I can’t believe how long it’s been since I last posted and much has been happening in the winery. The 2015 wines are tasty. We had a sauvignon blanc, pinot gris, rose, cab franc, malbec, merlot, petit verdot and cab sauv. The petit verdot was particularly surprising and good.
We had an interesting experience with our apricot wine. It seemed a little too tart so we added some simple syrup to sweeten it and lessen the acid. However even with filtering it restarted fermentation and we ended up with some popping corks. We unbottled everything, which was like pouring out shaken bottles of beer, and let it finish out fermentation again. For our wine club competition we entered 3 of the apricots of varying levels of sweetness; and the one that we didn’t add any extra sugar to won 1st place. The sauvignon blanc and cab sauvignon both came in second place.
Michael and Leann, along with friend and fellow winemaker Dawne started on a 3 year process for becoming certified wine judges through the American Wine Society. We also started a local chapter of the American Wine Society and have had a lot of fun with monthly meetings/tastings. Our group grows monthly, and anyone is welcome to join. In November 2016 we attended the AWS National Conference in Costa Mesa, CA. We had a great time at the conference and passed our 1st year exams for the judging program. Michael won a bronze metal for his malbec (50/50 2014/2015).
The 2016 wines are coming along nicely. For whites we have muscat, viognier, sauvignon blanc, and pinot gris. For reds: cab sauvignon, merlot, and malbec. We also are doing a sangiovese as both a rose and a full red as part of our wine club competition. We still have chokecherries in the freezer that need to get started on their wine journey soon.
Things are pretty quiet now with Michael just doing testing and racking. We should be ready for bottling the whites in April/May.
Hopefully it won’t take me another 18 months to do another post! Happy tasting! Leann