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My little 12 volt SureFlo pump has two wires sticking out of it instead of a plug and has to be connected to a car battery to run, and it only pumps two gallons a minute. Ha. I had more than 800 gallons of wine to move. Do the math, kiddos. It took us 16 plus hours. Yep. And we worked solid. Our hands are black (wine has a wonderful way of staining), our backs are sore, but the babies are put to bed and let me tell you, they are some very good babies.
I am really excited about my new dry rosé made from 100% Cinsault. It is deeply colored, with irresistible floral notes and spice. This will be my 2013 Soul Sister.
Lady in Red will be a more mature and structured wine this year. The harvest was outstanding, the fruit perfect, the fermentation problem-free, and the wines are stable. I made three barrels of this Mourvédre based blend this year and hope it will eventually be my flagship wine.
This year I fiddled a bit with 50 Shades of Red and added Tempranillo (which I love) to this Grenache based blend, along with bits of Syrah, Mourvédre and Cabernet. I think it’s going to be a winner.
Perhaps Lust, my premium Syrah, is the wine that will be the most noticeably different. The fruit I worked with this last harvest is superior in every way to 2012. I am quite pleased with its development so far. It is loaded with juicy fruit, well-integrated tannins and spice, and I believe will take on some good qualities from the barrel.
Okay … and now we get to my unintentional blending blunder. It was around three in the morning and Chente and I were working steadily, determined to get the wines racked, the barrels cleaned, the blends and barrels organized, etc. But by this time of the wee hours I was getting rummy. I had taken half a barrel of Tempranillo earlier for my 50 Shades blend and intended to top off the newly racked barrel with un-oaked Tempranillo in carboys. Oops. I was tired and didn’t read the careful label I’d attached to the tambo. So I ended up topping the barrel with Cinsault! Tempranillo is my monovarietal Bold Sister label. Apparently it’s not going to be a monovarietal this year. Oops.
I thought Chente would strangle me because it meant lifting more carboys to fill the Cinsault barrel and we were dead tired. I was contrite but I’m curious how it will turn out. Hopefully it will be one of those happy accidents. I have a hunch I’m not the first winemaker to make a similar goof. More on that as the wines develop.
Thanks so much for all of your support and for taking an interest in my winemaking journey.
