Winemaker's Musings
March 2013
Hope everyone had fun at this year’s barrel tasting. There is definitely some interesting things going on in the cellar. We are nearly complete bottling this fall’s sweet and semi-sweet wine as well as the 2012 LaCrosse. This LaCrosse is the first time I was able to nail it! Tastes more like a Pinot Gris or Sauvignon Blanc than a Chardonnay. More crisp and with more fruit it is a very nice wine. The Chambourcin and Syrah are both coming along well. We did any early bottling of the Dragon’s Red. I think this one is a touch on the dry side and I am considering softening the acidity before the rest is bottled later this month. Also, expect our sparkling Edelweiss to back on tap later this month.
Cheers,
Jim
December 2012
Wow, just finished running nearly 1300 gallons of wine thru the bottling line today. NO BREAKDOWNS! It was a great day. Bottled Falco Red, Cardinal Red, and some of the Dragon's Red. All three are knockout vintages. If we do not win a bunch of gold medals with this vintage it is because we did not enter any competitions. As a wine maker, when a wine is bottled is is sort of like giving birth. (Not that I personally know, but from the blows my wife placed upon me during "transition" I have a rough idea!) Once the wine is in the bottle there is a great sigh of relief from me. "It is born", or as Dr. Frankenstein would say... "It is Alive!" I think we are on the verge of significant growth here at Soaring Wings. The wine we are bottling is great as well as that in the barrels. Standby for lots of great flavors and great wines!
Cheers
Jim
November 2012
Well, it has been a busy few months now that harvest is over and I am nearly done making a good deal of the wine. All the sweet and semi-sweet wines have been blended, tweaked, and filtered and are ready to bottle. The wines generally are a touch less sweet due to the hot summer, but I think you find them similar to those favorites you have come to know and love. The most significantly impacted wine is our Cardinal Red, which is made from Chambourcin grapes from our northern vineyards. This year it is inky purple and has a more full bodied flavor with less acid and corresponding sugar levels are lower. It is probably best served slightly chilled not cold. The dry Chambourcin in the barrel should be the best we have ever made, same with the Syrah. The warmer temps helped to get them fully ripened. We should have a few bottles/samples available for the Bacchus Club Christmas party. See you there!
Cheers,
Jim
May 2012
Well things have been interesting this so far this year. We had the warmest winter on record and this spring has been pretty nice too! What that means is the vineyard is SIX weeks ahead of normal. Interesting... What that will mean for this years crop is still uncertain, as we do not know what the summer will bring. We have taken this year’s LaCrosse out of the barrels and are cold stabilizing it. Nice vintage. The red wines we still have in the barrels are doing very nicely. I am very happy about this year’s Syrah. Fruit forward with nice tannin and just a hint of acid to support the wine. Lovely. Should be available before the end of the summer. Expect the price for our Port to drop a bit as the newest vintage becomes available. Not a whole lot, but enough to make it an everyday affair instead of a special treat.
With the early growth the vineyard and grounds look FANTASTIC. Come on out to enjoy the music!
Cheers,
Jim
December 2011
This year’s wine is either in the barrel, bottled, or ready to be bottled. Should have all the semi-sweet and sweet wines bottled by mid-January. The bottling line is now running at 90% speed with few breakdowns. This year the Blushing Hawk literally screams out “Jolly Rancher Watermelon” It is… well… Yummy! The Dragon’s Red has more intense flavor and brighter colors. Most of the reds are like this as I strove to keep the pH of the wine lower. That helps with stability of the wine, but has the added benefit of making the colors brighter. many of you will be happy to know that the Vignoles is coming back and as good as ever. Ice Falcon and Moonstruck are excellent. Sunset Red is back, we were sold out again. A new wine you that you should try is our Cardinal Red. It is a sweeter red made from mostly Chambourcin grapes, it also has about 10 DeChaunac. At our annual Christmas party it was an overwhelming success. So check with us these new releases become available and come on out and try a few!
Cheers,
Jim
October 2011
By the time you read this harvest will be over in the vineyard, although this years wine making is going hot and heavy. Like last year, this years harvest has had its' ups and downs. We had record harvests of Edelweiss and Chambourcin and a very good harvest of Traminette. DeChaunac was at an all time low as was Vignoles, LaCrosse, and Frontenac. What we have had come in has been good from a quality standpoint. I think we have some great Winter White, Sunset Red, Dragon's Red, Edelweiss, Ice Falcon, and Moonstruck coming down the turnpike. Our Chambourcin crop is looking very promising, although I have not started processing it yet. It is the best looking crop we have ever had. Due to low yields on some of the varieties we will definitely "run out" of some of your favorite wines before next fall.
We have released some new wines you must try. Our 2010 Norton is out and I think for those of you who love Norton/Cynthiana this one will not disappoint. Our Port wine has been released and I think the Frontenac grapes we use in this fortified wine are perfect for that application. Sweet, but not overly so, it has good acid to balance off the sweetness and of course a little more "kick" with the higher alcohol content. Definitely a sipping wine. We named it Cap'N Jim's Airport One! Come on in and try it. I think this wine will eventually be famous country wide. We are making a one year oak aged vintage and a three year oak aged vintage.
Cheers,
Jim
June 2011
Things are moving so fast right now I can hardly keep focused on the road ahead. The bottling line has a couple of automated functions that require parts replacement from Italy. So I have to basically chew bubble gum, pat my self on the top of my head, and rub my tummy counterclockwise at the same time, while reciting the Declaration of Independence.... backwards. Try it... You will understand what I mean! ;) We hope to have the replacement parts within a week and the summer bottling season will be in full swing. As for the aged wines... There are some nice ones in this past season's ups and downs. Making a reappearance is our Cynthiana/Norton. For those of you who loved the previous version, this one is better. The Chambourcin looks like it is going to come out nice also. Still working on the other reds. All of these, including our marvelous, creamy, port style wine, should be bottled by the end of July at the latest.
Cheers,
Jim
April 1, 2011
Momentous day! An extremely rich Omaha investor with the initials W.B. just bought the winery for several million dollars! So, Sharon and I are going to cruise around the world for the next few months and drink expensive drinks with funny little umbrellas in them while we soak up the sun on a beach in the South Pacific... Naw, just kidding! April Fools!
We are still here and happy to be still making your favorite wines. As I said in last months Musings things are on the slow side now. We took the dry LaCrosse out of the barrel and it is gong through cold stabilization at this time. It is definitely one of the better vintages as was 2009, which is now available for purchase. It has a little more fruit and a little less oak. Stylistically I felt that the fruit notes were being overpowered by the oak so I reduced the time in barrel a few weeks. Seems to have made the difference I was hoping for. The sparkling wine has so much sparkle that we are losing about 20% when we "Disgorge" the lees in the bottle with the bottles neck frozen solid. Problem... Still scratching my head on this one. After all the hours I have spent on this wine you can easily guess it will only be opened at "special" occasions. Oh well. Will just have to drink another glass of wine till the answer becomes clear to me!
Cheers,
Jim
February 28, 2011
Greetings from the pit!. We are just about done with our winter bottling. Will be doing another repair on the new bottling line later today... sigh... It has been a bit troublesome for us. But, when it is running at full speed it is a sight to behold. Our barrel tasting this past weekend was a huge success for those lucky enough to have gotten a slot. We have some very nice barrels of Chambourcin, DeChaunac, LaCrosse, and Cynthiana/Norton that are aging nicely. And the Port... Otherwise referred to as our fortified wine... yummmm! So things are looking up in the cellar. Expect the 2010 LaCrosse will be coming out of the barrels for tank storage soon as they have about the right amount of oak in them already.
We are proud to announce that another of our wines was selected, during a blind taste test, for the Nebraska Wine and Grapes Growers annual dinner. We have been lucky to have a wine selected every year since we started making wine in 2003. With 25 wineries in the state, and most of them sending 5-7 wines, you can see it is a crowded field. This years selection was our 2010 Edelweiss. The first to be produced that has grapes from our new Edelweiss block in them. So things are slowing down in the winery for a bit, it seems I only get about 5-6 weeks of slow a year so I am going to try and enjoy the next few weeks. Those droopy bags under my eyes will be gone till next harvest season!
Cheers,
Jim
January 30, 2011
Things have finally slowed down here at the winery. I am nearly caught up with all my federal and state paperwork! We got all of our sparkling wine (champagne) into a riddling rack so we can drive the yeast down into the neck of the bottle. We are using the old world method referred to as Methode de Champagnois. Very labor intensive as you have to have someone rotate each bottle 1/4 turn per day for a few months. You also have to be very careful as the bottles are under extremely high pressure and can explode. They are progressing very nicely. In a few weeks we will test the first bottle to see how the lot is progressing. Looking forward to that! We are also making our first fortified wine, often referred to as "Port" this year. It is coming along very well. For those of you who love port you are going to like this one. Will probably bottle a limited amount this spring. Then leave the rest to age further in the barrel. I am feeling my way around on this one so nothing is guaranteed. Gotta go. Till next time!
Cheers,
Jim
December 26, 2010
Well, I actually took Christmas day off. Imagine That! ;) We have had a pretty intense work schedule since August. Things should be easing up now. As many of you may know we have released the new Blushing Hawk and Edelweiss. They are both great wines and I am sure you will enjoy them The 2009 Syrah and 2010 Moonstruck are available also. I am getting more and more in tune with our new bottling line and we had two major bottlings on the 23rd and 24th that went fairly well. We are up to about 1000 bottles an hour. Expect it will be difficult to get up to the "advertised" 1500 bottles an hour rate the machine is capable of as "stuff happens" from time to time that slows us down. Wine will be tight this year and we expect to sell out of a number of wines before next harvest. So if you have a favorite stay in touch so you do not run out unexpectedly. Hope to see many of you at the Gourmet dinner in January. It will be an impromptu "Meet Your Winemaker" affair I hope.
Cheers,
Jim
November 22, 2010
Holy smokes Batman, can I have one of those bullet proof vests too! Wow, it has been an out of the ordinary fall. I am often torn between drinking an extra cup of coffee to keep me going and another glass of wine to ameliorate the stress! We have in the tanks, and nearly ready to bottle, some of the finest wines of type we have ever made, we also have a couple that did not meet my standards and will be dumped, after numerous government notices and filings of course. ;) I must say with great regret that there will be no Syrah or Vignoles for the 2010 season. They had a hard time with all the rain and developed too much mold and the crop suffered. So the fruit was not up to our usual standards. As you can imagine that is a hit to us as those are two of our higher value wines. Not too worry. Although we are short on those two we have others that will knock your socks off. Including the soon to be released St. Croix, a dry earthy red many were fond of, a couple flagship whites in Ice Falcon and Moonstruck, our newest 2009 Chambourcin and 2009 Syrah, both are very nice. I think the Syrah is an easy 90+ point wine. One of the neatest additions, particularly for those of you who like the sweeter wines, is our Edelweiss. The first to contain grapes from our vineyard. We will have this every year from now on and it is a gold medal quality wine for sure. A sleeper this year is the Blushing Hawk. Taste a lot like a Watermelon Jolly Rancher.... yummy! Well I am back to the bottling line as it is giving me fits as I learn it's' subtleties. Maybe I can offer it a Cappuccino? its' Italian, what can you expect!
Cheers,
Jim
September 15, 2010
Well harvest is well underway. We just had one of our heaviest processing days of the year with 15 tons of grapes being processed. Man, am I pooped! We finally have Edelweiss once again as our vineyard is now producing and some of our contracted growers are also growing it. Expect it to be available in late November. Next weekend will still be a fairly heavy harvest then things will start to slow a bit. The new facility will be a godsend for us as we can now drive our forklift from one end of the winery to the other. Still waiting on that bottling line from Italy! ;( This is the most beautiful time of the year in the vineyard. Come on out and soak it up!
Cheers,
Jim
30 March 2010
Has spring sprung or what? Our vineyard is nearly a month ahead of where is was last year at this time. After this past Winter I was worried about another extended cool spring and cool summer! Nearly all the vines have some growth. From bud swell to 4 inches of growth. That does make it a bit tricky if Mother Nature decides to give us a late freeze. Keep your fingers crossed, we are committed now!
Construction on the new wing is under full swing with concrete being poured now. The new wing will have more square footage than the original winery. It will have additional wine storage space as well an extension of the party room, a nicely finished board meeting room, office space, walk-in cooler, automated bottling line, and storage space for the tasting room.
From the Cellar!
Yowza. Just went in and sampled this past years vintage from the barrels. I will be honest. I have been sweating this one as last years growing season was one of the worst on record. It made me work my #$@$ in the winery. But, we have some very nice wine coming out of the cellar. The DeChaunac is coming along very nicely. The Chambourcin, although lighter in color, has more tannin and great mid palate. The Syrah has much better presentation and mid palate than the first vintage, although with some green tannin lurking in the background I suspect we will have to age it for some time before release. In the end it will be a very fine wine.
That’s all for now. Hope to see of you out here for the music events!
Cheers,
Jim
March 7 2010
I apologize for the long delay. Was getting re qualified in my "other profession" as a major airline captain. Our barrel tasting last month went very well. The dry wines in the barrels have more acidity due to the cooler growing season in 2009. I suspect it may be difficult for us to make our dry DeChaunac and Chambourcin Reserve as there may be too much acidity for a dry wine. The Syrah has fairly intense tannins and will probably require mare aging for this its second vintage.
A new wine, Sunset Red was recently released. Imagine a sweeter version of Dragon's Red on steroids Just returned from the Nebraska Wine and Grape Growers annual forum in Kearney. Once again one of our wines, the dry DeChaunac, was chosen and served ! I'll try to make my next update sooner.
Cheers,
Jim
October 26. 2009
Did not get home until 1:30 AM Saturday night after a tough filtration of the 2009 Dragon's Red. This is all part of making wine sometimes. Very long nights, trying to finish a process off. Does not make it any easier though. Had a good crowd out on Sunday afternoon for the music. Looks like we will have to make the Party Room bigger! Expect to break ground on our newest addition within the next month.
Cheers,
Jim
October 20, 2009
We just finished pressing the last of the reds. We ferment the reds with the skins to remove the color and tannins. We then press then to get the mostly fermented wine off of the lees, skins, and seeds. So all the dry wines are happily in the barrel. And... I no longer have to go over to the winery several times a day to take of them! We are about half way through the white fermentations. Things are going well so far. We are looking at a smaller production run than last year. We will run out of some wines, but expect most to make through till next fall.
Cheers,
Jim
October 12 2009
Well it was a hard year. We just got the last of our crop in on Saturday October 10th.
Four inches of snow were on the ground after a forecast of a light dusting. But we got it in. Thanks to all the volunteers. There will be some good wine made from this year's crop, but expect all the wines to shift to slightly sweeter than they were in the past due to higher acid levels.
Expect more when I get a chance to catch my breath!
Cheers,
Jim
