January in the Winery

Happy New Year! I hope your holidays were filled with joy, family, tasty food and outstanding wine.  Now that it’s 2024, it’s time to get busy again in the winery. 

In January, we need to file annual State and Federal wine production and sales reports and taxes.  It’s the part of winemaking I detest, but it’s better than filing monthly!  I bet you also stress over preparing for and filing your taxes.  When you need a break, stop in for a glass and we'll commiserate.

We also start preparing for spring bottling: stabilizing white and rose’ wines and ordering bottles, corks, screwcaps and labels are some of the tasks ahead this month.

Finally, we monitor whether the 2023 red wines have completed the malolactic fermentation in barrel. This second fermentation converts malic acid to lactic acid, softening the wine.  We use paper chromatography for this testing.  Once complete, we can top off the barrel (completely fill it with wine) and start the aging process.