Friday, September 25, 2009

Thursday, September 17, 2009

All Hands on Deck (Monday Syrah Sort)

help the deux punx out this monday in olympia, washington. sort should start around 1pm. aaron's dad's house. food, wine, labor, fun and more labor.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

First Look at 2009 Pinot Fruit

here is a picture alan sent us today of his vineyard. insane! can't wait to get up there and taste.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

helping out

i was lucky enough to be on family vacation in occidental when the russian river pinot harvest started for 2009. our buddy alan baker invited me to the FIRST estate harvest at arista. what an experience! to see the McWilliams family gathered to see the first fruits of their labor was very inspiring. the fruit was amazing! clean, small clusters and delicious. classic RRV pinot. the family and crew paraded the fruit down west side road to moshin for crushing. despite a few hiccups, including 2 bins falling off the truck, the sort and crush went great.

7am at arista

the haul

the next day was spent helping alan and serena sorting their equally beautiful floodgate pinot fruit. 4-tons was sorted in 20% of the time it took us to sort 1-ton of our fruit last year. it was very cool to see these two going for it!

Italicthe sorting on deck circle

many contacts were made, technical advise given and stories told. hopefully next year we can be a bit more involved in this region. time will tell. there is definitely something to be said about lending a hand to friends when it comes to wine making (hint hint).

rrv pinot