Tasting the Wine

As an update to the last post: After letting it rest for a couple weeks, we opened a bottle of the wine Beaumont made from our grapes. Very nice; opens with some fruit, then a medium body, and then that classic, pleasantly astringent Cabernet Franc finish (which will get more interesting with age). Great wine with food I think.

The next day we stopped by Camas Cove Cellars, to whom we've also supplied Cab Franc and Chardonnay over the past two years. We brought some of the Beaumont for comparison. Dennis & Nancy tend to let their reds age in the barrel longer than many wineries, so our 2014 was still in the cask. Dennis pulled a sample and we compared the two. They are actually quite distinct. The Camas Cove, for example, has more fruit throughout at this stage of development. Conversely, Pete Beaumont blended a small amount of Cabernet Sauvignon, which plays off the structure of the Cab Franc nicely.

Both are truly terrific winemakers and it is really cool to taste their handiwork and get good feedback for continuing to improve the vineyard and fruit.

First Vintage in the Bottle

Beaumont Cellars bottled their 2014 grapes last week, including 100+ cases of Cabernet Franc from our vineyard! It's the first of our grapes to make it to market. We planted in 2009. Seven years later we have wine in the bottle ready for release.

Pete Beaumont invited me to come up to the winery in Quincy to help the crew with the bottling. They bring in this mobile bottling unit with a production line - filling, corking, capsuling, labeling and boxing - all in this self-contained truck.

I believe we bottled a total of 1,800 cases (all varieties) in about ten hours.

Pete's a very fine winemaker and we're fortunate to have our grapes in good hands.

It will be fun to see the tasting notes and the response this wine gets from consumers and wine media. We'll get a few cases and share with all the friends who've shared this journey with us.

Budbreak 2016

Panchito and I planted about 75 new Cab Franc vines, fill-ins for vines that have died or where there was extra space. These were some fancy clones (vine varieties) from Inland Desert Nursery in Benton City.





                                                                                                                                                           



It was a spectacular spring day. Nowhere I'd rather have been than in the vineyard.

A Cayuse Spring Sunrise

The fields are lush in the summer, but the colors are also beautiful this time of year. Here they look like chocolate after being freshly tilled and planted.

The growing season has begun.

Pruning 2016

Started pruning this week, earliest ever. We had driven to Yakima and seen many of the vineyards there already pruned or in the process, so figured I better get my rear end out there.

Best job in the vineyard, though. Very little bending over, and it always feels good to get a vine looking spruced up; kinda like spring cleaning.

Math Boom at BBCC

Good article in the Seattle Times this week about burgeoning interest in math & tech classes at Big Bend Community College, thanks in part to a federal grant. Skilled workforce = economic vitality.

"The Moses Lake school (BBCC) has boosted the number of classes it offers in pre-calculus I from 3 to 11. Pre-calculus II has gone from one class to five. And statistics classes increased from four to 12. ...

"The number of Hispanic students enrolled in science, technology, engineering and math courses has grown from 24 in 2008-09 to 473 in 2014-15."

Click here for the full article.