Action in the Cellar
Last week, we organized help from throughout the Winery and bottled what may be a one-day record amount of Red, White, & Blue®. It was made possible by a team effort from everyone involved. We also used the large filter we borrowed and that made fast work of filtering. This week, we will filter Red, […]
Category : Action in the Cellar &Newsletter Articles
The Cellar bottled Cranberry Wine last week and will try to bottle a double batch of Red, White, & Blue® next week. We normally keep our bottling runs to about 650 cases which takes about five hours. With two hours of cleaning before bottling and two hours after the bottling run, that is about the […]
Category : Action in the Cellar &Newsletter Articles
We’ve borrowed a cross-flow filter that we will use until the replacement parts arrive for our own filter in early July. The borrowed filter is much bigger and faster than our own filter, so we having to make numerous adjustments in how we operate it. This week, we will filter Red, White, & Blue® on […]
Category : Action in the Cellar &Newsletter Articles
We’ve borrowed a cross flow filter that we hope to have operational within the next week or two. It is double the size of our filter, so we’re having to make some electrical changes to accommodate it. We have ordered a new pump for our own filter. However, we don’t have a definite delivery date […]
Category : Action in the Cellar &Newsletter Articles
The Cellar Team will bottle Edelweiss on Thursday. Because this bottle is taller and thinner than our regular bottles, we must change the feed screws, star wheels, and related guides to accommodate the “Hoch” bottle. This takes about four man-hours to change, and then, after the run, we have to change it back so we […]
Category : Action in the Cellar
Last week, we pressed our Iowa Prairie Snow®. We’d harvested the grapes right at the beginning of harvest starting August 2, 2017 and then took them to a locker for freezing. We left them at the locker until we could take a day or two to press them. We use our basket press which we […]
Category : Action in the Cellar &Newsletter Articles
This week, the cellar team pressed the frozen grapes to start making Iowa Prairie Snow®. We hand-harvested them early in August and sent them to a locker to be frozen. We brought them back to Tassel Ridge on Friday. The grapes partially thawed and then were pressed in our basket press on Tuesday. We get […]
Category : Action in the Cellar &Newsletter Articles
The Cellar Team has one more grape variety, Steuben, to crush. Steuben is a labrusca sport that is native to New England. It is usually the last grape we harvest each year. We really like the juice it produces because it makes a very popular wine that goes especially well with spicy foods. But, Steuben […]
Category : Action in the Cellar &Newsletter Articles
We will focus on bottling Red, White, & Blue® each week for the next several weeks. We also have a batch of Oskyfizzante® Pink to label. Normally wine is labeled as we bottle it. The fizzy wines, however, are bottled at low temperatures in order to keep the carbonation from escaping into the air. Cold […]
Category : Action in the Cellar &Newsletter Articles
The cellar team bottled 150 cases of Oskyfizzante® Cranberry last week. We do this bottling the old-fashioned, labor intensive way with a short assembly line. The first person rinses each bottle. The second puts the rinsed bottle in the four-spout counter-pressure filler and then removes each bottle as it is filled. The third puts the bottle […]
Category : Action in the Cellar &Newsletter Articles
