Rancho Azul y Oro ~ Surviving the Dream

  Apologize for the hiatus!  As with everyone, some time was taken to bask in the warmth of the summer sun, roast a few marshmallows, go to the fair, watch a few sunsets, and walk barefoot through the grass (only in our minds, otherwise, the rattlesnakes could end the summer quickly).    What's been going on at the rancho, you might ask?  Lots, as always.  The table grapes ripened nicely and surprised us with much more bounty than expected!  The fig tree has produced a serious crop of figs this year.  We're currently producing fig jam, strawberry fig jam -- basically, anything one can think of utilizing figs, as well as our highly anticipated Tequila Jalepeno Grape Jelly and our Ruby Royale Grape Jelly.  Our current cocktail accompaniment is a olive/fig tampenade, with the ranch olive oil, naturally!   It was been a sizzling summer here on the Central Coast, with temperatures over 110 since mid-May through the end of July....

Oddly, this winter seems as if it may last forever.  It started raining last September, and as the ranch prepares for the seventh annual Stuart & Jason Birthday Festival (and a mighty big one for Stuart, at that), the reports have just come in, chance of rain all days.  It isn't as if we aren't appreciative of the gift from Mother Nature, but with over 26" in the ground for the season, we're ready for a little sun and warmth. All things growing are also ready for springtime, as well.  Bud burst has actually occurred on the table grapes (no frosts, please), we anticipate bud burst on the Zin and Petite Sirah around the time of the birthday festival, the Cabernet usually is a bit later, the olive trees have sprung forth and are preparing the 2011 crop, and the fig, apple, and the cherry trees have buds.  Of course, the truest sign that spring has arrived is when Pete's cattle returns to the ranch, and that has not yet happened. It hardly seems like it's...

The end is in sight. The last olive has been picked. We remind ourselves, however, that it is now February of the next year. When one is hauling one's self in late at night after mat-layering or schlepping over to the barn in pajamas to crank the press down early in the wee hours of the morning, a negative attitude could creep in or thoughts along the lines that it seemed one was doing this months ago and is still engaging in the same task. It's been decided to opt for the positive spin, in order to retain sanity, the Italians don't pick their olives until January or February -- so we've got that going for us. The Arbequina paste and oil look distinctly different from the other three. The Mission and Frantoio paste were thicker to spread and the Mission oil is a gold, with hints of green; the Frantoio oil is an emerald green. We don't exactly know what to make of the Arbequina yet. The paste is extremely oily, so oily that the layers of mats were nearly slipping ...

After last year's harvest, we actually sat down and had an organized meeting and devised an organized, printed winemaker's protocol, so we could improve our technique, streamline the process, eliminate unnecessary steps, and ultimately, our wine. Now in our winemaker's "post-game" review, despite all of our careful planning, in the end, what we were most unhappy with last year turns out to be the precise thing we are most unhappy with this year. Last year, we learned that while many winemakers aim for a brix of approximately 25, the model of wine to which we aspired would demand a brix of 26 to 26.5. Last year's mistake was that we picked at the numbers many winemakers prefer. This year, we waited two months longer for the numbers we wanted, but what we did not factor in was the lack of cooperation from Mother Nature. We waited two months longer than last year and our post-press numbers are not what we had hoped, so we're left with a new wine we'r...

It seems like it was a year spent waiting. Spring and bud break seemed like it would never come. Summer seemed to come in starts and stops. We waited all year for a heat that really only materialized on occasions when we wished not to have to deal with wilting heat; the rest of the summer was 26% below our normal temperatures. We waited for ripening of the grapes. We waited and waited. Finally, with the olive harvest upon us, we could not wait any longer. The Zinfandel was harvested October 4. The brix sneaked up on us and came in at an astounding 28.5, a whopping 17.8% alcohol. It is destined to accompany chocolate as a late harvest wine. It stormed most of that week of primary fermentation, but it provided a perfect backdrop to decorate for our Harvest Celebration with the family, which we celebrated our traditional third weekend of October and which will be covered in a separate post, but one of the highlights of the weekend was that the barn was officially renamed The Win...