November 20, 2008
So, this is the first time most of you have heard from me. For those I have not met, I am the other brother and my name is Matt.
First I need to apologize for the huge gap in between entries. If any of you get our newsletter, you more than likely saw it has been “six long weeks” for us around here. Well, that is as true of a statement as there is. Let me explain.
This has been a funny harvest and can be summed up like this: Not terribly hard, but never ending. We started crush October 2nd (normal start date) and still have 6 tons in the fermenters. In Fact, today I will be putting another 900 gallons into barrels with another 1800 gallons to go in the next week or so…if the stupid things fully finish fermenting. In 7 harvests this is the first one where we have not had to stay up until 1am every night, but this is also the first one where we have not been finished by Halloween. By all accounts one could make the claim it has been one of the easiest harvest and crush seasons, but I don’t like starting and stopping so I guess I won’t go down that path…yet. To tell you the truth, I think I like the normal situation better. Start, finish, go do another job (or vacation). Well maybe next year.
Now onto the wine…Although this has been a funny year, I am quite pleased with the early indications of the vintage. The flavors, colors, and balance seem to be to the point where I am actually excited. Usually I am the guy who is slightly reserved about early indications and will tell most people it is just too early to pass judgement on a vintage when the grapes are falling into the crusher. Generally I like to wait a while and decide that later point. This year is different and I don’t mind saying I think this year is going to stand out for years to come.
Well the weather has really started to cool down, and the work is not getting done with me sitting at the computer, so until the next entry…
Have a great Thanksgiving, eat just enough, sleep too much, enjoy your company, and top it all off with some Two Mountain Wine!
September 23, 2008
While we at Two Mountain feel nowhere near ready for crush, it turns out the grapes feel otherwise. We started picking Riesling last week and should be picking full force by next weekend!
I spent today attempting to put our newly re-built press back together, wondering why it’s so much harder to put the pieces on then to take them off. Other than frantically getting the winery cleaned up and equipment reassembled, there has not been a lot going on in the winery or vineyard. (I think they call that the calm before the storm). The crew is doing a few odd jobs and doing some late crop load adjustments and Matt spent the day today putting the finishing touches on blending to get ready for bottling. We will be bottling the ’06’s on Tuesday Sept. 30 and Matt will filtering and blending all next week to get ready
for that.
Matt is just now finishing the final blend on what will be the next Tribute vintage, a very special red blend we make each year in honor of our uncle and Two Mountain Winery’s original founder, Ron Schmidt. Matt has been very challenged blending this vintage as all of the barrels taste so good! It is almost more challenging to select the best of the best when they are all great. However this is a GOOD problem to have and we will take it over the alternative any day. We feel confident that our 2006 Tribute will be even better than the last vintage.
Bottom line - harvest is here and that famed crush madness is just about to begin. We will keep you posted as we progress.
Until then, live well and drink well!
September 9, 2008
Welcome to the inaugural post on the Brothers Rawn Blog, sponsored by Two Mountain Winery. Yes, it is true the internet has finally made it to Zillah, WA and in DSL now too, (seriously, we only got high-speed less a year ago). We thought we would use the debut of our new website as an opportunity to keep you all updated on the ins and outs of the winery.
Both Matt and I will be writing; Matt about winemaking and myself about grape growing, I promise not to bore with you with the really cool costing variance revenue impacting spreadsheet I just finished building). Both of us will do our best to keep you informed about exactly how things are going at Two Mountain Winery.
Life on the 'wine farm’ has been extremely busy this summer. In addition to tending the vines at Two Mountain Vineyard, we are now managing a couple of other vineyards which is keeping us on toes. After a long, cold spring the grapes have come alive with a vengeance and do not appear to be far behind schedule. Verasion (color change) is happening very quickly with the heat wave we have just come out of, so we should be harvesting with in 50 to 60 days (maybe a little earlier for some varieties). Overall things look really good with great canopy growth, good fruit set and nice, small berries.
The vineyard crew has finished most their pre-harvest work and most are taking some well-earned time off. We are just mowing and getting ready for the fast-approaching harvest.
On the winemaking front, we just bottled our 2005 Port made from the famed Portuguese variety of Touriga Nacional. I do hate to give Matt a pat on the back (who actually likes to compliment their older sibling?) but it is really good. We are excited to release it this fall and see what the world thinks.
Today Matt was racking the 2007 vintage and we are extremely excited about the vintage as a whole. I tasted four lots of Merlot - two from our vineyard, one from another Yakima Valley vineyard and one from the Waluke Slope - two Syrah lots and three Cabernet Sauvignon lots. All of them taste really good at this point but I will let Matt tell you more about them when he writes for the first time.
Life at Two Mountain has been going well and we look forward to keeping you posted on some more inside details about our winery, the industry as a whole and perhaps most interestingly, harvest and crush activities.
Until then, live well and drink well!
Patrick Rawn