Spring Report
It sure has been a very interesting and fun spring for Rebecca and I. So much going on in our little Ampelos world. Time to give you an update:
2024 Weather So Far...
Our beautiful green "backyard" - from all the rain we have got this year
Let's start out with the weather. Sounds trivial? Well, when you are a farmer the weather is paramount and although we worry a lot about it, we are constantly reminded about how good it actually is! How reliable it is and how few challenges it gives us compared to many other winegrowing regions in the world. Our proximity to the cold Pacific Ocean (just 15 miles west – and 10 miles south) combined with the fact that we are as close to Equator as Northern Morocco gives us these unique and stable weather conditions.
This year has been wet and cold so far! Kind of like 2023 with almost 2 ½ times average rainfall and just a few evenings where Rebecca and I could sit outside – last evening she had to put on her parka and heated socks to enjoy the sunset on the patio. But it has been great for the vines! Late bud break, late flowering and with the high amount of rain we were way into spring before we could get our tractors into the vineyard to work on the cover crop. The weeds sure had a great time – but so did the vines and from my weekly farming meeting with Jeff Newton this morning we are observing how well the shoots and leaves have developed. Looking good out there – it will probably be a late harvest again this year.
Flowers And Fruit Set
Pinot Noir clusters are done with flowering and we have fruit set
When the Pinot Noir clusters finally started flowering due to the cold weather it took forever to reach fruit set when the flowers are pollinated and the tiny berries start growing. And this morning visit I observed that Syrah and Grenache is still not there yet – well, they are always behind: bud break, flowering, veraison and harvest. But we have learned to live with it and plan our farming activities accordingly.
Once we have fruit set we check the success by putting a flat hand under a cluster and tap on it to determine how much falls off - the shatter are the flowers that didn’t pollinate. The less shatter and better set the higher the yields will be. From this morning’s tapping I am very happy with set!
Bottling with Kurt
Great time bottling with Kurt
For almost 15 years we have been working together with Kurt Russell to make his GoGi wines. Always great spending time together with him at the ranch, in the vineyard or at the winery. A few weeks ago we bottled his 2021 “Chantilly” Pinot Noir – all based on Ampelos Vineyard grapes and blended from barrels of clones that we selected from a long afternoon of tasting, blending, evaluating…and having fun.
His vintages of Pinot Noir are always named after a family member’s nickname. This time it was Laci who was there at the bottling without knowing that it was her turn to have “Chantilly” on the label. Here is a little, fun video from our GoGi bottling day: https://vimeo.com/953756797/0594b7fa17
We later wrapped up at the ranch enjoying a beautiful sunset concluding another successful bottling.
Travel Time
Custom blending with my old friend Per Hartlev and his "crew"
April was time for my annual market visit to Denmark, which is always a highlight of the year. Time to meet up with our distributer showing wines and telling stories, visit existing and new accounts and give them updates, meet with media (got a nice two full page story out of that), bunch of winemaker dinners around in the country, business lunches talking about new projects and off course spending time with great friends and family.
When I prepare for the trip I always head to the barrel room the day before to pull and hand bottle barrel samples. I haul them with me to Copenhagen and use them for sampling and blending. This time it resulted in five new projects for different Danish companies where we created custom blends based on their preferences of Pinot Noir clones and Syrah/Grenache components. Always such a great time doing these winemaker-for-a-day events!
Tasting our 2023 barrels with Marie Von Ahm and the rest of the Binivista team
I wrapped up with a short trip to Spain meeting up with our friends at BiniVista Winery on the island of Mallorca. It was really exciting to taste through our nine 2023 barrels with Syrah, Grenache and Marselan – all cofermented except for a small special lot. Such a great project!
SOBR (Sustainable/Organic/Biodynamic/Regenerative) Update
Typical summer evening in Sta. Rita Hills: Evening fog is rolling from the ocean
And finally this newsletters SOBR section: Our great friend Shelby who is in charge of the Visit Santa Ynez Valley organization asked me for a quote to some media about what makes our area unique for SOBR farming and winemaking. Somehow this just flew out of my keyboard:
"Our unique, reliable climate, amazing soil structures, farming labor and spirit, the sharing experience camaraderie and maybe most important the ongoing desire and new frontier spirit we have for improving our farming and winemaking makes SYV the perfect incubator for Sustainable, Organic, Biodynamic and Regenerative philosophies and principles."
How blessed we are to be living here
Wrapping up for now! Hope you enjoyed reading this – I love writing it.
All the best from Rebecca and Peter!
Be good to yourself and others - and enjoy great wine!
Cheers!