Tag Archive for: winemaking

Chardonnay + Sangiovese Harvest 2018

Saturday, July 28, 7:00 am

21724 Hill Road, Salado (I-35 exit 275, head east on Hill Road, look for vineyard on the right)

Make your Instagram friends super jealous! Come pick grapes with us at the vineyard at 21724 Hill Road, Salado, TX! You can even eat some straight from the vine! Harvest is family friendly. Wear comfortable, cool clothing and tennis shoes. You’ll want to bring a hat, sunscreen, water, and bug spray. We’ll provide everything else you need. We will start bright and early at 7am and go until all the grapes are picked.

Hecho en Queso will be at the vineyard offereing breakfast tacos for sale.

After harvest in the morning, you can join us at the winery to watch grape processing. Our grapes will be de-stemmed and crushed using a machine then pressed and prepared for fermentation.

This will be the first half of the 2018 harvest at our vineyard.  The cabernet sauvignon + merlot harvest will be scheduled in August.

 

Macarons + Salado Winery = sweet spring fun!

Friday, April 27th from 7pm-8pm

Image may contain: food

Y’all are invited to join in on this yummy goodness!

Macarons by Maison de Macarons paired with wines made by Salado Winery.

First, show up and check in by 7 pm

Second, sit back and enjoy the presentation by the macaron baker and the wine maker, both local gals who live in Central Texas and share a passion for all things French.

Third, nibble and sip your way through the pairings

Ahhh! those little pretty desserts. Did you know they are naturally gluten free? What a coincidence, so is wine! As if anyone ever needed an excuse to enjoy their Friday evening? Come on now, stop thinking about it. If you wait too long, someone else might buy your ticket….see you soon! A bientot!

Tickets- Eventbrite

following the wine and macaron tasting, stay and enjoy a glass of wine with your friends, or explore Salado RAW or Salado’s 4th Friday

TAGS

Things To Do In Salado, TX Class Food & Drink

 

 

Bottling Big Bully 2015

only 1000 more bottles to go!

We bottled the 2015 Big Bully the other day!  1367 bottles of wine in about 9 hours (including a stop for lunch!).  Not exactly a record breaker, but we were happy to finish in one day.  We bottle from the 300 gallon tank which is directly behind my head in this picture.

We used a new set up, based on the enolmatic, but this time with two filler spouts, a new vacuum pump and using a 5 gallon carboy for the overflow tank.  We love our enolmatic, but it is wearing out after several years of good use.  In this picture I am standing next to the manual corker.  Yes, we corked every single bottle by hand!

This wine needs to age, in the bottle for a couple months.  We expect to release it fall 2017.  The grapes are from 3 Texans Vineyard.  The wine is 73% malbec and 27% tempranillo.

To show you how we do it, I made a video:

Halfway through Harvest 2016!

watch out! it is going over!

watch out! it is going over!

Hey there, I wanted to give you a quick report of how things are going around here.  I don’t have long–if you look closely at that picture, you’ll see that malbec there is about to “boil over” and ferment right on out of that barrel!

This week I’ve got 1.5 tons of malbec fermenting from Temple, TX and .75 tons of merlot from our Salado vineyard fermenting.  We have already fermented the chardonnay, sangiovese and tempranillo.

So what’s left?  CABERNET SAUVINGNON!  Next weekend, Saturday, August 20, our friends at 3 Texans Vineyard will harvest their cab.  Follow the link and give them a holler if you would like to harvest grapes with them.  They are near Temple, Texas.

I haven’t even scheduled the harvest of our cab yet.  The weather is calling for a bit cooler temperatures, so hopefully that will help the plants ripen those grapes some more.  I will let you know soon, but probably harvest August 27 or September 3, 2016.

Well, that’s all for now, I’ve got some punching to do!

Harvest 2016

rowsMake your Instagram friends super jealous! Come pick grapes with us at the Salado Winery Company vineyard. You can even eat some straight from the vine!

How to Get There
The vineyard is at 21724 Hill Road, Salado, TX, 76571. Exit 279 off I-35 and we’re just a quarter-mile up Hill Road on the East side of I-35. The vineyard is on the right side of Hill Road. You’ll see the vines from the road!

What to Bring
We will start bright and early at 7 am and go until all the grapes are picked, usually before noon. Wear comfortable, cool clothing. You’ll want to bring a hat, sunscreen, bug spray, and lots of water to start with. We’ll provide everything else you need, including more cold water. If you have a favorite pair of pruners feel free to bring them, but we’ll have plenty for you. We recommend tennis shoes because sometimes there is stinging nettle or a hidden ant mound but you can wear sandals if you like.  Sometimes folks like to wear light cotton gloves to protect their manicure or help prevent wasp stings, but there are no thorns on grape vines. Harvest is family friendly, so feel free to bring the kiddos…Dino has been picking grapes since he was 1!

The After Party
After harvest in the morning, you can join us at the winery to watch grape processing. Our grapes will be de-stemmed and crushed using a machine then the chardonnay will be pressed and red grapes will be prepared for fermentation.

RSVP
If you’re coming, text your RSVP to 254.466.5813 or RSVP on the Facebook event pages (links below), and we’ll let you know if the plan changes.  Otherwise, see you there!

barrel

Harvest Day 1
Saturday, July 30 from 7 am – noon
Chardonnay grapes

Sign up online here so we know how many people to expect and invite your friends!

 

 

 

pickingHarvest Day 2
Saturday, August 6 from 7 am – noon
Merlot (probably) grapes

Sign up online here so we know how many people to expect and invite your friends!

 

 

processing grapesHarvest Days 3 & 4
DATE TBD
Cabernet Sauvignon and Sangiovese grapes

Check out our Facebook page for details on our last two grape varietals to be picked! It will likely be Saturday, August 20th or 27th.

The Elves at Salado Winery

Bottling Big Bully 2014Everyone knows that the elves work all year round to get the toys ready for Christmas.  Well, we have been working hard here too to get lots of wine bottled.  Back in July 2015, I gave you an update of the vintage 2014 wines.  Now many of them are bottled and ready for you to enjoy!

In October, we bottled over 300 gallons.  That include 2014 Night Flight, 2014 Big Bully and 2014 3 Texan Cabernet Sauvignon, 2014 3 Texan Malbec and 2014 3 Texan Tempranillo. In November, we bottled another 200 gallons of 2014 Big Bully.

And now all that great wine is ready to gift to your favorite wine drinker

Cabernet Sauvignon Harvest–August 22

is that YOU in the big hat, picking grapes?

is that YOU in the big hat, picking grapes?

Saturday, August 22nd at 7:00 am, this is the last bunch for the 2015 season, and we welcome you to join us! The vineyard is at 21724 Hill Road, Salado, TX, 76571.

Wear sunscreen, bug spray and a big hat. If you have a favorite pair of pruners then bring them, but we’ll have plenty for you. Dress for heat, but be prepared for anything. I recommend shoes and socks because sometimes there is pigweed that stings or a hidden ant mound and I prefer a little protection for my toesies, but you can wear sandals if you like. Sometimes folks like to wear light cotton gloves, that might help prevent wasp stings, but there are no thorns, so gloves not required.

Families are welcome, the work isn’t hard, just the heat can be a bit discouraging. We will pick until all grapes are harvested, usually around 11 or 12 noon.

If you’re coming, text your RSVP to 254.466.5813, and I will let you know if the plan changes. Otherwise, see you there!

Then join us in the afternoon at the winery to witness the last crush of the season.  The cab sauv grapes will be destemmed, crushed and then I’ll add some yeast and let them start the fermentation.  The air conditioning is set to “cold” and this is the best time of the year to come check it all out.

Harvest will (probably) continue Saturday, August 22, 2015

notice the sprinkling of green grapes

notice the sprinkling of green grapes

The most important wine making decision is “when to harvest?”

At this point we have harvested 75% of the vineyard.  All that remains is the cabernet sauvingnon.  I went out and took a random sample yesterday, and what did I get?  Well, by the #’s, it looks fantastic!  Brix 24 degrees and pH 3.76, woohoo!

But, the truth is that about 15% of the grapes are still green, and that is no good for the quality wine we make at Salado Winery.  The photo with this post was taken on August 12, 2015.  The weather is not going to change much in the next 10 days, so?

So when will it be ready?  Well I am hoping for Saturday the 22nd.  I am trying to keep an eye on the pH, which will rise quickly, because I don’t want it to go sky-high.

I had this problem in 2013, and I compensated for a little under ripeness by blending with the 2012.  Another common technique is to use delestage to remove green seeds before they add any stringency.

Check back for an update next week!

Harvest 2015 update

this is 153 gallons of chardonnay about to ferment!

this is 153 gallons of chardonnay about to ferment!

NO harvest on SUNDAY, AUG 9th

So many fabulous friends showed up on Saturday, AUG 8, that we picked all of the merlot and sangiovese. All that remains is the cabernet sauvignon and not sure yet when we will harvest it as it is not quite ripe.

Evaluating Ripeness

evaluating ripeness

evaluating ripeness

Chardonnay: pH 3.55, Brix 19.2, TA 8.2 g/L, pineapple

Cabernet Sauvignon: pH 3.01, Brix 16.0, TA 12 g/L, sweet tart candy

Merlot:  pH 3.46, Brix 17, TA 8.8 g/L, peaches (a little tart)

Sangiovese: pH 3.21, Brix 17, TA 9.5 g/L green apple

3 Texan Malbec:  pH 3.53, Brix 20, TA 6.8 g/L strawberry

3 Texan Cab Sauv:  pH 3.18, Brix 19.6, TA 12 g/L rasberry iced tea

3 Texan Temp: pH 3.67, Brix 25, TA 5.2 g/L  plum