Is Spring here yet?

Here we are, the second week of April, and I have to hear about low snow levels!! Last Sunday I witnessed the most amazing day of precipitation I've ever seen. Rain, hail, and snow all in the same afternoon. That is one amazing trifecta.

The last six weeks have been spent tasting, tasting, and tasting again. Almost endless trials trying to get every blend just right. Some blends are easy and only take three rounds of trials. Other blends are not easy. Our most difficult blend to finalize this year took 7 rounds!! It's hard work, but someone has to do it. We just finished blending the barrels according to the results of our trial tastings. No we can resume racking the new wines from 2007.

We will soon have budbreak in the vineyard. I do love to see the vines coming to life again after a long sleep. The vineyard will soon be abuzz with all types of activity. Shoot thinning, bud rubbing, cultivation of cover crops, mowing grass, fruit estimates, composting, irrigation, mildew control, grafting, and replanting to name just a few. We're also planning to plant a new parcel next spring, so we've already ordered plants and plotted vine rows. We'll be preparing the land this spring with soil amendments and irrigation pipe headers and fence posts and such so we're ready to plant next February and March.

We'll be getting really busy in the winery, too, with bottling. We'll bottle nearly 7,000 cases in three months. Then we'll relax the month of August as we get ready for the next harvest.

Yeah, winemaking is just as romantic as it sounds. And exhaustive.