New Fire Ring

We decided to install a permanent fire ring at the winery! It should be a fun addition to cold day work parties and summer evenings after dark. We are also starting to get ready for Red Wine and Chocolate. That event takes place the 19th and 20th of February.

Winter Work

We are back after a little time off in December and January. We have still been working but at a little bit of a slower pace. Last week we racked off our 2010 reds from the lees. The whole day went pretty well and the wine is looking good. Today I got started on some regular maintenance, cleaning barrels. We have to keep any barrels we aren't using to store wine clean, dry and sulfured. This month I went ahead and gave them a hot water rinse before sulfuring, just to be sure they are staying clean.After a little bit of work at the winery in the morning I switched gears and headed out to our orchard to help out with the pruning of our Gala apple trees. Over the course of the growing season the tree tends to grow straight up, these new branches are called "suckers". We go through the orchard cut these off. We also try to do some positioning of branches through selective cuts. It is pretty mentally stimulating work actually. You are thinking about which buds to save, what branches are going to block the sun and what branches you are going to need in a year or two to keep the tree producing fruit. It's a challenge, but pretty satisfying. Below are two pictures one of an unpruned tree row and one of a pruned tree row.





















Apple trees with a "haircut".

20 Something

I wanted to let everyone know that we will be pouring at the Washington Wine Commission's 20Something event in Fremont on the 20th of November, come out and say hi! There will be lots of great wineries there, it is sure to be worth the ticket.

Racking 2010 Reds

No pictures for this post...I didn't really want to post a picture of our pump, I thought that would be a little lame. BUT, I did want to update the status of our up and coming 2010 Reds! We finished racking the '10s into barrels this weekend. Everything went really well with that. So just to go over where things are...

We are all finished with Primary Fermentation (this is the fermentation where the yeast turns sugar into alcohol and CO2).

We have pressed all the wine off of the grape skins (must).

We have allowed all the wine to settle in tanks and then carefully pumped this off into barrels.

The wine has been and still is in the process of Malolactic Fermentation (a bacterial fermentation that, among other things, changes the acidity of the wine).

So there you have it, things are really beginning to settle down for us. As soon as we are finished with Malolactic Fermentation we will move the barrel to the barrel room and start the aging process.

Neil

Last Day of 2010 Crush

Crushed the last of our fruit today. Had a bit less than a ton of Petit Verdot to do. It went pretty smoothly which was a nice way to end things after our last round (which saw some mechanical headaches). So now all we are left with are a few more bins of fruit heading into Malolactic Fermentation to handle and get into barrels. It is great to see the season winding down. Had a gorgeous sunset to finish the day off with. This afternoon kind of summed up the season as far as weather was concerned. We had a nice warm blast of sunshine to take the chill off in the late afternoon, then it started raining, got cold again and the sun set on a typically undecided 2010 day. Hopefully next season's weather will be a little more straightforward. It would sure make it easier to grow stuff. -Neil

Punchdown of Grapes

We "punchdown" the grapes to mix them up during fermentation.  The wine is picking up color and tanins from the skins of the grapes.  Neil is punching down the Malbec here, which is getting close to being ready to press.

Anke's guests from Germany

Anke, the winemaker at Steppe Cellars, brought some of her guests from Germany by during our Federweisser weekend.