la gramiere

Label Changes...your help needed!

Although I really liked our label last year, a few people, including Kermit Lynch, thought that it could use some polish.  Some people said that it looked homemade, like we printed out the labels on our laser printer.  At first I disagreed, but now, a year later, I totally agree.  The worst thing is, it wasn't cheap, we weren't trying to cut corners, we truly thought that it was the right paper, design, etc!  So here are a couple of new mock-ups, this time, they have been printed on the computer!  Just trying to get an idea of what they will look like.  So far we are in a dead tie, 50-50, of our friends.  What do you think??? Please leave a comment or email me.  Matt prefers the square, I prefer the off-set logo.  I must admit though that the square one shows much better in these pictures...  I'm not saying that the vote will be definitive, but it may help us choose one way or the other!!

2007...a bit of a rollercoaster so far!

Here's a few pictures I took of the grapes last week.   We had a pretty good fruit set this year, meaning that once the vines flowered, they then made grapes that actually stayed on the vines and didn't fall off.  The funny thing is that flowering was very uneven, on certain vines some of the clusters were in full flower when others hadn't even opened, and you can see the result in this picture.  See how much of a difference in the size of the grapes there is? (above)

We did, as always have some problems with fruit set, you can see in these pictures the little black spots where the baby grapes did not hang on they just shriveled up and turned black, and others where they really didn't set and the whole stem shriveled up. These are just some examples of the bad things that happen, but all in all there's some really nice fruit out there.  Harvest may be a bit tricky in terms of picking the ripest grapes, we may have to go through twice.  Since we have such a great picking team though, I think we'll sort it out.

As far as the weather, we've been extremely lucky getting some good soaking rains every 2-3 weeks throughout the month of May and even a good storm last week.  The lightening and thunder were pretty amazing at 4 o'clock in the morning.  It rained so hard that we had to get the pump out to keep the water from coming in our back door.  It would be good if the rain stopped now though, we're not used to all of this humidity here.  Last weekend we sprayed our fourth dose of sulfur this year, and our second of copper, which is the total number of treatments we did the whole year last year!  So, needless to say this is a very different year.  I feel lucky though when I consider the poor vignerons in Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne and other regions, they have been getting incredible quantities of rain and had hail, strong winds and everything else you can think of.  It is very good to be in the sunny south right now...

Quick trip to Vinexpo or it's surroundings...

Due to the amount of work we have in the vineyards right now, and the fact that I'd have to go alone, I wasn't planning on going to Vinexpo in Bordeaux this year. I was extremely unhappy about it.  There was a reunion of  "vignerons blogeurs" that I wanted to go to, and some other really great tastings that I'd received invitations to, so I was pretty bummed that I couldn't go.  That all changed when our friends, Denis Gayte and Kirsten Johnson, told me that they were going to drive over and camp for two days to check it out. You may remember seeing Denis before on my blog. He has a winery here in the Côtes du Rhône too.  Bingo!  I'm going too!  I made some quick phone calls to Thierry Desseauve and Michel Bettane to make sure I could get in, then emailed Alice Feiring to see if she'd have the time to meet.   All was confirmed with amazing speed, so the decision was made.  We hopped in the car Sunday and made the 5+ hour trip to Bordeaux.   My goal was to make it there by 5:30 so that I could attend the blogger meeting, but it wasn't meant to be. Finding Vinexpo, parking etc.  we realized that there was no way we would have time to register and get in there before it was over.  Oh well.  We headed into Bordeaux to walk around the city.  It was a beautiful evening and the city was enchanting.  Of course, when you live like we do in the country, almost any city is enchanting, but Bordeaux is particularly beautiful.  We sat through an amazing rainstorm at the end of our meal. Luckily we had chosen a table outside yet well underneath an awning!  It rained very hard all the way back to our camp ground! We all thought our tents would be underwater and soaked through, but miraculously, the rain stopped about 5 km from the coast where we were sleeping. Phew!

The next morning after a walk on the beach, we headed in to our first tasting which was a little outside of Bordeaux.  Let me explain, Vinexpo is the largest trade show of it's kind in France, and maybe Europe, maybe the world, I don't know.  It takes place every other year in Bordeaux, and everyone in France goes.  It's very expensive to have a stand, so usually only the bigger or shall I say richer wineries go, or a bunch of small producers get together and share a place.  It would make no sense at all for a small winery like ours to participate in such a big event. Many other people feel the same way so there are the "off" tastings.  "Off"  like "off Broadway".  Groups of wineries will get together, rent a small Chateau and have a two day invitation only tasting.  They are lots of fun, in a much smaller venue, and there is a much more convivial atmosphere.  Our first one was called "Haut les Vins" or "Wines Up"... not a great name, but there were some great producers like Sylvain Fadat of Domaine d'Aupilhac,  Mathieu Baudry of Domaine Bernard Baudry in Chinon, Hélène Thibon of Mas de Libian,  Jean Paul Brun of les Terres Dorrées...etc, etc.  Luckily for us it was the first day and pretty calm in the morning.  There we met up with Alice Feiring, which was a real treat. Alice is one of my favortie bloggers and we have corresponded a bit over the past few months.   It was great to meet her in person.  The second cyber-friendship made real in the space of a couple of weeks.  We tasted a few wines with Alice, then she introduced us to Joe Dressner and his wife Denyse.  Another cyber acquaintance, Joe Dressner has a great blog and is the importer of many many wines that are mostly organic, biodynamic, natural.  You name it, Joe's the man importing them.

Then we were off to the "Grand Tasting" an event at the Novotel, just across from Vinexpo, sponsored by my friends and employers, Bettane&Desseauve.  What a great event!  1999 Corton Charlemagne in magnum from Bonneau de Martray, 2001 Jurançon Quintessence from Cauhapé, a bunch of Bordeaux; 96 Léoville Barton, 2001 Cos d'Estournel, 1999 Valandraud, on so on... Hervé Bizeul of Clos des Fées was there in person pouring the 2005, Jean-Claude Le Brun of Prieuré Saint Jean de Bébian was pouring their 2001.  Amazing wines all around.  I even got to meet Béatrice Boullier with whom I have been working on the guide for months, but have never gotten the chance to meet!  (that's her below with Michel Bettane and Thierry Desseauve.) It was a great afternoon, and a great day.  We ended with a quick tasting of Domaine Saladins wines, one of my new favorite Côtes du Rhône producers located in the Ardeche, which is about an hour north of where I live.  The Saladin sisters are great winemakers with a light touch. Their wines are pretty and elegant and not at all over done.  It was quite a day, and we decided to call it quits, without ever setting foot in the actual Vinexpo event.  Oh well, we had the chance to do exactly what we came to do, taste some good wines, and make some good contacts!

When we got back out to the coast it was a beautiful evening, and we were happy not to be attending one of the invitation only dinners.  There's only so much schmoozing one can do in a day, and we had had our fill!  We found a laid back surfer bar/resto, had a couple of beers and some moules-frites and went back to the camp ground.  Not quite ready to hit the sack, we decided to open some of the 2006 Denis Gayte Côtes-du-Rhône as well as some 2006 La Gramiere.  The only problem was we didn't have a cork screw or wine glasses!  We asked a neighboring camper if they could open our bottle and Denis fashioned some lovely glasses out of an empty water bottle! It was a great ending to our trip to Vinexpo....

A little change of color!

I've been getting a bit tired of the black background on the blog, this is the result of my toying with it a bit.  Let me know what you think, is it too gaudy????  I may change it back but I thought it would be nice to have a change for awhile.  Looks more Provençal to me, and since it's a sunny Provençal day here, what could be better?  Well, maybe it's a bit too bright...

Quaffing 2006 La Gramière with Quaffability

On Saturday we had a great time meeting John G and his family.  John is the author of the popular blog Quaffability, it's a great site with reviews of reasonably priced wines that are mostly from Trader Joe's.  We've been cyber acquaintances for a little over a year now, and it was great fun to actually seal the friendship with a face-to-face meeting!  The Quaffability family is here in France on vacation and were luckily passing by on their way to the Côte d'Azur, so we got the chance to meet.  This is the first time I've actually met someone that I had previously known solely from internet contact (nothing sordid here!) John was nice enough to review our wine on his site and often adds comments to my blog!  We had a great lunch in Castillon du Gard at a new restaurant called "Les Jarres", well it's not new but it's under new ownership.  Mario, who owns an upscale restaurant called Amphytrion, just took it over and his wife is now running it as a casual place to get simple but excellent quality fare.  We brought along a tank sample of La Gramière 2006 and everyone loved it.  It's truly tasting delicious right now, I can't wait to bottle it!

Spoiled in San Francisco

Yep, we're back from a quick trip to San Francisco, one week from start to finish, but it was well worth it, and much needed! Seemingly every minute was booked seeing friends and eating our favorite foods: Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, All-American brunch, All-American hamburgers and margaritas, and so on and so forth!  We arrived in the evening and headed straight to our favorite neighborhood bar to eat what is, I think the best burger anywhere! The Kezar on Cole and Carl in the heart of Cole Valley is our favorite place to grab a burger and a margarita.  Herradura silver, fresh-squeezed lime juice and cointreau! Life was very very good after two of those and a burger, we headed back to our friend Angelo's place and crashed.  When you live in southern France, I can't tell you how great it is to be in a crowded bar on a Friday night, people eating and drinking and talking loudly.  It really feels like home, like you're back in the land of the living! That is to say, it's pretty quiet and not so hip here in Saint Quentin la Poterie!!!

Other highlights were a leisurely morning at the San Francisco Farmer's Market, we bought a few pints of blueberries and ate them on the spot (another thing we don't see at our markets here.) -(The inside of the Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market is pictured.) A great lunch of Dim Sum at Yank Sing, we love Tong Kiang most of all, but since we were downtown, we decided to be more practical, and everything was delicious!  We overloaded on sushi and burritos and Thai food.  Those are the things you miss when you are living in France, really great Asian and Mexican! We had drinks at the new hip winebar called CAV next door to Zuni, and then went for a great soul food meal at Farmer Brown's a restaurant in downtown that features organic and sustainable products from African-American farmers in the Bay Area.  The fried chicken and BBQ ribs were to die for! (Pictured are Matt, Rhonda a good friend and Thomas, a colleague of Matt's in SF for work.)

We were even invited to dinner at Joanne Weir's house! She and her good friend Gary Danko cooked us dinner!! Can you imagine?  It was pretty flattering to arrive and have Joanne and Gary cooking away in the kitchen! Joe Erhlich, Joanne's boyfriend was kept busy filling our glasses with champagne! We had the most beautiful vegetables that had been shipped to her from Ohio, lamb spit-roasted in her fireplace, and homemade creme fraiche ice cream with fresh cherries! Amazing.

All in all, it was a great trip, and a really nice break.  This morning we were up at 5:30 to head out to the vineyards and take advantage of the cool morning air.  It's been in the upper 80's, which isn't that hot, but when you're out in the sun for a long time, it's hot enough.  Now I'm back catching up on all that I missed last week and starting to prepare for bottling.  Ordering boxes, bottles, and corks;  deciding on some important label changes/improvements; trying to figure out if we can get the "garage" where we store the bottles cemented before we bottle.  This would be a huge improvement on last year!  Currently the floor is river rock, which is great for humidity, but not so great when you need to move a whole palate of wine.  Currently we move it box by box! So if we can get a cement truck and someone with some knowledge of how to pour a floor evenly, we are going to do it before we bottle. Bottling has to take place before harvest, since we don't have enough tank capacity to ferment the new vintage while the old vintage is still there!   So, you can see, it was good to have a week off before everything gets really crazy again.....