I heard you like copper trials? Today’s triangular for Monday packaging. 50% of the time I choose it correctly every time or something like that.

I love those reunion videos online. Soldiers. dog reunions, you name it. Anyway… Big news is that I bought a coffee shop and a tasting room for my cider this week. I was also thrown a surprise 50th bday in it. My college daughter surprised me home from Scotland a month early and this was the result.

Launching this new internal DTC brand at work. Today the IG/website went live. It’s in boxes and will start shipping in days. The Rosé is absolutely delicious. Really. Watermelon, berry, balanced yet sweet. Get it. SB is great too. Red is maybe too sweet for me but will find its audience. Good stuff

The lab was swamped this week with 50+ quarterly labs on Cabs and barrel groups and a zillion other last minute things that came up. Our amazing lab manager has a birthday on Sunday so I was very happy to simply post this as the workload for Monday.

Weekend in BC and it does indeed take a lot of beer (and meat pies) …To make wine. Got to visit some old haunts after some years away. Steamworks, Granville, and Stanley Park breweries were all very busy. Nice to see with the booze downturn at so many spots. Some well made beers to be had.

That given the choice I’d pick a vegetable based binder glue over a hydrocarbon based polyurethane and a beeswax based cork lubricant over silicon as it’s a thicker coating and conforms more to bottle mold irregularities. The cider/cyser has honey in it so already not vegan + we like bees.

Spent 2 hours today learning more about corks from someone with a PhD in corks. Always happy to listen to an absolute authority on something. I learned a few things and took away two decent ideas. Can the makeup of a cork make someone more likely to buy a bottle of cider? I suspect it won’t hurt.

Champagne/Sparkling Sabre

I’ve never owned a saber for bottles. I mean, we work so hard to get the bubbles in there plus the waste... Yet… I smacked the tops off recently with a pair of tongs, also a butter knife. Maybe that is the goal for this party trick? To find the least plausible tool and use that nonchalantly.

Tasted through a random 15 Cab Francs ranging from $20-$90 a bottle. Loire Valley, Chile, Argentina, Sonoma, Walla Walla, Yakima Valley. Lots of Brett and questionable choices. Once again, price was no indicator of quality or barrel hygiene in the cellar. Boo. I had higher hopes for this exercise.

Sparkling Bottles on the conference table

Another day of meetings… one after another. Sheesh! ;)

Dumbass threatens to ask wife to find something in the winery that is surely hiding in plain sight.

Important equipment went missing in the winery today. It was unfindable… then I threatened to call my wife and tell her I could not find something. The cellar understood the assignment and responded promptly ;)

It is fucking mentally exhausting living under a mad king.

I love innovation. I use concrete and stone tanks. I hate to rain on anyone’s novel idea… but this? This is not an improvement other than it looks pretty - I managed a barrel room and stacked 6 high - Hot/Cold issues, issues with pounding in spiles/wedges? Pass. Drop in some stones instead.

Everybody makes mistakes but winemaking holds itself to a pretty high standard of avoiding making them. I had a good run… until… in spectacular fashion, for absolutely no reason, and just a few days before bottling I made a stupid addition error on a 10,000L blend. Fixable. Now is fixed. But. Blah.

Oak trials, so may bottles

Oak trial tasting at the end of the day. IDK, felt like 50+ bottles in front of the lab. Maybe a few winners. The barrel room guy in me loves this stuff. Maybe some staves for Merlot were found. The absolute definition of first world problems. Tomorrow some tea dosage trials which smell amazing.

Earl Grey Whole Leaf Tea and Sparkling Wine

I didn’t go to Unified in Cali but apparently people liked Chandon’s Earl Grey Sparkling. Just for fun, trials are now underway on a cold infused dosage. Thinking of trying Jasmine and Yuzu/Ginger as well. If we have a winner after tasting we’ll add to the employee sale. 20/30/40 g/L dosage trial.

I love the 375 format and will be picking some up for mimosa flights. Some learnings over a few years FWIW. Same opening size, twice the oxygen exchange. Higher SO2 levels and better caps help. Same product side by side at 12/18/24 months shows significant differences vs 750. Cheers!

Red wines from Two Mountain and Sheridan Wineries in Zillah

Sometimes I even buy wine :) Had to run to Yakima after spending the morning planning out dosage blends. So…stopped off on the way back home at couple wineries I had not been to been to in ages. Owners were hard at work on what will be the revamped Two Mountain tasting room. Nice experience at both!

Microscope and Cellometer cell counter

Yeast cells on grid from microscope

It’s been more than a minute since last Tirage and I definitely needed a refresher from the lab on counting rules. 1.5-1.8 million yeast cells per ml is the target in the packaging tank. Counted my cells in random grids, mathed, and we are good. Off and running for a couple weeks of Tirage bottling

Headed out to have a beer with Ross Courtney in a just a few minutes. He had good things to say about his trip to San Juan. Cheers!

Lots of barrels in the cellar

350 gallon stainless mixer with guth and pump

Have been prepping for Tirage of ‘25 sparkling over the last month. So much barrel work in the cellar. Also needed to make 300 more gallons of a Chard base dosage liquor so the “Big Mixer” was rolled out. It is most impressive in action as it dissolves 795kg of sugar in 632 liters of wine.

Nice!

Our French winemaker taught us all this saying during harvest and it’s been in my head the last few days as I was diving into some procedural stuff. “On ne va pas enculer les mouches” basically, “we’re not going to fuck the flies” or to not focus on the trivial. Great expression, better in French!

Short weeks but still lots of barrel downs, barrel blends, rack and returns, and toppings to be done. Spent a good chunk of yesterday back in the cellar and barrel room. Always a good idea to actually do the work and I found a few things I’d like to fix as a result. Totally worthwhile.

Winemaking, Winetracking, and the Lab staff all getting along, eating pizza, and exchanging gifts. I get to work with some great people and sometimes they get me a nice Bourbon and new UW hoodie (and that is cool too). Short weeks and everyone is mostly fleeing the winery for a well deserved break.

Great read, thanks for sharing!

Tasted through a mix of 18 organic and made from organic wines yesterday priced from $6-$30. 1) Overall, with some outliers, the bar on organic remains low 2) Winner was Elizabeth Rose “Chockablock” RD from CA with a nod to Biokult Naken lightly sparkled Pinot Gris/Muscat from Austria.

Several years ago I bought a wine rack system and a library ladder at auction. Next project - build a cellar that will fit in a bedroom closet sized area behind a “secret mirror”. Plan is to run floor to a very tall ceiling. 270 bottles on the racks and 108 sparkling bottles in the boxes. We’ll see!

It’s the day before Thanksgiving which means that we are squeezing a full week of winemaking tasks into half a week. Pro tip: Want stuff to actually get done around your winery? Promote women to be cellarmasters and leads. Pretty sure I am just here as a diversity hire and a nod to male tokenism ;)

Numbers from Y15 TS=8.03

Sparkling bottles in a row

Disgorging the last of 16 different sparkling packagings today. Sugars have been right on target for all runs which is a huge testament to math, insanely complicated spreadsheets, and the process itself. Target today is 8g/L. Measured different bottles at 7.99, 8.03, 7.92, etc. Will be smug all day!