Sunday, October 26, 2014

What I've Been Up To


You may (or may not) have noticed that this blog has become very, very quiet over the past year. No, I didn't stop drinking wine or talking about wine. What happened is that I started making wine, and also begun trying to sell that very same wine. The demands on my time have grown while the desire to write about wine samples has diminished. Sure, there are other topics to write about, but several of my fellow bloggers do a great job already and I don't feel like I have much to add.


Anyways, in October 2012 I bought some wine grapes from a grower in the Horse Heaven Hills AVA. .83 tons of petit verdot and 1.3 tons of tempranillo. Enough for about 125 cases of wine, or, 5 barrels. Last year I bought enough wine for about 250 cases of wine, working with gamay noir, pinot noir, syrah, viognier, and cabernet franc. This year I went with syrah, viognier, and cabernet franc again while also working with marsanne, grenache blanc, and cinsault. Production will be roughly 350 cases.


Under the supervision of the Kramers, I've managed to turn those grapes into some delicious wines. As I continue to learn more about the processes of wine making, grape growing, and of course, wine sales, the demands on my time will continue to grow. My eventual goal is to turn Random Wine Company, my little winery, into something almost self sustaining. I'd love to quit my day job and work full time selling my wines across the country, but first I need to increase sales here in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest.

I'm not shutting Beau's Barrel Room down, far from it, and I intend to update much more frequently going forward. You'll still get my honest thoughts about the wines featured here, the good, great, bad, and ugly. I'll recommend wines to buy, I'll recommend avoiding others. I've been at this since 2009 and it's still fulfilling to publish blog entries. More importantly, it's fun being a part of the blogger community. There are some really talented folks writing wine blogs these days, maybe I'll write a list for you all to check out.

Thank you for reading my words over the past five years, thanks for the interactions, and thank you for your time. If you're interested in purchasing my wines, you're welcome to head over to RandomWineCompany.com to check out the current releases.

Beau Carufel