Good Start Of The New Year
Great To Be Into A New Year
Somehow waking up on January 1 feels like starting to read a new book – such a great and exciting feeling. For Christmas Rebecca gave me the “Noma Guide to Fermentation” and I love slowly reading my way through it. Just like jumping into 2023! A new year with new opportunities, meeting new people, dealing with new challenges, enjoying great wines and awesome food – all those things that make you feel alive and kicking! Its been a great year already and it would take me a full page just describing what we have been working on so far in 2023 – and the “book” just got started.
So from Rebecca and I comes a big Happy New Year to all of you!
Bottling - Again...
Yes, January is bottling month. The new batches of refreshing 2022 wines soon will be ready to go: Ampelos Viognier, Riesling and Rose. "Funky Town" Clairette Blanche, Orange Albarino and Carignane. Also a few fun custom crush projects including Kurt Russell’s Chardonnay and finally our 2020 Ampelos Syrache.
Always a lot of coordination and processing work getting the wines racked, blended and prepared. Ordering glass, labels, corks, pallets, wrap, bottling line, nitrogen, tents, food….our Excel task list is about 80 lines long. Such a good feeling when the last bottle was filled and we could celebrate with our bottling crew.
Our "dry creek" - not very dry. We haven't seen any water here for years!
Rain: A Love/Hate Relationship - Mostly Love!
I am sure that you have all heard (if not also felt) a lot about the rainstorms we have had here in Santa Barbara County over the last few weeks. Yes, we got a lot of water from the skies: Last 30 days a total of 14 inches - as much as we get on average for the whole year! And one day we got almost half of it (over 6 inches). Rain is such an important input to grape farming and since we usually don’t get any from April through September we can't wait for the dark clouds to roll in once harvest is over.
When it pours like it did last week there is also a price to pay. We protect our dirt roads by spreading straw bales and building drains, we cover exposed soil slopes with cuttings from vines and trees and we maintain drainage around our “dry creek” which is not that dry right now. But there are always surprises like the potholes we discovered in the middle and next to one of our dirt roads. Very likely caused by some ground squirrel tunnels that collapsed from the water flow going through them. Well, we will fix it when we can get the tractor back in.
Still hope for more rain over the next couple of months…the cover crop loves it too!
Squirrel tunnels converted to potholes.
We will get it fixed when we can drive a tractor in here
All the best from Rebecca and Peter.
Be good to yourself and others - and enjoy great wine!
Cheers!