Is anybody reading this? Post a comment so I'll know!
Well, the boys are en route to Macedonia. Apparently, they had a great time in Moldova with Dumitru and Olga, and said that Moldova is going to be a great place to visit if given a few more years.
From Moldova, they flew to Thessaloniki in northern Greece, where they rented a car for four days of exploration. Not sure where they've been exactly, but at one point they were in Kastoria, a town that is located on an isthmus that juts out into a vast lake. I'm dying for details, but when there's a call or an email, we usually talk business, and then everyone is in a hurry to finish up, so I never get the juicy little bits. I know soccer is very big with Euro 2008, and they're keeping current on where that stands. (yawn)
So next they'll arrive by bus to Skopje, the capital of Macedonia, where Lazar will meet them for the next leg of their tour. Stay tuned, and maybe I'll get the goods on what's great, besides Alexander the Great, who ruled ancient Macedonia and is the pride of Macedonians. (I've been reading a history of the Celtic migration, and I'm dying to tell Lazar that Alexander was likely a Celtic barbarian! That'll frost him!)
--Celia
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Friday, June 20, 2008
Moldova
It's Friday, now, and the boys just reported in to say that they'd visited a winery in the south of Moldova where Dumitru has been working. They enjoyed a tour, and a tasting and lunch there. Kent lost his electronics converter in Frankfurt, so we kept the phone conversation to a minimum to conserve his battery, but they sound like they're having a good time. For Webster, the highlight was hanging out in a restaurant/bar to watch soccer and trying vodka--legal for him in Moldova, so his dad said, sure! He was totally coherent on the phone, so I guess he'll be alright! They all seem happy, but details were not forthcoming. So far all I've gotten out of them is that bribery is big, there are roaming packs of dogs, and it is very beautiful!
The amusing language report: Olga--Dumitru's fiancee--speaks very good French, and so does Luis, so they speak French to each other. Kent speaks no French, nor does Dumitru, so they speak English. Olga understands and reads English well, but speaks it less. Webster is attuned to anything that sounds vaguely Latin in origin, so he's able to follow most of what everyone is saying to some degree. And Kent doesn't have such a good ear for language, so he's working hard to follow foreign accents and languages he doesn't understand at all. That's never stopped him from having a good time in past travels, though. He's sharp at reading all the non-lingual signals, the context and body language, so he'll do just fine!
I'm off for two days--calling a contra dance in Monterey Saturday, and one in Hayward on Sunday! If anyone wants to know what I'm talking about, comment and I'll explain.
--Celia
The amusing language report: Olga--Dumitru's fiancee--speaks very good French, and so does Luis, so they speak French to each other. Kent speaks no French, nor does Dumitru, so they speak English. Olga understands and reads English well, but speaks it less. Webster is attuned to anything that sounds vaguely Latin in origin, so he's able to follow most of what everyone is saying to some degree. And Kent doesn't have such a good ear for language, so he's working hard to follow foreign accents and languages he doesn't understand at all. That's never stopped him from having a good time in past travels, though. He's sharp at reading all the non-lingual signals, the context and body language, so he'll do just fine!
I'm off for two days--calling a contra dance in Monterey Saturday, and one in Hayward on Sunday! If anyone wants to know what I'm talking about, comment and I'll explain.
--Celia
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
The Interns
Well, I promised to tell you where Kent (our intrepid winemaker), Webster (intrepid 16 year-old son of winemaker) and Luis (intrepid former winery intern) were going. You see, in the wine industry, it is quite common to hire interns to do harvest work. It's a win-win (wine-wine?) situation: the winery gets some temporary "backs" for crush, usually with previous winery work or study, and the interns get a chance to see how wine is made in other countries, and to travel.
Luis was one such intern--the foolish guy actually worked two crushes with us. He's quite the traveler, and a couple of years ago, he and Kent did a really fun trip to Luis' native Portugal, with Luis acting as tour guide. He's just coming from an intern stint in New Zealand!
So, over the last two years (if you've read our web site "News", you'd know), we had a couple of interns--one from Moldova, and one from Macedonia--who insisted that if we were ever in their country, they would show us the town. Get out your maps and do your geography homework: Moldova is between Romania and the Ukraine, and Macedonia is north of Greece. Our boys are starting in Frankfurt, heading via "Air Moldova" to Chisinau, for the first leg of their trip to visit Dumitru, who worked with us during the harvest of 2006. Moldova--well, you'll have to Google Moldova to see what a holdout of a country it is, still quite "communistic", where the passion is possessions, and bribery gets you what you need. Their only real national product is wine grapes. They supply a large part of Europe with wine. Here's the Lonely Planet link for your perusal: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/worldguide/moldova/
Anyway, Dumitru has promised his "American family" that he will show them the sights of Moldova, and it should be both beautiful, interesting, and a bit strange for our Western-minded lads. I'll try to keep you current with this two week sojourn--come back tomorrow!
--Celia
Luis was one such intern--the foolish guy actually worked two crushes with us. He's quite the traveler, and a couple of years ago, he and Kent did a really fun trip to Luis' native Portugal, with Luis acting as tour guide. He's just coming from an intern stint in New Zealand!
So, over the last two years (if you've read our web site "News", you'd know), we had a couple of interns--one from Moldova, and one from Macedonia--who insisted that if we were ever in their country, they would show us the town. Get out your maps and do your geography homework: Moldova is between Romania and the Ukraine, and Macedonia is north of Greece. Our boys are starting in Frankfurt, heading via "Air Moldova" to Chisinau, for the first leg of their trip to visit Dumitru, who worked with us during the harvest of 2006. Moldova--well, you'll have to Google Moldova to see what a holdout of a country it is, still quite "communistic", where the passion is possessions, and bribery gets you what you need. Their only real national product is wine grapes. They supply a large part of Europe with wine. Here's the Lonely Planet link for your perusal: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/worldguide/moldova/
Anyway, Dumitru has promised his "American family" that he will show them the sights of Moldova, and it should be both beautiful, interesting, and a bit strange for our Western-minded lads. I'll try to keep you current with this two week sojourn--come back tomorrow!
--Celia
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Sheesh!
I don't understand what's with my husband. Kent doesn't seem to get the blog idea at all. He seems to feel he has to write tomes and tomes, and then feels like he has nothing to say. I keep telling him--think "journal" or "diary" entries--as short or long as you like, but frequent enough to make readers think it's worth seeing what's new!
Anyway, he's off to Europe with Webster and Luis. Wanna find out where he's going? Come back tomorrow, and I'll tell you!
--Celia
Anyway, he's off to Europe with Webster and Luis. Wanna find out where he's going? Come back tomorrow, and I'll tell you!
--Celia
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
My Slow Start
Sorry to get such a slow start on my blog. Celia set it up for me and then told me that I had to write profound enological thoughts down for you to read. The last couple of weeks haven’t been terribly profound I guess. I will do better.
So in the wine biz, springtime has most definitively sprung—and what a spring it has been!
Each spring we have a “frost season”. This is the time between when the buds of the vines swell and start to grow and the time when there is no chance that we will have any further temperatures below 32 degrees. In most areas here in the California’s North Coast frost season runs from late March until early May. Some areas are colder than others, vineyards in hollows tend to get more frost than those on slopes…but growers get to know their vineyards and where there are problems. Cold air is an interesting thing…it behaves exactly like water…it flows downhill to low spots and gets stopped by any little dams that are around—sometimes just a bush or a tree will be enough of an impedance to the free flow of the air to cause a tiny cold spot—just enough to freeze a couple of vines. Since cold air is fairly predictable, growers know where they will have to address frost.
To prevent the vines from freezing (and thus killing off the leaves and flower-buds) grape growers have a few options:
-- Most common are fans---great huge fans attached to big motors, sometimes electric, but more often either old V-8s or radial aircraft engines. (Too often with no mufflers!) The fans work because there is generally a layer of slightly warmer air just a few feet above the vineyard (except on clear starry nights) and they stir the warm air with the cold. Pluses of fans are that they don’t need water; minuses are that they don’t work on clear nights, use a lot of fuel and are fairly expensive to install.
--Next most common are overhead sprinklers. The idea behind these is that as long as there is water actively in the process of freezing, the temperature of the flower-bud will not go below 32 degrees (the grapes freeze at 31, not 32). (Think back to “heat of condensation” etc…from high school chemistry or physics.) Sprinkling works really well, but the downside is that it uses an amazing amount of water…something that is chronically short supply here in California …. About 50 gallons per acre per minute!!!
--Beyond these two methods there are a couple of more “natural” methods of frost control:
-Late pruning usually will stop the vine from growing for a couple of extra weeks, which in many areas is all it takes to escape frost season.
-Early tilling. This is the best of all, but also quite hard to accomplish. Cut the weeds and till up the soil so that it can heat up in the sun. Then the radiant heat from the soil warms the vines a little bit.
--The last method, which, until this year, I haven’t seen used in years is “smudge pots”…horrible things that belch and burn diesel fuel and make vineyards look like the scenery of hell. Problem with smudge pots is that they use huge amounts of fuel (50 gallons/acre/hour) and pollute pollute and pollute.
So why do I tell you all of this?
2008 was the worst frost season in at least 30 years --- and in some areas perhaps the worst ever. All of the above methods protect grapes for about 3 degrees—to about 27 or 28. This year there were areas that saw 25 degree nights that lasted for ten hours! No control can defeat that sort of cold. And what’s more, it was for many nights, not just a few.
The result other than very very very tired vineyard managers (good vineyard managers have a “frost alarm” next to their bed which gets them up when the temperature and dew-point gets to a certain level so that they can throw a thermos of coffee into their white pickup truck and head off into the cold to turn on their sprinklers and fans) is that we have lost a goodly number of grapes this year (some say as much as 10% of the entire crop). Until flower set is finished in June it is hard to tell the true damage, but if you have ever seen a frosted vineyard you can’t doubt that there is trouble….they look like they have been hit with a blow-torch. What’s more, some varieties are stupid…especially Pinot Noir (my favorite, of course) which puts its little flower buds peaking out ABOVE the top leaves.
So it has been an exciting spring, but farming is always exciting. So far however, everything looks on course for good quality grapes this year…maybe just not a lot of them.
So in the wine biz, springtime has most definitively sprung—and what a spring it has been!
Each spring we have a “frost season”. This is the time between when the buds of the vines swell and start to grow and the time when there is no chance that we will have any further temperatures below 32 degrees. In most areas here in the California’s North Coast frost season runs from late March until early May. Some areas are colder than others, vineyards in hollows tend to get more frost than those on slopes…but growers get to know their vineyards and where there are problems. Cold air is an interesting thing…it behaves exactly like water…it flows downhill to low spots and gets stopped by any little dams that are around—sometimes just a bush or a tree will be enough of an impedance to the free flow of the air to cause a tiny cold spot—just enough to freeze a couple of vines. Since cold air is fairly predictable, growers know where they will have to address frost.
To prevent the vines from freezing (and thus killing off the leaves and flower-buds) grape growers have a few options:
-- Most common are fans---great huge fans attached to big motors, sometimes electric, but more often either old V-8s or radial aircraft engines. (Too often with no mufflers!) The fans work because there is generally a layer of slightly warmer air just a few feet above the vineyard (except on clear starry nights) and they stir the warm air with the cold. Pluses of fans are that they don’t need water; minuses are that they don’t work on clear nights, use a lot of fuel and are fairly expensive to install.
--Next most common are overhead sprinklers. The idea behind these is that as long as there is water actively in the process of freezing, the temperature of the flower-bud will not go below 32 degrees (the grapes freeze at 31, not 32). (Think back to “heat of condensation” etc…from high school chemistry or physics.) Sprinkling works really well, but the downside is that it uses an amazing amount of water…something that is chronically short supply here in California …. About 50 gallons per acre per minute!!!
--Beyond these two methods there are a couple of more “natural” methods of frost control:
-Late pruning usually will stop the vine from growing for a couple of extra weeks, which in many areas is all it takes to escape frost season.
-Early tilling. This is the best of all, but also quite hard to accomplish. Cut the weeds and till up the soil so that it can heat up in the sun. Then the radiant heat from the soil warms the vines a little bit.
--The last method, which, until this year, I haven’t seen used in years is “smudge pots”…horrible things that belch and burn diesel fuel and make vineyards look like the scenery of hell. Problem with smudge pots is that they use huge amounts of fuel (50 gallons/acre/hour) and pollute pollute and pollute.
So why do I tell you all of this?
2008 was the worst frost season in at least 30 years --- and in some areas perhaps the worst ever. All of the above methods protect grapes for about 3 degrees—to about 27 or 28. This year there were areas that saw 25 degree nights that lasted for ten hours! No control can defeat that sort of cold. And what’s more, it was for many nights, not just a few.
The result other than very very very tired vineyard managers (good vineyard managers have a “frost alarm” next to their bed which gets them up when the temperature and dew-point gets to a certain level so that they can throw a thermos of coffee into their white pickup truck and head off into the cold to turn on their sprinklers and fans) is that we have lost a goodly number of grapes this year (some say as much as 10% of the entire crop). Until flower set is finished in June it is hard to tell the true damage, but if you have ever seen a frosted vineyard you can’t doubt that there is trouble….they look like they have been hit with a blow-torch. What’s more, some varieties are stupid…especially Pinot Noir (my favorite, of course) which puts its little flower buds peaking out ABOVE the top leaves.
So it has been an exciting spring, but farming is always exciting. So far however, everything looks on course for good quality grapes this year…maybe just not a lot of them.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Welcome to Kent Rasmussen Winery's New Blog!
Greetings--this is my new deal--my very own blog! Be sure to check in if your interested in the rantings of me, Kent Rasmussen, owner and winemaker for Kent Rasmussen Winery, Ramsay and Esoterica wines.
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