It’s a warm fall morning. The cool night air and dew have long since disappeared, leaving the grape leaves dry as they dissipate into sunlight. Some vines still carry a heavy burden of fruit, while others rest lightly, having fulfilled their seasonal burden. Such is the nature of harvest season, now in full swing at Kendall Jackson Vineyards’s processing facility, where the real fun of wine-making begins. Did you know Kendall Jackson owns around a hundred thousand acres, and only about fourteen thousand are farmed? In addition, ninety to ninety-five percent of grapes grown by Kendall Jackson come from Lake County. That’s a lot of wine Lake County produces from just one grower.
Picking at Kendall Jackson’s wine production facility and vineyards begins every day once the temperature drops below seventy degrees, usually after midnight. Most vineyards are machine-picked, while some are still picked by hand. Crush generally starts at 3:00 AM. While most of us are sound asleep, these men and women are already hours into their day’s work.
Today’s crush is hand-picked Sauvignon Blanc. Truckloads of fresh green grapes are released into the steel crusher that grinds down the grapes, skin, pulp, leaves, and bit of vines all together before it is pumped into the wine press, where the basic science of gravity separates the grape juice from the solids. As the juice flows down, a conveyor belt carries the solids to another truck to turn into compost. Nothing is wasted. This facility generally produces three cycles of three presses in a day, and each press holds twenty tons of grapes. Start doing the math. There is a lot of grape juice created during harvest, resulting in sixty tons of what will soon become wine.
Next comes the final separation of solids from the pure juice before resting it in forty-five-degree holding tanks for forty-eight hours. Then, the real fun begins when the wine meets the waiting oak barrels–eight thousand are on site–and the aging process begins. Kendall Jackson has some bragging rites as it has learned how to reuse its rinsing water three times before the final fresh water rinse. Yep, your wine has been washed several times before you ever see it. Not only is this facility mindful of its water usage, but of its power, too. Everything is solar energy powered for full sustainability, marked for 2025, producing sixteen megawatts of power and zero waste to make it one of the largest sustainable facilities in our region.
After all the not-so-hard work of watching the crush, we help ourselves to a glass of Kendall Jackson’s 2022 Sauvignon Blanc. I can tell you, in all honesty, that it is one of the finest Sauv Blancs I’ve tasted in Lake County. So cheers to that!
Fritz Meier, Winemaker for Kendall Jackson
After the tour, we head to Beckstoffer Vineyards for a wine-paired lunch. Three wine glasses surrounded each place setting, ready for the wine and food pairings. You can pair complementary flavors like Meyer lemon and herb crostini with Brassfield’s 2023 Reserve Sauvignon Blanc. Each bite balances creamy textures with bright notes. Or, it’s possible to pair contrasting flavors. For example, bacon-wrapped stuffed dates paired with Clay Shannon’s 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon–the pucker of the tannins mellow with the sweetness of the date, a true delight. Of course, you can mix things up to see what flavors appear. We paired aged cheddar with Langtry Estate’s 2021 Tephra Ridge Merlot, which was a delight. But the Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon brought out different flavors when combined with the main course: pork tenderloin Rouladen and garlic mashed potatoes. One thing is for sure: if you’ve never had a wine paired meal, Rosey Cook’s will not disappoint as I’m sure our many winery events deserve equal bragging rites. But at the end of the day, one must conclude if you live in wine country, we all should be making the most of it!
Special Thanks to Lake County Winegrape commission and Rosey cooks for Curated wine tasting and Beckstoffer for hosting lunch!
After enjoying our decadent lunch, we headed back to school again. Did you know that California has one hundred and fifty-two American Viticultural Areas (AVAs)? For those of us unfamiliar with agriculture, AVAs are Federally recognized growing regions. Closer to home, Lake County has eight certified AVAs: Clear Lake, Upper Lake Valley, Long Valley – Lake County, Big Valley District – Lake County, Guenoc Valley, High Valley, Kelsey Bench – Lake County, and finally Red Hills Lake County. It’s possible to drive through four of them on your way from Lakeport to the foothills of the Konocti and Cobb areas. No joke! We did it while driving from Kendall Jackson’s crushing facility to Beckstoffer Vineyards. So, to say Lake County is in the heart of wine country is not an exaggeration. We truly are. Wine growers from Napa, Sonoma, and other areas know well that Lake County has quality terroir for growing exceptional vineyards.
So why does AVA matter when it comes to vineyards? Well, pretty much everything affects a vineyard: humidity soil, temperature, orientations of the sun, elevation, rocks, the slope of the terrain, precipitation, and even the time any given region has rested in its state, barring major environmental changes caused by earthquakes or volcano activity. You name it, and it affects the character and variety of vines growing in a particular AVA. And as you can imagine, some vines produce better in some AVAs than others. Lake County is well known for Sauvignon Blanc because that particular grape loves our AVAs.
View from Beckstoffer Vineyards
Next, we welcome Ami Gunasekara, Director of Science and Research for the California Farm Bureau. He informs us that of the total water collected in a year, 3% of water goes to urban living, 12% goes to agriculture and a whopping 85% goes into the environment. In general, a vast amount of water flowing through California fills up our lakes and rivers before reaching the ocean. In general we can be rest assured, that California agriculture uses water very efficiently.
According to Greg Guisti, Forests and Wildland Ecology Advisor Emeritus, University of California, who has spent a great deal of time studying Clear Lake, the greatest pollutant to our lake is roads, not agriculture. I know, it’s shocking. But all the sedimentary runoff from our roads goes to the lowest point. Basic science of gravity, right? And what’s the low point in Lake County? Clear Lake of course. Think of that the next time you hear people talking about pollution in our lake.
At the end of the day, my biggest takeaway is that we are blessed to live in wine country. Our growers are conscientious about how they use the land and water. And they make spectacular wines. So grab a bottle of Kendall Jackson’s Sauvignon Blanc and go enjoy a picnic at the lake. But be sure to bring things to pair with it.
Cheers!
