Reinventing Malbec

The grape growing has sadly ended. The harvest is off to the wineries to become those beautiful wines we love to taste. Thus, ends this season of Life in the Vines. It was fun. I appreciate all the support and I look forward to sharing the trials and tribulations of a harvest season next year. Yeah!

An appropriate ending to this Life in the Vines season, I've taken some information from WineBusiness.com that sums up what's going on with Malbec. It is exciting. It's exciting to grow the grape, make the wine, and wine drinkers everywhere are excited to drink it.

The reporters went to Mendoza, visited several wineries and talked with winemakers. They found people who were excited as well as dedicated. With the snow-capped Andes Mountains as a backdrop, the vineyards were stunning. There was a good mix of old-time, rustic wineries and gleaming, new, modern facilities. Clearly, Argentine winemaking was reinventing itself, and Malbec was the variety leading the charge.

There is no doubt that Malbec is succeeding. Sales in the United States are soaring. Exports of Malbec to the United States in 2005 saw 631,800 cases, an increase of 32.3 percent over 2004. Exports of Malbec in 2006 saw 903,800 cases, an even bigger increase of 44 percent over 2005. This upswing in Malbec sales has spurred more plantings of Malbec here in California and has caused the varietal prices to increase dramatically. And in Colorado. I believe we are the biggest growers of Malbec in the state of Colorado.

'Malbec is the primary variety associated with Argentina for a good reason. They work with Malbec that is pre-phylloxera genetic material planted to its own rootstock. The quality of this material is unique. It no longer exists, even in France. Malbec is a genetic treasure that Argentines happened to plant in the perfect place. Malbec is delicate at bloom time. It hates dry heat or wind during set. It doesn't like cold weather or a lot of rain. But grown in the well-drained soils of the Andes, Malbec has done very well, and at the higher elevation sites, it consistently gets ripe and seems to maintain acidity.

Argentina has a long, proud history of winemaking, but current, modern winemaking techniques have only been practiced for 20 years. In many ways, winemaking there is in its infancy. Winemakers are working hard to learn the modern ins and outs of their craft. They will soon have a better handle on how to grow perfectly ripened grapes and how best to use oak, micro-ox and other winemaking techniques. It is reasonable to assume that Malbec from Argentina is going to improve as time goes on.

Talking about his experiences working with Malbec in Argentina, Paul Hobbs once commented that he had learned "that culture is part of terroir." With that in mind, I set up this roundtable luncheon/interview at one of my favorite restaurants in Buenos Aires: Parrilla Don Julio. We sat at the table and ate our way through lush salads, spicy chorizos and enormous steaks. We had impassioned discussions and finished off most of 11 bottles of wine before the afternoon ended.
This passionate attitude about dining, discussion and camaraderie is an Argentine thing. It permeates every aspect of their daily lives. Along with their strong sense of family and country, it helps define who they are. Who is to say? I like to think that this attitude and way of life contribute a lot to the success of Argentine Malbec. wbm'

11 bottles in an afternoon? Now that's why I like growing grapes!

Remember imbibe and enjoy!

Acid and the Harvest

Ok so yesterday we talked of brix. Today we talk of acid and pH. Brix, acid and pH are the three things you measure to ensure you pick no grape before it's time.

In his book, From Vines to Wines, Jeff Cox says, "Acids give crispness, brightness and thirst-quenching qualities to wines and are essential components of the balance in a fine wine."

Grapes contain two major types of acid - malic and tartaric. Together they are referred to as total acid or tetratable acid. Acid-testing kits may be purchased form home winemaking supply stores. The optimum level for acid is from 5 to 9 grams per litre of juice. To determine tetratable acidity the grape juice is neutralized with an alkaline solution and the point of neutralization identified.

Hydrogen ion potential or pH refers to the strength of the acidity in grapes. pH is a measure of how many hydrogen ions are combined as acids versus how many are free floating. The more free floating hydrogen ions there are, the lower the pH and the more tart the juice tastes. A portable pH pen can be used to assess grape ripeness.

When sugar comes closest to its ideal for a given grape variety at the same time that the acid comes closest to the ideal, grapes are ready to harvest. Ripe grapes will pull away from the stem easily while unripe grapes will not. Grape berries soften as they ripen, the skin of fully ripe grapes collapses easily when bitten into and the pulp is thick, but not watery. Fully mature grapes have brown seeds. If the seeds are beige or tan in color but not brown, the grapes are not quite ripe. And definitely not if you see green seeds.

Remember imbibe and enjoy!

What is a harvest without a few bricks, I mean brix

What is a harvest without a few brix? Well for us this year we cut off all the grapes but our neighbors grapes are ripe with brix and we're ready to help them pick, even if they don't want us to help.

What is brix you ask? Brix. It’s a word uttered almost hourly by grape growers and winemakers during the peak weeks of harvest season, and it represents the most vital bit of information on the progress of the grapevine’s maturity. Brix is a scale measured in units of degrees, used to indicate how much sugar has developed in the juice of maturing grapes on the vine.

Because sugar content of the juice is what will be converted to alcohol during fermentation, this measurement tells the winemaker when the optimal time is to pick the grapes for harvest. If the grapes are harvested too soon, when the Brix number is low, the juice will ferment to a low alcohol level, producing a thin, acidic, unappealing wine. Waiting too long, and picking the grapes at a Brix number too high, indicating over-ripeness, will produce a final product that is heavy with alcohol, giving an unpleasant impression of heat on the palate.

Our neighbors grow Cab Franc and their brix range is between 26 to 28 degrees. Malbec has a similar brix number. Although digging around the internet, I saw some brix as low as 22 and some as high as 28.

The grape grower uses a hand-held instrument called a refractometer to measure the Brix level in the juice. Grapes are picked off the vine and the juice is squeezed onto a glass lens. Sunlight passing through the juice on the lens is viewed through an eyepiece on the opposite end of the refractometer, seen next to a graduated scale of Brix numbers. When temperatures outside get hot, sugar content in grapes start to soar, so careful attention is paid to Brix numbers everyday. Typical Brix levels for grape picking range from 20 to 26 degrees.

I'm looking forward to having this fun next year.

Remember imbibe and enjoy!

Last Rites

Well we were puttering along weeding here, and pulling there when all of sudden it happened.

Winter. The first frost. On October 1st the temperature went down to 30 degF and a horrible thing happened.

All of those beautiful green, succulent vine leaves turned brown. Like a yucky, mushy leafed brown. I opened up our curtains on the 2nd and said "Kenny you better see this."

It was a dreadful feeling. All that work. They're all dead? Wait a minute, wait a minute......what's up with the neighbor's vineyard? We can't be alone on this. I hope we're not alone on this. So we put on our bathrobes and sneakily went to the neighbor's vineyard to check to see if this was normal.

Well, their vineyard looked the same, thank god, and we can all say the season is over together. Which is very weird. First off, that's really early to get a frost the first day of October, second it is normally not so sudden.

Good thing for the neighbor's vineyard is that the frost doesn't hurt the grapes, it doesn't help them either. They're picking ASAP.

Remember imbibe and enjoy!

Anyone for a Flight?

Tonight we are going to this great, but somewhat expensive for our small town area restaurant/bar called 626 Rood. That's their name and that's their address, pretty clever huh?

What IS clever about this place is their great list of wine flights. What's a wine flight you ask? A wine flight is a non-committal person's dream.

A wine flight consists of three different kinds of wine of some common theme. There's a French flight, a Syrah flight, and a California flight for example. There's more but I can't remember all of them. The server pours you a bit of three different wines in three separate glasses. A bit is a little more than a taste but definitely not a whole glass. It's heaven. I get tired of the same old wine so easily in a big old full glass and this keeps me a little teased, maybe wanting more, maybe not.

These flights are perfect with the tapas they serve at the restaurant. Tapas are the Italians way of saying appetizers. I love saying we're going to a tapas bar. Because reading looks perfectly normal and saying always makes people reply "Topless?! You, Kris Brandt, are going to a topless bar?" (Go ahead say it, you'll know immediately what I mean) And then I set them straight. I'm NOT going to a topless bar, Kenny maybe going to a topless bar for all I know later, but I'm going to the tapas bar.

Ok, off we go!

Remember imbibe and enjoy!

Dog Tail Red

Hi everybody! I have to tell you about this fun wine we had the other day. Friends of ours came by bearing a bottle of wine. A marvelous gift idea for all friends wanting to have fun at KSquared Vineyards.

The wine is Fire Hydrant Red by Dog Tail Vineyards out of California. It's just plain funny. I buy wine because of the label all the time and this label is colorful, cute, and funny. Buy it for the label alone. The description on the back reads "Dog fanciers know it's all about good breeding. But sometimes your childhood best friend was just a mutt. You know a bit shaggy with mottled colors and a body that looked like you put together a German Shepard with a Basset Hound. And they never let you down. That's what you can expect from Dog Tail Red. It's got good breeding-varietals true to their character now mixed together to create a one-of-a-kind. Give it a try_you'll be in love for the rest of your life.

Is that sweet or what? I don't know if I'm in love but I'm definitely in like. It's a good red table wine with a great attitude.

Here's what some experts said about it too from http://wine.appellationamerica.com/wine-reviews/1107/Dog-Tail-Vineyards-NV-Fire-Hydrant-Red.html

'Dog Tail Vineyards is the latest endeavor of the Kautz family, whose flagship operation is Ironstone Vineyards in Calaveras County. With this new brand the family decided to pay homage to the many family dogs that roam the vineyards, chasing squirrels and digging holes.

The Dog Tail wines are inexpensive, colorfully labeled and sell for between $8 and $12. While some wines are form single varietals and are vintage dated, this is one of the non-vintage blends. This entertainly named wine is finished with a twist-off screw cap and is geared towards existing wine drinkers looking for a fun wine, as well as towards those who might be turned off to formal labels and all the hoopla. It is daringly named- the connection between dog and fire hydrant might be off-putting to some folks.

Bright, lightly saturated ruby, and viscous, the wine has notes of plum, prune, blackberry preserves, vanilla, mocha, spice, stewed meat, bay leaf, wintergreen, and maple syrup. It is clean, medium bodied, rustic, and flavorful, like the inexpensive, food-friendly, quaffable, non-hangover producing wines one finds everywhere in Buenos Aires or Naples, Italy.'

I did NOT taste that myriad of flavors but I did taste the berries and the stew meat. Yes! I did taste the stew meat! It's a table red made to be easily forgotten. This can be forgotten but why? It's so cute. And if you've have Ironstone Winery's "real" wine you know they made this taste like this on purpose. Good stuff.

Remember imbibe and enjoy!