Wine Column

August 11, 2004

by Bob Senn

Harvest is Approaching
Good friend and winemaker, Norman Yost, of Flying Goat Cellars will be teaching a “hands-on” course at Allan Hancock College starting this month.
He will teach AgBus 310, Basic Winemaking 1, a fast track course that meets on Saturday mornings for ten weeks during the fall semester, according to college spokesperson, Rebecca Alarcio.
Rebecca told me the students will pick, crush, ferment and press the wines at the Central Coast Wine Services facility in Santa Maria. Both white wine and red wine styles will be made under the direction of the instructor Norman Yost. Each student will end of up with about one case each of Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon at the end of the term. Anyone interested in this "hands-on" winemaking class definitely should enroll in AgBus 310.
If you’ve ever thought about making wine, I would urge you to enroll in this course. You will be tutored by one of the best winemakers around.
I’m thinking of enrolling in the class myself. Norm is a graduate of UC Davis and has worked for wineries in both Oregon and northern California before coming down here to the Central Coast. In eleven years of retailing wine, I have never had a better selling wine than Norm’s Flying Goat Cellars pinot noir. Consumers love it. Judges love his wine too. One of his reserve chardonnays he produced for Foley Estates took “Best of Show White Wine” several years ago at the Santa Barbara County Fair Commercial Com petition. I happened to be one of the judges at that competition.
The class is offered Saturdays, 9-11:50 a.m. from August 21 through October 23. Cost is $52 in enrollment fees (it is a two unit credit class) and an additional fee of $75 for supplies.
Harvest Update

I spoke to Sara Rozak last week. She and her husband, Randy, have a 17 acre vineyard in the Santa Rita Hills. She told me that for the end of July, it was actually starting to feel like summer. Santa Rita Hills is one of the coolest growing regions in the United States. Randy has been netting the pinot noir, she told me, and added the birds have been liking the fruit too. She told me Randy thinks harvest from their vineyard might take place in early September.

To characterize this year in Santa Maria, James Ontiveros, director of sales and marketing for Bien Nacido Vineyards, Solomon Hills Vineyards, and French Camp Vineyards, told me “it’s been right down the middle-very little frost, few hot days, good weather at bloom, (also known as flowering,) except for the late stages when it got windy.”

“The wind really hampered us at bloom and took the yields down to average or below average. But, interestingly, after low yields from the last two years, we’re happy to have average this time around.”

To characterize the year in Paso Robles, James told me it’s been cooler than average. This has caused the vintage to be earlier by a week or ten days. Yields are also somewhat lower than average, he added.

“To draw a conclusion from good weather and below average yields, we usually see some of our best wine quality in these kinds of years.” In other words, barring no disasters ahead, 2004 should be a great vintage.

Here’s a “you heard it here first” quote from James Ontiveros. He told me if we have nice warm springtime weather next year during bloom, we’ll have a larger than normal crop for ’05. That’s because we had, all in all, a pretty nice spring this year that should have caused more fruitful bud differentiation.

Fiddle Talker
Local wine hero (in my opinion), Tim Duggan, grew up in the area and graduated from Santa Maria High School. He got into the wine industry at Buttonwood Farm. Bright, motivated, full of good ideas, he soon became the winery’s tasting room manager.
Tim also worked for me retailing wine, and was lured away to Fiddlehead Cellars late last year by owner - winemaker, Kathy Joseph.
Kathy told me his mainstream title is national sales and marketing manager, but added, “we fondly refer to him as the Fiddle Talker.” His job description also requires him to be hands-on with production, including harvest frenzy and bottling, she added.
At the end of last month, Tim Duggan and Kathleen Sayle got married at Buttonwood Farm. They live in Lompoc. Congratulations!
Bon appetit!

Wine lover and Santa Maria Times Wine columnist, Bob Senn, lives in the bucolic Los Alamos Valley and owns the Los Olivos Wine & Spirits Emporium.

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