The Last of the Wine

Harvest and primary fermentation seem to get longer every year. I’ve been wine babysitting in Sonoma since early September with hardly a break. That means living out in the wilds with two terriers, a bobcat, a newly resident coyote and a whole lot of fermenting wine. But today, we got the last of our Cabernet grapes out of primary fermentation vats (where they needed three times...

A Tale of Two Presses

Today we tackled the Cabernet press and again, we were lucky enough to have Cousin John to help us. But that also meant two different presses as we are still in the throes of an interesting experiment. Andy and I are processing our Cab with UC Davis yeasts and modern methods. Cousin John, who we “paid” in grapes for his help with the crush, is defiantly Old Skool:...