I was recently invited to join a wine making co-op that buys grapes each year and makes and bottles their own Cabernet and Pinot Noir. I was able to buy in on the 2008 vintage which was harvested, crushed and barreled earlier in the year. Because I am now part of the co-op, I was invited to join them for their bottling party where the wine from 2006 was bottled. I am excited to join this group to learn more about wine making and of course, my favorite thing, wine drinking!
The day started at 9:30 am with a relatively short drive from my house to the vineyard. While the drive was short, more than half was on a twisty, dirt road with lots of potholes and loose gravel.
At one point I missed a turn so I had to turn around on a very narrow road. I accidentally backed up hard into a low rock fence that I couldn’t see and I was sure had put a huge hole in my bumper. Then on the dirt road I bottomed out a few times and had visions of holes in the bottom of my car too!
The dirt road was so long I was beginning to think that I had taken a wrong turn however the car behind me assured me I was going the right way. Since they were driving close behind me I tried not to make them eat too much dust. This was way too much excitement for 9:30 am on a Saturday!
On arrival, I jumped out to look at my bumper, which only had a small scratch! Whew! No leaks from the bottom of my car so all was good.
The bottling was held at a house owned by the family of the original owner of Mt. Eden Vineyards. The family still owns about 11 acres of vines which provides the fruit for our wine. I tried to show the beautiful view from the vineyard in my video (link at the bottom of this post) but my camera didn’t do it justice. We had a 180 view of the Santa Clara Valley and could see across to the mountains all the way from Fremont down to South San Jose. It was an awesome view.
I joined the rest of the group and Rick DeGolia quickly got us all organized into teams of people assigned to stations for each function. First step was filling the bottles, then topping them off, corking the bottles and then the all-important labeling process. Since we had so many people we configured ourselves into ‘bucket brigades’ to quickly move the bottles from station to station.
People were drinking wine from the barrel and I quickly figured out where most of the wine was being consumed. I joined that team of course! I won’t mention names but you guys know who you are.
Rick DeGolia said “We successfully bottled the full barrel of 2006 and a half barrel of the family’s 1997. The lunch was awesome (thanks to all that contributed). I thought that both the 2006 and 2007 Cabernet (out of barrel) showed extremely well and the 2006 Pinot Noir received great reviews from many people. Those grapes were a little lighter than the 2008 Pinot grapes that we harvested in September, so there is huge promise and expectation for that wine.”
After the wine was bottled we adjourned to the house for a wonderful potluck. There was a huge pot of Buffalo Chili and a wonderful Chicken soup with rice that were both fabulous. There were multiple salads, bread, cheese, deserts and many other great food selections. I brought cheese, olives and my homemade French bread. If you were one of the people that asked for the recipe you can find it on the link above.
We drank more of the fabulous wine with lunch and enjoyed the great food, good company and beautiful view. Here’s my video of the event. While it is definitely not a professional video I think you’ll have fun watching all the participants working together to bottle this fine wine.
Mt. Eden WIne Bottling Party Video
