Art+Farm Winery

There is a trend in the wine world to put as much information about your wine on the back label. Not just tell the story, but give the consumer as much information about how the grapes were grown and what was done to those grapes before they got in the bottle.

Recently we have left the beaten path to do something completely different. We have taken some of our favorite juice and after fermentation left it to age on crazy ingredients. How crazy? How about Jalapeños, Habaneros and Coffee. We strain it off these wild items before bottling leaving great wine with additional flavors that will blow your mind.

Time to bottle...so we send in our labels to the FEDS - we are all required to do this and guess what. Some lobbyist has got to them and we can not tell you what type of grape we use, where the grape was grown or when it was harvested. That’s right...no vintage, no varietal, no appellation. All the things a consumer needs to know to make an educated purchase. The reason...this is not standard wine.

Oh...my friends it gets better. They have provided us with a statement of composition. In other words, wording they want us to use on the bottle.  For instance - our Sauvignon Blanc was aged on jalapeños and habaneros - they want the label to say grape wine with added spices. Last time I checked ... jalapeños and habaneros are not spices. They make things spicy, but they are not spices. So not only must I leave off important information about our product, I must then lie to you about what is in it.

An unusual event took place last night. Our family was enjoying a movie together (a rare event in itself with 2 teens in the house) when someone heard a noise outside. The next thing was a shout that went up “IT’S RAINING.”

Within seconds we all stood at the door marveling at the sight as though cats and dogs were really coming down. We took deep breaths and commented on the wonderful fresh smell. We oohed and ahhhed over the sound of distant thunder.

Our children, especially the youngest, has seen so little rain (in her conscious memory) she can count it on her fingers. While I wish our drought would end soon ... I hope we never loose the ability to be mesmerized by nature.

Finished Donna Tartt's Goldfinch. Like her other works it is dense with language and somewhat of a hefty volume. A line haunts me. The one near the end when it is asks if our secrets are what define us. 

The Maligned Tasting Note

I often joke that the legalization of marijuana is the best thing to happen to the tasting note since the invention of … well -ecstasy.  To sit around and taste wine and have to describe it in words can stretch the skills of the best writer.

It also never fails to happen – that tasting notes are forgotten about or put off until the 11th hour when someone desperately needs them.  Now it is 5:00 on a Friday, I am hungry, I need a drink and a rep calls to say they have a tasting in 1 hour and the important tasting note is not on the website.

 So you pull out your harvest notes, winemaking notes and you pop the cork and sit back and smell. You take a sip. You examine the color.  You start to enjoy it and for a minute you forget why you opened the bottle in the first place.  THEN… a strange thing happens – it is like brakes screeching at a traffic light. Your brain freezes.  You can only think of silly words: yummy, plumy, fumy, tummy.  And you start to sweat.