Winter Barrel Work
Just when we thought it was spring in Manson, we got two weeks of snowy weather here at The Blending Room. We have wine to rack soon, so the weather didn’t stop us from doing some barrel cleaning out in the snow. Racking helps clarify the wine by pulling the clean wine off the top while leaving the solid lees behind in the barrel. Longtime wino, Evan, came over from Chicago for a visit and we convinced him to help for a day in the cellar.
Evan assisted us with barrel washing, rinsing, scrubbing, moving and sulfuring just like a pro cellar rat. It’s a great help to have an extra pair of hands when moving around the heavy french oak barrels. It was a wet day at The Blending Room with a wild hose and melting snow, but any day the ends with a glassful of fine wine is a great one. I think our man, Evan, would agree.
Thanks for the help, Evan.
J.H.
Harvest is over.
Cool weather made for tardy grapes this year. It was a long harvest but the last of our wine is now in barrel.
A success? We think so, but you’ll just have to wait to see.
J.H.
Into the bottle, Malbec.
Before we get too far into this new harvest, let us think back to Spring Season OhTen and the bottling story that never was told. After opening The Blending Room, we quickly began selling out of our whites and reds. As June came to an close, the 2008 reds were ready to be carefully blended. The first to be put down was the Kamari Malbec. The blending process started off so smoothly, but as this game often goes, the tables turned and wine spilled. Actually, in this case, wine sprayed. Fine red wine sprayed on me, on the virgin ceiling, on the whitewashed walls, and on the new stacked cases of fresh glass bottles. It wasn’t the first time or the last time, but let’s not assign blame. Who can say whose fault it was?!
After the wine blending, it’s onto the bottle washing. For this, we recruit assistance. Two of the most loyal came out to lend a hand and get drenched (with water not wine) for the greater good. A lot of cleaning and scrubbing goes into any particular stage of winemaking. This is no exception. The bottles must be cleaned, sterilized, and dried before filling.
The actual filling was made easier this round by the welcome addition of a five bottle filling machine. We still rely on the all powerful force of gravity, but now can take advantage five bottles at a time. Unfortunately, we’re bottle necked (yep!) by our one-at-a-time hand corker. While smooth and deliberate, it is slow in the assembly line situation.
This round ended in success. Most of the wine ended up safely sealed in glass. We were hopeful for the prospects and this year’s Malbec has not disappointed. It tastes great.
J.H.
Wine & Music Inspirations IV – The Knife
It’s a stunning day here on the North Shore of Lake Chelan in Manson! Things couldn’t be more exciting as the Northern hemisphere moves into Autumn.
This music inspiration came on the heels of my Swedish kick from Koop, but in a radically different fashion. The Knife are a Swedish Indie electronic, brother and sister duo enlightening us with hard-core lyrics, and pitch-shifting rhythm infused electronica.
The inspiration came from a recent picture of my glamorous duties in a smurf blue jumpsuit while punching down the cap on my Red Mountain Merlot. As I was considering full immersion within the bin of fermenting grapes, The Knife’s Heartbeat sums up exactly the relationship I have with each of my wine babies. As an artist, it’s like the deal you make with your art. You can leave it to “divine sense” and “lean on fate”, unless that isn’t be good enough for you, which it sure isn’t for me. It’s knowing the medium, for me my grapes and believing what they are telling me as I carry them through the wine process. The song lends lyrics to the story of what I imagine is the melding together of an artist’s passion and craft, sharing separate heartbeats.
Whoo, that was way cheesy and heavy for such a silly Swedish song.
By the way, I really just like the song because Karin Dreijer Andersson’s voice is so magnetic and the video rocks. She has also dropped lyrics with the likes of Röyksopp on “What Else is There.” Although she was the voice in that video, she was not the model singing. She’s also featured on Röyksopp’s “This Must Be It” and “Tricky Tricky.”
Skål,
WineGirl
Then you can take it to another phenomenal Röyksopp song: It’s the single remix, but this youtube video is better than the original.
The Blending Room’s First Harvest
It’s grape time and since harvest is late this year, I thought I’d shoot off one quick post about how excited I am for grapes now. I say now because in six weeks when it’s the middle of harvest I’m sure I’ll never want to see another skin, seed, stem, barrel, rack, Wellie… There’s this saying in the industry, “it takes a lot of beer to make good wine.” Below is a fond memory of my first harvest as WineGirl Wines’ in 2007. That was the Merlot and a tricky bin-tipping button.
Grape Bootie
You won’t believe it, but the stain came out of those pants. Afterwords, I called them my magic pants, but they’ve been retired this year. They’d seen too much wine and too many good times.
Be sure to stop by The Blending Room during harvest to see how a nano-winery does it.
Cheers,
WineGirl
Blending and Bottling at The Blending Room
The bottling process has begun here at our new facility in Lake Chelan. We’re finishing the blending of our 2008 red wines including some Malbec, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Cabernet Franc. It’s hard work coming up with the perfect blends; lots of sampling. There’ll be another Kamari Black Label Reserve this year and fan favorites, Cab Franc and Malbec varietals and some new blends to be announced later.
Unfortunately there’ll be no photos today. While pouring wines at a most recent event in Seattle, our vehicle was burgled. Stolen was our laptop and digital camera among other things. We lost the machine itself as well as 6 months of wine artwork and photos. It’s a major bummer at an extremely busy time for us. But we’re pushing on, friends.
After deciding on our blends, we set up for the bottling line. As a true nano-winery, we bottle by hand which means washing, sanitizing, rinsing, sparging, filling, corking, foiling, and labeling the bottles pretty much one at a time. It is quite an operation to get up and running. On the first day, there are always a few snags and snaggles as we try to remember how the equipment works and what is the most efficient system of bottling. We usually call in a few dedicated winos to volunteer on the line.
After two sessions bottling, we have our 2008 Kamari Cabernet Franc and 2008 Kamari Malbec in bottles and resting in the cold room for a little while so they can deal with their bottle shock in cool, humid peace. These are long days, usually around 15 hours, after which we stumble home for a “nap” before the next day of flying water and flowing wine.
The Blending Room, our winery and tasting bar, on the North Shore of Lake Chelan, is open for business while we work. Come check us out for a taste or a case, ask questions, and watch out for the errant hose sprays from the bottling line.
J.H.
Winemaking on winegirlblogs: Filtering the Whites
And now for some actual winemaking on this blog. It’s been a while. Our time has been occupied and our blog has been clogged with moving the winery, construction on the new facility and settling into our new location. We’re getting prepared to bottle our 2008 reds and 2009 whites soon. That means some filtering is in order for the ’09 Chardonnay and Gewurztraminer (that’s French for Gewürztraminer).
WineGirl and her helper, Delice, rolled out the small but mighty plate filter for some action. It had been in the closet for a while, but performed its duties very well. Delice took to the sometimes hectic process with quick feet and cool attitude.
As always, there is lots of cleaning and sanitizing in winemaking, which makes for lots of water everywhere, especially down my boots. Our new helper came out relatively dry though. There were lots of hoses on the ground too. No one tripped and no one fell. The wine got filtered, and it was good.
Success.
J.H.
Moving wine around
This week, we took the time to rack some aging wines. Racking entails transfering the wine from the barrel, washing out the sediment (lees), returning the wine to the barrel and topping off the barrel with extra wine. We transfer the wine by pressurizing the barrel with inert gas and pushing the wine through the hose to the waiting vessel. This method is very gentle on the wine and limits unnecessary exposure to the air. It’s nice not to have to use the pump for this process. As much as I like our little pump, it requires priming which can be a chore, especially for this job. The WineGirl was anxious to get started moving wine, so I cranked up the stereo and connected the bulldog to the nitrogen tank and got going.
With the wines properly racked off the lees and the barrels cleaned, WineGirl, Brother Ben and I returned the wine to their home barrels for some more months to age undisturbed. The 1 1/2 inch diameter hose can get heavy after a while of being filled with wine, but everyone was holding up fine until the last drop. I won’t forget again that I can’t clear the line of wine by pushing the gas through to the barrel. It seems like a fine idea until you see the result all over the wall or your brand new sweatshirt.
Brother Ben was a good sport about the eruption, our largest to date. He learned a valuable lesson about wearing new and/or light colored clothing to the cellar. I learned that time taken to clear the lines by gravity is better spent than by scrubbing the ceiling. The WineGirl was amused by the whole situation though, and it was she who was at the controls. She didn’t look too sorry, Ben.
J.H.
Washing Bottles
We’re getting ready to bottle our new Merlot and the pieces are coming together. The corks and foils are on the way. The labels are at the printer and look great. We picked up some bottles the other day from down south. The warehouse in Kent looked ready for the great deluge. There were sandbags piled neatly around the perimeter and we had to climb in the front door of the place. I figured it was preparation for the dam failure, but they seemed to say it was normal flood season prep. We got the bottles home safely. Thanks go to Joel for the generous use of his vehicle.
I was on my own again to wash, rinse and dry the bottles for our first round of bottling. The drying trees nearly stumped me into submission. They are pretty stupid pieces of plastic, but they do their job well when I can figure out how to stack them correctly. The work isn’t bad but I have managed to get completely soaked every time I use the hose lately. It’s all worth it, I guess.
J.H.
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