News

August
On one hand this is an “off” month, it’s slow around the winery and the vineyard. In the winery all of the bottling is (should be) done and it’s still too early to start cleaning up for crush. In the vineyard the fruit has started to turn colors. There’s maybe one more spray to do but all of the thinning and leave pulling is pretty much done and it’s too early to start testing for ripeness. This is our one last chance to take a day or two off before we settle into the harvest routine of long days and longer weeks.

On the other hand there’s ALWAYS stuff that needs attention before crush starts. Mostly it’s a lot of planning (guessing) about how many tons of grapes to expect and where we’re going to put the new wine. This is also the last push for offsite events as Gilroy and Morgan Hill host their end-of-summer festivities. Gilroy has a Car Show coming up in the middle of this month, next month is Taste of Morgan Hill, and The Wineries of Santa Clara Valley will be hosting their Fall Passport in October.

The vineyards are still looking stellar although as I write this it’s 85 degrees and high humidity outside which is a perfect recipe for mildew so we’ll need to keep and eye on that. We’re seeing veraison in all of the varietals here at Blended. Within the next two weeks everything will be purple – well, except the chardonnay of course. Next we’ll see the berries start to soften and get sweet as the acid is burned off for energy. We’re about 5 weeks from the first fruit hitting the crush pad. I would expect it to be Medeiros Family chardonnay since it’s an early ripener. Following that we’ll be looking for La Vie Dansante Grenache and Syrah in mid-September.
 

July
Curious how busy we are around the vineyard and winery these days? So busy that it’s already the middle of July and we’re just getting time to update the website!

Things have settled in to a nice groove around here… three winemakers all aboard and pouring, the grapes are looking fantastic, the weather is beautiful, and other than the normal squirrel “infestation” things are about perfect. And then we remember we’re about six weeks until harvest.

Blended now has an Online Wine Shop, find it under “The Wines” in the menu at the top of this page. Currently only La Vie Dansante and TASS wines are listed but Medeiros Family wines should be coming soon. One small issue is that except for La Vie Dansante wines the wine club member discounts aren’t working on the sales site. You can purchase wine but it won’t recognize your member discount. This is due partially to some work needing to be done at our end but also some background programming that needs to be completed so we’re not sure how long it will take.

Interested in joining one of the three wine clubs? Find information and an online sign-up process under “The Wines” in the menu at the top of this page as well. That part works perfectly.

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