Purple Cow Vineyards

Purple Cow vs France - blind tasting

There are still 6 of the 30 seats left for Galo and Matt's birthday bash.

When: SaturdayOctober 25th, 6-8pm
Where: at Purple Cow Vineyards
Cost: $20/person

Blind tasting of Purple Cow Pinot Noirs vs a couple French Pinot Noirs.  Galo picked the best one he found while traveling, and Hope at Urban Decanter picked the other.  I have no input so I assure you the fight is not rigged.  Family-style dinner included.  RSVP to myself by email to jon@purplecowvineyards.com if you wish to attend.

Stacy & Brian blog us better than we do

If you want the best intro to Purple Cow Vineyards, I think Stacy and Brian did it justice.  Great photos too.

http://stacy-brian.blogspot.com/2008/10/purple-cow-wineryvineyard.html

The Purple Cow Trailer movie

This is really cool.  Thanks to the guys at AmericanWinery.com for taking our shaky raw footage and putting together a nice little package.  Matt, Kelsey, Wendy, Anne, Elena, Gaby, Cheryl, Doug, and Jon all pop out in this video.

http://www.viddler.com/explore/AmericanWinery/videos/24/

When are we going to pick? - part 4

Weather forecast changed again.  Now the next system starts a little later and extends much longer.  No nice weather forecasted on the back side of the rain.  So it's probably going to play out that we pick the Pinot Noir in the Bowl on Friday, the Tempranillo and the Pinot Noir across from the winery on Saturday, finishing up with the Muscat on Sunday. -Jon-

When are we going to pick? - part 3

Got some readings today:

Pinot Noir 21.2 brix, 3.2 pH.  Color is very dark, pips (aka seeds) are brown.
Tempranillo 18.0 brix, 3.0 pH.  Birds and bees eating the good stuff like crazy.
Muscat 20.2 brix, 3.1 pH.  Very mature looking (russet gold color), ripe pips.

Clearly the Tempranillo is going backwards based upon the rain splitting some grapes and luring in the birds and bees.  I also took a smaller sample of Tempranillo since we're barely going to make the 1000lb minimum, so the results have a higher margin of error.  Nevertheless, I think we'll pick that before the next rain so that no more fruit explodes.  Giving your best fruit to pests during a cool/dry period just about offsets the ripening progress of the rest.

The Pinot Noir is in pretty good shape.  This isn't going to be a high sugar year.  It is, however, going to be a very well-developed year because we'll have good acidity and good physiological maturity.  Based on the expected acid drop, we'll want to pick that before it rains too.

Muscat is a different beast.  It develops its Muscat-ness very late in the season so we want to hang on.  The fruit is all perfect and untouched; the acidity still high.  This we will defer.

Bottomline, looking like Pinot Noir and Tempranillo on October 17th and 18th.  Muscat probably on October 23rd.  All based on the weather forecast.  Remember the rule of thumb, reds before first rain, muscat before 2nd rain.

When are we going to pick? - part 2

This is one of the most bizarre Octobers.  The temperatures are well-below normal following a well-above normal September.  The continuous rain that was in the mid-range forecast has suddenly slipped away, and it's giving us an option.  Previously, I felt forced into a 10/14-15 pick date because of the rain.  Now I'm see sun on the back side of that and I'm thinking of weathering the next storm.  If we do that, we'll be picking on the 22nd and 23rd.  After that, the plants are pretty much shutting down for the winter, so I pray it will be ready.

By the way, if you want to spend your time picking grapes with us, whenever that happens, shoot me a note.  I'll start a list and get some more detailed information out.  I'm going to pay for any experienced / bucket crew that I can and trust, but there's going to be lots of room for us slow and steady folk to enjoy ourselves out there and haul in a harvest too.

Dave, Cheryl, Galo, and I pretty much hog all the winery work, and with the forklifts and other vineyard owners running around, extra labor is injury risk.  The winery is not meant to be secretive, but it does need to be efficient, so specatators are welcome in designated areas.

When are we going to pick?

Some of you have expressed interest in showing up at harvest.  I haven't set a date and therefore said nothing to anyone.  Thought I'd put a bit of a forecast out there.

On 9/28 we took readings and got between 19 and 20.5 brix depending upon the location and grape type.  I suspect the ripest field (the SW facing Pinot Noir in the "bowl") is at 21.5 to 22 as of 10/1.  Starting 10/2, we're expecting a few days of rain.  That will cause the grapes to pick up some more water and basically reduce ripeness from a sugar standpoint.  Let's assume we lose one brix.  That would mean we're at 20.5 on 10/6.  From there we will need about 1 week of dry weather to get ready for picking.  So I guess we'll start picking around 10/13.  Not a commitment, just a forecast. -Jon-