Welcome to 2017! This is being sent while we have a sun break, before the rain returns in earnest for the weekend. Napa has had almost 20 inches of rain by New Year. As you can see in this picture, the little slough behind our winery is over half full. While this doesn’t break the drought, it does mean two thirds of our expected seasonal water has already arrived, and there are four months still to go. The lucky folk at Tahoe will be in fresh powder every day of the long holiday break.
Anthony and I thoroughly enjoyed our holidays, even though we were in chilly New England. We watched snow drift past our window while sitting next to a glowing fireplace, walked stiffly on slick ice, wore our heavy coats buttoned up and checked the weather app fairly often. The final reward was making it to our return flight amid snow flurries and being entertained with several colorful de-icing spray sequences. That doesn’t happen at SFO!
Not much has happened in the cellar and this first week is usually one of boxing up 2016, and getting ready for 2017. Winery event dates have been calendared. Rafael and Chris are pulling wine samples for our first taste of the new wines from last fall. Anthony is getting all the final reports ready to close out last year, and lining up our goals for the new year.
Enjoy this brief pause, stay warm and dry, and look forward to the 2014 vintage wines being released. They are stunning.
Cheers, Sandra, Anthony and all of us at BELL