Fenestra Winery Blog

Barrel Tasting Update! Wines to be poured at the Barrel Tasting

Winemaker Brent Amos and co-owner Lanny Replogle will guide attendees through a tasting of seven samples. The first pairing will compare the effect of aging a white wine, Verdelho, in French versus American Oak. Then we will taste four different Rhone-type varieties, mostly from our estate vineyards, except for the Carignane, from the 2009 vintage – Carignane, Syrah, Mourvedre and Grenache.

Carignane, although widely grown in California, is mostly used in blends, and is rarely bottled as varietal. This sample comes from a vineyard in Oakley in Contra Costa County.

The Grenache is a blend of wines from Hansen Vineyard off Arroyo Road in Livermore, and our estate vineyard. We will also sample Syrah and Mourvedre from our estate vineyards.

Finally, we will offer a ten-year-old Tawny Port. We have been putting aside some barrels of Port for a Tawny Port program since 1998.

Hope to see you there!

Further Crush Update

We have crushed 4.9 tons of Cab Franc, 7.8 tons of Cinsault, , 3.1 tons of Alvarelhao, 3.2 tons of Mourvedre and 1.9 tons of Souzao from Silvaspoons Vineyard.  In case you are not familiar with Cinsault, it is a Rhone-type variety which has light color and fruity bouquet.  We will use it in a True Red blend.  We also crushed 4.0 tons of Merlot from Thatcher Bay Vineyard and 11.2 tons of Syrah from our Estate vineyard.  The Syrah was quite ripe at 28 deg. Brix, but a much better yield than last year when we only got 7.5 tons.

Our Estate Grenache and Mourvedre are still hanging.

Later this week we expect to get Semillon and Zinfandel.

Sip of News from the Winemaker!

Another harvest is upon us.

Harvest has started later than usual this year, with Verdelho from Silvaspoons Vineyards, being the first grapes to arrive.

I expect this to be a great year. We’ve had mild weather so far, allowing the grapes to ripen more slowly and to develop more intense flavors.

In our estate vineyards, we’ve been cluster thinning (we cut off excess clusters) to allow more even ripening and to increase quality. We’ve also been leaf-pulling on the eastern side of the vines to expose the grapes to dappled morning sunlight (which will increase color and flavor). We don’t pull leaves on the western side of the vines because too much exposure to the afternoon sun will result in sunburn. This will be the first year we get fruit from our new Estate Grenache vineyard.

This year we plan to crush about 135 Tons of grapes, which is a little bit less than last year.

Crush Update

Fenestra Winery has crushed the following loads of grapes: 4.3 tons of Verdelho, 4.7 tons of Grenache, and 5.1 tons of Malbec, all from from Silvaspoons Vineyards in Galt; 4.3 tons of Chardonnay from Dr. Greist's vineyard in Livermore; 2.81 tons of Pinot Gris from Ted Buttner's vineyard off Foothill Rd. in Sunol; about 7 tons of Viognier from Tom Bloomfield's vineyard in Brentwood; and 3.1 tons of Tempranillo from Bokisch Vineyards near Lodi.  So far the grapes have been nicely ripe with lots of flavor.

The recent rain slowed down the ripening process, but otherwise should not be a problem.  We will probably get Cab Franc from Silvaspoons Vineyards later this week and our Estate Syrah next week.

Brent experimented with overnight skin contact (leaving the juice in contact with the crushed grapes) on the Viognier, and this extracted a lot flavor.

The Crush has Begun!

We have already crushed our first grapes, 4 tons of Verdelho from Silvaspoons Vineyards near Lodi. The grapes looked in excellent condition and tasted great. We will be getting some additional varieties from Ghielmetti Vineyard this year. In addition to Sauvignon Blanc, we will also get Semillon. We will also crush more Torrontes if the grapes become available. This year’s red varieties will include Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, Petite Verdot and Petite Sirah (from Ghielmetti Vineyards). The picture above the is the fermenting Syrah Estate grapes being punched down. These grapes are from the same vineyard that produced the wonderfully yummy 2005 Estate Syrah!

New Grenache Vineyard

Over the winter, Fenestra grafted about one acre of the Syrah grapes over to Grenache. The new Grenache graft is in the northeast section of the Syrah vineyard that is to the right as one drives into the parking lot. The first fruit is expected in 2009 with the first full produciton in 2010.  Nova Vine Nursery supplied the grafts, which originated from Budwood and Tablas Creek. With the new addition, Fenestra will now have about six acres of Syrah, Mourvedre, and Grenache. Click here for more pictures. (Flash version found here)

2006 Crush

The 2006 crush was well spread out, beginning in early September with mostly white wine varietals and extending through October. Although too early to make firm judgments, overall the quality was good with appropriate ripeness. We crushed new, unusual varietals and found new local vineyards for others. The new varietals are Verdelho and Tannat, grown by Ron Silva, from whom we get the Portuguese varietals as well as others. Verdelho is another Portuguese variety and it produces a dry, crisp white wine that can be bottled early. Tannat is the major variety used in producing the wines of Madiran, a region in the Southwest of France. It produces a robust, deeply colored and tannic wine that needs extended aging in barrels. Interestingly, Tannat is the principal wine grape used in making the wines of Uruguay. We may put it in True Red or bottle it as a varietal, depending on how it develops, but we have only 5 barrels. From local vineyards we produced Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Franc, Grenache and Petite Sirah, all quite promising.