The winery is looking great (mostly thanks to Sam!), I’ve been helping out a little with Sam’s Shenendoah Zin, and we’re almost ready for starting our wine on Saturday. I’m going to post some pictures soon. I’ll be spending just about every spare minute I have for the next few weeks in the winery, so if you want to learn about winemaking or help out, stop by!
The latest decision we need to make is how to handle our barrel situation. We currently have access to two good, but neutral (meaning, they will impart very little oak), barrels. If we want our Cab to have some oak, we have several options:
1. use oak sticks in the neutral barrels
2. help Sam bottle some more of his wine and then pay for it to be refurbished
3. buy our own barrel this winter (maybe January or February).