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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.

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.

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!

Long story about the possum, we didn’t actually serve that for dinner lastnight. We did however open the following wines:

2008 Stefania Chardonnay
2006 Stefania Santa Cruz Mountains Cabernet
1999 Laurent Perrier Brut
2003 Joh.Jos Prum raacher Himmelreich Auslese
2005 Dmne de Baumard Coteaux dLayon
1988 Cos d’Estournal
2004 Dmne Santa Duc Prestige de Hautes Gigondas
1979 Santa Cruz Mountains Vineyards Cabernet Bates Ranch
1994 Woodside Vineyards Cabernet Kings Mountain
2004 Woodside Vineyards Cabernet Kings Mountain
2004 Dmne de Beaurenard Chateauneuf du Pape
1977 Carneros Creek Cabernet Fay Vineyard
2000 Chateau Siran Margaux
1982 Chateau du Tertre Margaux

My personal notes are personal. It became apparently clear to me in this line up that I’ve been drinking a lot of young wines and my palate is happier with brighter fruitier wines. I still don’t like sweet wines (2005 Baumard), and we were disappointed with the corked Cos D’.

My top two wines of the night were the 2000 Margaux and the 2004 CDP. They both paired well with the tri-tip and orzo meal and held their own without food.

Dave has a good write up that mentions us and the use of foil:

http://scmwine.blogspot.com/2010/01/curses-foiled-again.html

Rick Bakas of St Supery winery has organized a virtual wine tasting of California Cabernets for Thursday February 11th. Information and registration details can be found here:

California Cabernet Sauvignon Event

The event first came to my attention when Dave Tong wrote a blog about it last week and then a follow up blog this week. Dave was upset that the Santa Clara Valley AVA was not listed or covered at all in the event. He asked that local wineries that make Santa Clara Valley AVA wines participate in an effort to promote the AVA.

We registered this morning and will participate on the 11th. I don’t twitter, so our update will be here on our blog and on Facebook. You can participate with any California wine, but I’d encourage as many people as possible to open one of our Uvas Creek Cabernet Sauvignon’s. That wine is a Santa Clara Valley AVA wine.

Personally I’d rather share the wine and taste with others. If there is significant interest locally (that means more than Dave and I), I’d suggest we gather at a local spot and I’ll provide a vertical of our Uvas Creek Cabernet to sample.

We still have lots of rain and the moon is now out of cycle so we’ve stopped pruning. Not much going on for us right now in the vineyards.

Today is St Vincent’s day. St Vincent was a 4th century saint from Spain. His feast day is celebrated as the patron saint of vine growers in Spain and France. I did my yearly trip to the Catholic Church this morning to drop off wine. Father Bennett wasn’t there this morning so I left the wine at his door.

In France they usually leave their cheapest wine for the priest, but I left a couple bottles of Uvas Creek Cab and hope he’ll remember to bless his little vineyard for us. I hope he remembers its St Vincent’s day, I usually have to remind him each year. We don’t celebrate a lot of feast days in the U.S. so he’s usually a little shocked that I do.

We may do some work in the winery tomorrow, but SUnday will be a football day. Go Saints!!!

It’s that time of year to take inventory and figure out taxes. Most of the time I do pretty good on allocations and we don’t have a lot of wine left. Ok, 50% of the time I do pretty good. 🙂 For some reason I kept way too much of the 2006’s at the winery. We ran out of 2005’s the summer before and didn’t have anything for people to taste when they came to visit. In a great over reaction I set aside four times more wine the next year.

That would be bad enough but I set aside four times more of twice as many bottlings! Instead of the eight cases of wine that had not been enough, I now had set aside 64 cases of wine. We don’t have 64 visitors all summer! That was about 45 cases too many. Last year I seemed to get a better handle on what to keep aside for events and visitors but still we have some items from older vintages still at the winery.

Here’s a breakdown on the 2006’s

2006 Syrah Eaglepoint Ranch $35- We have 8 cases left. Close out of $300 per case
2006 Haut Tubee $20 – Sold Out
2006 Cabernet Sauvignon Uvas Creek Vineyard $37 – We have 12 cases left. Close out of $300 per case
2006 Cabernet Sauvignon Santa Cruz Mountains $40 – We have 7 cases left. Close out of $325 per case

If you’re interested in any of these send me a note at [email protected] We’re going to offer them first here to our blog readers and then I’ll send a note out to our mailing list in a couple weeks.

How cold was it when we left after coffee this morning? So cold I couldn’t keep the camera straight. It was 42 when we left the house.

It’s 37 miles from our house to the winery. It’s mostly freeway, but the last few miles are very steep and curvy. The seal on the dash board keeps me from taking the turns too fast up the mountain. ‘Keep the seal safe’, and not moving. This is Highway 85 about 10 miles from our front door. That’s Montebello and Mount Eden in the distance.

This is what we came to do. This is a Cabernet plant that has been successfully retrained. This is one we retrained in 2008, so it’s three years in.

Stefania and I walked each row to finish up the sawing and retraining where it was needed. We do have to stop and play ball from time to time with the dogs.

The vineyard looked very good. At this point I think we are 97% done with retraining. There are still a few plants that we will have to pull new shoots on next year. It was just a matter of not having anything in a good position this season to restart a cordon. On those plants we left a new start again and will hope we have a good cane to pull down next year.

The storm clouds started to come over about 12:30. We had planned to leave at 12:45 though so that we could get home in time for the Saints game at 1:30.

We’ll be back tomorrow. There are about 30 plants in rows 1 and 2 to check still and we can do that in the rain if we need to. We also have some work to do in the winery tomorrow that will keep us busy for 5 or 6 hours.

We have storm front after storm front scheduled to come in this next week. Kind of a bummer for us. I have a three day weekend and we were going to prune all three days. Luckily Jerry and Stefania will just about have wrapped up Chaine d’Or by today.

Tomorrow morning I’ll go out and finish up some of the old vines that need retraining that they have left for me. There’s also a few hours of work to do in the winery. We’re going to try and be home in time for the Saints game though at 1:30.

If I don’t finish in the winery Saturday then we’ll go back Sunday. Likely we’ll just work in the rain and finish up any pruning that’s not done. Monday we’re scheduled to go test our wine that is at Big Basin in the afternoon, so more inside activity. It looks like we won’t finish pruning before St Vincent’s day. Not too big a deal, we’ll just wait on the weather now and for the next favorable moon cycle and prune then.