I bottled some Muscat from last year.
The grapes came from Elle’s father. He has 6 or 7 old vines about 200 feet from the Willamette river.
I dropped off a case of Muscat and Pinot Noir on Saturday. The yearly family renunion was in full swing. Here they are doing some skeet shooting in the cow pasture.
Also, the counter was glued in on Friday.
Elle and I are planning to make some beer, perhaps this coming weekend. I thought I’d smoke some barley with madrone, to see how that works. I’d like to try making some whiskey, so this is the first step towards that. Next I’d like to malt some barley, then use the smoke to dry it. Perhaps I could use Joels coffee roaster, if he’d let me? Actually, I think the fire pit would work better. I was trying to look into whether there are any peet bogs in existence in the northwest. It seems likely. I think hardwoods and fruitwoods could suffice though.
I helped out John Grochau bottle some Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir today at his winery in the NW industrial area. He had rented an on site bottling line. This was a trailer about 20 feet long with the most amazing stainless steel and teflon machinery. It’s speed was limited only by the human inputs and outputs, but we got it going at about 1 bottle per second! We bottled in 4.5 hours perhaps 6000 bottles. Unfortunately I don’t have a more dramatic photo. When we were bottling there was no time for photos.
Leslie and I drove to some vineyards in the Eola hills to sample their wine. Amity, St. Innocent, and Cristom. I was also interested in pruning methods. We had been to Cristom in the fall, right before harvest and I had taken some photos of the vines. With all the foliage and growth it was hard to tell what was going on. Now in the spring it looks so bare and simple.
September
March
