Second Leaf

I have been remiss in introducing you to a key player of my vineyard management team. In fact, he is my most loyal assistant. Always by my side. Alerting me to all threats… both foreign and domestic.

Meet “Chip”! Or more formally known as Chocolate Chip.

Pictured above, Chip is guarding the Petite Sirah plants on the upper terrace (Block R). He is particularly proud of these 6 vines as they have shown great promise so far this year.

Chip is also very excited about the progress shown by the Barbera vines planted in the rest of the vineyard and wanted me to share some photos of them too.

If you look closely you can see several green young fruit clusters.

The photo below shows a nice close-up.

Recently I have had the pleasure of getting to know the founders of m2 vintners, a small urban winery located in the Lodi wine region of California, and this last weekend I was invited to help them bottle a small lot of Zinfandel. The name m2 comes from the last names of its two founders, Layne Montgomery and Chris Matheny.

I became interested in m2 a year or so ago when I read about them in an email newsletter from a local wine merchant. What caught my attention was that Layne and Chris had been making wine together since 2000 as ”garagistes” just down the road from me and decided to give their passion a go as commercial winery in 2004. m2’s 2004 and 2005 vintages were produced at a host winery in Amador County and in 2006 they started making their wines in their own facility in Lodi. They are indeed living the dream!

m2 doesn’t have a vineyard of its own but instead sources grapes from several top vineyards throughout California. This allows them to choose the very best fruit for their wines and focus completely on their winemaking. Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa Valley, old vine Zinfandel from Lodi, Syrah from the Shenandoah Valley, Petite Sirah from Clarksburg… you get the idea. The wines are made in a small commercial space—an approach taken by several other startup wineries including A Donkey & Goat, Periscope Cellars, Eno Wines, A.P. Vin, and the well-known and tremendously successful Siduri Wines. No fancy gardens, cascading fountains, or picturesque picnic spots here. Instead what you get with a visit to m2 is a behind the scenes look at what it takes to operate a winery and direct access to people behind the wines.  A truly pure and rewarding wine tasting experience.

The wines at m2 are made in a new world style where the fruit is allowed to express its varietal characteristics. In addition, a purposeful selection of yeasts and the application of oak aging in American and French barrels bring balance and complexity to the final product. The results are wines that are both food friendly and excellent on their own. m2 wines and grilled meats are a can’t miss combination.

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When the Barbera vines at Sorella Ridge emerged from their winter slumber several days ago, they took off with abandon.  Every day when I get home from work and walk the rows many of the shoots have literally grown a few inches in just one day. The first thought that comes to mind when I look out and see all of my vines growing right in front of my eyes is the firefighting phrase “fully involved”^[1]. Like an aggressive fire that is moving in all directions, the vines too are teeming with growth. Life indeed is good in my little vineyard!

The downside of all this activity is that I’ve had to catch up on some of my vineyard duties. The most important task at hand was to install the upper wires on my trellising system. With the new shoots reaching towards the sun, I needed something for them to grab onto. Originally I had planned on just a single wire for both the upper and lower supports. Recently, however, I’ve been rethinking the upper wire and thought that 2 wires would result in a fuller canopy. The idea for the upper support is that the shoots grow vertically inside the top wires, over the wires to either side, and back down towards the ground. Since the fruit zone for the vines is just above the lower wire, the growth from the shoots coming back down from the top wires provides a shade canopy for the clusters.

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With pruning behind us, bud break was to be our formal introduction to the vines at Hidden Acres. As expected, the annual warming trend in the weather triggered the awakening of these old gnarly vines.

After years of toiling on their own with minimal human intervention, we had hacked and sawed them back to something resembling a wine grape vineyard. You see, our goal for this year was simply to restore some order to this once prized place and gradually bring it back to its former glory. 

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Hidden Acres was probably planted in 1987 or 1988 by Dr. Townsend and his wife. I hope to get an exact season in the near future. This does seem to be a reasonable timeframe as the vineyard produced multiple vintages and three years are needed to begin producing grapes in any quantity. 

Varieties planted included Zinfandel, Chenin Blanc and Chardonnay. Table grapes are also planted but we’re interested in the wine so this may be the last time they are mentioned. From my hastily written notes while on the phone with the Townsends the rows starting from the tennis court side are:

• Half row table grapes including Thompson (Hey look… already mentioned them again)
• Two rows Zinfandel
• The final row is Chenin Blanc
• A row somewhere in between is Chardonnay
• The rest of the rows are a mix of Chenin Blanc and Zinfandel

I’m sure we’ll be able to figure out what’s what as the grapes enter varaison. I’d almost bet there will be a schematic posted showing the the layout, variety and possibly production of each vine. Sometimes a hobby can be taken to far. (nah)

On average a ton of grapes were harvested per year. Netting was put over the vines early in September as the brix came up to 19. This is apparently the point where the grapes become very attractive to birds. There is no deer fencing leading me to think that they weren’t a major threat to the vines (and grapes).

There were several vintages before the couple moved out of state in 1992. At least one vintage took a medal in a local competition. The final crush involved several couples competing in an old fashioned stomp with the victor taking home a Hidden Acres t-shirt.

I’ll be back with more history and news as it becomes available.

It’s been quite a while since I last posted but I can assure that plenty of wine has been sampled in my absence. No excuses other than I’ve been busy with work and other projects. But this post is not about my hiatus from Second Leaf. Instead I’d like to introduce you to one of my latest projects.

Hidden Acres is a 1/2 acre vineyard that I, along with some friends (whom you’ll be hearing more from in future posts), have recently adopted. Our task is to rehabilitate an 18year old (or at least that’s how old we think it is) collection of vines that is in desperate need of some TLC.

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