Thursday, January 7, 2010

Bottling Amavi

All of the glass has arrived, we have corks and labels, this means it is time for bottling the wines of 2008! This week we will be bottling the 2008 vintage of Amavi Cellars, our sister winery. In preparation for bottling, our Assistant Winemaker, Tim Kerrigan is busy getting all of the wines into tanks. He pulls the wine out of barrel using a wand with a sight glass, being careful not to disturb the lees that have accumulated in the bottom of the barrel. The wine is then pumped into one of our large stainless steel, temperature controlled tanks. Next the wine will get filtered. We have a gentle pad filter that pulls out any remaining sediment so that the wine will be clear and polished. The wine will then rest in the tanks till our mobile bottling truck arrives. For Amavi Cellars, we have a Semillon that is blended with a little Sauvignon Blanc, and we have a Cab Franc Rose, always a staff favorite for the hot Walla Walla summers. Both of these wines are from the 2009 vintage of course, since these wines aren't aged in barrel as long as the reds, which typically spend 15 months in barrel. For the reds we have a Cabernet Sauvignon, and of course the flag ship is the Syrah. We do also have two special wines that Jean-François makes for Amavi Coin Club members only. Both of these wines are sourced from the Les Collines Vineyard, our youngest vineyard situated in the foothills of the Blue Mountains. Each year Jean-François bottles a small amount of 100% Les Collines Syrah and this year we will be offering a brand new wine to our club members called Ceres, a blend of 50% Cab and 50% Syrah from the Les Collines Vineyard. This new wine is a way to showcase the distinctive terrior of the Les Collines Vineyard. All in all the 2008 vintage is solid, with good fruit and acidity. After bottling, the 08 wines will rest for the next few months while they go through bottle shock. We will begin releasing these wines over Spring Release Weekend in May!

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