5-20-10

ERIC PLAYS BARTENDER

SEÑOR POLAR BEAR

GARAGE BAND

With the weather clearing up and two new WWOOFers on board, we headed back to the vineyards this morning. One new WWOOFer is here for a few weeks while the other, Courtney, was just visiting. She is living in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn (our old neighbor) and is thinking about WWOOFing here in August for the crush.

After breakfast we went straight to the Cabernet Franc grapes instead of the Merlot vines we were pruning and suckering last week. We didn't make it too far though, because we "had" to do a tasting. There were paying guests staying at the Inn above the tasting room for two nights celebrating their fourth wedding anniversary. Eric opened many bottles for them to taste and, not wanting them to go to waste, they gladly shared the tasting room with us. Each night we've been drinking a bottle of Le Vin wine to accompany our dinner, but it was nice to taste them all to do side by side comparisons.

It's incredible how much the taste can vary between grapes grown in the same place, using the same techniques, from year to year. We tasted a 2000, 2001, and 2002 Le Vin Merlot and they were all quite different. The 2000 won a gold medal at the San Francisco Wine Competition and is rated over 90 points on Wine Spectator. The wine was incredibly smooth whereas the 2001 had more of a bite to it. Some wine drinkers have preconceived notions of wines they typically like or dislike. After tasting several vintages of one varietal we think it's foolish to make a sweeping generalization that you dislike all Merlots, for example. Sure, some aren't up to snuff and maybe Merlot tends to be too "fruit forward" but some of them are excellent. Just the same, you may tend to love Pinot Noirs but it's possible that one year there was a bad crop of grapes and the wine is negatively impacted. All the wines were quite tasty and the guests bought several bottles, including a prized bottle of 2003 Syrah which they promptly opened and generously shared with us again.

After lunch it was back to the fields before we headed into the barrel room here to top more barrels to prevent it from oxidizing.

**Frank: Although we haven't seriously been looking into Real Estate here, it seems to us that costs of living in and around cities are quite high. If rural life is what you'd like, there are probably some deals to be found. Sorry that isn't more helpful. Hope all is well.