Winemaking

Here's the latest from wine country-France:

All the wines have about finished fermentation. The cinsault rose finished last week, and is just waiting for the grenache, which should finish tomorrow or Saturday.

The Cuvee finished yesterday - and now it will sit on its skins (extended maceration) for about a week to extract the necessary tannins and polyphenols to make it special. I can tell you, however, that at this point it is tasting pretty good - good fruit, with spice and a little licorice. I think it will be ready to press late next week. As you can see the barrels for this wine have arrived and are nestled snugly in the lower caveau.

The regular Cotes du Rhone red, which we finished picking last Friday, should also finish alcoholic fermentation tomorrow. Then we'll let it sit for a bit and press. This wine will not get to see the barrels - it will stay in stainless steel tanks until bottling.

So far so good. Wish we had more juice, but......what can you do??? Just wait till next year!!

I spent the day working in the vineyard - trying to stay ahead of the excess vegetation. Today was plowing day, with more tomorrow. Ah, the retired life................

All for today.