Been so long since I’ve blogged but I’ve given up the guilt many year ago, so onward and upward.  Today I had a good day.   What’s a good day for me?  Well, I can tell you, days like this don’t happen often for me so I thought I’d blog about it.

1. 7:00 AM Drove to the back of our vineyard to choose a Gewürztraminer vine for #Gewsday (a weekly chronicle of one vine on our property in 2013) with my 8YO daughter.  She was excited to pick the vine and we settled for Vine 5, Row 15 of GT-1 Block on our home vineyard at Tinhorn Creek. Good way to start.
2. 7:50 AM 8YO safely on the bus for grade 3
3. 8:00 AM Gave a safety orientation to a new cellar employee–a great new addition to our winery and getting off on the right foot.  All good still.
4. 9:00-11:00 AM Meetings (well, it can’t all be good!)
5. 11:00-12:00  More Health and Safety orientation time to new cellar worker, again all good.
6. 12:00-1:00 PMTasted 46 barrels of Oldfield Series red wines…2011 Merlot, 2011 Cabernet Franc and 2011 Syrah.
7. 1:00-3:00 PM Lunch with a fellow winery owner.  Best part of the lunch?  Realizing that each winery that commits to Estate fruit is making a real commitment to their own sense of place.  Anyone can buy fruit and ferment it but there is something so special to compare notes with another winery owner that farms their own land.  Gets to know that one piece of earth–its slopes, frost pockets, nutrient levels, drainage, wildlife pressures and on and on.  Power to the wineries that farm their own land! That’s all I can say about that.
8. 3:00 PM Picked up 8YO from bus, second part of day begins.
9. 3:10 PM Tasted 24 more barrels of Oldfield Series wine from the 2011 vintage–this time the components of our 2BenchRed blend (Merlot and Cab Franc today, Cabernet Sauvignon and Petite Verdot later in the week)
10. 3:50 PM Tasted one “double secret probation” barrel of  something special that’s been at the back of our cellar for 16+ years.  A few people know about it but not many.  Don’t ask me what it is because I will not tell you.
11. 4:00 PM  8YO sang Happy Birthday to my mother, her grandmother, down in California and that warmed my heart, and hers too I suppose.
12. 4:30 PM Said good-bye to an employee of ours who is going on her 2-month Tinhorn Creek-paid sabbatical.  If you have worked at our company for ten years we give you two months off paid to recharge your battery.  It made me happy we do that and worth it when I saw the big smile on her face tonight.
13. 5:00 PM Blogged.  Something I haven’t done in months.

Now I have an entire night to start something new.  Today was a good day in the life of this winemaker, indeed-y.