2015 Winter Wine Pairing Dinner

We held our first wine pairing dinner on January 31st - what an incredible Vina Vita event!

Chef Chris Cook, the co-founder of the San Antonio Chef Cooperatives, delivered an incredible multi-course dining experience filled with creative flavors, textures and beautiful presentations.  Each course was perfectly paired with a different Kuhlman Cellars wine resulting in gastronomy harmony!

To match the elegance of the food, the dining experience was further heightened by holding the reception in our production and barrel facility and dining in the tasting room.  Of course, our awesome team was there to ensure each guest was served and attended to without want of anything.

We intend to offer these Pairing Dinners quarterly as we rotate the wine tasting pairing menu with the season.  Therefore, please watch for the next dinner in April when we announce the 2015 Spring Pairing menu.

I’ll wrap up now, but please enjoy the short video and selected pictures from the event. 

Vina Vita!

 

2014 In Review

2014 in Review   2014 was a very busy year for Kuhlman Cellars!  We built the new estate, harvested the inaugural grape crop from the family vineyard and opened our winery doors on October 3rd!  Looking back, it is pretty incredible to remember the winery estate was only a pasture last January and we started the actual construction in late May.  The team did incredible work to build everything quickly, professionally and beautifully.  As of today, the vineyard trellising is complete and the winter cover crop is healthily growing.  All told, we have just over 7.2 acres of vineyards, which translates into over 39,000 linear feet of trellis!     FEB 28 Vina Vita Club Event: Our first Vina Vita wine club event is Saturday, February 28 where we will release the 2012 Barranca red wine.      FEB 13 Hye, TX Progressive Wine Dinner: Join four wineries around Hye, Texas for an awesome progressive wine dinner with each course at a different winery and tour company transportation provided!  Kuhlman Cellars will present the appetizer course designed by Chef Josh Raymer and paired with both our Calcaria and Alluvé! . Looking forward to 2015!   2015 promises to be an exciting year with many firsts still to come.  We have a calendar filled with many Vina Vita Club events, bottling the 2014 whites in February, plus we will be planting the estate vineyards.  We expect to release new wines throughout the year, so stay tuned for release date information. As always, we look forward to seeing you at the winery, so please stop by for a tasting with our new Winter Pairing menu, or simply come in for a glass or bottle.  These sunny, and warmer, winter days are wonderful for relaxing on the patio and enjoying the richness of Vina Vita:  friends, family, food (wine!) and the fellowship which occurs when you have all of those present!   Valentine's Day Special and Herbed Almonds we've heard your pleas! "Alluvé You" Valentines Wine and Almonds:  Share a bottle of Alluvé paired with our special Herb de' Provence Almonds with your special someone this Valentines Day! Includes One Bottle of Alluvé, Two Red Wine Glasses, and two bags of herbed almonds. Herbed Almonds:  Our "nearly famous" almonds are now available for sale!  Enjoy a half pint jar filled with these incredible almonds and pair with your favorite Kuhlman Cellars wine.  The nice glass jar is reusable, so bring it back to the winery where we will refill it at a discount.  Enjoy!

Field trip to Kuhlman Creek!

 

On a bitter cold winter day, some of the Kuhlman Cellars team, including myself, were walking the vines at the Cobb Family Vineyard. It was a company field trip of sorts and I was excited to finally step foot on the soils of the family "farm". This is where the winery name was born, for Kuhlman Creek which runs through the property and feeds into the Pedernales River when heavy rains fall. During our trip the sky was grey, and the vines had just begun their long winters slumber. Green leaves with hints of red and gold were clinging from the hard worked vines.

The 1 acre test block has been a solid experiment over the last few years of how several grape varieties grow on the family property, just north of Fredericksburg, Texas. The vineyard presently contains 9 different grape varieties. This specific piece of land is blessed with terroir conducive to protecting the vines from hail and late spring freezes. Hills to the north have proven to disrupt the worst of severe Thunderstorms, and downward sloping terrain to the south allows cold air during the late spring to flow through and away from the vineyard. This is especially important in protecting our lovely Viognier from having her gentle buds frozen in late March and early April. The intimate tour of the property that day was given by Diane Cobb, our vineyard matron. I hesitate to call her a vineyard manager, because the love she shows each and every vine, is much more motherly than managerial. 

The Vitis Vinifera grape varieties currently planted at the Cobb Family Vineyard:

Aglianico
Alicante Bouschet
Carignan
Mourvèdre
Syrah
Tannat
Tempranillo
Vermentino
Viognier

There is a special estate field blend from the first harvest currently in barrels here at the winery structured solely from the fruit sourced from the Cobb Family Vineyard. This limited release wine will be something to look forward to in a few years once released. This wine will express the unique nuances of the terroir, which is instrumental when it comes to the complexity and individuality of wine.
 

We invite all of you to come experience the splendors of terroir with each of our carefully made wines at Kuhlman Cellars. Each one tells its own story of the dirt, rainfall, sunlight and wind of that particular growing season.

Cheers!
 

A Holiday Retreat - Wine and Scent

When I was a girl, my grandmother and I spent hours around her kitchen table plotting our holiday activities and indulging in the warm sweetness of freshly baked sugar cookies.  During the long holiday season in Michigan, few things evoked the excitement of Christmas more than the crisp flinty smell of freshly fallen snow.  My grandmother would dress me in layers of cold protection and send me out to forage for a bucket of pure snowflakes to make my holiday favorite; Snow Ice Cream.   With a simple recipe of condensed milk and vanilla extract, she brought my seasonal delight to life with a wave of familiar and comforting vanilla. 

Carefully un-wrapping me from my shell of wet wool warmed by my breath, winter down and leather mittens she indulged in the sticky sweetness of German Riesling.  I would steal sips and swoon at the silky liquid candy.  These rituals are still easily brought to mind by comforting smell of a warm winter wool scarf and with every glass of Riesling enjoyed in my adulthood I am transported back to those long holiday afternoons.

What is wine if not a scrapbook for your nose?

Few imbibements engage as many senses as wine.  Sight delivers critical information about the age and condition of the wine but regales us with myriad of colors inspiring palettes found in artwork, fashion, and interior design. 

We associate familiar sensations and sounds of pouring a glass of wine with celebration and relaxing. The heft of a bottle, the touch of a slender glass stem and the sound of a cork popping all help prepare us to enjoy what we are about to drink.  

This leaves us with Taste and Smell, the two most rewarding elements of your wine experience.

The sensation of ‘flavor’ is a synergistic combination of taste and smell.  When you cannot smell you taste very differently and in a diminished capacity.  Test yourself by chewing a Jelly Bean while your nose is pinched.  Can you recognize the flavor?  Try it again, but open your nose midway through the process.  When do you start to recognize the flavor of watermelon, cherry or black licorice? 

I am frequently asked “At what point do you add the other ingredients or flavors to the wine?”   The answer is never.  The heart of a complex and flavorful wine is a continuous series of complex chemical reactions creating scents unique to the wine through the result of fermentation.   While individual varietals (grapes) will have commonalities, the conditions in which it is grown and the winemaker’s process will influence the resulting flavor profiles.   Your own personal body chemistry also plays a role in how you perceive these scents, which makes this process subjective by definition. 

How do you develop the ability to find these scents and flavors?  Wine is the ultimate example of Scent-Memory.

Sommeliers have made careers of waxing poetic about the dozens of unique flavors found in a singular glass. But, it is each individual’s ‘scent-memory’ that drives our understanding of wine.   Recent Research has shown when areas of the brain connected to memory are damaged, the ability to identify smells is actually impaired.  Let the process come naturally and try to ‘remember’ what you smell: a watermelon Jolly Rancher, a slice of Mom’s famous Cherry Pie or a new pair of leather boots.   Open up a spice rack and put a name to those familiar warm smells.  There is no wrong answer when it comes to describing the flavor of wine, never let anyone tell you what you perceive is incorrect. 

The most important aspect of wine is simply enjoying it.  During this season of Celebration, I challenge you to explore your ‘scent-memories’.  Celebrate your past while creating the mental map for describing wine flavors yet to be savored.  Find your True North wine, your sentimental ‘Grandma’s sweet Riesling’, or make a new memory linking a particular wine to a special time and place.   Most importantly enjoy what you drink, don’t drink what you don’t enjoy and bask in the bouquet. 

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Aromatic Wine Recommendation:

2012 Kuhlman Cellars, Roussanne- This Southern Rhone beauty has found a true sweet spot in Texas.  With an aromatic bouquet of honeysuckle and jasmine, the intense stone fruits coat the palate with a honeyed viscosity.  The body offers complex herbaceous characteristics and a long finish. 

2012 Texas Red (49% Merlot, 15% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Carignan, 11% Cabernet Franc, 10% Grenache)- With a wonderful nose of baked cherries, sweet baking spices and roses, the body does not fail to wake the palate.  Layers of earth, leather and cinnamon balance with the fresh red fruit and supple, fine, tannins.  

Fall Red Bottling!

It was a team effort as we came together to bottle three new wines yesterday, the first bottling run in our new facility!  

After a couple of years working with these wines, it really feels great to have them now safely snug in their bottles where they can rest until time for release.  We bottled three wines:

• 2012 Texas Merlot, Texas High Plains
• 2012 Barranca, Sonoma County
• 2012 KanKar, Sonoma County

These wines are all uniquely beautiful and we will tell you more about them in the coming weeks.  For now, we can share about the Texas Merlot:  The Texas Merlot is a very nicely balanced red and is the same Merlot which forms the backbone of the 2012 Texas Red.  We expect to release this wine first among the three.  Unfortunately, we only bottled about 40 cases, and will only be releasing about 30 cases.  Therefore, this special wine will first be allocated to the wine club and if any remains after their allocation period, we will offer it in the tasting room.  As a teaser, please take a look at the beautiful label I've posted below!

This bottling run is also special for us, as it is the first bottling done at our new production facility.  We backed up the bottling truck and everything worked perfectly!  Bottling is a fun, but tiring day – we start with the wine ready in the tank(s) and cases of new, empty bottles.  Then, everything progresses through the bottling truck and then the bottled wine with labels, corks and foils all perfectly applied come out the other side.  Viola!

The important part of bottling is having the patience to let the wine rest sufficiently before release.  This is sometimes the hardest part, because everyone is so excited to have it “finished” and the bottles all look so pretty and ready to go.  But you have to wait and let the wine recover from the bottling process—it doesn’t like to be pumped around, pushed through nozzles, exposed to oxygen and then sealed in the little bottle space! 

 

Patience, patience, patience. 

 

Stay tuned for the release announcements.

 

 

 

 

 

Estate Vineyard Construction!

We've begun the earth works for the new estate vineyard!

There are several steps taken to put the vineyard in, including several which happen before we ever plant a vine.

Before we begin, we layout the vineyard blocks and agree on the orientation of the rows and the placement of the irrigation pipes.  Generally, we want the rows to run north / south so as to get the best sunlight as the sun moves from east to west.  Irrigation lines need to account for elevation shanges to ensure each vine gets the same amount of water - we don't want only the vines at the bottom of the rise to get water!

We start the land preparation by eliminating whatever is currently growing on the site.  For the last ~20 years, the estate pasture was cultivated for coastal hay production.  Coastal is a durable and resiliant grass and it handles period of drought by going dormant and then waking up once rains come.  This means the roots are strong and well developed.  

Once the coastal is eliminated, we rip the soil to fragment it and provide air for the to-be-planted vines.  This involves running a large dozer over the ground and pushing long ripping blades into the earth to "rip up" the soil.  We captured a short segment of this ripping in action in the video below!

 

 

The next steps include installing the trellising, running the irrigation lines and planting cover crops.  All of this has to take place prior to the vines planting in the late spring.

Stay tuned and come visit to watch as we progress through the establishment phase in preparation for planting the first vineyard blocks next spring.

 

 

First Estate Harvest!

We've anticipated this day for several years - ever since we bought the familty farm back in 2010 - we've thought about having our first harvest from the test vineyard!

Well, today we gathered with some family and friends and harvested the first few varietals.  This includes the Tempranillo, Viognier and some of the Alicante Bouschet.  As we will do moving forward, this was a hand harvest where we take each cluster from the vines using hand  shears.  This provides a gentle handling of the fruit and also allows us to select only the best clusters and leave any damaged or otherwise less than pristine fruit.

There was a big celebration from everyone as we met at the south end of the viognier row and had Reed and Diane, our vineyard manager and winegrower respectfully, take the first two clusters.  Some of the clusters were Huge!   Especially both the Tempranillo and the Alicante.

We were very pleased with the amount of fruit harvested!  In fact the clusters were larger than we anticipated, so our total weight was a fair bit more than predicted.  The quality also could not be better! 

Once harvested we then took the fruit to be destemmed and then sorted to ensure only the best berries and no MOG (material other than grapes) made it into the fermenter.  This is an intensively manual process as the team literally looks at every single grape to identify those flawed items and / or potentially foriegn objects and hand removes them.  It is a lot of fun, and there is always good conversation to be had as your eyes and hands do the work, but leave your mind and mouth for friendly conversation.

The fruit is all co-fermented.  This simply means we are not separating the different grape types, but are putting them all in the same vessel for fermentation.  This is a classic old-world approach to winemaking and it suits our needs very well with the existing vineyard.  

 

 

What will the sine be like when done?  Stay tuned and be patient as it will be a few years before we know the real result of our labors!

Construction!

Construction Continues!

We have started the production facility construction and in only 12 days, the crew made remarkable progress! They worked nearly non-stop until time for the July 4 holiday weekend. This time lapse video shows just how awesome the Barns and Buildings crew is as they go about their great work. 

Kuhlman Cellars Production Facility Construction Video #2 from Christopher Cobb on Vimeo.

The facility is 50x72’ on the inside along with an incredible 22x72’ shaded front porch overlooking the to-be-installed vineyard blocks. Our tasting room will be inside the production facility so you can taste among the tanks and barrels.

Work remains, but we are optimistic the facility will be ready for 2014 Crush as well as our limited opening later this summer. Stay tuned!

 

https://vimeo.com/100143109

Robert Clay Vineyards

We spent the day with Dan McLaughlin in Robert Clay Vineyards recently where we helped with netting the Merlot as well as checking progress on our 2014 grapes.

The vineyard looks great and the vines are healthy with a good canopy. They managed to avoid freezes (see their prior post about the all night heroics on April 15!) and hail so far this year, so we are getting excited about the potential for this year's crop!

The vineyard is located northwest of Mason and we hope to get about 3 tons of fruit from them this year. Fingers crossed for a continued good growing season!