Bottle <---> Harvest

Hand in hand they go. Wine from years past gets bottled to make room for the new wine that will result from the upcoming harvest. Today Eve, Juan, Mike, Stephanie and Ella helped bottle 2008 Sangiovese Select. These grapes (Brunello Clone of Sangiovese) were harvested from Sweet Sunrise Vineyard (now Sand Reckoner) in 2008 and have been resting for nearly three years in lovely French and American oak barrels. It is one of my favorites. Bottling that wine cleared out the barrels and the settling tanks it had been occupying so that those vessels can now accept the 2011 Tempranillo that we will harvest from our own vineyard this coming weekend. I love the cycles of wine making.