Notes From the
Vintner |
Welcome
to our column. We hope that you will return to
learn interesting notes on wine, and related
subjects. Wine is a great gift from God to be used
for the enjoyment of man. It is a food, and should
be treated as such. It is meant to lift up the body
and lighten the soul. 11/01/07 |
Wine gives life to the soul…such a true statement. When life gets knee deep, quite a bit of time with a good glass of wine can refresh the soul. Then you come to realize that things are not that bad, and you can handle the situation. Wine is a great gift to man.
We had the freeze that destroyed my entire crop of grapes, and all looked lost. BUT, as I write these notes new plants are ordered and will arrive in two months. The new trellis system is well underway, and the new end posts are due to be set this Saturday. So life goes on, even if we made only a limited amount of wine this year. We have a good inventory, and can live off the inventory without suffering sales loss.
I just received a large amount of frozen elderberries today to make into wine. This will produce a barrel of fine wine. Then later this month, we will receive muscadine juice to make wine. After that, I will go early next year to pickup cranberries. So life goes on.
Good News at the Arkansas State Fair, we won 4 Best of Show, 12 Gold, 5 Silver, and 4 Bronze medals. Our win of the Best of Show was second only to Wiederkehr Wine Cellars. This was the first year that native wineries could sell wine by the glass and by the bottle at the state fair during the wine competition.
Now that the season is over, do not forget to watch and maintain quality in your wines. You can not just sit back and think that the wine will take care of it self. Wine is like kids; you always have to watch and care for it. Be sure to keep the SO2 level up in your wines, and the air off the top. Also be sure to rack the wines and do not allow them to set on the settlings.
So lets go sample a wine or two; we have some time to enjoy. Do you want a red or white??? Or shall we try both???
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