Happy New Year! We hope to see you in 2008!

All of us at Lost Canyon Winery wish you a Happy New Year!
Please check in with us in January for a list of events for 2008.
We will be lining up an event every month and the blog will be active reviewing the events.
Hope you are celebrating with Lost Canyon Wine!!

Holiday party and December 2007 Open House

We have been preparing for weeks for our wine club member annual party and the December 1 and 2 Open House and now they are a glimmer in the past. Friday night was a great evening. The cellar cleaned up nicely, hard to remember those grape covered days. Jack chopped down a Christmas tree from half moon bay and we had it decorated near the entrance for all to enjoy. Randy put up the spot lights, highlighting the barrels containing our 2007 wines and we had the Christmas lights wrapped around the ceiling beams on as well (they are up all the time, but this is the only time of your we have them on). Martha had been preparing and cooking for days. This was the menu...the food was fantastic!!! Enjoy the photos from the event. Thanks, Wine Club members for making Lost Canyon Winery what it is! Also, thanks to the volunteers that helped out with the craziness on Friday night and the open houses. We really couldn't do it without you all. Happy Holidays!!!!

Beef & chorizo empanaditas

Pair with Trenton Station Syrah

Prosciutto and fig jam on baked brie crostini

Pair with Stage Gulch Syrah

Vegetarian version: fig jam & Gorgonzola cheese crostini

Pair with Alegria Syrah

Roasted five spice duck in scallion-hoisin crepe

Pair with Morelli Lane and Widdoes Pinot

Vegetarian persimmon, pear, golden raisin relish on Fontina crostini

Pair with Saralee Pinot

RRV Pinot Noir release party

The RRV Pinot Noir release party was this Saturday from 1-5pm. It was a success. Martha did all the delicious food. There was toasted brie on bread, Gruyere puffs, Pate and olives.
There were a lot of local wine events going on....Periscope cellars, Urbano Cellars, Rosenblum Cellars and Dashe Cellars. At our release party, we had some media and trade friends show up along with new walkins and lots of wine club members (this was the first time they could pick up their futures).
Our wine club members have been very excited about our new Pinot Noir, Widdoes vineyard from Dutton Ranch. These grapes are in the Green Valley AVA, which is a smaller AVA in the larger RRV AVA. This wine consists of only 1 clone, the Berringer suitcase clone, also known as the Martini clone. If you haven't tried this one yet, get down to our tasting room Friday-Sunday from 1-6pm for a tasting. This Pinot Noir will go quick. We only made 350 cases!! I was pouring Widdoes Pinot Noir on Friday to some chemical sales guys and one of them described the smell of the Widdoes as the inside of a new Cadillac. I don't personally agree with his nose, but I thought it was a cool description.

Roy's Art show with Lost Canyon Wine

I know this post is a little late, but there was a lot of work to be done. We are planning many upcoming events that are going to be a good time. We promise!


Roy Tomlinson's event at Lost Canyon was Nov. 3 from 3-6pm. It was a great turnout!! We had about 100 people come through and check out Roy's photos (not his usual media) from around the 'hood. Roy also opened up his studio space for folks to walk through and check out his paintings. Check out his website for more info on his paintings: http://roytomlinson.com/ They are dark and sophisticated. Roy has got some serious talent, we are very lucky to have him as our neighbor!!!
This Saturday is our Russian River Valley Pinot Noir Release Party. It is from 1-5pm and we will be pouring all of our new releases all day! This new vintage is fantastic, but I may be biased because this is my first vintage as assistant winemaker. Come and taste for yourself! The event is $10 at the door, free to wine club members and this includes some delicious snacks paired with our wines.

Harvest week Oct. 29-Nov. 4

While I was basking in the sun, vacationing in Michigan for the week (just kidding, I was there for my little brother's wedding), Randy, Jack and Martha were hard at work finishing up the crush. On Tuesday, they put the 07 Stage Gulch Syrah into barrels!! Hurray, we have finished. All of our babies are resting in their barrels. Now, we will continue to monitor their fermentation and top them off every 3 weeks.
Harvest is over and all the events are coming! Nov. 17 is our 06 Pinot Noir release party from 1-6pm, our wine club party is on Nov. 30 from 6-10pm, and our Holiday Open House is Dec. 1 and 2 from 1-5pm. The cellar will be all cleaned up and decorated for the holiday celebrations.

Havest week Oct. 22-28, Almost done!

Tuesday, we barreled all of the Trenton Station Syrah. This took up about 30 barrels! Wednesday, we started our last press for Stage Gulch Syrah. We had 13 bins and usually we do about 3-4 bins into the press before we run it. Today we pushed it and loaded in 5 bins for 1 press so we could do it all in only 3 stages instead of 4. It all fit and we were feeling pretty good about ourselves. We were eating lunch when the press was running so we could keep an eye on it. All went well. The press finished and we emptied out the dried skins and stems and got set up to do the 2nd out of 3 presses. I started to hear this beeping noise like an alarm clock. We looked around to see what it was and it was coming from the forklift. It was an error message saying BRUSHES. We shut it on and off and it was still beeping. Randy called the service station and they said we had to stop using it immediately or we would cause permanent damage. They thought they could get a service representative out either today or tomorrow. We were so close to being done! We waited for a bit to see if the service person would be there in a timely manner and fix the forklift so we could continue, but he arrived at 2pm and fixed the forklift until about 4pm. Needless to say, we had to clean up and continue the next day to finish the press. Next week, we just need to barrel the Stage Gulch and it will be all quiet in the winery. The babies will be in their barrels!

Harvest week Oct 15- 21, 2007

Earlier this week, we prepared for the "Uniqueness of Syrah" Seminar. This involved shopping at K&L wine shop in SF to find wines that we wanted to be represented in the presentation. We bought a Syrah from Northern Rhone, Southern Australia, Chile, and Lodi region. Then, the research began...we had to sample all of these wines, along with our 2 Syrahs and take tasting notes. The event was on Saturday from 3-5pm and 32 people attended. It was a hit! On Thursday night, Jack and I poured at the Taste event sponsered by East Bay Express at the Swarm gallery in Oakland. It was a nice event. Check out this weeks copy of the East Bay Express, there is an insert that has the local wineries (Dashe, JC, Periscope and Rosenblum) map along with a bottle shot.

On Friday we pressed the first Syrah, the Alegria vineyard, and barreled Widdoes, the last Pinot Noir. Sunday, we were back in the cellar putting in a full day of pressing Trenton Station, which was 12 tons, and barreling the Alegria. The Syrah grapes seemed to be juicier this year, because we calculated how much juice we thought we would have from the press and we seemed to have more. When we checked the back tank, we were right to the rim!!!! We monitored closer for filling the next tank! Randy and I were trying to move a hose to the other tank with the use of the pump and we failed to shut off the valve so we both got lots of wine if the face. Oh, the joys of winemaking...guess we got our yearly wine shower!! We are just one press and 2 barrelings away from being done.

Harvest week Oct. 8 - 14, The grapes are all in!!!!

Monday, we pressed the Saralee 115 Pinot Noir. The previous week, we got a call from Peter, our grape broker for Stage Gulch, he thought the grapes would be ready sometime this weekend. However, with the forecast of rain for Tuesday there was a scramble to get the grapes picked. The grapes were picked Tuesday morning and were delivered to us on Wednesday afternoon, 9.94 tons. This was such a good thing, since it rained Tuesday night and again on Friday!!!
We lined up several volunteers to help out with the sorting and destemming. The whole process seemed to take a long time, but I think it was just because we were tired from all of the other crushes. We are truly happy to have all of our grapes in.
The Stage Gulch grapes will cold soak for 2 days and then we will inoculate them with yeast. In this time that they are fermenting, about 2 weeks, we do 3 manual punch downs a day, everyday! The yeast are converting sugar to alcohol and give off carbon dioxide which pushes the skins to the top of the bin. We want the skins to be in contact with the juice for maximum color and flavor extraction. So, when we do the punch down we are pushing the skins back into the juice. Check back in next week for more barreling and pressing!

Harvest week, October 1- 7, 2007

It is Syrah time!!! Syrah grapes have thicker skins than Pinot Noir and the clusters aren't so tight together. These are the Alegria grapes.


This week we barreled the Morelli Lane Pinot Noir and pressed the UCD 18 Las Brisas Pinot Noir on Wednesday. Thursday, Jack and Randy rented a truck to drive up to RRV to get the Alegria Syrah grapes. Martha and I stayed behind to clean and set up all of the equipment so we would be ready to go when they returned with the grapes. However, things did not go that smoothly....Randy and Jack got stuck in traffic and didn't arrive at the Alegria vineyard until 10:30am, then they had to wait for the pickers to pick 5 tons of Syrah grapes. They got back on the road around 2:30pm and ended up at the winery at 4pm (we had projected they would arrive at Lost Canyon Winery at 1pm!!!). This crush took way longer because the grapes were picked in 1 ton bins and we had to dump them into 1/2 ton bins to fit on the sorting machine. We acted quickly because we had to maximize our use of daylight hours. The grapes came in at 27brix. Most volunteers bailed due to the lateness of the grapes. However, Mike Hardie came to the rescue and a new volunteer showed up too, along with Jack's son in law!!! It was a long night and their help was very appreciated. After everything was all cleaned up it was 9:30pm!

Saturday, we had our biggest crush, 12 tons! We had 5 volunteers come in to help us with Trenton Station Syrah. These grapes looked great, and were at 25 brix. The crushing process was done in record time, 11am-2:30pm we crushed 12 tons. I thought we would be going until 5pm. The sorting crew was awesome! Thanks, volunteers!!

Also, took some photos from the point of view at the top of the crusher. Enjoy! Only one more vineyard to go.....Stage Gulch coming next week.

Harvest week Sept 24- Oct 1, 2007 All the Pinot Noir is in!

The Viognier has taken off with it's fermentation, so a task we have to deal with is keeping it cold while it is fermenting. Normally during this period the temperatures creeps up to 90-95 F, but we want to keep it at 60F or so. This ensures those beautiful aromatics that Viognier is known for having. Since we are not really equipped to make white wine, we have to keep the tanks cold by our own devices. I was at Pagano's in Alameda and I saw these large over the door hanging hamper bags and thought we could hang them on the outside of the tanks and keep filling them with ice. Then, Jack thought we should use some insulated foam to wrap it up and keep the cold in. It is working pretty good, but they look like debutantes with formal gowns on. What do you think?












We started the week off with pressing Saralee's Pinot Noir 777 clone along with Las Brisas Pinot Noir Swan clone. We loaded 3 bins into the press each time and ran the 20 minute program with no glitches. We let the wines rest in the tanks until Thursday and then we put the wines into the appropriate barrels (50% new and 50% old and we match the particular barrels with the wines).
Saturday, we had our last bit of Pinot Noir come in from the Widdoes Vineyard. We gathered a couple volunteers to help out with our expected 7tons, but only 2.5 tons came!!! With all of the help, we were done in no time! Thanks volunteers for helping us sort through the grapes. They came in cold, looked beautiful and tasted great. The sugar was an average of 26 brix.
Sunday, we were back at it, pressing Morelli Lane Pinot Noir. Now, it will stay in the tanks for several days. We will barrel it this week and wait to hear from the growers about how our Syrah grapes are coming along. And so it goes on.....

Harvest week Sept 17-23, 2007

This was a very busy week for us, here at Lost Canyon winery. Tuesday we received UCD 18 clone from Las Brisas vineyard in Carneros. Once again, the weight was lighter than projected (we expected 1 ton), .78 tons and came in at 25 brix. These grapes came in around 1pm and we were done a couple of hours later sorting and crushing.
Wednesday, we pressed our clone 37 from Saralee's vinyeard and 115 from Las Brisas Carneros region. This was our first press of the year and we had to relearn how to operate our bladder press. Everything went pretty smooth. The color of the Pinot Noirs this year is a beautiful purple color, not like last year where we really struggled with color. After pressing, we pump the juice over into the tanks and we let the wine settle for a couple of days before putting them into the barrels. At this time the fermentation is complete, there is less than 1/2 % sugar left.









Friday, we had the remaining grapes from Saralee's Pinot Noir vineyard come in, along with the Viognier. Once again, we had anticipated 7 tons and got in 5 tons of the 115 clone Pinot Noir. The grapes looked great and came in around 9am. The Pinot Noir was at 25 brix and the Viognier was at 28 brix! We had volunteers to come in and help us out with the sorting, and we were done by noon, but still had to press the Viognier. We realized later that when pressing the Viognier it takes longer (for Pinot we run the program for 20 minutes and with Viognier we have to run it for 90 minutes) and we had to do the 2 tons in 2 batches, so we were here until 8pm. Next time, we will sort the Viognier first, press and then crush the rest of the Pinot Noir (Rick, our volunteer pointed this out to us, thanks!)!!!






Saturday, we started at 11am so we could sleep in a bit (my suggestion). We had to rack off the Viognier that we had settling in the tank after pressing it. We started the yeast in the Viognier after we moved the juice into 3 tanks. Then we put the 37 and the 115 clones into appropriate barrels (that we had pressed on Wednesday). It was a long week!

Harvest Week 3, Sept 10-Sept 16

Above is what a Pinot Noir cluster looks like. They are tight, pine cone shaped bunches.

On Tuesday, Sept. 11, we had slightly less than 2 tons of Las Brisas Pinot Noir, Swan clone. This year has been a strange year for us, in that all of the clones that are blended into the wine are ripening on different dates and are coming in at different times. The Swan clone is one of my favorites from the Las Brisas Vineyard. The clusters were cool, tasted great and we found no mold. The brix were at 26. Peter Brehm brought the grapes to us around 11am and we were finished at 2pm. We were starving and quickly darted off to Luka's taproom for a big lunch with some Belgian beer.

Wednesday was my 34th birthday so I was glad to not have grapes! Martha, our intern, took me out for lunch at Pappo in Alameda and made me a Princess cake (Swedish tradition).
Thursday, Sept. 13, we had anticipated 12 tons of grapes at noon from Morelli Lane vineyard. I emailed 15 of our volunteers to round up some help. The grapes ended up coming in at 10:30am and there were slightly less than 8 tons. The clones that make up this wine are: 113, 115, and pommard. We processed them all together and the average brix was 25.5.
We had about 5 volunteers show up to help sort through the Morelli Lane grapes. It was great to have the extra help, even though we got started earlier than expected and it was less grapes than we thought. We had the weekend off from grapes! We still are waiting for the remaining Saralee's Pinot Noir, remaining Las Brisas Pinot Noir and Viognier grapes should be ready soon too. Keep checking in, we aren't even half way through.

2nd week of Harvest

We thought this week was going to by busy with grape deliveries, but the weather cooled off and now the sugars in the grapes weren't skyrocketing like they were last week. Wednesday we had 2 tons of grapes (clone 115) delivered from Las Brisas vineyard in the Carneros region. We kept getting calls all day about when the grapes were to arrive and they ended up coming in at 5:30pm. I ran out to get us all dinner just before then so we were able to eat before we started crushing. The grapes were just picked that day and they were warm to the touch. We sorted through the grapes and they looked pretty good. The sugar in the grapes were high, 27 brix. We finished with everything around 8:30pm.
The next delivery of grapes was from Saralee Kunde.....it was set for 5:30am on Friday with 14tons, 2 clones of Pinot Noir. Randy and Jack accepted the delivery of the grapes at 5:30am and I showed up at 6am. When I came in the guys told me that they only delivered 7tons of grapes, only the 777 clone of Pinot Noir. Nonetheless, we got started and 6 volunteers arrived to assist in the process....it went smooth! These grapes were at 25 brix. We finished at about 10:30am. Then, we were able to enjoy some coffee and bagels (Martha, our lovely harvest intern provided.....thank you!!!!!). No grapes came in this weekend....it was nice to have some time off!! However, there are always punch downs to be done. Three times a day everyday the grapes need to be manually punched down until they are pressed. We have a schedule with all the Lost Canyon folks so none of us get too burnt out. At this point, we have received 11 tons...and 47 more to go. Keep checking in to see our progress.

First Crush, Saturday Septmeber 1, 2007

We thought we would be in the clear and have the Labor Day weekend off, but we found out Friday that 2 tons of grapes were being picked that evening and would be brought down Saturday morning at 8 a.m. This past week had been particularly busy at Lost Canyon. Wednesday and Thursday we filtered the four wines in preparation for bottling on Friday. We had an early start on Friday, 6:30 a.m., with the mobile bottling truck.




Thankfully, all went well and we finished at 2pm bottling 1700 cases (our biggest batch yet)!!!! This was done with the help of about 20 fabulous volunteers.


So, Saturday, we were slightly zombies, but the delivery of grapes was a small amount and was on time. These grapes were Pinot Noir, clone 37 from Saralee Kunde's vineyard and they were in great condition. This will be the first time for us working with this particular clone. At a tasting event hosted by Saralee Kunde's vineyard early in the year Jack and I noticed this clone really had a dark color for Pinot Noir and since the year before we had lots of light color for our Pinot Noirs we negotiated to include clone 37 in our Saralee Pinot Noir.


The engineers next to Lost Canyon Winery built us a custom dumper/sorter for the grapes. In previous years, this part of the crush had always always been back breaking. It would take about 5 people to sort through the grapes (picking out moldy clusters, leaves, stems and bugs) and to shovel the grapes from one container to the other. Now, the machine takes care of the lifting and pouring, allowing us to focus more closely on the important part: selecting the perfect grapes! We are still looking for a good name for the machine. I was thinking about Bertha.


We had to do extra cleaning on the crusher, since it was the first time we used it in a year. Our harvest intern, Martha Gustaffson, was quick at work in doing this job. The whole process went pretty smoothly and we were done by noon. The punchdowns have begun -- no rest for us winemakers. We do 3 manual punchdowns a day from here on out.

Today (Monday), I will do the afternoon punchdown and add the starter culture (Jack prepared this at the early punchdown) to the fermentation bins for the evening punchdown. Everyone helps out for the punchdown: Jack, Randy, Bob, Martha and myself. More grapes to come this week....please check back in for updates.

Lost Canyon Winery will be documenting the 2007 harvest right here.