Les Blog

2+2This event open ONLY to Garagistes who are 2+2 vaccinated
(that is, it’s been 2 weeks since your second shot). If you’re not vaccinated yet, no worries – there will be another event soon!)

Important notes:

This bottling, we’ll tackle our 2019 Peugeot and 2019 Labourier. And while we’ll still be mindful of virus protocols (see below), CDC guidelines assure us that we if we’re all vaccinated, we can do it unmasked and with as many of us as we want.

So obviously, if you’re NOT 2+2, please plan to join us for a future bottling or event when you are.

Okay, on to the fun part. As is our time-honored custom, we’ll have 3 basic crews:

• Upstairs labeling and boxing
• Downstairs bottling and corking
• Runners ferrying full cases and cleaning variables as necessary
• (and maybe a cooking crew? See below, and this Slack discussion)

Labeling

As veterans of this crucial process know, this can put people fairly close to one another. So we’ll have a fan (can you bring one?), but even though it shouldn’t matter how close we are if we’re all vaccinated, I might suggest this: if you think you’re going to label, bring a mask.

Then let’s get it set up and see how it feels. If everyone’s comfortable without masks, then that’s great; if some folks are more comfortable with them on, but are okay with some folks not wearing them, we’ll do that; or we’ll all wear them and not worry. Obviously we’re all going to find the setup that ensures everyone has a good time (unless they came late and have to do neck labels, of course!).

I’ve bought 2 folding tables for use in dining; one might be used here to extend the labeling line and give some more space between people.

Bottling & Runners

There’s more space built in to bottling, but we’ll also have a fan. Once we have our crew assembled, we’ll decide if we’re all okay without masks; a mixed crew of masked and unmasked as predilections dictate; or all masked. Again, everyone’s comfort should be our paramount guide.

Our early crew will not only have the bottler setup, we’ll also have our two wines in variables lined up to go. Our runners will circulate making sure everything is operating smoothly.

Potluck

We won’t have the superpowers of Julie Wessel to rely on this time as head chef, so it’s going to be bowls of cereal and stale Cheezits unless everyone brings a dish to share. So please do!

Then, weather permitting, we’ll try to use my new back yard in the way I hoped in designing it: we’ll stretch 2 tables out into the space and all (or a lot more of us) dine together. I have a bunch of chairs, but I may need a few more…

Please use the comments below to tell everyone what dish you plan on bringing. If you don’t know right now, that’s fine, but please log back in to this event and leave a note here when you do.

AND if you’d like to be our head chef and tackle a main, DEFINITELY put that in the comments.

For this event:

• Please bring your mask. You may not have to use it, but it’ll be good to have as a backup.
• Assume 3 hours of bottling mania, followed by celebration
• Wear comfortable shoes and bring clothing you can get a little winey
• Bring a side dish or dish to share at the potluck immediately following bottling
• Do you have folding chairs and/or a biggish fan we can borrow? Let Matt know.
• Please make plans to take away your shares on this night or the day after!

COVID-19 NOTE: Vaccinated or not, if you have a fever, cough, shortness of breath, or sudden loss of sense of smell, PLEASE STAY HOME.