ENFOLD 2014 HARVEST
SATURDAY, AUGUST 23, 2014 thru THURSDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2014
AUGUST 23, 2014
Mother Nature is a paranoid schizophrenic!
Paso Robles is suffering its worst three-year drought in recorded weather history. The average annual rainfall here is about 15 inches. We have received less than 10 inches, total, over the past three years. We lost 10% of our plants in December due to two days of 17 degrees. We normally begin irrigating our plants by the end of April. This year we started watering the second week of January. The earliest we have ever harvested is the second week of September. This year we may harvest the last week of August!
Bad Mother Nature!
Given all that
Our Syrah is prolific and very tasty. We will probably pick it at the end of this month.
My year long experiment of vertical shoot positioning vs. don’t do anything, do not prune, position or drop! may turn out to be a boon. It takes hours and hours to trim, prune and position the shoots each spring and early summer. The quality of the fruit from the un-positioned vines seems to be as good as that from the vines which took hours to train and clip. More to follow regarding this experiment.
SEPTEMBER 4, 2014
We picked our Syrah today. The earliest ever! The fruit is delicious a great balance of acid and sweet. It is so promising that I may bottle it as a single varietal or, depending on the quality of our Mourvedre and Grenache, blend it to create a GSM. I will make that decision about 18 months from now.
SEPTEMBER 17, 2014
We harvested our Mourvedre and Grenache this morning. We started at 6:30am and finished picking before 11:00am. The night chilled grapes will retain more sugar than if we had picked them in the heat of the day. From harvest to crush the fruit spends less than 24 hours in the picking bins. It is trucked over to Le Vigne where our winemaker, Michael Barreto, keeps the fruit cool until crush, often crushing that same day. The numbers ( Brix, pH, TA ) and taste of these two varietals suggest that a GSM will be boffo!
Vines & Fruit
SEPTEMBER 20, 2014 Lucy Stomp Day
Our Zinfandel, as always, is our problem child. Since it was ripening unevenly, characteristic of Zinfandel, I dropped any still-green fruit before we netted the vines to keep birds from eating the berries. We hand harvested, today, our first row of Zinfandel which is reserved for our Lucy Stomp. The grapes tasted terrific. I hope a few more weeks’ hang time will bring this fruit to perfection.
Table Setting
Anita and cousin Sheila as Lucy
Where hand made no longer applies
SEPTEMBER 25, 2014
Today a crew of neighbors and wine club members saved the day. Because so many vineyards are picking early, we could not secure a professional picking crew so we asked for help. And that’s what we got! While the volunteer crew was not as speedy as the pros, I know we had more fun! We added to the fun with a champagne and red wine celebratory luncheon at a local (and neighbor’s) restaurant. And we will have even more fun in single bottling our community harvested Cabernet Sauvignon. The numbers and taste are perfect lush with copper colored juice tasting of cherries and licorice. If the fruit continues to hold its promise, members will be in for a real treat, unfortunately, twenty-four months away.
OCTOBER 1, 2014
Our Zinfandel was harvested today. It reflected the extra hang time ( 26 Brix ) with a complex taste of blackberries and leather. And close to two tons, too.
Good Mother Nature!
A few words about non-vineyard matters
We constructed a pergola under which stands a 24′ long concrete table which accommodates up to twenty-four people. Our Lucy Stomp participants will have their picnic lunch here (aprs stomp) on September 26th, 2015. Reserve your place soon (joseph@enfoldwines.com). To see what the Lucy Stomp is like view this You Tube video:
Recently, we hosted a group of 24 Wine Snobs, a local gaggle of wine lovers, to a wine tasting picnic. Thanks to the organizing efforts of Renet, we added ten new wine club members! Contact me or Anita if you have a group which would enjoy a picnic of California rolls, bbq baby-back pork ribs, cousin Tom’s homemade macaroni salad (better than mom’s!), corn salad and a sampling of our latest vintage. And, oh yeah, Anita’s famous chocolate truffles.
Salute
Salute La Famiglia, our wine club, now has 102 members. Our maximum is 150 given our small production with a goal of 300-325 cases per year. Please tell your friends to join before it’s too late (www.enfoldwines.com [wine club tab] ).
OCTOBER 9, 2014
Our 2012 wines are our best effort to date! We bottled five blends under the guidance of Michael Barreto, our winemaker for the past two years. Michael is head winemaker for Le Vigne Winery (www.levignewinery.com). We are very fortunate to have Michael take our fruit. His degree is in Enology from Fresno State with graduate work in winemaking at UC Davis. We met in 2007 when he finished making our 2005, George’s Blend. We are one of only four private clients. He adds a European touch to round off our Paso fruit.
Plan a visit to taste and lunch with us during our slack time — December through March. We would love to see you and sample our best efforts together.
Salute la Famiglia,
Enfold Lucy Stomp 2013
Saturday, September 21, 2013—the third annual opportunity to don a Lucy Ricardo peasant blouse and bandana, hike up your balloonish skirt into a big ole belt, and slip your feet into a vat of beautiful just-harvested grapes. No worries, your feet daintily dip into three cleansing solutions before they touch the pristine purple berries.
Last year it was so hot that the cool grapes invited Lucy Stompers to climb on into the vat and enjoy the chill but this year, slipping one’s tootsies into the glistening harvest was tougher because temperatures were cool and skies were gray. Undaunted, though, our intrepid Stompers clambered into the giant vat and mashed away. Soon they’d transformed our grapes into a rich-hued crush of skins, seeds, and gorgeous pinkish-purple juice.
This Stomp welcomed a delightfully diverse group of Enfold Wine Club Members, family, and other friends of many years. We had doctors, nurses, educators, and floral designers from Seattle, Hillsborough, and New York, painters from Palm Springs, hospital execs from Fresno, dentists from Paso, and two veterans of the remarkable pilgrims’ walk in Spain, the Camino de Santiago.
There were just 30 of us — that’s the maximum number of guests we can squeeze into our outdoor dining pergola. We like having these intimate groups for our Stomps—everyone gets a chance to trade stories about how they love Paso Robles wines as they pass the olives.
We only harvested a row or two this year; a professional crew comes to harvest the majority of our grapes. But it’s great fun to look up and down the rows and see our Stompers meticulously and lovingly cradling our grapes in one hand and cautiously snipping the stem with their trusty clippers. Joseph gave a detailed lesson on safety, raisining, and grape shoulders before we started.
After harvesting and stomping, we’d worked up an appetite. We settled into the dining pergola for cold poached salmon, Cousin Tom’s mahhhhvelous macaroni salad, Rick’s heavenly crusty bread, Joseph’s sausages and peppers, guacamole, fruit, and Anita’s truffles for dessert. And for party favors? Everyone got a bottle of the Cabernet Sauvignon that we stomped last year.
We hope a turn at our Lucy Stomp fits into your travel plans sometime. Please let us know if you want to reserve a spot at the table for 2014’s harvest.
Salute La Famiglia! Viva Lucy Stomp 2013!
Anita and Joseph
2012 Harvest is Here!
After five years of planning, planting, pruning, tying and netting, harvesting, punching down, tasting, and fretting, they’re here!
2010 Enfold Anita’s Blend
Our 2010 Enfold Anita’s Blend and Jazzin’ Zinfandel Blend Estate wines were bottled September 18, 2012, and are ready for your order. Most of you havefollowed our story from the birth of these babies and we hope you’ll partake of their debut. They are only available through select restaurants and our Wine Club.
We invite you to purchase a case of our wine. We’d love to have your business and Enfold would go great with your Thanksgiving dinner!
Please go to the Wine Club tab on this website and put in your name, address, phone and email. The cost is $275 per case including tax and shipping within California—what a deal! (Shipping is $20 more outside CA.) Enfold will be shipped this year in early November, after it has had its two-month post-bottling rest.
Last week our professional picking team picked our Syrah. It was at 25 Brix and is tasting delicious.Yesterday, with the help of nephew Andrew and our faithful pal Leahandah, we picked our second leaf (our youngster vines) Mourvedre and Grenache, both at 24 Brix and yummy. We’ll pick our Zinfandel and Cabernet Sauvignon in two weeks during our Second Annual Lucy Stomp. The guests of honor for this year’s Stomp are some of Joseph’s high school buddies from St. Peter’s Boys High School in Staten Island, New York City. Find your bandana and stomping shorts and join us on Monday, October 15!
Spring 2012
The vines are surprisingly lush this spring. I expected a less productive season after our dry winter and thought I would have less work at the beginning of the growingperiod. Not so.I have been in the vineyard every day this month–Anita too.We are shoot training, removingunwanted shoots andclusters from the plants (see The Oxford Companion to Wine, p.628). Of course, it has been in the upper 90’s. We start early and quit by lunchtime.
After twenty-two months on the oak, our 2010 blends will go into the bottle in mid-August. Anita’s Blend and our Jazzin’ Zinfandel Blend will be our first estate produced wines and will be offered through our club, Salute La Famiglia. We will ship to members the first week of November. If you wish to become a member, please go to www.www.enfoldwines.com/wine-club/ and sign up.
We hope your spring is as beautiful and bountiful as ours has been. Please visit us this summer in Paso Robles or come to harvest in October and join in the Lucy Stomp. To read about the fun you can expect, go to www.www.enfoldwines.com/enfold-blog/.
Salute la Famiglia,
Pick Your Favorite
Wow! Our most successful e-blast yet! All we had to do was challenge your imagination. Thank you for your creative participation in naming our 2010 Zinfandel Blend.
Doctors responded. Famous authors responded. Musicians responded. Other winemakers responded. Financial wizards found time to noodle. Mom, daughter, sisters, nieces, nephews, cousins, in-laws, best friends, insurance brokers, and our dentist responded—over 100 suggestions in all.
Some were funny: Pouty Lips, Toby’s Favorite (accompanied by a picture of dog Toby). Some played on the word zin: Zin on a Hot Tin Roof, Whine Not Zin, Original Zin, Zin de Rella. Some elegant: Fidelio, Debutante, Duality. Some visual: Little Yellow Wagon, Moonlight, and Purple Dusk.
We whittled the 100 down to ten possibilities:
| Inheritance | Special Dally | |
| Zinphony | Teacher’s Pet | |
| JAzzin’ | Rock n’ Roll | |
| Perfezione | Entwine | |
| Fizzure | Rin Zin Twin |
Then the three finalists:
| [polldaddy poll=5709527] |
Special Dally suggests a memorable indulgence about to unfold and the play on Anita’s name, Speciale, and mine, D’Alessio, is a witty entendre.
Rin Zin Twin makes us smile every time we say it, though we worry some may think our wine a dog.
JAzzin’ is another clever play on our names: J for Joseph, A for Anita, double z for the two blended Zinfandels. It is a name that suggests sophistication, entertainment, and joy.
What do you think? Let us know which is your favorite by checking one of the three above finalists. We will consider your choices and announce the winner by December 12th.
Enjoy the holidays. Salute La Famiglia!
2011 Harvest and Vintage Lucy
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The 2011 harvest is complete. Our Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah and Zinfandel are resting in their new barrels.
What a year! A late frost in April took much of the spring set of fruit from our Syrah and, two weeks later, three days of gusty winds battered our Cabernet vines. We lost about half of our Syrah to the frost and about two-thirds of the Cabernet crop to “shatter.” Shatter is often due to extreme weather which causes the tiny flowers to drop from the cluster, never to become berries. (See The Oxford Companion to Wine, 3rd Edition, page 291, under “fruit set.”) |
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While Mother Nature negatively affected the Syrah and Cabernet production, our Zinfandel production was up about 30%. Go figure!
However, as is often the case with Mother Nature, she doesn’t always just take away — our fruit’s quality is excellent this year. We’ll keep you posted as it is on its way to the bottle, which we project to be April 2013. |
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And did we have some fun along the way to barreling! On October 19th, we hosted our First Annual Lucy Stomp. It was a big hit. Anita does look like Lucy, red hair and all! |
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Jay |
Vince and Lido |
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A dozen friends picked, sorted, and stomped most of the day. |
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Leahandah & Best Pal |
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As usual, our friends Jay, Lynn and Jim came to lend a hand. Leahandah, ever helpful, was back, too, this year and brought her friend Laura and our new guard dog, Lido. Even our dentist, Kathryn, helped out. |
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Dr. Kathryn |
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After picking the real fun began. Cousin Sheila and husband Tom starred in stomp and bailing. Memories of Lucy were recalled. Some even dressed the part. |
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Cousin Sheila & Anita |
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Stomp! |
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Stomp. Stomp!! |
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Stomp. Stomp. Stomp!!! |
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Next year we will host the Second Annual Lucy Stomp on a Saturday, probably October 27th or November 3rd. We hope many more of you can have a “foots in” (think “hands on”) experience. We follow with a delightful champagne celebration and lunch. And pedicures to remove the purple coloring from our toes, feet and ankles. (not) We are thankful for our excellent harvest and have an ever growing respect for farmers everywhere. Anita and I wish you and your families abountiful and peaceful holiday season. Salute La Famiglia,Anita & Joseph
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SUMMERTIME, SUMMERTIME SWEET, SWEET SUMMERTIME
Greetings, it has been a while!
In April we planted another acre with 950 vines, all Rhone varietals from the ENTAV: Etablissement National Technique pour l’Amelioration de la Viticulture (French National Technical Center for the Improvement of Viticulture (www.entav.com). The clones are all grafted onto 1103P rootstock and include 350 Mourvedre (369 clone), 300 Syrah (470 clone) and 300 Grenache (362 clone).
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These additions will offer us even more blending opportunities and results. For example, in a year where one of the clones produces an extraordinary vintage we might bottle that wine as a single varietal.
On August 1, we finished “racking” (see The Oxford Companion To Wine, 3rd Ed., p. 560), tasted and blended our 2010 vintage. We produced two wines: Anita’s Blend and Zinfandel Blend. The blends will barrel until at least January 2012. Maybe longer. We will bottle the wine, lay it down for three months, and ship to our wine club members the first week of November. Please click here [OUR WINES] to learn more about the 2010 Anita’s Blend and the 2010 Zinfandel Blend.
To receive your first shipment in time for the 2012 holidays please click here [WINE CLUB] and then fill in the blanks. The first shipment will be 6 or 12 bottles and we expect its cost to be between $160 – $295. With a club membership we will offer a discount of up to 20% on future purchases of our 2010 selections.
Please send me the email addresses of any friends you think might be interested in our vines and our wines. We need 100 members. We will send them an invitation to read our blogs and become a subscriber. We will not add them to our mailing list without their consent. We do not sell or trade email information. Additionally, members will be invited to attend the First Annual Lucy Stomp, October 19th. Yes, like Lucy, we will stomp those grapes (Cabernet Sauvignon) and each stomper will receive some fruits of their labor. We will have an aprs-stomp lunch at Thomas Hill Organics. Harvest and Crush run from mid September to mid November, a very busy time. Members are welcome to join in the festivities! Call us at 805.239.2856 and we will arrange a way for you to participate.
ps. This year's fruit looks GRAND!!
“Salute la Famiglia,”
Anita Speciale Joseph D’Alessio
Birth to Adolescence
All is well. Our wine is barreled and resting. We put up 10 1/2 barrels, which should produce about 175 cases of Enfold 2010 wines for sale in late 2012: 100 of “Anita’s Blend;”
50 Zinfandel Blend; and 25 Zin Block 1 / Rows 1, 2, 3. We had great luck with all our fruit. The prolonged ripening at the end of our mild summer allowed the clusters to develop complexities beyond simple sugars and acids.
Grapes to be harvested. Notice slight shriveling--very desirable
The Syrahs are fabulous!!! We could have bottled them without putting them on the oak! They were grand right from the fermentation tanks. We are so excited about what the Syrahs will be like after maturing on French oak for 15-18 months. We will use all of it in Anita’s Blend. It will comprise about 40% of the blend. (We’ve appended a technical report on each of the varietals, clones and barreling techniques at the end of this email).
Picking
The Zinfandels were surprising. We harvested some early and some late—both very distinctive and flavorful. The later harvest will be our “BIG” Zin, “Block 1, Rows 1,2,3.” The earlier harvest will be one of the varietals in Anita’s Blend.
The Cabernet Sauvignon came in late but with terrific promise. Not much production (just three pounds per plant) but very, very intense fruit. All of it will be part of Anita’s Blend.
We will filter or “rack” the wine every three months and replace the evaporated wine or top it off monthly. We’ll taste often.
If you’d like to see more pictures of the process of making the wine, please see our other photos below.
...Picking....
Malolactic fermentation (MLF) or secondary fermentation (the conversion of malic acid to lactic acid) will take place in the barrel and soften the wine’s acidity. (To learn more about racking, topping off, and malolactic fermentation, see pages 560, 702, and 422 respectively in The Oxford Companion To Wine, 3rd Ed.)
Sometime in 2012 we’ll blend and bottle the wine and then allow it to sit for a few months. We expect to ship members’ purchases in time for Thanksgiving. Please sign up on our website www.enfoldwines.com/club-enfold.
In the middle of next month, we’ll start pruning, the “canopy cut, and finish in mid-March. More about what we learned this year and what subtle, and not so subtle, changes we will make in anticipation of next year’s harvest will appear in future blogs.
We will plant about 300 Mourvedre vines this spring. I hope to produce a video of the process. We’ll keep you informed.
..and picking
World's best crew!
To you who helped us harvest, thank you very much. And to all, have a blessed Christmas and a healthy,prosperous New Year.
Salute la famiglia,
Anita & Joseph
For you “tech know files:
We harvested our estate grown Tablas Creek Syrah clone at 26.2 brix/3.61pH. We put it on new French oak, medium toast, Radoux RWS barrels (Red Wine Select — half tight, half medium grained staves) at an alcohol of 15.4%. To learn more about cooperage go to www.tonnellerieradoux.com.
We picked most of our Zinfandel, Rows 4-15 (Wine Creek clone), at 23.5 brix/3.46 pH put it on a variety of new Hungarian, Bulgarian and Romanianoak barrels with medium+ toastedstaves and tops, at an alcohol of 14.8%.
Zin Block 1, Rows 1,2,3 was harvested at a whopping 26.5 brix/3.4 pH, and we put it on new French oak, medium toast, Radoux RWS barrels at an alcoholof 16.6%!!!
Enfold-er
We harvested Zin Rows 16-19 (Dupratt clones) at 25.2 brix/3.7 pH and we put it on new French oak, medium+ toast, Radoux RWS barrels at an alcoholof 16.2%.
Our Cabernet Sauvignon registered 24.0brix/3.6 pH and we put it on new French oak, medium toast, Radoux RWS barrels at an alcoholof 14.3%.
Due to deer damage last spring, our Syrah vines were unable to produce enough fruit for Anita’s Blend. We contracted with Estrella Farms to produce fruit to our standards and hand harvested 500 pounds from their Rows 23 and 24. The brix was 29.0/3.58 pH and we put it on new French oak, medium toast, Radoux RWS barrels atan alcohol of 15.1%.
If you are really interested, email me at joseph@www.enfoldwines.com for the tartaric acid levels (See page 681 of the Oxford Companion To Wine). They were all below 0.7%.
Making Our Wine – Photo Essay
October 2010 was a whirlwind of picking grapes, followed by crushing and de-stemming, punching down, pressing and finally barreling our Enfold 2010 varietals. Here’s an album of all the hubbub.
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Is she picking grapes or having coffee? |
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Preparing to crush |
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Crushing, removing stems and leaves |
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Crushed grapes |
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Fermentation begins in bins |
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“Punching down” skins into the juice |
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Primary fermentation is complete; siphoning off free run juice |
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First filtration |
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Pressing off the juice from the skins |
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Wine rests in the barrels |
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Zin on Hungarian Oak. |
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Vines are asleep; harvest and barreling are complete |
Birth Announcement
Dad and his newest baby, Syrah
On September 29, 2010, we picked our estate Syrah for the first time. The weather was mild in the early morning, the brix and pH were blissfully right, and we had good friends to help us. Fueled with strong coffee and muffins, we worked through the three rows, carefully selecting the fruit (no leaves, please!) and celebrated afterwards with champagne and lunch. After months of tending the grapes tirelessly in the summer heat, culling the not-perfect clusters and worrying over the weather, Joseph could celebrate our first varietal in the bins. Salute! Below, you’ll see our birth announcement for Baby Syrah and her brothers.
Birth!
Wow!!
What a kick!!!
Two and one half years in the arrival. Baby Syrah, born 9/29/2010, 800 lbs, ruby red coloring, sweet disposition (26.5 brix), but with just enough edge (3.67 pH) to be the perfect child. Mother and father are doing well. Baby is resting in a warm environment. Needs to be “changed” 2-3 times a day (the juices need to be punched down– bottom to top, top to bottom. Be careful not to crush any seeds!). Three days after being taken out of her incubator, Baby received her shots (innoculated with yeast) and bubbled with joy.
Loving, gentle, and hardworking godparents Leahandah Bohner, Jessica Cozzetto, Steve Gould, and Jim Bailey assisted in Syrah’s birth. The proud parents couldn’t have done it without them.Baby will take up residence in a lovely french oak chalet (60 gallon barrel) in just a few more days and will spend most of her infancy resting and maturing in the dark. Occasionally we will visit and see how Baby is developing.
Anita punches newly harvested grapes
Within two years we will introduce little Syrah to her siblings. Big brother Zinfandel, a really big boy of two tons, was brought into this world by professional midwives a few days after Syrah and smaller brother, Cab (full name Cabernet Sauvignon), was born three weeks late on the 9th of October. The godparents and other friendswill be invited to the debut of all three siblings in about two years. Between now and then, we’ll all watch the babies’ development with avid curiosity.
