Baby's First Wine Blending

I looked everywhere in my baby book for the "Baby's First Wine Blending" page, but couldn't find it! 

Weird.

There really is no question that children being raised on a vineyard will be exposed to wine at an early age. 

We knew when we decided to start a family we would be integrating our kids into our lifestyle in a healthy way and that having children wouldn't impede our goals and dreams with the vineyard and future winery. 

What great values it will teach them...hard work, constantly learning, chasing dreams, following through, etiquette.

So even at seven weeks...

Our little boy, who is finally becoming more "aware" got his first experience witnessing our wine blending.

Doesn't he look absolutely thrilled to be a part of this?

He sat patiently watching the whole time! 

Aaron took all of the wine we have had fermenting and we (and by "we", I mean Aaron and me only) sampled each and experimented with several different blends--taking notes on each blend and deciding which ones we liked best and how they could improve.

We decided on a couple of different red blends to bottle.

BUT, we also were incredibly pleased with how the Frontenac Gris we picked last fall turned out and are bottling that as is.  I think it will be my favorite sweet white wine for this summer!  YUM!

And we were pleasantly surprised by how phenomenal our 2010 Marquette turned out as well. Aaron tried a different wine-making technique with it and made a major improvement over the Marquette we bottled last year. That's what it's all about...learning, experimenting, and constantly improving!

There is no rule that says we can't stimulate all of Axel's other sense besides taste!  He can see the variations in colors, smell the flavors, hear the clinking glasses.

We are priming him to be a world class wine-maker one day!

But only if that's what he wants to do.

Wine Headaches

Do you get a headache when you drink wine? 

There might soon be a solution! 

I never used to get a headache after drinking a glass of wine.  Having a glass every night probably helped my body develop some sort of tolerance to whatever tannins or flavors might trigger a headache. But then I got pregnant and my tolerance went out the window, so I've noticed that I tend to get them from time to time now that I've been able to have a glass or two again.

Or course, drinking too much of it will trigger a headache for most anyone! 

Aaron sent me an article last week about a new yeast strain that is being developed for wine which reduces the chemicals that produce off-flavors that can trigger headaches in people.  How great would that be?  If this takes off, it could open  the door for a lot of people who shy away from wine because of this unfortunate side effect.  About 30% of people are are sensitive to these chemicals, so it might help this population look at wine differently.  This hasn't been approved yet here in the US but some wineries are experimenting with it.  Also, the word is still not out on this new cross breed of wine yeast and the flavors it imparts and how it compares to the other time tested strains.

That article can be found here if you would like to learn more.
And here is one more site to check-out...

One of my readers recently told me about some really cool products she sells at her Etsy shop and has kindly offered my readers 10% off an entire order with the code WINE10 at check-out.  She has some great wine related items and super creative products for weddings.  When we were planning our "wine themed" wedding, I wish I had known about this "Message in a Bottle" guest book alternative.  Such a cool idea!

There's more where that came from!  Go check out her shop or click her button on my sidebar.