News about wine making and wine appreciation by our Deaf fellows and friends, news not about people
Editor: Rusty Wales, the vintner of Prince of Wales wines
Webmaster: Bobby Skedsmo, the creator of the Estate of Skedsmo wines
Wine Quotation:
"Drink wine, and you will sleep well.
Sleep, and you will not sin.
Avoid sin, and you will be saved.
Ergo, drink wine and be saved!"
Old Medieval German Saying
Editor Rusty’s Rap:Malbec Wine
For a long time I have enjoyed several top wine varietals such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Pinot Noir and Sangiovese. Now, I am developing a taste for Malbec, a less known varietal until this century. It had been blended in French red Bordeaux for hundreds of years. More recently, Malbec has emerged to be made 100% Malbec varietal wine, particularly in Argentina and Chile of South America. It is a full-bodied intense wine which is inky violet in color, often with fruity flavors and velvety texture. Malbec's great success is due to Argentina's high altitude region of Mendoza. As you Facebook fans may notice my profile photo, the statute in my backyard is "Jorge", the imaginary grape grower from Argentina shown in the photo below. Those of you who plan to travel to South America should get to know Malbec before going aboard!
Wine Making:
The fall is harvest time! Some friends joined me in making peach wine . . . from scratch. It is more of an experiment where we use real apple cider instead of water as per the old-fashion recipe for making peach wine. It is too soon to report whether it is drinkable as this batch should be aged for several months, or perhaps a year or longer. Stay tuned.
Felix and Pattie prepared fresh peaches prior to mashing them into juice
Felix, Rusty, Pattie and Teresa tested specific gravity. And it passed, yeah, for starting fermenting!
Bobby had his own wine making from a scratch, a Chardonnay. That was more challenging! He actually harvested and collected the grapes himself at Diablo Grande near I-5 and Patterson! Please click the hyperlink for photo album of winemaking.
Bobby collected the grapes at Diablo Grande.
Fun Fact: Wine Cellar
I had great pleasure visiting the wine cellar of my fellow wine enthusiast namely Larry Petersen of Seattle, Washington. His wine cellar is ideal, passive (versus active) where wines are stored in naturally cool and damp areas, usually in a basement with a temperature climate, not controlled by electricity. More remarkable is that Larry himself dug the cellar (with the help of his wife, Leila, and their two daughters and friends) he converted the crawling space into the wine cellar through the closet! View the video in YouTube version and find out what you have missed!:
News in the Deaf Community: StompFest at the Vineyards & Winery
Approximate 18 signing friends attended the annual StompFest at Rusty Grape Vineyard near Vancouver, WA (this editor does not own that place; the name is coincidental) late in September. There were ten wine cut-half barrels in which a team of two must press grapes with their feet in each barrel for five minutes. The team that presses the most juice in weight wins. Out of ten teams, two teams were deaf, my team won 3rd place. We had a blast! And it was a beautiful Indian summer day.
The band played to open StompFest contest. (Karen is on right)
The team "Wine Warriors" (Teresa & Rusty) started stomping race.
We won 3rd place!
Our fans (18 deaf people) were partying with wine and food, having a great fun!
Watch for a major announcement by Deaf Grapevine in the next edition - "Fun Week of Wine Retreat in the Great Pacific Northwest" (hint: learning how to make wine, participating in grape stomping and touring through the great wine country for 4-5 days in the fall of 2012)
