FILL WHAT’S EMPTY EMPTY WHAT’S FULL SCRATCH WHERE IT ITCHES I don’t know who to credit for this wisdom, I read it some years ago, but I do think that all of life can be summed up in these lines. See if you agree. Selene is getting ready to bottle the 2007 Sauvignon Blanc and [...]

The picture you see is the top end of the motor in my 2004 Suzuki DRZ-400. The valve cover is off, providing a nice view of the cams and the cam chain in the foreground and the intake and exhaust valves in the background. I have this picture because it shows me where top dead [...]

Fall marks the end of the growing season here in Napa. Grapes are harvested and the green leaves of the vines give way to beautiful changing colors before dropping away to the complete dormancy of the winter. Fall is also the time of beginning for the new wine. Wine is really the liquid history of [...]

Here we are at the end of harvest.  We picked Dead Fred Vineyard on Tuesday the 16th.  It’s been a crazy October, as some of you are probably aware.  Even September ended up being a little below normal in terms of temperature.  So even though we had a heat wave at the end of August [...]

We finished up with a lot of pressing this week. We started with the 181 Merlot from Frediani and the Cabernet Franc from Frediani. We pressed those on Tuesday the 25th. I got some nice pictures of the Cabernet Franc pomace coming out of the tank. This will show you what it’s like coming from [...]

For a few days in mid-September, I tailed Mia Klein throughout the Napa Valley to watch some of the many steps in the magical process of turning grapes into fantastic wine. After booking my plane ticket in May, I fully expected to see lots of workers in the fields picking grapes and dozens of trucks [...]

Last Tuesday we pressed the Bressler T-bin lots, which consisted of Petit Verdot, Merlot and Cabernet Franc.  They had a nice two weeks on the skins in their bins getting punched down and the flavors were really good. We were the first red wine press at Andretti Winery.  It took a little longer than it [...]

Obviously the T-bins of Merlot, Petit Verdot and Cabernet Franc are what we are going to be pressing today for Bressler.  Those fermentations went along very nice.  They are in the negative area now (sugar/brix readings), which means they are dry or approaching dryness.  They have been almost two weeks on the skins, so they [...]

The weather is beginning to cool down a lot so all the picking is starting to slow down.  From the week of September 3rd (when we had warmer weather) the whites from all around us and the reds from St. Helena north were coming in as about as fast as they could get picked across [...]

On the 10th of September we picked the last of the Bressler’s grapes, which was their Cabernet Sauvignon.   We also picked the old Niebaum clone of Merlot at Frediani for Selene. Bressler was due to be a night pick.  Normally (the past couple of years) they start that at 2 or 3 in the [...]