March Wine Club Pick Up Party

Published on March 11, 2010 in Wine Club. 0 Comments

Attention Santa Barbara Winery Wine Club Members:

Please join us this Saturday, March 13, for our March Wine Club Pick Up Party from 11am-2pm.  Stop by the winery to pick up your two bottle selection, sample our current tasting list selection, snack on some tasty treats from our Pierre Lafond Wine Bistro, and catch up with fellow club members.

Reservations are required so give us a call or email to get on the list, and feel free to bring a couple of friends!

805) 963-3633  /  wine@sbwinery.comClick Here to read more about our Wine Club and Sign Up (Wine Club Members receive 20% off of all purchases)
Also, ask about Pierre Lafond Wine Bistro’s newest event, Sunday with the Vintner.

Sunday with the Vintner Description:
Local winemakers present wines accompanied with cheese and bread.
Guests can purchase wine.. if you stay for dinner, free corkage for purchased wine.
Pierre Lafond Wine Bistro (516 State St.)is dedicated to highlighting a wide variety of local wineries. 3-5pm, $15.00

How to Drink Wine Like a Pro – Video

Published on March 9, 2010 in Videos. 0 Comments

I love fun videos and blogs that put a little bit of humor into educating consumers on wine. 

Check out this video ‘Head of the Glass – Easy Does it: How to Drink Wine Like a Pro’

Wine tasting is broken down into four simple steps: Color, Aromatics, Taste, and Finish (“Does it linger or drop off the planet?”)

The video was posted at the Daily Candy website.  DailyCandy is a handpicked selection of all that’s fun, fashionable, food/wine related, and culturally stimulating in the city you’re fixated on (and all over the Web).

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

Bottling 2009 Wines: Phase 1

Published on March 9, 2010 in Bottling. 1 Comment

Over the past couple of months we have been busy tweaking and enhancing our label design on the majority of our wines (see previous post on ‘Label Art’ to see the end result).  Now Bruce, Cameron, and Dan (our Operations Manager) are tying together all of the loose ends to prep for our first stage of bottling 2009 wines.  There is a tremendous amount of work and planning that goes into bottling wine, not to mention the grueling days spent at the bottling line and physical work involved in bottling, labeling, and capsuling thousands of cases.  All of the little things that go into packaging have to be sorted out before the line gets moving.

At the Santa Barbara Winery facility (downtown on Anacapa St.) we have our own bottling line, where we bottle all of the wines for both Lafond and Santa Barbara Winery.  It requires a strong and hardworking labor force, who show up day after day to get the job done one case at a time.

If you come by the winery during the week in the next couple of weeks you may be able to catch a glimpse of the line in process.  You will at the very least be able to hear the clanking of bottles!

White wines and Rose are typically ready to bottle first, and we will do a second round of bottling of 2009 wines in the fall of 2010, right before the next harvest begins… Starting to see how the cycle works?  Gotta make room for the new grapes and juice coming in.

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

Quake Damages Chile’s Wine Business

Published on March 8, 2010 in Articles on Wine and Vineyards. 0 Comments

Waking up to headlines about earthquakes in the far reaches of the globe (Haiti, Chile, and now Turkey) seems to be becoming an frightening trend.  Seeing the numerical quake magnitude is a far reach from registering what those who are experiencing the disaster are going through.  They seem so far away, yet they could happen right here in California, and will.

I came across this article in USA Today on how Chile’s most recent earthquake has affected its wine industry (Southern Hemisphere wineries harvest on opposite sides of the calendar as the Northern Hemisphere because of the polar seasons).

SANTA CRUZ, Chile — Samuel Castro, a security guard at Bisquertt Winery’s 1,400-acre vineyard here in the Colchagua Valley, arrived at his job at 7 a.m. last Saturday and couldn’t believe what he saw.

“The road was turned into a red torrent; the wine was streaming down the irrigation ditch,” he remembered.

Five days after the massive magnitude-8.8 earthquake that hit Chile, the more than 300-foot-long dirt road that leads to Bisquertt’s main cellar was still soaked, had a dark-purple color and emanated a smell of putrid wine.

Several storage tanks cracked, dozens of barrels burst and hundreds of bottles shattered, releasing about 20,000 liters of red wine, said Jaime Araya, a manager at Bisquertt.

Similar devastations struck most of the wineries in this valley and many more along the central-south region of Chile, which is home to 70% of the wine production in this country and which the quake hit hardest…

To read the rest of the article, Quake Puts Dent in Chile’s Wine Business, click here.

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

Pinot Noir first Bud 3/02/10

Published on March 2, 2010 in Wine News. 2 Comments

The Pinot Noir is relatively late this year, and we don’t begrudge it – late budding reduces the danger of frost damage slightly. The reason for the lateness is plenty of rain accompanied with cold. This is the first real bud that we have seen.

The bud has been there since last summer, hidden in the vine, only to emerge cocoon like nine months later. The almost thread like substance that wraps it will become more evident as it develops. Click image to enlarge.

2010 Vintners Festival, April 17

Published on February 27, 2010 in Wine News. 0 Comments

Each year (actually twice each year – spring and fall) all of the wineries in Santa Barbara County get together and pour their wines at the Vintners’ Festival in Lompoc.  The Santa Barbara County Vintners’ Association organizes the Vintners’ and Harvest Festivals year after year, and they are a great opportunity to taste wines across the spectrum of quality, price, and availability from Santa Barbara.

Over the weekend, wineries hold open houses, feature new releases, set up food stands, or host dinners.  At Lafond Winery we host an open house all day (10am-5pm) on the day of the festival and pour new releases alongside food from our famous taco stand.

2010 Vintners’ Festival
April 17th, 1 – 4pm

The annual Santa Barbara County Vintners’ Festival attractes wine lovers from near and far for an opportunity to meet member vintners, taste their wines, and enjoy great food and music in a festive outdoor environment at River Park in Lompoc.

The festival features the wines of our 130+ members of the Association, live and lively music, a silent auction and wine country cuisine by the area’s finest chefs.

Festival ticket: $75 (will be $85 at the door)

Vintners’ Visa: $35 (a ticket to taste at participating wineries for free over the long weekend)

Combo Festival and Visa Ticket: $100

Please visit the Santa Barbara County Vintners’ Association website for more information and to purchase tickets for this great event.

Stolpman and Super Tuscans

Published on February 25, 2010 in Sangiovese and Santa Barbara Winery. 1 Comment Tags: .

Spritland Bistro’s monthly Wine & Dine dinner featured Pete Stolpman from Stolpman Vineyards last night, who attended to speak and sip on Super Tuscan wines.

Spritland Bistro (230 E. Victoria St.) is an intimate local restaurant that holds monthly (sometimes bi-monthly) BYOB wine dinners of a specified variety or region.  Super Tuscans were up last night for the 24th BYOB dinner.  Pete spoke between and over each course about the diversity of Italian wine on the market, the ramifications of Italy’s quality designation system (IGT, DOC, DOCG), and the south-facing, calcareous soil of Stolpman Vineyards in Ballard Canyon.

The care that goes into that vineyard (which we source Sangiovese and Nebbiolo from), is extremely intricate – from farming practices to “La Cuadrilla,” which refers to their full time vineyard crew.  Stolpman Vineyard is organic, sustainable, and dry farmed.  Pete discussed their choice to dry farm as a “quality reason.”  Starting in 2001, they cut irrigation to all mature vines.  How do vines survive without water?  Some of the crowd was perplexed… “Vines are trained weeds,” Pete went on to elaborate, “they will find a way to survive from rainfall throughout the year and sucking up whatever moisture they can from their environment.”  The consequences is a smaller crop (usually less than a ton per acre) and you can’t make cheap wine.  This is just one of the many indicators of quality that has become synonymous with the Stolpman name.

A little bit about Super Tuscan wines… Some may have been confused by the ‘Super Tuscan’ theme, as there were many Chianti wines being passed around and tasted.  To be honest, if I didn’t spend a lot of my time reading wine books and magazines, and I saw the theme Super Tuscan, I would probably just think that I was supposed to bring “a great Tuscan wine – like a SUPER one” so I can see how the confusion occurred!  Super Tuscan describes a Tuscan red that does not adhere to traditional Italian blending laws for the region.  Super Tuscans use grapes such as cabernet sauvignon or merlot, making them ineligible for Tuscany’s acclaimed DOCG status.  So in short, last night featured sangiovese-based wines from all over the world with either some cabernet sauvignon, merlot, or syrah blended in.

For fun I brought along the 2004 Santa Barbara Winery Sangiovese from Stolpman Vineyard, which is one of my personal favorite wines that we have produced at the winery.  It is at a phenomenal place in its wine life, full of juicy fruit and bright acidity, some mellowed out tannins make this wine very approachable.  Our current release of this wine is 2006. (click image to enlarge)

We are proud to be associated with the Stolpman name.

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

Same Label new Image for Santa Barbara Winery

Published on February 24, 2010 in Wine News. 0 Comments

Installing our first Frost Protection Blower

Published on February 23, 2010 in Wine News. 0 Comments

David has been installing these large blowers which are supposed to push the air 50 feet high. The concept is to create an upward draft removing the cold air, that sinks to the ground, and replacing it with the warmer air above.

We are installing two in one of our Pinot Noir blocks – the block is about 20 acres. This is an experiment and if it works, even moderately well, we will install others. Our hope is that we wont have to test it and temperatures will not drop below freezing.

There are other choices. The gold standard is water but that requires huge amounts of water, a large reservoir, many many pumps and overhead sprinklers. None of which we have.

As water freezes, enclosing the grapes it gives off heat as it changes from liquid to solid. The problem is you have to keep pumping until it gets warm enough to melt the ice or goodbye the grapes.

Tall vertical fans work but they generally push the problem to your neighbor or another part of your vineyard. Helicopters really move the air but the hourly cost is astronomical. So, we are trying these horizontal blowers which can be powered by a tractor, are movable and don’t break the bank. (click images to enlarge)