Thornton Winery Winemaker News Blurb

February 2012

Winemaker David Vergari

 Thornton Winery is located in Temecula, a Southern California wine community  just 60 minutes from LA, San Diego and Palm Springs.  In the past, this time of year was a relatively quiet one for wineries.  Man, has that changed!  We’re watching over the barreled wines like hawks, making sure they are topped regularly and sulfured to keep the spoilage “bugs” at bay.  You may not be aware of it, but there’s all kinds of bacteria floating around the cellar, but don’t worry, because they’re not the ones with bad intentions that can make you ill…or worse.  That’s the beauty of wine: its low pH kills the bad guys that you read about in the papers like Clostridium botulinum or Vibrio cholerae (now they give me the creeps).  None of ‘em can survive in wine, which explains why good ol’ vino has been a safe, potable drink for thousands of years.

Pretty cool, eh?

On other fronts, the vines are still dormant with bud-break some weeks away.  We’ve begun pruning—the Zinfandel is already completed—and the cover crop is starting to grow between the vine rows.  I’d like to see a little bit more rain to help things along, but that’s out of my hands.    We’re dealing with Mother Nature here and it’s essential to always remember that Nature bats last.  Pretty soon we’ll be bottling the 2011 sparklers for Tirage, just as soon as I get my hands on some more glass and Arsenio is readying the whites for bottling in early-Spring.  The reds will need racking off the barrel lees, too.

So it goes.  Happy New Year!

David Vergari
Winemaker