After about 18 months, our 2008 Laurel Hills Syrah Alder Springs vineyardhas been birthed from it’s French oak barrel and finally bottled and ready for consumption. It was a great experience working with the folks at Crushpad. Their new facility in Napa (they used to be in SF) is coming along nicely as landscaping was still going in while we were there. I was shooting for a more elegant style of Syrah like that coming from the Northern Rhone. The wine is still a little tannic as expected, but will mellow over time. The color is a dark and deep violet with aromas of dark berries and a rich, textural mouthfeel. I can’t wait to see how this continues to mature.
Alder Springs is made up of 31 blocks on 140 acres in Mendocino and is known for producing high quality fruit thanks to the painstaking vineyard management practices insisted by the owner, Stu Bewley. Other more well-known winemakers using fruit from this prestigious vineyard include James Hall (Patz & Hall), Pax Mahle (Wind Gap), Les Behrens (Erna Schein), among many others.
The bottling process was pretty simple and happened in a space that was only about 15 x 10 where me, my wife Jonjie, Eric (videographer/social media guru for CP) and Pete, the main bottling dude, bottled and packaged about 25 cases of wine. Below is the compiled video Eric put together for Crushpad, with a quick cameo of me and Jonjie within. I would highly recommend Crushpad to anyone who is interested in making their own wine and want the flexibility to decide how involved, or not, they’d like to be, yet have the reassurance that winemaking professionals are involved along the way.
So, if you had the chance, would you want to ever make your own wine and why?
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Nice! Didn’t realize you’re now the famous “box loading man #1″ on the Crushpad sales video.
Looking forward to mooching a taste of that Syrah!
Yeah, that was me…I’m famous again! No mooching necessary, I have a bottle with your name on it.