Journey To Harvest…and Beyond

Harvest 2026

Squire Fridell

Murphy’s Law (or A “Whinery” Saga)

“Murphy’s Law” was coined in 1949 by Edward A. Murphy Jr., an aerospace engineer who was working at Edwards Air Force Base. When his assistant wired 16 rocket sled sensors wrong, causing a massive and expensive test failure, Murphy was overheard muttering, “If something can go wrong, it will go wrong.” We had no idea that Mr. Murphy was about to make his appearance here at GlenLyon this harvest.

August 20: Pinot noir was first to cross the finish line this year, with 2.3 tons of beautiful fruit arriving early in the morning from Sonoma Coast.

WifeSuzy, our staff “MOGRE” (Material Other than Grapes Removal Expert) organized our mostly motley crew (including three family “young’uns”) in the art of MOG removal as the clusters traveled up the elevator to the destemmer. They proved to be worthy. It was a fun experience for them (and a lot of grapes were eaten).

After destemming, we pumped the “must” (skins, juice, and seeds) into a tank to begin fermentation. After we cleaned the destemmer and set up our bladder-press for the following day’s Viognier arrival, we showed the three “young’uns” how to “field sample,” and they picked berries from our lower block of syrah for Berry Sensory Analysis back at our lab. It was a flawless and joyous “first-day,” and we felt that we were fully prepared for the next day’s arrival of grapes.

August 21: The second day of harvest began well. Our viognier arrived early and we elevatored those clusters into our bladderpress to squeeze out the juice and pump to tank to begin fermentation.

Once the 2.16 tons of fruit had been loaded, we started the machine’s press cycle. The huge press drum revolved twice and then … Mr. Murphy leaped into the room! The electrical panel went black and the machine locked up. After a call to the company’s harvest hotline, we were told that their repairman was not available until the following day. I quickly made a second call to our neighbor, Jeffrey Mayo of Mayo Family Winery, who said that his press was fortunately available and to haul our fruit over the hill to their crush facility.

We thought we had solved our immediate “pressing” issue but then Murphy stepped to the forefront … our press’s load/unload door was facing straight down with two tons of grape clusters pressed on it. We had no way to open the press’s door to remove the fruit! After a second (begging) hotline call, a harried repairman arrived and he was able to rotate the cylinder enough to access the door.

As we unloaded over two tons of fruit into macro-bins for transport, I remembered my truck was in the shop (Murphy #3)! So, we had to transport the bins, two at a time, using our tractor and trailer. We finally got all the viognier to Mayo, and their crew loaded our fruit into their press. Three hours later we tractor-trailered all the juice back to GlenLyon and pumped it into a tank. The still-on-site technician working on our press revealed that he had “found the problem,” but he needed a few parts. It had been a long day for all of us, and he assured us he’d “be back in the morning to install.”

August 22: The technician did arrive the following morning, installed the replacement parts and tested the machine. His departing words were that the press was “now operating perfectly.”

August 23 to August 27: We were convinced that the issue had been resolved but had to wait five days before our chardonnay was to arrive to use the press.

August 28: 2.5 tons of chardonnay arrived early in the morning and, with fingers crossed, we elevatored the clusters into our “now operating perfectly” press.

Once the machine was loaded, we collectively crossed our fingers and began the press cycle … only to discover two things: crossing your fingers doesn’t help and Mr. Murphy was only hiding! The press shut down again and (again) we could not rotate the cylinder to remove the fruit. Another hotline call revealed that our technician “might be available by cell phone.” After multiple calls he was able to phone-coach us enough to turn the cylinder to remove the chardonnay, saying he’d “be out again the following day.” A second (begging) phone call was made to Jeffrey Mayo (I’m sure he thought twice about answering), who came to the rescue for the second time, and we repeated what we had done a few days earlier.

We did get our Mayo-pressed chardon-

August 29: The following morning our technician arrived, this time diagnosing our problem to a “faulty relay switch.” He had one with him and as he installed the unit, he said “it was good this happened now” because he was “headed to Paso Robles” the next day. His parting words this time were, “You’re good to go.” (I fortunately got his cell number).

August 30: It was pinot noir press time and we were feeling confident that our press was (as our technician said) “good to go.” We were not … and Mr. Murphy made his fifth visit to GlenLyon!

The press, this time loaded with tons of fermented pinot noir skins, seeds, pulp, and wine, locked up and shut down. Needless to say, we were exasperated. After multiple failed phone calls, we finally connected with our Paso-bound technician. He asked us to send a photo of his yesterday-installed “relay switch.” We did so … and five minutes later he called back (meekly) saying that “two of the connecting wires were somehow reversed.”

With his coaching, we made the wire switch. We crossed our fingers again (obviously slow learners) and gingerly started the press. And … guess what?

It worked!

The press performed perfectly and we did not have to place another desperation call to Jeffrey Mayo! We thanked our somewhat embarrassed technician, who was as relieved as we were.

August 31 to September 15: Except for the malfunctioning restroom toilet that we had to replace (Murphy #6?), Mr. Murphy did not revisit GlenLyon for the next two days of harvest and September 8 and 15 went smoothly.

September 16 to ???: There are four harvest dates remaining, but this article’s deadline is coming up fast. I can only hope that we can finish this 40th harvest without Murphy finding his way to GlenLyon again!

From AI: When Murphy’s Law strikes during harvest, it can turn a year of hard work into a logistical nightmare.

—Squire Fridell CEO, CFO, COO, WINO & EIEIO Winemaker, Vineyard Manager & Janitor GlenLyon Winery & Two Amigos Wines Glen Ellen, Sonoma Valley squire@glenlyonwinery.com Squire’s next Harvest 2026 article will appear in an upcoming issue of the Kenwood Press.

Journey To Harvest…and Beyond

Photo by Melania Mahoney

Squire Fridell

Harvest and winemaking, back-to-back, are exhausting. Since the days can be long and sleep elusive, mistakes from fatigue (or ignorance or neglect) can spell disaster…not only for the wine but for employees. Vineyards and wineries can be dangerous places. There is a lot of heavy equipment and it’s easy to make a mistake and get hurt. Federal workplace-safety data underscore the risks. Tractor-related incidents have historically killed hundreds of farmers, family members and farmworkers each year, while 84 workers died in incidents involving forklifts and similar powered industrial trucks in 2024 alone. Closer to home, a Dry Creek Vineyard worker died in 2021 after being overcome by a “fatal hazardous atmosphere” while working atop a fermentation tank, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). (Fermentation produces carbon dioxide, which at high concentrations can displace oxygen and create a dangerous environment around tanks.)

Winemaking Blunder disaster #1:

No one should ever be working in a winery or vineyard alone and before doing any chore or operating any piece of equipment there must be thorough instruction and schooling.

Ten years ago, our nephew, Matt, a recent college graduate, wanted to learn about growing grapes and making wine, and so he became our “cellar rat” (an affectionate term for “intern”). Cleaning is an everpresent chore and his first task on his first day was to triple wash a few carboys (5-gallon glass bottles) that had been full of newly pressed chardonnay. The cleaning solution tends to make the glass slippery so my verbal instructions to Matt were: “Be thorough but be careful; they’re easy to drop.”

Matt, trying to please his uncle, was moving too fast, and the carboy slipped out of his hands. He instinctually tried to “catch it” and the inevitable happened: The glass exploded as it hit the concrete, and a sharp edge ripped into his lower arm. We quickly applied a tourniquet to stop the flow of blood as best we could, but it was quite evident that some major damage had been done. WifeSuzy rushed her still-bleeding nephew to our Bennett Valley Fire Station where the paramedics had been alerted, and an ambulance arrived minutes later.

The professionals were able to stop the blood loss and, with sirens blaring, they rushed Matt to the hospital emergency room. Two surgeons were on duty, one to work on the blood vessels and the other to reattach the nerve endings that had been severed. Amazingly, they were both successful (thank you Drs. Mazur & Jicah!) More surgeries eventually took place and almost 100% of Matt’s mobility and feeling in his hand came back (he now sports a big scar).

To Matt’s credit, the last thing he shouted before being driven away with Suzy was: “I didn’t get any blood in the chardonnay!” Since that frightening ordeal, we replaced all our glass carboys with the plastic version, and we affectionately renamed them “Mattboys”…. Matt is now an accomplished winemaker and has his own wine brand “Staysail” (check it out!).

Winemaking Blunder #2:

Early in the winemaking game, I was traveling a lot with my career and not home as much as I would have liked…and my “home winemaking” suffered…I could not be home to do things in a timely manner. Since there were too many individual timing mistakes to list each one, I’ll lump them together. If the vines needed to be sprayed to prevent mildew, if the grapes are ready to be picked, if a product needs to be added to the fermenting mixture at the correct time, if the cap on the fermenting red wine needs to be submerged or a barrel needs to be topped off…and I could not be at home to do those things when each should be done…the wine suffered. Ergo: don’t try and make wine if you don’t have the time to attend to what needs to be done when it should be done. Don’t “vacation” from August to November!

Winemaking Blunder #3:

The temperature during fermentation is terribly important and Sonoma County’s early fall can be abysmally hot. Fermentation creates its own heat and if there is not a way to cool down the fermenting

Salvador Dali mixture you won’t be able to make a very good wine. Temperature control is extremely important. and difficult to do. Early on, WifeSuzy suggested we try cooling by evaporation) by putting fans on the sides of the fermentation vessels with a jury-rigged drip hose trickling water down the sides. A good start to a solution but aside from losing a lot of precious water it didn’t do much to chill what was inside the vessels. Then we bought a “jacketed” tank to recycle the cool liquid but how to do that?

The following Christmas gift was a fabulous recirculating glycol chilling unit! (“An item for the winery” has now become our tradition and she loves it!) For one tank, it worked just fine and I could regulate the fermentation temperature with the turn of a dial.

But then we bought a second, identical jacketed tank…and a third and guess what? The glycol unit was grossly underpowered. Years later her annual Christmas Gift was a glycol chiller that can chill multiple tanks at the same time! My advice? Think about what you need today but buy what you will need tomorrow!

The big glycol chiller.

Winemaking Blunder #4:

Early on I purchased a used barrel from a reputable winery, the winemaker assured me that the barrel was “perfect.” Unfortunately, used barrels are very susceptible to spoilage when they are empty and, unknowingly, I had purchased a barrel with a problem. (The “smell test” is how to detect if a barrel is flawed…but if the empty barrel has been gassed with sulfur, it’s difficult to detect a problem.) The result? Ruined wine. I am leery of purchasing anyone’s “used barrel.”

Winemaking Blunder #5:

When we began making chardonnay, one of my many “mentors” suggested that I “barrel ferment.” I had never made a white wine before, so this was new and it sounded “old school”. The first year, overnight, fermentation went crazy and foam exploded all over the walls and ceiling. The following year I used a “low foaming” yeast, which worked better, but I still could not control the heat inside the barrels. Now I ferment all our wines in stainless steel, and the temperatures are controlled by our new glycol unit.

I’ve reached my word limit, so more Winemaking Blunders next month!

“Great wine requires a mad man to grow the vine, a Squire Fridell, CEO, CFO, COO, WINO & EIEIO Winemaker, Vineyard Manager & Janitor GlenLyon Winery & Two Amigos Wines Glen Ellen, Sonoma Valley squire@glenlyonwinery.com

Journey To Harvest…and Beyond

Drinking habits of our founding fathers

Squire Fridell

Drinking alcohol was ingrained

Early Europeans knew that drinking tainted water from their polluted waterways was deadly, so they found safer options: beer, wine, and spirits. For thousands of years, people believed that alcohol was good for you; it could cure the ill, give the body strength, and even result in longer life. Virtually everyone (children included) started their day with whatever alcohol they had, drank whenever they were thirsty, consumed more at meals, and continued until bedtime. When Europeans immigrated across the Atlantic, they carried that cautionary and safer practice with them.

Did the Puritans drink alcohol?

Most definitely. In 1620, the Puritans brought massive amounts of beer with them on the Mayflower and were rationed one quart of beer per day. In fact, their landing at Plymouth Rock, instead of their original destination farther south, was simply because their beer supply had run short. The Puritans viewed beer, wine, and hard cider as “a good gift from God,” and their taverns, vital community gathering places, were built right alongside their churches.

The arrival of the colonists

Because wine and beer had to be imported, distilled spirits became more popular. They could be quickly made from the fruits and grains the colonists could grow, and the higher alcohol spirits didn’t spoil, unlike beer and wine. Colonists regularly consumed distilled beverages that they amusingly named Blackstrap, Bogus, Bombo, Flip, Mimbo, Sling, Syllabub, Toddy, and Whistle Belly, and the phrase “more bang for the buck” became a common saying.

Rum became very popular, and inexpensive molasses from the nearby Caribbean islands was transported by British shipping to the colonies to be distilled into rum. America’s first rum distillery was established in New York over a hundred years before our Revolution, and by 1770 there were 140 distilleries in our 13 colonies producing 4.8 million gallons of rum.

When the Revolution was over and British shippers refused to continue to supply the colonies with molasses to make rum, farmers in Kentucky and Ohio began distilling the corn they grew and made whiskey.

How much did early colonists drink?

Every man, woman, and child (yes, children) in early colonial times averaged, as part of their dietary staple, roughly 3.5 gallons of alcohol per year. Seven years after our revolution ended, the National Archive figures show that number had climbed to a staggering 5.8 gallons per “adult” (15 years or older). That trend continued upward every year, hitting an all-time high in 1830, when the number increased to 7 gallons per person.

Harvard, established in 1636 and one of our country’s first institutions of higher learning, had its own brewery to produce beer so that college students could drink their malted beverage throughout the day. Three years after being founded, the president of Harvard was dismissed when the school did not supply enough beer for the student body.

Our Founding Fathers

George Washington touted alcohol moderation but also consumed his fair share, favoring Madeira, a fortified Portuguese beverage made from wine

Benjamin Franklin also espoused moderation, but still reportedly enjoyed his daily alcohol, preferring wine and beer over spirits. He famously compiled a “Drinker’s Dictionary” for the Pennsylvania Gazette, cataloging over 200 colorful slang terms for over-indulgence, including “addled,” “afflicted,” “biggy,” “boozy,” “busky,” “buzzey,” “cracked,” and (my personal favorite) “halfway to Concord.”

Our second president, John Adams, faithfully recorded in his diary that he “began his day with a glass or two of hard cider.” He also loved wine and his surviving diary entries describe a gathering where “most excellent and admirable” wines (undoubtedly from France) were poured. One entry included the fact that he “drank Madeira at a great rate” and he “found no inconvenience in it.”

Thomas Jefferson, our third president, developed a taste for fine wine during his ambassadorship to France and kept that passion throughout his lifetime writing, “Wine is necessary for life.” Upon his return from abroad, he imported some 20,000 bottles of European wines. He ofttimes advised many of his countrymen (including Presidents Washington, Adams, Madison, and Monroe) about desirable wine producers and vintages from Europe, and even planted European grapevines at his home in Monticello, discovering to his dismay that the harsh Virginia winters were too severe.

Samuel Adams, another Founding Father (who today has a beer named after him), managed his father’s brewery and advertised his hand-crafted beer in his Boston newspaper “at a very reasonable rate.” John Hancock was accused of smuggling wine; Patrick Henry worked as a bartender; and the list goes on.

The longevity of our Founding Fathers

Surprisingly, most of our Founding Fathers, despite (or due to?) their daily consumption of alcoholic beverages, lived far longer than the norm: Washington lived well into his seventh decade; Jefferson, Franklin, and Madison all passed away in their mid 80s; while John Adams lived to 90.

It’s a fact that early Americans (including our Founding Fathers) consumed a startling amount of beer, wine, and distilled spirits every day. There seems to be no doubt that alcohol played an unmistakable role in the creation of what is now the United States of America.

Next time you open a bottle of fine Sonoma Valley wine, please raise a glass and toast our Founding Fathers! WifeSuzy and I will do the same!

“Wine is sure proof that God loves us and wants us happy.” — Benjamin Franklin “Wine, from long habit, has become an indispensable for my health.” — Thomas Jefferson Squire Fridell CEO, CFO, COO, EIEIO, WINO Winemaker, Vineyard Manager & Janitor GlenLyon Winery & Two Amigos Wines Glen Ellen squire@glenlyonwinery.com

Journey To Harvest…and Beyond

Vineyard Blunders

Squire Fridell

We continue our vineyard work for this upcoming 2026 harvest, making sure we are irrigating our vines when they need watering, tucking canes in the wires to grow vertically, topping long canes so they don’t shadow the grape clusters, and removing any extraneous unwanted growth. At veraison (the turning of color), we will eliminate any slower-to-ripen clusters. This time of year, I seem to recall the blunders I’ve made over the last 40 years of growing grapes and making wine.

Vineyard blunders: Part one

Dictionary.com defines “blunder” as a “gross, stupid, or careless mistake,” “Blunda” being an Old Norse word meaning “to shut one’s eyes.” I would, however, define my early vineyard “blundas” as “stupid mistakes” made with my eyes wide open.

We moved to Glen Ellen in 1986, relocating from our beach home in SoCal. I’ve always enjoyed gardening, but not much grows in sand. We had moved to “wine country,” so I thought I’d try to make wine that first year. We were invited to pick some “second crop” (fruit remaining after harvest) Alicante Bouchet grapes from what is now Atwood Ranch, and made wine. Despite the result tasting horrible, we were hooked. We immediately decided to plant a small “hobby” vineyard on a skinny two-acre strip of our land to make a little of our own wine. Knowing nothing about growing grapes, I took a couple of viticulture classes at Santa Rosa Junior College. The instructors, all professional growers and winemakers, were fabulous, and WifeSuzy attended when she was not being “mommy.”

Rich Thomas (“Dr. Vine”) taught a number of those classes and his passion for grape growing was notorious. He paid us a visit here (at what was to become GlenLyon) on a hot summer day to chat about our proposed planting site and he helped me lay out the vineyard, then steered me toward an irrigation specialist, where to order vines, posts, wire, etc. When I asked what variety I should plant, he said, “What do you like to drink?” I replied, “Cabernet sauvignon” (in 1986 there were fewer choices, and I was happy that I had pronounced it correctly).

We promptly ordered 1,100+ grafted-onto-rootstock cab vines. As we waited two years for our vines, we tilled the soil and added amendments in preparation for planting, then ordered the necessary hardware, irrigation supplies, and fencing, and enrolled in more viticulture classes to learn how to train, care for, and prune vines.

One of the classes was taught by Dr. Richard Smart, known worldwide as “The Australian Flying Vine Doctor.” He was touting a relatively new “Quadrilateral Cordon” vertical trellising and pruning system that increased the tonnage of the fruit, and the system had worked well in areas of Australia. I was fascinated with the possibilities, so I adjusted our layout, our grapevine order, and our hardware. Over the next 18 months, we installed 13 rows of end posts, support posts, cross arms, wires, and irrigation, just in time for the vines to arrive and we proceeded to plant our first vineyard!

Our cab vines began growing but, unknowingly, I had already made two Stupid Mistakes, which led to Stupid Mistake #3, which created #4.

Stupid Mistake #1: After a few years, we discovered the choice of cabernet sauvignon, a sun-loving grape variety, was not the best choice for our west-facing hillside site. Wrong grape, wrong spot.

Stupid Mistake #2: Quad-Cordon trellising is intended for high-yield areas using vigorous varieties. We struck out again, asking those sun-loving cab vines planted in the wrong spot to overproduce. The fruit didn’t ripen well, and I kept wondering why my homemade cab smelled like bell peppers … Stupid Mistake # 3: Once the vines begin to grow, training and pruning is vital, and pruning is done in the winter when the vines are dormant. Unfortunately, my time at home was dictated by my employment elsewhere, and I was off to San Francisco International Airport once a week for my “real job.” I pruned our

Journey To Harvest…and Beyond

What’s happening at GlenLyon now?

Squire Fridell

Winery update

Aside from continuing to monitor the progress of each barrel of red wine that we harvested in 2025 (the whites and rosé were bottled in March — see below), there continues to be constant chores, adjustments, and tweaks as the remaining red wines mature. At GlenLyon, we bottle two times per year: the lighter wines (rosé, viognier, chardonnay) are bottled in March and the red wines (pinot noir, syrah, grenache, and cabernet sauvignon) in August.

The red wines, still developing in barrels, will undergo more “racking” (moving wine from one vessel to another to eliminate sediment and/or to expose the wine to air if warranted). We’ll also be conducting “trials” to compare wines from different barrels and/or make any possible blends of different wines. All this is currently going on with our red wines.

The March 2026 bottling

Whether we bottle in March or August, the pre-bottling logistics are extremely complicated, and all that preparatory work has nothing to do with the actual making of each of the wines, only with the bottling. Both our crossflow filtration rig and bottling truck dates were set back in 2025 and a crew of seven has been secured to work on each bottling day. All the glass, labels, corks, and foil were ordered three months before the March bottling, the numbers based at that time on the estimated gallons, cases, and bottles. As we get closer to bottling, those numbers will be fine-tuned and the orders will be adjusted so there’s not an excess or lack of anything needed on bottling day.

How do you estimate how much wine you will have?

The word should be “guesstimate” and the numbers change as time goes on. Post-harvest, once I know the actual grape tonnage from each vineyard, I make my first projection: one ton of grapes (white or red) will yield about 150 to 160 gallons of finished wine. Once fermentation is completed, the wine is transferred to tank, where I can recalculate that number of gallons by measuring inches of wine and multiplying by 13.84 gallons per inch.

Once any blends and additions are made to the wine, we’ll transfer the wine to barrels and smaller containers, each time recalculating the number of gallons. I also figure we’ll lose a bit due to cross-flow filtration and on the bottling line.

Each time I have a new number of gallons, I convert gallons to cases. The gallons must be converted to liters and since there are nine liters to a case of wine, (that formula, if you’re interested, is: gal x 3.7854 ÷ 9 = cases x 12 = bottles). Each time, I recalculate and reevaluate my numbers to what I have ordered in glass, cork, foil, and labels.

What happens on the bottling day?

I hold my breath, hoping that the amount of glass, labels, corks and foil I have ordered will be pretty accurate. Regardless, when the final bottle shoots down the bottling line this coming August, the 2025 “harvest” will be officially “over.” (You’d think after 75 or so bottlings that there would be no miscalculations or mistakes, huh? “Oh, let me count the ways …”).

Meanwhile, back in the vineyards

Before, during, and after our two bottlings of 2025 wines, the vineyard work for the upcoming 2026 harvest continues. Pruning can begin once last year’s leaves fall, but since early pruning results in early bud burst (there is the danger of early spring frost, which will destroy any new growth), we choose to wait until the last possible moment to prune.

Aside from pruning, there are a multitude of early-season vineyard tasks that must be accomplished. The list seems endless but there’s elimination of the pruning byproduct (by burning or chipping), planting/replanting and mowing cover crops, moving training wires, checking irrigation problems, tilling if warranted, addressing rodents, monitoring vine damage or disease, repairing deer fencing, and addressing any post-rainfall erosion issues. All those tasks (and many more) must be done to ensure 2026 will result in a healthy and bountiful harvest.

Powdery mildew spraying has begun

When the new growth reaches one inch in length (usually in March), we begin spraying a sulfur compound on the new foliage. Sulfur effectively fights mildew and is approved for organic farming (it’s been used in vineyards since 1850). Without it, the vines would grow mildew spores that would turn to mold, ruining the crop. We must wear mandated, full-body, protective jumpsuits, masks, gloves, and boots, but don’t be alarmed. Sulfur, used properly, is necessary and quite safe.

In our valley (because of the morning moisture) we must continue to spray every 14 days until the grapes mature enough to turn color (“veraison”) and then we stop (sulfur will inhibit the yeast from doing its job). Usually there will be a total of 10 14-day interval sprayings per season. We also must complete and file an “Applicator Report” every month with the county showing what we sprayed, how much of the product we used, and the date and time we sprayed.

As the vines grow

There is work to do in the vineyards all during the growing season, handling many different tasks other than those mentioned. As the vines develop, there will be fertilizing, testing for water and irrigation (each time checking and repairing broken hoses and emitters), suckering, leaf-pulling, topping long canes, thinning clusters to remove unwanted growth, moving the wires, and tucking the canes to best get sunlight. Grape growing is both labor-intensive and costly!

As harvest approaches

Hours upon hours have been spent among the vines, and the vineyard work continues until the chosen moment the grapes from that vineyard (or block) will be harvested. (See Aug. 1, 2024 Kenwood Press article: “How do I know when to pick?”.)

The wild card

Mother Nature can be friend or foe, but she has never been predictable. As the weather turns from summer to fall and harvest nears, she usually decides to rain. Moisture can not only alter the acid (pH) and sugar (Brix) content of the fruit, but rain can also result in mildew. Since we stopped sulfur spraying at veraison (that color change of the grapes), those delicate berries are in grave danger. Continual days of rain at harvest time will spell disaster for both the grower and the winemaker.

My career advice?

Unless you are extremely passionate about growing grapes and making wine, find another job. Farmers are the first to say, “Grape growing ain’t for the weak.”

“Great wine requires a madman to grow the vine, a wise man to watch over it, a lucid poet to make it, and a lover to drink it.” —Salvadore Dali Squire Fridell CEO, CFO, COO, WINO & EIEIO, Winemaker, Vineyard Manager & Janitor GlenLyon Winery & Two Amigos Wines Glen Ellen, Sonoma Valley squire@glenlyonwinery.com

Journey to Harvest … and Beyond

Judgement of Paris: Part Four — the aftermath

Squire Fridell

There were even calls for one of the judges (the Inspector General of the Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée Board) to resign his post. It was three months before one of France’s newspapers even acknowledged that the event had taken place, concluding the results were “not to be taken seriously.”

It’s important to note that if the Time magazine reporter, George Taber, had not attended the Paris tasting, what happened would have been tantamount to the proverbial tree falling in the forest with no one around to hear it. Without his reporting, it would have been much easier for the French to distort what had occurred, or simply deny that it happened at all.

Subdued reactions in California

Winemakers in California weren’t much surprised at the results because they had been openly tasting their wines, vs. their French counterparts, for years. They knew the potential was there, and the results of the judging weren’t much of a surprise. When Jim Barrett, owner of Chateau Montelena, was notified that his chardonnay had bested the French white Burgundies, he simply remarked, “Not bad for kids from the sticks.” When Warren Winiarski was told by his wife that his Stag’s Leap cabernet sauvignon had bested the best of the French Bordeaux, his response was simply “That’s nice.”

A seismic shift

Three months after the event, Time magazine finally published Tabor’s “Judgement of Paris” article, but on page 58, near the back of the issue. (Their cover story was about an honor system scandal at West Point.)

However, a small cadre of wine writers in America loved the “David and Goliath” story and began to report what had happened. America’s wine lovers took note and began phoning wine shops, asking for the California “Judgement” wines by name. Those wines quickly disappeared, so folks began asking for other California wines. The wine lovers talked to their friends, and Americans began to discover quality California wine.

Wine drinkers worldwide also took note, realizing that their perception of California wine might have been wrong. The search and demand for quality California wines grew.

No one, certainly not Spurrier, thought anything game-changing was going to be the result of what happened in March 1976, but it did. Americans began to discover wine — in particular, California wine — and the industry rapidly grew. There were 400+/- wineries in the U.S. in 1976, and today that number exceeds 11,000.

The worldwide effect

Other wine-making countries, including France, realized that Europe did not have a monopoly on great wine. It seemed folks wanted to know what California was doing in grape growing and winemaking. Many areas of the world that had never done so before began planting wine grapes and making wine.

Was the Paris tasting a one-time fluke?

There have been many reenactments of the Paris tasting over the years, the most striking being in 2006, when Steven Spurrier organized a two-continent rematch (London and Napa), with nine judges each using the same red wines, same vintages, to be judged. ( Spurrier felt that 30 years was past almost any chardonnay’s life span). The rematch results were even more stunning than they were in 1976. This time all five of the top wines were from California, and this time the 1971 Ridge Monte Bello came in first! Three decades after the original “Judgement,” the argument that French wines will age better was simply put to rest.

“A watershed moment in the history of wine”

Robert Mondavi wrote in his autobiography, “The Paris tasting was an enormous event in the history of California wine-making. It put us squarely on the world map of great wine-producing regions. I saw the impact everywhere I went. Suddenly people had a new respect for what we were doing. They saw that we could make wines as good as the best in France.”

Wine writer Robert Parker later was quoted: “The Paris tasting destroyed the myth of French supremacy and marked the democratization of the wine world. It was a watershed in the history of wine.”

What’s happened to Stag’s Leap and Chateau Montelena?

Warren Winiarski passed away in 2024, but sold Stag’s Leap in 2007 for $185 million. Jim Barrett passed away in 2013; Chateau Montelena is operated by Jim’s son, Bo, and Bo’s siblings. Miljenko “Mike” Grgich, Chateau Montelena’s wine maker, who created the winning chardonnay, passed away in 2023, but started his Grgich Hills Estate Winery one year after the Paris tasting. His St. Helena winery is operated by Mike’s daughter, Violet.

Prices: An unfortunate aftermath

In the year of the Paris tasting, a bottle of the Chateau Montelena chardonnay and Stag’s Leap cabernet both sold for $7. ( One year later, Chateau Montelena’s bottle price was still $7, but the Stag’s Leap had jumped up to $7.50!) Today, the Stag’s Leap can be purchased at the winery for $350 and the Chateau Montelena for a modest $75. Both are still bargains compared with the French counterparts: the Chateau Mouton Bordeaux, which sold for $20 in 1976, now sells for over $800; the Bâtard-Montrachet, which sold for $30, now sells for about $2000. Go figure …

What’s next?

After many years of unbridled growth, lately it has been a difficult time in the wine industry. There has been a flurry of conflicting health reports about alcohol consumption. That, coupled with a couple of bountiful harvests, resulting in a glut of wine inventory, plus a decline in wine consumption, have all contributed to the downsizing (or even closing) of wineries. Grape contracts have been canceled, resulting in folks ripping their vineyards out or replanting to other crops.

It is definitely a difficult time for grape farmers and for wineries. So the question looms: Is the sky falling and where are we headed? (I’m writing that article right now, but you’ll have to be patient, until next month, to read it!).

“Wine is the most healthful and most hygienic of beverages.”

–Louis Pasteur – Squire Fridell CEO, CFO, COO, EIEIO, Winemaker, Vineyard Manager & Janitor GlenLyon Winery & Two Amigos Winery Glen Ellen, CA Sonoma Valley squire@glenlyonwinery.com

Judgement of Paris – Part Three

Squire Fridell

How Spurrier selected the California wines

After landing in San Francisco in early Spring of 1976, Steven Spurrier and his wife started south of the city and then moved north to Napa. Early on, he decided (for whatever reason) to only visit small producers (many he had never heard of) so he bypassed larger wineries like Charles Krug, Beringer, and Robert Mondavi. Spurrier was quite surprised at the openness of wineries that he was able to visit, mostly unannounced. His non-challenging demeaner, enthusiasm, openness, and knowledge, (plus a British accent), seemed to draw folks to him. Often, the person who stepped off his tractor to pour him a sip of wine might also be the winemaker and owner. None of the California wineries he visited had been around before the 1960’s; some were only a few years old.

During his whirlwind trip, Spurrier selected six chardonnays and six cabernets and purchased (at retail prices) three bottles from each of his choices, intending to take two back to France with him.

The wineries were delighted to have made such a “huge sale” of three bottles! Selections were not based on notoriety but only on his taste and the willingness of wineries to allow Spurrier access. Three of the dozen wines came from the mountains south of San Francisco and nine were from Napa. Sonoma itself was not represented, although some of the fruit for some of the wines was grown in Sonoma.

Spurrier’s chardonnay choices:

Chalone Vineyards, 1974, located about 100 miles south of San Francisco. The bottle price (high for the time) was $9. Chateau Montelena, 1973, the wine was made by Mike Grgich with grapes from Sonoma County. Chateau Montelena was later the subject of the film Bottle Shock. David Bruce Winery, 1973, a small winery located in the Santa Cruz mountains above Los Gatos.

Freemark Abbey Winery, 1972, the only winery Spurrier selected for both a white and a red wine.

Spring Mountain, 1973, one of Napa Valley’s most noteworthy small wineries.

Veedercrest, 1972, located on Mount Veeder with the grapes grown in Carneros, an area straddling both Napa and Sonoma just above the San Pablo Bay.

Spurrier’s Cabernet Choices:

Clos Du Val Winery, 1972, from the Stag’s Leap area of Napa and blended with a bit of merlot in the Bordeaux tradition.

Freemark Abbey, 1969 the only winery to be entered in both red and white category.

Heitz Cellars, Martha’s Vineyard, 1970, located just south of St. Helena. Spurrier found Joe Heitz to be the most reluctant participant, at first ordering him off his property. Mayacamas Vineyard, 1971, located near the top of Mayacamas Mountain. Spurrier’s original choice was the 1970 vintage, but it was sold out so the winery hand-filled three bottles of the still-in-barrel 1971. Ridge Vineyards, Monte Bello, 1971, from the Santa Cruz Mountains, also with a small amount of merlot added. Spurrier had tasted this wine once before in Paris. Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, 1973, founded and owned by winemaker Warren Winiarski in 1970 and located in the Stag’s Leap area of Napa.

Getting the wine to Paris

Spurrier had 24 bottles of California wine, but he feared that he would have trouble bringing that much through sometimes-difficult customs. Fortunately, a friend had organized a French vineyard tour for Americans and was also headed to Paris, departing about the same time, and he convinced each traveler to carry two bottles in his or her luggage. They slipped

Spurrier had literally thousands of French wines from which to choose; there were scant few choices in California

through customs, none broke in transit, and all 24 bottles arrived safely in Paris!

The day of judging

To make the judging fair, Spurrier decanted each wine into a coded vessel to hide its identity. Each wine was to be evaluated by each of the nine judges in four areas: “Eye, Nose, Mouth, Harmony” and were to be scored on a 20 total point scale. This was common and two years before Robert Parker invented his 100-point scale. The chardonnay would be judged and tallied first, then on to the red wines.

The chardonnay results

As the chardonnay tasting progressed, it became clear that the initially confident judges grew less sure of themselves, even vocally disagreeing as to a particular wine’s nationality. Once the Chardonnay tasting was completed, Spurrier called for a break to tabulate the wine scores that had been ranked from highest to lowest. The judges were confident that they had selected French wines for their top choices, after all, their unspoken focus had been to eliminate any non-French wine.

The room became hushed as Spurrier slowly announced the results. The reactions of the judges ranged from shock to horror. No one could believe what Spurrier was saying: three out of the top four ranked wines were from California, and every single judge had given the highest score to a California chardonnay! Six the nine judges ranked Chateau Montelena first, and the remaining three judges gave that honor to Chalone! Quite simply, in a double-blind tasting by extremely qualified French judges, California chardonnays had decidedly overwhelmed their French counterparts!

The cabernet results

The startled (and embarrassed) judges quickly began focusing on the red wine…they would not allow a California wine to come out on top again. After all, a California white wine winning this competition was blasphemy but winning both white and red would be tantamount to treason! As the judges focused, they seemed to become even more outspoken and assertive than they had been during the white wine tasting.

Following the judging, Spurrier again tallied the results and the room quieted as he began to speak. As he went on, jaws dropped and everyone sat in hushed disbelief: The unthinkable had happened! Incroyable! The top-rated red wine was not French, but from a three-year old winery in California: the 1973 Stag’s Leap!

The astounding results of that day were certainly not what anyone in attendance could anticipate. Because of Time Magazine’s George Taber’s attendance and subsequent reporting, the world of wine was about to be dramatically turned upside down.

Next month: the after-effects of March 24, 1976.

“And the wine is bottled poetry”

1880 Robert Louis Stevenson Squire Fridell CEO, CFO, COO, EIEIO, Winemaker, Vineyard Manager & Janitor GlenLyon Winery Two Amigos Winery Glen Ellen, CA Sonoma Valley squire@glenlyonwinery.com

Journey to Harvest

Squire Fridell

Europeans have always consumed considerably more wine per capita than Americans and that contrast was much more apparent than in 1976. The tradition of enjoying wine with meals dates back thousands of years in Europe but there is very little wine history in America. In 1976, Northern California may have had great potential for growing world-class wine grapes but since there were few American wine drinkers there was little demand for wine. Fifty years ago, Northern California had only a smattering of wineries and very few wine-loving tourists. Winery tastings were not commonplace. Whereas Steven Spurrier had literally thousands of French wines from which to choose, there were scant few choices in California.

How Spurrier selected the California wines

After landing in San Francisco in early Spring of 1976, Steven Spurrier and his wife started south of the city and then moved north to Napa. Early on, he decided (for whatever reason) to only visit small producers (many he had never heard of) so he bypassed larger wineries like Charles Krug, Beringer, and Robert Mondavi. Spurrier was quite surprised at the openness of wineries that he was able to visit, mostly unannounced. His non-challenging demeaner, enthusiasm, openness, and knowledge, (plus a British accent), seemed to draw folks to him. Often, the person who stepped off his tractor to pour him a sip of wine might also be the winemaker and owner. None of the California wineries he visited had been around before the 1960’s; some were only a few years old.

During his whirlwind trip, Spurrier selected six chardonnays and six cabernets and purchased (at retail prices) three bottles from each of his choices, intending to take two back to France with him.

The wineries were delighted to have made such a “huge sale” of three bottles! Selections were not based on notoriety but only on his taste and the willingness of wineries to allow Spurrier access. Three of the dozen wines came from the mountains south of San Francisco and nine were from Napa. Sonoma itself was not represented, although some of the fruit for some of the wines was grown in Sonoma.

Spurrier’s chardonnay choices:

Chalone Vineyards, 1974, located about 100 miles south of San Francisco. The bottle price (high for the time) was $9. Chateau Montelena, 1973, the wine was made by Mike Grgich with grapes from Sonoma County. Chateau Montelena was later the subject of the film Bottle Shock. David Bruce Winery, 1973, a small winery located in the Santa Cruz mountains above Los Gatos.

Freemark Abbey Winery, 1972, the only winery Spurrier selected for both a white and a red wine.

Spring Mountain, 1973, one of Napa Valley’s most noteworthy small wineries.

Veedercrest, 1972, located on Mount Veeder with the grapes grown in Carneros, an area straddling both Napa and Sonoma just above the San Pablo Bay.

Spurrier’s Cabernet Choices:

Clos Du Val Winery, 1972, from the Stag’s Leap area of Napa and blended with a bit of merlot in the Bordeaux tradition.

Freemark Abbey, 1969 the only winery to be entered in both red and white category.

Heitz Cellars, Martha’s Vineyard, 1970, located just south of St. Helena. Spurrier found Joe Heitz to be the most reluctant participant, at first ordering him off his property. Mayacamas Vineyard, 1971, located near the top of Mayacamas Mountain. Spurrier’s original choice was the 1970 vintage, but it was sold out so the winery hand-filled three bottles of the still-in-barrel 1971. Ridge Vineyards, Monte Bello, 1971, from the Santa Cruz Mountains, also with a small amount of merlot added. Spurrier had tasted this wine once before in Paris. Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, 1973, founded and owned by winemaker Warren Winiarski in 1970 and located in the Stag’s Leap area of Napa.

Getting the wine to Paris

Spurrier had 24 bottles of California wine, but he feared that he would have trouble bringing that much through sometimes-difficult customs. Fortunately, a friend had organized a French vineyard tour for Americans and was also headed to Paris, departing about the same time, and he convinced each traveler to carry two bottles in his or her luggage. They slipped

Spurrier had literally thousands of French wines from which to choose; there were scant few choices in California

through customs, none broke in transit, and all 24 bottles arrived safely in Paris!

The day of judging

To make the judging fair, Spurrier decanted each wine into a coded vessel to hide its identity. Each wine was to be evaluated by each of the nine judges in four areas: “Eye, Nose, Mouth, Harmony” and were to be scored on a 20 total point scale. This was common and two years before Robert Parker invented his 100-point scale. The chardonnay would be judged and tallied first, then on to the red wines.

The chardonnay results

As the chardonnay tasting progressed, it became clear that the initially confident judges grew less sure of themselves, even vocally disagreeing as to a particular wine’s nationality. Once the Chardonnay tasting was completed, Spurrier called for a break to tabulate the wine scores that had been ranked from highest to lowest. The judges were confident that they had selected French wines for their top choices, after all, their unspoken focus had been to eliminate any non-French wine.

The room became hushed as Spurrier slowly announced the results. The reactions of the judges ranged from shock to horror. No one could believe what Spurrier was saying: three out of the top four ranked wines were from California, and every single judge had given the highest score to a California chardonnay! Six the nine judges ranked Chateau Montelena first, and the remaining three judges gave that honor to Chalone! Quite simply, in a double-blind tasting by extremely qualified French judges, California chardonnays had decidedly overwhelmed their French counterparts!

The cabernet results

The startled (and embarrassed) judges quickly began focusing on the red wine…they would not allow a California wine to come out on top again. After all, a California white wine winning this competition was blasphemy but winning both white and red would be tantamount to treason! As the judges focused, they seemed to become even more outspoken and assertive than they had been during the white wine tasting.

Following the judging, Spurrier again tallied the results and the room quieted as he began to speak. As he went on, jaws dropped and everyone sat in hushed disbelief: The unthinkable had happened! Incroyable! The top-rated red wine was not French, but from a three-year old winery in California: the 1973 Stag’s Leap!

The astounding results of that day were certainly not what anyone in attendance could anticipate. Because of Time Magazine’s George Taber’s attendance and subsequent reporting, the world of wine was about to be dramatically turned upside down.

Next month: the after-effects of March 24, 1976.

“And the wine is bottled poetry”

1880 Robert Louis Stevenson Squire Fridell CEO, CFO, COO, EIEIO, Winemaker, Vineyard Manager & Janitor GlenLyon Winery Two Amigos Winery Glen Ellen, CA Sonoma Valley squire@glenlyonwinery.com

The Judgement of Paris: The background

Squire Fridell

Wine has been an essential part of the cultures and countries of Europe, dating back thousands of years before Christopher Columbus left Spain in 1492 to search of a western route to Asia. (Even though he ended up landing off the eastern shore of what became our United States, Columbus continued to insist he had landed in Asia until his death in 1506.)

Over subsequent voyages by others, the European community realized that Columbus had discovered a new continent, a “New World” that lay between Europe and Asia. For the following hundreds of years, many Europeans migrated across the Atlantic to begin a new life. Immigration became common with many of the settlers hailing from grape-growing countries bringing with them cuttings from the grapevines they had grown at home. (Unfortunately, those early plantings failed due to the severe winter months of America’s east coast.)

Over the next century, millions more European immigrants left their homelands for America in search of a new beginning. As the population grew and people moved further west, they settled, creating outposts and towns across this new land.

When gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill in 1848, the rush further west to California was on, creating the most massive population shift in U.S. history. California’s population grew enormously and within two years, California became America’s 31st state.

Early Spanish missionaries had been planting grapevines for sacramental wine on this continent since the 16th century, but it wasn’t until 1769 that they began moving north into “Alta California,” building a total of 21 missions on their way. (Sonoma’s was the final mission built, begun under Spanish control but completed under Mexican rule.) Grapevines were planted at each mission to make wine for their religious ceremonies, but because of both the lack of winemaking skill and the planting of their traditional mission grape to make wine, the quality of the finished wine was poor.

As the new European immigrants (particularly from Italy) settled in California, they (as many had done before) planted their “old country” grapevines to make their wine. California’s mild weather proved to be a perfect spot for growing their vines.

Among those early settlers was Agoston Haraszthy, an enterprising immigrant from Hungary who made his way to Sonoma to build his home. He recognized the area’s potential for grape growing for wine and was one of the first to widely plant European varieties. In 1857, he built California’s first premium winery that he named “Buena Vista.” Others followed and the quality of the wine quickly improved to the point that California’s wines began to compete internationally. (In 1889, a wine from Livermore won the prestigious Grand Prix of Paris Exposition.) California wines were off and running and the stage was perfectly set for the future.

Just as California wines were gaining recognition domestically and abroad, a series of sequential catastrophes took place, which affected not only the world of wine, but the world at large.

Towards the end of the 19th century in both Europe and California, vast acreage of vineyards simply died for no apparent reason. After decades of devastation, a tiny insect (Phylloxera) was revealed as the culprit. Once the insect was found, botanists discovered that the insect had traveled to France on the roots of American plants during the exchange of grapevines, and a smattering of the almostmicroscopic critters were on the roots of the American varieties of vines. When the insect arrived in France, it began to voraciously feed on the roots of the French varieties. It took decades but once the cause was discovered, the preventive solution followed: using the rootstock of the “common” American vines (the insects did not prefer) and then grafting the fruit-producing French varieties at the top. The process was a rousing success; the diseased vines were destroyed, and new grafted vines (impervious to the insect) were planted, with no change in the finished wine’s quality. Worldwide, vineyards were replanted with the grafted, diseaseresistant vines.

Just after the Phylloxera problem was resolved and quality wines were once again being made, much of Europe erupted into a chain reaction of nationalistic events in 1914, resulting in World War I. By the time the aggressor, Germany, was defeated, and the war ended four years later, millions of lives had been lost, and the physical destruction it had brought to much of Europe was enormous. France was particularly hard hit with cities, towns and vineyards having been bombed continuously. (Champagne alone lost over half of the vineyards.) The economic destruction during and following the war would be felt worldwide for a long time….

Photo by Melania Mahoney

Domestically and just one year after the war ended, another disaster hit America: the U.S. Congress passed Prohibition, a misguided amendment to our Constitution, which banned the production and sale of alcoholic beverages. Smuggling, bootlegging, and widespread disregard for the law quickly followed, and regular consumption of wine in America abruptly stopped. It took 14 years before Prohibition was repealed, but the damage would last for decades. America’s heretofore fledgling wine industry simply disappeared.

Two more disasters coincided during this tumultuous time. In 1929, the stock market in America crashed, leading to a decade-long depression that proved to be the longest and deepest economic turndown in America’s modern history, eventually impacting every country globally. Unemployment was rampant, food lines were common, and any non-essential goods (certainly wine) were left by the wayside.

As the world eventually began to economically recover from the Depression, history seemed to repeat itself. In 1939, Germany invaded Poland, signaling the beginning of World War II. The world was at war once again, and would remain that way for six long years, until the defeat of the Axis forces in 1945.

At the conclusion of WWII, the ever-resilient French began to once again begin making their wines, and their wines, once again, took the podium as the standard bearers of world-wide quality and excellence. In California, a few historic wineries in Napa had reopened after the repeal of Prohibition, but the domestic market for California wine was small and its international market was non-existent.

Then, in 1966, an enthusiastic and ambitious Robert Mondavi built his winery, (the first large-scale winery erected in the 45+ years since Prohibition was made the law of the land). Mondavi, whenever asked, repeatedly would insist, (to anyone who would listen), that California’s wines could be on par with wines from anywhere in the world, including French wines. Wine writers, critics, (and certainly the French), condescendingly smiled and shook their collective heads in disbelief. The few wine drinkers in America continued to buy French wines.

Just ten years after Mondavi had built his winery in Oakville, the world’s perception of California wines was about to dramatically change. On a spring day in 1976, a seemingly innocuous event took place in Paris that forever changed the world of wine. It was called the Judgement of Paris.

Part 2 of this story will be in a future issue of the Kenwood Press. Squire Fridell CEO, CFO, COO, EIEIO, Winemaker, Vineyard Manager & Janitor GlenLyon Winery Two Amigos Winery Glen Ellen, CA Sonoma Valley squire@glenlyonwinery.com

Harvest & Crush 2025

Squire Fridell

Interesting to note that the words “harvest” and “crush” are often used interchangeably, but they are different. “Harvest” is when the grapes are picked off the vines, whereas “crush” begins when those grapes arrive at the winery to be processed into wine. (There is an old saying: “When the farmer picks the last of his grapes, his work may be over, but when those grapes arrive at the winery, the winemaker’s work has just begun. If you do both, you’re not too bright.”) There are many steps to help Mother Nature turn fresh grapes into wine, and numerous variations for each step (we’ve done many). This is what we now do at GlenLyon:

Step 1: Sorting

Using our trusty forklift, I weigh each macro bin of freshly picked grapes (1000+/lbs) then tip that fruit into the hopper attached to our elevator. As the grape clusters slowly travel up the elevator, WifeSuzy (Quality Control) and crew pick out any MOG (Material Other than Grapes). Many wineries do not take the time to do this step, but we feel it is important. Depending on whether we are processing red or white/ rosé grapes, different pieces of equipment are at the receiving end of that elevator.

Step 2: Processing

Red grapes are fermented on their skins (for color and character), so we use a “Destemmer” to eliminate the stems. (We can also attach our “Crusher” for the “bigger reds” like cabernet sauvignon but “crush” is a misnomer as it merely pops the berries. Regardless, red wine is fermented on the “must” consisting of berries, skins, seeds, pulp, and juice. We ferment our whites and rosé only on the juice, so we substitute machines to use our “bladder press,” a large, pressurized “colander” that squeezes the juice out of the solids.

Step 3: Fermentation

Whether it’s “must” (reds) or juice (whites/rosé) in the tank, we’ll add a yeast to start fermentation (this will happen naturally as yeast is on the grape skins but we choose to add specific yeasts for desired flavor profiles). As the yeast converts the sugars into alcohol, we’ll add specific products to encourage healthy fermentation. After one or two weeks of intense babysitting, the grape juice has been magically transformed into wine. If the red wine has been fermented as “must,” our bladder press then separates the wine from the remaining solids (now called “pomace”) but if the wine is white or rosé the skins and seeds were already eliminated prior to fermentation. Either way, we now have wine. At that point we’ll choose if we want that wine to “go through ML” (malolactic fermentation and a future KP article).

Step 4: Preservation

Wine is a food and food spoils. Wine spoilage can be due to many variables: temperature, exposure to oxygen, light, acidity, percentage of alcohol, tannins, residual sugars and/or age. The most proven way to protect wine from spoilage is the judicious use of sulfur dioxide (SO2) which kills undesirable yeasts and bacteria. Sulfur, a naturally occurring preservative, is Mother Nature’s way of protecting Her foods, and is found in almost all food. Winemakers usually add small, undetectable amounts to sure that their wines are protected. (“Sulfur-free wine” is misleading as all wine contains naturally occurring sulfites.)

Step 5: Aging

At this point in the wine’s development the young wine needs time to develop and this aging process can last from months to years. (Remember how seasoned and grown-up you were when you were a teenager? Like you, the wine simply needs time to develop its character, stabilize and mature.

Step 6: Bottling

Wine is bottled when the winemaker feels the wine is ready to be consumed (or the bank balance is low). We schedule our bottlings one year in advance: March for our whites/rosé, and August for our reds. (I find bottling our wine is a bit like experiencing the wonder of birth. You’ve worked, prepared, worried and waited for that cherished moment when you can finally hold that little critter in your hands.)

Here at GlenLyon, Harvest & Crush 2025 were eleven separate events, beginning with a joyous early morning harvest on September 12, 2025; and ending 44 days later on October 25, 2025. As I have said before, Mother Nature controls pretty much everything, and October 24 found Her a wee bit on the cranky side.

So … what happened on that “final day” of Harvest & Crush 2025?

We knew our “final day,” (October 24, a Friday) was going to be intense and complicated. Rain was threateningly intermittent, so we scheduled three different “days of work” for that Friday. It was going to be a long day, but knowing it was the final day, our trusty crew was up for it. Quite early we used our bladder press to successfully squeeze out the juice on our just-picked estate grenache (for rosé). Later that morning and after a thorough cleaning, we were on to job #2: to press a tank of red cabernet sauvignon, now finished with primary fermentation. Mission accomplished! As darkness was approaching, our final jobs were to quickly clean and set aside that equipment, then put our destemmer in place for processing a just-arrived grenache for red wine. Things were going well, and then … you guessed it! The world went dark!

PG&E insisted that it was a “temporary outage,” (we all know they are prone to fib), so we added dry ice to the covered grenache for CO2 protection, called it quits, had some dinner and a glass of fine Sonoma Valley wine, and got some sleep. Apparently (and as we slept) Dionysos went over Mother N’s head to chat with Her Mother (Gaia), and early the next morning the power had been miraculously restored. “Harvest 2025” may have been over on Friday, October 24, but with the help of two Saturday-available good friends (plus Dionysos, Gaia and Mother N) we were able to finish “Crush 2025” one day later. There will be months of winemaking in front of us, but “Harvest and Crush 2025” was finally put to bed!

As I type this mid-November, most of my days are still spent in the winery helping Mother N make her wine. By the time you read this column in December (if all goes well) all the eleven wines will be safely aging and maturing in barrels, awaiting bottling (and their birth) in 2026. Here’s to a wonder-filled 2026!

Squire Fridell, CEO, CFO, COO, EIEIO, WINO, Winemaker, Vineyard Manager & Janitor GlenLyon Winery & Two Amigos Winery Glen Ellen, CA Sonoma Valley, squire@glenlyonwinery.com

Photo by Melania Mahoney

KENWOOD PRESS #47 – March 1, 2025

IS WINE GOOD (OR BAD) FOR YOU?

Squire Fridell

Enter Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo!

We are dedicating a major portion of this Newsletter to respond to the US Surgeon General’s misguided proclamation.

Good News… Bad News… As a winemaker Squire has a certain bias…but he has written a well researched response about what our Surgeon General has stated (as fact) about alcohol.

WHAT’S THE BAD NEWS?

On January 3 the US Surgeon General, 47 year old Vivek Hallegere Murthy, made a startling proclamation: “just one drink (of alcohol) per week over a lifetime would raise your cancer risk significantly.

IS THERE GOOD NEWS?

A lot of it. Coincidentally, and just two weeks prior to the surgeon general’s damning edict, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) completed an exhaustive scientific study on alcohol (Google “NASEM & Alcohol”). Their scholarly study examined the relationship between alcohol consumption and eight specific health outcomes, including cardiovascular disease, all-cause mortality, and certain types of cancer. I have summarized their “take home” conclusions below:
*All-Cause Mortality: Compared with never consuming alcohol, moderate drinking of alcohol will lower all-cause mortality. (You’ll live longer!)
*Cardiovascular disease: (You’ll be less likely to have heart problems!)
*Weight Changes: (You won’t gain weight if you drink moderate alcohol!)
*Neurocognition: The study found there was no association between moderate alcohol consumption and the risk of cognitive decline such as Alzheimer’s disease. (You can’t blame misplacing your car keys on last night’s glass of wine!)
*Cancer: There was no difference between non-drinkers and moderate drinkers for the risk of colorectal cancer. There did seem to be a correlation between female breast cancer and alcohol consumption, but only if higher amounts of alcohol were consumed. (Good reason to drink moderately!)

ANY OTHER GOOD NEWS?

*A few years back 60 MINUTES broadcast an episode entitled “The French Paradox” reporting that there was a 36% lower incidence of cardiovascular disease in French people than in their American counterparts. Even though both populations had a relatively high dietary intake of saturated fats, the apparent difference was that the French drank much more red wine than we do. (They still do!)

Just this past year, 60 MINUTES broadcast another positive piece on wine. Their well-documented “Mediterranean Dream Diet” episode concluded that wine with a meal could lead to a longer life.

WHAT’S FLAWED ABOUT THE SURGEON GENERAL’S EDICT?

The majority of scientific studies conclude that there are many possible benefits to moderate alcohol intake, the primary benefit would be lowering your risk of death. Why did our surgeon general make his anti-alcohol proclamation in spite of the overwhelming positive data (and just after the NASEM scientific study was published)? No one knows but the NASEM study was first to warn that “abstainer bias should always be considered”. (I’ll wager that our surgeon general is a non-drinker). They also correctly pointed out that in order to conduct any scientific study all of the criteria must be well defined. Unlike the NASEM study, he did not attempt to define “moderate consumption” nor did he consider life style, age, sex, socio-economic differences, diet, level of exercise or a host of other variables.

WHAT SHOULD I DO?

First: Just click on the Two Amigos home page www.twoamigoswines.com and read Squire’s complete article.

Life is filled with choices. Wine has been an important part of our existence for well over 8,000 years. I believe that we should eat well, drink well and enjoy every day to its fullest.
Raise a glass of fine Sonoma Valley wine tonight!

“Wine is sure proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy”
Benjamin Franklin

“No poem was ever written by a drinker of water”
Homer

“Wine is the most hygienic of all beverages”
Louis Pasteur

“If penicillin can cure those who are ill, good wine can bring the dead back to life”
Alexander Fleming

Squire Fridell
Winemaker, Vineyard Manager, CEO, CFO, COO, EIEIO, Wino & Janitor
GlenLyon Vineyards & Winery
Two Amigos Wines

KENWOOD PRESS – May 6, 2022

Journey to Harvest . . . and Beyond!

Monthly postings by Squire Fridell

Sonoma Valley… 200 Years of Growing Wine Grapes!

At the end of this month, the 127th Vintage Festival Weekend will be happening here in Sonoma Valley, celebrating the 200th year of growing wine grapes in our Valley. That’s right…200 years! Wow!

That would put the year at 1824 and, certainly, twenty decades is a reason to celebrate. That beginning year may have been a long time ago (even before I was born!) but it’s not the earliest record of California’s wine grape planting.

Before 1824…
Winemaking had been a common practice throughout Europe for thousands of years, but it wasn’t until relatively recently that grape growing and winemaking began on this continent. Until 1821, Mexico (and what is now Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, and Texas) were lands owned by Spain, a very religious country. The Spaniards began building missions (religious outposts) as far back as the 17th century in Baja California in order to “spread the Christian Gospel”. Along with each mission, the missionaries grew grapes for religious purposes as wine was a necessary element of holy communion.

In 1769, seven years before the signing of our Declaration of Independence, Spain began expanding north into “Alta California” to build even more missions. A religious priest by the name of Father Junipero Serra was dispatched by Spain to travel into this uncharted land, which later became “California.” His first stop was (what is now) San Diego and there, Father Serra built his first mission that he christened “Mission San Diego de Alcalá.” As that mission was being built, of course, Father Serra planted grapes to make the wine that was necessary for communion. When the wine experiment proved to be a resounding success, Father Serra was dispatched by his mother country to move further north. Mission San Juan Capistrano was built next, and they planted 2,000 grapevines at that site. Spain then tasked Father Serra to continue farther north and establish more missions. Serra eventually created eight missions during his lifetime. In total, 21 missions were constructed in Alta California, each with its own vineyard to produce wine for communion.

And then…
In 1823, the 21st and final mission, San Francisco Solano, was built just off the town square right here in our hometown. Our “Sonoma Mission” was the only mission of the 21 that was built under Mexican rule rather than Spanish, as Mexico had finally gained independence from Spain in 1821. Father José Altimira was the missionary responsible for the task and within one year, he had planted enough vines to produce 1,000 gallons of wine per year (certainly enough for communion!). Like all the missionaries and missions, the goal of the missions was to convert the indigenous population into baptized Christians. As we now know, there were many devastating results of those ill-guided intentions including tragic impacts on indigenous peoples and their cultures. (But that’s another story for another time…)

General Vallejo Statue on the Sonoma Square

Enter Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo!

In 1834, just ten years after Altimira had built his mission in our valley, two things happened that would forever change the world in which we now live. First, the Mexican government decided to appropriate and de-commission the mission and the vineyards began to grow fallow. Secondly, that same year the Mexican government assigned General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, the enterprising commandant of the Presidio in San Francisco, to command this rural “backward” village where the mission had been created. After Vallejo arrived with his family and took charge, he immediately went about building homes for himself and his large family and he began to lay out our Plaza, build barracks to house his troops, and design and name the streets in our town. (If you have not visited the barracks on our square or the beautifully restored “Vallejo homestead” not far from our plaza on Spain Street, I encourage you to do so.)

The saving grace was that Vallejo loved wine. Two years after he settled, he began to plant 20,000 grapevines to continue where the missionaries had left off, this time not planting grapes to make wine for communion but to enjoy wine as a commercial beverage. It proved to be a sound investment for him and by 1854, Vallejo’s wine had produced an income of $20,000 (a huge amount of money in those days). Vallejo’s brother Salvadore, also seeing profits, began planting additional vineyards east of Sonoma, one of which eventually became today’s Buena Vista. (Read the rest of our tumultuous, feast-to-famine history of wine in our Valley in my earlier “History of Wine” Kenwood Press articles.)

The Name “Sonoma”…
Vallejo was probably the first to use the word “Sonoma” as the name for his new pueblo. Even though it was disputed for years where the name originated, anthropologists now say that “Sonoma” is a compilation of two Wappo tribes’ words: “tso” meaning “earth” and “noma” meaning “home or village.” Put them together and say it fast and it comes out pretty close to “Sonoma.” There you go…. For over 150 years, we’ve also been known as The Valley of the Moon (another disputed origin) which became the popular novel penned by our own Jack London in 1913.

What Grape Varieties Did the Missionaries Plant?
The common variety that those missionaries planted for communion up and down our coast was a thickskinned, drought-tolerant, high-yielding red variety they called “the mission grape”. The grape’s origin is disputed but is closely related to varieties from Spain, Chile, and Argentina.

It is thought that the early missionaries had brought the grape cuttings with them from Spain (more dispute). As the missions moved up our coast and the acreage of grapevines for communion increased, cuttings from those early vines were propagated and traveled with the missionaries to the next site and planted. Even though the mission grape has pretty much disappeared from today’s vineyards, it’s interesting to note that up until 1880, it was the most common variety planted and grown in California. Unfortunately (or fortunately as we look back) about that time, a worldwide vine disease called phylloxera destroyed almost all of the grapevines in the world, Sonoma included. When the solution was discovered late in the 1800’s (grafting to resistant rootstock), we subsequently had discovered European varieties, and the mission grape was replaced with what we felt were higher-quality European grapes. (One of those original 18th century mission grapevines is located at the San Gabriel Mission. The rambling vine is affectionately known as “Vina Madre”).

Don’t miss the Sonoma Valley Vintage Festival, September 26 to 28, celebrating our 200 years of growing grapes for wine! Some events on Sept 28 are free, including the Blessing of the Grapes at 9:30 a.m. on the plaza, the Firefighter Water Fights following at 11 a.m., and the Artisan Festival on the plaza with live music, food, and wine from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Suzy and I will be at every event, so come up and say “Hi”!

“We are all mortal until that first kiss… or that second glass of wine.”

– Edwardo Galeano

“Men are like wine – some turn to vinegar, but the best improve with age.”

– Pope John XXIII

Squire Fridell
Winemaker, Vineyard Manager, CEO, CFO, COO, EIEIO, Wino & Janitor
GlenLyon Vineyards & Winery
Two Amigos Wines