Ding ding! The winner of our What is Tim doing? question

Thanks for all your creative guesses to what, exactly, Tim was doing with a power drill and a box of upside-down wine bottles. After my mother posted a hint, Joe guessed it exactly: Tim was riddling the bottles, which contain this year's batch of sparkling wines. They have to be rotated regularly, which helps the sediment settle into the necks of the bottles to get them ready for the next step of the process: disgorging.

My father makes our sparkling wines using the fascinating and labor-intensive traditional method known as the Méthode Champenoise. You can read about the process on Wikipedia. For some flying bottle cap fun, watch our video from last year's disgorging day.

And don't miss our Sparkling Chardonnay and Sparkling Nebbiolo Rosé wines, which will be available in very limited quantities from early November until they sell out around New Year's. We're already taking advance reservations for the sparkling wines, so if you'd like us to set aside a bottle or two for you, send us an email.