We're often asked what kind of dishes to served with the wines we produce. As we receive quite a few visitors for lunch during the year, it's a question we frequently ask ourselves as well.
To start with, the whole "science" behind food and wine pairing got a stir from research done in Japan, where it was found out that levels of iron in wine basically determine how well it pairs with fish. Wines with high levels of iron cause and unpleasant fishy taste in the mouth. Historically, red wine contained more iron than white wine, so that could be a valid reason for the recommendation of red wine with meat, white wine with fish. I get the same unpleasant sensation from eating apples after fish, and the browning of a cut apple apparently has something to do with high iron content as well.
This goes just to show how uncertain some of the established wisdom in food and wine pairing can be.
For those wanting to read the whole article:
http://news.sciencemag.org/asia/2009/10/why-fish-and-red-wine-dont-mix
At the winery we normally try to serve food that's in season, and if that happens to be asparagus, as is the case right now in spring, then so be it. Asparagus is difficult to pair with wine, but an absolute joy when fresh!
Otherwise, we favour lighter food, such as ravioli filled with corn (maize) with a tomato and basil sauce. Again, the tomato can clash with some of the wines, but normally they have enough acidity to cope well.
A wine with low acidity is the GSM (Grenache - Syrah - Mourvèdre), which is full bodied but not very tannic either. Lighter food but strongly flavoured, like mediterranean food such as fish or vegetables with garlic, anchovies, fresh herbs and so on, seem the best match.
During a recent trip to the United States, Ryan DiFranco of Difrancos.com in Denver, CO, paired our wines extremely well, the most surprising combination a lemon cheese cake with white chocolate with the Syrah Edición Limitada 2008. After Five years, the wine had become soft and rounded enough to pair well with the sweet flavours, and the lemon gave the whole experience a very fresh lift.
Another restaurant, near Grand Rapids, West Michigan, (unfortunately I forgot the name) prepared the best surf-and-turf I have ever eaten to pair with the Aluvión 2008 and 2002. In this case, the dish suddenly made sense, the earthiness of the shrimp complementing the meat and wine in the best way you can possibly imagine!
viernes, 4 de octubre de 2013
viernes, 27 de septiembre de 2013
Tilling, fertilization and cover crops
Now that winter is over, I’d like to share
a few thoughts on soil maintenance. It is difficult to understate the
importance of the soil, as it sustains everything we grow.
Since last year we’ve been ploughing the soil between the vines more and more as a means to aerate the soil and control weeds. Aeration is normally taken care of by worms and insects living in the soils and digging their way through them, but compactation by tractor wheels and a lack of plants to sustain soil life have made it necessary to plough. In order not to overdo it, we started by ploughing alternate rows.
Since last year we’ve been ploughing the soil between the vines more and more as a means to aerate the soil and control weeds. Aeration is normally taken care of by worms and insects living in the soils and digging their way through them, but compactation by tractor wheels and a lack of plants to sustain soil life have made it necessary to plough. In order not to overdo it, we started by ploughing alternate rows.
The lack of plants to sustain soil life basically
means the lack of weeds: their roots can help to break up the soil and feed
insects and worms living in the soil. We’ve started to experiment with cover
crops to observe their effect. The goal is to accumulate biomass in the soil,
while at the same time trying not to have these crops compete to hard with the
vines for water and nutrients. This means we favor plants that grow in winter,
seed and then dry up starting in spring. Mustard is one such crop and has
bright yellow flowers before the vines start budding.
To avoid competition for nutrients it's best to fertilize cover crops while you sow them. For ease of application and their
low cost we use chemical fertilizers. There’s nothing wrong with them, as long
as you don’t abuse. In the end, the cover crops, as the decay, will return
these and other nutrients to the soil, which will favor the vines in the long
run.
Otherwise, we use stable manure (from cows
and horses) as fertilizer, which has the added benefits of adding organic
matter as well as micronutrients to the soil, but is harder to obtain and
handle, as quantities are big.
The only other (micro) nutrient we’ll be
using this year is zinc, as the level in both soil and plants last year proved to be low. The plants only use minute quantities of this
mineral, but the lack of it causes stunted growth and shatter of berries.
Alternatively, after ploughing, native
vegetation starts to grow, and seems almost as beneficial for the soil as cover crops.
Grasses and wild flowers seem to be the mainstay.
We’d like to see some clover or leguminous
plants as well, so next year we’ll be sowing some of those, apart from the
mustard seed. Other cover crops we tried were less of a success. Oats and vetch were
mostly eaten by birds early in winter. Growing a mixture of grasses gave
almost the same result as the grasses that grow here naturally, so that was a
bit of a waste of money!
All in all, weed control is getting easier, as the hardest ones to control are being outgrown
by these smaller ones in winter, and we’ve been controlling the former as early as we
can, to avoid propagation.
Pruning has finished by now, and we’re busy
tying down the last canes before budburst occurs. We just had some heavy frost
that badly affected fruit growers all over the central part of Chile.
Fortunately our vines bud a little later than most as this area is fairly cool,
so we were not affected at all. Maybe an indication we’re growing the right
crop in the right place?
And for those of you trying to find the
winery, the gate is not green any more but now painted in “Lagar Red,” a color
taken from the wall painting in our tasting room and now very distinctively ours!
The Chilean flag in the background is mandatory, to celebrate Chilean independence (18 September).
viernes, 28 de junio de 2013
Pruning and beginning of winter
Winter pruning has started and the weather has been cold!
Almost every morning the vineyard is covered with frost.
Meanwhile, in the cellar, we’re pressing off the last tanks
and putting the wine in barrels. We bought new Radoux and Saury barrels, and 4 “demi-muids”
or large 600 liter barrels for the Syrah Edición Limitada. Now is the time to
decide which wine merits more new oak, and which doesn’t.
The pomace, left after pressing, in composted before it goes
back to the vineyard, to enrich the soil.
This year we decided to plough the whole vineyard, to get
some air into the soil, improve infiltration of rainwater and stimulate growth.
We’re also doing experiments with cover crops. Last year that wasn’t such a success,
as we were a little late with sowing and the soil wasn’t prepared well enough.
Hopefully this year will give more results. The mustard is growing
very fast, the oats have shown less signs of life. Apart from the utility, I like the way
a ploughed soil looks in winter.
We’ve also been buying stable manure again this winter, as manure and compost bring not only nutrients, but also new life to the soil. There’s a nice pile waiting
to be spread out in the vineyard.
Orders have been coming in from different parts of the
world. At the moment we’re about to ship to Holland, Canada and the US. This is
the first time we’re exporting to Holland, and our hopes are high! While we
were preparing an order, it was raining cats and dogs. To make matters worse,
the tractor wasn't able to handle the weight of the pallets. But with a little
human weight added, that was fixed. Man and machine, what a combination!
The results from the photo session with Matt Wilson also came
in. There have been all kinds of comments and discussions. This is one of the more controversial ones.
Flanked by two beautiful girls from Santiago (our manager and her assistant), I was the dirty one who had to do all the hard
work!
Apart from that, everything has been fairly quiet, which is
just as well, as it’s been so cold and rainy. Today I sent the workers home
earlier, as more rain threatened, and there wasn’t much left to do. Personally,
I took shelter at home, intending to make good use of all this firewood!
miércoles, 29 de mayo de 2013
Harvest 2013 and visitors
This week, the 2013 harvest has finally
finished. This year took a little longer as there were a lot of grapes and we
decided to make more wine than last year. More than double the amount of last
year, as a matter of fact.
After a fairly cool summer, I expected rain
to fall early in autumn, but so far we’ve only had rain twice, and it didn’t do
much damage. Even Syrah, with its tight bunches, didn’t have any rot to speak
of.
We only had some frost a week ago, which
caused all the leaves to drop and made us speed up the end of harvest.
Fortunately, frost doesn’t affect the quality of the grapes once they’re ripe
(it does damage unripe grapes), but having them hanging in bare sun during the
day can’t be too good either!
Meanwhile, in the cellar, the last tanks
are slowly fermenting and the first wines are finished, have been pressed and
put in barrels. Fermentations are quite slow, as the weather is very cold at
the moment, which slows down the activity of the yeasts. This is not a problem,
as it gives more time to extract color and tannins and evaluate the fermenting
must. So far, colors are very intense and aromas are fruity and already quite
expressive. Now we have to wait for malolactic fermentation to complete over
the course of winter and spring to be able to evaluate, select and blend the
final wines.
During harvest we had a few visitors,
unlike last year, and they were a very welcome distraction during what was one
of the longest harvests at Lagar!
Some of the most memorable were Janesse and
Ben and their little son from “The Bottle Shop” in Colorado. During our visit
to the vineyard, the dogs managed to catch a rabbit and tore it to pieces in
front of our eyes! Animal planet live!!! I have to confess I felt quite
embarrassed, especially for the boy, but that’s nature. We’re at the feet of
the Andes, not in the middle of a big city. Apart from that it was a great
visit, and I was sorry they couldn’t stay for lunch. Maybe next year?
Henry Hudson and Joaquin Perez from South
American Boutique Imports arrived in the dark, and the electricity had fallen
out. This happens a few times a year since the area is quite remote, but this
was extremely bad timing. The staff had left already, since there was little to do in the dark. We had to receive them in a candlelit tasting room,
which looked very romantic! Anyway, they didn’t mind too much and we
had a great tasting. This is how the tasting room looks like when lit:
Another visit was from our importer in
Corea, In-Suk Chung and his deputy manager Young-jin Choi. I had never had
visitors from Asia, so we were a bit nervous at first, but what great people
they were. Very knowledgeable and very sure of their tastes, more so than most
Europeans who are supposed to come from the cradle of viticulture. Apart from
sharing a very pleasant lunch including a bottle of the 2004 Aluvión, they
handed us lovely gifts, which we didn’t expect at all! We’ll have to start
working on our “Lagar” t-shirts to be able to retribute our visitors.
Our trainee, Isaac, and his wife and
children left last Sunday for Peru and then back to Holland. They were great to
have as company and a fantastic help in the cellar as well. We already miss
them, but that’s the way harvests go. At the end of each one you have to say
goodbye to all the people that helped so much and were an integral part of the
process, but the rest of the year we have to make do by ourselves. After a last dinner (the picture shows what was left over, note the bottle of Inca Cola, Isaac has Dutch-Peruvian origins) they left for a last day in Santiago.
Just after the last grapes came in, the
rain really started. We’ve only been doing some cleaning and labeling, as it’s
raining cat’s and dogs. Speaking of dogs: they were all lying in their houses
looking quite depressed, as they weren’t able to run and play outside. To add
insult to injury, the vet came for their yearly vaccinations. The look on their
faces said it all!
martes, 16 de abril de 2013
Bottling and beginning of harvest
Harvest has finally begun. This summer was a bit cooler than
usual, and much cooler than 2012, so we started about two weeks
later than last year. Although the shy has been grey a few days, and it has
been menacing with rain, so far, only a few drops have fallen, so no risk of
rot at all. The Syrah is looking even healthier than last year, which has us
very happy. Temperatures can still get over 30ºC (86ºF) during the day, but at night we've registered temperatures as low as 1.5ºC (35ºF)!
Taking advantage of the last quiet moments before the
harvest, I walked up to the hill of La Compañía last Sunday, to have a
different perspective of the valley. Lagar’s vineyards are in the middle, at the foot of the
first hill in the background.
Seen from the vineyard the hill looks like this, but I can
assure it’s taller than it looks once you’ve tried to climb it! In the foreground the Malbec we planted last year. We can't wait to see the first grapes!
The first barrels for this year’s harvest have arrived, this
time customized with the logo of Lagar! These are the 600 liter barrels for the
Syrah.
The last two weeks we’ve been bottling about everything
there was left in the cellar. Demand for our Cabernet Sauvignon Reserva has
been very high, so we had to bottle a bit earlier than planned. This was a good
thing, as this year we’ll be making a lot of wine, so we can use the extra
space! Only the Syrah Edición Limitada and the base wines for Aluvión 2012 are
left.
Despite me having a cold, bottling went very quickly and
without problems. This is fairly unusual, as normally something fails, such as
corks, capsules, cases or space to store all the bottles.
The neighbors have been a great help too: since one of our
tractors broke down, they borrowed theirs, so Fernando, the vineyard manager,
is proudly driving a brand new Massey-Ferguson this month. Unfortunately only for
this month…
Our trainee for this year, Isaac, has arrived from Holland
and is now fully integrated into the team and has proven to be a great help.
Apart from that, we had a bit of a rough start, this year. First, I suffered
a motorcycle accident the weekend before we started (at last the limp has gone,
only some bruises are left on the soul!), then, on Monday the must pump failed,
putting our skills as electricians to the test, and on Tuesday the
destemmer-crusher. This last machine, after more than three hours testing
voltages, currents and circuits, was the easiest to fix, when the cellar master decided
to simply change the plug! Meanwhile, the harvesters were almost screaming for
more cases (they are paid per kilo), so even our team’s social skills were necessary to keep things
quiet!
We started harvesting Syrah, and perfectly healthy, ripe
fruit arrived at the cellar.
Here’s Isaac and Jorge emptying a case into the destemmer.
Most of the vines are still healthy and green, but the
Teinturier plants are a deep purple red. They were the first to be harvested,
and the accumulation of color in both grapes and even leaves is quite
spectacular. Even Romeo, the dog in the foreground, was impressed!
Fermentations have started, so there’s a lot to do at the
moment. Hopefully by next month I can give more details about this year’s
harvest. Meanwhile, enjoy our Syrah 2010 that earned much praise in this Months
Wine Spectator!
lunes, 11 de febrero de 2013
Beginning of ripening
It has been a while since my last post and there is a lot to
be told.
There has been a lot of work in the vineyards, as this
growing season has not been very easy. There has been rain in december and temperatures have been lower than
average, and pressure of powdery mildew (the “good weather fungus”) has been
high. We’ve been able to eradicate the few outbreaks we had, and the grapes
have started to ripen, which means the end of the risk of new infections. Now we
have to be alert for grey rot, or botrytis bunch rot, which can be a serious
threat to the Syrah especially. Due to the cooler weather, we're about two weeks behind schedule compared to a normal year. maybe this means a more relaxed harvest, as not everything will ripen at once, like last year.
Last year’s experiments are showing good results:
One of the things we tried to do was to get a more even
budburst and growth of the shoots of Cabernet Sauvignon. When pruned early,
normally the last two buds left on a cane grow much more than the other ones (a
cane having 6 – 8 buds). When the whole cane is left intact at pruning, and is shortened
while budburst is about to occur, the shoots grow much more evenly.
The effect of a late re-pruning is slightly devigorating, not in the least because it promotes fruitfulness, and the fruit takes away energy from the
plant. We therefore only tried it in the more vigorous parts of the vineyard,
and we’re very happy with the results.
The first picture shows a typical Cabernet cane, with weak and absent shoots in the middle. Note the poor bunches in the middle as well,
compared to the ones on the last two shoots (to the left).
The second one shows the result of the experiment: smallish,
but good and evenly colored bunches along the entire cane!
Applying stable manure has also worked well for those plants
which were not growing much. As a result, I observed earthworms last year, a sign of healthy, living soil. Only Carmenère is still a bit reluctant to grow,
but there are signs it is improving. We need the roots to go deeper in search
for water and nutrients. Last year we saw a shallow root system, and it will
take a few growing seasons to promote new and deeper root growth.
Liming the soils has given good results too. Even though the
soil is not poor in calcium, lime (calcium carbonate) can help to free
nutrients and change the pH of the soil, which has a profound effect on the
roots.
The last experiments have to do with a fungal disease which
attacks the wood of the vine. The symptoms are stunted growth, with yellowing
margins on the leaves, as can be seen on this picture. Note the healthy leaves and bunches on the right.
The fungus penetrates the wood through large pruning wounds, such as this one:
Unfortunately, the symptoms are only clearly visible
in summer, but not when pruning in winter. To overcome this, we’re busy marking with a plastic ribbon each plant showing singns of the disease. When pruning, these plants can be
treated differently. Basically, they’ll be cut or sawn off, until clean and healthy wood
appears. The resulting wound will be dressed with fungicide paste, and
hopefully the disease can be kept at bay.
Labor has been scarce, although so far we've had little problems. Only after bud burst did we have a little delay on the de-suckering. But the other day, driving through the village of Graneros, I saw these signs, virtually crying out for people to harvest fruit, like peaches and nectarines, that's ripening at the moment, promising generous weekly pays and so on. Clearly the gentleman sitting at the bottom didn't think this was worth the effort. Hopefully, by the time we harvest our grapes, he'll feel more enthusiastic!
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