Farm projects at Hydeout Sonoma

Farm projects at Hydeout Sonoma

Olives, honey bees, chickens, bats, owls, farmer’s market, and wine…the list of farm projects at Hydeout Sonoma is growing every day. I think you’ll enjoy following along:

Olives and the dreaded fruit fly

The olive fruit fly is ubiquitous now in wine country. Perhaps due to the sheer number of olive trees, or the years of drought, and/or so many olive trees in residential yards that receive zero pest management. But there are several 100% organic and cost effective methods to control the olive fruit fly. See the photo captions:

Honey bee project

We currently have three honey bee hives here at the Hydeout – one hive from a captured wild swarm, one hive from Bee Kind bees in Sebastopol, and one hive from Mann Lake bees.

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Chere Pafford, the acknowledged expert and queen bee of many bee hives in the Sonoma Hyde-Burndale neighborhood, here displays a large drone bee (no stinger!)

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Here, some hive comb that the bees were building in the ‘wrong place’ in the hive. Had to remove it before they got to far. It is important to guide them to build comb only in the frames – where we can later expand or contract the hive as needed when food becomes short and cold weather sets in.

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This comb will soon become a beeswax candle – with guidance from great friend and bee expert Nic Freedman of Bees Rock Ranch in Petaluma

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The miracle of perfect geometry in the world of honey bees.

Chickens

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The Hydeout Sonoma chickens are shifting their energy to egg production as the summer sun warms their environment. Contact Cynthia if you’re interested in eggs.

Fritatta - Farm projects at Hydeout Sonoma

…and this fresh egg frittata is the result!

Tuesday Farmer’s Market on Sonoma Plaza

Neighbor and friend Lori Murray of Lola Sonoma Farms is an expert in pasture-raised 100% organic heritage “Kune Kune” pork resulting in very clean healthy meat. And a great sense of humor too.

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Lori carefully not blocking traffic at the Tuesday Night Farmer’s Market on Sonoma Plaza and showing off her tasty organic pork treat which was widely shared with all within reach.

Bats

Bats are one of the most important and totally misunderstood animals. We are crazy for bats and are encouraging their place here at the Hydeout. Bats are a critical interstitial species (see this link: more about bats). And are a crucial and fully organic living tool in wine country integrated pest management. Bats can eat 1,000 or more mosquitos and insects per night! It is so great that we finally had a very wet winter. But pools of standing of water have created a haven for insects of all kinds. And bats help keep things under control.

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Placing the bat boxes in just the right location will assure it’s success.

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This paddle cactus is providing an incredible place for birds to find water, but is also growing mosquito larvae.

Grape Vines

Weather, gophers, rabbits, water – the pressure on vineyards and grapevines is painfully constant. Even in a small vineyard of just a few acres, it is not unusual to lose 30 or 40 vines per year. Like everything else in farming, it is important to constantly replace the losses with new vines, so that the vineyard is always maintained at peek performance.

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New grapevines from the nursery which have been fully acclimated and are ready to be planted.

Sonocaia – our new winery here at Hydeout Sonoma

Many of you are aware of our multi-year project to launch our “estate reserve” Sagrantino wine. The new name associated with our Sagrantino based wine is “Sonocaia” (pronounced So-No-Kaī-Yah). 

Coming this spring with the first invitations going to our blog post readers like you – the grand release of our first Sonocaia (So-No-Kī-Yah) Estate Reserve Sagrantino. Never heard of the Sagrantino grape? It produces a deep dark delicious red wine, originally from Monte Falco, Umbria…and now from the Sonoma Valley c/o Hydeout Sonoma. More on this soon with a new winery, label, website, and more.

See this chart for some astounding information on this little-known grape variety:

Sagrantino - Farm projects at Hydeout Sonoma

Wine tasting with clients

Faith Armstrong and I routinely meet with our Forward Vines and Wines clients – to taste wine from barrels and bottle samples. We taste not only the wine we’ve made for our clients, but often many other local wines – as a guide to client preferences, i.e. color, acidity, tannin, alcohol, blending, etc. Here we are in the Sonoma Mountain AVA tasting several local Chardonnays.

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Mowing the fence line

What could be better than a Sunday afternoon on the tractor mowing the fence line? For a walking path, a dog run, and especially access and fire prevention, mowing the fence line should be done early and often.

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Moonrise at the Hydeout

A rising full moon at the Hydeout, or anywhere in Sonoma Valley, the “Valley of the Moon,” is a wonderful and heartwarming event.

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Spanish Priorat wine tasting, wild swarm of honey bees, and motorcycling through Morocco

Spanish Priorat wine tasting, wild swarm of honey bees, and motorcycling through Morocco

Blind tasting modern Spanish Priorat

Another fascinating tasting with preeminent host Don Sebastiani at the Swiss Hotel on Sonoma Plaza.

Priorat is in Catalona (Catalunya), a region immediately south west of Barcelona, and directly west of Tarragona. It is rough and rugged in the extreme. For most of its wine history, it was a scenic but otherwise nondescript place with dull brownish wines.  Then, big Spanish wine money started pouring into Priorat in the 1990’s. And now the wines are uniformly modern and new world with swanky stylish labels. Most are made with blends of Garnacha (Grenache) and Cariñena (Carignane). This tasting was a real shocker to all of us as the wines were quite fresh and vibrant, with some evident terroir, and somewhat reasonably priced as well. And all available now at the Bottle Barn in Santa Rose.

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We started the tasting blind; this is an image after the tasting of the 8-bottle lineup, as it turned out organized by age of vines and vintage.

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You can see these wine are all deeply colored, on the core and rim as well. No flaws, no VA, all clean and fresh.

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Part of the team of winemakers and media chatting about how to approach this tasting.

Installing a wild swarm of bees into a new hive box at the Hydeout

Good friend and beekeeper Nic Freedman from Bees Rock Ranch in Petaluma passed this wild swarm on to us for one of our new hive boxes.

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This swarm was caught in a swarm trap using lemon grass oil as bait. These bees may have been wild. Or, they could have been a hive splitting from one of Nic’s overwintering hives (which itself started as a swarm last year).

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How do you transfer bees? Just carefully lift each “frame’ from the swarm box and place it in the new hive box. There are some rules about how fast to move, alignment of boxes, location of the hive, and so forth. Like most things, easy on the surface but complicated when confronting the number of decisions and various opinions on just about everything from various beekeepers.

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About 15 minutes after transfer into the new hive box; the bees are flying out, around, and back into the new hive to figure out where they are, developing navigation cues, and so forth.

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Myself, Nic, and friend and neighbor John Boich, all in our suits and observing the newly installed swarm at the Hydeout.

Motorcycling through Morocco

Just before bud break in our Sonocaia Sagrantino vineyard at the Hydeout, we had a chance to ride our BMW R1200RT through Morocco. We started in Malaga Spain, took the ferry south across the strait Gibralter, and then road through Chefchouan, Fez, the Atlas Mountains, the Sahara Desert, Dades, Marrakech, and Rabat. Lots to report about the geography, food, music, religion, politics, and so forth.

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Older posts you shouldn’t miss:

Sagrantino tasting – our Sonocaia vs Italy

Italian Barolos blind tasting report

50-year old California Cabernet blind tasting

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Back in the Sonocaia winery after a long journey home from Morocco.

Sonoma after the grape harvest

Sonoma after the grape harvest

What happens in Sonoma when the harvest is done?

The very last tank of grapes has finished fermenting. The tank is drained of wine and placed in barrels (that liquid is called the “free run”). Then the remaining fermented grapes in the tank are moved into the press and gently squeezed (and the result is called the “press fraction”). And what’s removed from the press after pressing (called the “pomace”) is either sold as animal feed or recycled into green waste or sent to our distiller and turned into Grappa, Brandy, and Cognac; and the seeds are further pressed into grapeseed oil. And that really marks the end of the harvest season.

Pomace - Sonoma after the grape harvest

This is what 2 tons of dense Syrah grape pomace looks like when it comes out of the press. It’s dark purple and bone dry. The very last cuveé of wine has been barreled.

There still remain some chores to manage over the winter: the newly filled wine barrels will be carefully monitored as the secondary Malo-Lactic fermentation is monitored and managed (and where the tart Malic acid, think green apple, is slowly fermented into Lactic acid, with potential health benefits including improved gut health, immune system support, and antioxidant effects). Barrels must be topped off due to evaporation. And as the wine settles we need to taste every wine to assure things are coming along to our liking. And, we start thinking about which of the older wines need to be prepared for bottling this spring. Last, now is the time for the winery to be thoroughly cleaned from top to bottom. And only then will it be time for everyone to have a much needed rest.

A brief note about the 2022 season: It started off with a really hard freeze right as many grape varieties were just budding out. There was some damage to some vineyards resulting in crop loss as much as 50%. Then after a normal but very dry summer, the record heat wave struck, 5 days over 100F and 5 nights in the 80F’s putting extreme stress on ripening fruit. And then adding insult to injury, 2 inches of rain. It was one of the most confounding and complicated growing seasons ever. More on that when the 2022’s are ready for release in 2024.

Halloween

Halloween is usually the first sign that the wonderful long slog that is harvest and winemaking is about to wrap up. When bright orange pumpkins start appearing all over town, we know the harvest season is almost over.

Chickens

As the cold weather settles in at the Hydeout, the chicken egg production starts to fall off as the chickens shift their energy from egg production to winter feather production. And in our case, they also start flying the coop and hiding their eggs in hilarious hard-to-find places.

Final garden harvest

As is the tradition in the Fall, it’s time to harvest the last of the garden produce, clean it up, and pickle it all in bell jars.

Wood slab table – restarting an old project

In 2020, St Helena in Napa Valley was surrounded by the Glass fire. Acres of gorgeous oak forest was lost. With help from friends, I located and set aside one of the fallen oaks and had one of the fire department crews mill it into oak slabs for me. The new table from this project will go into the new winery barn here at the Hydeout.

Oak slabs - Sonoma after the grape harvest

Two oak slabs, about 10 feet long and 18 inches wide, will be joined along the inside edges to form a new table. The outer live-edges still show the burn scars from the fire. It is a stark reminder of how the fires damaged lives and property.

Margaritas

By the time of the Thanksgiving holiday in late November, winemaking has truly concluded, and our Prickly Pear Cactus flowers are ripe. And that means it’s time for the whole family to get involved in producing our Prickly Pear Agave Nectar. And our tart, sweet, smoky, mezcal Margaritas!

Recipe: Click here!

Living art at the Hydeout

Dear friend, character, bon vivant, and Sonoma artist Jock McDonald, with assistance from his wife Sherry McDowell, set up a photo shoot for a new project Jock is developing called “TRASH.” I can’t say any more at this time as the final form of this new work is on its way to Art Basel in Miami, Florida right now! These are preliminary images only and in no way depict the final art form that Jock has developed. To learn more, click here.

FAMILY

This is the time of year we all gather as family and enjoy another wonderful year of life, trials, tribulations, health and happiness. Here is the entire Hydeout team:

Family - Sonoma after the grape harvest

Happy holidays from the entire Wornick family – Ken, Dennis, Sophia, Cynthia, Harry, with Elyse, Jessica, and Tony the dog

Rain in Sonoma, finally…

Rain in Sonoma, finally…

Give thanks for the rain in your life which waters the flowers of your soul.

Join us as we tour our way around Sonoma County and celebrate the arrival, finally, of the long awaited rains.

And at the bottom of this post, tell us your stories of how you’ve enjoyed the rainy weather?…

When it comes to growing wine grapes, the 2021 vintage in Sonoma was stressful. It rained a mere 13 inches total, and most of that rain fell in three brief events separated widely with hot sunny days. Hardly any water percolated into the root zone of the grape vines. So in many cases, growers had to use a lot of water from deep wells to drip into the vineyard. Conditions are already way better in the 2022 vintage – thanks to all of this early rain. It has rained over 13 inches and it’s still just December 2021. And even better, we haven’t had any sunny days or warm temperatures in between rain events, so the ground has remained saturated and damp. Rain water is far superior to drip irrigation. But that’s a science story for another time. For now, let’s just celebrate getting wet…

Arroyo - Rain in Sonoma, finally...

The Arroyo Seco is a 6.9 mile tributary of Schell Creek that pours down from the Mayacamas, on to Arrowhead mountain, and then across the Hydeout Ranch and Dysfunctional Family Winery at the north west corner of the Carneros appellation

Video: the Arroyo Seco starts to flow

Jack London - Rain in Sonoma, finally...

Jack London State Park was toasted to a crisp by the end of the summer. But when the rain finally came, the park cam alive.

Video: On a hike in Jack London State Park

Creek - Rain in Sonoma, finally...

By December 23rd, the water level of the Arroyo Seco was starting to rise

Video: After another night of heavy rain, the Arroyo Seco flow increased

Rain spout - Rain in Sonoma, finally...

Rain poured off the roof and down the rain chains and sang it’s happy song. This rain water is going directly into our DYS Sagrantino vineyard, our estate red wine, a rare central-Italian red found mostly in Umbria. It’s recently been noted to contain some of the highest polyphenol (antioxidants) levels of any red wine on earth. (vineyard visible in the background).

Video: At the Hydeout, the rain poured down heavy from the roof

Gabian contractors - Rain in Sonoma, finally...

Before the rains really got under way, contractors connected all of the Hydeout Ranch rain gutters to the hand-dug well capturing rain, stopping wasteful erosion,  and recycled back onto the land (white riser pipe)

Gabian - Rain in Sonoma, finally...

And they built a Gabian wall to capture most of the runoff into the ag sump from this small ditch at the edge of the ranch

Video: the new Gabian wall, a beauty of natural construction materials, functions as a dam to hold back water in this minor ditch

Sanctuary - Rain in Sonoma, finally...

Hydeout Ranch animal sanctuary – when we bought the ranch, a fence had been built long ago (as was the habit then) right up against the creek edge. That old fence prevented animals (and people) from safely visiting and moving along the riparian corridor. One of the first projects I undertook was to take down that old fence and built a new fence 150 feet west of the creek. In addition, I built just next to the new fence a long high pile of logs and green waste. Now, with several acres of land open adjacent to the creek, and lots of safe spaces to nest in the log piles, wild animals have returned to occupy this land, including hawks, owls, buzzards, skunks, rabbits, gophers, moles, voles, raccoons, and even a million worms in every puddle.

Video: the peaceful sanctuary providing animals with access to land and water

Mud - Rain in Sonoma, finally...

It rained so hard last night, even the fenced animal sanctuary started to flood. It was fun to wade through it in my knee-high rain boots.

Video: Wading through the large puddle in the animal sanctuary

Horseshoe - Rain in Sonoma, finally...

On my walk this morning along the edge of the creek, I came across the horseshoe. At one time, the Hydeout Ranch housed over one hundred horses and perhaps this horseshoe was tossed or thrown into the creek long ago.

Oak tree - Rain in Sonoma, finally...

One of the prized smaller oaks at the ranch responds to the rain with almost overnight new growth. The red bench sits under the tree next to the doggy cemetery where our Oliver rests. A few years ago, all five of us gathered, dug the hole, wrapped Oliver in a blanket and buried him here.

CBW and KW - Rain in Sonoma, finally...

A quick ride around the ranch to check on things between storms

In other news:

Chem - Rain in Sonoma, finally...

In the lab at the winery, checking pH, TA, and VA levels for wines of the still-fermenting vintage 2021

Video: Lab wine reagents bubbling away

Ken in grapes rotated - Rain in Sonoma, finally...

A final flashback to the middle of the pandemic summer of 2021, one of the driest on record.

Happy holidays and happy new year to all of our blog post readers, now numbering over 1000 strong and growing.

Go here to visit: Hydeout Sonoma Ranch

Go here to order wine for pick or delivery: Dysfunctional Family Winery

Harvest in Sonoma Valley, from Vineyard to Winery, the 2021 season

Harvest in Sonoma Valley, from Vineyard to Winery, the 2021 season

For Hydeout Sonoma and Dysfunctional Family Winery, it’s another wine harvest in the books. Vintage number twenty-three for me.

Here is a quick pictorial essay of the entire 2021 season.

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On a bright blue day in February, pruning of the dormant vines is the first order of business (here we severely pruned an old vine Zinfandel block and piled up these cuttings for a local artist’s wood project)

old vine Zin Sonoma Valley - Harvest in Sonoma Valley, from Vineyard to Winery, the 2021 season

The vines after pruning, a bit of rain falls, and the mustard cover crop starts to push

Frog Creek Ken cuttting the mustard 1 - Harvest in Sonoma Valley, from Vineyard to Winery, the 2021 season

Soon the mustard is towering over the vines (here I am in a drone-shot in a newly planted Cabernet block)

Offset disc 1 - Harvest in Sonoma Valley, from Vineyard to Winery, the 2021 season

It will be time soon to begin actively farming for the season, and so we start prepping the equipment for the next few months of heavy use.

Estate Sagrantino bud break - Harvest in Sonoma Valley, from Vineyard to Winery, the 2021 season

The mustard cover crop is mowed down, the soil warms, the vines wake up, and bud break is under way (but rainfall totals end up well below average in 2021, and the season ending with just 11 inches of rainfall versus a normal of 32 inches, severely taxing the water table as we watch our deep aquifer wells dry up)

Gehricke - Harvest in Sonoma Valley, from Vineyard to Winery, the 2021 season

But grapevines are hardy and soon the vine shoots are elongated, and deep inside the canopy the fruit begins to flower and set.

Tomatoes - Harvest in Sonoma Valley, from Vineyard to Winery, the 2021 season

And our garden at the Hydeout responds to the summer heat with a bountiful harvest

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And the next thing you know, like magic, tons of fruit is ripening quickly.

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The first morning of harvest, and I am headed out at 4:00am, the car still a comfy 71F from being in the garage, but it’s a chilly 48F outside.

Harvest in the dark - Harvest in Sonoma Valley, from Vineyard to Winery, the 2021 season

I arrive to find the crew well underway with harvest, as the first few vines get picked.

Fruit inspection 5am - Harvest in Sonoma Valley, from Vineyard to Winery, the 2021 season

And after a long season of work, the half-ton bins begin to fill with ripe dark inky fruit

Almost done - Harvest in Sonoma Valley, from Vineyard to Winery, the 2021 season

The sun rises and last few rows of this block get harvested.

Half ton syrah - Harvest in Sonoma Valley, from Vineyard to Winery, the 2021 season

And soon many tons of perfectly ripe fruit are ready for delivery to the winery

Harevst wrapped up - Harvest in Sonoma Valley, from Vineyard to Winery, the 2021 season

And eight long weeks later, the last bin of fruit is picked and is headed for the flatbed truck, and the team takes a big sigh of relief.

Tank 20 - Harvest in Sonoma Valley, from Vineyard to Winery, the 2021 season

And now the work moves to the winery, here tank #20 is cleaned and prepped for some ripe Syrah from Kenwood

Yeast - Harvest in Sonoma Valley, from Vineyard to Winery, the 2021 season

The yeast selection for this cuveé has been made, and this particular selection is a powerful one that will reliably finish fermentation in high-alcohol super-ripe red wines

New York City guests - Harvest in Sonoma Valley, from Vineyard to Winery, the 2021 season

Excited clients, family, and friends stop by the winery to celebrate a year’s worth of effort safely in tank

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And once fermentation is complete a few weeks later, the wines are “barreled down” and the season is put to bed!

Click on these live-action videos to get the real feel of the moment:

Picking fruit by hand on a steep hillside

Filling a half-ton bin from the forty pound lug boxes

At the winery, raw fruit from the field is processed in the destemmer

Wine from the 80s and 90s - Harvest in Sonoma Valley, from Vineyard to Winery, the 2021 season

After the harvest, some wine-loving friends gather to share ten special old bottles from our cellars:

  1. Botte Frères Vin D’Alsace Gerwertztraminer, 1990, Cuvee Exceptional
  2. Gundlach Bundshu, Sonoma Valley, 1990, Cabernet Sauvignon
  3. Clos Fourtet, 1st Grand Cru Classé, Saint Emilion, 2005
  4. Grand Vin De La Chateau Latour, Paula, 1990
  5. Haywood, Spaghetti Red, Sonoma Valley, 1983
  6. Silver Oak, Alexander Valley, 2003, Cabernet Sauvignon
  7. Hansen, Limited Release, Paso Robles, 2009, Cabernet Sauvignon
  8. Dalla Valle Vineyards, Napa Valley, 1994 Cabernet Sauvignon
  9. Dalla Valle Vineyards, Napa Valley, 1996 Cabernet Sauvignon
  10. Senots Yendick, Napa Valley, 1999, Cabernet Sauvignon
Huichica at GunBun - Harvest in Sonoma Valley, from Vineyard to Winery, the 2021 season

As the harvest winds down, look no further than just north across the street from the Hydeout Sonoma and Dysfunctional Family Winery to the Gundlach Bundschu Winery and the Huichica Music Festival. This is a photo from opening night on Friday, 10/15/21

Ken on horseback - Harvest in Sonoma Valley, from Vineyard to Winery, the 2021 season

And there’s just enough time before winter arrives for this winemaker to head off to Ennis, Montana for some fresh air