✍️ In winemaking parlance, headspace is the empty area above the surface of the wine inside a partial tank. For example, if you have a 500 gallon tank, but only 400 gallons of wine, then you’ve got a 100 gallon headspace. When making wine, we generally try to avoid headspace, as it can promote a range of potential issues, like oxidation and airborne bacteria or yeasts, on the surface of the wine that can negatively affect the quality. Keeping tanks and barrels completely full is the most effective way to eliminate headspace. If that’s not possible, then filling the void with an inert gas like argon is a good second option.

💬 Headspace for people is a little different than it is for wine. If we can imagine our mind as a wine barrel, and our thoughts as the wine … I think we benefit from having a little headspace, by not having our barrelheads so full of thoughts that they can’t swish around a little, or have room to put more in. Our minds need headspace to allow room for expansion of existing ideas, and room for new ones to flow in. For people, the headspace is where the thoughts can expand, grow and develop.

🦜 For years, Julianna has referred to me as a Barrelhead, because of my lifelong dedication to winemaking … in the same way a Deadhead follows the Grateful Dead or a Parrothead honors the late Jimmy Buffett.

🐾 As a lifelong Barrelhead, I’m charting new winemaking paths, and the most satisfying aspect right now is the fulfilling of a lifelong goal to develop projects and work together with our kids. To truly follow the lead of our dad, Jay Corley, and promote winemaking and grapegrowing to a next generation of Barrelheads.

💧Sadly, it had become increasingly evident that our dad’s original dream and goal of building a multi-generational family wine business was not going to extend to a third generation. Some family members, new to the industry and new to our business, simply didn’t share those same foundational concepts. We will need to chart a new path to continue the legacy.

🧭 After forty years, I find myself charting those new paths … working with my wife Julianna, daughter Ruby, Ruby’s boyfriend Nikos, and our son Jackson (when he’s not playing basketball) has been the most fulfilling and satisfying aspect of this transition!

🙏 Dear Ol’ Dad would be so happy and so proud to see his grandkids leaving a third set of footsteps in the vineyards!