Final days of January

It's sometimes hard to believe how fast time passes as an adult.  I remember as a kid how a month of school seemed like an eternity.  Now I look at how little time it is especially when I think about all the things that I enjoy doing and trying to find the time to do them.

Slush (1-2 hrs) vs. Hard (24hr.) Freeze

The winery is still quiet.  Monday I added cream of tartar to the whites to help finish cold stabilizing them this week.  The same as used in cooking and much cheaper so if you are ever in need hit up your favorite winemaker.  I buy it in 50# bags versus the 1.5oz containers that the grocery store sells.  That's over 530 little containers.  The chilling system seems to be hanging on and getting the job done thought I think we still need to work on it a little.  I checked the Gewürztraminer yesterday to see if it is cold stable and I think it is.  Yeah!  The slush freeze didn't throw anything and the hard freeze was just medium light.  The cream of tartar is doing its job.  Since the GT passed I'll check the Pinot gris and Riesling on Monday.  If they both pass then it is time to start filtering.  Filtering won't be quite the major operation it normally is because I have so much less wine and I sure won't need to create a filtering schedule charting out all my moves like last year.

Yesterday I went over to Roth's, a local grocery store chain, to show a few of my wines to the wine stewards for all the different stores and hopefully to drum some sales up in Oregon.  The advantage of the tasting is not only to remind the stewards what the wines taste like but also to give them a few selling points for when they are talking with customers and for them to have a face, mine of course, to put with the wines.  I like working with Roth's stores because I feel that they do a great job supporting local businesses; wineries and farms alike.  They are also good about labeling local produce and meats and stating where all their seafood is coming from, something that is of up particular importance to me.

I think our new website is getting close.  There have been some technical problems which is why our website was just a black and white page for a day or two but that seems to have been straightened out.  So in the next few weeks we should be making the switch.  When we do I'll post a link here.  Would it help if I put a link on the Airlie Winery facebook page too?  Leave a comment and let me know what is the easiest way for you to continue to follow what I am doing.