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Making Wine

Science and Culture: Wildfires pose a burning problem for wines and winemakers

August 18, 2021 by ADSWineReporter

On a pleasant evening in October 2017, winemaker Alisa Jacobson and her friends picked the last of the Cabernet grapes at her friends’ winery in southern Napa. They were taking advantage of the cool evening temperatures, which help reduce damage to the fruit. Later that night, the pleasant evening air turned acrid—Jacobson was surprised to smell smoke wafting through her bedroom window despite only seeing wildfires on her radar to the far north, in Santa Rosa, CA.

Smoke from wildfires can make the skies an eerie yellow, as seen here over a Napa Valley, CA, vineyard in September 2020. The smoke’s effects on winery grapes continue to perplex growers, winemakers, and researchers. Image credit: Science Source/Peter Menzel.

A new fire had flared up—the largest in California’s history. Dubbed the Tubbs fire, it spread from Napa County to Santa Rosa, jumped across US Highway 101 in the middle of the night, and burned nearly 37,000 acres before it could be contained, killing 22 people and destroying more than 5,000 buildings, half of them homes. Winemakers like Jacobson, who is vice president for winemaking at Joel Gott Wines, felt the fire’s impact not only in the looming threat to their homes but to their livelihoods as well. Months after evacuation orders were lifted, the region inched back to normalcy. Then winemakers began to detect smoke in their wine.

Essence of Ash

Grapes exposed to smoke absorb chemicals that can alter—and sometimes ruin—the taste and smell of resultant wines. This so-called “smoke taint” has become a growing concern for the industry. Chemicals in smoke obscure wine’s flavor and fragrance, Jacobson says. “You can smell the taint on the aroma, like a campfire, and when you taste it it’s like an ashtray,” she says. “It lingers for minutes after you spit or swallow.”

But not all wines are so severely affected. Grape growers, winemakers, and researchers have been surprised by the complex, lasting effects of wildfire smoke. The vagaries of plant physiology and microbial fermentation and the influence of the wind and other elements all add up to make taint an unpredictable and elusive phenomenon. Precisely when smoke exposure will ruin a batch of wine is uncertain. “Just because you have smoke exposure in your vineyard doesn’t mean you’ll taste it in the wine,” says enologist Elizabeth Tomasini of Oregon State University in Corvallis. “Two wines that have the same amount of smoke compounds might taste very different. It’s tricky.”

Since 2017, nearly every year has brought record-breaking fires to the western United States. In 2019, Jacobson and other industry representatives teamed up with Tomasini and other researchers to form the West Coast Smoke Exposure Task Force. The group aims to develop tools to test, treat, and ideally prevent smoke taint from ruining wines. Perhaps the biggest surprise thus far has been the complicated nature of that taint. Trusted winemaking techniques, such as filtration or using egg whites to remove unwanted chemicals, have failed to remove traces of wildfires. “There are lots of techniques for other problems in the winery, so I thought we’d be able to fix it,” Jacobson recalls. “It was a surprise that smoke taint was so difficult to remove.”

A Problematic Pairing

Australian researchers have been trying to solve the problem of taint for more than a decade. On a visit to a winery approximately 15 years ago, enologist Kerry Wilkinson at the University of Adelaide in Australia first heard from winemakers that their wines tasted ashy after fruit had been exposed to smoke from a nearby prescribed burning. “Some told us the grapes themselves seemed fine, and the juice didn’t smell or taste of smoke,” Wilkinson recalls. “But once they began to ferment it, this distinctive odor and ashy finish emerged.”

Wilkinson had studied other kinds of burnt odors in wine, ones deliberately introduced by aging wine in toasted oak barrels. The process of toasting breaks a woody polymer named lignin into volatile compounds. Fermentation reactions tack sugars onto those aromatic chemicals to convert them into soluble forms known as glycosides, which create spicy clove- or vanilla-like notes in finished wine. “Knowing that chemistry raised the idea in my mind that something similar was happening with wildfire smoke compounds,” Wilkinson says.

Indeed, she found similar chemical processes at play in grapes themselves. Wildfires burn lignin in trees and produce volatile phenols that can be toxic to plants. To protect themselves, grapevines react by coupling these aromatic compounds to sugars. Once bound, these conjugated chemicals are soluble in water and can be metabolized or transported out of cells. The bound versions of smoke chemicals are no longer volatile, so they can be tough to detect via smell or taste—meaning a smoke-tainted grape may seem no different from one not exposed to smoke. But during fermentation, yeast enzymes can break these bonds, releasing the phenols once more and causing an ashy, smoky finish to wines.

The process of binding phenols to sugars is surprisingly quick—an hour or two of exposure can result in smoke taint, Wilkinson says. And smoke doesn’t just deposit a residue on the fruit’s surface. Even after the skins are removed, as in the process of making white wines, sugar-bound phenols in the flesh of grapes can prove problematic. Wilkinson and her student were the first to find that smoke could have a significant impact on the grapevines in the field and the wine they produced (1). Longer durations of smoke exposure also resulted in a heavier taint, they found.

Although the enzymes that bind smoke compounds to sugars are common across plant species, the problem of taint appears to be unique to grapes. It’s possible that the chemical reaction occurs differently in other plants, or that the fruits or vegetables are already harvested by the end of summer, when wildfires usually flare up. “No one’s ever said they’ve got smoke-tainted cauliflowers or oranges,” Wilkinson says. “We’ve done experiments applying smoke to strawberries and cherry tomatoes and haven’t seen the same taint.”

Figure

At a winery in West Kelowna, British Columbia, overlooking Lake Okanagan, analytical chemist Wesley Zandberg and his team study the effects of simulated wildfire smoke on Pinot Noir grapes. Image credit: Matthew Noestheden (photographer).

Complex Chemistry

Exactly how and when the wildfire-induced chemicals infuse that noxious taint remains something of a mystery.

Wine contains hundreds of flavor-producing compounds that vary depending on grape varietals, soil, growing conditions such as warmth, the fermentation process, and more. These factors can introduce the same chemical markers currently associated with wine taint, particularly in wines such as Syrah or Shiraz. “These grapes naturally make very high levels of phenols,” says analytical chemist Wesley Zandberg at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. “Wine experts might call the flavors peppery or spicy, and it’s considered an attractive feature in these varieties.”

Identifying the “normal” levels of these naturally occurring chemicals is critical to knowing whether levels are elevated after a fire. “We don’t have good baseline data,” Zandberg says. “What’s normal for each variety or region? Now, we’re looking at data to understand whether the levels are normal or elevated—and if it’s elevated, is it enough to cause a problem downstream when making wine?”

Wilkinson’s studies have identified certain markers of smoke taint, such as guaiacol and 4-methyl-guaiacol. But there’s no comprehensive list, she says. Because these compounds are also naturally present in untainted wines, it’s possible that smoke is problematic not because it adds volatile compounds but because increased amounts block other flavors, says Zandberg, who is studying the chemical changes in wine caused by smoke (2). “Maybe the smoke exposure does put smoky flavored compounds into the wine,” he says, “but maybe it also prevents the formation of beneficial flavors that would otherwise be present.”

Smoke markers may vary because of wildfires, too. Although all wood contains lignin, its structure can vary by species, so the tree type can affect the smoke’s chemistry. Moisture in the air, the temperature of a fire, wind direction, distance from a fire, and other factors influence whether a particular wildfire will result in smoke-tainted wine. In 2020, for instance, catastrophic fires swept across the winemaking regions in California and Oregon, and the smoke drifted far north into vineyards in British Columbia. But even in Napa, certain pockets remained unaffected, explains enologist and analytical chemist Anita Oberholster of the University of California, Davis. “Topography, wind direction and other factors all play a part,” she says. “It’s very difficult to predict.”

Fresh smoke from a recent nearby fire poses the greatest risk to wines. Volatile phenols begin to decompose in the atmosphere within a day, reducing the risk of taint. Zandberg is currently comparing smoke-tainted wines and grapes from the United States with those in British Columbia to understand how the age of smoke and the distance it traveled altered how wines in both regions were affected.

In Oregon, Tomasini examines the sensory piece of this puzzle. If wines naturally contain the same phenols that smoke carries, is there a tipping point at which the concentration of these flavors makes the product unacceptable to a consumer? They are currently developing experiments that involve controlled taste tests of wines exposed to smoke and wine samples spiked with smoke markers to identify when an expert taster might deem a wine “tainted,” Tomasini says.

Their team couples this sensory analysis with chemical tests to pinpoint the molecules that create problematic flavors. Analyzing both the sensory aspects and chemistry together in this way is critical, Tomasini says, because the problems of tainted wine are as much about perception as chemistry. “It’s not just about smoke compounds, but everything else in there,” she says. “Wine is a beautiful combination of art and science.”

Screening for Solutions

An industry desperate for answers is hoping to find ways to predict when these factors converge. Contracts between growers and winemakers cover other kinds of problems such as fungal contamination, Jacobsen says. But there’s currently no way to know for sure whether a batch of grapes will yield tainted wine. As a result, growers might find over-cautious winemakers rejecting fruit because there was smoke in the area. Or winemakers might buy a batch of fruit and later find their wines unsellable.

“It’s not just about smoke compounds, but everything else in there. Wine is a beautiful combination of art and science.”

—Elizabeth Tomasini

In 2020, another historic fire season started in mid-August, when most grape varieties had yet to be harvested. Oberholster was inundated with requests from winemakers who wanted help analyzing grapes and wine samples for evidence of smoke taint. “Given the timing and the severity of the fires,” she says, “the extent of the problem was just enormous.”

Even as fires raged nearby and the pandemic took hold, Oberholster and her colleagues analyzed thousands of samples by using gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, expensive and laborious methods that require 30 minutes to an hour to process a single sample. Oberholster also conducted dozens of informational sessions on Zoom to help those affected understand the problem and what they could try to mitigate taint. Many believe, for instance, that turning on sprinklers to wash the grapes during smoke exposure will help. But Wilkerson and others have found that dousing the grapes likely only makes a difference to ash deposits—not smoke taint. “These compounds get into the grapes so quickly that even washing during the exposure doesn’t help,” Wilkerson says.

Nor does removing smoke-exposed skins—and anyway it’s not a viable solution for red wines, where the skin imparts the drink’s ruby hues. Experiments with different yeast strains haven’t yielded much success either, Oberholster says. Some filtration techniques familiar to winemakers can help, including membrane filtration, reverse osmosis, and treatments involving activated charcoal or milk proteins, which are already used to remove bitter compounds from wine. But these treatments remove more than just smoke taint chemicals. “These methods work well if wines are not severely affected, but they lack specificity,” Oberholster says. “Even if you remove the smoky flavor, they reduce the overall quality of the wine.”

For now, the best solution for the industry remains a sensory one, according to Oberholster. She recommends that growers make small-scale batches of wine to test whether grapes will yield smoke taint—and use their results to inform discussions with winemakers on whether to harvest and approaches to mitigate the flavor of fire.

Wilkinson, Zandberg, and others are experimenting with coating compounds such as a clay named kaolin, which essentially coats grapes to help prevent smoke from penetrating skin. These are commonly used on cherries, apples, and other produce already, but the researchers have only had limited success with smoke-exposed grapes thus far.

Remedies will be essential, Jacobsen says. When wildfires loom, industry workers scramble to protect their lives and belongings; they often can’t reach their fields, let alone work on them, to protect or harvest grapes. “We have to figure out how to make wines without smoke taint,” she says, “But we also have to figure out how to live and work with the threat of wildfires.”


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Dodge County wines featured at State Fair | Regional news

August 17, 2021 by ADSWineReporter

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The family’s wines have won medals at other competitions across the United States.

During his education, Marty Sell learned the drumlin land formations on their property, left by glaciers that traversed Dodge County, created ideal grape-growing soil conditions. Marty completed an online grape and wine program from Missouri State University. Through the online class he was mentored by master winemaker Domenic Carisetti, who comes to the Sell property a couple times a year as a consultant.

Several family members are involved in the day-to-day operation of the winery.

In addition to providing 25 cases of wine for the State Fair, the Sells volunteered to help pour at the association’s building on one of the event’s main streets. Word spreads quickly and exposure at the state fair is already paying off.

“We’re kind of out by ourselves here in Dodge County,” said Sell. “Our nearest neighbor wineries are in Ripon, Prairie du Sac and Cedarburg, but we’ve already had people stopping out last week who had seen us at the State Fair. More people are discovering us and our wonderful wines every day. Last weekend alone we had a couple hundred people here. That’s more traffic than we had in a month when we first started.”

Edwin Brix Vineyard is open for tastings from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and from noon to 4 p.m. Sunday. For more information go to edwinbrix.com.

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Sultana (Raisin) Market Research 2021-2027 With SIMIN TAK CO, Tunhe, Turpan Raisin, Aditya Corporation – The Manomet Current

August 16, 2021 by ADSWineReporter

“ Sultanas, sometimes referred to as golden raisins, are golden-colored raisins made from various varieties of seedless white-fleshed grapes. The skin of these fruits is initially pale yellow in color, but unlike raisins, it does not darken the same when it dries. Compared to raisins, sultanas also easily absorb liquids, but are smaller and slightly sweeter. Sultanas are used in the same way as other raisins.”

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The Global Sultana (Raisin) market is expected to register a notable market expansion of 4.7% during the review period owing to the largest market value in 2019. The market study provides a measure of the effectiveness of the product, real-time Sultana (Raisin) market scenario, along custom ease. The study further offers market analysis, strategies and planning, R & D landscape, target audience management, market potential, due diligence, and competitive landscape.

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Pinor Noir Day: The boutique and unique tipples of North Canterbury

August 15, 2021 by ADSWineReporter

A vineyard near Waipara, in North Canterbury, New Zealand. Photo / 123rf

Marlborough may have sauvignon blanc. Central Otago may have pinot noir.

But North Canterbury has top quality variety to dazzle your taste buds and keep them guessing. Oodles and oodles of it.

As you bounce between vineyards you might be offered a syrah, a pinot noir, a riesling, or novel varieties like a Saint Laurent.

The reasons are two-fold.

A unique landscape with soil profiles that change within just a few kilometres. And that landscape being dotted with vineyards that are truly independent, family-run affairs, willing to experiment with new flavours and techniques.

As we bounce down a gravel road to one of them, we miss the entrance on our first pass. On the second try, we spot it – George’s Road Wines, a discreet sign into their eight hectares of vines.

Their specialities include pinot gris, syrah, and rosé, all of which are delightful. But some of the truly special moments come when you get a peek behind the scenes.

Kirk Bray from George's Road Wines, with some fermenting Pinot gris. Photo / Ben ReedKirk Bray from George’s Road Wines, with some fermenting Pinot gris. Photo / Ben Reed

The fermentation vats, usually tracked with a combination of numbers and letters, here have names; “Mum”, “Dad”, “Jo3” (a son), and “Oscar” (the cat).

It’s a peaceful family atmosphere that the big outfits couldn’t imitate if they tried.

For those who want to keep the peace and tranquillity going just a bit longer, George’s Road has the Wine pod onsite.

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After the staff have left for the day you can stay behind in the tiny house, complete with a deck with views of the vines and rolling hills, or a hot tub from which to stargaze.

The view from the Winepod hot tub. Photo / Ben ReedThe view from the Winepod hot tub. Photo / Ben Reed

Just down the road is Boneline, another family affair that packs a unique flavour punch.

They offer the blend “Iridium”, a truly special drop for a wine enthusiast who craves a new experience. The cabernet franc blend is deep and rich – the scent alone is worth turning into a candle.

What these smaller operators have learned is they can’t compete with the wine giants offering plonk for $10 in the supermarket.

What they offer instead is a unique flavour profile, cultivated over the years under the guidance of a family-owned business, designed to win over the customers who want to try something they haven’t experienced before.

On that, Iridium is a big success.

Iridium from Boneline is one of the unique offerings of the area. Photo / Ben Reed
Iridium from Boneline is one of the unique offerings of the area. Photo / Ben Reed

And while plenty of wineries offer the chance to tour the property and vats, Boneline lets you truly get under the skin of the grapes.

You can walk around their property to see the different blocks and varieties of vines planted on each one.

Information signs tell you how the different heights, soil types, and temperatures influence which grapes they’ve planted in each spot, and the wines they’ll become.

When you come back to the tasting room, you might be lucky enough to get the company of one of the family dogs.

Just a stone’s throw away is Greystone, where once again the wine-making philosophy takes a sharp turn to try something new.

Their restaurant features seasonal and foraged foods, perfect for enjoying alongside their wines.

Greystone Wines experiments with many new ways of making wine, including their not-to-be-missed Vineyard Ferment. Photo / Ben ReedGreystone Wines experiments with many new ways of making wine, including their not-to-be-missed Vineyard Ferment. Photo / Ben Reed

When it comes to the wines, the star of the show has to be their Vineyard Ferment Pinot Noir.

Yeasts are key to the winemaking process, and constantly float through the air around us. That means they have a big impact on the flavour profile of the wine, yet are difficult to control.

So when Greystone’s head winemaker told the owners he wanted to try a different location for fermenting, in order to control these yeasts, he was given the green light before he had even worked out what he was going to do.

He decided he wanted to ferment some of the pinot noir at the same spot it was picked, amongst the vines where it had grown, so there was no chance of being influenced by other grapes back at the winery.

Dining at Greystone, Waipara Valley. Photo / SuppliedDining at Greystone, Waipara Valley. Photo / Supplied

The grapes are harvested, destemmed, and fermented all on the same block where they were grown.

It’s a careful labour of love that produces a truly unique and smooth glass of wine, one that’s only possible after years of experimenting and tweaking the process.

Just when you think you need a break from all the wine tasting, and to maybe lie down on the grass to stop your head spinning, you happen upon Iron Ridge Quarry.

Nestled among the vineyards, this former quarry is now transformed into a sculpture park that’s just as whimsical and unique as the local wines.

Raymond Herber and his prized steel horse sculpture. Photo / Ben Reed
Raymond Herber and his prized steel horse sculpture. Photo / Ben Reed

Owner and sculptor Raymond Herber has transformed the area with stainless steel sculptures inspired by the windswept trees, as well as kinetic sculptures two or three times the height of a person, that shift gently with the wind.

Herber takes metal that was discarded and turns it into something new and beautiful, from a small fantail posed mid-flit that’s perfect for the urban garden, to a powerful muscled horse that dominates the landscape, and that he refuses to sell.

He offers forging demonstrations, or simply a peaceful moment to soak in the tranquillity and digest the wine.

Raymond Herber with a kinetic sculpture that dominates the former quarry. Photo / Ben ReedRaymond Herber with a kinetic sculpture that dominates the former quarry. Photo / Ben Reed

A small operator, just like the local vineyards, he pitched in with two of the neighbouring wineries to buy a sign together, pointing curious tourists off the main road and towards their businesses.

It’s a community that works together, trusts each other, and takes the time to craft something that they’re truly proud of.

The results show in an experience that’s different from one moment to the next, and yet always true to the North Canterbury roots.

For more New Zealand travel ideas and inspiration, go to newfinder.co.nz and newzealand.com

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Oregon winemaker makes a fiery exit from the wine industry

August 14, 2021 by ADSWineReporter

Nate Bentley of Old Salt Cellars in Salem is taking the phrase “putting out fires at work” to heart. Bentley is quitting winemaking to fight actual fires.

In 2014, Bentley left a promotional career at Tinderbox Music to work at Witness Tree Vineyard with winemaker Steven Westby. When Witness Tree was sold to a group of investors in 2016, Bentley moved on to other local wine jobs, including a three vintage stint as cellar master at Harper Voit Wines in McMinnville.

For six vintages from 2014 to 2019, Bentley made his Old Salt wines on his own time. That streak came to a dramatic halt early last fall.

Bentley was driving to work while September wildfires choked the Willamette Valley with dense smoke.

“It looked like hell out there. I literally asked myself, ‘Why am I making wine when the world is on fire?’” Bentley said.

Oregon’s devastating 2020 wildfires convinced Bentley it was time to trade barrels and bottles for a hook-and-ladder.

“Everything I read says these fires are going to get worse because of climate change,” Bentley said. “As a small producer with limited resources, do I want to slog it out fixing smoke-contaminated wines? I just want to develop a skill set for a harsher world.”

Bentley, an Oregon City resident, recently completed the physical abilities test for firefighter candidates. He now faces an uphill struggle to land a firefighting job.

“Municipal firefighting is a very competitive market, so I’d be happy to end up with a paramedic position,” Bentley said.

Don’t be too hard on yourself if you are unfamiliar with the wines of Old Salt Cellars. Bentley didn’t make a lot of wine, and he always put his work for winery employers ahead of self-promotion. Even though it is my job to keep up on wineries, I didn’t stumble across Old Salt until recently.

The Old Salt name was inspired by Bentley’s childhood obsession with pirate stories. That passion may have something to do with the fact Bentley’s father was a deep-sea wreck diver. Bentley, a highly successful competitive collegiate swimmer, said water had always been a significant part of his family’s life.

The wine that led me to Bentley is called “The Shell,” named in honor of his wife, Michelle. The front label has striking black, red and white images relating to Bentley’s life, while the back label features a love poem to his wife that would have made Blackbeard misty-eyed.

“The Shell,” which is the only Old Salt wine Bentley has left for sale, is an unusual blend of pinot noir, dolcetto and gamay noir. The pinot noir and dolcetto grapes came from Witness Tree Vineyard in the Eola Amity Hills. The gamay noir grapes were picked at Chemeketa Community College’s instructional vineyard, which is also located in the Eola-Amity Hills.

I never had the opportunity to try Bentley’s other wines. If they were all as good as “The Shell,” the Oregon wine industry has lost a talented winemaker.

This wine demands your attention, from its deep garnet color to its winning combination of lively acidity and enough tannic structure to rough up the roof of your mouth. The sweet and savory aromas of blackberries, thyme and seared pork fat command you to open a second bottle. Flavors of cassis and grape hard candy join forces with white peaches to shout you down if you try to argue the point.

My advice: invite friends over if you plan to pry this “Shell” open. Then make a toast to Bentley and, hopefully, his new career.

The 2016 Old Salt Cellars “The Shell” Red Blend is available at Witness Tree Vineyard’s tasting room near Salem and Portland stores 45th Parallel Wines, Mom & Pop Wine Shop and Blackbird Wine & Atomic Cheese.

While the suggested retail price for “The Shell” is $24, prices may vary.

— Michael Alberty writes about wine for The Oregonian/OregonLive. He can be reached at malberty0@gmail.com. To read more of his coverage, go to oregonlive.com/wine.

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A Peek Inside the Most Exclusive Invitation-Only Wine Club

August 13, 2021 by ADSWineReporter

As the world continues to adapt to the pandemic, many people are looking for new travel memberships and elite experiences to indulge in.

Luckily the answer for these individuals is two simple words: The Vines.

After 15 years of turning wine lovers into winemakers in Argentina, The Vines of Mendoza has launched The Vines: a membership-only program designed for wine enthusiasts.

Created in early 2020, The Vines is an exclusive explorer’s club and the first worldwide community dedicated to winemaking.

The idea was to get to know the world by making wine – to have outposts at select vineyards where members could make their own micro-labels by building relationships with the most inventive, celebrated growers and winemakers.

6-0017.jpgInitiation fees are $100,000 and annual dues are $1,500- $3,000 per quarter. Winemaking costs per barrel range from $7,000 to $37,000 based on site.

Even if you’re a multi-zillionaire and can afford this, memberships for The Vines are by invitation only.

See Also: A Look Inside New York’s Most Exclusive Members-only Clubs

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The club has outposts and partners in seven regions around the world, including Champagne, Mendoza, Montalcino, Napa Valley, Priorat, The Mosel, and Willamette Valley, and they continue to expand to other areas around the globe.

Each of their terroir-focused producer partners represents a distinct approach to craft, drawing from local varietals and traditions to create wines that truly capture the unique spirit of their region.

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Members have the opportunity to travel to the world’s most coveted wine regions, learn the art of winemaking with master practitioners, and even create their own unique blends.

Winemaking is what brings members together, but their curiosities and interests are sparked by the culture that surrounds the wines.

Members get to know each region intimately by cooking with world-renowned chefs, learning from world-class musicians and artists, and engaging with local authors and astronomers.

2-0028.jpgBeyond great company and conversation, the vibrant Vines community makes for next-level collaborations that expand thinking about wine, travel and living life to the fullest. And of course, you get to drink epic wine with your fellow hedgefund-owning friends.

A few of The Vines curated experiences include the Annual Members Homecoming with famed Argentine chef Francis Mallmann; dinner at James Beard award-winning chef Nancy Silverton’s Los Angeles home; a Master Class in label design with legendary artist and brand designer Cey Adams; a private wine tasting with Grammy-winning Norah Jones, followed by her concert; private film screening with Wes Anderson, and their annual gathering, accompanied by 100-point wines, at Franklin Barbeque BBQ in Austin.

1-0039.jpgOver the course of the next five years, The Vines plans to offer winemaking in 12 different regions, as well as expand beyond winemaking, offering members a series of pop-ups like making Sake in Japan and Mezcal in Mexico.

So, where’s my invitation?

Photography by: Sourced from Berk Communications

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Filed Under: Making Wine

The Wine Foundry: ‘Bite-sized’ winemaking at a dual purpose Napa winery | Wine

August 12, 2021 by ADSWineReporter

The Wine Foundry works with a selection of California vineyards in Napa, Sonoma County, Mendocino, Livermore and Santa Barbara. A full list of vineyards is written on a map that can be seen in the tasting room, but it includes prominent vineyards such as Stagecoach in Napa Valley and Rodgers Creek and Catie’s Corner in Sonoma.

Once clients select the grape varieties and vineyards, The Wine Foundry team helps to formulate a plan and develop a creative brief that establishes the brand, the style of wine desired, and the story behind the label.

The Wine Foundry provides status updates throughout the growing season and once the grapes have been picked, individual clients can help  Saboe with the winemaking, from sorting and crushing to fermenting, punch downs, and pressing.

Each customer works with Saboe and his team to create the final blend with the flavors and textures desired. And, once the wine is ready, The Wine Foundry has a packaging guide to assist with everything from the glass, cork and capsule, as well as label design.

To make a single barrel, or 25 cases, of non-commercial wine to share with friends, the cost will range between $5,500 to $14,000. To produce a commercial wine, a minimum of two barrels, which makes 50 cases, is required and the cost is between $18,000 to $30,000.

“We believe that our program creates a unique opportunity for a wide variety of individuals and groups to explore and enjoy winemaking at the highest level — an experience normally reserved for those who come from winemaking families or who have rather exceptional financial means,” Valerie said. “We are excited to see our model has invited people of all backgrounds and we enjoy a richly diverse clientele, which is all too unusual in the wine industry.”

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Channel Marker Cider is navigating its way to a Ballard taproom

August 11, 2021 by ADSWineReporter

Zack Lough rode out many days of the pandemic in a garage. It was fellow sailor and business partner Nicole Lounsberry’s garage in Greenwood, to be exact. But Lough is pretty used to riding things out. Not long ago, he rode out a hurricane season in New Zealand. Sailing during hurricane season can be rough going, so instead, he took up seasonal work in the wine industry, making sauvignon blanc. He worked across the street from an apple orchard, and while reading a book that detailed the life of Johnny Appleseed, he decided to try his hand at making cider. Not surprisingly, everyone who tried his cider, loved it.

Far more attractive than sailing through a storm – in this perfect storm, Lough found himself making wine, across from an apple orchard, with an interest in cider. This project carried over when he returned to Seattle. With Lounsberry and another friend, Chris Irish, the three set off to form Channel Marker Cider, with Lough serving as head brewmaster. The flavors Channel Marker makes aren’t your run-of-the-mill ciders, and now is the best time to become a fan. Then you can brag to your friends that you were an honorary Channel Marker sailor before they became the hottest new taproom in Ballard.

Ballard is a fitting neighborhood for Channel Marker. In the nautical world, channel markers are navigational guides, marking the way for sailors to avoid potential dangers like sandbars, shallow rocks, or anything else you don’t want to run into, like other boats.

Off the water, Channel Marker is where you’re about to fall in love with Rhubarb Raspberry cider, Cucumber Blackberry cider, and the year-round favorite: Habanero Lime. Lough said the team uses as many local ingredients as possible with the star of the show, the apples, coming from Eastern Washington.

“We want people to feel acquainted with their beverages,” Lough said. “There’s this familiarity with our ingredients. People interact with these ingredients all the time in Seattle. It’s kind of like tasting your city.”

Channel Marker’s Rosemary Cran Ginger cider is a perfect example of this.

“You can literally walk down any street in Seattle and find a rosemary bush,” Lough said. But…dogs potentially pee on those, so you won’t find the Channel Marker team harvesting Seattle-sidewalk rosemary. But the blackberries, apples, and cucumbers may have come from their own backyards when they’re in season. Lough said that’s an especially great way to connect to the ingredients.

But backyard production is certainly not enough to meet the demand for Channel Marker Cider production, and they’ve also outgrown Lounsberry’s garage. The pandemic allowed the trio to focus on expansion and getting more local cider out to the community, which included offering cider in cans for the first time.

“We want to get bigger,” Lough said. “We’ve been bootstrapping this business since we started in 2016.”

But bootstrapping has worked. Channel Marker Cider has a collection of major awards like Craftcider Magazine 2020 Judge’s Pick for their Lavender Bergamot cider, a silver medal for the Honey Badger Cyser with a silver medal, and gold for the Rosemary Cran Ginger.

Soon those medals will move from their current home in the Channel Marker Cider garage to their new home base in Ballard, which will be both a production facility and a public taproom.

“Having people come interact with us on a daily basis in a taproom, it’s gonna be a huge game-changer,” Lough said.

Being a part of the community is one of the major reasons Channel Marker Cider is excited to open their taproom. Cider making itself is a community process, from the farmers growing apples to the harvesting crew, those pressing them into juice, all the way to the people cleaning a glass before pouring your cider of choice. “That’s why I love cider,” Lough said. “It’s a distillation of all of this community effort, and it’s representative of Washington state, too.”

Whether you’re adventuring out on the water or up for trying new flavor combinations in your own backyard, Channel Marker has a cider for that. “There’s a cider for everyone,” Lough said. And we’re not one to disagree with a brewmaster.

Channel Marker Cider anticipates their Ballard production facility to open in the fall and hopes the taproom will open by the end of 2021. In the meantime, check out Channel Marker’s website for info on where to grab yourself a can or where to find it on tap in the Seattle and Tacoma area.

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You’ve Been Storing Your Wine Wrong, According To Winemaker Greg Brewer

August 10, 2021 by ADSWineReporter

Greg Brewer has already covered the basics of proper wine storage: A sideways or inverted bottle to keep the cork moist and airtight, a dark, consistently cool place, and a physically stable environment (without a lot of jostling and shaking and such.)

That’s probably all most of us need to know, but for a bit more insight, Brewer explained: “So if you want to go all in and buy a little wine refrigerator or build a closet in your house or whatever, that’s great. But for the reality of most people, the middle of the house is good as opposed to walls — certainly avoid south-facing walls — and going low is advantageous, like the bottom of a closet.” Brewer called it “as simple as that” and said  “just consistent, dark, cool, and then sideways or upside down would be the five main things” about wine storage.

If you do want to create the absolute ideal wine storage conditions, then here are a few more specific pieces of information to keep in mind as you build out a space in your home. According to MasterClass, no wine should ever be stored at temperatures below 25 or above 68 degrees Fahrenheit, and in general, for both red and white wines, 55 degrees Fahrenheit is the ideal temperature for long-term storage. As for humidity, that should be between 60% and 68%, with lower humidity the greater worry, as it can cause corks to dry out. And while wine bottles with modern artificial corks and screw tops need not be stored on their sides, doing so can still ensure you are generally maintaining best practices for all your bottles.

Now that you know how to properly store your wine, stop by Brewer-Clifton’s tasting room next time you’re in southern California, or pick up a bottle of their award-winning wine online.

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Wineaux: Making a stab at ‘first do no harm’

August 9, 2021 by ADSWineReporter

Sometime during the most intense phase of lockdown, The New York Times asked readers to send a sentence describing their philosophy of life — or at least of coping. The request got me thinking about “what I live by” and my pithiest — just four words — possibility was “First do no harm.” I quickly realized, though, the impossibility of that. I do harm every time I turn on a light, start the car or heat water. And then there’s ordering something from Amazon: harm squared.

So I amended it to “do as little harm as possible,” not so succinct or catchy but more serviceable. (And yes, it is possible to live without Amazon, I remind myself when I’m tempted.) With this on my mind, I was struck by a line on the Two Shepherds Winery website in which the “shepherds” write that their role is to guide their wine along, protect it from harm, and otherwise not intervene. In other words, to shepherd it. A good philosophy for raising children and inhabiting the earth as well as making wine.

Their wines are, indeed, very low intervention — no additives save a minuscule amount of SO2, whole cluster fermentation in neutral barrels, native yeasts, no fining or filtration, etc. And the shepherds believe that “winemaking is an art, not a science, regardless of what UC Davis says.” In an interview, one of the shepherds, Karen Daenen, placed her commitment to natural winemaking in a wider, more inclusive context: “It’s also how I choose to eat. I read ingredients on food labels, enjoy cooking from scratch and eat minimally processed food.”

I had a specific reason for looking at this website: some friends recently shared with us a bottle of 2017 Two Shepherds Centime, a grenache blanc (Two Shepherds specializes in Rhone varieties) from Catie’s Corner Vineyard in the Russian River Valley. It’s a skin contact or “orange” wine that I took one sip of, interrupted the conversation, and just said, “Wow.” I continued to say (or at least think) “Wow” until the bottle was empty.

Two Shepherds is just a small team consisting of the shepherds, Daenen and William Allen, and their cellar master, Lorenza Allen (no relationship to William). William and Karen have full time jobs and run a farm as well as a vineyard (they also use other vineyards, like Catie’s Corner, all grapes handpicked and organically grown). “We make the wines we want to drink” — surely the very best policy for a small operation.

And I can see why they “want to drink” this spicy, lively, multi-faceted beauty with its hints of grapefruit and ginger as well as intense minerality — my cheater phrase for imagining myself able to taste the alluvial soil of the region.

Now one of my urgent missions in life is to visit the Two Shepherds Windsor warehouse tasting room and try everything they’ve got.

Wine drinkers on a strict budget have a hard time finding “no harm” wines. The above grenache blanc, for example, costs $30 (totally worth it, though!). It’s especially difficult to come upon domestic “no harms” in the lower price ranges. And importation brings its own harm. Nevertheless, many producers, who already use more earth-friendly growing techniques, are trying their best to lower their carbon footprint in bottling and delivery as well.

One is the family-owned Proviva Winery in Mendoza, Argentina, also called Chakana Winery. The son of an Italian immigrant with roots in northern Italy’s viticulture, Juan Pelizzatti, founded the winery in 2002 in collaboration with a young and innovative winemaker named Gabriel Bloise, and it’s now one of the leading projects in “new” Argentinian wines.

Their Inkarri brand features estate-grown wines produced exclusively from organic and biodynamic vineyards in the best terroirs of Mendoza, like that of the small village of Agrelo at the foothills of the Andes — most known for its malbec. The dry, desert-like climate features warm, sunny days and nights cooled by winds from the snow-capped Andes.

The Co-op carries the Inkarri white, a blend of sauvignon blanc, chardonnay and viognier. It’s a bright, clean, dry, spirited wine that tastes of honeysuckle and tropical fruit as well as summer stone fruit. You can practically taste the regions’ distinctive calcareous soil. It’s a perfect wine for patio sipping or to accompany seafood of any sort, a big vegetable burrito (such a tempting dinner dish for a hot summer evening), or Asian dishes like pad thai.

Not so complex as the Two Shepherds bottle, it is nonetheless a delicious, easygoing, appealing wine. And at just $11 a bottle, it’s an excellent bargain as well, especially given the wild fermentation, and the fact that, unusually, there are no added sulfites. In a further reduction of “harm,” it comes in a very light-weight bottle.

Hippocrates was (as far as we know) the first to advise “do no harm,” and we think of this phrase as part of the oath physicians take (which they no longer do — hmmm). But if we all pledged to do as little harm as possible (and to support businesses trying to do the same), who knows what healing — of ourselves and the planet — might ensue?

— Susana Leonardi is a Davis resident; reach her at vinosusana@gmail.com. Comment on this column at www.davisenterprise.com.

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