Brutocao-Bliss Family Story

Have you ever wanted to know the story behind the Brutocao and Bliss brands? Well, that is what today’s post is all about.

Once upon a time...

Back in 1939 Irv Bliss (my great grandfather) bought a ranch in Healdsburg, CA. Irv was previously a metallurgist but hated that and wanted to take up farming. He knew nothing of farming at the time, but loved nature, the outdoors and beautiful land. As it turns out, around the time he bought his land in Healdsburg, he and his brother drove through Hopland, CA and stopped on ‘Old Toll Road’ to stare in awe at the beauty of the ranch in that valley. Over the next 3-4 years Irv continued to farm his land, growing prunes and grapes as well as raising cattle. One day, he read in the paper about a tax auction in Hopland for a 450 acre ranch. He didn't have time to check out the land, but went directly to the courthouse with $2,300 cash in hand. The rules stated that you must have 10% cash down to buy the land, and as fate would have it, Irv won the auction and the land for $23,000. After the auction was over Irv drove up to Hopland to see his new property and stood, as he had 3-4 years earlier, on ‘Old Toll Road’ looking at his beautiful new ranch!

This land has now been in the family since 1943, and is known as the “Bliss Ranch.” We have 193 acres of grapes planted between Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and some Port varieties.

More on how the two families became one.

Irv had 3 daughters, Marty Bliss being the middle child. She met Leonard Brutocao (We call him Nonno-Italian for Grandpa) when they were in college together at UC Berkely and got married. This brought the Bliss and Brutocao families together. Out of college, Nonno and his brother Al started a construction company, Brutoco Engineering, in Southern California. In 1976 Nonno and Al purchased the Bliss ranch from Irv farming and selling grapes to local wineries. In 1980 the price of grapes dropped so low that they couldn’t sell all of the grapes, leading Nonno and Al to try making wine themselves. throughout the 80's this happened a few more times and in 1990 Brutocao Cellars was officially formed to start producing estate wines.

In the years following 1976, Brutocao Vineyards and Cellars has grown to include 4 separate ranches, each with many micro-climates. These micro-climates are very advantageous to producing a variety of wines. In total now there are now about 500 acres of grapes planted which is enough for our Brutocao and Bliss labels as well as to still sell to other wineries.

Grandma and Nonno had 5 children, 3 of which work at Brutocao now. Their oldest son David is one of the winemakers, their middle son Lenny is in charge of the vineyard management, and their youngest son Steven is the CEO. 4^th generation family include Kevin Brutocao primarily working in the tasting room, but he can be found wearing many hats throughout the business. Also, I recently started with Brutocao doing marketing and sales. *cough cough* (if you want to buy wine or know someone who does- e-mail me!) RyanBrutocao(at)gmail.com

Until next time, Live Simply, Laugh Often, Wine Alot

Harvest-Barreling and Bottling

The final stage of making wine is letting it age in barrels and then bottling. After the juice has been crushed, pressed, and fermented it will be moved to oak barrels. Our barrels are usually made from either American or French oak. From what I know, the difference between French and American oak comes down to the tighter grains in French oak and more flavor in American oak. (I will study this topic more and report back later)

Once the wine is moved to barrels it will sit there for about 18 months. During this time, some wine evaporates through the wood and the remaining wine also takes on flavors from the oak. Newer oak barrels will lend much stronger flavors to the wine, so at Brutocao we use a mix of new, younger and older barrels to maintain an even blend of flavors and aromas at the end. Also during this period, the barrels need to be topped off periodically. While this doesn’t seem like a lot of work, it takes a lot of time to get the forklift, unstack up to a hundred barrels, get the pumps sanitized, do all of the work, and restack the barrels. A simple task like this can take 2 people 4-5 hours!

Not all wine is put in barrels. Almost all of Brutocao wine is barreled, but their Bliss line is not. When wine is not barreled it is often left in the stainless steel tanks where oak sticks or chips will be added to lend an oaky characteristic to the wine.

Once the wine maker decides that the wines are ready, he and his staff will smell/taste all of the barrels and come up with a wonderful blend that gives the wine the desired color, taste, aroma, texture, structure and acidity. When this blend is achieved they will mix all of the selected barrels together and send it to the bottling line.

Once the wine arrives at the bottling line, empty glass bottles are loaded into the bottling line. A machine will blow the inside out with high-pressured air to remove any possible dust particles, then the bottle is filled with wine and a spray of nitrogen is inserted on top right before the cork is inserted. The nitrogen is placed in the bottle because it is heavier than air and will prevent the wine from coming into contact with oxygen once inside the bottle. After the cork is placed, the bottle moves over to a capper where a foil cap is placed on top and sealed tight. The final step is the label application, where in one seamless motion the bottle rolls in a circle and the front and back labels are applied. At the end, the wine bottles are put into a box and stored in our warehouse until their release date.

Harvest- Making the wine

The winemaking process is way more complex then I ever imagined. In my last post I described how the juice gets extracted from the grapes and delivered to the tank. At that point all you have is thousands of gallons of juice that is about 25-29 bricks, or about 12.5- 14.5 percent sugar. Very sweet! If left to sit, naturally occurring yeasts from the air and fields would eventually take off and start fermenting the juice giving you wine. This is not what the winemakers want to have happen though. Since the yeasts dramatically affect the flavor components of the wine, we want to add specific yeasts that will flavor it how we want. Every few days after the yeast has been added to white wines there are other additions that are made to control PH levels, acidity, to keep proteins down and to clarify the juice by dropping many of the particulate matter in the tank to the bottom, including dead yeast cells. This thick layer on the bottom of the tank is called lees and can often lend favorable flavor characteristics to the wine.

Red wine is made with a slightly more laborious process. At Brutocao Cellars, we have many wines that are produced in small lots. Often these wines have unique flavor profiles and are carefully blended together to make complex fine wines. All red grapes that come in go through a very similar process though starting with de-stemming and ending in the fermentation container, whether that be a large steel tank, a 2 ton plastic bin, or an open top stainless steel tank. When red grapes come in, they are left alone for up to a week before we do anything to them. This allows the skins to release lots of color, flavor, acids and tannins to the juice. Once the yeast is added, the labor intensive work begins. The grapes on the top of the tank are in contact with air, so juice from the bottom of the tank/bin needs to be pumped to the top. This is either done with a pump and hoses, or by hand with a metal plate attached to a pole. When the yeasts become active, the release of carbon dioxide as a byproduct of fermentation pushes the skins to the top of the tank forming a ‘cap’. If the cap is left to dry for too long it becomes susceptible to bacteria growth that will negatively affect the flavor of the wine. The cap needs to punched/wetted about 2-3 times per day for the duration of the winemaking process. (about 3-4 weeks for reds) With 20-25 tanks and 15 bins of red grapes, that is a lot of cap wetting. This was one of my main jobs while working at the vineyard this past summer.

Once almost all of the juice has been fermented, you essentially have wine. At this time, all of the juice needs to be drained to another tank and all of the skins shoveled out to bins and then pressed. On a good day, we could drain and press 2 large tanks, or we could do about 5 small open top tanks as long as they are the same varietal. From here, the wine is then stored in oak barrels for up to 18 months. The oak adds a lot of flavors and structure to the wine as well. More on oak to come in a different post.

The red grapes leave a nice purple stain on everything...

Harvest- Crush

My first day of harvest was quite a fast paced and confusing learning experience. As I said earlier, I knew nothing of the wine world. I arrived at 7 AM, introduced myself to my new co-workers and boss and then got a quick tour. Making wine seemed easy enough. Crush the grapes, let them sit in a tank with some yeast for a few weeks, and then put the wine into bottles or barrels, right? I could only wish it were really that easy. I quickly learned how much more there is to this winemaking business and very quickly grew to appreciate the hard work that gets put into every bottle.

That first morning, Brutocao Vineyards employees hand picked several tons of Sauvignon Blanc and delivered them to our crush pad around 8 AM. I had no clue how much work goes into setting up the machinery. First, we need to grab our duty list for the day and make sure all appropriate tanks, presses, and pumps are cleaned, prepped, and ready to receive the grape juice. Next we needed to get a 100 gallon tub, partially fill it with water, add some chemicals and take it all to the crush pad to scrub it down and make sure it is properly cleaned so as not to contaminate the grapes. Next connect all of the hoses from the crush pad to the press and then finally to the tank and run the remaining cleaning water through the hoses and pumps to kill any bacteria in there. The cleaning process ends with a full water rinse. When the grapes finally arrive, they are emptied from the picking bins into a large holding bin with an auger in it. From there the grapes travel up the auger into a de-stemmer where the grapes and juice fall down to a collection bin/pump and are pumped to the press. The stems come out the back of the de-stemmer and are loaded into our dump truck for composting back into the fields. The grapes are pumped from the crush pad to the press which works by a giant air bladder squeezing the grapes until all of the juice is out. This juice is pumped into the tank and chilled to about 60 degrees. After all of this is done, everything needs to be scrubbed and rinsed clean so it is ready for the next day.

That is the basics of how white wines are made. Red wines do not get pressed. Instead the grapes are de-stemmed and pumped directly into the tanks where they will essentially sit and ferment for a few weeks. The reason red grapes do not get pressed in the beginning is because the red skins give the juice its color, tannins, and flavor structure. Red wines are pressed at the end of their fermentation process.

These are some photos of the Sauvignon Blanc grapes going from the bin to the press and then the skins being emptied back to a bin at the end. This is the ancient dump truck I drove around the vineyard to compost all of the skins and stems

Introduction

I recently had a friend and a relative both suggest that I start a blog, and after a little consideration I decided, "What the heck!" Then came the dilemma of what to even write about?! What is so interesting about my life that people would want to read? Then it hit me. I am going to write about my journey to learn all things wine related. I want to cover how wine is made, to how it is marketed and sold, to the different methods grapes are grown, picked, and harvested what difference the type of cork really matters. If it relates to wine, I will cover it. Eventually. I hope.

But first- a little bit about me!

This is me! Ryan Bliss Brutocao

I was born in California, raised in Washington, and currently live in Oregon. I have the West Coast covered. I moved to Oregon when I was 18 to attend the University of Portland where I received my bachelors degree in marketing with an emphasis on entrepreneurship. After graduating I went to work for a small advertising company for a few months. Long story short, I was out of work in August and took a trip to visit my grandparents and the family vineyard. While down there I was asked to stay and work harvest. This moment is where my life changed forever.

I impulsively said, "yes." A few days, and thousands of miles on my Subaru later, I had made it back to California with most of my clothes and a smile on my face. Oh what a surprise I was in for. I knew nothing about wine except that it was made from grapes.