Clos Pepe Newsletter

Post Harvest Edition

January/February 1999

Great Harvest!!

Okay--so you’re not interested in El Nino any more. That’s understandable. Every wine newsletter that arrives details the effect of weather on the 1998 grape crop. I’m happy to report that besides changing our leaf-thinning and modifying our powdery mildew program, El Nino had very minimal effects on our 1998 Harvest, which was a smashing (crushing?) success in every way. Our harvest was pushed back nearly three weeks by cool Summer weather--but a longer ‘hang-time’ for the fruit really increased the floral phenolic compounds in our Chardonnay. This longer ripening period made for some special wines in 1998. Clos Pepe harvested 21.5 tons of Chardonnay from 13.6 acres between October 7^th and October 13. No tractors tipped, no pickers lost fingers, and the buzz around the Valley was that our (rookie) fruit looked pretty damned good for such a difficult year. The fruit was a beautiful golden color, and averaged about 24.5 Brix (roughly percentage of sugar) and with a very low pH (3.0-3.2) As Jim Clendenen of Au Bon Climat commented--these are very ‘Burgundian’ numbers--high acid, strong structure in the 1998 wines. Ten tons of Davis-4 Clone Chardonnay were delivered to the Hitching Post/Au Bon Climat/Qupe facility, three tons of Wente Clone Chardonnay to the Longoria crush platform, and a little over eight tons of Dijon 76 and Wente Chardonnay were delivered next door to Babcock Vineyards and Winery. Pictures of harvest are available for viewing at www.clospepe.com. Single Vineyard wines from 1998 Clos Pepe fruit will be available from Hitching Post and Babcock Vineyards, to reserve these wines keep reading.

A Handy Conversion Table:

1 ton of grapes produces (roughly)

2 barrels of finished wine.

A barrel of wine is 55-60 gallons,

or 24 cases, or 288 bottles of wine

1998 Babcock ‘Clos Pepe Vineyards’ Chardonnay. Order Today (or else!!)

On December 30, 1998, the Vigneron, L’Agent and the Viticulturist in Residence (Steve, Cathy and Wes respectively) journeyed deep into the hallowed cellars of Babcock Winery with Bryan Babcock to do blending trials of the 1998 Babcock Chardonnay ‘Clos Pepe Vineyards’. The wine, which has yet to undergo malolactic

fermentation, tasted fantastic. Very intense, good citrusy flavors with a nuance of tropicality, strong structure, and a bit of ‘gravelly’ minerality. This wine, at this stage, is more like a fine Chablis than a standard California Chardonnay. The final blend will be 25% new oak and 75% ‘neutral’ oak, which should showcase the fruit and Bryan’s mastery of the varietal. Want some? Two-hundred cases will be produced, and almost 30 cases have already been reserved. The wine will retail for between $25 and $30 a bottle. To reserve your case (or bottles), call Wes at 805-735-2196, or email him at weshagen@thegrid.net or visit www.clospepe.com and he will set everything up. You won’t have to pay for the wine until it is delivered or picked up. The wine will be released in Sept.-Nov. 99 and is expected to sell out before Spring ‘99.

Have YOU visited www.clospepe.com ?

Our vineyard’s official website, www.clospepe.com has been visited by over 2000 wine lovers in the past two months. The site is designed to educate and entertain. If you like the newsletter, you’ll love the website. Features include: a picture gallery, a pictorial ‘virtual tour’ of a whole year’s farming and winemaking, reviews of local wines currently in distribution, an archive of past newsletters and inquiries I’ve received, our wine growing philosophy, and a place to ask questions or order wine. The Vigneron is paying big bucks for this, so come take a look.

Electronic Newsletter

If you have email, you can reduce the number of stamps Wes has to lick (which is terrible for his sensitive palate) by signing up to receive this newsletter electronically. This current newsletter is sent out with ‘hyperlinks’ to a bunch of harvest pictures and interesting images unavailable to the unwashed, non-technological masses. Sign up for the Electronic Newsletter by emailing the Viticulturist at weshagen@thegrid.net .

Clos Pepe Wines--

1996 Syrah (Thompson Vineyard): Deeply colored and saturated with masculine Syrah flavors--peppers, game, dark fruits. 4 Cases Made.

1997 Pinot Noir (Mission Vineyard, Santa Maria):

Awesome fruit, bright wild cherry meets great intensity--a touch of mintiness and balanced French oak. L.A. Fair Gold Medal. 23 cases produced.

1997 Cabernet Sauvignon: (Knight’s Valley/San Luis Obisp.)

Intense currant, blackberry flavors with some herb, leather and tar notes. Orange County Fair Best of Show--Red. 48 Cases produced--24 still in barrel.

Personalities:

Young Hagens Show Great Promise as Winemakers

The next generation of winemakers at Clos Pepe are in training. According tothe Viticulturist’s plan, the Hagen girls (daughters of Rob and Stacy Hagen) will have 15 ‘crushes’ under their belts when they turn 21 and become ‘legal’ consumers. Jennifer seems to have the superior palate, and had to be whisked out of the winery when she couldn’t restrain herself from taking tastes out of the press bucket. According to Jennifer, the 1998 Cabernet Sauvignon should be ‘yummy’. Stacy Hagen felt that the wine was tasting pretty good out of the press. Mom was very kind to allow the girls to break child-labor laws and pull on the press handle a few times. Nicole was glad to have a turn as well, and performed her first crush duties admirably.

Rosa Knows the

Good Stuff by Nose

Rosa has become a wonderful vineyard dog in the past six months. Even though she ignores rabbits and gophers, preferring to pursue birds or the Fed-Ex guy, we’ve become rather attached to her and her high-spirited hijinx. Scottish Border Collies are often cited as the ‘smartest breed’ in the world--and I don’t doubt it. Rosa has a few burgeoning talents: her ability to catch a frisbee at top speed, her ability to stare intently (usually at those with food) with the most alert, precocious honey-brown dog eyes I’ve ever seen, and her uncanny potential as a wine-taster. She loves grapes any way she can find them. She’ll eat them fresh, a few days old, fermented, or in the form of wine. Interestingly enough, she accompanied me almost twenty-four hours a day during crush--driving, picking, crushing, pressing...and she ate the grapes that fell out of the truck, then out of the fermenting bin, then after they were pressed. She participated personally in the process, and so I find it rather natural that she enjoys a good taste of wine whenever she can find it. And find it she does. One day after five hours of hand-pressing 1998 Pinot Noir, I had to get Rosa to the vet. I looked a fright in my crush clothes, and I’m sure everyone at the vet thought I was a disgraceful, unrepenetant drunk--but a pet-lover all the same. Rosa had never been more calm and well-mannered at the vet. I was asked to hold Rosa’s muzzle as she was probed and prodded, and got a good whiff of alcohol. I asked the doctor to smell, and he confirmed the embarrassing truth. My dog was drunk. She had been sneaking around to the compost pile where we dump the pressed grapes and she had been eating them. In true Scottish fashion, Rosa handled herself well at the vet, did not wobble or get sick. I asked the vet whether a little wine would be advisable for her every day, as a preventative measure for her heart. He said that a very small amount couldn’t hurt--so now I give Rosa her medicine each day with three or four droppers full of red wine. It helps the pill go down smoothly, and after a hard morning in the field, Rosa deserves a pleasant nap--thinking of warmer days and ripe grapes waiting to be discovered .

Vigneron's Page

By Steve Pepe

(The following three articles were penned by Steve Pepe, the Vigneron of Clos Pepe)

HE CAN TALK THE TALK

HE CAN WALK THE WALK

HE CAN GROW THE GRAPES

Our faithful readers will recall that at this time last year, Clos Pepe became self-sustaining. Our former viticulturist, rightfully respecting the market and wanting to provide for his family, had decided that Clos Pepe was too small and left for other opportunities. The Vigneron, who had been fired many times in his career , embraced this as an opportunity. However, L’Agent – who had never been reprimanded, let alone let go – hearkened to her roots and prayed for divine intervention. Little did the Vigneron and L’Agent realize what providence had in store.

Out of the frozen tundra of Minnesota, the Artist-in-Residence arrived and offered to run the family farm. But the Artist-in-Residence held the resume of an English major and had little agricultural experience. Thus, the Vigneron was understandably skeptical of the putative Viticulturist’s prospects for success – but prudence and uncharacteristic tact persuaded him to keep his opinions to himself.

Besides being verbal, English majors do read, and the Artist/Viticulturist/Winemaker-in-Residence devoured the Vigneron’s wine library. The Vigneron, in the face of such a thirsty vessel, felt compelled to augment the Artist’s consumption of the written word with equal consumption of wine (in controlled tastings, of course) as well as viticulture classes at UC-Davis.

When the Spring of 1998 arrived with 19,800 pinot noir plants and El Nino, the Artist/Viticulturist/ Winemaker-in-Residence jumped into the breach. Lo and behold, with lots of sweat, tears and some blood, the pinot noir vineyard was planted. Then, with nary a break, the Artist/Viticulturist/Winemaker-in-Residence lovingly succored the chardonnay vineyard to a full and unexpectedly bountiful harvest in a very trying year.

The Artist/Viticulturist/Winemaker-in-Residence, with help from the Vigneron and compassion from L’Agent, grew some excellent fruit in a very tough year. The proof is at the wineries – Babcock, Hitching Post and Longoria (in alphabetical order – the Vigneron is so politically correct). The Vigneron is anxiously awaiting the next Summer/Fall, when the wines will be released and he can drink all three together to taste the difference, if any, the winemaker or the clones make. Undoubtedly, regardless of the tasting results, the Artist/Viticulturist/Winemaker-in-Residence’s efforts will be discernible.

CLOS PEPE FOURTH GENERATION WINEMAKERS

Most of our faithful readers assume Clos Pepe is a contemporary vineyard. However, that is far from the truth – about four generations from it, in fact. When the Vigneron became a grape grower, it awakened a primordial response in his father and brother to recount the East Coast Pepe winemaking tradition.

Apparently, the Vigneron’s great-grandfather – along with all of the other Italians in New Jersey, for that matter, if not the rest of the United States – made wine; the Volstadt Amendment and the WCTC (some of L’Agent’s ancestors) notwithstanding . Grapes arrived in New Jersey from California in boxcars. The Vigneron’s great-grandfather and his cronies would go down to the rail yards and taste the grapes from each boxcar and argue about which batch was the best. After they made their selection, they would cart the grapes home, crush and de-stem them by hand, then ferment and barrel the . Then, in true Italian tradition, the next summer they would gather and argue over who had made the best wine while consuming copious amounts of each other’s winemaking efforts. L’Agent has commented more than once that, by her observations of the Vigneron, this is obviously a genetic trait.

In a meaningful and defining moment, the Vigneron’s father recounted that one day when he was a small boy, he came home from school and went downstairs to play in the cellar. He found it very cold and opened the windows to warm it up. His grandfather came home after work and went into the cellar to check his wine. He found all of the windows open and the wine heating in the humid New Jersey summer air. He gave the Vigneron’s father a sound paddling before nailing the cellar windows shut.

TRADITIONS

When the Vigneron was growing up, his father always had a glass or two of wine with dinner from gallon bottles. He kept his wine in the refrigerator and used about one or two gallons a month. After the Vigneron’s father retired and his parents moved to the West Coast, the Vigneron would periodically send them a case or two of Bordeaux, burgundy, cabernet, Merlot, pinot noir and similar wines. His father was always very appreciative but generally did not comment on the quality of the wine. On one occasion, the Vigneron purchased more Beaujolais than he could consume and sent a case or two to his father. Shortly after, his father called him up and remarked how he and his mother had really enjoyed the wine with the flowers on the bottle (a George DuBeouf Village Beaujolais). At that point, the light went on in the Vigneron’s head. He realized that his father was still doing what he had done all of his life: after opening a bottle of wine (and having a glass or two) he would put it in the refrigerator to drink later. While this works great with Beaujolais, it is not a good strategy for pinots, Bordeaux or burgundy. Consequently, the Vigneron now sends his father Beaujolais and saves his pinot noir, Bordeaux and cabernet for other occasions.

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