Posts Tagged harvest

http://www.bluffdalevineyards.com

Bluff Dale Vineyards is located in Bluff Dale and is owned by David and Theresa Hayes while David Hayes handles the winemaking. A vineyard was planted in 2001 and the winery was opened in 2004.

We were meeting a Facebook friend Laurie Ware and her husband Shelly at Bluff Dale and we arrived just before they did. Driving up to the winery the vineyard is on the right and up on a hill is the winery. Being on the hill, the winery awards a beautiful view of the countryside with hills and the vineyard below.

Chris Hayes, son of David and Theresa, greeted us as we entered the tasting room. Soon Laurie and Shelly arrived and we all began a tasting. There is a fee for a tasting for whatever wines they have except the Port which is an extra cost. Tastings are done either sitting at the tasting bar or at a table. The bottles use corks and the tastings are poured from the bottle. Crackers are available for cleansing your palate during the tasting. Food can be purchased during or after the tasting and includes items such as cheese and salami, smoked salmon, and edamame.

Chris said they use approximately 85-90% Texas grapes in their Texas wine. When they cannot get Texas grapes, they get grapes from California. Chris explained the vineyard below the winery now covers one and a third acres. Next year they plan on having a total of 5-7 acres of vineyards after planting.

During the tasting we reached one red blend called Paragon. Gloria immediately said it smelled like cotton candy which indeed it did. Because of the unique aroma, Chris said he had the thought to set up a booth at the State Fair and offer liquid cotton candy. I’m sure it would be a hit!

Tours are possible at the winery if they are not busy and fortunately for all of us, Chris was able to take us on a tour of the production facility. He explained they do everything by hand from harvesting the grapes, making the wine, and all the way to bottling. He even joked during our tasting if there was an air bubble in the wine bottle, he probably did it. During the tasting we were able to meet both David and Theresa Hayes, and during the tour David talked to us more. Bluff Dale Vineyards produces 5,000-7,000 cases of Texas wine a year.

Chris gives tour at Bluff Dale Vineyards

There is a gift shop at the winery with books and other items. A wine club was available from the winery called the Bluff Dale Wine Society but they still inform people of upcoming events. An outside covered patio area is used for live music events every month in addition to other social events.

Chris Hayes, David & Theresa Hayes

After the tour and checking out, we thanked everyone for their wonderful hospitality. The prices for the bottles of wine at Bluff Dale Vineyards are very reasonable.

Bluff Dale Vineyards is on the Way Out Wineries wine trail.

http://brennanvineyards.com

Brennan Vineyards is located in Comanche and Pat and Trellise Brennan are the majority owners. In 2002 a five acre vineyard was planted and the winery opened in 2005. Today they have three vineyards with a total of 37 acres. They grow about 12 different kinds of grapes and sell some grapes to other Texas wineries. Some of the grapes grown are Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Viognier, and Nero d’Avola.

As we drove to Brennan Vineyards, I received a message on Twitter from Todd Webster (@txviognier), winemaker at Brennan Vineyards. He said if we were coming up a certain road, make a short trip and we could see their biggest vineyard. We did so and it was the biggest vineyard we have seen so far. We learned later from Todd they mechanically harvest their grapes which makes sense with the amount of vineyard acres.

Upon entering Brennan Vineyards, you encounter a campus comprising three buildings. The first building is the historic McCrary House tasting room and gift shop built in 1879. The center building is the winery and the last building is the Austin House Events Center. The events center was built in 2006 and has 3,700 sq. ft. with a patio and outdoor fireplace.

We entered the tasting room and Tina Marken, Hospitality Director, was behind the tasting bar. Since Todd Webster was expecting us, she texted him to let him know we arrived. As we were waiting for Todd, Tina started us on a tasting.

Tina Marken

All tastings are complimentary and you can do a tasting while sitting or standing at the bar. Tastings are poured from the bottle. There is sometimes a limit to the number of wines tasted but usually it is whatever they have opened. Crackers and chocolates are provided during the tasting to cleanse your palate and enhance your tasting.

Brennan Vineyards try to use 100% Texas grapes if they can. If they are unable to, the grapes come from California. Brennan Vineyards uses both corks and screw caps. Two types of labels are used: Austin Street and Brennan Vineyards. Austin Street is for their value line and the premium line is Brennan Vineyards. The Brennan Vineyards line uses 100% Texas grapes. The Brennan label also used to be straight varietals until the introduction of Buffalo Rhome. Brennan Vineyards produces about 5,000 cases of wines a year.

Soon Todd Webster arrived and we got a chance to meet in person. He took over our tasting and was able to provide insight into the wines he had made. As mentioned previously, his Twitter handle is @txviognier which makes sense since Viognier has been Brennan Vineyard’s signature wine since they opened in 2005.

Todd Webster, Trellise & Pat Brennan

During our tasting Pat and Trellise Brennan arrived in the tasting room so we got a chance to meet them. They, like most people in the wine industry, were very nice. We finished our tasting after Todd introduced us to a couple of his latest wines, Dark Horse made with Nero d’Avola which was bottled in March 2012 and Lily which is a White Rhone style blend with 53% Roussanne, 25% Viognier, and 22% Grenache. Since Grenache is a red grape, after they harvested, it went directly into the press so they got white juice out of it. As with the other wines we tasted, both were very good.

A question came up prior to our visit to Brennan Vineyards and now we had the perfect person in Todd to answer it. We had tried a Cabernet Sauvignon elsewhere but were then told it was mostly Cabernet Sauvignon but had a tiny bit of a few other grapes. We asked what percentage of grapes the single varietal wine has to be in order to call it just that variety on the label and the answer is 75% in Texas. The percentage is different in other states.

Tours are available at Brennan Vineyards so Todd then took us on a tour of the campus. We went first to the winery where we saw the production facility with the stainless steel tanks and the laboratory. We learned that the bladder press is used for two hours with the white wine program but the red wine program only uses about one hour.

Todd Webster in barrel room

We then went to the barrel room where their Texas wine is aged. We learned due to requests, Brennan Vineyards will be making a Chardonnay soon and will be making it buttery and oaky, but not with too much oak. Speaking of oak, we learned from Todd that a barrel usually loses 50% of its oak the first year, 30% the second year, and 20% the third year. The fourth year will then be neutral with no oak and primarily used for just storage. They can add oak chips though at that point to get the oak flavor again.

One interesting thing we haven’t seen before is Brennan Vineyards stores their barrels at a slight angle so the bung hole (the barrel hole) isn’t directly on top of the barrel. The reason is because they do not top their barrels with the wine. If they top the barrel and leave the barrel upright, they end up losing wine every month because of evaporation and have the chance of oxidizing the whole barrel. Rotating the barrel helps prevent that and they do not open the barrel during the year.

We then went to the events center. The basement of the events cellars is where the many cases of wine are stored. Upstairs in the building is the large room with tables set up for events such as weddings, live music, and other special occasions. Wine dinners are held the second Friday of each month except August. A balcony overlooks one of the vineyards along with Pat and Trellise Brennan’s house nearby.

We concluded our tour and returned to the tasting room. There is a gift shop present with clothing and wine accessories. A wine club is available from the winery.

It was a pleasure to meet Todd, the Brennan’s, and Tina and we had a wonderful time visiting Brennan Vineyards.

Brennan Vineyards recently joined forces with Lost Oak Winery and McPherson Cellars to form 4.0 Cellars in Fredericksburg. Brennan Vineyards is on the Way Out Wineries wine trail.

Dry Comal Creek Vineyards and Winery every month has wine classes which they call Winery U. The topics are always different and are offered at a very low fee of $30 per class or $25 per class when you pre-register for four classes. David King, Certified Wine Specialist, teaches the various classes and sometimes owner Franklin Houser also steps in to offer some education to those in attendance.

I needed to go back to Dry Comal Creek Vineyards and Winery for some information since the last time we visited them was before we started the blog. I also follow David King on Twitter (@kingdr13) and that was an extra bonus to take a class. When the 2012 class schedule was presented, I decided to take the April class of Growing Grapes and Making Wine.

I arrived before the 10:30am starting time and learned the class was going to be held in the production facility alongside the stainless steel tanks. I met David King and we all waited for the rest of the class to arrive. He said normally the classes are held in the tasting room but this particular class he liked holding next to the tanks since we would be tasting from the tanks and also walking into the nearby vineyard.

The class started with David showing a video from the television show Dirty Jobs starring Mike Rowe. In the episode, he visited a California winery and learned how dirty a job growing grapes and making wine can be. I enjoy the television show and had not seen this episode from 2007 so it was fun watching it, and with the laughter from others in the class, it seemed they enjoyed it too. It was a great start and introduction to wine making.

We then decided to leave the coolness of the building and head to the vineyard. David explained various things about the vineyard like the growing, pruning, and harvesting. Dry Comal Creek uses a V-shaped trellis system to hold their vines. Other topics of interest were it takes three years to get a mature vine, and the vines want to get as much sun as possible so they are usually planted in a north-south direction.

We then headed back into the building where David continued the class. He told us about grape varieties, the importance of Thomas Munson in the wine industry, and the various steps of the grape vine growth cycle. Next was an introduction to making wine with topics such as Brix, types of yeast, and barrels. Overall, David was very knowledgeable and was able to answer questions the class brought up.

Dry Comal Creek had just bottled their Cabernet Sauvignon and there was also some extra wine in one of the tanks. David thought it would be interesting to compare the two and everybody could detect some difference. We then tasted Black Spanish (Lenoir) from a tank. This wine did not have much flavor since it was young and David estimated another two years may be needed.

The almost three hour class was finished and everybody agreed they had a great time. At the end of the class we were all able to take a Black Spanish vine home with us to plant. Watch out for my grapes growing in the future! The class was definitely worth taking and if we lived a little closer to New Braunfels, I would be attending the Winery U classes every month. I would highly recommend taking one or more classes.

As we have mentioned before, the Texas Winery Passport program is definitely something you should be involved with if you are visiting Texas wineries. The rewards get better and better as you visit more wineries. Even though the Texas Winery Passport program will be changing in some way at the start of September, we still recommend collecting passport codes as you visit Texas wineries.

We have reached a passport level where the rewards are now given out by the wineries instead of the Texas Department of Agriculture. The latest reward chosen for us was an overnight stay and private candlelit wine dinner for two in the barrel room at Los Pinos Ranch Vineyards. This of course sounded great to us, and it didn’t hurt that Los Pinos Ranch Vineyards is one of our favorite wineries.

The challenging part was trying to arrange a date that would work for both Los Pinos and us. Andrea Taylor from Los Pinos was very helpful in arranging a date. The issue was that Los Pinos currently has one cottage available and we had to find an available night where other guests had not already reserved the cottage. In addition, we had to choose a time period where harvesting would not affect the barrel room dinner. We decided on a date which should have fit between two harvest periods and have availability of the cottage.

Our overnight stay was going to be on a Saturday night but since we were driving four hours to the winery, we decided to see what else we could do during the weekend. We headed to East Texas Friday night and went to KE Cellars in Tyler. I had arranged with Twitter friend Darlene for us to meet her and her husband Roger there to enjoy some of the Texas wine KE Cellars offers and to listen to the live music.

We arrived earlier than expected but enjoyed looking at the variety of Texas wine KE Cellars sells. We bought a bottle of Llano Moscato and found a table in the live music room to wait for Darlene and Roger. It was not a long wait as they soon arrived. None of us had met before, but after almost two hours of a fun conversation it seemed like we had previously been friends. Upon leaving, we all said we would have to get together again when one was in the others part of the state.

The next morning Gloria and I decided to do something a little thrilling – zip lining. I had previously done it near Austin but it was Gloria’s first time. Wired (http://www.ziptheusa.com) claims to have the tallest towers and longest zip lines in Texas. They definitely were taller, longer (longest being 1,115 feet), and faster than the previous ones I had done. Fortunately we had decided to get there at 8am because as expected, the heat eventually got extreme. Gloria had a fun time and said she would do it again.

After making a nice visit to Crump Valley Vineyards (post to come soon), we headed to Los Pinos Ranch Vineyards. As we drove down the narrow bumpy road to their winery, I received a phone call from Gerald Jones, their Sales Director, asking if we were there yet. Talk about timing. It turned out he was on the road again with a refrigerated truck and probably wouldn’t be back at the winery that evening. He was checking to see how late we would be staying in the morning. We said we could wait until he got back. In the morning however, he texted us saying he probably would be much later than he had anticipated. It turned out to be another missed opportunity to see Gerald again. Gerald, if you’re reading this, just request us to help work your table at the next Old Town Spring SpringFest.

We checked in at the tasting room and met Andrea who I had been corresponding with, so it was nice to put a name with a face. She told us earlier in the week that harvesting was unexpectedly happening sooner than normal because of the heat, so we probably could not have the barrel room for the dinner. We were given a choice to either reschedule or just eat in the main dining area. The dining room was fine for us. We were told to pick any table and they would reserve it for us for the evening. We chose a nice corner table in the rear where it was a little more private but still had a nice view of the stage where jazz would be happening later in the evening.

Andrea said the barrel room and production facility was busy at the moment with workers harvesting Sangiovese which had just come in. She brought us in to show us what was happening and they were loading the grapes into the destemmer. Owner Jeff Sneed was helping out and said hello to us. I mentioned how we saw they just came out with a Moscato and couldn’t wait to try it. He told us he thought it was the best label yet on their wine. That made sense because when you see the label, it has a picture of Jeff on it. Yes, he’s one funny guy.

We received the key to the cottage and checked it out. The cottage was very nice and romantic, complete with Jacuzzi. After unpacking, we headed back to the tasting room to quench our thirst.

After sitting at our table, our waitress asked what we would like for dinner. We had a choice between the normal tapas menu or the Chef’s Special that evening: scallops in prosciutto cups with sautéed spinach and potatoe crispadoros. That sounded delicious so it was an easy choice for us. We also would receive a bottle of wine and the Chef’s Special menu said the vintner recommended either the Chardonnay or Moscato Reserve. This was working out perfectly so we of course chose the Moscato.

We chose to get a pizza margherita as an appetizer. The bottle of Moscato arrived but we decided to do a tasting of their sweet and dry wines first to decide if there were any other wines we would like to drink later or buy to take home. As mentioned previously in the Los Pinos Ranch Vineyards post, the tastings are done a little differently than other wineries since they are served at once in test tube-like bottles. We are normally white wine drinkers but we really liked the Sangiovese and Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve, so we decided to ask later to get some bottles to take home.

We finished our tasting and the scallops arrived. The dinner tasted as delicious as it looked. The jazz trio started and we enjoyed listening to the music while eating dinner and of course enjoying the wine.

After we finished dinner and the band had taken a break, we were pleasantly surprised when Jeff Sneed sat down at our table. He apologized for the way he looked since he had come from finishing the grape harvesting, but he looked fine to us. We had an enjoyable and fun conversation talking about wine, wineries, problems creating wine labels, and how they used to have themed events. One event he held was how he met his wife who is now the Chef at the winery. He said the Sangiovese from last year was made with New Mexico grapes, but the current one which they had just crushed was from Texas. He could not wait to get that wine bottled and have 100% Texas wine. He thought the band was on a really long break, so he excused himself to check on them.

We had a fantastic evening listening to jazz, eating dinner, drinking wine, and feeling like we were part of the family. Staying in the Los Pinos Ranch Vineyards cottage was an even bigger plus. After a peaceful night of sleep, we packed up and headed for the long trip home.

If you ever get the chance to visit East Texas, we highly recommend spending some time at Los Pinos Ranch Vineyards. Tell them Jeff and Gloria sent you!

Gloria and I wanted to volunteer to help harvest grapes for a winery this year since we have never done it. Many wineries harvest their own grapes to make their Texas wine, but either they do not know exactly when they will be harvesting until close to the time, or they have a festival associated with the harvesting and a fee to participate in the harvest.

When we were confirming our VIP Private Tasting for 20 with Messina Hof, I asked if we could just volunteer to pick grapes. I received an email back from Messina Hof co-owner Paul Bonarrigo to contact him. He suggested if we just wanted to harvest grapes, we should arrive near the end of the festival guest harvest picking and then we could continue harvesting with his regular crew. Doing it this way would give us the most experience and we could also stop at any time. This sounded good so we agreed.

The day arrived and we learned it was going to eventually get to 102 degrees near Messina Hof. Oh boy, this was going to be interesting.

Paul Bonarrigo leading workers and festival guests

We arrived at Messina Hof and could see Paul and the other guests harvesting. We went to the group where Paul greeted us and showed us where to start and what to do. We had expected to be given pruning shears, but Paul said the grape clusters were so tender they could just be plucked from the vine. It wasn’t too difficult but Gloria later did ask for shears since some clusters were hard to get off the vine. Instead of the expected shears, she was given a curved knife to use.

Gloria and Randy Herron

Yours truly

The grapes grown at Messina Hof’s 42 acres vineyard are Black Spanish (Lenoir) and are used in making their port and another wine called Sophia Marie Rosé. After Paul and the other festival guests left to do grape stomping, we continued picking grapes with the Messina Hof crew.

Randy Herron took the lead in instructing us and the other workers on where to pick. We talked with Randy and learned he had recently worked at Messina Hof in 1994. He then left to work at E. & J. Gallo Winery in California and Yellow Tail wines in Australia. He came back to Messina Hof recently and is now the second winemaker besides Paul Bonarrigo.

Even though it was hot outside, fortunately there was an occasional breeze which would arrive to cool us down. The other workers were very friendly and were probably appreciative there were two new people to help harvest. As we would fill up a bin with grapes, someone was always there to give us a new one, and take our bin to add to a larger tub. We learned the workers would be harvesting the 42 acres of grapes daily. On top of that, a trailer arrived with white grapes which needed to be processed too.

While we were picking, we encountered a speaker system which played sounds of a hawk attacking. This is supposed to scare off birds so they don’t eat the grapes. A worker said the system wasn’t working too well because there was one area of the vineyard in which the birds had eaten quite a bit.

I mentioned some wineries used netting for the same reason and he said netting works great, however there are some negative things with it. Besides being more expensive, the netting has to be removed either the day before harvesting or has to be hung higher than the vines so the grapes can be harvested easier.

Paul Bonarrigo had mentioned on the phone his workers would probably be harvesting until noon, but it was around 11:00am when it was time to call it quits. That was fine with us since it was hot and I ended up getting a blister on my finger from pulling the grape clusters. If there is a next time, I’m bringing pruning shears to make the job easier. We both had a fun time but we also agreed we enjoyed bottling better, especially since it is a lot cooler!

Destemmer

All tubs which were full of the grapes from the smaller bins were taken to the crush pad. We watched as a forklift took the tubs and poured the contents into the destemmer. As it sounds, this machine removes the stems from the grapes. The last tub poured was mostly full of juice so we assume this was the tub used by the grape stompers during the festival.

Our work was done and since we were going to attend the VIP reception later in the afternoon, we had previously found a motel in town where we could shower and get ready for the reception. After doing that and returning to the winery, we met up with our two guests for the reception and had a great finish to a fun day at Messina Hof.

The last day to harvest at Messina Hof for their Harvest Festival is August 14th. You can check the calendar of events at http://www.messinahof.com/harvest2011. If you are going to be in the area, we would recommend signing up and also having fun at Messina Hof!