JUSTIN has recently expanded our vineyards with the purchase of DeBro Vineyard. Located adjacent to JUSTIN, we have been sourcing their superb Cab Franc, Merlot, and Petit Verdot for years. With the sale finalized, we have 22 vineyard crew members working to get the ranch ready for the growing season.
Our biggest preparation task is grafting a 9+ acre block so that it will produce Cabernet Franc. Grafting, in relation to grapes, is the process of fusing a scion (the “budding” part of the grape vine that produces fruit) and a rootstock (the root system of the vine). There are many reasons that vintners choose to graft their vines, such as disease prevention or changing demand in the marketplace.
Several weeks ago, the vineyard team harvested Cabernet Franc buds from the adjacent block. These were stored in the refrigerator until the team needed them for grafting. To prepare the rootstock of the vines that were being grafted on to, a five-man crew removed the old cordons and stripped the bark away so that this week, the entire crew was able to go through and “chip bud” the vines to the Cabernet Franc. The chip bud method of grafting is where a cut is made at a node in the rootstock, the new bud is slipped into the cut and then tightly wrapped with grafting tape, and then coated with a tree treatment.
The “black goo” on the vines is a tree treatment that helps stop the vines from bleeding and helps the graft unions establish. Not very pretty, but necessary!
The newly grafted Cab Franc will not be harvested this year. We will get some fruit next year, and will be in full production by 2013 (it takes some time for the new plants to fully establish).
Congratulations to six JUSTIN staffers, who recently passed the Certified Specialist of Wine exam! On December 17, 2010, the JUSTIN team gathered on our Wishing Well patio to take a test on material that some had been studying for months.
To become a Certified Specialist of Wine (CSW), one must study a 214-page Society of Wine Educators CSW Study guide and pass a 100-question, multiple-choice, cumulative exam. To become certified is “to recognize a high standard of academic wine knowledge and the mastery of key elements within the world of wine and vine as determined by a team of wine industry educators.”
For nine months leading up to the exam, the JUSTIN team met for bi-weekly study groups, where they discussed winemaking regions, wine production, grape growing, varietal characteristics, wine service, wine chemistry, and wine laws. In addition to studying the material, the study groups conducted tastings of wines from all over the world.
“Not only does this add credibility to the knowledgeable and wonderful staff in the tasting room,” said Tasting Room Manager Seth Engel, “it is a coveted title to carry with them for the rest of their lives.”
The JUSTIN crew is never done learning. Chris and Brian are studying for their Level 1 Introductory Sommelier Exam as well as the Cicerone Certified Beer Server Exam, and Jim is studying to become a Level 3 Advanced Sommelier. Several employees who already have their Level 1 Sommelier certification are working toward Level 2, Certified Sommelier.
Join us in our tasting room for an educational tasting experience!
The JUSTIN Tasting Room is open from 10am-5pm daily. We recommend arriving no later than 4:30pm in order to get the full tasting experience. Please call the tasting room at 805-238-6932 ex. 3211 with any questions.
The production team barrels down the last of our 2010 Cab Franc
Happy New Year from the Vineyard and Winemaking team at JUSTIN! Even though harvest is finished – we just barreled down the last tanks of Cabernet Franc – the vineyard team is still hard at work.
January marks the beginning of the JUSTIN pre-pruning program. This is when the team begins to prune last year’s canes off of the JUSTIN vines that are head-trained and cane-pruned. Our Estate Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc, which were both planted in 1982, fall into this category. “By pruning, we can control the vine’s growth during each individual season,” says Vineyard Manager Paul Kaselionis, “We prune to increase air and light circulation in the canopy, which has a direct affect on flavor, color, and size of the fruit.”
Vineyard Workers Prune Estate Cabernet Sauvignon
Directly following the pruning, a small team follows behind to tie down the vines. Depending on the trellis system of a particular lot, the team either ties down this season’s canes (to establish the fruiting zone for this season), or ties down the cordon (so they do not flop onto the ground and remain on the fruiting wire).
Un-pruned Cabernet Sauvignon vines (left) beckon a hillside of pruned vines.
Four blocks, encompassing 29 acres, of JUSTIN Estate vines are head-trained and cane-pruned. The rest of “The Ranch,” as the team refers to the entire 65 acres of JUSTIN grapes, is fully pruned. When the vineyard crew finishes the cane-pruned blocks, they will begin pruning on the rest of The Ranch. This will take between four to six weeks to finish.
Check back next month, when Production will start their annual weed-abatement program using our Pelenc Sunflower System.
We have all heard about the glory of aged wines, but most of us have never actually had a chance to try one. As wines age, they acquire a subtle quality that is much sought after, but in order to experience their full potential they must be handled and served properly. As part of the JUSTIN Library Program we thought that a brief primer on decanting your JUSTIN library selections might help you and your friends to have the best experience possible when serving these wines.
Decanting!
To fully enjoy what has developed in your wine over time, you will need to separate, or decant the wine from the sediment. Here is a quick description of how this is done.
Remove the bottle from the cellar in the same position as it was stored (in a cradle, if you have one), or if you are serving the wine in a few days, you can gently move the bottle to an upright position and store it in a cool environment (not a refrigerator!) away from sunlight.
Cut the capsule, or foil, just below the raised band at the top of the bottle; this gives you full access to the top of the bottle and will prevent any contamination of the wine due to drips that come into contact with the foil.
Wipe off the area around the cork and top of bottle with a damp cloth to remove any chalky residue that might have accumulated due to long storage in a cellar.
Insert your wine opener into the cork and carefully pull the cork from the bottle. Keep the bottle as still as possible throughout this step. A simple ‘waiter’s friend’ style wine opener with a long hollow centered screw is generally best for this job, especially for older corks.
Light a candle or place a flashlight facing up between the table and where the neck of the bottle will be located during decanting.
Decant the wine by gently removing the bottle from the cradle and keeping the bottle in the same orientation, being careful not to spill any wine from the top of the open bottle. Bring the bottle to the mouth of the decanter and slowly start pouring the wine gently into the decanter. If you have a funnel, this will make it easier to pour and help prevent spillage. After a while, you will start to see the light from the candle or flashlight through the neck of the bottle. Look for a thin stream of sediment as it travels toward the neck of the bottle. Just before the sediment enters the neck of the bottle, stop pouring and set the bottle in an upright position on the table. At this point, whatever is left in the bottle cannot be consumed since it is full of sediment.
If you skip this step, here is what you will find in your glass:
It might be a good idea to let the wine breathe a bit. Depending on the structure and age of the wine you have decanted, it might be a good idea to let it sit for 30 minutes, an hour, or even more before serving it. The older the wine, the less you will want to wait.
Cheers!
Jim Gerakaris Certified Sommelier, JUSTIN Vineyards & Winery jimg@JUSTINwine.com
Jim doles out a barrel sample of our 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon on a JUSTIN Barrels and Bottles Tour
“Jim gave a really detailed tour. Think of the cave as an upside down pool!” –Anita P, Foursquare
This recent posting to our Foursquaretips inspired us to chat with JUSTIN Winery’s resident Certified Sommelier and Tour Guide, Jim Gerakaris.Jim is famous for translating his deep knowledge of wine to simple terms for our guests at the tours and tastings he conducts. The Barrels and Bottles tour is a special tour, in which guests get to sample wine straight from the barrels in the JUSTIN caves. This tour is given daily at 3:30 Monday-Friday, and at 11:30 and 3:30 on Saturday and Sunday.
“On our tours, I have many people ask about how our caves were constructed, especially what material the walls of our caves are made out of. The best analogy is to use the swimming pool visual.
For most swimming pools, you dig a big hole in the shape you want, into the ground and spray concrete over reinforcing material like mesh or bars to form the permanent structure to hold the water.
For our caves, we had a contractor bore tunnels into the hillside like a coal mine, then lined the walls with a reinforcing material and sprayed 4-5 feet of gunnite on top. Gunnite is a type of concrete that is sprayed through a hose, which makes the concrete stronger and more waterproof than a traditional setting process. This method of cave creation provides a safe, cool structure, with very stable temperatures in which to store our wines during their elevage (the time they spend in barrels).
The deepest part of the cave is our ISOSCELES Library; it is 120 to 150 feet (about the height of a ten story building) below the surface of the hillside behind the ISOSCELES building. This makes it a great location to store our own vertical (consecutive vintages) collection of ISOSCELES vintages for future reference and enjoyment.”
After tasting a variety of barrel samples, tour guests are then treated to a library wine handpicked by the tour guide. The library wine is always a surprise; it is up to the individual tour guide to choose what will be poured that day! Whatever library wine is chosen will be available for purchase following the tour.
Jim conducts a tasting of 2003 ISOSCELES on the JUSTIN Winery Barrels and Bottles Tour
Jim joined the JUSTIN team in April of 2008. He brings a variety of experiences to us from his various travels while in domestic and international equipment sales in the semiconductor manufacturing industry. Jim is a Certified Sommelier through the Court of Master Sommeliers. He enjoys cooking and matching the wines and cuisines from various food traditions. He is also an avid bicyclist who is known to commute to JUSTIN from his home in Paso Robles when he can.
The tasting room is open daily from 10:00am to 6:00pm. Barrels and Bottles Tours are available at 3:30 on weekdays, and 11:30 and 3:30 on weekends. Please call 805-238-6932 ex. 3224 to reserve. Visit our website for more information.
Don’t forget: in addition to checking in on Foursquare when you visit us in person, you can also keep up with us through Facebook and Twitter. Cheers!
Thank you to all of you who posted a comment or emailed me
in response to yesterday’s post. I’m mailing your corkscrews next week.
Yesterday I asked you a few questions about what the differences are between
organic and biodynamic farming and what sustainable farming means. A lot of you
had good comments, but I gather that there is some confusion about what it all
means. I’m going to try to clear up that confusion and expand your knowledge
(and mine! – I’m not an expert myself, but, I have an open dialogue going with
our production staff and they’re more than willing to help me out.)
So, from
yesterday:
1. What
is the difference between Organic and Biodynamic farming?
Although organic food is produced without using most conventional pesticides, pesticides
and herbicides can still be used when farming organically as long as
they’re not created synthetically. According to the USDA's definition, organic farmers emphasize the use of renewable resources and conservation of soil and water to enhance environmental quality for future generations. (For more information on organic farming, check out the California Certified Organic Farmers website.)
Biodynamic farming takes things a step further and looks at the farm in relationship to the environment as a whole. Biodynamic farmers use special teas to give the plants the nutrients they need. Predatory animals and beneficial
insects are used to control pests instead of pesticides. (Organic farmers may
also utilize predatory animals and beneficial insects to control pests.) Additionally,
in biodynamic farming, the focus is on looking at the farm as part of the
ecosystem, and considering forces outside the realm of the fence line. As
such, everything that is done in the vineyard (picking, pruning, weeding,
etc.) coincides with the lunar cycle. For a more expansive definition of biodynamic farming,
please browse the Demeter website. Demeter is the only Biodynamic certification agent in the
Unites States.
2. What
does Sustainable farming mean?
I’m
giving you the definition and standards set forth by the Central Coast
Vineyard Team (CCVT). We’re currently in the process of applying for the Sustainability
in Practice (SIP) Vineyard Certification offered by the CCVT.
Sustainability rests on the principle that we must meet
the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations
to meet their own needs. Therefore, stewardship of both natural and human
resources is of prime importance. Sustainable farming systems are
biologically-based and designed to be productive in both the short- and
long-term.
Sustainable agriculture integrates three main
goals—environmental health, economic profitability, and social equity. Because
it is more a philosophical approach to agriculture than a set of farming
practices, the specific practices that can be called sustainable vary depending
on the crop and the specific environmental and social issues important to a
region. Therefore, it is important that all those interested in making
agriculture more sustainable—consumers, growers, environmentalists, farm
workers, processors, retailers—educate themselves on the related issues.
(This
definition was taken in its entirety from the Central Coast
Vineyard Team’s website. I highly encourage you to browse their site for
additional information.)
...
At JUSTIN, we are always striving to find new ways to improve
the quality of our wines, and farming biodynamically started out as an
experiment in five vineyard blocks totaling 7 acres. We’ve been monitoring the
progress of those blocks and we like what we see, so we’ve expanded the program
to 4 additional blocks for a total of 20 acres. Additionally, we encourage our growers
to incorporate biodynamic farming practices into the management of their
vineyards as well.
Farming biodynamically is a labor-intensive process and
we’re converting vineyard blocks gradually. We expect to eventually extend the
program to the rest of the estate vineyard in the upcoming years, assuming it
continues to produce high quality fruit.
As part of our biodynamic/sustainable program, we’ve added bird
boxes to encourage predatory birds such as Barn owls, Hawks, Eagles, and a
Kestrel Falcon to nest on property to help control our squirrel, gopher, mice, and
small bird (Starlings and Sparrows) populations. You can read more about our
predatory birds in Paul’s article in the current issue of the JUSTIN
Times.
Yesterday, during our vineyard tour, Paul showed us a
variety of teas that we use in the biodynamic blocks of the vineyard. Some of
the teas are less exotic, like Chamomile (just like what you’d make at home!)
and other teas such as Horseweed, Nettle, and Yarrow. Some of the other more
offensive sounding preparations include cow stomach and horn manure (horn manure is cow manure stuffed into a hollowed out cow's horn and buried in the vineyard until it is ready to be made into a tea and sprayed into the vineyard).
Yesterday, Paul also taught us about predatory insects…predatory mites
to be exact! And we all happily assisted in releasing them into the vineyard. Bad
(spider) mites cause dead spots to form on the leaves and high populations of
spider mites can render the leaves nonfunctional. To ensure we maintain
healthy, functioning leaves, we released two different types of mites, the Cali
Predatory Mite and the Western Predatory Mite to eat the spider mites. The
mites arrived in a brown bag on bean stalks which we distributed by placing a
stalk on every sixth vine throughout the affected block. The mites are barely
visible to the human eye, and will crawl off the bean stalks and make their way
through the vineyard, eating the spider mites as they move along. Once these predatory
mites consume all of the spider mites, they will move on to the rest of the
vineyard to find more food or die off.
Check out the following video of Grower Relations Manager
Paul Kaselionis talking about the mite release.
Did you find this interesting? Confusing? Do you have any
questions? Do you want to learn more about our biodynamic program?
Today I went on a vineyard tour with our Grower
Relations Manager, Paul Kaselionis. I arranged the tour for myself and anyone
else who wanted to go from Sales & Marketing, Wine Society, Accounting, and
the Tasting Room. I thought it would be interesting and useful for all of us to
learn more about our Biodynamic Farming Practices.
Paul started out the tour with a couple of questions…I
thought it might be interesting to post them here as well. Please respond with
your answers. I’ll add the official answers, more details on the JUSTIN Biodynamic Farming Program and some video from our tour
tomorrow.
I’m interested in your
thoughts…
What is the
difference between Organic and Biodynamic farming?
What does
Sustainable farming mean?
Is sustainably
produced wine important to you? Why?
If you post a response before noon tomorrow (5/22/09),
I’ll send you a JUSTIN logo corkscrew! (send an email to tracy@justinwine.com with your name and address after you post your comment)
If you've ever wondered how wine gets from barrel to bottle, I took
some video that I thought I'd share with you (it's a bit shaky, so if
you get motion sickness, this is your warning!). After our winemaker
determines the wine is ready to be bottled, the wine is transferred
from the barrels it was aging in to a tank which connects to the
bottling line. We don't have a permanent bottling line on property, so
we bring in a portable bottling line to bottle all of our wines.
It's
pretty neat - everything is self contained in a large trailer that gets
dropped of by a semi truck. This week we're finishing up bottling of
our 2007 Cab, and each day as I arrive to work I hear the familiar
"clink clink" of the bottles moving through the line as they're filled
with wine, corked, foiled, labeled, and boxed up.
Check out the video and post a comment to let me know what you think!
