Keswick Vineyards

Bud Break

2010-04-15T10:29:00.000-04:00

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!

April Showers

2010-04-13T10:03:00.000-04:00

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!

Here Comes the Sun!

2010-03-24T11:39:00.002-04:00

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.

Pruning the Vines

2010-03-12T11:19:00.003-05:00

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!

Quick Note

2010-02-26T08:45:00.000-05:00

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!

2009 Viognier

2010-02-18T11:48:00.000-05:00

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.

Candy Hearts and Fermentation

2010-02-17T13:06:00.001-05:00

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.

Snow Check!

2010-02-05T07:55:00.001-05:00

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!

Quirky Quercus

2010-02-04T11:40:00.000-05:00

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.

We're OPEN!

2010-01-31T10:29:00.000-05:00

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!

Be Mine with Wine

2010-01-27T10:40:00.000-05:00

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!

Rack and Return

2010-01-22T10:37:00.001-05:00

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...

Spring Fling Passports

2010-01-15T14:32:00.000-05:00

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!

"Eiswein" Einstein

2010-01-06T10:45:00.001-05:00

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?

Happy New Years from Keswick Vineyards!

2009-12-31T11:35:00.000-05:00

Since New Years Eve is a night full of champagne, I just wanted to take the time to wish everyone a happy New Years Eve! I hope everyone had a fantastic holiday with their families and friends. I was lucky enough to get out of the snow and go visit San Diego for the holidays and it was amazing! This was the first time visiting home since I moved out to Virginia six short months ago. So to my family and friends, it was great seeing you! Just wanted to send a quick reminder letting everyone know that we will be closed on January 1st for New Years. We will be back open on the 2nd for business. Feel free to bring in canned goods if you plan on coming since we have not turned our box into the Charlottesville Emergency Food Bank for an extra 5% off any purchases!

Happy New Year everyone!

Winter Wonderland

2009-12-23T10:27:00.001-05:00

Just wanted to make sure everyone survived the snow this weekend! It was my first real snow according to Kris... since it actually stuck to the ground this time! We were closed for the weekend since the roads hadn't even been plowed for a few days and once that was clear we had to clear our own driveway. We realized it was a bad idea to drive out to Keswick Vineyards when we saw one of the plow trucks was off into the ditch.... We officially opened back up Tuesday and I am here in the tasting room as we speak (or as I type!). So come on in if you need some last minute holiday gifts or need wine for Christmas! Just to make everyone aware, we will be closed on Christmas Day, but will reopen on Saturday.

In other news, the Viognier is almost sold out. This is personally my favorite white wine we have on the tasting menu right now, so I will be very sad to see it go. This is also the wine that took best in show at the Virginia Town Point Competition. We were quite honored to receive that recognition, so I'm going to have to save a bottle to put on our trophy shelf!

Looking out the tasting room window out to the front of the property.

The lake is officially frozen over... poor tree...

Bottling Complete!

2009-12-19T15:18:00.002-05:00

So for the past two days we have been bottling! When we bottle we hire out a truck to come to the vineyard to help us out. This time we bottled the Les Vents de Anges Viognier, the Verdejo, the Rose, the Royal and the Consensus. On Thursday we started with the Verdejo and then moved onto the LVD. We finished up the night with the Royal, which turned out to be quite a pain. Since we use the small belissima bottles, they kept tipping over and I believe we had about 3 casualties. On Friday we did the Rose and the Consensus. So let me take you down the assembly line:

First the empty bottles are put onto the conveyor belt.

Then the bottles are flipped over and cleaned out with a citric solution.

After that they flip back over and are filled to the brim with wonderful Keswick wines.

Then the cork is inserted into the bottle. Then the foil, or capsule, is put onto the bottle. Lucky for us, this machine decided to break on Friday so we had to hand capsule all of the bottles. Once the capsules are on they go through a spinner. The capsules are loose over the neck of the bottles and the spinner magically tightens them.

Last but certainly not least, the labels are put onto the bottles. Then you've got a bottle of wine! The whole process goes rather quickly (if we don't run into any bumps) and at maximum capacity we can pump out 48 bottles a minute!We did a good job and got all of the wine bottled. But it started snowing on Friday night and we had to leave before we added labels to the Heritage. I'm bummed about this because I cannot wait to have the Heritage in the tasting room!

One day till Bottling!

2009-12-15T14:10:00.001-05:00

It has been really cold this week and I was surprised to drive into work and see that our lake had partially froze over! Now don't get your ice skates ready, it is just a small layer of ice, but it was exciting to me!

That poor tree has been water logged (and now ice logged) for the past week. I hope it makes it through the winter!

As I said in the previous post we are getting close to bottling (tomorrow is the big day)... so the boys have been busy prepping all of the wines. I mentioned the filtering of the wine, but I did not mention the blending of one particular wine. After each wine aged separately in oak barrels the Consensus is being blended together to the parameters that our wine club members picked! The wine is in stainless steel right now, sitting patiently for bottling.We also had to test the wine for alcohol level and sulfur levels. This insures that the wine is at the correct stage for bottling. Another factor to consider for bottling, which I would have never thought of is keeping the wines and the empty bottles at generally the same temperature. It is important that the bottles are just as cold as the wine going into them or else the bottles will condensate. Now although that doesn't sound like a big deal, it is! Because if there is condensation the labels will slide right off the bottles!

Bottling is actually done in the back of a large semi truck with all of the mechanisms to fill, label, cork and add the foil to the bottles. I am really interested in how this will work and I'll give you and update (and pictures) tomorrow!

Bottle Overload

2009-12-09T12:02:00.001-05:00

So we are preparing for bottling and we got out shipment of bottles. Little did I know it would be such an overwhelming amount of bottles!

That stack of bottles goes about 5 deep and 3 wide! We received four different types of bottles the 65, 10, 13, and 22. Since those numbers mean nothing to me, lets delve a little deeper....

The 65's (far left) are used for our standard red wine bottle and the 2008 Consensus will be bottled in it. They are Bordeaux bottles.

The 10's (2nd in line) are our standard white wine bottles, called Burgundy bottles. We will be bottling both the Les Vents de Anges Viognier and the Verdejo in them. Both the Burgundy and the Bordeaux bottles are dark green (technically called antique green and dead leaf green). The reasoning behind this is the darker the bottle the less sunlight can come in contact with the wine, which means less oxidation.

The 22's (3rd) are smaller dessert wine bottles, which we will be using for the Royal (the late harvest Norton). The bottle holds half the volume of the other bottles and is called a Belissima bottle. These bottles are taller then the previous two!

Last but not least is a bottle I am unfamiliar with, the 13 (far right). The 13's will be used to bottle our Rose. This is called a Hock bottle. The bottle virtually does not have a punt, while all the other bottles we are using do! A punt is the little indent on the bottom of a bottle. This bottle does not have a punt because wines that tend to be bottled in them do not have sediment.

Overall, we received 20,580 bottles in our shipment!

Filtering the Viognier

2009-12-08T16:23:00.000-05:00

So after cold stabilizing for a few weeks the wine is ready to be filtered. I talked about cold stabilizing for a brief moment a few posts back but to refresh your memory we turned the temperature of the tank way down to make sure that the proteins could be taken out of the wine. Stephen came with 2 different glasses of wine into the tasting room, one pre-filter and one post-filter. Can you believe those are the same wine? After tasting them both the filtered wine is much more focused but the flavor profile is very similar.

So I went out to the barrel room to see how this was done and basically a large hose is connected to the stainless steel tank (we were filtering the Les Vents de Anges Viognier) and the hose pushes wine through the machine in the picture below. This machine sends the wine through a series of filters and it comes out the other hose back into a neighboring tank. We monitored the pressure during the process to make sure that there was not any back up. Sometimes if there is a lot of yeast or sediment, wine will be forced through the filter and not processes as finely.

After we filtered the whole thing we were left with the lees, yeast, and bentonite in the bottom of the tank we started from. The yellow color is the yeast and the gray color is the bentonite. Stephen encouraged me to taste what was left over in the tank and it was a really interesting flavor. It looked like it was going to be very granular but it was very smooth and creamy, which attributes to the creaminess of some Chardonnay. But it was also rather tart! Quite the experience, I wished I could scoop it up and let everyone in the tasting room try it!

...And the Results Are

2009-12-07T10:59:00.002-05:00

So our Wine Makers Dinner went off without a hitch! It was fantastic fun and great food. Thanks to Harvest Moon for the great food and thanks to all of the people who attended. I was lucky enough to get a plate made for me at the end of the night and the cracked pepper encrusted filet was incredible. Needless to say, I was in heaven.

As for the Consensus Blending Party both of the days were fun. We had a full house in the back of the barrel room and the blending started at 10:00am! The grapes that were allowed in the blend were Chambourcin, Petite Verdot, and 3 different lots of Cabernet Sauvignon. The different lots are based on where the vines are situated on the property. Lot 1 is in the front of the tasting room planted in clay. Lot 2 and 3 are planted in the back of the property on shale but lot 3 is on top of a hill. Shale is always great for growing because it is self-draining which will not over saturate the grapes while they are growing.

The winning blend turned out to be 12% Petite Verdot, 28% Chambourcin, 55% Cabernet Sauvignon Lot 1 and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon Lot 3. Its average score was 16.5 out of 20. So congratulations to the winning team, Gavin Meek, Jen Cottler, Paul and Kathy Clements, and Barbara and Debra Harris! Now they have bragging rights for the rest of the year!

Our second place team (and the winners of the Sunday blending event) were Kelsea Bordoe, Scott Fry, Kristin and Chris Friedline. They created another amazing blend of 2% Petite Verdot, 2% Chambourcin, 59% Cabernet Sauvignon Lot 1, and 37% Cabernet Sauvignon Lot 2. It turned out to be a much different blend then the one that won the overall, but it only lost by 1.3 points on average!

Weather-wise: It SNOWED on Saturday! This was my first snow, which was exciting, but I was nervous about driving in the snow. Fortunately it did not stick around Keswick and by the time I made it into Charlottesville the roads had been plowed. So I dodged that bullet. After all of that snow, I was expecting crummy weather on Sunday but it is nice and sunny, but very chilly!

Event Preparations

2009-12-03T09:52:00.002-05:00

We are getting prepared for quite a few things this week: the Wine Makers Dinner and the Consensus Blending Event! So it has been quite busy around here!

Stephen had to rearrange all of the barrels in the barrel room in order to make way for the tables for both the Wine Makers Dinner and the Consensus Blending Party so our barrel room looks completely different! I am very excited for the dinner because Stephen is going to be releasing the reserve wines to be paired with the menu. We even got an oven and stove top delivered to the vineyard today! I was a little confused when I walked outside and nearly bumped into it.

In regards to the Consensus Blending Event we are prepping for that and I am excited about the wines we are blending with. Apparently it is 3 different lots of Cabernet Sauvignon, Petite Verdot, and Chambourcin. Cabernet Sauvignon and Petite Verdot are two of my favorite grapes so I am excited to see which blend wins!

Oh and one more note of interest... Our lake flooded again, this time worst then the last! It was a chilly rainy day yesterday, but today is beautiful! And according to the local weather it is supposed to snow on Saturday... Being from San Diego I still cannot fathom waking up in the morning to snow!

Holiday Food Drive

2009-12-02T12:32:00.002-05:00

I am very excited about a new program we are just getting started and it is our Holiday Food Drive! Throughout the month of December (up until Christmas Eve) we will be accepting canned and non-perishable food items to benefit the Emergency Food Bank of Charlottesville. We will have a basket, by our cute little Christmas tree where customers can drop of goods for the Emergency Food Bank. The best part about it is that any donating food will receive an extra 5% off their purchase in the tasting room!

The Emergency Food Bank is an organization that has been active since 1973 and they have about 100 volunteers, all unpaid, that work together to provide food for families in need in the Charlottesville area. Obviously we are excited to work with them and with all of your help I'm sure this will be successful!

Here is a list of items in high demand:

Canned tuna or chicken

Peanut butter

Cereal

Canned vegetables *

Soup (dry or canned)

Canned beans

Rice

Canned fruit

Macaroni and cheese

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-26T21:50:00.001-05:00

I just wanted to say Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at Keswick Vineyards. Today is one of our days off, so we can spend time with our own friends and family. So I'll leave you with a short list of things I have become thankful for in my time working at Keswick:

1. Being excited to come to work everyday
2. Meeting our wine club members, who become familiar faces and friends
3. Hard working employees
4. Greetings from Mittens the cat
5. The absence of fruit flies
6. Feeling like part of the family
...and last but definitely not least...
7. Fantastic wine!

And in case you still don't have a clue what to drink with Thanksgiving dinner... see if you can scrounge up a bottle or two of Touriga! Since it is a medium bodied red it will not overwhelm poultry, and the little bit of fruit and the little bit of spices will be a nice complement to all of the wonderful Thanksgiving side dishes.

Enjoy!

Black Reserve Friday

2009-11-20T11:05:00.000-05:00

So I am very excited about this so I had to let everyone know about it! On Friday November 27th (Black Friday) we are going to be releasing one of our previously unreleased wines. I cant tell you which one it is because that would ruin the surprise, but I can tell you this... it is one of our reserve wines! So if you are trying to avoid the malls/crowds/traffic which seem to be unavoidable that day, come out to our tasting room to try this special wine. Feel free to bring a picnic (leftover turkey sandwiches anyone?) and relax.

Malolatic Fermentation

2009-11-19T16:19:00.000-05:00

Recently we have been keeping the wines looking fantastic. One thing that is very important is stirring the wine barrels. The boys take out the bung, which is a giant stopper on the top of the barrel, and use a large metal pole to stir the wine. This keeps the yeast in suspension within the wine. I was able to taste the 2009 Chardonnay and I like it a lot right now. It is much more acidic and tart then the 2008 Chardonnay.

yum!

I think this is because it has not gone through malolactic fermentation. The way I understand it is that wines go through primary fermentation and the acid left present in the wine is malic acid. Malic acid is typically fairly tart and resembling a granny smith apple in flavor. If allowed, the wine will undergo a secondary fermentation which will change the malic acid to lactic acid. Lactic acid is more of the milk or yogurt acid, giving the buttery flavor to wines. To bring this full circle, that whole process is known as malolactic fermentation!

So that is the current status of the 2009 Chardonnay! I'll be interested to see if Stephen is going to push the wine completely through malolactic fermentation. I'll keep you updated!

I've got a Favor to Ask!

2009-11-13T09:01:00.001-05:00

I've got a small request for our readers and I was hoping you could help us out. We are trying to increase our internet presence and one way to help is to review Keswick Vineyards! So if you have visited us or have enjoyed our wines recently feel free to post a small write up about it!

Here are some links you can use to write a review or two:
Google Maps
Yelp
Trip Advisor

Any other site you know of would also be great! Thank you in advance!

In other news the storm in hitting Virginia right now is incredible! I cant recall a time in my life when there was rain and wind so persistent! Maybe the El Nino of 1997? Either way this is crazy. It has been raining so hard for the last day and half that our lake is beginning to flood! Luckily, it seems to be slowing down as of this morning.

Veterans Day + Chocolate Sauce

2009-11-10T21:21:00.004-05:00

Hey everyone! I just wanted to let you know that we are honoring Veteran's Day tomorrow by giving all active and retired military personnel a free tasting and 15% off any purchases as our way of saying thank you for all of your hard work and service for our country. So stop on by tomorrow!

Another exciting note is that the Norton Chocolate Sauce is officially back in the tasting room. We had a 2 week lull without it, but it is back just in time for the holidays! Not only is it fantastic with the Norton wine but it is also amazing with the Cabernet Franc. (We recently discovered how tasty the Cabernet Franc and dark chocolate is...)

The 2009 wines are looking fantastic. I was able to try the Cabernet Sauvignon after work today and I have to say it is amazing. My first impression of it was pomegranates, but this was a few weeks ago. Now after being in barrel for about a week and a half it is incredible. It is very dark and rich in color, inky but with a really beautiful deep red hue. The flavor also incredible, it is unbelievably smooth for how young it is and I know it is only going to get better with time. I wish I had a time machine to speed up the aging process so I could put the wine in the tasting room tomorrow!

Bentonite & Tartrate Crystals

2009-11-07T16:08:00.000-05:00

Today Stephen worked on racking off some of our 2009 whites. First we took the wine off of the fine lees, which are the inactive yeast left in the wine. They fine lees settle down to the bottom of the stainless steel tanks and this way we are able to take just the wine out of the tank! After this was done Stephen added bentonite to the wine.

In Stephen's words bentonite is "an absorbent aluminum phyllosilicate." The way I understand it is that bentonite is put into the wine to absorb proteins from the wine.

After this has been done we are moving wine to a tank and then taking the temperature to 28 degrees! Apparently, the tank is going to be covered with ice in the near future, I'll be sure to take a picture and post it once that happens. By chilling the wine we are able to sort out the tartrate crystals before we bottle the wine. Tartrates are added to the wine to try and create a balanced wine, with the tartrates bringing up the acidity of the wine. Apparently, if we leave the tartrates in the wine it will form crystals in the wine and sometimes cause it to turn opaque when chilled. I guess it is a more a matter of vanity than taste!

Dessert on the Horizon

2009-11-03T14:25:00.000-05:00

Yesterday we started the day off by pressing off the Chambourcin and the Norton to finish off the harvest... or so I thought! I just found out this morning that we have 5 tons of Viognier that we are planning on making into our Nektar. The Nektar is a dessert wine, typically created in the style of an ice wine. Ice wines are very popular in Canada and the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York. The grapes actually freeze on the vine and they are picked in the wee small hours of the morning. (I've been listening to Frank Sinatra in the tasting room recently, and I can't seem to get it out of my head!) Because these grapes are frozen they are pressed off and a very sweet juice is left, which creates ice wine! Since we do not have such cold nights in Virginia we are left to make a mock ice wine, where we throw the grapes in a large freezer and then press them off. The Nektar has a rather long production cycle, so it will be pressed off and then sit in barrel for over a year! So dont expect to see that wine until January of 2011.

On the other dessert wine front, we have our Royale. This is a late harvest Norton wine. This has been sitting in barrel for a long time and is going to be bottled next month! So you can expect to see that in the tasting room in January (rough estimate). Either way, I have never tried either of our sweet wines, so that will be a fun new experience. Typically my pallet leans towards dry wines, but I've heard such wonderful things about both the Royale and the Nektar!

Come Get Your Holiday Passports!

2009-11-01T16:40:00.001-05:00

We just started a new program in the tasting room called the Holiday Passport. It is a fantastic deal we are doing with Kluge Vineyards & Jefferson Vineyards. It is $10 for the tasting card and then you get free tastings at all 3 of the vineyards! Also, each of the vineyards is offering 15% off one of their select bottles. So if you are planning on doing tastings in all three of those tasting rooms, it is worth it!

As for our wine, the Norton and the Chambourcin are just about done and we have plans to press off the wines early this week. In order to get ready for the final press we had to prep the empty barrels. First we pressure washed the barrels to make sure that they were squeaky clean. Then we filled the barrels with water which causes them to swell up. This fills in any small cracks in the barrels and reduces loss of our precious cargo (the wines)!

Chambourcin Galore!

2009-10-30T21:31:00.001-04:00

So today we are going to focus on the Chambourcin. When I went to talk to the boys about what they were working on today the answer was the Chambourcin! Frankly, I have never had a straight varietal Chambourcin, only blended into wines. The Chambourcin is in both our 2008 Norton and our 2008 Touriga, and I love the flavor it gives to those wines.

So I decided to learn a bit about the Chambourcin and I found out that the grape was not even available until the 60s! It grows really well in the region because it is able to withstand fairly cold winters and the grapes sit far apart from one another which makes them less prone to fruit rot. The one thing I found interesting is that I typically describe our wines with Chambourcin in them as spicy, not like spicy hot spicy, but more along the vain of dried spices. I found a description of Chambourcin and one of the words they used was herbaceous... which is a much better descriptor then my "spicy".

We pressed down the cap of the 2009 Chambourcin grapes which I found out does a few more things then just ward off rot. It also oxygenates the wine as well as homogenizes the temperature of the wine. Apparently, it creates a better environment for the yeast when all of the wine is at the same temperature. This insures even fermentation and a fantastic wine at the end of it all!

All of this hard work pays off in the end and I'll let you know how things turn out!

Fall Colors

2009-10-28T10:28:00.002-04:00

As I was driving to work today I had a sudden realization that the fall colors were in swing. I also did not realize the leaves on the vines would change so radically! Coming into work was a blur of yellows and orange... It looks like my first official fall is going to be a beautiful one!

In Focus: Cabernet Sauvignon & Franc

2009-10-27T21:02:00.001-04:00

So I just wanted to say I'm sorry for not posting in quite some time! I have been rather busy and I worked both days this weekend, which left me little time to catch up! Luckily, we had some exciting things happen today...

First, I came in this morning to a new facebook video and poll up online, which is always exciting. This time we are voting on which type of oak barrels we should put the Facebook Franc in. Apparently it is amazing right now, I have not had the pleasure of trying it, but I'll take Stephen's word on it! So good work thus far on making an amazing wine and keep up the voting!

We also racked off the Rosé today. This means it is going into barrel and it will be aging there for some time. It turns out it is 75% Cabernet Franc and 25% Merlot, both of which only sat on the skins for a limited amount of time to get a nice pale tint to the wine. I'm still unsure if Stephen has chosen to do a sweet or dry Rosé, but I am excited none the less. This is going to be the first time we are making a Rosé since 2006.

The Cabernet Sauvignon being pressed down and pink carbon dioxide bubbles forming over the cap

The other thing we did this afternoon was pressing off the Cabernet Sauvignon, which is amazing. According to Stephen it is going to be even better then the 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon, which won us the Governors Cup this year. I tasted the wine and it was great. It was very smooth which was unexpected to me because it is so young! I personally got a lot of pomegranate flavor from the wine, which I loved... So I am hoping that doesn't fall completely by the wayside as it ages. I think aging the wine in oak is going to give it much more depth so I am thrilled to see how this is going to turn out!

cap - the layer of skins that sit on top of a wine (typically red) as it ferments. These caps need to be pressed down every few hours to keep the skins wet, so rot does not occur.

Harvest Complete!

2009-10-22T19:31:00.000-04:00

Today the boys finished with harvest! ... Well sort of... They finished picking yesterday and today they finished processing the Norton and the Chambourcin. This included more de-stemming and putting the fruit into stainless steel tanks. Another good bit of news is that Stephen got his heater back! This means no more 87 degrees on the second floor of the barrel room (which was our temporary solution to heating the wines). This heater will now be connected to the last of the red wines to keep their temperature higher to make sure that the yeast is active and turning the sugars in the wines to alcohol.

Now the focus is going to be making and tending to the wines... I'll keep you updated on what happens with the wines as they change and develop!

Looks Can be Deceiving

2009-10-21T13:35:00.001-04:00

Take a good look at this picture of our tasting room. At first glance nothing seems out of the ordinary, just a typical day at Keswick Vineyards... right? WRONG! Check out this huge wasps nest we found in the tree today... This thing must be bigger then a basketball, which kind of freaks me out... Oh the power of nature!

The End is in Sight

2009-10-21T10:04:00.002-04:00

Yesterday and today are our last days picking for the season! The Chambourcin and the Norton are on their way into the barrel room and getting ready to be processed. I came in this morning and the boys were already hard at work, but they had a bit of extra spring in their step... They know that all of their hard work is paying off. But dont think this is the end of their work, they still need to process and tend to the wines to keep them in tip-top shape.

Norton on the vine... but not for long!

The Merlot and the Petite Verdot were put into barrels, so now the only wines left to deal with are both of the Cabernets (Franc & Sauvignon) and the Chambourcin and Norton. One little note about the Chambourcin grapes. I snagged a bunch when they boys werent looking yesterday and tasted them and I thought they were wonderful! It was later explained to me that the seeds were very "ripe". Apparently seeds can give seed tannins to a wine, which can sometimes leave the wine a bit bitter.. but the seeds in the Chambourcin will not do that because they are so ripe. If you look at them they are more of a chocolate color then the other seeds I've seen which are more like an oatmeal color.

Its a beautiful day at the vineyard, and today will (sadly) be my last day of serving freshly picked grapes in the tasting room until next harvest... so come keep me company today!

Grape Stomp & Cabernet Franc

2009-10-18T14:25:00.003-04:00

Yesterday we had our first ever grape stomp and it was a lot of fun! In the morning the boys picked some of the grapes we still have on the vines and quickly de-stemmed them into three different bins. Once the event started we had some brave soles jump in and start stomping even though it was rather chilly outside... Luckily we had some delicious tomato basil soup to warm people up after they got out of the bins of grapes.

The Rock River Gypsies played some music to accompany the stomping and they were fantastic! They played for our Reds, Whites, and Bluegrass 4th of July event, but I was not working at Keswick Vineyards yet, so I had never seen them! They were amazing, so bravo to them!

If I could do it all over again, I think I would try and plan the event when it was a little warmer, because the grapes ended up being so chilly! It is crazy how quickly the weather changed out here, just two weeks ago, it was nice and sunny and now it is getting cold... October in San Diego typically is still in the 70s so hanging out in 40 degree weather is a new thing for me!

Thanks to everyone who participated on Saturday! All of the pictures are on the computer at Keswick, so I'll try and post a few once I get back to work on Tuesday.

Oh and I almost forgot! We sold out of the Les Vents de'Anges on Saturday, so our 2008 Cabernet Franc was released today! It is fantastic, smooth with a nice lengthly finish... So come visit us in the tasting room soon to try it out!

Montpelier "Pouring" & Cabernet Sorting

2009-10-16T09:41:00.004-04:00

I did not get a chance to finish writing my post yesterday because I was at Montpelier for the majority of the day. We went up there for an employee event that Dominion was having. We met up with Cooper Vineyards and had a two vineyard "festival" of sorts. We took our guests through our different wines and enjoyed the afternoon. It rained on us all throughout the event but luckily we were covered by a nice big tent!

Once we got back to Keswick I found the boys sorting through the Cabernet Sauvignon grapes. Cabernet Sauvignon is one of my personal favorite varietals so I was very excited to try a one (or a few!). The grapes were rather small and only had a tiny seed in them. They were a lot less sweet then all of the other grapes I have tried throughout the season, but I thought they were great! I can't wait to see how the wine turns out!

Looks like we are going to have another busy day today... doing some maintenance to the wines and preparing for our grape stomp, so I'll keep you updated on what occurs in the next few hours.

Press v. Stomp

2009-10-14T17:57:00.001-04:00

Today was a chilly day around the winery. I knew it was extremely cold when I stepped outside to check everything in the morning and came back into the tasting room and I thought it was warm! Normally I am freezing in the tasting room all day, but we have to keep the wines happy, so we keep it at 68 degrees at all times.

We also pressed off the Petite Verdot and the Merlot. They have been sitting in the stainless steel tanks for a bit and they have been fermenting away! The Merlot was at about 4% residual sugar when we pressed it off. This way it will continue fermenting and changing as it ages in the barrel. So the first thing we do is get a bin full of the free run juice. This is all the wine that has naturally separated from the skins and it sits on the bottom of the tank. We add a spigot to the tank and open it up and let the juice flow out. I was able to try a bit of the Merlot and it was very fruit forward, lots of berries.

After all of the free run juice comes out of the tank, the boys use a large shovel to get the rest of the skins out. These skins are then put into the press... We pressed off the Petite Verdot first and did not clean the press afterward. Then we added the Merlot on top of the Petite Verdot, so the Merlot got a bit of that fantastic flavor... A bonus percentage or two of the Petite Verdot!

The day ended with filling more barrels with Merlot and chatting about the first ever grape stomp at Keswick. We are having the stomp this Saturday starting at 1:00pm rain or shine! Tickets are $25 which includes some stomping, some music, and a glass of wine to enjoy. You can RSVP to Kris or give us a call for more information. We are going to be stomping the Norton grapes and then making a wine out of those grapes, which will be rather exciting! So come on in on Saturday to give us a hand (technically feet...) with some wine making!

The Birds & the Bees

2009-10-13T19:04:00.002-04:00

On my way to work today I saw some sort of bird walking around one of the neighboring horse farms. I wasn't exactly sure what it was but it seemed like it was either a small turkey, a grouse, or a female pheasant. I drove by it too quickly, so I couldn't get a good look at it. I'm still finding new flora and fauna around Charlottesville and Keswick that I am not used to seeing on a day to day, which is always exciting... I even saw a fox the other day!

As for the Vineyards we picked almost all of the rest of the grapes on the vines. We brought in the Chambourcin and the Cabernet Sauvignon... So that leaves only the Norton on the vine! Any time we bring new grapes to the crush pad the influx of bees begins again. I just cannot believe the boys do not get stung everyday with how many there are!

I've only been back there once, but this is a view of the back half of the property! I wish this picture did it justice... It is very beautiful back there. We have the Cabernet Sauvignon and the Chambourcin planted back there so the boys did most of their work in the back today.

This last picture is of Stephen adding the fruit into the "refir" truck. This is basically a large semi-truck with refrigeration capacity. This will keep the grapes cold and fresh for tomorrow when they will be sorted and de-stemmed. I did not get a chance to taste the grapes today so tomorrow when they are de-stemming I am going to grab some grapes to taste them, and let you know how they taste!

A Word on Pressing Down Caps

2009-10-13T09:56:00.000-04:00

So I finally tried it... I tried to push down the caps formed on top of the wine in the stainless steel tanks. Lets just say it was a huge failure! I could not for the life of me do it. I tried using all of my weight to push the pole into the barrier of grapes, with little success... It was fun to give it a shot, but I think I should stick to the tasting room and leave the heavy lifting to the boys!

We're picking the last of our grapes today (the Cabernet Sauvignon and the Chambourcin) so I'll attempt to snag a bunch of each and let you know how they taste later today!

Caps, Acid, and Saying a Few Goodbyes

2009-10-09T21:58:00.000-04:00

Today we finished up some fairly routine stuff, but still very important! We pressed down all of the red wines in tank. This means that we took a big metal pole with a flat square on the end and "stirred the pot". When the wines are sitting in the stainless steel tanks the skins and pulp tend to rise to the top of the must and create a cap of sorts. By stirring the tanks we are able to re-submerge the skins to allow more of the color to be imparted into the wine. When I watch the boys do this it seems rather labor intensive. I am going to have to get up there someday soon and let you know just how difficult it is to press through the cap that has been made by the grapes.

Today we also added sulfur to the Viognier barrels. By adding the sulfur we are able to kill off any bacteria that could be lurking about as well and neutralize the lactic acid. From what I understand there are many different types of acid but the two main acids are malic acid and lactic acid. The malic acid is that flavor you get from eating a granny smith apple, while the lactic acid is more of a yogurt flavor. We use the sulfur to reduce the lactic acid and keep the wine very crisp and clean, keeping the malic acid up front on the palate. Chemistry at work folks, chemistry at work! I had no idea that this much science was involved in wine making... I guess I thought a sprinkle of yeast and a dash of acid and a wine could take care of itself! Boy was I wrong...

One more point of interest, more on the tasting room side then the wine making side, but important none the less. We are just about sold out of our Les Vents de'Anges Viogner and our Cabernet Sauvignon... we have about 8 cases of each and I would be suprised if the LVD lasted through the weekend. So if you enjoy either of those two wines come in and snag them while you can. Personally, I am going to be so sad to see the Cabernet Sauvignon go... On the bright side though, the Cabernet Franc should be released soon! Either way you have an excuse to come in and keep me company during the day, so I'll see you soon!

Birthdays & Barrels

2009-10-08T22:52:00.000-04:00

We had a few exciting things happen around the vineyard today, we worked on some wines and we had a birthday! So happy birthday to Kris, our wine club manager! We had some cake at work to celebrate the day.

We also pressed off the Rosé. It looks like Stephen has not decided whether it is going to be a dry or off-dry Rosé. This has been sitting in a bin on the skins for 48 hours which gave it a nice light color. We were thinking about pressing off the Rosé yesterday (after only 24 hours) but the color of the wine was too light. During the pressing, we treated the grapes as white wine grapes and pressed them gently.

At the end of the day I went to the barrel room and I almost ran straight into some freshly moved (and filled) barrels. Turns out those barrels are now filled with the Touriga. The barrels have little toppers on them... I'm not sure of the technical name. If you watch the little toppers they bubble every once in a while, which is actually carbon dioxide being released into the air, without letting oxygen in to the wine. The carbon dioxide is released by the yeast as they turn the sugar to alcohol.

Another thing we have started is the Facebook Cabernet Franc. Apparently the decision to let the native yeast act as the fermenting agent was passed on the Facebook poll and so that has just begun. The bins are going to be put outside to naturally heat the must and let heat and natural sugar encourage yeast multiplication. Make sure to friend us on Facebook, so you can vote on the next step for making the "Facebook Franc"... this way you can brag to all of your friends once the wine is released!

We are moving through harvest and we have a few more varietals to pick and a lot of wines to finish. I am excited to see what happens tomorrow... always something new with our grapes!

Town Point Competition & Festival

2009-10-08T11:40:00.000-04:00

About two weeks ago I send a shipment of our wines to the Town Point Competition in Virgina. We submitted our Viognier, Les Vents d'Anges Viognier, Touriga, and Norton to the competition. We got word yesterday that did rather well in the competition! Our Viognier was the best in show, which is an amazing honor. The Touriga and the Norton both took the gold in their category, which was also exciting. The only wine that did not win was our Les Vents d'Anges, but it was up against some tough competition (our other Viognier!)

The Town Point Festival is taking place October 17th & 18th from 11:00am to 6:00pm and we will be there showcasing our award winning wines. So come down to Norfolk and see us!

Autumn Brings More than Falling Leaves

2009-10-07T23:53:00.000-04:00

This morning I came into Keswick and worked my way around the tasting room, doing my daily chores. I went outside to water the flowers and I was rather startled when I saw a large branch of one of our trees had fallen on to our front lawn! It was rather windy this morning and it seems like one of our tree decided to shed more than its leaves! I cannot believe that a branch that must have been 10 feet long landed in such a perfect way that it stood up on its own!

We also did a lot with our Petite Verdot. We added the yeast today and we went about this a little differently then the Touriga... with the Touriga we heated the tank and wine and then added the yeast to begin fermentation. For the Petite Verdot we had to temper the yeast, just as you would with tempering an egg. The temperature for the yeast was much higher then the Petite Verdot, so it is important to slowly lower the temperature of the yeast to that of the Touriga. If we were to dump the yeast directly into the wine, it would shock the yeast and would not ferment correctly.

At the end of the night, we focused on the Touriga. As I said yesterday, it has completely finished fermenting. So the next step is to draw off the free flowing juice from the stainless steal tank. After that the boys shoveled out the rest of the grapes and they were moved into the press. Think of the press as a large cylindrical colander with a balloon inside. Once the press is turned on the balloon inflates and pushes the grapes to the sides and the juice falls through the holes on the outside and into the tub below. The press gently squeezed the rest of the juice from the grapes... The picture does not do the color of the Touriga justice!

Burnt Plastic & Fuchsia Wines

2009-10-06T19:59:00.000-04:00

This morning I walked into the barrel room to find all of the doors open and huge fans blowing, turns out our heater melted overnight and which was a "nice" surprise for Stephen... We had a great bouquet of burnt plastic in the barrel room for part of the day, but the giant industrial fans helped take care of the issue...

After dealing with that, we de-stemmed more of the Cabernet Franc and we are planning on using this batch for our Rosé. We were up in the air about making one this year, but with the amount of Cabernet Franc grapes that were produced we figured we might as well make one. I am excited to see how this will be created. There are three major ways to make a Rosé, each of which require different times during fermentation, contact with skins, and blending. I'll be sure to talk to Stephen and find out how we are planning to make this wine and whether we are going to make a dry or off-dry Rosé. I believe we have only done one other Rosé in Keswick Vineyards history so I am excited to see how it goes!

The boys also had a lot of work to do with the whites today. As I mentioned earlier, the whites are finished and are now aging in the barrels. We do a few different things in order to keep them in tip-top shape... The first thing is to sulfur all of the wine in the barrels. Sulfur acts as an agent to keep wine from oxidizing as well as keep away the influence of bacteria. If this is not done, wine has a greater potential for spoiling, or turning to vinegar. The other thing we did to the white wines was to rack the wines off the dead lees. While the wine is aging, the lees settle to the bottom of the barrel and basically racking off the wine is done by using a hose to "vacuum out" the wine on the top of the barrel, leaving a bit of wine and the lees behind.

One last thing to mention, the 2009 Touriga. It is completely done fermenting and it blows me away how quickly this all happens. On Saturday when I tried the partially fermented wine, it was rather sweet and just a mere three days later it is a full fledged wine. It is very fruit forward right now and it is almost fuchsia in color. But don't be expecting a bright pink wine next year, Stephen said that as it ages it will become a much darker wine!

Bouquet - classy wine terminology for the smell of wine

dead lees - inactive yeast

...and Saturday turns to Monday

2009-10-05T14:53:00.000-04:00

It's Saturday and you know what that means? Its going to be a busy day in both the tasting room and out in the feilds...
The boys brought us some Cabernet Franc grapes this morning and....

That is about how far I got in creating a post on Saturday, and then things got busy! We had some big groups come in and a nonstop flow of customers all day. It was a great day, but now I feel like I neglected the followers of this blog... So lets try this again!

Saturday morning began with testing the Cabernet Franc grapes. It is important to test the brix in the grapes to see when they are ripe and ready to be picked. I got a nice big bunch for the tasting room to try and everyone was commenting on how much sweeter the grapes were then they expected. After tasting one myself, I found that the Cabernet Franc grapes had the smallest seed in them of all the grapes I have tasted in the past.

Later that day, the boys sorted through the Petite Verdot grapes. We even had a few wine club members get their hands dirty and help sort the grapes. Luckily, the boys did not have to stay well into the night on Saturday, like they did the previous night.

Also, my predictions were incorrect! In my last post I said that the Merlot was going to sit for a few days before the yeast was added, but it was actually added on Saturday. At the end of the day, Stephen brought us a large graduated cylinder full of the partially fermented Touriga. It was still very sweet because the yeast has not finished turning the sugars into alcohol, but it has a wonderful flavor. It reminds me of a Lambic, which is actually a Belgian beer, the difference was the lack of carbonation in the Touriga. The 2008 Touriga is one of my favorite wines we currently have, so I am very excited to see the 2009 Touriga develop!

I'll be back to Keswick tomorrow with some updates on what happened on my days off! I'm sure Stephen has been keeping busy... By the way, Stephen is our wine maker, I'll be referencing him a lot, so think of this as your official introduction!

brix - the level of sugar in a grape

Busy Day, Great Day

2009-10-02T23:54:00.000-04:00

So I was right... it was an eventful day today. We started with adding the yeast to Touriga and the Syrah and then we moved to processing the Merlot. To process the red grapes the boys started by de-stemming and hand sorting the grapes. We have a great machine that does quite a bit of work, it de-stems and punctures the berries. From there the grapes move down an assembly line where they are hand sorted.

From the assembly line in the picture, the Merlot grapes fall into a large bins. After the bin was full Stephen added it to one of the stainless steel tanks in the barrel room. If this follows the same pattern as the Touriga did, then I can predict that the must will sit in the tanks for a few days and then the yeast will be added. I'll let you know if my predictions are true in the next few days.

After the tasting room closed today Anne and I decided we should help the boys out with the hand sorting and let me tell you it was quite a task! We blasted some music and got straight to work... The conveyor belt moved quickly and it was our task to get rid of all of the stems and leaves, but the one thing the boys did not mention was all the other things you might find among the grapes... I mindlessly grabbed on to what I thought was a stem and was surprised to feel a little spider grabbing my finger!

During a little break I was able to chat with Stephen while he topped off the 2009 Viognier barrels. He let me sample from one of the barrels where he was trying a new experimental strain of yeast, and it was fantastic! I'll be curious to see what he ends up doing with the wine...

We continued into the night sorting grapes and I did not leave work until 10:45pm... Like I said, busy day! But a productive day! I guess to conclude this post I would like to say I should not call the boys "boys" any more, they are men... no, supermen... They are working very hard this harvest and I know we are going to have some great wines as a result!

topping off - filling a partially filled barrel of wine with a bit more wine to make sure there is no room for oxygen in the barrel.

Pancakes and Wine

2009-10-02T10:05:00.000-04:00

I came in this morning to a lot of activity in the barrel room. I guess it is going to be a busy day for the boys! Stephen came into the tasting room this morning to say good morning and he had a whisk and a large bucket filled with what looked like pancake mix. But alas, we were not having a team breakfast at work... Stephen was actually about to add yeast to the Touriga and Syrah! They have been sitting in the large stainless steel tanks for the past few days and today is the day Stephen is adding the yeast... Let the fermentation begin! Stephen explained that he was heating the must before adding the yeast to the tank. This way the yeast are quite active and prepared to turn those sugars into alcohol.

As for harvest, we are officially at the halfway point... All of the whites have been picked and the reds are moving quickly! We have plans to pick the Cabernet Franc on Sunday and then we will only have Cabernet Sauvignon, Chambourcin, and Norton left on the vines.

And I'm not sure if I am supposed to tell you this in case there is some superstition behind it, but Stephen said that 2009 might be the best year Keswick Vineyards has seen thus far! I can't wait to see these wines age and develop... I'll be sure to keep you updated

It seems like a busy day today and I have a sneaking suspicion I'll be back with another update shortly. I heard some talk about processing the Merlot and Petite Verdot we brought in yesterday... How exciting!

must - grapes and juice prior to or during fermentation

A Post of Firsts...

2009-10-01T16:30:00.000-04:00

This post has a general theme, firsts: This is my first official day as the Keswick Vineyards tasting room manager, this is our first blog post and this week we are pulling in the first of our reds!

To introduce myself, I am Lauren. I am originally from San Diego and after graduating from the University of San Diego in December I was itching to explore a different part of the country. I ended up moving out to Charlottesville three months ago. I drove cross country, with my car packed to the brim, intent on working within the wine industry. I started doing tastings all across the Monticello AVA and I fell in love with Keswick... So after a few months of training and learning everything I can, I am excited to be the new tasting room manager!

To focus on the blog, I am planning on using this as a tool to keep you informed about the goings-on at the vineyard as well as have you learn about the wine, as I work with them and learn about them. Any time I learn something new I'll post it for you. Since I learn something new every day, I'll be on here daily* keeping you just as informed as I am!

Our last "first" (but definitely not our least) is the 2009 reds we are currently harvesting. I am excited to let you know they are looking fantastic! We picked the Touriga and the Syrah at the beginning of the week and we picked the Petite Verdot and Merlot grapes just today. Some of our lucky tasters (including myself) got to try some of them fresh off the vine, and let me tell you they are marvelous! The Merlot grapes are a bit sweet, while the Petite Verdot are nice and tart... I was surprised to be left with an almost tannic feeling on my tongue with the Petite Verdot. Any time we are picking I always convince the boys to bring me a few bunches, so if you come in during a picking day, I'll have them for you to sample. So come in to the tasting room in the next few days while they are still picking so you can try some!

*disclaimer: Sunday/Monday are my days off...