In 2008 we hooked up with Crushpad to begin making one barrel of Syrah. In hindsight, it couldn’t have been worse timing to spend that much cash with the great recession beginning to show its ugly mug. Regardless, I was (and still am) interested in making wine and this was a way to learn the process from a distance (since I live in Atlanta) and be as involved as I wanted to be along the way. I wanted to make a Syrah reminiscent of the Northern Rhone and we began by selecting some choice fruit from the Alder Springs vineyard in Mendocino county.
Crushpad walks the customer through the winemaking decision process via an easy to use webpage (crushnet.com) which can only be accessed by the customer and includes setting up a plan to define what style of wine you want to make (fruit, color, tannin, use of oak, etc.) as well as status updates along the way (nutrients added, punch downs, SO2 additions, top offs, etc). You are also assigned a wine consultant who is responsible for implementing your plan and working with you when decisions are necessary as well as schedule visits if you are interested in sorting, performing punch downs, pressing as well as bottling.
In October of 2008 upon completion of fermentation, I flew to San Francisco to accompany and “supervise” the pressing of my half-ton bin of Syrah. This also allowed me to perform some other winery duties giving me some hands-on experience including punch downs of several bins that were still fermenting. Tasting the wine coming directly from the press was a cool experience and we were able to gauge level of tannins, which were substantial, at this time. Then, the wine went to barrel where it stayed for another year and half with only VA, pH, TA analyses and top-offs occurring periodically during that time.
Well, we have now arrived where the barrel aging process is complete and we are ready to bottle. Luckily for us, we have already planned a trip to Napa this week to celebrate my wife’s birthday and we are going to take the opportunity to participate in the bottling operations now that Crushpad has moved their operations to the Napa area. The result will be 25 cases or 300 bottles of wine. I will follow up with some more information and hopefully video and pictures from the operation upon our return.
Cheers!
one bottle down 299 to go……;)
Awesome – have a great trip this week, looking forward to the posts and videos, etc
great info Ed, I look forward to trying a bottle. I hope it doesn’t suck.
Have fun in Napa. You visiting the hottest new tasting room in NoCal?
(The NPA tasting room, duh)
Make sure to save a bottle for your’s truly !!!
Jimmy… couldn’t get over to Santa Rosa to check out the new digs Hardy set up… love that wine too… my Syrah is the shizz bro… great pedigree… I’ll get you some
_
You too, Wayne… send me your new address and I’ll ship you some