Blending Day and Bottling Day

On Saturday, January 15th we went to Kestrel's barrel room to blend our next vintage. John Gabriel had over 20 barrels down from the racks for us to sniff and taste. Thank you all for coming and bringing your yummy appetizers and husbands. The hubbies were so well behaved, we'll invite them back again!

The good news is, I think we will have an OUTSTANDING wine to start drinking in August. We tasted Cabs, Merlots, Cab Franc, Syrah, Malbec, Tempranillo and a new grape- Graciano.

As you know, we hadn't printed our labels yet until we decided what we were making. Well, we did an about-face and chose the Rioja Spanish blend (30% Tempranillo and 70% Graciano) instead of the Bordeaux blend. It was deeper in color, a little on the spicy side, a gorgeous mid-palate and a long, enticing finish. It’s a wine with impeccable balance that will drink well young and age beautifully.

What a fluke that we just had our Spanish wine tasting day and the winner was a Tempranillo!

So, now we get to bottle it! The new bottling date is Saturday, Feb. 12th at 1:30pm behind Kestrel again. Be prepared to work on the production line; moving boxes, bottles, gasing them, filling them, corking them, putting the capsules on, labeling them and then boxing them!

If you have a few more friends that want to join us and buy some of our wine, let Gayle know that you are interested. This may be our last time to do this.........

ps. the new name means "BEAUTIFUL RED"