Todd Taylor Wines
“Even more importantly, it’s wine, food and the arts. Incorporating those three enhances the quality of life.” – Robert Mondavi
It has been a whirlwind for me after returning from Little Rock on Friday, well, Saturday morning Little Rock time! Busy preparing scarves for the upcoming “Weaving at the Winery” (photos of our practice run) event this Saturday at the “Old Sugar Mill” in Clarksburg, CA, just outside of Sacramento.
There will be four of us, weaving, hopefully not from the wine, well, maybe from the wine, but not too early! 🙂
The Old Sugar Mill is a fun, up and coming spot for local enjoyment. An old sugar mill that was moved from Utah into the Delta, changed hands and then abandoned. Bit by bit it has been being renovated and now houses 7 wineries that crush grapes on the premises. The wine tasting rooms are housed in the same rooms as the barrels that are fermenting with yummy Napa/Sonoma grapes. I’ve learned a lot about the wine business living here. It’s a favorite pass time of just about everyone.
Todd has been very generous with his time educating me on the basics. I’ve learned that the year on the bottle is the year the grapes were harvested. That most vintners are not grape growers and visa versa. That if it says on the bottle that it was made on the Estate it is indeed made on the Estate, reserved for those few who still grow the grapes and crush them on the same premises. That white wines are just grapes picked early and red wines are grapes picked at a more ripened state and the skin left on. This is why you will see some wines in a red, rose, white version as they can be processed at any stage of ripening while others you will only see as white or red – they just don’t work. White is most likely the cause of headaches, which is really an allergic reaction to too much lactic acid from a failure to properly inoculate the wine during the fermentation process. The oak barrels, while they last for 20 years, are only good for flavoring for two years. Todd likes the “oak” flavoring in his wines, so he recycles the barrels after two years by selling them to wineries that want “neutral” barrels in their wines processes. Each time I pummel poor Todd with questions, he takes a moment to seemingly process an answer that is not too complicated. So there may be much more to my understanding left to learn (surely!).
During our practice run, one of the vintner’s dog “Sunshine” meandered over to me while I was weaving and tucked her head under my arm on my lap. She kept coming back to me throughout the day. Of course I decided she knew I was in serious need of Doggie Love with my recent loss of The Kipmeister. I appreciated her efforts to cheer me up immensely.
Anyway, wish us luck and I’ll be sure to give a FULL REPORT of the event.
We’ve been invited for their “Black Friday” event after Thanksgiving as well, which we hope to also participate in. I really hope to get some men’s scarves going and also some shawls, which I haven’t done yet.
My studio is shaping up and operational, though needs more sorting out as time goes on.
I need more yarn?
My “big loom” has yet to get operational. I have two afghan’s that were warped on to the back beam before I left Marylan
d. I’m anxious to get it put together and threaded. I have no idea where the yarn is I bought to weave it, and I don’t
know if I even bought yarn to do that, or decided to wait. I can’t recall. But it will get sorted out and be wonderful.
I’ve gotten pretty proficient on warping enough for three scarves at once and then changing what I weave them with, so they are all different. That has been a fun exploration in color and textures.
And I have a few holiday orders that I’m trying to get filled in between all the goings on.
It’s really good to be busy with such creative and enjoyable endeavors.
My website still languishes, but it will get attention eventually. As my mother used to say to me about housework…. “It’s not going anywhere.”
I couldn’t be embarking on this artistic endeavor without the support of so many, but I just have to give a shout out to Dave. The engineer. As I began to pursue this fledgling dream after his treatment I suggested to him that I needed to “get a job to support my habit”. He turned to me and said, “Forget the job. If this is what you want to do Lori, just do it!” But… but… “I don’t have any money to invest in it.” Dave: “We’ll figure it out. Just get to it.” He has been very supportive. He bought my baby wolf loom, not really understanding the need to have it. He has forked out most of the money for my yarns and display grid wall. Printing and a whole host of other big and little things I needed to really make it a going concern. Thank you sweetie!
Sunshine is a wise dog……. 🙂