I finally located the Vidal Blanc vines that I have been wanting. I found a pretty reputable place in NY, called Double A Vinyards. They grow pretty much every varietal you can think of. It’s important that you get quality, disease-free vines. Handling is important. The grape-growing/wine-making forum I belong to highly endorses this place with the bulk of its members ordering from here.

While I was at it, I couldn’t resist the urge to snag a few Swenson White vines. These vines will come in the Spring of 2007. Many varieties are already sold out. Gotta get ’em early.

These new vines will be added to my first-year Mars, Concord and Niagra vines… truly making the backyard, my backyard vineyard 🙂

In addition to the grape vines, I have two Mont Morency cherry trees, one Bing cherry with an additional Bing being added in the spring (for cross-polination) and 1 or 2 North Star trees.

I have made my first batch of Blackberry wine from my brambles also in the back. The goal is to have the backyard supplying I’ll the wine fodder I’ll ever need within 5-6 years. Caio till next time.

Finally got that new driveway we’ve been wanting since we moved into the house. Bit the bullet and did asphalt. Held out so long for cement, but it would have been a cool 12-13k and I knew I’d never spend that kind of cash on a driveway. I found a few flaws already, but the dude is coming back and hopefully squaring things away.

Plenty of pics of the kids and the new driveway in use already! The kids are growing faster then I’d like! Hannah was a natural in preschool and looks forward to every day of it. Here’s the pics for September.

I just got another batch of wine going Sunday night. Chianti. It’s a red wine and more dry that I usually make. I thought it was about that time in my process to try something new and different. That makes a total of six batches of various wines and two batches of beer rippin’ in the cellar.

In my efforts to stock the cellar, I started most batches in the spring. I did start another batch of Watermelon wine over the summer, but it was just too delicate and didn’t survive the fermentation process. It smelled and tasted horrible. That was 3-gallons I dumped about a month ago. After much research, it turns out indeed that Watermelon wine is pretty difficult to make. It is usually better when fermented with another fruit that has more body. I’ll try it again one day.

Most of the wines will be ready to taste around Christmas. But really, they’ll be tasted, adjusted if needed and then bottled to do another 6 months or so in the cellar. I of course always hand a few out ’round the holidays.

I didn’t want all the wines to be done at one time, so hence my efforts to stagger them. It’s my goal to always have something new ready to be tasted, or bottled.

I have always been a fan of country wines i.e. wines made from fruit instead of grapes. I think it may be mainly because I don’t like spending money on base ingredients. I get that from my dad. I am fine with buying my supplies etc., but it gets costly to always have to buy your base ingredients. I grow my own cherries and blackberries in the back yard. While I do have 7 grapevines of various variety going now, they won’t be producing grapes for another year or so. I am planting additional grapevines (and a shitload of various garlic varieties) next Spring.

I did bite the bullet and bought 4 gallons of Gewurstiminer grape juice in late spring just so I could have a grape wine going. I have three other cherry type wines going. One of them also has blackberries in it. Damn that sounds good don’t it? One batch is going on 4 years old. All the wines are going great and they are coasting. That’s why I decided to start a red wine. Yeah, I bought that juice too, and that’s all for this year I promise! Again, my reasoning was because I’ve never made a red grape wine yet and well, I guess you can’t be a vintner without those under your belt.

Anyway, I have about 40 more gallon freezer bags jammed with cherries for other evil experiments 🙂 Ok, that’s all for now.

I was thinking about life a moment ago and of all the things I love to do in this world. Things like, kiss my wife, chalk up the sidewalk with the kids, make music, sniff a bottle of un-corked vino, plant a garden and watch friends prosper. I was thinking about Sept. 11, 5 years ago… and then, all the things in life I take for granted. For a moment, things went quiet and dim.

Shit, life is fast today. You can miss a lot in just a wink. There’s so much to think about now days that it’s easy to forget most of it.

Today, I’m only urging everyone to do nothing, but contemplate what it means to you to do what you really love to do and to give gratitude to those who make it possible. There’s so much I have to forget today, but NOT the people who mean everything to me… and NOT the people in this world who give what they give… to ultimately enable me to forget about life for a while.