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December 2005
"Love without kisses dozes and then falls asleep", so the Italian Proverb goes. We thought this appropriate because Italians tend to be quite effusive with gifts and kisses at this time of year. Thus the Ciolino family sends you tanti baci, and molti grazie for helping us have a great 2005!
La Vendemmia era favaloso!
The 2005 vintage will go down in California history! We had a long and somewhat difficult season — a wet spring, a cool summer, and a very late harvest — but the longer "hangtime" (time the grapes spend on the vine) resulted in more well-developed and complex flavors. This year was also exceptional because all grape varietals were ripe around the same time. Here at "Great Mountain", we harvested virtually all our Cabernet and Syrah in a single week starting October 10th (for comparison, in 2004 our first crush was September 9th and the last October 22nd). Luckily we have enough space to ferment all our grapes simultaneously, but many wineries were forced to harvest early or late based on their tank space! The wine gods definitely shined upon us.
Molti Grazie to our harvest helpers
This year's harvest was especially memorable because many of you participated — picking the grapes, sorting them before they went into tank, and "punching down" the grape skins in the fermenting wine. Your help made our days shorter, our smiles brighter, and our 2005 vintage much more exceptional. Big thanks go to Patti, Gaines, John, Jeff, George, and Joe — you will always be part of our 2005 wines.
Buon Natale from Montemaggiore
Running out of gift ideas? Wine makes a great gift — and Montemaggiore makes it unique! Your friends, family, and clients can never have too much fabulous wine. For those on your list, we'll wrap the bottles in holiday tissue, include a custom holiday card, and add some Perugina Baci to the box. Simply specify holiday tissue at the end of our order form, and let us know what to write on the card. This is our small attempt to make your holiday giving a little bit easier.
Lovers of Wine
Our latest Wine Lovers are Maria and Jim Vaccaro, who in addition to visiting obscure boutique wineries, love to collect unusual tools for opening wine bottles. One atypical method involves a power drill with a screw inserted in the chuck. Jim reports that the cork survives just fine — useful information when you find a power drill handier than a corkscrew! Jim and Maria hail from the Chicago area, where they continuously scour estate and antique sales to bolster their collection.
Winemaking 101: Oak Barrels
Visitors to our winery always ask about barrels: What kind of barrels do you use? What's so special about oak? While whole books have been written on this subject, we'll try to keep it short(er).
Wood barrels have been used in the wine industry at least since the second century but became widespread in the 18th century for transporting wine from France to England. While originally utilitarian, oak barrels were discovered to impart wonderful aromas and flavors in the wine: vanilla, coconut, smoke, spice. Now almost all fine wine is aged in oak, both for flavor and the tiny amount of oxygen the barrel imparts over time, which adds softness and complexity to the wine.
Oak is the most popular wood used for wine barrels due to its flavors, strength and impermeability. The two main sources for oak are France and America. French oak represents the "gold standard" for wine, but must be hand-split. American oak can be cut with a band-saw, but has been known to impart more aggressive flavors including formidable tannins. French oak barrels are much more expensive (~$750 each), while American oak barrels are a bit more reasonable (~$300 each). Did you know that a 100 year old oak tree produces between two to four barrels, while a 200 year old tree can produce up to ten?
Montemaggiore uses predominantly French oak barrels (100% for our Cabernet, 85% for the Syrah) — but we like the spiciness that a touch of American oak can impart on Syrah. Each fall we put half the harvest's wine into new barrels, while the rest goes in used (or neutral) barrels. By aging the wine in 50% new barrels and 50% neutral, the oak flavors from the new barrels become well integrated with the natural flavors of the grapes. Our barrels come from a variety of coopers including Damy, Nadalie, Saury, and Seguin-Moreau. Every year we experiment with another new cooper so that we can find the best match with our estate grapes.
Have a wonderful holiday. Buon Natale e Felice Anno Nuovo!
Ciao!
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