Evolution of a Wine & Its Maker

I just bottled my 2013 Valdepena. If you’re wondering why I would wait two and a half years to bottle, let me start by saying that I don’t normally do that, but I was in no hurry either. Once you know what you are doing it’s pretty easy to make more than you will drink in a year so the wine cellar fills up. That “know what you are doing” part can be a little tricky, especially for home winemakers just getting into the hobby. If you aren’t part of a winemaking club or don’t have access to people who you know make good wine (defined as wines you really like) to ask advice from, you still have options and ways to improve your winemaking — you just need to train your tongue. Your tongue is the best piece of test equipment you will ever have once it’s trained. For me, that tongue training started with my first Valdepena I ever made. That was about 20 years ago. I was pretty new to winemaking and was making wine from pails of