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Roll Out Those Barrels

Blog: Living Well

October 20, 2009

Remember the old song, "Roll Out the Barrel; let's have a barrel of fun!"?

Wine is an end-product pleasure. Few see or understand all the work that goes into producing a top quality wine...or even a mediocre one. While some aspects of wine-making might be fun, a lot of hard work in unpleasant weather is often a more accurate description of the job.

   Chuck Egner and Frank Dechaine

           Frank Dechaine

Candace Egner, Frank Dechaine, Laurie Malmquist, Harriett Dechaine

We had helped bottle wine a couple of years ago, but that's as close as we had come to the production process, so when we went up to 37Cellars a few days ago and found Chuck Egner and Frank Dechaine in the middle of pouring off some recently fermented juice into oak barrels, we were able to enjoy watching them work. We love to watch others work.

I did help, at that. Frank was directing the flow of juice when some of it splashed up into his face and into his eyes. As I was closest to him, I answered the call when he shouted, "Will someone please wipe the juice out of my eyes!" That acidic grape juice stings.

We looked at Frank's notebook full of minute details of dates, times, numbers and all the chemistry-related details necessary for making good wine, and listened as he spoke of temperatures, time, oak, yeasts, and.... well, I could go on and on if I could but remember it all.

While I've never been one to say, "It's too late to try to learn all this," I do know I will not become a wine maker. I had learned that Chuck's chemistry background was very helpful to him; don't ask about mine.

I can, however, help in my own way by becoming a great end-user of the product. I have been of help to many other wineries that way, and will continue to help the local wine industry in my own little way. And with wines like these, I'll want to help a lot.

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