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Palate Pleasing Pinot continued....
Recently, Kirk and Denise purchased a small farmhouse on ten acres just outside the town of Sebastopol that previously grew apples. Over time, it is their plan to plant Pinot Noir and produce an estate bottling. Wines are released each year on February 14th and pick up weekend is in April.
Recently I had the pleasure of visiting with Kirk and Denise and taste through the current release. The Pinot Noirs include, 2006 WesMar Salzgeber Vineyard Russian River Valley Pinot Noir (157 cases), 2006 WesMar Balletto Vineyard Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir (291 cases), 2006 WesMar Oehlman Vineyard Russian River Valley Pinot Noir (261 cases), 2006 WesMar Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir (355 cases), and 2006 WesMar Russian River Valley Pinot Noir (322 cases). They think this is a more “feminine” vintage and should develop nicely over the next several years.
Wes Mar Winery mailing address is P.O Box 810, Forestville, CA 95436. Tasting is available by appointment by calling 707-829-8824. The website is www.wesmarwinery.com. The wines are sold through a mailing list with very little retail availability.
Shirts, vests, books, magazine subscriptions, movies and other Sale Items have Arrived! Several items are now available to purchase for the wine enthusiast! Check out the vests, polo shirts, T-Shirts, bags and other items which are available. Use your Credit Card to purchase! Shirts start at $20 and vests at $49! Something Different? Pick up a book, magazine or movie related to wine! Check out John Cleese DVD "Wine for the confused" in the book, magazines and movie section. -------------------------------------- Pinot Noir Resource Available! Linked here, are listings of Pinot Noir producers in California and Oregon. This listing is an attempt to provide you with a resource to track down a producer, find their home page and generally to see who in these areas is producing this varietal. Click and see what is there! Might be information you can use.
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WINE...I drink it when I'm happy and when I'm sad. Sometimes I drink it when I'm alone. When I have company I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I'm not hungry and drink it when I am. Otherwise I never touch it - unless I'm thirsty. Comments or Questions? click here! |
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CORK
The next time you pull a cork out of a wine bottle, stop and think of all the corks you have pulled over the years and how wonderful it is to open a great bottle of wine. Recently I had an opportunity to visit with one of the world’s largest producer of cork products in Portugal, Amorim. The visit highlighted the first steps of the manufacturing process of the cork tree bark – and gave some insights into the cork industries steps to reduce that bane of wine drinkers, Cork Taint!
In Portugal alone there are more than 670,000 hectares (Approximately 2,600 square miles) of cork forests, which produce more than half the world’s cork. The area under cork forest is growing by 4 per cent a year. Management of the cork forests in Portugal – from cultivation to harvesting – is strictly controlled. The trees cannot be cut down without permission and the bark can only be stripped once every nine years. Cork is a truly sustainable resource. The cork oak tree has a life span of around 170 – 200 years during which time it will be stripped around 15 – 18 times.
Click on the pictures for more information.
Today’s forest is relatively young – the average cork oak is 72 – 75 years – ensuring sufficient cork to supply the world’s winemakers for the next 100 years. A cork tree has to be at least 25 years old before the first harvest and it is not until the third harvest that the bark can be used for the production of wine corks. Bark from the first two harvests (Virgin and Secondary) is used for other cork products (flooring, shoes, insulation etc).
The harvest takes place between June and September because at this time of the year the tree is growing. This means that the bark can be easily removed from the trunk and a new outer skin grows quickly to protect the inner bark. Stripping the outer bark is a very delicate operation carried out by skilled workers using special axes. Once stripped, the tree is marked with the year of harvest and you see these numbers on trees as you drive along.
Palate Pleasing Pinot
WesMar is a small winery in the Russian River Valley located in an old apple processing plant. The owners, Denise Mary Selyem is the daughter of Ed Selyem and both her and her husband Kirk Wesley Hubbard worked at Williams Selyem for several years before the winery was sold in 1997. They hand craft their wines using old traditional methods with a soft touch and an elegant style. They have no employees – doing all the work themselves to craft small lot Pinot Noir.
This two person team seem to want to make great Pinot Noir and are not out to chase scores (they don’t even submit their wines to any of the multitude of wine reviewers) or even go out and push their wines at any of the many Pinot Noir events around the state. No, they are a modest couple who seem to want to stay out of the spotlight and let their wines speak for them. Recently, after doing 7 vintages, they have done one winemaker dinner and that was just recently. Kirk and Denise lover to interact with their loyal and growing fan base of consumers and are very personable and receive visitors to their modest 1,500 square foot winery on an appointment bases only.
The only way to get their wines is to sign up on their website and join their mailing list. This limited production (1500 cases a year) is sold almost exclusively to this mailing list. There are two distinctive hallmarks of WesMar (pronounced Wes-Mare as in MARy) Pinot Noir. There is a consistency from one vintage to the next and from bottle to bottle and the bottlings from each vintage are all unique. They strive to make wines that are unique but with very similar levels of richness and depth. The winemaking is slow and focused on caring for the fruit the entire process. No pumps, all labor done by hand. Pressing is done with an old incarnated bladder press once used for apples, fermentations are in five ton, double-wall, rectangular open top stainless steel shipping milk shipping containers and all punch downs are done by hand. Picking is done based on taste of the fruit but usually with a much lower sugar level (Brix) than a lot of producers in the area. Aging is in Francois Freres oak barrels and there is no fining or filtering done as the wines are lovingly tendered in small lots and constantly monitored for stability.
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After harvest the bark is seasoned for six months in the open air, stacked on stainless steel pallets above the ground. It is boiled in water at 100 degrees Celsius for 90 minutes to remove contaminants. The planks are then left to stabilize for two to three weeks. The bark is sorted into quality categories before being boiled and dried again. Only the best quality bark is chosen for natural cork stoppers and discs for sparkling wine.
The overall cork processing system has changed significantly over the last 10 years. In the late 1990’s, cork taint was a major issue. In order to address this issue, Amorim and other major cork producers have taken huge strides to improve the manufacturing process. This starts at the tree by not utilizing the portion of the bark in contact with the dirt; air drying the bark on concrete sloped areas; boiling the material (and filtering the water continuously to eliminate contamination); the use of stainless steel pallets rather than wood; and the continuous testing to safeguard each step of the process to eliminate contamination. While cork taint will always be a problem it is clear the cork industry is working towards major improvements.
The corks undergo exhaustive quality control and testing at each stage of processing. While at the Amorim facility, I visited there testing laboratories where testing of each lot was performed throughout the manufacturing process. In addition to taste and sensory analysis, the battery of tests covers humidity and microbiological content, capillarity, recovery, sealing ability and performance over time.
Once the bark has been thoroughly cleaned, it is inspected and sorted – some to become cork stoppers for wine and spirits and some as other manufactured goods. During our tour, we followed the manufacturing of disks used as part of the champagne cork process. These disks go through a variety of steps, punching sorting, resorting, branding before becoming quality disks for the end of the champagne cork.
Those portions of the tree that are destined for wine stoppers are individually inspected and graded according to the overall quality of the material. This is all done by hand using knives, keen eyes and lots of experience. Once the sorting process has been completed they are shipped to another plant where they are punched and further sorted and cleaned. Once they are ‘corks stoppers’ they are shipped around the world.
