-AT 6PM (the height of rush hour) you drive across the Bay Bridge from SF to Berkeley with the intention of picking up your nearly 1 year old daughter and taking her back to the winery where bottling is STILL underway when you realize: THE CAR SEAT IS IN THE VW PASSAT WHICH IS IN SAN FRANCISCO -ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE TRAFFIC JAMMED BAY BRIDGE!

-At 6:15pm your tired husband decides to finish the bottling without you and at 11:30pm calls with the news: YOU HAVE THE KEYS TO VW PASSAT(WHICH IS THE CAR IN SAN FRANCISCO WITH THE CHILD SEAT– THE KEYS ARE IN BERKELEY)

That adequately summarizes yesterday. We love making wine. We love walking through our vineyards. We definitely love tasting our barrels. Bottling is an operation I could never do again. Aside from being the riskiest part of our winemaking it is also a huge orchestration of details and vendors and something ALWAYS goes wrong. Usually many somethings. The good news is I think the Rosé is lovely and we will definitely enjoy sipping it poolside all summer long. But be warned that your top dot may slide a bit. For those that were bold enough to try our Rosé last year you surely recall the wax closure. After too many near injuries we vowed to never wax again. But being anti-capsule for too many reasons to list we decided to try another finishing touch – a top dot. Quite simply it is a little dot that we printed on that adheres to the very end of the cork (Mondavi has done this for years). It looks great, is easy to apply and better still – is easy to remove. The only problem is it adheres perfectly to the natural cork we use on our Syrah and Chard. We found out yesterday that it does not adhere so well to the synthetic cork we use on the Rosé. Remember we keep the Rosé at a super low price point ($15 bottle) and therefore we can not afford to put a .52/per cork in there (that is what natural costs FYI). So – we will cross our fingers that those top dots stay in place until you remove them to open the bottle. If they slide – just slide them right back!

I wish I could sign off with now we rest. But not quite – now we move…sometime in early March I think we rest again.

Tracey