Crocuses or President's Day - Le Garage Newsletter 3.3-23
Hello Wine Friends!
Signs that Spring is near are in the air and with that comes racking and blending wines. This weekend I will be blending the new batch of Felicity and racking some other barrels of wine. To rack the wine, we pump the wine out into a tub, rinse the barrel, and then pump the wine back into the now clean barrel. I do this twice in the course of the year and that is all we do for clarification of red wines.
The first racking occurs on or near President’s Day or when the crocuses bloom. It is very important because it gets the wine off of the “gross lees”, which are an almost gelatinous, fuchsia colored sediment containing partially dissolved pulp from the grapes. This substance can make the wine bitter if it remains in the barrel. It may seem like repetitive information to some, but we do not filter our wines so to further clarify the wine, in another few months, we will rack again.
There are also a few questions that keep resurfacing. Here are a few of them along with my best answers.
Where did you get your winemaking skills?
I didn’t grow up with a grandfather who used to make wine in his basement. We didn’t have a vineyard in the family. He did, however; have an orchard, honeybees, and a very big garden. My grandfather made cider and root beer and we always had honey, freshly baked goods, and great memories.
Being the third grandchild in my family, I was the first girl. The two older boys just happened to be my brothers. When it came time for picking apples, my brothers got the ladder or the apple picker, and I always got stuck picking up the apples which had fallen off the trees. These apples were usually covered with bees, or so my memory tells me. This is not where my winemaking passion began.
Creative projects have always been a passion. I love to make things and have tried many different mediums. I’ve sewn most of my children’s clothing when they were young, made stuffed animals, made costumes, brewed beer, competed in a Gingerbread-house contest, and tried my hand at Mosaics. I was passionate about my work, and then was introduced to winemaking in my 50’s. Each barrel of wine I make is a new project.
don’t believe that passion for an activity grows out of years of experience rather I believe passion will sustain that activity and allow it to grow for years to come … and it’s never too late to fall in love with wine.
don’t believe that passion for an activity grows out of years of experience rather I believe passion will sustain that activity and allow it to grow for years to come … and it’s never too late to fall in love with wine.
Winter of 2019 came and began what we will all remember for the rest of our lives … 2020. Like everyone else, my life changed. I was faced with a decision; one I did not make lightly. When Fall of 2020 came I purchased grapes for 10 times the volume of wine and began making wine as Le Garage Winery.
Did you get Ivy for the winery?
You know that saying in movies when two people fall in love and one says to the other, “I’ve been looking for you my whole life”. Well, I had been looking longingly at VW buses for many years. When VW bus prices started jumping I began to look desperately.
In January of 2019, I found Ivy. She was parked at someones house in Delaware. He loved her but couldn’t keep her and I was the lucky one who showed up and brought her home … well, my friends towed her home.
Fall of 2019 and 2 engines later I asked that the mechanic to remove the tire from the nose and paint over the white V. Ivy is a 1970 and they stopped painting the V like that in 1967; it felt irreverent. In early Spring 2020, a friend and her sister painted the mandala on Ivy’s nose.
I used Ivy once to drive to New Jersey to get grapes. It was in the Spring of 2020 before I decided to become a winery. In late summer as I went though the steps to become a PA Limited Winery, I began researching the legality of a mobile winery. Once I found that it was doable, I tore out the canvas that was attached to the pop top and added the kegerator. In the Spring of 2021 she was ready to start selling wine.
Sláinte!
Sharon
