“So many moving parts have to come together, and the whole time you’re trying not to screw it all up.”

“Leading up to bottling is a very stressful time.”

July has been a bit of a whirlwind, both in the vineyard and production. Between filtering and bottling our wine in production, to long days and a crazy heat wave in the vineyard it’s been a crazy month.

Generally during the summer months things in the cellar are pretty slow, except when it’s time to get ready for bottling. Tsillan Cellars’ second bottling of the year happens in July. The month started with us getting the 12 different wines we were bottling ready for their big day.

We start by removing the wine from the barrels they had been aging in, and placing it into sanitized stainless steel tanks where it stays until filtration. We choose to cross flow filter our wines, each lot is filtered separately. Once the wines are filtered they are returned to another sanitized tank and ready to be bottled.

Leading up to bottling it is a very stressful time, trying to make sure everything is in order. Do I have the right glass, corks, labels? So many moving parts have to come together, and the whole time you’re trying not to screw it all up. Luckily for us bottling ran perfectly. We were able to bottle a total of 3,800 cases of wine in just under two days. A lot of work, but well worth the finished product.

Just because things in production were busy doesn’t mean we could forget about
the vineyards. The crew as always was making sure the vines were well cared for.
July in the vineyards is always a busy time. We spent a lot of time removing the
leaves around the clusters to open up the canopy. This allows the young grapes to
get acclimated to both the sunlight, and the rising temperatures without getting
sunburned. On top of leaf stripping we were trying to slow and eventually stop the
canopy’s growth. This is done by reducing the amount of water given to the vines.
Once this is accomplished the vines stop putting their efforts into growing the
canopy and start putting all their energy into ripening the grape clusters.

The last part of July has also brought us and the rest of Eastern Washington an
extreme heat event. By the time it’s over we will have at least eight days well over
100 degrees. Anytime temperatures reach 95 degrees or higher grapevines actually
shut down, think of it as they kind of go to sleep. We try to mitigate the problems
the heat may cause by giving the vines plenty of water to drink once the temps
drop and the vines wake up.

Overall things in the vineyard look very promising. Even with the slow start to this
vintage I think 2022 has potential to be a great one.

Until next month. Cheers!