Posted By : Chris Corley

A wonderful aspect of wine is its seemingly endless variety. Wine is produced in all the major regions of the world, many of which produce wines with distinctive characteristics that over time can be consistently aligned with that areas. In general, when we talk about ‘wine’, we’re really talking about wine made from grapes, but there are lots of wines made from other fruits as well. I’ve been consulting the past year on a potential project that would produce pomegranate wine.

My wife and I are having an early celebration of our 10^th anniversary, which is next month. We’re spending a week in Jamaica, and as can be expected are enjoying all of the wonderful bounties of the island … rum, snapper, conch, jerk chicken and herbs, rum.

Interestingly, when we visited a little shop in Negril to pick up a few things, I noticed about 4-5 different Jamaican wines available on the shelf. All of them were very inexpensive, a couple of bucks a bottle, and the fruit they were made from was not identified. Sugar Dandy, our sometimes ride, said that he had homemade a batch of wine from sea grapes that worked out alright for him. I don’t know if these wines were made from sea grapes or not, but they definitely had some added flavors mixed in.

Admittedly, I didn’t go to too much trouble to seek out any particular wines or even do much homework on them … I’m on vacation and the Red Stripe and Rum Punch has been sufficing my needs for libation. It was fun to grab a few small bottles of what seemed to be the most popular brands in the store to get a sense of the local taste. I’m a winemaker, not a critic, so out of respect for my fellow craftsmen, I will stick to describing the wines and withhold judgment when writing on our family blog.

All of the wines were sweet and had very basic fruit flavors like cherry, strawberry and cola. The ‘Red Label’ wine was the sweetest and fruitiest, very viscous and almost syrupy in texture. The ‘Mandingo’ was listed as roots tonic wine, and it had a gingery kind of floral aroma and a sweet-tart bite. The “Old Pirate” was candied fruit on the nose and real easy-going on the palate, not supersweet nor acidic. The sweetness in these wines is almost port-like, it seems as though the local taste is for very sweet wines, with strong berry flavors. No right or wrong tastes, just fun for us to get a taste of the local flavors!

Posted By : Chris Corley

I’m in Southern California for a few days to pour our wines at the two Family Winemakers of California (FWC) tastings in Del Mar and Pasadena. In addition to showing our support for FWC, which is a valuable industry resource that works on behalf of family-owned wineries across California, these tastings give the members a forum for presenting our wines to existing and potential new accounts.

A wines journey from the winery to the dining table is largely based on relationships. There are lots of nice wines being produced all over the world, and lots of them are being sold for fair prices. With wine, its not just as easy as making a good product and selling it for a fair price. Those are only the first steps. Maintaining healthy relationships at every step of the process, both internally and externally, is critical to our winery’s success and longevity.

Our previous broker in the Los Angeles area retired this past year after many years of representing our wines. We wish her well and hope that she can enjoy a well deserved spell of rest and relaxation. I met with our new broker at Palate Food and Wine Bar in Pasadena last night. I’m very excited by their energy and commitment to representing wines that they feel strongly about. We had a wonderful meal, one of the best I’ve had recently, and the enthusiasm at the table was infectious. Chef Octavio visited us at the table and sent out some fantastic off-the-menu treats from the kitchen. I was impressed with fluidity and balance of his dishes. Balance and seamless transitions is something we strive for in our wines, and last nights meals was one of the best examples of accomplishing this with food that I’ve experienced lately.

As a family, we’ve spent the better part of the last 40 years giving everything we’ve got to make Monticello Vineyards be the best it can be. We’ve had ups and downs, but we have always maintained good internal relationships within our company and external relationships with other companies and individuals. This is why we have such a large percentage of staff that have been with us for 20-30 years, and why we tend to think for the long term and maintain long-lasting relationships with our vendors and brokers and all the other people who are critical to getting our Monticello wines from the winery to the dining table. I think this is also why our fans of the winery are so loyal. Its not just about the wine, its about the relationship, too.

Posted By : Chris Corley

These last few days have been busy and also a lot of fun. Monticello participated in four appellation tastings and a trade-only tasting hosted by the Napa Valley Vintners, Premiere Napa Valley (PNV), at the Culinary Institute – Greystone, in St. Helena.

We have five vineyards spanning the valley floor that we either farm ourselves or are in control of -

Monticello Home Ranch Vineyard in Oak Knoll District (Big Ranch Road)
Knollwood Vineyard – Oak Knoll District (Big Ranch Road)
State Lane Vineyard – Yountville (State Lane)
Tietjen Vineyard – Rutherford (Niebaum Lane)
Yewell Vineyard – St. Helena (Ehlers Lane)

This year, our unique auction offering was monikered ‘The Five Boroughs of Monticello’, and is a Cabernet Sauvignon based blend incoprorating all five vineyard sites. The wine is rich in texture with dark fruits, smoky oak accents and a long finish. I’m really happy with this blend.

The Premiere Napa Valley event is always a pleasure to attend, and it gives us a chance to visit with all the incoming trade (distributors, restarateurs, retailers) that are in Napa for the week. Its a great opportunity for us to introduce our wines to new trade and also to visit with friends and existing reps. The resulting auction also raises a lot of money for the Napa Valley Vintners (NVV), an organization that our family has dedicated a lot of effort to support. Our father, Jay Corley, is a past President of the NVV. Stephen Corley is currently in his second year as Vice-President, and Kevin Corley has spearheaded the volunteering of time and leadership of the Beverage Committee at Auction Napa Valley for the last couple of years.

Most of the winewriters and bloggers are in attendance for the Premiere event and the appellation tastings preceding it. Over the last few days, I’ve spent roughly 12 hours standing on the other side of the table pouring our Monticello wines for various tradespeople and winewriters. This year I was struck by the differences in approach of different writers and tasters. At PNV, there are 200 wines that are being poured. I know of only one writer that commits himself and maintains the discipline to go through all 200 wines and keep organized notes of each wine. From my side of the table, Alder Yarrow, of Vinography (www.vinography.com), with his tasting notes going directly into his iPad, clearly is the writer that walks away with the most comprehensive view of this tasting. My apologies to any other writers that are attempting to put together comprehensive reviews of these tastings, but from my side of the table, Alder seems to me be in a league of his own in his approach to tasting at these types of large scale events.

The bidders are typically pretty organized in their approach, as they are determining what lots they are going to invest their auction budget into. These bids are based on wine quality, but also a large part based on brand. As with most auctions, you pretty much know which ones are going to be the big bids going into the day. While our 5 case donation does not generate the stratospheric prices of some of these top lots, we’re very proud of the time and energy that we’ve put into the NVV, related organizations and our community over the last 40 years.

A lot of the money raised by the Napa Vintners goes to a lot of great causes around Napa that eventually helps lots of people in our community. From our side of the table, we are proud to be a part of a community that cares for and puts so much energy into the others that need help in the community.

Posted By : Chris Corley

Our kids, at 6 and 5, are right in a sweet spot for trick-or-treating. In the last year or so, Halloween has become a lot of fun again with that exciting kind of dump-your-candybag-on-the-table-and-tally-your-loot kind of anticipation. It’s so much fun to watch the kids running from house to house in their costumes yelling out ‘trick or treat’ and loading up their bags and little plastic pumpkins. We’re going to gang up with some friends that live near us and hit the neighborhood tonight en masse. I’m really looking forward to the evening.

It occured to me this morning as I came into the winery to check on our fermenters (we still have a lot of grapes fermenting in tanks and bins) that it’s kind of ‘Trick or Treat’ in the winery for us winemakers too. Although we’re not wearing costumes, we go from tank to tank knocking on doors, pulling samples and tasting ferments to gauge what kind of treat we’ve got. Just like the neighborhood kids, the expectation is that we’ll get a treat and won’t have to perform tricks. The anticipation lays in whether we’re going to a tasty bag of candy or some pretzels. When we were kids, we knew the right houses to go to for the best treats, and the ones to avoid where the crabby old people handed out peanuts or simply didn’t answer the door. In the same way, as a winemaker, we also know which tanks are going to give us the best treats as we make our rounds.

Still, I have the same giddy anticipation at the end of harvest as my kids will have tonight, when I spread my seasonal loot out on the blending table and organize all my wines into different categories of what I like best, and what’s medium and what I want to trade. This year so far, it looks like a pretty nice bag of enological loot!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween

Posted By : Chris Corley

I cut off my beard a couple of days ago. Normally the previous years harvest beard would come off the following spring, but this summer has been so cool that the beard remained nearly until this years harvest. Many vintners gauge the growing season by the development of their tomatos in the garden. Seeing how the tomatos grow and ripen can give some an easy visual sense of how the growing season is developing. I’m developing a hypothesis that the degree days of the growing season can be determined by the lifespan of my previous year’s Harvest Beard. On the years that I grow a long harvest beard, I find that I can roughly gauge the following growing season by how long the beard lasts into the summer.

2009 Vintage Longbeard

My 2009 Vintage Beard lasted until August 2010. This late shearing indicates a cool growing season and a potentially later harvest. The same was true for the 2004 Vintage Beard which came off late in the summer of 2005. This was a late season as well, and coincided with the birth of my daughter Ruby, who along with her one-year old brother Jack, perceived the beard as a plaything and grabbed at it every chance they could. This prompted me to shear perhaps earlier than I normally would have, and perhaps nulls the scientific approach I’d been taking to linking grape development to beard longevity, but it still applies as anecdotal evidence.

My wife and kids have never seen my chin. For that matter, neither have I for the last 18 or so years. I think it’s still there. My sons got a dimpled chin, but we’re not sure if that came from me or not. I’ve always had a beard of some length. I’ve never thought much about why. I guess I’m just enjoying the hair on my head while I’ve still got it. Gravity affects men too as we age. For me the effect has been that the hair used to grow vigorously upward out of the top of my head, and now grows downward out of my face. My beard tends to grow long in the winter and get sheared in the spring. We’ve never saved the shearings or tried to fashion textiles out of them, although I suppose that may be the green thing to do. Maybe some day.

After a Summer Shearing

Earlier this year I was in Houston doing some wine events and was at a dinner in which some great Spanish wines were shared. At the close of the evening, I gave one of the guests a parting hug. She realized shortly afterward that she had lost one of her rather dangly earrings. We searched briefly for the missing accoutrement, until she realized that her rather dangly earring was hanging in the underbrush of my 2009 Vintage Beard. I thought it looked pretty good, but she wanted it back, so I acquiesced.

We shear the growth in the vineyard as well. We pull lateral shoots and leaves that block the sun and air from getting into the middle of the canopy. We trim excess fruit that may prevent the vine from fully ripening the crop. We trim the weeds and vegetation in the rows and under the vines, so they don’t suck up too much of the groundwater or nutrients or create havens for pests.

Hacked, Grafted, and Gooped

Sometimes we hack back the vines themselves. This year, we sawed off the tops of a small portion of Cabernet Franc vines in the front block. We grafted Cabernet Sauvignon buds on to these vines. Just two small dormant buds were grafted on to the top of each hacked trunk. They were gooped, taped and we crossed our fingers. This will be the first Cabernet Sauvignon we’ve grown on the property in about 30 years. We’re all pretty excited about the potential. We’re hopeful to have a modest crop of Cabernet Sauvignon from this block in 2011, and be fully enagaged in 2012. As a family, we tend to get excited about things that are still years away. Many of these new buds have shown very strong growth in their first season. These two buds per vine have the full force of the already established root system behind them. With this explosive growth, we’ve already been able to lay down the early shoots to set the cordons for next season.

First Years Growth from Two Buds

The root system for the 2010 Vintage Beard is already established as well. I’ll need to order a new tub of Bluebeard’s Original so I’ll be ready for the potentially explosive whisker development this harvest …

Bluebeards Original

Posted By : Chris Corley

There are lots of ways to pair wines. Most wine drinkers are familiar with matching up wines with different foods. Matching up a rich Cabernet Sauvignon with juicy grilled ribeye, a crisp Sauvignon Blanc with some Thai food, or even enjoying a glass of sparkling wine with a morning brunch are all pleasures for the palate and the soul. Over the last few years, there have been magazines that have promoted the idea of pairing wine with music and websites that pair wine with art. On the surface, these may seem like gimmicky ideas, but I say ‘Why not?’. Food, music, art, conversation all appeal to our senses and if a bottle of wine enhances that experience, then its a good match in my book.

We enjoyed the fireworks show on Shelter Island, NY over the 4th of July holiday with family and friends. We laid out blankets on the beach and got all the kids organized with snacks and drinks. We opened up a bottle of 2000 CORLEY RESERVE Cabernet Sauvignon to pair with the opening fireworks. The wine started off slowly, but after it opened up a bit in the glass it exploded with bright aromas and flavors. The tannins were smooth and dusty and there was a hint of gunpowder on the finish. The wine was a nice complementary match with the show. We also had a bottle of 1999 MONTICELLO Jefferson Cuvee Cabernet Sauvignon as we dug our toes into the warm night sand for the big finale. This wine is tasting fantastic right now, after 10 years in the bottle, probably the best its ever been. From head to sandy toe, the wine was warm and rich, smooth in texture, exciting in flavor and had a great finish to go with the fireworks finale.

I ordered a glass of Long Island wine every chance I got and was pleased with the quality of the white wines in the region. There were some very nice renditions of Chardonnays, Viogniers, and Sauvignon Blancs. Given the humid heat and the propensity for summer rain, I can imagine that growing winegrapes could be a little challenging in that area, but I enjoyed most every wine I tried. Over the course of the week, we enjoyed New England clam chowders at every opportunity. One of our restaurant favorites was at Claudio’s in Greenport. On our last day, we were treated to a homemade chowder with herbs from the house garden and freshly dug clams. This chowder eclipsed all that came before it, and it was doubly enjoyable because we knew that the clams had just been dug up by our friends. We pulled out a bottle of 2005 CORLEY RESERVE Chardonnay, and it was a perfect fit. Rich, lush textures with a streak of acidity and long creamy finish. Man, I could live on that wine and chowder.

Throughout the week we enjoyed fresh caught crabs with various wines, which was a real treat for my wife, Julianna. Julianna grew up in southern Maryland and spreading fresh caught crabs out on a newspaper covered table for an afternoon of crab-cracking, cold drinks and conversation is one of her great life pleasures. I thought she was going to shed a tear when our daughter Ruby showed great interest in learning how to crack the crabs!

Of all the wine pairings we shared over the course of our trip to New York, I think the most important, meaningful and lasting were the wines we had while spending time with our family and friends there. We owe a special thanks to Joy and ‘Uncle Oredine’, Gil, Kerry, Fisher, Miles and ‘Uncle Matt’ and everyone else we were fortunate enough to spend time with back on Shelter Island and in NYC. We’ll raise a glass to all of you tonight. Another great wine pairing with all of you in our thoughts.

Posted By : Chris Corley

This week we’re out in New York visiting family and friends. We’ve had a great few days in Brooklyn and and are now out at Shelter Island for the next week or so. Shelter Island is out on the North Fork of Long Island and this is New York wine Country so we’re looking forward to enjoying some of the local wines. It’s going to be hot and we’re looking forward to cooling off with some of the roses and whites.

BROOKLYN GARDEN

Julianna’s sister Joy and her husband Noureddine have been wonderful hosts. The food they have prepared has been fantastic, and we’ve had a lot of fun matching up our homemade wines with their homemade food. They have a great urban garden in their backyard, and the tomatos and herbs that have come out of there are tasting great. It was my first salad with a Brooklyn accent (terroir)! There’s something kind of like a sixth sense, beyond umami, when your’e eating and drinking homegrown fare. Something soulful that you can’t even taste but you can feel. The vegetables that they have grown in the middle of Brooklyn are as flavorful and juicy as I’ve had from California. Really nice.

JACKSON KEEPING AN EYE ON THINGS

We shipped a bunch of wine out ahead of time. I’m sure we put more thought into what wines we wanted to have on the trip as we did what clothes to pack. That’s just the way we roll. Half the stash was wines that we made, and the other half were friend’s wines that we like. I always enjoy drinking our wines away from the winery. In some ways, I put less thought into the wine, and take more pleasure from it when I’m out of the office so to speak.

JULIANNA AND RUBY WATERING THE TOMATOS

Julianna’s been pushing for some raised veggie beds at the vineyard and after visiting the urban garden in Brooklyn and some of the farmstands in Long Island, I’m motivated to to help get those beds started at the vineyard. We’ve planted a small amount of hops last year and are ready to grow some fruit trees and veggies next year.

Posted By : Chris Corley

Note : As a small family owned and operated business, we hold our staff in very high regard. They are our extended family. We have several staff members that have been with us for 25 years, and many that have been with us more than 10 years. This current series of blogs will introduce our staff members, from all different departments, whom we are so proud to have working with us.

RAFAEL CORTEZ, CELLARMAN

Rafael joined our team by working in the vineyard and over the course of about 10 years, he worked his way up through the ranks to be our lead tractor driver and the right hand man to our Vineyard Manager. For his last couple of seasons in the vineyard, Rafael would come to me towards the end of each harvest and ask if we had any work in the cellar. Each year, I unfortunately said that we didn’t have a full time slot. His perserverance paid off in 2005, when we were inundated with a flood of fruit, and we had a full time position open up for him in the cellar. He has worked in the cellar for the last 4 years, and has been a great team member. Rafael does just about anything needed in the cellar, but his primary responsibility during bottling season is assisting Rodolfo in preparing and running the bottling line. Rafael is a great team player and we are all happy to have him as part of the team. Rafael wrote a short piece that he wanted to share …

“I’ve been married to my wife Gaby for 7 years. We have two daughters, Isabel and Lesley, and we’re looking to have a third. I dedicate my weekends to my family, and the week to my job. I consider myself a happy, humble, and lucky person. When I wake up in the morning, I feel ready for another day at the winery! My job keeps me active and it’s very important to me and my family. I want to thank the Corley family for allowing me to be a part of their team.”

Thanks Rafa! We’re happy to have you on the team as well!

Posted By : Chris Corley

Note : As a small family owned and operated business, we hold our staff in very high regard. They are our extended family. We have several staff members that have been with us for 25 years, and many that have been with us more than 10 years. This current series of blogs will introduce our staff members, from all different departments, whom we are so proud to have working with us.

RODOLFO CUEVAS, ASSISTANT WINEMAKER

Rodolfo has worked with Monticello for nearly 20 years. He began with us working in the field around 1990. Rodolfo spoke little English when he started at Monticello. After four seasons in the field, Rodolfo expressed an interest in shifting over to the cellar. Our winemaker at the time, John McKay, provided Rodolfo with the opportunity to work in the cellar, and Rodolfo has been working in the winery every day since.

Over the last 16 years in the cellar, Rodolfo has consistently improved his cellar and winemaking skills. Rodolfo has gone from working in the field and speaking little English to managing our cellar and production staff, overseeing the bottling line, interacting with custom clientele, running lab analysis and generally helping out wherever necessary. There was a stretch of a few years in the mid 1990s when Rodolfo was responsible for our gardens at Monticello, and would spend one day a week tending to the garden. We were all impressed with his abilities and care in the garden as well. A natural green thumb. And always with a smile.

From time to time, we’ll have a carne asada cookout on the crush pad. Rodolfo makes some great salsas and is very talented in the kitchen as well. Away from work, he enjoys dancing, fishing and spending time with his family.

I remember when Rodolfo first started working in the cellar in 1993. We have worked together up through the ranks of the cellar, from the bottom to the top, literally shoulder to shoulder, and will share our 16th harvest together at Monticello in 2009. In all the time I have worked with Rodolfo, I have never seen him lose his temper, nor even raise his voice. He rarely misses a day of work, and is the most dependable person I have ever worked with. I’m immensely proud to work with Rodolfo, and hope that we can continue working side by side for many more years!

Posted By : Chris Corley

Last week, we shipped out the second and last of our original two presses. These presses were purchased in 1981 & 1982, and we used them faithfully for 25 years until they finally gave out after the 2005 harvest. We replaced them with a single 50hL Diemme bladder press in 2006, which we are very happy with.

1981 Bucher Press (Shipping Out in 2009)

Still, I’m kind of sad to see the old equipment go out. Our dad was about my age, 38, when he came up to Napa and started our vineyard business. It would have been an exciting time for him, and probably spiced with a little anxiety. It would have been a large undertaking for a young man, and Napa in 1969 wasn’t a guarantee. Keep in mind that Robert Mondavi Winery was only started 3 years earlier, in 1966. When our winery was built in 1981, our dad had about 11 years of grapegrowing behind him, so he was primed for making his own wines from the vineyard. These presses were some of the first equipment purchased.

1981 Bucher Press (Recently Installed in 1981) – Jay Corley & Alan Philips

I personally have spent countless hours crawling around inside these old presses, going back to 1990 when I started full time. At least twice day, the screens would need to be installed and removed, and they were a bear to clean. We had a kind of stainless steel toothpick that we would use to get the seeds out of the slots. That being said, those our some of my fondest memories of my early days on the crush pad. There’s nothing better than being covered in sticky grape juice, a beard full of seeds, and sweatin’ your stones off in a wine press sauna cleaning heavy metal screens. Seriously. The best cold beers in my life have been after I crawled out of those old presses.

The life span of these old presses is not unusual for us. We’ve been careful over the years to take good care of our equipment and make it last, sometimes for decades. When you work with a big piece of equipment like this for the better part of two decades, and you spend the amount of late night and hot afternoon hours with it as we have, you grow attached to it. So we’re sorry to see the press go.

That being said, we’re happy that it has found a new home through the work of our good friend Mark Burns, who has arranged for our old press to be a centerpiece of his winegrowing display, which will be featured in the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library, opening this September.