Muscat Row, week 8

It's almost May, here we are rushing headlong away from winter into the open arms of summer.


Well, that's the idea, anyway.

Despite our very chilly spring things are beginning to happen in the vineyard. Budbreak is occurring, little leafy buds popping open and greeting the world.

Our muscat group met this morning to get an update from Nadine on the happenings, (with a little help from Billy Jean and Patcha, of course).


Basically, weeding is key for right now. The little weeds clustered around the base of the vines that don’t look like they’d amount to much will be big behemoth monsters in a few weeks. They're easily hoed away at the moment, so Nadine highly recommended weeding under the vines sooner than later. Hoes, shovels, etc… are located in the in the pump house, and when she was through we trucked down there and got dirty.


Rubbing buds and suckering are next up on the to-do list. As we talked about last time the buds that become fruit bearing shoots pop up all over the vine, not just along the nicely tied down canes. So our task is to "rub out" the buds we don't want -- all those along the head, and all but two on the renewal canes. It's scarily easy to snap buds off, and we were strongly cautioned to be careful.

Grapes have compound buds, which means that each bud site will produce three buds -- logically known as the primary, secondary, and tertiary bud. The primary bud is the first one out, (don't you love plant biologists and their reasoning?), and it produces twice as much fruit as the secondary. Normally you never see the tertiary bud, which doesn't produce any fruit at all. However, if you're not careful or if your first two buds get killed off --as has happened in some regions of California this year due to a cold snap-- your tertiary bud will push. The buds really do just sort of pop off with the least bit of pressure so a lot of care is needed or you'll lose fruit before you even have a cluster to look at!



The buds have progressed a lot since our last outing, budbreak really is upon us right now with pretty little leafy redness popping out of our primary buds. Each grape varietal has different shaped leaves and clusters, and the first unfurling of the muscat buds are a particularly gorgeous rust color.


If you're coming out our direction stop in the Rex Hill tasting room on your way and take a peek at our Rogue's gallery to see who's adopted which section of vines!

And, as always, keep up with our latest photos here!

67 Best American Wines under $15

If you subscribe to Food&Wine Magazine you might've noticed we got a nice little nod this month.

"After tasting more than 300 affordable American wines, Senior Editor Ray Isle reports on his most exciting finds, from Chardonnay to Zinfandel— to buy by the case for everyday drinking or casual entertaining."

Our gorgeous 2006 dijon-clone stainless steel chardonnay was picked as one of the best American wines under $15!

We thought that was pretty exciting.

Stainless steel chardonnay is definitely a growing category in Oregon. If you've been through the tasting room or to any of our trade events you no doubt know that the majority of chardonnay grapes grown in the US come from a clone known as 108 that was isolated at UC Davis back in the early 70s.

So what's a clone? Well, within a viticultural context cloning selection occurs when you have a single plant in the vineyard that tenders a specific attribute you're craving. Maybe it's a heavy yielder, or it ripens earlier (or later) than most of the other plants in the vineyard. Maybe it has a markedly different flavor. Any of these attributes could be caused by a virus or a bacteria, or they could simply be natural variations caused by spontaneous mutations within the vine. Though it doesn't occur with anything approaching regularity, it is possible for mutations to occur during cell division in the grape, slowly infecting the rest of the plant, sort of like a cancer attacking the vine. Pinot noir, for example, is a more highly unstable plant, which is why we have lovely mutations like pinot gris and pinot blanc to make wine from these days.

Once you've picked a plant that you want to clone it's a simple though laborious process of taking cuttings off of your so-called 'mother vine' which are an exact genetic copy, and then propogating those cuttings. Clonal selection takes a a fair amount of time, as not only must you wait three years for the first harvest but you have a further 5-10 years of monitoring, (preferably at multiple locations), to determine if you've really managed to replicate the attributes you were looking for.

Anyway, back on track. The modern era of specific clonal selection for grapevines begin in Germany in the 1920s. The current viticulture program in the US is largely driven by UC Davis, from whom comes the aforementioned chardonnay clone. This clone was selected from a previous clonal variety in the Carneros region of California. It's most stunning attributes were chard's generally blank canvas of flavors, a heavier yield, and a later-ripening berry.

Now, later ripening might be just the thing for California's hot climate but here in northern Oregon where we face the threat of rain starting in September it's not necessarily ideal. The wines that came off of clone 108 took some nasty hits, being uneven in quality at best, overly acidic and hard at worst. It didn't take long to realize we needed something else up here and that's how we wound up with our so-called "Dijon" clones -- clones 75, 76, 78, 96, & 98, brought over from Burgundy. Not only do these Dijon clones ripen earlier but they have more complex flavors, more mineral characteristics, more of the tropical citrus and stone-fruit flavors. In short, they produce much more interesting grapes.

As you are no doubt aware more interesting grapes generally mean more interesting wine. They certainly mean that the winemaker can be much less invasive and let the natural beauty of the grapes shine through. Which is why, in the end, we've chosen to make a stainless-steel chardonnay. And we just couldn't be more tickled that the folks over at F&W think we're doing a great job!

Muscat Row...

The estate vineyard on Rex Hill has a single row of muscat vines, immediately across from the tasting room. It's been a tradition that the winery staff harvests that single row each year, laboriously trying not to cut the wrong thing -- like their fingers off! -- while giving the picking crew a "break." General ribbing occurs, of course, since the picking crew could take down the row in less than a tenth of the time that it takes us inexperienced sort. It's a lot of fun though, and allows those of us who support the winery from behind a computer screen a chance to get involved with the other side of the business. [Curious what it's like? Photos from our occasionally sunny 2007 harvest can be found on our flickr page!]

This year instead of just harvesting the fruit the winery staff will be tending the vines as well. Though the vineyard crew graciously pruned and tied down the new canes to get us off on the right foot we'll be hoeing, trimming, and training our individual vines with advice from Nadine, our viticulturist.

As our vineyard manager Patrick put it at the all staff meeting yesterday, we're a bit behind schedule right now -- the vineyard pool had bets on budbreak clustered in this week and we're about 2 weeks out still. So not much to report yet. However with the weekend's promised sunshine and warm temperatures we need to get out there and rub out some buds!

You can stay abreast of our progress here on the blog, and pictorially, here!

spring in the vineyard

Click on the above image to see the full-sized pic, and then right-click to download and enjoy your own little piece of springtime in the vineyard!

April White Wine Sale!

OK, so the weather this week makes it a little hard to remember that we are, in fact, fully moving forward towards summer. Rain, snow, sleet, glaring sunshine, back to rain -- the buds are having a rough go heading towards break! And those are just the buds on the vine... I don't know about you but my tastebuds are getting a little sick of winter fare, too: root vegetables and heavy red wines? No thanks! I'm ready for spring pea soup, the first rosés, and definitely - DEFINITELY! - a white wine.

So, what the heck? Swing through our cute little tasting room in Dundee all this month for a fantastic white wine sale -- mix and match your favorite A to Z whites and take 10% off of 6 bottles, or 20% off of a case.

Why Pips and Stems?

If you’ve visited our website you might have noticed that we like to ask questions. Good students of Socrates, we think that asking why is just as important as asking how and what are the consequences?. Often the smallest ideas and objects are the most powerful ones.

Take the pips and stems of a grape, for example. Pips are the tiny seeds inside the grape that are extremely important in signaling the ripeness of the fruit. As the fruit ripens the pips deepen from green to brown and the stems lignify, going from green and supple to brown and woody. This color change and lignification tells us more about the ripeness of the grapes than the sugar levels that are so often quoted.

Additionally, pips contribute to the stability of color and add tannins to the fermenting must, so their extraction is a delicate balance between adding structure to the final wine and creating a harsh astringency and mouthfeel that would make you pucker.

Ultimately we compost the pips and stems as part of the pomace, but not before they caught us up on what was going on in the grape and how the wine was progressing.

And that's our hope for this blog. A spot for you to check in on what's going on with A to Z, the little bits and pieces of winery life. Where you can find the wines, what's the latest with the vintage, anything fun or interesting we feel like sharing. Use the "email us" button to drop us a line or send us a note to blog at atozwineworks.com and tell us what you think, what you'd like to hear!