The Husband is getting ready to bottle last year's Syrah.

I don't think I've mentioned that we make wine... Last year together with friends, we purchased a ton of Syrah grapes from a local Topanga - Malibu area grower. That is the wine we are getting ready to bottle.

Fermentation & punching down the cap pictured above.

Pictured above is what it looks like after pressing. This is called the cake. It's the seeds and skins and will end up in the compost. Below is fermented juice being transferred to stainless steel tanks.

We grow white varietals here on our property...
The cool cool breeze from the ocean is perfect for whites, but we don't have the hot temperatures necessary to ripen red wine grapes. Further up in the mountains at higher altitudes produces wonderful red wine grapes. This could be as little as 2 miles away and the climate changes dramatically.

These are pictures of the bottles that we have recycled over the year... they have been scrubbed out and sanitised with a sulfide/acid blend solution. Right now they have water in them.... not wine...darn!

So back to the wine making....We crushed on September 08, fermented, pressed and aged this wine in American Oak.... now it's time to clean and sanitize bottles.

A ton of grapes yields around 730 bottles of wine give or take a few...
I'll post pictures of us bottling soon....

We'll let the wine age further in the bottle and
we'll be drinking it for Thanksgiving.