Change of Plans

As of this Sunday, I have officially finished my second harvest. This week I worked primarily on finishing and bottling my wine. In the end I have about 5 cases total: 3 gallons skin fermented chardonnay, 4 gallons regular chardonnay, 4 gallons petite syrah rose, and 3 gallons of zinfandel port. Both the chardonnays are fabulous and drastically different from each other (even though they are from the same grapes). The rose is good, but a bit weighty. The port is...well it tastes like the inside of a barrel. I put waaay too much oak into the carboy and left it for waaay too long. But it is still delicious, extreme vanilla-cream with a very long soft, rich finish. It will be fun to see how they change in bottle. None were filtered but all were sulphured since the malo-ferment was either stopped early (in the case of the chards) or inhibited all together (in the case of the rose).

As for where ill be off to now...
I have talked to Jonathan in Sarasota and we have both decided that it would be in each of our best interests that I not head back to the store for the holidays. For me, I am looking forward to moving out to SLC and to spending the holidays with the family. For Jonathan, he has a good crew at the moment and needless to say the sales for this season are probably not going to break any records. So on that note, I will not be returning to Florida immediately. I will spend a week or so traveling around cali visiting schools and then head to SLC. I have decided that I like making wine a lot and that I might as well turn my dream of being a cellar rat into a carrier. Ill pursue several of the schools out here that offer degrees in oenology such as Cal Poly, Napa CC, and UC Davis. I will not be starting immediately though, probably not for a year or so. For this next half year I will either attempt to work in a brewery in SLC and see how that side of the alcohol industry treats me or I will head to South America and work a harvest there. I may even be able to do both since the harvest would only be from Feb-April and then work the summer in a brewery. Then next fall I am hoping to go to Europe for crush there. I would then try for school starting Spring of 2010.

As for Florida, ill most likely be back for a few weeks the end of December/beginning of January. Then I will clean out my stuff, put the house on the market, and say my goodbyes.

and that is where it stands at the moment.