From left to right the samples are from the keg, from the barrel, and the initial yeast and cellular sludge that shot out from the bottom of the keg.

I had removed a gallon of wine from the barrel to sample and drink over christmas. My uncle Stuart remarked that it “was bright”, with a rise of the eyebrows. It did have some harsh candy flavors as a result of the huge tartaric addition. In that operation I poured 1 pound tartaric for 60 gallons of wine!

As I’ve mentioned, the 2009 wine is all bottled. Carye Bye is making me labels, and I just dropped by this evening to take a look at a final mockup. I decided to jigger some of the info around at the last minute. For instance, who cares about the total acidity? Yet it’s important to inform people that the wine is from Oregon. On the other hand I’ve told her that I don’t mind if it’s not perfect in every way, such as the small gaps on the upper corners of the border, the slight mushiness of the last five in the brix, etc. ‘I like the subtle sloppiness of the letterpress’, I tell her. ‘Oh,’ she says, looking a little dejected, ‘but I try to make it as tidy as possible.’ Goodness! I have to watch what I say around the artisans.

I’ve spent the week working on wine. Lyle came and helped me out. We bottled the 2009 pinot. During bottling we were drinking a 2007 Beaux Freres and holding them side by side it was clear how brilliantly red and clear my wine is. That’s not to criticize the Beux Freres, which was really good. I’ve been hypersensitive about my wines attribues, so it’s nice that it came out well.

In order to move the wine from the barrel to the mixing tank I used pressurized argon. This is the step the photo is showing. I’m pressurizing the barrel to 4 psi, which elevated the wine about 5 feet.

Today the 2010 was pressed and has been racked to the barrel. It smells very ripe and fruity, but is also extremely tannic as it was soaking on the skins for about 3 weeks. Or perhaps the tannins are from the weather?

For my wine this year I got grapes through John Grochau, who makes his wine in the NW Industrial district. He was receiving Pinot Noir for about a week during this very late harvest. The Anderson Family Vineyard was the last to come in, on the 22nd. John shares his winery with Boedecker, and the crusher-destemmer was tied up, so the grapes sat overnight in a refrigerated semi trailer. On the 23rd I drove over and picked up 4 bins of the Anderson Family Wadenswill clone. This came in at 1300 pounds.

The winery was bustling and it was really exciting watching the work being done. Here John is pressing down the cap on some Pinot that had been fermenting for about a week. These plastic bins are used for all the fermentations, and they allow for keeping all the myriad types of grapes in separate batches. Each bin contains perhaps a different clone or location from any of 10 or 12 vineyards.

These are the Boedecker people. The perforated stainless tube is a filter for the must pumpovers. Their fermentations are all wild and they are probably trying to introduce as much oxygen as possible to jumpstart the yeast. The pumpover also accomplishes the work of the punchdown.

I didn’t help out with the work at the winery, as I had to get back and tend to my own. The 1300 pounds of grapes fit in my 4×8 trailer perfectly. I didn’t take any photos of me and Ben working in my backyard, as our hands were so sticky. In the shed are the 3 fermenters filled with crushed and destemmed grapes. Ben samples some must in an oversized mug.

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.

September

March

The stout is done and I just dropped off some bottles with Joel and Elle.

From the barrel of the 2009 pinot I drew off 4 bottles to taste and see how it’s going. Kate thought the fermenting yeasty aroma was still quite strong. It’s aging on the lees, so this is to some extent the point. It’s quite dangerous experimenting with destabilizing winemaking techniques when I have yet to make a ‘clean’ wine, but I think it’s working well. It’s light, as you can see, but nonetheless moderately tannic. The cherry fruit flavors are very fresh, the wood is rather unintegrated at the moment. It’s very drinkable and Chris, Kate and I polished off the whole bottle before dinner was over.