Our wayward child comes home safely

The saga of Alder Springs ends happily

Our Whitehawk fruit came in without trouble.  Alder Springs was a different story.  In the end, I am delighted, but there were some moments to worry.  These two batches of fruit have become like children to me.  And like children, they have separate lives and personalities. 

The Alder Springs story started just as the Whitehawk fruit was being picked in the southern part of the state.  I was told that the ripest portion of the Alder Springs vineyard fruit was going to be picked.  It was at a sugar level of 24.5 Brix and for some logistical reasons they fruit from one (ripe) corner of the vineyard would be picked first.  Alder Springs is in the northern part of California, near Mendocino.  The fruit will never be as ripe or as exuberant as the fruit from the Whitehawk vineyard.  What it will create is a wine with great acidity and structure.  This is precisely why I want to blend it with Whitehawk fruit.  Of course, not in equal parts.  I wasn’t really interested in that fruit and preferred to let the fruit mature a bit more. 

When I was pressing my Whitehawk fruit, I got to try some of that early Alder Springs fruit.  While it was indeed tasty, and it did have great acidity, I was pleased to have waited as I found the wine a bit thin and lacking in some body.  Please remember, this is just my opinion as others may have loved this portion of the fruit. 

Anyway, so there I was feeling great about the Whitehawk fruit and pretty good about waiting for Alder springs fruit.  The sun continued to shine on the vineyard, and the fruit was just about ready to harvest.  And then it rained.  California was battered up and down the coast with some record setting rainfall.  In some areas the vineyards received so much rain that it was impossible to get out into the vineyards.  For those vineyards that had already picked, this was great.  This was a perfect time of the year to get some much needed water to the roots.  For those vineyards that still had fruit, this was problematic at best. 

You see when the grapes absorb too much water too quickly, the skins can break.  This can cause rot.  In addition, the juice from the grapes is diluted.  Some of this can be “cured” in the winery but that is never a best case scenario.  Fortunately, Mendocino and Alder Springs did not get quite as much volume of rain as the central part of the state.  Even more fortunately, after the rain, the sun returned and the temperatures were warm but not too hot.  The grapes on the wine had a chance to dry out without damage.  More importantly, the grapes continued to get physiologically ripe without spiking sugar levels.  In other words, the grapes maintained their balance and their precocious acidity. 

The grapes were picked and came into the winery on October 26.  Interestingly, the grapes were still at 24.5 Brix.  This meant that although the grapes had the opportunity to mature for a few more weeks, they did not get any sweeter.  I was ecstatic about this.  It would allow my wines to have a lower alcohol level when finished and I hoped a nice backbone of acidity.  The grapes were allowed to cold soak for five days to pick up some color from the skins.  Then, the temperature was raised and the yeast was allowed to do its stuff, i.e., convert the sugar into alcohol. 

Fermentation finished on November 5^th, but I elected to hold the wine in this state for a while.  This process is called extended maceration and (like most things in life) carries some risks and rewards.  The risk was that the wine would be deprived of enough oxygen which can cause some off aromas (called reduction).  This is a very real risk especially with Syrah grapes.  The reward is that the wine picks up color, tannins and structure.  After a nervous week, finally a day to press was set and just in time.  The wine had started to pick up some reductiveness to it.  That was quickly alleviated by exposing the wine to oxygen when putting it through the Press. 

The wine was pressed on November 19^th.  First off, it had a beautiful purple color, deep and dark but just a slight more magenta than the Whitehawk.  It has very nice raspberry and black raspberry aromas although much more reticent than the Whitehawk.  What it does have is structure and acidity.  I keep using those terms, so perhaps this would be a good time to explain what I mean.

Acidity is the element of wine that gives it tartness.  Usually you can feel it either on the sides of your cheeks or your gums.  An extreme example is a lemon, but with Syrah, I want a wine that makes your mouth water and the wine seem juicy.  Why?  It offers balance to the fruit so you don’t get tired of drinking the wine.  Just as importantly, the acid makes the wine much friendlier with food.  We are trying to make a wine that is good to drink in the dining room or living room. 

Structure, on the other hand, can be thought of as the timbers in your home or bones in your body.  It is what supports the wine/fruit.  Not enough and the wine can seem disjointed or flabby.  Too much and the wine is stern and unpleasant. 

The funny thing is, I don’t think I would like this particular barrel of Alder Springs on its own.  The late picking, the cold soaking, the extended maceration all combined to produce a lean highly structured wine.  This was, however, EXACTLY what I wanted to produce to blend it with our Whitehawk fruit.  I was so excited that I had to try blending, right then and there.  Now, to some extent, blending at this point makes no sense.  The resulting wine is more akin to Beaujolais Nouveau (only much better) than a final wine.  Still, I had to try it.  I was not disappointed.  The Alder Springs served as great bones for the Whitehawk fruit to hang on.  The resulting wine was lush and hedonistic with just enough restraint.  It had great acidity that made it impossible to stop sipping.  I could not stop smiling. 

All of our barrels from both vineyards, are resting comfortably now.  The final blend will not be determined until the spring of 2011.  At that point it will be bottled and offered for sale to our mailing list members.  For those of you interested, the list is filling up, so I would urge you to go to www.SonkinCellars.com and sign up.  There is no obligation.