It's Been a Big Weekend!

Wow, things are just crazy right now! We pressed Zinfandel and Barbera, and we received Tempranillo and Petite Syrah as well. What a weekend! We will be receiving Sangiovese and Primitivo next weekend and will press whatever else we can with the time available. It's been a challenging year for fruit, with low yields. However the flavors seem to be very good. Over the next few months we'll be looking and tasting to see how what we're putting in the barrels now compares to last years vintage. Judging from the flavors so far, 2007 will be a better year than 2006.

Tempranillo Time

We greatly enjoy making the wines we love, such as Zinfandel, Primitivo, Barbera, and Syrah. But we also really enjoy the fun in making and sharing the experience of lesser known varietals such as Pinotage and Tempranillo.

Several of our varietals are still fermenting, and we've pressed off our Syrah, filling 4 lovely barrels with dark cherry red wine. It was great to get the Syrah in barrels to make room for our Tempranillo grapes, which should come in on Sunday.

Tempranillo is a red grape variety from Spain. It's been compared to Chianti and Sangiovese, because of its medium body and color, and because it has traditionally been blended with other varietals. But in recent years, Tempranillo is finding a home in California as a single varietal wine. Since many of the vineyards of California are near the same latitude as Spain and enjoy a similar climate, California winemakers are beginning to experiment with the Tempranillo grape. At present, the acreage of Tempranillo in California is small, but I believe we'll be seeing more wines made from pure Tempranillo in the future. At any rate, there will be one here at Tanis Vineyards!

Tempranillo makes wines with good color and fruit forward flavors, along with low acid and low tannins. This makes it an easy drinking style of wine that matches very well with a range of foods. Should be fun!


Construction continues. Framing inside will be done on Monday, and the rock wall face is finished but the door has not yet been placed. We hope to have the remodel complete before the end of October.

Late Harvest Chardonnay

Our Late Harvest Chardonnay is a sweet white wine with a lovely golden amber color and peachy-apricot flavors. A wonderful wine best served with a slight chill. Saturday and Sunday we labeled and foiled our 23 cases of Late Harvest Chardonnay. We were happy with the labels and the contrast of black and gold against the color of the wine in the bottle. This was the first time we had used the labeler. All in all it was a positive experience with just a few challenges!

Time for a "Paws"

Midnight is getting a nice little cat nap, even if we're not! We are getting a pause from crush this weekend due to the cooler weather, but we'll begin labeling our 2005 wines on Saturday. Construction continues and the rock wall is going up nicely. It won't be long till we are pressing our Syrah. It will be good to get some of the wines pressed off and in barrels to make more room for the rest of crush! Excitement abounds...no time for rest during harvest season...unless you're a happy little kitty!

Pinotage After Dark

Our Pinotage grapes came in late this evening, and will be crushed tomorrow at first light.

The 2007 Amador County Pinotage harvest was challenging this year, with yields being very low. Given the already limited product availability and the low field yeilds, we were fortunate to secure 2000lbs of Pinotage fruit. The berries are very small, and the flavors seem good. As we said before, Piontage is a fairly new wine for California, but a real up and comer.

Harvest came early for all varietals this year. Spring came early and there was no frost, so it seems everything is coming out of the fields very quickly. Some vineyards in our area will be completely harvested before Halloween, which is very unusual. But the quality of the fruit seems to be very good across the board.

Zin is In!

It was a big weekend! Saturday we got a call at 5:30am that our Barbera was at perfect brix and pickers were on the scene at 7:00. Our 2600lbs of Barbera was juicy-sweet with brix at 25, ph perfect, and incredible flavor. Barbera is one of the signature varietals for Amador County, and the fruit is the reason why. Barbera is very happy at this elevation!

Then on Sunday, Zin was in! Brix was at 24, and flavors were excellent. Zinfandels of our area show classic spicy, peppery, Sierra Foothill flavors. Our 3000lbs will make approximately 3 barrels of Zinlicious wine.

Wine Legs

'Wine Legs' sounds a bit like it could be a winemaker's condition brought on by too much grape stomping. Or perhaps, like 'Sea Legs,' it's a badge worn by those who over time have a certain control and understanding of their wine drinking..."Yep, he's got his 'Wine Legs' now!" There are a lot of funny things the term 'Wine Legs' could mean, but in reality, wine legs refers to the streaks of wine that form on the side of your wine glass after swirling it about.

At one time, there was a certain value placed on these legs (referred to as tears by the French)...and a feeling that the more legs a wine had, the better quality the wine. But in reality, wine legs are not representative of a wine's quality, rather they are representative of a wines alcohol content. The higher the alcohol, the more legs. Now because a wine’s 'body' IS affected by the alcohol content, there is some relationship between legs and body. But as with any body, legs alone are a poor indicator of overall quality.

Knowing that legs are not a quality indicator, you might wonder why connoisseurs still swirl their wine? They swirl because it releases aroma molecules which help you to taste and smell the wine. They swirl because it increases the surface area, which increases oxygenation of the wine, which affects the flavor. And then, there are some swirlers who just like looking at legs! So swirl, smell, taste, and have fun checking out the legs on your next glass of wine!

Syrah Crush and Kitten Relocation

This weekend we crushed 2 tons of Syrah, which when pressed, will translate into about 3 barrels of wine. Bob was here and he was a HUGE help...both with muscle and creative ideas.

The new forklift came in very handy for moving the picking bins near the destemmer/crusher, where the grapes were crushed and are now beginning the first stages of the fermentation process.

The fruit had some really great flavor. It's always fun to see how the product changes and ages out over time. This should be a good one!

The 'kitty cottage' was relocated to make more room in the crush area. The kitties are happy in their new spot!