Bottling
Preservation of the wine’s fresh aromas and flavors depends on getting the wine from barrel into bottle with military-like precision.
Read MorePruning
Winegrowers don’t agree on much, but we all unhesitatingly profess our love for pruning.
Read MoreLibrary Wines
Rather than totally sell out each vintage, serious wineries hold back a portion of their bottlings. Some of these wine libraries are very extravagant and public. Most are simply a designated corner of the working cellar.
Read MoreTasting Vintage 2018
The vineyard floor is ice coated as partially thawed snow was rained on then re-frozen. This makes pruning hazardous, especially on steep slopes.
Read MoreBorn Under a Bad Sign
Pruning season is upon us. We got an early start this year, which does carry some risks.
Read MoreClimate
On Saturday, December 15, 2018 officially became the wettest year in recorded history for our region. This gave us winegrowers a sort of perverted sense of satisfaction, knowing that it is possible to produce serviceable wines under the most extreme conditions. We do hope the record stands.
Read MoreGoing Dormant
This cold, but not too cold, weather pattern is just what the vines need. They had a most confusing growing season, so a long, restful winter will bode well. A normal, typical, average, uneventful winter would be ideal.
Read MoreVintage 2019 begins (a bit early)
I could not resist. After so many dreary, bone chilling days, yesterday was the perfect day to be outside. Well aware that it is recommended to delay pruning until later in the winter, I started anyway. Pruning is every winegrower’s favorite task. It is creative, it is quiet, and it rewards immediately. It is what we signed up for.
Read MoreBetter With Age
How and why a given wine ages is one of the most frequent questions asked by both novices and professionals. Most winegrowers can readily answer the “how” part, but the “why” part is usually vague and elusive. Best that it remains that way. Science can often ruin a good story.
Read MoreBottle Shock
In some ways bottling is the worst thing that can happen to a wine. A youthful, delicate, expressive wine in barrel or tank will retreat into a shell of itself after bottling. This widely recognized phenomenon is known as bottle shock.
Read MoreWhy No 2018 Reds?
There’s been some puzzlement and confusion coming from Virginia wine enthusiasts who have been following the 2018 vintage.
Read MoreWinter Worries (already)
The consequences of the wet 2018 growing season linger. Most noticeable are the leaves, still hanging on, but not exactly vibrant. The mountains lack their usual luster of fall and are slow to change color. Vine leaves are similar, with the top leaves now all gone exposing still green shoot tips that should be brown. This is the problem.
Read MoreDown Time
The 2018 vintage ended abruptly and left us somewhat dazed for a while. It was an enormously stressful year in which inclement weather dictated hard work and tough decisions. Then it all ended without much fanfare.
Read MoreMoving On
This fall’s harvest has very quickly become a distant memory. We are looking forward now.
Read MoreOver and Out
It was a fortuitous finish of an otherwise dismal vintage. The Petit Manseng grape has grit. A seriously spiteful Mother Nature threw everything she had at these resilient vines, but they still gave us a harvest that will make some of the best wines of 2018.
Read MoreBack to the Cellar
All Linden’s red grapes have been harvested. We have a record amount of rosé fermenting in tanks but no red wines for 2018. It is a very eerie feeling to walk through an empty cellar that should be bustling with pump-overs and punch downs.
Read MoreBig Push
This week we are harvesting all our red grapes. But we will not make any red wine. Growing and harvest conditions have been less than favorable for creating red wines that would make Linden proud. This is our first vintage (since 1987) that we have not produced red wine. Wine is truly made in the vineyard and there is no cellar magic that can change this.
Read MorePlan B
Yesterday we walked the vineyards, tasted grapes, gathered samples, and ran lab tests for the red grapes. And as has become our hourly ritual, we checked the weather forecast.
We then decided to buck up and face the music.
Read MoreCavalry to the Rescue
Yesterday Team Linden was faced with the impossible task of harvesting eight tons of grapes from two different vineyard sites and four different blocks. The crop was ripe but beginning to show signs of degradation due to all the wet weather.
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