Monday Bottling Prep

The list of things to do today was more than 20 long. It was going to be a busy day getting ready for bottling. First up......


The forklift arrived. Which means we have day one of 6 this year of having a totally unqualified forklift driver on site moving around thousands of dollars of glass and wine. That would be me.

I did manage to get the glass truck unloaded though when it arrived right on schedule at 10AM. For those of you who have visited our tiny crushpad you can imagine how tight it is to unload a 28 foot truck full of glass in this small area.

A happy sight though is the glass truck pulling away with nothing broken.


We had some drama with the septic system. The sink in the winery had backed up over night. The plumber was called about 9:30. He just left at 3. It turned out to be a fairly major problem, but we worked around it all day.

The next task was to select a barrel to add to the Haut Tubee blend. We drew samples from five barrels to taste. We decided to move into the dry room to avoid the plumbing repairs going on in the wet room.



We are looking for the barrel that will make is first off least like the other four. We also are looking for something that will compliment what we already have set aside for the Haut Tubee. After a few rounds of tasting we decided on barrel #4. The final blend for 2008 will include:

Merlot 15%

Zinfandel 10%

Syrah 36%

Cabernet Sauvignon 37%

Grenache 2%

Mourvedre (trace)

Cabernet Franc (trace)

Petite Verdot (trace)

Pinot Gris (trace)


We've been topping up barrels and then had to transfer more wine around the last few hours. Next up will be staging the glass. Then we'll do the final sulfur additions to the Haut Tubee. Next will be getting the Syrah ready and we're going to bottle the magnums by hand tonight. We'll also stage the Pinot Noir barrels for tomorrow.


There's still lots of cleaning to do and I'm hopeful that the truck will show up soon and we will get out of here before 6:30 tonight. Tomorrow I'm planing on lots of pictures and short commentary.

Saturday Chardonnay Filtration

Saturday morning we arrived at the winery before 10 AM. We had a busy day planned with final preparation of the Chardonnay for bottling. First up was to remove all the extra insulation from the tank holding the Chardonnay.

Then we had to hook up the filter. No small task, it's only the second time we've used it. Stef had pretty good notes from last year but it still took us 90 minutes or so to get everything hooked up. We also decided to do a final racking so instead of filtering through the bottom bottling valve we finished off the tank with a racking wand.

The wine this year has a small amount of residual sugar so we wanted to get a good filtration on the wine to prevent any problems after bottling. The picture below is the filter all hooked up and working away.


We had one set back that we thought was major, but turned out to be minor. At some point in the last year the filter had been bumped and a pressure valve was turned sideways. We didn't notice the valve was out of position and when we started to tighten down the filter, the valve popped right off. We thought we were stuck, but we were able to route around the broken valve.


I'm glad we did the final racking the tank had a fair amount of lees left. We had guests at 2PM so mostly stopped for the day and did some tasting and had snacks. Stefania cleaned up the tanks around entertaining and we were packed up and on our way home by 6:30

The Bottling Schedule

Tomorrow we will be in the winery getting ready for bottling. I'll bring my computer along and see if we can get hooked up to the wireless. If we can I'll try and do 'live' pictures like we did last year of bottling.

First up we will be filtering our Chardonnay and that involves moving it from tank to tank. Next we'll put together the final blend for the 2008 Haut Tubee and get that into tank. That will mean that the 2008 Eaglepoint Syrah will also have to go into a smaller holding tank and out of barrel. We'll check sulfur levels, and will make any additions we need to.

I will also be hand bottling 12 magnums of the 2008 Eaglepoint Syrah. The logistics of the truck just make it easier to bottle the magnums by hand and cork them with the hand corker. For now the 2008 Pinot Noir will stay in barrel. As we empty out a tank on Tuesday , I'll get the Pinot into an open tank. We'll check sulfur then and I'll also hand bottle 12 magnums of the Pinot Noir.

We're hoping everything will go ok. If we can't finish on Saturday, we'll come back up Sunday to complete the job. If not Sunday will be a hike and then the Sharks game.

Monday we'll be back at the winery. The forklift arrives at 9AM. We'll also bring all the corks and labels with us. The glass will be delivered between 10 and 1 and I'll unload it with the forklift. The bottling truck should arrive about 2 or 3 and we will help get it backed in and level. That process takes about 3 hours. It actually takes longer to get the truck backed in that it does to bottle.

Then we are mostly done for the day. Matt from the bottling company will get the truck all ready to go that night.

Tuesday we will be in the winery about 7AM. We'll have to hook the tanks up to the truck and clean all the hoses. Then we start bottling. It should be done about noon or 1 PM if all goes well. Then we will clean all the tanks and equipment and barrels! I'll help Matt get the truck back out, which only takes about an hour (it's only moving about 60 yards, but it's a few tight turns).

If we are on time and on schedule the truck will show up from the warehouse about 3PM to pick up the bottled wine. If we are behind schedule at all, we'll have to postpone the pick up until Wednesday. I'll get as many pictures and updates in over the next 5 days as I can.

H.R. 5034 a Real Threat to Our WInery

There is a real threat to wineries and winemakers brewing in Congress. Alcohol wholesalers have convinced lawmakers to introduce House Resolution 5034. If passed into law, H.R. 5034 would give states the right to ban wine shipping without having to defend themselves in court. In essence, H.R. 5034 takes state alcohol laws outside the orbit of the the U.S. Constitution's Commerce Clause, it is that provision of the Constitution that led the Supreme Court in 2005 to overrule the plethora of discriminatory wine shipping bans that existed across the country.

This bill would devastate wineries, particularly those that rely on direct to consumer shipping, and of course, it is an attack on consumers who merely want to obtain wines by mail that they cannot find locally.

I urge you to help oppose H.R. 5034. You can do so by immediately using Free The Grapes "Write Your Congressperson" system to send off a letter to your representative: http://www.capwiz.com/freegrapes/issues/alert/?alertid=14948676&type=CO

In addition, if you are on Facebook I urge you to become a fan of the STOPHR5034 page to get regular updates on the bill: http://www.facebook.com/STOPHR5034

The proponents of H.R. 5034 work for the beer and wine wholesalers and are extremely powerful. They are working very hard to get this bill passed. Without an aggressive effort those that value free trade and the ability for consumers and wineries to interact with each other, many wineries will be hurt and consumer rights lost.

Stefania and I have worked very hard to build our winery from the ground up and this bill would be devastating to ourselves and other small family wineries that count on people like you to buy our wines.

Bottling Day is Almost Here!

Stefania has been hard at work pulling together all the moving parts. For those of you with some manufacturing in your background, this is 'Just in Time' manufacturing at its best. Here's Stef's summary:

Bottling Itinerary:

This Saturday, Paul and I will be there to filter and transfer the Chardonnay and prep one of the red wines into tank. Sunday we'll be back up if there is anything else pending from Saturday, otherwise we'll be back up again on Monday.

Nitrogen delivery tomorrow 4/27

Forklift 9a.m. Monday 5/3

Glass delivery from CWT before noon also Monday 5/3

Matt, Artisan Mobile Bottling, after noon Monday 5/3

Bottling 8a.m. Tuesday 5/4

Corks, labels and foils are now all on hand. Foils will go on the bottles that get the Chaine d'Or label. We'll be bottling four different wines.

If I can get a network connection on Tuesday I'll try and get pictures up every few hours.

My Moving Day Updates

I did manage to get one picture taken.

The day went off pretty well. Just that little bit of traffic that slowed us down but otherwise no issues. Enterprise had TWO trucks for us this time, just in case something was wrong with the first one :) I brought back a couple bottles of wine to thank the staff there. We were even able to return the truck early.

Stefania made us some Chowder to watch with the Sharks game:

4 red potatoes
1 leek
2 ears white corn separated
1 cup crab
1/4 c whole milk
3 TBSP olive oil
3 C Beef stock

Sauté sliced leek and cubed potatoes in olive oil add half the cob corn and select pieces of crab meat add beef broth bring to boil them simmer til soft.

Blend on medium speed add milk to thin as needed.

Return to pot add remaining corn and crab.

Garnish with a squeeze of lime and cilantro leaf.

Looks like everything is coming together for bottling. Keeping our fingers crossed though.

The Birds and the Bees Part II

Last year I posted a blog about the birds and the bees. Well guess what, they're back! I've been waiting very patiently for them and finally, they made an appearance. The crimson clover is buzzing, literally and the little flitty birds that like to hang on the wires have been passing through.



It took awhile this morning to track down the Common Yellowthroat. I have two bird books here but neither had a photo that matched the little dude I saw with his black mask. Such a little cutie bird. Also looked up a really large orange bee that I've never spotted before. Turns out he's not really native to this locale, more of a southern Cal kind of guy. After reading up on it, I think I've identified this bee as a male carpenter, except there were two of them chasing each other around....I kind of got the impression they were solo adventurers but there were definitely two of them.

When we got home the other day, a pair of baby cedar waxwings were splashing in the rain water that pooled in the gutter across the street. They were so little and cute!

This morning while I was peering out at the vineyard, a black headed Phoebe perched on the wire and peered back at me. She's been a constant in our yard for months now. Usually we'll hear her in the backyard about an hour before the sun sets and she gets her fill of bugs.

The photos are all stock pics I pulled off the web - the camera I have now would never be able to capture clear shots in my yard. While I was sitting up front the other day trying to identify the Common Yellowthroat I watched one of the crows that's always hanging around chase off the Coopers Hawk. For a suburban neighborhood I get a lot of great bird traffic!

Friendly April 20th - The Dude Abides

Isn't that code for "pot's ok with me"? 420Friendly? Well, yesterday was April 20th and I only wish I had been stoned for part of it.

Instead, Paul took one of his rare and treasured PTO days so that we could try again with the Ag Dept. appointment and rental truck reservations to move barrels. Woke up to heavy rain, groan, this is not going to be a fun day.

By the time we arrived at Enterprise the rain had mostly let up and there were giant billowy clouds with pockets of blue sky and bright sun (yay!). Transferred our stuff from our vehicle to the rental and we were off...right into morning traffic. We missed the carpool window and hit the road with all the other slackers that were late for work.

Made it to the Ag Dept, 45 minutes away, for a 2 minute appointment so Paul could sign some pesticide papers (gov't agencies don't have enough funding for fax machines I guess). Not to mention their office is in a sketchy neighborhood. I knew he'd be right out, but none the less opted to accompany him into the office where I picked up a couple of flyers about pest management for roses.

I have a monstrous hatred for aphids and would rather nuke them dead than try any sort of organic holistic approach like asking them to move on to other gardens. The advice on the flyer says "Choose rose varieties that are disease-resistant.then in the same paragraph)...No roses are completely disease-free, but many can be grown with minimal care." Needless to say, I've had rust, black spot, powdery mildew, aphids and white flies at any given time during the year in my rose garden. The good news though is that Paul can spray the same anti-fungals and oils on my roses that he uses on the vines and I rarely have problems anymore...except for those pesky aphids. Maybe I should try getting them stoned.

Paul signs the forms at the Ag Dept and we head up and over Hwy 84 and take the Scenic Route to Big Basin Vineyards. And it was scenic. Twice I spotted the waves breaking on the coast and there were pockets of steam and fog rising all around us on the mountain. So cool. Ethereal.

We spent the ride bantering about Robert Parker and his scoring "system" and how it reflects on what people are buying and who he is persuading and who he is alienating. At one point, I said, for me, why would I be inclined to trust his tastes? We have nothing in common. I'm a stubborn, head-strong, female, and in my 40's...how are his point ratings going to have any bearing on what I'm buying? They're not and they don't. Like all things artistic and subjective to personal tastes and preferences, it really depends on how much you can be honest and trust yourself.

I bought one wine one time based on a write-up in a subscription Paul has. I happened to flip through the section on Oregon pinots and read the tasting notes. There were 27 aromas noted, one of them being cassis. It was a maker I had wanted to try for a long time but was too timid to spend the money on it, "what if it sucks?". Now I buy (er, Paul buys...) 2+ cases per year for my side.

Got to Big Basin, met Joe there and he loaded up our two barrels of Syrah. Tied them down, in a light rain shower, and got back on our way within 20 minutes. If you've ever driven through Boulder Creek, I'd say they are a lot 420 Friendly folks, some of them stoned more often than not. Not that there's anything wrong with that, just a friendy stereotype I'm making about the area.

Retraced our steps back through the Santa Cruz Mountains to Chaine d'Or and unloaded the barrels into the winery. Popped the bungs, thieved out two samples (one new oak one neutral barrel) and gave it a whirl. Awesome! The Eaglepoint Ranch fruit is great to work with, and I love how it develops in the Seguin Moreau barrels, just awesome. I could have spent the rest of the afternoon thieving Syrah from the barrels.

Put the tailgate back on the truck and headed back to drop it off and get on with the day. Only something evil happened to me. I don't know when or how I did it, but I re-injured the left Trapezius muscle. Oh wow, does that hurt.

Headed home, cleaned up and ventured out for a late snack and a beer (or more) at Rock Bottom. They were pouring a Scotch Ale from cask, so smooth, so creamy, so satisfying. Split a basket of chips and guacamole and a reuben sandwich. The whole time I could overhear our barmates chatting up the countdown to 4:20 and giggling about having some 420 on 4/20 at 4:20. Oh how I wished I could have been stoned and feeling no pain in my back. It's medicinal you know, but I don' thave a prescription.

Got back home and UPS had arrived and delivered a small heavy box. A good friend of mine had to put her kitty down earlier this year, he was 20 years old and she had named him The Dude. In honor of The Dude, I planted a Midas Touch yellow rose (not disease-resistant) in the garden and ordered the rock, it arrived on 4/20. I couldn't have planned that on purpose if I tried....

Weekend work and Paul & Stef days.

Saturday was a full day.

We were out in the vineyard at 8:30 am. The project for the morning was the Sesson Vineyard in the Coyote Valley just south of San Jose. Jerry had already pruned the vineyard but it needed some technical work. It's a young vineyard and many of the plants needed some retraining and repair from some issues last season.

It's the type of work that Stefania and I really need to do ourselves. Each plant needs to be evaluated and a repair plan for it put together based on the plant strength and the position of the new buds. We are training Jerry to help, but it will probably take him a couple years to fully get the concepts down.

Once you 'get it' it goes pretty fast and the three of us were done by 11:30. I really like the potential of this site. The local geography is a lot like the premier and grand crus vineyards of Burgundy. It is on a gentle slope at the base of some very stony hills. There are several layers of soil down to the water table making for a complex mix. The weather is well suited for Cabernet Sauvignon and that's what we've put in.

I've had my eye on this area for many years so we're excited by this project and hope we'll be able to make some wine from the vineyard soon. Below you can see Stef working away.

There is something though in the vineyard that gives my allergies a terrible time. I took several different drugs but finally had to head off to the gym about 3:00 pm. When my allergies get really bad 30-40 minutes on the bike at full speed really seems to help. I'm not sure what it is maybe just pushing all my blood really hard through my system helps.

That night Stefania and I were pouring at a Rotary Club fundraiser with a 1960's theme. It was a good chance to bring out the tie dye. We poured for a few hours and finally headed home about 8:30.

Sunday we got to have a 'Paul and Stef day'. That's what we've started to call the Sunday's we have with no work or obligations. We got up early again and headed to the beach at Pascadero. We walked the beach for about 40 minutes, then headed to Pillar Point harbor. A few years ago the harbormaster there started to allow the fishermen to sell directly off their boats. We bought three Dungeness crabs and a flounder.

We made civiche out of the flounder and Stefania boiled the crabs on the back patio. We lounged in the backyard all afternoon and enjoyed a Chardonnay from Sea Smoke with the fresh seafood. We're still trying to keep Sunday's clear and I hope we can head back to Pillar Point next week!

Flounder Ceviche:

12 oz very fresh flounder or other white fish
1 avocado
1 cup Jicama
2 green onions
1 mango
1/4 cup cilantro
1 small serrano pepper (diced very small)

Chop into bite size bits and mix in a glass bowl with:

Juice from 4 lemons and 3 limes

Allow to sit for 2 hours.

Public Events

"Winery registration fee is $550"

$550! That doesn't include the wine we'll pour, and if it's away from home, which they always are, the travel and hotel. I think I'm declaring that we are done with these events. We'll still do charity events to support charities we like, but the 'for pay' wine event just does not make any sense for a winery to attend.

First there's the cost. $550 is outrageous. The winery is the attraction, it's the reason there is an event. No wineries, no event. So why charge so much? One thing these events always try and promote is that they are attracting 'high income buyers'. Bullshit. I'll say it. Bullshit. If you want to attract high income buyers, charge $50 not $10. $10 attracts drunkards.

Many events don't even try and pretend about that aspect anymore. Instead they promote a 'trade session'. The idea is it's closed to the public and only open to 'trade buyers'. Yeah, more bullshit. The big distributors and retailers give out the trade tickets to their employees and customers. They treat it like a free drinking party.

If I'm going to spend $550, 2 cases of wine and travel on a party it's not going to be to get a bunch of people I don't know or care about drunk. I'd much rather spend that money getting out and visiting personally with people who already buy our wine. Better yet I'd rather spend it entertaining them at the winery and our home.

So we are taking that budget money this year, and saying no to the public events. We're hoping to have some travel plans together soon. We'd like to get to the East Coast, DC, Philly, NJ/NY and Boston. We also would like to get to Florida this year. It's always better to pour wines for friends!

The Best Laid Plans

The climatic scene in Goodfellows came to mind today. In that scene Ray Liotta runs through everything he has to do in his busy day - "pick up his brother...make the meatballs...sell the guns...move the stuff....stir the sauce....catch the plane" and it all comes tumbling down when the ATF shows up on his front driveway.

Well no ATF in my driveway this morning, but a highly scheduled day fell apart pretty early. My PTO days are like gold. I only get so many every year from the day job and I try and save as many of those as I can for harvest time. When I do take one I try and jam as much into it as I can.

The plan this morning: Get up at the normal time 6:30 AM, coffee and paper in bed, then out quick by 7:15. First up Enterprise Rental Car. There I'd reserved a pick up truck for the day. Stefania would drive me over to Enterprise then we'd both head over to Skip's Tires. The FJ Cruiser is in need of new tires, and since it's our only car, the rental truck would mean we could leave it for the day with out worry.

Next we'd be off to the San Mateo Department of Agriculture to renew our operator ID number at 10am. For some reason, the Ag department thinks it's easier for me to come in during a workday to spend 4 minutes getting a stamp on a piece of paper than figuring out someway to do it over the phone. So a 45 minute drive each way to a bad neighborhood in Redwood City for a 5 minute meeting.

Next it would be over to a rock supply company, also in Redwood City. We need about 400 pounds of rocks to replace some posts in the vineyard at Chaine d'Or. Normally it would be a good chore for Jerry B. to do, but I know trying to get all the steps to purchasing the rocks into Spanish, given my poor Spanish, would lead to mayhem. So I figured I'd pick up the rocks and then drive them the 20 minutes up to Chaine d'Or.

From there it's a 50 minute drive through the mountains to Big Basin Vineyards. See if I have the pick up truck, I can load in the two barrels of 2008 Eaglepoint Ranch Syrah I have at Big Basin and move them to Chaine d'Or for bottling. I had it all set up with Joe at Big Basin, and if everything went right we'd be back unloading the wine at Chaine d'Or about 2:30-3:00 PM. Then just an hour back to Skip's Tires, pick up the FJ, then shoot over to Enterprise and return the truck before 5 PM.

Yeah, right.

I'm standing at the counter at Enterprise at 8:00 AM hearing about how there are no trucks in San Jose until 10am. I'm trying to send Joe a message at Big Basin on my iPhone when one comes in from Bradley at Big Basin saying Joe can't do it today after all. Plans - done.

Skip's was ready for us though. I'd gone in on Saturday to pre-order the tires I wanted and get everything set up for today and they were ready for us. Stefania and I walked about 3/4 of a mile to a bookstore to wait out the tires. They look great and should hold up better off road than the old ones did.

Everything else, well it's rescheduled now.

Restaurant and Wine Bar Update

It's been awhile since I've put this up.

Here's where you can currently find our wines locally:

Los Gatos

Cin Cin
Forbes Mill
Summit Store

Aptos

Deer Park Wine

Santa Cruz

Vino Prima
Peachwoods
Hollins House
Vino Cruz

Davenport

Davenport Baker

Palo Alto

Vino Locale

Saratoga

Uncorked

There should be more coming soon and I'll try and keep everyone updated. If you have any leads, send them my way!

The Tax Man Commeth

Stefania and I went and picked up our taxes today. It's a big giant stack of forms. We can't manage them on our own, we have to take them to our CPA. Besides personal, and business, there's an entire subsection of special stuff to do with farming. All in all I think we have to submit about 20-25 different 'schedules'.

Leaving the office reminded me of a normal Spring routine I have.

To all our C.P.A friends - YES you can send in your allocation form to us after April 15th, it's not too late. Every year I stash away a little bit of wine in the 'CPA corner' for orders that come in after tax season. It's something I've been doing since our very first Spring release.

Cold Stabilizing the Chardonnay

Saturday morning we were back in the winery with two tasks to do. First we had to rack and sulfur our 2009 Haut Tubee. This was the last of our red wines to go through this process. We left a little bit of the Haut Tubee in a 5 gallon glass carboy to give everyone an idea of the gunk that we're racking off of when we do this.

I racked the carboy below leaving just the lees at the bottom of the bottle. The wine above was clear. This is the stuff that builds up in the bottom of each barrel.


Then it was on to the Chardonnay. Cold stabilization is the process of chilling down a white wine to remove any tartaric crystals in the wine. The crystals will bind to the side of the tank as we chill the wine. That will prevent them from forming in the bottle.

One step we have to do is wrap the tank in additional insulation so that it will get cold enough. We then turn on the chiller and cool the tank down. The wine is racked into the tank and off of the lees. I use an attachment on the hose so that we leave the gunk in the bottom of the barrel and just get clear wine. The wine will now stay in tank for about 3 weeks.

Stefania cleans out the barrels after we are done. Hot water and high pressure will get them clean. We will then let them dry and sulfur them to prevent infection.

Some of the lees and water coming out after a first rinse. The barrels will be rinsed until the water runs out clean.


Everything went very smoothly and we were out of the winery in time to join some friends for Afghan food that night.

The Tidal Wave (Part 2)

continued.....

There has been some good news lately. Sales in the $25-$40 category, that's 80% of our production, are projected to be up 12% in Q1 2010 from Q1 2009 across the industry. The speculation is that consumers are 'trading up' again. For the past two years the only sector that's seen growth is the $6-$12 range, and experts think those people are now trading up to the $25-$40 range.

Personally I think that's wrong. I think what we're actually seeing is people reentering the market who had left, and they are reentering at a much lower price point. To me it seems that the people who were in the $75+ market simply stopped buying wine in 2009 and waited out the meltdown in that sector, only jumping in for extreme bargains.

Now they are reentering the market, but in the $25-$40 range. Points from a critic and price sticker prestige seem much less important to that group now. It's more about finding wine they can enjoy and cellar that won't break the bank. The practice of 'flipping' - buying rare wine and selling it right away for a profit - has largely disappeared. Now almost every wine can be had at the release price. That takes a lot of the glamour and value out of high priced wines.

I know a lot of people were happy to pay $250 a bottle each for 6 bottles of wine. It was a simple equation for them. Shell out $1500, then flip 3 bottles for $500 each, and walk away with the other three bottles for 'free'. Now that's just not possible and I think that's the group now buying in the $25-$40 range.

Stefania has just closed out the books on our Q1. It was our best quarter ever. Our sales were up 43% over Q4 2009 and 49% over Q1 of 2009. I know there are some people reading this in the wine industry who just spit their coffee on their screen. That is four times better than the average in our sector.

We've been lucky though, we have a great group of loyal customers who we think of foremost as friends. They've held us through. Last year as our wholesale (restaurant and retail) sales fell 52%, they were there to pick up the slack. Direct sales were up 15% which netted us out at a 4% overall gain.

Maybe the most encouraging thing for us is that both direct and wholesale sales in Q1 were the highest we've ever had in a Q1. We are still going to be conservative though. I know that 'tidal wave' is out there and we will be fighting against it over the next few years. We are going to wait until we close out Q2 before we make any commitments on expanding our production in 2010. We're also going to focus on reducing our L.O.C. and equipment loans so we have more liquidity to use against that 'tidal wave'.

This is the unglamorous stuff. Stefania and I sitting at our computers at night pouring over numbers, working on budgets, sorting through invoices and doing all the things to keep a business running. It takes up a lot of our time. We easily spend as much time on this stuff as we do in the winery. We're hopeful though now that we're seeing a breakthrough. We're also so grateful to all our supporters.

Tomorrow we get to go back into the winery and get our Chardonnay ready for bottling. It will be nice to be out of the office and worrying about the wine for a while.

The Tidal Wave

There has been a lot of talk lately in the news and on wine boards about how hard it is in the wine industry right now. One article mentioned that as many as 20-25 wineries in Napa might fail or be sold in distress this year. Our friends at Eaglepoint Ranch have decided to stop making wine and just sell grapes. The hardest hit wines have been those over $75. Even wines that get 100 points from critics are not selling out now.

It's been hard times. Most people in the wine business don't want to talk about it. Everyone has been impacted. For us we've had two really big impacts. The first really had more to do with the low yield harvest in 2008. The low yields meant we had about $30,000 in expenses (mostly barrels) that we had already committed to and ended up not using. It also meant that we came up about $25,000 short in grapes we were selling.

That was a double whammy. One was supposed to pay for the other. All of a sudden we were in the hole $25,000 we were not expecting. That was all happening the very same month the stock market melted down, and yes 10% of our customers are in New York City. But we adjusted our budget, reduced plans for 2009 and cut back on all but the essentials to make wine. It's been a long haul but as we enter Q2 2010, we have no outstanding invoices, just our regular monthly expenses. That's the first time since the Fall of 2008.

The second was we allocated a fair amount of wine to be sold at restaurants and retail in 2008 and 2009. That sector has been hit the hardest. I could probably write a novel about the 'middle tier' in the wine business, but I'll just say I feel let down, and I'm much more cautious now about allocating anything to distributors or brokers. We've managed to kick start those sales, but it's turned out to be 100% our own effort and initiative.

That second item is really what the title of this posting is about. Most of the comments from wine lovers about the crisis have been that they hope their favorite wineries will make it through and offering reasons for hope. In response one winery owner said:

"I think that even if you survive the downturn, you are also going to be swimming against a tidal wave of accumulated inventory being liquidated by those that didn't survive."

Now that's the thing I fear the most. I see it every day, wine being discounted 50% or more, 2 for 1 offers, anything to move inventory. People have a limited amount of money to spend on wine and this 'tidal wave' is going to be the hardest thing for us over the next two years.

This has gotten long, so I'll do a 'part two' tomorrow. In the mean time here's something lighter, a picture of my favorite flower the California Wild Poppy from a hike Stefania and I went on Sunday.

Mourvedre Vineyard Pics

The temperature this morning was in the upper 40's and we had a light rain overnight. The air is crisp and bright and full sun, so far. We're expecting more wet weather in the next day or so.

After seeing Paul off to work, I grabbed the camera and took some quick shots to show you how the Mourvedre and Syrah vines are doing. We are well into bud break now with just a couple of Syrah plants lagging behind.

For those of you that know me, the burst of color in the front yard is of no surprise. I don't have a bland color palette inside the house either. The lupine is blue, the clover is bright red, the daisies are bursting in yellow, and the lavender just bloomed the other day in deep rich purple. It's festive, cheery, and happy right now. The objective is to have all this color erase the memory of the very ugly brown dirt patch that is the vineyard over winter. As the blooms fade and the wildflowers die off, we'll be left with bright vibrant green growth of the vines to fill in the gaps. In theory.

The wildflower mix actually worked pretty well at keeping the noxious dandelions out. There were a lot that came in but I yanked those out of the soggy ground before too long. I saw a couple this morning that I missed, but they are deep enough in the mix that I can't reach them without trampling the clover, so they live, this time.

The orange tree is in full bloom and the lemon tree is getting ready to go (the last two pics).

Open House this Saturday

Please join us on Saturday March 27th from 11am until 3pm for our Spring Open House and Pick Up Day. This is one of just 3 times per year we will have the winery open for visitors so please stop by!

We will be pouring our latest releases and select wines from our older releases. Paul will also host a vineyard tour at Noon and a Cellar Tour at 1:30. Stefania will be cooking snacks (Paul wants hot dogs) We will also have barrel samples of some of our 2008 and 2009 wines available.

If you placed an order in our Spring Release, you wine will be available for pick up. Directions are at:

http://www.chainedor.com/directions.html

As always there is no charge for visiting and sampling wine. An R.S.V.P. would be appreciated so we don't run out of food!

Checking on the Vineyards

With the start of bud break at home it was a good idea to get out this weekend and check on the other vineyards to see how they are doing.

We stopped by the Sesson vineyard and Crimson Clover. Both are still dormant, with no bud break yet. There's some fine tuning we'll need to do on the pruning. Stefania will likely go out this week or next to get that done. Just a few plants with cordons that are too long or too weak and need to be taken back.

The Sesson vineyard will need a mowing before we can work on the pruning there. The Crimson Clover vineyard had just been mowed and looked really great.

The big news for us was a new vineyard resident at Crimson Clover. As I was walking the rows I noticed that there was very little gopher activity. Just a few mounds in one spot. When I got over to the final row we saw why:


You can't really see much except for a little debris hanging out of the box, but someone has moved in to the owl box we installed. Easily a highlight of the weekend in the vineyards for us.

I also got to check on Chaine d'Or. The Cabernet Sauvignon there is still dormant, but the Chardonnay has just started to bud. Jerry mowed the vineyard on Thursday and it looks really great. We will probably have to mow one more time this season, but for now it's in great shape.

Bud Break 2010 - Spring is in the Air

Sorry, I got distracted with the bee in the orange blossoms....next picture

There we go, bud break and the first Grenache grapes in the "Driveway Block"


More distractions, the first poppy is in bloom today, the lupine started about two weeks ago.

Syrah in the "Hot Tub Block"

Also Syrah

The temps hit near 80 today and it's been absolutely beautiful out. The little vines are strong, healthy, and pushing green growth like crazy. The mini-mourvedre vineyard is in bloom (the wildflowers I mean, not the vines) and in the beginning stages of bud break. All the plants are pushing leaves and look healthy.

In the back yard I replaced one rose and added two new ones this year. There was a minor mishap with the gardener and some aggressive use of Round Up last year that damaged the roses pretty severely. They survived the overdose and I'm hoping for some showy blooms in the next few weeks.

The rest of the back yard and vineyard is looking vibrant, and green, and healthy!

On tap for this glorious weekend is a couple of Rib Eyes on the BBQ and some red wine...I don't know which one we'll open yet, but I might pull something from my side tonight and surprise Paul.

Cheers everyone, and HELLO SPRING!!

Spring Open House

On Saturday March 27th from 11am until 3pm we will have the winery open for our Spring Open House and Pick Up Day. This is one of just 3 times per year we will have the winery open for visitors!

We will be pouring our latest releases and select wines from our older releases. Paul will also host a vineyard tour at Noon and a Cellar Tour at 1:30. Stefania will be cooking snacks (Paul wants hot dogs, Stefania wants dim sum so we will probably have both.) We will also have barrel samples of some of our 2008 and 2009 wines available.

If you placed an order in our Spring Release, your wine will be available for pick up. Directions are at:

http://www.chainedor.com/directions.html

As always there is no charge for visiting and sampling wine. If you would like an email invitation and have not yet received one, please drop us a note.

More Racking of the 2009's

On Saturday we were back in the winery to finish up on racking two more 2009 red wines. First stop is usually the bathroom after the long drive and I took this picture walking back to the cellar. It was a beautiful day at Chaine d'Or.

We had two wines in tank that needed to go back into barrel. The first racking is critical for the way we make wine. I like to get a decent sulfur amount into the wine so that we don't have to add more than a little at a time for the rest of the wines stay in barrel. It also gives us a chance to let more of the 'gunk' settle out of the wine.

Here is our assistant winemaker getting her gloves on and getting ready to get started.

We had our 2009 Split Rail Vineyard Syrah and our 2009 Crimson Clover Cabernet Sauvignon to get into barrel. As usual we were very busy during the racking process and I didn't take any pictures. A big part of that is I have to carefully watch the barrels fill up and stop the pump at just the right moment to not over run the barrel.

It's harder than it seems, especially when you reach the bottom of the tank and air starts to get into the hose. That air then burbles out in the barrel and makes judging the last inch or two very difficult.

The last step is clean up. I clean the pump and we both do the hoses. I also get all the equipment away and everything picked up. My shoulders don't fit through the tank opening so Stefania gets the job of cleaning the inside of the tank.

The tank has to be rinsed then she scrubs and disinfects the inside. There's just no way to not get wet so Stef always brings extra shoes.
Then we are done. We leave all the valves and seals open so the tank can't retain water. That might lead to mold. Next up we'll do the 2009 Haut Tubee and then start prepping the 2009 Chardonnay for bottling.

First Look at Our 2009's

This past weekend Stefania and I racked and sulfured four of our 2009 wines. We have to wait until the secondary fermentation is complete before adding sulfur and that usually takes a few months after the wines have gone into barrel.

I think I'm just about to admit defeat when it comes to trying to take pictures on days we rack. I always start off with good intentions, but we end up working non stop and my hands are busy the entire time. I only took only two pictures. This was the first one.

An exciting picture of the top of the tank after I opened it. I was going to take pictures of each step, but we move so fast, and are so busy through everything that it's just not working to try and take photos. But this is the first step. Open the top of the tank. Otherwise when you start to pump the wine back into barrel you will create a terrible vacuum inside the tank.

Then we we are on to all the tasks. We filled barrels, cleaned barrels, sulfured barrels, moved barrels, emptied tanks, cleaned tanks, filled tanks, added Argon, checked pH's, added sulfur, cleaned pumps, cleaned hoses, cleaned bins, stirred Chardonnay, topped Chardonnay, cleaned the floor, emptied toppers, cleaned toppers, filled toppers, and tasted samples. Which is picture #2


I pull about a cup of wine out of each lot and Stefania runs acidity tests on them. Those are the instruments in the back. We also pour a bit of that wine into a glass and try them out. The acidity reading helps us figure out how much sulfur we need to add to protect the wine from bacteria. The higher the acid the less sulfur needs to be added.

In between all the cleaning we did get some notes down I've combined Stefania's notes with mine:

2009 Cabernet Sauvignon, Crimson Clover Vineyard, Santa Clara Valley

Alcohol : 14.9, pH 3.67

Dark and saturated with color. Heady nose of flowers, berry, and chocolate. Lush, fat and ripe with black fruit, berries, plum, and mocha. Complex, round and bold. Stefania noted the powerful and ripe tannins. We'll probably age this one at least 22 months in barrel. Very promising wine, this site is turning out some great wines.

2009 Syrah, Split Rail Vineyard, Santa Cruz Mountains

Alcohol 14.4, pH 3.76

Garnet with purple hues, very bright. Soft nose with black olive, spices, cherry and berry notes. Cherry, Raspberry, wild berry and more olive and some smoke flavors. Great balance with a long finish. More serious than the Eaglepoint Syrah.

2009 Cabernet Sauvignon, Santa Cruz Mountains

Alcohol 13.1, pH 3.89

The first blend is 85% Harvest Moon and 15 % Chaine d'Or. We will likely add more Chaine d'Or to get to a final blend, which should lower the pH and raise the alcohol slightly.

Deep ruby red. Wild berry, mint and spice on the nose. Stefania said "Heritage Berries, you know berries before they started breeding them for size." Super ripe tannins make the wine very soft and smooth with plum, and ripe berry fruit. No sharp edges on this wine. Not picking up a lot of wood notes yet, it's in 70% new oak.

2009 Cabernet Sauvignon, Chaine d'Or Vineyard, Santa Cruz Mountains

Alcohol 14.2, pH 3.67

Dark with purple hue, very deep color. Open fruity nose, with currants, berry and plum. Ripe round tannins. Getting the tannins ripe on the estate is a challenge, but we did it in 2009! Berry fruit with chocolate notes. Heady notes of spring blossoms, bright fruit and spicy wood notes. Great lift and finish, very fruity.

This is really the vineyard starting to reach it's maximum. Ours hopes for this wine are very high, best of the 09's at this point. Aging now in 75% new oak.

We're pretty hopeful on the 2009's. The pH's had us a bit worried, they seemed high, but the wines all show good balance and lift. The noses are very expressive. This will probably be a vintage I tell people to buy and drink while they age their 2008's. I little like 2007 or maybe 2005 with more concentration in the wines.

Notes on Three Wines

Last week a friend asked on the Wine Spectator forum if we were happy with how our older wines were turning out. It was a really hard question to answer and it took me a couple days to post a reply.

Most of what we drink ends up being the most current release. We're opening bottles at the winery or at events and pouring for people. We usually have a little taste, but it's rarely a good time to take notes, or even gather thoughts. Usually I'm answering a whole lot of questions about the wine. I also like to let people reach their own flavor conclusions so I'm not talking about the wines flavors, just about how it's made.

Even when those bottles make it home, or we open it at home, we rarely get to sit and savor a bottle. Usually we have people over and we're busy cooking or entertaining. I might get a glass and have just enough time to go; 'humm, not bad'.

Over the past week though we made an effort to pull out some older bottles and actually sit down to dinner with them and spend a little time enjoying them.

2006 Haut Tubee - Just Stefania and I over dinner last week. The wine is darker than I remember with a very Rhone like nose. This wine is more than 50% Cabernet Sauvignon, but the Rhone grapes still come through. It's also denser than I remember with ripe fruit and a spicy quality from the stems. Lots of fruit and very fresh finish.

We didn't plan on making this as a commercial wine in 2006, it was a bit of an after thought and even a month before bottling we were not 100% certain we'd put a label on it. I'm glad we did, it's turned out very well, and even at 4 years old passed my expectations.

2005 Syrah Eaglepoint Ranch. - Stef and I again over dinner. Wild wine, with a nose of ripe black fruit, bacon, smoke and spice. This is a 'fool your friends' wine. Throw it in a blind tasting, I bet no one can figure out where it's from. It's got a lot of ripe fruit but also a really wild spicy edge. Reminded me a lot of a Hermitage. In fact the next night we opened a 2001 Yann Chave Crozes Hermitage to compare the nose. I think people would say; 'well it's got the fruit of a California wine, but the nose is very Northern Rhone.' I'm sticking with my recommendation to pair this with lamb.

2007 Pinot Noir Santa Cruz Mountains. It's a fruit slut now. Tons of red fruit really explodes out of the glass. Strawberry, raspberry and bing cherry. There's also forest notes. 'Wet leafs on earth', Stef calls it. The nose is powerful and surprising given the wine is not that dark. We had this over dinner with a small group of friends who cooked for us. I think this wine will be really great with ham this spring.

Open That Bottle Night, 2010

Maybe I've heard of this before and already forgotten about it. Friends of ours came by the winery on Saturday to pick up used barrels to make into planters and one of them asked, "So, what wine are you opening tonight for That Bottle Night? ".

I scratched my head and said, I don't know, what do you mean, "that" bottle. You know, that one special bottle you keep saving for just the "right" moment. A birthday, anniversary, new job, new baby, etc. Huh. Still scratching my head. So I turned to Paul and asked if we had such a bottle in the house that we were saving. He shrugged.

We worked through the rest of the afternoon racking the 2009's and kept pondering "that" bottle to have. Still nothing. I went through a mental checklist of what's on my side and pretty much all I'm stashing are the gift wines (from Paul to me) that we'll open for a future Christmas dinner. So far, I've got nothing.

The reason for that is we celebrate just about anything anytime. Special bottles aren't for saving in my house, neither is champagne. At least once per month we open a bottle of bubbly "just because". When we go out to dinner and order a bottle of sparkles the waitstaff always asks, "oh, is it a special occassion tonight?", and they leave our table perplexed by our reply, "No, we simply enjoy it".

By the time we got home, we were both pretty tired, but Paul headed to the market and picked up a chuck steak that I ground up for burgers. While I ground the beef, he prepped the baked potatoes and an artichoke, and then headed off into the cellar.

He came back out with a 2000 Domaine Tempier Bandol.

My notes are really flat and basic; I liked it. I couldn't tell you anything more beyond that, it was a great quaffing wine with goat cheddar cheese burgers and baked potatoes.

I don't see this "event" catching on at my house, but if you're interested for next year I found this link:

http://www.openthatbottlenight.com

What the Heck is a Shaker Table?

I've used that term a few times. It's not 19th century furniture. It's a special gizmo that shakes the grapes after they have done through a destemmer. The shaking takes place over a grate and the result is that the whole berries pass through to the fermentation tanks and any other 'gunk' that was too small to pick out in sorting falls through.

I found a picture here:


The option I'm after is not this solid table, but rather one with the grate feature. This would allow us to get even cleaner fermentation bins than we have now and it's similar to a system we've used at Big Basin Vineyards on some of our wines.

In order for the table to work we would also need to upgrade our crusher destemmer to something like this:



This unit has an option to just de-stem the grapes without crushing them, which is what we would need to do for the table to be effective.

The table runs about $12,000 and the destemmer, for the small size we need is about $18,000. We would also need about $4000 in other equipment to mount the entire thing correctly into our space. In addition to the cleaner bins this would also mean we would not have to do the truck balancing destemmer routine at Chardonnay harvest. (See my blog picture). This set up would just roll right over the press.

So $34,000 is a ton of money for our little operation. That's why we've put so many other things on hold. We don't 'need' this, what we have now works very well, but this would allow us to squeeze a little more quality out of each wine.

If you don't see us in your town this year, remember theses pictures and you'll know why.

Our 2010 Travel Schedule

I few people have asked what shows we will be doing this year and what our travel schedule looks like.

The simple answer is; "not many, or much".

We really need a website upgrade and I want to get a shaker table for the crusher destemmer. That means I've cut the travel and marketing budget back to almost nothing. We won't be doing the Family Winemakers shows or the Chronicle show at Fort Mason. Those three alone add up to about $3000 in expenses so that puts us at least part way there to the website work.

We get invited to pour at dozens of events each year and usually would only do a few. This year so far the only things we have scheduled are private events and fundraisers. As those come up we'll let people know about them.

The travel budget is also being sidelined for the shaker table (total cost about $28,000, so we will need to save for awhile for that one). If the Spring release goes well I might add some money back in to the travel budget, but we'll have to see how sales go.

We would like to do an east coast swing and hit DC, Philly, NY and Boston. We've had so many requests to come visit that we really would like to get that done. We'd also like to get to Florida, and back to Chicago and Nashville.

We do know that we'll have visitors coming by the winery more this year than last, and we will be open at least three times this year. When those events come up we'll let people know as well.

Award Arrives

Stefania took this picture this morning of our Gold Medal from the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition. I didn't notice until posting this, but it's actually taken in front of our hot tub.

We also got the Spring Release letters into the mail this morning. They should start to arrive later this week.

We have a busy week ahead. We'll be getting out about 20 pending shipments starting Thursday and new orders should start to arrive Friday and Saturday. There's also some work to do in the winery this weekend and if the weather stays ok, more work in the vineyard.


I'll have a few more blogs up this week about our travel schedule and plans for this year.

Ready for Spring and some Sunshine already

It's great to have so much rain, but I'm officially ready for blue sky and sunshine. The vineyards are muddy and mucky and there is still plenty of work to be done in them.

There are broken posts to replace and wire repair still to do. I don't mind the office work that goes along with owning a small business, but I really want to get back outside and work. We've been hitting the gym fairly often to make up for the lack of outdoor labor we're usually doing this time of year.

The cold winter days are usually my favorite for hiking the local hills. I'm prone to overheating so I like to take advantage of the crisp air. The cloudy skies though make it too cold and everything is so soggy that it's no fun.

Speaking of hiking - we are postponing the Grand Canyon trip. We had thought we would go this April but we missed the deadline to sign up for overnight and some other things came up that we needed to work around. It's still on the list of things to-do one day.

And, I saw the shoe repair guy to see about making my hiking boots fit better. They are a great shoe, but they are too tight on my heel. For $10 I picked up some leather stretching goo that I need to apply next time I put them on. We'll see how that goes. I'll need them one last time this year when we go out and prune Arastradero.

Who Dat Think They Gonna Beat Dem Saints?

My Dad has always had Mondays off. In the summer time he'd take my sister and I to the movies, or fishing in the Uvas Valley. When August came the 49ers would start training camp at San Jose State.

Back then training camp was a low key thing. Not like today with 20,000 people buying tickets to watch. Back then it was 75-100 guys and their kids. They would back their cars and trucks up to the chain link fence around the practice field, flip down the tail gate and open a cooler of beer. Two - a -days were my favorite. We'd go in the morning, and then at the lunch break Dad would take us to the A&W for a 'Teen Burger'. I felt so grown up ordering a teen burger. After lunch we'd go back and watch the second practice.

Those 49er teams were pretty bad. I remember the hope and then disappointment as Jim Plunkett and O.J. Simpson came to town. For my Dad the agony of being a 49er fan went back to the 1950's. His sisters had moved him from rural New Mexico so he could go to high school at Lincoln High in San Francisco. Every Sunday we'd watch the games till the bitter end. It never mattered if the Raider game had started and they were trying to clinch another playoff birth. We'd watch to the final of the 49er game and another 5-9 season.

I remember calling my Dad at work in 1979 to talk about James Owens, the 49ers first pick in that draft. I couldn't remember the name of the Quarterback they'd taken in the 3rd round, but I remember telling my Dad, "He could be ok." He was Joe Montana.

I was in high school in 1982. I watch the Super Bowl game with my Dad that year. Through the entire second half of the game he didn't say a word. I think he was in shock. He couldn't believe it was really happening. Now it's easy to think of the 49ers and five Super Bowl wins and think it was easy being a 49er fan, but for my Dad it had been 30 years of giving your heart to a loosing team. When Dwight Clark picked up the onside kick with 20 second left, Dad still couldn't say a word.

In 2008 Stef and I were headed back from New Orleans. At Louis Armstrong Airport I bought a New Orleans Saints shirt. If the Saints are playing when we are in town, we go to the game, but she wondered why I'd bought it. I told her that I was going to be a Saints fan until the 49ers fired their idiot coach (You Tube him and see if you can find the clip where he can't add to 12 properly). When we got back to San Jose that night I put ESPN on the TV in bed and the headline was "49ers fire Nolan, name Singletary interim coach". I'd been a Saints fan for 9 hours.

The 49ers will always be first in my heart, but 'dem Saints' are a close second. I hope this Sunday, I can't say a word through the whole second half.

Upcoming Release

Stefania and I are starting to put together the letters and order forms for our next release. We hope to have them in the mail by the 15th. Here's a preview of what's coming up:

2007 Stefania Cabernet Sauvignon Chaine d' Or Vineyard Santa Cruz Mountains

As you may remember we took over operations at Chaine d'Or in August of 2007. We harvested early in the morning of October 27th and brought in a large harvest for the estate of just under 3 tons. 2007 was a near perfect growing year and Anne Anderson thought the fruit was the best she had seen since installing the vineyard in 1987. The grapes were harvested and transported to the crusher in 30 pound bins and 100% destemmed.

Fermentation was on the native wild yeasts of the vineyard and winery. We pressed the wine gently after 22 days and separated the press wine from the free run juice. The press wine was not used in the final wine. The wine was aged for 22 months in 60% new French Oak and 40% neutral French Oak. The final numbers are pH 3.39 and alcohol of 14.1%

The wine is dark with a gem-like quality to the color. The nose takes significant aeration at this point to reveal a classic 'Pauillac Nose' of pencil, currant, berries and tobacco. There are huge ripe tannins framing the wine now with notes of spice, campfire smoke, and pure ripe berry fruit. Notes of cigar box and plums linger on the finish. Stefania calls this a serious steak wine.

Those of you familiar with the Estate will find this similar to the 1999 or 2001 vintages. This is a serious Cabernet, and one I think will benefit tremendously from extended aging. The alcohol and pH levels, combined with the ripe tannins and pure fruit offer this wine incredible aging potential. Today the wine will require decanting for at least 30-45 minutes. I don't know if I can predict a lifespan on this wine, I don't doubt that those of you with special occasions to remember in 2007 will enjoy this wine 10, 20 and perhaps 30 and 40 years from now.


Mailing List Price: $30 per bottle. Total Production 169 cases.

Allocations on this wine will be tight. I think I can offer a three pack to everyone who has signed up but I think we'll sell out in a couple weeks.

2007 Stefania Cabernet Sauvignon Santa Cruz Mountains

This is our second offering of a Santa Cruz Mountains Cabernet Sauvignon. The wine was assembled from three vineyards: the Harvest Moon Vineyard, Elandrich Vineyard and Chaine d'Or Vineyard. We feel this combination offered a complete wine. The Harvest Moon contributing black fruit, mint and spice, Elandrich red fruit and richness, and Chaine d'Or a classic structure and Cabernet profile. The final blend is 58% Harvest Moon, 25% Chaine d'Or and 17 % Elandrich. The wine also contains 13% Merlot and 1% Cabernet Franc from the Chaine d'Or and Elandrich Vineyards.

Each vineyard was harvested and fermented separately in late October and allowed to ferment on native yeast. The lots were kept separate until the spring of 2008 when we selected the final blend and combined the lots for the final wine. We used 67% new French Oak and 33% neutral French Oak on this wine. The wine was bottled after 22 months in barrel. The final numbers are pH 3.62 and alcohol 13.5%.

The Wine has deep red rich colors with hues of blue and purple. The nose is complex with plum, smoked meat, currants, super ripe blackberries and a hint of mint. The wine is plush and ripe on the palate with cigar notes, berry pie fruit, and complex notes of tobacco, black fruit and a long, long finish. Stefania noted this is one of the most complex wines we've made and she picks up hints of the redwood forests that surround Chaine d'Or and Harvest Moon.

This wine too will be long lived, and as we tasted it my comment was: "I'll be happy to stick this wine in my cellar and drink it the next 20 years." Many of you have asked me what my favorite Stefania is and I've always answered "2006 Santa Cruz Mountains Cabernet Sauvignon." I think that answer will now be the 2007!

Mailing List Price: $40 per bottle. Total production 142 cases.

We may also do some sort of combo pack and there will be free shipping on case orders.

Selling Wine / Dedication Quality Community

Over the weekend I was running some dialog through my head and wondering how to best approach selling my wine. The first mental roadblock was that I don't think of it as "my" wine, it's Paul's wine. The second problem is that I'm pretty shy and humble about it. I have a really hard time telling people, Hey, I make GREAT wine and this is why... well, I did come up with a few things that are key to making the label great and I'm not the only one to think so.

Dedication: For one, Paul and I are hands-on winemakers and vineyard managers. You've seen the pictures, read the blogs, you know what I'm talking about. Even the tasks that are less than desirable, we have done and continue to do.

Quality: We make a $75 bottle of wine. Easily. By the time you factor in our mentors time and guidance, our time and attention to detail you're halfway there. Add to that; quality fruit, fine barrels, and premium corks and you're there.

Community: Our wines are selling at an affordable price range for most people. One of the reasons we got into this business was because wine is social, it's communal. I don't know many friends that can drink a $75 bottle of wine at every meal. Our goal is to make quality wine that is enjoyable and affordable but that can also hold it's own among the bigger brands.

This morning, I was still pondering my own musings when Paul sent me an IM with a link. Seems like I'm not the only person that believes in my wine and the quality.

http://dat.erobertparker.com/bboard/showthread.php?t=218717&highlight=stefania

A customer recently sent me this email regarding the 2007 Stefania Uvas Creek Cabernet:

"We actually tasted this wine blind alongside some pretty big names and it was consensus #2 of the night (2005 Shafer Hillside Select was #1, but this beat out the '06 Bucella Cab, and the '05 Caymus Special Select to name a couple)!"

Thank you, at least two of my personal fav's were mentioned there!