47 Friends Wine

News from our Winemaker Joe Freeman

July 27th, 2010 by Melissa

One of my goals as a winemaker is to identify wines that will contribute to a balanced, truly enjoyable blend, and to carry this potential along into the finished blend.  What’s the process behind this?  This is where the stereotype of the winemaker really fits!  Wine thief in hand, I go from barrel to barrel, making determinations of quality and earmarking lots for one blend or another.   Even with a spit cup, it’s hard not to enjoy this part of the job.   Each of the wines I have been watching since September or October of last year have finally come into their own, with distinct personalities!

Once the merits of these individual barrels and lots are identified, the blending trials begin in the lab.   Each of the candidate wines is sampled, and blended proportionately in several different ways. I will take an educated guess on the first round, using experience with each component to make the initial blends.  Trial and error is best way to know how well these varied wines will get along (Often, my favorite individual barrels in the cellar may turn out to be the least …

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