Late July and early August days are filled with my least favorite job – bottling. It’s both stressful and monotonous. We bottle our Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon and Next Red (all from our Alexander Valley vineyard) in three extremely long weeks. Using our GoPro, we videoed the Chardonnay bottling. After watching one minute of it, we realized that it would be more interesting (and fun!) to see the process sped up (100x!).
Ludovic David, our intern in 1990 and now the General Manager at Chateau Marquis de Terme, came back to visit us and brought his son, Guillaume. Guillaume will go to the same university, Purpan, where his dad went and our interns are enrolled. While they were here, our 31st intern, Aymeric Laturelle, arrived. They are our interns past, present and future!
I started taking photos with a “big girl” camera when my children were in high school. I was pretty sure I could do a better job capturing the personality of my kids than the folks hired to come to the school or a local professional photographer. It is really just a hobby, but I am lucky that it has become part of my work at Hafner Vineyard. Taking photos here has been fun and interesting. I have been perched up very high on a pallet of the forklift and have gotten down in the dirt (frozen blades of grass).
Driving through the Wine Country, you may notice some vineyards are void of any vegetation on the vineyard floor, while others have grass and weeds growing between the rows, and still others are a mixture of these styles with rows alternating between cultivated and uncultivated land. You might also notice that beneath some rows the soil is untilled but bare while others show signs of cultivation. Why is that? Vineyard practices vary from grower to grower. The methods we employ are motivated by our desire to enrich the soil and promote a healthy environment for our vines, thereby preserving the land for generations to come.
Aging wine can be intimidating, so we thought we’d provide our experience and perspective. Here is a “Wine Aging 101” to focus on our Alexander Valley Cabernet...so grab your pencil and a glass of Cabernet. We hope you enjoy this Q&A and we encourage you to send us any questions you might have. Cheers!
