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So, over the weekend I had one of, if not the most, enjoyable day since starting Uncorked Ventures. My wife and I went to Eagles Nest Winery in Ramona, CA about 15 miles east of where we live) to help with the bottling of their free range Cabernet Sauvignon.
We arrived around 9am and had a couple of moments to chat with Dennis and Julie, who fill the multiple functions of winery owner, vineyard manager and winemaker. They were both extremely pleasant and both my wife and I enjoyed chatting with them both throughout the day, even though I imagine my thoughts about meeting the two of them are similar to what people think about my wife and I….Julie is much more chatty then Dennis is….just as Michelle is much more chatty then I am.
After meeting some of the volunteers, including Bill Eyer of Cuvee Corner we went with Julie down to another part of the farm to help organize some of their standing inventory because we would be bottling approximately 75 cases later in the day. We spent about two hours moving boxes, organizing wine and generally trying to create some extra space where available. I’m not the most organized guy in the world (far from it) so it was good to have Michelle there to help….plus we weren’t complaining in being an air conditioned room as summer has made another appearance in California.
After getting last year’s vintage organized we moved up to the bottling room with the other volunteers. What we found there was a bottle filler….A pump moves the wine from the barrel up into a holding tank and then four bottles can be filled at once, there is a sensor to shut off the filler once a bottle is filled to the correct level.
After being filled they are moved over to be corked. As we found throughout the day the ladies did a better job with the new corking machine as they weren’t as impatient as the guys. The guys typically moved too quickly and would cause the machine to lose pressure and necessitate a couple minute wine drinking break….maybe it wasn’t such an accident lol!
After corking it came time for the seal to be placed over the cork. Here we found another new machine of Italian origin. After getting a good laugh at the instruction manual (yes it was in English as well as Italian) because it never suggested a setting for the heated element, we tried out a few different techniques. It seems that the correct technique to have a balanced melt of the seal is to move downward quickly and then slightly pause at the bottom, before moving up again quickly. I can definitely say, this was not a strong suit of mine….I enjoyed filling the wine bottles much more!
Normally you’d also apply the label at that time and near the time when we left they started applying some of the labels, but Eagles Nest does a lot of custom labeling for customers so much of the wine is not labeled until directly after sale….which also necessitates part of the organizing of the wine storage area!
A picture of some of the wine going down to the storage area:
All in all both Michelle and I had a great time. Eagles Nest served a lunch of lasagna, garlic bread, salad and wine as well as sending us home with two of their dessert wines. They have a cottage on the property which is like a really, really nice studio apartment which is available for rent. It is just a ways down from where Julie and Dennis (the owners) live and is in the middle of the vines as well as having an amazing wrap around porch with a view of the entire Ramona Valley.
Since this is mostly a wine blog and I am starting a wine business it would not be complete without a mention of the wines we tasted.
During the bottling process we were able to taste their free run Cab…which we generally thought was ok. At lunch we had a glass of Souzaoo which I thought was pretty good and an excellent pairing with the lasagna.
After seeing the winery up close and seeing the amount of time, effort and capital that Eagles Nest is spending to improve its product I have a new appreciation for the struggles that new wineries face. It also makes me understand the old adage from Napa that in the wine industry it takes a large fortune in order to make a small one.
This is the type of family owned, small production winery that we’d love to be able to work with, assuming they are producing world class wines.
At this time, to be perfectly honest I’ve tasted wines in that same price range that I’ve been more impressed with. We have been invited to come back and taste some other wines with Dennis and Julie and may take them up on that offer in the future.
I would encourage anyone in the San Diego area, if you want to spend a night at a very nice location with very nice people and take home some wine that’s better then what you find in Temecula, give Eagles Nest a try.
