T. S. Eliot wrote “April is the cruellest month” because he doesn’t own a vineyard. May is much worse. Around here, May means bloom. If you drive past a vineyard, you won’t notice much of anything. But if you walk the rows and examine the developing inflorescenses, there’s a lot of sexy going on. Stamens unfurl to reveal their pollen-bearing anther tips. These are boy parts. The calyptra, a cap of fused petals, peels open and dehiscences from the ovary base. The ballooning cap is shed like gossamer layers in a sultry, strip tease burlesque. The swollen stigma (girl parts) is ready to receive pollen. Liberated pollen trickles from stamen tips to the stigma. And the miracle of fertilization begins. If you get an embryo, a grape berry soon follows.

My grapevines are perfect. I’m not just biased because I’m the owner. They really are. Most cultivated varietals are bred to have functional male and female parts. Grape vines are pretty self-reliant that way. Grapevines self-pollinate, usually with great success. There is such a thick concentration of flowers across such a small area, that pollen needn’t travel far to get lucky. Parents: it’s OK to let the kids read this post. Birds and bees are not involved. In fact, insect pollination is of minimal importance in my backyard. What I do care about is heat. According to Dr. Andy Walker at UC Davis, nutrition, disease and competition are important factors too. Luckily this season has been mild, warm, and sunny. We should have an estimate for fruit set and yield in a few weeks. I don’t expect 2013 to repeat the heavy-weight records of the 2012 season, but I’ve got my fingers crossed we’ll yield over a ton.

To recap (or re-cal-yptra), vineyard bloom happens on the micro-scale. Luckily grapevines self-pollinate; their pathetic blooms barely attract a passing flea. During bloom, the “male” anthers mature, open, and release pollen (anthesis), while “lady part” flower caps loosen and fall off. The shedding and transfer of pollen from stamen to stigma lead to fertilization. Pollen germination is followed almost immediately by fruit set.

Petals loosen at their proximal bases until the cap is discarded, releasing the stamens.

Full bloom- Look closely and observe individual flowers about to lose their caps. Others show flowers after stamens have unfurled (anthesis). Each flower has 5 stamens, each topped by a pollen-laden anther.

*RoPa being a one-person moniker like Madonna or J.Lo, not to be confused with couple monikers like KFed, TomKat, or Brangelina

Works cited:

J. E. HEAZLEWOOD and S. WILSON, Anthesis, pollination and fruitset in Pinot Noir, School of Agricultural Science, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

Vitis 43 (2), 65–68 (2004)

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Brian and I recently revisited a longtime favorite sushi joint in SoCal. Their sushi is outstanding, and their wine list is what you’d expect from a sushi house. It’s salient only because they’d carried our friend’s chardonnay for many years. I’d usually order a glass before diving into requisite sake. But recently, their wine list had changed, which piqued my interest. The wine list was still only about 5 whites and 5 reds but new selections. Each wine was listed by winery, grape varietal and location. It was pretty standard- XXXX Winery, Cabernet, Chile, and so forth. Most curious was the final entry, XXX Winery, blend, Central Coast. I’d already downed a mini cup of sake.

“Hey Brian, what kind of blend do you think it is?” I pondered aloud. I never actually intended to drink it. “Should I ask the waiter?”

“Don’t be an a^%hole,” Brian snapped. But I couldn’t resist. I had a compulsion to know. I flagged down the waiter and asked him. Of course he had no idea. But his spunk took me by surprise.

“I should know more about this wine if I’m gonna sell it. Let me ask the bartender. I’ll be right back.”

Kudos to Surfer Sam for his gumption. I don’t actually expect a 20-something Southern California stereotype to know much about wines. I didn’t know much about wines at his age either, and I certainly lacked the energy and customer service finesse to make it through college by waiting tables. He soon circled back as he’d promised.

“It’s a blend of dark fruit,” he pronounced. He paused and added, “It’s probably cured in some kind of clay cask or mud since it’s called XXXX. Or maybe it’s just stored in there.”

In that moment, it sounded hilarious. I burst out laughing. And I couldn’t stop. Seriously, a blend of dark fruit? Like blueberry wine from Paso Robles? I know. I’m an a^%hole. And I risk sounding like even more of a pompous jerk by confessing my abhorrent manners. Bless his heart, Surfer Sam was only trying to do his job well and upsell us on the fried banana dessert.

The point is, at Bruliam we are extremely lucky. Each of our restaurant partners share in common a wine-loving, well educated, front of the house staff who convey our story with conviction and pride. After all, Bruliam is a hand sell. It takes a waiter/waitress five times as much work to sell a bottle of our wine compared to a Williams Selyem or Paul Hobbs. The average consumer with average wine knowledge has no idea we exist. They may hear “Rockpile zinfandel” and conjure pink stuff in a box. They might confuse pinot noir with pinot gris or pinot grigio or pinotage. But our secret weapon is a wait staff with the patience and presence to share our story and mission. They sell my wine when I can’t. Plus they remind consumers that even wines that smell or taste like blackberries come from grapes.

All of my past consumer events have been casual. Folks wear flip flops and shorts to Pinot on the River. Last year we even poured cold, craft beer to rehydrate overheated tasters with pinot weary palates. Since these are marketing events, I try to wear my logo T-shirt. It’s a conversation starter, and inevitably some sloppy lush staggers over to tell me how I ripped off the TV program Breaking Bad. If he goes on to scrawl some illegible hieroglyphics on my signup sheet, I know it’s a day well spent.

I approached the Dallas tasting like Pinot Days and WOPN – in jeans and my “Bu” logo t shirt. Minutes later, a fellow vintner approached me to say hello. He looked me up and down and pronounced, “Kerith, you look like a farmer.” I don’t think it was a compliment. He was wearing chinos, a crisp, white button down and a sport coat. I looked around the room. Only a handful of vintners were wearing jeans, and nobody was in a t-shirt. It was too late to change outfits; the trade tasting was about to begin. I shared a table with the sales rep from Paul Hobbs Crossbarn. She was in a smart, printed wrap dress and low heels. As the trade trickled in, she leaned over and confided that she never wears makeup, expect for Dallas. I frantically groped around in my handbag for some Blistex. All I got was an old Trader Joe’s granola bar and a Band-Aid. I was doomed.

During the consumer tasting, women floated from table to table like exotic flowers. In spectacular, printed silk blouses topped with coral or bright blue coats, their clothes shouted “welcome spring!” Younger consumers in cocktail dresses and stilettos teetered over the spit buckets. Even the young men sported a prep school aesthetic. The room looked more like a fraternity formal than wine tasting – especially compared to ZAP. I felt shamefully underdressed. And I still had 2 ½ hours to go.

New braces compounded my humiliation. I’m still navigating my 12 months of orthodontic purgatory, and my articulation is awful. I shouted above the din, trying to share our story. “Bruliam – it’s named after our kids, Bruno, Lily, and Amelia.” Only my garbled verbiage sounded like “Bungo, Lisa, and Meena.” A guy asked me, “Who names their kid Bungo?” Another consumer named Lisa vowed to buy my wine since she shares her name with my daughter. I wonder how long I can sustain the lie. A third gent said, “At least I’m really good at reading lips.” I wanted to pull out my hair, expect it was pushed up under a giant foam cowboy hat (just kidding). The harder I tried to enunciate, the worse I sounded. My inner cheek kept getting hung up on the spikes decorating my punk rock molars. At least I’d worn sensible shoes. Nobody noticed my sneakers under the table.

It’s exciting and exhilarating to expand our winery into new markets. Both the trade and consumer tasters in Dallas were gracious, thoughtful, and enthusiastic about my wines. In fact, I was surprised to meet so many pinot lovers in a city known for steakhouses (and by default, cabernet). They forgave my wardrobe malfunction, and I learned a lesson about pouring wine in big cities. Last night I poured at a trendy hotel for an event sponsored by the Wall Street Journal. I wore a dress.

Check out the video below.  We’re even offering a donation to the charity of your choice for the first person to correctly identify the source of the background music.

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

I never intended to make precious rosé. I was going for “perky pink,” “gulp-able beside the pool,” or say, “chug-able at a backyard barbeque.” Rosé was pitched as an easy side project. Ferment some juice, et volià, pink wine. Although I increased my 2012 production by over 250%, my aggravation exceeded infinity percent. And yes, I know there’s no such thing as infinity percent. I meant to say mega-quantum percent. So now I’m stuck with precious rosé.

Chapter 2- Be Like Goldilocks

I am not afraid to admit (cough) that my rose is neither heat nor cold stable. What are you talking about? You stop mumbling. Sure, if I were Gallo, making 100,000 cases, I’d be screwed. Some consumer in Wichita might notice funky crystals inside and march that darned, spoiled bottle right back to the high falutin’ drug store where he bought it. Right there next to them Tums and Maalox. But you and I can have a civil discussion instead. You see, when I upgraded from two 30 gallons kegs to a 75 gallon stainless steel barrel, I backed myself into a corner. Unlike small kegs, the stainless steel barrel is too big to stash in a freezer/fridge but has too little volume to cold stabilize in a glycol-controlled tank. So if you drive my rosé to Antarctica and leave it in your trunk, the acids will probably precipitate out of solution. Cold temperature lowers the solubility of the natural wine acids, and they form solids. They are harmless. Winemakers call them “tartrates.” Marketing gurus call them “wine diamonds.” And they may be the closest you ever get to a 3 carat rock. Should this happen to you, pour from your bottle with great care. Wine belongs in the glass; solids stay behind. It’s no different from sediment in an old cab. These are just bling-ier. And please, don’t leave my rosé in your car on a sizzling, summer day. But you knew that already. I didn’t add enough chemical fining agent to totally stabilize the positively charged proteins. I could tell you it’s because I am a natural winemaker, and I don’t believe in adulterating my wine in any capacity. But that would be bullsh&*$#. I figured so long as I couldn’t adequately cold stabilize it, why fret about heat stability. Just store the rosé at the proper temperature. Don’t abuse it, and sure as heck, don’t boil it. Or experiment with rosé popsicles. Just drink it now, and be like Golidlocks. Not too hot. Not too cold. Sip it just right.

Chapter 3- Stand Down, Sister. It’s the Law.

I pride myself on my expert editing skills. I email the New York Times when I see a typo. I once called Houghton Mifflin about some wonky syntax. (Shouldn’t their next edition be more correct?). Well, Holey Hubris, Batman. I missed a blaring typo on the rosé label. And then I signed off that galley copy to the TTB. When the 2012 labels arrived at the winery, I got a phone call from one very confused compliance officer.

“You can’t use those labels. It’s not a Sonoma Coast rosé.” True indeed, Inspector Clouseau. Most of the juice hails from Sonoma Coast. But then again, 36% of the juice is Russian River, from our own Torrey Hill home ranch. Having exceeded the legal 75% AVA limit, I could not actually call my rose “Sonoma Coast.” It should have read “Sonoma County.” Had I not been proofing at warp speed, I might have caught that one. (Or at least that’s what I told Brian when he growled about writing another check to re-print version 2.0).

So dear friends, when you finally find yourself face-to-face with my 2012 rose, please purchase and drink immediately.

Shine on, man. Per TTB regulations, we bottled rose shiners. We’ll go back and add the label in March, after new TTB approval.

I swerved around to face my 6 year old daughter. It was instinct. Of course I paused to put down the 10 inch Santoku first. “What did you say?” I fake chirped, prying the knife from my clenched, white knuckles.

“I said, you must not be a very good winemaker. Use your ears, mom.”

Hold up, sassypants. When did they retire the eye roll and the ennui-ridden “Whatever?” Curious what would follow, I egged her on. “Why do you say that?”

She chewed her apple deliberately, swallowed, and replied, “Because you always have to ask Mrs. X for help.”

Nothing sucks as much as hearing your kid tell you that you’re a loser. And she was right. Mrs. X is a rock star wine maker. She trained in Australia, New Zealand, and France. She makes cult cab from Oakville. Her daughter also happens to sit near mine at school so she’s an easy target. I fire questions at her every morning before class, as she’s simultaneously settling her first grader, entertaining her preschooler, and balancing a toddler. I try to be thoughtful that way.

I conjured the ghost of Fox News. Where are you Bill O’Reilly? It’s me, Kerith. I took a deep breath, straining to spin my sobering reality into a teachable nugget, like a made-for-TV movie where moms don’t wield culinary machetes.

“Just like you, I’m always learning. Mrs. X knows a lot about making wine, so I ask her for advice.” No reply from the kid. She was too busy chewing her apple into clover shapes. It occurred to me that my kids never knew me as a doctor, back when I was a competent professional. That was before my current dead-end gig as quesadilla cooker and hair braider. The fact is I spent 8 post-college years learning to be a pathologist. I took 6 winemaking courses at U.C. Davis. It’s no wonder I always feel like I’m drowning.

In medicine, you’re only as good as the docs around you. We had daily, twice-daily, and thrice-daily conferences. I worked in a culture of academia and collaborative learning. If I needed a second set of eyes on my microscope, I asked. You only get in trouble when you don’t. Once when I was the “hot seat” fellow, the head and neck surgeon asked my opinion of a thyroid tumor before my attending had signed it out. (That’s doctor code for “before my boss looked under the microscope himself and gave me the answer.”) I told the surgeon it was benign. So he told the patient.

You can guess what happened next. That afternoon, I showed the case at conference; everyone shouted cancer. A janitor emptying the trashcans turned to me and said, “Seriously? You thought that was benign?” He’d slept at a Holiday Inn Express.

And for every case I correctly diagnosed during my 365 day tenure as a “hot seat” fellow, what sticks is The Big Mistake. Doubt plagues me. Today I worry as much about each barrel of wine as I did about that woman with thyroid cancer. Both keep me up at night, second guessing myself. I’m not sure what that says about me as either a doctor or a human being. Either I value wine as much as human life. Or I bring the same rigor and diligence to the winery that I brought to the microscope. At least now I’m smart enough to steal free consultations when I need help. If enough people read this post, I may have to credit Mrs. X on the 2012 label.

I strapped on my head lamp and laced up with anticipation. It turns out that in the dark, Chalk Hill Road is like pretty much every other country road, except worse. There’s no sidewalk, and it narrows into a funnel barely wide enough to accommodate two-way traffic. It had rained solidly the night before, and I kept side sloshing insidious puddles engulfing the full width of the road. My uber-absorbent, silver weave tech socks were water logged. Somewhere along mile 2, I thought heard the rush of water. “A stream,” I imagined, “how lovely.” I later realized it was just overflow rain water from crappy drainage. Potholes puckered the street at such regular intervals that I risked twisting an ankle every third step. And the entire street canted on just enough of an incline to reinflame an old hip injury. By the time I hit the 30 minute mark, I’d had enough. I was sucking air, and my legs felt like lead. I was logging junk miles at a paltry 9:46 pace. I turned for home.

Grey light swept across the hillsides, and the fog glowed. Through the haze of sunrise, I saw fuzzy, green moss clinging to the branches of 100 year old trees.* Dangling boughs arched into the road, just like that Robert Frost poem you read in 10th grade literature. Carefully trellised vines crisscrossed the slopes to the east. I heard the Weepies crooning in my ear.

“All this beauty

You might have to close your eyes

And slowly open wide”

“Well shit,” I thought. Then I’d really fall and break my ankle. In the early morning light, I could just make out the terrain. On the way out, I’d actually climbed a pretty steep hill. My final 1.5 miles would be a downhill slalom. I topped the crest and opened up my stride. Well placed house numbers alerted me when I had exactly one mile to go. I dug into fifth gear. I spied our “Torrey Hill” vineyard sign in the distance, as Fiona Apple wailed,

“If there was a better way to go then it would find me

I can’t help it, the road just rolls out behind me

Be kind to me, or treat me mean

I’ll make the most of it, I’m an extraordinary machine.”

And I sprinted home.

This year may you too explore new roads and conquer your hills.

Happy 2013 and thank you for supporting Bruliam Wines.

*I can’t date the trees with certainty. But the adjacent sign says “Welcome to Chalk Hill Valley.  Elevation 450.  Population 2.”

Jew boys and Jew girls tried hard to understand

Why Christmas should rule the T.V. and the mall

While the Hanukkah story gets no play at all.

Now every Jew knows about Santa and sleds

And of elves making toys and of Rudolph the Red.

There are tinsel and trees with a star at the top

While the Hanukkah stuff just gets kinda forgot.

And deep in the night when the house is asleep

Jew boys and Jew girls have been known to weep,

“I like my traditions and all that fried food

But why can’t we celebrate some Christmas too?”

One morn that followed an evening like that

I took my sweet child up onto my lap.

“Why child,” I said. “Dry your tears. Go and play.

For Hanukkah miracles happen each day.”

“They do?” said the boy, now curious and rapt.

He assumed my kind words were some flim-flam sham act.

“Don’t you know of the tale of this harvest just past

With those stuck fermentations that just last, last, and last?”

“Like Hanukkah oil that burned strong and true,

My ferments still dragged out beyond day twenty-two.

And instead of a quick and a clean sugar drain

That 2012 harvest was really a pain.”

“Not quite” the boy shrugged. “A miracle decried.

You got stress alopecia and twice tried suicide.”

“I know,” I demurred, “But when days looked most bleak

Came the Hanukkah miracle of which I now speak.”

And so I began with the legend so wise

It should surely contend for a Nobel Lit prize.

(Or a Booker or Oprah’s seal of success,

But back to the story for now I digress).

When my ferment first began to go slow,

I got quite confused and had nowhere to go.

‘Till I called on a wizard of heart pure and good

Who likes to ferment in foudres of wood.

He gave me a potion to add my brew

A build-up of yeast, when my own wouldn’t do.

It goes by initials “W” & “S”

and promises rapid and un-stuck success.

“Just punch down the cap and pitch this inside,”

Cried the wizard with wisdom to which I’d abide.

“I promise this potion will help you get through

The stickiest of stuckest ferments of grape juice.”

My angina resolved. My stress ulcers all healed.

I bet you can imagine just how good I feel’d.

The wizard then filled up my chalice with yeast

And I heave-ho’d that magical, moveable feast.

(OK, I confess, I embellished a bit.

I wasn’t a “chalice,” I’ll outright admit.

A plastic 5 gallon, filtered water container

I used as a Saccharomyces yeast trainer.)

I clutched to my breast that full Culligan jug

Lest it splash-slosh all over my minivan rug.

Please don’t dish to police all about my bad rap

Since I drove with that 5 gallon jug in my lap.

And as I made haste with my potion in tow

The wizard called out just before I could go.

“We’ll give it The Hammer!” he cried out with glee.

“That’s a whole gallon more than you’ll probably need.”

“The Hammer! I love it!” I countered right back.

The Force! The Power! Them yeast were like crack.

“The Hammer?!” my son interjected and stammered.

(I’d been sort of absorbed by my own brilliant banter.)

“Umh, yeah. ‘The Hammer.’ Isn’t that what I said?

Now let me complete this great yarn to the end.”

But my son would not curtail his frank interruption.

His words flowed out like a volcanic eruption.

“’The Hammer’s’ the name of the Hanukkah hero.

The guy who wins against odds close to zero!

And you used “The Hammer” to finish your wine

To unstick that stickiest suckiest time.”

“So, mom, then it’s true,” he said with a grin

“The Hammer could finish what you did begin.”

When I pulled out my hair and at night gnashed my teeth,

When I banged my head on the wall for a week,

I tried to relax, and I tried to be cool

For that fab Hammer yeast is no winemaker’s fool.

My pinot got dry, as the wizard predicted.

Like he’d seen it before; like my stress was just scripted.

And now that it’s done, and I’m filled with relief

I’m a little bit wishing for more fruit next week.

My Hanukkah miracle came a month early.

But it makes for a really good post-harvest story.

When your yeast slows to stuck, it can give you a fright.

You need strong, Hammer yeast to get wine done just right.

Since my wine’s now complete, I can finally sleep tight.

“Happy Malo to all! You’re in barrel. Good night!”

This year, my zin crew harvested at night. The fruit came in cold, numbing my hands as I sorted through the freezing clusters. 24 hours later, after a night in the cold room, my berries measured 56°F. This was a big change from 2011, where my fruit was picked in mid-day heat, sitting at a balmy 77.5°F. And in 2011, my zin fermented a flash. Now it would make sense that cold berries initiate fermentation more slowly whereas warm ones ignite quickly. In fact, this is a well-known variation of the fermentation pattern known as “long lag.” Yeast don’t like the cold too much, so they’re sluggish and torpid when the juice is below 60°F. Even if you acclimate your yeast to the cold juice before pitching them into the bin, they won’t get it on right away. Body heat takes time.

This year, I knew I was facing a long lag. The day I inoculated, the juice was down at 54 or 55°F. The next day I texted a winemaking pal to say, “Hey, I hope I didn’t kill my yeast. I just think it’s a long lag.” Post inoculation day #3, I sat around mulling “the long lag.” I dug out a journal article to remind myself “slow fermentation initiation generally reflects…specific fermentation conditions (such as low juice or must temperature)” (Bisson 2000). I paced the winery. I drove myself nuts and finally called a courier to pick up a juice sample to scan under the microscope. What if I didn’t have any viable yeast? What if they were dying due to some unknown, undocumented factor the likes of which have never been faced by anyone in the history of wine making? Hello. Movies like Outbreak and Contagion are based on some whiff of scientific rigor. And when the courier showed up, I insisted on following him to the lab and looking under the scope myself, because I’m not pushy.

By the time we’d caravanned to the lab, my juice sample was visibly fizzy. He opened the test tube and an audible whoosh of CO2 preceded the volcanic eruption of sticky, purple juice. He looked askance. Luckily the pattern on his shirt camouflaged stains; I wanted to curl up into a ball and die. “Guess fermentation must’ve started in the car,” I muttered lamely.

The microbiologist was kind enough to e mail me photomicrographs of my yeast. At that point, he’d do anything to get me to leave. They’re “Glamour Shots,” a pal glibly joked. Next year I’ll be better prepared. My yeast will wear Prada.

The blue guys are dead, and all the other critters are very much alive. You can even see some budding and dividing. If anyone has any good tips for removing grape juice stains, please pass them along. In the interim, I’ve to some dry cleaning bills to cover.

Below you can see the long lag before fermentation kicked in on the zin.