This is all about my VERY excellent adventure into the wonderful world of wine making!
My moms are on vacation until after Labor Day and they started out with a trip to the Santa Ynez Wine Country and I got to come along! (We love Harvey but he's something called "too high maintenance" so he's at I Dig My Dog for the weekend.)
So they grow grapes around here ... and my Uncle Billy and Aunt Cindy (who live up here in Santa Ynez) make wine out of some of them ... and on the day they bottle the wine there's a BIG party and everybody comes to help. (Here's me waiting for the party to start.)
It turns out that it takes a lot of STUFF to make wine ... a machine to put the wine out of the barrels into the bottles ...
... a whole bunch of corks ....
... and then there are all the glasses for the people who are coming to TASTE the wine. (That seems to be a VERY important part of the process!)
This year they're bottling a "Barbera" ... (that's an Italian varital, you know -- you've got to keep up with your wine lingo!) ... and these are the clear bottles they start out flushing out the lines from the barrels.
Once the people started coming things started to move really fast.
The bottles were all washed and the lines were all primed ...
... Uncle Billy got the cork machine ready to go ...
... and Aunt Cindy (she's the REAL brains behind this operation!) said, "ready, set, GO ..."
... and the wine started to flow!
And at that point SOMEBODY decided I was not as helpful as I thought I was so I got TIED UP a little removed from the action and -- a you may be able to tell -- I was NOT happy about it!
But my mom said they were there to bottle wine and not keep track of me so she just kept putting corks in the bottles and totally ignored how insulted I was.
And before you knew it there was one case done and then another ...
... and everybody pitched in to help ... (and taste!) ...
... and things were moving right along!
Once I realized it was all going so well I decided to just relax and enjoy the country air. (After all, I'M on vacation, too!)
And before you knew it the wine was bottled and the cases were stacked and ... sniff, sniff ... what's that Uncle Billy is doing in the background? Lighting the BBQ! NOW you're talking!
Even Aunt Cindy finally got a minute to put her feet up a little ... check out her official "wine" shoes. (I think they'd made great dog chewies but nobody was taking a chance on letting THAT one happen!)
While I missed out on the wine tasting at least they DID let me in on the hot dog tasting and I gave THAT an A+!!
Here's the finished product, ready to go home and fill up people's wine racks ...
And since the party is pretty much over ...
... I found a cozy spot and called it a day!
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LUNA'S EXCELLENT
WINE COUNTRY ADVENTURE:
WINE COUNTRY ADVENTURE:
DAY TWO
We all slept in a little the next morning, but then ...
There were barrels to clean -- "pickle" Cindy calls it -- and some other bits and pieces to sort out so we were back at it again.
Uncle Billy put something called a "sulphur stick" inside the barrels after he lit it ...
... and then plugged up the hole ...
... and the barrels went back on their stands to get ready for the next wine making adventure.
There were bottles to wash out ...
... and then a bunch of unlabeled wine to sort through and decide what to keep ...
... and what to toss. (Here's Uncle Billy looking for "legs" in the glass of wine ... who knew?)
1 comment:
Luna -- you are an excellent reporter. Your descriptions make me want to come join you on vacation!
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