Central Coast Wine Blogs

Dessert Wines

Dessert wines - Many people just pour them over high-quality vanilla bean ice cream with fresh berries or shaved dark chocolate atop. But a quality dessert wine is so much more than just a sweet pick-me-up or a syrup for frozen milch. During the holidays you should have a few bottles on hand.  Don't be shy about using them as after-dinner digestifs enjoyed in a tiny glass, as the basis for meat marinades and vinaigrettes, to splash into Spanish cava or champagne for a festive flair, and to accompany holiday desserts.  At the end of a meal, a complex, layered dessert wine is both dessert and digestif, particularly if you serve it with some crisp fruit and mellow cheeses. Some dessert wines, particularly whites, are mellow enough to be served with roasted quail and other savory treats. During the holidays, a good dessert wine makes an instant course for a quickly pulled together dinner, and can even be used as part of the preparation.

Some easy pairings for late harvest and port-style reds:

• Dates stuffed with cream cheese and topped with a raspberry
• Small puff pastry circlets topped with cream fraiche, berries, and shaved chocolate
• Sesame glazed walnuts
• Slices of pear and apple
• Savory cheeses—Gorgonzola, Stilton, Manchego

Quick pairings for white late harvest and dessert wines:

• White chocolate brownies
• Puff pastry cups with fresh peaches, crème fraiche and toasted almonds
• Baklava
• Fruit and cheese quiche
• Tapioca or pudding topped with fruit and crème fraiche

While most people instinctively pair a sweet with a sweet, the oils and sugar in chocolate and dessert dishes coat the palate and subdue the layered flavors of a great dessert wine. When I want the wine to star, I serve nuts, cheese, and savory bites.   

Try basting a quail with a dessert white or red while roasting, and prepare a long-grain rice stuffing with fruits that have been steeped in a cup of the wine—dark fruits for a red dessert wine, white fruits like apricots and blood oranges in white dessert wine. The savory elements of the fowl and rice are a great marriage with dessert wines. Look for dessert wines that are not too rich and pruney—they should have lifted acidity and clearly definable varietal flavors.

"It takes a lot of good beer to make great wine."

Harvest season in the wine industry is hot, thirsty work. The vines are covered with a summer's worth of dust, and inhabited by black widow spiders and other crawling, climbing, biting insects. Workers who peel back the bird netting draped over the vines have the pleasure of removing dead birds, squirrels and possums entangled in the net. Driving the tractors which tow the picking bins up and down the rows is hot work too, and bees follow the picking bins in swarms, lying thick on top of the sweet, sticky grapes.

In the winery itself, cellarmen drag heavy hoses from one tank to another, even up onto the catwalks, so wine can be pumped up to the top of a tank and sluiced over the grapeskins floating near the top. Others are standing inside fermentation tanks, shoveling out the heavy pomace, the residual grapeskins left after the wine has been pumped off. Everything needs cleaning, all the time. Tanks, barrels, buckets, hoses, fittings---everything is washed, brushed, scoured and sanitized in a continual war against nasty organisms and fruit flies.

This time of year, you are likely to find local winemakers enjoying a hot dinner at Papi's Mexican restaurant, arguing the merits of various yeasts with a hot tostada in one hand and a cold beer in the other. Cellarmen and winemakers sit in the shade at the end of the day with--you guessed it, a cold beer. The cellar refrigerators hold equal parts of yeast, bottled wine samples, steaks, and beer.

Crush, Continued

It's that time of year again. Time for grapes to be harvested and turned into wine. Do we call this time of year "crush" because the grapes are poured into hoppers and dumped into crusher-destemmers to be de-foliated and mangled before fermenting? No, we call it "crush" because this is the time of year when forklifts are backed into doors and tanks; tractors roll down terraced hillsides; hoses get plugged up, tanks overflow, and the winery dogs sleeping on warm cement get run over.

This is how wine is made. When a winemaker refers casually to the "blood and guts" of his winery, he is probably not referring to accounts receivable or distribution channels. He is likely referring to a dismantled crusher, sitting like a beached ship among a sea of littered parts---or the last cellar worker to explode the head off a barrel of wine.

Wayne's Tire does a thriving business this time of year, catering to the ag industry, making road calls nearly 24 hours a day to replace forklift tires, tractor tires and truck tires. The wine industry here is not a tidy, large-scale industry with predictable sizes and types of mobile equipment. Small vineyards and wineries use whatever they can find and afford; picking bin trailers have varying sizes of wheels and tires, and of course they don't just go flat---they shred themselves completely in inconvenient places like terraced hillsides and highway intersections.

Electricians are also highly popular this time of year, as every critical piece of equipment except the punchdown tool runs on electricity---and huge amounts of it. And of course all these generators and presses and whatnot have signs plastered on all their panels saying, "Do Not Open" or "Hazard--Danger," so who wants to go poking around in there?

Forklifts are definitely the most popular piece of equipment during crush---being used for forklift races, diving boards over winery fire protection ponds, to hold basketball hoops, as tire jacks, and for subtly chasing snoopy tasters who wander onto the crush pad.

It's not always fun and games however, as cellar workers wade through hordes of yellow jackets, faint from fermentation fumes (whenever a cellar worker is missing he's presumed sleeping, but we all check the fermentation tanks for floating shoes), drop heavy tools, and yank the barrel washers out without turning off the hot water.

Yellow Jackets and the Sting Pain Index

Yellow jackets are a common pest during harvest. They swarm thickly over the bins of arriving fruit, and explore odd crevices in the winery equipment.

Spring through summer, yellow jackets (a species of wasp, not a bee) bring insects, meat and fish to feed larvae in their rapidly growing colony. The larvae in turn give off a sweet nectar that fuels and satisfies the adults. By late summer or early September, the larvae are all grown and the result is about 5,000 hungry adults. Without the larval love juice, an occasional flower nectar or sip of tree sap is no longer enough to fuel their full-flight metabolisms. They are looking for meat and sugar, which is why they are common pests at summer’s end picnics.

The Magic of Crush

In late summer, there is a moment in vineyards known as "veraison," which translates roughly as "moment of truth." It is the moment when grapes begin to turn from hard, green beads into sweet, plump fruit. From that moment until harvest the vineyards are at their most vulnerable. The hazards of the early season--heavy rains, late frosts--are minor compared to the dangers that haunt the last few weeks of vintage. Hordes of deer and birds descending on tender fruit can wipe out an entire harvest in a few days. Late season heat ripens grapes too quickly, robbing them of flavor. A lack of heat delays harvest into late fall, when freezing nights can turn grapes into tasteless mush. Late season rains swell grapes with water, breaking the skins and infecting entire clusters with mold.

During these last few weeks of summer, winemakers are in the vineyards, looking at the clusters, crushing grapes between their fingers, tasting the fruit. The winemaker's phone rings unanswered, mail piles up in messy stacks, and deadlines are missed. In the winery itself, cellarmen spend weeks draining barrels and tanks of previous vintages, bottling and labeling wine and shipping it out, cleaning tanks, barrels and equipment. Like the unveiling of a statue, cloth covers are pulled off the crusher and the press, and the huge machines are rolled outside, cleaned, and tested. Truck-size scales are pulled out of storage, assembled and calibrated to receive incoming fruit.

But to those of us who have been through this before, these busy weeks seem quiet, sounds seem muted. The vineyards are full and leafy, and heavy with fruit. Vines sag over their trellis systems and trail on the ground. Heat waves dance over the vines and an occasional breeze lifts the aluminum strips which are meant to frighten birds. In the winery itself, empty tanks stand with their doors hanging open. Barrels are turned upside down in their racks and the whole winery has a strangely hollow feeling.

Like survivors of a storm who smell another forming, we move through our preparations quickly with our minds focused on the horizon of late summer, waiting as the rising sugars and flavor of the vineyard slowly escalate--because all of this activity is only preparation for the season we call "crush."

The Deck Party Cookbook - Available Now!

 

There’s just nothing more fun than having a deck party. Fire up the grill, prepare a big salad, open some wine, and put out some appetizers. Let the party begin!

The Deck Party Cookbook is a collection of easy dishes that you can prepare at home for guests and family, and every recipe has a suggested wine pairing.

(View the entire table of contents here.  Just click on 'Preview' under the cover image.)

Learn how to grill lamb ribs with a lavender rub, smoke a duck, and make vodka gravlax. It's easier than you think!  Having friends overnight?  Start the party with grilled appetizers and dinner on the deck, and continue the next morning with our brunch ideas and creative Bloody Marias. Every recipe uses easy-to-find ingredients, so no matter where you live, you can cook, dine and wine as if you are in wine country!

There are 3 easy ways to order:

Order a paperback copy direct from Lulu.com and get 5% off

Get an autographed copy from me ($18 + $5 shipping):  mary@centralcoastwineblogs.com

Or download a digital copy now for only $12.95 and prepare an easy recipe tonight!

Pork Tenderloin and Basil Carnitas

 

I use fresh herbs, tomatoes, and peppers from the garden to make this easy and succulent dish during harvest season, when guests are many and time is limited.

Photos are courtesy of Brian Grafstrom, who is making this dish while traveling in London, England!

Order your own copy of The Deck Party Cookbook!  Choose from paperback and easy-print digital versions.

• 1 1/2 pound pork tenderloin
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup red wine
• 1/4 cup white Worcestershire sauce
• Fresh garlic chives, bay leaves, thyme and oregano
• 1-2 cups fresh basil leaves, julienned or sliced
• 2 cups chopped vine-ripened tomatoes
• 1 cup chopped white onion
• 1 cup chopped yellow bell pepper
• 4 flour tortillas

Serves 4

Place the pork tenderloin in a one gallon sealable bag with the olive oil, wine, white Worcestershire sauce, half of the julienned basil, and plenty of chopped fresh herbs.  (Strip the tiny leaves off the thyme stems, and gently crush the bay leaves.) 

Marinate for 2-3 hours.  Grill the tenderloin over medium-hot coals until faintly pink inside, about 10-15 minutes on each side.  You can also sear the tenderloin on the stove over medium heat, and then roast it at 400º for 10-15 minutes, or at 300º for 25-30 minutes.  Check the tenderloin after 15 minutes, because pork cooks quickly.  If you have a meat thermometer, interior temperature should be about 150º, and the center should be hot, yet still pink and juicy. 

Chop the tenderloin into bite-size chunks, and serve on warmed flour tortillas with the fresh basil, chopped tomatoes, chopped onion and peppers.

Wine suggestion: 

Pinot noir, sangiovese, or zinfandel.

 

Abalone's Revenge: The Cayucos Abalone Farm

 
 
A while back, I arranged a fundraising dinner and some tours of local food producers as a fundraiser for a culinary association.  We started the day at the Cayucos Abalone Farm with a personally guided tour conducted by Brad Buckley. Perched on small bluff overlooking the ocean, the farm produces almost 500,000 abalone a year. They culture only red abalone, under the brand name Ocean Rose.

Our first abalone epiphany was that abalone are not bi-valves like clams or oysters. They are snails. Gross, yet cool. Various strains of abalone also have their own particular flavor.

Blending Trials

 

  
 
We face each other over two glasses of wine. He asks for my opinion first. My wine repertoire consists of "I like it," or "I don't like it," and maybe a comment on the acid-fruit balance. But this is all he needs—the gauntlet thrown down.

Examining wine is this man's sport and passion. He doesn't just taste, or smell, or see. He views wine as a chessmaster views the board, or a sailor his boat. Every tiny detail is vital, and my opinion is only a catalyst, a challenge that invites him to step closer and lose himself in yet another brief but passionate relationship.

If I say I like it, he looks surprised, as though I couldn't possibly be serious, but bravely he says nothing, going back into the glass to re-examine it dubiously for positive qualities. After a moment he says, "But the phenolics are a bit high, don't you think? And there is a definite brassica component that detracts from the varietal character of the wine."

On Blogging: The Power of an Evergreen Article

 

Last month I was selected by Tripbase as one of the top ten bloggers in their World Wine category.  Please bear with me as I do a little chest-thumping, because my real intent is to share with you how you can make your blog impactful. 

According to Tripbase:

The nominees are chosen by our team of travel experts that go out to scour the internet for the best blogs they can find. That select group is then short-listed via a rigorous selection process, taking in factors like how informative the blog is, the overall writing style, the actual blog appearance and how well that blog performs in its given category when compared and contrasted to other, similar blogs.

The award is a mark of prestige which is only afforded to the blogs that score highly when our judges review them for selection. The award is a sign that a blog succeeds greatly at what it does and surpasses all expectations, thereby indicating it as a veritable bastion of quality and information.

So imagine my astonishment at being included with blogs like Vino Verve, McDuff's Food and Wine Trail, and Jamie Goode's blog.  "Is this for real?"  I thought.

Because here's the surprising part--Central Coast Wine Blogs only writes for the industry (with a few side trips) and is mostly focused on one wine region--Paso Robles.  I don't review wines or travel destinations.  So how could I possibly have been included in this echelon of fine wine writing?

It was several days later that the answer occurred to me.

Although this is a 2011 award, it must be the result of two pieces I wrote which have gone viral since 2009.  The first is How to Tell a Cork Dork from a Wine Geek--a humorous piece I actually wrote in 1992 as a newspaper column.  It has since been published on my blog and enjoyed constant retweeting and backlinking. 

The second piece is a five-part journalism series on shipping scams that target the wine industry--Inside a Wine Scam.  This piece still draws comments, calls, and emails from around the U.S. as people searching for information on these so-called shipping companies discover the series and are warned away from the scam.  I even received calls from a jewelry designer, a chef with a line of packaged spices, and a boutique cosmetics manufacturer among many others.  At my last count, the series, which resulted in the identification and apprehension of two individuals, has saved individuals and small family businesses from fraud and theft totaling over $70,000.

This is why it is so important to think beyond marketing.  Think about service.  What can you write about that provides value to your readership?  How can you help your readers, your industry, or your community?  Do you have humorous insights to share?  Funny pictures and videos? Light-hearted, uplifting material is always popular.

In journalism, a piece that can be read at any time, that is always fresh, funny or insightful is called an "evergreen" piece.  If you can produce one or two impactful, evergreen pieces a year, your blog will gain traction and readership.

If you don't feel you have the writing chops to do it yourself, there are still ways to sponsor great writing and material on your blog:

• Invite guest authors
• Sponsor an essay contest
• Mine your staff for hidden talent
• Hire an intern on a pay-per-piece basis
• Sponsor a video contest on Poptent.net

Whatever route you choose, do not dismiss the power of a good blog.  Every reader eventually becomes a fan, and most fans will eventually become customers and ambassadors for your brand.

And it all comes full circle, back to being transparent about who you are.  In the highly saturated, competitive world of wine marketing, people want to know the families and the people behind the brand.  They want to know that they're buying good wine from good people.  Like you.

Chocolate Wine Labels

 
 
Wine and chocolate?  There are two sides to the issue.  On one hand, chocolate should be avoided when doing serious wine evaluation because the sugar and oils in the chocolate coat one's palate and interfere with perception.

On the other hand, chocolate is just plain fun and totally yummy with red wine.  So for many people, chocolate is a welcome treat on a wine tasting weekend, when our weekday button-downed rules are meant to be broken, or at least ignored.

As wineries, we are always looking for the next great branding item to give away or sell in the tasting room.  So why not edible images on chocolate?  The party favor square pictured above is just the right size for a label image.  Tasty Image, a chocolate company that prints images (including photos) on chocolate can also print your label or winery image on business cards, lollipops and hanging ornaments. 

Branded chocolates are a nice addition to gift lines, and they're also great as a thank you gift for big buyers, loyal wine club members, wholesale clients, and sales reps. 

Tasty Image is a client of mine, which means a little sumpin' sumpin' extra for you!  Use the links provided here and use code SOLID10 on checkout to receive a 10% discount on your order. 

If you are interested in placing larger orders (like, after the first order of chocolate disappears in about a day) let me know and I will set you up with affiliate/wholesale pricing.

Imaged chocolates are delivered by FedEx in protective, insulated packaging.

Bread Machine Recipe: Saffron-Coriander

  

I recently received compliments on my favorite homemade bread loaf, which I brought to a winery gathering, so I thought I'd share it here.  It's great with hearty grilled foods and red wine.  Enjoy with friends, family and customers.

I prefer an upright-style bread machine for even rising and baking.  If you haven't yet tried using a bread machine yet, inexpensive models are available used on eBay and similar sites for around $30. 

I prefer the upright model to the horizontal pan machines because it consistently produces a thoroughly mixed, fluffier, and uniform loaf.  The basic recipe is for a large 2 pound loaf of white bread, but I add two secret ingredients:  coriander seed and a saffron mix.  Coriander seed gives the bread cubes a citrusy crunch, and the saffron blend gives it a deep yellow color and a toasty, almost tobacco-like aroma which is great with red wine.  For another variation, you can also add dried safflower petals, which are frequently available in your grocer's Mexican spice section.

Here's the recipe, which you may want to adjust depending on your basic bread machine recipe . . .

A Paean to Zinfandel:Paso Robles Zinfandel Festival March 18-20

 

March. The end of winter and cold feet, of leaving for work in the dark and coming home in the dark. It's almost time to dust off the barbecue; our hunter-gatherer instinct awakens and hungers for blackened, peppered steaks and grilled vegetables.

This month is our paean salute, our end-of-winter bonfire, our celebration of everything wine symbolizes—good food, warmth, red berries and red lips, sunlight and firelight, and most of all, the mystery of earth's bounty and man's eagerness to preserve it.

Some zinfandels are elegant yet barbaric contenders for a Gallic throne, mysterious and powerful, with layers of complexity under a velvet mantle. Some are distinctively New World zinfandels—brash, bold and individualistic. Late harvest zinfandels and syrahs with dark, divine flavors strike a resonant note deep in your soul on a chilly night.

Each season's harvest is different, a reflection of the winds, the moons, and man's ability to capture earth's magnificence in a bottle.

Join us for Paso Robles' annual Zinfandel Festival, March 18-20.

50 Tips for Cellar Rats: Intro Excerpt

 

The following is an excerpt from 50 Tips for Cellar Rats, available from Amazon and Lulu.

Do you want to work harvest at a winery?

Are you looking for excitement?  Want to learn more about wine production?  Do you want to sink your hands into a bin of warm, fermenting, aromatic must and breathe deeply of the perfume of terroir?

Working crush at a winery is one of the most exciting work opportunities in the world.  You will be working with men and women who are simultaneously artists and scientists, farmers and celebrities.

Wine is an industry that revolves around the land, the magic of soil, and a luxury product that is fragile and yet has been known to improve over decades.  Like music, wine is an industry where math, art, and passion combine, and where humble artisans can become stars overnight.

The wine industry has a lot of fans, and many of those fans would like to be a part of it, if even for a few magical moments.

And this is where you come in. 

A New Year in the Vineyard

 

Winter, even here in our relatively mild central coast, is a time of dormancy. Barbecues are covered or rolled into the garage, basketballs and baseballs lie forgotten in dusty corners, roses and grapevines raise bare arms against cold and shredding skies.

Like most fruit trees and vines, grapes require this period of dormancy to build strength for the coming vintage. In a way, this time of year is truly the beginning of the next vintage, just as January is the beginning of our new year. A vine is impacted by its past—the type of trellising selected, the demands of past years in terms of water and heat and production, and the amount of tender care and handling it may or may not have enjoyed. But that is in the past. Now the vine is resting, rebuilding, getting ready to produce a new "leaf," as a year is often referred to in viticulture. A new leaf, new buds, new clusters as if nothing had gone on before, as though nothing can deter it from beginning fresh.

Like all plants, a vine is mindless in the sense that it will joyously burst into life in the spring and given its own way it will sprawl, climb, and spread like the weed it is, until, exhausted by its summertime orgy of sun-chasing growth, it finally produces some wild clusters of bird-size fruit.

It is up to the husbandman, gardener, or vineyard manager to prune, shape, domesticate, and tame those shameless vines into tidy rows of well-branched vines dripping with the appropriate number of grape clusters per acre—discipline bringing order and strength into nature.

How to Tell a Wine Geek from a Cork Dork

 

The following post is a reprise of a newspaper article I wrote in 1992.  It was subsequently published on the Dover Canyon Winery blog (which no longer exists). The post enjoyed viral hits and backlinks from all over the world.   I'm sure poor Roger (pictured above) never expected to see his photo reprinted on hundred of sites.  I hope he can take comfort in my opinion that he is not a cork dork, but a true geek. 

Recently, at a dinner with friends, one man's date turned to me and complained, "He's so boring.  All he ever talks about is wine.  All day long he talks about wine."

I probably  looked hurt, because I was just as engrossed in our discussion of Syrah as he was.  Lorraine leaned toward me and whispered, "She's right, you know.  We're all hopeless wine geeks.  Look at us from an outsider's point of view."

But the deeper I get into the world of wine, the harder that is to do.  I think moving our discussion from Merlot to Syrah is a total change in conversation.  Have I been slowly losing touch with reality and drifting more and more into a fascination with varietal differences and degrees of oak, malolactic overindulgence, and varying theories on wild yeasts? 

I must, however, point out the vast difference between a wine geek and a cork dork.  In my lexicon, a wine geek, like a computer geek, is consumed by his field.  He likes dry and sweet wines, white and red wines, French and American wines.  He is an experience junkie, always looking for a new and vinous adventure.  

A wine geek will look at an untried varietal like a biologist discovering a new phylum.  "What's this?  A pinot verde?  Get out the Riedel, we must examine this!"

A cork dork, on the other hand, will hold his glass by the base.  He'll swirl a wine until it's exhausted, and after a long speech on the supposed characteristics of a wine he has yet to taste, will finally sniff it and announce his disappointment in its aroma.  A cork dork will aspire to all things French, and the barrels must be new, the women young, and the wines very old—although any one with any experience knows that these choices are not necessarily the best.  If you try to pour him some dessert wine, he'll snatch his glass away in horror, leaving you in the foolish position of pouring wine on the table.

When visiting wine country, you will inevitably encounter both wine geeks and cork dorks.   Therefore, I suggest these ten guidelines for differentiating between poseurs (dorks) and real geeks (us). 

1.   A dork will make you feel uncomfortable.  They are supercilious, punctilious, and from my point of view, just plain supersillious.  A geek, however, will make you feel comfortable, and value your opinion of his wines.

2. A dork holds his glass by the base, or with his fingers curled sensuously around the body of the glass.  A geek grabs his glass by the stem and just sticks his nose in.  All business.

An interview with Thomas J. Rice: Author of 'Paso Robles: An American Terroir'

 

For the last twenty years, Tom Rice has led a double life.   As an energetic yet mild-mannered professor of soil science at California Polytechnic Institute in San Luis Obispo, California, Dr. Rice has supervised over 50 detailed senior projects and Masters theses which detail the soils and environment of the San Luis Obispo environs, including soil maps of well known vineyards in both the eastern and western regions of the Paso Robles AVA.  The soil science program at Cal Poly, which Dr. Rice helped develop, consistently attracts the largest soil science undergraduate enrollment in the United States.

In his other life, Dr. Rice works as a private consultant and adventurer, braving cultural unrest to speak in Xi’an, the People’s Republic of China on watershed management; clambering through hot, rattlesnake hills  to study the viability of planting vineyards over the oil fields of Texas, escorting scientists through the Mojave Desert, and researching the insidious incursion of mercury contamination in the Lake Nacimiento basin of coastal California.  In September 1998, Dr. Rice presented a talk at the University of Florence, Italy, on “Vineyards on Limestone Soils in California and France.”

The book begins . . . “It was not a terribly auspicious beginning for a world class wine country.  For brevity’s sake, we’ll only go back 20 million years.  The Tertiary Period was when most of our landmass was forming.  There followed a number of epochs; the Pliocene era (2 to 5 million years ago) was the California Coastal Ranges mountain-building era.  The San Andreas Fault was fracturing during the Miocene era (5 to 24 million years ago) and it has been a real inconvenience ever since.”

An introduction describes the terroir as seen through the eyes of early ranching, farming and winegrowing families.  Chapter one addresses environmental contrasts between the east side and west side, and general issues of water quality, wildlife habitat and native plants.

 
 
An aerial view of Halter Ranch vineyards

The remaining chapters are organized by region:  Templeton Gap, Adelaida Hills, Salinas River Valley Terraces West, Estrella River Terraces, Salinas River Terraces Southeast, and the Creston/Shandon Area.  Terraces West would include the San Marcos drainage area, and the Dusi Ranch vineyards.  The Southeast Terraces are possibly two separate regions—Santa Margarita and Huerhuero River Terraces. 

Dr. Rice adds, "Although there are not many wineries in that region, there are big vineyards, with lots of geologic and soil variation.  This region encompasses vineyards as diverse as Wild Horse, Maloy O’Neill, and Chateau Margene.  We once had redwood forests here, and huge flood plains which were uplifted into river terraces.  There’s been a lot of undercutting as layers were forced underneath the plains, so in the high plateaus and orchards of the El Pomar region, the eroded tops of the highest points may be all calcareous shale, with underlying alluvium and a veneer of Paso Robles formation . . . sand, gravel, and clay."

Buy "Paso Robles: An American Terroir"

 
 
Many of you may have already met our friendly soil scientist Dr. Tom Rice, and you may be familiar with his gorgeous, four-color book on soils and geology, Paso Robles: An American Terroir. 

You now have an opportunity to buy Dr. Tom Rice’s "ground-breaking" book right here on our blog.  This is the last print run—there will not be another printing! 

Paso Robles: An American Terroir is a great library addition for wine lovers everywhere who are fans of Paso Robles wine.  

To order, just fill out the order form below and check out using your Google, Amazon or Paypal account! 

You can also read our interview with Tom, who loves to "talk dirt" about Paso!

The Memory Garden

 
 
"How do you come up with all these aromas and flavors?" is a question I am frequently asked about wine. 

One fall, as I was barrel sampling some wines a particular scent eluded me.  I knew I had encountered it before, but where?  I finally found it in the pantry of my "memory garden"--it was the yellow-ish green lace that is found on whole nutmeg cloves:  mace.

Based loosely on the concept of The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci, I have created a memory garden in my mind that I visit when seeking the scents and flavors in a wine.

Work Smart: The Ebook

  
  

Whether you're a winery owner juggling two careers or a sales rep with an armful of wine to sell, these tips are for you.

These 50 tips will help you achieve more in less time and help you be more productive. 

 Self-employment has been rising by 4% per year for the last ten years, which means that every year there are nearly 10 million new small business owners.  And with the available power of internet outsourcing and mobile technology, it’s now possible to work from your home, boat, or vehicle even if you are a salaried employee.  

But working at home carries its own set of challenges--longer hours, no water cooler, a different set of distractions.  This list is a result of my own hard knocks.  Has my computer crashed?  Oh, yeah. Have clients called with questions I couldn’t find the answer for?  Have I stood up from my desk after 14 hours in front of a computer and wondered why my back creaks?

Stacie, a friend and fellow entrepreneur, asked me for advice. Stacie (not her real name, for obvious reasons) is a videographer that works with a number of PR firms and clients.  “My video files and script changes are highly organized,” she said.  “But whenever I come up for air I realize my accounting is a mess, my personal marketing consists of bent and smudged business cards with an old phone number, and I have no clean clothes.” 

A cursory online search on the topic of getting organized led me to two different types of information.  The first was a grab bag of articles on “how to organize your office” that included doubtuflly helpful advice like “don’t stuff your file folders too full.”  The second source of help was a long list of 'organizing coaches' who charge upwards of $100 an hour to help you clean out your closets and your life. 

If you're like me, you need advice on how to get and stay organized, but you don’t want to spend hundreds of dollars or have your closets explored by strangers.

The following 50 tips will help you get organized and stay organized.  You may also find that your creativity and self-confidence will increase along with your newfound efficiency!   

Wine is ... another slam dunk from Juice

Wine is ... another slam dunk from Dina Mande and the creative crew at Juice Ideas.

Dina and Joel Petersen, the certifiably creative nut behind the Troublemaker (see below), won first place in the 2010 Wine Spectator video competition with this video, set in Paso Robles.

Congratulations! 

  

 

How to Select a Distributor: 7 Questions to Ask

When an opportunity to engage a distributor pops up, it can be incredibly tempting to just say yes.  They'll flatter you and promise you the moon . . . but can they walk the walk? 

Here are 7 questions to ask a distributor before committing your brand:

Troublemaker Austin Hope

Now this is marketing!  It's fun, edgy, satirical, and the name of the wine is mentioned over and over again.   Check it out!

Congrats to everyone on the cast and crew.  I thought Whitney was great, so lovable.  Austin rocks, and it was clear that everyone was having a good time.  But I have to say my favorites are Jorge and Cesar.  They crack me up.

Visit Dina Mande's site Juice Ideas for behind the scenes photos and more creative ideas on how to market your wine.

A Visit with Benito Dusi

 

As clearly as I can recall, Ridge was the first extra-appellate winery to actually put "Paso Robles" as an appellation on their label. A daring move for a winery with a fine reputation—to align itself with an area that, at the time, was commonly associated with cattle farming and the subterranean Salinas River, which disappears entirely under its sandy riverbed every summer.

Imagine it is 1959.  Driving down Highway 101 to the beach towns of Morro Bay and Cambria, Dusi Vineyard was a charming stop on the way to a clamming weekend with the wife and kids. Women wearing loose rayon sundresses, silk stockings and open-toed heels accompanied their husbands on the short walk into the Dusi tasting room—a small, separate cottage between the home and vineyard. A six-foot tasting bar hosts the southern side of the cottage. Magazines lauding the four San Luis Obispo County wineries are still carefully fanned out on the corner of the tasting bar. I pick up the 1959 Sunset guide to California wineries. A two page black-and-white spread with brief descriptions of each of the four wineries also includes photographs of sleepy Cambria, a rickety one-boat dock with a view of the Rock at Morro Bay, and a family clamming on a local beach.

In a daring leap of faith, central coast zinfandel grower Sylvester Dusi and his son Benito raised the price of their wine by ten cents a case. Dusi zinfandel went from $5.90 a case to $6.00. They held their price at $6.00 a case for fifteen years—from 1959 to 1974.

In 1959 Benito Dusi was a young man in his mid-twenties. Although now in his seventies, it’s not hard to see Beni as the young man he was and always will be. He has a way of flashing oblique glances at me under his lashes, as though he knows a good joke but is too shy to tell it. He’s not tall, but he’s muscular in a wiry kind of way, standing upright with his shoulders unconsciously back and open, even when the room is cold. It is easy to see him as a young, bashful, and incredibly smart farmer.

Reviews for '50 Tips for Cellar Rats'

From Sheldon Haynie, Lightheart Cellars, San Martin, CA:

"It's an excellent training manual that we will use to orient new volunteers and as a seasonal refresher for the part time family and friends who may be assisting, as well as for ourselves, as a reminder of things we haven't done in a year. 

Your style of presenting the 50 tips makes it an easy read, and the block highlights set off salient points well. The many anecdotes and observations make the do's and don'ts more sensible in context. 

We'll be buying several."

Editor Eric Arnold at The Daily Sip says:

"The guide is packed with simple, easy-to-read information that you can absorb in less than hour: Everything from what sorts of food and drinks to stock up on for the busy harvest season to how to be clean and efficient on the job to when to speak up--or keep your mouth shut. Many of us here at The Daily Sip wish we'd had such a crash course before our first winery jobs--it'd have prevented some serious drama, not to mention some property damage."

Eric is the author of First Big Crush and a former editor at Wine Spectator and Forbes.

How to Work with Your Wholesaler

In his wine industry blog Fermentation, Tom Wark provides this excellent advice in an article called Ten Things Every Small Winery Must Know:

"Many small wineries will contract with wholesalers in their home state and other states. The biggest mistake wineries make when working with wholesalers is selling them a pallet or half pallet or quarter pallet of wine to them hoping the wholesaler sells the wine. If you really want them to sell your wine after they buy it, you'll need to demand they do so by staying in touch with them regularly. Demand they use the sales materials they get form you. Demand they deliver regular depletion reports. Demand they take time to work with your wine so you are in the market. Demand you have the opportunity to communicate with sales people. If you don't do these things, the likelihood is that your wines will languish in their warehouses as they focus on larger brands."

Mary Woodworth, owner of HarvestGate—a Paso Robles distributor that focuses on central coast brands—has a slightly different take on the subject. Mary's advice to wineries is to build a firm foundation first by studying the market, your brand demographics, and your competition. "My biggest concern is that many wineries want to launch a consumer product but have absolutely no idea where they will sell it. This isn’t a case of 'if you build it they will come'. "

Mary's advice:

1. Know your market—don’t sit back and expect a distributor to create a viable marketing plan for you (unless of course you pay them to do it).
2. Know your competition – unless you’re highly sought after, you have competition and a lot of it. Be realistic.
3. Know your customer – who is it that buys your wine (to drink!) and why. What will you do to reach that pull through?
4. Know the sales reps – treat them with respect as they represent your hard work.

Understanding the market and your competition is key to a healthy sales program because conditions continually shift, like sand dunes. New wineries entering the market may take your place if you are complacent, and new consumer trends may veer retailers away from your product. "The product itself is both subjective and dynamic. In other words, the variables are not constant. It's a moving target if you will," says Mary.

Paso Robles Wine Festival: Ten Tips for Max Fun

A glass full of wine tasting tickets, the aroma of Greek cooking, and rowdy country rock music—you’ll find it all during the annual Paso Robles Wine Festival this coming weekend, May 21-23. Our historic and shady park will host 12,000 visitors heading for wine tasting, music and picnics.

Although much of Paso Robles is always balmy and breezy, downtown Paso Robles is framed by steep western hills that block the ocean winds. The buildings surrounding the town square also limit air flow, so weekend temperatures in the park may be in the upper 90s. For those of you who will be joining us for the weekend, here are my Top Ten Tips for enjoying the Paso Robles Wine Festival in style.

Templeton Farmers Market and Farmstand 46

 
I enjoy going to the Templeton Farmers Market every other Saturday morning. I have a rolling sport cart, which I fill to overflowing with sweet onions, asparagus, and artichokes.

If you are planning to spend a Saturday wine tasting in Paso Robles, there is simply no finer way to start the day than by strolling through the farmer’s market.   And for lunch, a stop at Farmstand 46 is an absolute must.  Enjoy lunch on the outdoor patio with a glass of wine, or pack it up and take it with you for a leisurely wine tasting trip down Vineyard Drive.

In today’s haul I have a seed-strewn flatbread from a local bakery, sold with small, ready-to-serve tubs of orange hummus, and garnished with fresh herbs. My other selections today were bacon avocados, asparagus, red and yellow beets, basil, tomatoes, strawberries, sugar pod peas, and garlic.

Every Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., the Templeton Community Park is the host for the Farmers Market. Come by and enjoy the selection of locally grown fruits, vegetables, organic produce, dried nuts and herbs, and homemade crafts and gifts. For more information call (805) 239-6535.

Getting Ready for Wine Festival: Managing Large Crowds

Most established wineries know these angles aready, but if you are new on the circuit—or still working through your first five years of post-festival debriefing—get a leg up on organizing for festival crowds with the following tips from other wineries.

First - Choose your top priority

Understand the difference between sales and hospitality, and choose ONE for your priority.  Both goals should be customer-oriented however.   You can DO both, but in order to do so effectively, you must have just one priority.

When it comes to planning, remember it's not about YOU.  Both hospitality and sales planning should be about the customer. 

If you are an established winery expecting large crowds, then sales should be your top priority.   Making sales fast, easy and efficient will help your visitors achieve their goals.  They'll be able to taste, order, and then layaway, ship or accept their order with ease, allowing them time to enjoy your hospitality as well.   Give them a seamless sales experience, augmented by excellent hospitality, and they'll leave with fond memories.

If you are a new winery, remotely located, or very small, maybe you expect to welcome less people, and you'd like to give them a stellar hospitality experience.  In this case, make sure you've covered all the aspects of a good party—shade, music, food, cleanliness, seating, games, and so on.  But even with sales as your second priority, be prepared.  Don't run out of tasting sheets or credit card machine tape, or become otherwise discomboobled on the sales front. 

Second - Define your goals

Common goals for a festival weekend are: