Off the Cliffe

Every year it happens:  Here at Cave B Estate Winery we prepare…once in the spring, and once in the summer…to release the wines.

 It sounds like a fox hunt.  A horse race.  Buckets of butterflies popped open at the end of a wedding. And yet, we’re talking about wine.  Why ”release”?  Why not the more formal–albeit stodgy–”present” or “introduce?” What accounts for such an active verb put with such a noun?  After all, we don’t line up the bottles at the end of Silica Road and cheer as they lunge forward in their fragile glassy clunkiness, watching as they race for the finish.  We don’t hurl them into the sky to see them swept up into the warm air currents above the gorge, watching them flutter away in a great flock of green and amber.  There’s no holding back, then letting go…

 Or is there?

Every spring presents the end of a tremendous period of becoming for the white wines.  They have been harvested, crushed, put in barrels or tanks, ever so carefully watched and nurtured; added to or carefully left alone, crafted and brought along…all within the confines of the estate winery; dynamic and ever-changing, but contained. 

 But finally some of those wines have become just that, and they are ready to be removed; to be funnelled out of their containment and brought into the light, allowed to breathe, be seen, be tasted and felt on the tongue, in the throat.  Their journey to this point is finished; the rest of their life just beginning. 

Why are wines released? Because they cannot be held back any longer, or they will become something entirely other than what they have become at precisely that moment. They leave the domain of the winery and winemaker with purposeful timing, yet with that great sense of hope–ribbed with confidence, lined with unknowing, shaded with total abandon–that there will be people there on the receiving end of their release, ready to catch them up on the palate and experience through taste and nose and feel their entire life to date.  Release and catch…. Winemaking–it’s a horse before the cart art.  A grand risk.  A tremendous rush.

Cave B Estate Winery’s Spring White Wine Release:  Saturday, March 28, 2009.  Come experience the release of the whites.  Be there to catch them.

Yeah! It’s an Ice Wine!!!!! Yes everyone, Mother Nature graced us with some COLD! COLD! COLD! days in the middle of December. On December 16^th 2008, with temperatures in the single digits, we had those much-needed cold temperatures required to freeze an intensely sugar-filled grape on the vine. With a temperature of 6˚ F at the onset of the Ice Wine harvest, the chilly thermal reading refused to break into the double digits. So with hats, gloves, facemasks and heavy coats donned and all body parts carefully covered except for their eyes, our hard working harvest crew braved the freezing temperatures to bring in the harvest for our 2008 Cave B Ice Wine. The fruit was beautiful, and eating these frozen grapes was much like having a tiny spoonful of a delightful Semillon Sorbet. A final sugar reading in the juice of 39.5 degrees Brix assures that this Ice Wine can achieve a perfect balance of alcohol to residual sugar.    

Thank you, weather…hello, Ice Wine.  

It’s December 12:  The first day of winter is just around the corner, and we at SageCliffe are gearing up for the holiday season.  Winter menus are in the works and Tendrils is excited to dive into the local bounty. 

On the top of my list are citrus fruits: blood oranges, kumquats and Meyer lemons.  What else?  Black cod, brussel sprouts, winter squashes, celery root,  and veal shanks. 

Look for these among others on our Tendrils menus  when you come visit Cave B Inn at SageCliffe in the beautiful winter season!

~Shauna Scriver
Executive Chef, Tendrils

In November we released our 2007 Cave B vintages of Barbera, Sangiovese and our first ever Tempranillo. I must say that the Tempranillo has become a Tasting room “Rock Star,” making up about 25% of our daily sales since its release. With beautiful full fruit flavours and earthy nuances, this young red wine is ready to drink and wants to join you at the dinner table to accompany some of your dinnertime favorites. It’s nap time! (For the wines). With all of the red wines in barrel now slumbering away and working through the malo-lactic fermentation, things have slowed down since the all-too hectic but exciting days of the 2008 crush.   All of our Cave B and SageCliffe white wines are dry.  Both barrel fermentations and tank fermentations have worked through with cool, steady, long fermentations. These long cool fermentations have made for some truly beautifully crisp and fruity white wines.

Until Next Time,

Bueno Provecho,

Freddy Arredondo, Winemaker

   The 2008 harvest season has come to an end and fermentations are winding down in the Winery. We have crushed 14 different types of grapes for a total of 113 tons of fruit for our Cave B and SageCliffe wines. The only fruit left to harvest is the semillon.  It has been covered with bird netting to lay in wait for the weather to get really cold. Depending on how low the temperature goes, it will be either an Ice Wine or a Late Harvest Semillon. In order to be deemed an Ice wine we need at least 24 consecutive hours below 20° Fahrenheit. If we are not fortunate enough to have these temperatures by mid-December the wine will be a “Late Harvest” instead of an “Ice Wine.”

Syrah Braised Short Ribs 

3 bottles Cave B Syrah

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

8 short ribs, trimmed of excess fat

Salt and black pepper

8 large onions, peeled and cut in 1/8ths

2 carrots, peeled and cut into 1-inch lengths

2 celery ribs, peeled and cut into 1-inch lengths

10 cloves of garlic, peeled

6 sprigs flat-leaf parsley

2 bay leaves and 2 thyme sprigs

2 tablespoons tomato paste

3 quarts unsalted beef broth

1. Pour the wine into a large saucepan set over medium heat, increase the heat so that the wine boils; allow it to boil until it cooks down by half. Remove from the heat.

2. Center a rack in the oven and preheat to 350°F.

3. Warm the oil in a large, heavy, oven proof pot over medium-high heat. Season the ribs all over with salt and pepper, when the oil is hot, slip the ribs into the pot and sear 4 to 5 minutes on each side, until well-browned. Transfer the ribs to a plate. Repeat with remaining ribs. Remove all but 1 tablespoon of the fat from the pot, lower the heat under the pot to medium and toss in the vegetables and herbs. Brown the vegetables lightly, 5 to 7 minutes, then stir in the tomato paste and cook for 1 minute.

4. Add the wine, ribs and broth to the pot. Bring to a boil, cover tightly and place in the oven to braise for 2 1/2 hours or until the ribs are very tender. Every 30 minutes, skim and discard fat from the surface.

5. Carefully transfer the meat to a shallow container. Boil the liquid until it has thickened to a sauce consistency, pass through a fine strainer; discard the solids. Pour sauce over ribs as a sauce.

6.  Reheat the ribs and sauce together slowly, Serve.

Pumpkin Puree 

2 cups potatoes cut into 1 inch cubes

2 cups pumpkin cut into 1 inch cubes

1/4 # butter

1/4 c cream

1. In a large sauce pan cover potatoes and pumpkin with water. Bring to boil and simmer until potatoes are tender. Drain potatoes and pumpkin and return to pan, and lower the heat to the lowest flame possible. Mash with a potato masher, mixer or immersion blender. Add cream and butter to thin a bit and make mash creamier.

A great reminder of the cool fall days, lounging around sipping delicious  full bodied wine, with the aroma of a great meal wafting through the air. From my kitchen to yours, ENJOY!

Ask Shauna:  Introduce yourself and ask Shauna culinary questions by posting a comment!

It’s the start of September 2008 and we are happily heading into the busiest time of year at SageCliffe…harvest season.  The winery is abustle with the boxing and shipping of the Cave B Estate Winery Wine Club shipment:  this time Wine Club members will be receiving 2006 Cave B Syrah, 2005 Cave B Cuvee and 2007 Cave B Riesling on their doorsteps.  Nothing like a delivery of fine wine to help throw off the cares of the day and bring a smile to your face.  Equally fun to see your home cellar grow, or to invite some friends over, remove those foils, and have a spontaneous home wine tasting.  You may just find yourself with many, many friends you never even knew you had!