Wine-Making Fun

Hello all and hope everyone is enjoying the chilly weather out there.  Here is a throwback to a few months ago.  When we could actually wear short sleeve shirts outside.  Don’t mind the fact that the boys in the picture are wearing jackets over their short sleeves.  I’m sticking with the short sleeve story.

While we were in the grape picking and processing frenzy, we had a chance to talk with Ming, Ray and Anthony.  Things got so busy, we had to even pull in Matt – (not into the tanks!) – just to help with processing all of the grapes.  I’m sure you remember from one of the previous blogs about how busy we were with our bumper crop of grapes this year.

The picture that you see is the “boys” (Ming and Ray) processing Chambourcin and Norton (not in the same tanks though!)   Ming tells us that the purple stuff in the big vat is Chambourcin.  They are experimenting with a couple of new strains of yeast to see if they can pull different flavors out of the juice to create a different style of wine.  I guess that is the fun part of wine making.  (Oh right – I forgot about the drinking it….). Anyway, Anthony tells us that working with these different yeasts can help accentuate the raspberry and cherry backgrounds of the grapes.  That sounds like something we will all be happy about when the wine becomes available!

More later about our barrels and tanks and how that affects flavors too.

Until next time, please do enjoy your day and spread the good cheer!

– p