So that’s where I am: one in college, the other starting high school. So the weekends often revert to what they were long ago: screw-around time.
This past weekend’s screw-around adventure involved two of our favorite topics: beer and wine. Loring Wirbel and Brian Santo will appreciate Saturday’s brew-up of a simple ale recipe I’ve been trying to perfect for more than a year–something bitter enough to rival Lagunitas or Deschutes’ Mirror Pond IPAs, yet round enough to give you a little mouth-feel, as they say in dentistry. We’ll see how it turns out.

But Sunday was the reall big day. It was time, finally, to bottle the 2005 Zinfandel that’s been sitting in my hunch-back cellar since, surprise!, 2005. It’s a long story that’s worth the telling over wine, so I’ll keep it brief. My first attempt at winemaking was a 2004 Zin. I returned home from a business trip to Long Island at something like 2 a.m. on a Saturday. I slept about three hours, woke up, and immediately drove about 3 hours north to Lake County’s Mount Konocti, where there’s a mountainside Zin vineyard up a windy, washboarded dirt road. That was a fantastic adventure that yielded toxic wine. I ended up with about 6 gallons and dumped it out this year because of poor QC. 2005 I switched to the more convenient Ponzo Vineyards in Healdsburg (Russian River Valley). And while I pay more than I should for Zin grapes, Barb Ponzo and her husband are good farmers and nice folks. (Plus I figure I have to pay the price if legendary Zin king Ridge Vineyards buys grapes from Ponzo).

The ’05 was an adventure. I muddled my way through the crucial early stages and came up with about 26 gallons of reasonable red, much better than ’04. But I have a taste in mind and I wasn’t there as the months passed. I prevailed on Michael Havens, easily the finest wine maker in the Napa Valley (an old family friend…er, let’s say “longtime” instead!) to give it a whiff. In a moment, he taught me more about wine (at least home winemaking) than I’d learned in years of book study: it is what it is. Let it be. He proclaimed it a fine dessert wine. I’d never thought of it that way, yet it was. I picked the grapes a little high in brix and it ended up around 14.6% alcohol, didn’t fully dry out on fermentation, but it’s still decent stuff. So what we bottled this weekend is a full, fruity vino that will pair nicely with a decent cheese dessert or could be used just to get hammered. (Straight out of the pamphlet isn’t it?)

I love winemaking even though it’s ball- and back-breaking work, especially bottling. I recalled visiting Michael around 20 years ago when he and his wife Kathryn were just getting started in Napa and after a career teaching at university. We’d come up to help out on a day of racking. It took literally all day to make sure the hoses were right and clean and everything was just so before the racking began. I started to get what, before that, I didn’t: an appreciation for mechanical detail.

So, above, you see a phlattering photo of my big bee-hind hunched over some freshly corked bottles amid the detritus of the day. You can thank my wife for photo. She’ll get hers.

No Responses to “A vintage weekend”

1. Anonymous
   September 4th, 2007 @ 10:52 am

   Hey Brian,

   Found your blog and I noticed you picture. Tell Heidi that once again, no attribution!.

2. Jordan Guthmann
   September 7th, 2007 @ 10:27 pm

   What does a man have to do around B&O to get a taste of your primo wine?

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