Airlie's Winemaker: Please Comment 'Yes' or 'No'

Our new website is about to go live and to be honest I am having a difficult time with the new editor. It is not really designed for what I am trying to do here but I am going to work with it for a while. One of the features I really don't like is how difficult it is to manipulate pictures. Now for me a big part of what I enjoy about posting is sharing pictures of what I am seeing around the winery. So my question is this and I really would like a response, just yes or no is fine: Do you click on the pictures to expand them? I realize no one would click on all of them but do you ever click on any of them. The reason I ask is the new editor does not seem to allow the image to be expanded so I have to figure out how to do it. I am sure there are work arounds (is that a word?) such as making a picture a link back to Picasa and when you click on it it will load the picture from there. Part of the problem is that I don't know how to add links yet with the new editor, another thing that did not seem intuitive the last time I tried working with the editor. The last interesting thing I have run into is that I can't center a picture. This seems very strange to me. So the editor I am using is called Textpattern and any help, advice, links, etc would be much appreciated. And if you know how to preview a page before it goes live please let me know. Thanks. And of course I need your response of yes or no so I know if all this hassle is even worth it.

So back to the winery. I didn't write last week because I basically sat at my desk and wrote thank you cards to all the people who took the time to meet with me on my trip. And if any of you are reading this, thank you one more time. I did have an interesting time on Friday walking the vineyard with a soil specialist from Oregon Vineyard Supply. He was pulling samples from various blocks around the vineyard and in about a week we should get an analysis of the soil samples. Hopefully it will help us to better treat the various areas especially one section in the 'new' Foch where the vines are consistently thinner than the surrounding area and there is usually less fruit. The sun was out for the first time this spring I think and so it was a great way to spend the day. Our winery cat, Bob of the broken leg, was taken full advantage of it and the empty dog bed! Just the right amount of sun please.

This week I have been catching up on lab work, checking SO2 levels and pHs, tasting through all the barrels and now I just have topping left. I took the wines home this time in order to better evaluate them and am pretty happy. I am surprised at how much variation there is in the different lots right now, disregarding the four barrels that still haven't finished ML. I checked them this week too and on paper they still aren't done. Three of the four actually taste very close but one is still quite tart. I also tasted through the 2009 Reserve Pinot barrels. Those are tasting lovely. I am looking forward to putting them together in the fall and watching them develop.

The big new for this week and what we spent yesterday working on is getting eight pallets of wine, thats 448 cases or 5,376 bottles, ready to ship to Japan. Yes, we are going international! And it is all due to Barry's hard work. I think this has been in the works for close to 2 years and then to have the catastrophe happen last month in Japan I thought that might put the whole thing on hold again but fortunately no and maybe the wine will raise a few peoples spirits. The container going over will also contain wine from Belle Vallee, Viridian, Jigsaw and a winery from California (I'm not being a snob I don't know the name). We agreed to be the staging area so yesterday was spent receiving all the Oregon wines and getting them ready to be shipped. They each had to be repacked on a pallet which had been specially fumigated for export and then each case labeled with a sticker printed with the export company's name; From Oregon with Love. How great is that!

Everything is to be loaded into a climate controlled container on Friday and then it is off the Seattle and then Japan. Maybe one of will get a trip out of this, hint, hint. Though even I have to admit that it is probably Barry who should go.

More painting. Chad decided he wanted a green office, I think it came out great.