VINTAGE 2014: Part 2 of 3

April-June 2014
Running time: 11 minutes

In the second film, we learn from Steve Pepe, owner of Clos Pepe Vineyard & Winery about the financial impact of frost on a vineyard. Clarissa Nagy, winemaker at Riverbench shows us a rather counterintuitive way they defend against frost. Drought concerns grow as spring rains fail to come and we make our first visit to Foxen‘s Tinaquaic Vineyard, one of the only dry farmed vineyards in Santa Barbara County.

During a winemaker dinner, Michael Larner expands on the challenges of wearing many hats as a small production wine producer and Wes Hagen proclaims his love for Santa Barbara County’s food culture. A second visit to Foxen’s Tinaquaic Vineyard in June shows us the impact of drought and severe heat spikes on the early stages of fruit development.


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ABOUT THE SERIES
A series of three short films that follow the 2014 wine grape growing season in Santa Barbara County were produced and screened as a part of a national “wine & film pairing” tour. The format allows audiences to sample the featured wines before and between each of the short films, creating a unique feature-film length experience.

WIL FERNANDEZ
As the vineyards of Santa Barbara County got greener, the chance of frost was becoming a popular topic with almost every wine producer. I even got a taste of the business side of winemaking, and how precarious a profession it can be.

STEVEN PEPE
A lesson I had to learn, because I spent my prior, in my prior life, I was an attorney for 35 years. And when you’re in that business, you spend most of your time defeating geography and time through emails and overnights and Federal Express’s, and things of that nature. And if you’ve got a problem, you just put more people on the problem, and you take care of it. When you become a farmer, you have to have patience because you’re governed by Mother Nature, and she can be very kind, and also very difficult at times. And you just can’t solve it by throwing more people at it or more money at it. It has a system to it, and it has a sequence to it, and you have to follow it in order, and sometimes you just have to wait, and there’s nothing you can do. In 2008, we lost 2/3 of our crop to frost, and there was nothing we could have done about it in terms of adding machinery or anything else because it got down to about 26°, and when it’s down there, it’s going to burn all of the green growth. So you have to start thinking out three and five and eight years of where you’re going and what your plans are, and you have to wait. And you can’t speed it along, which is contrary to the way most businesses are run. There’s very little that we can do with Mother Nature in terms of speeding the process along. And it, it is time consuming, and it also is financially expensive at times.

WIL FERNANDEZ
The first couple of months of the vintage were an education in viticulture. I learned things that go unnoticed when you sip a glass of wine. One of those was the best defense in the battle against frost.

CLARISSA NAGY
So we actually frost-protect with sprinklers. We’ll turn the sprinklers on a couple of degrees before there’s actually a frost, and what it does, it encapsulates the leaves with ice basically, and protects them so that they don’t freeze. And so the ice will actually act like an insulator, and so there’s a constant flow of water, and then that keeps that from freezing. So in that time frame when there is danger zone for frost, we’ll have the sprinklers running that entire time. One of the issues that we have with drought is that our water table is low. So if the entire valley were to have a frost situation, a frost incident, we would all need to access the reservoirs. And would there actually be enough water to maintain it if it were a prolonged frost? So we are, they’re actually calling for frost end of next week, which March, which is relatively early. Usually May is our big frost time. So if we were to have frost March to May, that would be a significant concern.

WIL FERNANDEZ
While most wine farmers were counting down the days until the chance of frost had passed, another local producer was dealing with a different set of challenges.

BILL WATHEN
The reason we’re dry farming up here is because we don’t have the water. So that’s it. It was, it was planted in 1989. In 1989-90, relatively wet years. We planted these guys pretty deep, so probably 24 to 30 inches; sticks in the soil, and they, they took off. And it’s pretty fertile up here, nice ground, good soil. So far you know, it looks pretty good. In a average year, it’s, it’s easy. You know, it’s a no-brainer. We probably farm two to three tons of the acre up here. But say in a drought year, especially following a drought year, so next year possibly it’ll be a little severe.

DICK DORÉ
It’s all part of I think the romance of dry farming. If there’s, if that’s considered romance. It’s more of a challenge, and Bill has really developed it well. The problem is, is multiple years of drought, like we’re experiencing right now. Our second year, although last year was pretty good because we had rain the prior year. But next year, we’ll show the results of this year, and we’re always looking at the next year. And if we overtax the vines this year, then we will get another small crop next year, no matter what kind of rainfall we have. So it’s, it’s an interesting challenge, but luckily all our vineyards are not dry farmed. For us, it all balances out. The good years make up for the bad years. It makes no economic sense, but it makes damn good wine.

BILL WATHEN
We had three inches in January and February of 2013, and we’ve had four inches so far, so that’s seven inches in two years. Our average here is 14 to 15 inches, so we’re dealing within two years. So what is it? 25% of normal. Dry farming has its good years and it has its bad years. But if you don’t have water, what are your choices?

WIL FERNANDEZ
You don’t think we’re getting the rain.

BILL WATHEN
I don’t think we’re going to get it.

WIL FERNANDEZ
Yeah?

BILL WATHEN
No. You know, they’re talking, they’re talking rain, “El Niño” possibly late this year. So if we have an early harvest light crop, that’s probably a good thing, rather than sitting on more fruit later, and getting torrential rains during harvest. You know, Mother Nature works with you sometimes.

WIL FERNANDEZ
Is there anything you can see from a drought year in terms of…? Is it a more concentrated fruit?

BILL WATHEN
Definitely, I think there’s going to be more concentration because the berries are going to be smaller. You know, smaller berries make more intense wine. So yeah, we’re looking at probably smaller clusters this year than we’ve seen in a long time, and that’ll be smaller berries too. So it’s going to be interesting to see how it pans out. You know? I see a little bit of anxiety there. You know? You know, it’s amazing how nobody would ever think about it in a couple of wet years. It’s all going to be forgotten.

WIL FERNANDEZ
There was a sense of relief as the frost season passed, but the heat kept up, and the skies didn’t provide any water for the vines. One night in April, I attended a winemaker dinner at the restaurant that originally brought me to Santa Barbara County. I met local producers, some who wear multiple hats; growing, making and selling their own wine.

MICHAEL LARNER
I can get up in the morning and go out in the vineyard, and my grapes are still there. You know, but I don’t want to get up in the morning and see all of my case goods still in the winery. I mean I’m hoping they’re slowly moving, you know, because we’re trying to make wine year after year, and trying to sell. So you know, what I found, whether it’s distribution, brokering or wholesale, when you’re out on that road, that’s one of the most difficult parts of the job because you’re no longer just a winemaker. I mean that’s cool. Hey, it gets you in the door, and yeah, I’ve got pizazz. At a winemaker dinner, you kill it. But when you’re in front of a buyer, you’re like nobody sometimes.

WES HAGEN
I mean I think everything tonight came from like a 50-mile radius. I mean we’ve got the best uni in the world, we’ve got the best shrimp in the world. You know, we’ve got some of the best oysters in the world within 50 miles of here. We definitely have some of the best produce, definitely some of the, I mean probably the best broccoli in the world, best strawberries in the world. And then on top of everything else, seasonal everything.

WIL FERNANDEZ
It’s true. The Santa Barbara County culture is centered around agriculture. From the food on the table to the grapes that make great wine. The climate is perfect for growing a wide variety of grapes, but this year wine farmers got a little too much help from the sun.

BILL WATHEN
We had three days of 105° here right at full bloom, and so the bloom didn’t like the heat at all. So we have a lot of shatter, but it’s a combination of that hot streak we had and the lack of rainfall here, this year and last year. So we’re seeing this kind of double whammy of clusters, inflorescences being fried off. And you can, you know, you can actually hear how dry the ground is. So here’s what I’m talking about here. See? That thing’s nothing. So, and here’s where we are in a regular cluster, so that should look like this. That’s normal. Here’s another one here. See? Those are unfertilized berries dropping off.

WIL FERNANDEZ
Yeah.

BILL WATHEN
You can come in, Dick.

DICK DORÉ
I’m hiding behind the fence here.

WIL FERNANDEZ
Do you want to come take a walk with us?

DICK DORÉ
Sure. You’ve got to realize, I mean I’m sure you already know it, but no matter what the crop is, it still costs us the same to farm it. So you know, if we get a ton to the acre, we’re paying what, $5,000 a ton. If we’re getting half a ton, which maybe we’ll get, we’re paying $10,000 a ton. So it makes for a pretty heavy expensive bottle of wine. So we’ll get anywhere from 200 to 800 cases, depending on the year, and that’s a big difference. Right?

WIL FERNANDEZ
Yeah.

DICK DORÉ
So it’s hard. You know? It makes it a real dear and special vineyard.

WIL FERNANDEZ
And you’re not quadrupling your prices.

DICK DORÉ
We wish we could. You know? So what we hope is we, you know, are able to make it in the good years, you know, will make up for the bad years.

WIL FERNANDEZ
Spending time with people like the Foxen boys; Michael Larner and Wes Hagen, really gave me an appreciation for the challenges of wine farming. More importantly, their daily lives were a reminder that wine is anything but pretentious. It’s the opposite. It’s hard work. It’s dirt, sweat, and sometimes tears.