Cellar Field Trip Part Two: Ramekins Culinary School

Immediately following our tour of G.B. we continue onto to Sonoma to the Ramekins Culinary School.

This trip was intended as a team building exercise where the production crew works together to make a meal for the group.  Here my bestie Mer and I are enjoying a refreshing beverage before getting down to work.

I was partnered with Alex and we were in charge of making pasta and a cake for dessert.  We made the dough from scratch and while we waited 45 minutes for it to rest we started making the cake for dessert. After 45 minutes we came back to it and started to roll it out.

Once our dough was rolled as thin as we could make it, we placed it on a Guitara and rolled it some more.  The wires separated the dough into thin strips.

This process took quite a while because we were making pasta for 16 people and it was a lot of rolling and flouring with frequent breaks to let everyone try to "play" the guitara.


On the other side of the room, team Mer and Rafa were busting out some shrimp and orzo salad.

The cellar guys look right at home in the kitchen with aprons and a glass of wine.  The program at the Culinary school prepares a menu, gathers all the ingredients, supplies the tools and facilities for cooking, as well as a cooking class but the best part was dirtying all the dishes we needed and not having to wash a single pot.  That is real luxury.

This is our Chef and guide through the experience.  Making pasta by hand is a mountain of effort and it's unlike I will tackle the endeavor again, but it was a lot of fun working with Alex and learning a new skill together.

Alex and I had time to make a buttermilk cake while we waited for our dough.  We were very proud.

Appetizers: Meatballs made by the crew with a salsa verde.

First course: Insalata Rustica.  Escarole, potatoes, bacon salami, onions.

Main Course: Fresh Linquine with a sausage, fenenel and tomato sauce.  Orzo salad with pine nuts, cherry tomatoes, shrimp and pesto.  Ricotta gnocchi with a prosciutto, parmesan and garlic cream sauce.

Dessert: Blackberry and moscato torta with chantilly cream

After 3.5 hours of food prep and cooking, we could finally enjoy all our hard work.  We had a lovely meal except for the part where everyone ate too much and felt sick all the way home to Napa.

-L

Cellar Field Trip Part One: Gundlach Bundschu

 
It's summer, which means time for the annual cellar field trip, and this year the whole production crew left the comfort of the Napa Valley for the hills of Sonoma.  We began our morning at Gundlach Bundschu.

As soon as we arrived they put the 12 of us in this truck and took us on a vineyard safari.  This is an open air, 12 person Swiss army truck called a Pinzgauer, which they more affectionately refer to as their "baby elephant".


It was a cold, overcast morning, not the best time to be going on a vineyard safari but it was a great way to get to see all of the property.  The estate vineyards cover 320 acres and range up to 150 feet in elevation.  The last place I worked at had 60 estate acres and we saw them all on foot.


The different elevations allow them to grow specific varietals suited for different climates.  This property seemed to be the opposite of the typical Napa Valley site.  In Napa, the warm climate varietals are grown on the valley floor and hillside, while the cooler climates are found up in the mountains.  On this property, below 150 feet they grow their earlier ripening, high acid varieties (Pinot noir, Gewurztraminer and Chardonnay) because the cool air settles on the valley floor.

The steep hillsides above 150 feet are planted with Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet franc, Petit Verdot, Malbec, Syrah and Zinfandel.

Also, there was a lake.



One of the vineyards was being ripped out, very old vines.  The estate is 153 years old, which is  nothing for France, but significant for a California vineyard. It's sad to see a ripped out vineyard because you know you wont get fruit from the land for another 5 years (if you replant quickly), but I really like the way the mangled piles look out in the vast open field.

On the tour of the property we ran into this guy. His name is Lunch and he is a Watusi African Longhorn cow.

This is Dinner, he is a second Watusi African Longhorn cow.  Our guide couldn't really explain why these guys were here, except that they had been on the property since they were babies and they forgot to eat them and now they are too old, so they let them be.  Does old cow taste bad?

The 40 minute tour of the 320 acres of G.B. ended at the entrance to their cave.  It was finally time to taste the wines from the vineyards. 

Inside the cave the barrels were stacked either one high or two high in some wings.  It wasn't a very efficient cave, lots of tight corners and narrow aisles, a very difficult and unpleasant place to work.  I imagine it was built so long ago and they have since out grown the space with their expanding production.  But you make do with what you have.

However, what the cave lacked in efficiency it made up for in style.  In the middle of the cave there was a very snazzy tasting area.

 I really liked the logo etched on the back wall.

We had a tasting of 6 wines they make.  First was the Gewurzts., which had a lovely aroma and flavor but lacked acid and therefore structure.  Second was the Chardonnay which I was very impressed by, especially since I do not like Chard.  It had the minerality of a wine made with no oak but a creamy roundness that comes uniquely from oak, well balnced.  Next was a Pinot, which was good.  And then 3 examples of Cabernet Sauvignon, all worth trying.

On our way out these chiar caught my eye.  I love barrel furniture, a great way to recycle old barrels.

So ended Part One of the field trip.


-L


Up Next: Ramekins Culinary School.

Day Trip: San Diego (Extended)

Since the lab is still in pieces, it seemed like a good time to take a day trip to San Diego.  It was weird getting up in the morning and heading to the airport without any preparation and boarding a plane without any luggage.  I imagine it's how movie stars travel.  Without the Southwest part.

A small team of us left the Sacramento airport and an hour an a half later arrived in San Diego.  I like how close the plane gets to the city, feels like we might land on top of a building.

We went to San Diego to learn more about RFID Chips, since we will be putting them on every wine bottle.  These are examples of chips they can make.  We are putting them on every bottle and case and pallet for authenticity and traceability.  Wine fraud is an increasing problem, especially in China.  These chips will allow us to tie the bottles to a specific case and those cases to a specific pallet (56 cases).  We will encode them with information including the bottling date to be able to scan a specific bottle and trace it all the way back to the winery.

This machine makes RFID chips.  We requisitioned a specific shape that would be virtually undetectable under the label.  This is in addition to a QR code that is visible on the back label.  Did I mention that fraud is a growing problem?  For some very high end wines in some foreign countries, after the wine is poured at the table the bottle is required to be broken at the table in full view of everyone.  This was to prevent someone from fishing the bottle from the trash, filling it with unknown cheap wine, recorking it and selling it for an obscene amount of money.

It sounds a little silly to counterfeit wine, but I think it happens because it is so easy.  It is easy to fill a $500 bottle with $2 wine and sell it for $700 or more if people don't know what to look for.


This is what the chip making machine looks like on the inside.

Bet you're thinking about counterfeiting wine now.


These are examples of all the shapes they can make chips in.  Authenticity is a growing concern in many areas it seems.

These are for a wrist band for concerts or events.

This is the style that will go on the back label of our wine bottles.  The coils are aluminum and two circles stretched across the coils are the antenna.


The chips are made all at once, as are the wine labels so the two rolls have to be combined into a single roll, which will ultimately go on the bottling line and onto the individual bottles.

The Tortilla Machine makes it happen.  The Tortilla Machine only combines the two pieces.  The information we wish to encode on the chips is done in a separate step by a different machine.

Now each back label has it's own RFID chip and goes on to a second process to be encoded, which can be seen in the video.  Each label/chip combination is encoded with our desired information and then re-read to see if the information was transferred.  If it was not, and the chip fails, it gets marked and the machine goes on to the next one. 

The Tortilla Machine in action:

After a whole roll has gone through the encoder, it gets taken to the third step.  The third step of the process is manual.  If a chip fails and cannot be read by the computer, it has to be removed by hand and a working chip and label has to be placed in the missing spot, otherwise we will have problems when we label the bottles on the bottling line.  It is tedious work.

So if you were thinking about counterfeiting wine, think twice.  A lot of work is going towards prevention.

Ahh, the beautiful California coast line.  Our work at the factory is done, unfortunately we were only able to spend a few short hours in San Diego.

That's ok, drinks on the flight home were a nice end to a long day.  Fighting crime is hard work.

-L

My Lab: A No Work Zone

Remodel project in the lab.  New wall going up, very exciting!

 It's difficult to work when your lab looks like this.  So, I'm not getting very much work done.

 Everything is in boxes on pallets outside the lab.

Careful! Chemicals are not being properly stored!

I should have my lab back soon, and better than ever.  But in the mean time I will enjoy the break.

-L