Last weekend Holly and I ventured up to El Dorado County to collect a batch of Mourvedre from Sumu Kaw Vineyards; it was nearly a year to the day we’d gone to the same town to gather Sangiovese grapes. Sumu Kaw. Odd name, this, but it apparently means something like “Place of the Sugar Pine” in the local Indian language. The pine in question is the regal-looking one off by itself on the left side of the vineyard above.

Sheila and David Bush own the vineyard, which also sells to local heavyweights like Madrona. This was their first harvest of some recently grafted Mourvedre vines, and they were wondering what sort of wine they’d make. If the old saying about wine being made in the vineyard holds true, this wine will be one for the ages.

First off, they did an immaculate job picking. My Touriga grapes were in good shape, but nothing like the loving care these Mourvedre had obviously received. Out of maybe 220 pounds, only about a dozen bunches had broken grapes. Amazing.

When I got the grapes home and crushed them, the initial juice was a bright, light green. Oh no. Did they pick too soon? I look for purple juice even at crush, and the Touriga was actually brown. Green or no, it was too late now. So I tested the juice: 23.5 brix, titratable acidity of 0.75 and a ph of 3.55. Brix is a measure of sugar, and the two acid tests will give you some idea of the crispness, stability and age-worthiness of the wine; low-acid wines do not age well and can taste flat.

What do all these numbers mean? Well, it meant the sugars were a little low, but the acid was pretty close to textbook perfect. Should I add sugar? Hmmm…grape juices have a tendency to pick up sugars as they rest. I’d wait, and let the grapes soak all day and check in the evening before I pitched my yeast. Sure enough, at dinnertime the must had picked up a brix to make it 24.5. Translation: This wine now had textbook perfect numbers.

My friends over at Catavino, an excellent blog covering Portuguese and Spanish wine, have questioned my decision with the Touriga Nacional to add acid, as well as tannins and an enzyme that extracts more color from the skins. Specifically they were referring to what I said in my last post: A winemaker who wants to make fine wine but who doesn’t use additives, especially acid and/or sugar if needed, is either very lucky or very foolish.

I got very lucky with this Mourvedre. With everything in such balance — the color began to come on strong by nightfall — I didn’t need to add anything special. A tiny bit of sulfite to keep the native yeasts at bay, a classic Rhone yeast and some yeast food were all I added. This wine would need no enzymes or extra tannins. A six-day ferment came and went and here I am at press.

Some say that pressing a wine is a lovely job, something to be savored. They’re either smoking crack or are really, really into S&M. Pressing is a messy, wet, dirty job. Sticky, boozy and oh-so staining, red wine is no picnic to move from one vessel into another. And the leftover tub of spent grape skins, seeds and dead yeast is slimy and stinky. Good for compost, bad for anything white.

I have a glass of the nouveau Mourvedre sitting next to me. There is a chalky layer of dead yeast a half-inch high up the side of the wineglass. It is still fermenting, going through a secondary fermentation called malolactic — this is what makes a buttery Chardonnay buttery. The color is perfect, an opaque garnet that seems as far from that light green juice as autumn is from spring. The bouquet is still pretty yeasty and alcoholic; aging will fix that.

So how does it taste? Bright, round, spicy and a little dusty. It tastes like Mourvedre. What matters more is that it tastes like it may be a great Mourvedre someday. A few months’ rest on the barest sediment of dead yeast called fine lees (add complexity to the wine), then a few months getting to know some French oak and this wine should be excellent. But it needs a name, like the Rainy Sunday Sangiovese I made from last year’s Georgetown Grapes. What sort of name…?

OK, I’ve been deceptive. We knew what we’d name this wine within minutes of picking up the grapes. As we drove out from the vineyard, I spotted a deer to our right. It was close, and it was a very nice buck. I snapped a picture. For all you deer hunters out there, it was a gorgeous 3×3 of about 180 pounds. Sleek and nearly mature.

Clearly a shooter buck. But Holly and I weren’t hunting. So  at once we decided to name this wine “Lucky Buck.”

Aside from the sheer serendipity of the thing, a primary reason I wanted to make wine from Mourvedre grapes is because they go so well with wild game. Mourvedre is a brooding wine that takes on dark fruit flavors and acquires a leathery, Old World taste when it gets it age on. Mourvedre is a major player in the blend that makes up that classic game wine from France, Chateauneuf du Pape.

I was so excited about this I started messing around with a label. The buck in the picture is the buck we saw. I know what some of you are thinking. This wine will not be bottled until June 2009 at the earliest, and I will not release it to my friends and family for at least a year, if not more. But still…