Following the instructions authored by beau at Basic Juice, this month’s host of Wine Blogging Wednesday, the wine for this tasting note was selected based on the following criteria.
By Wednesday, October 11th, sample a wine from one of the following areas:
White Wine - New York, Oregon or Italy
Red Wine - Washington, Spain or France
Typically the parameters for a WBW stop right about there. However, this month beau has added a twist. The identity and origin of the wines will be withheld from the event summary and only a description of the wines will be included. Then, all WBW participants will take part in a competition where the person who correctly guesses the origins of the most wines in the event will receive $20! A wine challenge with cold cash on the line? I’m in!
So without betraying the identity of the wine I selected, here is a description of the tasting experience.
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I’ve heard many descriptions from winemakers of what this time of year means to them: grueling, sleepless, exhausting, stressful, and on and on. You see, like April 15th for CPAs, this is the tax season for winemakers; a time when all hell breaks loose at once. Racing back and forth between vineyards, grapes ripening at different rates, birds wrecking havoc eating fruit, the risk of the weather turning too cold, hot, or wet at any moment, equipment and workers being scheduled and prepared… sorting, crushing, destemming, soaking, pumping, oh my! You get the idea (and I’m not even going to mention the fruit flies). It makes you wonder why anyone would consider winemaking as an occupation at all.
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Early Sunday morning a friend and I started out on the 45 minute drive to the Merrill vineyard. This 2 acre patch of vines is tucked back in a small valley just south of the Fairplay AVA in El Dorado County. Our task on this morning: pick and crush 200 pounds of prime Sierra Foothills Zinfandel.
The Merrill vineyard was planted 9 years ago with cuttings from select vineyards in nearby Shenandoah Valley. As the photo below shows, the vines are head-trained as opposed to trellis-trained. This is the most common method of growing Zinfandel. What is uncommon by today’s standards is that these vines are growing on their own roots. Most vineyards are planted with vines grafted onto disease resistant rootstock (a reaction to the Phylloxera outbreak of the 1800’s).
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