An Update from Enfold

Tuesday • August 1, 2017

Dear Enfold Member,

This past week we bottled Enfold 2015 Anita’s Blend, Jazzin, and a smashing GSM which you’ll receive in your November annual shipment. The wine tastes delicious. The 2015 harvest was small, as the drought limited the vines’ production. We have a total of just 325 cases. We think you’ll love every little drop!

In other news, we’ve sold and moved from our Windwood Road home and vineyard property. Joseph will continue to farm this year’s crop. We have our 2015 vintage, just bottled; the 2016 in the barrel; and the 2017, which will be ready for delivery in 2019.

So don’t worry, in addition to this November’s shipment, you’ll receive your shipments in 2018 and 2019. We will keep you posted on how the vines are growing and the wines are developing.

Thank you for your continued enthusiasm for Enfold. We are so happy that we’ve met so many of you and look forward to seeing more of you in the future.

Salute La Famiglia!

Anita and Joseph August 1, 2017

Viva Sicilia! Viva Ravello!

Monday • June 8, 2015

What a wonderful trip we had to Sicily and Italy’sAmalfi coast!

Throughout Sicily and Amalfi, everyone could pronounce our names without even trying and Anita was offered many a smile when they realized her last name was Speciale.

Ravello, on thestoried Amalfi Coast, is the most beautiful place we have ever been. Perched on a cliff hundreds of feet up from the Mediterranean, our hotel upgraded us to a suite with its own small garden, views of the coast and a bathtub three people could soak in (thank you, American Express!). Breakfast, complimentary, was served each morning on our terrace by Nicola. We ate freshly cooked eggs, fruit that was ripe and flavorful, a basket of croissants and breads and pastries, and coffee con latte calda in large silver pots.

Lunches were even better freshly caught lobster in a spicy red tomato sauce accompanied with a dry and flavorful Amalfi red wine and “l’aqua minerale frizzante” (sparkling water). Dinners were fantastic — pasta with a main course (rabbit, pork or veal). We gave the restaurants a C- on their vegetables but the salads were fresh and pleasing — rocket, lettuce, basil, laden with made-that-morning mozzarella and red, ripe cherry tomatoes (which Anita ate like candy), all dressed with rich local olive oil and dark vinegar from Modena. In Ravello, we walked in the rain a lot but enjoyed it nevertheless.

Sicily isnot for the faint of heart. Parts of the capital city of Palermo are as crowded, dirty, noisy, and graffiti-ridden as any city of 1,000,000 inhabitants. But Palermo also offers the magnificent Capella Palatina, a jewel of a 12^th century chapel covered in fine mosaics of magical colors and gold; the equally ancient, enormous Norman Palace; and the beautiful Teatro Massimo, one of the largest opera houses in Europe, where we enjoyed an intriguing tour, includingthe fascinating echoing salon. Special pleasures were two memorable dinners with Luisa, an old high school chum of Anita’s (she was an exchange student way back when) and her husband Antonio. They are the most gracious of hosts. At one dinner Joseph had the best gnocchi he has ever eaten!

At the 13^th century church of San Francesco d’Assisi, where a funeral was in progress, Anita found her great, great, great, great, (repeat 30 times) great-uncle, ensconced in his marble sarcophagus dating from 1463, topped with a beautiful carved likeness of the young knight. A Speciale of some note! Anita has memories from childhood of the elders saying there was a statue of a famous Speciale in Palermo—that turned out not to be just family folklore.

We visited many more places on the island of Sicily including ancient Agrigento, sparkling Siracusa, Disneylandish Noto, the little beach town of Aci Terezza, and spectacularly steep Taormina. Our tireless traveling companions were cousin Sheila and her husband Tom (Sheila is my dress-up Lucy Stomp pal).

Agrigento, in the southern part of the island, features the remarkable ruins of the Valley of the Temples.Greek temples, to be precise. Today seven temples built between 600 and 400 B.C survive, covering an area about 1 miles long. Fantastic!

Siracusa is a beautiful port city that also found grandeur during the height of the Greek age. Our hotel roomat the water’s edge overlooked the Ionian Sea. The hotel had an outstanding breakfast, which offeredin addition to the usual tasty things—house-made cannoli, a fresh, crispy pastry shell, into which you piped sweet ricotta filling from a pastry tube. Another sublime Sicilian specialty.

Driving was a harrowing experience that kept Joseph from seeing much of the road-side scenery. Wisely, we cancelled our Amalfi rent-a-car and found drivers to shuttle us to and from Naples and our hotel in Ravello.

The wines of Sicily and the Amalfi coast were delicious. It was a treat to sample more varietals and the product of winemakers that we do not typically see in the USA. Cerasuolo di Vittoria, for example, from the eastern end of Sicily, has the oomph of nero d’Avola blended with frappato, a delicious varietal we had not tasted before.

But internationalair travel is a trial…long lines, ever-present waits, cramped seats in crowded planes whose seats, lights and tray tables don’t work half the time. Joseph flew back from our connection point, Amsterdam, for 10 hours using a flashlight to read because his light switch turned on the light of a passenger three rows in front of him. Advanced airline technology! His “personal in-seat TV” didn’t work and his seat could not be put in the full and upright position!” Ten miserable hours! (The flight attendant gave Joseph a $25 voucher which he gave to the woman behind him who had his seat back almost in her lap the whole flight!)

The two weeks of discovery, heavenly food and wine, and spectacular locations made up for the misery of flying, however. We loved learning more of the history of Sicily and Ravello and hope to return someday. Please contact us if you would like more details about travelling there.

ENFOLD 2014 HARVEST

Thursday • October 16, 2014

SATURDAY, AUGUST 23, 2014 thru THURSDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2014

AUGUST 23, 2014

Mother Nature is a paranoid schizophrenic!

Paso Robles is suffering its worst three-year drought in recorded weather history. The average annual rainfall here is about 15 inches. We have received less than 10 inches, total, over the past three years. We lost 10% of our plants in December due to two days of 17 degrees. We normally begin irrigating our plants by the end of April. This year we started watering the second week of January. The earliest we have ever harvested is the second week of September. This year we may harvest the last week of August!

Bad Mother Nature!

Given all that

Our Syrah is prolific and very tasty. We will probably pick it at the end of this month.
My year long experiment of vertical shoot positioning vs. don’t do anything, do not prune, position or drop! may turn out to be a boon. It takes hours and hours to trim, prune and position the shoots each spring and early summer. The quality of the fruit from the un-positioned vines seems to be as good as that from the vines which took hours to train and clip. More to follow regarding this experiment.

SEPTEMBER 4, 2014

We picked our Syrah today. The earliest ever! The fruit is delicious a great balance of acid and sweet. It is so promising that I may bottle it as a single varietal or, depending on the quality of our Mourvedre and Grenache, blend it to create a GSM. I will make that decision about 18 months from now.

SEPTEMBER 17, 2014

We harvested our Mourvedre and Grenache this morning. We started at 6:30am and finished picking before 11:00am. The night chilled grapes will retain more sugar than if we had picked them in the heat of the day. From harvest to crush the fruit spends less than 24 hours in the picking bins. It is trucked over to Le Vigne where our winemaker, Michael Barreto, keeps the fruit cool until crush, often crushing that same day. The numbers ( Brix, pH, TA ) and taste of these two varietals suggest that a GSM will be boffo!

Vines & Fruit

SEPTEMBER 20, 2014 Lucy Stomp Day

Our Zinfandel, as always, is our problem child. Since it was ripening unevenly, characteristic of Zinfandel, I dropped any still-green fruit before we netted the vines to keep birds from eating the berries. We hand harvested, today, our first row of Zinfandel which is reserved for our Lucy Stomp. The grapes tasted terrific. I hope a few more weeks’ hang time will bring this fruit to perfection.

Table Setting

Anita and cousin Sheila as Lucy

Where hand made no longer applies

SEPTEMBER 25, 2014

Today a crew of neighbors and wine club members saved the day. Because so many vineyards are picking early, we could not secure a professional picking crew so we asked for help. And that’s what we got! While the volunteer crew was not as speedy as the pros, I know we had more fun! We added to the fun with a champagne and red wine celebratory luncheon at a local (and neighbor’s) restaurant. And we will have even more fun in single bottling our community harvested Cabernet Sauvignon. The numbers and taste are perfect lush with copper colored juice tasting of cherries and licorice. If the fruit continues to hold its promise, members will be in for a real treat, unfortunately, twenty-four months away.

OCTOBER 1, 2014

Our Zinfandel was harvested today. It reflected the extra hang time ( 26 Brix ) with a complex taste of blackberries and leather. And close to two tons, too.

Good Mother Nature!

A few words about non-vineyard matters

We constructed a pergola under which stands a 24′ long concrete table which accommodates up to twenty-four people. Our Lucy Stomp participants will have their picnic lunch here (aprs stomp) on September 26th, 2015. Reserve your place soon (joseph@enfoldwines.com). To see what the Lucy Stomp is like view this You Tube video:

Recently, we hosted a group of 24 Wine Snobs, a local gaggle of wine lovers, to a wine tasting picnic. Thanks to the organizing efforts of Renet, we added ten new wine club members! Contact me or Anita if you have a group which would enjoy a picnic of California rolls, bbq baby-back pork ribs, cousin Tom’s homemade macaroni salad (better than mom’s!), corn salad and a sampling of our latest vintage. And, oh yeah, Anita’s famous chocolate truffles.

Salute

Salute La Famiglia, our wine club, now has 102 members. Our maximum is 150 given our small production with a goal of 300-325 cases per year. Please tell your friends to join before it’s too late (www.enfoldwines.com [wine club tab] ).

OCTOBER 9, 2014

Our 2012 wines are our best effort to date! We bottled five blends under the guidance of Michael Barreto, our winemaker for the past two years. Michael is head winemaker for Le Vigne Winery (www.levignewinery.com). We are very fortunate to have Michael take our fruit. His degree is in Enology from Fresno State with graduate work in winemaking at UC Davis. We met in 2007 when he finished making our 2005, George’s Blend. We are one of only four private clients. He adds a European touch to round off our Paso fruit.

Plan a visit to taste and lunch with us during our slack time — December through March. We would love to see you and sample our best efforts together.

Salute la Famiglia,

Enfold Lucy Stomp 2013

Thursday • October 10, 2013

Saturday, September 21, 2013—the third annual opportunity to don a Lucy Ricardo peasant blouse and bandana, hike up your balloonish skirt into a big ole belt, and slip your feet into a vat of beautiful just-harvested grapes. No worries, your feet daintily dip into three cleansing solutions before they touch the pristine purple berries.

Last year it was so hot that the cool grapes invited Lucy Stompers to climb on into the vat and enjoy the chill but this year, slipping one’s tootsies into the glistening harvest was tougher because temperatures were cool and skies were gray. Undaunted, though, our intrepid Stompers clambered into the giant vat and mashed away. Soon they’d transformed our grapes into a rich-hued crush of skins, seeds, and gorgeous pinkish-purple juice.

This Stomp welcomed a delightfully diverse group of Enfold Wine Club Members, family, and other friends of many years. We had doctors, nurses, educators, and floral designers from Seattle, Hillsborough, and New York, painters from Palm Springs, hospital execs from Fresno, dentists from Paso, and two veterans of the remarkable pilgrims’ walk in Spain, the Camino de Santiago.

There were just 30 of us — that’s the maximum number of guests we can squeeze into our outdoor dining pergola. We like having these intimate groups for our Stomps—everyone gets a chance to trade stories about how they love Paso Robles wines as they pass the olives.

We only harvested a row or two this year; a professional crew comes to harvest the majority of our grapes. But it’s great fun to look up and down the rows and see our Stompers meticulously and lovingly cradling our grapes in one hand and cautiously snipping the stem with their trusty clippers. Joseph gave a detailed lesson on safety, raisining, and grape shoulders before we started.

After harvesting and stomping, we’d worked up an appetite. We settled into the dining pergola for cold poached salmon, Cousin Tom’s mahhhhvelous macaroni salad, Rick’s heavenly crusty bread, Joseph’s sausages and peppers, guacamole, fruit, and Anita’s truffles for dessert. And for party favors? Everyone got a bottle of the Cabernet Sauvignon that we stomped last year.

We hope a turn at our Lucy Stomp fits into your travel plans sometime. Please let us know if you want to reserve a spot at the table for 2014’s harvest.

Salute La Famiglia! Viva Lucy Stomp 2013!

Anita and Joseph