Procrastination

i've got plenty to blog, with over 1,600 pounds of seyval/vidal/viognier/marsanne/sangiovese harvested, processed and stomped. we had plenty of people helping with the harvest and stomp. i have plenty of images and stories—but i'm procrastinating. its that time of year and i always dork posting harvest. i'll get to it. meanwhile, enjoy my phrase-stylings on twitter. yes, i will get to it!

this weekend, we harvest touriga and tinte cao. looking for stompers!

Home Port

ger's christmas present gets put to good use.

Ger has determined that his small french oak barrel will be used in our first attempt to create port-like wine. to the left you see the barrel being prepped. the barrel was dry, so the first step was to fill the barrel with the cold, 10,000 year old water (thanks, pete and lyrel!) from the aqueduct under charlotte hall. the water swelled the wood together to give it a tight fit. the water was emptied and the barrel plugged until the ingredients were mixed.



ger and wc pete mixed 100g or tartaric acid, 5.625lb of cane sugar, 7 liters of 40 proof brandy into a blend of our '07 harvest. our blend consisted of 3 gal. touriga, 1 gal. tinta cao, 1 gal morvedre, and our big dog: 3 gal. sangiovese. they then topped the barrel off with another .5 gal of our mourvedre. since the port will be aged in his barrel, we expect the colour will oxidize to tawny and hope the wine will take on a soft, nutty flavor. all of this happened in late june/early july, but i've been waiting for my summer grad class, information management, to finish so i could post without guilt. about a week or two later, gerald drew a sample from the barrel and a sample from a small, control bottle that wont be oaked. we all could taste the difference that oak brings to the wine. and i'm with lyrel's opinion that what wine is offered in American markets is often heavy on the oak. but for the port, i liked both oaked and non oaked. the oak seemed to smooth out the wine and gave it a spiced sort of taste. to this simple tongue, it tasted like it was on its way and ger and i traded that "hee, this is so cool" grins.

now it is a patient wait. ger estimates it might take the port 3 years to mature in the oak. he's looking into that part. me, i look forward to being back at the townie and enjoying our own fortified dessert wine on those crisp, cool, late fall evenings. we'll pore a small bit into a glass after we've had a bit to eat and settle into conversation—maybe we'll even be able to sit in our backyard and admire the colours of the sycamores and watch nature prepare the lake for the winter.

i feel cooler already.

Snow in April

Surprise snow on the proofing vineyard gate.

Connie's Post
The vines were freshly pruned, bleeding had begun, buds were set and spring stretched her arms all warm and bright to her children for an embrace. then, well--snow happened. this time snow happened on april 6th, a bit late in the season for southern maryland. gerald warned his wife there could be snow. ridiculous! thought the wife and then packed herself some very lightweight clothes. gerald, a firm believer in layers, packed boy1 and boy2 more clothes, for which the wife was grateful--as the snow blew in overnight to her surprise and her husband's ruefulness. how beautiful, though. the air was a bit warm, so there was the sound of snow melting throughout the day--but the snowy bits had stuck nicely to the vines and it was easy to score a nice image. easy for me, but gerald was concerned about the buds, as i had mentioned, they had started to break. so with journal in hand, gerald walked the proofing rows and recorded his findings. its now early may and while the buds, in my eyes seemed to have fared well, gerald says each bud is really three buds. if the primary bud grows, then the other two will not grow. however, if the primary bud is damaged, then one of the other two buds will grow to compensate. he will not be able to make an assessment until after inflourescence (the part of the shoot where the grapes will actually form.