There is nothing like the spring in the Napa Valley. Sometimes the weather plays games with us (really, hail??) but for the most part, fluffy white clouds fill the cool blue sky and the vines are growing like crazy!! Read what's new with us in our FIRST monthly newsletter!
Be sure to click on the "April's Featured Wine" to see our wine promotion exclusively through this newsletter!
We now have a second place for you to taste the Baldacci Family Vineyards' wines. It is always fun to stand elbow to elbow with your fellow tasters in our little Tasting Room but have you seen the new Cellar Room in our Trailside House? We are now entertaining guests, who would like a more one-on-one experience, in the Trailside House where we are pouring our limited release wines and including food pairing and a winery/cave tour. Please contact the Tasting Room to make an appointment as we can only offer this Cellar Reserve Tasting on a limited basis but its an experience not to be missed!
What is "shoot thinning?"
Many people are familiar with pruning (cutting off the previous season's wood from the vine to create space for the new season's growth) but shoot thinning is a bit of a mystery. Once the vine has been pruned and starts to grow - bud break - we get back out into the vineyard to select which shoots will be chosen to produce fruit. Garrett Buckland, our viticulturist, and Rolando Herrera, our winemaker, spend the better part of a morning determining exactly what our vineyard will produce by selecting the shoots on each vine.
They select shoots with several different criteria in mind - how many clusters per vine will create a balanced vine, where will the grape clusters eventually hang (not too close to each other, bunching is bad!), and what are our expectations for 2012 which is important because the vine sets itself up for next year right now! We will keep track on the vineyards' development over the next few months and share the pictures!
Time to BLEND!
April is the time that Rolando gets deep into the caves and starts to put together the final blends for our 2009 Cabernets. As many of you know, our Black Label Cabernet is 100% Cabernet from our Estate vineyard but it is built from many different blocks. During the previous year's harvest, Rolando will pick the grapes, when they are ready, in small sections. This small-batch fermentation allows the grapes "the chance to express themselves" and become individual components of the final blend. Each block might have a dominant characteristic -- color, tannin, aroma, rich flavor and body -- and it is Rolando's task to find just the right blend of each block to create the perfectly balanced Baldacci Family Vineyrads Black Label Cabernet Sauvignon. What if a block doesn't make the blend? Rolando determines if that block is still "Baldacci" quality and moves it into the IV Sons Fraternity -- the perfect everyday red wine!!
