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May 2011 Contra Costa Wine Group Newsletter Here it is Monday afternoon already! The next meeting is in 4 days! I should have written this on Friday. It couldn’t have been earlier as we didn’t get back from Europe until late Thursday night. We had a wonderful visit to Rome and our Holland America cruise to the eastern Mediterranean was exceptional. We only got to visit one winery while on the trip. It was on Santorini in Greece. They grow the vines very low to the ground so that any high winds don’t damage them. Their white wines were quite nice. While on our cruise we purchased bottles of wine in Istanbul, Athens, Mykonos and on Santorini. Most were pretty good although one was really “grapey.” Our internal clocks are slowly coming around. Barbara Bentley (and Bonneau Dickson) both provided me with some great notes about the last meeting held at the home of Bob & Ruth Hussey in Danville on April 29th. Here you go: Barbara: Approximately thirty people attended the May meeting at the lovely home of Ruth and Bob Hussey. · There was an abundance of yummy appetizers and delicious wine. · Bonneau Dickson served as the Master of Ceremonies and two guests introduced themselves. · Cindy Tedmus brought three items of clothing left at her home after the February meeting. Are you missing a black sweater coat, gray Poppy Hills jacket, or a shawl? Please call Ruth Hussey to claim them. · The two remaining red wine winners from the January competition did not pour their wine.
Bonneau: The meeting was held at the lovely home of Bob and Ruth Hussey. The weather was pleasantly warm and the red wine table was set up out on the deck and many people congregated there, observing the beautiful view of Mt. Diablo. About 30 people attended the meeting. Bob Hussey reported that Dick Ingraham is doing very well after his back surgery.
Barbara: Treasurer’s Report (Lee Wines): · There’s $2,200 in the club account. · The good news is that this is enough to carry the club through to the next collection of dues in September. · The bad news is that we may need to raise the dues in September to $50 or drop our insurance ($1,300/year). o The consensus of the group was that we do not want to drop the insurance. o Several ideas were discussed for raising money: raising the entry fee for competition wine to $10 (but this makes the members entering wine carry those who do not), charging for the wine competition dinner or for guests at the dinner, have members bring appetizers to meetings to defray the $100 per meeting cost of food. Further discussion will be held at a future meeting.
Barbara: New Business/Announcements: · David Hick’s neighbor in Lake County will have petite syrah grapes this year at a good price. If you’re interested, please contact David. · We collected only a little over a case of wine for the Winemaker Conference. We really need three cases for the club pouring on Friday evening, May 20th. Please donate a bottle or two of your best wine so we can showcase the Contra Costa Wine Group! Contact Rex Johnston if you can spare a bottle of wine.
Bonneau: Once again, we did not collect as many bottles of wine as we would like for our pouring at the WineMaker Magazine Fourth Annual Conference in Santa Barbara. The Contra Costa Wine Group will be pouring samples of our wine on Friday night, May 20. If you have not already contributed a sample of your wares, please do so. We have almost exclusively red wines so some whites would be especially appreciated.
You can drop off any additional bottles at the home of Ann & Mike Koch, 215 Pebble Ct. in Alamo on Tuesday or Wednesday ONLY. Their telephone is (925) 552-7827.
Al Turner’s comment: I simply do not understand why the membership hasn’t come forward this year for the WineMaker Magazine Conference Friday night pouring! For both the Napa and Sonoma County conferences, we were able to accumulate 7 full cases for each of those events. Has the dynamic of the group changed? I realize that we don’t really get much out of it but I have truly enjoyed being one of the pourers and discussing winemaking with other home winemakers from all over the U.S. and Canada. On top of that, we were the 2010 WineMaker Magazine Club of the Year and looking to repeat!!!
Bonneau: I WILL BE HAPPY TO RECEIVE BOTTLES, BUT NOT MANY CLUB MEMBERS LIVE NEAR ME. MAYBE SOME OF THE OTHERS WHO ARE COMING CAN ACCEPT DROP-OFFS AND BRING THEM DIRECTLY. AL, WE HAVE A TOTAL OF 21 BOTTLES. LEE WINES SAID HE WILL BRING THREE BOTTLES WITH HIM. (He did!) THAT MAKES EXACTLY TWO CASES. I WILL HAPPILY CONTRIBUTE WHATEVER WE NEED, WITH A MINIMUM OF SAY THREE BOTTLES.
Barbara · Lending equipment: about ten years ago we had wine making equipment available to share among club members. Bonneau says he’ll be happy to share his equipment (crusher, etc.) and grape sources if a club member needs help. Trivia: · The statue of a man pressing grapes that stands at the entrance to the Napa Valley represents André Tchelistcheff, America’s most influential post-prohibition winemaker who helped define the styles of California wine, including cabernet sauvignon. He was born to an aristocratic Russian family in 1901 and was brought over to Beaulieu Vineyards in 1938. · Napa Valley-based artist Sebastian Titus and his partner, Wesley Poole, have designed labels for over 50 winemakers, including Montelena. The two always sample the product before turning to the palette and have quite a collection of empty bottles.
Speaker: · The speaker, Rex Johnston, shared that he has used two books during his home wine making years: “Successful Wine Making at Home” by H.E. Bravery and “Home Winemaking” by Jon Iverson. · Along the way he has improvised and changed recipes to improve the results. Rex started out in Michigan making strawberry, dandelion, and rhubarb wine. · Rex built his talk around a blind pouring of four types of dessert wines: a dry apple wine, a Botryised chardonnay, an elephant heart plum, and a red raspberry. He uses a True cooler for cold fermentation and cold stabilization and premier cuvee yeast. · Fruit preparation depends on the type of fruit. o For the apple wine, he uses golden delicious apples from his backyard and a kitchen electric juicer to separate the juice from the pulp. o For the Botryised chardonnay, he uses frozen juice from Peter Brehm. For the elephant heart plum from the trees in his backyard, he cuts them in half, removes the pit, puts pectic enzyme on the flesh, and freezes them until he’s ready to start the wine. Then he puts the frozen fruit in a cheesecloth strainer, and collects the thawed juice in five gallon buckets. He sprays sulfite solution on the fruit as it thaws. · For the berry wine, he uses frozen berries from the grower, separates the berries by ripeness (less-ripe vs. ripe), puts the ripe berries for wine in a cheesecloth strainer, sprays a sulfite solution on it as it thaws , and collects the thawed juice in separate five gallon buckets. For the less-ripe fruit, he thaws the berries in a bucket and uses the thawed fruit to make jelly. · He fines and filters all of his fruit wines. · Rex offered to mentor anyone in the club who would like to make a dessert wine.
To both Barbara and Bonneau, I thank you so very much for so kindly taking notes and getting them to me for this newsletter.
Our next meeting is going to be held this very Friday, May 20, 2011. This is being done to avoid any conflict at all with the 3 Day Memorial Day weekend. The 27th would have had a very low turnout as people would be trying to make it a 4 day weekend.
Our speaker will be Kerry Smith of Ganau America in Sonoma. Their products include customized premium corks, agglomerated corks and sparkling wine corks. I’m sure that it will be a very interesting presentation.
This months’ meeting will be on Friday night, May 20, 2011, starting at around 7:30 p.m. It will be held at the home of Mark & Lori Beecher in Walnut Creek. The meeting will likely be outside, unless it’s pouring rain, and then their garage would come into play. Dress warmly. BRING A FOLDING CHAIR FOR YOUR OWN USE along with your homemade wine and a wine glass.
DIRECTIONS: From both directions on Highway 680, take the Ygnacio Valley Rd. exit East. After about 3½ miles, turn right onto Oak Grove Rd. After about a mile, turn left on Arbolado Dr. The Beecher home is up the hill about a mile and their address is: 3940 Arbolado Dr. Their telephone number in case you get lost is (925) 930-7971.
See you all there! Al Turner, Secretary, CCWG |