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…
>>> 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 MOREIn case anyone is concerned that I haven’t mentioned the wine…..no worries! It’s being taken very good care of too. The 06’s and 07’s have recently been racked and are now resting snuggly in their French and American Oak barrels! Our winemaker, Chad Joseph, was especially impressed with the’07 Old Vine Zinfandel from Lizzie James Vineyard. Can’t wait to see what another year of barrel aging will do for it. While the wine has been “resting”, we have not been. We have our first bottling date set for July 12th so we have been busy…
>>> READ MOREWell, about a week ago the ground was officially broken! The graders arrived, started moving dirt around and cutting the pads for the two buildings. Made it all a bit more real to see something finally happening. It was great to be able to get some real perspective of where everything will sit in relation to each other. Looks like it will all lay out even better than we could of hoped for!! One of these evenings Mom & Dad and Kyle & I are going to go stand in the “tasting room”, enjoy the…
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