Aspen Food & Wine Classic!

June 18-22: The Food & Wine Classic in Aspen Colorado is one of the best events that a wine food lover can ever hope for. The best chefs and wineries in the world cram into the tiny town of Aspen for a 4 day party. And if you're a sucker for Top Chef on Bravo like I am, you get to mingle with just about everyone that's ever been on the show.

This year PRIME will be there too! We are partnering with eSommelier , a wine management hardware and software company. We will be pouring at the Grand Tasting on Saturday and at a private event at Paragon Technology on Friday.

Hope to see you there!

Yeah, not very glamorous

Well, I just spotted the winemaker getting ice from the freezer in order to chill a cup of water in his 4 year old's bath. I try not to ask too many questions but can we say Daddy's girl?

In any case I am taking the opportunity to mention that I stopped in to check out bottling today and he was right, nothing terribly fun about it. I got there about an hour and a half after they started and it was all on two neat little pallets already. Not much of a photo op. I guess it doesn't take long to bottle 101 cases of wine. It has been stacked, restacked (we don't have a fork lift at the warehouse) and will have a little rest before it is ready for the market. YUM!

Chardonnay- Truckin'

This is the pic you get when you are driving across Hwy 29 in Napa, hauling a truckload of Chardonnay barrels and you stick your iPhone out the window.  

The Chard is such a small ammout I am trucking the wine from the winery to a place that rents out a bottling line.  So, two trips later the wine is in place.  

First step- transfer it to a stainless steel tank and cover the headspace with a thick blanket of Argon gas.  Its now in the deep freeze at 25 degrees to drop out the tartrate crystals.  A shot of Bentonite will precipitate out excess protein and the last step is to filter out all the dead yeast and grape solids.  A week from now it will happily in bottle at out 55 degree storage warehouse.

This is when I go through my mental (perhaps I should write this down) checklist:

1. Certificate of Label Approval (COLA) -Uncle Sam needs to sign off on every single label.-Check.

2.Bottling date set.Check, confirmed 6/11/09 with Chris.

3.Labels ordered.-Check , due on 6/9/09 cutting it close!

4.Bottles ordered.-Check, I'm picking them up on 6/10/09.

5.Corks ordered.-Check, Terry's going to call me when ther're ready.

6.Pick up foils- I tried but Rui closes the office whenever he feels like it (Europeans!).  I'll try again today.

Bottling is the least fun part of winemaking.  There are a lot of vendors and supplies that need to come together at the right time.  Bit stressfull, but once its safely in the bottle its all good. (and tasty!)