Category: General

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This Years Training Camp

Each summer we start a ‘training camp’ to get ready for harvest.  Normally it’s more time at the gym and a regular hike schedule.  It gets us ready for the long days up and down the hills in our vineyards that are coming up.

This year we’re starting with something new though and a little extra motivation.  The picture above is the base of Communication Hill in San Jose.  There are 56 steps and a 2 block walk up to the main stair case.  The main run is 224 steps that cover about 180 foot climb.  We’ve been on a schedule so far of about every other day and are up to 5 consecutive climbs.  We’ll keep working towards being able to do the flight at least 10 times in a row.

We also have a training plan sent to us from a personal trainer in Colorado.  The extra motivation is a plan for us to climb a 14,000 peak in Colorado next year.  We’ve picked Mount Belford as our target climb and late July as the date.

I’ve added in some other local hikes that we’ll do over the next year to help get ready, including climbing Mission Peak here in Milpitas and the 10 mile Bald Peak trail at Calero Park.  If all goes well we will also try and work our postponed Grand Canyon hike in either before or after Mount Belford (I want to try April, Stef wants to do it after in September around the time we’re usually in Las Vegas).

The hardest time for us will be November and December.  In past years we have been in good shape going into harvest and then done well through October.  By the middle of November though we’re exhausted from harvest work and just as we’re finishing up cellar work when Thanksgiving and then Christmas are on us.  We might only get to the gym 2-3 times in those two months.  This year we’ll have to stay on a schedule though to be ready for our 14,000 foot climb!

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Sabor Del Valle Recap

band

Friday night we poured wine at Sabor Del Valle for the second year in a row. We enjoyed this charity event last year and we were looking forward to doing it again this year. The event is at the San Jose History Park in Kelley Park and it was a beautiful evening. It just takes us 5 minutes or so to set up so Stefania got to go visit some of the other wineries:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is really great food at this event and lots of seating which is very nice for a wine event.  I really liked the fish empanadas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was also some really nice local art .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the highlights was this band that strolled through the park for the first hour of the event.  Then there was more live music and dancing until well after sunset.

band

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had a great time again and look forward to doing this event again next year.

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Back for Business

On July 3rd Stefania and I set out on short notice to Colorado for a family emergency.  We were gone a total ten days.  We made it to Denver in two days and celebrated the 4th of July at a V.F.W. post in Boulder, CO.

It was a very busy and stressful 10 days.  In all we covered 3275 miles on the trip driving I5 to I80 to I25.  We also had a day we had to drive into the high country in Colorado to the Collegiate Peaks area.

It took us longer to get home.  We were both pretty tired and did shorter lengths through Utah and Nevada.  We arrived home Tuesday afternoon and were back to work on Wednesday.  We are a few days behind in emails and of course haven’t been doing any blogs.

I do have a few lined up though and will be writing soon about an upcoming event in Las Vegas, provide an update on distribution and some thoughts on this years odd weather.  Look for those over the next few days.

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Sabor Del Valle

As most of you know we don’t do many events each year. We’ve completely stopped doing any commercial events except for Rock and Roll Wine in Las Vegas (more on that later this month). We do a few charity events. Our criteria is first that it’s a charity we believe in and want to support and second that it’s an event we’ll enjoy. Most that we do are to support the charities that are near and dear to personal friends.

Sabor Del Valle hits on all those counts. It is also a really great time. The food and music are fantastic and there are a number of small tequila makers there, which I really enjoyed sampling. It is also the largest gathering of Latino winemakers that I know of.   Last year Mi Sueno and Ceja were too of the highlights for me to try.

This years event is Friday July 22nd at Kelly Park in San Jose.  Start time is 6PM I believe.

Tickets and more information can be found at:

http://www.sabordelvalle.org/index.html

or on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=100001304017240&v=info

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The Tasting Room

Tasting time

We often get asked if we have a tasting room or plan on having one. In fact at the last event we did one woman reacted like we’d lost a loved one when we said: “no”. “Oh, well maybe some day you will, just hang in there” she said.

I have really mixed feelings about the tasting room idea. Well mixed in that I’m 5% for it and 95% against it. It would be nice to have the additional sales outlet and it would probably let us grow sales faster. It would also be nice to have a place to meet friends and host events that wasn’t restricted to the space in our backyard. It would also be great to have a venue where we could feature the art of some of our friends.

The 95%? Well I got this as the lead paragraph in an email this morning from a local winery, I changed some of the names to ‘Blah’ to protect the guilty:

“Why not start the holiday weekend early with us today during our “Time for Wine” Blah Series?! We have “The Chris Blah Band” playing today and “Carlos Blah Music Trio” will be playing on Sunday for “Groovin’ in the Blah.” Don’t forget about scheduling a VIP tour and tasting or playing a game of bocce ball!”

One word, as an after thought about wine. It’s not even directly about wine, it’s about scheduling a VIP tour. That just isn’t our gig. We didn’t start making wine to play bocce ball and groove in the blah. We make wine to make great wine and share it with friends.

That’s a great risk of a tasting room. The venue and the sales from it start to drive what the winery does and the wine you make. The tasting room manager is sure to come to you and say things like: “An $11 Chardonnay would be great, and why don’t we get some of that Almond Champagne.” If someone told me I needed to make an $11 Chardonnay and Almond Champagne I’d kick them in the shin, not go along with the idea.

“Let’s host bridezilla” comes next and then you find yourself avoiding your own facility because you hate everyone hanging out there. So don’t shed a tear when we say “no we don’t have a tasting room”. There’s a reason we don’t. We like our customers, we consider them friends, and we want to keep it that way.

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Futures Update

The last of the 2008 Special Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon Magnums were spoken for this weekend. The magnums usually go very fast and this time was no exception. Futures ordering will continue until July 15th. We’ll send out one reminder after this coming weekend. The allocation amounts are set up so that we will not run out of anything else but magnums are so limited that we can’t allocate them to everyone and they have to me first come first serve.

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New Website and Blog!

You’ve probably noticed we haven’t been posting blogs for a few weeks. We’ve been working on getting a new website and blog site together and didn’t want to complicate the data import more than we needed too. We’re now ready to go live with the new sites and this will be the last post here at this URL!

First the website address will not change.

Stefaniawine.com

There are many changes on the site and new colors and pictures. The biggest thing though and a key thing we wanted to accomplish was to integrate the blog with the website. We’ve done that! The blog will now show up on the front page of the website and can also be accessed at:

New Integrated Blog Site

All of the old blog posts will still be available here and they will also be available on the new site. All new postings though will be on the new site. We like the blog changes a great deal. You’ll now be able to see previews of the latest blogs, the top blogs, and we’ve added categories and tags to make searching the blog easier.

There are still lots of editorial changes Stefania and I will be making over the next few weeks. We’re updating all of the background information and making it crisper. The section on our wines will be made easier to follow and all of the information there will be updated and put in a common format. In general we’re trying to focus on keeping the content in the blog section where it is ‘fresh’ and information elsewhere on the site will be more concise and basic.

For instance there will no longer be an Events page (which we could never keep updated anyway), instead there will be a category called Events in the blog. We’re also hoping that it will be easier for people to interact with us and ask us questions through the blog and website. Let us know what you think and look for blog postings on the new site to start showing up over the next few days.

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Shipping Complete!

Quick Shipping update. Stefania got the last boxes out the door yesterday. There are a few on vacation hold for people, or holding for pick up at the winery, but unless you’ve asked us to hold your box, it’s now gone out.

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Violinist Anne Akiko Meyers Japan Benefit Concert

Violinist Anne Akiko Meyers Japan Benefit Concert on April 29 (Fri)

Play for Japan USA, a project launched by Japanese working mothers in the SF Bay Area, presents a benefit concert featuring Anne Akiko Meyers, one of the most celebrated violinists who has been the featured soloist with the world’s leading orchestras and collaborated with such artists as Michel Bolton, Chris Botti, and Ryuichi Sakamoto. Anne was flying over Japan when the earthquake hit the country (for her performances in Osaka, which eventually got canceled) and thus has graciously agreed to perform for us.
All proceeds will go to the Japan disaster relief efforts through the American Red Cross, Give2Asia, and the Japan Center for International Exchange.

Date: April 29th, Friday
Place: Woodside High School Performing Arts Center [Map it]
Time: 8pm (doors open at 7pm)
Ticket: starting $35 –

For more information & buy tickets, visit: www.playforjapanusa.org

Play for Japan USA is started by Japanese working mothers in the Bay Area who wanted to take action to contribute to the Japan relief efforts (for details, please read SF Chronicle’s article). This concert is officially endorsed by the Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco and fiscally sponsored by the Kurosawa Piano Music Foundation, a 501(c) (3) tax exempt organization. All proceeds will go to Japan disaster Relief effort through American Red Cross, Give2Asia, and Japan Center for International Exchange.

As you may know, Anne is one of the most celebrated violinists who has been a featured soloist with the world’s leading orchestras and collaborated with such big names as Yo Yo Ma, Michel Bolton, Chris Botti, and Ryuichi Sakamoto. Anne was flying over Japan when the earthquake hit the country. As a mother of a young child herself, she has graciously agreed to perform to support our cause. Please come join us to enjoy her beautiful performance by ex-napoleon stradivarius!

I’ve attached a short description of the concert and E-flyer below.
You can also find our paper flyers at http://playforjapanusa.org/press/.
This is a great opportunity for you to stand in support with hundreds of individuals and organizations in the Bay Area for the Japan Relief efforts.
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Open House Review

Last Saturday we held our Spring Open House. Usually we send out an announcement to everyone on our mailing list within the Bay Area. This year though we had rain the entire week before the open house and one day in particular that Jerry said was the most rain he’d ever seen in a 24 hour period.

The net result was that the little field we usually use for parking was too wet to mow and too soft to park in. We decided rather than trying to do traffic control on the street, or worse have to tow cars out of the mud, we’d cut back on the email invites and just send them to people who had checked off ‘hold for pick up’ on their order forms.

This gave us a small group of visitors and a much more low key event. The first picture I took was for some people on the Wine Spectator forum. There was a question about ‘gunk’ in wine and I thought I’d take a picture of some Syrah we have in a carboy. This is the net result of letting 5 gallons of gross lees settle for a few months. The lees are on the bottom and the wine is on the top.

Now a better picture of our hostess with a bottle of wine in the cellar getting ready for visitors.


Here is our little low key tasting table. I actually forget sometimes I’m supposed to do the pouring and tend to think people will just help themselves. Not your normal tasting room experience I’m sure. I was feeling like celebrating the opening of a new Chavez Supermarket near our home so the treat were chips, red salsa, nopales salsa and queso fresco.

I opened 5 wines in total the three from the current release: 2009 Chardonnay Chaine d’Or Vineyard, 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon Crimson Clover Vineyard and 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon Santa Cruz Mountains. The other two wines where a 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon Uvas Creek Vineyard and 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon Santa Cruz Mountains.


The Uvas Creek was best after being open about an hour. I think that means it’s almost out of the odd stage that this bottling has always gone through from age 3 to 4. If you want to open one over the next few months I’d decant it for about an hour to let the cherry fruit open up. Right out of the bottle the fruit is a little muted but with air it comes back around. I saw this in the 05 and 06 also at about the same age so I think it’s something with the aging profile of this particular vineyard.