Our third visit to The Wine Press was for racking our wine.

Our new pals Ray and Frank were — of course — there to assist using every step of the racking. But before we began that process, we sampled some of their Wine Press wines,  nibbled Italian table cheese, olives and stuffed cherry peppers  and tried to catch up with each other — as many of our wine-making team hadn’t seen each other since before the new year.

Racking:   Diane held the hose, while Ray commenced the process of draining the wine from our barrel so we could remove and discard the sediment that had precipitated from the liquid. Ray aerated our wine while adding some sulfites to preserve it. (I would have preferred no preservatives — but no one else seemed to mind.)

Ray then drained the muck from the bottom of our barrel, then rinsed and drained the barrel again before we returned our Cabernet to the oak barrel to continue aging.

“Let’s make another barrel,”  suggested Sue, realizes how much fun the process and camaraderie have been. See you in September… for our next step.