bottling the '07 Wahluke Syrah

Besides an excuse to pick up our wines at Garagiste we had rented a Dodge Charger to make the drive up to bottle the '07 Syrah, rack the '08 syrah, hang with my dad for his birthday and spend some quality time w/my mom and some of the Oly gang. More than anything the Charger felt like the right car for our Smokey and The Bandit run back to CA with a trunk load of wine.

The Charger - Ready to roll!


For those that haven't set up there own bottling line (prior to last weekend that included us) it involves an assembly like process:

1) Wash bottles and hang on bottle tree to dry
2) fill bottles with gravity fed bottle filler
3) cork wine with floor corker
4) dip tip of wine bottle in wax and set aside to dry
5) put back in case and move on to next

One half of the bottling "line".


My mom's excellent work on the Wax.

Knowing that we were going to have to do a little learning on our feet we stayed away from the Whiskey (unlike a previous Garberville run) instead spending the night before bottling hanging with friends, seeing a great new band (Western Hymn, and drinking a large quantity of one standout WA beer - Snoqualmie's Spring Fever Grand Cru.

Dan, contemplating a piss.


Deux Punx apres douze Bieres.

Bottling was largely carried out By Dan, my mom and myself. We had a number of part time helpers throughout the day but between the three of us spent the entire day down in the basement washing, filling, corking and waxing. This was followed by some racking of the '08 and a little enjoying of the fruits of our labors.

Ed, visiting to "supervise" and get as much of the '08 out of the barrel as he could get away with.


My dad cracking open the first of the '07's way ahead of its time (what, were we going to let this crowd drink all of our Garagiste loot?!?!).

The wine report:

'07 Wahluke Syrah - this is a wild wine that at its young age is still in need of some balance. It shows some nice blackberry and plum with a nice acid backbone. The fruit really jumps out right now but we expect it to settle down with some patience.

'08 Wahluke Syrah - We knew this was going to be really good and weren't disappointed. This a great WA syrah showing some familial similarities to the '07 but coming together with the black pepper and earth background and a much more balanced fruit to acid. With the way this is coming along we may pull the trigger on bottling earlier than next spring. This feels like it's going to be ready to drink alot younger than the '07 (probably before the '07) but with a nice acid backbone should age a bit - if we can hold off!

We've got more grapes coming in from Wahluke this fall and are looking forward to where this next year shapes up compared to the first two vintages.