Vashon Winery Journal (vashonwineryjournal.com)

Charming title, huh? We started pressing our reds on December 1st. It was cold, but not too cold, until it started snowing.

We pressed two batches of Cabernet Sauvignon, both from Walla Walla. One ton came from the Dwelley Vineyard in Walla Walla. These grapes were brought to me by Bob Jones who lives on the island. They are very kind and help to crush and press the grapes. The wine tastes fantastic and the grapes looked really good this year, albeit a bit late, which was just fine by me.

The other batch was from a new vineyard in Walla Walla but I don’t know where. It was brought to me by another islander, Rex Noah, and he told me it was from a neighboring vineyard to his vineyard in Walla Walla, I think north of the town of Walla Walla. These grapes were beautiful too but they may have been picked just a bit too soon. The flavors are terrific with just a touch too much tannin and acid…..which to me means a long life.

Wednesday and Thursday I’ll finish pressing. We’ll press the Cabernet Franc and then do the “Accidental Blend”, a blend of also too early Walla Walla Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot blended to overripe Malbec from up by Quincy. This one is co-fermented and I think it is going to be an amazing wine. It is dark, dark, dark with a big (Malbec) mouthfeel and good structure with the addition of the Cab Sauv and the Merlot.

This has been a fun harvest. I used grapes from a bunch of new vineyards and I ended up making far less than I wanted to, but much more within my meager budget.

I have a lot of wine in barrels. I am going to look at combining some of them into unique blends, like Tramp Harbor Red, and sell them at a slightly reduced price. I am selling less wine but more of that is being sold at retail which has been my goal this year.

It’s the make or break month. Last year we had some terrible wind storms that really hurt but I am in much better financial shape than last year because I didn’t make as much this year.

Happy holidays to all if I don’t get back to this journal.

Oh, by the way, I am launching a new site, NW Wine Writer (nwwinewriter.com), and plan to review everything wine in the NW: other writers, the wholesale side of the business, retailers, the wine country, wineries and their wines…..and maybe some consumers. And, wines from the cellar. It should be up and running in a couple of weeks.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 3rd, 2007 at 7:48 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.