Vineyard Visit

 Last week I drove up to check in on a few of our vineyards and chat with the growers about the season so far to see how things are shaping up for 2011. Despite hearing stories of 25-50% loss or shatter damage, both the Keller Estate and Windsor Oaks properties have experienced minimal damage and yields are looking only slightly lower than last year. 

We're still a good few weeks away from veraison, but in general it looks like we are running about 3 weeks behind "normal" this year.

Last week our barrel racks were delivered so we finally got the chance to do some winery work. I've never been so happy to smell sulfur before. All of our barrels are now resting on their racks, with a sulfur "sous" in them waiting to be cleaned out and filled with wine in the upcoming months. 

It was also fun to finally put our newly rented forklift to work, after all driving a forklift is really the reason we all get into this business in the first place, right?    

Until next time...

First Post

Website. Check. Facebook page. Check. Twitter account. Check. Blog. Really?

These are just a few of the things that have nothing to do with making wine yet have a lot to do with opening a winery. The things Kevin and I have learned since launching Dogpatch WineWorks just a few months ago are pretty varied and almost always interesting, almost. If you think it's all about grapes, fermentation science, chemistry, barrels and really expensive equipment your wrong, well you'd be right about the equipment.

Here's a list of a few things that we've been learning about since signing the lease here on 3rd St.

Lights (high bay energy efficient)

Water (2 1/5 inch copper pipe is cool)

Power ("Are you going to make it all 220?" "Yeah 220... 221, whatever it takes")

Load bearing walls vs. non load bearing (tearing them down is fun)

Protective concrete systems (landlords like stuff like this)

Trench drains and general plumbing (do you know why a plumber looks up at the ceiling when you are talking about installing a drain in the floor?)    

Add to that Google analytics, Go Daddy's, Urban Daddy's, Mailchimps and the SEO for dummies book collecting dust on my desk and you're pretty much caught up with what's been happening here at the winery. 

Starting this business has been a very exciting, sometimes stressful but fun undertaking. With everything that has been going on so far, and everything we still have ahead of us before we actually start making wine I am not sure how often this blog will be updated but I'm going to make an effort to document all of the weird and wonderful activities that are involved in opening and running an urban winery.

Stay tuned for updates on weather conditions, grower and vineyard profiles, equipment maintenance, harvest activities, traffic jams, ramblings of sleep deprived winemakers and useless trivia that we will somehow link to wine, all in a fun way.

Cheers,

DG