Harvest has begun with a vengeance. I usually pride myself on my boy scout like preparations for this time of the year but with sales trips, bottling and adjusting to new equipment I am woefully unprepared. I am starting to feel like I might crack! Quick is there a psychiatrist in the house. All I need to calm my jittery nerves is some wine therapy. A wine in hand and I am ready for another go. Don't mind my ranting, I love this job. It is often times a challenge but very worthwhile. The fruit this year looks great. Adding to my anxiety everyone has been saying it looks like it will be an early harvest, but I have heard that every year. I find Mother Nature has a way of evening things out.

I wanted to say a special thanks to my bottling crew who helped a few weeks ago. Thank you LeaAnne, Janie, Bonnie, Jerry, and Aaron! We managed to bottle 249 cases of Les Collines Syrah, and 64 cases of our first Tempranillo! Kudos to you all, it was a lot of fun except for the bottles that received three corks, oops!

In other news we finally received our first rating. Our 2005 Les Collines Walla Walla Valley Syrah was rated 90 points by Jay Miller in The Wine Advocate. The wine has been flying out the door ever since. I think we have about 20 cases that are not spoken for.

This past week I took my last trip to the Seattle area until the end of harvest. It was nice to see some familiar faces and make some new friends at the Seattle Wine Co in Bellevue and the Country Cottage Wine Merchants in Bothell.

I may have mentioned this to a few people, we are planning a winemakers dinner here in Wally World. It will be the 20th of October at the historical residence of my friends the Kammers. Our wines and the wines of DaMa Cellars will be paired up with seven courses. It’s close to dinner time so I am making myself very hungry at the very thought. More details will follow in the next week.

Stay tuned for more exciting news about the 2007 vintage from Tertulia Cellars.

Ryan Raber

Winemaker

Tertulia Cellars