Is it possible we’re starting our ninth year?  Apparently so; we planted those first vines in April 2005, when our youngest, Matthias, was only two months old, and now have thousands.

If we’ve learned anything, it’s that we can no more predict the future than undo the past, and that each year’s ups or downs matter less than their average over time.  2012 was no different.

Last March it reached 80F in the vineyard, more than a month early, prompting dreams of a record-long growing season yielding the ripest of grapes.  But killing frosts in April nipped our early-budding vines, reducing yields and egos, lowering the bar nearer to “normal”, whatever that is.  We added another high-quality grower to our portfolio of vineyard sites, produced a record 1,000 cases of wine, and had an overnight guest in October named Sandy, whose presence is still felt today.

Our children remember last year as the second consecutive time Halloween was cancelled and that we “camped out in the house”, living without electricity for two weeks.  How cool is that?

Well, I recall other things.

• The unmistakable smell of sea air outside our home the night of October 29, when Sandy roared toward us, as if we were at the Shore instead of 60 miles inland;

• Kissing my children goodnight as they lay on cots in the kitchen, with ancient hand-hewn timbers vibrating and creaking around us, all to avoid bedrooms within reach of large trees;

• Sitting by a window on the “safe” side of the house, after everyone was asleep, in awe of Sandy’s rising power, hoping the carpenters who built this humble farmhouse knew what the hell they were doing.  I really wasn’t sure it would matter, if they did.

The most enduring memory, though, is of those dozen volunteers who appeared at dawn two days before Sandy arrived.  With just-fermented wine still outdoors on the Crush Pad and the entire vineyard in harm’s way, these guardian angels completed two weeks of work in 18 hours:

• Bottling over 100 cases of wine to free-up barrel space;
• Pressing 2,000 liters of new wine, then racking it into barrels indoors;
• Travelling 4 ½ hours round-trip to buy a new stainless steel tank; and
• Removing, rolling and storing 4 miles of bird netting from the vineyard trellises.

As a result of this Herculean response, we lost not one trellis post, wire, vine or drop of wine.  Thank you, all.

The year ahead?

Pruning is almost done, so we’ll be ready if buds burst early in March or April again.  We have a larger team now, trained and already proven.  And we begin the season knowing that our vine choices, vineyard and cellar methods are translating into wines that favorably impress critics who have no vested interest in our success.  That last part is big.

But as one friend remarked when The Wall Street Journal story ran, “Well, Peter, now that you’ve proved it’s possible, the pressure’s really on to repeat it every single year.”  Indeed, it is.

This month we say ciao to dear friends, Peter and Carol Bellini, as they transplant themselves from the U.S. to Italy, near the town of Stresa on Lago Maggiore near the alpine border.  Peter was born there and has felt the pull to return ever since; Carol fell in love with Peter and Italy soon thereafter, and they’ve planned this delicious phase of their lives for as long as we’ve known them.  They graciously shared this Shangri-La with us long ago, and the experience changed our lives.

While there we drank deeply, not just of the wine but the food, the people, the culture.  Much of Northern Italy was once part of Austria, so Leitner is not such a foreign name there.  Indeed, I once Googled “Maria Leitner”, my great grandmother who emigrated from Austria eons ago, and up came a You Tube video of a present day Italian TV newscaster.

So now, we will live vicarious through them, thinking about what it’s like to live the dream, Bellini-Style.   Dreams are important to have, even if living them seems impossible.

During a visit last weekend by our longtime Viennese friends, Rutbert and Caroline Reisch, the subject of wine as an art form arose over Sunday dinner.

Now in his second career, Rutbert is president of the Birgit Nilsson Foundation, which awards $1,000,000 every year or so to a deserving musician or conductor in the classical music and opera world; Ricardo Muti is the most recent recipient of this Nobel-like prize.  If you’re into these things, see http://www.birgitnilssonprize.org/ for more.

Anyway, Rutbert’s comments about artistic passion resonated all this week, prompting me to re-read the intro of an art book in our library that answers the question, “What makes a great painting?”

By substituting the word “wine” for “painting”, I discovered an almost perfect answer to, “What Makes a Great Wine?” (my apologies to Steve Allrich, who wrote the original).

*****

WHAT MAKES A GREAT WINE?  In response to that question, one of my teachers answered, “Taste a million wines, and make a million wines, and then you’ll know.” 

I groaned, thinking he was being evasive.  I wanted a much more instructive answer.  Now I understand the wisdom of his reply.

There is no concrete way to define what precisely constitutes a great wine or how a winemaker creates one.  In the presence of great wine, we can certainly identify those qualities we admire in them, but that doesn’t get to the heart of the question:  Why does it affect us the way it does?

The intangibles in fine wine can only be grasped by continuous exposure to wonderful wines.  Study and compare them.  And as a winemaker, you’ll find the more you make wine, the more insight you gain into what constitutes good winemaking.

Because only a relative few of us actually pursue the path of winemaking, the art of it is somewhat a mystery to people.  But despite its intangibles, there are certain criteria by which you can judge wine, differences in style and taste notwithstanding.

First:  Is the wine technically sound, does it have a well-planned design, is the concept strong, are the color, aroma and flavor good?

Second, and more important:  is the wine evocative, does it provoke a strong response, grab you in some inexplicable, even spiritual, way and hold your interest?  Do you feel compelled to go back and taste it again?

If the answers to these two questions are yes, then chances are you are beholding a great wine.

(Adapted from “Oil Painting for the Serious Beginner”, Steve Allrich, 1996).

I think that says it all.

One would think that an earthquake, hurricane, tropical storm, marauding moths, ravenous birds, ferocious fungi, and an October blizzard summed up a century, but instead they highlighted the events of 2011 here.

Despite those, um, challenges, we are very pleased with the fruit quality and grateful for the harvest volunteers who helped us on short notice when the weather gods smiled upon us.  The photo below shows Agnes holding beautiful Nebbiolo clusters, one week before the October blizzard roared through and knocked out our electricity for seven days.

Mother Nature notwithstanding, the situation inside the Wine Barn was considerably better.

Our vintage 2010 wines were very well received and we met many new friends, most through introductions from others.  We decided long ago to build our winery this way, believing that friends beget friends when good wine is shared between them.  And this is proving to be true, as the following anecdote conveys.

On a spring-like Saturday evening in April 2011, a shiny Mercedes-Benz pulled slowly up to the Wine Barn.  As the driver’s window opened, a smiling man with a British accent asked, politely but skeptically, “Is this where the wine tasting is to be?”  Persuaded to visit by neighbors who were already Mount Salem subscribers, this man, his wife and his sister ascended the stairs to the tasting loft to join those same neighbors.

By evening’s end, his skepticism was replaced by unbridled enthusiasm and two new subscriptions to the 2010 vintage.  He then returned in September to lead the contingent of Brits at LongTable, and in October he labored mightily at not one but two harvests, joined by one of the neighbors who brought him to Mount Salem to begin with.  And in December, he and his wife introduced us to a young woman who is now on staff here.

Friends beget friends, indeed.  We are grateful for each and every one of you.

Mother Nature is signaling a season change, however subtle it may be.

It is darker now at 6 AM, when Agnieszka opens the vineyard gate to start the day’s work, and the air is cooler and mist lingers over the vine rows.  And the angles of morning light betray the secret of autumn’s approach, as seen this morning while looking east toward the vineyard.

Near Dawn Outside the Wine Barn

The fruit is now quickly ripening, as veraison – when grapes become translucent and change to their final colors – is well underway.  As usual, a few Saint Laurent clusters are in the lead.

Saint Laurent Grapes

And with an early harvest expected, we hasten to erect aerial defenses against squadrons of marauding birds, who have already begun their assault.  Netting will soon enshroud the vine rows, making the hillside look like a Christo and Jeanne-Claude exhibit.  Thank goodness deer don’t fly.

It is said that August makes the vintage, and I suspect that is because there is little the winegrower can do but worry or pray.  Since I tend to do too much of the former and not enough of the latter, I must turn my thoughts toward the future.