Joe Winemaker

This weekend Joe Plonk and TheWife joined forces with our friends FranKen to enter the world of winemaking. Our currently unnamed venture involves Vino Tabi, a custom micro-crush winery in Santa Cruz, California. We’ve joined their Barrel Buddy program where we will own a barrel of wine that is housed in their custom wine making facility. We will be participating in winemaking classes, and enjoying a hands-on approach to each step in the winemaking process from harvest, to crush, to winemaking, to bottling. We know lots about consuming wine, but nothing about making it. For our private label wine, our new friend Katie Fox of Vino Tabi helped us select Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petite Verdot as varietals for our first bottling. Vino Tabi provides education and tools (and oversight by an experienced winemaker) to help new winemakers like us to make the wine of our dreams. No, I won’t be quitting my day job, but hope to gain a better understanding of this magical process with good friends.

Watch out Bob Mondavi! Joe Plonk’s private label is coming in 2010…

Best, Joe Plonk

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