Monday, August 18th we started harvest by adding a “new kid” to our lineup! Albariño will be our newest addition to our wine portfolio. We’ve always hoped we would have something that would appeal to everyone. Albariño fits nicely into the mix, giving us a light, crisp white wine that will pair nicely with food. And as luck would have it….it’s one of my favorite white wines as well! So, Monday, the Albariño had quite a day! It was harvested early in the morning and then it was crushed and pressed. (The picture shows the…
>>> READ MOREOkay, actually we are just turning cement into foundation. However, without being blasphemous, it feels like a miracle of similar proportions. That’s right, yesterday we finally had foundation poured for the winery production building. It seems that we have been telling everyone “we’ll be starting next month” forever. I thought maybe it just seemed that way so I looked back in the records. Well, our first meetings with the architect and engineer for this project date back to March of 2007!!! That’s right. Almost a year and a half of architectural work, engineering work (by…
>>> READ MOREI 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…
>>> READ MOREWe’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…
>>> READ MOREWell, nature continues to move ahead with her project at a much faster pace than we seem to. I’m sure that just like a great wine, it will all be worth the wait! As you can see, the crop has “set” and crop loads appear to be somewhat lighter than average in some varieties. Despite this, our crews are very busy this time of year. Shoot thinning has been done and now they are “fruit thinning”. This means they remove part of the immature bunches to improve the quality of the rest. From here on…
>>> READ MORE