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The wife and I are really stoked about getting out to see the fine folks at Crushpad this week. We'll be meeting with Chris Nelson on Thursday to make the finishing decsions reagarding our '09 Sauvignon Blanc before bottling. Wanda will be bringing a flash drive of our wine labels for both the S.B. as well as our '08 White Hawk Syrah. We'll also hope to meet up with Mike Z. to discuss any blending/finishing decsions that might be made with our syrah. We'll cap off the trip with the client Mashup on the Saturday. Sounds like a fun few days S.F.!

I am considering whether to do the Crushpad thing. Initially, I just wanted some wine made to my preferences in taste. Now I am wanting to go forward with a more ambitious plan of having two types of wine the first year and, if that is a good experience, adding additional varietals later on.

I simply cannot drink or even give away that much wine, so--- Looks like I may be starting my own wine business. Am I in for a shock? Am I in over my head? Should I start slowly? Just on barrel per varietal? My present plan is to have one red and one white.

Today is the day!!

You can watch through a webcam at this link Crushpad WeCam http://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=798597

I forgot to mention...11am PST

My first bottling...can i be anymore jazzed?

Here is the Cellartracker link to this wine...only 25 cases produced. (The cab is sourced from To Kalon)

http://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=798597

The blend is 82% Cab, 10% Petit Verdot, 6% Malbec and 2% 2008 Cab.

2 more additional Cabs to bottle later this summer

http://gallery.me.com/joerg.rohde#100016&view=grid&bgcolor=black&sel=3

Ok...i'm in it big time.

Just added a fourth wine that will be bottled this month.

Adopted a To Kalon barrel...very excited about the blend that Kian has formulated...this should be a VERY complex wine that should challange the most sophisticated of palates.

I'm excited about this wine!

Another solid showing for the label which is are thinking will be called Timark Cellars. Overall comments were very solid. The wine had solid fruit notes and great structure. The oak is really showing nicely and well integrated at this point. Excellent recommendations once again from our winemaker Kian. Folks were very pleased and Mark and I were VERY happy.

Click here for photos of the event.

It's tough living in Austin and trying to figure out ways to get to NoCal for anything related to my wine.

I'm heading into year #2 and have taken my two barrels from last year and expanded to four. Doubled down on one cab and added a Syrah so that i now have 2 cabs and a syrah planned.

Now that the 3rd annual Rancho Ricardo Festival has passed, let me reflect…
Some say, that the end of a day is more enjoyable with a glass of wine…

YAY, I selected my vineyard after tasting many, many '08 barrel samples at Crushpad. Yea, that was fun!!!

We are going to blend our 08 Lone oak pinot from SLH this week. It will be interesting to see the contrast from our 05 Russian River pinot to a cooler climate SLH. Stay tuned

Our 05 Russian river Pinot got a "93: fromm the Wine enthusiast August 09 edition