Racking in NC

So I'm back down south and this morning the sunlight is pouring straight through the windows brilliantly. It's on the brink of tshirt weather and I have bruises appearing all over again from moving around big heavy things and being awkwardly coordinated. I really wish I could pick this place up and move it to Ohio, or pick up my little 14 acres and plop it down here. Books on tape get me through the car ride and I'm halfway through Plague of the Doves, which has me eagerly awaiting the ride home just to see what happens next. If I had the paper copy, I'd surely have torn through it already.

Anyway, I came down to help with racking, mixing and bottling. The first few days, I just danced around on top of hundreds of cases of wine, reorganizing and bungeeing them together. I have long lists of things to do so I made a pandora station all around Gil Mantera's Party Dream, which works as long as no one is around for the most part and I can dance and sing along. They keep throwing this sweet Swedish dance pop band that's my new fav, if I could only remember their name.
We started racking yesterday. Pretty much, I pump out the wine that's in the barrel, clean out the barrel, put the wine back in the barrel, and taste test the wine. There are hundreds of barrels. I keep thinking that my pallet is getting better but I'm still not sure about a lot of it, and there is no way that I could draw the wine from a barrel and tell you what type and year like Robert can. Oh, and so far, there is one barrel of a reserve merlot that is to die for. And I think I like Sangiovese.
Oh... and the Frontenac...... um, still has some work to be done yet to make it tone down a bit. It's a wine that you put in your mouth and it seems like it's screaming at you. The F. Gris is the same way. The Marquette is mellowing in oak and it should be pretty good. But all of them still have a long way to go.

Hmm, so today is more racking, more catered food, and more wine tastings. Life is good.