Fermentation Underway

All of the fruit is in for 2009! And pretty much not a moment too soon with the weather that we've been having. It's cold outside, too cold for the vines. This is deja vu of last year with an early, very hard frost that basically stops the vineyard cold, literally. With night time lows dipping down to 20 degrees the vines shut down, leaving the grapes with no more nutrients or water. So the grapes must be picked immediately. Luckily for us, we had only 3 tons of fruit left to pick before the hard frost on Saturday night. That last bit of Cab has been sorted and is in tank fermenting. Now that the outside work is finished, the work in the winery is in full swing and the winery is full of fermentation. All of the tanks are filled and every portable tank and bin is being used. The very last blocks of grapes have been inoculated with yeast and fermentation is under way. Now each day begins with punch downs. Punch downs are an integral part of the wine making process. During fermentation the skins and seeds float to the top of the tank forming a cap, while the juice settles to the bottom. All of the very best parts of wine, the flavor, aroma, color, and tannins reside in the cap. So during fermentation you want extract these elements, so the cap must be mixed back into the fermenting juice twice daily. The crew punches the cap down either with a pneumatic punch down tool for the big tanks or the old fashioned way for the small bins, first thing in the morning and last thing in the afternoon. Samples of the fermenting lots must also be taken daily so that Horacio can check the Brix level to monitor the fermentation. As long as everything is going smoothly with fermentation, the sugar level drops at a steady rate on a daily basis. Horacio also takes samples of the lots for Jean-François to taste. With all of the fermentation at the moment, Horacio is testing 40 different lots of wine. It is a lot of work but at least this part of harvest happens indoors, out of the cold and wet.

Hard Work for Harvest

We are at about the mid point for the 2009 Harvest here at Pepper Bridge and it has been a lot of hard work. It is easy to see hard work happening all around the winery, the sorting of grapes, the cleaning of bins, and of course the punch downs. What isn't so easy to see is all the hard work that goes into getting the grapes to the winery. This time of year our winemaker is up early in the morning, spending time in the vineyards checking on the grapes. As the grapes ripen, Jean-François methodically pulls samples and tastes the grapes from all of our blocks in both Pepper Bridge and Seven Hills Vineyards. It means lots of walking while it is barely light out, but is important work that helps him decide when to harvest particular lots of fruit. Jean-François will walk two rows of a given block, pulling grapes from both sides of the row until he has 100 berries. These sample berries will be taken back to the lab for analysis of their sugar level. While we typically harvest the red varietals at about 25 to 26 Brix, the sugar level is not the only thing that Jean-François considers when deciding whether to harvest. While pulling grapes for samples, he will also be tasting, checking on the flavor of the grapes. With all the sun and heat that we have had this summer in Walla Walla, we don't have to worry about the grapes not having enough sugar. The trick is picking the grapes when the flavors are at the best. Little fluctuations in temperature up or down can either accelerate the ripening, or slow down the process, allowing for more flavor development. So it is of the utmost importance for Jean-François to check on the vineyard daily, keep on top of the weather forecast, and staying patient. Once he decides that a block of grapes are at their best, he calls for the vineyard manager to pick. All of the grapes at Pepper Bridge are hand picked. The picking crews work in small teams, with each picker filling small plastic totes that will then be dumped into a picking bin that is pulled by a tractor. The pickers work amazingly fast, getting through about an acre an hour. For working so fast, they also pick very cleanly, with very few leaves or bad clusters ending up in the bins. Once the grapes have been picked, the bins are loaded onto trailers and trucked to the winery. All of this work happens before 9:00 so that there will be grapes ready and waiting for the wine team to sort and destem first thing in the morning.

Sustainability in the Vineyard

There is alot of talk these days about sustainability, and the wine world is no exception. The sustainable farming of grapes is becoming an important issue for wineries and vineyard managers. Not only are consumers interested in sustainability, but the long term health of the industry depends upon responsible farming. Here in the Walla Walla Valley we have a sustainable trust for the vineyards called Vinea. This organization is committed to introducing and encouraging sustainable farming practices. Growers and producers are certified sustainable through IOBC and Pepper Bridge has also been certified Salmon Safe because of our protection of water quality. At present almost 80% of the vineyards in the Walla Walla AVA are participating in Vinea. So what does sustainability in the vineyard mean for Pepper Bridge? Farming sustainably means that we keep our attention on the health of the vines, the soil, the workers, as well as the health of the business. We want to grow the highest quality grapes in a manner that can be perpetuated over the long term. In order to produce high quality fruit, the vines themselves must be healthy. The health of the soil plays a key role in the health of the vine. We work with local composter Rick Trumbull of Sustainable Soil Solutions and Quality Compost, to return vital nutrients to the soils. Each year we spread tons of compost through both Pepper Bridge and Seven Hills Vineyards. During harvest, we save all the left over stems and pomace. It will be composted with a mix of logs, hay and straw, manure, and minerals such as phosphate and basalt dust, then returned to the vineyard. In addition, we drip a compost tea through the irrigation lines to add nutrients to the soil. The goal is to have healthy soils full of microbiological activity. If the soils are healthy, the grape vines themselves will be healthy, and therefore able to protect themselves from disease and pests. And of course, the end goal is to produce the best grapes possible so that we can then make the best wines possible. Restoring soil health is a long slow process. It is a commitment to the future of grape growing and wine making in the Walla Walla valley.

Harvest 2009!

Harvest 2009 has begun as of today! The weather in Walla Walla has been warm the last few days, with the nights staying pretty warm as well, and the result is that the grapes are ready. As is tradition at Pepper Bridge, the staff toasted the 2009 vintage with glasses of Champagne for luck. We brought in about 10 tons of Merlot from our Seven Hills Vineyard this morning to kick off the harvest. The Merlot looks and tastes good so far, with very small berries and nice clusters. If the weather continues to stay warm, harvest could roll into full swing very quickly. Jean-François has been in the vineyards each morning this week at 6:00 a.m., checking the Brix level of the grapes. According to him, the sugar levels in all the grapes, including all the varietals that we use at Pepper Bridge, are getting close where he wants them. This means that the next couple of weeks could be a flurry of activity here at the winery, and the wine making team is all set to go. We have a new shaker-sorter table this year and it got its first use today. The table is used for quality control of the grapes. All of the grapes at Pepper Bridge are hand-picked, but we want to make sure that only the best grapes end up in the tank. We hand sort the grape clusters as they vibrate down the table before they are destemmed. Once the grapes have passed through the destemmer, they fall onto a second sorting table. This gives us one more opportunity to sort out unwanted grapes and stems. Today we also discovered that this new attachment also sorts out all of the bugs that happen to be in the grapes like lady bugs and bees. Definitely stuff that we don't want ending up in the tank with the grapes. It is an exciting new tool for the wine-making team and it should lead to even better Pepper Bridge wines.

Barrels and More Barrels

This week at Pepper Bridge we are in the midst of final preparations for harvest. We are just about 3 weeks away from bringing in fruit, depending on what mother nature has in store for us here in Walla Walla. We have been receiving new barrels on an almost daily basis. Our wine making team has been busy in the cave prepping barrels for the new vintage. Assistant Wine Maker, Tim Kerrigan has been receiving and unwrapping new oak barrels all week. All of our barrels are made in France and this year we have about 90 new barrels from 6 different coopers. Tim will be labeling and numbering all of the new barrels, adding them to the list of barrels that he will be filling soon with wine. There is a master plan for what wine goes in what barrels, so Tim keeps careful track of all the barrels. Cellar Master, Horacio Enriquez has been busy cleaning our used barrels, rinsing them with hot water and treating them with sulphur. About 50% of the 2009 vintage will be aged in used barrels. For us, a used barrel means that it has been used for one prior vintage. We age our wines in barrel anywhere from 18 to 24 months. So when we get a new barrel it will hold wine for about two years, when the wine is removed, that barrel is considered used. We will then use that barrel for one more vintage. After that, we will either sell the barrel to another winery or to locals that have creative uses for wine barrels, i.e. planters, furniture, wood for grilling. By the end of the week all the barrels should be clean, on racks, stacked, and ready to hold wine.

2008 Blend is in the Barrel

We are getting so very close to the beginning of the 2009 Harvest here in the Walla Walla Valley! It is a very exciting time. Our managing partner, Norm McKibben, estimates that we are at 80% veraison in the vineyard. Arturo and the vineyard crew have begun putting up the netting to keep the birds from eating the ripe grapes. Just a few more weeks to go and the grapes will be ready for picking. This means that assistant winemaker, Tim Kerrigan and cellar master, Horacio Enriquez have been hard at work making room in the winery for the 2009 wines. We have two barrel rooms here at Pepper Bridge, one for the most recent vintage and one for last year's vintage. Since the 2007 vintage has been bottled, it is time to move the 2008 vintage to make room for 2009. This also means that it is time to assemble the final blend and rack the 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon. For the 2008 Cab there are two vineyards, Seven Hills and Pepper Bridge, there a 18 separate blocks of grapes, 5 different varietals, put into 105 barrels from 8 different coopers. It is a lot of wine to keep track of. Our wine maker, Jean-François, and Tim have spent the last year doing blending trials. That means tasting samples from all of the barrels and all of the varietals and building blends out of all the different components. It sounds like a dream come true I know but it is actually a very difficult job. It is much like building a recipe, adding a dash of Malbec to the Cabernet and seeing how it tastes, then maybe adding two dashes of Cabernet Franc and tasting again. Blending is really quite artful and displays a wine maker's palate as well as their organization. Don't forget that for the 08 Cab we had 105 barrels of wine, each with a different flavor profile. Once the final blend has been assembled, it is time to rack the wine. Racking is basically a filtering process. As the wine ages in barrel, sediments in the wine, called lees, will fall to the bottom. Tim uses a racking wand to pull the wine out of the barrel, being careful not to disturb the lees. When all the wine is out, they will clean all the sediment from the barrel with hot water and ozone and then put the wine back. Typically the wine will be racked twice to three times in its two years in barrel. This process removes most of the sediment from the wine. Now that the 08 Cab has been blended and racked, it is being moved to the second barrel room where it will rest until it is bottled next July. Taking the Cab's place in barrel room number one are daily deliveries of new French oak barrels that will be filled with 2009 wines!