Tag Archive for 'Chardonnay'

The “New Normal”

An insider’s peek at the wine industry’s “new normal.”  The economy has shifted consumer’s consumption patterns. 

Santa Rosa, Calif. — Say goodbye to a year of economic freefall and hello to what analysts describe as “the new normal.” Its key feature: Fragile consumers who are less interested in spending their money than in repairing their balance sheets.

For the wine industry, that translates into slow growth, lower prices and younger fans who are drinking more at home than at fancy restaurants.

Industry analysts gathered here Friday to presents results of new consumer studies conducted by the Wine Market Council and The Nielsen Company. They’ll repeat the presentations in New York on Tuesday and Dallas on Friday.

“The economy has been a bear to deal with, but the worst is over,” said Danny Brager, who leads the Nielsen’s Beverage Alcohol Client Service team. “Now we’re on the slow road to recovery.”

What’s next along the road is still anybody’s guess. Navigating these tricky times will require careful study of consumer behavior and individual market segments.

“Growth opportunities exist, but you have to have a specific strategy,” Brager told Wines & Vines after the presentation. “You have to figure out which channels are working, what’s the new pulse.”

In 2009, Americans went out less frequently, causing restaurant wine sales to fall, but developed a heightened interest in cooking—and drinking— at home.

Retail wine sales increased, as did the range of stores interested in selling liquor, and for good reason: Adding wine to the mix at shopping clubs, discount stores, drug and convenience stores adds $30 to the average shopping basket.

The increase in retail outlets may have boosted wine sales volumes, but it may also have added pressure to already falling prices. Discounters and drug stores rely on price competition to lure shoppers, and aren’t shy about starting price wars. A growing number are also introducing store brands, which cost less than namebrand labels, while also delivering higher profit margins.

“Some of the chains are moving toward stocking just the No. 1 and No. 2 national brands,” replacing all the rest with their own brands, Brager said. Trader Joe’s “Two Buck Chuck” led the way, paving the way for 7-11’s $3.99 Yosemite Road wines and Costco’s impressive Kirkland portfolio, which includes Cabernets from Rutherford in Napa Valley and Sonoma’s Alexander Valley, as well as Sonoma County Chardonnays.

Global wine surpluses, combined with scaled back consumption, have contributed to discounting at all levels, said Chris Fehrnstrom of Constellation Wines U.S.

“A lot of wine needs to move through the marketplace,” he said. Bottles that once sold for $12.99 have been discounted to $9.99, while $24.99 bottles dipped to $19.99.

Bill Cascio of Glazer’s Family of Companies has seen $60 bottles on sale for $49.99, and $100 bottles that have dipped to $80. He expects the discounting to continue.

“It won’t stop the brand building process, but it will be hard to build new brands,” he said. “When times get tough, people turn to the tried and true…”

Full Article

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

Home for Monster Wines as Crowd-Pleasers

Here is a fun article that mentions and recommends our 2007 Santa Barbara Winery Chardonnay…

Find a Home for Monster Wines as Crowd-Pleasers

Big, chewy monster wines have a place in just about any wine lovers repertoire. These high-alcohol, jammy wines might not be your best friend at the dinner table, but wines that sport a decent whack of oak and the palpable richness to handle it can be critical to two efforts that wine geeks face regularly.

First, they make for excellent conversion wines — wines that’ll get your “beer only” friends to consider alternatives to their adult beverage of choice. Second, what they generally lack in terms of complexity and food-friendliness, they more than make up in their role as crowd-pleasers — or wines that you can serve at a party that are sure to maximize the enjoyment of as wide a subset of your friends and family as possible. Think of them as grenades of happiness. Toss a big bottle of Aussie Shiraz or California Zin into a crowd of people and you’re more than likely to make the vast majority of your crew happy. And, with just a teeny bit of effort (like, say, reading the rest of this column), you don’t have to completely sacrifice depth and balance when you’re serving these goliaths.

When it comes to turning heads in a diverse crowd, few whites can compete with the whiplash potential in a good bottle of Chardonnay. It’s a bit of a cliche to bash California chards for their oak, butter and richness, especially because there are just so many examples that aren’t oaky, buttery and rich. But for our purposes, that’s exactly what we want.

Buying a wine like this can be a little tricky. It’s easy to find one that drinks like a butter-coated cedar chip. Doesn’t sound too pleasant, does it? We need a wine with just a bit of restraint. I tend toward bottlings from the Central Coast instead of northern appellations like Napa where ripeness is amplified and winemakers tend to try to mask it with oodles of new wood.

I’ve been drinking way too much of Santa Barbara Winery’s juicy 2007 Chardonnay. This wine retails for about $15/bottle and delivers big time quality for the money. It has terrific richness and shows off bits of vanilla, caramel, pear and pink grapefruit. This is a key conversion wine for me. When somebody tells me that either A) “I don’t like Chardonnay,” or B) “I don’t drink white wine,” I try to force a bottle Central Coast Chardonnay on them…

Click Here for the full article at Burlington Free Press

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

Harvest Festival Recap 2009

We had a great time pouring at the 2009 Harvest Festival this past Saturday — the wines and the turnout were spectacular. 

I love the setup of this Festival.  Though they attempt to make it alphabetical, it never quite turns out that way, and it can be a maze to find what you’re looking for.  But that causes guests to stumble upon wineries or restaurants that they may have otherwise passed if only going by their checklist of places they know they like. 

I talked to a handful of people who were pleased with their happy accidents.  The venue is beautiful — a grassy, soft hilled area at Rancho Sisquoc Winery in Santa Maria.  White tents are backdropped by the rolling Santa Ynez hillsides, blue skies, and grazing livestock. 

I was prepared for cold, as when we left Downtown Santa Barbara a little before 11, it was socked in grey.  But once we passed over the 154 Highway, that sock quickly disappeared and it was all blue skies from there…

Santa Barbara Winery poured seven wines:

2007 Sauvignon Blanc

2007 Chardonnay

2007 Chardonnay Reserve

2007 Riesling 7.3%

2008 ZCS

2006 Lagrein

2006 Petite Sirah

The Petite Sirah was a perfect match with the individual lamb legs served up by Solvang’s new restaurant, Root 246.  Delicious.

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

Close to 85 tons of Chardonnay

Today was a big Harvest day for ChardonnayWinemaker Bruce just told me that we got in about 85 tons (ONE ton is about 2000 pounds!) of the varietal, which makes up the largest portion of our total production.  Chardonnay came in from our newer block of Wente clone at Lafond Vineyard, Thompson Vineyard, and Los Alamos

Tomorrow Joughin Vineyard Primitivo (genetically identical to Zinfandel) is coming in.  Also, Thompson Vineyard Petite Sirah will come off the vines and into Lafond Winery

Fork lifts are still beeping, and I’m making some export stickers for bottles going to Germany (2006 Lagrein and 2008 Orange Muscat).

If you like the music on our website, come see Chris Fossek live at Lafond Winery’s Open House this Saturday October 10, 10am-5pm.  And even if you don’t, you should still come…

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

Harvest Update and Festival

As I prep for this weekend’s Harvest Festival and a sales trip to the Midwest next week, bins of grapes are being forklifted around everywhere I turn.  Today we got in Lafond Vineyard Wente Clone Chardonnay and Thompson Vineyard Chardonnay, and we are all so excited about the consistency and quality among the fruit.  2009 has been good to vintners and growers, we had a relatively cool, dry spring and summer with cool nights needed to maintain grape’s acidity.  Heat waves in late August and early September accelerated Harvest into full motion, and now the weather seems to be slowly cooling down. 

It’s not too late to buy your tickets to this weekend’s Harvest Festival, held this coming Saturday, October 10, from 1-4pm at Rancho Sisquoc Winery.  This is one of two events a year where all of the member of the Santa Barbara County Vintners’ Association come together to pour their wines.  Lafond Winery will also be holding our annual Open House at the tasting room with new releases, plenty of bites and nibbles of cheeses, breads, and desserts.  This event will run from 10am-5pm this Saturday.

We are still waiting for more Chardonnay and Riesling to come into the downtown Santa Barbara Winery facility and still waiting on Syrah and Grenache up at Lafond…

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

2009 Harvest Update

As summer comes to a close in Santa Barbara, the looming presence of the 2009 Harvest is on everybody’s mind at the winery.  At the downtown Santa Barbara Winery facility, we are busy shuffling things around and bottling Chardonnay to make room for the new fruit and juice coming in.

 Harvest is the busiest time of the year for a winery as winemakers give up a social life and are at the mercy of the grapes.  I was talking to a winemaker at a tasting last week, and when I asked how their fruit was looking, he smiled and said it’s looking great, and then there was a nervous laugh as he dutifully followed with, “Yup, my life is about to be over.”  

Winemakers in Santa Barbara County are very optimistic about the 2009 crop, both in terms of yields and quality.  We were hit hard two years in a row in ‘07 and ‘08 by low yielding vintages due to unfavorable weather conditions.  In 2008, an April frost cut grape yields across the board and also led to uneven ripening that needed to be discarded at the sorting table.  With all of the modern technology in the winery (from revolutionary sorting tables to high speed Internet Twittering), the quality of the grapes are and always will be ultimately left to nature.  

In 2009 there were no late frosts in the spring or sudden heat spells in the summer, and crop size is looking plentiful.  Winemakers spend lots of time in late summer as the grapes are turning color (veraison) dropping fruit (literally cutting off wings and late ripeners).  It all begins in the vineyard as each winemaker controls how the fruit is positioned, how many shoots per vine, and how the sun hits the skins of the grape (canopy).  

Most growers expect the all consuming Harvest to begin the first of second week of September, and lasts until late October and sometimes into November.  White grapes typically come in first, while reds take a bit longer to hit full maturation.  What comes in when depends on what is growing where and the weather in the specific microclimate.  The grape’s tannin, acid, and sugar content determine how ripe the grape actually is.

Once the winemaker deems these components in ripened balance, grapes are cut from the vine by a tremendously hard working and dedicated crew in the cool early (very early) morning.  This assures that the grapes arrive at the winery while they are still cool to the touch.  Then the winemakers get to work on the “crush.” But more on that later…

Harvest and subsequent activities in the winery are literally a culmination of a year in the vineyard.  When you drink your 2009 wines, you can think back to the not so distant past of 2009 weather and how it affected what you are drinking.  This is one of my favorite things about wine and the winemaking process, it changes and is unique every single year.  With all of the repetition that we experience in life, particularly with the products that we consume or use, wine will never be the same from one bottle to the next.

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

Weed Abatement Lafond Vineyards

Weeds miraculously grow even when there is no rain. You can disc the rows but in between the vines it is more difficult. There are three ways to control the weeds. You can hoe by hand, which is incredibly expensive, and we sometimes have to resort to this if the weeds are large and out of control. The second is herbicide, similar to what many people use on their lawns, but you can only do it when plants are dormant, and it is not in keeping with our goal of sustainable farming.

The third is mechanical. The photo shows a new machine, we are testing, which consists of blades on both sides which shear the weeds just below ground and retract when passing a vine. Many of the machines we have tried and used in the past took out the weeds but they also took out the vine. This machine looks very promising and we plan on using it next spring.

The driver is working a Chardonnay block we planted last year. Weeds are always more difficult the first two years because of the need to water more frequently, as the plant matures and develops its root system there is much less need to irrigate.

Ojai Festival Recap

Yesterday was my first time attending the Ojai Wine Festival at Lake Casitas Recreational Area (about a 35 minute drive from Santa Barbara).  The crowd was big at the 23rd Annual, hitting its peak halfway through the festival around 2:30.  The weather was perfect, a cool breeze brushed through the booths every couple of minutes, keeping the space at a pleasant temperature for sipping both white and red wines.  Free 20 minute boat rides were given on the lake, Kettle Korn was popping, pork was pulled, and oysters were shucked.

Santa Barbara Winery Wines Poured:

2007 Sauvignon Blanc
2007 Chardonnay
2007 Reserve Chardonnay
2007 Riesling 7.3
2007 Pinot Noir
2005 Sangiovese
2006 Primitivo

The Ojai Wine Festival is the major fund raiser for the Rotary Club of Ojai-West benefitting the American Red Cross, Ojai Police, Ojai schools, and the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation, among others.

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