Pollak Vineyards

What's New

A Gold for the Cabernet Franc Reserve

The San Francisco Chronicle’s Wine competition results have been published and we are pleased to report a gold medal for our Cabernet Franc Reserve. This competition is the largest event of its kind for American wines. There were more than 4900 entries from more than 1500 wineries with 63 judges acknowledged in their field. We believe the Cabernet Franc was exceptional, but is it flattering and thrilling to have one’s judgment independently affirmed by such a prestigious a competition. Regrettably we had only a small lot of this wine, but we continue to hone our viticulture practices and pay attention to all the steps, yeasts and conditions that yield such wonderful products.

We also received a bronze for our 2007 Merlot, the only eastern wine to receive a medal in its category.

Spring Barrel Tastings

Based upon the success of last year’s barrel tastings, we will again offer this on two weekends in the spring.

Mark your calendars:
March 21 – 22
March 28 – 29

The line up will include 5 wines; our 2008 cabernet sauvignon, the 2008 Meritage, the 2007 Meritage, our 2009 chardonnay , and a sample of our white port style viognier. We thought it would be interesting to compare the 2008 Meritage which will be bottled in April and the 2007 Meritage which will have been in a bottle before its spring release.

The last wine, our port style viognier, was sampled at our December wine dinner and was a hit. We look forward to sharing this newest wine which is made entirely with estate grown grapes. Participants may reserve a case of the wines to be paid and picked up within 30 days of their release. Six bottles of the port may also be reserved.

Special tasting fee: $10 for non case club members

Bottling Schedule

Our first bottling of the new year occurred in mid-January. As in the past it included our 2009 pinot gris, viognier, rosé, Durant white, and Durant red. In preparation for this, wines were racked and bottles, corks and labels assembled for the big day. A portable bottling truck which is a self contained production area is used by most of the local wineries. It backs up against the building. Wine is pumped in, bottles are washed, filled, corked and labeled, and the finished product comes out.

The second bottling will occur in mid-February when the 2008 cabernet franc, merlot and petit verdot are scheduled. Our third bottling will take place later in the spring. This will permit the cabernet sauvignon, meritage and chardonnay to age longer it their French oak barrels.

Vineyard Notes

While the vines rest in the winter months, our crew is nonetheless busy in the vineyards. In December they began the first of two steps in the pruning process. Starting with the pinot gris block, they did a rough pruning of the vines. This entails removing long canes leaving about 8”. This allows us to assess vines that need replenishment or replacement. Later we finish pruning by cutting the vines back to a specific number of fruiting buds. This task is aimed at setting the coming year’s cropload.

With more than 16000 vines, pruning is a deliberate, slow process but part of the attention required for our nascent wine. We also carefully remove all the clippings from the vineyard to reduce any chance of disease. All these steps are aimed at maximizing quality.