Kerner Estate Blog

An & Sophie on another row

Pinot Gris

Pinot Noir

After a hard day’s work, we had a dinner of Corned Beef and cabbage, potatoes and carrots. We started with some wonderful Belgian beers and moved into Pinot Blanc and Sauvignon Blanc which went amazingly well with corned beef!!!!

Along with everything else going on, we’ve been dropping fruit. And we’ve had a fabulous crew this year in the vineyard helping us.

An and Sophie from Belgium and Dominc and Timo from Germany

Well, fall is definitely here, and the vines are looking terrific this year. Right now, we are trying to protect the grapes from the birds. In all sorts of ways. Nets
are up all over the vineyard. And then there are the gas guns that come on at daybreak and go off when the sun goes down.
It sounds a bit like a war zone around here, but, unfortunatelly, the birds get used to it after a few days. The best defense, of course, is our own bird scarer, Will.
He does one heck of a job!

Other than all the vineyard work, we have bottled our 2009 Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Before that, we had a tasting with the winemakers, Brian Bicknell and Pat Paterson, and we all talked about the various personalities and distinctions of these particular wines and made notes so that we can write the labels and tasting notes when the time comes.

First of all, a very Happy New Year to all of our faithful readers (there were three at last count, quite exclusive, don’t you think?). Bruce and I went to Truckee, CA, for Christmas and New Year’s, but are now back in the vineyard. There were huge winds over the holiday, take a look at what used to be a shed! Also, three olive trees went over, but hopefully we can save them.
Now that the festivities are over, and everyone has gone back to work/school (Aaron), the countdown to harvest begins in earnest. In the last two weeks, the need to mow has passed, and it has become extremely dry. So much so that we are not supposed to use tractors in the middle of the day. But we had rain for the last two days which should help the situation.

The grapes are at a stage known as “pre bunch closure”. Here is what the chardonnay looks like at this point.

The large/small berry configuration is known as “hen and chicken”, and the winemakers love it. The small berries mean more flavor because more of the inside of the grape is close to the skin vs. the larger grapes.

No food news today, I am on a diet! However, I must say that before he left, Aaron bought some crayfish which we washed down with champaigne (methode). It was lovely! Delish!

First of all, I decided to have Thanksgiving for my Kiwi friends, but they couldn’t do it until last weekend. So, that’s what we did. Three pies, one brined turkey (people don’t do that down here as much as we do in the US), mashed kumara (a New Zealand vegetable that’s similar to a sweet potato) with maple syrup, green beans, and all kinds of hors d’oeuvre. And a great football game, as well (Texas vs. Nebraska). We served all the wines, Pinot gris, blanc, noir, chardonnay, and we introduced our new Sauvignon Blanc that will be coming to the US early this spring. It’s fabulous!

Meanwhile the little grape clusters are flowering.  And the vines are growing very quickly above the posts.  We will have to lift wires very soon.

Chardonnay Reaches Above Posts

Ever since I saw “Julie/Julia”, i have been cooking up a storm from all my Julia Child cookbooks.  And it’s been quite a journey.  Not half as easy as Julie’s. I honestly don’t know how she got through all those recipes in 365 days.  No way I could do it.

Anyway, I have been sending pictures of some of my triumps, as well as my failures to family and friends, and they thought I should put them on the wine blog.  After all, one needs wine with any type of food.  And we make wine.  S0, here we go.

Last night I decided to make a mushroom quiche.  I rolled out some dough that I had bought, put it in the quiche dish with some hard beans on top and put it in the oven.  Unfortunately, it was puff pastry, so I inverted the quiche and put the eggs and mushrooms on the bottom and the dough on the top.  Here’s what came out.  Ugly to look at but delicious to eat….especially with a glass or three of our 08 Pinot Gris!Here it is:  An Upside Down Wrong Crust Quiche!  Delish!

Went for a walk this morning,  along Gibson’s Creek to

Gibson's Creek

to the Pinot Noir where one can see the small bunches of grapes known as inflorescence.  People will start counting these bunches at this point to see what numbers the harvest might bring.

I think the frosts are past, although we leave the pots out, just in case.  And spring seems, finally, to have arrived.

The rain was so loud last night, it woke me up around 2am.  But, thank heavens, it was not too cold.  This morning, there was another dusting of snow on the mountains, looking our our front door.  Am ready for summer to come!

We have had two gorgeous days.  Let’s just hope it lasts.  The chardonnay is way ahead of the other varieties, and I would guess, therefore the most vulnerable.  Tomorrow we start budrubbing, and mowing between the olive trees.  The second picture is of our neighbors, Connor and Georgia, with their pet lamb.  Spring is really here!!!!

Connor & Georgia went fishing with their Dad, yesterday, and brought us some fresh, beautiful scallops which I will cook for dinner tonight.  Put in the herb garden this weekend.  All my friends here laugh at me because I pronounce “herb” the French way without an H, unlike them.  oh, well, c’est la vie!

Well, the alarm went off this morning at 3:45 am….we could hear our neighbors fans on already.  Bruce got dressed and went out to make sure ours were working, one of which was not.  So after turning that on and checking around the vineyard, he came back in and went back to bed.  Colin and Richard got the smudge pots going.  This morning there was snow on the mountains.  Above is the view from the front door, and below is one from the back.We’ll go out later and see if there has been any damage.  Meanwhile, they are predicting an even worse time tonight!