Part IV – We Might Just be Getting Good at This…
Chapter 11 – Good Karma
Captain America: In May of 2006, we planted the 1 1/2 acres just outside the doors of The Enoteca. We also made our first wines using our own grapes which had finally matured to the point that we could harvest. 2006 was our first harvest. In the Fall of 2006, we bottled our first three wines. The first was our stand alone Merlot. The next was an Italian style blend that Dave coined "Classico". Finally, we had a light dry red that tasted like nothing we had ever had before.
I was afraid it was so unusual it wouldn’t sell. As I tried to think of a name, I thought about everything we had been through, the breaks we had gotten when we needed them – Ross’s plow, Don, the Professor and his transit, Everett, even my dad in a weird sort of way - and that we had listened to our inner voices, did what they told us to and how when we did that, the sympathetic universe (call it what you want) helped us along. There was truly a good vibe, a good karma, surrounding this endeavor, one that I had never experienced in anything else I had ever done. And so it seemed appropriate to call our weird, wonderful misfit of a wine "Good Karma".
Joey did a masterful job of designing our logo and labels. They were fun and colorful and classy. Amazing guy, Joey. He’s the man’s man Dave and I wish we could be. He can do electrical work. He can fix a tractor. He lifts all the heavy stuff for us. He helped work the transit (in fact the Professor wouldn’t let either Dave or me near it). Yet he has an eye for color and the subtle differences in shade and hues. He is an artist – a truly creative guy. And he’s a pretty good bass player too, which is still cool.
We spent the next year completing the build out of the pole barn, the expansion of the road, the installation of lighting and parking, tearing out fences, planting bushes in front of trees, planting trees in front of bushes, landscaping and planting trees in forests because I guess there weren’t enough.
And Dave and Shannon continued to have children – little Hallie came along in the summer of 2007.
Showing posts with label grapes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grapes. Show all posts
Monday, June 8, 2009
Chapter 10 - Pole Barn becomes a Winery
Chapter 10 – Pole Barn becomes a Winery
Captain America: Also in 2005, we began the task of converting the pole barn into a winery, storage rooms and, on the south side where the horse stalls were, a wine bar that we decided to call The Enoteca (which is Italian for wine bar). The Professor undertook the oversight, and a lot of the actual work, of construction, particularly of the extension we built onto The Enoteca. He spent day after day – and even some evenings – building small fires out of scrap wood to keep warm, designing and constructing the edifice. It was an amazing piece of work, no doubt with a healthy dose of belly-scratching. But the Professor would say that belly-scratching is important so as to work smarter not harder. An amazing guy, our Professor.
As we continued the build out of the winery, we ordered a few barrels to store what was to become our first vintage. We had grapes delivered from Lodi, California. We ordered the same varietals that we had planted that first year – Sangiovese (the grape in Chianti), Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. We crushed the grapes and fermented them in food grade plastic barrels that we built a makeshift tent around to help control the temperature.
Dave and Shannon continued having children - Stone showed up in the summer of 2005. We lost Jules’ dad, John, who had been the honorary foreman over the first two plantings, right before our third planting in the Spring of 2006. Before long, Jules’ mom bought a house near the farm.
Captain America: Also in 2005, we began the task of converting the pole barn into a winery, storage rooms and, on the south side where the horse stalls were, a wine bar that we decided to call The Enoteca (which is Italian for wine bar). The Professor undertook the oversight, and a lot of the actual work, of construction, particularly of the extension we built onto The Enoteca. He spent day after day – and even some evenings – building small fires out of scrap wood to keep warm, designing and constructing the edifice. It was an amazing piece of work, no doubt with a healthy dose of belly-scratching. But the Professor would say that belly-scratching is important so as to work smarter not harder. An amazing guy, our Professor.
As we continued the build out of the winery, we ordered a few barrels to store what was to become our first vintage. We had grapes delivered from Lodi, California. We ordered the same varietals that we had planted that first year – Sangiovese (the grape in Chianti), Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. We crushed the grapes and fermented them in food grade plastic barrels that we built a makeshift tent around to help control the temperature.
Dave and Shannon continued having children - Stone showed up in the summer of 2005. We lost Jules’ dad, John, who had been the honorary foreman over the first two plantings, right before our third planting in the Spring of 2006. Before long, Jules’ mom bought a house near the farm.
Chapter 6: How do you drive a tractor?
Chapter 6: How do you drive a tractor?
Captain America: Now all of our farming experience to this point had amounted to 18 grape vines in Dave’s yard and 2 in my little city yard. In what we now call “true Auburn Road fashion”, without any idea of how to plow a field and with no tools with which to do so, we had Shannon order 1800 grape vines to plant on the first two acres. The vines were due to arrive in May of 2004. Shannon also ordered trellis equipment, end posts – the works.
The next problem was that we had a field that had been pasture for 15 years. We needed to plow that field but we had never plowed a field nor did we know how. Nor, for that matter, did we have anything to plow it with. We needed a tractor. So, Dave and I drove to the John Deere dealer in Hammonton and walked into the Everett the Salesman’s office, pronounced ourselves vineyard growers and winemakers and asked the Everett to tell us what we needed. It is very much to Everett’s credit that he did not laugh us out of there, though it maybe had something to do with the prospect that we might be spending the equivalent of the price of a nice Porsche. He was good to us and has been a good friend to us ever since. He found us a tractor and sprayers but there was one small problem. They would not be delivered in time to prepare the fields for planting. Wonderful.
It was late March 2004, 1800 vines were on their way and we had no way to plow our field. God bless Ross Field. Ross and Trish run Woodfield Vineyards up the road from us and have been great friends and kindred spirits to us. I’ll never forget the morning I looked out the kitchen window of the farmhouse and saw Ross, on his old blue tractor, dragging a chisel plow through our field. I ran out and leaned against the fence and watched, amazed. Before too long, Ross jumped off the tractor walked over to me, pointed at me and then at the tractor and said, “There comes a time when a man’s gotta plow his own field.” So true. Up I went.
Captain America: Now all of our farming experience to this point had amounted to 18 grape vines in Dave’s yard and 2 in my little city yard. In what we now call “true Auburn Road fashion”, without any idea of how to plow a field and with no tools with which to do so, we had Shannon order 1800 grape vines to plant on the first two acres. The vines were due to arrive in May of 2004. Shannon also ordered trellis equipment, end posts – the works.
The next problem was that we had a field that had been pasture for 15 years. We needed to plow that field but we had never plowed a field nor did we know how. Nor, for that matter, did we have anything to plow it with. We needed a tractor. So, Dave and I drove to the John Deere dealer in Hammonton and walked into the Everett the Salesman’s office, pronounced ourselves vineyard growers and winemakers and asked the Everett to tell us what we needed. It is very much to Everett’s credit that he did not laugh us out of there, though it maybe had something to do with the prospect that we might be spending the equivalent of the price of a nice Porsche. He was good to us and has been a good friend to us ever since. He found us a tractor and sprayers but there was one small problem. They would not be delivered in time to prepare the fields for planting. Wonderful.
It was late March 2004, 1800 vines were on their way and we had no way to plow our field. God bless Ross Field. Ross and Trish run Woodfield Vineyards up the road from us and have been great friends and kindred spirits to us. I’ll never forget the morning I looked out the kitchen window of the farmhouse and saw Ross, on his old blue tractor, dragging a chisel plow through our field. I ran out and leaned against the fence and watched, amazed. Before too long, Ross jumped off the tractor walked over to me, pointed at me and then at the tractor and said, “There comes a time when a man’s gotta plow his own field.” So true. Up I went.
Jen and Joe join the Band and we begin to get serious
Chapter 4: Jen and Joe join the Band and we begin to get serious…
Captain America: Little by little, our wives were coming around. I guess they figured that if Dave and I had to have an obsession, this at least appeared to be a healthy one. As we had lost one partner in crime, Dave suggested that he saw in Jen’s boyfriend, Joe, a little of the same mania that we possessed. Before long, Jen and Joe joined us. It was about this time that Dave suggested that Aquila Verde sounds like an aftershave and that, since our little vineyard in Dave’s yard was on Auburn Road, we should change the name to Auburn Road Vineyards. I thought it sounded cool and so we went with it.
Then, in the winter of 2002, my dad, Luigi, passed away suddenly. It was pretty awful as I guess it always is when you lose a parent. He came from immigrant parents and became a CPA and made himself out of pretty much nothing. He worked hard, long hours in a corporate world more or less the same as the one Dave and I were now in. He died too young and there is not too much dispute that the work, the stress and the lifestyle that it created pretty much killed him. I think about him a lot when I’m on the farm. He had been living in the city the last few years of his life, but he always talked about buying a house with a few acres of land in Jersey. I told him he was nuts, why would he want that headache? His response was that he wanted to be able to pee on the grass. I tried to get the words “voglio piciare nel erba” (Italian for “I want to pee in the grass”) placed on our first wine label but the TTB wouldn’t let us. I’m not sure my dad would have ever done what we have done here. But I know he’d love this place.
Anyhow, it turned out that my dad left me a little money. I remember talking with Dave about whether we could really make a go of this, because if we thought we could, we could take what my dad left me and start looking for land to grow grapes on. Next thing we knew we were looking for land.
Captain America: Little by little, our wives were coming around. I guess they figured that if Dave and I had to have an obsession, this at least appeared to be a healthy one. As we had lost one partner in crime, Dave suggested that he saw in Jen’s boyfriend, Joe, a little of the same mania that we possessed. Before long, Jen and Joe joined us. It was about this time that Dave suggested that Aquila Verde sounds like an aftershave and that, since our little vineyard in Dave’s yard was on Auburn Road, we should change the name to Auburn Road Vineyards. I thought it sounded cool and so we went with it.
Then, in the winter of 2002, my dad, Luigi, passed away suddenly. It was pretty awful as I guess it always is when you lose a parent. He came from immigrant parents and became a CPA and made himself out of pretty much nothing. He worked hard, long hours in a corporate world more or less the same as the one Dave and I were now in. He died too young and there is not too much dispute that the work, the stress and the lifestyle that it created pretty much killed him. I think about him a lot when I’m on the farm. He had been living in the city the last few years of his life, but he always talked about buying a house with a few acres of land in Jersey. I told him he was nuts, why would he want that headache? His response was that he wanted to be able to pee on the grass. I tried to get the words “voglio piciare nel erba” (Italian for “I want to pee in the grass”) placed on our first wine label but the TTB wouldn’t let us. I’m not sure my dad would have ever done what we have done here. But I know he’d love this place.
Anyhow, it turned out that my dad left me a little money. I remember talking with Dave about whether we could really make a go of this, because if we thought we could, we could take what my dad left me and start looking for land to grow grapes on. Next thing we knew we were looking for land.
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