lunch & tasting

What delicious stuff the Duke is!

Here we are in the lab. Tim, Kevin Mitchell, and I tasted the new vintage of Duke Grenache to see what vineyards made the cut to make the bottling.

The guys measured out the blends in a number of ways, and we ended up with 99% of the Grenache blend and 1% Shiraz added in. It was delicious, considering it was a raw wine.

All of the tastings you do in a barrel room have to be taken into consideration differently than when you're trying a finished product. They're rougher, more masculine, and the oak jumps out at you. If you can get past the edginess, you have a chance to see what the wine is going to be about. And this wine is going to be GOOD.
You'll see the medicine bottle-looking collection behind the glasses, with the different selections of barrel samples we were trying.

Our break for lunch in Sevenhill included salt and pepper calamari, a beautiful chili plum dipping sauce, and salad. The Knappstein reserve lager was delicious!

Here are Nedd, proprietor, and Andrea, chef at the Sevenhill Hotel.

Nedd and I went down to check out the wine cellar and he showed off his Kilikanoon 3 liter. Diners at the Hotel can go downstairs and pick out their own bottles. Seems he's selling some Special K--he had to order a little of everything for the upcoming Gourmet festival.

Tomorrow we start getting the wines ready for the festival, but for now I'm going to have a glass of the Charles Melton Rose of Virginia I snagged at the hotel. It is delicious!