Les Welcome
Whether by intent or tragic mis-typing, you’ve landed on the home of Les Garagistes winery collective. If you’re new to our dark cabal, a rich and heady stew of bad French grammar and subterranean winemaking awaits. But where to start? Here are a few suggestions:
- First, you might take a quick stroll through last year’s vintage escapades, accumulated over the two critical months of September 2009 and October 2009 (remember that the posts are presented with the earliest at the bottom of the page).
- Then, who are these Garagistes and where do they get off? And didn’t I hear they were dead?
- We sully the fine pages of Fine Cooking Magazine
- Winehenge: the movie. If that’s not enough to get you to click…
- A French oak barrel primer
- Red, Rex Sox (Yankees fans, be forewarned)
- Plastic capsules and why we switched to paper
- Lastly, mourn with the Moody Blues as they appear to lament the end of a Les Garagistes harvest.
Thanks much for stopping by. We’ve got fruit lined up for 2010 — with new varietals ensuring we’ll be making even more up as we go along — so another exciting vintage is just ahead. Hope you can join us for it, and let us know what you think of what we’ve cobbled together.
Harvest update: about a week away
Just got off the phone with one of our growers in Horse Heaven, where the Merlot is coming on strong — in fact, it may be ready by the weekend or early next week.
As of the 18th, block samples ranged from 23.7 – 25.8 brix, .64-.53 TA (acidity), and 3.2 – 3.3 pH. Those are still out of balance, so he’s been putting a little water on the grapes to keep the sugars in check and buy some time while the acidity declines. Given the numbers we typically get with Eastern Washington fruit (much higher pHs than Willamette Valley fruit), I’d love to see us in the 3.6 pH ballpark, with sugars right around 24.5-25.
Sounds like the grower shares that objective, so things are looking good for a lovely Merlot to start harvest off just right. Better get the basement winery remodel done!
(btw, he estimates Syrah as still about 2-3 weeks out)
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