Sidetracked by The Weather

I don't know that in my nearly 6 decades I've EVER been under a tornado WARNING before, but i am now and have been since 4:30 or so. My pal Johnny Montezuma calls me at 4:45 this morning from his summer camp in Idaho Falls (aka Mayberry West) as I'm groggily listening to hail beat against the bedroom window. "Did you know you're under a tornado warning? Not a watch, a WARNING?" Holy crap. Thunder, lightning close, wind is whipping hail against the windows. Little hail thank god, not like the ice-cube sized stuff they got in Phoenix yesterday.

I put on the slicker and muck boots and head outside with the flashlight to check on the goats and sheep. Everybody is under cover and dry, but clearly not happy about this turn of events. It's close to breakfast time and they already know they're gonna have to wait. Bawling their general dissatisfaction with every aspect of their miserable existence at me. Taking their frustrations out on each other; there are already some bloody heads I'll have to spray with BlueKote later. Back inside to check the NOAA radar page for Cornville. Guess I'm not going to Javelina Leap today. The grape harvest is in for the most part in our neck of the woods, but there are still a few vineyards that have late maturing varieties yet on the vine. Here's hoping they've not suffered any damage.

It's 10 after 9 now and new warnings are popping up on the radar. At this moment we are just east of one and it's trending our way. It's guaranteed that somewhere in this valley, some fool is at this very moment saying "but we NEED the rain". Of course we need the rain. It's a desert for pete's sake. We always need the rain. Nothing like overstating the obvious.  I'm sure the trees are real happy, at least the ones that don't get torn from their comfy spot in the earth and sent flying onto some unsuspecting person's roof. This isn't Kansas, we don' need no steenkeeng tornadoes!

The black dot just west of the center of the image is about where we are.

A Hopi Grape Mystery

My brother-in-law is a traditional Hopi farmer in the village of Moencopi on the Hopi Reservation. He's also a conservationist interested in traditional crops and heritage plants of all kinds. There have always been old grape vines growing on the periphery of the terraced fields at Moencopi. In recent memory, nobody paid them much attention and they languished, but given the tenacity of grapes, especially old vines, they've stayed alive. My brother-in-law, curious about them, began to prune his and feed them a bit and they are responding to the attention by making fruit. He describes them as pretty thick skinned, not particularly sweet. Hmmm...sounds to me like they might be wine grapes. The skin to pulp ratio is much greater on wine grapes, table grapes having thinner skins, and more juicy pulp. I know, it's counterintuitive, but that's how it is. Wine is much more dependent upon a grape's skin that it's pulp.
I've found references to Hopis having grown grapes for generations. It's generally believed that the little stunted peach and apricot trees found all over Hopi are descended from cuttings brought by the Spanish and cultivated there ever since. The Spanish were expelled during the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, but their crop introductions had been found useful by the Hopi and remained. Anyone with even a whiff of Southwestern historical knowledge also knows that the Spanish carried grape cuttings with them pretty much wherever they went. There's no substitute for communion wine, and if you're going to establish a community and show the heathen savage the error of their spiritual ways and bring them into the Body of Christ, you gotta have vino.
There is every indication that these MAY be the descendants of Spanish grapes. If that's the case, they're no doubt related to the Mission Grapes of California, which are disappearing. The Mission Grapes made pretty low quality wines and today's modern wine industry in California isn't based on them. These grapes would be an historical footnote and a curiosity, not much more. There's also the possibility that they could be Mennonite grapes. Mennonite missionaries came to the Hopi villages in 1892 and there was a Mennonite mission in Moencopi until the mid 1980's. I'm thinking though, that it's unlikely that Mennonites would have planted wine grapes.
So in short, I'm going to endeavor to get these grapes identified. The first step will be to get some proper cuttings this winter when they're dormant. I've also been advised to get in touch with UC Davis' AG department, where they've done lots of grape research. I need to find out what kind of tissue samples they need and who to send them to. Details, details. It should be an interesting project. Stay tuned!

A Visit To Freitas Vineyard and Winery

The view from Ray Freitas' patio, across some of her vines to the winery below

  The harvest is finished, the grapes are in the vats and Ray Freitas is on her way to completing another batch of her award winning estate wines. Ray invited my son and me to visit the winery and vineyard yesterday. We spent about two fascinating hours and could have spent many more as Ray and her son walked us through the entire process of making wine, from harvest, thru crush, vinting, pressing, barrel aging, bottling and storage.
  Walking into the winery the first thing that hit me was the incredible yeasty smell. I've been to breweries many times. When you enter a brewery, the smell is very much like walking into a bakery. Immediately comforting, warm. A winery is different. First off, it's cold in there, or at least cool. Secondly, the yeast is much more intense and fermenting fruit smells decidedly more intense, sharper in the nose, than fermenting grain.
  We spent quite a long time watching Ray and her son test the brix level and Ph of her two vats of fermenting Cab. It's almost ready for pressing and barrel storage. We got to help with the "punch down". The CO2 produced by the fermentation process causes the berries to rise to the surface of the juice and form a cap, which if not broken up and punched down every 4 hours will effectively seal the top of the must and slow down the fermentation process. I got to sample the raw must, swish and spit only of course. A taste of wine in the making. Definitely wine, but not quite. Like looking at an ultrasound of a child in the womb. My son remarked "this vat is like an ecosystem, a living thing". Very true. I was able to taste her Malvasia Bianca, which is still in stainless steel and not ready yet. Her last Malvasia Bianca was voted Best AZ White at a prestigious judging in Phoenix in 2009, and if my scortched palate is any guide, this one's going to be a winner too. The essence of tropical flowers hits your nose right up front. Watch for this wine. I actually got to DRINK a whole glass of the new Ray's Red, and it's going to be better than the current one I think. It's still in the steel, but is ready to be bottled.
  My son, ever the chemist and artist, asked Ray "how can a person learn about this? How could someone apprentice at this?" Uh-oh, I knew he'd find it fascinating. A budding winemaker? Who knows?
  We're hoping to go back after frost and the vines go to sleep and learn something about the viticultural end of things. Pruning and caring for the vines themselves in anticipation of bud-break in the spring. I'm thinking a viticulturist looks forward to bud-break in much the same way we look forward to kidding season, filled with hope, anxiety and anticipation.
  All in all it was a great afternoon and Ray and her son couldn't have been more gracious to a couple of rubes like us. We're looking forward to lots more visits. Here's a quick slideshow of a few pics we took.

Blood Into Wine

  Maynard Maynard Maynard all you hear around here when it comes to wine is Maynard Maynard Maynard. I guess I'm guilty of it too. I watched Blood Into Wine last night. It's an edgy, hip documentary of sorts that chronicles Maynard James Keenan's entry into winemaking in the Verde Valley. It's available on Netflix. I enjoyed it and found it in some ways enlightening. I didn't know, for example, that Merkin actually has a vineyard up on the steep slopes near Jerome. It's fairly informative regarding the partnership between Keenan and Eric Glomski, from whom Keenan has learned to grow grapes and make wine. But it's really all about Maynard and that's where it runs into problems. While Glomski's in the film almost as much as Keenan and he does have a chance to talk about himself and his history in the wine world, he comes off most of the time as a sort of weasely sidekick to Keenan. The film doesn't go out of it's way to explain that Glomski is THE creative force behind Keenan's wines. In the beginning, Glomski MADE Keenan's wines. Keenan is far from the only person who's been helped by Glomski. There are a number of other winemakers for whom Glomski has in some way been partner, mentor or inspirational guide.
  Without actually coming out and saying so, the film leaves you with the definite impression that M. J. Keenan discovered the Verde Valley and decided it would be a good place to grow grapes and make wine and then went out and found Eric Glomski and learned how to grow wine, thereby starting the wine boom here. The truth is a bit different. There were several others successfully growing grapes here and producing wine before Keenan came on the scene, but none of them are as "interesting" as Keenan. None of them are dark, troubled rock stars. None of them that I've met so far wear their passion like a wiccan  tattoo across their forehead like Keenan does, at least in the film. No, they're happily and busily pursuing their art and craft without the recognition of a hip documentary film. Somebody should make one about THEM, but there's the rub; who'd watch it? I would. I sure would.
  Blood into wine is film worth watching. I watched it with glass of Paisano. It seemed to me that watching it with a glass of Chupacabra would have been too much like drinking the Kool-Aid. It helped me stay grounded, skeptical.
  This guy makes some good wines, and the film is worth checking out for anyone with an interest in wine from this region. Just be careful you don't find yourself getting another tattoo and chanting Maynard Maynard Maynard.

The Mystery Bottle

  So in the rush to unpack bottles from their boxes and arrange them on the back table at the WineFest, an accidentally unlabeled bottle got removed from it's box and added to the back stock without notice. While packing up to leave on Sunday, I found it. It was for sure either a bottle of Ray's Red or Freitas 08 Merlot, but nobody could figure out which. Lisa Pender, the Pillsbury Room's manager said "guess you better take it home and find out what it is".

So how to do that?  I have a labeled bottle of Ray's Red, but not a bottle of Merlot. If I had a bottle of Merlot, I could shine a bright light thru both bottles and note the difference in color, compare them each to the "shiner" and decide what it is that way. I don't want to open both bottles for obvious reasons. I try to stay on the no more than two drinks a day plan and the wines would go off before they'd get finished. Using the flashlight technique I shined light thru both bottles:

  Both bottles appear to have the same color. There's a considerable difference between the Red and the Merlot. The Merlot is more opaque and a deeper Burgundy color. The Red, probably due to it's San Giovese grapes, has a lighter and somewhat browner, more leathery color. I'm thinking this is a bottle of Ray's Red.

  So I open the shiner. Sure enough, the wine presents as very clear, with a leathery color as opposed to the grapey burgundy color of the Merlot, and as soon as the cork comes out I can smell the Ray's Red. It went real nice with some Dreamfield's Pasta topped with oil and a little Pecorino Romano and a sprinkle of Salish smoked sea salt. Thoughtful readers are thinking "this dipstick spent an entire weekend selling Ray's Red and Freitas Merlot, why didn't he just open the freaking bottle, pour himself a glass and he'd have known in a heartbeat what it was." Yeah, I coulda done that, but what fun would THAT have been?

Suzy Q Market and Local Wines

  Just a quick note to let everyone know that Suzy Q Market in Cottonwood has a pretty spiffy selection of Arizona Wines. They've recently added a shelf of Verde Valley and other AZ. wines as an experiment. SQ has been my go-to place for it's great beer selection for a long time. I noted Freitas, Javelina Leap, Oak Creek Vineyards, Caduceus, Arizona Stronghold, Kokopelli and maybe one or two others. Great prices too. Suzy-Q's price on Ray's Red, for example, is 4 bucks cheaper than you'll pay at the Pillsbury Tasting Room. Granted, you can't taste it first at Suzy-Q but since I've told you over and over how good Ray's Red is, you don't need to sample it anyhow.

No news is good news

  Nothing to report today. I got sidetracked by one of my pals out in the pasture and have to do some repairs and get a load of hay. Stay tuned, coming is a report on Harry's Hideaway and my research into a mystery "shiner" bottle of wine I brought home from the WineFest. It's either Freitas Merlot or Ray's Red, but with no label, how to tell? I have a labeled bottle of Ray's Red, I'd hate to have to open them both and compare to solve the mystery. Stay tuned...