I’ve written before about how winemaking is the convergence between art and science, equal parts cooking and chemistry. Our taste bud’s receptor cells bond momentarily with the specific and identifiable chemical structure of the liquid, but in that instant the sensation of those neurons firing in our brain is translated into our conscious perception of the taste of the wine something transcendent occurs. That perception is inherently subjective and it is then, when the science is elevated to the status of art. In that moment, too, the nuances of the wine drinking experience become blended, like Red Rex, with neurons triggered by all manner of other sensory input from our surroundings: Our perception of wine is intrinsically related to circumstances in which it is enjoyed.

A wine enthusiast knows that their palate is easily influenced by wines enjoyed earlier in the night that are still lingering on the tongue. It helps tremendously to chew on a piece of bread to clear your palate. If you’ve ever seen a jar of coffee beans in a tasting room and wondered what the story was, it’s a similar idea. You just sniff the beans to clear out the sinuses. It actually works amazingly well! In the same way that food usually tastes a bit strange right after you brush your teeth, that garlicky Caesar salad has the same effect of the subtleties of wine, though you may not necessarily realize it.

Yet beyond muddling different foods and wines that may cloud our palate’s perception, which is perhaps a more conspicuous effect, there also is the ambiguous influence of present moment: What mood you are in when you taste the wine; the setting in which it is enjoyed; the company that you share the experience with. Subconsciously, all of these factors impact the verdict.  It’s true that wine changes dramatically over time, and that individual bottles of wine can vary. Next time you have an experience where you tried a wine once and didn’t like it, yet on another occasion reversed your stance, consider that perhaps it wasn’t the wine that changed, but it was you.

When we created our tasting room in Deerfield’s cave we understood that the atmosphere of the room itself is intrinsically related to the wine drinking experience. Instead of a long wine bar where you stand shoulder to shoulder with other guests, we created an open and inviting space with deep couches and comfy chairs, arranged in a way that you can enjoy the company of your friends. The people you share your experience with are equally important, and that’s why we have a staff that is friendly and knowledgeable, because while wine is a truly fascinating topic of conversation, it’s mainly about having fun!

It’s spring time in the valley and the vines everywhere have erupted. The heat hasn’t yet begun to brown the grasses so the hills are rolling shades of green. In every vineyard an important job is being done now that the vines have sprouted shoots. There are many different trellising techniques and I’ve talked about a few of them employed in the area in this post, as well as different philosophies of how to best manage vines. All these different systems share the same goal, however, which is to channel as much of the vine’s energy and nutrients as possible to the development of the fruit that we use to make into wine. The winegrower’s  job is to coax the vine into only producing structures that directly assist in helping form intensely flavored, delicious grapes – everything else the vine tries to produce should be removed.

Deerfield’s vineyards use the double cordon training system that is commonly employed in California. In this system the vertical vine is split into two horizontally trained arms called “cordons”. Each cordon is then pruned every year so that it has four growth nodes called “spurs”. The vine is trimmed back to this state every year and these parts lignify (become wooden) and grow thicker with each passing year. Every year new shoots called “canes” sprout from the spurs and it is these green shoots that bear the fruit. Each cane is supposed to bear only one or two bunches of grapes.

No matter how your vines are trained they will always sprout some shoots in the wrong places. If left unchecked these shoots will suck up valuable resources and may even try to produce some unproductive grapes of their own. These “suckers” need to be removed as soon as possible, before the vine starts producing the buds that will become the clusters of grapes. Vineyard crews spend much of spring visiting each vine and making sure it’s behaving properly by snapping off extra shoots or sometimes shoots that just aren’t where they’re supposed to be. At the end of the day, for vineyards using the double cordon system, each vine should have just 16 new canes growing. It’s a much easier job then pruning in the winter because the young shoots can just be snapped off easily by hand, as opposed to when they become partially lignified and need to be clipped with powerful shears.

I’ve been paying close attention to one vine in particular this year, watching its growth and documenting it. I take great pleasure in watching it progress a little more each day. The rate of growth is truly fantastic. Yesterday the buds that would become grape clusters were barely perceivable and today they’ve burst into the tiny calyptra that will blossom into the flowers. The shoots grow almost an inch daily! Of course the real excitement begins when the grapes start to ripen…



I’ve often talked about how winemaking is the meeting ground between art and science, how chemistry aids us in our understanding of the craft but at the end of the day it’s all about taste. Yesterday I had the pleasure of joining Winemaker Robert Rex and the Custom Crush Winemaker Cecilia Valdivia as they sat down to begin formulating the blend for the 2007 vintage of Deerfield’s immensely popular Red Rex. For those of you not familiar with this particular wine, I’ll summarize by saying it is a mega-blend, the likes of which would only be produced in California because it breaks all the rules. In this blog I wrote about how unlike Coca Cola, two vintages are never the same. For this reason Robert never follows a set formula, he simply seeks to make the best possible wine from the grapes Mother Nature deigned to give us. And so the character of the wine can change dramatically though the goal remains the same: To produce a complex, approachable, full-bodied wine that covers every inch of your palate. This year’s Red Rex is a fascinating blend produced from 7 varietals, 17 vineyards, and no less than 25 different lots (individual batches of wine). While this may seem like an “everything-but-the-kitchen-sink” blend, in fact the exact opposite is true: Each component was carefully considered and selected because it will add a specific desirable feature to the finished wine.

So where does a winemaker start? Well of course, it starts in the vineyard. All of the grapes from the different vineyard produced separately as their own wines. As these wines are made, the winemaker becomes intimately familiar with each of them. So on paper, Robert first begins to plan out which wines he thinks ought to be included in the blend and in what amounts. A Cellar Rat has a busy day carefully pulling samples from all 25 different lots. Then a representative blend of all the wines is made. Next comes the fun part – we tasted through every single lot of wine so Robert could reassess each component of the blend individually. The only way to improve your palate is by practice and yesterday I felt as though my palate had a crash course that would normally have taken months or years. Tasting each wine and comparing and contrasting them with the others really allows you to see how each one is different and learn what your likes and dislikes are. Also certain factors alter your perception so having a winemaker there to explain what you’re experiencing is invaluable. For example, higher acidity can create the impression of high alcohol when in fact that is not the case. Having the lab results of the actual amounts of acids, alcohol, pH balance and residual sugar is helpful too because it allows you to understand the correlation between the various components.

After every instrument was individually experienced, we next listened to the whole concerto. It was incredible how it was possible to detect and pick out the individual characteristics of the different wines we had tasted earlier even though they were present in such miniscule amounts. Now that the winemaker has a better idea of the wines and how they harmonize, Robert will tweak the ratios of the blend and come back for round two with his adjustments. This time instead of tasting every component we will taste several different versions of the blend to fine tune the orchestra and find the one that works best. I expect that the 2007 Red Rex will receive a standing ovation when the house lights come up.

We can’t control Nature but we can learn from it. The last couple years have posed some real challenges for Northern Californian farmers, especially those who grow wine grapes. The extremely cool growing seasons of the past two vintages made it difficult to fully ripen the fruit before the potentially damaging fall rains came down. I wrote in more detail about the difficulties we faced in 2009 and 2010 and I’ll summarize by saying that coupled with the early onset and unusual heaviness of the rain, the seasons created a difficult choice for farmers: Either harvest the grapes before they are fully ripened to avoid the mold issues and dilution of the fruit that the rain could bring, or hope that the rain is brief so the ground dries and the grapes finish maturing. We like to say that these are winemaker’s years, when the great winemakers stand out. At Deerfield, we approached the vintage by making wines like those from regions of the world that never get too warm, like Bordeaux and Mosel Valley, and sorted our fruit even more meticulously than usual, sorting out moldy grapes caused by the rain. For a skilled winemaker, there need not be a bad vintage and ’09 and ’10 is proof of that, with outstanding wines like our 2009 Los Chamizal Chardonnay.

Well, we’re having another unusually cool spring and it doesn’t yet have the appearance of warming up, with the weather forecasting another week of rain for the beginning of June. The farmers of wine grapes in Sonoma County are quick to adapt however, seeing a recurring pattern. Last year in an attempt to help ripen the grapes almost everyone in the Sonoma Valley dropped some of their fruit from the vine, meaning they cut off bunches of grapes that were good, curtailing the yield of each plant and thereby channeling the vines’ nutrients and energy into the remaining clusters. This year, some farmers I’ve spoken to, like Dan Sanchez of Alpicella Vineyard, where we get our amazing Sangiovese grapes, say they’re taking a more proactive approach by removing formative grape clusters and reducing the yield before they even begin to flower. That way the remaining bunches get the attention of the vine from the very beginning.

The current weather is helping growers make informed decisions about how to approach the upcoming vintage. It also has more immediate impacts. In this episode of Cellar Rat TV produced before the last harvest, I talked about how our vines were fortunately protected from the late spring rains. People often ask what the effect all this rain is having on the vines. Water always means that you could have a mold or mildew problem, which you can treat organically by spraying the vines with sulfur. The more serious threat is that the rain can damage the fruit set by hurting the nascent flowers, either destroying them or washing away the pollen. The result is loose bunches where only a few of the flowers were able to become grapes, potentially diminishing the crop’s yield. On the positive side, the increased rain means the water is going deeper into the soil and lasting longer. This causes greater and deeper root growth, which will produce a more vigorous vine the following year and therefore a bigger crop.

The wine-growing region of Northern California has incredibly diverse climates, even in small geographical areas. While the rains might have affected some of our neighbors in the Sonoma Valley where it is a little warmer and the budding out therefore earlier, our vines are always a bit behind in the growth cycle, probably due to the Kenwood Marsh keeping the ground cool (I’ve noticed the closer to the pond you get, the less developed the vines are). Our vines haven’t yet flowered and the bunches are still protected by the little green pods called the calyptra, so I don’t expect the rain will have any other impact other than to make our vines grow vigorously throughout summer and perhaps provide a bigger crop next year. Since the spring was cool and wet, we look forward to a long warm summer and late fall rains.

Deerfield Ranch Winery focuses on what we call “clean” wine. Clean wine is low in both sulfites and the histamines that are created by the yeast. What this means to you is that you can enjoy Deerfield wines without the fear of the dreaded red wine headache or a sulfite hangover the next day. You can read more about it here, but the gist is that the yeast produces histamines to protect themselves when they encounter toxins in the fermentation process. We make sure the yeast only find what their looking for when doing their job in the fermentation tank by feeding them a healthy diet, sorting our grape three times to ensure only beautiful fruit is present, and by maintaining rigorous sanitation procedures.

We have our own water treatment facility  we recycle 98% of all water that we use. You take a tour of the facility with the winemaker on Cellar Rat TV. In conjunction with our own well, we’ve created a model for what a sustainable winery can be. We recently added a state-of-the-art ultra violet light sanitation system that completely sterilizes all of the water at Deerfield without the need to use any chemicals. The system passes the water through three ultra violet light chambers that irradiate the water in a continuous flow with ultra-violet light (trust me, NOT a bad thing) so that no microbes come out the other end. We’re thrilled to add this to the winery because it guarantees us that the water we use in the winemaking process is completely pure.

Making clean wine isn’t just about one thing though. It requires a concentrated and thoughtful effort at every stage of the winemaking process, from the vineyard to the bottling truck. It’s worth the effort though. I personally am terribly affected by sulfites in wine. We use sensitive equipment to gauge exactly how much oxygen is dissolved in the wine and then add only enough SO2 to seek out and bond with the oxygen, leaving behind only inert SO3. Often when our wines are first release the SO2 is lower than 10 parts per million which is below the human threshold. That number even decreases as the wines age. For those people (like the winemaker’s wife, PJ) who suffer from headaches that make drinking red wine an awful prospect, Deerfield offers a delicious revelation. If you are one of those people, go ahead, try a glass of Deerfield! You won’t be the first person to discover that you can enjoy red wine again.