Full moon…… welcome to Fall colors and delicious reds!
-Night photo by David Charnack
Preparing for “Lights Of Olivet”…Dec 9, 4-7:30..
First of many icicle strings going up today. Presley and Thornton love to help Kevin decorate!
Just one month after our devastating fires we got some glorious rain. You can see the beautiful Cabernet Sauvignon Estate Vineyard is still so beautiful after harvest.
In the background are the fire blackened hills of Santa Rosa, CA
#SonomaStrong
As the sun was coming up the next day, you can see that there is so much smoke. We had already harvested our grapes so we are lucky that they won’t be tainted with smoke.
We are okay….. Woke (late Sunday night), actually at 1:21 AM on Monday, Oct 9th to the glow on the ridge! We had people from Chicago staying in the ‘B’. Rousted them at about 3AM and they packed their car and then helped us go through our house and winery and pack up valuables and memories. So sweet.
7:12 AM….Still standing by. Packed & ready to roll. Then the wind shifted when fire was about a 1/2 mile away. Friends that are evacuating are now coming here. So much devastation… entire neighborhoods… GONE! Fountaingrove GONE. LBC…GONE. Big red Round Barn….GONE! Just starting to sink in….
Heartbreaking for those who’ve lost their homes and EVERYTHING. And now because so many businesses have burned… they’ve probably also lost their jobs. At first I almost felt guilty that we are ok. But now I’m able to help others who’ve lost everything. We have become a ‘shelter’. We have 3 families living here now and a couple more cute dogs including our friends Brian & family and also Debbie our employee that was going to be packing and shipping your wine this week. Their houses burned to the ground in the Coffey Park area of Santa Rosa.
They are a bit like zombies…walking around not knowing what to do first or next. Totally fine then sobbing… then fine again. No Internet or power so trying to contact insurance etc is difficult. Not able to go to what once was their homes. NOTHING there now but a smoldering hot pile of ash. We just want to be of service…
Still no power but generator is fired up. We are good. So many people are not. To regain normalcy, with the help of friends, we are pressing off wine from grapes picked over a week ago and getting it into barrels. It is delicious.
The devastation is unfathomable…. it hasn’t even begun to sink in. More fires raging north east and south of us… daughter Rachel & family have now evacuated from the ‘Pocket’ fire near Geyserville, CA to our house.
This is not over……
We love you.
#SonomaStrong
Wendy & Kevin
The first press of our 2017 Cabernet Sauvignon is in the barrels. We got 4 tons in (that’s 8000 pounds)! Whew!!!
Crew arrived bright and early (6:30 am). Our Cabernet Sauvignon grapes looks beautiful. 2017 is going to be another amazing vintage here in Sonoma County’s Russian River Valley.
Presley and Thornton enjoying the ‘Dog Days Of Summer.’
Bottling the 2015 Vintage today. Reserve and Estate Cabernet Sauvignons.
In the 4th year of the drought, we did not harvest much fruit… but what we got is beyond fabulous. Intense concentrated flavors..
Our usual 650 cases is a mere 520 this year…
Wine Club…. expect yours to arrive in early November.
I know that you think that all we do here in the wine country is drink wine! drink wine! drink wine! Well, it is just NOT that easy. Sometimes we have to SMELL wine! We look at the color… it is not just RED. Is it CRIMSON? Is it CERISE? Maybe it is RUBY….
Then of course, we have to take all of those musings and turn them into prose that I can send off to you to entice your taste buds with my amazing command of fluffy adjectives to describe our luscious and complex varietals.
Here we see the winemaker, Kevin and wordsmith Wendy hard at work…. Oh and then we need to taste, taste, taste to make sure those notes are accurate……. and then taste.
Maybe we better try some more….
