Chateau Liles

After a nice tasting session at Arger Martucci it was back to the school of wine at Chateau Liles, next on the agenda was bottling. It was time to Bottle the 2006 Vintage so it was all hands on deck for what was a busy day. Vinomaker had been preparing over the past couple of days to ensure it was all organised and while me and tenbellies were in Vegas he and Vinogirl had been confirming the Blends they would be making on the day, with a little help from Thud of course. Along with the Cab Franc and Merlot, there would be a Claret. This process was very serious and took time a patience until Vinomaker and vinogirl were completely happy with the end result.

We arrived early to Napa that morning picking up some pastries to get the party started, Thud and I had done some monkey work sorting out the bottles the day before and now we just needed to move a few barrels to make more space. We started with the Claret, vinomaker was confirming the precise amount of each Varietal again to make sure it was right, just like a recipe but i had a feeling this was a little more complex than your average sponge cake. Then we started to fill the vats, and wow what a smell. some people say that they can never understand the aroma of wine or understand the complexities of different smells and flavours, well i found that this was the cure. The aroma was amplified in a word and the whole room was the glass, the best part was that i was going to be working in this for the rest of the day. Heaven. It was interesting to see see the wines change as each varietal was added and the aroma became more complex and exciting there is so much more to wine than i ever thought and its sucked me in more and more.

The day moved fast with people coming and going helping a little and some helping a lot, unpacking bottles, gassing, filling, corking, boxing and labelling. I didn't count the bottles or the boxes and the time moved quickly until the final bottle had been corked and the days last barrel emptied. Seeing the final process has started a growing interest in making the wine, the day before i had talked with vinomaker in a lesson about how to know when its time to harvest, tasting the berry and inspecting it inside and out and then going through the picking and pressing. Every time i visited Napa on my trip i had learned more and feed my passion for this tiny fruit. We Ended the day with of course a few bottles of wine, and Vinomaker opening a bottle Merlot he had been saving just for curiosity. Talking about wine, drinking and making wine in the birth place of new age wine is indeed the only way to do it and yet no pompous up tight wine snobs in sight but just people who loved to chat and drink the stuff. I love it.