October 20-22, 2009: Ruckman Haus with Ron and Jay
	May 12-18, 2009: Japanese Tea Gardens/Riverwalk
	Return to the Ruckman Haus Photo Gallery Page

Prudence Ruckman is celebrating her birthday on August 26th, and we have coordinated with her husband, Ron, to surprise her with our presence at the birthday dinner. Guy Blair is also going to surprise her by coming down from Green Bay. It would have been nice had it been a complete surprise, but she was well-aware of what was going on for days before the event. Fred and I will just be there for a single night due to other obligations we already had, and we also decided to work in a trip to Fred's alma mater- Texas A&M University- on the way down. We are actually going to make a big circle, going from Dallas to Texas A&M, then past Washington-on-the-Brazos and over to San Antonio. We arrived in San Antonio on the afternoon of the 26th.

Water 2 Wine in San Antonio

As I said, Ron Ruckman had asked us to be in San Antonio by about 4PM so that we could accompany he and Prudence, Guy Blair, who had also come down to San Antonio for Prudence's birthday, Robin, Ron's niece, and Prudence's sister Nancy and her husband Karl on an outing that was supposed to be a surprise for Prudence. We came in from a visit to Texas A&M in College Station, and arrived, as planned, about three-thirty, and we had a chance to visit a bit with Guy, Nancy and Karl before we all headed off to Water 2 Wine.

What Ron had done, some weeks ago, was to arrange with Water 2 Wine to have him come with Prudence today and bottle a couple of cases of wine and label them with Ruckman Haus labels that Ron had designed with the help of the proprietors. I'd never seen a place like this before. They have a number of types of varietal wines- Merlots, Chablis, and so on- that you can choose from, and a supply of bottles, corking apparatus, labeling machines and so on to turn out your own labeled bottles of wine. It's not the same quality you might get in a high-class restaurant, but it was certainly tasty enough, as reported by everyone but me.

When we arrived at the storefront up on Broadway, I had everyone pose for a picture to record the occasion; that's the one that you see at right. Then we went in to bottle some wine.

The process involves a number of steps. First of all, you have to pick the wine you want from the selection available. I think that Ron had arranged for a Merlot, and I understand that this process has to be done ahead of time so that Water 2 Wine can get the wine from a local or far-away winery. My guess is that you can order any grade of wine as well.

Once the wine has arrived at Water 2 Wine, it is held until the patrons come to bottle it. In the bottling process, the first step is to prepare the bottles, which involves (again, you can, apparently, choose your bottle style and color) washing the bottles and then drying them on racks. Next, you take the bottles to the filling machine, which hooks up to the large vessel containing your wine, and fills each bottle with a pre-determined amount of wine. Once the bottles are filled, then there is another pressure machine that inserts the corks.

Once the corks are in, then Water 2 Wine has a special step (I am not sure that regular wineries would do this) in which the bottles are set onto magnetized "coasters." Allowing the bottles to sit on these magnetized coasters has the effect of smoothing the wine, simulating part of the aging process. I don't know how it works, but that was the explanation I got. Once the bottles have rested for a time on these coasters, then you take them to the labeling station, where you put on the wine bottle labels that have been pre-printed on adhesive sheets by Water 2 Wine. I understand that you can bring your own labels as well, but most people don't have the equipment needed to produce really nice-looking labels.

The last step is to take the labeled bottles to a small machine to put on foil cork covers. Then you're done, and you can sit back and admire the finished product, just before you put the wine into cardboard cases that are also supplied by Water 2 Wine.

Everyone took a hand in one or more of the processes I've described above, and throughout the procedure, everyone, including Prudence and Ron, had a chance to enjoy a glass of Ruckman Haus Merlot.

I took a couple of movies while we were here at Water 2 Wine, and you might want to watch them using the players below:

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Bottle Washing One of the first steps in the self-bottling process is the preparation of the bottles, which involves washing them, a process you can see Prudence doing in this short movie.

 

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Our Group at Water 2 Wine While we were all participating in the bottling process, we were sharing glasses of wine and chatting, and this movie is of some of this conversation.

 

Fred and I took a number of other candid shots while we were going through the wine-bottling process, and I've put thumbnail images for some of these pictures below. Click on them to view the full-size images:

Prudence's Birthday Dinner

When we'd finished bottling the wine, we headed off to Prudence's birthday dinner, which was held at a very nice restaurant, Bistro Vatel, near to Ruckman Haus. We had a very enjoyable time, and both Fred and I took a number of candid shots at the restaurant. Click on the thumbnail images below to have a look at these pictures:

I took one movie at the restaurant, and you can watch that movie with the player below:

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At Bistro Vatel Just to introduce everyone who was present at Prudence's birthday dinner at Bistro Vatel, I made a movie panning around the table and introducing all the celebrants.

 

After dinner, we went back to Ruckman Haus for dessert. Ron had given Prudence a gift of jewelry, and Fred snapped a picture of Prudence opening her gift. Robin had created an "Ace of Cakes" moment with a cake made of fruit, cake and chocolate-covered oriental noodles in a bird's nest shape. And it was really, really good. Here are Nancy and Robin cutting the cake. Prudence had also received flowers from Fred and Nancy, and you can see those arrangements here and here.

Prudence's birthday was very, very enjoyable, and I am glad that we attended.

Around San Antonio

On Thursday, Fred and I had some time to spend with Guy before he, and we, headed off home. During the morning, we had a chance to talk with him out on the East Patio, where Fred also took some pictures of some of Prudence's new additions (you can see them (here and here) and also a picture of me.

For lunch we went to the 410 Diner where Fred also took a picture of Guy, Ron and myself outside the restaurant. We had a pleasant lunch, and then Guy Fred and I said goodbye to Prudence, Ron, Nancy and Karl, we took Guy to the airport and then headed off for home ourselves.

	October 20-22, 2009: Ruckman Haus with Ron and Jay
	May 12-18, 2009: Japanese Tea Gardens/Riverwalk
	Return to the Ruckman Haus Photo Gallery Page