Hi all
Yep - it is HOT here too!! About 104 but it's a dry heat. Yeah, right - still bloody hot. Usually bottle in the work room but even with a swamp cooler it is still warm so bottled in the cool room . Running about 89-92 and this is where my barrels are.
Wine temp in the barrels about 85. Almost too warm but have no choice at this time. Probably need to add more insulation to barrel room and open up the door from the cool room where it stays at 58-60 year around.
So, bottled 4 batches this morning and I even bottled the Chocolate Raspberry Port - Used the 375 size so have 30 bottles and boy is it good. Still have to run the labels and get them all capsuled too.
I have 3 more batches to bottle and they will be done by mid-august. Daughters wedding September 4th and we are having about 150 people here so there will be a bid dent in the wine inventory soon. Of course, my wife is making baskets for all the folks from out of town and will be in their hotel rooms when they arrive. And, of course, there will be at least 2 bottles in each basket - probably 35 baskets.
and guess where are the water; sodas and beer is ending up? Yep, in the cold room. Can't hardly see the wine for boxes - boxes - boxes!!! And there is approx 700 bottles in there.
Spending quite a few hours at the vineyard. Cutting suckers; checking water and clearing lines; fertilizing through the irrigation system. Mowing the excess weeds; watching for mildew (none that I see since we have sulfered 3 times. Vineyard is about 23 miles away and we get there 2-3 times a week.
Then starts harvest soon thereafter. We are approximately 2-2.5 weeks behind this year so we should start about Sept 10th. The orange muscat is first to come off and we have to watch that one close - cause of the wild turkeys and raccoons.
The yield looks great so the property owner decided to spend some $$$. We have the Eagle Scare bird and the scare windmill and he just bought the Bird guard sound system too. You can see all these at
www.birdcontrolsupplies.com/wildturkeycontrol.htm.
and then for the raccoons we bought 2 of these traps from
www.ironcitytrapcompany.com
He also bought 8 rolls of field fence with the 2x4 inch spacing that we will have to get up too. We will just stand this up - stretch - and attach to the iron pipe fence that is around the whole vineyard. We will then mount 2 strands of hot wire to this too.
And if we still have critters - the 22.
This is what we are up too - so just wanted to share.
As we get closer to our harvest we will start posting more pictures and have to help Paul again this year too.
Good luck to all.
rrawhide