Wine & Music Inspirations III – Shivaree
Last night I was wide awake in the middle of the night contemplating the 2010 Firá Chardonnay fermentation while staring out at the waning gibbous moon. Falling on the heels of a fantastic harvest moon two days ago, I still could not get this song out of my head. Naturally it has become my next wine & music inspiration. I love the way the music carries itself through the song to tell its story to the next interchange up to the climax and finally the dénouement farewell to the moon. Her brooding voice lends solace to my sleeplessness. Goodnight Moon by Shivaree My goal with this...
Read MoreWine & Music Inspirations II – Koop
This morning was the first day of a harvest that is certain to continue well into November. The excitement, the hurry up and wait, the restless nights are finally assuaged with the reception of our first grapes at The Blending Room. But before their arrival at 12:20PM, yours truly was all a flutter and seeking solace in anything but facebook or twitter. Thus, I turned to my now incessant search for wine and music inspirations. This is not an easy thing to do, let me tell you, but was just the task I needed to ease my apprehensive mind. I searched through the abyss of a music collection held...
Read MoreThe 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. You won’t believe it, but the stain came out of those...
Read MoreVineyard Consensus 2009
On what is most likely our last trip to Chelan for the sake of working on the vineyard. It is time to make summary of our first year of farming. The vineyard consensus: 2009 started out with big and lofty goals and ended with many lessons learned. First, we need a tractor. We need something with 4-wheel drive to climb the steepest slope. We need something that can carry a full 2000 lb macrobin of ultra-premium grapes and can move giant granite boulders. We need something with enough torque to pull old wind break stumps and a front bucket to push dirt. Basically we need a new best friend....
Read MoreSetiembre on the Farm-Part Dos
So, after a grueling three days of shanking, and earth moving and mountain building, and rock moving and road destruction, and eating DUST, we’ve got a mess on our hands. In only 7 days, we cleared nearly 4 acres with the ripper and the bobcat raker. It was dirty, dirty work. A layer of pig pen dust encircled our every movement and you won’t believe the nature of our nostril inhabitants. Wow, farming’s harder than I thought! Peace Out,
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