineWorks team

A quick time line in photos

Harvest is a crazy time of the year. I've heard people describe it as "controlled chaos", a "love hate relationship", and my favorite, "a time of year when I can drink as much beer as I want and not gain any weight".  Harvest is also a hard time of the year with many long days spent in the winery. The significant others of winemakers and cellar staff call themselves harvest widows at this time of the year as not much QT gets spent with the family. My kids also get confused because I come home in a different big truck every couple of days ready to be in a vineyard in the early hours of the next day for a pick. My daughter asked me the other day if her car seat would fit so I could drive her to school in it. In the winery we spend time checking weather reports in the various areas of California where we have grapes contracted while tending to brix and temp measurements and looking after all of the various fermentations. There is a lot of manual labor involved in the winery, bodies take strain and the cleaning never stops. We spend a lot of time on the road grabbing grape samples making sure we pick the fruit at it's optimal level of ripeness. We drink a lot of coffee and beer never tastes as good as it does at this time of the year. Here is a quick photo tour of urban winemaking at WineWorks...

Unloading precious grapes from one of our rent a wreck trucks (it's actually pretty fun to drive). 

This is what a barrels worth (half ton) of grapes looks like...

Happy grape sorters digging into the days first fruit to pass over the sorting table.

Fermenting grapes being inoculated with yeast. Every wine lover should smell this at some stage of their life.

Pouring the must into the basket press is always a Kodak moment. Yes we do spill a little bit every now and again.

Beautiful Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir draining from the press and ready to be pumped into barrel.

Eric making sure to smile for the camera while not letting the wine over flow from the barrel.

Everyone gets to be hands on in the winemaking process at WineWorks, even grand kids get put to work. Young Benji helps slide the press into action...

and poses for a picture with his grandad.

This is another activity that any serious wine geek should try to experience at some stage of their life. There is nothing as aromatically pleasing as the smell of freshly pressed wine being transferred into an oak barrel.

Pinot Noir seen through the site glass.

Ya'll come back now ya hear!?

Thanks to Linda for the photos!

Harvest is in full swing

Goldeneye bins waiting for the morning Pinot pick

 I was talking with a friend/mentor the other day and asked him how harvest was going. He replied "harvest is an exercise of survival, and we are surviving".

If you've ever worked a harvest it's easy to relate to that. We are just getting started with harvest here at WineWorks. We've already had a couple marathon days and tomorrow will be another one. We are surviving and we  are having fun. We are having a lot of fun!

We've been walking vineyards tasting grapes. Talking to growers and tasting grapes.. Tasting grapes and talking with consultants. Driving around northern California dropping off bins and tasting grapes. Our first fruit is in, we've got our first ferments ticking away and each new days greetings are met with conversations about how sore we are from the previous days efforts. Each day of harvest produces a new bruise, bump, ache or pain. It's all part of harvest, and it's all fun.

Colin and Andy from Tasot sorting Pinot from Keller Estate

Whole berry Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir with dry ice, ready for cold soak.

6 year old Benji shows Eric how its done

 We couldn't be happier with all of our equipment. It's been fun tweaking the speed on the sorting table, elevator and destemmer getting everything just right.

Richard, Jerry, Sam and Benji sorting Pinot

 Kate and Brad sorting clone 777 Pinot from Keller Estate

 And then there is Mother Nature with how she keeps us guessing. There is rain in the forecast with low temperatures for the next few days. With it decisions on whether or not to pick fruit that is ready or close to ready. We go through all of the scenarios, trust me there are a lot of them, and then factor in logistics of harvest crew availability, truck rental availability and what ever else we already have scheduled.

 Anderson Valley is hands down my favorite location for growing Pinot Noir and Anderson Creek is a magical vineyard just outside of Boonville.

 We pick the 2011 vintage Anderson Creek Pinot tomorrow!

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue

No there is not going to be a wedding in the winery, at least not yet, it's more a description of a few new toys we have recently acquired...

Something old (it's a fork lift rotater for those of you who are wondering)

 My new harvest boots, quite a fashion statement I know

 New punch down tool waiting for the first fruit of the season

 OK so I don't really have anything borrowed but here is our new scale which is...

Blue

Here's a little teaser shot of the new floor in the tasting room and our 10 foot long super comfy couches, prefect for sipping a little vino on after a grape sorting or punch down session.

The construction phase of our first year is getting close to being finished, the new restrooms are being constructed this week (just out of the frame to the left of the above picture). Stay tuned for more pictures of the front of house soon. 

We're busily readying the winery for our first fruit of the year which looks like it could be just over a week away. Windsor Oaks Pinot is in the lead for the first pick of 2011. We still have a little fruit available from a few of our vineyards and there is still time to get in on making wine this year if you are up for all of the fun to be had. We just added an organically farmed Sangiovese vineyard to our line up for the inaugural vintage. It's a fantastic vineyard planted on a steep terraced hillside in Dry Creek. We're only sourcing a small amount of the fruit from this site so if making your own California super Tuscan sounds fun give us a call.

First Party

We held our first party this past Saturday. It was a great chance to meet a few of the people making wine with us this year and show off some of the new equipment and the work we have done in the winery. 

Our neighborhood butcher Olivier (http://www.oliviersbutchery.com/index.html) prepared some phenomenal treats for us right on our back dock and we tasted wines produced from a few of the vineyards we are sourcing fruit from this year. 

 David and Aran from Carlotta Wines tell their story.

 It was a great first event. We're looking forward to hosting more in the near future and being able to pour wines we've produced on site.

Thanks to everyone who came out to show their support, and thank you HM for the loan of your cooler at the last minute ;-)

Christmas in August?

Most of our equipment was delivered today. It was a hair raising experience unloading all of this shiny new winery equipment but a very exciting day for us.

The truck full of new toys arrives

 Kevin giving the basket press a little kiss to say hello

 Trying not to think about how much the press weighs much less how much it cost

 Sorting Table and Basket Press safely in the winery

Whose grapes will be the first to pass through the new destemmer?

White Hawk Visit

My daughter Kate joined me for a quick visit to White Hawk vineyard this past weekend to check in on our Syrah. The crews just finished removing laterals and it looked like some leaves had been pulled as well. Kevin Merrill the vineyard manager said they were planing on hedging this week. As we've heard from other growers Kevin says it's going to be a light crop "but should make great wine".   

The sandy soil at White Hawk is amazing. It reminds me more of Lanikai beach than a vineyard.