Five Facts About Roussanne That Will Make You Look Like A True Wine Expert!
What is Roussanne? A type of Vitis vinifera grape with beautiful golden skin that burnishes to copper during ripening, Roussanne is one of the four white wines we make at Merry Cellars. In the alpine Savoy region in eastern France this grape is known as Bergeron. Where does Roussanne come from? This variety is […]
Rosé FAQ
Why do we call this pink wine ‘rosé’? Rosé is the French word for the color pink, and English-speaking wine regions are historically rather francophilic with their wine vocabulary. Why are rosés different colors? The duration of the grape skins’ contact with the juice during the pressing or fermentation process determines the intensity of […]
Sparkling Wine: In history, in the cellar, in the glass.
TYPES OF SPARKLES (And is there a difference between sparkling wine and Champagne, anyway?) It’s the epitome of celebration, the exclamation point on a toast, the most fun you can have in a glass—sparkling wine as a concept supersedes its value as a beverage. Its almost mythic status in the world of wine can […]
Blending Process
Arguably the most important step in the process of winemaking (beyond harvest, of course; crush wins every contest!) is the blending. Once vintage is over and we’ve had a bit of a chance to recover, we turn our attention to the bottling schedule, which in turn dictates the deadlines for each wine to be finalized. […]
Cold Stabilization
A stable wine is one for which, under normal storage conditions, there will be no change physically or sensorially in the time between bottling and drinking. This includes visual changes as well as those in mouthfeel, taste, and aroma. Through testing and trialing, we do our best to protect a wine’s stability for a reasonable […]
Winter Pruning
Everyone knows the busiest time in the vineyard is harvest season, but that doesn’t mean the rest of the year is slow or dull. Spring work begins in early February and the first task to tackle is pruning. Pruning is a process familiar to most, referring to the physical removal of excessive woody growth from […]
A Brief Look Into The Washington Wine Industry
Making wine may start out as a hobby for many in Washington, but the organized industry contributes significantly to the economy. In 2022 an estimated $9.51 billion was generated across all sectors, from nurseries and vineyards to tasting rooms and tourism. There are 836 wineries in the state, with more coming all the time; and […]
The Four Main Kinds of Grape
Grapes are a type of fruit botanically categorized as “berry”. Some traits of true berries are that they have internal seeds and pulp, and the fruit develops from the ovary of a flower. The general growth habit of grapes is to grow in clusters from a woody vine. Wine grapes are processed immediately after harvest […]
The Four Ways of Making Rosé
Sip sip hooray, it’s time for Rosé! We all seem to love the pink stuff, but how does it find its way into your glass? There are four standard ways of creating the beautiful beverage. The method we use at Merry Cellars is direct pressing. The red grapes are thrown in the press straight from […]