The Old Vine

Harvest is upon us and winemaker, Glenn Hugo, says we will be bringing in about 285 tons of Sauvignon Blanc this week.  This puts us at 2 weeks ahead of harvest last year, which kicked off on September 13, 2011.  We have sourced these grapes from several vineyards throughout Napa Valley including as far north [...]

The craziness of harvest is finally over.  Parting is such sweet sorrow, though its nice to be relieved of that stress.  And what a stressful vintage this has been!  The vines and grapes have done their jobs and now the yeast have practically completed their jobs in the winery as well.  Today we talked briefly [...]

After the grapes are crushed and pumped into huge stainless tanks to await fermentation, a small closed-cell foam rubber ball is pumped through the lines to push out the remaining juice. It’s called the pig and the trick is to catch it before it goes into the tank. Sounds easy enough, but I decided to [...]

Okay, now that I have your attention. Last week, I wanted to know first-hand what working in a winery involves and I got my wish. (Careful what you wish for!) For several hours, I helped with sorting and then filmed my new-found winery friends as they went about doing all those jobs that offer so [...]

It’s harvest season here in wine country, and that means we’re scrambling to pick fruit and begin making this year’s wine. That also means all this activity is a great opportunity for me to show you what we’re doing, how we’re doing it and why. Last week we received some Zinfandel grapes, so I followed [...]