Local Wine Country

Hiking in Santa Monica Wine Country

 As I am not a wine connoisseur, I did not associate the  Santa Monica Mountains with wine tasting and was skeptical about making a date for a 2.5 hour tour in the hills.

However, as the journey through the marine layer of the lowlands made way for the  blue sky and sun of Kanan Dume Canyon, so did my expectations. The drive up this canyon is spectacular, the rugged brush terrain is dotted with flowering yuccas, poppies and mustard brush and  Malibu beach sparkles  blue in the distance. 

“Malibu Wine Hikes” is tucked away up a small road where west Mulholland Highway intersects Zuma Ridge Fire Rd. The site sits just below Saddle Rock and with an astounding 1,000 acres and an elevation at it’s peak of 2,000 ft offers a panoramic view stretching from Westlake Village to Point Magu. Saddle Rock sitting at  2,800 is  a well-known landmark most Los Angelenos know by name if not sight and is a rock that has for centuries figured in the indigenous Chumash culture.

Recently planted vines in the foreground with Mitten Rock in the background

Saddlerock Ranch is the location of Malibu Wine Hikes and is an industrious farm and winery that was established by Ron Stemler who planted the first Sauvignon Blanc vines. When the vine population was expanded to include red grapes, the winery established its reputation for wonderful Malbec and Cabernet Sauvignon wines.

The 2.5 mile hike took me through acres of vines that had been recently planted in the wake of the devastating Woolsey fire that decimated the ranch crops and buildings in 2018. Thankfully, the resilience of nature has all but removed most reminders of the fire apart from the stone ruins of the family home and some scarred avocado and oak trees.

 In the Martin Pierce collection of vine door and cabinet hardware our inspiration  for the pieces came from both the lithe green vines as well as the more woody old growth vines.

Recently planted vines in the foreground with Mitten Rock in the background

When is a wine cellar a grotto?

If this sounds like a punch line to a joke, then please do let me in on the joke.

The answer maybe “When you live in Texas”.

I had a lovely conversation this week with a resident of Texas and since we both have accents and are soft spoken I spent a good 3 minutes believing I had misunderstood when she had asked if we made hardware for wine grottoes, eventually I confessed my ignorance and my vocabulary has now grown.

Turning to Wikipedia I discovered that the word comes from the Italian “grotto” and the French word “grotte” both meaning either a natural or man-made cave or cellar not surprising given that both countries have been making wonderful wines for centuries.

Next I turned by attention to the back set of the door that was being custom made in maple with a proposed back set of 2 3/8”. The back set is the distance from the edge of the door to the center point of the back plate or escutcheon. The wider the back plate the deeper the back set will need to be. The center of the back plate is where the lever or knob will be positioned or in the case of a locking door it will also be where the cylinder face is positioned. The handle set components are centrally positioned on the back plate to give symmetry to the trim. The handle set is then positioned on the door stile and if sufficiently wide will be centered but if space is tight it may be positioned closer to the edge of the door.

Door latches and locks are made with standard back sets with 2 3/8” and 2 ¾” being common for tubular latches and 2 ½” and 2 ¾” being common for mortise locks.

The Grapevine entry lever set has a standard back plate that is 4” with the center being 2”. If the door was built with a bore hole for lever/knob at a back set of 2 3/8” then this would leave a mere 3/8” clearance from the outer edge of the back-plate to the edge of the door an area that will often be caught by the door’s stop which is why we recommend a 2 3/4” back set. For doors that have already been drilled for a 2 3/8” back set we do offer a narrower 3 3/8” back plate with a 1 11/16” center.

Wine Cellar Door Hardware

We are expanding our collection of wine cellar door hardware and have just designed a small cabinet pull that will function more as a cabinet knob.

The design was sketched by hand at full scale and from both the plan and front views.

The vine knob at 2 ½”W, 1 1/2” was designed for cabinet drawers and as a complimentary piece to the larger 6 ½” vine pull.

The small scale of this piece enabled Martin Pierce to carve it from a block of blue wax manufactured by Ferris® being a wax designed for use with high speed machines as well as steel carving chisels.

The outline of the knob was drawn with a felt tip pen onto the face of the block of wax which was then cut out on a band-saw. The individual leaf segments and fine leaf outline were cut using a slow moving scroll saw. Martin then carved the fine veins and shaped the leaf contours using 3 types of chisel and an improvised hand scraper made from a band-saw blade.

Many of Martin’s chisels were acquired when he was an apprentice wood carver and they were made by legendary William Marples & Sons in Sheffield, England. The chisels were forged from the finest Sheffield steel and they maintain their sharpness even when cutting dense hardwood.

For the carving enthusiasts and hobbyists amongst you can read more about the superlative chisels that were made by William Marples by visiting http://www.williammarplesandsons.com

Rio Grande is a good source for the blue carving wax

New Grapevine Door Knob Added to Wine Cellar Door Handle Collection

Our grapevine door handle collection has, until now, focused on capturing the gnarly quality of vine stems and the distinctive serrated shape of their leaves, with less attention on the grapes themselves.  This focus worked well for creating long door grips and horizontal door levers but was not well suited for a door knob.  

Grapevine Door Handles

With this in mind, we began work on a new vine door knob and in our July 12th post  shared with you how Martin Pierce created detailed  perspective drawings as guidelines for his 3 dimensional wood pattern. The pattern was carved in basswood, sealed with primer and used to create a 2 piece hollow core mold. Red wax was poured into the mold and several wax replicas were made. The wax facsimiles were then coated with successive layers of fine ceramic slurry to form an outer wall and the pieces  were baked to form a rigid ceramic shell.  Once baked, the ceramic shells were  heated in a de-waxing  autoclave and steam was  pumped into the shell to remove the wax. The wax was then  filtered, cleaned  and  recycled for future use. The de-waxed shell was subsequently invested with molten bronze and after cooling, the gates that delivered the fluid metal were ground away and the bronze casting was ready to “chased” or refined by hand.

Seven weeks later and we have now machined our first castings, added the spindle and  internal springs, fitted our existing vine leaf back-plate and finished by hand our first pieces.  We hope you like this new addition to the collection.