Monthly Archives: August 2015

288 bottles of Cab have been bottled
288 bottles are done
We took one down
And  passed it around…
287 bottles of Cab have been bottled.

287 bottles of Cab have been bottled
Wondrous looks abound
We want second sips
To hit our lips
Looking forward to 24 cases of Cab being bottled! The joke has always been that I will know when my wine-making is becoming successful when my husband wants a whole glass. Turned out that happened last Saturday when we bottled our 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon.  He had three.

Saturday’s bottling was also a pivotal day, because it was the first time we had any group vineyard/wine work party without my “much-loved” father-in-law, who passed away in March.  Normally, we would have bottled somewhere between March and June, but stalled because of the difficulty of facing it without him.  However, with the grapes veraising on the vine and the harvest tick-tocking quickly towards us, we had to get the bottling done to free barrel and storage capacity for the 2015 grapes.

To keep the mood light, we over-filled a bottle for each of our bottling crew and sipped the wine down to the correct level for corking, in memory of Jack, my husband’s father.

To give you the background…the very first time we attempted to bottle wine, Jack, my husband, and I used the siphon-through-a-hose method of filling each bottle.  For any of you who have tried this, you know it is a primitive process rarely resulting in the wine arriving at the correct level in the bottle in prep for the corking which follows.  Of course, “the only way” to correct the situation is to sip the wine down to the desired level.

The then 81-year-old, Jack, after double checking that was “the only way” to do it, enthusiastically swigged, sipped dribbled wine down his T-shirt until he staggered into a plastic chair behind him chuckling, “I just can’t do any more!”  That was about 40 or 50 bottles into the process.  Now, you have a picture of why this fun-loving man is missed.

Jack would have loved tasting this batch of wine.  After nine years of helping us with our vineyard and vintner endeavors, we have finally come up with a drinkable Cab.  There is hope for producing a stellar, rich, balanced, full-bodied Cab and /or Merlot…someday.  Until that day comes, we will keep enjoying friends and family at work parties, sharing lots of laughter-filled meals, and raising a glass to the fruits of our labor.  Cheers!