2007 Pinot Grigio and 2008 Viognier
April 8, 2009
Last week we found out what bottling was really about! For two solid days we devoted out time to bottling our Pinot Grigio and Viognier. Thanks to "good working equipment" and healthy helpers the event went without a hitch. In total we bottled about 500 cases of wine. Now we have to give the wine a bit of a rest in the bottle as it does get agitated in processing. The wine goes through what the industry calls"Bottle Shock". For some wines this takes about one month to settle down and for others a bit longer. In the meantime our labels for these wines have been submitted to the "Feds" to be approved and should be sent to the printer to have the labels made up.
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Winery Research/ R & R
March 1, 2009
Mixing business with pleasure is definately the way to go when doing research on winery programs.
Deb attended a course in Napa California. The subject was "Best Practices for Owning and Operating a Winery". The course was a 2 day seminar and was packed with information. I joined her on Friday and that is when the "winery research" began.
We visited several small wineries looking for interesting ways in which they presented themselves in the tasting room. We also looked at how the winery sites were developed. Some had one large building, some had a campus style building format and one of our favorites was a cave built right in to the side of their vineyard.
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Vineyard construction in Progress
March 1, 2009
There is a little more than gophers making tracks in our vineyard these days! We are preparing the vineyard site to recieve all of the plants this April. Do do so huge backhoes have been digging all along the perimiter of the vineyard and crews are busy placing PVC piping to every single row. I didn't realize how extensive the piping system was going to be. I have enclosed a few photos of some of this work in progress. I am sure glad i didn't decide to do the work myself! So is Deb!!
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Friday the 13th! 2009--A day of Celebration
February 13, 2009
Friday the 13th of any month generally are looked upon as being unlucky days Right? Well.. We hate to go against the grain but today has been a very wonderfull day for us at Castillo de Feliciana.
This morning we received an e-mail from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau that our application has been approved for purposes of establishing our winery!
Deb was so excited, she had tears of joy and had to sit down! Her big concern was that we might not get it! I would always tell her " Don't worry, we'll get it!" But..that wasn't good enough for her.
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A barrel taste of the 2007 wines
January 31, 2009
As you may or may not know wine barrels do breath and unfortunately some wine is lost via evaporation. On a monthly basis barrels must be topped off in order to keep high consentrations of oxygen from mixing with the wine. If it is allowed, bacteria will fluorish and the wine stands a good chance of being destroyed! Not good!
While toping off the barrels this gives us a wonderful opportunity to taste the wines to see how they are developing. Here is our latest evaluation of the 2007 red wines.
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