Patricia Howe Wines

I spend too much time on the computer.  Writing, researching, analyzing data, and even surfing...and as one gets older it gets more difficult to counteract all those hours of sitting.  I was definitely losing the battle.  So, thanks to a suggestion from Mia quite some time ago, I finally put all the pieces together and made the leap.  Or is it step?  I've had it just about a week and have already "walked" over 45 miles.  And wrote two articles, a report, researched a quote, prepared two presentations, edited 98 proposals, and discovered more bizarre family history.

TreadDesk brand Treadmill: ~$760 + shipping

Wire bookcase with wheels: ~$130

2 x melamine lumber with 1" holes drilled to place on shelves:~$22

Walking while I work:  Priceless

The ever-opinionated Alejandro says that this is ridiculous even by pH standards.  I have to tell you, I love it already.  We'll see if it does any good.  What do you think?

Well, turns out those ETS links in the post below attracted the attention of none other than Mr Burns of ETS labs in St Helena.  I've served on numerous winery lab quality committees with Gordon in the past, and as full disclosure I will state that he is one of my Three Winery Quality Heroes (the other two being Art Caputi currently of Art of Winemaking (but once of Gallo winery) and MaryAnn Graff, one of the cofounders of Vinquiry).  These three folks always had time to patiently help me when, as a young (and not so young) member of the wine industry I would call for help.  And they always had answers...or better questions.

Gordon gave me a call and expressed some dismay with regard to the sense conveyed by many Gold Standard members that ISO certification was too much of a burden for a production winery lab.  He was quick to point out that someone would surely assume that he was somehow protecting his business, but also claimed that he would not be sad if all of his export-paperwork related business evaporated.  He gave me the contact information of someone who can put me in touch with some small 1 person, 2 persons, and 3 persons laboratories that had ISO 17025 accreditation.  Months ago, when I had told Gordon I was getting my TTB certification, he had encouraged me to additionally pursue the ISO standard.  I didn't even consider it seriously, because of what I believed to be high associated costs.  On this point, too, Gordon encouraged me to call A2LA and get some facts on costs etc.

He also supplied a couple of interesting links for those so inclined to try to figure out exactly which analysis is required by which country with respect to paperwork:

The TTB has a site which is a good start, but doesn't give much in the way of analytical details.  ETS itself has a page that lists of their "best-guesses" from their network of sources.  And finally, there is FIVS, an international body trying to coordinate the whole darned thing (they picked up where WineScience left off).  Mr Burns says you can call them and get a temporary password to explore the site.

So, Gordon... in exchange for all these nice comments, you need to order at least one bottle of 16019 Carneros Pinot noir.  I promise it will never be exported.  And I will happily deliver to St Helena.  And its a darned delicious wine. 

Buy some before we drink it all ourselves. 

Time to go....Antiques Road Show is probably starting.

Happy New Year!

Busy month, so again I'm not current on my blog.  But since Alejandro hasn't complained (he's been busy, too) I have escaped censure.

A couple of things are cooking in the winery laboratory world.  The TTB is thinking of reworking their laboratory/chemist program (no surprise, and thanks to those that have been relaying the rumors.)  I've added a bunch of information and emails on this subject (with the permission of Dr Abdul Mabud of the TTB) to allow you all to catch up with some of the conversations.

There was a recent rash of interest in the lab performance of this industry due to a recently published article questioning the validity of the Adams Harbertson Assay.   I believe the performance "data" in this paper actually shows that many winery labs have issues with quality assurance of their analysis, and previous work on collaborative studies have already shown that.  I couldn't help but spoof some of the claims of the paper by showing that we, as an industry, have problems with some much more simple analysis.

The combination of these two events (TTB potential rework and A-H lab quality questions) resulted in a discussion at the most recent Jack's Gold Standard meeting.  How can a well-run winery laboratory distinguish itself from a poorly run one?  Currently, only two methods of any recognition exist:  TTB certification for chemists/laboratories and accreditation to ISO 17025 (or whatever the current version is...) standards.  Gold Standard members agree that TTB certification does not necessarily ensure that a quality program exists in the lab, and the cost, paperwork, and compliance burden of ISO makes it unrealistic for virtually all winery production labs.  Several contract labs have achieved ISO accreditation (ETS's St Helena, Greenfield, Walla Walla, and McMinnville sites and Vinquiry's main lab), two TTB facilities (Walnut Creek and Beltsville) and one Gallo laboratory.  All Gold Standard members who have worked/are working in these environments at the last meeting agree that achieving ISO for a production lab is not currently realistic.

So, does anyone even care if a lab has a quality assurance plan?  What is the economic advantage, or wine quality advantage, to the facility?  Why do we even bother running analysis if we can ensure that the results are valid? 

Christian Butzke once incurred some sharp comments by talking about "recreational filtration" at some wineries (filtration just for the entertainment and occupation of the staff, for it obviously wasn't being done effectively).  I would say that many winery labs or doing "recreational analysis"...going through the motions and reporting values that might as well be fiction.  Not to denigrate the efforts of the staff...they are putting in as many hours and working as hard as they can, and running a "recreational analysis" can be as time consuming as running non-recreational analysis.  How can we differentiate the two types?

Do you know what most common response is when I ask winery lab staff (or students, for that matter) the question "How do you know that result is correct?"  "I did it myself."

I fear that if we don't take some kind of action and self-regulate, we may have some other body (probably governmental) dictating to us what that difference is. 

Sue's been a friend for a long time, and we periodically meet to commiserate about various issues, usually sensory science, winemaking, and general wine industry gossip (I mean information).  Sue just made a big professional change and is working on going it alone in wine sensory education and training, and I got her OK to put her website link here.  Next to her is a pizza from Firewood Cafe in Napa, a nice warm cozy place in the overcrowded North Napa shopping plaza.  Luckily, you can sneak in the back entrance to the parking lot and avoid the nightmare entrance on Trancas.

I think we got there just as they opened, and I didn't get home until about 2, so I guess we had a lot to talk about.  I think we covered about every topic, ranging from Cesar Millan and dog training to wine scores, hedonic ratings, and descriptive analysis to the ideal food sources for humans (to mimic the Basil the Cat diet which attempts re-engineers a mouse.  Not that I want to eat a mouse.)

So Friday was the 75th anniversary of the repeal of prohibition, so the drive to Davis was entertained by a PBS broadcast on what San Francisco was like from 1920 to 1933.  I arrived at Davis to meet with Jim Brown, who is, among other things diligently populating the EnologyAccess.org sites with "content", which is where I come in.  He'd like to link to my page of articles, which is fine by me!   He's also gently reminding me that I promised to help with on of the segments of extension micro class next March and needs to see an outline soon.

Then off to the new building at UC for the Friday seminar...this was a good one, with both Dr Dave Mills and Dr Dave Block sharing the time.  Both the Daves gave interesting talks, and the students paid attention, despite the sounds of the holiday/prohibition party set up going on outside the hall.  Unfortunately, I couldn't stay for the party, although Ralph Kunkee promised to enjoy it for me.   Stopping by the department office, I dropped off my holiday gifts for my old friends...and although I wish I could have given them bottles of the 16019 Carneros Pinot noir 2007, I'm too low on inventory to be that generous.  I hope they'll appreciate instead Pat's Gold Label Truly HandMade Napa Valley Red Wine Vinegar.

Since July?  How did that happen?  Let's see.  I'll blame the broken camera, since no one likes blogs without pictures.  I'll ignore the effects of tirage bottling, pinot noir bottling, sourcing grapes in a very scarce year, harvest harvest harvest, blending, labeling, vinegar bottling (yep) etc.  The big news:  See picture at right.  We have our first commercial release, and if you want some you'd better order it before we drink it all ourselves. 

I'm sorry to disappoint our Non-California resident fans (sorry Chris), but it is really too much to ask a winery my size to try to justify the paperwork and expense to legally ship interstate.  If you are unfamiliar with these issues, visit the Wine Institutes direct shipping page at:

http://www.wineinstitute.org/initiatives/stateshippinglaws

And have a good cry.  Seriously, if you want to get our product, contact me and we'll discuss the possibility of getting your state paperwork in order.  To ship a single bottle to Connecticut appears to cost about $450 plus paperwork.

Meanwhile, here's the last few pictures from the old camera of a few events of the past months. 

Wedding of stepson (ahhhh..)

Fort Bragg (ahhh....)

Black Screen of Death

and the end of

the old camera.

Farewell old friend.

My "diploma" from the TTB laboratory just arrived in the mail, suitable for framing.  I believe this makes my winery lab the smallest TTB certified laboratory in the US.  Let me know if this is not correct...I would be happy to meet other small winery enologists!  Now, if I ever want to export my huge production volume, foreign governments will accept my analyses.   It was a fun project, and the main reason for me to get certified was less for export (I don't intend to ship outside of California) and more to show that it is not difficult to do.  And the methyl orange endpoint for alkalinity of the ash is still the prettiest endpoint in wine chemistry.  There is at least one very large winery in Sonoma County that asked about the process for certification a few years ago but that does not yet have their certificate...right, Tommy?  Ha!  Let me know if you have interest in this process and I can post my procedures for some of the more obscure analytes.

I needed to pick up a couple of items and never need much of an excuse to visit my friends at Napa Fermentation Supplies.  I've been visiting Pat and Colleen (that's Ben, Colleen, and "Fix Anything" Patrick (not Pat) in the photo) since the early '80's, when I was making small lot experiments for Domaine Chandon.  They are located in the Napa Fairgounds.  And after seeing Chik's cool sprayball, I'm in the market for a mini spray ball for cleaning my kegs and tanks.   Meanwhile, Colleen tells me that my press is "on the water" and should be here soon.  I hope so, harvest is just around the corner and I do not want to repeat last year's pressing regime.  This new press should work much better for whole cluster pressing for sparkling wine...when it gets here I'll tell you all about it.  Last year I had to make do with a standard basket press, which has the wrong dimensions for pressing whole clusters.  To make it work, I had to greatly reduce the amount of fruit in each press load, so instead of doing one 500 lbs load I had to do 10 x 50 lbs loads.  Very time consuming and very troublesome.  Don't want to do that again.

My friends over at the UCD enology department are preparing for their big move to the new building.  I poked my head into a couple of labs and offices and saw a lot of moving boxes and the horrible job of going through all those file cabinets...the recycle bins are filling up with paper.

One of my main reasons for my visit was to meet Jim Brown, who is now working at UNEX and hopes to re-vitalize the enology offerings.  (Unfortunately I can't find a good link for Jim, but he is not yet one of the famous Jim Browns which turn up in Google image searches).   We had a discussion about what areas have not been covered in a long time, and he is hoping by next winter or spring quarters to resurrect some topics that haven't been addressed for a while.  Jim is also working with Linda Bisson on a new website, www.enologyinfo.com.  It is not yet up and running, so come back and visit in a couple of days and see if they've brought it online yet.  This is a collaborative effort of enology programs across the US, and long overdue.  Linda hopes to use it to provide timely information on all sorts of relevant winemaking issues.

I also ran into Chik Brenneman, the UC Davis winemaker, and he wanted to show me one of his new "toys".  Meissner donated a lovely 30" stainless filter housing, and about the same time Millipore donated about $15,000 worth of filters.  Chik can now do a whole range of filtrations, from simple clarification down to 0.45 sterile.   Now here's a good discussion:  what do you think of dogs in the winery?  Should a winery have a food production atmosphere or a family living room atmosphere?   That's Maui the Dog, helping Chik with filter set up.  I haven't seen Maui in any of the Winery Dog Calendars yet, so his big break is still pending.

Chik's keg/drum sanitizer is pretty nifty, too.  His goal is to use non-chlorine sanitizers that don't affect the pH of his waste water stream and also do not contribute salts.  I'm very jealous of his little spray ball for ensuring complete coverage with the cleaning solution.  I still have a bit too much hand work in my semi-automated system.

Next, I met with Sue Ebeler to discuss find out about how to get going on a review article on Volatile Acid analysis in wines, and talked about a bunch of other fun projects that I'm hoping to do...a collaborative study on degassing, a review paper on industry laboratory performance, a summary of weight per gallon determination, a review of lab management issues, and maybe a couple of others.

I ran into Lucy Joseph and Dave Mills and leaned that Dr Bruce German is feverishly working on a project near to my heart...he's looking to find the human equivalent of what Basil the Cat gets in his special Raw Food Diet.  I'm looking forward to hearing more about this!

Finally, I headed over to the library, and looked up some information on CO2 kinetics of solubility and equilibrium as part of the VA and the degassing project.  Since my last visit just a few weeks ago, the library has completely changed the photocopy system, and has not yet provided much information on how to use the new machines.  Luckily, a fellow pointed me to the one machine on the first floor where you can purchase copy cards, and myself and the three confused students eventually figured it out. I was somehow able to add money to the card of the previous user of the machine...but he hadn't gone far, and was kind enough to pay me back.  Technology.  Gotta love it.

My first visit to Indianapolis was very cool.  Besides the thunderstorms and lovely AAA baseball, there was the famous Midwest cuisine....Kentucky Hot Brown, Breaded Pork Tenderloin (unbelievably delicious with coleslaw), Sweet Corn (soaked in butter), chocolate cake, cherry pie....darn good thing I don't live there or I'd be 300 lbs easy. There was hot debate about the Kentucky Hot Brown, which is a sandwich of ham, bacon, turkey and tomato smothered in a cheese-beer-parsley sauce.  Others insist that the cheese sauce in not authentic, it is supposed to be gravy.  That would certainly be more brown. We started to refer to this as Indiana Hot Yellow.   Oh, and did I mention the 2 1/2 days of judging every imaginable wine type?

The judges came from all over, winemakers, professors, wine salesfolks, wine educators...from all over the United States.  I met several Purdue students and they were an interesting and dynamic group.  I really enjoyed myself and hope that I get invited back.  Our panel of 5 (there were 14 panels) included Dr Tom, an industry icon; Ann from Missouri, Patrick from Chicago, and John from Oliver Winery in Indiana (the largest winery in the state).  Here he is showing what happens to teeth after a flight of red wines.   I had to promise to not use any tags on this photo so that his impeccable reputation as a winemaker is not besmirched.  However, he didn't make me promise anything about his "yak yak yak" video.  Should I post it?  Let me know, and if John pays enought I will withhold it...Remember, to see the videos, you must be on the BlogSite, not the Blog Tab.  Other friends of mine included Ralph Kunkee (here he is helping himself to dessert with a twist) . 

Anyway, Dr Christian Buzke and his associates did a great job of running this event, and I can vouch for the judges that we had a great time.  I might tell you more about the wines in future blogs...or not.  Here's Christian describing the Judges Dinner at the Fairgrounds on Friday night...