Archive for the 'Joanie Hudson' Category

Big Girls, Small Kitchen Blog Post on SB Chard Wine Pairing

My dear friend Phoebe Lapine has a great blog on cooking / creating dining experiences / food and wine pairing.  She recently visited and we had the opportunity to taste through various stages of white wine fermentation down at Santa Barbara Winery (she visited during Harvest 2009).  I sent her home with a bottle of 07 Santa Barbara Winery Chardonnay, and in a Phoebe-like fashion, she created a fantastic recipe to pair with the wine.

Here is the link to her website (Big Girls, Small Kitchen: A Guide to Quarter Life Cooking) with the posting.  I recommend checking out her site as it is a truly voyeuristic glimpse into the her life experiences through cooking.  She is working on a book, and I can’t wait to read it when it comes out.  I love her use of the phrase ‘quarter life cooking.’

Her post also really hits home for me because I truly believe that wine better experienced when there is a real story behind it.  That story can include and interesting history, personal experiences with the wine, or having friends who have their hands in the production process.

2007 Santa Barbara Winery Chardonnay

We washed this meal down with a bottle of Chardonnay I brought back from my day trip to Santa Barbara. My friend Joanie works for the winery and took me through the whole process of how this particular chardonnay was made. Things always taste a little better once you understand where they came from, but regardless, this is a delicious mid-level wine, and one I will be buying again in the near future.

Joanie Hudson, Director of National and International Marketing, Santa Barbara Winery / Lafond Winery & Vineyards

The Big Sur Bakery Cookbook

Just a quick jaunt up the Central Coast’s windy, coastal cliff enclosed 1 Highway, lies Big Sur.  Known for its awe inspiring California and Pacific Ocean views, it is a great spot to escape and relax.  The Big Sur Bakery (tucked behind a gas station) is a classic spot in the area to grab a bite, and the house that the business has flourished within was built in 1936.  We just got their cookbook into the Santa Barbara Winery Tasting Room, and since taking it home a couple of weeks ago I haven’t stopped cooking out of it. 

The Big Sur Bakery Cookbook – A Year in the Life of a Restaurant

“The Big Sur Bakery Cookbook tells the compelling story of the people and community that created that rare beauty: a great restaurant with soul. This book perfectly captures the spirit and passion of Michelle, Philip, and Michael, their food, and the grandeur of the California Coast.” (David Kinch, chef/owner of Manresa Restaurant )

“This is not just another restaurant cookbook. In it, every dish comes enriched with a tale. . . . No matter where you live, through these recipes and stories you’ll experience the exquisite food and soulful charm that is Big Sur Bakery.” (Nancy Silverton, chef/founder of La Brea Bakery and chef/owner of Mozza )

Product Description

Here from the celebrated California restaurant Big Sur Bakery is a stunningly photographed cookbook showcasing seasonal ingredients, local vintners, fishermen, and farmers—and the food that makes the Big Sur Bakery unique.

Come pick up a copy at your next tasting!  Wine Club Members receive 20% off of purchase.

The Impact of Global Warming on Wine

The topic of global warming  has some people scratching their heads, some naysayers denying its existence, and some grape growers concerned for the future.  Global warming is occurring, and the consequences could be enormous for all walks of life.  Climate is one of the most influential factors in determining a) the quality of grapes grown in the vineyard and b) what grapes to plant in certain climates.  For example, in the Sta. Rita Hills where Lafond Vineyard is planted, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay flourish in the cool climate, benefitting from coastal breezes.  Up in Napa Valley, where days get hotter, Cabernet Sauvignon is king.  So what happens when temperatures start to slowly creep up?  Everything is thrown off balance, and perhaps valleys or hillsides that were once deemed inappropriate for planting grapes will become the new hot spots.  There is no way to get around the impact of climate change for grape growers.  

Steve Heimoff, of Wine Enthusiast Magazine, has one of my favorite wine blogs on the web right now.  He has some interesting notes on this topic in today’s post (see below and visit his website for the full article).  If you are a reader of wine blogs, make sure to check his out.

The climate change deniers, bless their dumb little hearts, are getting lots of buzz lately, but I’ll side with the scientists, the majority of whom are absolutely sure that warming is occurring and that it’s getting dangerously too late to do anything about it.

The latest — as if we didn’t have enough evidence — comes from Stanford, where UPI is reporting that a team led by Noah Diffenbaugh “say they’ve determined global warming could significantly negatively impact U.S. wine and corn production.” (I’m not going to write here about corn except to say that I love it when it’s ripe in the summertime and will miss it if it goes away.) They go on to say that “global warming could reduce the current U.S. wine grape region by 81 percent by the end of the century” due to hotter and hotter days in wine country like California’s, which, in places like Napa Valley, is already pretty hot.

(Diffenbaugh presents his formal study today at an American Geophysical Union held in Moscone Center and I’m sure it will be widely reported.)

It’s not just that excessive heat could make even coastal valleys inappropriate for delicate varieties, like Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. A warming climate could upset the ecosystem in much more fundamental ways. Science Daily describes how,“if spring-like weather arrives earlier than usual, and flowers bloom and wither before the pollinators [like bees] appear,”then wines might not even produce fruit. Earlier, scientists had calculated that a rise of only 2-4 degrees Celsius in grape regions could cause “losses [to be] be as high as 40 percent by mid-century.” In a previous study, Diffenbaugh determined that temperatures “from the principal wine regions of California, Oregon and Washington” already have risen in recent years by nearly 1 degree Celsius, and that was before some of the hottest years on record were yet to come.

Click Here for the rest of the article

Joanie Hudson, Director of National and International Marketing, Santa Barbara Winery / Lafond Winery & Vineyards

Holiday Shipping

I don’t know about you, but in this modern day of email marketing, my email box is crawling with “Last Chance Christmas” shopping emails, and this has become my oh so modern way of getting in the Christmas spirit.  Once those emails start rolling in I know it is time to turn on the Holiday music, starting sprinkling home baked cookies with red and green sprinkles, and having some sips of Egg Nog.

This is my way of letting you all know that it is not too late for Holiday shipping.  We are still taking orders to get wine anywhere from Santa Barbara to across the country by Christmas Day.  Our tasting room is flooded with bubble wrap, curled ribbons, cardboard boxes, and wine shippers.

Locals are invited to stop by seven days a week for wine tasting, and we will be open everyday from 10am-5pm through the Holidays with the exception of Christmas Day and New Years Day.

As always, our $9.50 shipping rate applies to all orders, and is our standard flat rate for two day shipping.

Joanie Hudson, Director of National and International Marketing, Santa Barbara Winery / Lafond Winery & Vineyards

Lafond Winery & Vineyards Holiday Open House, December 5

Come join as at Lafond Winery this Saturday, December 5 as we toast the Holiday season along with the rest of Sta. Rita Hills.  We will be having a Holiday Open House from 10am-5pm.  Join us for an artisan cheese spread, fresh bread and desserts that pair with our wines, while finding that perfect holiday gift for the wine lover on your list in our tasting room.

From the Sta. Rita Hills Winegrowers Alliance:

We love holidays here in Santa Barbara Wine Country, as they give us an opportunity to get together with friends and take a breather from life’s hustle and bustle. And the upcoming holidays are particularly celebratory!

The 2009 harvest is in and our towns and villages have that small-town feeling of excitement in the air. The first weekend in December is chock-full of open houses, special tastings, newly displayed gift items and a great time to come up and ‘get into the spirit’. Take a stroll through one of our villages, kick up the leaves in a park, take a cooking class, join a winemaker at dinner, shop for unique gifts in the tasting rooms or take a leisurely drive along one of our wine trails.
 
Many of the members of the Sta. Rita Hills Winegrowers Alliance are opening the doors to the wineries and cellars for Open Houses and special tastings throughout this weekend.  As many of these are not normally open to the public, this is your chance to come taste new and library wines, chat with the winemakers and owners about the current vintages and find that special bottle of wine for a gift or to grace your holiday tables.
 
Join us as we toast the season!

Click Here for the full list of events / open houses this weekend in the Sta. Rita Hills.

Joanie Hudson, Director of National and International Marketing, Santa Barbara Winery / Lafond Winery & Vineyards

Wine Books and Libraries

For the past year or so I have been buying wine books faster than I can read them, but instead of slowing down my purchasing it seems to be picking up.  I am the first one to say that the best way to learn about wine is by tasting and experiencing, but it’s great to have the literature to support it and get into more depth on what you are drinking.  My home library has a vast range from fiction to encyclopedic, but the common theme on my bookshelves is wine.  Sometimes I will pick up a book and read just a chapter, and put it back only to pick it up again months later, and that’s just how I read through my wine library.  

Below is a great article (‘An Invitation to Read, Sniff, and Taste’) on some current favorite wine books out there.  We have a large selection in the tasting room and have just recently stocked up for the upcoming holidays.  So come by, taste, and peruse.  Books make great gifts for wine lovers, as long as you include a bottle of wine as well!

 BOOKS about wine are no substitute for drinking wine. But these six new selections can help to better understand what’s in the glass, and what’s in the minds of those who make wine and consume it.

Jonathan Nossiter is the wine world’s own special irritant. In manner and style, his new book, Liquid Memory: Why Wine Matters (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25), like his 2004 movie “Mondovino,” is annoying, polarizing and provocative. It raises questions that deserve to be considered, yet his technique and style may turn off potential converts. As portrayed by Mr. Nossiter, the world of wine today is a Manichean battleground, where the soulless forces of homogenization — Robert M. Parker Jr., Wine Spectator, etc. — have turned wine, a true emblem of individuality, community and culture, into (gasp) a commodity.

“Do people across the world really want all these alcoholized sodapop concoctions,” he asks, “or are they conned and bullied by marketing and the collusion of the market into submitting to them?”

Mr. Nossiter raises other, more interesting, issues. Why is it that we resort to the absurd language of tasting notes to try to beat a wine down to its most obscure aroma and flavor? Does wine, like great art, illuminate the deepest ideas of what it means to be human? Or is it craft? How does something agrarian at heart retain its integrity in a post-industrial world?

These are all important questions, yet Mr. Nossiter draws attention away from them with regular showoff references to obscure avant-garde film directors and philosophers. He interrupts his lecture to meet with Burgundian winemakers he respects, like Christophe Roumier and Dominique Lafon. When he settles down to listen, we can all learn something…

Click Here for the rest of the article written by Eric Asimov for The New York Times

Joanie Hudson, Director of National and International Marketing, Santa Barbara Winery / Lafond Winery & Vineyards

California Travel – Happy Canyon

Santa Barbara County’s newest AVA, Happy Canyon of Santa Barbara, has long been a source of high quality fruit for us here at Santa Barbara Winery.  Check out this fun article (‘Near Santa Barbara, California’s New Wine Country’) on our newest wine country destination.

From California Travel Girl website

I know why it’s called Happy Canyon. It’s because this little corner of Santa Barbara wine country, in the east end of the Santa Ynez Valley, has just become California’s newest AVA (American Viticultural Area). On the Los Padres side of Highway 154, this broad, sunny cleft is home to horse ranches and hillside vineyards.

To become an AVA, a wine region has to be significantly different from other winegrape growing areas, and Happy Canyon qualifies: hotter temps, less fog, and a mineral terroir (serpentine soil lace with high magnesium content) make it distinctive. It’s also pretty small, with just six major vineyards and two active wineries (a third is due next year), but note: none offer public tasting.

Still, you can make your own tasting tour of their wines (mostly Bordeaux-styles), by visiting winetasting rooms like those listed below. Or visit the better known area Santa Barbara wine regions. And don’t miss Santa Barbara’s downtown Urban Wine Trail, with stops at eleven wine hotspots. Happy now?

Thanksgiving Wines

Thanksgiving has always been one of my absolute favorite holidays.  The entire month of November is spent in anticipation of this amazing meal that brings friends and family together from all across the world, just to sit around the dinner table together for this special night.  This drawing factor of Thanksgiving is one of the things I love most about wine as well.  I am so greatful for any event or beverage that has the ability to bring people together to relax at the end of their day, and reflect on what matters most in this world, the company that we surround ourselves with and close friends and family.  Thanksgiving is a North American Harvest Festival, and it pretty much signals the end of a vintage for our winemakers, just in time to get everything in barrel to be home with family for the holiday. 

That being said, Thanksgiving dinner is always a very interesting topic in the realm of food pairings.  The reason that there will never be a single answer for what wine goes well with Thanksgiving dinner (a question I get asked repeatedly) is that my Thanksgiving dinner is likely very different from my neighbors, whose dinner is very different than their neighbors.  We all have our traditions and special Thanksgiving recipes and ingredients, and there are so many different wines that work well with each aspect of the plate.  So when you’re thinking about what wines to serve at Thanksgiving, put some thought into the different flavors, textures, and weights that will be put together in the kitchen.  Think about your guests, think about what you like to drink, and then make your decision from there.  There are some general rules that can serve as a guideline, but that’s all it is, a basic guideline, you as a consumer are responsible for finding out what you like and don’t like, and that just comes from tasting lots of different wines!  I personally love Rieslings and Sta. Rita Hills Pinot Noir with Turkey, Grenache and Nebbiolo are also generally hits at the table as well.  The jamminess of our Negrette is another nice pairing with Cranberry sauce and stuffing. 

Our tasting room is a nice venue to taste through a few different options and see what might work best with your meal.  We are open daily from 10am-5pm, and are closed only on Thanksgiving Day.

Joanie Hudson, Director of National and International Marketing, Santa Barbara Winery / Lafond Winery & Vineyards

Build Your Wine Know-How

If you ever find yourself as a consumer intimidated by wine, remind yourself that it is just a beverage to be enjoyed… The only way to learn more is to invest some time and energy into paying attention to what you are drinking, where it comes from, why you smell blackberries, why you smell vanilla, and all down the taste and aromatic wheel…

I found some fun tips in this article on “How You Can Build Your Wine Know-How”

One way to build your wine knowledge is to attend wine tastings. Free tastings offer one of the best opportunities to be objective because you have neither money nor ego on the line. At the events, keep your ears open to the musings of more experienced wine enthusiasts. Listen to their descriptions and determine if you can distinguish the same flavors in the wine. Don’t be afraid to talk to people and ask questions.
You can also build your knowledge by enrolling in wine education classes. These offer the opportunity to explore a wide spectrum of wines. In addition, classes have the luxury of built-in wine partners — the other students. Attend classes that offer wines that you are less familiar with, as well as those that rank among your favorites.  Click Here for the full article.
Taste some new wines, retaste old wines, repurchase wines you have enjoyed in the past and see how they are tasting today…
Joanie Hudson, Director National and International Marketing, Santa Barbara Winery / Lafond Winery & Vineyards