Alternative Packaging is a Good Thing

News

Written by Rusty Eddy Tuesday, 17 November 2009 09:37

Two interesting stories today about wine packaging.  I've espoused the use of screw tops for a long time, but these two stories go a bit further.

First, Delta Airlines is now pouring Three Thieves' Bandit wines, packed in a Tetra Pak, as their by-the-glass wine on international flights.  International travelers, one assumes, are more open-minded and accepting of alternatives than stodgy Americans on domestic flights.

Next, a vintner in New Zealand, the land of wine innovation (along with Australia) is now bottling his Sauvignon Blanc in plastic bottles.  He says his market is the 70% of Sauvignon sold in supermarkets for under $20, and consumed with a week.  The bottles will even have an "18-month best-before date" because of the possibility of oxygen spoiling the wine.  See the story here.

I've purchased (and sucked down) quite a few bottles, uh Tetra Paks, of Bandit Pinot Grigio.  It's great on a hot day.  I've even taken it to parties and defended it against snide comments from my wine-savvy brethren.  I say the more alternatives we have in the wine world, the better.

And while I have only my own gut feelings as evidence, I believe that alternatives also attract the attention of new customers.

We don't have any plans to use Tetra Paks or plastic bottles at Clayhouse Wines, but we do now bottle all of our Adobe and Vineyard series wines with screw tops, a great step in the right direction.

0 Comments

Olive Oil Production

News

Written by Rusty Eddy Wednesday, 11 November 2009 08:38

On California's Central Coast, olives and grapes co-exist very nicely, thank you very much.  Not only are they complementary crops, but they're both part of a healthy lifestyle.  Olive oil is a wonderful substitute for saturated fats, and it tastes great, especially when it's made with the care and attention that many small growers practice.

Paso Robles even has an olive festival every August, with olive oil sampling, a cooking contest, and plenty of local wines.  WeOlive, just off the Paso Robles town square, sells LOTS of different oils from producers all over the state.

The market for artisan olive oil has boomed in California.  California olive growers pressed 675,000 gallons of oil from 21,000 acres in 2008.  Plantings are expected to grow by 10,000 acres annually through 2020, according to the California Olive Oil Council.  American consumers currently enjoy an average of 750 milliliters (same as a standard bottle of wine) of olive oil per year, compared with 24 liters in Greece and 14 liters in Spain and Italy.   Currently, 99 percent of the olive oil consumed in the U.S. is imported. 

Before you can sell olive oil, of course, you have to make it.  Growers pick their crops and transport their olives to olive mills or presses located throughout the State.  But now there's a new company that's taking the mill to the growers.

Olive to Bottle (O2B) was founded recently by Prospero Equipment Corporation.  It's run by entrepreneur Mark Robinson out of Davis, California, coincidentally where the University of California, Davis started an Olive Center a few years ago.

O2B has the first mobile olive mill to be established in the United States and they're Certified Organic by the California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF).

“The timing is right for the burgeoning California Olive Industry,” said operator Robinson. AWS/Prospero is a major supplier of wine, beer and olive processing equipment.   Along with his brother Andy, Mark Robinson installed Prospero equipment in a custom-designed trailer that travels directly to olive orchards.

Click here to see the mill in action on YouTube.

According to the U.C. Davis Olive Center, the amount of time between harvest and milling is a key component to good olive oil.  Robinson says that’s the mobile mill’s key advantage:  “we can travel directly to the olive growers, and whether they hand harvest or mechanically harvest, we can have their olives processed within hours, reducing costs, providing a fresher product, and streamlining efficiency. 

O2B’s mill processes one ton of olives per hour, and the mill’s size was chosen to allow mobility. O2B  focuses on small to medium producers, with emphasis on the highest quality and standards available.

This is great news for California's small olive growers.  It means there might even be a step up in quality for their premium products.  As big a paradigm shift as refrigeration was to the wine industry?  Maybe not, but it certainly gives small growers a point of difference compared to the big competition.

 

0 Comments

The Hard Part is Over

News

Written by Rusty Eddy Friday, 30 October 2009 15:03

Clayhouse winemaker David Frick has finished harvest. He reports that he's been on a roller coaster this past month, with rain, frost and potential rot all happening in the span of several days.  Temperatures have been seasonally mild, but the threat of unseasonable early frost at the beginning of the month had winemakers and growers around Paso Robles pushing to get all grapes off of low-lying blocks (where cold air pools).  David said that, in some cases, they had to accept a compromise between proper ripeness and the risk of damage to the crop.

Then, in the middle of the month a rain storm, fueled by tropical moisture leftover from Typhoon Melor, arrived.  Again, they listened to the forecasts and worked hard to bring in the grapes that were ripe and at risk for rot damage (which was essentially everything but Cabernet Sauvignon).

After the deluge, it took two weeks for everything to dry out and for sugars in the grapes to build again. This delayed some picking, but at that point the winery was at capacity anyway, so it was a non-issue.

Finally, a hard frost on October 28 spelled the real end of harvest 2009. David is now finishing up with grading the various lots and barreling down and/or consolidating lots, monitoring malolactic fermentations, as well as scheduling bottling.

Hey, I'd be mixing the martiinis.

0 Comments

Spider Wines

News

Written by Rusty Eddy Friday, 23 October 2009 14:25

Recent rains in California have pretty much ended the harvest except for a few hearty souls who are still waiting for their Cabernet vineyards to dry out.  Clayhouse winemaker David Frick says he was able to get all of his fruit in in fine condition, thank you very much.  I asked him about whether he'd predicted the last storm and he remarked that the local tarantulas had tipped him off.

What?  Here is what David told me:

"Male California tarantulas, at least the ones near Paso Robles, seem to go walkabout in the fall in search of a female with which to mate. So, frequently one sees what is a typically shy spider become brazen and hormone-fueled, moseying across roads; seemingly without concern for their own safety. I swerve to avoid tarantulas more often than deer. What’s even more interesting is that these males, like the legendary preying mantis, often become meals for the females with which they mate (maybe that’s why I swerve; they have a hard enough time already).

Barring any cross-species comments on hormones and their effects on behavior, why does this winemaker care? Because I closely associate these macho tarantulas with coming rains.  You see, I theorize that their instinctual drive is tied to senses of temperature, humidity and/or atmospheric pressure that allow them to make these journeys days before rains come."

Here's a YouTube video of California tarantulas: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqygXQJn3NU&feature=related

Not sure if spider predictions work in other parts of California, but whether they predict the rain or not, seeing a bunch of big spiders crossing the road is a pretty cool sight...and just in time for Halloween!

2 Comments

Paso Perfectly Postitioned

News

Written by Rusty Eddy Tuesday, 13 October 2009 14:55

While most people in the wine industry have a gut feeling that consumers are trading down, a recent poll confirms that it's true. 

Wine Opinions' study not only shows consumers spending less on wine, but it also shows that consumers are still experimenting when they can: while Napa wines have lost customers, wines from Sonoma and Paso Robles have benefited.

Consumers are purchasing more wine in the $10 to $20 range, and 45% of consumers say they now "never" buy wines costing more than $50.  Paso has positioned itself perfectly (alliteration not intentional), with consumers showing a 30 point net shift toward Paso wines (Sonoma had a 22 point net shift) compared to Napa wines.

Wine writer Ben Weinberg just returned from Paso and wrote a great recap on his recent blog.  He commented: "Not only did I learn a lot about the region, but I tasted a bunch of great wines that won’t necessarily break the bank."  Amen.  (You can read all of Ben's story here: Unfiltered/Unfined.)

It's finally raining in northern California; time for a glass of great value, great tasting Paso Robles red wine...how about the new 2007 Clayhouse Cabernet?

0 Comments

Bigger is Better, NOT Badder

News

Written by Rusty Eddy Saturday, 10 October 2009 09:27

Clayhouse farms a lot of grapes.  At our estate Red Cedar Vineyard outside Paso Robles we have approximately 1500 acres of everything from Chenin Blanc to Primativo.  And the fact is, having a large pool of grapes from which to choose gives us a mucho flexibility in winemaking.

I was reminded of this last week while showing around Ben Weinberg, winewriter from Denver.  Ben gets it.  He was suitably impressed with the Red Cedar vineyard as we drove from the Petite Sirah and Malbec blocks on the lower benchlands, up to the Bordeaux varietals planted on terraced hillsides that rise up to 1500 feet in elevation.  There's a commanding view of the Estrella River valley from the top.  And while it's clear that the vineyard is large, bigger isn't always "badder."

Ben kept saying, "wow."

Of course the view is impressive, but what Ben picked up on was the soil variation, from loam to almost white calcareous.  And he noticed the topographical differences, not just the elevation gain, but the rolling hills above the benchlands, and the shaded, eastern sides of the hills where cooler afternoon temperatures allow for production of great Sauvignon Blanc.  There's nothing at all flat about the Red Cedar vineyard.

Clayhouse doesn't use all of the fruit from Red Cedar, there are many other wineries that buy Red Cedar grapes.  But having a vineyard of this size and diversity at our disposal gives us the flexibility to choose exactly the blocks we want, to pick at exactly the time winemaker David Frick dictates, and to make quick production decisions based upon sales or consumer demand.

0 Comments

Beef: It's What's for Dinner

News

Written by Rusty Eddy Friday, 02 October 2009 13:25

One of the stories we like to emphasize at Clayhouse is that we're dependent upon the earth, the soil and the vineyard to produce consistent varietal wines.  On its own, that's not very unique, but when we talk about our proximity to California's historic missions and local adobe structures (we have one on our Red Cedar ranch), and the idea that making adobe bricks is analogous to making wine (stay with me here), the story becomes more our own.

(Adobe bricks: local mud, water, sand and straw blended together in specific proportions, to yield long-lasting, quality building material.  Varietal wine: local grapes, maybe more than one variety, fermented with yeast to yield a great tasting beverage.  Talk about value-added products...)

Bricks, wine...the other aspect of this is keeping things local.  We hope to tie-in a local grass-fed beef producer in the near future, as well.  And as preparation for upcoming meetings, I purchased a few of their products to try alongside Clayhouse wines.  When UPS delivered my grass-fed tri-tip, I grabbed a bottle of the new Clayhouse 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon, and started the Weber grill.

A few grass-fed beef facts (compared to "combined animal feeding operations," or feed lots):

- Its production produces less waste than feed-lot beef.  Animals are rotated through numerous pastures, sustaining complexity, supporting diversity on the grasslands, improving soil fertility and eliminating waste management problems.

- It's more humane.  Cattle have access to natural forage, fresh air and clean water. They have less stress, they don't receive antibiotics or hormones, and they can roam all over.

- Grass fed beef is more nutritious for us carnivores.  No hormones or antibiotics, 10 times more beta-carotene three times more vitamin E, and three times the omega-3 fatty acids than traditional beef.

So I cooked my tri-tip as directed, which meant cooking faster because its low fat content means it can dry out and overcook easily.  I opened my wine, tossed a salad, and had a meal that convinced me I should eat this way all the time.  My new plan is to spend a bit more money for quality, locally-raised beef, to eat a bit less overall, and to try to get through a dinner without finishing the entire bottle of Clayhouse.

0 Comments

On Wine Competitions

News

Written by Rusty Eddy Wednesday, 30 September 2009 13:29

Robert Whitley, wine writer and now director of five major wine competitions, convinced me years ago that it was worthwhile for wineries to enter wine competitions because "regardless of whether you win a gold medal, competitions provide a credible alternative to the 100-point scale."

In other words, if you wanted to complain about and eschew the 100-point rating system used by the major wine publications, it made sense to provide consumers with a competing option for evaluation.

Okay, I buy that argument.  I also enter competitions because I like the fact that wine competition judges are often wine writers or sommeliers who will have the opportunity to write about or buy your wine (if they like it) after the judging.

But it's also true that wine competitions - and the wineries that enter them - are not infallible.  I saw news today that the prestigious Sonoma County Harvest Fair Wine Competition just disqualified their sweepstakes winner.  It seems the winery couldn't show proof that they actually had 75 cases of the winning wine on hand, a requirement for entry.  The president of the Fair's board of directors said, "our rules were established to make sure the public has access to the winning wines. While this is a very unfortunate situation, we are satisfied our system proved itself."

Good for the Harvest Fair.  It's critical that consumers have access to wines that win medals.  And let's be honest, 75 cases is only about enough wine to make sure consumers in Santa Rosa get a taste, not readers in New York who get the competition results a few days later.

Years ago, the major wine magazines used to say they only reviewed wines made in quantities of more than (I believe it was) 75 cases.  Now they don't say that they have a minimum production requirement, though they sometimes list production figures at the end of their reviews.  Wouldn't it make sense, and earn them more credibility, if they established a minimum case production number for submissions?  With the ability for anyone to find almost any wine on the Internet now, I think that 75 cases might even be too low of a number.

One of the winery owners that commented on the recent Harvest Fair episode said that he thought "for wines under $20, wineries should be prepared to set aside a lot more wine (than the 75 required cases.) For sweepstakes, you've got to be closer to 300 to 400 cases."  I agree.  Why win (enter) if consumers can't get your winning wine?

0 Comments

The Year to Make Homemade Wine

News

Written by Rusty Eddy Thursday, 24 September 2009 12:23

While all sides of the industry go back and forth about whether or not the "luxury" end of the wine market will survive or not, there's a more telling indicator of the health of wine industry that many consumers never see: the bulk grape and wine market.

The major brokers in California, Ciatti and Turrentine, say that some grapes won't get picked this year because they don't have a winery to buy them. And lots of small grape growers, who might not be on the big brokers' radar, have grapes available, as well.

That's why I think it's a good year to try your hand at home winemaking.

I get a weekly publication called Wine Country Classifieds (www.winerysite.com).  It's lists equipment for sale, job openings, and currently, LOTS of grapes for sale...two full pages of grapes for sale, as a matter of fact. St. Helena Cabernet, Dry Creek Zinfandel, Napa Valley Hillside varietals, Lake County Sauvignon Blanc, Santa Barbara Pinot Noir...even Anderson Valley Gewurztraminer.  Not many of the listings quote prices, but let's say you wanted to make some Dry Creek Zin and you contacted someone who would sell you a ton of grapes for $1,500.  What would your bottle cost be?

One of my Napa winemaker buddies figures about $5.85 per bottle.  You can see his numbers in a PDF here: DryCreekZin.  Granted, the price assumes you won't have any bacterial problems or stuck fermentations, but for $5.85 per bottle it might be worth a gamble!

0 Comments

When Wine is Fun

News

Written by Rusty Eddy Wednesday, 23 September 2009 08:21

It's not often that I'm impulsive.  But it happens with wine. 

When I started in the wine business I couldn't wait to pour at consumer wine tastings; there were lots of wines to try, and plenty of like-minded newbies willing to trade a few bottles at the end of the event.  Over time, we newbies honed our scatter-shot tasting techniques and ended up focusing on one varietal or region.  We got serious.

And we also got a little bit pompous, jumping on the anything-but-chardonnay bandwagon and relegating things like Chenin Blanc to the unwashed tasting room masses.

I think I've grown beyond the pretension.  I actually LOVE the Clayhouse Chenin Blanc (tasting room only) and the Adobe White and Red.  And every once in awhile I find myself getting excited about a new wine, and I get impulsive. 

I read in Through the Walla Walla Grapevine (http://wildwallawallawinewoman.blogspot.com/) about a new little winery in Washington, and I found myself printing out the order form and giving up my credit card number.  It doesn't happen very often anymore, but it's kind of nice when wine makes you feel giddy and expectant again...like those first fairy tale days in the wine industry.

0 Comments