Back in Barrel

Sunday we were back in the winery to get our 2008 Cabernet back into barrel. Our friend Ingrid came to help. This job can be done by one person, Jerry Anderson did it himself for many years, but with three it's really easy and fast.

Stef did clean up and managed the hose out of the tanks. Ingrid managed the house into the barrels, and I took care of hooking up the hoses and working the pump. In all it just took us about 2 hours from start to finish. Most of that time is actually just waiting for the barrel to fill since I run the pump as slow as possible. I don't want to pump the wine too hard, I'm after about the same force as it would be with gravity.

Ghillie came to visit us in the winery. She's getting very big now, and explores on her own. She learned another lesson in becoming a good winery dog. "Water with citric acid tastes bad"! We leave a bucket with some citric acid to disinfect metal fittings as we remove them from the tanks and pumps. Sophie knows not to stick her head in any water buckets in the winery, and she generally avoids being inside if the pump is running, but Ghillie is just learning that.


We still have to go through 'dog puke season'. Dogs can't really digest grapes, but they eat them anyway. Sophie still does it, although less last year than in the past. I'm sure Ghillie will insure we have the hoses turned on on the crushpad at all times this year.

Below our fearless winemaker shows off her handy work in realigning the storage cabinets in the winery.


The wine was very good. The tannins I worried about so much last year are ripe and smooth. There are lots of them, but the wine is still pleasant, and there's really great complex fruit. We're excited on how the 2008's are coming along.