Sacramento Convention CenterLast week I attended the Unified Wine & Grape Symposium in Sacramento, which is one of the world’s largest wine industry trade shows. I had a fantastic time learning about where the wine industry is at the moment, meeting people as excited about winemaking as I am, and checking out oenological and viticultural gadgetry I didn’t know existed!

Inside a breakout sessionThe event is three days long and I attended the breakout sessions on Wednesday. I was able to catch the “State Of The Industry” address which looked generally at consumer trends and the industry’s reaction to those trends. The blog entry I wrote last week covered most of what was reported from the marketing perspective. It was also reported that in response to the public’s current fascination with Malbec and Muscato a huge amount of these varietals have been planted in the last year. It takes three years for a vine that has been “budded over” (had a new varietal grafted onto an existing rootstock) to produce grapes suitable for wine production. Inside the exhibit hallCurrently, 25% of Muscat vines planted in California are not bearing fruit. That means that if it turns out that the popularity of Muscat is a merely a fad then there will be a lot of frustrated growers in the year 2013.

Radoux Tonnellerie's boothThe barrel coopers’ booths were undoubtedly the fanciest at the event. One of the coopers had bought out 8 booths and actually built a living room in the middle of the event! Wine capsules of every shape and color were on display. Branded boxes made of fine paper were being shown alongside more practical wine shipping materials that looked like they could survive Armageddon. I knew that boxed wine is becoming more popular; with higher quality wines now being packaged in cardboard, but it wasn’t until I saw the vast selection of boxed alternatives that I realized how much is really out there. Fancy wine capsulesThese days wine is even being sold in milk cartons and over-sized Capri Sun-style juice pouches. Speaking of alternative packaging, one company offered a one-way disposable substitute for a keg, which was like a giant Christmas ornament. I cringed at the idea of all the trash it created, though they certainly looked futuristic – huge baubles of wine! Deerfield, however, will continue to produce wine in the traditional manner: Wine bottles with natural corks.

Barrel attachment for forkliftsHuge piece of vineyard equipmentOn the viticulture side of things I was impressed by the state-of-the-art equipment that exists to do virtually all the vineyard maintenance. These machines cannot replicate the care that a human being can give to each plant but some of the equipment can help a grower do the job better. For instance, vine tying can be a tedious and time consuming task. Sometimes the sheer repetition can leave a person dazed and unfocused. Showcased at this year’s Unified was a handheld device that a worker can use to automatically do the actual tying of the stem to the trellis.

Beautiful European still for making GrappaFor me, the highlights of the oenological tools were twofold. There was another handheld device that could instantly analyze a cotton swab of a surface and tell you if it is completely sanitized. Around the corner was a fermentation tank, unlike any I’ve seen before, that closely resembled an egg laid by an emu the size of a small skyscraper. Its manufacturer advertised that the egg shape naturally promoted currents in the fermenting grapes, minimizing the need for laborious punch-downs and pump-overs.

I had an absolutely fantastic and informative time at Unified this year and I’m looking forward to next year!



While there was snow on the ground in Dallas, Northern Californians were enjoying 80 degree weather this Super Bowl. Everyone has been relishing summer temperatures in the middle of winter and basking in the unexpected sun. As much as I like to be an optimist, this Cellar Rat is a little concerned about what this reprieve from cold weather might mean. The extended forecasts say our little block of summer is due to end next week. I for one am eager for more rain and I’d imagine the vines are too. My concern isn’t that they won’t get enough water – grapevines don’t need very much H2O and, in fact, less water produces better winegrapes. What I’m worried about is that the precipitation is simply being deferred and that we’ll have a particularly wet spring.

In this episode of Cellar Rat TV, I talked last spring about the potential of heavy rains during spring damaging the flowering buds and ruining the fruitset. If that happens then many bunches of grapes will only have some of their berries developed and come harvest, the pollenated “shot berries” will be a major problem to contend with. Too many of them in the fermenting must can cause astringent flavors or undesirable green notes.

The other challenge we face every spring is the threat of frost damage. Frost doesn’t damage the lignified (or wooded) parts of the vine but it can destroy or irreparably damage the cells of green growth. Therefore, I’d rather the vines face the cold weather now before they begin to bud than later in the season.

I’m no meteorologist but I would put my money on winter coming back with a vengeance. My apologies to those Californians who would rather be tanning than splashing in puddles, but I hope that we see some spring showers in the near future.

I give quite a few tours to folks who stop by and visit Deerfield’s wine caves. Sometimes people are surprised that it’s possible to make white wine from red grapes so I thought I’d take some time to set the record straight. The fundamental difference between red wine and white wine is that red wines are fermented while in contact with the grape skins. It’s true there are red and white skinned grapes. Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, and Viognier are all white skinned grapes that are made into white wines. In the case of white wines, as soon as the grapes have been harvested and sorted they are immediately put into the press and the juice is transferred into a vessel (such as a barrel or tank) for fermentation. Some red colored grapes are also treated the same way. The most famous example would be Champagne. Shocking as it may be, that golden bubbly we’re so familiar with is derived from grapes as red as Pinot Noir. Fun fact: Currants, which are known for their dark hue, are dried Champagne grapes.

Red wines on the other hand are fermented along with the skins of red grapes, necessitating the use of punchdowns and pumpovers described in past articles. It is incredible how quickly the color is transferred from the skins to the liquid. During maceration (when the skins are crushed to release the juice), even if the juice is only exposed to the skins for 30 minutes it will develop a pinkish hue. There are several different methods for making rosé and one of them involves allowing a few hours of contact with the skins before pressing the grapes – that’s all it takes! For red wines, it’s only after the juice has fully fermented that the wine is drained off and the remaining skins are pressed.

Beyond coloration, there is a key component that separates red and white wines. One among many reasons that wine is unique among our beverage choices is that grapes contain tannins. Tannins are found in the stems, seeds and skins of grapes yet not in the “must” or the juicy meat of the grape. Tannins are found in oak as well, so a Chardonnay aged in new oak barrels does have tannin in it. A stainless steel fermented and aged Chardonnay would have little to none.

The only thing that prevents winemakers from making more white wines from red grapes is tradition. The now infamous White Zinfandel isn’t made from an offshoot of the Zin varietal with lighter skins. It’s just rosé made from regular Zinfandel grapes! In fact, when it was first created by Sutter Home in the 1970s it was an accidental product of a stuck fermentation. Though many people may not be reaching for White Zinfandel nowadays, we have its popularity to thank for saving California’s Zin vines so we can enjoy wines like Deerfield’s 2006 Old Vine Zin today. Experimenting can be fun and lead to some unexpected results. The wine I made this past harvest could actually be considered a White Pinot Noir!



Home Sweet HomeThe Cave is really home to the Cellar Rat, which is why I'm surprised that I haven't spoken more about it. The obvious question is why put wine in a cave in the first place? Wine is picky about its environment. It ages best in a very specific temperature and humidity range that remains constant. Serendipitously, shallow caves happen to provide exactly such an environment. Another modern solution to wine aging and storage is the climate controlled warehouse. It takes a great deal of energy to cool such a large space, so caves are really a much greener option and cost effective as well - I have it on good authority that building a cave is less expensive per square foot than any other structure. Building a modern wine cave is a very exciting endeavor. The digging machine that buried into the earth like a massive mechanical mole looked like the imaginings of Jules Verne.  Cave FloorplanThe process of digging the cave, we discovered, is very organic: You start with a plan of what you want and then the foreman comes back to you halfway through and says "Okay, we hit granite. You can keep going the way it says on the plan and it will cost you $100,000 or you can go this way and it will cost $10,000." On the original plan the cave is designed like a wheel with spokes leading into the center. It was definitely destiny morphed into the current configuration because the finished cave layout is in the shape of a wineglass.

They use the massive machine to dig and cart away the dirt and then they cover the walls with spray-on concrete called shockcrete. The shape of the tunnels provides the real strength of the cave, however, where the winery building will eventually sit on top of the cave, steel girders are stretched into an arch which can hold an enormous load. The strength of this shape has been known since Roman times. Interestingly, it is the concrete floor that holds the ends of the girder in place, so the floor is really what keeps everything together as you can see in the diagram. Another layer of shockcrete is applied and then they cover it with whatever finish you like, such as plaster. In all of the working sections of the cave we left the shockcrete bare because it looks nice but it turned out to be the bane of cellar rats - its jagged surface is as treacherous as volcanic rock. It's slow going when you're working in the tight space between the wall and the barrels.

Deerfield's cave is state-of-the-art: Compressed air is provided throughout the cave, as well as lines for inert gases like nitrogen and argon. There is even copper wire buried in the floor to provide wireless signals! My uncle Martin, our General Manager, even hooked up every switch to our main server, so that potentially, if you wanted to, you could dim the lights from Paris. The Tasting RoomThe cave is 23,000 sq. ft. and holds about 3000 barrels - that's a lot of wine! Unique to Deerfield's cave is the Grand Room which lays in the very heart of it. This amazing space is currently where our tasting room is located, so when you visit you get to go spelunking. Deerfield’s caves were designed by the winemaker’s brother and my father, Michael Rex.