Raffaldini kindly sent me a bottle of their 2007 Sangiovese Reserva. They must be pretty confident it’s a good wine, because I am notoriously critical of Yadkin Valley / Swan Creek red wines (not so much the whites).

My wine “reviews” are simple affairs.

1) I prefer dry wines over many of the artificially sweetened wines so popular in this area to make the wine palatable to local wine drinkers.

2) I hate the “green” taste that seems to work it’s way into almost every NC red wine due to poor viticultural and winemaking practices

3) I really dislike wineries that vehemently argue that their wine is good. Even when all it would take to discover the opposite is a simple anonymous feedback card in the tasting room, or followup their visit to the winery with an email opinion request. It just makes no sense to put out junk wine.

4) I am better suited to reviewing red wines because I’ve got a lot more experience with tasting red wines from all over the world and all price points.

Raffaldini has always seemed dedicated to proving that good to excellent wine can be produced in North Carolina. At considerable cost, they’ve removed several varieties that weren’t well suited to their area and experimented with others. They are never satisfied and are always striving to better themselves, their understanding of grapes and their wines. And all of that is evident from the time you set foot on their property…from the amazing views, to the old style villa winery, to the beautiful gardens and culminating in many of their wines.

That brings me to my initial impression of the 2007 Raffaldini Sangiovese Reserva. The nose was very satisfying. It was robust and filled me with happiness. Who cares what comprised the nose, just be happy that the wine presented itself well. Even writing now, 10 hours later, I am looking forward to having another glass this evening and hoping that the wine is complex enough to actually get better after 24 hours of being opened.

The wine itself was one of the best North Carolina red wines I have ever had. I really enjoy Chianti, and have some very nice bottles in my cellar. So, while I don’t have nearly the experience with Sangiovese that I do with other varietals, I’ve drank enough of it to appreciate when the wine has done the grape justice.

Some times I will have a favorable impression of a NC red wine, only to be a little let down later in the evening when I’m left with a residual yeasty taste in my mouth. This has evened happened once or twice with my own wine. I am not sure still what causes this. I’ve read various opinions from others. And in my own experience it’s not always there…the other night I had a bottle of Ella that was just fabulous, and left no yeasty impression in my mouth. But several weeks before I actually poured out a bottle of my own wine after experiencing it. Maybe it results from unfiltered wines at times? Needless to say, none of that from the Raffaldini Sangiovese Reserva on this night.

Tomorrow night I am going to take this bottle over to some friends to get their opinion and to try it again on a different night. I have a bottle of the 2005 Raffaldini Sangiovese I might bring it along and have them blind taste test each of them to get their opinions on each.

What’s also great about this wine, is that it’s priced reasonably at $17.00. I think it’s worth $17.00. At $17.00 it’s a very nice showcase of the best that North Carolina can offer. I don’t say that very often!

If you are a winemaker and thinking that I say nice things when the wine is free, please think twice about sending me your wines, I don’t like to drink too much North Carolina wine. I’m not sure it’s healthy in most forms. Plus, if I don’t have nice things to say, for the most part, I am not writing anything at all. With so many wineries struggling now, they don’t need me piling on them…people seem to be figuring out which wineries are putting out some decent wines and which ones aren’t. It’s not that difficult.

Been a long long time since I posted on this blog. The world has just gotten a wee bit too crazy to justify spending much time here. I am sure all of the winery owners in the area are thankful. But just to make sure that I am not forgotten, I’ll write a short blurb about the 2009 Elkin Wine Festival. We went with some friends and had a great time. The Chamber did a bang up job once again. I don’t even have one complaint. Unless you count that five years later, the wine in the Yadkin Valley is still borderline horrible.

Thankfully the McRitchie’s are still here. Their wines are just outstanding all around. Elkin Creek still puts out some nice stuff. Grassy Creek has a couple of winners. Raffaldini seems like they’ve stepped back some…no one was as impressed as in the past.

Everything else was barely drinkable. But as long as the McRitchie’s don’t leave town there is always at least some consistency to look forward too.

Back to my grapes. Last year my wife and I were gone for the entire month of May. That is a crucial spray period, that coupled with the drought, and the birth of Ella and my desire to test the minimum number of sprays required to still take a crop, took a toll on the grapes. I had poor fruitset, and some Downey got in and I never got it out…it spread quite rapidly near harvest and the grapes never really ripened. It was just sort of a mess. We didn’t take a harvest.

2009 so far has been different. My dad helped me fix up my sprayer, and I took down a bunch of the deer fencing (which helps with my tractor turns) and we stayed in town during May. I’ve sprayed three times so far, mostly Sulfur and ProPhyt. I’d also some foliar nutrients that I mixed in the last spray. The rain was much needed this spring. My plants look the best ever, except the Pinotage got hit by something that wiped out maybe 30% of them. But they ripen too early anyways, they might have to be pulled. The Barbera has roared back strong, the Cariminere are struggling, and the merlots / Cab. francs and Cab. Sauv. look great. The best ever. I had some very nice fruit set and no disease has been spotted yet.

I am going to try and stay on top of things this summer. Might have to reread my blog a bit to determine what I will spray next. I’ll probably do one spray of pristine and sulfur and then stay away from that to avoid resistance. Maybe then I’ll do another sulfur / prophyt and then a couple of Bayleton in July before the clusters close.

Should take a nice crop if I can stay on top of things. No Beetles yet. But with all the rain, I expect they might be a little heavier this year and much heavier next year.

Here’s our precious daughter, posing with a bottle of our first vintage of Ella wine!

Ella holding a bottle of Ella wine!

Congrats to the areas newest AVA.

The long first journey from planting to harvest to wine making to bottling is finally complete. Our first vintage is officially bottled! At this point, I am quite certain nobody cares, but it was a milestone achievement for yours truly. While grape growing and wine making don’t appear to be in the cards of yours truly, I did enjoy the entire long process.

I’ve been harsh on others in the past, for putting out wine of dubious quality. But I guess I can’t blame them, decisions are made in the vineyard and once those decisions are made there is no going back that year.

I had a very experienced local wine maker make my wine, which is a field blend of cab. sauv., cab. franc, merlot and barbera. The grapes were of great quality and had some concentrated flavors due to the small berry size. They were a touch unripe, but we got them off at decent brix with healthy pH.

The wine turned out pretty spectacular. It’s a dark, inky wine with a robust nose and 13.1% alcohol. We left it unfiltered, and gave it a shot of sulfite just before bottling as the sulfite level was at 7ppm. We pushed it up into the low 30s and I bottled it, all 24 cases (with much help from another experienced winemaker I hired to help me). For a Yadkin Valley red wine, it’s a good wine, and once the sulfite dissipates in 20 or so days, it should be even better.

I used plastic corks to help guard against any oxygen getting in through a natural cork. I’ve already drank 3 bottles, Maybe it’s like all parents who think their babies are cute, when in reality some of them are not so cute. Maybe I am biased towards my wine, probably. My wife thinks it’s good…but she was a little put off at first because of the robustness of the sulfite, but after an hour of letting it settle she seemed to really enjoy it (also could be she’s just being nice?).

It’s hard to know what to do with your own wine. People clamor, “let us try your wine”, but you know they won’t be critical to your face. That part is hard. I’d rather serve them a nice 2000 Bordeaux than have them drink my wine out of politeness. So if you are ever drinking with me and ask to try my wine, of course I’ll give you some, but I won’t ask you if you’d like any more, that’s up to you to decide!

Here is a jpg of the final wine label. I found a printer in Holland, Michigan who was willing to print these up at a decent cost for such a low volume. We named it after our first born, Ella, and didn’t identify the vineyard, as I am giving the wine away to friends and family anyways.

I’ve started pruning. Honest to God, I am the slowest pruner on the face of the earth. It’s pretty fun though, I like it. Today it was 50 degrees, sunny, the dogs were playing outside with me, it was just a really nice time. I pruned up the muscadines pretty good. I think they’ll do really well this year…they started a little slow last year, but they really took off later in the year. I pruned them up nice, and expect to get some good fruit in 2008.

The Pinotage grew out nicely. I lost maybe 10 plants in the frost last year, but the remaining plants are doing well. I cane pruned all of them. Barring a hard spring frost, these plants should do well this year.

I started on the Cabernet Sauvignon near the house. I redid many of the cordons last year, so there is less work this spring. However, some of the plants lost a cordon during the Easter 2007 cold snap. Thus it takes a little more work to lop off the dead (or partially dead) cordon and train a new cane on the wire. I also had a few plants that were just trained poorly, so I am lopping off those cordons too and putting down new canes. I am pruning to one bud spurs this year. lst year I was hesitant and left two buds per spur, but it just resulted in too much growth and too much fruit.

I make pretty good attempts to keep the cordons of equal length and containing equal numbers of buds. I am much more comfortable pruning this year. However there are many more vines to prune this year…so it’ll be a lot of work.

It’s such a neat time of year. I am so geeked up for bud break, even though it’s still three months away. I think thi syear will be a fun year…I didn’t turn over the soil this year, so weed growth should be less. There are far fewer vines to train this year…90% of them are now up to the wire. This will be the first year where the vineyard should really fill out. It should look neat!

I am going to have Mt. Airy Tractor come and pick up my tractor and service it before the season begins. I still need to put down some more lime and some boron. Once the pruning is over, I hope to spray a lime sulfur spray to eradicate any disease remnants from last year. Once harvest was over, I stopped all sprays. To me, it makes sense that after harvest, the purpose of the vine has been fulfilled. Thus I am not going to worry about downey or whatever after harvest. You can dote these vines all you want, but I am not having any part of it.

I’ll whack them with a lime sulfur solution and focus on building up the soil and plant strength so that the plant fights off disease. I really dislike spraying, so hopefully it will be another somewhat dry year, that helps reduce sprays immensely.

I debated long and hard whether to post this on my blog or not. But in the end, this blog gets lots of exposure so I would be remiss if I didn’t. My wife and I are pregnant with our first child, due on Feb. 3rd! It’s going to be a little girl!! We are very very excited. After some long discussion we feel it would be best if we relocated closer to our parents in the Midwest. I love my vineyard and am saddened that I might sell it, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

Full details and pictures can be found here: Yadkin Valley Home and Vineyard For Sale

Preferably, I’d like to sell the home and the vineyard, but I might be open to someone just buying the house too. I’ve listed the home on the TriadMLS and am not in any hurry, so I figure I’ll try it on my own for the first six months.

This is truly one of the nicest places to live. (Note: I edited this post as I had previously had a rather off remark about my neighbor who moved away, it was unnecessary and a product of a recent discussion we had after he had sold his house. Overall he was a decent guy, nice family, etc.. and he let me keep my fence which I mistakenly erected a couple feet over his line. My apologies to him.) If we do sell, I’ll miss my neighbor across the street, he’s a great guy and friend. As is the neighbor next to me and behind me, super super nice people and families.

If God means for us to sell the house and vineyard it will happen. If not, we’ll stay put, which would be fine with me too…the painters are here today as a matter of fact, taking down the last remnants of wall paper and repainting the downstairs and upstairs bathrooms. I might have them do our master bath as well. I also need to replace a few of the older fixtures yet…otherwise, the house really looks great!

So, if you are an aspiring vineyard owner and want to get your feet wet at a very low entry cost, Villa Kleinheksel is the place for you. All equipment will be included with the sale. I’ve priced it well enough that if it turns out you don’t like running a vineyard, you could always clear the land and sell of the two lots. It’s a very desirable neighborhood to live, one of the nicest in the area.

612-501-2548 is my mobile, call me if you have any questions or want a tour! First $450,000 takes the house, vineyard, tractor, equipment and two prime one acre lots!

Additionally, I will be selling separately the domains: greatncwines.com and yadkin-valley.com. Both are for sale for $10,000 a piece. Both have been in Google a long time and offer value to someone looking to have own a premium piece of the Yadkin Valley domain market. Imagine if the Yadkin Valley ever does become the Napa Valley of the east, the domain yadkin-valley.com is a premium domain.

Actually it was complete on Friday August 24th, but it took me this long to write about it! My parents came down from Michigan on Thursday and my sister came up from Atlanta. My neighbor, Peter Ness, kindly donated his time and his John Deere Gator as well. The day dawned a bit overcast, which actually worked out well, as the heat would have been awful otherwise.

Around 8:30am, Sean McRitchie dropped off the trailer and the bins. He left me the keys with instructions to drive the grapes to the winery once harvest was complete. We all began picking at 8:30am and finished off the plot by our house at 10:30am. We then started on the plot that borders Lakeview road. We worked until noon and then Jen and I went to Subway and picked up some subs for all the workers. we started up again around 12:30 and finished around 3pm. Overall it took us about 6.5 hours to pick about 1500lbs of grapes.

The grapes looked great. The riper cabernet franc had some bees, and the barbera and carminere was pretty much completely destroyed by bees and birds. The Pinotage with it’s thicker skin held up well. Next year, I’ll have to blast some sevin in there to keep the bees out if I want to get the grapes a little riper. I’ll post my final numbers once I get them from Sean.

My dad drove the truck to Sean’s winery and the rest of us followed in separate cars. Once we arrived Sean and a couple of his helpers weighed the grapes, then ran them through the destemmer. The destemmer worked really well. The grapes were essentially transferred from 1/2 tons bins to a 1 ton fermenting bin. The grapes were then covered and allowed to begin fermenting.

Sean was very kind and gave us a bottle of cider to toast our first harvest.

I had previously mentioned that I had bought a French Oak Barrel from worldcooperage.com. They emailed me that it would take 8 weeks to produce and cost $200 to ship. I told them no thanks. Guess I am a little behind the 8 ball on that one. I spoke with Frank Hobson and a few others locally, they all buy used barrels from CA wineries. I am just not down with that. Seems like there is a lot of possibility of Brett and other bacteria in those barrels unless they are properly treated. Plus, I couldn’t find anybody willing to sell me just one 59 gall (225L) barrel. I even checked ebay, they had a few but they were 4-6 years old. Frank says they pay $50-$75 per barrel. Guess a bunch of wineries go in together.

I started calling and calling and calling, but nothing! Finally I called a home winemaking operation at beer-wine.com. They had a 60 gallon recooped barrel for $250 and $125 shipping. Ships from Massachusets. Recooped seems ok if you do your research. I was going to order from them, but then I got a call back from the east coast distributor of Kelvin Cooperage in Kentucky. They are in New Jesery. They sold me a brand new American Oak Barrel for $375.00 with a medium toast, and they have it in stock and will ship it for a 9/16 delivery. They also think they can ship it via UPS, but I am not sure how that would work.

Here is there contact info:

Gino Pinto, Inc.
373 S. White Horse Pike
Hammonton, NJ 08037
Tel: (609) 561-8199
Fax: (609) 561-3429

e-mail: makewine@comcast.net
www.ginopinto.com

One thing I learned from them is that they also ship clusters and fruit from Cali. They ship in 36lb refrigerated containers or 900lb bins. more importantly they said they can ship me Pinotage from Vino Con Brio. That’s pretty neat. I might buy 75lbs when I get back and try to make some Pinotage wine in my basement. My pinotage won’t be ready till next year.

I am going to grab some berries and do some testing now. I found this equation, qhich might help me with determining the ripeness of my grapes:

A historical index of ripeness suggests that optimal sugar / acidity balance is achieved if the product of the Brix value times the square of the pH is in the range of 220 to 260. For example, a 22† Brix juice at pH 3.2 would yield a value of 225.3. Late harvest fruit at a higher pH (24† Brix at pH 3.6, for example) would yield a value (311) outside of this range.

Well, my grapes made some decent progress, but they did they make enough progress to warrant picking on Friday? According to the scale above, the Cabernet Franc will be ripe. The Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon will be very close. I’ll have to consult with the winemaker, but I’d prefer to harvest I think…

Here are the numbers:

Cabernet Sauvignon – House, 3.33 pH, 19 brix = 210
Cabernet Franc – House, 3.48pH, 19.1 brix – 231
Merlot – Field, 3.19pH, 20 brix = 203
Cabernet Sauvignon – Field, 3.24pH, 19.8 brix = 207
Cabernet Franc – Field, 3.38pH, 20 brix = 228