RANDY L. PHELPS

This is the Fall Wine Production Page for Fall, 2006.

In October, grapes in the Sacramento region begin to ripen.   For the first time, I tried my hand at producing wine!  A first run with 125 lbs. of Sangiovese grapes from the Folsom Lake area was tried in early October, followed by 240 lbs. of late-harvest Zinfandel grapes from Placerville, in the Sierra foothills.   Here are some pictures...

 

  Sangiovese00545.jpg (267924 bytes)

The Sangiovese Grapes

        CourtesyoftheWineNazi00552.jpg (242528 bytes)   SangioveseMust00555.jpg (163393 bytes)

          The Crusher-Destemmer and the Resulting "Must"

SangiovesePress00585.jpg (267491 bytes)   SangiovesePress00587.jpg (288985 bytes)   SangiovesePress00578.jpg (242715 bytes)

Can Wine Really Come from this Ugly Stuff?

     SangiovesePress00582.jpg (214181 bytes)   SangiovesePress00584.jpg (292877 bytes)

Well it still has a way to go...

  Zinfandel00608.jpg (168656 bytes)   PiscoZinfandelPicking00611.jpg (192884 bytes)

On to the Zinfandel!    

 ZinfandelVinterPisco00623.jpg (13833 bytes)   ZinfandelCleaning00625.jpg (168757 bytes)   ZinfandelCleaning00629.jpg (141826 bytes)   ZinfandelVinterPisco00622.jpg (16698 bytes)

Master Vintner Pisco, Supervising the Cleaning of the Grapes 

ZinfandelPress00662.jpg (149358 bytes)   ZinfandelPress00646.jpg (183624 bytes)   ZinfandelPress00667.jpg (147446 bytes)

Ugly in, Pretty out (OK, not so Pretty!) 

ZinfandelPress00649.jpg (98581 bytes)    ZinfandelPress00655.jpg (155740 bytes)  ZinfandelPress00669.jpg (167995 bytes)

Does it look like Zinfandel? 

ZinfandelChateauPisco01022.jpg (105947 bytes) 

Perhaps in another year...    

 

Last Updated 26 December 2006.