Blessings and Bulldogs

Today was a pretty good day all around. We spent the whole day bulldogging, which I'll get to later. We started off the morning with the annual blessing of the grapes. Everyone had to cut at least one cluster from the Tear Drop vineyard directly in front of the winery. A few speeches were made and then we all toasted with a nice glass of sparkling wine. There really isn't anything I enjoy more than drinking in the AM. Something magical about it.

But after we were done with the blessing, it was back to bulldogging. Bulldogging can be several things, but today we were moving the Russian River pinot noir from the barrels to blend in the tank. We basically were sucking out the wine through these splendid contraptions (below) and pumping it into the tank in the next building. A miracle of engineering in my opinion. We'll probably move it back into barrels early next week and I think we're hoping to get it bottled sometime in September. Don't quote me on that.

Dennis also got back from a vacation today which is awesome mainly because he has an ipod and speakers. Also cause I guess he's got some pretty bad ass stories about choppin wood. Don't ask.