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Sounds like an 80's Ridge Monte Bello to me. CS based wine.

Thanks for the review Mike. Have not been yet but plan to do so this winter. Any others in Hudson Valley region you would recommend?

Metrokane. Not expensive and works like a champ for several days. Just purchased 2 more of them.

Calera in Hollister is a bit off the beaten path. Could take in few others in the area or in Monterey. There's also the backside of Pinnacles National Park and a visit to Mission San Juan Bautista in the area of Calera.

Not sure if I shared this before but my upbringing in California has trained my eyes for reptiles. While doing some vineyard work on my tractor I caught a quick glance of this little guy. Moved him to the safety of a rock wall. Looks newly hatched.

Finally, I've come across a thread, and person, where the snake is alive and valued. Can't tell you how many farmers kill anything that slithers along the ground. Cheers to you Kim and your friend. Four legged grape eaters are a different story.

My concern is if some winery businesses change their approach on red wines to make them higher in alcohol. Don't think it will happen then take a quick read of this note in Vitisphere ........ https://www.vitisphere.com/news-90464-Are-red-wines-with-an-ABV-of-14-the-key-to-business-as-usual.htm . Ho...

Even though many had a slow start to the growing season this past Spring the near perfect summer sunshine and heat with timely rain cycles helped things move along well this year. We are picking our chenin blanc(22 brix) next Monday and that will be followed quickly by cabernet franc(~24brix) and t...

You have Barbera growing? Chenin Blanc makes perfect sense and Charles Massoud makes a good one. Cab Franc too. But who's making Barbera? Nice idea. Good luck! The Massouds make wonderful chenin blancs. They really showed that this region can grow this versatile white grape with great results. Barb...

Even though many had a slow start to the growing season this past Spring the near perfect summer sunshine and heat with timely rain cycles helped things move along well this year. We are picking our chenin blanc(22 brix) next Monday and that will be followed quickly by cabernet franc(~24brix) and th...

Nice article. Ann Kraemer is one of the best growers around and a super nice person willing to share her experience. Many years ago we visited with her to understand her experience with growing barbera.

Thanks Dennis. The menu looks quite good with wood grilled meats to compliment their seafood dishes.

Gavin - For another perspective from the right coast Alice Wise of Cornell's Long Island Extension Office in Suffolk County NY tabulates her harvests from her experimental vineyard and can be found here ..... http://ccesuffolk.org/agriculture/grape-program/grape-research . The vintages are on the ri...

Thank you for the Scales recommendation. It caught me off guard a little bit as we have a place in Newport, RI that is called Scales & Shells. My first thought was a chain but it turns out they are not related.

Joshua - Saw that thread. All the recent recommendations are for the Boston area. The Portland recs are over 3 years old and thus the reason for me asking again.

Looks like we will try to get away for a 3 day trip later this Fall. It's been awhile since we've been to Portland, ME but it has clearly become quite the foodie destination. What would people recommend for meals and are there restaurants with good wine lists? Thank you, Gary

Emilio - I will double check later when I've got more time but I shoot for 1-2% sugar using the clinitest method I purchase from Presque Isle winemaking supplies. Here's the color chart for that test ....... https://www.piwine.com/media/pdf/winemaking-residual-sugar-test.pdf . Since it's still bubbl...

What in particular would you like to know? Have made small amounts from chenin blanc thus far.

Casey Hartlip wrote: ↑
September 17th, 2019, 7:32 am
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Clone 943 Pinot. That's a nickel for scale. Tiny berries, in the wine, makes me feel happy....Don Ho!

Kind of reminds me of the "champagne grapes" they sell in the grocery store.

Here's a pic of the first iteration of a barrel chilling wand. This allows for cold settling, fermentation, and cold stabilization for whites. I've got some additional ideas on how to improve this and streamline it. Now it needs a thermo blanket.

Gavin - You might start with your UCDavis Extension office for Sonoma County. They most likely have people that would give you some good advice and possible other local resources to tap into. Rhonda Smith is your local extension advisor with grape growing experience ...... http://cesonoma.ucanr.edu/...

Every time one of these threads come up I have to suggest the Olivier Leflaive Setilles Bourgogne Blanc in good vintages (2010, 2014, 2017). 2017 is currently available for for $21.99. Great QPR. Both available at KL. Agree on the Leflaive Setilles. I've been swayed over to Javillier's two bourgogn...

Hi Vamsi - Look forward to the pic of your cooling snake setup. Early next week my version should done and will do the same and share the pic.

Adam - Look forward to what you found at K&L. I suspect the the dearth of good chardonnays, personal preference in play as always, is related to the marketing drive that everyone expects a chardonnay on your winery list and thus in your vineyard. Because of that many have chardonnay and expect a con...

Hi Vamsi - I'm going through the same process with auxerrois which I will ferment in ss barrel(Mueller). The snake with the surface area to cool a 75gal barrel is the 2.4m length that they sell at MoreWine. Since I'm tapping into a winery glycol cooling system I need to not only introduce the coolin...

Based on this discussion the other night I opened a terrific 2015 Liquid Farm La Hermana chardonnay that had a wax cap. No tricks just put corkscrew in pull part way to pop the wax disc. Paper towel to wipe around cork and pull rest of the way out. I know they use CalWax on their bottles. No hassle ...

Earlier this year we were gifted a 2016 Birichino Sparkling Pet-Nat MB. We saved it until soft shelled crabs came in season. From the wines we normally drink this is a unique wine. The bubbles really accentuated the floral character and made for a nice pair with fried crabs..... https://enoviti-hanu...

Adam - As you know there are some waxes that make it easier to cleanly pull out the cork in one go.. I've had real good luck and relatively easy pull out of Liquid Farm's wax seals(CalWax). I think there is a little technique needed to set that up. If I remember right you have the cork inserted slig...

Adam - Just to complete the trials and pricing I would contact CalWax as they are close to you in La Mirada. They do custom work as well. The Blended Waxes folks have more "pre-made" colors than the others but it sounds like custom color matching is not their strength.

Adam - Who have you tried? Surprisingly, there are not many wax producers worldwide but there are lots of resellers. I ordered waxes from CalWax & Blended Waxes for comparison on dipping and ease of pulling the cork. Both of them will do custom work. Not knowing how colors are made for waxes I could...

Recent article in Sevenfifty says that rosé is still climbing in sales .......... https://daily.sevenfifty.com/predicting ... rose-wine/ .

For the few times that I have tried to blend chenin with other wines I have found that chenin blanc generally doesn't play well with others. Probably the reason behind very few blends commercially available with exception of the common NoCal CB-Viognier blend. I'm wondering if either chenin's parent...

In early July the Loire and South African chenin blanc growers hosted the first "Chenin Blanc International Congress" in the Loire region. I'm glad to see this finally take place. Next one is in South Africa. My spouse wrote up a small blog post that describes the ampelographer's reveal of the cheni...

Thanks Todd for the response. I did come across this article from the Jordan Winery blog that shows two examples from the 2017 heat wave that hit Napa Sonoma ....... https://blog.jordanwinery.com/how-the-2017-california-heat-wave-affected-vineyards-sonoma-county-grape-harvest-update/ . What is inter...

Is this really from sun and heat damage or some other underlying problem that heat exacerbated the real issue?

Stewart - Glad to hear the success you had with the tall grafts. As I mentioned we only plant custom tall grafted plants. Not all nurseries are created equal when it comes to tall grafts and there are specific requirements when selecting and cleaning the trunk wood and conditions to growth them out ...

Thomas is one of the best chardonnay winemakers around. I have not had any of his pinot noirs. My last check on Thomas was that he had his 3 terroir wines under his own name and was helping a new Ontario winery Domaine Queylus get started. Does he still have both of those projects going or did those...

Thanks for sharing Scott. I was wondering what has changed at Vietti since the sale and for the most part it sounds favorable thus far. Hopefully that will continue.

With the other ingredients I would steer towards a rosé that has some acidity.

This one I have been following for a long time. In recent years it has been tried and failed because of the middle tier distribution lobbyists and to my surprise to some small extent the CT Farm Bureau Association(CFBA) who thought they were protecting state farm wineries. At an agriculture meeting ...

Richard - Hopefully that front blows out to sea. After talking to vineyard colleagues in PA it's clear that quarantines are not successful. They seem to hitch hike on anything.....especially vehicles. My spouse and I are on the lookout and I have to keep pulling out tree of heaven saplings in the di...

Of the few times I've had Windward pinot noir I've always enjoyed it. I found it interesting that they found the Templeton wind gap a good match to keep the fruit from cooking in that warm/hot climate of Paso. Not far from there along the ridge between Atascadero and Cayucos is the pinot noir vineya...

Peter - Welcome. You might get more responses if you put this question in the Wine Talk subforum. The only difference would be if the champagne was stored for that long period on it's lees and not yet disgorged. Once disgorged it makes no difference if it was their location or yours for storage. The...

Bill - Correct on the price. However in our case the time savings is where the value is. I will be interested to see how it holds up. As with all my tools I inspect and clean them after every use so I suspect this has a good chance to have longevity.

Did you try Hauser Packaging ? They show a 1.5L flint called 'Champ Magnum'. Not sure they stock it but worth giving them a call if you have not already. Sometimes they have other offerings that does not show on their online catalog. Might be worth contacting Sparkling Pointe(Gilles Martin) and West...

TR - It actually ties with your choice of 4 different coated wire materials. We chose the photo degradable wire that breaks down in ~8 months. You can select from 4 settings that does different number of twists which also allows you to get the cane tighter to the wire if you like. We also considered...

To those who cane prune and tie their vines I added the new Pellenc Fixion-2 to our tool kit this year. It takes a little getting use to but it is blazing fast. Will add another one next year as my spouse has adopted the one we bought this year. Lasts all day and then some with a full charge. I'm so...

I'm finding it's way to easy to accidentally cut through 14ga wire......oops ! The 12.5ga wire just gets nicked.....still oops !

Benjamin - There are many "select" wines that are small fermentations.....1 barrel maybe 2 maybe 3. Quality and complexity are there. Too many false dogmas and preconceived notions passed on in both grape farming and winemaking. Keep doing your thing.

After using the Infaco F3015 last season and we are half way through pruning this season I really like this pruning system. One battery charge lasts longer than I do so there are no issues losing juice. Since it's been on the chilly side I'm able to wear a Majestic Superdex glove underneath the cond...

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