Today is turning out to be one of those “you know you’ve gone overboard when…” kind of days. This year has turned out to be an incredibly slow MLF (malolactic fermentation) year. It’s now late May, and I still have a number of barrels chugging along. For reference, if I had to make a broad generalization, I’d say we’re normally through ML before April hits. But not this year.

Anyway, I’ve been playing road warrior lately and needed a bit of help in the cellar from one of our winemakin’ friends. I asked him to take samples from a few barrels for MLF testing… just 45 or so. Being a good friend, he called me to basically ask me if I really wanted to take samples out of each barrel, when a perfectly acceptable approach would be to separate the barrels into lots, take representative samples from each barrel, blend them together, and test the blended lots. Hmmm. I hadn’t thought of that. That’s what most people do. A completely valid approach. It’s way easier, and a LOT cheaper. But he doesn’t do it with his wine, either.

In the end, I appreciate that he was trying to save me a pretty significant chunk of money. But we don’t blend anything until the very end. We rack every barrel separately. Every lot has it’s own topping wine. If you ask me, every barrel in the cellar has it’s own personality as a result. Sure, it’s way more work. And although Melinda might tell you otherwise, it’s not like I get a kick out of spending extra money for the sake of spending extra money. But that’s what’s funny about “extra work” - when it’s for something you love, it never quite strikes you that way.