It's April....

It is April- the month for wierd weather. First it was cold and rainy, then dry, cold and windy, now it is sunny and 90F. Later in the week it is going to be cold and rainy again. The rain will be good, hopefully it will not be too cold.

The vineyards are growing like weeds- fast and furious. This time of the year it is amazing to watch- you can actually see them change and the shoots get longer throughout the day. So far the vineyards are looking great- nice even growth. Soon the flower buds will become more pronounced and bloom, it is just around the corner!

This is the time of the year that there are many events being planned. Friday I will be at the Google Complex in the South Bay and next month Cigar BQ in Santa Rosa.

Also next month I hope to be in a new tasting room in Healdsburg, though the ABC is saying that they will not have my paperwork done by then..........will keep you up to date on that. Gotta love the permit process.

Well gotta get back to the wines- more bottling tomorrow!

Yippeeee It's Raining - Time for Bottling

The rain has arrived - the lifeblood of the earth and the vineyards! My raingauge at Tres Palmeras has clocked in over 5 inches since my last post. Still not all we would like to see, but certainly way better than where we were seeing ourselves. Still going to put that bucket in the shower, just need to find something to put it into from there.

With the rain comes indoor sports. In the winery that sport is bottling. See Bottling pics. Before bottling there can be many chores-coming out of barrels, possible filtering, lab analysis-alcohol is very important to the government! Then there is the FDA, USDA......that is why some of us turn into chemistry geeks, but we really want to be artists.........

Speaking of filtering- this is something I do try to avoid. Sometimes that means a little sediment in the bottle, but it is worth it knowing that I have good fruit, have minimized my impact on that fruit and since I make red wine which allows me that latitude.

It is not wrong to filter, in fact many times it is the smart thing to do- for white and Rose' wines, generally it cannot be avoided. Those wines are not 'stable' as we refer to them in the winery. That means that sometimes they have a little sugar or malic left in them and microbes. Those things left alone without filtering are looking for a party- fermenting and bubbling- and usually stinky and nasty in a closed bottle. Supposedly that was how champagne originally came about, but these days, a little more control is a good thing.

Well, the barrels are calling- the Mustang Winemaker