Yesterday the fridgee truck arrived with our shipment of 1300 lbs of premium California wine grapes. The whites are in the form of pressed and settled juice ready for a cool fermentation into white wine. The reds will go through various cold-soak regimens after which yeast will be added to start their fermentations. If all goes well we will be pressing wine in mid to late December.
In case you have forgotten what we are making or only wrote down the wines you are participating in, here is the full list:
Zinfandel - Russian River - a different vineyard source than we used in '05 (that was Mendocino) this is an old vines vineyard that rockroom sourced from in '03 and '04.
Right Bank Blend - Napa Valley - like its distant cousins being made from grapes grown on the "right bank" of Bordeaux's Dourdogne River, this wine will lead with merlot but we will give it an American-style boost from a solid dose of cabernet sauvignon and a splash of cabernet franc. Certainly an elegant sibling to that Inkgrade badboy we are making!
Chardonnay - being made in 2 styles from 2 sources: a big California-style barrel-fermented (Radoux French oak barrel, medium+ toast) Carneros chard, and a low-oak Santa Lucia Highlands chard going for a more acidic, food-friendly wine. Assuming the SLH juice tests out with solid acid levels (looks likely) we will make a small batch of sparkling "baby-blanc-de-blancs" wine as well.
Sauvignon Blanc - Napa Valley - same source as 2005 but more of it - it disappeared way too fast!
Pinot Gris - Suisun Valley - first time for this one. Call it pinot gris or call it pinot grigio - lets just hope it's good!
If you are in Austin over the Thanksgiving weekend you might want to drop by on Saturday or Sunday as things get going!
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