I can’t believe it’s really been more than 2 months since my last post. Put simply, work has gotten the best of me. That doesn’t mean things haven’t been happening in the vineyards or the winery, though. Far from it, in fact.

In this post I’d like to provide updates on several of my wine projects.

First, both vineyards that I tend, Sorella Ridge and Hidden Acres, were pruned last month. Sorella Ridge was easy enough for me to tackle on my own since it’s just 56 vines. However, we were at risk of missing our pruning window at Hidden Acres this year (again, the aforementioned “work” thing got in the way). So we decided to hire someone to prune Hidden Acres. A one man job and 2 days of work later and the vineyard was looking sharper than ever. That is, at least as sharp as this old 1/2 acre of neglected vines can look in its current state.

More recently, as the photograph below illustrates, bud break has burst onto the scene in my backyard micro-vineyard, Sorella Ridge.

In the “winery” (aka garage), there’s been a lot of activity. First, in January I started construction on a small insulated and air conditioned room inside my garage. At about 60 square feet, this space will serve as my winemaking and wine storage facility. A 5000 BTU air conditioner will keep the room cool during the sweltering summer heat we get here at the base of the Sierra foothills. I expect to have the raised floor complete today and begin erecting the walls. Clearly I’m in a race with Mother Nature to get the room finished before the temperatures outside rise.

The 2007 wines have been coming along nicely too. The first wine to spend time in my new 15 gallon French Oak barrel was the first of two lots of Zinfandel. Since this batch of Zin was a little short of filling the barrel completely, I topped the barrel with some of the 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon. This was back in early January.

Earlier this month I racked the Zin/Cab from the barrel into carboys and replaced it with the Rhone blend. The final blend came to 8 gallons of Syrah, 4 gallons of Mourvedre, and 3.5 gallons of Grenache. Unfortunately the blend percentages were dictated by how much of each variety I had on hand and not based on tasting different blends. I had to get to 15 gallons and it took all that I had to fill the barrel.

Other wines racked include the Barbera, Cabernet Sauvignon, and the 2nd lot of Zinfandel (which will get barrel time after the Rhone blend has finished its tour).

Photos from the winery room coming soon.