Nov 30, 2022 | Sonoma lifestyle, agave, Hydeout Sonoma, Sagrantino, Sonoma, Sonoma Farming, Sonoma harvest 2022, Sonoma Valley, tequila, things to do in Sonoma
What happens in Sonoma when the harvest is done?
The very last tank of grapes has finished fermenting. The tank is drained of wine and placed in barrels (that liquid is called the “free run”). Then the remaining fermented grapes in the tank are moved into the press and gently squeezed (and the result is called the “press fraction”). And what’s removed from the press after pressing (called the “pomace”) is either sold as animal feed or recycled into green waste or sent to our distiller and turned into Grappa, Brandy, and Cognac; and the seeds are further pressed into grapeseed oil. And that really marks the end of the harvest season.
This is what 2 tons of dense Syrah grape pomace looks like when it comes out of the press. It’s dark purple and bone dry. The very last cuveé of wine has been barreled.
There still remain some chores to manage over the winter: the newly filled wine barrels will be carefully monitored as the secondary Malo-Lactic fermentation is monitored and managed (and where the tart Malic acid, think green apple, is slowly fermented into Lactic acid, with potential health benefits including improved gut health, immune system support, and antioxidant effects). Barrels must be topped off due to evaporation. And as the wine settles we need to taste every wine to assure things are coming along to our liking. And, we start thinking about which of the older wines need to be prepared for bottling this spring. Last, now is the time for the winery to be thoroughly cleaned from top to bottom. And only then will it be time for everyone to have a much needed rest.
A brief note about the 2022 season: It started off with a really hard freeze right as many grape varieties were just budding out. There was some damage to some vineyards resulting in crop loss as much as 50%. Then after a normal but very dry summer, the record heat wave struck, 5 days over 100F and 5 nights in the 80F’s putting extreme stress on ripening fruit. And then adding insult to injury, 2 inches of rain. It was one of the most confounding and complicated growing seasons ever. More on that when the 2022’s are ready for release in 2024.
Halloween
Halloween is usually the first sign that the wonderful long slog that is harvest and winemaking is about to wrap up. When bright orange pumpkins start appearing all over town, we know the harvest season is almost over.
Chickens
As the cold weather settles in at the Hydeout, the chicken egg production starts to fall off as the chickens shift their energy from egg production to winter feather production. And in our case, they also start flying the coop and hiding their eggs in hilarious hard-to-find places.
Final garden harvest
As is the tradition in the Fall, it’s time to harvest the last of the garden produce, clean it up, and pickle it all in bell jars.
Wood slab table – restarting an old project
In 2020, St Helena in Napa Valley was surrounded by the Glass fire. Acres of gorgeous oak forest was lost. With help from friends, I located and set aside one of the fallen oaks and had one of the fire department crews mill it into oak slabs for me. The new table from this project will go into the new winery barn here at the Hydeout.
Two oak slabs, about 10 feet long and 18 inches wide, will be joined along the inside edges to form a new table. The outer live-edges still show the burn scars from the fire. It is a stark reminder of how the fires damaged lives and property.
Margaritas
By the time of the Thanksgiving holiday in late November, winemaking has truly concluded, and our Prickly Pear Cactus flowers are ripe. And that means it’s time for the whole family to get involved in producing our Prickly Pear Agave Nectar. And our tart, sweet, smoky, mezcal Margaritas!
Recipe: Click here!
Living art at the Hydeout
Dear friend, character, bon vivant, and Sonoma artist Jock McDonald, with assistance from his wife Sherry McDowell, set up a photo shoot for a new project Jock is developing called “TRASH.” I can’t say any more at this time as the final form of this new work is on its way to Art Basel in Miami, Florida right now! These are preliminary images only and in no way depict the final art form that Jock has developed. To learn more, click here.
FAMILY
This is the time of year we all gather as family and enjoy another wonderful year of life, trials, tribulations, health and happiness. Here is the entire Hydeout team:
Happy holidays from the entire Wornick family – Ken, Dennis, Sophia, Cynthia, Harry, with Elyse, Jessica, and Tony the dog
Oct 15, 2022 | Sagrantino, Dysfunctional Family Winery, Hydeout Sonoma, Sebastiani, Sonoma harvest 2022, Sonoma Valley
Setting up for a blind tasting of Sagrantino
Wine is to be enjoyed. Everyone gets to decide exactly what they like. Wine labels, the setting, the food, the mood; everything influences how we feel about a particular wine.
A genuinely blind tasting is the closest we can get to objectively measure one wine against another. And even then, the order of favorites can change – if the tasting is done before lunch or at dinner time, on weeknights or weekends, even the mood of the group, or just one small whispered remark, can re-order the evaluation and the results. Still, it is educational to taste wines blind, as we did here with these Sagrantino wines:
In this windowless cave under a spectacular private estate in Sonoma, we set up a blind tasting of Sagrantino wines.
The wines were bagged and numbered for complete anonymity.
Then, to assure strict adherence, all of the wines are poured in careful numbered order into wine glasses in advance, before the tasting panel entered the room
The panel was seated. And the hard work began. We tasted the wines one by one, making scrupulous notes along the way. It takes concentration and focus to really evaluate each wine carefully. The wines were judged on the basis of color, aroma, viscosity and mouthfeel, tannin structure, and finish.
The participants: When we were done tasting and making notes, the data was collected and tallied and force-ranked. Then, we revealed all the wines and had a free-wheeling discussion over the results. The professionals were quick, efficient, and showed great certainty.
From left to right, clockwise:
- Liz Thatch, Master of Wine and Distinguished Professor of Wine – click: Liz Thatch
- Graham Smith, CEO and wine collector – click: Graham Smith
- Anne Mieling, French-born wine expert – click: Anne Mieling
- Ingrid Reyes, CEO, M&A Creative Agency – click: Ingrid Reyes on LinkedIn
- Jennifer Arie, Director of Customer Success, Comm7 eCommerce platform – click: https://commerce7.com/about/
- Ken Wornick, winemaker, Sonocaia Sagrantino and Dysfunctional Family Winery – click: https://www.sonocaia.com
- Don Sebastiani, Sr., our host – click: http://donsebastianiandsons.com
- Steve Bush, former bio-med devices CEO, restauranteur, wine collector – click: Steve Bush
- Jon Curry, owner of Landers Curry, former board chair of Sonoma’s Int’l Film Festival – click: https://www.landerscurry.com/home
- Kelly Nice, CEO/Founder, Nice and Co. Ad Agency – click: https://www.niceandcompany.com
- Keith Casale, local Sonoma CFO – click: Keith Casale
- Cynthia Wornick, Dir. of Marketing, Sonocaia and DysfunctionalFamily Winery – click: Cynthia Wornick
Note: our host for this event was Don Sebastiani, Sr. (#7 above). A true gentleman, host extraordinaire, smoker of fine cigars, lover of fine wine and food, fluent speaker of at least five languages, a true Sonoma native, and so modest you’d never know any of this about Don unless someone else told you.
A total of eight wines were evaluated – seven pure Sagrantinos from Umbria, Italy, and our 2020 Sonocaia (just-bottled estate reserve Sagrantino from Dysfunctional Family Winery at the Hydeout Ranch here in Sonoma).
Wines revealed – here are the 8 wines revealed after the blind tasting:
I was floored that our inaugural, very young, and not-yet-released 2020 Sonocaia Estate Reserve Sagrantino earned a strong third place, especially against these world-renowned Umbrian all-stars.
First through third place were tightly bunched, the next wine was a very distant fourth.
- Arnoldo Caprai 2003 Collepiano Sagrantino di Montefalco (99 pts)
- Arnold Caprai, 2016 Montefalco Sagrantino, 25th anniversary edition (97 pts)
- Sonocaia, 2020, Sonoma Valley, Sagrantino, Estate Reserve (94 pts)
The full lineup of Sagrantino wines – seven from Umbria and one from Sonoma
After the tasting, the panel retired outdoors to the patio for discussion and a perfectly curated lunch hosted by Don Sebastiani Sr. and prepared and served by renowned Chef David Bush from Oso Restaurant in downtown Sonoma. If you have not yet visited OSO, please do; it is a wonderful, locally-operated delicious family-owned restaurant.
Chef David Bush has a storied track record of amazing stops on the culinary trail, but certainly his restaurant Oso in downtown Sonoma is his crowning jewel, so far! Find it here: OSO Restaurant in Sonoma
The “Sonocaia” estate Sagrantino vineyard during a particularly lovely sunset in early September. Harvest is not expected until mid-October.
But wait, there’s more, another blind wine tasting event: Hydeout Consulting client “Quail Run 2020 Estate Cabernet”, just bottled, competes with older Cabernet wine country legends and comes out a winner!
We are the consulting winemakers for the Quail Run estate Cabernet. Just a couple of weeks ago, we delivered the 2020 vintage to the client. The wine was bottled after 23 months of oak aging. The client organized an inaugural blind tasting and invited a knowledgeable group of friends and neighbors to participate. I admit I was a bit nervous knowing this newly bottled inaugural vintage (and possibly my career) was about to go head-to-head against some of the finest Cabernet’s in my client’s formidable wine cellar!
Quail Run 2020 was tasted against Stone Edge Farm 2014, Repris 2018, and Stag’s Leap 2019…
The contestants in this blind wine tasting event.
At the winery, Quail Run estate Cabernet clients Jan and Patrick (right) tasting their developing 2020 estate Cabernet in August 2022 just prior to bottling.
And fresh off the bottling line, the Quail Run estate Cabernet, Sonoma Valley.
A good friend of the client, Austin Texas expert wine educator Jim Bushee, wrote a blog post about the Quail Run blind tasting. To see the results, read here: Click here to read Jim Bushee’s blog post
The client also wrote a blog post about her version of the tasting: Quail Run estate Cabernet blind tasting blog post
Dec 23, 2021 | rain, drought, Hydeout Sonoma, Jack London State Park, Sonoma lifestyle, Sonoma Valley
Give thanks for the rain in your life which waters the flowers of your soul.
Join us as we tour our way around Sonoma County and celebrate the arrival, finally, of the long awaited rains.
And at the bottom of this post, tell us your stories of how you’ve enjoyed the rainy weather?…
When it comes to growing wine grapes, the 2021 vintage in Sonoma was stressful. It rained a mere 13 inches total, and most of that rain fell in three brief events separated widely with hot sunny days. Hardly any water percolated into the root zone of the grape vines. So in many cases, growers had to use a lot of water from deep wells to drip into the vineyard. Conditions are already way better in the 2022 vintage – thanks to all of this early rain. It has rained over 13 inches and it’s still just December 2021. And even better, we haven’t had any sunny days or warm temperatures in between rain events, so the ground has remained saturated and damp. Rain water is far superior to drip irrigation. But that’s a science story for another time. For now, let’s just celebrate getting wet…
Video: the Arroyo Seco starts to flow
Jack London State Park was toasted to a crisp by the end of the summer. But when the rain finally came, the park cam alive.
Video: On a hike in Jack London State Park
By December 23rd, the water level of the Arroyo Seco was starting to rise
Video: After another night of heavy rain, the Arroyo Seco flow increased
Rain poured off the roof and down the rain chains and sang it’s happy song. This rain water is going directly into our DYS Sagrantino vineyard, our estate red wine, a rare central-Italian red found mostly in Umbria. It’s recently been noted to contain some of the highest polyphenol (antioxidants) levels of any red wine on earth. (vineyard visible in the background).
Video: At the Hydeout, the rain poured down heavy from the roof
Before the rains really got under way, contractors connected all of the Hydeout Ranch rain gutters to the hand-dug well capturing rain, stopping wasteful erosion, and recycled back onto the land (white riser pipe)
And they built a Gabian wall to capture most of the runoff into the ag sump from this small ditch at the edge of the ranch
Video: the new Gabian wall, a beauty of natural construction materials, functions as a dam to hold back water in this minor ditch
Hydeout Ranch animal sanctuary – when we bought the ranch, a fence had been built long ago (as was the habit then) right up against the creek edge. That old fence prevented animals (and people) from safely visiting and moving along the riparian corridor. One of the first projects I undertook was to take down that old fence and built a new fence 150 feet west of the creek. In addition, I built just next to the new fence a long high pile of logs and green waste. Now, with several acres of land open adjacent to the creek, and lots of safe spaces to nest in the log piles, wild animals have returned to occupy this land, including hawks, owls, buzzards, skunks, rabbits, gophers, moles, voles, raccoons, and even a million worms in every puddle.
Video: the peaceful sanctuary providing animals with access to land and water
It rained so hard last night, even the fenced animal sanctuary started to flood. It was fun to wade through it in my knee-high rain boots.
Video: Wading through the large puddle in the animal sanctuary
On my walk this morning along the edge of the creek, I came across the horseshoe. At one time, the Hydeout Ranch housed over one hundred horses and perhaps this horseshoe was tossed or thrown into the creek long ago.
One of the prized smaller oaks at the ranch responds to the rain with almost overnight new growth. The red bench sits under the tree next to the doggy cemetery where our Oliver rests. A few years ago, all five of us gathered, dug the hole, wrapped Oliver in a blanket and buried him here.
A quick ride around the ranch to check on things between storms
In other news:
In the lab at the winery, checking pH, TA, and VA levels for wines of the still-fermenting vintage 2021
Video: Lab wine reagents bubbling away
A final flashback to the middle of the pandemic summer of 2021, one of the driest on record.
Happy holidays and happy new year to all of our blog post readers, now numbering over 1000 strong and growing.
Go here to visit: Hydeout Sonoma Ranch
Go here to order wine for pick or delivery: Dysfunctional Family Winery
Oct 16, 2021 | 2021 harvest, Dysfunctional Family Winery, Hydeout Sonoma, mustard blooming, Sonoma, Sonoma Farming, Sonoma lifestyle, Sonoma Valley
For Hydeout Sonoma and Dysfunctional Family Winery, it’s another wine harvest in the books. Vintage number twenty-three for me.
Here is a quick pictorial essay of the entire 2021 season.
On a bright blue day in February, pruning of the dormant vines is the first order of business (here we severely pruned an old vine Zinfandel block and piled up these cuttings for a local artist’s wood project)
The vines after pruning, a bit of rain falls, and the mustard cover crop starts to push
Soon the mustard is towering over the vines (here I am in a drone-shot in a newly planted Cabernet block)
It will be time soon to begin actively farming for the season, and so we start prepping the equipment for the next few months of heavy use.
But grapevines are hardy and soon the vine shoots are elongated, and deep inside the canopy the fruit begins to flower and set.
And our garden at the Hydeout responds to the summer heat with a bountiful harvest
And the next thing you know, like magic, tons of fruit is ripening quickly.
The first morning of harvest, and I am headed out at 4:00am, the car still a comfy 71F from being in the garage, but it’s a chilly 48F outside.
I arrive to find the crew well underway with harvest, as the first few vines get picked.
And after a long season of work, the half-ton bins begin to fill with ripe dark inky fruit
The sun rises and last few rows of this block get harvested.
And soon many tons of perfectly ripe fruit are ready for delivery to the winery
And eight long weeks later, the last bin of fruit is picked and is headed for the flatbed truck, and the team takes a big sigh of relief.
And now the work moves to the winery, here tank #20 is cleaned and prepped for some ripe Syrah from Kenwood
The yeast selection for this cuveé has been made, and this particular selection is a powerful one that will reliably finish fermentation in high-alcohol super-ripe red wines
Excited clients, family, and friends stop by the winery to celebrate a year’s worth of effort safely in tank
And once fermentation is complete a few weeks later, the wines are “barreled down” and the season is put to bed!
Click on these live-action videos to get the real feel of the moment:
Picking fruit by hand on a steep hillside
Filling a half-ton bin from the forty pound lug boxes
At the winery, raw fruit from the field is processed in the destemmer
After the harvest, some wine-loving friends gather to share ten special old bottles from our cellars:
- Botte Frères Vin D’Alsace Gerwertztraminer, 1990, Cuvee Exceptional
- Gundlach Bundshu, Sonoma Valley, 1990, Cabernet Sauvignon
- Clos Fourtet, 1st Grand Cru Classé, Saint Emilion, 2005
- Grand Vin De La Chateau Latour, Paula, 1990
- Haywood, Spaghetti Red, Sonoma Valley, 1983
- Silver Oak, Alexander Valley, 2003, Cabernet Sauvignon
- Hansen, Limited Release, Paso Robles, 2009, Cabernet Sauvignon
- Dalla Valle Vineyards, Napa Valley, 1994 Cabernet Sauvignon
- Dalla Valle Vineyards, Napa Valley, 1996 Cabernet Sauvignon
- Senots Yendick, Napa Valley, 1999, Cabernet Sauvignon
And there’s just enough time before winter arrives for this winemaker to head off to Ennis, Montana for some fresh air
