09-09-08

We are preparing for the 08 harvest and things are quite busy at the winery.
Rainfall this past Saturday, 09/06/08 totaled over 5 inches. This has caused us to push out our harvest of our Viognier for another few weeks.

It’s hard to believe it’s already fall and the kids are back in school. We had a great summer and went on many vacations together as a family. We went to Port Republic for a week. Our next stop was the Otter Banks for another week. I also got to escape with my girlfriends for a week down in Florida.

One of my goals that I strive for as the wine maker is to truly understand what great wine tastes like. I know that sounds odd, but if you don’t know what great wine tastes like, how do you know that the wine you are making is great. Thus, one of the perks of my job is sample many wines each week and to visit many of the great wineries. This allows me to sharpen my skills as a wine maker and continue to raise the bar with our own wines here at Corcoran.

I am busy getting all the testing equipment calibrated and getting the pumps and press ready for action. This is an exciting year for us, as this will be the first year in our new winery. Our goal with the new winery was to keep it simple, but very efficient and we have achieved that goal. Further, we have added 8000 liters of jacketed tanks as well as upgraded our pumps to variable speed, which is gentler on the wine. We also added a lab to the new winery and outfitted it with state of the art testing equipment.

The winery itself is completely temperature & humidity controlled and all the air goes through UV lighting to circumvent any contamination issues that could occur. In addition, we have added a patio and wine garden next to the new winery for special events, such as barrel tastings, wine brunches, and aroma seminars. We will have updates on our website about these events as they approach.