Bottling!!!!

Yesterday- was quite the long one......... We bottled 200 cases of the Christopher Cameron 2007 "Lambert Bridge Vineyard" Petite Sirah and 160 cases of a 2006 Costa Azul Sonoma County Red Blend. I wanted to say thanks to the many volunteers that come in to help during crush and with bottling as it really is a big help!

GOLD MEDAL at the San Diego International Wine Competition!

Two well know wineries out of Napa (Markham and Franciscan) received Silver.
A Sonoma County wine deemed better than many (20-40) Napa Valley Merlots that were entered in this competition-??? How could that be?

In all seriousness- Napa Cab is phenomenal and of course has the edge (and hype) on Sonoma for that varietal but every year Sonoma wins more medals and in my opinion is a better county for a wide range of wines including- Zinfandel, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Syrah, Petite Sirah, Sauvignon Blanc, and oh yeah- guess Merlot too!

Definitely put tons of time and effort into producing this wine so I guess in a way it feels good to be recognized. I have been out selling 6 wines currently to restaurants and wine shops and have been most impressed with this wine although many of the buyers have been preferring the Bordeaux blend. The bad part is that I only have about 30 cases of the Merlot left..............

2006 "Lambert Bridge Vineyard" Cabernet Sauvignon

On March 10, I bottled the 06 Cabernet and think it will be our best Cab yet! This wine spent 28 months in French oak barrels and I blended in 11% Merlot with 5% Petite Sirah. I thought about bottling it as 100% Cab, but really liked what the Merlot and Petite Sirah brought to the table.

In the past, blending has sometimes taken as up to four days to figure out the percentages but this time it only took about 3 hours. The second I tried this combination, I knew it was the one as it possesses great mouth feel, a deep ruby color, and wonderful flavors. There is marachino cherry and plum in the nose and palate with some vanilla in the background . It has balanced acidity and the tannins are well integrated after 28 months in barrel.

To be Released- June, 2009

Next up for bottling- the 2007 "Lambert Bridge Vineyard" Petite Sirah

I recently met with Jay and Bobby from the Linkery to blend a Meritage style Cuvee for their restaurant. I am really excited to be working with this restaurant as it one of those "can't miss" restaurants in this area of San Diego. The other reason is I think the food and wine pair very well together as my wines tend to be bigger with lots of fruit/mouthfeel and stand up well to the flavorful meats and dishes that they serve.

After trying many different blends (one of the pitfalls of the job, hehe) they created The Linkery Cuvee 1. This is a non vintage blend which has tons of complexity; the 2005 Cab brings depth, the 2006 Merlot fills in the mid palate and the newer vintage Cab showcases fruit and spice. All of these grapes used in this blend were sourced from "Lambert Bridge Vineyard," Dry Creek Valley- Sonoma County. The wine is going to be aged in Cask and will be gravity poured, which is great as these casks are reusable! This has tremendous upside as there will be no corks shipped over from Portugal, Glass trucked from Mexico, no tin capsule to be tossed, etc...... I am also excited about putting the wines in cask because I am not going to have to add extra sulfites as the wine is going to be consumed relatively quickly.

The Linkery
3794 30th St.
San Diego, Ca.
www.thelinkery.com

2008 Lake County Malbec

I am really intrigued by this varietal and am surprised more domestic wineries aren't producing Malbec as a stand alone wine. The grapes from this vineyard come from the Olaf Vineyard which is located on a steep hillside on the west side of Clear Lake. I used 3 different yeasts on the fermentation and did a 10 day extended maceration on the skins to soften the tannin and to add mouthfeel.

2008 Alexander Valley Zinfandel

This is the Mariani Ranch located in northern Alexander Valley. This is a hillside vineyard that doesn't use any trellising and is "head pruned," which is a very traditional way to grow Zin. This is my second year of working with these grapes and I really like the dark fruit and pepper that this vineyard posesses. While this wine would be great as is I will probably blend a little bit of Petite Sirah into this wine before bottling to add structure, color, and complexity.

2008 Dry Creek Valley Chardonnay

The first wine that I ever made was from these vines 10 vintages ago. The wine turned out to be quite tasty but more importantly these grapes are the reason that I became hooked on winemaking.
A month ago I was looking at the Merlot and Cab when I walked by and was just in awe and these beautiful little clusters and decided to produce a 2008 Chardonnay. I am very excited to be finally making a commercial wine from these grapes this year and have started off conservatively with 4.5 tons which should yield about 250 cases of wine. The grapes arrived on September 5, 2008 and numbers were as follows- Brix 24.1 TA .86 Ph 3.3. It has been fermenting for 13 days now in tank and has wonderful pineapple aromas and flavors. I am going to age 70% of the wine in French Oak Barrels and am going to put it through malolactic fermentation (for mouthfeel and complexity.) The other 30% will remain in tank to retain the wonderful tropical fruit that it is expressing. This wine will be released July of 2009.