Simi Winery, History in a Wine Glass. By Kathleen Thompson Hill September 01, What would you do as an year-old woman who inherits a winery in ? Expand the winery, of course. Photo 1: Courtesy of Simi Winery. More Kathleen Thompson Hill articles. Sign Up for Our E-Newsletter! Get seasonal recipes and food stories delivered every week. Find it Javascript is required to view this map. Simi Winery. Communities Near You. Edible San Francisco. All rights reserved. Get seasonal recipes and food stories every week.
Known for its diverse soils and complex geology, the warm Alexander Valley is well suited to red Bordeaux varieties, particularly Cabernet Sauvignon. Many natural forces occurred over hundreds of thousands of years to make the Russian River Valley the heralded wine region that it is today. Hailing from Santa Rosa, Lisa fell in love with food and wine at an early age. But there was something about the vineyards that called to her. It wasn't just the science of winemaking, but the art as well, the craft that could translate a place into a bottle.
Lisa began her career at SIMI, spending nine years with the winery before diversifying her experience with positions at Pine Ridge and Arrowood. SIMI welcomed her home as winemaker creating world-class wines.
And while Lisa would never require her friends and family to exclusively drink SIMI, there's no greater compliment than for someone to tell her that SIMI is their house wine. Giuseppe Simi left the Tuscan hills in Montepulciano, Italy to find his fortune in the gold fields of California.
Even as harvest winds down, the days can be hectic, reports Nick Goldschmidt. The fog rolled in, which I did not predict would happen until Wednesday or Thursday. Cruising around these days in the vineyards, it was in the high 80s. Then we got the fog that makes it a bit cooler, and with the fog and cool weather, everything rehydrates. It's been a topsy-turvy climate, and I'm really glad I didn't run out and pick anything in a mad panic the last two days.
So where is Simi's harvest at this point? What's left is Cabernet, and there's a little bit of Chardonnay -- about 20 percent more to go, or something like that. And all of that is in the Green Valley, so it's relatively cool material we're working with there. What is happening with the grapes, considering they have had such a long hang-time?
The Cab is holding up really well, he says. We're not getting any shrivel or anything that you would expect when you get really high temperatures.
The vines are in really good status and holding up on their own. Because Simi has a substantial annual production of around , cases, Goldschmidt is now mainly concerned with keeping all the grapes moving quickly so they can be crushed and put in the tanks to make room for the next load ready for the crusher. We're having massive days. I think by Saturday every tank will be full, he says.
But in the midst of all the chaos, there has been an advantage to this on-again, off-again harvest, Goldschmidt says. Not only have we had really long hang-times [for the grapes], but in the tanks, I like having the wines on the skins as long as possible.
Gives it a little richness and extra flavors. Tuesday, Oct. We've just been crushing like crazy, Goldschmidt reports. Every tank with a door in it now has red grapes in it. Goldschmidt explains that he needs to manage what is going into the winery -- and at what pace -- to ensure that the grapes get optimum time during all the phases, from growth to fermentation and pressing. The only way we can continue to process everything, obviously, is to press off red grapes. At the same time, I don't want to press off anything until it's been on skins for three weeks minimum, hopefully four weeks.
So Goldschmidt is now juggling tank space. At this point, we're pacing [harvest] based on tanks we can press off. At Simi, we generally only turn our tanks 1. Careful planning is required to maintain top quality in the wines, he says. No matter what, we certainly are not going sacrifice quality to get everything in from the fields, especially when the grapes out there still have some time left.
And what is the status of the grapes that are still hanging on the vines? Sugars are moderate to high, but we're still waiting for flavors, because at this point the sugars have kind of flattened off, Goldschmidt reports.
The nighttime temperatures have been cool and the days, although warm, have not been warm enough long enough for that final ripening to happen. The white varieties are moving along nicely, he says. We're still pressing whites, still processing whites, still have some Green Valley Chardonnay left. We also have a late-harvest Chard from the Russian River that we won't process until next week. As for the reds, he says, We picked a little Napa Cabernet last week, and we've got a bunch more to go on that, but everything else is from the Alexander Valley.
There we have only one Cab vineyard and one Merlot vineyard and after that, we're pretty much done. It sounds like the Simi staff is working harder than ever. Yeah, everybody's feeling pretty tired, but they can see the light at the end of the tunnel. All the festivities, the after-hour drinkings, they have decreased -- hopefully , he says, with a laugh. I have a feeling they'll all be ready to catch up next week. At Simi, harvest is showing signs of coming to end.
The weather was quite warm over the weekend and that sort of pushed our later stuff along a little bit. SIMI Winery, a historic view. She talked about how in a state full of new wineries, the chance to work for a winery with such a storied history is amazing.
She knew it was critical to keep the winery afloat and even taught piano lessons to make sure she could afford to do so. SIMI Winery was forced to sell most of its vineyards to survive, but Isabelle continue to work at the winery and unlike most companies, it had wine available when sales were again legal. In , before Prohibition went into effect, Sonoma County had wineries.
Nineteen years later, of them had closed—but not SIMI. Isabelle was known for a number of firsts — first tasting room in in a redwood tank that she turned on its side, creating a stone cellar, using the gravity flow of juice to ferment tanks, selling directly from the cellar door and her commitment to a female winemaking team.
He taught her about succession planning, collaboration and the importance of getting out to vineyards and knowing them intimately.
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