The Sun Stand Still at SOLSTICE 2014
Welcome the sun back – the vineyard was absolutely sparkling this morning. Soon our days will become longer, heralding a new year for the vines. Yountville has had almost 20 inches of rain so far, a wonderful bounce back from last year’s 16 inches for the entire rainy season. Although the local reservoir is full, California needs several trillion gallons to make up what we’ve lost in the last four years. With luck, the storm systems spinning up from the south Pacific will continue through March. Then rain should promptly and entirely stop just before grape flowers open, guaranteeing another perfect growing year in our pretty valley.
Today the winery will close it’s doors on 2014, and everyone will depart to friends and family for a well deserved and restful holiday season celebration. We thank you all for visiting us this year, even if you visited via the newsletter. Our little winery hosted several thousand people in 2014, a far cry from 1998, when we welcomed our first guests. Thank you too for enjoying our wines, and telling us to keep on keeping on. The year was so rich in events – the April bottling during a ferocious storm that blew off the tarps, the great summer party tasting all twenty years of Clone 6, the frenzied competition of 100 STOMPers, and of course, the earthquake in the middle of harvest!
We hope your year was equally rich and rewarding, and that you find a place during the busy holiday season to stand still, enjoy the sun, and be refreshed.
Stand still, feel renewed, then return to the wonderful dance of life in all its seasons as 2015 arrives.
We raise our glasses high and wish you CHEERS!
Anthony, Sandra and all of us at Bell Wine Cellars