Beaujolais Nouveau n'est pas Arrive!

So we tried to make some DeuxPunx Nouveau for the 3rd Thursday in November. The great day on the wine calendar when you can drink overpriced shitty (merdey) gamay punch and act like a gay Parisian. We thought it would be fun to make a carboy of 100% whole berry punch ourselves. Well, if you read this blog at all, you know that timing is not our forte. The Country Crap is still fermenting away. So we leave you with the tribute to Beaugolais Nouveau...

heavy lifting

so the heavy lifting is mostly done for '08 - shy the previously mentioned egginess - and we're starting to look at how to do more in '09. We've got a few difficult choices ahead of us as the natural next step is going "pro" and the whys, wheres, hows and whats that are involved in that process are enough to consume much of our off-season time and money. But in the meantime with just a few little bows to by tied on 2008's vintage.

as you saw from Dan's post (including the unfortunate attempt at recorded funkiness on my part) we're just around the corner from starting malo-lactic on the humboldt pinot. As for the grapes from 693 miles north-northeast of the Fruitland Ridge the Malo-Lactic has kicked off slowly on it's own thanks to last year's bacterial infection. Where as the Pinot showed us in all of it's pinotie goodness that planning is something good to do in between fixing previously fucked up plans - what with its overly hot fermentation that forced us to press right after we'd rolled into town from the great northwest and the H2S and its subsequent treatment that will get us booted from the natural wine world. Up north we rolled out a schedule, a plan you could say (though one peered at through cracks in between fingers with fear), and got to work. What was amazing about the plan up north is it actually worked!! In the manner of a stuck clock we totally nailed it once and when I rolled up to press the syrah it was ready for me.

We got a lot of help on both sides our efforts and there are many folks that deserve out thanks. The Lubliners for hosting our fermentation in their very well appointed garage, Sherman, Lubby and my dad for keeping an eye on the fermentation and reporting in on a regular basis and all of the sorters and co-pressees. I would like to give a special thanks to Adam for not only being there through the entire sort but also coming back to help (along with Jenne and Paul) run the press from start until clean up -- hats off.

Now with roughly 275 gallons of wine sitting (including last year's still aging wahluke syrah) we start the planning for next year. do we go pro in CA? do we go pro in WA? do we go pro in both? do we truck grapes from Wa to CA? do we truck grapes from CA to WA? do we find our own space, find a winery looking for someone to share their space, go the custom crush route? we'll see but in the meantime I believe we have some rackin to do and malo to start this weekend and Dan is well... excited.


and yes we are dumb enough to do it again next year and even up the ante. Next year you'll be seeing this post and knowing that we're going to be hunting down 4 tons of grapes - just you wait and see:

Of Rotten Eggs and Burnt Toast

So our Pinot smells stinky; and not in that cool natural wine stinky smelling way. We have a bit of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) in our wine which smells like "morning breeze" or rotten eggs. Most likely created when the cap in the puncheons got too big and heated up. The 2-foot cap had a higher temp than the must and the yeast in the cap got over stressed. Apparently this happens with Pinot Noir and we now realized we should have gone with 3 puncheons or controlled the cap and temp more during fermentation.
There is no "damage" per se. Just an odor. After some research and soul searching we decided to use a small amount of copper sulfate to convert the H2S into copper sulfide which will percipitate out. I took 3 semesters of chemistry in college and surpisingly I can following what is happening. After some bench testing we agreed that we'd use a 0.1 ppm addition. The plan is to do another test next week to see if we need anything more. There should be no trace of copper in our final wine; however, it is a bit annoying dealing with this issue.

The following is a quick moving of the addition and a small sample of Aaron's dance moves...

"Humboldt Harvest and Sort" (the movie)

Trick or Treat (this wine smells like feet)

Being a stand-up family guy (see previous post) I look forward to Halloween every year. This year our family was all about Speed Racer because or 3-year old son is all about Speed Racer. I got to be the uber cool Racer X, my wife Trixie and Calvin was Speed.

Racer X and Speedie

Our neighborhood is ground zero for trick-or-treating in San Francisco, which makes our life easy. We started out at our friends house with killer ghoulish food and wine. I brought over a few fun bottles to balance out some of the not so good things others might be bringing. Surprisingly the selections were not too bad (lots of Cab Sauv and Zins).

Whigs and wine.

Once full and buzzed we hit the streets. Import to note that a Bugaboo stroller can hold a good amount of wine. But we did run out half way from home. What to do? I asked the first candy giver, "Do you have any booze for Racer X?" At which he replied, "sure, what kind?" Unfortunately I went with the red wine.

I am now going to try to describe this red liquid: It smelled EXACTLY like Crystal Light Lemonaide. It drank so hot that my throat burned. It tasted of bad concentrated fruit and rotten logs. UNDRINKABLE and not worthy of the gutter we all poured it into. I didn't get to see the label, but I am guessing this was a South African Zin purchased at a corner market or Bev-Mo.

Single worst glass of wine I have ever had!

Luckily our friends live a few house away and saved us with 9 ice cold beers.

I still want to know what that wine was. I do know that was a trick and not a treat.

"Give my dad better wine next
year or we'll egg your house!"

Taking 1 for the Team

So Pogo (aka Aaron) is heading out to Olympia again this weekend to press the Syrah. I am too tired and a bit starved of family time and have elected to stay behind. I am sure he is just as pooped and sleep-deprived but he's taking one for the team. At times like this I realized I made the correct choice in who to join forces with to make wine.

Thanks man!

update from the even thicker of it

We got back from Washington through a driving stint that would make a trucker proud and on our return turned around and pressed the pinot.


The 2008 Wahluke Syrah is currently in the bin at around 13brix and dropping fast. The 2008 Elk Prairie vineyard Pinot Noir has wrapped up primary fermentation. The Warriors are trying to come back against the Hornets. I've got a bit of time and borrowed energy for another update.

After we got the fermentation starting in Glen Park we loaded up the trailblazer with almost everything we were supposed to bring with us to Olympia and started the drive up the hill. In tow we had one neutral barrel, 25 empty cases, a few changes of clothes, 1/2 dozen bottles of wine and a hole where our bag of yeast, immersion heaters, SO2, tartaric acid, yeast nutrients and our winemaking reference book were to go <- Hello Portland wine making supply shops.

After a 2 parter drive up to Olympia we picked up the same trusty ford pickup I used the year before and prepared our selves (by going out for drinks) for a 5AM drive over to Eastern Washington. On Saturday (10/25) we drove out to Wahluke Slope to pick up our second batch of grapes. This being 1200LB from the Gilbert family's Doc Stewart's Vineyard just south of Mattawa, WA. The Gilberts have been farming in Washington since the invention of the phonograph and Doc Stewart's Vineyard is their organic vineyard in Wahluke Slope.


This time we turned around quick getting back to Olympia at 2PM and starting the sort shortly after 3:00. We sorted (and are fermenting) at the Lubliner residents in Mud Bay. With the help of family and friends and some clean grapes we were able to wrap up the sort in roughly 6 hours.


Sunday we started the syrah fermentation and the clean up process.

On Monday Syrah fermentation had started to kick up to a modest pace and as such we started the drive back to the bay area tired but satisfied that we accomplished all we sought to accomplish. We got home to a Pinot that was more than ready to press and was showing the beginning signs of some yeast strain.

We got back just in the nick of time. Tuesday we got the press and got to work pumping and pressing the pinot into our 2 barrels, 3 six gallon carboys and 3 one gallon carboys.




We've left Fairmount St stained purple and littered with grape skins and we've left ourselves running on somewhere close to empty but shy of the syrah press we have successfully wrapped up the 2008 crush.



To be honest with you - we're physically sore, mentally tired and emotionally worn but only just getting started. Saturday it's back up to Olympia to press the Wahluke syrah, after that it's planning and plotting for 2009 with an occasional racking in between.

update from the thick of it

The tough thing about a blog about wine making is that the most exiting part of winemaking is too exiting to have time to write about how exiting it is.

In the brief time and energy i have between last Saturday's harvest of Fruitland Ridge Pinot Noir and this Saturday's harvest of Wahluke Slope Syrah here's where we are so far.

On Friday we drove up to Willits where we picked up a trailer from U-Hual that is suppose to haul 1600LB and travel down the road no faster than 45mph (both proven wrong). The gentleman at Willits tire center saw the 60 yellow picking bins in and on the car and asked if we were getting mushrooms (i snickered) - no grapes.

Friday we learned that the grapes wouldn't be picked by the 10AM hour as we'd hoped buy later, maybe much later (gulp). So we visited the local wine bar, the local liquor store, the local cajun restaurant and two of the local watering holes. 2 bottles of wine and 4 shots of makers mark later we were ready to settle in for the evening.


Saturday AM (10:00) we made our way up to Elk Prairie and the picking was underway but falling behind as there was a smaller picking crew then originally anticipated. With that news we were handed some clippers and put to work. Lesson learned - we suck at picking grapes but dug having the opportunity to find out.

Saturday PM (3:00) we started weighing the grapes and transferring to our bins for the drive south.

Saturday PM (3:45) we started out climb down the hill trailer of grapes in tow. FWIW, we had originally planned on making it to Glen Park prior to 3PM.

Saturday PM (8:42) we rolled into Glen Park and those still waiting helped unload and start the sorting process.

Sunday AM (1:30) bed time.

Sunday AM (7:30) off to get coffee and pastries and back to sorting.

Sunday PM (5:30) grapes are crushed, bins are being washed and we're about spent. Cold soak begins.

Monday/Tues - continue w/cold soak thanks to dry ice from SF Ice Co.


Wednesday PM (6:30) fermentation starts on pinot.

Tomorrow we drive up to Washington to prepare for the syrah harvest on Saturday. We hope to have this in the tank and fermentation going strong by Monday AM at which point we'll heading back to CA to press the pinot mid-week and fly back to WA to press the syrah on the 1st/2nd of November.

phewww.... we'll have more details and photos, winey geek stats and continue to show you how things are doing after the 2 weeks of craziness subside.


wishful thinking (the movie)

Things are brewing

more updates to come...

We got the grapes!!!

The first post on this blog states enthusiastically that we'd sourced grapes for both the pinot and syrah, that was April 11th. Of course since then we've seen record frosts, late starts in ripening, fires and early cold fronts. We've lost our grapes due to low yields and found new grapes thanks to some chicken scratch on the back of a scrap of paper.

Today we are driving up to The Fruitland Ridge in Humboldt County to pick up our pinot noir grapes (to be picked tomorrow AM). Through much fingernail chewing, nervous pacing and many a restless night we are ready to go! With of all our stress (undue?) aside we should see some great fruit this year as it's had enough hang time to really develop some character before the sugars reach to high up the scale.

We'll have more to share as we pick up our grapes, bring 'em home, sort 'em, crush 'em and cold soak in prep for fermentation. For now picture us in the truck heading down the road with grapes in tow.

Highway 101 Southern Humboldt County

Next week for syrah??

Bet on the Dodgers, buy Dan wine

In the spirit of October and waiting for grape harvests, we made a wager on the NLCS. Aaron picked the Dodgers to win in 6 and I the Phabulous Phillies in 7. $20 bottle of wine to the winner and a $30 bottle if you get the number of games correct.


Being a standup punk, I am sure Aaron will treat me to a prime bottle of wine. One that I will drink with a Philly Cheesesteak while watching It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

web marketing 101 or "harvest is cumming"

So we installed the google analytics on our blog to see when, why and how our small number of readers are showing up and learned lesson #1 of web marketing which is SEX sells. I wrote a post titled "Wanna know why you're not getting laid tonight?" and our blog has found a whole new reader base.

Through the wonders of Google searches the following inquiries bring you to the deux punx blog:

getting laid when you're short (we're #2)
reasons why you're not getting laid (we're #1)
does not get laid (we're #1)
"baseball addiction +getting laid" (we're #1 <- and who searches for this???)
get laid in nyc tonight (we're a lowly #4)

so, yes the grapes are CUMMING soon, we're going to be picking at the BACKDOOR of this years harvest and we think this harvest will be GOLDEN

SHOWERS or not...

A couple SMUT peddlers - VIRGINS to the jersey scene


Oh, and to our new found reader base: WELCOME!! I know this isn't what you were looking for but we're glad you're here anyways, we consider ourselves your very own internet wino SLOPPY SECONDS.

it's late and it's cold

By October 12th last year 2007's wahluke slope syrah was already in the barrel - one week into malo-lactic. This year? Not so much.

On top of a season that started off with a cool spring which brought late frosts in much of california and brought a slow start to Eastern Washington we have also faced a colder than usual fall. What this means is we're still waiting for grapes to get up to the ripeness we've been hoping for.

In Southern Humboldt it looks like we're right around the corner. We've got grapes that are ripe and still developing sugars. They're at lower sugar levels then we'd original hoped for but considering the amount of time that they've had on the vine it is most likely not a bad thing. Here's to a u-haul trailer filled with yellow bins of pinot noir grapes driving south on the 17th or 18th of October.

In Washington, well... Let's hope that the frosts over the weekend haven't fried the leaves on the syrah vines at Doc Stewart. With no leaves photosynthesis stops which means that the ripening process also stops. Sugar levels can still climb through evaporation but no more ripening and in turn no more fruit development. The optimist thinks that these syrah grapes have been on the vine for a long time by now and have had the time to develop and ripen into some great fruit - now we just need so more sugar. The pessimist is crying into his drink. Here's to a red Ford pickup, loaded with syrah grapes, crossing over the pass around the end of this month.

baseball and wine tiding the times:

Calm Before the Storm, Cleaning and Drinking

The Punx cleaned house today. Well, not the house, but the garage. Final items were bought at the hardware store and Big Lots. The TV is hooked up to cable so our grapes can watch every game of the MLB playoffs and World Series (and so the Punx can watch lots of VH1 Top 100 shows). The puncheons got thorough washings and SO2 rinses. And being fashion conscious dudes, we made sure our puncheon covers (doilies) are chic. Marketing director Brian stopped by to lend a hand as soon as all the hard work was done (I guess that's what the marketing department does). Neighbors and friends stopped by, the juke box was fired up, bottles were opened and a party ensued. I counted 7 corks this morning.

Aaron pours the So2.

What drought?

Marketing Meeting.

Neighborhood Party.

Next weekend may be a bit different. No showing up late Brian!

Domain Deux Punx?

Many people (meaning 3 or 4) have asked us if we grow our own grapes. It seems logical, if you make your own wine you must grow your own grapes. Experts say that 90% of a great wine is created in the vineyard and only 10% is in the winery. So this year we are giving 90% credit (and a couple grand) to Gilbert and Elk Prairie Vineyards. But rest assured the Punx are not resting on their lorals. Here is the world's first peak at Domain Deux Punx, our own vineyard.

Life is good at the Chateau!

Talk about terroir!

Cab Sauv harvest is near.

No VSP trellising here. We are all natural.

The last two barrels

We finally found and purchased the last two barrels we need for our 2008 wine. As the Duke Boys would say: "Yeeee hawwwww!"

The fine folks at HDV set us up with 2 neutrals at a C-note each. Stephane was very cool about the exchange, even though he was in that middle of harvest sleep deprivation state that most of the wine world is in right now. He even took time out to give me a barrel rolling lesson.

Thinking of renaming the Ford Escape the "General Lees." Get it?

Wanna know why you're not getting laid tonight?

Four reasons...

1) Wine 2.0 in NY


We travelled out to NYC and attended Wine 2.0 on Thursday. We figured it would be a good chance to meet some of the folks that are marrying wine with technology, see some neat uses of said technology and drink some good wines. What we came away with was the realization that these are the very early days of this wine-technology marriage.


Highlights -
hanging w/Michael Brill at the Crushpad table - discussing harvest, fish tank heaters, weather and ...
Manning the Crushpad table which allowed for some more interaction with not just the folks manning the other tables but those walking the hall
being handed a couple bottles of wine just 'cause someone yelled in my ear
Papaya King after the event

Things we wanted to see:
More folks in both traditional uses (wine resellers, distributors, etc...) and new uses (bloggers, wine tracking software, wine making software, games, etc...)
demonstrations from the participants to accompany the couple speakers.
More local representation (since it was in NYC it would have been great to see more NY State wine representation)

All in all it was worthwhile for us to dip our feet in and mingle a bit. I look forward to seeing what comes down the pike in the coming months and years.

2) NY Wine in NY

We were able to make a couple fun wine stops in the city. The first was to Chambers Street Wine. Chambers Street is known for being one of the best wine shops in NYC and we could see why. For folks coming from the left coast a trip to an NYC wine shop is all about Europe and we weren't disappointed. Chambers street not only has a great selection of wines from the other side of the Atlantic but they are also really nice and helpful folks. Only disappointment: we didn't buy anything this visit (our fault not theirs).

After Chambers Street we wandered over to Vintage NY and spent at least an hour with them discussing all things NY wine, tasting some good whites, an interesting pinot noir and an incredible vidal ice wine (which did get us in the buying mood). This is a great place to stop by for some good local wine and to talk with some folks that are really passionate about the NY wine scene.



3) Baseball in NY

As two baseball fans we couldn't help but catch the very last night game EVER at Yankee Stadium.

Even for someone like myself that has always loved to hate the Yankees I couldn't help but feel the energy of this incredible park and be in awe over the enthusiasm of the fans that even with their team out of the playoffs showed up in droves and cheered like it was October. I hope, for NY's sake, that the new ballpark cam come close to what this ball park has been for the past 85 years.


4) Friday Night Jersey City


We got wrapped into the birthday celebrations for a 25 year old NJ bartender named Kim (the drunker KIm got the more Kim absolutely loathed us). Wrapped into a birthday party by just sitting at the right end of the bar. I'm not going to go into too many details about this night other then Dan being handed a dime bag by a two time ex-marine pinot gris spritzer sipping used car salesman ("I put asses in seats") and Kim, in her last fighting chance of drunken anger pointing to the two of us and saying:
"Wanna know why you two are not getting laid tonight?
...
"4 reasons..." (insert incoherent drunkenness followed by her wandering off)

fwiw, we could think of more than 4.

Outside of NY the weather has been a little unnerving on the west coast with rain on the horizon and grapes that are slowing down as the weather cools. We'll be crushing soon but through the continuation of an unpredictable year the schedule Dan posted previously has been made obsolete.

How to Convert a Puncheon (the punx way)

Today we converted our puncheons to fermentation vessels. I am sure there is a correct way to do this. Here is the deux punx method. Please do not try to attempt at home.

Step 1. Drink before using power tools.

Step 2. Drill pilot holes.

Step 3. Try to saw the top out.


Step 4. Give up on sawing and hammer the crap out of it!


Step 5. Show the world your ass crack.


Step 6. Finished barrels.


Step 7. Free drunken warrior costume with each puncheon.

Publish Post

where are the punx?

if the weather, the grapes and the sugars all obey us, this is our tentative harvest schedule. it is subject to daily, even hourly, changes.

right around the corner

So the panic and the excitement are both setting in as we've now come to the realization that we have just over two weeks until the first of TWO harvests. The good news: it now appears these two are not going to happen at the same time (as previously feared). 

Pinot is just around the corner and in a couple weeks we'll be up in Humboldt in some sort of beverly hillbillies assortment of truck and trailer - picture the two of us driving down the 101 listening to loud music oblivious to the fact that grapes are flying out of the trailer and striking the vehicles behind us. 

All in the bay area that wish to help sort (we'll feed you wine!) count yourselves recruited!

Young pinot humboldt

For all of you in WA that wish to help sort you have a couple weeks longer to become familiar with the inner workings of the syrah grape.

syrah wahluke slope

We've also come to realize why companies end up blowing so much of their budgets on marketing departments. While i was suffering away in the north bay Dan and Brian were busy blowing the deux punx shoestring budget on mojitos by the pool in LA. For a life long Giants fan and a life long Padres fan these two are seeming far too comfortable with the LA lifestyle:

LA marketing meeting