comments, reviews, information about Texas wineries, Texas wines
NEW tasting card–includes more wines
We have been using the same tasting menu for 9.5 years, and we finally decided it is time for something new! We have expanded our offering and adjusted the pricing a bit. We now offer 5 tastes for $5, or if you prefer, $1/taste.
We debuted this menu card on July 2nd. We are still working out a few kinks in how we present our oral delivery, and a couple typos by yours truly, but isn’t it beautiful? It was designed by Herculiz.
My Production Control Board
It is at this point every year that I say, “ohmigoodness! time to bottle the wine before harvest gets here! Harvest is about 8 weeks away and we need to empty the tanks so that we will have space for the 2015 harvest–which might be big due to all that rain we received in May 2015.
So the last couple of days I have been ordering corks, labels, bottles, capsules and oak in order to have the supplies ready for bottling. Ouch! This is when it is tough to be an entrepreneur. These things cost REAL money folks. And we will be selling this wine late 2015-2016 and maybe even 2017, so it takes a long time to recover that investment in inventory in the wine industry.
Part of the decision making process is crafting a product matrix that makes good sense. What I mean is that as a business owner, I think about what portfolio of wines I want to offer in order to make wine drinkers happy and maximize profit. I feel strongly that I need a dry white, a couple different dry reds and some sweet wine. We have some dessert wines that we produce as well, but I will not be working on those in the next couple of months, so they are not included in this discussion. So my goal is to produce Night Flight, Diamond Back, Big Bully and Rootin’ Tootin’ for sale at Salado Winery Company at about $20/bottle and then to produce three varietal based reds for 3 Texans Vineyard at 3 different price points. Based on my experience selling wine over the last 10 years, I decide on how to blend the wines and price them. Since I often do the selling myself, I have quite strong opinions about what wine drinkers are looking for.
We are a bit behind in trying to get 2014 Night Flight bottled. It needs to be cold stabilized and that is time consuming. We are nearly out of it though, so that is the most pressing work to be done.
The 2014 Diamond Back is a blend of 40% cabernet sauvignon and 60% merlot. The wine has been blended and we have started doing taste tests with various folks. We will use a combination of American and French oak with this wine, both will be medium toast. Some folks preferred the American which had strong flavor up front and some preferred the French which was a little more subtle and let the berry fruit notes of the cabernet shine through. As winemaker, I make the final decision–yeah me! I’ve got a fair amount of this Diamond Back wine on hand to sell, I still have plenty of the 2013 to sell too therefore I want a dry red blend that will appeal to a wide range of wine drinkers. So I will use 25% American oak to get just a bit of that flavor up front, during the initial swallow and 75% French oak to give the subtle notes more boost and help carry the fruit flavors through to the end.
The 2014 Rootin’ Tootin‘ needs a little citric acid added to it, probably about .5g/L to give it a little punch. Since it is warm much of the year here in Central Texas, I like to make wines a wee bit tart, then serve them very cold. I think a wine like that tastes very refreshing that way and this wine is for folks that like their wine on the sweet side.
The 2014 Big Bully still needs to be made! I need to play with various combinations of tempranillo and malbec to see which blend is the best, then we need to see how much tempranillo we want to allocate to the blend vs. how much of the single varietal we want to bottle for 3 Texans Vineyard. I also can backwards plan by predicting how much Big Bully I think I can sell. It will likely be oaked with a little more American oak than the Diamond Back because we want to ensure that they have a very different flavor profile. I am inclined to make a 50-50 blend, but there is much, much more malbec so it is a tough decision to decide how much to blend. Malbec can be a tricky sell since some wine drinkers really hate it! I am not sure why, but some people will not try even try a Malbec, so I am worried about the large amount that we’ve got on hand.
The 2014 3 Texan Cabernet Sauvignon continues to be my darling. We have tried this with American medium toast, French medium toast, & Hungarian medium toast, but our favorite so far is the French heavy toast. We tried this with the chef from Classic Catering yesterday and he was extremely excited about it. He felt that the heavy toast was a much more unique flavor in this wine, almost like cinnamon. I complained to him that the heavy toast oak costs an awful lot more, but he proposed a great idea. He said I should try pre-selling it, so that is what we are going to do. We will have a sample available on Thursday night, July 2nd during the art opening reception and we will take pre-orders at a discounted price. Hopefully I can sell enough through pre-sales to purchase some heavy toast French oak and make this a terrific bottle of wine with a full retail price of $39.95.
In our preliminary taste tests, we liked medium toast American oak with the 3 Texan 2014 Tempranillo and medium toast French oak with the 3 Texan 2014 Malbec. This needs to be tested in another round of testing with the folks at 3 Texans Vineyard!
Then all of the bottling needs to be scheduled. I’ve ordered corks and capsules for all of this wine, but I did not order all of the bottles or all of the labels. I could not order all of the labels yet because we haven’t decided the allocation for Big Bully. Plus the labels are actually the most expensive part and just like my MBA professor said, CASH IS KING. I also didn’t order all of the glassware either. The pallets of bottles take up too MUCH space and we need lots of messy available work space for harvest. Luckily Salado Winery employees are taking their vacations early in the summer, so all this bottling will be done when they are back. So there you have it. Bottling operations at a winery involve cashflow, space planning, materials, time available and after that, we still have to deal with Murphy’s Law. 🙂
Hope to see you soon!
Save the Date!
Time to mark your calendar and set aside the last weekend of March for the best Texas Wine festival, Salado’s Wine & Art Festival. Now that the holidays are over, we are working on filling out the list of vendors, planning the music, and most important arranging the Texas wineries that will be joining us. So make sure you tell your favorite winery to make plans to come pour their best wines.
Also, this year, the Salado Chamber of Commerce will be hosting the Edgy Art Show and the Wildflower Art Fair. so I expect the town to be packed. Make your overnight room reservations now, especially if you want to stay at one of the quaint Salado B & B’s my favorite boutique inn, Inn on the Creek.
Musicians–don’t call us, we’ll call you!
Happy New Year!
“May we all be blessed and simultaneously protected from the things we want.” -paraphrase J.Holzer
OPEN New Year’s Day 12-6
have your holiday party at your favorite winery
Yes, it’s that time of year! Time for the cheer and time for the annual holiday work party. WORK plus PARTY? those two words don’t seem like they belong together in one sentence, but if you’re wondering where all the cool kids go for their annual bash, look no more, just reserve the party room at Salado Winery and Salado Wine Seller!
Here’s the deal: $25/hour from set up to the end of clean up. My big number one rule is NO bringing outside alcohol (come on now really, please don’t make me feel like a high school teacher chaperoning the senior prom). If your group is a non-profit group, you might even convince me to waive the fees.
You can bring your own food, or we can help you arrange catering and naturally we will help select the wines.
Our party room can also be a great place for a birthday party, retirement bash, family get together, shower, board meeting and we have even hosted a few weddings. Just let us know what we can do for you? go on over to https://saladowinery.com/party-room-rental/ and fill out our reservation form
We are thankful for the bountiful harvest of 2014, but most of all we are grateful for our friends, family, and patrons!
Happy Thanksgiving! We will be closed on Thursday, November 27th in order to gorge ourselves on some turkey and sip some wine.
We will be open our normal hours all the other days. So on Friday, November 28 go get yourself some cool Black Friday deals at the mall early in the morning then come have a glass of wine and tell us your war stories 12-6. Then on Saturday, November 29 come visit the small businesses of Salado for “Small Business Saturday” and stop by to wet your whistle 12-7 and stay for a bit. Sunday the 29 is a fine day to come visit as well, if you have any doubts then feel free to call me at (254) 947-8011 and I will be happy to give you an I-35 traffic report from my vantage, 12-6 pm.
Where can you taste the beauty of Texas? The United Estates of Texas Wine Festival at The Vineyard at Florence, featuring wineries from all over our great state! For only $15, receive a souvenir wine glass, tote and 10 pours of your choice from world-class producing Texas wineries. Call The Vineyard at Florence for your tickets, 254-793-3363, or visit their website at thevineyardatflorence.com.
We’ll be hanging out at The Vineyard at Florence from 12pm – 3pm on Saturday, October 18th pouring our favorite wines, so come join us!
Racking good wine out of carboy and topping off barrel below. The sediment in the carboy will be left out of the wine and discarded.
So what’s next for wine making at Salado Winery Company? We’ve fermented the 2014 harvest, pressed the wine out of it and now we’re doing the first racking. What’s racking? Essentially we are siphoning the wine OFF of the gunk. Lots of bits and pieces were missed by the first rough filtration that we did as the wine came out of the press. Also sediment is formed from the proteins in the grapes, that and other molecules join together and fall out of suspension. If you look closely at my picture, you can see in the glass carboy the sediment that has fallen to the bottom.
The biggest contributor to the junk on the bottom is dying yeast cells. As fermentation ends, all the sugar has been consumed and the yeast dies. The last remaining yeast release enzymes to break down anything left to eat–basically the dead yeast cells on the bottom. Well the biologists call this “autolysis” and for us wine drinkers, that can mean that the broken down yeast produces off flavors, or in other ways, breaks down our wine and we don’t want that! Finally, racking helps to clarify the wine, or in other words, it helps the wine look more clear.
After we remove the yucky part, then there is space left in the container. That means we have to “top off” all the containers and that is exactly what is happening in this picture. This is a gravity siphon and the good wine in the upper part of the carboy is being removed from the gunk in the lower part. The wine is being used to fill up the barrel below.
The concept is simple, but this process has been quite time-consuming this year due to the large harvest. I am not complaining though, it is far better to have too much blessing than too little!
ready to press? (Click on picture to view closer)
The hardest decision for me as a winemaker is trying to decide when to press the red wine. On one hand, an extended time with the skins could mean more maceration, or in other words, better tannin extraction, richer color and improved flavor, but the risk of spoilage and too much of a good thing weigh heavily on my mind. I generally press the red wine when all, or nearly all (as seen in the hydrometer picture) of the sugar has been consumed.
Wikipedia.org has a good entry explaining what I am talking about…
“The timing of pressing and the methods used will have an impact on other decisions in the winemaking process. In white wine making, pressing usually happens immediately after harvest and crushing. Here, the biggest decision will be how much pressure to apply and how much pressed juice the winemakers wants in addition to the free-run juice. Some grape varieties, such as Sémillon and Aurore have very “liquidy” pulps that releases juice easily without needing much pressure that could risk tearing the skins. Other varieties, such as Catawba, have much tougher pulps that will require more pressing.[7]
In red wine production the timing of when to press is one of the most important decisions in the wine making process since that will be the moment that maceration and phenolic extraction ceases. Some winemakers use the decreasing sugar level (such as brix measurement) scale and press once the wine has reached complete dryness. Often winemakers will use taste to determine if the wine has extracted enough tannins to produce a balanced wine and may press before complete dryness (such as at 3-8 brix). Though removing the skins by pressing often removes some solids that the wine yeast need to complete fermentation and the benefits of pressing early is often balanced by the risk of potential stuck fermentation.[4]
The quality of the vintage year and the overall ripeness of the harvested grapes may also play a role since in cool years when the grapes are often harvested under-ripe, the tannins in the grape are often very “green” and harsh. In these years winemakers might press early (such as at 15 brix), a process that the Australians call “short vatting”. In warmer years, the tannins may be full ripe or “sweet” and the winemaker may decide to do a period of extended maceration and not press the grapes for as long as a month after fermentation has completed.[4]”
This was found at at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressing_(wine)#When_to_press_and_other_winemaking_decisions:
Saturday, August 30, 2014 starting at 7 am, 21724 Hill Road. Join us for the last harvest this year–cabernet sauvignon. Vineyard is just up the hill from I-35, exit 279.
We recommend 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 or nettle 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.
If you’re coming, or maybe you slept a little late and want to see if we’re still picking, text your RSVP to 254.466.5813, and I will let you know if the plan changes. Otherwise, see you there!
——->>Oh yeah! Even if you don’t come out to the vineyard, this is the best time to stop by the winery and see the wine making in action! Hear the noise of the crusher and destemmer and see the yeast do their thing. We might even make you help punch down the cap. Following the crush, we will probably press the 3 Texan cabernet sauvignon that was harvested last Saturday.