Wine Club Party Time

                 

On Sunday, May 27th a great day was had by all. While a 3 day weekend is typically grounds alone for a celebration, our wine club members had a little something else to celebrate. We hosted a 5 course meal with accompanying wine pairings to all of our wine club members who could make it up the mountain as a special sign of our appreciation for their friendship and continued support.

At Spann Vineyards, we've always believed in a simple recipe for fun. Get together some great people, toss in some delectable food, and top it off with some delicious wines. It works every time!

The theme for the wines we were pouring was "Spann Vineyards' past, present, and future." We poured some of our 2001 Mayacamas Range Cabernet Sauvignon, which was the first Cabernet Sauvignon we ever made, to show our roots. We poured our current vintages of Chardonnay-Viognier 2010 and Mo-Zin 2009 to show our present selection. To give people a glimpse into our future, we poured our 2010 Malbec, 2009 Top of the World Cabernet Sauvignon, and our 2009 OMG (Cabernet Sauvignon/Merlot blend). For some bizarre reason, enological time travel inspires smiles in all who take part.

Our menu for the day consisted of: 

 

Spann Vineyards

Wine Club Barbecue 2012

Rosemary Roasted Almonds

Radishes with Organic Sweet Butter & Sea Salt

Chardonnay-Viognier 2010

Tomato & Watermelon Salad

Betsy’s Backacher Semillon-Chardonnay 2010

Dry Rub Pork Spare Ribs

Brined, Grilled Chicken

Southwest Corn, Blackbean & Red Pepper Salad

Malbec 2010

OMG 2009 (67% Cab. Sauv./33% Merlot)

Top Of The World Cabernet Sauvignon 2009

Assorted Cheeses

Cabernet Sauvignon, Mayacamas Range 2001

Carmel-Infused Double Dark Chocolate Brownie

Mo Zin 2009

We also all worked together to create a collage-style painting that expressed what certain elements of the wine world meant to all of us.

Winning Barbeque is Back Achin' Work

Spann Wine Club member, Doyle Williamson, of Austin TX. has been showing them how barbeque is done at the "Theresa's School Campfire Cook Off" in Austin, TX. In 2011, he took first place and this year he took second place with his winning recipes with a special wine pairing.

In 2011, he cooked up 1 1/2" elk blackstrap steaks harvested from his own ranch in Junction, TX. The steaks were then wrapped in bacon and seared on each side for two minutes and served with a roasted raspberry chipotle sauce. This was paired with Betsy's Backacher Lot 8 and won First Place in the competition!

In 2012, his amazing recipe consisted of pecan wood smoked quail legs and thighs served with a homemade fig/walnut sauce and was dressed with broken crispy bacon and roasted pecan pieces. This was paired with Betsy's Backacher Lot 8 as well. He got Second Place in this competition. Congrats to Doyle Williamson for his award-winning BBQ skills! Maybe we can even convince him to come cook for one of our wine club pick up parties if we entice him with enough Betsy's Backacher.....

If you're doing pairings with our wines, writing about our wines, or just enjoying our wines while having a good time, let us know! Post on our Facebook Page or shoot Peter an email at peterspann@spannvineyards.com.

Ship in a Bottle

So, how do you get a ship into a bottle?

Start with a big bottle and a small ship!

Co2 or Witches Brew?????

What is Peter up to?

It looks like he is stirring up a cauldron of magic and toad's toes, but he is actually beginning a cold soak. A cold soak is when you let the juice and skins sit and put off fermentation in order to allow the juice to extract crucial flavors from the skins before fermentation begins. This is the next step in the process after running the grapes through the crusher/destemmer that you saw in our last post. In order to keep the temperature down and keep imminent fermentation at bay, we add dry ice to our must (juice, stems, skins, and seeds altogether). In addition to keeping the must from heating up and fermenting, the dry ice also imparts a Co2 layer that helps protect the must and keep it from oxidizing. So next time you look at the pictures with this post and ask yourself "Co2 or Witches Brew?" maybe it's a little bit of both!

Picking and Crushing equals strong/sore backs!

We are now in the eye of the storm when it comes to harvest and things couldn't look better. While many growers in Sonoma County have had low harvests, most of our vineyard and our partners vineyards are looking really good. We have been bringing in tons of Malbec, Merlot, and Cabernet Sauvignon and while we have done a lot, we still have a whole lot more work and fun ahead of us. Here you can see Peter and Betsy out in the vineyard making sure the Merlot is ripe, so our awesome picking crew can bring home the fruit. Once Peter, the mad trucker, drives the fruit in half ton picking containers up our 9 foot wide driveway through the mountains, the fun begins. Andrew, Peter, and Jim pitchfork the grapes through our crusher/destemmer fueled on awesome sandwiches from Betsy while Betsy checks fermentations, does punchdowns, and keeps the must moving along towards greatness. As you can see from our pictures, Creating Creative Juices isn't easy!

Crush has begun!

So, we picked our first ton of Cabernet Sauvignon last Tuesday! It was the first of the fruit we have picked this year and after some gentle encouragement from the rain, we picked it at 23.5 degrees brix and allowed the juice to have a 4 day "cold soak" to soak out some color and skin tannins prior to fermentation. This is a very important process and is necessary to making complex and well balanced wines. After the cold soak was completed, we moved the two half-ton bins in the sun to warm up and start fermenting on the natural vineyard yeast. With attention and care, each day we punch down the cap (the skins pushed to the top by co2 created by fermentation) to keep the skins wet, promote color and flavor extraction, and allow in fresh oxygen. Starting tomorrow, we'll start doing a once daily foot-treading to help the fermentation along and extract out the soft flavors that make up our creative juices!

A Tour of Spann Vineyards with The Cellar Angels