Sunshine in a bottle.

Over the weekend Family OTW along with monkey and 10 bellies ventured to Napa to help with the bottling of the 2006 vintage. Vinomaker had been up early doors and everything was ready for the grunts(us) to get stuck into pumping and bottling whilst various people seemed to wander in and out enjoying the atmosphere of intense labour coupled with the overpowering aroma of the various wines.The pic shows the cab sauvignon being pumped from the oak barrels into the container prior to bottling.The smell cannot simply be described...fruit,oak,flowers,leather and sunshine!...Napa in a bottle. The day ended with the weary labourers eating drinking and enjoying the perfect evening...life can't always be like this but just sometimes a day is just perfect in every way.....cheers!

Napa news.

Vinogirl just sent the above pic of her Orange Muscat as it makes its first appearance this year. I love seeing the gnarled stunted vines coming to life as in winter they look as if they will never put forth a bud again.....now lets hope this years cab franc and cab sauvignon are as good as the last few years...get pruning Vinogirl!

win some.

Liverpool draw,everton win and the packers hammer seahawks..not a bad set of results..plus vino girl and vinomaker are educating my palate.Combine that with some prime sirloin and I,m a happy chappy! Yesterdays house hunting went quite well as I saw several interesting houses.I also visited a family friends house and saw what can be done to a pretty basic structure here.Only problem is that if nulabour continue to screw the British economy to pay for the bloated whale that passes for govt then My business is going to have a hard time this year.That means new projects may be put on hold...crap!

vino collapso!

Apparently American wine makers are going to reduce the alcohol content of their wine as many people are finding it over powering.European wine is more acceptable with food it seems due to it being not so robust.I enjoy Napa wines immensely but I have thought for a while that perhaps the quest for big fruit in the wine is wiping out the subtler flavours one finds in some french and Italian wines...as I,m off to Napa today I,ll ask my wine making sister vinogirl what her take on this is.