Jeff White

After a very warm week with highs in the upper 60s, flirting with the low 70s, it's cooling off fast with terrifically high winds today which are fanning flames in an incredibly large forest fire just south our farm. Appears to have started on private property but now moving fast, way up the mountain and into the National Park. My hat is off to all those out there fighting this one. Be safe. 3:25 pm - Forest fire update. This thing has exploded and crossed to the east side of the mountain. Bright orange glowing smoke billowing up high into the otherwise blue sky. Property and lives are at stake all because some fool decided today was a good day to strike a match.

Here's a more direct link: Barrel Taste

Driving home yesterday evening from Pennsylvania after attending Super Premium Wine Production Seminar featuring renowned California winegrowers Andy Erickson and Jeff Newton. Just as I came back into Virginia, saw large flocks of Canada geese heading north. They're about a month earlier than in 2010.

Hello, Follow the link for more information: GMV Thanks, Jeff

We received a foot of heavy snow yesterday afternoon and evening. Just in time too. I have a tractor-trailer coming on Friday with bottles. Big plow and shovel day today. But it sure looks pretty. Our first significant snow of the season.

My first thought is a Chianti.

I've just returned from a winter wonderland trip up into New England and am now back in the saddle and prunning again. Almost finished with our young plantings and I'm so glad as my old knees are sore. The fruiting wire is only two feet off the ground so we spend all day on our knees to head prune at about a foot and a half, leaving two canes to later wrap around this low wire. Just curious who out there cane versus spur prune and why. I've moved away from spur prunning to reduce mite habitat along the old knarred cordons, plus reduce the amount of permanent wood where carbohydrate reserves are stored for the vines use this season, thus reducing vigor in the plant. Also instead of making twenty cuts we now only make two, reducing the number of potential pathogen entry points.

+1

Sure but it wasn't too analytical. Also, keep in mind that Virginia, as a viticultural region is in it's infancy and it will probably take a generation or two to figure out precisely what wine grape varieties are best suited to all of the varying soils and microclimates that make up this winegrowing region. It takes about ten years after planting to tell if you've correctly matched variety with soil/site and you must be willing to pull the planting back out and start over if you get it wrong. When I entered this industry back in 1993, I knew absolutely nothing about winegrowing. I spoke with established growers to discover what was working for them and to winery owners to see what varieties they were interested in buying. Virginia Tech had established a variety trial vineyard in Winchester and made recommendations available. I also grow what I like to drink, Sauvignon Blanc and red Bordeaux varieties. I did once grow Chardonnay and still wish I could but was forced to pull out 2.5 acres due to a virus.

Thought I'd start one for this year. This will be different than last year's. Hopefully, I won't be the only contributor and posts will be short but more often with whatever is interesting and happening as it relates to winegrowing. Cold, down in the 20's last night but should reach 40 by mid afternoon. A wee bit of snow predicted for tomorrow. Almost finished pruning our 2009 Merlot plantings.

Friday December 31, 2010 Hello, Wow! Where did this year go? It honestly seems like it was just the other day that I conjured up the notion to write this thread. Thank you, Don Rockwell, for your friendship, for allowing me this opportunity and for your encouragement to share what we Virginia winegrowers face and try to accomplish each year. Also, thank you to all those interested and who chose to follow a year in the life of a simple but passionate farmer of Glen Manor Vineyards. I've enjoyed writing about this vintage and am now firmly and squarely looking towards the challenges and rewards of our upcoming 2011 vintage. The Virginia 2010 vintage can best be described as hot, dry, fast and early. Like all Virginia vintages, 2010 was unlike all Virginia vintages. This vintage variability aspect of Virginia winegrowing makes farming wine here frustratingly thrilling. Record keeping of past vintages and understanding how natural conditions influence wine style are vital to consistently produce wine of great interest and appeal. Some cold white winter weather arrived right around Christmas time. About a week before, we received two inches and then snow showers blew through on Christmas day. Terrifically high winds with blowing stinging snow followed the day after Christmas, postponing our plans to torch two large woodpiles on the farm. Currently the ground is bare of snow except again, for north facing slopes above elevations of around twenty-five hundred feet. We finished rough pruning our vineyards and in January will start again fine pruning our youngest plantings. Last week, we began constructing a fence separating our meadow of warm season grasses from the grounds immediately surrounding the winery. Next year, cattle will be allowed to graze these grasses for short intervals during the summer months to thin the stand, thereby opening more avenues of travel for young quail and encouraging a variety of other food source plants to germinate and grow. To dig fence post holes we use a tractor mounted and operated auger but because the ground is frozen down about eight inches, we first must break through this top frozen layer using digging bars powered by human muscle. Posts are in and braced and we are nearly finished attaching the woven wire. A friend who possesses a palate that I trust and respect came over to taste through my 2010 red wines with me. We methodically tasted through the thirty barrels; tasting a wine, quietly writing our impressions and then talking about the wine before repeating the process with the next barrel. I now have a number of barrels chosen for a Hodder Hill base blend and several more barrels identified as potential blending components, with the actual blending trials set to begin in January. While cellaring, wine evaporates through the wooden barrel staves, about a gallon's worth per barrel every couple of months. This lost wine is poetically referred to as the angel's share. After our taste through I stirred each barrel and then topped or filled them with additional 2010 red wine, used just for this purpose and stored in small glass and stainless steel containers. I also tasted through and topped our barreled 2009 red wines. To be a good neighbor, Glen Manor Vineyards participates in the Virginia Department of Transportation Adopt a Highway program. Two or three times during the year we pick up litter along a two mile stretch of the state road near our farm entrance and each time fill over a dozen large trash bags. But I now have concerns about some of my neighbors. Apparently, they consume highly processed fast-food and corn sweetened soft drinks, smoke cigarettes and worst of all drink thin tasteless beer and all this while operating a motor vehicle. A few of my more thoughtful neighbors have been trying to help though. Once the "Adopt a Highway" signs were in place they started consolidating their litter tosses at my winery entrance instead of spreading them out along the side of the road. Sometimes, I just want to give 'em a hug . I recently went to our local butcher and picked up a grass fed beef that Kelly, my parents and I will enjoy over the next year. The steer was raised by the cattleman who leases our farm pastures. The meat is flavorful and tender and at three and a half dollars per pound, quite a deal. It's also very important to me to support a local farmer and butcher and know where and how my food is raised. Just as with Thanksgiving, I have spent the vast majority of Christmas celebrations with my extended family here on our farm. One of my fondest childhood Christmas memories is going out on the farm with my grandfather and father to get a tree. We would simply walk out the farm house door and go cut down a cedar tree growing somewhere on the property. One year when I was still quite little, there was snow on the ground and I got to ride the tree back down the hill as my father slid it home. Each year I looked forward to homemade oyster stew and wassail on Christmas Eve night, being the center of attention the next morning and to the holiday feast my grandmother would prepare. This year wasn't too different. Thankfully I'm no longer the center of the universe and Kelly and my mother prepared a scrumptious Christmas day dinner of goose, country ham, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, sauerkraut, stewed tomatoes, oyster stuffing, green peas, corn pudding, pickles, olives and cranberry salad, followed later by homemade Christmas cookies and candies. One of my first cousins was also home on the farm for the holidays. I caught up with her as she was ice skating on our pond. She reminded me that I was the one who got her interested in this activity, with a pair of ice skates she received from me on Christmas day, a long time ago. Well, that's it, a Virginia wine farming year as it happened to me. I am privileged to live in these Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia and honored to be able to work land my great-grandparents pioneered one hundred ten years ago. My life's purpose as a vigneron is simple; grow wine that is expressive of this land, reflective of the year in which the grapes ripened and that captivates your interest until the last drop leaves the bottle. Thank you and have a safe happy time tonight and a wonderful New Year! Jeff

For the first time in ten years I won't be. I'll still miss the midnight festivities though and be up and out the door early on the first.

When in doubt or when it's more than just the two of us at a restaurant with each ordering something different, my go-to wines are dry to slightly sweet Rieslings and Pinot Noirs. And I always choose half-bottles if available. I've also found Karen MacNeil's book, Wine, Food and Friends, a great resource for pairing potentials: My link

They also feature an obscure little Virginia winery.

Wednesday December 15, 2010 Hello, "Tis the season..." I love how our years end on a collective joyous and compassionate note. This is the time of the year when all at once our entire world's thoughts and deeds are for others: close and distant family, friends and lovers, supervisors and subordinates and especially for children and those less fortunate. Whether it's food or clothing drives, Toys for Tots, the Salvation Army bells and kettles or simply people baking batch after batch of cookies and candies, and searching for that perfect gift, everyone's thoughts turn outwards and away from one's self. Now, I know it can be hectic and frustrating at times, what with millions of people all at once out and about and with the same but competing purpose and goal. But for me, living quietly and almost solitarily on a farm, interacting with only two or three different people in any given day, venturing out now onto hustling and bustling city streets with all the merry sounds and sights is most humanly and spiritually uplifting. This by far is the grandest time of the year. On Friday the tenth we had our first of the season snowfall. It was just a dusting but oh so beautiful. Our stonewall fences looked like rows of holiday bourbon balls stacked on parchment paper sprinkled with confectioners' sugar. What snow did fall though, stuck to everything for it has been very cold lately, freezing the grass covered ground rock solid and making walking feel as if you're constantly pounding hard concrete under foot. It was nine o'clock in the morning and I was up above Hodder Hill finishing sawing some fire logs when I first noticed the snow coming over the 3400 foot high National Park Mountains fives miles away to our south. A slow moving snowy whiteout enveloped the mountaintops and then moved down into the valleys below, arriving over our farm about twenty minutes later. After another twenty minutes it passed and we were left speckled with a quarter inch of icy white beauty. Right now and with the exception of the north side of those distant high mountain peaks, the snow is gone. But it's windy and frigid, so maybe there's still a chance for more and deeper snow before year's end. Rough pruning is nearing completion. We finished our older vines and are more than halfway through our young plantings. Once complete we will start constructing some cattle fences on the farm next week. Last week I was visited by Dr Tony Wolf, Virginia's chief Viticulturalist to discuss a research trial that will be conducted in my Sauvignon Blanc vineyard during the next three years. His research centers on vineyard covercrop's impact on grapevine vigor and nutritional requirements. In 2001 I first established covercrops in Hodder Hill and now, more and more new vineyards in Virginia are being established with covercrops under vines to help wick away excess moisture. But these covercrop plants also compete with grapevines for vital nutrients in the soils, so each year fertilizer amendments must be added. Dr Wolf's study will try to determine A: which or what blend of covercrop plant specie is most beneficial in balancing grapevine growth and B: how and when best to make nutrient amendments so that the vines receive the added nutrients and very little is taken up by these covercrops. I received test results from Virginia Tech on some 2010 red wine barrel samples that I had sent for various analyses. I run most of the tests in my lab but also occasionally want confirmation from a professional laboratory service. As I thought, malo-lactic fermentation is finished in some barrels and is near completion in others. Probably by the first of next year all will be complete. I also had residual sugar and alcohol levels tested. Again as I thought, all are completely dry and all have alcohol levels in the 14% range. Now don't let my 14+% alcohols scare you. These are big red wines with an appropriate balance of complex and concentrated flavors, supple tannins, moderate acidity and not too high alcohols to my tastes. There has been much discussion and debate about the ever increasing alcohol levels in red wines coming mostly out of California, but these are wines with 15% to 16% alcohols. You may read on the label that the wine is 14.5% and it tastes too high in alcohol for your liking but in reality this wine probably has a much higher percentage of alcohol than stated. Federal law allows for wines over 14% alcohol by volume to have the stated percentage on the wine label be plus or minus 1% different than the wine inside the bottle. So if a particular bottle of wine has a printed alcohol level of 14.1%, the wine's actual alcohol level may legally be as high as 15.1%. I could be wrong but those alcohol hot wines you are not enjoying have much higher alcohol levels than what you think and read. Kelly and I recently were in town for a wine pouring at The Principle Gallery in Alexandria and for a vintner's dinner at the Lyons Hall in Arlington. Both occasions were fun and enjoyable, meeting and talking with many interesting and interested people. At the Lyons Hall vintner's dinner, organized by Sommelier Alison Christ, I teamed with Master Champagne maker Claude Thibaut, of Thibaut Janisson, and with Chefs Liam LaCivita, Andy Bennett and Rob Valencia for five creative and delicious food courses, each accompanied by our wines. On both trips Kelly and I combined pleasure with pleasure by venturing on into DC to among other things, have lunch at Black Salt, (yum, yum), pick up wine at MacArthur's and tour the Norman Rockwell exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery. I hope everyone has a blessed and joyous holiday season! Until my final post on the last day of 2010, Jeff

Hi Troy, Average price for a Thanksgiving Day Turkey, $10. Average price for a pairing American Pinot, $30. Stories as told by grandma, priceless! Yes, at our barrel tasting we will have a couple of new releases plus one pre-release offer. Jeff

Wednesday December 1, 2010 Hello, Winter is slowly taking hold over autumn and the land. Our sky is cold and still. Deer hunting season has ended, silencing the guns through the mountains for another year. So with the exception of wintering blue jays, black crows, a few other resident tweety birds and the occasional rustlings of our tall and now golden warm season grasses, all is quiet. As this year ends and our eyes look towards 2011, rough pruning, winter bottling and planning for our first ever barrel tasting in the spring are our top priorities. We began rough pruning our vines right after Thanksgiving and will finish by New Year's Day. Then on January 3rd, weather permitting, we will begin the task of fine pruning our vineyards. Rough pruning accomplishes a couple of good things. First it gets us back out in the vineyards where we long to be and immensely enjoy. It's usually sunny and cold but this task is a bit physical so we generate our own heat and welcome the cold temperatures. We walk a row quite fast cutting all the canes just below the second from the top trellis wire. Then we re-walk the same row pulling off the severed portion of the canes seemingly suspended in air but hanging from the wires by the vine's tendrils or our tying tape. The cut canes are discarded in the row middles where they'll be shredded early next year. This makes fine pruning much easier and quicker as there is less wood material to remove and the pieces are smaller and more manageable at a time when we're working hard and fast to complete pruning well before bud break. It's also mind comforting in January and February with spring fast approaching, to know that the vineyard is always more than half completed since all has been half or rough pruned. I racked our Petit Manseng dessert wine off it's lees and one third went into a new French oak barrel and the other two thirds went back into stainless-steel tank. This wine will eventually be blended back together and the barreled wine will add complex flavors and soft textures to the crisp aromatic wine aged in tank. For a while both wines will age sur lie or in contact with some fine lees composed of dead yeast cells and once every couple of weeks these lees will be stirred up into the wine to add body, depth, richness and roundness. Our 2010 red wines have nearly completed malo-lactic fermentation thus quieting the bubbling sounds in our cellar from the fermentation airlocks in each barrel's bung hole. For the next month, once every couple of weeks I'll taste through the barrels, making notes and formulating possible blends that we will begin to assemble in January. After tasting I will also stir these lees up into the wine in each barrel. Recently Jim Law, of Linden Vineyards visited and tasted through the barrels with me. A number of lots stood out as superior and overall we were pleasantly surprised by the wine's restraint, given the extreme hot and dry vintage. Afterwards, I treated Jim to a lunch of braised bear roast with winter greens and a 2002 left-bank Bordeaux. Then we toured my new vineyards which he had not previously seen up close. It's a most gratifying feeling for me to receive approval and advice from someone I respect and admire. As I have said to him before, I consider Jim my father figure in the wine industry. Father, not with respect to age but to experience and guidance. We are in the early planning stages for a spring barrel tasting here at Glen Manor. We will draw samples from the barrels aging our young 2010 red wines to offer a glimpse of these wines to our customers and the local wine trade. Other than this tasting, we do not hold events here on our farm so this will be special. For everyone's enjoyment this tasting will be by reservation only with a limited number of guests allowed in our cellar at any one time during the day. The following is a bit of holiday farm nostalgia: Every year around the holidays I find myself filled with deep rooted emotions centering on our farm and the way things were and will never be again. I'm saddened but also warmed by memories of departed family members and their bygone farming ways. For the first forty-five years of my life, every Thanksgiving for me was spent with my extended family on our farm. As a child growing up in Fairfax County, I could easily connect with the song, "Over the River and Through the Woods", for it truly was my grandmother's house in the country where we would go. This was before interstate 66. Back then the roads leading out into the country were routes 29/211 and 55, a single lane road meandering through farmlands, over rolling hills and narrow bridges across streams and through once sleepy little villages: Manassas, Gainesville, Haymarket, The Plains, Marshall, Markham, Linden and Front Royal. The day before Thanksgiving in 1971, a surprise blizzard struck and my brothers and I had to sleep through the night in the back of our family's station-wagon, only reaching The Plains by mid morning where we and hundreds of other stranded motorists were fed breakfast at the local volunteer fire department. After being re-routed through Warrenton, we reached the farm mid afternoon Thanksgiving Day. And it was here I would see those I miss dearly today, relatives of mine who lived on and worked our farm. But what fascinates me is something I only learned about a few years back, that Thanksgiving in the traditional manner was not celebrated by my family on our farm until I was about ten years old. For our farming family, Thanksgiving Day was Butchering Day, the day our family and friends worked together to butcher and process our hogs. My grandparents were devoutly religious and had survived life through the Great Depression of the 1930s. They gave thanks every day for what they had, especially on Sunday, a day of rest except for feeding and milking the livestock and gathering eggs or in other words, taking care of animals dependent on them. For my grandparents, Thanksgiving Day was simply treated much like any other workday on the farm. My grandmother chose this day because she also taught at the local school and was off on Thanksgiving and the day after, affording her the time required for this complicated and involved process. While the men slaughtered, scalded, scraped, hung up, gutted, washed and quartered a half dozen or so animals, the women were busy cutting up the meat, packaging it and making sausage, scrapple and pudding and rendering fat into lard. Shoulders, hams and bacon were piled high on benches in the meat house and covered with sugar, black pepper and saltpeter to cure before later being hung up to age. Back then my grandparents still had an old wringer type washing machine and would remove the wringer and place the sausage grinder on top of the washing machine, using the wringer motor to power it. The hog's cleaned intestines were used to hold the sausage until years later when my grandmother made sausage sacks out of old feed bags. Once stuffed, these sacks of sausage would also hang in the meat house to cure. I have wonderful and vivid sensory memories of all this as a child. Many people busily moving about in a bit of a frantic pace, black smoke and white steam plumes rising high into the crisp autumn air, the warmth from the fires, squeals of the condemned, the crack of the rifle, orders and directions given out by the men and women in charge, bubbling boiling hot water, popping of embers in the fire pits, eating crunchy cracklings left over from the rendered fat and venturing into the dark meat house to see and smell the hams hanging from the rafters. There's even now an aroma I find in some older Italian red wines which I associate with my memories of these curing meats. Our family did enjoy a much anticipated special meal this day but the main course wasn't turkey; it was the liver from that day's work along with a host of home grown vegetable dishes and pitchers and pitchers of tea and ice cold milk from one of their cows. I well remember this annual event and also remember traditional Thanksgiving celebrations with turkey and all it's trimmings. What I did not realize was that these celebrations did not commence on our farm until after my grandparents grew too old and weary to raise and butcher hogs every year. The people, the ways, the days and the child are long gone now but every year during the holidays I find myself wandering back to those innocent and carefree times in my life and give thanks for how they helped shape the way I find myself in this world of today. My best to all, Jeff

Friday November 19, 2010 Hello, Just a quick leaf update. Most have now fallen. Rain all day on Tuesday, followed by 3 days of moderate to high winds have brought the show to an end. There is still abundant beauty here in the mountains. It's just different. Now we need some snow. Jeff

Monday November 15, 2010 Hello, Well, this year and vintage are quickly coming to a close and while my writings here may shorten I will try to keep them informative and maybe at times a little provocative and amusing. After ten months of much loved and impassioned work, it is now so wonderful to still remain busy but also relaxed with little pressure to hurry and get things accomplished. Life slows, allowing mind and body time to regenerate before the passion and the drive renews in the coming New Year. We seem to be enjoying a delayed autumn leaf show. After a beautiful early display, there was a lull and I thought at the time that this year's colors were mutted and hurt by the drought but all of a sudden in the last few days and after a few cold nights, the oaks are showcasing their coat of arms with Halloween oranges and burnt reds. A couple of posts before, I proclaimed that "NOW IS THE TIME TO VISIT", well the multitudes have come and are gone, it's tranquil and serene and...pssst, "now is the time". But delay not, for the curtain will soon fall as it won't be long before we experience our first killing hard-freeze and this beautiful surprise encore will come to an abrupt end. Just to clarify, I'm not suggesting that everyone come quickly and visit my farm winery. But the mountains in Shenandoah National Park are quite beautiful right now and well worth a drive along it's skyline. Recently on a cold and frosty morning we pressed off our last lot of grapes and two days later the wine filled our last few remaining barrels. This year we produced a total of thirty barrels of red wine, representing a 33% increase over previous years. We're small but slowly growing as our newly planted vineyards begin to produce. In a couple more years, once all of our vineyards are in full production we will be making around one hundred barrels of red wine each year. Still on the small size but plenty for me and my crew to handle. During the winter Kelly and I like to get into DC once or twice a month and visit museums, galleries, the theatre and of course dine at area restaurants. We recently came to the city and participated in the Food for Tomorrow Symposium produced by the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation at the Smithsonian Museum of American History. With our very own Dave McIntyre moderating, I was one on a panel of five winemakers from Virginia, Maryland and New York talking about the innovative methods we are using to grow higher and higher quality wine in this most inhospitable wine growing region on the planet. My focus was on water and how by planting on steeper and steeper slopes and in rocky, less fertile soils I am trying to reduce the quantity of water available to my vines, thereby keeping them small and producing more flavorful and concentrated fruit. A reception followed with each of us providing two wines for the attendees to sample. This was also a chance for the guests and winemakers to interact and talk more in depth about our vineyards, wines, methods and visions. Innovation in the wine industry is actually quite rare. Viticulture and enology are a centuries old art, practiced all around the globe and what might appear to be innovative is usually and simply a reapplication of learned techniques or technologies from one region to another. Case in point: I have two plantings of Cabernet Sauvignon in our Hodder Hill vineyard, a 1996 planting and a 2004 planting. This year, as the grapes were fermenting, I was tasting everyday and while thrilled by the depth and concentration of the 2004 lot, for some reason the 1996 lot was light in color, a little thin bodied and not too interesting. I could not understand it and it puzzled me for days. In my mind the 2004 Cab was definitely Hodder Hill quality but I felt the 1996 Cab would have to be declassified for this vintage. After much thinking and worrying an idea came to me that I thought might help improve the 1996 lot. What I decided to do was to incorporate a technique used in Valpolicella, Italy to make a wine called Ripasso. Meaning repassed; basically the Valpolicella winemakers take leftover pomace from making Amarone wine and add this to their fermenting Valpolicella wines to increase body, flavor, color, complexity and concentration. I realized that the 2004 lot of grapes had much more to give, just not to the 2004 lot of wine. So after pressing these grapes, we added these back to the 1996 lot still soaking in bins. The next morning when performing punch downs I once again tasted this lot and it had already changed for the better. Color and flavor had deepened and after four more days of soaking, this last lot was pressed off and is now destined to become part of our Hodder Hill blend. Innovative, well maybe for Virginia or Glen Manor, but more than likely simply showing the importance for winemakers to learn about and taste wines from all over the world of wine. Hey, Happy Thanksgiving to all! Jeff

What's your favorite spot and order? If ever in Front Royal, mine is L Dees Pancake House on Main street. Nothing fancy. Just many ways of eating eggs and pork. A popular see and catch up with your locals joint.

Vodka tonic and when sick or in winter a hot toddy - 1.5 oz bourbon whiskey, 1.25 oz lemon juice, .75 oz honey, 1 slice lemon, 1 clove and or cinnamon stick, and 4 oz hot water. If rushed skip all but the bourbon.

Good try. Sciurus carolinensis or eastern gray squirrel simply rolled in seasoned flour then pan fried. Paired with a great California Cabernet, two fine Burdundys, white and red and some wonderful neighbors.

Any guess?

I'll be here on 11/6

Sunday October 31, 2010 Hello and Happy Halloween! There's a shift in the mountain winds, our farm is quieting, the forest leaves are bright with color but fast being pulled to the ground and we are entering a time of rest and reflection. For another year the excitement and sweat of harvest has come and left. Our year long efforts are in barrel and tank, needing only a weekly tasting. It's a very satisfying feeling but at the same time can be a bit of a downer, for in just a couple of days we went from going one hundred miles per hour to going under one. Mounds of paperwork lie on our desks, piles of laundry on our floors, emails went unanswered, our dogs are hungry for a long run and someone appears to be living inside my truck. So we attack all of these procrastinations as if a storm is coming and grapes are ripe for picking. But like a litter of Brittany pups at the backdoor screen, we also charge outside to split firewood, clean out gutters, rake leaves or mend fences. Oh to do anything, just to be out of doors in the sun and in the air, moving and alive. The last lots of 2010 grapes have finished primary fermentation and are soaking in bins while I taste to decide when to press off. With these I decided to inoculate with malo-lactic bacteria right in the bins instead of waiting until after the grapes are pressed and the wine is racked into barrel. This will move up the date when this fermentation completes and while soaking, the carbon dioxide generated will help protect the wine from microbial spoilage. We did press off the 1997 lot of Petit Verdot, filling three barrels. Because of it's high concentration of tannins and flavor, Petit Verdot does not require extended extraction time on it's skins after alcohol fermentation is complete. In fact, a little too much time on it's skins and this wine can quickly become over extracted and out of balance. Office work, oh how I love my office work. I love looking at it so much it piles high on my desk, currently about a foot and a half and then I dive in on one cold or rainy day. I am now making plans for a March 2011 bottling of this year's white wines and some 2009 red wine. Our capsules are custom made and have about a twelve week turn around time so these are priority one. We are also looking at various bottle designs for our new Petit Manseng wine. A winter "to do" list is being prepared. We do not start pruning until mid December so for now other farm projects can be completed. So far I have a couple of fences that need to be constructed on the farm, one allowing cattle to graze in the warm season grass field near the winery and another excluding cattle from a narrow stretch of forest. I also plan to build a work bench and install a sink in the pesticide building so these two will be wet weather day projects. Before and after sundown, warm season grasses: The fall leaf season has peaked and it appears the drought did impact this year's show. The surrounding mountain tops went from green to brown while along their flanks and bottom, colors were much more pronounced and lasting. I assume this was so because the high mountain tops and steep side slopes held much less water than down at lower elevations and on less angled ground. Our vineyard leaves are just now starting to show their fall colors, mostly yellows and I'll post more photos in the coming weeks but here are a few taken recently. We were inspected recently by the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, VDACS. This surprise inspection happens once a year, usually around harvest and mainly looks for general cleanliness, insect and rodent infestations and also tests our well water for harmful bacteria. We passed with honors. With the end of summer and harvest come autumn and the start of Virginia's hunting season. It's a grand time to be afield. The air is crisp and cool, while the sun brings welcomed warmth and as more and more leaves fall to the forest floor the mysterious dark mountains open to reveal some of their secrets. Sitting on the spine of a ridge top one can witness nature a quarter of a mile away as bear, deer, turkey, coyotes and the rarely seen cougars make their way across nearby ridges and mountain sides. Shots ring out all through the mountains and valleys as people take to the woods and test fire rifles in their backyards. I hunted dove back in September and now Kelly has requested a rabbit and a few of them live amongst my vines, eating low hanging grapes. I figure it's an even trade. So as I have since childhood, I'll take gun in hand and venture out into our wilds in search of game for our evening dinner table. And as I enjoy this annual pastime and season, but void of the pleasures of harvest, the pile on my desk grows a little higher. My best to all, Jeff