The Walla Wallas are in

Tom & I got the Walla Walla onions planted in the little garden behind the tasting room last evening & sampled the Riesling from the tank - most enjoyable!

Some First Flowers

A Sheppards Purse blooming in the alfalfa

1st Week of March

It has been a beautiful week in the Yakima Valley, but we are promised some cool and rainy weather this week. Just wanted to show everyone what growth has been like this week.
The grapes still look about the same, but the alfalfa and triticale are growing. - Nothing super exciting yet, but still is fun to watch it now in early spring and see how it takes off as the months pass. The distinct rows in the triticale field are becoming less distinct. (The corn stubble you see is due to our minimum tillage methods that help the soil) I am including some pictures from Mike and Gabrielle's farm (Redtail Orchards) too. Their cherries have gone past the first swelling and are into the "green tip stage." The other picture of a bud is from their apple orchard. The apples are quite a bit behind the cherries and in the picture you can just see the silver tip.

This Week Around Dalkeith Farm

While it is still February, we all have spring on our minds. We thought we would start posting pictures on our blog (http://steppecellars.blogspot.com)of how things are progressing around the farm and in the vineyards.

We will post updates throughout the year to show how the vineyards and fields are changing as the days get longer and the heat units increase.

The top two pictures show the growth in the alfalfa field. The third one shows what the Riesling vines look like today. The last picture is of the triticale.

Thanks for a great weekend!

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone that stopped by for Red Wine and Chocolate this weekend. The event was tons of fun for us! We hope that everybody else enjoyed it as much as we did. Some of our friends stopped by the winery after a horseback ride on Sunday, that is when this was taken. They let us get out from behind the tasting bar and ride their horses a little. Good times. We started racking some reds today, everything is smelling great.
-Neil

Red Wine and Chocolate!

Just finishing up for the day, boy has it been a rough afternoon. We had to taste the chocolate today. It was decided that we were going to go with a blend of the 60% Cacao and the 70% Cacao dark chocolate bars for the fondue pot. They stood up to the tannins in our reds pretty well. We are thinking that we will have a second fondue with just milk chocolate for everybody that is looking for something a bit easier to just snack on and not necessarily pair with red wine. It will probably go well with our lighter bodied reds too.

We have been getting everything freshened up in the tasting room. Managed to get some of our 2007 Tempranillo/Grenache/Mouvedre out of storage today, we will be releasing it to the public this weekend. We are all very excited to share this wine with everyone, should be great for this event. Had a minor tragedy involving a broken bottle while we were moving cases of this wine around, it is always a sad day when red wine goes to waste. Save for that everything is going very well and we are all looking forward to having a great time this weekend, stop by if you are around!

-Neil

Winter Work

Winter is really getting going here at Steppe. We had some snow a little earlier in the month, it gave everything a great winter feel. The sun came out these last two days and kind of took care of that though. I have got to say that I am a little sad to see it go.

I just had a great day in the cellar today. Our 2009 Reds finished Malolactic Fermentation a bit ago and are coming along nicely, according to Anke (our winemaker). I will post an update when we get around to racking them. Just got ready for some cellar work that will be taking place tomorrow, cleaned hoses and a tank, mixed some claryfing agent up and organized the cellar today. It was nice to get back to it after the winter break. We will be starting to fine the 2009 Riesling on Thursday. We will mix a clay like mixture into the wine to help clarify it, should be fun.
-Neil