vin maison... and the blue ridge mountains

We finally bottled our Vin Maison - way later than I intended to. It looks very pretty, and a sampling of the unaged product was pretty good... now we just have to wait 6 more months to try the finished wine. A word of caution to anyone out there who might have tried this project: don't overheat the bottles! Our oven hasn't been working right, and it kept shutting off when it got up to 250º. To compensate, I turned it way up for a few minutes... and then kind of lost track of time. When I took the bottles out, half of them cracked and one basically exploded in Dave's hand. SO, to recap, when sterilizing the bottles in the oven, place bottles in a cold oven, heat to 250º (and no hotter), and for good measure let them cool before bottling the wine.




Also, I'm going to be heading on a little break this week, off to North Carolina. I'll be back after Labor Day, hopefully with some good pictures. Have a great Labor Day weekend!