This weekend spawned a great change in me. I became cultured. I learned how to make my own wine…And then I went to Cabella’s and played shooting and bass fishing games for about three hours while eating elk jerky and wearing my new “Browning” hat.
I was invited down to Classic Winemakers, a winery in down near St. Martin’s University (which we won’t hold against them, one of the owners spent some time at PLU so he gets a pass). Through a coupon on “Living Social” that I’d promote, but you can’t even get it anymore anyway, we got to make 12 bottles of wine for $100. Solid deal if you ask me.
After tasting about 20 different varieties, we landed on a Pinot Noir (one of three different Pinots you can make) and Josh Monti, one of the owners, came in and took us through the process. We did all the work, and he explained what we were doing as we went along, right down to the reason we added oak extract pellets (namely, because a $1200 French Oak barrel wouldn’t really work with a coupon). This is a process I understand more and more winemakers are using, and it was fun to see it in action.
We added the juice, the oak and probably a few more things I can’t remember (if you want to know, go give it a shot! It was a lot of fun), and then stirred them together before creating a vortex in the barrel and adding the yeast.
Once the yeast was added, we sealed it up. The wine will stay at their facility for 4-8 weeks (in the Pinot’s case, four) during which time they’ll keep it under supervision and run tests to make sure it’s progressing nicely.
Once it’s ready to go, we’ll head back down and bottle it ourselves. I even get to design the label, which I’ll tell you right now, is going to be awesome. “A Dragon Fighting an Eagle, but not a Normal Eagle, One Like They Had In The Lord Of The Rings Pinot Noir” is going to be the best thing you’ve ever had. Let me know if you want a bottle!
Also, go check out Classic Winemakers. The prices are great and Josh was great about answering questions.
DeVine Wines Notes: Tastings this week will be on Thursday and Saturday and I’ll make sure to post an update, but sign up for the newsletter on www.de-vinewines.com to get the updates emailed directly to you.
NEXT Wednesday (July 28th at 7PM) will be our next game night, which should be pretty intense. Not to brag, but my team is going for our three-peat. It will probably be a tough cork to pop though because I hear the mother-daughter squad with a couple wins under their belt is gunnin’ for us, and I have it on good authority that a team of previous champions is now back from fishing in the Arctic and plans on reclaiming their crown. Let me know if you have any questions or plan on coming! If you reserve a table with me by emailing kevin@de-vinewines.com you’ll get a free appetizer of your choice during the game.
Tags: Classic Winemakers, DeVine Wines, Everett wine, lynnwood happy hour, Lynnwood wine, mill creek happy hour, Mill Creek Wine, seattle happy hour, seattle wine
