Springtime Up In Here

At the beginning of April many vines were still dormant.  The only green was the weeds growing between the rows.


By the end of April, all the buds have broken and the shoot are developing leaves.  Also, the rows have been cultivated (weeds and grasses removed) and the only green in the vineyard is coming from the vines.  It's important to remove the cover crop (intentional plantings that give nutrients and enrich the soil during the dormant season) and weeds (unintentional plants that grow) to minimize competition for water and soil nutrients to the young developing vines.


It finally looks like spring in Napa.  It also feels like spring because it is warm and allergies are fierce.


Back in the lab I am still soaking corks.  These are the large format corks for the 3L, 6L and 9L bottles.  Because we bottle significantly fewer bottles of that size (and because they are a significant financial investment) I hand select all the corks we use before I soak them and guarantee they are both beautiful and TCA-free.

The first cork is 45mm long, used in 375ml bottles.  The second is 49mm long, the typical size for 750ml bottles.  The third one is 54mm for Magnum (1.5L bottles).  The 4th is fatter to fit 3L bottles and the last one fits 6L and 9L bottles.  High quality, top grade cork for 750ml bottles can easily cost about $1 per cork.  For the larger sizes (6L and 9L) you're looking at $2.50 per cork. 

Hand selecting means pouring them all out on to my table, standing them all on end and examining all of them from all angles for defects.

These corks have mineral staining that is a natural consequence of the washing process.  There is nothing functionally wrong with them, but they are not very pretty.  The second one kinda looks like mold.

Even if the body of the cork is low on pitting and free of mineral stains, I still look at the heads of the corks before accepting it.  The cork on the left looks like it has crevices along the top, sometimes wine can travel up or through channels in the cork and leak.  The one on the right is almost a perfect "mirror head".  Ideally all corks would look like that but the larger the cork gets, the harder it is to make it look pretty.

I look at every single cork and the rejected ones get sent back to the cork supplier.  I separate the visually accepted corks into groups of 10 to easily count how many I have.

This is what $1,000 in corks looks like.  I wish my landlord would accept cork as payment.

Only after the sorting and selection process can I begin to soak the corks and screen for TCA.

-Lucia