As we were surfing the Internet last night (yes, we know it was Valentine’s Day/night, but we have three words for you: six month old) we stumbled onto one of our favorite local winery websites. The Hess Collection, which we’ve written about on numerous occasions before, always seems to produces some solid, reasonably priced reds–and we find something absolutely peaceful about heading up Mount Veeder to pay them a visit, which we seem to find ourselves doing with some frequency.
Anyway, we were surprised to find a link off the main page of the Hess website to the winery’s new blog, Rocks, Roots and Reds.
The blog, which is utilizing the Wordpress platform and has a Fickr photo-stream in the left sidebar, appears to have started in the middle of January, with just a couple posts since then. The most recent entry is an informative and easy to read post on Malolactic Fermentation–here’s a taste:
The ML fermentation stage is a time just before the wine will start to really show itself. It is a transformational period. Kind of like the latter teen years (16 to 19), awkward but promising. It is when there is a true structure/backbone to the wine, but often hidden behind “walls”. Malic acid is a tart, green apple-like acid, where as, lactic acid is softer, and a more subtle acid. Thus, by allowing this “fermentation”, the wine will not be dominated by acidic aromas and tastes; the acid will not overwhelm the fruit. But, rather the fruit and, if I may, terroir can be expressed in a much more balanced and gentle fashion.
We’ve already added the blog to our list of Napa Wineries with blogs (see right-hand sidebar) and have subscribed to it with Google Reader. Kudos to the team at Hess for joining the blogosphere, now we’ll just have to wait and see if the quality of the content they produce for the blog can live up to the quality of their reds.
TechTags Plugin [ Napa | Napa Valley | wine | winery | Hess | Hess Collection | The Hess Collection | Hess blog | Hess Collection blog | Rocks | Roots and Reds ]
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