A note to my wine friends:

One of the differences between me and a commercial winery is that I can keep it personal with my wines. I am continually tasting my wines to see which one is ready for bottling. The ready list shifts from month to month as do the flavors of my barrel aged wines, so I wait until the last minute to select the wine to be bottled. 

Once selected, the crew is then scheduled to bottle.  Wine samples are sent to the lab.  The artist is contacted and we wait about 2 weeks before she can pick up the work.  During that two weeks I will update my request to her with the lab results.  Printing takes about 7 business days. So basically, once the wine is selected it takes about 4 weeks to receive the labels in the mail and each of these activities has a cost associated. To reduce this lag time, I decided to put in a request to the artist for all wine labels at one time. 

A document defining my label artwork for my upcoming wines was just submitted to the artist. I put together this document with all the wines I have in barrels in the garage and selected which labels I want for which wines.  There are 3 different styles of new labels and I have requested the artist send me several different colors on each of those new label styles so that each wine can be recognizable by it’s own individual label.   

The varietals were easy.  I gave the artist the name of the varietal and the vintage so that she has that detail.  I can guess the alcohol and the sugar and carefully change those myself at the time the labs come back.

The second label style will be for my blends.  This is the hard part because I name my blends according to their taste and character at the time of bottling.  I was forced to put down a few names based on what I know about these wines to date.  This was painful!

The third label style is what I am calling the “Louie” series. These are non-repeatable or new blends. If they are popular, then I will make them again or try to recreate them.  I have also set aside “Widow Riddler” for white blends which is on my radar for this spring.

The document for the artist took me about three hours to write.  I included pictures of labels, the list of wines, and definitions for Louie and Widow Riddler under a section called “for my own edification”.   I wanted to communicate succinctly to save money if discussions become necessary.  The artist is paid hourly.

Then, the worst thing happened.  I accidentally deleted the document and the technical side of my brain couldn’t figure out the steps for recovery. In the end, I rewrote the document without the edifications and half of the detail. 

I am hoping that this is not Part I of a much longer story.  Regardless, I will send pictures of the new labels in the next letter.  I am so excited!  Waiting for the label art is the fun part!

Question for you – Should I recreate Serendipity? Don’t worry, Felicity is here to stay.

Tchin-Tchin! 

Sharon

Video on Barrel Aging Wine at Le Garage