Work has started at the winery. Cleaning out tanks and getting them ready to fill with Texas juice this fall at harvest time. 
The vines are still asleep. Here are the vines at Cox Family Vineyard at the winery covered in snow at the beginning of February. 
This month we are beginning to prune and train the vines that are less vulnerable to a late spring freeze. We’ll leave the Viognier and the other most vulnerable varieties till last. There are old barrels that need to be moved out to make room for other work to be done. 
Then there are barrels of good Texas wine to check on. 
Here is some Merlot, aging in barrels. 
Bobby Cox, our winemaker, is making plans for the varieties and blends that we want to move forward with. 
Here is Daniel, our assistant winemaker. Daniel has been taking classes at Texas Tech University in Enology, but he has the best of both worlds as he learns under Bobby’s teaching. 
And here is Manuel Lechuga our cellar master. They are all bundled up to get to work. With snow on the ground outside it seemed especially chilly inside as well. 
Interesting pipe works. Looks like they are going to start some “racking” of a red wine. As I said earlier, Daniel has been taking enology classes at TTU, but this will be his first actual racking of wine.
And as this was the “first” racking at Pheasant Ridge since the purchase, there were as many “watchers” as there were “workers”. Including myself as the self-appointed PR person. Everything is really just so interesting that everyone wants to show up to watch.
Don’t even ask me what is connected to what, but it was very interesting to watch this whole process. Whatever they were doing their goal is to take some great Texas grown grapes and make them into some spectacular Texas wine.
And the work goes on. I hear that next week they will be using a shiny new pump that we bought last year at the TWGGA fundraising auction. It didn’t get used last year with the short harvest, but it will get some use now. Just a short update to let you know that we are hard at work.
Blessings,
Betty
