This year we vowed to get more organized. And Bill DID! Check out the upgraded winery/garage pic in the slideshow above. Additionally, Ray did some upgrades on the bottler which we haven’t had a chance to test out yet. Meanwhile, we’ve been trying to be more diligent about getting together and doing “stuff”.

In case you are interested, there’s more pics here at this OneDrive Album.

We met in June (a couple times actually) to check out what we’ll be bottling in September. We noticed that the CAB, which has been in the new barrel since the fall and it seems pretty well oaked so we decided to rack it into the empty barrel. That old and inert barrel has been prepped but sitting empty for a while so it leaked a little when we put wine in it. Seems to have fixed itself now so no worries on losing wine.

We also agreed on going to Martin Ranch to talk about varietals. Ray was very impressed with the Zin and advocates that we try to get Zin again.

Bottled the Cab and Merlot in Sept. Modified bottler worked well but John suggested some further improvements. Whole process took less than 1/2 day and we enjoyed some quality time in the “winery” afterwards. Cab is a little over oaked which is a bummer but the tangyness in the Merlot seemed abated. Hoping that both will improve as they bottle age.

Harvest went very well this year. Picked up 1220 lbs of Zin on 10/1 and then 1366 lbs Cab on 10/11 – both from Martin Ranch. Everything, from fermentation to pressing to racking to stainless and then to barrel, went like clockwork. Both fruit looked excellent and we’re very excited to see how they turn out. No stuck fermentation although both took longer than expected. Due to schedules, we pressed the Zin at around 2 brix whereas the Cab was below 0. For both Cab and Zin, we have quite a lot of topping – maybe too much actually!

Bill creatively reworked his garage so we could do all of this and still park his car there! As of 10/25, both are in the styrofoam “oven” to finish malo.