The rewards and frustrations of home winemaking

Tag archive: Curds and Wine

Syrah Harvest 2012

It’s that time again — harvest day!  We had a recent heat wave in San Diego that pushed up our syrah harvest date from previous years.  Luckily the heat wave broke for harvest day, though it was still pretty hot after the sun came up! Once again the Curds and Wine Grapes to Glass Hands-on […]

2011 Syrah Tasting and the Case of the Stinky Syrah

My Hands-on Winemaking Class got together last night for a potluck dinner to taste the fruits of our labors. We put French oak cubes in the wines about 2 months ago, so now is a good time to give them all a taste to see if there is enough oak, or if it needs more. […]

2011 Syrah Harvest at Live Oak Vineyard

Time for another syrah harvest at Live Oak Vineyard in Fallbrook!  I was the first to arrive, just as the sun broke over the mountains to the East.  The weather this year was perfect so far.  I did smell a nearby wildfire as I drove up to the vineyard, but nothing threatening to interfere with […]

Preharvest Live Oak Vineyard Visit

Today I took a group of people in my Hands-on Winemaking class at Curds and Wine up to Fallbrook for a preharvest Vineyard Visit. We picked a perfect day (read as sarcasm), as a heat wave recently hit and it was sweltering. But, it’s always a lovely, if not hot, day at the vineyard. Mike […]

Bottling Chilean Carmenere on TV

I had the opportunity to show off my new shop on Fox morning news today. It was really fun, except for the 5 am starting time. In the first segment I demonstrated how to start a wine kit, then in this second segment I bottled my Winexpert Chilean Carmenere. The camera guy got a little […]

Finally Bottling Primitivo

I have a few wines that are due for bottling, but I was waiting until I opened my shop because I needed corks, and it seemed to make sense that I should buy them from myself.  So today I’m finally bottling my Amador county primitivo.  I’ll bottle most of it as 100% varietal, but I’m […]

Racking Barrels and Setting Up Shop

The barrels needed a new home, so we decided it was a good time to rack out the wine and clean out the barrels.  Both the merlot and petite sirah need more oak, so we’re going to leave them in the barrels for another year with some extra oak cubes added in.  We pumped the […]