Housekeeping.....Next Year's Crop....2012

Just jotting down bulletpoints (first draft of this blog started on March 5):

Sensei comments
Snow in Chicagoland
Fritz Westover
Pruning Cabernet Sauvignon St. Louis 01-2008
Concord Grapes 01-2011, 02-2011, 03-2011
Photographs
Tim Mondavi, Carissa Mondavi, and Gary Vaynerchuk

A couple of things to mention...

Spring is coming no matter if it snowed today or not in the Chicagoland area. Dave Mustaine revealed in an interview recently that his sensei taught him, "You get knocked down 7 times, you get up 8.". The temps are warmer than they were 45 days ago. The last 36 hours have been a wild ride with respect to the weather. Torrents of rain followed temperatures peaking at 59 degrees Fahrenheit, all of which was followed by a think blanket of snow cover (not even more than an inch on the soil - couldn't stick to the concrete). The temps are now at 27 degrees.

I am hopping a train tomorrow night to meet up with a buddy of mine so we can drive to St. Louis by Monday morning where our families are. St. Louis is where my family resides and it'll be great to see them again. I know they also desperately want me to trim up the Cabernet Sauvignon vine. I hope to absorb as much Fritz Westover teaching as possible before I unfasten the safety on the pruners come Monday. 2012's crop depends on it.

One of my partners in crime planted some Concord Grape cuttings today, starting them inside the house and in pots, in Grayslake, Illinois. The pot technique has produced about a 58 % success rate for me when starting cuttings in them in a structure with four walls and heating through April of any year. (That percentage is completely arbitrary, by the by, but probably not too far off in all actuality.)

In addition, my friend also wrapped up the Vitis Riparia to get them ready for a brief period of stasis and eventual planting. That entire question has not even been explored. Again, the madness piece comes into play, but it is loads of fun to consider the possibilities of seeing how Vitis Riparia reacts and responds to care and structure as opposed to wanton living on the frontier appellation of Belvidere Road and McAree in Waukegan, Illinois, Lake County, Illinois.

I also am well aware that Gary Vaynerchuk is ramping up to produce his 1000th show in a matter of days. Today I visited his site at www.winelibrary.tv and realized he just posted a lovely two-part interview with Tim Mondavi and his daughter Carissa Mondavi, both hailing from Continuum Estates in the Napa Valley. I don't know a thing about Tim Mondavi - the name obviously triggers an association with Robert Mondavi, but I thought it was a decent interview. There was mention of the famed Judgment of Paris, something I know little about other than a Stag's Leap reference, and also Tim Mondavi spoke of the importance of the 60 Minutes televised broadcast of 'The French Paradox' from Nov 17 1991. By the way, that article on The Judgment is by Mike Steinberger, longtime wine columnist for Slate Magazine. Mr. Steinberger also visited Gary Vaynerchuk's Wine Library TV in recent years.

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..........Finishing this a million years too late. Anyway, www.winelibrary.tv has now been reconfigured and maybe could be considered as at the tail end of matriculating to www.dailygrape.com. Pretty interesting advances.

Also, just watched 'Bottleshock' with a friend the other day and that had some remarkable cinematography. Jeez Louise it was good viewing. It was a movie, but pretty damned cool overall.

Gotta publish this now because loads of cuttings are already growing and it is dy-no-mite all over the place. Major thunderstorms today, as well in the Chicagoland area and region. Super, fast, funky.

Out!!!!! Current temperature on first day of spring is 54 degrees Fahrenheit folks. (finally published on March 21 2011 Sunday morning, wee hours. Birds singing loudly, etc. 2:36AM, if you know what I mean.)

Willamette Hops harvest.....in my Chicago backyard!!!

Two Wednesdays ago I got locked out of my apartment, after returning from a volunteering stint that I do every week, because the maintenance guys were painting the front steps.  Well, I never have the back door key with me, that is the internal back porch deadbolt key.  So I decided to harvest hops since the steps were still wet from being painted.  The above-provided photos are the product of what resulted.  I harvested these Willamette Hops on Wednesday Oct 6, 2010.  Just seeing how much I picked off the vines this year made me so utterly proud.  It has been only 3 years of growing these things and they just take off without much care at all.  I still don't grow them properly, as in - vertically, which I think is the proper manner in which to grow them - but I will be calibrating my methods for next year to get closer to the ideal.  The plans on how to do this vertical gardening are still only in the sketch phase.  Actually, it is more along the lines of sketch and throw pasta at the wall, all the while taking a sip from a nice glass of wine to celebrate another great year in gardening.

Super late on posting anything these days to this southeastern Logan Square blogulation. I am in the midst of Day Eight for the fermentation of my first-ever wine (a red Spanish Tempranillo). As well, classes and trying to re-adjust to taking coursework, coupled with trying to find supplemental income have all successfully consumed my brainpower, or my 'Frontal Cortex' as Andrew Sullivan is so fond of saying.

Gary Vaynerchuk has reviewed Tempranillo a time or two, be sure to check his show out every week if you wish to learn more about his take on these matters. As always, more to come.......Thank you for reading!!!!

Mid-80's for highs/ 60's for lows .........forecasted for the next 3 days in Chicagoland

1 of (2) Frontenac grape vines planted this morning in Glen Ellyn, IL.

With temperatures the way they are forecasted, there will be PLENTY of prime growing going on this week.

A bit more information regarding the LeCrescent and Frontenac grape vines. This week I came upon an excellent website/resource for learning more about this entire endeavor: http://www.winemakingradio.com/

The website is excellent. I have only listened to a few programs thus far, but I am looking forward to cracking open the archives as the months advance. Today, however, I did happen to click on one of the archived podcasts and the particular podcast I chose consisted of an interview with two of the professors at the University of Minnesota Grape Breeding and Enology Project, Professor James Luby and Professor Anna Katharine Mansfield. Professor Mansfield seems to have moved on and is currently an Assistant Professor of Enology at Cornell University in Geneva, New York. And what did they touch on during the conversation? Frontenac grapes and LeCrescent grapes. Serendipity? I can't guess best, to be honest.

Tonight's wine is Yellow Tail Pinot Noir. The price was $5.99. By this time the readers realize that I endeavor to find virtue in the more accessibly priced wines of the world. Yellow Tail, in my opinion, is nearing the ubiquity of some of the larger brewers in the beer industry. I don't mind Yellow Tail at all, believe me. I doubt that Bin 36 offers Yellow Tail on its wine list. It is getting to the level of what Carlo Rossi has become in my mind. Drinking Rossi was always more about quantity. I remember even grabbing the larger bottles of Yellow Tail in recent years because the price was right for a folk musician like myself. Tonight's bottle is simply a 750ml.

So far, the glass of Pinot Noir is going down nicely. Again, I don't have a palette for identifying notes just yet. I am not protesting in the least. Initially, I actually thought the wine was 'hollow in the mid-palette', as Gary Vaynerchuk would suggest. But I soon realized that I needed a few more rounds of intake to get better acquainted with the wine.

And, again, I can't say enough good about Double A Vineyards in Fredonia, NY. The grape vines are wonderful that they sent me. Support them, buy from them. Good people.