Do you have the post - Thanksgiving kitchen blues?  Have 4 consecutive days of roast turkey, turkey sandwiches, turkey-egg scramble, turkey pasta, turkey enchiladas, and turkey ice cream parfaits left you in a culinary rut?  Fear not as Bruliam Wine’s dynamic interview with Chef William Bradley of Addison Restaurant at the Grand Del Mar will inspire your inner foodie and coax the foie gras right back into your busy weeknight meals, where it belongs! 

Chef’s personal recipes for roasted beets and cabernet butter follow, so read on fellow Brigade for the best calorie-free indulgence of the decade.

Bruliam Wines:  Chef, you create such beautiful, flavorful, fresh delicacies at Addison, and it is truly a treat to have you here to answer some questions for our palate-curious, Bruliam Brigade readership.  Thanks for putting prep on the back burner (pretty clever, eh??) to answer some of our toughest foodie questions.

First things first: we all know we won’t get drunk from coq au vin, so what’s the point anyway?  Why is wine an important cooking “ingredient?” 

Chef Bradley:  It creates balance on the palate.

Bruliam Wines:  Of course we’re here to promote pinot, but many recipes call for “a light red wine” or a “full bodied red wine.”  What does that mean?

Chef Bradley:  The light red wines I incorporate in my cuisine are really used to emphasize the acid with the soft tones of fruit.  When my recipes call for full bodied red wine, I look for wines that have robust fruit flavors that I would like to include in the dish. 

Bruliam wines:  Is that the same as the cheap, generic “cooking wine” we see next to the vinegars at Vons?  

Chef Bradley:  Not at all. 

Bruliam Wines:  Help our readers decipher what constitutes a passable cooking wine.  

Chef Bradley:  A good food for thought: “Never cook with a wine you wouldn’t drink.” A passable cooking wine is an every day wine. A good food for thought: “Never cook with a wine you wouldn’t drink.”

Bruliam Wines:  Tell us a little bit about your cooking philosophy and what most inspires your menu? 

Chef Bradley:  Simplicity and harmony are strong philosophies that inspire my ever changing menu.

Bruliam Wines:  Who taught you to cook?  

Chef Bradley:  My mentor is James Boyce. I worked with him for over seven years.

Bruliam Wines:  Who most influenced your cooking style? 

Chef Bradley:  Alain Passard from the Restaurant L’Arpege in Paris.

Bruliam Wines:  When I pick your brain for cooking advice at home, you always tell me “low and slow.”  Tell our readers about this cooking style. 

Chef Bradley:  This style of cooking is the artisan approach to which I have adapted to over the years.  This low and slow method allows you to control the temperature and texture of each ingredient you are cooking. 

Bruliam Wines:  I have already copy-catted your low and slow roasted beets; they were easy to prepare and delicious.  Can you recap that technique for me here?

Chef Bradley:  See attached beet recipe.  (recipe follows the interview)

Bruliam Wines:  What other foods can home cooks prepare using a similar method? 

Chef Bradley:  Roasted shallots, fennel, or any other type of root vegetable that you particularly enjoy.

Bruliam Wines:  Go ahead and spill your favorite food-pinot noir pairing!  (We just want to copy that too). 

Chef Bradley:  Baked red cherry clafoutis with brown butter ice cream.  I have a huge sweet tooth.

Bruliam Wines:  I bet you knew this one was coming: you’re trapped in purgatory for eternity with an inexhaustible supply of only 5 ingredients.  What are they and why? 

Chef Bradley:  Peanut butter, jelly, bread, Ruffles, and cold milk. 

Bruliam Wines:  Why? 

Chef Bradley:  Because I don’t go more than two days without these.

Bruliam Wines:  What’s your favorite cooking gadget that you just can’t live without?

Chef Bradley:  Vitamix Blender

Bruliam Wines:  What’s your best tip for home cooks who yearn to cook like a pro? 

Chef Bradley:  Clean as you go so you can relax after eating.

Bruliam Wines:  Chef, would you mind sharing your favorite wine-based recipe with our readers?  

Chef Bradley:  Please see attached recipe for cabernet butter.

Bruliam Wines:  Chef Bradley, thank you again for your time.  But I’d be remiss if I didn’t admit that I’d rather be eating your food than reading your words!  I hope to see you at Addison very soon and encourage our readers to seek out your spectacular food for their next special occasion meal.

Chef Bradley:  Thank you!

Verbena Roasted Red Beets

Chef William Bradley - Addison Restaurant

(Serves 4 people)

Ingredients:

 4 Aluminum foil 12″ squares

4 large red beets

8 Tbsp. of sea salt

8 Tbsp. of brown sugar

24 verbena leaves

2 Tbsp. lime zest

Extra virgin olive oil

2 cups of arugula

Method:

Verbena Roasted Red Beets

 Using aluminum foil, make four 12″ squares.

In the middle of each square, place one large red beet.

Season each beet with 2 Tbsp. of salt and 2 Tbsp. of brown sugar.

Place 6 verbena leaves on top of each beet.

Tightly seal beets by folding up each corner of foil.

Place in 200 degree oven and cook for 1 hour.

After cooking, remove beets from oven and cool to room temperature for an additional hour.

Remove beets from foil and discard verbena leaves.

Gently peel skin from beets using a towel and cut beets into quarters.

Arrangement:

Lay quartered beets on four individual plates.

Sprinkle with sea salt and grated lime zest.

Finish with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and a few leaves of arugula.

CABERNET BUTTER (SERVE OVER STEAK FRITES)

Chef William Bradley, Addison Restaurant

(Serves 4)

Ingredients:

2 whole shallots, peeled and diced

1 tablespoon organic pure cane sugar *

1 bottle of delicious Cabernet (your choice)

6 ounces of softened, unsalted French butter *

4 tablespoons finely chopped chives

2 tablespoons of finely chopped fresh thyme leaves (do not use dry thyme)

Sea Salt to Taste *

*Can be bought in specialty food stores

Method for Cabernet Reduction:

Place diced shallots in a heavy duty sauce pot.  Add 1 tablespoon of sugar and the whole bottle of Cabernet wine.  Cook over low heat and reduce down to ¾.  After reducing, allow wine reduction to cool to room temperature.  

Method for Cabernet Butter:

In a mixing bowl, add butter, chopped chives, chopped thyme leaves, and wine reduction.  Using a rubber spatula, slowly mix all ingredients together until fully incorporated.  Season with sea salt to taste. 

Chef Notes:

This is a great and easy wine recipe that goes great over steak frites or any grilled protein.  Butter will keep up to a month in the refrigerator.

It’s that time again - time to vote for your favorite Brigade picture!  We’ve again got some stiff competition and the winner will get $250 donated to the charity of their choice.

If you haven’t submitted your Bruliam Brigade picture yet, what are you waiting for?  And if you’ve already sent one in but lost the monthly contest, you need to scrape your ego back up off the floor and send us some new pictures.  We’ll be doing this every month for the foreseeable future, so there are lots of chances to win!

And for those of you who have signed up to receive our e-mails (or are reading this for the first time) and are wondering why you don’t have a Brigade shirt yet, you need to click here and fill out the form to register for the Brigade and receive a free t-shirt.

To vote all you need to do is: (1) click on the bullet next to the person’s name and (2) click the big VOTE button at the bottom of the poll. The poll will instantly update the tally and show you the most current results.  If the system works properly, you will only be able to vote once.  But, you can forward the link or this e-mail to as many people as you want to get them to vote for you.

The poll will only be open for voting until 8am on Tuesday December 2nd so get voting!

If you can’t see the poll or vote properly through the e-mail, please CLICK HERE and you can vote on the website.

Dearest readers, today we turn our rosy cheeks from the comforts of slurping savory soup to that most nefarious and treacherous of all enology subjects: biochemistry.  This blog commences the first in a series of posts about secondary fermentation, also called malolactic fermentation.  Like primary fermentation with yeast, malolactic fermentation (hereafter dubbed MLF) is mediated by microscopic critters that imbibe one wine component (malic acid) and spit out another (lactic acid).  Today we’ll meet its star player, Oenococcus oeni (O. oeni), a heterofermentive lactic acid bacterium, typecast by his ability to convert glucose (sugar) into lactic acid plus carbon dioxide, acetate, and ethanol (wine).  As with wine yeast, there are clones within the Oenococcus species itself and fancy DNA manipulations that distinguish Mr. Frank Oenococcus from Mr. Jack Oenococcus and Mr. Mark Oenococcus in a lineup of bacterial offenders.  And like with primary fermentation, MLF occurs either spontaneously or is forced by inoculation with lab grade bacteria.  However, quite unlike primary fermentation with yeast, this step is entirely optional.  Even without it, you still have drinkable wine.

MLF, the conversion of malic acid to lactic acid via bacteria, is a process that ups the ante in premium wines.  In fact, most of the wines you drink have probably undergone MLF and you didn’t even know it, since you’re so accustomed to its sweet end-product.  MLF heightens wines’ aromas, increases its complexity, and enhances all of its organoleptic qualities across the board, from creamy, mid-palate weight to fragrant bouquet.  By products of this chemical conversion include spooky names like ethyl lactate which embellishes a wine’s fullness and body and diacetyl, the curious compound responsible for that fat, buttery popcorn aroma in some oaky chards.  After MLF, wines become softer, more approachable, and less aggressive (and no, it cannot be applied to your hyperactive, yippy puppy or terrorizing toddler).  MLF also imparts velvety softness, greater body, and a richer, fuller texture (and no, you can’t apply it to your over processed hair either).  You see, MLF transforms malic acid, imagined as the biting tartness of unripe, green apples, into softer, mellower milk acid (lactic acid).  With MLF, a wine’s overall acidity decreases via direct decarboxylation, so for every molecule of malic acid, one acid group evaporates- poof- with its resultant gustatory pleasures. 

 Now stay with me friends.

 This is the chemical structure that defines carboxylic acid (R-CO₂H):

Malic acid is a DIcarboxylic acid, HO₂C-CH₂-CH(OH)-CO₂H,  containing 2 of those CO₂H guys, one flanking either end of the molecule.  Compare this to lactic acid, a MONOcarboxylic acid, HO₂C- CH(OH)- CH₃, which has only one CO₂H.  (FYI: the other CO₂H had evaporated into the air as carbon dioxide, CO2).  And there it is!  You have literally LOST an acid group, molecule for molecule, transforming a chemical with two CO₂H guys into a chemical with only one CO₂H guy.  So not only do you have fewer “CO₂H guys” overall (less acid) but also you’ve replaced puckery, tart, green apple acid with softer, richer milk acid.  Volia, the magic of chemistry!  (Now don’t you wish you’d stayed awake in that 7^th grade chemistry class instead of throwing spit balls in Amy’s hair?)

 Why does this impressive creature, Oneococcus, use malic acid anyway?  Why can’t he eat sugar like his BFF Mr. Yeast?  Lactic acid isn’t buttery, is it?  So where’s the butter from?  Hey, didn’t you mention something about acetate up there?  Isn’t that vinegar?  How do I know you won’t screw up your own brew with this MLF garbage?  If you’ve already got wine, why bother?  The answers to these and other enticing chemical quandaries will be addressed in the upcoming weeks.  But fear not fortuitous friends; I’ll be alternating these topics with awesome interview bites from super sommelier Jesse Rodriguez and star chef William Bradley, both of Addison Grand Del Mar.  Stay tuned!

With the holidays fast approaching, I often find myself in one of the most stressful times of the year. No, I’m not worried about family get togethers, painful travel, or finding appropriate presents for loved ones.  Every year at this time, I have to start selecting wines for the annual Sagient holiday party.  Over the years, the company has grown and the holiday party has grown with it.  What once was a small group of people sharing a table in a downtown steak house has become a full restaurant buy-out complete with multi-coursed tasting menus and paired wine selections.

As with any large party, picking the appropriate food and wine can be a major pain.  This year, however, I’m feeling more pressure than usual.  Maybe since I’m now “in the business,” I feel that my wine selections for the party will be more carefully scrutinized.  Maybe it’s because we have more wine drinkers in the office these days and so the standard cabernet/chardonnay selection just ain’t going to cut it anymore.  Or maybe it’s because in this tight economy I feel obligated to get a little more cost-conscious on selections without giving up on quality.  Whatever the reason, it is crunch time on wine selections with the party only four weeks away.

And so it was with much amusement (and just a little bit of envy) that I came across a posting on a NY Times blog about the recent holiday party held by Paulson & Co.  Paulson & Co. made about a zillion dollars last year shorting the subprime housing market and apparently is on track to do quite well again this year (shorting is betting on a price or asset to decrease in value).  So, what did these “master of the universe” types have for their holiday party? All first growth Bordeaux.  Not too bad, right?  You can see the menu below and read the article and see the full menu by clicking here.

For the Sagient team members who follow this blog - sorry, no first growth Bordeaux this year.  What is on tap?  Well, I enjoy torturing the staff a little bit so we’re going to keep the selections (and the location) secret for a while longer.  One thing that I can disclose is our final “wine” selection of the evening.  Nothing like a shot of cheap jet fuel grappa to end the year!

Here’s looking forward to the 2009 holiday party where we’ll hopefully be toasting with some Bruliam pinot noir!

Many thanks to Brigade member Karen R. for this great picture taken with some furry friends at the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Utah.  For you animal lovers out there, we’re told that Best Friends will be the recepient of the $250 prize should Karen win this month’s vote.

If you can’t see the picture, please click here.

Update:  Congrats to Grandma Sylvia on her overwhelming win in the October poll.  We’ll be donating $250 on her behalf to Jewish Family Services of Broward County, FL.

Lamb Stew with Chickpeas and Pomegranate Molasses

(co-opted from Cooking Light January 2006)

Please scroll down for the video.

Stew is a delicious, satisfying, seasonal specialty that is relatively easy to make.  You can add or change ingredients on the fly - like substituting one root veggie for another (who cares if you use carrots, parsnip, potato, or rutabaga?).  It’s virtually indestructible, simmering for hours over low heat while infusing your kitchen with that heady smell of hearty comfort food and sweating onions.  You can double batches with ease, freezing some for a busy evening or allowing leftovers sit in the fridge for a few days, as the flavors develop even more complexity and harmony.  Use the “low and slow” cooking technique, which entails cooking with low heat for a more prolonged period of time.  Increasing cooking time at lower temperatures helps dissolve and tenderize the muscle tissue of the cheaper, tougher cuts of meat commonly used for soups or braises.  These meats also have a higher fat content that prevents them from becoming dry and tough after hours in the pot.  Look for beef stew meat, leg of lamb, or pork shoulder.  There is no reason to splurge for Kobe beef, New York strip or rack of lamb for simple stews.  Besides wasting money, it spoils the simple, humble grace of great soups.  I assure you that after 2 hours of simmering, your meat will be spoon tender and wonderful.

Below I will detail the 7 easy steps that will transform your life and restore the power to you.  If you envision it, you can be it!  Just kidding.  However, I will simplify and demystify the 7 easy steps that define great stews, so even a novice cook can wow pals and in-laws with a soulful, rich, homemade meal.

 1.  RIGHT PAN & RIGHT MEAT

Choose a Dutch oven or a large, heavy, lidded enamel pan with tall sides, like one of those gorgeous Le Creuset oval braisers, preferably in that creamy spring blue or that golden orange wash (are you listening, Brian?).  A tight fitting lid ensures no liquid escapes during prolonged simmering and that heat stays constant within.  But any heavy-duty soup pot and lid will do.  As I mentioned, ask your butcher which cuts of meat work best in stews.  This particular recipe specifies lamb leg.  Try to cut your meat into roughly equal sized cubes, so it cooks more evenly.  (FYI: The butchers at Homegrown Meats in La Jolla will happily cube the lamb leg for you).

2.  SAUTE AROMATICS

Aromatics include stuff like onions, leeks, garlic, and shallots.  Use any combination to create a base flavor for your stew.  Allow the onions to turn golden brown and carmelize a little.  You should have brown bits stuck to the bottom of your pan.  These sticky pieces of food create big flavors later on.  Once you’ve browned the onions, remove them from the pan so you can start on your meat.

 3.  DREDGE IN FLOUR

I like to use seasoned flour with salt and pepper.  Dredge the meat cubes in flour and then shake off the extra.  The flour helps create a tasty, crispy brown crust on the meat that seals the juice inside.  The admixture of flour fluff and melted fat also creates a roux of sorts that helps thicken your final product.

4.  BROWN YOUR MEAT

Heat your oil and then add your meat in batches.  Please don’t crowd the meat.  You must ensure your meat cubes have enough space around them to adequately brown up on all sides.  Remember, you’re just searing the outside of the meat; it is still totally raw in the middle (so don’t sample it just yet).  Aim to get a nice layer of brown yummy bits on the bottom of your pan.  You need these for flavor.

5.  DEGLAZE

Add your liquid (traditionally wine or broth) and scrape the bottom of your pan as you pour, and the broth comes to a boil.  The browned bits, called a “fond,” should release fairly easily.  This is the best part.

6.  LOW & SLOW

Cover and simmer your stew.  Simmering is not boiling or vigorously percolating or even chugging along.  Simmer means bubble- pause- bubble- bubble- pause.  It is a perambulating stroll, not a sprint.  Your meat needs time.  Believe me, if you go from raw chunks to cooked through in 20 minutes, your meat will be rubber.  So relax.  Have a glass of wine or read a book.  Hang out.

7.  ADD VEG LAST

So you can’t really “simmer” carrots for 3 hours.  You’ll have grey, tasteless, texture-less mush.  So unless you’re going for puree, add veggies last.  They only need 20 or 30 minutes, depending on their size.  That way you’ll confidently identify a carrot cube from the potato wedge with each bite.

Feel free to change up this recipe or pair it with another wine varietal altogether.  The Middle Eastern-inspired flavors of the pomegranate molasses sing out for allspice, cardamom, cinnamon, coriander, and even a pinch of clove.  Experiment, and add other spices for fun.  You can also toss in golden raisins, dates or dried fig.  It’s all good.  Drop me a line and let me know how your stew turned out and the wine you chose as its partner.  I’d love to know.  A Bruliam Kitchens Production follows below.  If you can’t see the video, please click here.

From Cooking Light January 2007

Ingredients

Cooking spray

2  cups  chopped red onion

6  garlic cloves, minced

1/3  cup  all-purpose flour (about 1 1/2 ounces)

2  pounds  boneless leg of lamb, trimmed and cut into bite-sized pieces

1  tablespoon  olive oil

1  teaspoon  salt, divided

2  tablespoons  pomegranate molasses

2  (14-ounce) cans less-sodium beef broth

2  cups  (1/4-inch) slices carrot

1  (15-ounce) can chickpeas (garbanzo beans), drained

2  tablespoons  chopped fresh mint

1/2  teaspoon  freshly ground black pepper

4  cups  hot cooked couscous

Preparation

Heat a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add onion; sauté 10 minutes or until tender and golden brown. Add garlic; sauté 1 minute. Spoon onion mixture into a large bowl.

Place flour in a shallow bowl or pie plate. Dredge lamb in flour, shaking off excess. Heat oil in pan over medium-high heat. Add half of lamb mixture; sprinkle with 1/4 teaspoon salt. Cook 6 minutes, browning on all sides. Add browned lamb to onion mixture. Repeat procedure with remaining lamb mixture and 1/4 teaspoon salt.

Add pomegranate molasses and broth to pan, scraping pan to loosen browned bits; bring to a boil. Stir in lamb mixture. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 1 hour or until lamb is just tender.

Stir in carrot and chickpeas. Simmer, uncovered, 45 minutes or until lamb is very tender. Remove from heat; stir in remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt, mint, and pepper. Serve over couscous.

Many thanks to Brigade member Dave R. for this picture in the wilds of northeast Ohio with the native Vitis Argentifolia (Silver Leaf Grapevine).  Dave discovered Bruliam from our Doctor’s Crush video on YouTube.  Dave has a passion for the woods near his home and the grapes that grow wildly there.  He has yet to make any wine from the grapes but hopefully we can inspire him to give it a shot if the wildlife doesn’t beat him to the grapes!!  You can see one of Dave’s videos about the native grape vines in Ohio by clicking here.  If you can’t view the picture, please click here.

“A sense of place,” it’s the one of the greatest compliments a wine aficionado can bestow upon a wine maker.  More than the French word terroir, for New World wine lovers, “a sense of place” means that a wine tastes like the culmination of mindful farming, precise harvest, watchful fermentation, and conscientious aging.  Lovingly crafted, such wines stand in defiant opposition to the insipid, mass-produced, hot, over-oaked drek lining the shelves at Vons.  If you can taste fruit, warm sunshine, wet earth, clean rain, and a complete palate of complimentary, wonderful, ancillary flavors then you know firsthad what elevates a “sense of place” wine from simple drink to poetic muse.  It is why a pinot from Oregon should taste different than one from California, Otaga New Zealand, Okanaga BC, Maipo, or Yarra Valley.  It should be the winemaker’s stamp that reads “This is my wine.  I made it with heart and care.  It is unique and extremely special.  I hope you like it, too.”  It is what we strive for in our impassioned zeal to create the best pinots on the planet.

With a more generous and fanciful spirit, “a sense of place” is also a metaphor for the bewitching way a great wine transports us into the intimate recesses of our own imagination.  Nowhere has this been better played than in the recent WSJ article entitled “The Lamb-Chop Test.”  There John and Dottie taste tested 10 wine-shop recommended wines alongside simple broiled lamb chops, divining the best pairings of the day.  Beyond which wine “beat” another, the most alluring part of their prose was hearing those lovebirds detail the sappy, nostalgic places they imagined they’d been sipping their stuff.  They write (without irony), “The dinner had an altered feel depending on which wine we were tasting.  With Consilience Syrah, we were sitting around a fire on a beautiful night; with Gorrondona from Spain, the meal took us to a friendly provincial restaurant; with a 1999 Rioja, we were at a very fancy, white-tablecloth place.”  Obviously all crazy, wine-obsessed nuts share a passion for poetic hyperbole, lest you think my camping-flashback nausea was all in jest.

Today, in a humbler offering than a world class, white-tablecloth meal, I thought I’d share a personal, favorite wine-food pairing of mine: Lamb Stew with Chickpeas and Pomegranate Molasses with Tor Kenward’s Rock Syrah.  When I first tasted this particular syrah, at fancy white-tablecloth Addison Grand Del Mar, I was incontestably certain that it would pair magnificently with my (what cheeky impudence- it’s a Cooking Light recipe!) lamb stew.  The bold wine, equal parts juicy, ripe red fruit and peppery earthiness, would transform a hearty, braised, meat stew into something really special.  Plus the pomegranate molasses had a piquant fruity kick that could cut though the heaviness of this big wine.  And so, with a half bottle between us, a hot bowl of steamy lamb stew, and the persistent tinkling of Bob the Builder’s theme song in the background, Brian and I drifted off to the most romantic, magical place of all: that precious moment of quiet and calm in our very own House of Preschool Horrors.  Of course it was over almost instantaneously, first when Kid #1 pestered us for a sip of ”daddy’s water” followed by Kid #2 screaming to fast forward through the part with Muck and the porcupines. 

Please understand, this is not an endorsement to rush to your computer right this minute to buy the very same vintage of that very same wine (although it’s one we love).  Instead I challenge you to cook something satisfying and delicious tonight and pair it with whatever is in your cabinet right now.  Who knows where it will transport you?  And if you’re a little buzzed, you may find the bottle speaking or singing to you or even directly “saying to the lamb, ‘Get on my shoulders, little buddy, and I’ll carry you.’ ” Thanks John and Dottie; you’re always an inspiration.

Next week I will share the aforementioned recipe along with some simple techniques for mastering awesome, super-duper stew.

Kerith and I don’t disagree on much.  We have similar political and social viewpoints.  We share a philosophy on how we want to raise our kids.  We’re equally neurotic and anal.  We both like to go to bed early and wake up early.  We even tend to like the same kinds of wine and food. 

That doesn’t mean we agree on everything, however.  Kerith, for example, believes it is her God-given duty to max out the credit card every year at the Nordstrom anniversary sale.  I, on the other hand, know for a fact that watching football on Sundays is protected under the U.S. constitution.  We’ve argued and debated these points ad nauseam and ultimately reached a delicate détente (i.e., she gets to go crazy at the sale while I get to do chores on Sundays).

But when we launched this site our primary goal was to make sure that both of our voices were given equal weight.  And so, I feel compelled to weigh in with a defense of our grapes from the Anderson Valley. 

Few of our previous posts have generated as much feedback as Kerith’s post on Monday about the smoke taint problem.  Many of the responses sided with Kerith’s hatred of camping or anything outdoorsy (and apparently “sh*t in a box” is a very powerful image for some of you).  But all included hushed condolences about the “loss” of our Anderson Valley grapes.  With all of the calls and e-mails we received, I almost felt compelled to tear my shirt, cover the mirrors, break out the low chairs, and start sitting shiv’ah.

So let me be clear - our Anderson Valley pinot is not dead.  In my opinion, it’s not even on life support.  The taint problem is almost universal this year in the Anderson Valley from the fires that burned over the summer (you can read about the problem by clicking here).  Does our wine have some smoke taint?  Yes.  Is it oppressive in the free run we barreled?  No.  Will it clear up over the next few months?  I believe so.  When we tasted the fermented juice it had great balance, weight, and fruit.  If the smoke recedes even a little bit I think we’re going to have a great wine. 

That said, Kerith and I are committed to sell only wine that we love ourselves, and we won’t pull any punches if the end product is not up to snuff.  But, I’m in the wine-glass-half-full camp and think that we’ll be just fine. 

So please, while we appreciate all of the offers to drop food by the house, really, it’ll be OK (unless someone out there makes a mean brisket - in which case you’re always welcome).

From 95 to 5, Bruliam has supporters of all ages.  Thanks to Brigade-in-Training member JE (and his parents) for this picture taken while apple picking in Oak Glen, CA.  Now that’s he got some farming experience, maybe we’ll get him to work crush next year?

If you can’t see the picture, please click here.

I hate to camp.  Just envisioning a camping expedition unfurls a torrent of visceral revulsion deep within my gut.  I cannot fathom why people want to sleep in a canvas lean-to - or in a bag, for that matter.  When I was a resident, I had a pal, who currently resides in Oregon with her equally-outdoor minded hubby, who wistfully waxed poetic about the wonders of sleeping in the cold and dirt beneath the stars.  When I delicately inquired about restroom facilities, she blithely replied that she used a camping “vessel”- a box of some sort that stores ones solid waste until it can be properly disposed.  Really?  You sh*t in a box and carry it around?  For a week?  Wow that sounds like a really terrific vacation.  It sure beats wiping your ass with a rough, crumbling oak leaf, like that fat, disconsolate bear in the Charmin commercials.

And so, after the first, hesitant sniff of our Anderson Valley pinot noir, my heart sank.  Chris, our enologist, hedged that it smelled like Chipotle.  To me it just smelled like the rotten scent of dying campfire embers and memories of miserable summer camp sleepovers in the brush.  Yes, wine is powerful stuff, evoking heart-racing moments of sheer ecstasy as carelessly as the horror of awakening with dirt encrusted in the corners of your mouth and between your teeth.  And worse yet, that smoky flavor lingered on and on and on in the back of my palate.  And it grew more aggressive with each press fraction.  Brian, ever pragmatic, was less flummoxed.  The wine had nice weight and balance and pretty good mouth feel, after all.  But I just couldn’t see past the forest or the trees or that lousy campsite in Borrego Springs where I endured my inaugural, 5^th grade “outdoor adventure.”  Desperate, I tried to remain calm and breathe, like an enlightened Zen Master.  True, there was nothing to do, and sometimes farming is a bitch.  Struggling, I finally yelled at Brian, “I hate camping!  Don’t you remember I refused to go on that 10^th grade trip to Zion???”  (Oh my God, I am having a tantrum!).  Back in 1988, Brian and the 68 other 10^th graders in our class camped within the spectacular vistas and wild beauty of Zion National Park while I stayed home, by choice, a decision I defend even today, as our winemaking pickle remains unresolved.

Please understand, ever constant and dedicated Brigade, I would never sell you a wine that I detest drinking myself.  But here we are together, at that most vexing of all life junctions- the one where we sit and patiently wait.  Our Anderson Valley pinot needs to undergo malo (a topic for another post) and barrel age somewhat before we pronounce that our smoky campfire juice is dead.  I hope the overbearing scent of smoke remits and fades into the background, in balance with some luscious red fruit, earth, and vibrant acid.  If aging fails to soften the smoke from noxious blight to background noise, we can try some high tech tricks or pursue different fruit altogether.  We’ll keep you abreast of our journey as we tackle smoke taint together.

It’s that time again - time to vote for your favorite Brigade picture!  We’ve again got some stiff competition and the winner will get $250 donated to the charity of their choice.

If you haven’t submitted your Bruliam Brigade picture yet, what are you waiting for?  And if you’ve already sent one in but lost the monthly contest, you need to scrape your ego back up off the floor and send us some new pictures.  We’ll be doing this every month for the foreseeable future, so there are lots of chances to win!

And for those of you who have signed up to receive our e-mails (or are reading this for the first time) and are wondering why you don’t have a Brigade shirt yet, you need to click here and fill out the form to register for the Brigade and receive a free t-shirt.

To vote all you need to do is: (1) click on the bullet next to the person’s name and (2) click the big VOTE button at the bottom of the poll. The poll will instantly update the tally and show you the most current results.  If the system works properly, you will only be able to vote once.  But, you can forward the link or this e-mail to as many people as you want to get them to vote for you.

The poll will only be open for voting until 8am on Tuesday November 4th so get voting!

If you can’t see the poll or vote properly through the e-mail, please CLICK HERE and you can vote on the website.

Many thanks to Brigade member Captain/Uncle Ron N. for this picturesque shot in front of the fishing fleet in San Francisco.  As a frequent recipient of sea sickness at the hands of Uncle Ron in my youth, I can assure you that the water you see behind him is as calm as it ever gets in and around the Bay (and once you get in the Pacific, forget about even trying to keep your lunch down).  Hopefully the Bruliam T brought calm waters!  If you can’t see the picture, please click here.

We’re also pleased to announce that our September contest winners Miles G. and Savanna S. have selected Project Renewal to receive the $250 prize.  The check was delivered last week.

Reviewing from last week, the following factors are known to accelerate fermentation - either in the winery or via controlled laboratory experiments:

1.  the initial sugar concentration of the pre-fermentation juice (”must concentration”)

2.  nitrogen concentration

3.  growth factors like biotin and thiamine

4.  fatty sterols

5.  oxygen/aeration

6.  yeast hulls

7.  elevated fermentation temperatures

So down the checklist we go.  Start with sugar.  Our Anderson Valley grapes came in at 24 brix, which is just perfect.  If the initial sugar is too low, yeast growth may be limited by inadequate nutrients.  Conversely, and counterintuitive but true, if sugar is too high, fermentation actually slows down, and may even cease altogether (luckily we won’t address that here).  Next is nitrogen.  Like bodybuilders, yeast require ample nitrogen, the building block of protein, in order to grow.  The nitrogen in the grapes is measured in the laboratory as “YAN,” the yeast available nitrogen.  The value is highly variable across grape varietal and vineyard.  Often low nitrogen is more pervasive in white wine making, when skins and seeds are absent from the fermentation potion.  If nitrogen is deemed low, it can be added to the fermenting brew as diammonium sulfate.  Luckily our pinot grapes came in at over 300 YAN (”300″ being the magic number) so no additions were necessary.  Next up is akin to Centrum Silver- A to Z.  Yeast need vitamins and minerals too, and in lab experiments the addition of thiamine and biotin accelerates fermentation kinetics.  But again, our pinot skin and seeds provided enough of both. 

Now we get tricky.  Obviously, yeast “eat” grape sugar, but clearly they lack the hands and mouths necessary to gorge themselves at will.  So instead, the sugar “diffuses” across its yeast skin (”cell membrane”) like a queue of Nordstrom shoppers floating through the revolving doors at the Anniversary Sale.   Extrapolating back to our yeast, when the doors lock, sugar can’t get inside, and fermentation stops.  And their door is made up of fatty stuff called “sterols,” and the amount and type of sterol in door either helps or stops sugar from getting inside.  Some specific fatty things (like “C₁₈“) accelerate fermentation by opening the door even wider; others (short chain fatty acids like “C_6, C_8, C₁₀“) preclude membrane permeability and slam the door shut.  Yeast hulls, essentially dried, dead yeast carcasses, mop up the bad sterols, essentially restoring the open door policy and re-establishing permeability.  And remember when I told you that in the presence of oxygen yeast respire instead of ferment sugar?  Well, I lied a little bit, since yeast actually need oxygen to make sterols.  And so now you know that limited oxygen exposure, particularly during the active growth phase, accelerates fermentation considerably.  We’ve fermented our grapes in open topped bins.  While this seems like limitless oxygen exposure, in reality, the carbon dioxide by-products of vigorous fermentation condense into a heavy, invisible cloud over the tank, which limits ambient oxygen exposure.  Our aeration is provided by twice daily punchdowns and cap management.

The last salient feature is temperature.  Again, temperature requirements are fluid- too hot and yeast die but not hot enough, and they can’t boogie at all.  Our wine style favors a hotter fermentation to optimize color extraction.  And elevated temperature, up to a limit, accelerates fermentation.  Our hottest fermentation temperature, maxing out at 31.9 degrees C, hit just about the upper limit of fermentation manipulation.  And remember too, effects are additive.  So the addition of nitrogen or aeration will speed fermentation but not without an accompanying increase in temperature, as that exothermic process accelerates and blows off more heat.  I believe the layered effects of ample nitrogen, sugar and elevated temperatures contributed to our vigorous and rapid fermentation.  But sometimes all of the book learning in the world can’t compensate for practical experience.  So I just asked Chris for the answer.

He said this, “Once those yeast got started, it was like dropping a rowdy kid at college for the first time or giving an alcoholic keys to the liquor store.  There was lots of nitrogen and sugar, and the yeast just went nuts.”  And if the yeast are happy, then we’re happy, too.

Yeah, we know, our tag line is “wine is elemental”, but in this case it seems eternal.  Many thanks to Brigade members Roger and Karen W. for orchestrating this picture of Grandma Sylvia (age 95!) decked out in her Bruliam finest.  Hopefully all of us young whipersnappers can still enjoy ourselves and our wine when we’re 95!  If you can’t see the picture, please click here.

“Wait for Mia; wait for Mia!”  The familiar refrain is getting louder.  “Wait for Mia,” now beseeching, next sputtered with frustrated tears.  My other two kids are sprinting in circles, lapping the kitchen table like a NASCAR time trial- only louder.  But poor Amelia has been excluded from the game and can’t keep up.  I wait for it: 5- 4- 3- 2- 1.  Now completely exasperated, Amelia’s “wait for Mia” chorus has disintegrated into a full blown toddler tantrum.  Shoot, now I have to play referee, just as I was settling into the new issue of US Weekly.

Here in the calm cocoon of our 3-child household, the factors predicting toddler meltdowns are quantifiable variables.  Initiate a stupid game involving two out of three kids, and the deluge inevitably follows.  Begin the game when one of the three is 1) on the potty 2) still eating 3) in the process of getting cleaned up from previous exploits or 4) already engaged in a different quiet and mellow activity, and the elapsed time from frustration to desperation to meltdown is accelerated.  Tinker with any or all of the above variables, and the kinetic energy is tweaked or even compounded.  Eliminate potty time and you may hold tantrums at bay indefinately, but ultimately, the outcome is always the same.  This is not unlike the factors governing fermentation kinetics.  (Whew - that was a stretch). 

You may have noticed that the fermentation of our Anderson Valley pinot sprinted from start to nearly dry in a whirlwind 4 days.  Let me tell you, this is not the way it happened in my UCD syllabus.  In fact, I’d anticipated a more sluggish endeavor.  Always neurotic, I even fretted whether fermentation would begin at all.  Well, I was wrong.  Over 48 hours, the brix (i.e. sugar) dropped from 24 to 10 to 4, almost faster than we could book our tickets on Southwest.com.  And so I hit the books, hoping to tease free which interdependent factors revved our fermentation from speedy into overdrive.

Disclaimer: fermentation kinetics is a beefy, complex topic, usually resplendent with logarithmic scales and fancy, math-heavy graphs.   Instead of that, we’ll just keep it straightforward - my apologies to UCD decorated enologists everywhere.  Starting with the most basic premise, the yeast use the grape juice sugar to make energy, grow, and multiply, and alcohol is a pleasant and tasty by-product of natural yeast metabolism.  And wine science has shown that this happens predictably.  In the presence of sugar, first the yeast multiply a lot (a log phase of 2-5 days), then they just hang out and maintain a stable population (a stationary phase- about 8 days long), then sated and post-asexual-coital, they slowly die (a death phase).  Since they don’t all die simultaneously, the death phase may be prolonged (sometimes weeks), as some yeast circle the drain and others scrape by, converting the last bits of sugar into wine.  Fermentation is directly related to yeast growth, meaning fermentation is most vigorous when yeast multiply.  So any stuff that promotes yeast reproduction will accelerate fermentation.  Since yeast are asexual, porn is of no use here.  Using an armamentarium of yeast-specific titillations, we aim to achieve a vigorous, complete fermentation and a “dry wine,” which is a wine with no residual sugar.  This is not our taste preference but necessity.  If sugar remains during aging and into bottling, covert, escapee yeast can surreptitiously sneak into our wine, happily romping about and feasting on any residual sugar.  Especially after bottling, this results in a cloudy and perceptibly fizzy beverage- OK for cola, not for pinot.

The following factors are known to accelerate fermentation- either in the winery or via controlled laboratory experiments:

1.  The initial sugar concentration of the pre-fermentation juice (”must concentration”)

2.  Nitrogen concentration

3.  Growth factors like biotin and thiamine

4.  Fatty sterols

5.  Oxygen/aeration

6.  Yeast hulls

7.  Elevated fermentation temperatures

Some apply specifically to our pinots, and others do not.  In next week’s post, we’ll explore each factor in a bit more detail.

Is there any phrase in the modern English language that provokes more immediate fear and dread than, “We need to talk”?  We’ve all been on the receiving end of one of these proclamations.  For most of us, it was relationship-related.  But I’ve heard it used by doctors, mechanics, and even UPS drivers to start conversations.  Heck, I’ve used it more than a few times at work.  What follows next is inevitably bad news and even sometimes leads to the worst phrase of all, “it’s not you, it’s me”.  Fortunately, that’s reserved for relationship conversations.  Bosses, doctors, mechanics, and UPS drivers are too full of themselves to ever admit that they’re somehow responsible or wrong.

So, you can imagine our moment of gut-wrenching terror when Kerith and I arrived at CrushPad on Tuesday afternoon, prepared for a fun-filled afternoon of wine drinking and pressing our Anderson Valley pinot noir only to be accosted with, “we need to talk.”  Really, the first thing our winemaker said to us as we straddled the arch of the doorway was, “Hi guys, we need to talk.”

Wait, I thought, our grapes are breaking up with us?  How is that possible?  We treated them so nicely during crush and fermentation!  What a bunch of ingrates (ingrapes?).  They don’t deserve us.  Or, maybe we courted them too aggressively?  Maybe they felt smothered by our babying?  We were just trying to show them how much we loved them.  How can we possibly make this up to them?  We need them.  How can we possibly go on without them?

You can see that I’m clearly unwell.

What was so important that it warranted a “we need to talk” greeting?  You may recall that this summer there were hundreds of wild fires in Northern California.  One of the fears (other than the vineyards actually burning down) was that the smoke in the air would contaminate the grapes with what’s commonly known as “smoke taint”.  A little bit of smoke in the nose and taste of wine can be a really good thing.  Too much of a really good thing?  Well, that usually isn’t so good.  Bottom line - we definitely detected hints of smoke in our newly fermented wine.  You can read an article about this problem by clicking here.

What does this mean?  Well, we called a little bit of a winemaking audible.  We had planned to use one third new oak on our Annahala pinot and press at least through a couple of fractions to extract some tannins.  Instead, we decided to go with neutral oak for now.  You see, the same compound that imparts the undesirable smoke flavor in our wine is the same as the one found on the inside of new toasted oak barrels.  Our hope is by reducing the toast exposure, we’ll at least not make the wine any smokier.  If the smoke abates during aging, we can always rack the wine to a newer barrel.  Next, we decided to just barrel the free run juice (unpressed) so as to not expose our wine to any more of the grape skins that carry the smoke compound.  This may prove to be an unplanned boon, as the free run is generally regarded as the “best” of the wine.  And other than the smoke element, the wine had great mouth feel and red fruity elements, just as we’d hoped.  So we’re cautiously optimistic that we’ll come through this just fine.

What’s next?  We still have to go through secondary fermentation and a few months of barrel aging to see where we really stand.  At this point, only time will tell if we’re going to end up with a wine that tastes like liquid smoke.  With luck our wine will have no or limited smoke accents - ideally, more of a unique characteristic than a distraction.

And worse case?  We’ll tackle that in future posts.  Let’s just hope that this doesn’t become a “it’s not you, it’s me” scenario.

Kudos to Brigade member Andrea W. for getting this great action shot while water skiing at Bullards Bar Resevoir in northern California.  We’re especially impressed with the technique of holding on to the line with one hand while using the other to make sure that the Bruliam logo is properly displayed.  We just hope it didn’t lead to a wipe out!  If you can’t see the picture, please click here. 

UPDATE:  Congratulations to September poll winners Miles G. and Savannah S.  They  took the prize with 38% of the astounding 173 votes.  Thanks to everyone for participating.  We’ll update you again when Miles and Savannah let us know where they want the $250 donated.

Perhaps you’ve noticed there are no Brigade photos of either me or Brian in our Bruliam t-shirts.  “Show me the love,” you cry.  “Represent!”  Still, I promise this egregious omission does not reflect beleaguered passion or wishy-washy commitment.  And so I confess, I secretly harbor a wish to emblazon the Bruliam logo on my personal sportswear.  My first crush was a custom swim cap.  My mind adrift during a grind in the pool, I’d mentally Photoshop badass, Michael Phelps inspired pictures of me sporting reflective swim goggles and a Bruliam cap, mid stroke butterfly.  Never mind Olympic athletes complete the 100m fly in roughly 1/3 the time of my best, dog-pant, wheeze-inducing PR.  Even if I couldn’t convince Brian to play photographer at 6 am at our local, high school pool, at least I’d have a custom cap for my impending triathlon debut.  I’d hoped to wow readers with sagas of finishing first - as-in the first person out of the water after the 1599^th competitor.  But sadly, my sporting event provides mandatory, color-coated caps (mine grey and red- for old and slowed to a stop?).  Undaunted, I’ve discovered the internet advertises custom caps for as low as $3.30 per cap- if you’re buying 100 of them.  So any swimmers out there please drop me a line.  I can handle 5 or 6 caps on my own; I just need 94 more pool pals.

Next I sought to cajole our Bruliam t-shirt provider into printing our logo onto my well-worn, favorite running t.  What’s the harm in decorating a disintegrating, Road Runner clearance rack shirt, if they’ve already got our logo via pixelated JPEG?  I even offered to overnight ship the fraying frock so I’d have it in time for my race.  Well apparently conflicts in quality control preclude their printing on anything other than garb pedaled by their distributors.  Sure they have tech shirts available for purchase, but I have immutable standards of cheapness when it comes to buying gym duds.  I sweat in them, then wash and dry and sweat some more, so I limit my running purchases to the bargain basement.  Parsimony aside, it’s already too late to order a custom top for race day.

But a tri comprises 3 expensive sports, so opportunities for customization abound.  For in the heart of all sports heroes, tenacity precludes abject defeat.  Nonetheless, I think my generous spin teacher (and Ironman competitor and Brigade member “M.S.”) would flip if tried to spray paint the front of her bike helmet with a gargantuan “Bu,” even if I promised to turpentine and return the borrowed helmet in the condition it was loaned.  A huge Bruliam logo sewn to my chest on the front of my wetsuit would be sensational; I am all for being a human billboard.  Unfortunately, the wetsuit is borrowed from our Saturday night babysitter (and triathlete and Brigade member “M.D.”), and I can’t risk the future of my meager social life for business, despite a perverse temptation to channel Superman.  And so I am reduced to adorning my bike - a very fancy, shockingly expensive loaner bike from a once professionally -sponsored triathlete neighbor and friend.  She’s not yet a Brigade member but suspect she’ll never enroll if I crash her bike because my vision was obscured by the giant Bruliam poster I’d affix to the aero bars.  But I still have 6 days until raceday.  So does anyone know a person who knows someone who’s befriended the cousin-once-removed who once sat next to Lance Armstrong’s personal hairdresser?

We had a great time up at CrushPad last Friday sorting our grapes from the Annahala Vineyard in Anderson Valley.  These grapes had about 3.5 more weeks of hang time on the vine then our fruit from Doctor’s Vineyard and the difference was clear.  Whereas the Doctor’s fruit came in at a really high brix (sugar level) and even rotting in places (don’t worry, we sorted those grapes out), this fruit was uniformly ripe, but not over-ripe.  Nice tight clusters, great structure and flavor.  With the fruit so different, it seems clear that we’re going to succeed in our goal of creating two very different pinots. 

As you read this, the Annahala fruit should just be finishing up it’s 5 day cold soak and we’ll eagerly await the beginning of fermentation.  Unlike the Doctor’s fruit, which we innoculated, we’re going native with fermentation on the Annahala grapes.  That means that the timing and speed of fermentation will be much harder to predict.  But, we’re guessing that by Tuesday or Wednesday of next week the Annahala fruit will be done with fermentation and ready for pressing.  That’ll be our last trip up to CrushPad for this harvest season, so if you’ve been thinking about coming with us, now’s the time!

Enjoy the Annahala Crush video below.  If you can’t see the video, please click here.

Bruliam hits the streets of Vietnam with this great street-scene shot of Ho Chi Minh City from Brigade member Henry D.  In addition to this picture, Henry brought us back a bottle of Vietnamese red wine from the Dalat region of the country.  We can’t wait to open it up and post our review in the coming weeks.  If you can’t see the picture, you can click here.

Yeast is controversial.  Maybe not “Sarah Palin doesn’t believe in Darwin” controversial, but certainly slippery and befuddling enough to those passionate about this sort of thing.  The genesis of this contentious finger pointing emanates from applying increasingly complex DNA sequencing tools to the genome of the humble wine yeast.  As minute alterations in tiny DNA fragments are elucidated, these DNA differences are magnified into conflicts of nomenclature of colossal proportions.

As recently as 2 months ago, my UCD professor wrote, “I need to point out that there is a lot of controversy amongst wine yeast microbiologists as to the uses of S. cerevisiae andS. bayanus.”  But what does that mean?  I turned to Ribereau-Gayon’s latest Handbook of Enology for details.  He has been classifying and organizing wine yeast since the 1960’s.  When life was simpler and JFK was President, the two principal wine yeasts (S. cerevisiae andS. oviformis) were distinguished by their ability to digest certain sugars.  Then in the 1980’s, in a clandestine move somewhere between leg warmers and acid jeans, S. oviformis became S. bayanus.  Soon thereafter, fancy DNA assays supplanted simple sugar tests, rendering the sugar-based classification nearly obsolete.  While the microbiologist- taxonomists (the DNA geeks) were busy in their labs, the enologists (wine makers) themselves decided to add the varietal name to S. cerevisiae, leaving us with S. cerevisiae var. cerevisiae or S. cerevisiae var. bayanus.  OK, this is clearly worse.

Some semantic discord is resolved by recognizing that S. cerevisiaeis by nature one slippery eel of a species.  Amazingly, it alters its physiologic properties faster than Jessica Simpson discards last week’s Prada bag.  Over time, yeast samples acquire and lose the ability to ferment certain sugars.  This alters their characteristic profile and affords them opportunity to leap across the recognized boundaries of scientific taxonomy.  Unstable like rehab Britney, their DNA is so squirrelly that the Saccharomyces clan now is lumped together under the umbrella rubric Saccharomyces groupsensu stricto.  Indeed DNA tests now verify the existence of S. cerevisiae and S. bayanus hybrids, with unique, intermediate DNA sequences that defy traditional classification.

Now let’s focus our microscope at higher magnification yet.  Like pinot clones, yeast has clones, too.  (Let’s say it together- “aaargh!”).  Clones, called “strains,” not only change year to year in the same winery but also may share identical DNA across wineries miles and miles apart!  Luckily for us, scratch DNA researchers enlist a panoply of DNA sequencing tricks for ever more detailed yeast strain analysis.  The techniques are identical to the “DNA fingerprinting” used in paternity tests and CSI: Miami.  So why is this important?  Differences between yeast strains dictate fermentation speed, alcohol tolerance, temperature tolerance, and even fermentation to dryness.  Sometimes a number of different strains coexist, and when none can assert itself to the exclusion of others, fermentation gets “stuck.”  Conversely, one or two dominant strains characterize rapid and complete fermentation.  In fact, even different proportions of the same few strains are recognized at the start, middle, and end of fermentation.  Now extrapolate these yeast strain differences across the world’s vineyards and wineries.  The possibilities are infinite!

So what do we really know?  S. cerevisiae is an organic, fluid, shape shifter, polyclonal by nature, and always reinventing its essential self by mixing up its DNA.  And these changes, whether minute like a few single nucleotides or greater like whole chromosomes, reverberate in the winery and ultimately in your wine glass.  As yeast strains vary from year to year and vat to vat, each aliquot of wine is rendered indelibly unique.

It’s that time again - time to vote for your favorite Brigade picture!  We’ve got some stiff competition this month and the winner will get $250 donated to the charity of their choice.

To vote all you need to do is: (1) click on the bullet next to the person’s name and (2) click the big VOTE button at the bottom of the poll. The poll will instantly update the tally and show you the most current results.  If the system works properly, you will only be able to vote once.  But, you can forward the link or this e-mail to as many people as you want to get them to vote for you.

The poll will only be open for voting until 8am on Tuesday October 7th so get voting!

If you can’t see the poll or vote properly through the e-mail, please CLICK HERE and you can vote on the website.

Our grapes from Anderson Valley are being picked on Thursday and we will be at the winery at 12:30pm on Friday 10/3 for sorting.  If you’d like to join us, please drop us a line.  Plan on an hour of dirty and delicious work!

You can get a sense of what’s involved by viewing our Doctor’s Vineyard Crush video by clicking here or, CrushPad just put out a short video of us at our Doctor’s crush that you can see below.  If you can’t see that video, you can click here.   

Brigade member Marie C. sends us this picture from the Balsams Grand Resort in Dixville Notch, NH.  Sound familiar?  For you politicos it should.  The Balsams at Dixville Notch is the location of the first vote in each presidential primary season.  All eligible voters in the village gather at midnight on the opening morning of primary season and cast their votes (17 total votes cast in 2008).  The poll closes 1 minute after midnight and the results are widely reported by the national media.  Why all the attention to these results?  They have an odd record of accurately predicting the ultimate candidates of each party.  Who won in 2008?  Barack Obama for the democrats (7 of 10 votes) and John McCain for the republicans (4 of 7 votes). 

Thanks Marie for the great picture and the opportunity to elevate the discourse of this blog beyond booze and dirty diapers!

Imagine hunky Chippendale dancers in beige loincloths, faces smeared in Masai war paint, beating their chests in time to thumping African-techno music.  Going native!  To quote the ubiquitous Paris Hilton, “That’s hot.”  I wish “going native” were that sexy; we’d increase our female readership tenfold, especially with video footage.  But in the wacky world of wine, going native is as mundane as - yeast, as in the nasty stuff infesting your bathroom grout (well, almost).  When fermenting grapes, a vintner may select a pedigreed, perfectly qualified, tried and tested yeast strain from a scientific supply company.  One “inoculates” with a measured dose of fungus, sprinkles it over the grapes, and after a specified amount of time, fermentation begins.  Alternatively, she can hold those grapes at room temperature and wait, and wait, and wait, fingers crossed, for those first bubbles to percolate to the surface, letting the “native” yeast on the berries’ surface transform juice to wine.

Going native is considered a point of pride, a badge of enology honor.  Vintners love to boast about their “resident yeast,” as if they’ve adopted and coddled these single celled critters like a well loved Chia pet.  Using native yeast inspires passionate sentiments like “we’re all natural,” “we prefer minimal intervention,” or “we never, ever consider using canned, sterile, store bought yeast.”  And this is repeated again and again- without irony.  While wine yeast microbiologists stress that yeast strain has minimal effect on finished wine flavors, (perhaps very young wines excepted), fervent, native yeast proponents insist otherwise. 

Now cue the French guy in a striped boat shirt and black beret standing next to his pocket-sized parcel in Beaune.  Crinkling his nose in distain at us new fangled, American winemakers, he chides, “Mon Dieu! We onleeee uzzzeeeh nateeeev yeast.”  With French Bourgogne considered a yard stick by which the world’s pinots are measured, French winemaking techniques are co-opted by just about everyone.  So long live French fries and French toast!  For our Anderson Valley pinot noir we plan to go native, too.**

The flip side of this favored fungus is nail-biting anxiety that “native yeast” can be unpredictable, less hearty, and sporadically die off before their job is done.  For instance, too much heat or too much alcohol, both natural by products of fermentation, can kill them.  Or sometimes they’re extra sensitive to the sulfur dioxide required to hold spoilage bacteria at bay- not good.  On the other hand, commercial yeast is bred to withstand the rising alcohol concentrations and temperatures that accompany brisk fermentation.  Less glamorous, perhaps, but at least surviving the arc of fermentation is assured.  Like reliable old Hondas, commercial strains promise a vigorous, reproducible, predictable fermentation- every time. 

The reality is that nearly all winemaking yeast is the same genus, Saccharomyces.  The great majority are even the same species, Saccharomyces cerevisiae.  This is the very same stuff you use to make beer or bread (you know those paper packets of Fleishman’s activated yeast from Vons?).  The gunk lives on grape berries naturally, along with their other microbial buddies, in greater and lesser percentages.  “Going native” just presupposes that Mother Nature’s S. cerevisiae out compete their microscopic neighbors.  And after press, when all of those “natural” winemakers dump the mucky, grape leftovers back into their fields as compost and fertilizer, that yeast just gets recycled next season, until the “native” yeast is pretty similar to the stuff right out of the can.

At Bruliam, our yeast choices are simply a reflection of two very different wines made in two very different styles.  Anderson Valley: refined, elegant, earthy, and subdued, fermented with natural yeast.  And Santa Lucia Highlands: wild child, super fruity, hedonistic and heady, fermented as hot as our commercial yeast can withstand.  Same grape, different personalities, fraternal twins.

**We mean no disrespect to our Santa Lucia Highlands baby that was fed the finest commercial yeast science and technology has to offer.

That’s right, after all of the writing, talking, dreaming, and tasting, we finally have actual wine in the barrel.  Video evidence is below.

On Sunday we flew to San Francisco and pressed our wine from Doctor’s Vineyard in the Santa Lucia Highlands.  Along with some dedicated Brigade members, we filled the barrel with the free run juice and then topped it off with progressively harder pressings. 

The free run is the juice that collects at the bottom of the bin during fermentation.  It is generally the softest and “purest” part of the wine, and the goal is to maximize the free run by siphoning it directly into the barrel.  Next, the remaining solids from the fermentation bin go into the press and are drained of their sweet nectar.  As the press intensifies in pressure, more tannins are produced resulting in greater structure.  Our end recipe was about 50% free run, the rest comprised of decreasing percentages of the six pressings (the last pressing - the most intense - probably made up less than 5% of the blend).

So, how did it taste?  The free run had roughly the viscosity of freshly-squeezed orange juice and looked like red muck, but it tasted smooth and fruity.  As we got into the later pressings, the color shifted to a deep clear red, and we could definitely taste the tannins kicking in. 

We made a little blend cup that approximated the blend in the barrel and it was delicious!  We can’t wait to see how it develops after being in oak for the next 12-15 months. 

To see this all in action, you can check out the video below.  If you can’t see the video, please click here.

So, what’s next?  For the Doctor’s grapes it’s into the barrel for the malolactic fermentation and then a long deserved rest.  For us, we’re anxiously awaiting Round 2 - the arrival of our Anderson Valley grapes.  We hope to see you at either the sort/crush or the pressing!

New York may no longer be the center of the financial universe after the past couple of weeks, but that didn’t stop our Bridage members from showing a little Bruliam pride in Times Square recently.  Many thanks to Brigade members Miles G. and Savannah S.  for this great picture from the center of it all.  If you can’t see the picture, please click here.

What do you mean “press grapes?”  Didn’t you, like, already do that last week?

Like medical jargon or legal-ese, enology boasts its own vocabulary.  While “crushing” grapes is basically synonymous with smooshing, stomping, smashing, squashing, pounding, or flattening, it is not the same as “pressing.”  “Crush” is a technical term that encompasses any means of breaking the skin of intact berries to release the juice within.  This is the crucial step that colors white grape juice red; skin/juice contact gives red wine its gorgeous purple-ruby hue.  For red wines only, “press,” by contrast, happens after primary fermentation is complete.  It is the technical term that describes extracting the liquid (i.e. wine) away from the gooey, wet grape-pulp-skin amalgam, akin to wringing a wet towel dry, but more gingerly.

In the fermentation vessel, the nascent wine mingles with the solid residua, which includes grape pulp, skin, seeds, dead yeast, and an odd insect or two (just kidding).  Next a hose or pump is used to drain the wine away from the solid muck.  The wine that simply flows away from the solids, like a cascading, maroon river of edible hedonism, is called the “free-run.”  (With that, I kill the abysmal similes and pronounce them dead).  Free-run is generally considered the highest quality wine, since it is lowest in tannin.  After that, the solid remains are compressed with progressively greater force until they are dry.  The wine borne from the consecutive pressings can kept separate or combined with the free-run, as dictated by the winemaker’s tastes, since flavors in press fraction wine may add depth, backbone, and complexity.

Each consecutive press fraction has progressively higher tannin, since vigorous pressing can shear or even pulverize the grape seeds, releasing bitter and astringent components into the wine.  Sometimes the highest press fractions are tossed in the garbage or sold to Franzia or other fancy box-wine hawkers.  In the super, olden days, like when my mom was a kid, a wine press consisted of a heavy piston grinding the piss out of grape solids in a wooden basket, so escalating tannin was problematic.  But with the advancement of wine technology, the newest and gentlest presses are bladder presses, which is what we will be using on our wines.  In essence, a bladder press is similar to inflating and deflating a balloon inside of a round container, with gently increasing pressure.  Because compression is so subtle and controlled, seed breakage is negligible, and all press fractions are of high enough quality to be reunited with the free run.   

Every winery has a personalized press program, which dictates what type of press is selected, how much pressure is used, the number of presses, and the fate of each successive press fraction.  In his book North American Pinot Noir, John Haeger discloses the press program secrets of America’s finest pinot producers.  At Calera, “The pomace is bladder-pressed when the must is dry; the press fraction is immediately reassembled with the free-run juice” (p228).  In contrast, at Flowers Vineyard and Winery, “Flower’s basket press works very gently, so the first and second press fractions can usually be recombined with the free run juice; subsequent fractions are evaluated lot by lot” (p285).  Then at Williams Selyem, “The press juice, instead of being barreled separately, is used to top up each free-run barrel” (p393).  Evidently, the options and choices are innumerable, and these details constitute the art of winemaking.

At Bruliam, we’re just excited to taste our first wine ever!  High on endorphins and adrenaline, I suspect we’ll pronounce both the free-run and each successive press fraction “delicious!,” “stupendous!,” and “the best wine ever!”  Next week, we can Monday morning quarterback our decisions and reassemble our press program for your entertainment.

In her post on Monday, Kerith did a great job of guiding you through the basics of fermentation.  If you haven’t already read her post, I highly recommend that you click here.

As you read this, our Doctor’s Vineyard pinot noir is in the throes of fermentation.  The graph below shows the most recent fermentation readings (as of 9/18).  As we would expect, the Brix (in blue) is falling as the yeast converts the sugar to alcohol.  At the same time the temperature (in red) is rising from the heat of the exothermic reaction.  Over the next couple of days, we expect to see the Brix drop all the way to zero, but the temperature should cap out at about it’s current level of 32-34 degrees celcius (90-93 degrees fahrenheit).  We’re anticipating that fermentation will be complete sometime on Saturday, and then we’ll press the young wine on Sunday and transfer it to barrel for aging.  Please contact us if you want to join us at CrushPad on Sunday for pressing.

If you can’t see the graph or if you’d like to follow the fermentation process in real time, you can click here.

A couple of our younger (and younger at heart) Brigade members have asked whether we have a Facebook page set up.  The answer is a muted yes.  If you’re on Facebook, you can access it by clicking here.  I’m admitedly not a Facebook person so the page is a little sparse.  I set it up so that our blog posts update regularly and added a photo album of Bridade pictures.  Sadly, we only have three friends right now.  So, if you are a Facebook regular, you can boost my self-esteem by being my friend.  If we get enough friends, we may consider doing some special Facebook-only content.  And if you’re a real Facebook pro and want to recommend some things to make our page a little more spiffy, please drop me a line.

After a real tough week in the market, it is hard to find much to smile about.  But, I was taking a break from the CNBC we have playing on every TV in the office to watch a bit of the Manchester United vs. Villarreal match Thursday afternoon.  The announcer led off the broadcast with a statement roughly as follows (and you have to imagine this in a really thick British accent): “..Manchester is sponsored by AIG.  Aren’t they having some sort of problem in the States?”   If you’ve never seen a Manchester game, you can click here to see the very direct connection with AIG.  I guess it goes to show that, as much as those of us who work in finance believe otherwise, the whole world really doesn’t revolve around Wall Street. 

Let’s hope that next week is better than this one.  Certainly getting that first taste of Bruliam pinot on Sunday afternoon should help - I’m hoping that it’ll be so good that I’ll forget all about this week (or, if nothing else, maybe I’ll drink enough to sleep right through the open on Monday).

Important Note:  Have you ever had a question you wanted to ask a sommelier but were afraid to ask?  We’re scheduled to interview one of the top sommeliers in the country in a couple of weeks to discuss wine and wine-food pairing.  Please feel free to send us any questions, no matter how silly, and we’ll try to work them in.

A great picture from Brigade member Beth W. at Mango Bay in Koh Tao in the Gulf of Thailand.  She reports that the makeshift diving board was a log strapped to a rock on the shore.   Below, is a look at the lush landscape along the hiking path that took her to the plunge point.  And, yes, she assures us that she jumped (multiple times!)  Kudos go for our first Bruliam pictures on the other side of the international date line.  The bar keeps getting raised, people!!  If you can’t see the pictures, please click here.

A number of you commented that the link to the video from this morning’s post was not working.  It seems we were struck with a little bit of a technical snafu sprinkled with a healthy dose of editorial error.

The video is an interview we conducted with one of the head wine makers immediately following our sort of the Doctor’s Vineyard  pinot grapes.  It is well worth watching.

To see the video, please CLICK HERE and scroll to the bottom of the post.

WINERY ALERT:  We’re scheduled to press our Doctor’s Vineyard pinot noir on Sunday 9/21 in the afternoon.  We have at least 4.5 Brigade members planning to attend.  If you want to join us, please drop us a line.  This won’t be as work intensive or time consumming as the sorting, AND you will have the first opportunity to taste our wine!

Editor’s Note:  This is a science intensive post.  As a reward for making it through the whole thing, there is an “informative” video at the end for those of you willing to brave a little biochemistry on a Monday morning.

The grapes from Doctor’s Vineyard have been sorted and destemmed.  After 4 days in the cold room, we wheeled them into the winery on Saturday 9/13 to bring them up to room temperature.   They were innoculated with yeast on Sunday 9/14, and now the magic of winemaking begins.  Cue celestial chorus.

“Magic” is cute, unintimidating, Disney-speak for “mind numbing biochemistry.”  And nobody really wants the resopnsibility of explaining it.  Codifying his reputation as the funny, Tuesday pun guy, Brian has kindly deferred this excruciatingly painful topic to my Monday blog.  Yes, it’s “science,” and my background is, well, science, but really, nary an autopsy doth an enologist make (Shakespeare, 1603).  If reading about pinot clones puts you to sleep, then this begs for No-Doz.  So grab a Starbucks and wear your thinking cap, because here we go.

Most simply, yeast consume the grapes’ natural sugar and convert it to alcohol- done!

C₆H₁₂O₆  è 2CH ₃ CH₂OH + 2CO₂   56 kcal/mol; (-) rT

One unit of sugar (here known as “glucose,” CHO) is converted to 2 units of wine (OK, it’s really ethanol, COOH, but who’s complaining) and carbon dioxide (same stuff you exhale with each breath).  Notice there’s no oxygen here.  The yeast backstroking in their Olympic pool of grape juice quickly consume all of the available oxygen with their first sugar binge, leaving them in an anaerobic (i.e. oxygen-free) environment.  This is why we get wine.  Fermentation is an oxygen-free process that ceases in the presence of oxygen.  In contrast to fermentation, when oxygen is around, those pesky yeast “respire” instead and use oxygen to spin sugar into plain old water plus carbon dioxide.  And that’s no fun, no disrespect to Evian.

So what’s with the weird triangle?  It’s a delta, my Greek frat brothers.  Delta T, change in temperature, signifying an exothermic reaction that releases heat.  Translation: swimming yeast train hard, and they just get hot.  Like a fat guy on a spin bike, the temperature in the room rises.  Each unit of sugar consumed releases 56 calories, and for approximately every percent of sugar lost, the temperature rises 2.3⁰F.  This is fine.  We like some heat.  Heat helps extract the maximum color from those testy, thin-skinned pinot grapes.  Heat keeps fermentation brisk.  But alas, too hot and the yeast will crap out and die before their job is done.  So we do things to dissipate the heat.

Top Ways to Chill (if you’re a microscopic wine fungus)

#1) Spend 4 days at the Four Seasons Hualalai with round the clock Mai Tais

(oops, wrong blog…)

#2) Hit the freezer.  I am being blithe, but for the lowest tech, bang for your buck, just move your fermentation bin into a cold room.

#3) Punch Downs.  The grape skins congeal into a gloopy, floating Pangea at the top of the fermentation tank.  Called a “cap,” this amalgamation makes it hard for heat to escape.  Winemakers push the cap to the bottom of the tank with a giant, metal, rake-like contraption.  This is called a “punch down.”  Juice can even be pumped from the bottom of the tank back over the top with a hose, as in a “pump over.”  Both promote even skin/juice contact and dissipate heat.

#4) Be like Meb.  In Athens 2004, Olympic marathoner Meb Keflezighi donned a Nike-invented pre-race cooling vest to lower his core temperature.  Big fermentation tanks are also equipped with cooling jackets on their surface.  These so called refrigerator jackets are pretty popular in big wineries, as are other sundry heat exchange devices.

Being a small production gig, we’re at an advantage since we ferment in short, plastic bins.  These containers have a HIGH surface to volume ratio, which is also useful for heat management.  Whooooshhh, physics.

“Now make it stop,” you plead.  Well, the yeast stop automatically - oh you mean the lecture.  Almost there.  The yeast binge and chomp their way though Mary Kate Olsen’s only-in-a-dream, total carb dinner, until all of the sugar is consumed.  At last we pronounce “fermentation is dry.”  Thus a dry wine means no residual, natural sugar is present in the finished product.  Without an energy source, the yeast die, and their carcasses drop to the bottom of the bin.  Rather than “road kill,” we call them “lees” and preach they add complexity and flavor to the wine (which they do).  Vegetarians, fear not; the dead critters are filtered out by the time your pristine and crystal clear wine is ready for bottling.

And there you have it - fermentation 101.

My brainiacs, as a reward for reading this far, Crushpad’s own Kian Tavakoli (formerly of Opus One, ahem!) is going talk about harvest 2008 and our fermentation process in the video below.  If you can’t see the video, please click here and scroll to the bottom of the page.

Wow - what a day!

After fog closed down SFO we re-routed to Oakland airport (thanks, Southwest!) and arrived just in time to sort and destem our 2008 pinot noir from Doctor’s Vineyard in the Santa Lucia Highlands.

The entire process took about two hours, and we managed to sort 3/4ths of a ton of grapes (not bad for a desk jockey and a professional nose-wiper).  As I type this, my fingers are still stained purple, and I’m pretty sure that I smell vaguely of fermenting fruit.  But, it was all worth it for a great day at the winery. 

Our adventures are captured in the video below.  If you can’t see the video, please click here and scroll down to the video.

We expect our second set of grapes from Annahala Vineyard in Anderson Valley to come in to the winery in 2-3 weeks.  Hopefully the video of Tuesday’s adventure will inspire some of you to come out and join us.  Brigade members are always welcome.  It’s a lot of fun!

Many thanks to Brigade member Dave F. for sending in this great picture from a remote area of Moab, Utah - mecca for mountain biking, off-roading, and rappelling.  We trust that between all of that outdoor adventure, Dave made time for a nice glass of pinot.  If you can’t see the picture, please click here.

A reminder that while you read this we will be at crush for our grapes from Doctor’s Vineyard in the Santa Lucia Highlands.  While we don’t plan to use our feet, we certainly hope it goes better for us that it did for this woman.

P.S.  OK, I admit the headline is a little obscure this week.  For those of you not up on your show tunes, you can click here.

The yeast post is going to wait,

For harvest we cannot be late.

With brix through the sky

And acid still high

This Tuesday we’ll harvest our grapes.

In lieu of my regularly scheduled musings on yeast strains (mmmm, tasty!), I’ve written a giddy limerick to prod you into joining us on Tuesday September 9th at 12pm at Crushpad’s San Francisco facility to sort and destem Bruliam’s very first fruit.  Short notice, to be sure, but we encourage any and all Brigade members to join the fun.   If you’d like to join us, please send us a reply e-mail ASAP and we’ll provide you the specific details.  If you want to come, be sure to bring a change of clothes and prepare to get purply (purple + dirty).  If you can’t join us this time, we’ll be harvesting Anderson Valley in late September.

Wine has become a family affair in our house, so I’ll leave you with this true anecdote:

Our preschooler sauntered over to the dinner table a couple of nights ago and requested a taste of our wine - in his own glass, of course.  Being good-natured and generous with our bottle, Brian poured him a few thimbles-full in some cheap Ikea stemware.

“Go ahead and taste it,” Brian urged.

“No daddy,” he scoffed.  “I have to smell it first.” 

So our kid gives the wine a vigorous slosh and dives in nose first.

A nose crinkle.

A wrinkle.

A funny look.

Then: silence.

“What does it smell like?” we prodded (tortured with suspense).

“Lemonade,” he pronounced with great gravity.  He stole a small sip and headed back to watch the rest of his monster truck video.

Finally, it’s time. 

The beginning of harvest season officially kicked off over the Labor Day weekend with the arrival of the first sauvignon blanc grapes into the CrushPad winery.  You can see a short video about that event by clicking here. 

As for our grapes, it’s looking like early next week for the pinot from Doctor’s vineyard in the Santa Lucia Highlands to come in.  Our winemaker Chris Nelson sent us the following note on Monday:

Brix: 24.8
pH: 3.20
TA: 10.0

Comments
Note that these are the numbers on the earlier ripening fruit (Calera and 115). We’re getting there for sugar and flavor, we just need the acid to drop a bit so we’re going to push it into next week for the first pick.

Wondering what we’ll be doing on crush day?  You can see a short video about it by clicking here.  We’ve been told to expect to get very dirty and covered in grape juice stains (how is that different from being at home with three young kids every day??)

If you want to join us, CrushPad is offering 3-hour Crush Camps that will provide a fun and intensive experience at the winery.   We expect to be up there at least four times over the next six weeks so we can definitely arrange for a fun experience for anyone who wants to get dirty (and can get to the winery on relatively short notice).

It’s amazing to think that eight months ago this was all just a hair-brained idea and now we’re about to bring in our first grapes.  It’s going to be a great few weeks!

Our first international Bruliam shot comes courtesy of Brigade members Andrea W. and Jesse M. who took this picture near Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

In a country known much more for its tequila and beer, it is good to see a couple of Bruliam missionaries spreading the gospel of fine wine!

AUGUST POLL WINNER UPDATE:  With a commanding 56% of the amazing 70 individual votes, our first monthly poll winner is Abhay S. on the Charles River in Boston.  Abhay has asked that the $250 donation prize be sent to KPBS, San Diego’s local PBS affiliate.

The estimated harvest dates for Doctor’s vineyard in the Santa Lucia Highlands are September 8 - 16 and for Annahala vineyard in Anderson Valley it’s September 26 - October 10 (note that the Doctor’s timing has been moved up by a week since our last update).  Why the spread?  Why the secrecy?  It sounds like a conspiracy by Southwest Airlines to force us to buy the most expensive seats at the last minute possible.  If you’re vexed, we are too.  But in reality, deciding when to pick your grapes is arguably the most important winemaking decision one makes after selecting a grape variety.  After all, the flavor of the grapes at harvest and the sugar level at that moment, largely predetermine the outcome of your finished product.  While oak barrel aging can soften some viticultural sins, wood can only ameliorate a finite amount of damage before your wine tastes like a 2 x 4 plank from Home Depot.  So really, it all begins with the caliber of your fruit.

Being practical, we give a range of dates because a vineyard may not ripen evenly.  Vines further up or down a slope, facing more southwardly, closer to an irrigation drip line, or under the shade of a nearby tree may ripen before or after berries at the other end of a property.  Some vintners specifically pick and re-pick at delayed intervals, forcing Nature’s hand and playing the odds, hoping for a little more sun and a bit more sweetness.  Harvest roulette is routinely practiced among Germany’s vineyards, where acreage is planted at the northernmost limit of viticultural boundaries, so maximizing sugar is the foremost objective.  Wait one more day and perhaps you’ll be rewarded with that coveted bump in brix, but gambling for sunshine (and subsequently more sugar) is always tempered by the threat of rain, rot, and unusable fruit.  Josh Jensen of Calera Wine Company here in California has famously oscillated between keeping grapes from first, middle and final harvest sweeps together or separate and treated uniquely. 

So it would seem that waiting longer to harvest your fruit is better, right?  At budbreak, spring’s minute, green berries are characterized by mouth-puckering acidity.  This gradually mellows to balanced sweetness after veraison, as grapes mature from hard green nodules into succulent, purple globes.  You’d imagine that since “riper,” sweeter fruit contains greater natural sugar, this yields a more desirable end product.  Indeed some regions like the Southern Central Coast (think Santa Barbara) are lauded for “long hang times,” where grapes have spent more time on the vine, theoretically developing a fuller, more intricate and layered flavor profile.  Yet as grapes grow and pulp increases, acid is diluted, which is not necessarily a desirable attribute.  After all, some acid is compulsory for structure, balance, and spunky vibrancy.  And so it appears the best fruit hails from a long, steady stint on the vine with just enough sugar that acid isn’t sacrificed completely.

But as always, pinot noir plays the maverick.  Thin skinned and less intensely pigmented than other famous red Vinifera, pinot naturally tends towards less deeply colored wines.  Thus exacting pinot wine makers rely on higher alcohol concentrations to coax the maximum color extraction from their fruit.  And what determines alcohol levels?  Why the sugar level, of course.  The natural sugar in the berries at harvest provides the primary substrate for those carb craving yeast during fermentation.  Thus the sugar concentration at harvest (known as percent brix) is the primary determinant of the percentage alcohol in the finished wine.  Farmers use all kids of contraptions, from simple refractometers in the field to complex hydrometers in enology laboratories to measure and monitor percent brix.  Pinot is harvested at the higher end of the scale, usually between 24 and 25 percent brix.  But can science trump the human palate?  What if brix is maximized but the varietal character of the berry is not yet fully realized?  What cutting edge technology, beyond our maximally evolved taste buds, can better measure and interpret the intensity, depth, or complexity of flavor?

And so we come full circle.  Sometimes the best way to determine if a crop is ready for harvest is for a wizened farmer to trek into vines at dawn, when the berries are still slick with condensation, and to taste them.  When the fruit is ripe and balanced, deep and layered, robust yet refined, and tastes entirely the way a pinot grape should, well then, the berries are ready.  And clearly we cannot plan for that day too far in advance.

Vote for the August Charity Winner:  Well, we learned that the polling software doesn’t get picked up in the e-mail feed.  So, if you want to vote for the August charity winner, you need to CLICK HERE and vote on the site.  Over 50 votes have been registered so far, but it is still an open race.  The poll is only open until 8am on September 2^nd, so vote now!

Harvest Update:  We’ve received the following date ranges for the upcoming harvest periods.  We should get about 48-hours prior notice for our specific crush/sort date and time.  Doctor’s Vineyard:  9/16/08 - 9/30/08.  Annahala Vineyard:  9/26/08 - 10/10/08.

Wine Spectator Snafu:  Wine Spectator recently published their annual restaurant review issue.  Splashed across the cover was the headline:  “Restaurant Wine Service - Not Good Enough!”  Maybe it should have read:  “Restaurant Review Service - Not Good Enough.”   It seems that one Robin Goldstein entered a fake restaurant for review by Wine Spectator this year and was actually awarded their Award of Excellence.  Not only did the restaurant not exist, but the wines that Goldstein provided on the fake wine list were among the lowest rated wines in Wine Spec’s recent history.  According to Wine Spectator their Award of Excellence is, “the basic award, for lists that offer a well-chosen selection of quality producers, along with a thematic match to the menu in both price and style. Typically, these lists offer at least 100 selections.”  You can read about the exploit here.  A reminder to all of us not to take any of these things too seriously!

Sagient Update:  I’m very pleased to announce that for the second year in a row Sagient Research was named to the Inc. 5000 list as one of America’s Fastest Growing Companies.  We’ve got a ways to go to match the #1 performer who had a three year revenue growth rate of 31,525%!  How is that even possible??  Needless to say, I’m very proud of the great team we’ve got here and all the hard work they’ve been putting in over the past few years.

Bruliam Brigade:  The pictures keep streaming in and we currently have a nice backlog of pictures.  But don’t let that dissuade you from sending in your shots.  Remember to take your Bruliam t-shirt on your next trip, outing, or escapade.

When we first started the Bruliam Brigade, we could only dream that it would become such a popular feature of this site.  We’ve given out almost 100 shirts so far and the Tuesday Brigade pictures are by far the most opened and read e-mails.  As the pictures get better and better, the thought of having to choose a monthly winner for the $250 charity prize grows increasingly daunting.

So, what better way to ex