Tasted through a random 15 Cab Francs ranging from $20-$90 a bottle. Loire Valley, Chile, Argentina, Sonoma, Walla Walla, Yakima Valley. Lots of Brett and questionable choices. Once again, price was no indicator of quality or barrel hygiene in the cellar. Boo. I had higher hopes for this exercise.
Sparkling Bottles on the conference table
Another day of meetings… one after another. Sheesh! ;)
Dumbass threatens to ask wife to find something in the winery that is surely hiding in plain sight.
Important equipment went missing in the winery today. It was unfindable… then I threatened to call my wife and tell her I could not find something. The cellar understood the assignment and responded promptly ;)
It is fucking mentally exhausting living under a mad king.
I love innovation. I use concrete and stone tanks. I hate to rain on anyone’s novel idea… but this? This is not an improvement other than it looks pretty - I managed a barrel room and stacked 6 high - Hot/Cold issues, issues with pounding in spiles/wedges? Pass. Drop in some stones instead.
Everybody makes mistakes but winemaking holds itself to a pretty high standard of avoiding making them. I had a good run… until… in spectacular fashion, for absolutely no reason, and just a few days before bottling I made a stupid addition error on a 10,000L blend. Fixable. Now is fixed. But. Blah.
Oak trials, so may bottles
Oak trial tasting at the end of the day. IDK, felt like 50+ bottles in front of the lab. Maybe a few winners. The barrel room guy in me loves this stuff. Maybe some staves for Merlot were found. The absolute definition of first world problems. Tomorrow some tea dosage trials which smell amazing.
Earl Grey Whole Leaf Tea and Sparkling Wine
I didn’t go to Unified in Cali but apparently people liked Chandon’s Earl Grey Sparkling. Just for fun, trials are now underway on a cold infused dosage. Thinking of trying Jasmine and Yuzu/Ginger as well. If we have a winner after tasting we’ll add to the employee sale. 20/30/40 g/L dosage trial.
I love the 375 format and will be picking some up for mimosa flights. Some learnings over a few years FWIW. Same opening size, twice the oxygen exchange. Higher SO2 levels and better caps help. Same product side by side at 12/18/24 months shows significant differences vs 750. Cheers!
Red wines from Two Mountain and Sheridan Wineries in Zillah
Sometimes I even buy wine :) Had to run to Yakima after spending the morning planning out dosage blends. So…stopped off on the way back home at couple wineries I had not been to been to in ages. Owners were hard at work on what will be the revamped Two Mountain tasting room. Nice experience at both!
Microscope and Cellometer cell counter
Yeast cells on grid from microscope
It’s been more than a minute since last Tirage and I definitely needed a refresher from the lab on counting rules. 1.5-1.8 million yeast cells per ml is the target in the packaging tank. Counted my cells in random grids, mathed, and we are good. Off and running for a couple weeks of Tirage bottling
Headed out to have a beer with Ross Courtney in a just a few minutes. He had good things to say about his trip to San Juan. Cheers!
Lots of barrels in the cellar
350 gallon stainless mixer with guth and pump
Have been prepping for Tirage of ‘25 sparkling over the last month. So much barrel work in the cellar. Also needed to make 300 more gallons of a Chard base dosage liquor so the “Big Mixer” was rolled out. It is most impressive in action as it dissolves 795kg of sugar in 632 liters of wine.
Nice!
Our French winemaker taught us all this saying during harvest and it’s been in my head the last few days as I was diving into some procedural stuff. “On ne va pas enculer les mouches” basically, “we’re not going to fuck the flies” or to not focus on the trivial. Great expression, better in French!
Short weeks but still lots of barrel downs, barrel blends, rack and returns, and toppings to be done. Spent a good chunk of yesterday back in the cellar and barrel room. Always a good idea to actually do the work and I found a few things I’d like to fix as a result. Totally worthwhile.
Winemaking, Winetracking, and the Lab staff all getting along, eating pizza, and exchanging gifts. I get to work with some great people and sometimes they get me a nice Bourbon and new UW hoodie (and that is cool too). Short weeks and everyone is mostly fleeing the winery for a well deserved break.
Great read, thanks for sharing!
Tasted through a mix of 18 organic and made from organic wines yesterday priced from $6-$30. 1) Overall, with some outliers, the bar on organic remains low 2) Winner was Elizabeth Rose “Chockablock” RD from CA with a nod to Biokult Naken lightly sparkled Pinot Gris/Muscat from Austria.
Several years ago I bought a wine rack system and a library ladder at auction. Next project - build a cellar that will fit in a bedroom closet sized area behind a “secret mirror”. Plan is to run floor to a very tall ceiling. 270 bottles on the racks and 108 sparkling bottles in the boxes. We’ll see!
It’s the day before Thanksgiving which means that we are squeezing a full week of winemaking tasks into half a week. Pro tip: Want stuff to actually get done around your winery? Promote women to be cellarmasters and leads. Pretty sure I am just here as a diversity hire and a nod to male tokenism ;)
Numbers from Y15 TS=8.03
Sparkling bottles in a row
Disgorging the last of 16 different sparkling packagings today. Sugars have been right on target for all runs which is a huge testament to math, insanely complicated spreadsheets, and the process itself. Target today is 8g/L. Measured different bottles at 7.99, 8.03, 7.92, etc. Will be smug all day!
I’ve found AI to be a very useful tool as long as you are cautious, explain clearly, and test. This morning I wanted a calculator I could use to dial in ferment tank set points based on fruit temp, tons, tank size, etc. 15 minutes and only 2 iterations later I had a calculator that does just that.
Disgorging some nice sparkling today for mostly internal consumption (employee case sales and some client sampling). Much math was still mathed and QC was fairly exhaustive for these small <100 case runs. Proved to be a good warm up for a multitude of upcoming external SKU’s.
Knocking out a 14,000 case tirage bottling this week. 504 bottles per cage = 330 cages to store. This is still a much simpler task than the 21 different disgorgements and labelings with 10 different dosage liquors currently being prepared for next week. My life consists of Excel sheets #sparkling
Sometimes while at work in the afternoon your boss tells you “Hey! You need to go upstairs and drink champagne”. Fine… Cuvée 4+5 was the winner but all 3 on the right were unique in their own way.
Nice to see but not surprising. Hamill has always been a standup guy. Like many, I cancelled Disney+ earlier in the week. More loud boycotts of Disney/ABC and other organizations that bend the knee on free speech will unfortunately have to follow. I’ve spent a lot of money at Disney Parks.. no more.
Huge Muppet fan. Fuck Disney until this is fixed.
Done
Right in the middle of packaging 17 different SKU’s over 10 days…Feels like it. White grapes are over half in and most reds are still looking a week or two out. The calm or tasting COA’s in the afternoon is nice!
