I was out in the Old Vine Zinfandel vineyard last week looking for a picture of color change or veraison. As you can see, I found a great picture showing the variable color in the bunch as this process takes place. Soon this bunch will have full color. Some bunches already do. So, then the sulfuring stops and we wait for sugars and flavors to develop.

I was struck by how amazing some of these vines are and thought you might like to see a picture of one and hear a little more about this vineyard. I’m not even sure this picture does justice to the mass of the ancient trunk which looks much more like a plum tree than a typical grape vine. This Old Vine Zinfandel vineyard was planted in 1904 and is in sandy loam soil. In this soil the roots run deep. We have named this vineyard Lizzie James and it is the source for our Old Vine Zinfandel that we just bottled. Lizzie comes from Elizabeth which is our daughter’s middle name(after her great great grandmother on my father’s side) and James comes from our sons middle name (after his great grandfather on my mother’s side). Like this new winery venture, it is the perfect melding of families to create something new and wonderful! And those of you that got to taste the Old Vine Zinfandel know that it is wonderful.

Be sure to double click on the pictures to open them up.

We’ve successfully taken another step in this crazy process. Saturday, July 12th we bottled all our 2006 reds and the 2007 rosé with the mobile bottler. It was actually a great day and went quite smoothly! We had around 20 people arrive bright and early at 6:30am to help us work and celebrate this huge milestone. With all this help it made for light work for almost everyone. (Sorry to both Tom’s and both Dad’s) Hopefully everyone is moving without pain again! Seriously, the day was a great one! It was surreal to see 2 years worth of winemaking and over a years worth of packaging planning finally come together. It was even better to share it with family and friends!!! I can’t think of a better start—a day filled with love, laughter, family and of course wine!