Lost Canyon Winery Blog

Summer Open House, 6/14/08

2008-06-16T14:56:00.000-07:00

Our Summer open house was this past Saturday. We had a great turnout and people had a fantastic time! The food was delicious, catered by World Ground Cafe, featuring lavash sandwiches, lamb sausages, mushroom stuffed caps, and delicious stuffed dates. We poured all of our current releases of Pinot Noir and Viognier, along with a smaller selection of our Syrahs. People were crazy about the 06 Widdoes Pinot Noir and the 06 Trenton Station Reserve. For wine club members, there was a VIP area in the back that featured some of our library wines. The highlights in this special tasting were 02 Las Brisas Pinot Noir, 04 Morelli Lane Pinot Noir and 01 CA Syrah. Thanks to all the volunteers for helping and thanks to everyone that came out. Cheers!

Trip to Burgundy, France

2008-05-25T17:10:00.000-07:00

Some of you may have noticed that I wasn't around for a part of May. My husband and I took a two week vacation to England and France. The highlight of my trip was going to Beaune, France in the heart of the Burgundy wine region.

Our main barrel maker, Rousseau, is located there. Frederic, who is the 3rd generation Rousseau carrying on the business, met us in Beaune mid-afternoon to take us around for the day. First, he drove us through some of the Grand Cru and Premier Cru vineyards, then to lunch in the village of Gevrey Chambertin. The food was delicious and the wine was fantastic!! Some of the wines on the menu were $7000 a bottle!
Next, we went to the Rousseau barrel making headquarters. We first saw many barrel staves being seasoned. Frederic explained the tagging system they used that labeled which forest the wood was from, and when it started its seasoning. Before this wood is brought into the facility, it is tested for TCA to make sure it is not contaminated. When the results are back, the staves go into the facility. They are then selected and cut to shape. The staves then fit all together (without any glue) to form the barrel. The first set of hoops are set on the top of the barrel, then heated and doused with water to bend the wood to get the other end of the hoops on. Frederic told us that many of their barrel makers have won awards for their skills in barrel making.

These barrels are then toasted to the indicated order. The heads are put on the barrels, they are tested for leakage and lastly, the bung is put in. If there is a bad stave, they take the barrel apart to replace that stave. After they pass the test, the barrel gets branded with its Rousseau label and another if the winery has specified their own label. Lost Canyon is their only client with color barrel labels!

After this tour, we went to the see where they make large format barrels. At this facility there are less machines and most of the work is done by hand. They can make a barrel using whatever required specifications you give.
So much work, care and time goes into each barrel. This is why Lost Canyon loves Rousseau!!!
Next, Frederic took us to the beginning life of the barrel. This facility had giant trees from different French forests split into large planks. They are brought into the facility where they cut out the heartwood. The heartwood is too porous to make a barrel stave, but it is burned in the toasting process so nothing goes to waste. This location was beautiful! Forest to the right and vineyards in the hills to the left.

The day ended with Frederic taking us on a private tasting at Joseph Drouhin. We were joined by another Rousseau representative that was taking around a group of young German winemakers. We tasted 8 wines, 4 white and 4 red. It was a fabulous time! Much thanks to Frederic Rousseau for taking us to lunch and giving us such a wonderful tour.

http://www.artisanbarrels.com/mainpage.html?su-rousseau

http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/search/fabrication%2Btonneau/video/x4lp
25_fabrication-dun-tonneau-en-chene_tech

Barrel Seminar with Jerome Aubin

2008-04-30T16:45:00.000-07:00

This past Saturday was our barrel seminar given by Jerome Aubin. Mainly wine club members were in attendance. Jerome talked about how barrels are made, the difference between French and American oak barrels, and what effect they impart onto wines. Attendees enjoyed themselves and said they learned something new. This was a very educational event, but in the end people were able to try some wines to experience for themselves what the difference barrels make on the wine. Jerome brought a Chardonnay and Jack brought out our Trenton Station 2006 Syrah and compared it with our Trenton Station Reserve 2006 Syrah. The reserve was in oak 6 months longer and it has made quite a difference.

Winemaker Dinner at Franklin Square Wine Bar , 4/13/08

2008-04-15T09:47:00.000-07:00

Sunday evening was our winemaker dinner with Franklin Square Wine Bar (FSWB) in Oakland. There was a great turnout at this event, full of friends, wine club members and FSWB regulars. The food was delicious and the wine was flowing. Rick Mitchell, the owner of FSWB, introduced Jack and I, as we were the Lost Canyon representatives. Jack then took over and walked the audience through the wine and food pairing of each of the 3 courses. This winemaker dinner was unique in that the second course had a comparitive tasting with 2 Pinot Noirs and again with the third course, comparing 2 Syrahs. The hit for the evening was the Cassoulet paired with the 2 Syrahs. I heard a few patrons bugging Jake (the Chef) for a recipe! Below is a copy of the menu.

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golden chard ravioli stuffed with fromage blanc, hazelnuts and roasted apples on a carrot emulsion.

2007 Viognier, Catie’s Corner Vineyard

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poached duck breast salad with frisée, spinach, duck cracklings and a soft-boiled

partridge egg

2006 Pinot Noir, Widdoes Vineyard

2006 Pinot Noir, Morelli Lane Vineyard

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cassoulet of cannellini beans, pork shoulder & toulouse lamb sausage

2005 Syrah, Trenton Station Vineyard

2005 Syrah, Alegria Vineyard

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coffee & truffles

Winemaker Dinner with Pappo, 4/8/08

2008-04-11T11:03:00.000-07:00

The winemaker dinner at Pappo was a great time. It was a 5 course meal paired to match 4 of our wines. Randy, one of the owners, talk about the history of Lost Canyon Winery and introduced the first wine, our RRV Viognier. The first course was served, then after the plates were cleared, I talked about the 2 Pinots that were to follow with the next 2 courses. Randy stepped in before the last 2 courses to talk about the Syrah and the revisiting of the Viognier. All of the courses were fantastic!! I think my favorite was the Lamb with the Stage Gulch Syrah. Delicious!!! Great job to Chef John Thiel and his staff for putting together such a wonderful dinner. The menu is posted below.

1^st course

Seafood Sausage with Meyer Lemon Butter and Toscanelli Beans

2007 Catie’s Corner Viognier, Russian River Valley

2^nd Course

Braised Duck Leg Tart with Green Garlic and Thyme

2006 Saralee Pinot noir, Russian River Valley

3^rd Course

English Pea and Morel Mushroom Canneloni with Fresh Ricotta Cheese

2006 Widdoes Pinot noir, Russian River Valley

4^th Course

Grilled Lamb Sirloin with Artichoke-Potato Gratin and Black Olives

2005 Stage Gulch Syrah, Sonoma Coast

5^th Course

Almond-Orange Cookies, Crecenza Cheese and Preserved Walnuts

Revisit 2007 Catie’s Corner Viognier, Russian River Valley

EBVA Passport event, April 5, 2008

2008-04-10T15:20:00.000-07:00

The passport was a huge success for all participating wineries! I had the pleasure of attending the event on this particular Saturday since I was to woman the tasting room at Lost Canyon on Sunday, the day after the event. My husband, Jay, and a wine club member and occasional journalist for LCW, Ray joined us.
We started by eating a good hearty lunch at Ratto's in old town oakland before we got on the road. Our starting point was Eno wines in Berkeley. Apparently, we missed the madness. About 100 people started there and were anxiously awaiting outside the door at noon. We got to Eno at about 2:30pm where there were only about 15 people. I thoroughly enjoyed their Pinot Noir from Santa Lucia area and love their labels. Next, we headed to Periscope cellars where Urbano and Andrew Lane were pouring as well. This time it was quite busy inside! We tasted a few wines and then we headed to Dashe/JC Cellars where Taylerle and Aubin Cellars were pouring in the same spot. This was much busier than Periscope! We chatted with Angela, Errin and Ron and were off to check out Irish Monkey. This spot had a comfortable amount of people. Two mile was pouring wine at this location as well. I really enjoyed Two mile's Petite Syrah...delicious! The Irish Monkey space used to be Lost Canyon Winery's space, so it was fun for me to check it out. The space is a bit smaller than what we have now, but they are doing great things in there.

Meanwhile back at the Lost Canyon....we had about 500 people come through the winery. Jake from Franklin Square Wine Bar served up soup along with cheese and bread. We poured our 06 Las Brisas Pinot Noir, 06 Saralee Pinot Noir, 05 Trenton Station Syrah and our 05 Alegria Syrah. Jack was running around to deliver more glasses to the other locations and working out all the small problems that came up. It was a crazy day!
Thanks for coming out and if you didn't make it, come next year!

March 12, Tasting at Saralee's

2008-03-24T11:53:00.000-07:00

On March 12, the Lost Canyon crew drove up to Russian River Valley to Saralee's Annual Wineries tasting. We arrived at 9:15am and there was a heavy fog. We warmed up by the fireplace as we waited for the other wineries to arrive. About 52 wineries buy grapes from Saralee Kunde. This is a great event she does every year, where all the wineries showcases their wines made from her grapes. Everyone takes their seats and the event begins. There are 6 wine glasses in front of each person. There is a lot of coordination going into this event. Once we taste through the 6, then we dump the glasses and another set of 6 is put in front of us again, until we are done. We tasted about 70 wines made from the different wineries using her grapes. Lost Canyon brought: 2007 Viognier(already bottled), then barrel samples of: 2007 clone 37 Saralee's Pinot noir, 2007 clones 115 and 777 Saralee's Pinot noir and 2007 Trenton Station. The winemaker or representative of the winery stands up to give some brief stats on the wine and then moving on to the next wine. We were finished around 12:30pm and headed out to the patio overlooking the vineyards, where we enjoyed a catered lunch. The sun came out right around this time too. It was a great day! Thanks, Saralee!!!
http://www.saraleesvineyard.com/

Viognier Release Party and Lecture

2008-03-18T10:16:00.000-07:00

The world tour of viognier lecture and release of 2007 Catie's Corner Viognier was a success. Thanks to all of those folks who came out! Jack, co-owner and winemaker, gave a lecture that focused on the orgins of viognier, how white wines are processed differently than reds, and stylistic choices the winemaker has and how it impacts the final product. We had 100% viognier wines from France (Rhone region), South Australia, and then 2 CA regions from Lodi and Paso Robles. Of course, we also featured our 2006 and 2007 Catie's Corner Viognier.

February 23, Tales from the Vineyard event

2008-02-27T12:20:00.000-08:00

The Tales from the Vineyard event was a hit. We had about 30 attendees come out on this cold and rainy Saturday afternoon. Saralee Kunde spoke for about 90 minutes about growing, trellising, clones, irrigation and high maintenance winemakers. She was an excellent speaker full of knowledge and entertaining stories. While she was giving her presentation, Martha and her volunteer went around and filled everyone's glass with wines we make from Saralee's grapes. They were as follows: 2007 Viognier, 2005 Saralee (sold out, but we broke out some old stuff), 2006 Saralee, 2005 Trenton Station, and 2006 Trenton Station. Thanks to everyone that came out for the event, thanks to our volunteers: Brian, Rick, and Ray and big thanks to Saralee Kunde for taking time out of her busy schedule to stop by and do this lecture! Stay tuned for our next event on March 15 where Jack States (owner and winemaker) will take us on a world tour of Viognier.

Filtering and Bottling the week of Feb. 13-16, 2008

2008-02-19T13:51:00.000-08:00

Thursday and Friday we had to prepare the 4 wines to be bottled on Saturday. We filtered the 2007 Viognier, 2006 Las Brisas Pinot noir, and the 2006 Alegria Syrah on Thursday, with the help of one of our faithful volunteers. Friday, we filtered the 2006 Trenton Station Reserve. Things went smoothly, I think we are learning from our past mistakes.
Saturday we had an early start to get ready for bottling. Volunteers arrived at 7:30am, had a bit of coffee and a snack then they had to get trained on their various positions in the truck. We bottled 1063 cases in 3 1/2 hours. Not bad! Thanks again to all of the volunteers, we really appreciate your help. Cheers to you!!!!

Racking, part 2

2008-02-09T13:20:00.000-08:00

This week, we finished racking by doing the Syrah 2007. Everything went smoothly and the wines are tasting great! We were so lucky to have such beautiful sunny weather. This makes barrel washing pretty enjoyable!
Next week we will be filtering the 4 wines we plan to bottle on February 16. Check back in for details on the bottling and photos of volunteers helping us out.

Racking of 2007 wines

2008-02-04T10:51:00.000-08:00

This past week we started racking our 2007 wines. Racking is done 2x a year at Lost Canyon Winery. Racking is when we take the wine out of the barrels, put the wine in a tank, wash the barrels and then put the wine back in the barrels. We started with the 2007 Pinot noir. This year we had the different clones that make up each of the wines ripen at different times so we had many separate lots. We blended the clones together at this point and were able to taste the difference of keeping the clones separately. This was very interesting. The wines are tasting fantastic!
Thanks to our volunteers for coming out and helping with this process.

Wine Enthusiast Ratings are in!!!

2008-01-24T14:30:00.000-08:00

The Wine Enthusiast ratings are in on Lost Canyon Pinot noirs!

- 2006 Morelli Lane Pinot noir, 92 rating
- 2006 Las Brisas Pinot noir, 91 rating
- 2006 Widdoes Pinot noir, 88 rating
- 2006 Saralee Pinot noir, 87 rating

These results will be published in the April addition of Wine Enthusiast. We are very excited with these scores!!!

Cheese Tasting, Lecture, and Wine Pairing

2008-01-23T12:40:00.000-08:00

January 19th was our first event of 2008. It certainly went off with a bang!
We had Jill Giacomini Basch, of Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Company come by Lost Canyon Winery and talk about 7 different local cheeses that were all presented and tasted with our 2005 Syrahs. We had over 75 people show up and unfortunately couldn't let them all in due to amounts of space and cheese. Thanks for everyone coming out!! See you at the next event, Feruary 23, 3-5pm, where we will feature our "world class" grower, Saralee Kunde.

Lost Canyon Winery in the studio with Gene Burns!!!

2008-01-23T12:24:00.000-08:00

Jack and Bob (2 of the owners) were on Dining Around with Gene Burns, January 12 at 10:30am. For those of you who don't know, Gene Burns talks food and wine on Newstalk 810, KGO Radio. This was a spontaneous happening, they had a whole to fill in their program and we jumped at it! We brought a 2007 Viognier barrel sample along with some of our 2006 Pinot Noirs. If you missed it check this link to listen the original show. http://www.kgoam810.com/article.asp?id=549358

Happy New Year! We hope to see you in 2008!

2007-12-28T15:03:00.000-08:00

All of us at Lost Canyon Winery wish you a Happy New Year!
Please check in with us in January for a list of events for 2008.
We will be lining up an event every month and the blog will be active reviewing the events.
Hope you are celebrating with Lost Canyon Wine!!

Holiday party and December 2007 Open House

2007-12-07T14:27:00.000-08:00

We have been preparing for weeks for our wine club member annual party and the December 1 and 2 Open House and now they are a glimmer in the past. Friday night was a great evening. The cellar cleaned up nicely, hard to remember those grape covered days. Jack chopped down a Christmas tree from half moon bay and we had it decorated near the entrance for all to enjoy. Randy put up the spot lights, highlighting the barrels containing our 2007 wines and we had the Christmas lights wrapped around the ceiling beams on as well (they are up all the time, but this is the only time of your we have them on). Martha had been preparing and cooking for days. This was the menu...the food was fantastic!!! Enjoy the photos from the event. Thanks, Wine Club members for making Lost Canyon Winery what it is! Also, thanks to the volunteers that helped out with the craziness on Friday night and the open houses. We really couldn't do it without you all. Happy Holidays!!!!

Beef & chorizo empanaditas

Pair with Trenton Station Syrah

Prosciutto and fig jam on baked brie crostini

Pair with Stage Gulch Syrah

Vegetarian version: fig jam & Gorgonzola cheese crostini

Pair with Alegria Syrah

Roasted five spice duck in scallion-hoisin crepe

Pair with Morelli Lane and Widdoes Pinot

Vegetarian persimmon, pear, golden raisin relish on Fontina crostini

Pair with Saralee Pinot

RRV Pinot Noir release party

2007-11-18T13:36:00.000-08:00

The RRV Pinot Noir release party was this Saturday from 1-5pm. It was a success. Martha did all the delicious food. There was toasted brie on bread, Gruyere puffs, Pate and olives.
There were a lot of local wine events going on....Periscope cellars, Urbano Cellars, Rosenblum Cellars and Dashe Cellars. At our release party, we had some media and trade friends show up along with new walkins and lots of wine club members (this was the first time they could pick up their futures).
Our wine club members have been very excited about our new Pinot Noir, Widdoes vineyard from Dutton Ranch. These grapes are in the Green Valley AVA, which is a smaller AVA in the larger RRV AVA. This wine consists of only 1 clone, the Berringer suitcase clone, also known as the Martini clone. If you haven't tried this one yet, get down to our tasting room Friday-Sunday from 1-6pm for a tasting. This Pinot Noir will go quick. We only made 350 cases!! I was pouring Widdoes Pinot Noir on Friday to some chemical sales guys and one of them described the smell of the Widdoes as the inside of a new Cadillac. I don't personally agree with his nose, but I thought it was a cool description.

Roy's Art show with Lost Canyon Wine

2007-11-14T15:47:00.001-08:00

I know this post is a little late, but there was a lot of work to be done. We are planning many upcoming events that are going to be a good time. We promise!

Roy Tomlinson's event at Lost Canyon was Nov. 3 from 3-6pm. It was a great turnout!! We had about 100 people come through and check out Roy's photos (not his usual media) from around the 'hood. Roy also opened up his studio space for folks to walk through and check out his paintings. Check out his website for more info on his paintings: http://roytomlinson.com/ They are dark and sophisticated. Roy has got some serious talent, we are very lucky to have him as our neighbor!!!
This Saturday is our Russian River Valley Pinot Noir Release Party. It is from 1-5pm and we will be pouring all of our new releases all day! This new vintage is fantastic, but I may be biased because this is my first vintage as assistant winemaker. Come and taste for yourself! The event is $10 at the door, free to wine club members and this includes some delicious snacks paired with our wines.

Harvest week Oct. 29-Nov. 4

2007-11-06T16:42:00.000-08:00

While I was basking in the sun, vacationing in Michigan for the week (just kidding, I was there for my little brother's wedding), Randy, Jack and Martha were hard at work finishing up the crush. On Tuesday, they put the 07 Stage Gulch Syrah into barrels!! Hurray, we have finished. All of our babies are resting in their barrels. Now, we will continue to monitor their fermentation and top them off every 3 weeks.
Harvest is over and all the events are coming! Nov. 17 is our 06 Pinot Noir release party from 1-6pm, our wine club party is on Nov. 30 from 6-10pm, and our Holiday Open House is Dec. 1 and 2 from 1-5pm. The cellar will be all cleaned up and decorated for the holiday celebrations.

Havest week Oct. 22-28, Almost done!

2007-10-30T07:14:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, we barreled all of the Trenton Station Syrah. This took up about 30 barrels! Wednesday, we started our last press for Stage Gulch Syrah. We had 13 bins and usually we do about 3-4 bins into the press before we run it. Today we pushed it and loaded in 5 bins for 1 press so we could do it all in only 3 stages instead of 4. It all fit and we were feeling pretty good about ourselves. We were eating lunch when the press was running so we could keep an eye on it. All went well. The press finished and we emptied out the dried skins and stems and got set up to do the 2nd out of 3 presses. I started to hear this beeping noise like an alarm clock. We looked around to see what it was and it was coming from the forklift. It was an error message saying BRUSHES. We shut it on and off and it was still beeping. Randy called the service station and they said we had to stop using it immediately or we would cause permanent damage. They thought they could get a service representative out either today or tomorrow. We were so close to being done! We waited for a bit to see if the service person would be there in a timely manner and fix the forklift so we could continue, but he arrived at 2pm and fixed the forklift until about 4pm. Needless to say, we had to clean up and continue the next day to finish the press. Next week, we just need to barrel the Stage Gulch and it will be all quiet in the winery. The babies will be in their barrels!

Harvest week Oct 15- 21, 2007

2007-10-22T14:20:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week, we prepared for the "Uniqueness of Syrah" Seminar. This involved shopping at K&L wine shop in SF to find wines that we wanted to be represented in the presentation. We bought a Syrah from Northern Rhone, Southern Australia, Chile, and Lodi region. Then, the research began...we had to sample all of these wines, along with our 2 Syrahs and take tasting notes. The event was on Saturday from 3-5pm and 32 people attended. It was a hit! On Thursday night, Jack and I poured at the Taste event sponsered by East Bay Express at the Swarm gallery in Oakland. It was a nice event. Check out this weeks copy of the East Bay Express, there is an insert that has the local wineries (Dashe, JC, Periscope and Rosenblum) map along with a bottle shot.

On Friday we pressed the first Syrah, the Alegria vineyard, and barreled Widdoes, the last Pinot Noir. Sunday, we were back in the cellar putting in a full day of pressing Trenton Station, which was 12 tons, and barreling the Alegria. The Syrah grapes seemed to be juicier this year, because we calculated how much juice we thought we would have from the press and we seemed to have more. When we checked the back tank, we were right to the rim!!!! We monitored closer for filling the next tank! Randy and I were trying to move a hose to the other tank with the use of the pump and we failed to shut off the valve so we both got lots of wine if the face. Oh, the joys of winemaking...guess we got our yearly wine shower!! We are just one press and 2 barrelings away from being done.

Harvest week Oct. 8 - 14, The grapes are all in!!!!

2007-10-12T14:49:00.000-07:00

Monday, we pressed the Saralee 115 Pinot Noir. The previous week, we got a call from Peter, our grape broker for Stage Gulch, he thought the grapes would be ready sometime this weekend. However, with the forecast of rain for Tuesday there was a scramble to get the grapes picked. The grapes were picked Tuesday morning and were delivered to us on Wednesday afternoon, 9.94 tons. This was such a good thing, since it rained Tuesday night and again on Friday!!!
We lined up several volunteers to help out with the sorting and destemming. The whole process seemed to take a long time, but I think it was just because we were tired from all of the other crushes. We are truly happy to have all of our grapes in.
The Stage Gulch grapes will cold soak for 2 days and then we will inoculate them with yeast. In this time that they are fermenting, about 2 weeks, we do 3 manual punch downs a day, everyday! The yeast are converting sugar to alcohol and give off carbon dioxide which pushes the skins to the top of the bin. We want the skins to be in contact with the juice for maximum color and flavor extraction. So, when we do the punch down we are pushing the skins back into the juice. Check back in next week for more barreling and pressing!

Harvest week, October 1- 7, 2007

2007-10-08T14:21:00.000-07:00

It is Syrah time!!! Syrah grapes have thicker skins than Pinot Noir and the clusters aren't so tight together. These are the Alegria grapes.

This week we barreled the Morelli Lane Pinot Noir and pressed the UCD 18 Las Brisas Pinot Noir on Wednesday. Thursday, Jack and Randy rented a truck to drive up to RRV to get the Alegria Syrah grapes. Martha and I stayed behind to clean and set up all of the equipment so we would be ready to go when they returned with the grapes. However, things did not go that smoothly....Randy and Jack got stuck in traffic and didn't arrive at the Alegria vineyard until 10:30am, then they had to wait for the pickers to pick 5 tons of Syrah grapes. They got back on the road around 2:30pm and ended up at the winery at 4pm (we had projected they would arrive at Lost Canyon Winery at 1pm!!!). This crush took way longer because the grapes were picked in 1 ton bins and we had to dump them into 1/2 ton bins to fit on the sorting machine. We acted quickly because we had to maximize our use of daylight hours. The grapes came in at 27brix. Most volunteers bailed due to the lateness of the grapes. However, Mike Hardie came to the rescue and a new volunteer showed up too, along with Jack's son in law!!! It was a long night and their help was very appreciated. After everything was all cleaned up it was 9:30pm!

Saturday, we had our biggest crush, 12 tons! We had 5 volunteers come in to help us with Trenton Station Syrah. These grapes looked great, and were at 25 brix. The crushing process was done in record time, 11am-2:30pm we crushed 12 tons. I thought we would be going until 5pm. The sorting crew was awesome! Thanks, volunteers!!

Also, took some photos from the point of view at the top of the crusher. Enjoy! Only one more vineyard to go.....Stage Gulch coming next week.

Harvest week Sept 24- Oct 1, 2007 All the Pinot Noir is in!

2007-10-01T13:03:00.000-07:00

The Viognier has taken off with it's fermentation, so a task we have to deal with is keeping it cold while it is fermenting. Normally during this period the temperatures creeps up to 90-95 F, but we want to keep it at 60F or so. This ensures those beautiful aromatics that Viognier is known for having. Since we are not really equipped to make white wine, we have to keep the tanks cold by our own devices. I was at Pagano's in Alameda and I saw these large over the door hanging hamper bags and thought we could hang them on the outside of the tanks and keep filling them with ice. Then, Jack thought we should use some insulated foam to wrap it up and keep the cold in. It is working pretty good, but they look like debutantes with formal gowns on. What do you think?

We started the week off with pressing Saralee's Pinot Noir 777 clone along with Las Brisas Pinot Noir Swan clone. We loaded 3 bins into the press each time and ran the 20 minute program with no glitches. We let the wines rest in the tanks until Thursday and then we put the wines into the appropriate barrels (50% new and 50% old and we match the particular barrels with the wines).
Saturday, we had our last bit of Pinot Noir come in from the Widdoes Vineyard. We gathered a couple volunteers to help out with our expected 7tons, but only 2.5 tons came!!! With all of the help, we were done in no time! Thanks volunteers for helping us sort through the grapes. They came in cold, looked beautiful and tasted great. The sugar was an average of 26 brix.
Sunday, we were back at it, pressing Morelli Lane Pinot Noir. Now, it will stay in the tanks for several days. We will barrel it this week and wait to hear from the growers about how our Syrah grapes are coming along. And so it goes on.....