From the Straw-Bale Winery with Greg Cropper

 

January 1, 2011

Above is a photo of the participants from an international tour of our vineyards with professors and students from the leading viticulture, geology and enology schools throughout Europe. This gathering was also a component of the Cal Poly Wine & Viticulture Summer Exchange program. Fifty students from the Swiss School of Enology at Changins, and viticulture and enology students, as well as prominent faculty members, from universities in Italy, Russia, and France atttended.

 

This latest vineyard project-study has been a continuation of recent gatherings of The Professional Soil Scientists Association of California (PSSAC) Annual Meeting, and the South Coast Geological Society’s special field trip and tour of the vineyards. These prominent university and professional meetings underscore the intense interest by the world’s soil science community in Carmody McKnight’s renowned confluence of soils and microclimates.

 

This most recent tour included a detailed examination of several excavations representing rare soil sites.  Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s prominent soil scientists as well as myself (that’s me front row left) conducted field discussions about our unique geology and textbook soils and the sustainable, biodynamic viticultural practices at the vineyard.  A highlight was tasting 100% varietal, un-manipulated wines grown directly on specific soils that have been scientifically documented and researched for over twelve years. This was an incomparable and significant opportunity.

 

This all brings to mind recent major pronouncements by the leading wine writers exemplified in the noteworthy book by Karen MacNeil, The Wine Bible: “The beginning of the twenty-first century may come to be known as the Era of the Vineyard, a time when the spotlight is once again on the grapes and the land.”  Most all agree that this is exactly correct and certainly exciting.  Little of this new awareness, coupled with the growing movement of sustainability, actually permeates the finer wine shops and restaurants. They still seem to succumb to the troublesome allure of international factory and corporate winemaking even though such support directly contradicts who they actually are as small business owners and family enterprises and who they should be identifying with and reinforcing.

 

I believe it will not take much to bring this new awareness to the wine public as they are becoming cognizant of the specter of our industrial food supply (let alone globalized winemaking) as revealed in the current film and accompanying book (an engrossing read) Food, Inc. 

 

 

December 1, 2011

 

This was the kind of year that will be talked about for quite a while.  Wow!  Harvest 2011 was long, tough and full of surprises.  We finished harvest just days ago… in the waning hours of November.  But do we take a breath?  Hardly!

 

To say “finish” is but the beginning  Our winemaking crew are now in the midst of fermenting, pumping-over, pushing-down to achieve ultimate color and flavor extraction, and finally moving the wine to barrels for its divine rest.

 

                                                   Second Edition

 

In the middle of all this we are sending out our Motif Club holiday shipment.  Our fortunate members will be receiving the noble Cheval Rouge and the inimitable Interlude.  Our members will be noting that the description of the wine will say “second bottling.”  This is the artist’s “second edition” — extending and enhancing the creative process.  The description will also point our that the wine has enjoyed, “56 months of aging in the barrel.”   This is rare!  This is classic, consummate wine-making!

 

 

I am further quoted: “with this long maturing, the wine bouquet and body become more developed and multi-layered.  Besides intensifying complexity, there is heightened mouth-feel and softening of tannins.  There will be a third bottling (more aging!) of the 2006 Cheval Rouge and Interlude, which should be ready in February 2012.”

 

Now Harvest for the Holidays!  Please keep in mind Artisanal Wine and Estate Olive Oil as always gifts of perfection!  And a gift from the farm from our United States!  With your gift-giving be thoughtful, sensitive and patriotic!

 

Oh by the way, if you are not in our Motif Club look what you will be missing!  Read below:

 aaa

aaa

 

 

 

 

2006 CHEVAL ROUGE  75% CABERNET FRANC  25% MERLOT
Deeply complex with a richness rare in wine. A spirited display of flavor that will never tame.  Perfectly ripened blackberry, cherry and coffee notes. Merlot adds velvety softness and expressions of dark chocolate. Finishes with balanced tannins leading to a vibrant, luscious mouth experience. Later on, when one reminisces — a dream-vision of wine.

 

Harvest Date: October 15, 2006
Oak: 100% French, 33% New, 100% Cabernet Franc
Barrel Aged: 57 months
Bottling Date: July 26, 2011 / Second Bottling
864 bottles Produced

 

 

2006 INTERLUDE CABERNET FRANC
Luxurious, rich and ideally intense; Interlude is pure drama in the mouth.  The story begins in the vineyard. Unlike most Cabernet Francs, the 1.5 acre Interlude vineyard  creates the robust, intense and perfectly formed clusters of grapes — endowed with the definitive expression of terroir.  With a glass of Interlude and Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas you can discover the meaning of life.

 

Harvest Date: November 9, 2006
Oak: 100% French, 66% New
Aged: 56 months
Bottling Date: July 25, 2011 / Second Bottling
864 Bottles Produced

 

 

Vineyard Values

 

Here it is almost December, and there is no let up in the winemaking aftermath of the Long Harvest of 2011.  What is most meaningful at Carmody McKnight is that we live and breathe our philosophy… “the timeless truth of the winemaker-vineyardist partnership.”

 

Certainly the most notable thinkers on the subject such as André Tchelistcheff, the “dean of American winemakers,” have declared that the vineyard is central to greatness.  Tchelistcheff summed up his legendary wine making wisdom with: “Wine begins in the vineyard, and always, always, we must come back to the vineyard.”  Karen MacNeil in her “The Wine Bible” also bottom-lines the essential vineyard values: “The beginning of the twenty-first century may come to be known as the Era of the Vineyard, a time when the spotlight is once again on the grapes and the land.”

 

My crew of cellar rats and assistant winemakers must also know the vineyard,really know it… and you know the vineyard when you labor in the vineyard daily.  The sacred dirt from the vineyard is always with our crew – on their shoes, clothes and their hands.

 

So the brothers Nevarez — Martine and Daniel — and “nephew” Clemente Nevarez (believe us this is a BIG family) as well as cousin in spirit, Israel Herrera, can be found almost every day in the sustainable, straw-bale winery, working tirelessly through all aspects and stages of the artisanal, wine making process.  And if there is a lull, they are all back out in the vineyard.  Martine, for instance, has been a part of Carmody McKnight for 20 years, working every day in the vineyard.  To say he knows the vineyard is a grand understatement – he is intimate with every row and most every plant.

 

For our cellar rats, this seems like a most natural combination; it would be strange to them if it were any other way.  It is difficult to explain how almost no winery follows this hallowed law of wine making!