It’s been a long-standing rule of thumb to pair a glass of red wine with steak or red meat.  Well, I just read a fun article about a novel approach to this tradition in Canada.  Red wine is being served to the beef, not just alongside it!

According to British Columbian rancher Janice Ravndahl, red wine is fed to cattle on her ranch on a daily basis.  This creates a finer marbling, enhances the flavor of the meat, and makes the cows moo more.

And just in case you were wondering, Ravndahl claims that the cows prefer sweet red wine over dry reds.  Read the full article here.

Although I’m showing Concord in the video below, the process is the same for all our red varieties.  When the grapes arrive at the winery, they are destemmed and crushed open, then pumped into an open-top bin.  The yeast is added and the wine ferments for a few days while it’s in contact with the skins and seeds of the berries.

I pick this video up near the end of the fermentation when we need to separate the skins/seeds from the wine.

I’m sorry that so much of that video was too dark, but hopefully you got an idea of what goes on. Feel free to ask any questions in the comment section below.

We are supposed to have grapes arrive about 3pm this afternoon, so if you’d like to check out that process, come on out. Cheers!

If you can’t break free, I’m working on a video of the Concord pressing from yesterday, and I hope to share that here soon.

Have a wonderful weekend!  Cheers!

To celebrate, I’m offering you all a special gift.  Right now, Clyde is loving the 2008 Norton, so for today (Friday Aug. 27) I’m offering an extra 10% off any Norton purchase here at the winery or online.

We celebrated last night since we have Concord to press out this morning and a trailer load of bottles to unload this afternoon.  So feel free to toast Clyde’s birthday for us today!  :)

Happy Birthday Clyde!

Did you ever see that Saturday night live skit with Dana Carvey and Kevin Nealon pretending to be Arnold Schwartzenegger-wannabes, Hanz & Franz?  They’re tagline was “We just want to  PUMP (clap) YOU  UP!”

I realized this afternoon that we do the same thing with our red grapes!  Let me explain.

We received Concord grapes in on Monday afternoon and they have been bubbling away down in the cellar all week.  In general, most red varieties are destemmed and crushed, then added into an open-top tank to ferment in contact with the skins.  This allows time for all the color compounds to migrate out of the skins and into the wine.

The only problem is that all those skins (and seeds) float to the top where a majority don’t even touch the liquid at all, and possibly dry out.  The dried cap could then be a breeding ground for wine microbes which cause yucky (that’s the technical term) flavors in the wine.

To keep that from happening, clyde stirs up each tank to keep the cap moist and in contact with the fermenting wine.  Here’s a picture of the set-up to stir all this stuff together:

The white bins each hold about a 1/2 ton of grapes, and once the grapes are crushed – well, let’s just say they hold a whole lotta juice!  Clyde uses his pump (the blue machine in the lower left corner of the picture) to bring the fermenting wine at the bottom of the bin up to the top.  As the liquid pumps over the top of the cap, he’ll move the end of the hose around so everything gets stirred in. This is called a ‘pump over’.

Before he had this pump, he used an tool that looked like an over-sized potato masher to punch that cap down into the wine and mix it in.  Talk about a muscle-building, non girly-man workout!

At the moment we have 5 bins, and each one gets a pump over at least once a day.

Here’s a closer look at the cap:

Once the wine has fermented a few days in contact with the skins, he will pump all this stuff up into the press and strain out the fermenting juice.  So that is our plan for tomorrow morning.

I hope you have enjoyed this peek into the wine making process.  Be sure to check back tomorrow for a very special announcement!

First off, the fog was AMAZING this morning.  Anyone who knows me, knows I like fog pictures, so I couldn’t resist this sight this morning:

Bins of grapes and fog-enshrouded hillsides.  With sunbeams, no less!  Magical.

Clyde finishes his coffee and asks “how’s my hair?”

Polly peeks out from behind the tractor and says “Your hair looks fine, now get to work!”  She’s awfully bossy.

One of our challenges this morning is that we had all different sizes of containers that the grapes came to us in.  After each size, Clyde had to readjust the bar that holds the bins on our bin dumper when it’s dumping the grapes out.  Here’s Clyde and Julie adjusting the bar for the second time this morning.

That’s what all the destemmed and crushed grapes look like inside the press.  Scrumptious looking, no?  No?  Oh well, I understand.  Trust me, the wine tastes a lot better than these grapes look right now!

Now at this point, you might be wondering what all our animals do while we are working so hard.  Do they have jobs?  Are they integral parts of this operation?  The answer, is yes they do!  For instance:

Pepe is chief holder-downer-of-the-straps.  It’s a critical job since you never know when one of those crazy straps will try to escape.  Maggie was sleeping during the whole operation.  Someone has to sleep on the job after all!

After the bins are emptied, they all get a rinse, and that’s what Julie is doing in the next photo:

The blue bins in front of Julie are collapsable bins.  We are not too fond of those, but they certainly store much more compactly!  Julie is cleaning out a bin we call a ‘T-bin’ which holds about 1 ton of grapes when full.  We also had bins that were half the size of the T-bin today…the picture of Clyde and Julie up on top of the bin dumper showed one of the half bins.

Finally, all the grapes are in the press, and the bins are all washed, so Clyde loads up the empty bins to be returned to their owner.

So that’s a quick look at our morning.  As I’m writing this, it’s about 6pm and Julie is just about finished cleaning up the press.  We started at 7am this morning, so it’s been a full day.  I’ll share more of the wine making process soon, but for now, I’m going to go figure out what to fix for dinner.  Have a wonderful evening!  Cheers.

Ingredients

Zest and juice of 1 lime

Zest and juice of 1 lemon (or try an orange instead)

3 cloves of garlic, either chopped very fine or pressed in a garlic press

1 tablespoon of molasses

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp olive oil

1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger

1 tsp sriracha or another kind of hot sauce

5 turkey cutlets

Directions:

1. In a bowl or jar, mix together the juices, zest, ginger, hot sauce, oil, molasses, garlic and cinnamon.

2. Place turkey cutlets in a pan or a plastic bag.  Pour the marinade over the cutlets and coat both sides.  Marinate the cutlets as long as possible – I usually give them at least a half hour.

3.* Grill the cutlets.  You can baste the cutlets with the extra marinade while they cook, but I usually just toss it.

**Alternatively, you can brown your meat on a hot, oiled skillet.  Then reduce the heat and add the leftover marinade to the skillet.  Cover and simmer until the meat is cooked through, turning once.

This has been a favorite marinade of mine this summer.  Hope you enjoy it too!  Let me know what you think in the comments section if you get the chance to try it.

P.S.- The flavors in this marinade go great with the  Courtois or Harvest Mist.  Last night I cheated on my own winery and ate leftovers of this dish with Wenwood Farm Winery’s Landsitzwein.  It was pretty darn tasty with this dish too!

I realized the other day that today is the 12-year anniversary of Clyde and I receiving our license to operate Peaceful Bend!  We are celebrating by bringing in some Vignoles.  :)

Since we’re working tonight, could you raise a glass in honor of the occasion for us?  Cheers!

Stay cool inside this weekend tasting wine.  We’ve got our air conditioning cranked up here at the winery.  Or visit Julie on Saturday afternoon starting at 3pm in Troy, MO.  She’ll be at My Three Ladies Wine Haus for a tasting.

If you just don’t want to step foot out of the house, you can stay at home and make my recent Peaceful Slush/Sorbet or last year’s Peachy Keen Cool-Off Cocktail.  Whatever you do – have fun and stay cool!  Cheers!

……is ruff on a dog!  It’s nice and cool in the salesroom though, and the back of the fireplace is just about as cozy in the summer and being in front of the fire is in winter for our two dogs.  Just thought you might get a smile from these two today.  Cheers!