Vigneron – Got this description from Wiki.  Embellished to creatively and fully explain what I do out there in the fields (where I fight for my meals). COMMENTS IN CAPS.

A winemaker, vigneron or vintner is a person engaged in winemaking. They are generally employed by wineries or wine companies, (IN THIS CASE, SELF-EMPLOYED) where their work includes:

• Cooperating with viticulturists (I AM GENERALLY UNCOOPERATIVE, UNLESS YOU SHOW ME THAT YOU’RE PRETTY SMART)
• Monitoring the maturity of grapes to ensure their quality and to determine the correct time for harvest
• Crushing and pressing grapes
• Monitoring the settling of juice and the fermentation of grape material
• Filtering the wine to remove remaining solids
• Testing the quality of wine by tasting (MY FAVORITE TASK AND BEST ATTRIBUTE)
• Placing filtered wine in casks or tanks for storage and maturation
• Preparing plans for bottling wine once it has matured
• Making sure that quality is maintained when the wine is bottled (SEE “TESTING” ABOVE)                                  

Need more?  Glad you asked…here is some (very) personal winemaking philosophy and other factums that guide my existence.

I’m descended from a long line of preachers, doctors, and soldiers. Now, it’s common knowledge that cops are congenital liars, and evangelists spend their lives telling fantastic tales in such a way as to convince otherwise rational people that they’re factual. So, I guess I come by my narrative inclinations naturally.

I like that Italians drink a lot of wine out of those tiny 8 ounce juice glasses. I find that any container works, including a siphon hose. The big tumbler you see in the picture above is generally used for Gatorade, water, or Gin & Tonics, but also for wine, Pellegrino, and Rum & Cokes. We have Riedel stemware, but because I never got good remarks like “Plays well with others” or “A joy to have in class”, I don’t get to use the good stuff, except at dinner parties, or when under Sal’s strict observation.

Every good vigneron needs a decent dog. I got lucky when Honey came to live here  seven years ago. We are pals, and she never criticizes my vigneron decisions. An associated conclusion: 99% of the people are NOT the ones all the Occupy protestors were professing to be, but actually the percentage of the population not worth talking to. Honey listens well and usually takes care of herself and me when we’re in the vineyard.

I firmly believe in smaller yields with better fruit quality, but also am capable of needing enough wine to consume, which leads to slightly larger than miniscule yields. This happens to be the current dilemma in my life.

Racking and filtering the solids out of wine is important, but should never be overdone. Like Mr. Miyagi said in the Karate Kid, “Whole life have a balance. Everything be better. Understand?”

Those little clusters are soon to go bloom — meaning: pollination and fertilization — and when that is complete, then along comes the red berries.

We are in what is known in the grape farming biz as “the vegetative growth phase”, kind of the opposite of veraison, a more known phrase. Veraison happens when the grapes change color…at least in red grapes…and the energy of the plant is being focused on fruit and not so much on growth of leaves.  Now, however, we are getting greener, and the shoot/leaf growth is phenomenal, especially on the 250 syrah vines….wow.

I will say that the vineyard is as weed free and clear as it has ever been. (Photo above) Lots of back breaking labor there…no tractors here! Cover crops don’t come until next year, or maybe even 2015, so only sand and decomposed granite in the rows now.  I am trying not to be a ‘helicopter’ parent to these children of mine, as there is far too much of that floating around (get it? ‘floating’ – ‘helicopter’…a simile?), but wandering around the vineyard in the morning or evening just to look is an intoxication I can’t do without. It is a JOY to watch them grow, often 3-4 inches in a day…that’s syrah for you.

The Grenache Noir and the Mouvedre is doing well, too, and last year’s new block, the 75 vines we call the “East vineyard”, looks terrific. Not much work being done right now in this block, but these vines are soaking up the sunshine and water!

Last week I decided to get the rows looking a little groovier, and to massage/prune the stalks for all those little unwanted shoots that seem to come out of nowhere.  So, I was out there raking with my daughter, and pulling a few weeds…(I hate the nasty ones that attract white flies…so they don’t get much of a chance!) and tearing off the unwanted shoots, when it occurred to me that I really don’t intervene much in the vineyard, or in the cellar.

I DO the post pruning/pre budbreak spraying with lime sulfur and then the 2-4 week interval spraying through August 1 of Stylet Oil, but those are organic products that just help the vines by preventing the incursion of powdery mildew and other nasties. I also DO the tip pruning and canopy management chores, but that can hardly be called intervention or “work”, because it is really just walking the rows and humming whatever classic rock song popped into my head, snipping off a bit of leaf here and there.

When making the wine, I have started letting the ‘natural’ yeasts do their thing. Those are the ones brought along by birds and bees who take a few pecks at berries getting ripe.  The yeasts they bring in microscopic amounts, then spread a bit and after harvest, are usually sufficient, so, instead of adding a lot of yeast (which can be fun, because the plethora of yeasts available CAN make a difference in wine flavor), I eliminate that step and allow the natural fermentation to occur on ‘native’ yeasts.  I DO add enough SO2 (sulfites) to achieve one thing only….prevent other nasties from interfering with the “natural” fermentation and later, the malo-lactic fermentation.  A number of winemakers add ‘products’ to kick-start malo-lactic, but I find it kind of ‘goes off’ by itself, and this last year (2012) on the advice of a neighbor (and REALLY good winemaker) David Didier, I let the malo-lactic do its own thing for half the syrah juice….no issues.

I hope to get to the point where, aside from the minimal SO2 additions at crush, and the spraying with organics, I can just be clean and careful and let the wine do its own thing. That will let the vineyard speak for itself, give its own statement, and we will all get to taste exactlly what Victoria Hill Vineyards brings to the table.

I don’t want to go all “old school” on you, but as Sal likes to say, “C’mon, old man, get a move on!”  (I guess I am getting older)..anyway…I read this the other day, and liked the message:

Pre-industrial (age) winemaking begins with respect for the natural process that transforms fresh grapes into wine, and the 19th-Century model of minimum intervention. When you have great vineyards that produce high quality grapes of distinctive individual character, this is not only an environmentally and socially responsible approach, it’s also the best way to consistently make fine wine.

The Grenache broke first, followed by the Syrah vines…lots of them, so lots of shoots. The mouvedre seems slower, as if it is the sleepy teenager who wants to stay in bed until mid-morning. I have noticed that even within the varietels planted, the younger vines have bud break and shoots first. My one year old vines (75 of them) are already getting to be green with lots of shoots. Good post card material.

All of our vines are either rootstock from UC Davis (they call it Foundation Plant Stock, or FPS) or TCV (Tablas Creek Vineyards) rootstock.  The majority of the vines are on 1103 Paulsen rootstock, but those 75 yearlings are on 110R by TCV. Both rootstocks seem to do well in our soil, but the “East” block of 75 is on a rockier, granite slab, hence the use of 110R. I bought all of these through NovaVine, a wonderful nursery up in the Napa-Sonoma area who only have one fault….they don’t return emails or calls. Of course, I am pretty small potatoes to them…kinda like the gnat who hits the Mack truck windshield going down the Interstate — for the gnat it can be a traumatic situation, the truck doesn’t feel a thing.

But that failure in Customer Service isn’t new; we all get it, regularly. And remember, we can all CHOOSE to let our feet do the talking, when we don’t want to voice our displeasure. So, NovaVine will still get my business, and renewed efforts to place another order. But my patience, already fragile as I approach dotage, is wearing thin.

     This picture on the right is a shot of part of our new “wine racks”.  We found a pair of really stout bookshelves (2″ shelves and dividers) that must be 60 years old. Cleaned them, painted them black, laid them on their sides, and voila! …600+ bottle storage!

And this is a photo of a Grenache vine at bud break. This red bush is one of the floribunda roses we put at the end of the rows..very traditional and all that rot. Supposed to show incidence of disease earlier than the vines, but I am not sure that is true. A sign of a well-tended vineyard is that the roses are cared for. A sign of a struggling, flailing, black thumb is that the roses look great, but the vines don’t. Hmmm…

East Vineyard Block.Well, it happened. Spring finally got here and looks like it is here to stay.

All the ‘knowledgable” folk in the wine growing biz always seem to say that pruning late is better than pruning early, but that one wants to time the pruning for AFTER the last frost, but before it gets warm. When one is ‘seat-of-the-pants’ kind of vigneron (loosely translated — I seldom know what I am doing), that means a lot of guessing. I waited for the cold weather to hit one more time (It did). then I started pruning, found it more difficult because this is the sixth year of life for these vines, and like children, they have to shape up by the time they are six. That meant a more severe pruning and a LOT of canes and cleanup. A few days passed and I could see the buds starting to swell, so I did the whole Lime-Sulfur spray on the dormant vines (I hope) and already pruned vines last Tuesday (3/26) (with a LOT of help from daughter, Anne!)  and, as luck would have it, we received a good dose of reasonably warm spring weather, a lot of sunshine, and bud break by 4/1. Now, Anne didn’t like the Sulfur spray gunk, and neither did I, but that’s just part of farming. The good weather and growth made the stinky memory of 800 gallons of lime-sulfur spray recede into the void which constitutes most of my mind. In the rest of last week we got the wells cleaned up and free of weeds, and the rows fairly well kept, with just the sweet elysium and winter rye grasses left to live. Everything else got pulled.

Note: Pulling thistle, dandelion, and assorted high desert scrub is no fun, either.

I got to light several nice sized fires (yes, with county approved burn permits!), which is the highlight of the whole process for me. I am just sorry that my fellow pyro, Uki Prince, couldn’t be there to watch those piles go up in dancing spires to the sky. (Okay, okay, so I need counseling for that tiny fixation….).

As of 4/1, the vines were jumping up like Texas gals on Cowboy payday, and I can’t wait for this weekend. My pal, Ron (Vista Luna Winery) and I are going to bottle part of my syrah (with Grenache Noir) as a blend this weekend. (See results in wine room bottling photo!). While I can’t light any fires because of that, I can perform the (another reason to drink wine) blending and barrel tasting on Saturday morn’ (Yawn, slurp, yum, nap).

Sal and I have decided to get into the “virtually giving it away” homemade marmalade business next fall and winter, as our forays into that process have yielded purty darn good results. Another “triple” batch of Perfect Kumquat Marmalade is done and in the larder, all put up and such.

Should be a fun spring and summer! A couple of significant construction projects await (big deck extension and tiling all of the patios). A photo shows the hillside just to the right (north) of the wine room. A big deck goes over that whole area, including the wine room. Procrastination will not fly anymore (as an excuse) so it is time to get dirty!

All this activity will probably keep this distractible boy away from the hoosegow. And not being in chains is always a good thing.

What an elevator ride….last Friday at noon it starts hailing, and it hails for twenty or thirty minutes and doesn’t melt right away. My stress level rises immediately.

Then it warms up a bit and rains all night, but lightly. Then, warmer still and cloudy on Saturday before clearing and 75 degree temps on Sunday. This week it is currently 85-90, with warm sun. The vines are all pruned and time will tell if the hail had any effect, but I don’t think so.

What we need is spring weather. Remember…”April showers bring May flowers”?

In “the LIfe of Brian”, the film with Monty Python, they sang a ditty called “Always Look at the Bright Side of Life.”  So I will, I get to burn piles and piles of prunings! Yea!

I woke up at 1:30 AM, having slept on my right hand in an awkward situation, and after the IcyHot and Advil treatments, managed to listen to the rain.  Rain is good for vineyards, especially when one doesn’t have a well, because rainwater is just naturally better for plants, and paying the local water agency (Padre Dam, in our case) for water always feels a little bit like getting the shake down from the big kids in the junior high school bathroom. No money left, pockets dry.

But working in a heavy rain, in the mud, is something not particularly enjoyed. Well, there are times that I go out and do it, but that’s a whole other topic - self-flagellating and masochism, and all that. Sal always tries to remind me of “rainy day projects”…things to keep on the list for those winter or spring days when I can’t be outside, and find myself needing something to do.

Well, we found some this year. Our fruit trees became teenagers (that’s 4 or 5 in plant years) and they really started to produce.  Sal already had a Meyer Lemon in the front yard, but it had to be rescued from the evergrowing evergreens (like that alliteration?) and that too is another story (Chainsaws and making firewood on a local level); even that little tree is contributing to the bounty. We always talked about making jam and jelly, and in the past had done so with the syrah grapes. It turned out really well, except for the mess the kitchen was in upon completion, which can only be described as somewhere between Nagasaki and Willy Wonka’s worst nightmare. But marmalade seemed like a natural fit, what with all our different citrus trees and such.

My initial hesitation towards citrus and their attraction for the glassy winged sharpshooter (a pest HATED by winegrowers worldwide) was diminished when a  pretty smart wine geek told me that at our elevation (2400 feet), we would have minimal issues with that little grasshopper, because they just don’t like to winter in the cold areas…or maybe it is that they love to winter down by the coast, where it is warmer.

We started making marmalade this year. It is a pretty simple task, and when lemon, orange, or grapefruit marmalade is made, even the prep work is fast. We happen to have those trees, along with a few other types, but we have three Kumquat trees that seem pretty healthy. The trees never get too big, but lawdy, lawdy, do they give up a lot of fruit!  The prep for Kumquat marmalade takes a lot longer, because the fruit is small and one has to de-seed the fruit and then soak it overnight.  I am on the fourth batch, as I write, of Kumquat marmalade (which includes lemon, and fresh orange juice). So, in the interest of showing you the fruits and three of our marmalades, check out the photo. And this is nothing like the storebought stuff…much better, really, if I do say so myself!

From upper left…Tree Ripened lime, Kumquat, Cara-Cara orange, Grapefruit (duh!), Tangelo, Eureka Lemon, and Meyer Lemon.

Three samples of different marmalade…the two smaller 1/2 pint jars are both Kumquat, but the darker one is caramelized; The pint jar is a lemon marmalade.

We also have apricots, Loquats, and navel oranges.

So, I did my yearly trek down to the local $5 mIllion dollar fire station (built by San Diego County after the 2003 wildfires because GUILT over the lack of fire fighting preparedness hounded the sainted civic leaders) and managed to sign up for a burn permit.  They have to send their fire danger ranger out to make sure they “inspect” the site and stuff to be burned. Usually, that would happen within one day, but this time, a new ranger was on the prowl, Jason, and he took five days to arrive. A neighbor who also pruned, and has lots of vine shoots and bark and trimmings to cut, goes through the same process, and he told me that Jason actually declined his permit, but changed his mind and issued approval after a little sweet talking….just like a civil service employee! The best thing these fire guys (and gals) do is shop for groceries…I always think there is some emergency at the grocery store, but no, it is just the local fire yokels taking their 6 gazillion dollar rig out for a spin, while they buy (with OUR money, mind you) the pasta and pies and stuff they shove down during their 48 on/48 off shifts ( or whatever…), don’t get me started on all that political waste/civil service stuff…this is a vineyard blog, right?

Jason shows up and has absolutely NO interest in walking down the hill to the burn pile at the bottom of the vineyard…so we gabbed it up and talked in the driveway turnaround for a while and he checks off the right boxes on his form (which is on his clipboard, god bless his pointy little county employee head!), It sounds something like this — “Lemme see heah boy! I ‘s a chicken hawk and I say, I say, you looks like youse gotta hose and a shovel, and uh, I say, I say!”… and voila, I am ready to go pyro!  ….so Jason leaves, up the drive, out the gate, and I am on the phone getting logged in to the County burn control staff (they probably make $120k a year with extra bennies, too) so my bonfire can commence!  On the phone, they ask for my address, but don’t ask about the permit, or whether or not I had even applied for one.  I could have said I was burning old tires, for all they cared. All they want to do is have an address logged in so that if one of my erstwhile redneck neighbors should call in, they will be able to inform Mr. or Mrs. Neck that the wacko with the vineyard is having a controlled burn again. “Gotta be out by 3 PM.”, says the voice on the other end of the line…..”Sure, no problem.” sez I, and down the hill I sprint with lighter, newspaper, and a gallon of Acetone…..(yeah, yeah, I know, I.m not supposed to use any ‘accelerants’, but who cares?)

The two burn piles ignite nicely (wish I had some REALLY flammable stuff, like Napalm) and the super dry stuff…olive tree prunings, plumbago trimmings, old wood, corpses, enemies, (even some family members)…all go up lickety-split. The first batch of vine prunings burns more slowly, because it hasn’t had a good chance to dry. That’s okay. More piles to burn, more fun! One of my favorite things!

Today I raked together several new piles of canes and am going to try to burn either tomorrow, Friday, or Saturday…maybe Saturday morning, and I can squeeze in a pre-fire barrel tasting or even sip a little Mouvedre while the flames lick the sky. Our dog, Honey, doesn’t seem fearful of fire, but then again, she thinks I’m nuts.  Life is good in Alpine; wish you were here!

Well, like they say in Vegas…”You just gots to roll the dice…”

It seems like the danger of frost has passed.  Last week was unseasonably warm….and this week promises (although cooler) highs of 63-67 here in Alpine. I do believe it is past time to get that pruning done.  One of the most unenviable chores in the vineyard, it is certainly one of the most important. The 2013 vintage will be first defined by the quality of the grapes and the weather. And, the former is helped along by good vineyard management, including pruning. This year, we are pruning pretty aggresively, as the vines are strong enough after five years in the ground and a year in the greehouse, to be ready for the strict training that Catholic kids in catechism class remember. The latter is in the hands of Mother Nature (God) and I am leaving no stone unturned in my admiration for both of those deities. Everything helps!

We use the standard double trellis/double cordon training for our vines, but the picture  shows a wonderfully pruned “head trained” vineyard in Sonoma. Lots of nice grass to walk on in the vineyard, too.  (We have dirt…it is nice dirt, but, well, it is dirt.) We have a third of the vineyard pruned as of 3/3/2013, and hope to get the remainder finished by 3/7.  I tasted the syrah again this weekend, as is my wont, and it continues its journey towards excellence. Sal, in fact, had me pour off a bottle so she could take it up to LA for the week…..I should charge her for it, but I won’t.

Honey giving her best opinion of my Pruning

I think I had been drinking too much of that special Kool Aid. It got warm, then cold, then warm, and now it is 40 degrees at night and barely warmer with rain today. Watching the weather channel, checking out weather underground, gets to be OCD’ish…. and all that made me come to a reckoning…that there are certain things one can do to prepare a vineyard for the ‘new’ season, and there are a lot more things that get thrown your way, as nature likes to do.  Best to get ready but be patient.  For instance, an acquaintance of mine planted 2000 vines in his old avocado orchard (Fallbrook area) in 2006..he was hot to trot…but he planted early, got a solid heaping of frost in late February, and lost 70% of his new plantings. Whoops. I just got off the phone with another fellow who spent the better part of last week auguring holes and planting 300 assorted vines in Ramona, but it is snowing there right now, and he thinks he may have, “…jumped the gun.” Yeah…no kidding.

Doing what needs to have been done PRIOR to it needing to have been done, based on what the weather is going to be is one of the secrets of growing grapes. And there isn’t any good way to learn it. I think, for me, the best way is to read about it, think about it, and talk about it….get into the process…do everything I can when I can, but don’t do anything that might get all bolloxed up by the weather. Then, be fast and work hard when the time is right. There, make sense?

So, as I watch the cold front move in, and the rain come down, I feel pretty darn happy that the rows are prepped, weeded, groomed and raked…the garden is cultivated…the firewood is covered….We are ready for this growing season and the effort those six months will bring. I even get to practice pruning because I have so much time on my hands (see attached photo).

Russell Crowe said it best in Master and Commander, “Quick’s the word and Sharp’s the action.”