SNAFU – Situation Normal…

Before I get started, I should mention that occasionally I will write about something that has nothing to do with wine, vineyards, Napa Valley or the Pina family. This is one of those posts (I don’t much care for the word “Blog”). Just thought I should let you know before you have too much time invested.

SNAFU – Situation Normal…

The Acronym SNAFU first came into use during WWII. A quick search on the internet offers lots of information on its origin. SNAFU quickly gained acceptance and even spawned a series of cartoon shorts titled Private SNAFU:

Check it out on WIKIPEDIA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Snafu

The father of my good friend, Charles (Chaz) Ainsworth, also served during WWII. My earlier post about WWII caused him to share a few mementos that his father passed on to him. Seems to me that at least 2 of these items should be in a museum somewhere. They are booklets courtesy of the War Department.

A handwritten note inside the front cover of one of them states: “Hon, These books were given to us when we hit France”.

And then there was the picture of his mother that his father had folded up and carried with him throughout the war. On the back he made notes of events & the places he traveled.
And a birthday card from his mother sent on Jan 13, 1945 that was received in France on Feb 5th – His birthday:

With a very touching note:

The Ainsworth Family
Charles (Sr), Charles (Chaz), Margaret & Peggy (in front)

And lastly,

“Snafu
Our Mascot, picked him up in Normandy”

And on this Thanksgiving Day, there is no better time to express our gratitude to all the men and women of our armed forces, that have been placed in harm’s way.

May you all safely return home soon.

Barrel Aging and Barrel Selection

As members of the Silverado Trail Wineries Association, we participate in the Silver Pass weekend twice a year. Participating wineries will offer special tastings, library releases, barrel sampling, food and more. The pre sale price of $30 for a full day of visiting these wineries is a helluva deal, AND Proceeds go to the Child Development Centers of the Napa County School District.

Earlier this month we participated in the Silver Pass weekend and offered our world class wines for tasting and our world famous Paella A La Jason Donoho (John’s son-in-law). Okay, “world famous” may be a bit of a stretch, but its dang good stuff.

Jason & his 4 ft diameter Paella Pan

During the event, we get lots of questions about how & why we do certain things – Some are basic, some are not. One question asked was: Why do you use French Oak barrels? I thought this basic question would be good to include in our blog and that it would be best answered by our winemaker, Anna Monticelli. Seemed simple enough. I thought she could answer that in a short paragraph, two at the most. Boy, was I wrong! I was impressed when I read her response and only noted one misspelling to correct. But then it turned out that “adsorption” really is a word. Lastly, her formatting was impeccable, but my skills at transferring the document were not.

Barrel Aging and Barrel Selection by Anna Monticelli
1. Great red wines are traditionally aged in oak barrels.
2. There are many benefits of barrel aging including clarification.
a. Wine settles and naturally clarifies itself better and faster when aged in a barrel, rather than a vat or tank, because of the smaller volume.
b. Oak has a natural adsorption phenomena that aids in the wine’s clarification.
c. Barrels are more sensitive to temperature than vats or tanks, so there is usually more tartrate precipitation during the winter.
3. There is more softening of the wine tannins and aroma development during barrel aging. Oak is porous and therefore wine is subject to micro-oxygenation whereas tanks are large airtight vessels that are theoretically inert. This controlled oxidation modifies the phenolic composition of the wine. The oak increases binding of the tannin and anthocyanin molecules, in turn stabilizing the color and softening the tannins. The amount of micro-oxygenation depends on the origin of the barrels, regularity in topping and the type and position of the bung. One study suggests that 16% of oxygen passes through the wood, 63% through gaps in the staves and 21% through the bunghole.
4. Wine aged in oak barrels extracts aromatic compounds that increase a wine’s complexity. A winemaker must match the appropriate amount of oak to the wine. If there is too much oak influence, a wine will be overpowered by the oak flavors and the fruit and varietal characters will be masked. You can’t make a wine great just by aging it in oak. The wine must have a certain aromatic finesse and sufficiently complex structure to benefit from oak aging.
5. Geographical origin and oak species have a huge influence on the effect on the wine.
a. French oak primarily comes from 4 main regions (Limousin, Centre, Bourgogne and Vosges). There are 2 species of oak trees that grow in these areas:
i. Quercus robur or Quercus pedunculata – High extractable polyphenol content and low odiforous compounds. These species produce coarser grained wood.
ii. Quercus petraea or Quercus sessilis – high aromatic potential and low levels of extractable ellagitannin. These species produce wood with finer grained wood.
b. Central European oak is primarily of the species Quercus farnetto. They have some similarities to French oak.
c. American oak is predominantly the Quercus alba white oak species. This type of oak has a lower phenolic content and higher aromatic compounds than other species, especially methyl-octalactone (sweet, coconut, vanillan, maple aromas).
6. Oak must be “seasoned” before it is coopered.
a. Natural seasoning generally takes 2-3 years. The oak is cut into staves and stacked outside where it weathers and seasons in the open air. The wood naturally matures and the physical, aromatic and organoleptic properties of the oak improve. Enzymatic reations also influence the flavor profile.
b. Artificial seasoning is when the staves are dried in an oven for approximately a month. Artificially seasoned wood has more astringent tannin and bitterness. It also has less vanillin and aromatic components.
7. After the oak staves are seasoned, they must be toasted and coopered. The oak can be toasted by traditional fire methods or convection oven. There are light, medium and heavy toasts. Toasting is used to eliminate the “green wood” flavors. The length and temperature of toasting changes the amount and types of volatile compounds. Generally, heavier toasting produces more toasty and vanillin flavors as well as complex flavors.
8. I use approximately 55-75% new French oak on the Piña wines depending on the vineyard. I prefer using French oak on our Cabernets because it is more subtle, complex and refined. I think it complements our Cabernet grapes better than American or central European oak because it enhances the fruit characters without overpowering the wine.

Rutherford Firehouse Label/Another Tow Truck

Many years ago the Rutherford Volunteer Fire Dept outgrew their fire station in “downtown” Rutherford and was in need of additional space. And since flooding would sometimes hamper the trucks from getting to the Eastern side of the valley, a additional sub-station on the Silverado Trail was needed. Davie, an Assistant Fire Chief in the Dept, approached the brothers about offering space to temporarily house the fire engines. We all agreed and a simple building was built about 100 feet south of our winery to house 2 fire trucks.

During this time, Pina Vineyard Management planted 3 small blocks of vineyard on the property. The closest is just above the winery. These blocks fall in the Rutherford sub-appellation of Napa Valley. When the time came to decide on a vineyard name for the label, we brainstormed lots of possibilities and eventually decided on “Firehouse Vineyard”. Stealing a line from Abe Lincoln; “It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this”. After all, the family has a long history of fire fighting. Uncles Al & Joe served in the Rutherford fire dept for many years before brother Davie & cousin Frankie became members. Uncle Frank & brother John were both Captains in the St. Helena Volunteer Fire Dept. Brother Larry’s son-in-law David & David’s father Jim are both currently in the St. Helena Fire Dept.

And although he was never a member of a fire dept, our dad did some firefighting, too. He spent lots of time traveling the area and occasionally happened on fires in their early stages. In the early 80’s we had an arsonist setting fires in the Napa Valley. He had a very clever way of starting them as he drove down the road, without even stopping. I better not give the details of how he did it; it might give some of you pyros out there ideas. Brother Larry recalls the day that dad spotted several small fires by the Silverado Trail. He was able to put all of them out but one. The last fire, at the site of the current Miner Winery, was a bit bigger than the others. Dad raced back the ½ mile to our house, grabbed some wet burlap sacks and my brother Larry, and together they returned and put it out.

But the arsonist also had a clever master plan. It seems that the Silverado Trail fires were intended to lure the fire fighting resources away from the fires he was yet to start in the areas of Soda Canyon and Atlas Peak, near Silverado Country Club. Unfortunately, he was very successful with those fires. The fires started on June 22nd, 1981 burned 23,600 acres and 65 structures. The fires blackened a path over 10 miles long - all the way from the Silverado Country Club to the ridge above Pina Cellars.

In 2007, the Rutherford Fire Dept built a nice new sub-station less than a mile north of us, but the Firehouse Vineyard name stayed.

Over the years, the family firefighters collected many stories. I asked Davie to retell one of my favorites, and here it is in his words:

While this might not sound funny to you it had us in stitches.

I have been on the Rutherford Volunteer Fire Dept. for 20 years. In my twenty years I have seen horrible things, things that will stay in my mind for forever and some that still get me to laugh out loud.
One that still gets my funny bone was a car off the road on Oakville grade. As the name implies the road is very steep and has a corresponding steep hillside below it. A lady had lost control of her car and went over the side. The only way anyone knew she was there was that she had crawled up the bank and was waving her hand as best she could to get attention. She was in fairly good shape for having gone 200 feet down a steep bank and crawled back up. We sent her on her way to the hospital and stood by as a tow truck arrived to pull the car up to the road. There was also another wreck down the bank that had never been removed. This caused the tow truck driver no end to problems trying to bring the new car wreck up separate from the old wreck. He finally moved his tow truck a little further up the road to get a better angle on separating the new wreck from the old wreck. As he pulled on the car it again got tangled with the old wreck and he continued to pull. All of a sudden everyone was aware of something not going right. The driver had put wheel chocks behind the rear wheels of the tow truck, but hadn’t set the parking brake. Once the tires started to climb over the chocks there was no stopping the tow truck. The driver took one step back and watched as the tow truck went right past him gaining speed as it hurtled down the steep bank toward the car below. It crashed into the new wreck, went over the top of it and ended in a heap below. Now there were 6 firefighters standing there in shocked silence and couldn’t believe our eyes at what just happened. In the silence came a voice from the Incident Commander talking on the radio to dispatch “I think we need another tow truck”. That awakened us to how this might sound when he tried to explain how we lost the one we had. We were all rolling on the ground laughing. The tow truck driver removed his gloves and sat down on the side of the road and waited. We felt sorry for him, but couldn’t help ourselves.
I also don’t know how the insurance agent separated the damage to the car from going off the road and the damage of a tow truck crashing into and going over the top of it after the fact. Thank goodness no one was hurt seriously and eventually both vehicles were brought to the road. Surprising enough they drove the tow truck back to the shop.
I’m still chuckling.
Davie