Spring Barrel Tasting

We shared our first bottle Monday night with some special friends.
It was delicious!!!!!!!!!!1

I have been waiting all week to get some more pictures of our weekend, as my camera battery died in the middle of... I guess the term is called "racking off" some Rose` wine this weekend. (According to Strider, who has been patiently waiting for these pictures all week to be posted?)
This very good friend of ours happens to be a wine vintner as previously mentioned in my past post. He is one of the most generous people I know. He gladly wanted to share his knowledge and expertise with us and helped us through our first wine making experience. It has been great fun. We started last weekend with the Rose` and will soon be "racking off" our homemade Riesling. Our buddy wine maker even has me growing my own wine grapes in my backyard. He just planted...oh I don't know a gazillion more this spring. A variety called Viognier. I can never get the pronunciation correct.


His newly planted grapes, with a fountain in the middle!

I am so far from a wine snob here folks; I barely know a good wine when I taste one, but our friend is kind and patiently educating us. We live in a region of WA state that is getting very well know for their wines. It has become quite the industry here.

So this is what "racking off wine" looks like.

Preparing the equipment

My son helping clean the corking apparatus

Strider in charge of the corks!

So what we did after all the cleaning and prep, Strider filled each bottle with nitrogen oxide, to force all the air out of the bottles. Because it is heavier than air it stayed in the bottles.

Then the wine was siphoned out of the keg and into the bottles.

Here we see my husband and son getting ready to man the corking machine

First bottle!

First taste
The wine maker and his helpers (Strider, Winemaker, Husband, Son)

It took them several hours to do one keg which I think produced 7 cases of wine.

I was also blessed with a gift of their freshly laid chicken eggs. We made omelet's for breakfast the next day! mmmmm

Thanks G. family, you are all amazing, and if you have a chance R. email me those other pic's :>)