Thursday, April 15, 2010

Bud Break

I came in to work this morning and noticed that most of the vines were sporting a bit of green! It looks like bud break is finally here. From what I understand, our bud break was a bit later then usual due to the big winter we had. Now that the leaves are starting to come out of the vines frost poses a big risk. Lets just hope that we don't get any late spring frosts!
 I'll be sure to take more pictures as the vineyard really starts to open up!

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

April Showers

Since the weather is telling me that it might rain today I thought it would be a perfect time to let everyone know about our April Showers deal! Throughout the month of April we will be selling glasses of wine for $1 off the regular price when it is raining! When it rains... we pour!
 Also, just a heads up for some upcoming events! This weekend is a wine club pick up weekend and we are starting our first ever pick up party! We are going to hold a little party on the first Saturday wine club shipments are ready to be picked up. So this Saturday the 17th we will have live music and light snacks for our club members to enjoy from 1:00pm to 4:00pm. We are also pre-releasing the Cabernet Franc Reserve to the wine club! I am really excited to have this wine in the tasting room. It is a nice big wine, something to decant if you can. Also, it is one of the few wines from 2007 we have been holding on to. So come in this weekend to taste it!

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Here Comes the Sun!

It looks as though Spring has officially come to Virginia! I don't know how or when it happened, but it seemed almost overnight. I was driving home from work yesterday and I noticed tons of daffodils in bloom, a cherry tree starting to blossom, and the grass is looking greener!
I cannot believe how pretty it is around here! Now I am just waiting for the vines to start flowering. I'll be sure to get some pictures when that happens! I think it will be a little later in the season then normal because of our strange winter.

Throughout this week we are preparing for bottling. We will be filtering and fining the wines to get them in tip top shape before bottling next Monday and Tuesday. Our bottling schedule includes the 2009 Viognier and the 2008 Trevillian and labeling the 2007 Heritage. This is the Heritage that just went platinum at the San Diego International Competition. I think Stephen wants to hold onto it for a while longer and maybe release it in the fall. I'm crossing my fingers for that. However, if you are a wonderful wine club member who purchased futures of the 2007 Heritage at the wine club appreciate party or at the wine makers dinner we will have those for pick up after April 1st.

Friday, March 12, 2010

Pruning the Vines

So I've been getting a lot of questions about the abundance of snow we had this year and if it has affected the vines. So I thought I would address the issue of pruning. After the first hard freeze of the year the vines go into a state of hibernation and during that hibernation the boys are hard at work maintaining the vines. During the winter the vines are pruned or trimmed back.
Here are the vines in their wild state. It takes almost all winter to prune all 43 of our acres, but the quality of fruit that is produced from all that hard work is well worth it. Pruning has been described as an art form by many in the wine community since this is the basis for the rest of the growing season. Pruning too much can affect vines just as much as pruning too little.
 
After all that hard work (and might I say chilly work due to all the snow this year) the vines are trimmed beautifully! Now that all of the snow has melted the pruning is going much faster. So in conclusion, the snow is fine for the vines, in fact it is a good way to keep the plants in hibernation so they don't start budding too early in the season!


Friday, February 26, 2010

Quick Note

This might be the shortest blog I ever write, but I wanted to let everyone know that I am heading down to Richmond for the Virginia Wine Expo this weekend! So if you are in the area, make sure to stop by and say hello! This will be my first trade show/festival and I am quite excited for it!

Also, in terms of our barrel tasting that is coming up on March 13th and 14th the afternoon session on Saturday is officially full and the Sunday session only has 5 spots left! Make sure to rsvp soon to insure your spot... I am very excited about the tasting and to see what 2009 grapes have in store for us. If you would like to rsvp please email lweckerly@keswickvineyards.com or call 434-244-3341. Since I will be at the Expo all weekend you can talk to Kris about the event as well!

...And now I'm off to Richmond! 

Thursday, February 18, 2010

2009 Viognier

Stephen brought me a sample of the 2009 Viognier this morning and he gave me a little preview of what was to come when we bottle next. We plan on bottling again at the end of March and one of the wines that will be bottled is the 2009 Viognier. Viognier itself is a very versatile grape with a high alcohol content and high acid content. Stephen is planning on blending together the 2009 Viognier this afternoon after doing a bit of work to perfect the wine. Typically our Viognier is 100% oak aged and our Les Vents d'Anges Viognier is 100% stainless steel aged, but this year we are doing things a bit differently.

The Viognier Stephen brought me was actually 30% oak aged and 70% stainless steel aged. The first thing I noticed was the color of the wine. Stainless steel wines typically are much lighter in color and this wine seemed to fit that bill. Lets have a look, shall we?
The glass on the left is currently in the tasting room, the 2008 Viognier Reserve. The glass on the right is the 2009 Viognier. The 2008 Viognier Reserve is much more rich in color as well as aroma. This is not to say that the 2009 Viognier is lacking, it is currently a very focused wine with a nice interplay between steel and oak. I feel like oak really rounds out the mouth feel of any wine and the influence of the stainless steel keeps this wine feeling very fresh.

After Stephen adds the tank wine and the 5 barrels of wine to a stainless steel tank the perfecting will begin. Stephen is planning on doing some minor tweaks and fining to the 2009 Viognier, and I'll keep you abreast on what he ends up doing with the wine. Then the wine will continue to age on fine lees until we filter the wine right before bottling.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Candy Hearts and Fermentation

So our Valentine's Day event "Be Mine with Wine" went over quite well this year! Thanks to everyone who came to the event, it was great to see some familiar faces as well as some new ones. We also did a "guess the number of candy hearts in a Rose bottle" contest this year and let me tell you it was rather close! Our winning guess was only 6 candy hearts off and the person in second was only 8 off! We even got the traditional "Price is Right" guess of 2, just in case everyone else over bid, well played! Let me be the first to say congratulations to Veronica Buckovich, she has a free tasting and tour for her guess of 483 candy hearts.

In other news, the Nektar is looking great! Stephen did a test on it today and said that the sugar levels are dropping at around a brix a day. So by his estimations the fermentation will be complete in 10 to 14 days. Once the fermentation is finished the wine will be sulfured and put into barrels. The sulfur is added to kill off any remaining yeast so we can keep the same levels of residual sugar in the wine. The goal is to make this wine about 10% residual sugar. I was lucky enough to taste the Nektar and my first impression was that it currently tastes a lot like pineapple juice! It is still quite sweet, but I was surprised at how tart it was. I guess that bit of acidity is a nice balance to the sugar in the wine. The wine currently is opaque since the yeast is still floating around in the wine.


Friday, February 5, 2010

Snow Check!

With all of these rumors of snow this weekend we want to make sure you are still able to get some Keswick wines. So we are planning on doing an online promotion for the up coming snow days!

This weekend we will be offering free shipping for any orders over $75.00. But the real kicker is that we are going to be releasing our Cabernet Franc Reserve as an online special, which I am rather excited about! I think I'm even going to place an online order for a few bottles, just so I can get it before we release it in the tasting room. If my estimations are correct, we probably wont have it until the end of March or beginning of April. In my humble opinion, the Cabernet Franc Reserve is fantastic, best after decanting for a bit... So keep that in mind when you receive your bottle!

"SnowedIn" is the coupon to use at our online store this weekend for the free shipping and Reserve Cabernet Franc. Get it while its hot! (actually while its cold!) Make sure to capitalize the 'S' and the 'I', or else the coupon wont work! We will also be sending "snow checks", like rain checks for free tastings for anyone who makes an order this weekend, so you can come visit us once the weather gets nicer!

Here is a link to our online store: http://www.keswickvineyards.com/wines.html

Have a safe and great weekend!

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Quirky Quercus

We just received some new oak barrels today! Since oak is such an important factor in wine, I think this is a great time to brush up on some facts about Quercus, or Oak

The two major types of oak that are used in wine making are French and American Oak. I will admit that the first vineyard I ever toured in Italy did have some massive Hungarian oak barrels. Massive as in over 7 feet tall; but I haven't run into any since then. So, back to the more common barrels...

One of the major differences between French and American oak is the way that the oak is aged. French oak is typically allowed to air dry for 36 months. This releases a lot of the bitter tannins that can be associated with oak. American oak is air dried for a much shorter period of time, closer to 24 months. After the oak has been aged the barrels are formed. Traditionally this is done by Coopers and the traditional method is over a fire. The inside of the barrel is charred, or toasted while this process happens. Some of our barrels have a stamp on them indicating the level of toast on the barrel. The toast can range from light to heavy. The more a barrel is toasted the more caramelized the inside will be. More caramelization leads to flavors like vanilla, toffee, and (you guessed it) caramel. Other flavors that can be imparted to wine through the barrels are nutty, smokey, toasted coconut, and spice.

Another major difference in French and American oak is physical characteristics of the oak, which leads to a difference in the way the oak is cut. French oak is a much tighter grain, therefore the oak is split along a grain in the wood. American oak is much more porous, so it can be sawed instead of split. This provides a higher yield of usable oak per tree, which contributes to the lower price of American oak.

As for our new barrels, they will be used for the Nektar, which is about half way through the fermentation process at the moment.

Sunday, January 31, 2010

We're OPEN!

After a brief hiatus yesterday due to the snow, we are officially open again! I got into the vineyard about an hour later since I wanted to wait for any potential ice to melt off the roads, but Charlottesville seemed to do a much better job this time around plowing and salting the roads. We must have gotten about then a foot of snow yesterday but the roads seemed 100% better then the last big snow in December!
 
The parking lot is getting plowed as I type! So it should be nice and clean by the time people start arriving.  Another thing to mention is that the Touriga is almost sold out, as of this morning we have 14 bottles left. I am going to be really sad to see it go. It is one of my personal favorites!

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Be Mine with Wine

This morning Stephen and I had a meeting with Jason, the executive chef at Glenmore Country Club. We were meeting to discuss our "be mine with wine" event. Last year we planned an event with chocolate covered strawberries paired with our wines. This year we might get a little more creative and make a few other things as well! I am really excited about the whole event and I think it will be great fun!

To get you up to speed, this event will be during the day on Valentines Day (Sunday Feb 14th) and we are going to offer a special tasting that day, as well as our regular tasting. If you chose to do the special tasting we will be pairing each wine with a chocolate covered strawberry.... Think rich dark chocolate paired with the 2008 Cabernet Franc, or white chocolate and lemon zest for the 2008 Chardonnay. The tastings will be $12 and it will include the wines, strawberries, and the glass.

Here is a link for the facebook event page: Be Mine with Wine
Mark your calendars to come down to Keswick on Valentines Day!

Friday, January 22, 2010

Rack and Return

There has been a good bit of wine maintenance throughout this week. Stephen has been busy racking off the Touriga and the Petit Verdot. A wine is racked off once the wine gets "stinky". When wine sits in the barrel on the gross lees it can start to make the wine smell a bit like eggs, this is due to the presence of sulfur. Lucky for us, there is an easy and common fix to get rid of the sulfur. When a wine is racked off it is pumped from the barrels into a stainless steel tank. Then the barrels are cleaned with a pressure washer to get rid of all of the gross lees. Gross lees are a combination of inactive yeast and any small particles of grape pulp or skin that were small enough to get through the press. These particles settle out of the wine over time and collect on the bottom of a barrel. When you rack the wine out of the barrel, it is important to leave the lees on the bottom in order to get rid of them.

By moving the wine from barrel to tank and back, the wine is oxygenated. Here's the quick fix: the new oxygen (O2) in the wine actually binds with the sulfur (S) to create sulfur dioxide (SO2). This gas comes out of the wine and like magic, the wine is wonderful again! Cheers to the joys of chemistry...

Friday, January 15, 2010

Spring Fling Passports

Today I was able to take a jaunt out of the tasting room and go meet up with some individuals from our neighboring wineries. We drove down to the Kluge Farm Shop to have a meeting to discuss the success of our holiday passport program that we ran throughout November and December. For those of you who did not know about it, we had a passport program where customers could purchase a passport and receive free tastings at Keswick Vineyards, Jefferson Vineyards, and Kluge. It was great to pair up with wonderful wineries and offer such a great deal to the tasters! We were so excited about it we are planning on doing it again! We are going to do the passport for the months of February and March.

Just trying to give everyone the heads up in case visiting vineyards is in the near future!

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

"Eiswein" Einstein

Yesterday began with a large truck bringing us our frozen Viognier from this years harvest. According to the driver it was kept in a freezer unit that never got above negative 30 degrees! Needless to say the grapes were solid when we received them. If you have never frozen grapes before you eat them you should really try it... They become so sweet! So the boys started unloading frozen bins of grapes into the press, and I even got my hands dirty, which ended fairly quickly when I realized everyone else was wearing gloves and my hands were numb... This Viognier is going to be our Eiswein also known as our Nektar. Eiswein is the German pronunciation of ice wine which most people are more familiar with. Ours is technically a mock ice wine because to be considered a true ice wine the grapes must freeze on the vine. Making a desert wine is a rather labor intensive process so this wine most likely will not be ready for a long time. We aged our last Nektar for two years in barrel!


Since the grapes are frozen solid it is important to press them off very slowly. If it is done too quickly the bladder, or bag inside the press could tear, which is an expensive fix. This press is so slow that not much was even accomplished yesterday. Stephen was at the vineyard rather late last night and came back in early this morning to continue the pressing. According to Stephen they will probably be doing the same thing this time tomorrow! Since the grapes are frozen we extract a lot less juice from them. Typically with a ton of grapes we can squeeze out roughly 165 gallons of juice. With frozen grapes, we will receive just 45-55 gallons per ton!

Stephen brought me a little sample of the wine and let me tell you it is sweet! Current readings are at 45 brix.... and to give you some sort of comparison all of the other Viognier we brought in this year was around 24 or 25 brix. Brix is a measurement of the level of sugar in a wine or the grapes themselves. Stephen told me his goal is to make this about 10% residual sugar. I guess we will have to wait and see how things shape up!


 Can you believe that becomes this?