Harford County's Finest

After months of reading, I was convinced that I needed a little hands on training before trying to take on the full winemaking process in my garage.  That’s why I was excited when I found Harford Vineyard & Winery, about an hour from the house.  For roughly $12 a bottle, they offered their facilities and winemaker up to amateurs to make a barrel of any variety they choose.  Obviously I chose California Pinot Noir, and starting with the Fall harvest of 2008 I got a semi-hands-on apprenticeship.  I say “semi,” because really we didn’t get to do much.  Over the course of the year we visited the winery 4 times for crushing/de-stemming, pressing, racking and bottling. 

Racking - The act of taking wine from one bucket or carboy and putting it in another.  Seriously, that's all that means.

The winemaker Kevin is a good guy, but he was still working on getting his own winery license at the time while he worked his day job at the local utility company, and I wouldn’t say teaching is one of his strengths.  He’s the kind of guy who answers questions he doesn’t know the answer to with “it’s complicated” or “you wouldn’t understand.”  Nonetheless, we did the whole thing again for the 2009 harvest, which leads to the one thing I did retain from the experience.  We did the exact same thing to the same grapes from the same vineyard two years in a row, and the two resulting wines literally have nothing in common.  The 2008 has a short finish with what my friend Charlie and I like to spin as “wild berry flavors,” but really means its over acidic.  You really almost have to drink it with spicy food to enjoy it.  Meanwhile, the 2009 a love so far. It’s much smoother and fruitier, and ever has a little caramel in its finish.  So either Kevin was out there running undocumented experiments on our wine during the months in between our visits, or its true what my books say about good winemaking: 90% of it is done in the vineyard, and most of that is determined by the weather.