News

September
Around here we have a love / hate relationship with the month of September. On the love side September marks the begining of harvest. The time of the year when we get to ignore all of the day-to-day tedium like paying bills and writing social media posts in favor of making wine. There is nothing we’d rather do than make wine. On the hate side this is the most acessible month for organizations to host events. The weather cools off and the kids are back in school. September is both the national and California Wine Month. It’s wine club releases and Tast of Morgan Hill. Every school is having their fund raisers. Finally, there’s the Wineries of Santa Clara Valley Fall Passport.

Don’t get us wrong, we love all of the opportunities to interact with our guests and make new friends, but it can be a grind. So if you see us around the winery with dark circles under our eyes and looking a little worn-out, dont worry, were just a little tired and it will pass… in December…when harvest is over.

August
Look out, here comes harvest!  The grapes have all started to change from green to red and the birds have begun to take notice.  That means we’re only about six weeks from picking and the beginning of harvest.  But first there’s the last of the bottling to do and the winery to reconfigure for fermentation.  We’ve pretty much grown into every available square inch of the winery building but for harvest we’ll need to find some room somewhere.  That means a lot of stacking and squeezing.  Some of the wines will be double-checked and tucked in for a winter’s nap.  We’ll see them again next January as we dig out from all of the new wines.

July
This is a month that is normally pretty lax in the winemaking world. Spring bottling is over and harvest is coming but still far enough away that we can ignore it and relax. We’ve been using the time to improve the grounds around the Tasting Room. We’ve doubled the grassy area next to the Tasting Room and brought in more lawn games; Cornhole, Ladder Golf, Giant Jenga, Lawn Darts, and more. We’ve also moved most of the picnic tables to the older grassy area and added umbrellas for a little shade. In front of the Tasting Room you may notice we added bark and some beautiful flowering plants to the two planters. Finally we’ve added head-trained grapes to each of the half-barrel planters along the edge of the picnic area. All-in-all we think things are starting to come together and we’ve got a beautiful setting in which to enjoy the wines of our three winemakers.

Like we said above, harvest is coming. (Reminder to self, source “Harvest is Coming T-Shirts”!) What that means at this time of the year is a lot of cleaning. Then we’ll test everything and then clean everything one last time before the grapes arrive. The first grapes, Chardonnay, can come as early as the last week of August but things really get rocking in the first couple weeks of September. This is the fourth harvest at Blended – can you believe it? – and things have become pretty routine. Our expected production for this harvest is somewhere around 7,500 gallons of wine, or just over 3,000 cases between the three labels.

Blended is still open every Saturday and Sunday from noon to 5pm for La Vie Dansante Wines, Medeiros Family Wines, and TASS Vineyards & Winery. On the weekdays, specifically Monday, Thursday, and Friday, the Tasting Room becomes La Vie Dansante Wines. That means you can still purchase Medeiros and TASS wines by the bottle but the tasting list is only La Vie Dansante Wines. The tasting fee is still $10 (refundable) for five to six wines poured by owner and winemaker Jeff Fadness. Come in during the week, relax, and share some wine with him.

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