New Vintage

We are going to bottle and the wines are tasting great! This morning I went out to try our 2008 Calico White, 2008 Viognier and our 2007 Calico Red. Yum.

All of the wines just went through filtration and are totally clean and clear. I was Kevin's assistant, Steffan was out of town, and I was escaping my computer and spreadsheets. The Viognier was fermented in barrel and aged on the lees. Thus there are many solids in the wine prior to filtration. We filter our white wine to help clear the wine and protect it from components that can restart malolactic fermentation in the bottle. As I was throwing the filtration pads away I was trying to figure out how to recycle the filtration pads because they smell so good. The texture on them made me think I could use them as stamps for textured cement, than I remembered that I do not have a cement company nor do I have any future plans to pour cement. I don't think reusing these pads will happen this time.

The first filtration pass cleaned up quite a bit of lees and had some paste that remained on the pads. I got some on my hand and was told to taste it...and I did. It was slightly acidic with Viognier floral components. Kind of interesting. Andrae Bopp, executive chef and assistant winemaker for DVV, was walking by and he was the one who said, "try it". THEN he said trying too much of this could give you the "scoots". I instantly thought that was a fine idea. Eat a little filtration paste, lose weight. This is an especially good idea considering how much darn food I've eaten lately. As always, I digress.

The pads are made from the pulp of cellulose fibers.

Definition of Cellulose: Cellulose is a long chain of linked sugar molecules that gives wood its remarkable strength. It is the main component of plant cell walls, and the basic building block for many textiles and for paper. Cotton is the purest natural form of cellulose. In the laboratory, ashless filter paper is a source of nearly pure cellulose.

O.k...I know you're thinking I'm brilliant...right? I did not write that last paragraph but I wanted to give you the definition because I instantly thought of fat and sugar. I needed to clear things up. See...filtration talk even filters the brain.

So, post filtration the wines will likely go through a little shock, the filtration can strip some of the aromatics and flavor but don't you go worrying your sweet little self about this, because they come back. Not to the "unfiltered - a.k.a. barrel sample stage" but to the wonderful aromatic and taste attributes that are present in these wines.

With that being said, I'm excited for our white wines and I can't wait to get them in the bottle.

The 2007 Calico Red is great. I know you're probably thinking I always say this but I truly mean it! I can't wait for you to try it! Fun blend, great vineyards....Meow. I'll fill you in more in the Calico as it gets closer to release!

Until the next post...

It's almost bottling time

Lucky me. I know I've been complaining about the weather but here are some amazing highlights!

Arizona - I was there 10 days in February. Met the most amazing people, saw lots of cactus, ate too much good food and drank really good wine. I have to say I was thrilled to be part of an amazing wine dinner at the Dove Mountain Grill with Master Sommelier, Laura Williamson, Executive Chef, Bruce Yim, and their amazing team. We had great friends attending including my dad and bonus mom and 22 of their friends plus new folks I had not yet met. What a great evening! The food and wine pairings were spectacular. I had the opportunity to stay with my dad and bonus mom for one night, who wants to stay in a hotel? They had heated their pool to 90 plus degrees. It felt like a hot tub. It was a good thing.

I mooched off of my bonus sister, her husband and daughter and got to stay in a wonderful home in Scottsdale. They are located next to everything so life was good. I'd come home and there would be food ready to go and the coffee would be brewing in the morning! Not too bad!

Next up Portland. Amber and I went to Portland for Taste Walla Walla and an auction wine dinner for the Classic Wine Auction. Can I say spoiled and more fun? We stayed with my Aunt and Uncle...I'm seeing a theme here...if you have wine to share folks want you to stay with them. Maybe it's my irresistible begging?! Hmmmm Again, a great Taste Event, wonderful people then my cousins made homemade pizza. Outrageous with fennel, olive oil, artichoke hearts, garlic (I'm missing something) but fantastic. Had that with a wonderful salad and a little vino. Yet, another good day. Next day lunch at Carafe! Talk about good food and great people. Had lunch with friends and family, met new folks and fell in love with Carafe all over again. That night was our auction dinner at Five Spice in Lake Oswego. I can't even begin to start. Our good friends showed up then four more friends surprised us and showed up and that was it...fun on! We met the owner and winemaker from Brook's Winery in Oregon, great folks with great wine, and 10 more couples who there there supporting the event. The chefs nailed the food pairings. You could taste the thoughtfulness that went into each course. FANTASTIC.

Couple of action items or thoughts that resulted from this dinner:

1) We need a guest Swirlie Post - so for you swirlies out there...send me your thoughts, notes or bottle shots and I'll happily include your note.
2) One of our friends truly dislikes cilantro and the question all evening was, "does this dish include cilantro?" I'm happy to report that there was no cilantro served. Our friend "M" renamed the restaurant "Four Spice" to exclude cilantro. That caused one of many roars of laughter from the West end of the table to occur that evening.
3) I need to update the blog more often.
4) We all need to see last weeks, "The Bachelor".
5) I believe that the best evening comes from great food, great wine and great people...the crazy people sitting on the West end of table believe if you have great food and great wine who cares about the people? (stinkers)
6) We had two people who are party people sitting at our table. (Party people in their minds if you ask me.) They supported this claim by saying they are party people however they are still catching up on their sleep from all the missed sleep in their 80's due to partying. They both went to Chico State. I'll let you sort this one out.
7) Blogs really aren't self serving
8) You can be happy doing anything if you are doing what you love
9) Has anyone read "2012 for dummies"? We all decided to hold off on Christmas shopping in 2012 and if this passes without the world coming to an end we were told by our friends on the east side of the table that Macy's has great last minute shopping.

With this I'll end and then get to the serious stuff...upcoming wine!

P.S. we have started working out.

Weather Obsessed!

O.k. before I get into my new blog rant...more weather updates...check out these pictures around the winery! The first photo was taken two days ago and it looked like J.R. Tolkien's, "The Lord of the Rings"...if I hadn't been paying closer attention I'd think the dark side had taken over and Frodo was about to destroy the ring.

Julie a.k.a. "office princess" posed for me during our hail storm yesterday. She said I owed her big time for making her stand in the hail! I can't believe this weather!



I am so ready for warmth. Last night I bundled up in lots of flannel, a bathrobe and slippers...now that's painting a sexy picture isn't it. You know what? Who cares? It was so cold it was all about the warmth baby! Sexy "ain't comin' back" until the sun starts to shine on a regular basis.

Christmas in the winery?

O.k. I hope the guys turned off the heaters!

(you can click on the picture to see the snowflakes)

Snow, snow, go away!

Christmas in February?

Snow Flurries outside. Yuck.

(You can click on the photo to see the snow flurry.)

We Heart Catie!

Maybe it's not cool to point out someone who wrote something cool about us but it was the shot in the arm we needed! Hey, we're only human and good news is always welcome around here. We always ponder what else should we do, what more can we do to get our name out there? Contrary to popular belief about folks in the wine world we work with a relatively moderate budget. So we have to be pretty creative with our marketing dollars. We wish we had a marketing crystal ball. We have an amazing winemaker on board, Steffan, and he has an amazing right hand man, Kevin who has an amazing left hand (???) hmmm maybe it's another right hand man, Sam! We have a great tasting room "princess", Julie and the only folks that really cause any hitches in our giddy-up are Amber and me! That's our job!!! :-) It's been cold, somewhat gloomy, we're working on budget numbers (yuck)and listening to the news and I was starting to feel a little gloomy yesterday. THEN this morning I noticed a nice little pop-up message that said there is a blog you should read.

Guess what comes next? I came to work, the sun is shining, let me repeat, the sun is actually shining! I almost lost my eyesight due to the brightness that I am not used to :-) which actually is a good thing. I sat down held my breath and I opened Catie's blog. With each word I sat a little straighter in my chair, felt my smile start to widen, and even felt a little extra spring in my step. Then I brought Steffan in and mentioned that "the guys", he and my dad Gary, got a well deserved shout out too!

Catie thanks for adding even more Walla Walla sunshine to our day! Catie's site "Through the Walla Walla Grapevine" made it to the top 100 wine blogs at #32. You go girl! "and keep doin' what you do" See Catie's Blog

Our Traveling Companion

Dear Blog Leader,
Guess who's baaaaaack. O.k., you have to have read my earlier post from this morning to understand what this is about but Amber reminded me that we really wanted to put a picture of yet another bottle of our wine that is better traveled than we are! Our 2003 Intuition spent Christmas Day in Botswana, Africa on the fingers of the Okavango Delta. After receiving this picture from Emilio, thank you Emilio, I needed to do a little geographical research to see just exactly where our (rather, Emilio's) Intuition spent its last day. Emilio did share that the folks there were impressed with the wine. He also was also lucky enough to visit the wine country in Stellenbosch, Paarl and Franschoek.

For those of you who are geographically savvy please bear with me. One quick disclaimer...this paragraph and the next one are kind of (pretty much) plagiarized...I really could not say it better. Botswana is a landlocked country located in Southern Africa. It has land borders with Zimbabwe in the northeast, South Africa in the south and southeast and with Namibia to the west. In Northern Botswana, the Okavango River flows in from Namibia, and soaks into the sands to form the Okavango Delta, easily accessed via Maun.

The Okavango is a labyrinth of lagoons, lakes and hidden channels covering an area of over 17,000 square km and the largest inland delta in the world. Trapped in the parched Kalahari sands it is a magnet for the wildlife who depend on the permanent waters of this unique feature.


O.k. I'm back, Emilio also captured this beautiful photo of a Jaguar that I had to include. I really want to pet it and rub it and kiss it! Too beautiful. (yes I know he or she would likely mar me but still...so beautiful.)

All of us here appreciate the wonderful bottle shots and our friends who share our wine with folks all over the world. Wine truly has no borders and we would add it makes friends with anyone open to giving it a try! Cheers Emilio!