Left Coast Cowboys

Today we faced the final and most daunting physical task of our winemaking, getting the Cabernet picked, crushed and into primary fermentation. We have four varietals, but we’ve planted more Cabernet than the other three put together. So we knew, whatever we’d gone through with the Mourvedre, Grenache and Cinsault, we’d need at least to double that for the Cabernet harvest. Luckily, Cousin John came to the rescue. And Cousin John is definitely someone you want on your side in a pinch. He’s sort of the Indiana Jones of California as he works with archeology teams uncovering Indian burial grounds as well as performing half a dozen other varied careers. In addition, he spent his formative years in Sonoma, so he knows where all the bodies are buried. Especially when they are Native American bodies. Stuff like that always comes in handy.

Another of Cousin John’s identities — he’s a forager. He runs around Sonoma picking things and making foodstuffs out of them. Or more often making alcoholic beverages from them. Sometimes he hits (his Walnut cordial), sometimes he misses (we’re not talking about that strawberry wine fiasco). But he’s a guy who could live off the land if he needed to. He’s also the kind of guy who will work for grapes. So we just had to set aside some crushed grapes for his own little fermentation and he was happy to help. More on that later because Cousin John’s idea of winemaking is a little more radical than ours.

Anyway, another great thing about Cousin John showing up was that I could finally take pictures of our process, such as it is.

Here's Cousin John dumping a bin of grapes off the top of the crush pad into the crusher/destemmer. Usually I do this. But I get more grapes in Andy's hair.

Speaking of grapes. We had loads this year.

Here are two vats of picked grapes. We had FOUR total. That's what is known in the industry as a "sh*tload of grapes." (Actually this would be nothing in the real winemaking world, but it's a lot for amateurs.)

So hours and hours of grape processing later, we finally came to the end of the last vat.

Wait! Here's Cousin John dumping the last grapes into the hopper. That means Harvest 2009 DONE!

Remember I told you Cousin John has a different philosophy of winemaking than we do? Well, let me put it this way. Remember this dude, Mr. Natural?

Let's just say Cousin John is his spiritual son.

When I say Cousin John is Mr. Natural Junior, I mean he ferments the way the Sumerians would. He don’t need no steenkin’ UC Davis yeast, he don’t need no steenkin’ sulfite, he don’t worry about no steenkin’ clean practices. Actually, I couldn’t bear to take pictures of Cousin John crouched in front of his bin of Cabernet combing through the grapes and crushing it with his bare (and unwashed) hands. Given how Andy makes me practically do a surgical scrub up before I even contemplate looking at our fermenting grapes. Well, let’s just say Cousin John’s method is painful to my eyes. But Cousin’s John’s Cab will be fermenting on the our crush pad, so we’ll see who makes the better wine in the end.

Hey, Cousin John’s Cab. That sounds like a Grateful Dead song!

Come drink Cousin John’s Cab

As natural as the tide

Drink it plain or with a scone

Cousin John’s Cabernet stands alone.

Okay, digression. But it’s not out of context to think of counterculture figures when you are around Cousin John. Here’s another example: we went for a walk down our redwood creekside trail to show Cousin John the Miwok or Pomo grinding stone we’d found. The Native tribes around here traditionally subsisted on a flour they ground from acorns. So wherever you find a seasonal creek and oak trees in Sonoma, you often find a grinding stone. Well, Cousin John put on his Indiana Jones hat, started rooting around in the moss and found half a dozen more on the same site!

Here's our grinding rock. Think of a gigantic mortar and pestle.

Here's Cousin John lifting back the moss and finding six more!

And here he explains the geological and cultural significance of the grinding rock.

Actually, there is technical term for these things that isn’t “grinding stone”. (John says that would be something portable.) These would have been grinding spots developed on migration routes and used over centuries by numerous tribes.

After this adventure, we ended the day with a cassoulet I’d been slow cooking all day.

Cousin John had three helpings and pronounced it "restaurant quality".

Did I mention how much I like Cousin John?

Note in the interest of full disclosure: Cousin John is not my cousin, but the cousin of my eccentric friend Julian. But after today, we’re adopting him.

Sorry for the long lapse in posting. I’ve been, well, sort of collapsed. See, Sunday we finally got all that Mourvedre and Grenache out of primary fermentation, pressed and into steel tanks. Which means I’m relieved of three times a day punchdown. At least for a few days. Until tomorrow when we pick, crush and get our Cabernet into primary fermentation. Which starts the whole three times a day punchdown cycle all over again. But in celebration of my brief respite, I got myself a pedicure. Before the press. Which wasn’t really smart as I spent the next day standing around in grape juice and citric acid. But still, I wanted to be ready for the Big City when I could finally get back there. And the press? Well, here’s how it went:

First you set up a complicated Rube Goldbergian system of pumps and hoses to get the grapes from the primary vats to the press and from the press to the secondary fermentation tanks.

Then you pump out the fermented grapes from those white bins to the press.

When the hose and pump can't handle any more, you resort to the shovel, brute force and ignorance.

Meanwhile, a large bladder inside the press is separating the juice from the skins and seeds and forcing it out of the press.

There it comes, gallons o'Grenache.

At various points, you have to taste. And it's all tasting very good.

Now comes the hard part: getting the pressed out skins out of the press.

Then trucking them up to the top of the hill for composting.

And by the way, terriers are no help at any stage of this process.

And speaking of terriers, a very large coyote has been spotted lurking about. Terriers would rather snuggle under the covers where it's safe than hang out on an exposed crush pad.

And as for that two and a half day respite in the Big City? Well, I did exciting things like laundry and getting a broken crown fixed. So maybe it’s a good thing that the whole cycle starts again tomorrow. Especially since Cousin John, the Indiana Jones of California, will be joining us. Stay tuned.

Most of my friends would say I’m a pretty good cook, but I don’t think that begins to describe it. Andy is much more what I’d call a good cook as in the bold, adventurous, “cooking as contact sport” Gordon Ramsay kind of cook. Me? I’m all about the gadgets and the processes. I can improvise, but I want the scientific tests to back me up before I chose a methodology or alter the formula. Yes Gentle Readers, you’ve seen The Mother of All Pressure Canners and shared my frustration with what seem to be lacksadaisical instructions from cookbooks about using it. Somehow I managed to muddle through and make some pretty outstanding tomato marmalade. So good that I’m thinking of following my friend Susi’s suggestion and adding “Win a Blue Ribbon at the Sonoma County Fair” to my Bucket List. I think I have a contenda.

But what I want to talk about today are slow cookers. And yes, once again, I had to buy the best one I could afford. Problem is, finding a cookbook that helps me maximize what I think must be its potential. For the next few weeks, my target are beans. Because a) beans, beans, they’re good for your heart and b) because, at 39¢ to $1.79 per pound, you can make a lot of mistakes with beans before you really start feeling bad about wasting food dollars.

I’ve made beans before in this slow cooker. And Lord knows, I’ve got the Western Hemisphere’s most extensive collection of slow cooker cookbooks. The problem is, if I admit it, I’ve never managed to make beans that taste better than some of the stuff you get in cans. Or, as in the case of the cannellini beans I just made last week, they taste as good, but they are kind of mushy and not all perfect like the canned stuff. But I’m not giving up. So today, I tackled pinto beans or frijoles — those classics of the American Southwest.

Okay, I don’t want to be a finger-pointer here. As the Irish say, “It’s a poor workman who blames his tools.” But some of the fault has to be apportioned to the divided food writer community. No one seems to have a clear consensus on how to cook beans. Here’s what I found when scanning through all my cookbooks.

I've got all the cookbooks and nobody agrees!

There’s the school that says, “Hey, it’s a slow cooker, just dump everything in and Hey Presto!”. I’m rejecting that advice. I’m a victim product of a mother who hated cooking and embraced the old Peg Bracken I Hate to Cook Books. Until my brother and I took the reins and started cooking, our mealtimes were an endless round of a mass of stuff covered with Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup, topped with those orangey crunchy things and lots of hamburger helper. Shudder. Not going back there again. I’ve purged out the cookbooks that share that philosophy. (I say, if you are going to cook, really cook. Otherwise make a salad.)

Then there are the conflicting controversies:

1) Beans should only be cooked on the Low setting.

2) NO! Beans should only be cooked on the High setting.

3) Spice it up before you turn on the crock.

4) Nope, all spices should only go in just before serving.

5) Nothing salty or you’ll toughen the skins.

6) What?! Gotta add stock or it will be bland. Who cares if stock has sodium in it?

7) Don’t need to soak the beans for slow cooking.

8 ) Fool! You ALWAYS need to soak the beans.

Then there are the alleged secret ingredients. A bit of Kombu seaweed. Or something called Epazote or Mexican Tea. I almost embarked on a safari to the Mexican side of Sonoma in search of the elusive herb until I read that, in large quantities, it’s toxic. I quickly reassessed how committed I was to tasty beans

Actually I found what I’m hoping will be my own secret ingredient. Let’s not even get into the controversy about what liquid to cook the beans in. But I did find one cookbook that recommended at least part of the liquid should be beer. Yes, JACKPOT!

My friend Keith has backed an outrageous Scottish Microbrewery, BrewDog. Needless to say, during Keith’s long and illustrious career in what he, with British quaintness, calls “The Drinks Industry”, we’ve always been well stocked with his product. So I could put my hand on just the thing, BrewDog’s Paradox MacCallan.

BrewDog's Paradox is an Imperial Stout (that's hearty dark beer for the uninitiated). They have several flavors, based on the whisky or sherry casks they age it in. This one spent several months in one of the casks used to age MacCallan fine malt whisky.

So I found the recipe that sounded the best because it included steps like blackening Serrano chiles, onions and garlic, then cooking the beans in stock and beer liberally sprinkled with cumin and coriander. (For reference, it was from The Gourmet Slow Cooker by Lynn Alley. Ten Speed Press.)

Of course, into it I added a full bottle of Paradox MacCallan. See, I’m betting the Scottish and the Mexicans have a lot in common. In fact, I’m sure we could find some sort of historical connection — maybe having to do with the Spanish Armada — that proves Scottish Stout is THE KEY INGREDIENT to a good bowl of frijoles.

I know the proof will be in the eating, but barely an hour in the aromas wafting through the kitchen made me think I was really on to something here. Scottish and Mexican. Hmmm. Okay, hear me out. Think of a classic old Western. The wagon trains are rolling through the Southwest. Many of them are driven by the Irish and Scottish. Hey, I have history to back me up here. Where do you think the Teamsters came from? So they get ambushed by Mexican bandits who relieve them of a load of beer destined for the thirsty miners in the gold fields. Mexicans, being a thrifty and industrious people, and preferring their Tequila as a drink, figure out something else to do with the casks of beer. Frijoles. Yes!

Okay, if you aren’t buying this, I do have proof that Buffalo Bill took his Wild West show to Scotland frequently. So there.

Anyway, the only test that matters: the taste. The taste. THE TASTE!

These are beans from Charro Heaven -- by way of Aberdeen.

I’ve been my own worst critic on beans. (‘Cause I’ve always shifted the blame to the cookbook!) But these beans are fabulous. Better than canned. Better than a restaurant. Unbelievable.

What makes it so? A wonderful smokiness. Remember those chiles, garlic and onions the recipe had me broil and char?  Part of it. Then I added two small strips of bacon. Because, well you can’t help but improve anything with bacon. But the largest part of the equation and what I think really underscored everything and brought the tastes together: the dark and slightly peaty flavor of the beer. And that’s not going to be just any beer, Folks, it’s got to be beer aged in whisky casks. It’s got to be BrewDog Paradox. Or back to blaming the cookbook. So thank you, BrewDog. I’m renaming you CervezaPerro.

Ai Yi Yi Yi and Scots Wha Hae. You’ve just proven my point about that Scottish/Mexican connection.

It’s been a scary few weeks for grape growers in Sonoma and Napa Counties, what with two long-lasting, drenching and unseasonable storms hitting us at the end of growing season. The problem with late season rain on vineyards is that, just when you are trying to get the grapes to concentrate their flavors (most of us have turned off irrigation for the last month or so), a sudden downpour causes the grapes to swell with water. The best case result: watery, less concentrated juice. Worst case result: the grapes swell so suddenly they burst, inviting mold and insects. Faithful readers will already know that we did a panic harvest of the Grenache and Mourvedre, finishing just hours before the last huge rainstorm hit us. Luckily the Cinsault was already in primary fermentation. The Cabernet was nowhere near ripe enough to harvest. And even with rain threatening, if the grapes aren’t ripe — well picking is useless. But we’ve been advised that Cabernet grapes are tough as old boots. Barring precipitation of Biblical magnitude — we’re talking frogs, toads and bearded prophets throwing burning bushes — Cabernet can take anything. Never willing to accept such things just on a say-so, I went into the vineyards to assess the damage.

Actually, my first step was to bring out the Big Guns. Not that I actually wanted to stop rain. In semi-arid areas like California, where we’ve been known to have seven year droughts, you never pray for rain to stop. But you might want it redirected somewhere else, such as the Sierras, where the snowpack really determines our water situation. So again, the Big Guns. That means the Kachinas. I put them out, faced them to the rain and made my request. Next day the skies cleared. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

Behold the power of the Kachina. This is Eagle Dancer from the Four Corners area of the Southwest.

So out into the vineyards. And yes, there was damage. Not as much as I had expected. And most of it concentrated at the end of the rows.

Here's a bunch with some burst grapes. You can see the wasp already on the job.

Whew! Look at this wasp food fight.

So next step: walk the vineyard, row by row, gathering a berry from almost every vine, and putting them in a ziplock bag.

Grape ripeness can vary so wildly throughout a vineyard, and even throughout a row, that you really need a representative berry from almost every vine to get a real sample.

Then smoosh with the fist.

And mash with the foot.

You need enough juice to do your battery of tests.

So here’s the good news: the pH is at 3.66 which is pretty close to the acceptable level. The Specific Gravity is 1100 which is just about where you want to think about picking the grapes. And the all important BRIX level is 23. Cabernet is typically picked at anywhere between 25 to 29 BRIX. So what our readings tell us is that our Cabernet is just getting ripe enough that, given the current weather report, we should be able to get it dried out and ripened a bit more then picked before the next expected rainstorm. We’re estimating next week around Thursday for the harvest. Given some warmer weather — hopefully at least a few days in the 80s — and we should be able to salvage this.

John the Baptist took a few damaged bunches home to his horticulturist wife. She diagnosed them with a certain kind of mold with a long Latin name. John couldn’t remember what it was. Thanks, John, but it doesn’t matter the name. There is NO mold that is a good thing for wine grapes. The trick is going to be to harvest only the undamaged grapes and let the rest just stay on the vines for the birds and the wasps. Explaining that to the Mexican crews should put a good strain on my first year Spanish.

And in a final positive note, at least from Oscar’s perspective, the rains didn’t wash away the latest baby deer carcass he buried somewhere in the vineyard. In fact, he thinks it improved the flavor.

But just to be safe, Oscar dragged it into the living loft of the barn and hid it under the bed. Nice one, Oscar.

I’m still slogging up to the crush pad to punch down the fermenting grapes and take readings three times a day. Which gives me lots of opportunities to think about workflow and processes. One thing that’s been driving me crazy — Andy’s haphazard rodent and fruit fly protection. Since we are doing primary fermentation on an open crush pad in large one ton bins with molded lids that don’t fit very tightly, his system involves stretching plastic sheeting tightly over the top of the bins, then taping them taut. That’s him above doing his thing.

Well, that method is all fine and dandy if you have one bin removed and can walk all around the bin taping, then push the bins together. And it’s hunky dory if you tape it up, drop the lid on it and leave it. But what about the poor “cellar rat” who has to lift up the lid, unstick that tape, roll back the plastic and try to maneouver a large stainless steel paddle into each bin to punch down. And do this when all four bins are jammed into that tight space together. Oh, and repeat this three times a day. Well, I’ll tell you, it doesn’t work. You get plastic punched into grapes and plastic ripped by your punchdown tool.

So I got to thinking to myself, even though I usually let Andy be the master of the Rube Goldberg jury-rigged wine processing systems. “Self”, said I, “there must be a better way.” That’s when I developed what I’m calling the “Tuck and Drape System of Rodent and Fruit Fly Protection for Primary Fermentation Bins”.  A patent is pending.

The trick is get a piece of plastic much larger than the vat, then only tape it at the back.

The only problem with this method is that four vats, each holding a ton — and I really mean a ton — of grapes, are jammed into this space. So taping the plastic to the back involves me balancing precariously on that one inch edge while holding plastic sheeting and blue sticky tape. I won’t tell you how many times I came close to a Lucy Ricardo moment with me landing in a vat of Mourvedre or Grenache.

But if you can manage these feats of acrobatics, then you are home free. Just tuck the edges of the plastic around the sides and drape the excess over the front. Hence the “Tuck and Drape Method”. (Maybe I’m living too close to Petaluma, where American Graffiti was filmed, but I can’t help, when I say that name, to see Debbie telling Terry the Toad how much she loves Tuck and Roll upholstery.) Now drop the molded plastic lid over the vat and, Hey Presto, it further holds everything in place.

Okay, tricky part done. Now for the somewhat elegant drape.

See how much better tuck and drape (left) is than Andy’s tricky taut taping (right).

Okay, you don't see it? Well you would if you had to roll back plastic to punch down. Because with Tuck and Drape, you just drape the plastic sheeting up over the lid and it's completely out of your way.

I mean, look at this punch down implement. You want to know the holes this punches in tightly taped plastic even when you try to roll it back?

See, See? See how easy it is to get the plastic out of the way now.

Okay, so you aren’t very interested. Some of us who are on site aren’t even interested.

Lucy would rather sit in a bush until all this wine stuff is over with.

But if Debbie (Candy Clark) from American Graffiti were here, she'd find Tuck and Drape totally rad.

Okay, maybe I have been up in Sonoma a bit too long on my own obsessing about grapes. Not that there’s anything weird with my latest project — building an altar to deflect the rain from our still ripening Cabernet grapes.

I believe in the power of the Kachina. Especially these guys who are from the Navaho and Hopi reservations.