Had this with dinner at Joel Palmer House last night. 25 year old Oregon pinot and still going strong. On Thursday we found out that my wife's former student's girlfriend is the sommelier at this place. She took us into the cellar and showed us around.

Archery Summit providing both yield and clone data. I like it! Burgundy/Pinot was into clonal variations well before the Bordeaux/CabSauv world.

1.9 tons per acre is about our maximum in the Hill Country. Really low for CA/OR vineyards. Kudos!

Anyone ever had a Piquette? Again, this vineyard does some odd styles. This one is great. Somewhat like a beer in flavor? No cork. Pretty carbonated. Very low alcohol (around 4%). Not sure what grape varietal they used in it. This winery does some great normal wines (their Grenache is fantastic), but I dig the ambition to experiment.


More on the Piquette style... I guess it's a bit trendy?
https://www.eater.com/2019/10/1/20887572/piquette-glou-glour-natural-wine-trend-orange-skin-contact-what-somms-drink

More on this specific Piquette from Troon:
http://www.troonvineyard.com/2019-piquette

just recently picked up some William Criss wines.
They have some very good mourvedre (try Annies Block and Lost Draw)
We dont drink much TX wines but they seem to be getting better. We like Southhold and Perdenales and some in our wine collection.

Yea piquettes are kind of trendy. I have never personally tried one, but there are some light Jester King beers that I would think are not much different from them! They use the pomace in a few beers there.

Edit to add: I've seen varying opinions on piquette, but at the end of the day it doesn't matter. Drink what you want. It's a neat way to get more out of a block of grapes. If it sells well enough for the Oregon wineries doing it, maybe we'll see it catch on elsewhere too.

I'd pay money to see a side by side of that piquette and a pour of the new Barefoot spritz line. Similar ABV. That one is aimed at the hard seltzer crowd. Not saying they're the same in quality or worth, but I wonder what the differences are going to be.

Makes sense. It feels like a farmhouse or JK beer.

Also makes sense as to why I like this one so much.

I guess it shouldn't surprise me that the wine industry has trends just like the beer industry does (what's going to be after this current run of non-stop hazy ipas?)

I misspoke on the ABV. It's actually 11%.

I hope it's a bit better than a Barefoot spritz! I've admittedly never had one. My wife does down white claws on the reg though!

That seems a little on the high end from my understanding of piquettes, but that's kind of irrelevant as that is how it's being packaged and markered.

As for the Barefoot stuff, I just off hand mentioned it because of the similarity in using pomace / byproduct to create another beverage is similar between it and piquette. The abv is similar ish. The big difference being that Gallo is taking the idea another step and adding adjunct ingredients and flavors, and increasing the carbonation a little, to make it more in line with the hard seltzers of the world.

A picture for reference if anyone is curious:

Insteresting, from wiki for "Piquette":

Quote:

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Piquette is a French wine term which commonly refers to a vinous beverage produced by adding water to grape pomace but sometimes refers to a very simple wine or a wine substitute.

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However the label states "Methode Ancestrale" (Ancestral method). From the CSV study guide:

Quote:

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The Ancestral Method, a procedure that predates the Traditional Method, is still used in a few places for the production of sparkling wine. Its best-known example is Blanquette de Limoux Mthode Ancestrale, from France's Languedoc region. This technique calls for bottling an incompletely fermented and, therefore, sweet base wine without liqueur de tirage. The bottle is sealed and the fermentation continues inside the bottle until all of the sugar has been converted to alcohol. In homage to historical practice, the bottle may not be reopened for disgorging, and a small amount of sediment may remain there in.

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That's just bottle conditioning, right? At least that's how I understand it from the beer world.

Does anyone here have a line on getting wines in from Canada? We love Niagara Bench rieslings, but I've hit nothing but dead ends in getting them shipped.

I don't necessarily think so. Bottle conditioning as I understand it does not include more fermentation or the rise of alcohol. The leftover yeast in the beer feeds off of some form of sugar in the bottle to carbonate it's, however I do not think it's an alcohol producing sugar base. You are adding some sugar to the beer and sealing it.

Whereas in this case, that other method Cecil brought in the definition for, fermentation is not complete and the bottle is sealed. You aren't adding any form of bottle priming sugar.

Similar ( I had to look up "bottle conditioning") In the ancestral method no extra sugar is added, rather the wine is bottled while still fermenting.

Bottle condition I think is roughly analogous to the "Transfer Method" for creating sparkling wine. Basically like the Champagne method, except that once the second fermentation is complete, the bottles are emptied into a tank, the lees removed and then re-bottled. Hence the subtle difference in labeling "fermented in the bottle" vs "fermented in this bottle".

That's interesting. I didn't realize that sugar was added for bottle conditioning. I assume in the case of brewers like Jester King that is what is meant by fruit refermentation, and they're not adding actual sugar?

Cool discussion on the process though.

Here is way more info on bottle conditioning than I think anyone might need!

In regard to refermentation with fruit, I do not think that goes hand in hand with bottling at Jester King. Otherwise I think you'd get crazy amounts of pulp in the finished product. Another thing is that fruit fermentation varies wildly and you'd get big variation from bottle to bottle and batch to batch if it were used to prime/carbonate the beer. Who knows though, they have a lab so they may be able to account for it and use the fruit to prime/carbonate the bottles.

In the page I just linked, there's more info on the sugar involved. Priming with sugar doesn't really impact the flavor of the beer much at all, as you're using a neutral sugar that gets eaten away by leftover yeast. If you prime with the correct amount of sugar/yeast left in the beer, then you should end with a great carbonation level and pour.

To make it more wine related, disgorgement with sparkling wine is the method used to remove similar byproduct from the wine (dead yeast and leftover items from aging). This helps clear it up and uses gravity/vibrations to filter the wine, whether through old school hand riddling way or with machinery.

Disgorging is the best/most expensive way. Most Prosecco and most Sekt use Charmat (tank method). Similar to Champagne method, except that one big tank is used instead of lots of individual bottles. The majority of cheap "champagne" is made this way.

It would be interesting to know if hand riddling is done anywhere anymore? I'd think it's all machine now.

I think they still do some hand riddling at Schramsberg.

Lots of places hand riddle.
Schramsberg does on everything middle to high end
Under the Wire
Ultramarine

Most all growers in champagne
The big houses machine riddle a lot of their NV bottlings but hand riddle the vintage and lieu dit bottlings.

Interesting. I wonder how much of that is for "style points" as opposed to a better process?

Schramsberg mentions hand labeling as well, which I can understand better, as bottle take a beating on a line.

From my understanding the hand riddling takes longer and therefore more yeast interaction. Machines are much more efficient and faster because those wines have been blended more being NV and dialed in for a quick riddling.

There's always exceptions but that's the long and short of what I've been told by Champagne winemakers.

Interesting, and you'd be the one to know. Although the machines can be set to last as long, but that would maybe defeat the purpose of automating. I wonder how any additional mixing (turbulence) cause by more rapid riddling would affect yeast interaction? I mean riddling is after fermentation is complete, isn't it? It just literally yeast crap being removed.

A Gruner from *technically* the oldest Gruner plantings in the US (this is from my wife's former student's family vineyard). There's a guy in New York that currently has the record, but this planting predates it by two years. The former owner never submitted it for the title because his vines are suitcase cuttings and he didn't feel right claiming the title from someone who went through the legal process. A very tasty Gruner that has much more body and character than the stuff you get from Austria.

aggiejumper said:

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Lots of places hand riddle.
Schramsberg does on everything middle to high end
Under the Wire
Ultramarine

Most all growers in champagne
The big houses machine riddle a lot of their NV bottlings but hand riddle the vintage and lieu dit bottlings.

---

Was in Reims last April (2019; was supposed to be back this April but, well, you know). The high-end houses hand riddle the top vintages (think Taittinger Comtes, for example). Some of the smaller houses do as well because they don't have the large production that requires machines.

We are having a version of Austrian Schnitzel tonight that is stuffed with gruyere and ham before it is fried.

Austrian wine recommendations would be appreciated. Open to German or Swiss recs as well.

See two posts above.

But given that you won't find that here, any Austrian Gruner Veltliner or a spatburgunder from Germany would suffice.

I love Austrian wine and wish it was more widely available here. Gruner is fairly easy to come by, but still a limited selection. I've only seen one blaufrankisch in stores. My wife was in Austria right before this pandemic hit. I'm still mad at her for not bringing me home wine. To be fair, she went to a few shops and none would ship to the us. But that's why I told her to take our wine suitcase.

more "character" than Austrian gruner? I'm sure it depends on the grower but not sure I want some monster gruner, either.


still, I'll check this out if I see it around.

htxag09 said:

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I love Austrian wine and wish it was more widely available here. Gruner is fairly easy to come by, but still a limited selection. I've only seen one blaufrankisch in stores. My wife was in Austria right before this pandemic hit. I'm still mad at her for not bringing me home wine. To be fair, she went to a few shops and none would ship to the us. But that's why I told her to take our wine suitcase.

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I'm a fan of Austrian whites, also. don't have much knowledge, but I sure like 'em when I drink 'em.

bularry said:

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more "character" than Austrian gruner? I'm sure it depends on the grower but not sure I want some monster gruner, either.


still, I'll check this out if I see it around.

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It's not syrupy or viscous like some Rhone whites can be. Think more light to medium bodied Chardonnay.

How was the trip? Great haul!

Awesome. You really need to like Pinot, because you're going to drink a lot of it. I'll post a more detailed write up this weekend.

htxag09 said:

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I love Austrian wine and wish it was more widely available here. Gruner is fairly easy to come by, but still a limited selection. I've only seen one blaufrankisch in stores. My wife was in Austria right before this pandemic hit. I'm still mad at her for not bringing me home wine. To be fair, she went to a few shops and none would ship to the us. But that's why I told her to take our wine suitcase.

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Glad to see a couple of folks on this board like Austrian wines.

I can tell that my next purchase needs to be a wine suitcase. I won't go back to France without one.

Ended up going with a Pouilly-Fuisse because of the dismal local choices of Austrian and German wines. Also picked up a Vouvray for the second bottle, and a Pinot Gris from Germany for the third bottle.

Been through a couple of wine suitcases.

Wine Check is probably the best, but really bulky.

We bought one that is more of an actual suitcase through WS, and it protects the wine physically, but offers little/no thermal protection.