8 New Wines, Spring is arriving

11/03/2012

New rosemary plants in the winery landscaping project

Almond blooms

2 more almond tree photos, above and below

Pruning completed, next job is to tie those branches sticking up to the wire, but I have to wait for the sap to flow freely and then they become more flexible

Slightly out of focus peach blossom

And finally, apricot blooms

Greeting from PS winery and Nascondiglio di Bacco and the beautiful Marche.  We sat down with our 2 winemakers and a beautiful redhead to come up with our Bordeaux blend last week and after trying each of the 4 bordeaux varieties we had "in purezza", we proceeded to try the first logical blend which was based on how much of each we had in barrels.  That was pretty decent, but decidedly towards the Pomerol style with lots of Merlot.  I encouraged our chief winemaker to try some other blends and thus the next try was with 25% of each.  This was actually a bit better and really brought out the Cab. Franc.  Finally, we tried a bit less Merlot, more Cab. Sauvignon and equal portions of the Petit Verdot and Cab. Franc and that seemed to be the consensus favorite.  Final blend for this wine will be 1000 liters of Merlot, 750 L of Cab. Sauvignon and 500 L of the other 2.  The IGT Rosso or base red (with no barrel aging) for 2011 will either be half Cab. Sauv. and half Merlot or perhaps 40% of each of those 2 and 20% Syrah.  The 2010 Syrah has decided it will stay in its wooden barrels/tonneau for another year before release and rules dictate the same for the DOC Offida Rosso from 2010.  We will also be bottling the slightly wood aged Pecorino from 2010 as well as the 2011 Pecorino, which had a very low yield but is of high quality.  Finally a limited edition of 300 bottles of each of the Bordeaux varieties will be available in wooden display cases along with the blend.  Bottling is scheduled for May and release of the reds should be around Christmas, 2012.
The snow is gone for good and the fruit trees are blooming one at a time, beginning with the almonds, then just yesterday, the peach and apricot trees.  In waiting are the apple, plum, cherry and quince trees.  The grass was becoming a bit of a nuisance, so I broke out the weed eater today to clean things up a bit for guests coming tonight, so I guess spring is springing.
I can't wait to show everyone the labels, once they are ready, really cool ideas from our designer Cristiano with input from Raffaele, Alessandra and me.  The artists series is still in the works and will be used now for the Offida Rosso.   For those with an interest in these things, all the DOC wines from Offida have been elevated to DOCG status as of the 2011 harvest and we have a few new rules to follow, but this will be good for marketing purposes.