Vacay BayBay

Christmas was great and we hope yours was as well. It is great to get a little RR over the holiday. Matt is in Wyoming visiting Abbey's Grandma and I am Mexico with Erin (short stick Matt?). Warm and sunny! Went on a taco tour last night having one taco at each of the make shift stands that set up shop in the evenings here in Guadalajara. Lots of fun but the jury is still out as to which stand reigns supreme. We will have to try again tonight.

Have yet to consume any wine since arriving but the Indio and Corona Obscura (dark Corona they NEED to import in the states) are drinking fantastc.

This picture is from the the old entry gate to town of Zapopan (suburb of GDL).

Coopering

We get a lot of questions about how wine barrels are made (coopered in barrel lingo). This is the best video I could find on the process.


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Done at last!!!

Harvest is now officially done (one ton of late harvest Riesling on Saturday hardly counts) now that Matt has all of the 2009s put to barrel. Finally, it is over!!! All in all 2009 was another great year. We skirted the frost and quality was great. I have never seen Matt as pleased with a vintage this early which I think is a good thing. I am excited to see how the 2009s progress and mature over the next couple of years.

We are getting ready to bottle the remainder of the 2007s and 2008 Lemberger and the super secret surprise to be announced in early spring.

The tasting room is closed and all is good on the wine farm. If you are in the area and thirsty we are generally around so swing by. We will gladly pour you a taste despite our official closed sign.

Happy Holidays!!!

I am Impressed

This is really pretty cool. I guess I will no longer have to break off the neck in those "no cork screw present" emergencies that happen from time to time.

Oops...Have Not Posted in a While

Since our last posting, almost a month ago (my bad), a lot has happened. We have finished harvesting everything for ourselves and only have two tons of late harvest Riesling and Petite Verdot for other wineries to go, pressed off all of the Syrah, Cab Franc, Myer Merlot and Cab, the Cab Franc Rose', Riesling, Viognier and Chardonnay and finished with fermentation, we had a frost scare, I got Swine Flu (I do not really think it was H1N1 but it makes for a better story) in the middle or our busiest week, and we picked the most fruit ever by over double in a single week, we held the first annual Great Grape Stomp and had another great Winemaker for a Day event (pictured above). Living the dream we like to say.

Hopefully all of my whinning makes the tardy posting a little justifiable.

The light is at the end of the tunnel and it is great. We still have 35 tons fermenting but should be done with that by the end of next week. It has been the craziest harvest we have dealt with but fruit quality was outstanding so it is worth it. A full harvest recap to come in the near (sooner than a month) future.

The crew is now winterizing irrigation and equipment, fixing all of things we break during harvest and hold together with duct tape and a prayer and generally taking a deep breath. Matt has been busy monitoring fermentation (50 tons at once is a lot for us) and I have been his cellar rat for the past few days.

There are videos of both the Great Grape Stomp and Winemaker for a Day posted our Facebook page.

More interesting and thoughtful postings to come...

Pick, Crush, Repeat...

Nothing new here. Pick, haul the fruit to the winery, crush the fruit, haul the empty bins back to the vineyard, pick again. That interspersed with irratic four-wheeler rides to figure out what the hell we are picking next and the constant ring, vibrate or beeb or my phone pretty much sums up life during harvest.

I do have to admit that I am sort of looking forward to my second favorite day of the year, the end of harvest (the start of harvest is my favorite).

We are still pushing hard but should have the lion's share done by the end of next week. All in all fruit quality looks great. I think we hit the canopy to crop load balance spot on (knock on wood) in most places.

More on harvest later. Time to go home.

This past week was relatively light for picking from our vineyard. We finished Riesling on Monday and picked Syrah on Tuesday from Copeland. The fruit looked great. We picked Syrah, Riesling and Cabernet Franc from Dineen.

Unfortunately, a lighter week last week means a crazy week to come. We should be picking Cabernet Franc, Merlot, more Syrah and will probably start picking Cabernet from an early site.

Matt has been busy getting the Chardonnay to barrel, inoculating Riesling and Syrah and getting ready to bring in bring more fruit.

We also sent out about 500 gallons of cold settled Chardonnay, Riesling and Gurty which will ultimately end up at a winery in Virginia. It will be fun, as it always is, to see how another winemaker crafts our fruit.

We have brought in 22.6 tons and have roughly 40 go for ourselves; not that we are counting or anything.

We have posted a video of crushing Copeland Syrah on our Facebook page. Check it out if you get the chance.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Two-Mountain-Winery/27945791660?ref=ts

Harvest, Harvest, Harvest

Harvest is moving along. Things are moving remarkably quickly at this point. At this rate we should be done more than two weeks early.

We spent all weekend picking and crushing and after a long Friday night (literally all night) and few technical difficulties we got our new destemming and auger feed equipment dialed in (at least we hope so becasue I have to put in any more 28 hour days I might end up calling immigration on myself for the free ride to Mexico and never come back).

This weekend we picked Syrah and Riesling. On deck for this week is more Syrah, more Riesling, Cab Franc, Merlot and Malbec and maybe even some Cab from a light set hot site. The question of the year is where the hell are we going to put all this fruit? It might be time to clean out the garbage cans and tuperware (is that how you spell that?) and anything else that could possibly hold grapes for fermentation.

Oh yeah, the picture is from sunrise on Saturday morning while STILL crushing.

Harvest Begins (if not perfect)

Yesterday was our first day of harvest. We picked six tons of Chardonnay for ourselves and three tons of Rousanne and three tons of Semillon for other wineries. All in all yesterday went great. However, today was one of those days. Our pick schedule changed 37 times and our new equipment (new to us at least) did not quite work as planned.

The auger feed (which gets the grapes into the destemmer) is a little taller than we would have liked. Matt saved the day with some quick welding and it looks like it should work now (please cross your fingers or knock on wood or whatever else you do for good luck).

We will be picking Syrah and Viognier on Friday and crushing Merlot and Gurty. Sunday is a big pick with Riesling.

There is another video of our first morning on Facebook.

And It Starts...

Harvest is officially upon us. We are picking Chardonnay and Riesling from Copeland and Rousanne, Viognier, the remainder of the Semillion and Syrah from Dineen and have Merlot and Gurty coming from other sites all by Friday. My favorite day of the year is finally here. Harvest!!!

Will keep you posted on how harvest goes as it unfolds. Pictures and videos of harvest to come.

Bottling

Today we bottled our 2007 Merlot, Syrah and Reserve Syrah. Tomorrow we will be finishing up the Cab and Cab Franc. Thank god this is all we have to do until December (bottling=a necessary evil) when we have a very small run to do.

It all went very well thanks to our friends from Cultura Winery, http://www.culturawine.com/. It is really nice to have great friends willing lend a helping hand (especially when they make fantastic wine).

We have posted a video of us bottling on our Faceboook page, http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Two-Mountain-Winery/27945791660?ref=ts, if want to see how we roll.

Wine 101 #2-Brix

I took grape samples today. The Copeland Vineyard Chardonnay and Syrah are 17.8 and 18.2 brix respectively. This means we are a still a few weeks away from harvesting as we like to see roughly 25 Brix (less for white wines) when we harvest (this is not a hard number as we also look at acid and flavors when determining harvest).

When taking brix readings in the winery we always get a lot of questions from guests about what exactly a brix is.

That said I thought this a good occassion to hold the second Wine 101 "class." Brix is a scale used to measure the percent of dissolved sugar in a solution at 20 degrees celcius. This scale was developed by Adolf Ferdinand Wenceslaus Brix and is used primarily in winemaking and fruit juices (brewers use the Plato scale; why I have no idea). Simply, a brix is a way to quantify how sweet the grapes are.

While the juice is still juice (ie not fermenting) we use a refractometer to measure the brix. For pure simplicity and functionality's sake this is my favorite tool we use. Very simply the refractometer measures the sugar through the degree at which light going through the solution is bent. The more sugar a solution has the more the light will be bent. So simple. I love it.

This is a refractometer.



Although blurry this is what one sees when looking into the refractometer. There is a numbered scale in the middle and where the blue crosses is how many brix you have.

Absolutely nothing to do with wine

This video is in no way related to wine but I found it to be pretty cool. It did make me think that if sheep farmers (I guess that is what they are called) have this much time on their hands maybe herding animals is not that bad of a career choice.

Wine 101 #1-Veraison

As we get lots of questions about grape growing and winemaking we thought from time to time we would would do an eduactional posting centered around what is going on in the winery or vineyard.

That said here is Class #1 in your very own Wine 101 class. Veraison is the topic of the day. We are going through veraison as we speak. What is veraison you ask? Very simply this is when the grapes begin to change color. Veraison is a french word/term for "changing color."

During verasion the grapes stop cellular growth and start the process of ripening (which is good as otherwise would not taste very good). Sugars begin to accumulate in the berries as the flow of water into the berry begins to slow relative to the amount of sugar. The rate at which sugar accumulates is directly related to the amount of canopy the vines have as photosynthesis creates the sugar.

In addition to sugar accumlation the the acids in the berries begin to drop off. There are two main types of acids in grapes, Malic acid and Tartaric acid. The malic acid degredates much quicker at this point and leaves tartaric acid as the perdominate acid in the grapes.

The grapes physically change color through the formation of anthocyanins and xanthophylls. Methoxypyrazines, the herbal green flavor compound, also begin to breakdown as well during veraison.

It is also interesting to note that what exactly triggers veraison is unknown. It is widely thought this process is triggered through hormonal changes or signals the plants send out but the exact reasons are still a mystery.

This picture is of Merlot in veraison last year. I will post some pictures of this year's veraison on Facebook.

TMW Visits the South

I am in South Carolina tonight. I have come to the South to meet with our new distributor in South Carolina as well as visit Erin. My meeting is tomorrow, and it will be good to finalize launch dates and strategies.

It also been great to see Erin. She is helping immensly with 'market research' by showing me all of the popular watering holes and restaurants in Columbia. We had dinner last night at Motor Supply Company Bistro, http://www.motorsupplycobistro.com/. The pork porterhouse with duck sauasage cassoulet was fantastic.

After dinner we met several of Erin's friends to do some more 'market research.' I am having an enjoyable time 'learning' about the market and got some great insight from two of the locals:

I was informed that my attire did not quite fit in and that I was very clearly a Yankee. It was suggested that a Yankee could hide their geographical origins by wearing:

• Pastel (preferably pink) polo shirt with popped collar
• Shorts from Vineyard Vines (with the little whales or anchors or what-have-you embroidered on them)
• Croakies
• Visor
• Boat shoes
• And most importantly- a list of the people your father says he knows (the more important the people on this list are the better; ie judges, senators, etc)

Now that I have been informed of proper South Carolinian male attire I will be better prepared for my next visit. It has been a worthwhile trip, and we are excited about having wine here soon.

Although hot and humid, Columbia is an interesting city. Good restaurant scene, fun bars, very friendly people (so much so they were willing to tell me what to wear so I could fit it in more) and generally a good feel.

A Much Needed Reminder

We had a pallet of wine leave for Japan today and it reminded me, which I need from time to time, that our wines are actually consumed by real people. I sometimes forget our wines are consumed in a context outside of our winery.

It is inspiring to know that roughy 40,000 times a year someone choose our wine to make their dinner with friends, or family, a little more special or to end the occasional 'day from hell.' To be honest, your support not only helps to justify my overwhleiming-love-bordering-on-fetish for Excel spreadsheets but makes those long dusty days on the tractor and seemingly endless cold October nights working the press all worth it.

Plus, without being able to chase the four-wheeler the wine dogs would all be a little more 'healthy' (read fat) than they currently are. I think without the constant attention Gus gets from tasting guests he would have holed up somewhere thinking nobody loves him, painting his nails black, wearing a studded collar and listening to death metal.

Thanks for the inspiration.

It is hot!!! I am not sure what else to say. The wine farm is a little slow with the heat as the crew is going home at 10am to avoid getting cooked. Luckily the winery is a refreshing 65.

We are spending a lot of time right now working on the 'darkside' of the wine business. Finishing budgets for the next fiscal year, working distribution alotments and generally getting caught up on inside jobs (not all bad with heat). We do not expect a big impact on the vines from this heat but are keeping a close eye on everything. A little water does wonders to keep the vines moving and healthy.

If you live in the Seattle area we are doing a tasting at Picnic (Phinney Ridge) tomrrow from 5:30-7:30. More information at http://www.picnicseattle.com/. We will be pouring Riesling and Rose (both of which we are out of in the tasting room) as well as a few reds. Perfects wines for hot day. Hopefully we will see you there.

Catching Up and Summer Update

Well we have been not so good about posting on a regular basis but hope to do a better job moving forward.


Life on the wine farm has been very busy for the past three or four months. The grapes are growing like mad, actually we just now starting to slow them down. We expect to begin to see verasion (when they change color) in another two to three weeks and will be begin harvest in 60-75 days. Thus far the growing season has been good at the heat spell we are in experiencing is a good thing (provided it does not get much hotter).

Crop loads look great and we anticipate another stellar year for Washington wine. However, prayers, animal sacrifices, knocking on wood, voodoo dolls or anything else you feel might help would be much appreciated. When Mother Nature is at the helm one never knows for sure.

The crew is finishing up with leaf stripping and will get a much needed break very shortly to rest up for harvest.

We will soon be bottling the 2007 vintage and from what Matt has let me taste thus far I am excited to get these wines into a bottle. Matt is busy putting the finishing touches on the final blends and will start fining and filtration very soon.

TMW is excited to announce our wines will now be distributed in the greater Chicago area as well as the state of South Carolina. If you live in or are visting either of these locations just ask your favorite wine shop or wine steward and they can get them for you. Your support is much appreciated.

The annual Chalk Party to benefit The Pegasus Project was huge succes and we, as well as the children your Rose' purchases support, cannot thank you enough. In fact we are down to the last five cases so be sure to pick some up. This photo is of this year's winning drawing, which will be the label for the 2009 Rose'.






If you are looking for one more fun thing to do this summer there are still a few tickets left for both of the Dinner and Movie showings. August 1st and September 5th we will open up the lawn, break out the barbeque and projector and enjoy the wonderful summer evenings Mother Nature gives here in wine country. More information and tickets available at http://www.twomountainwinery.com/ or 509.829.3900. FYI limited tickets available.



We hope you are having a wonderful summer and will hopefully see you soon.

Promising to be better about posting,

Patrick T. Rawn

The New Year

Well, the New Year has arrived. As you can see we have begun to use a different method by which to blog about the winery. The concept is this will help facilitate timlier postings. Time will tell.

Life on the winery is a little slow right now as the tasting room is closed expect for by appointment guests (feel free to make an appointment if you would like to visit this time of year). We spent December cleaning up from harvest, getting ready for the infamous Christmas Gala Extravaganza and generally eating entirely too much. Now that we are back at it we have been both been stuck inside getting all of the really fun year end stuff done.

Matt has been topping the 2008's as the ML tests come back. I do have to say the few lots he has let me taste have been very exciting. 2008 looks to be very good.

While procastinating on doing year financials I have also been putting together vineyard to do lists and planning for the fast approaching spring. The vineyard crew will be back in a month or so to start pruning so it will not be too long before it time to start farming again.

I wish everyone the best in 2009 and look forward to seeing you as the year unfolds.

Until, live well and drink well.