Happy 2011!?!?

January 10, 2011

First and foremost I want to wish you all a Happy New Year and I hope you were able to enjoy the holidays and spend time with friends and family. Christmas, New Years etc., can be a very hectic time but also a very uplifting and rewarding time. As usual, Niels and Bimmer (our fearless leaders) spent the Holidays in Kirkwood with friends and family and enjoyed many fresh tracks (it snowed a lot!!) and a lot of good food and wine.

At Castoro we strive to make each New Year better than the last and 2011 is no exception. We are very excited to continue developing new varietals and to continue learning how to do things even better. In the New Year we will be planting a 10 acre vineyard of the Italian varietal “Falanghina,” which Niels says to his knowledge might be the first commercial planting of the grape in the U.S. Falanghina grape varieties are believed to be among the oldest cultivated in Italy for winemaking and we are very excited to give this grape a shot on the central coast!

In 2011 we will also be introducing our new Tango, which is a 2010 vintage and as usual is a white blend with complex flavors and aromas. Our new Grape Juice has also been produced and bottled and some are saying it is the best one yet, and we have been making Castoro Cellars Grape Juice for quite some time. Tom has also been spending a lot of time lately, selecting new barrels and deciding which barrels will be best for our new vintages. For Tom this is a very exciting task because the type and age of barrels has a huge impact on the wines and so far he has selected some French, American, and Hungarian Oak barrels. Considering the amount of time and care Tom has put into selecting these barrels, they will without a doubt yield some fantastic flavors.

Finally, I would like to mention the venture I am most excited about for 2011. (Drum roll please) . . . If all goes to plan, we will be building an authentic Italian wood burning pizza oven at the tasting room this year! For those of you who have experienced handmade pizzas from a wood burning oven, you surely understand my excitement. They are sooooo good! Upon completion the oven will be used for concerts, events, festivals and big weekends at the tasting room, and I am sure it will be a big hit.

With all of that said, we at Castoro wish you all a Happy New Year and hope 2011 brings you all that you desire and maybe a bottle or two of Dam Fine Wine!! Remember, if you have pictures you would like to share from experiences at Castoro, e-mail them to luke@castorocellars.com and they WILL be posted to our facebook page and our website!

Cheers and Happy 2011,

Luke

p.s.
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Tis’ The Season

December 13, 2010

It’s hard to believe that we are approaching 2011!! We are in the heart of the winter Holiday season and for some reason it seems like it always sneaks up on us. At Castoro we are in full Holiday spirit after our company Holiday party this past weekend. The whole crew got together and headed out to the Loading Chute in Creston, for a night of wine, music, food and fun. If you have not been to the Loading Chute, put it on your list of places to check out on the Central Coast. It is a bit out of the way but it is a really neat old place and a very good spot for a party or a good ol’ time. They may even serve Dam Fine Wine!!

As I mentioned in my last blog, we are now out of harvest and into the winemaking process. Tomorrow we will be pressing the last of our tanks, which means we will have all of our juice ready for the journey to the bottle. Right now at the winery there is a lot of tasting, racking and filtering going on and for those of you who don’t know what racking is, I will explain. Racking tanks refers to the process of pumping out the clean juice from a tank while leaving the sediment or lees that gathers on the bottom of the tank, which will later be filtered. Racking is a very important process and filtering the lees allows us to get as much of the juice out of the sediment as possible.

We’ve also been up to a lot of barrel topping and some of our new wines have already been put into barrels. The Petite Sirah, Pinot Noir, and Merlot are all safely stored in barrels as of this week. The Late Harvest Muscat is also still looking very nice and will probably end up being at around 10% alcohol with a nice sweetness. For the grape juice lovers out there, we are proud to announce that our 2010 Grape Juice has been bottled and it happens to be a Bordeaux Blend!! Next week we will be bottling our 2010 Fume Blanc and according to Tom “it is full of flavor and very fresh!”

With the Holidays fast approaching, be sure to keep an eye on our website for specials, including our Holiday Gift Packs and if you are in the area, stop by the tasting room and pay us a visit.

Cheers,

Luke

Let The Winemaking Begin . . .

December 2, 2010

Now that harvest is essentially over, we get to move on to the fun part . . . the wine making. With all of our fruit off the vine and in the cellar, we can now turn our focus to making the best wine possible out of the 2010 vintage. It has been an exciting year and a challenging year and as usual we have a wide range of wines we are working on, including the old favorites and some new varietals and styles.

One new style we are excited about is our 2010 Late Harvest Muscat Canelli, which was made by drying the berries out in the sun on trays to bring up the sugars. They came in at 30 brix and are now midway through the fermentation process. According to Tom the Late Harvest “tastes very good so far.” It is always exciting to make wines in new styles and experiment with the wine making process because you never know exactly what you are going to get and when it turns out well you have learned something new.

Other standout wines from 2010 include our Petite Sirah, Viognier, Sauvignon Blanc, Whale Rock Chardonnay, Whale Rock Pinot Noir and our Cabernet Sauvignon. Tom is particularly pleased with the Petite Sirah this year, saying “it has great aromatics and really good color.” Our Petite Sirah has become more and more popular in the past couple years and this vintage should definitely keep that trend going. This will also be the first year we have produced Whale Rock Chardonnay and Tom says it will most likely be used for our Reserve Chardonnay, and that means it must be very tasty!! Our Whale Rock Pinot Noir is also a “standout” varietal for the 2010 vintage and should turn out to be a very nice wine. Compared to past years our 2010 Cabernet Sauvignon has a bit lower alcohol percentage but overall the flavors are very pronounced and Tom is sure it will be a great year for Castoro Cab.

As we have said farewell to the fall season and embraced winter we have watched the change of the seasons in our vineyards. In the past week we have had extremely low overnight temperatures, dropping into the 20s and the result has been evident in our vineyards. The leaves have changed from vibrant yellows and reds, to brown and crispy and in some places they have already fallen off the vine.

We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and don’t forget to start thinking about what wines will be appropriate for the upcoming holidays!!

Cheers,

Luke

Happy Thanksgiving!!

November 23, 2010

With Thanksgiving just a couple of days away, we can finally say the “2010 Harvest is in the bag!” It has been a crazy year and it feels great to finally have all of our grapes in and out of harms way. Overall, everything looks great and I will definitely keep you all up to date on the progress of this year’s fruit.

Now that harvest is over, everyone is a little more relaxed out at the winery and the crew is slowly getting back into working normal shifts. We even had time for a little Thanksgiving of our own. Every year at Castoro Niels and Bimmer treat the staff to a home-cooked Thanksgiving meal and this year was no exception. As usual, Niels fired up the Webbers and BBQ’D two delicious turkeys. Various staff members also made contributions of their own, making it a real Castoro family meal. There was turkey, pumpkin pie, green beans, corn, salad, and of course Niels’ famous gravy (recipe below)!! Due to wet and cold weather we opted to eat inside the cellar this year among the barrels, tanks, and pallets of wine.

Bringing the crew together for meals like Thanksgiving is something we really enjoy at Castoro and our crew really enjoys taking part in it as well. Everyone brings something a little different to the table and it is always fun to see what we end up with. No matter what it is, it always seems to be delicious. With that said, we wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving and hope you are all able to enjoy some quality time with friends and family and maybe even with a bottle or two of Dam Fine Wine.

Happy Thanksgiving from the Castoro Crew,

Cheers,

Luke

(And don’t forget that you can now sign up on our blog page to receive our blogs via e-mail, as they are posted)

ZINFANDEL GRAVY

Create a stock using the neck and giblets from the Turkey.

Stock ingredients: Turkey parts, couple of carrots, some celery, onions, herbs, salt to taste. Simmer down & reduce.
Add degreased drippings from the BBQ’d or baked turkey along with Castoro Cellars Late Harvest Zinfandel to taste and cook down. When the texture and flavor feels right remove a bit of gravy and blend in a tad of corn starch and mix until lump free. Slowly add this back to the gravy until your desired thickness is reached. A touch of Zinfandel Jelly can be substituted for Late Harvest Zinfandel.

2010 Harvest is In the Bag . . . well almost!! (And you can now Sign-up for our Blog!!)

November 12, 2010

After chatting with Tom today, it was very apparent that harvest is winding down and it is almost safe to say the 2010 harvest is in the bag. This year has been very challenging and at times very stressful for both Tom and Niels. With 90% of our grapes safely picked, Tom and Niels can now relax and focus on turning those grapes into delicious wine. When I talked to Tom today, I could definitely sense his relief and growing excitement to begin working with this year’s fruit. Tom also spent about five minutes of our conversation describing how much he has been enjoying the vibrant fall colors and crisp fall weather we have had in the past couple weeks on the central coast. Once you are no longer worried about losing your crop you can take that extra time in your day to appreciate the simple things in life . . . such as the fall colors!!

In other winery news, we have picked both our Whale Rock Primitivo and Zinfandel this week and according to Tom they are both looking very promising. We also have some Muscat Canelli on raisin trays sitting out in the sun to attain high enough sugar levels to make a new batch of “Late Harvest” Muscat. All in all it has been a big year at Castoro and we are almost at full capacity!! As the last of the grapes trickle in, it can become quite challenging to make room and ensure there is enough tank space for every last drop. In some ways it becomes an intricate game for Tom, as he carefully dictates the movement of all of our wines and freshly pressed juices. We have a lot of tank space at Castoro and the tanks vary in size, location, and type, making it all the more of a challenge this time of the year.

With the fall colors in full swing and the crisp days and nights occurring more consistently, we are all happily making the transition out of harvest and into winter/winemaking season. As I have repeated many times, we are very excited about our fruit this year and Tom and Niels both are convinced this will be a vintage to remember! Stay tuned for more info on our transition out of harvest and make sure to SIGN UP for our blog on the right side of this page. All you have to do is enter your e-mail address and you will receive these blog posts directly to your inbox!

Cheers,

Luke

2010 Harvest: A Beaver’s Take . . .

November 4, 2010

In this week’s blog I decided I wanted to focus on Niels (owner/founder/Beaver) and his perception of the 2010 harvest at Castoro Cellars. As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, this is Niels’ 29th harvest and definitely one of the most interesting harvests to date. This is mainly due to the adverse weather conditions we have experienced this year on the west coast. Most notably we have experienced a very mild summer followed by very unpredictable fall weather that has ranged from rain to frost to 100 degree days. “This is the coldest harvest season we have ever experienced at Castoro, and on top of that we have had multiple days of rain and two morning frosts,” said Niels. This is also the latest harvest Castoro has ever experienced, from the first day to the last.

Last year we got 7 inches of rain in one storm during harvest but since there was no other rain it did not pose too much of a problem. This year it has been more sporadic, which poses more problems for the grapes, especially with molding in the clusters. Niels told me this year has really been a learning experience for him and most notably a lesson in the resilience of the Zinfandel grape. In years past rain has never been much of an issue during harvest and therefore molding in the clusters has not really been much of a concern. Zinfandel is typically one of the last varietals we pick and because of that, it is at a higher risk for molding, exposure to frost and exposure to rain. “There were times this year when I really wanted to pick the Zin early because I was afraid we would lose the crop to rot, molding or frost. Tom and I talked a lot about it and in the end we decided to take the risk of leaving the grapes on the vine to fully ripen. It was definitely a nerve racking experience.” Now we are about a week out from having all of our grapes in and amazingly we have made it out alive and with a very nice crop!

“After all of my worrying about our Zinfandel, it has proved to be a very resilient grape,” said Niels. We did experience some molding in select blocks, but in very small amounts and the impacts of this molding have been very minor. The forecast for the next few days in Paso Robles is warm weather possibly into the 90s, which means all of our grapes remaining on the vine should be good to go by next week. Even with such a roller coaster year, we have seen some amazing fruit and we are very excited to share this vintage with all of you. Not only will the wine be great, it will have a nice story to go along with the journey from the berry to the bottle!!

Cheers,

Luke

Harvest Festival and Beyond

October 27, 2010

Since the last time I wrote a lot has happened at Castoro and on the beautiful central coast of California. A little over a week ago we had our 2010 Harvest Festival, which was an absolute blast even with a little bit of foul weather. We had a wide range of barrel tastings, live music, great food, and of course foot stomping fun in grape bins. It amazes me how people of all ages love to take their shoes off and go ankle deep in clusters of freshly picked grapes. At times we had four people in one bin together, stomping away. If you haven’t experienced this, it is truly a sight to see!

We have also had our fair share of inconsistent weather since I last wrote. This really seems to be a trend this year and at times it can be quite frustrating. As Tom put it, “the weather has not been very cooperative this year.” Luckily, we now have about ¾ of our crop in and everything we have seen thus far has been exceptional quality. Yesterday we brought in our Whale Rock Tempranillo, which looked really nice, and in the past week we have gotten lots of very nice Merlot, Chardonnay and Syrah (Blind Faith). The problem we are now running into is that we have a decent amount of crop still on the vines, including Cabernet Sauvignon, some select Zinfandel and Petite Verdot. These grapes really need about another week of sunshine to put us in the clear, and as well all know, the weather has not been very “cooperative” this year. Everything we can do we are currently doing and beyond that we can only cross our fingers and hope for the best. It really struck me as true when Tom told me that, “growing grapes isn’t for the lighthearted,” you have to be able to handle variation from year to year and from day to day. We have been making wine at Castoro Cellars for over 26 years and we have seen our fair share of variation in that time. What we are seeing this year is a bit strange but it isn’t the first time we have been challenged by Mother Nature. We are really fortunate to have a world class wine making team at Castoro Cellars and we are very excited about what the 2010 harvest has brought us thus far.

On another note, please check out our Fall Facebook special that goes until the end of October. You can find details for the special on our facebook site at www.facebook.com/castorocellars . Also, please scroll down and check out our latest video from this year’s Harvest Festival at Castoro Cellars.

Cheers and Happy Halloween,

Luke

Working Hard and Eating Well . . .

October 15, 2010

In this blog I’d like to focus on something a little different. I would like to focus on what harvest means for Castoro and our crew. Now that harvest in is full swing and fall is upon us, there is really an amazing energy out at the winery amongst the staff. It is the kind of energy that only happens when people want to be where they are and enjoy working and learning with those around them. In the wine business we live for harvest and we love harvest . . . well most of the time anyways. This is Niels’ 29th harvest and as he mentioned to me, “it never gets old because none of them have been the same.”

At Castoro we pride ourselves in being a family owned business and a huge part of that is making our employees feel like they are part of that family. During harvest the winery can be pretty hectic and stress levels can rise but we always make sure to take some time aside to relax during the week, even if it is only for a short time. One way we do this is by having home cooked lunches by a different member of our staff every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday during harvest. We are fortunate enough to have a very diverse staff at Castoro and let me tell you, we get some pretty amazing food during harvest. Whether it’s Tony cooking up some Southern soul food, Chewy making some delicious posole with hominy and pork or Janet making a wonderfully spicy chicken soup, it’s all good and it gives us all something to look forward to during the week. Every time someone does a lunch we all sit together and enjoy the food “family style.” Almost as good as the food itself is the anticipation of what it may be, and let me tell you, the anticipation can be killer, especially some when delicious BBQ is wafting into the cellar around 11a.m.!

In other harvest news, it looks like we are seeing minimal damage if any from the rains we had last week and the fruit coming in continues to look very good. If you want to see a little of the action out at the winery please check out our short harvest video we put together this week. I will post it below in the blog for those interested. Also, we have the harvest festival coming up this weekend and we have all sorts of great things planned for that. If you would like more info on that please check the events page at castorocellars.com.

Thanks for reading,

Luke

Rain, Rain, Go Away We Need the Sun to Stay!!

October 6, 2010

Just when we thought this roller coaster of unpredictable weather was finished, at least through harvest, Mother Nature decided to add an extra loop to the ride.   At about mid-afternoon on Tuesday it started to rain and it wasn’t a mere drizzle.  Due to slippery/muddy conditions in our vineyards we have been forced to put all picking on hold until the conditions improve.  The rain is also not good for the ripening process and can potentially cause some serious problems.  As Tom put it, “rain delays everything.”

At this point we have essentially picked all of our whites from the Paso Robles appellation and a handful of our reds.  Early rains such as these we are experiencing now can potentially be very harmful to our remaining reds and whites, especially Zinfandel.  What we are up against is a problem commonly referred to as “bunch rot” which is when moisture gathers in the grape clusters and allows molds and fungi to grow, essentially rotting the clusters or bunches.  Zinfandel is particularly prone to this because Zinfandel grapes tend to grow in tight clusters and have a thinner skin than other reds such as Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot.  For example, Cabernet and Merlot are not at too much of a risk due to smaller berries, thicker skin, and therefore looser clusters.  If bunch rot does occur there really isn’t a whole lot we can do about it, especially in our organically grown vineyards such as Whale Rock.  Warmer weather, however, can dry up the clusters and lower the risk potential drastically.  According to Tom, it will take about five or six days before we will be able to assess the damage, if any.  This is really another example of how much we are truly at the whims of Mother Nature, and all we can do is hope for the best while continuing to focus on the things we do have control of.

On a positive note, as I mentioned in my previous Blog, all of the grapes we have received thus far have been phenomenal.  We have seen great flavors, great acidities, and really healthy fruit.  We have been especially impressed with the low pH and moderate titratable acidities we have seen in our grapes.  Titratable acidities or TA give us a snapshot of the major acids present in the juice and help us to determine if a wine is in balance or stylistically correct. Also, our Syrah and Petite Sirah look to be some of the best we have seen in recent years and that is saying a lot!  All in all we remain positive here at Castoro and if everything goes the way the weatherman (or woman) says, we should be in the clear by tomorrow!

Happy October!!

Cheers,

Luke

Thanks to the Sun the Grapes have Come!!

September 30, 2010

For those of you who have been following my blog over the past few weeks, you have probably noticed how much I have been referring to our weather patterns and how much they impact the grape harvest. This past week we have experienced incredibly warm weather and due to this heat wave we are finally seeing a constant influx of grapes at the winery. This is possibly the latest harvest season we have ever had and we are ecstatic to see that it is finally moving along.

As of now we have processed almost all of our Sauvignon Blanc, Gewürztraminer, and Muscat Canelli and we should be getting some Chardonnay in this week as well. As usual, the reds are a bit behind the whites but we might be seeing some Syrah in the near future and some Zinfandel and Merlot from our warmer climate vineyards. In our west side vineyards, we picked our Whale Rock Pinot Noir and Chardonnay last week, Pinot Grigio yesterday and if everything goes according to plan we should be picking our Stone’s Throw Viognier tomorrow! In other words, we are finally very busy out at the winery and it is a great feeling (even if we are working in 105 degree heat).

This morning I had the pleasure of chatting with our winemaker Tom Myers to get his input on how the grapes are looking this year. According to Tom, the sugars are looking good and the chemistry is looking great on the grapes we are receiving and testing from our vineyards. Some grapes have come in with higher than desired sugar levels but that is something we can deal with. Overall Tom said in his opinion we are looking at a “good year with exciting quality,” and I really can’t emphasize enough how excited and relieved we are about this at Castoro. If you remember from my blog a few weeks back, we were looking at a very different scenario than we are seeing now. What could potentially have been a detrimental year has turned around and now has the potential of being one of the best.

If you would like to keep up on events and info at Castoro Cellars please check out our website or follow us on facebook and youtube.

www.castorocellars.com, www.facebook.com/castorocellars, www.youtube.com/castorocellars

Until next time,

Cheers,

Luke