Things are moving on Oude Wellington

Finally the task is done. The picture shows Sydney keeping a good record of every litre of the precious liquid. We moved the old brandy bond warehouse to its new location within the winery. Two days of pumping barrels empty - then carrying them to their new location, stacking them and refilling them with the same brandy as I did not want to loose the character of each individual barrel. The colour and flavour that come from the barrel are importent characteristics of the brandy. So even if the same batch of raw brandy is put in to identical-looking barrels, the flavours will differ as no two trees are alike.

The commercial brands blend the various barrels with great experience in order to achieve the same flavour year after year, whereas we make vintage brandy and select the best-tasting barrels, add demineralized water (absolutely pure water) to reduce the brandy (which is usually about 69-72% alcohol in the barrel) to 40% alcohol and, after cold stabilization and filtration, we bottle it. We categorically do not use any other additive like colour (caramel) or flavour enhancers of any kind.

The old brandy warehouse will become the new wine storage as it is better accessible for the forklift. But before that can happen we have to put in the new door, which is even heavier then the last one.

happy guest

Don't these pictures say it all? Our little guest, 3-year-old Emilia, earned her promised Nutella breakfast as a special treat because she and her brother volunteered to dive for the acorns in the swimming pool which regularly stuff up the creepy-crawly.