My recent post about barrel maintenance has me thinking about barrels more generally. Barrel purchases are our second largest annual cost, right after the grapes themselves. All of our wine ages in oak barrels. We do not, however, want oak characteristics to overpower the fruit, so we use a mix of new and used barrels. We aim for around 15 [...]

We eat a lot of Chinese food at our house. The kids are more adventurous with Chinese than any other cuisine, and they can handle chopsticks as easily as a fork. Unfortunately, we don’t have good Chinese takeout in San Felipe, so if I want wonton soup or mu shu pork, I have to make [...]

The 2006 Flaherty has been available in Chile through online sales by La Cav for almost a year now. Now La Cav has opened their first wine shop at the Alto Las Condes mall in Santiago. The shop is upstairs on the new outdoor terrace, which has been developed as a food and wine center. [...]

Winter is the quiet season for winemaking. The fermentations are finished, and the new wines are resting in barrel. Once the weather starts warming up, the wines will spontaneously go through malolactic fermentation, but for now they just rest. Our main task in the winter is to top up the barrels as the wines slowly [...]