Finished up the season's bottling yesterday - 5 cases of our '06
Marsanne/Viognier blend. Along with two '05 reds (Merlot and Syrah),
the '06 Pear wine, and the small batch of '06 Pomegranate dessert
wine; all in all a good year. Plenty of wine now in the cellar
awaiting corks to be pulled. Highlight of the year has to be the
Marsanne/Viognier blend. The decison to blend the two was a complete
fluke; a friend had some unspoken-for Viognier on the vine that we
vinified, and the relatively low volumes of each (ended up with a
total of 11.5 gallons of the blended wine) seemed to beg blending
them. We're thrilled we did. The wine has an aromatic nose of citrus
and peach, and a crisp palate although somewhat short finish. Only
wish we had twice as much. Low point of the year - the '05 Merlot.
What a disaster. H2S problems caused us to throw out much of the
vintage early. We thought we had salvaged 5 gallons - but there is
still a hint of some strange circumstance on the nose. But
"she-who-must-be-obeyed" likes it, which is good enough for me!
Looking forward to this next season, despite the loss of much of our
fruit due to the April frosts. Will be purchasing our red wine grapes,
but planning on the same 70-30 Marsanne/Viognier blend again. Cheers
to everyone else - and hoping that your cellars are full.

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AxisOfBeagles wrote:

> Finished up the season's bottling yesterday - 5
> cases of our '06 Marsanne/Viognier blend. Along
> with two '05 reds (Merlot and Syrah), the '06
> Pear wine, and the small batch of '06
> Pomegranate dessert wine; all in all a good
> year. Plenty of wine now in the cellar awaiting
> corks to be pulled. Highlight of the year has to
> be the Marsanne/Viognier blend. The decison to
> blend the two was a complete fluke; a friend had
> some unspoken-for Viognier on the vine that we
> vinified, and the relatively low volumes of each
> (ended up with a total of 11.5 gallons of the
> blended wine) seemed to beg blending them. We're
> thrilled we did. The wine has an aromatic nose
> of citrus and peach, and a crisp palate although
> somewhat short finish. Only wish we had twice as
> much. Low point of the year - the '05 Merlot.
> What a disaster. H2S problems caused us to throw
> out much of the vintage early. We thought we had
> salvaged 5 gallons - but there is still a hint
> of some strange circumstance on the nose. But
> "she-who-must-be-obeyed" likes it, which is good
> enough for me! Looking forward to this next
> season, despite the loss of much of our fruit
> due to the April frosts. Will be purchasing our
> red wine grapes, but planning on the same 70-30
> Marsanne/Viognier blend again. Cheers to
> everyone else - and hoping that your cellars are
> full.
>
Congratulations on your successfull season.
It is strange the way those blends work out, isn't
it. Some of my best wines have been the
combinations of odd lots (0.5 to 1 gallon) jugs
dumped together at the end of the year after I
had bottled or barreled the others and then
bottled the combined left overs as a "Vintage ...
whatever year".

I can sympathise with your loss of fruit for this
year. About 90% of my fruiting buds were
destroyed the Easter week freezes (6 days in a
row) here in Central Maryland. Some nearby
vineyards only had moderate to very light damage
so I will be buying grapes this year. On a
positive note, I have about three years of wine
in reserve in my cellar so I can tolerate a bad
year. Also on the positive note, I have
discovered the joys of making mead, melomels and
metheglins with some early successes and will
expanding my hobby in that direction.

In article > "Paul
E.Lehmann" > wrote:

Paul - what is a 'metheglin'? Sounds like something one needs to go to
the doctor for!
> Also on the positive note, I have
> discovered the joys of making mead, melomels and
> metheglins with some early successes and will
> expanding my hobby in that direction.
>

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AxisOfBeagles wrote:

> In article
> >
> "Paul E.Lehmann" > wrote:
>
> Paul - what is a 'metheglin'? Sounds like
> something one needs to go to the doctor for!

Naw, you can make it yourself :-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mead


>> Also on the positive note, I have
>> discovered the joys of making mead, melomels
>> and metheglins with some early successes and
>> will expanding my hobby in that direction.
>>
>