Aspen Food & Wine Classic!

June 18-22: The Food & Wine Classic in Aspen Colorado is one of the best events that a wine food lover can ever hope for. The best chefs and wineries in the world cram into the tiny town of Aspen for a 4 day party. And if you're a sucker for Top Chef on Bravo like I am, you get to mingle with just about everyone that's ever been on the show.

This year PRIME will be there too! We are partnering with eSommelier , a wine management hardware and software company. We will be pouring at the Grand Tasting on Saturday and at a private event at Paragon Technology on Friday.

Hope to see you there!

Yeah, not very glamorous

Well, I just spotted the winemaker getting ice from the freezer in order to chill a cup of water in his 4 year old's bath. I try not to ask too many questions but can we say Daddy's girl?

In any case I am taking the opportunity to mention that I stopped in to check out bottling today and he was right, nothing terribly fun about it. I got there about an hour and a half after they started and it was all on two neat little pallets already. Not much of a photo op. I guess it doesn't take long to bottle 101 cases of wine. It has been stacked, restacked (we don't have a fork lift at the warehouse) and will have a little rest before it is ready for the market. YUM!

Chardonnay- Truckin'

This is the pic you get when you are driving across Hwy 29 in Napa, hauling a truckload of Chardonnay barrels and you stick your iPhone out the window.  

The Chard is such a small ammout I am trucking the wine from the winery to a place that rents out a bottling line.  So, two trips later the wine is in place.  

First step- transfer it to a stainless steel tank and cover the headspace with a thick blanket of Argon gas.  Its now in the deep freeze at 25 degrees to drop out the tartrate crystals.  A shot of Bentonite will precipitate out excess protein and the last step is to filter out all the dead yeast and grape solids.  A week from now it will happily in bottle at out 55 degree storage warehouse.

This is when I go through my mental (perhaps I should write this down) checklist:

1. Certificate of Label Approval (COLA) -Uncle Sam needs to sign off on every single label.-Check.

2.Bottling date set.Check, confirmed 6/11/09 with Chris.

3.Labels ordered.-Check , due on 6/9/09 cutting it close!

4.Bottles ordered.-Check, I'm picking them up on 6/10/09.

5.Corks ordered.-Check, Terry's going to call me when ther're ready.

6.Pick up foils- I tried but Rui closes the office whenever he feels like it (Europeans!).  I'll try again today.

Bottling is the least fun part of winemaking.  There are a lot of vendors and supplies that need to come together at the right time.  Bit stressfull, but once its safely in the bottle its all good. (and tasty!)

Follow PRIME on Twitter!

I've found that Twitter has become my favorite way to post quick (and short) updates.   

Follow @PrimeCellars to see what's going on.  You will find its a mixup of the latest news with the winery as well as life, food and drink in Napa Valley.  Cheers!

UC Davis Viticulture & Enology has a sweet new home

Davis is well known for its world-class wine department.  When in comes to wine, they have the best professors, staff, and researchers in the world.  One thing that was lacking was the facilities.

Built in the 1930's, the old enology building was not exactly modern or practical.  Wickson Hall was built in the 1950's as a modern home for the research labs and classrooms.  Now pushing 60 years old Wickson was showing its age.  Tiny dark rooms, slight funky smells etc.  When I was there I didn't really notice.  We had nothing to compare it to so we just made do.  

Davis wine students now have the beautiful Robert Mondavi Institute (RMI) to call home.  This is a state of the art facility with too many fancy amenities to list.  The thing looks like a luxury resort.  Its great to see this finally happen, its about time. 

Chardonnay label FINAL!

Thanks so much for all that commented on the creation of our Chardonnay label.  The idea of having the inverse of the Cabernet label really did work in our minds.  Several of you pointed this out so thank you again.  The colors were changed a bit, the final is darker in the both the yellow (now gold-ish) text as well as the brown-ish background.  I'm happy with the way it has turned out!  

The photo is a mock up and will be printed in a slightly different paper but you get the idea...

Quick Cork Question...

This month I've been dealing with the cork companies.  Mostly getting samples, discussing price, and most importantly, asking what they are doing to reduce cork taint.  

They all have their methods and technologies and they all claim to be the company that done the most to eliminate TCA.  I've seen the numbers, and the graphs, and the presentations.

What I really want to know is :  What is the incidence of corked bottles in the market today?  

Gary Vaynerchu(c)k says its 1 in 2500.  I strongly disagree. Please leave a comment on your corked wine experience.  I figure 1 in 60 for me.

( I know, I know...let's leave the screwcaps out of the equation)