Friday, December 20, 2013

Art I'm making: More Collages (December 20, 2013)


I've completed three new collages in the past couple of days. I work with acrylic paints to make colored paper, often printing on the paper using paint spread on glass to create mono-print effects or using painted paper to print directly onto other sheets of paper. The effects continue to amuse me.

I'm quite pleased with these last three, although the deep plum sauce color in a couple of them doesn't photograph very well....



Wines I'm Making: 2013 Rosé Bottled (December 19, 2013)

Yesterday, I bottled our 2013 Sangiovese Rosé. The wine is a beautiful, deep, pink-amber this year--deeper in color than in past years. I don't know why. This year, the grapes soaked about 20 hours with the skins before pressing, which has been fairly typical. Depth of color should mostly be a function of the time the grapes spend on the skins--all else being equal--but the 2012 wine spent 22 hours on the skins and it was a paler color. Whatever the reason for the deep color this year, the wine is pretty. I'm very pleased with the results in general. I think this may be the best rosé we've made so far, edging out the excellent 2009.

We had some very cold weather while the wine was resting (down to as low as about 19 degrees F). Cold causes the formation of tartaric acid crystals in the bottom of the container (photo below), which is very convenient, as it creates a hard crust over the deposit of dead yeast and other precipitates that can be a pain when siphoning wine. With the rosé, siphoning is always a breeze as there is nothing floating freely to cloud the wine or suck up from the bottom; it's all encapsulated by the crust of crystals.

We had the first bottle last night with an asparagus and portobello mushroom risotto that I made. Excellent, if I do say so myself. Now it's time to design a label.


Sunday, December 15, 2013

Tidbits: RIP--Peter O'Toole and Joan Fontaine (December 15, 2013)

I was very sorry to hear of the death of Peter O'Toole today. I'm sure I'm not the only person who will always think of him in his role as T. E. Lawrence in the film that made him an international star--although he did so much else.... It's been interesting to see how much attention the event has been getting. I read later in the day that actress Joan Fontaine died today as well. It's a shame she's not being remembered as widely. Her death appears to have been overshadowed by that of O'Toole.
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