I am stealing Bob’s line with that. The “It” is work and “It” actually never really ends in the wine business. The latest exciting news… we have scheduled a bottling truck for the 27th of Sept. On that day we will bottle our 2006 red wines (le Monstre, le Flirt, and Red Table which we are trying to come up with a new name for but for now Red Table Wine just keeps sticking) and our 2007 Riesling. As always we are looking for volunteers so if you are interested drop us an email. There is quite a bit of excitement around here as this will mean that our first commercial release will be coming out soon. If you have signed up for our mailing list expect to get a notice about the wines going on sale just before Thanksgiving.

As for the other excitement the 2008 harvest is right around the corner. We have some new vineyards to add to the mix this year and say good bye to one of our favorites in Snypes River Canyon. I would be remiss to not say thanks to Keith for all of the help he has given us in the past and to wish him the best of luck with his future plans. One vineyard we have added is Chandlers Reach. Chandlers Reach is located directly west of Benton City and looks across the valley at Red Mountain. We are getting Merlot and think this site will add backbone to our Merlot blends and enhance the fruit character of our Cabernet blends. We are finalizing our contract with one other vineyard that while small is very exciting. More on that in the next post.

What we have been doing since the last post. Well for a while we just got rest, I hung out with the family so they remembered what I looked like. Bob has been working on home projects and Dave, Marco, Christina, Jimmy, Chris, Dick, Jill, Robin, and Jim have been working on seeing if they can get the purple stains off their fingers :). Once rested I did the usual cellar work of racking, topping, cleaning and prep for the next year. I also spent some time in Europe this summer and I have to say one of my top experiences was sipping a beautiful rose on the beach in Barcelona with my good friend Antoine. Barcelona on one of those places that should be on your must visit if you have not been there.

What is new. We have quite a bit of new equipment in the winery or on its way. We have 3 new tanks, 2 500 gallon and 1 225 gallon Pasco Polly tanks that we will use for blending, racking, and short term storage if needed. I picked them up last weekend and now I am trying to find the right place in the winery. We also purchased a new horizontal membrane press. It is a beauty! I will be picking it up down in Oregon this Friday. This press will allow us to be much more efficient while still being incredibly gentle. Finally we have a new, or at least new to us forklift. Yes no more worrying about lift gates and how we will move the heavy objects around the winery. I am very excited about all of these new toys.

Picking up the new tanks

Waiting for the ferry

On the ferry, yea I got some funny looks and one of the staff actually gave me his address in case I had any “extra wine”

Finally 2008 harvest updates. As anyone who has been to the NW this year knows it has been much colder than the summer of 2007. From a heat standpoint I can’t remember this many cool days in the Valley. That being said a cool day in the Valley is much different than a cool day in most places, after all it is a desert so the vineyards and fruit have not been in any risk. Many of our vineyards have now done their final green harvest (cutting off any fruit clusters that have not fully changed color) and have been very selective in their leaf thinning. At this point we are anywhere from 10 days to 2 weeks behind 2003,2005 and 2007 and are a little bit behind 2004, and 2006. We expect to pick our first Merlot the next to last or last week in September and will probably see Cabernet the end of October. I personally like the extra hang time so expect this to be another great year.

I will be taking a trip to the vineyards this Friday morning and will report back with updates.

Oh and one other note, Thanks to Bob and Robin for keeping the blog post up last year. I have promised Jill I will post twice a week so expect to read more from me this harvest.