Archive for September, 2007
Tuesday, September 25th, 2007
Back in NJ
I took a red-eye flight back to NJ and just got in this morning. We decided to cut our Walla Walla trip short. Billo has had a sinus infection all week and it’s just not getting better. He needed to be home resting.
Yesterday, we met Ken Hart at our property. Ken is the vineyard manager […]
2 Comments » - Posted in Rasa Vineyards by Pinto Naravane
Sunday, September 23rd, 2007
Inoculate Les Collines Fruit
We were at Artifex earlier today. Our Seven Hills fruit is coming along nicely. It’s been fermenting for 3 days now.
We inoculated the Les Collines fruit today. The juice is looking and tasting great. I’m really excited by the potential.
3 Comments » - Posted in Rasa Vineyards by Pinto Naravane
Sunday, September 23rd, 2007
Saturday Night at the Super 8
Saturday night - good food from Luscious by Nature, a good bottle of wine from Waters Winery, a Hitchcock marathon on TV, and some time spent by myself in my Super 8 motel room. What could be better?
Well, quite a lot frankly. But I needed some down time.
The 2005 Waters Interlude was quite a nice […]
1 Comment » - Posted in Wine and Food by Pinto Naravane
Saturday, September 22nd, 2007
Walla Walla Terroir
Dr. Kevin Pogue took us on a 3-hour terroir tour today. He took us all around the valley and showed us vineyard sites and potential vineyard sites. He talked about the differences in terroir in the valley and where he felt vines would grow best. We ended with Kevin and me on our 28 acres […]
2 Comments » - Posted in Rasa Vineyards by Pinto Naravane
Saturday, September 22nd, 2007
Christophe Baron
I had asked our friend Dr. Kevin Pogue, geologist and professor at Whitman College in Walla Walla, if he would introduce us to Christophe Baron, the winemaker and owner of Cayuse Vineyards.
Christophe was the first to plant vines on “the rocks” in Milton Freewater (where we bought our 28 acres). Cayuse has become a reference-point […]
1 Comment » - Posted in Wine and Food by Pinto Naravane
Saturday, September 22nd, 2007
Artifex Reports
We got our first Artifex email report yesterday. It contains a table of six rows that correspond with the six containers for our fruit (2 fermentation tanks and 2 T Bins for Les Collines, 2 S Bins for Seven Hills). The columns indicate location of fruit, tonnage, previous day’s Brix, current day’s Brix, the Brix […]
No Comments » - Posted in Rasa Vineyards by Pinto Naravane
Friday, September 21st, 2007
Seven Hills Chugging Along
We went back to Artifex earlier today. The Les Collines fruit is cold soaking in two fermentation tanks and two T Bins. We tasted the fruit from each of the tanks and T Bins – the color is coming along nicely, the taste is wonderful.
The Seven Hills fruit was inoculated yesterday. It’s chugging along nicely. […]
No Comments » - Posted in Rasa Vineyards by Pinto Naravane
Friday, September 21st, 2007
Inoculate Seven Hills Fruit
We got to Artifex yesterday around noon. It was time to inoculate the Seven Hills fruit with yeast; it was time to make wine. The color of the juice is a wonderfully vibrant purple; the juice is jammy sweet; the acids are low. The flavor and acid profile is just what we expected from Seven Hills […]
1 Comment » - Posted in Rasa Vineyards by Pinto Naravane
Wednesday, September 19th, 2007
Les Collines Block 35 Picked, Crushed and Destemmed
By the time we got to Les Collines, the pickers had already started and made significant progress. It is amazing watching these workers pick fruit. They know what they are doing and they are fast. Shane’s team can pick about 3 ½ tons per hour.
The fruit tastes great. The yield for Block 35 is 2 […]
2 Comments » - Posted in Rasa Vineyards by Pinto Naravane
Tuesday, September 18th, 2007
Les Collines Block 35
We went back to Les Collines Vineyard today. After taking samplings from Block 36 and Block 35 we decided to go with Block 35 (one end of Block 36 was getting a lot of wind and consequently the fruit wasn’t as ripe).
We sampled the fruit from Block 35 at various locations and felt that it […]
