Left Coast Cowboys

A quick dinner trip to Sonoma’s Girl & The Fig the other day and the arrival of Andy last night has saved me from going completely feral as I manned the winemaking and evaluated the grape harvest alone this week. That was a week with no TV, no radio, no Internet and spotty cell reception. It was dicey Thursday when I found myself talking to wildlife – especially large, horned wildlife. I’m better now.

One thing that has stuck as a result of my week of living “Country Dangerously” is that I’ve been listening to a lot of Western and Cowboy music. No, I don’t mean Country. Especially not that Pop crap with a twang overlay that passes for Country today. I mean good old fashioned cowboy songs. Think Marty Robbins, Sons of the Pioneers, Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. Gunfights, cantinas, cattle drives. THAT Western music.

And I’ve made a list. I’ve tried to mix things up. There are the classics, but there are also some surprises.

Don’t like Westerns you say? Sure you do. Star Wars was nothing but a big Western set in space. And Indiana Jones was a cowboy in a fedora. Even George Lucas admits it.

If you think you’ll be spending any time gazing at the landscapes of the American West. Or looking through a book of Edward Curtis photographs. You’ll want this soundtrack.

I'm living in a place like this, so any wonder I'm listening to Cowboy songs?

So from one whose brain is now thoroughly saturated with Whoopie Ti Yi Yays and Yippee Ki Yays, let me offer this humble list:

The Top Ten Cowboy Songs of All Time

1. Whoopie Ti Yi Yo (Git Along Little Dogies). This sort of has to top the list, although the list is in no particular order. Many cowboy stars have recorded this, but I’m partial to Charlie Daniels’ version. He’s got just the right sort of rough Texan voice and, of course, that great fiddle to really put the song across. Note to non-Americans, the chorus is “Git along little DOGIES” (pronounced DOH-gees) not “Doggies”. A dogie is a young male calf. Contrary to what one of my English friends thought, cowboys did not wrangle herds of dogs along with their cattle.

2. Ghost Riders in the Sky. Again, many versions to choose from, but how can you go wrong with Johnny Cash. His deep bass-baritone is perfect for this ghostly tale of a cowboy’s version of Hell.

You believe there are Ghost Riders in the Sky when you see clouds like this.

3. Big Iron. No list of cowboy songs is complete without a song of outlaws and shootouts. Marty Robbins is the master of these and El Paso could be just as easily in this slot. But Big Iron edges it out as El Paso is more a love song where Big Iron is pure High Noon.

4. Cowboy Logic. Want to get inside the mind of a cowboy and learn his special way of doing things? Listen to this song. Charlie Daniels does a credible version but the winner has to be the one sung by Michael Martin Murphey. Murphey has a couple of great cowboy albums out there and, if you get on his website, you can either buy his records or a Quarter Horse from his ranch. Now THAT’s a real cowboy singer.

5. Big Boned Gal. Just to mix things up with a contemporary song, a woman and a Canadian. K.D. Lang’s ode to a “full figured gal” with plenty of cowboy spirit hits the spot.

Of course, there's a cowboy hat and Kachina collection.

6. Cancion Del Mariachi. No list of cowboy songs would be complete without one or more Spanish songs, given that Vaqueros accounted for a large percentage of the people punching cattle in the Old West. This song, sung by Antonio Banderas and Los Lobos, is from Once Upon a Time in Mexico, one part of Robert Rodriquez’s stylish Mexican answer to the Man With No Name Series. This was the song Banderas sang, in full leather Mariachi gear, in the cantina shortly before he opened fire and killed all the bandidos. It’s even got the requisite “Ai Yi Yi” chorus. ‘Nuff said.

7. Big Ball’s in Cowtown. This song deserves to be in the Hall of Fame on so many levels. Firstly, this version is by Asleep at the Wheel, the great Texas Swing band formed as a tribute to the immortal George Wills and the Texas Playboys who pretty much invented the genre. “Wheel” is helped out on this song by George Strait and a lot of “Yee Hawin” and fiddlin’.

8. Beer for my Horses. You couldn’t have a list like this and leave out the original outlaw, Willie Nelson. This is his explanation of frontier justice back when even the cowponies were tougher than you’ll ever be. Not that I’m advocating the return of “Necktie Parties”, but there are certain news days where you can almost see it Willie’s way:

“Justice is one thing you should always find
You gotta saddle up your boys
You gotta draw a hard line.
When the gunsmoke settles
We’ll sing a victory tune
And we’ll all meet back in the local saloon.
We’ll raise up our glasses against evil forces
Singin’ whiskey for my men and beer for my horses.

A couple of dogies at the watering hole. Note: these may be the only grape pickers I'll be able to get on short notice.

9. I Ride an Old Paint. Michael Martin Murphey does a more mournful take on this classic, but I prefer the upbeat version by Riders in the Sky complete with great fiddlin’ by Woody Paul, King of the Cowboy Fiddlers. As far as capturing the American spirit, my vote’s in for this as our National Anthem. It’s got all the REAL American elements: horses, wide open spaces, cussed independence and a touch of violence in the form of a “bloody knife fight” that doesn’t dampen a cowboy’s spirit.

Not THIS Old Paint. The song is talking about a horse.

10. Pops Roundup. Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra? What cowboy cred could they have? Well, they’ve done something wonderful here by mixing all the most famous tunes from the great TV Westerns (Bonanza, Have Gun will Travel, Maverick, The Rebel, The Big Valley, Wagon Train and others) and melded them into the soundtrack for the greatest Western never produced.

Well, that’s the top ten. I could easily have made this twice as long. Or included the 400 cowboy songs that are in my Sonoma Cowboy Playlist on my iPod. If you’re coming my way, you’ll be listening to it. It’s the soundtrack for Two Terrier Vineyards.

Wine Update

As of Saturday, the Cinsault looks like it’s just finishing up fermentation. Specific Gravity is at 1035. At 1000, it’s done. By done, we mean that the yeasts have gobbled up all the sugars and converted them to alcohol. Which is toxic to yeast. So by feasting, they eventually kill themselves. Rough life!

The Grenache is at 23.5 Brix and the Mourvedre is still hanging in at 19.5. We don’t pick until they are at 25 or 26.

However, the Cabernet, our largest crop, is right up there are 24. That’s means another week for me up here and I’ll be picking probably around Wednesday or Thursday. Next weekend at the latest. By “I’ll be picking”, I really mean that. We can’t get hold of a crew on such short notice (all the big wineries have them locked up). So it’s going to be me and the terriers, and maybe Andy picking. Trying to fathom what that will mean given that the Cinsault was a lot of hard work and we’ve got 5 times more Cabernet. I expect it’s going to be a very selective harvest. Since this is not a full harvest year, I’ll just be picking the absolutely most perfect bunches. And leaving the rest on the vine for the foxes. I’m sure by 4 hours into the harvest, I’ll be saying that the foxes are welcome to them!

Me pick grapes? Let me check my Union contract. (Is it a coincidence that the dog matches the cowhide rug?)

This little section of Sonoma is alive with wildlife, probably thanks to the State parkland trust just over the way. In addition, the small pond we put in on the edge of the woods has acted like a watering hole on the Serengheti. It’s drawing wildlife from everywhere.

After listening to the shrieks, caws, whooos and calls of unidentified animals everywhere, I decided I had to lock the terriers in the barn and get myself to town before I went stir crazy.

I’d barely gotten 20 yards from the barn on the way out the gate when I saw the huge buck that has been leading his harem down to the pond every morning. (Which sets up a huge amount of howling from the dogs. Howling that is roundly ignored.)

This time the buck was alone and just standing in the shadows next to the garage. Of course, it would be one occasion where I would  have no camera with me, but I stepped out of the car to see how close I could get to him.

I kept walking, walking, walking until I could, as they say, see the whites of his eyes. Still no movement. Since I’ve been up here long enough that I’m in early Dr. Doolittle stage of lunacy, I decided to talk to him.

“Hey, shouldn’t you be afraid of me?” No reaction.

I walked closer. “Hey, what are you doing.” Nothing.

Finally I started clapping my hands. If a deer can shrug, this one shrugged then ambled slowly off toward the pond.

It was only then that I took stock of how big he was and how many points he had on his antlers. He certainly had no reason to fear me. I also took his calm as a good sign that whatever animal noises we’ve been hearing at night aren’t from anything that would pose a threat to a deer, a terrier or me.

Chuck the Buck. Same deer, different day.

Later eating dinner at the bar at the Girl and the Fig, one of the barmen who recognized me as a semi-local was asking about the grapes.

“Where’s your place again?”

I told him roughly and heard the old familiar local reaction.

“You know that’s around the area where all the kids used to go drinking.”

“In fact,” he added, “there’s a really cool mountain where you can get up and see all of Sonoma Valley.”

Knowing this was the heart of our property, I played it cool.

“Can you still go up there?”

“No, it’s got a gate blocking the road now.”

“But I’ll tell you about one of the last times I went up there. I was in an open jeep and looked over to the side as I went up that road. There was a Mountain Lion loping along beside the jeep. I don’t think I ever went up there again.”

And that was a nice wildlifey image as I pondered how much distruction an angry Mountain Lion could do to a Prius and how fast I could run from the car to unlock the barn door before three inch talons ripped into my back.

Wine Report

The Mourvedre is 20 Brix which doesn’t seem right as it was 23 two days ago.

The Grenache is 21.25 Brix which is right about where it was.

So the panic that these grapes might need immediate harvesting is off, especially as it’s been cool.

The Cinsault is bubbling along nicely. As it reached 1070 Specific Gravity, I added in a little food since the yeasts are quickly converting all the sugars to alcohol.

Compared to our Rhone style varietals, our Cabernet vines are real stragglers. These bunches are half the size of the Grenache and Mourvedre.

The temperature, which I’m measuring several times a day seems to be uniformly about 7 to 10 degrees higher than ambient temperature, so it’s generating its own heat evenly and regularly.

Clouds swept in this afternoon and brought a shower. Not exactly what we want this close to harvest.

Every now and then, we’ve lamented that our land is so close to Sonoma Town Square. It’s not really that country. Now that I’m staying up here alone with spotty cell reception and no Internet, believe me, it’s REALLY country. As in kind of scary. I’m starting to understand how the pioneers lived. You rushed to get everything done during daylight hours, then when the sun went down, you hunkered down in the sod cabin and barred the doors and windows.

You also start to talk to animals, plants and yourself. Which isn’t that unusual, except when you realize how fast you get to the point where you are expecting answers. Intelligent answers.

Former Texas Governor Anne Richards used to tell a story about a pioneer woman in the early days of Texas settlement who was given some chickens on the premise that they would provide her with meat throughout the winter when her husband was often away and she was alone. When her husband came back after months away, he asked why she hadn’t slaughtered a single chicken.

She replied: “You have no idea what good company they are.”

Lucy guards the vineyard. Oscar eats something dead. And they are both starting to provide really good conversation.

In less than 24 hours I’m at that point. I need a different point of view from terriers and would welcome the opinions of some thoughtful chickens. Because I’ve exhausted the conversational opportunities offered by the grapes, the ATV and the barn walls.

Then there’s the dark. And it gets really, really dark at night here without streetlights or any houses nearby. I thought I’d combine a sunset photo safari with my last foray to the crush pad for the final day’s punchdown of the Cinsault. It didn’t take more than 45 minutes after sunset for it to get very eerie around here. Even the dogs didn’t want to stray too far out of the ATV headlights. So we tucked ourselves up in the barn and settled in for the night – at only 9 PM. Every half hour or so, I ventured out with a flashlight and quickly retreated back into the barn when it shows half a dozen sets of glowing eyes looking down at me from the hill. The rational side of my brain says they are deer. The irrational side is replaying all the horror movies I’ve ever seen.

We're starting to go feral. Here Oscar has found another baby deer carcass and crouches over it in Hyena Mode.

Then he struggles with carrying a "kill" so ripe that it starts falling to pieces.

Finally he grabs the juiciest bit, leaves the backbone and heads off for the woods. Luckily he was still civilized enough to let me swap him a rotting deer for a cookie.

I think it’s time for the terriers and me to dive under the covers – maybe with a crowbar at our side. I’ve got my Dad’s old Winchester, but no bullets and no clue how to use it. Note to self: this is America. I can have a gun. Somebody give me the address of the local rifle range and the local chapter of the NRA.

Quick Recap of Grape Status

The panic may be off on the rest of the grapes suddenly needing to be picked. It’s turned rather cold – only 70 during the day and about 55 at night. The Brix readings for the Mourvedre and the Grenache were only 23 and 21.25 respectively. You don’t even consider picking until they reach 25, and with this weather, it may be another week or two.

The Cinsault, meanwhile, managed to get itself up to 73 degrees in the primary fermentation vat which was about seven degrees higher than the ambient temperature – so something is happening, although very slowly. I used the old trick of blasting a space heater at the vat, but I’m not sure what good that did.

Finally, Oscar has solidified his title as Commander of the Dead Animal Patrol. He managed to find a fairly intact, although quite ripe, dead baby deer. That makes at least three in the last few weeks, if we can extrapolate by the number of legs and backbones he’s dragged out of the bushes. I don’t know if this mortality rate for young deer is normal or if something is killing them off suddenly. Or maybe these corpses represent a full year’s worth of casualties and Oscar is just now figuring out how to turn on his hyena instincts and seek them out.

That’s the latest. One last walk for the dogs, then I’m barring the doors.

Morning Report on the Cinsault

The grapes are at 65 degrees while outside ambient temp is 55. So they are generating their own heat.

Specific gravity has gone from 1100 yesterday to 80 today. I checked it twice because it was such a big differential. Hmmmm. Something’s happening. Too bad the person who knows what this all means is at a Sales Conference. This afternoon I’ll recheck how the Grenache and Mourvedre are doing.

The only thing you can count on with a grape harvest is that you can’t count on it. It’ll happen when it happens, usually at the most inopportune time. There is nothing you can do but stand at the ready, prepared to drop everything so you can pick and crush at a moment’s notice. Compound that by the logistics of having a vineyard in Sonoma when we still live in San Francisco. Then sprinkle in the complexity of one of us still having a day job. Finally top with the fact that as a tiny producer, we’re not exactly first in line to get the crews. What you have is a recipe for a “Keystone Kops” style situation. Lots of frantic running around, dubious results.

Actually, we’ve done all right so far. As I reported earlier, the Cinsault surprised us by suddenly hitting the Brix level that required immediate picking. Despite not having our crush pad completely finished or all our equipment sorted, Andy and I managed to get all of it picked, run through the crusher/destemmer and into the primary fermentation vat on Sunday. With no crews and just a couple of terriers for help.

Measuring the specific gravity with the. . .er. . .specific gravity thingy. Reading says 1100 which is roughly what it was when we crushed. Which means not much is happening yet.

Before I pat myself on the back too much, I should mention that the Cinsault is just a blending grape and accounts for the tiniest amount we’ve planted. Since Andy doesn’t do anything by half measures, we’re not just growing the Cabernet that is typical for this area. He insisted on Rhone Style varietals (Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre, Cinsault). And of course, Cabernet which will be our cash crop. Hopefully selling half of it will cover the cost of the operation. The point is, every one of these grapes matures and ripens at a different pace. Which means we’re going to be in “stand by and panic” mode well into October.

That's a sh*tload of Cinsault. Well, actually, it isn't. We planted so little of this blending grape that it barely fills a quarter of the fermentation vat. Which means it's taking its time warming up.

Which brings me back to the Cinsault, which true to form, decided to “come due” just as Andy was headed to an international sales conference. Which means it’s me and the terriers manning the farm here. We’re doing all right so far. Although I have to admit, it’s a little scary up here alone. Both terriers hid under the covers all night as strange sounds (owls? coyotes? Bigfoot? Chupacabra?) echoed around the barn. Then it was up early to check on the Cinsault, punch down the crust and see how the fermentation was coming along. Thank goodness, the new crush pad setup includes primary fermentation bins that are more than “terrier jump height”. During the last crush, our founding terrier, the late lamented Charlie, marched by with new bright red fur. He’d leaped into the vat, adding new meaning to the term terroir.

Bucket of sulfite solution. The really tiresome thing is that everything that touches the grapes has to be sterilized with sulfite solution -- again and again and again. I'm starting to smell like Lucifer. This is the paddle that I use to stir the grapes and, hopefully, activate the fermentation.

Yes, I’d say Lucy, Oscar and I are holding our own here. But that could all change this afternoon when I head out to the vineyards with the Spectrometer to see how the other grapes are coming along. Pray that nothing else is screaming, “Pick ME!”

The terriers aren't too impressed with my inability to drive the ATV without lurching and jolting. Here Oscar contemplates taking the wheel.

PS. Managed to take the specific gravity reading without really understanding what specific gravity is. Now that I’m at the Barking Dog Internet Cafe, I can look it up. And of course the Brits, at a site called The Wine Pages, have a slightly snarky explanation for it: 

“Specific gravity is a clever sounding word that essentially means density. Density of wine relates to the amount of sugar dissolved in the wine.

Gravity is measured in degrees. A device for measuring gravity is called a hydrometer. Water has a gravity of 1000 degrees. Obvious isn’t it?

The gravity of wine increases as you add sugar. The gravity falls as the yeast eats the sugar. The alcohol produced is less dense than water. Your finished wine should have a gravity of somewhere between 1010 and 990. This means pleasently sweet and pretty dry respectivly. If your wine falls below 990 it tends to become so dry it doesn’t bear thinking about.”

Just as we feared, the unusually warm spring and summer in Sonoma have cause the harvest to happen early and way too quickly for us as we are still putting the final touches on our crush pad. On a routine check of the Brix level Sunday, we suddenly found that our Cinsault was ready NOW. Nothing to do for it but drop everything and start picking.

Of course, that meant no time to get a crew together, so it was Andy and me and the two terriers (not that the terriers were much help.) Luckily the Cinsault is just a blending grape (there are five grapes in Rhone style varietals) and accounts for the smallest number of vines at Two Terrier Vineyards. Smallest still meant hours of backbreaking work as we raced through the rows, picking and sorting grapes, then carting them down the hill to the crush pad. There they were loaded into the crusher/destemmer then transferred into the primary fermentation vat. Add to that starting this process at noon so we were working through the hottest part of a hot Sonoma day.

It's early in the harvest. Which is why Andy is still smiling!

All I could think about as we were stooping, cutting and groaning was that we were taking jobs away from illegal immigrants. Please, open up those borders and let these people in. Please direct them up to Sonoma. Believe me, there are no Americans standing in line for these jobs. We own the vineyard and WE don’t even want this job.

One thing I’ve learned about owning a vineyard: don’t count on friends to help you out. It may sound romantic to come pick grapes, but these things, as we’ve demonstrated, can’t be scheduled. The Brix shoots up, the grapes have to be picked at a moment’s notice and your friends are nowhere to be found.

The romance of the harvest: you cut grapes bunch by bunch in the hot sun. You haul them, bin by bin, to the ATV. You take load after load down to the crush pad. Even Oscar looks done in here.

In any case, we did it on our own. And there is a certain satisfaction and pride in that. The crushed grapes are safely sulfited which gives us about half a day to rush to the winery store and get our yeasts which we didn’t even have on hand. Thank all the stars and terriers that our fermenting vats arrived three days ago. Otherwise, I guess the crush would have gone in the bathtub in the barn.

Don't be fooled by Andy as the model here. As in past harvests, I was the one transferring a quarter ton of grapes from bins to crusher/destemmer. As a physics major, he operates the machinery. Damned Management!

Now I’ll be in Sonoma every day for the next week anxiously taking readings and making desperate calls to the company that is supposed to organize our picking crews. That is if we have any grapes to pick. Somehow, at least three deer have managed to breach the perimeter and get into the vineyard. Best case scenario, they sneaked through the gate as the workman constructed our crush pad. Worst case, they’ve got climbing gear and are rappelling over the fence. In either case, a few deer can strip a vineyard clean in no time. We threw all the juicy stems from the crusher/destemmer out into the vineyard as a decoy. In past years, we’ve noticed that the crusher/destemmer byproduct is Deer Crack, so hopefully we’ll be safe until we can gather a crew to chase them out. Then they can go back to nibbling on my corn which they can do conveniently from the patio in back of the barn.

Speaking of varmints, who or what has been eating all my melons? The teeth marks look too big to be a rat or a squirrel. My money is on a fox as we’re seeing evidence of them around the barn. Once again, where is that terrier instinct when you need it? Oscar was quite happy to cause us to rip up the deck to save him from his standoff with a raccoon, but he’s shown no interest in my marauding melon eater.

That’s the latest scoop. And unless I can scrape the sulfite, grape skins and juice off me and get down to Sonoma’s Barking Dog Internet Cafe, you may not be hearing much from me as harvest continues.

I’ll leave you with the good news: the Cinsault juice tastes incredible. We have high hopes, although a lot can happen between the crush and the bottle. Here’s the bad news: Andy has scheduled an International Sales Conference this week (yes he still has a day job), so it may be just me and whoever I can bribe picking and crushing these grapes. Again, I’m begging: someone open up those borders and point the signs to Sonoma.