I thought it would be fun to follow a single 100 year old Zinfandel vine photographically throughout the growing season this year. The vine I selected is from our neighbors here in Calistoga, the Luvisi family - their vineyard is right across the Silverado Trail from us, and was planted in 1908...
The weather didn't cooperate, we had some issues fitting foils to bottles, but we made it through our first bottling day of the year in good shape. Here is how we work with a mobile bottling line to get our small lots through the final winemaking step...
In this video Joe talks about what we're bottling tomorrow and how we prepare for a smooth day on the mobile bottling line. It's a big day for us (we only bottle 3 days per year) and we're all set.
In this video Joe talks about the fining of wines, or the removal of various solids, etc. from wine - and why we rarely do this at August Briggs. Fining is one of those processes that is considered leading up to bottling, which we'll be doing next week! (you may have to turn your sound up a bit).
Last Friday I had the chance to attend the annual “Dark & Delicious” tasting held by the “PS [Petite Sirah] I Love You” organization, which exists to promote the terrific, but lesser known, varietal of Petite Sirah (www.psiloveyou.org).
In this video, owner and winemaker Joe Briggs discusses wine racking and its importance in the winemaking process. Via racking we move the wine off of its sediment as it settles in the barrel, which helps to provide a cleaner wine without later filtration.
I was walking out of the winery last night at the right time - great blues and pinks in the sky to contrast with the bright yellow mustard coming up in the vineyard - click on "read" for the pic - enjoy!
Tina Caputo wrote an interesting column for Wines & Vines magazine this month on the use of the term “old vines” on wine labels. I was actually surprised to see that 71% of wineries surveyed believed that the term should be regulated, even though there is no consensus on how old vines should be before they are bestowed with this title. I was also surprised to hear...
