We spent this past weekend, Tim, Denise and I, up at the winery tasting the barrels of wine that we crushed this fall and it was a lot of fun. There is a lot of business stuff that we have to deal with on a daily basis and many of the growing pains of a young business that must be slogged through. It was relief to put that stuff aside and focus on what we started this all for: the wines.
We were anxious that things were progressing well--wine is essentially a chemistry experiment and is constantly evolving and changing. All the decisions we made about which grapes to buy, which yeasts to use, when and how much to press, and whether to put the wine in new or used, French, American, or Hungarian oak barrels were all behind us and we were more or less stuck with those decisions. As we dipped the thief in the first barrel we were kind of holding our breath.
I'm glad to say that, by and large, we are overwhelmingly happy with the way the wines are turning out. The Sangiovese is tasting great, the two Syrah lots are very different and both very interesting, the Mourvedre is looking like it will be a monster wine and the Zinfandel is a fun wine that we look forward to watching grow up. We all breathed a collective sigh and started talking about which wines will blend well with others and which might stand on their own.
It is exciting to have made it past the first big tasting and, although we have a very long way to go before they are finished wines, we are very encouraged by the results so far.
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