Food & Home Santa Barbara – Summer Wine Issue

I’m very fortunate to have three articles in the current issue of Food & Home Santa Barbara.

Click on the pictures below to go to the stories.

 

 

A quick break-down of what is happening in Santa Barbara’s wine country. With some listings on some of the best places to visit.

Including Dragonette Cellars, Tercero Wines, Daniel Gehrs, Curtis Winery and De Su Propia Cosecha.
Plus my alma maters – Fess Parker Winery and Rusack Vineyards

I interviewed five of the top winemakers in Santa Barbara: Bob Lindquist, Jim Clendenen, Doug Margerum, Justin Willet, and Sashi Moorman (pictured above)

An in depth look at the Urban Wine Trail down in the Santa Barbara’s Funk Zone.
This is a go to guide to some of the best wine made in Santa Barbara proper.

Places like Whitcraft, Carr, Municipal Winemakers, Jaffurs and Anacapa Vintners (who have since changed their name to AVA)

How many winemakers does it take to make a wine?

 

In Santa Barbara News Press – March 7th

As much as I would like the answer to be 42…it’s 11.

There are not many instances where you can get a winemaker to just give you a barrel full of wine.  In fact, some say, if uninvited, getting between a winemaker and his or her barrel is much like finding yourself between a mother bear and her cub.

When he asked some of Santa Barbara Counties top producers for a few barrels of wine, Bion Rice, local winemaker at his winery Artiste and Sunstone Winery, deliberately put himself in an awkward position. He wasn’t asking for his own personal gains however, but trying to raise funds for a local school in Los Olivos, the Santa Ynez Valley Family School, located on Figueroa Mountain Road.

Family School, has been hosting the very popular annual dinner and auction, Bounty of the Valley, for over 30 years, to help fund independent education at their school. This year they are adding a new addition to the event in hope to garner even more support, it is called Legacy.

Legacy wine made for Bounty of the Valley features all the contributing winemakers signatures

Legacy is the product of 11 different local winemakers, who have each donated a barrel or two of Rhône wine that has been made into one blend. “I figured we would only get four or five winemakers to commit” admits Rice, 42, who came up with the idea. “But to my surprise, every one of them pitched in within a few days, because they truly believed in the school. It was a true sign of solidarity amongst our local winemakers to support the children at Family School.”

“The Legacy wine has turned out to be a great idea … bring together diverse and unique lots of Rhone variety wines from as many supporting wine families as possible that have sent kids to Family School or currently have their children at Family School, it is a bold plan” say Andrew Murray, 41, from Andrew Murray Vineyards, who has two children who have graduated from Family School.  “The Family School has meant (and continues to mean) quite a bit to so many of us.  We want our involvement to help maintain the financial success and independence of the school.  This will be our Legacy!

Rice, whose sons Miles, 9 and Mason, 7 are enrolled in the school, went around and personally asked all the winemakers, who have or have had children attend Family School to donate, as you can imagine the list ended up being a who’s who in our local winemaking world: Ken Brown of Ken Brown Winery, Jim Clendenen of Au Bon Climat, Morgan Clendenen of Cold Heaven Winery, the Coghlan’s of Coghlan Vineyard, the Hovarth’s of Crawford Family Wine, Bob Lindquist of Qupé, Andrew Murray of Andrew Murray Winery, the Ostini’s of Hitching Post Winery, the Rice’s of Sunstone & Artiste Winery, Larry Schaffer of Tercero and the Tensley’s of Tensley Winery.

For a donation of $500 dollar you will receive a case of the wine at the event with all profits going to Family School.

“There’s over a 150 years of winemaking experience in each bottle”, says Larry Schaffer, 47, winemaker and owner of Tercero another donator, whose son Jaxson, 10, is enrolled in the school.

Bounty of the Valley takes place, 5 p.m Saturday, March 9^th at Alisal Guest Ranch, it will feature a selection of wines from local winemakers, as well as appetizers created by the Alisal’s chef, Pascal Gode.

Following dinner, a live auction will showcase items as varied as a signed Taylor Swift guitar, a Mexican vacation to Punta Mit, and a dinner for 10 with special wines at Japanese restaurant ARU in Buellton.

If you would like one of the few remaining tickets to the event or if you would like to make a $500 donation and receive the wine, Legacy please email: office@syvfamilyschool.org or call 805-688-5440.  For more info got to www.syvbountyofthevalley.org

The garage is open for pouring

From the Santa Barbara News-Press – January 26th

The popular wine show from Paso Robles, The Garagiste Festival is rolling its way down south to Solvang, in what will hopefully be an annual event, Garagiste Festival: Southern Exposure.

Garagiste is all about celebrating the little guy and will feature 30 of Santa Ynez Valley’s high-quality, small-production winemakers, on February 16^th. The new non-profit festival follows on the heels of 2012’s sold out Paso Robles Garagiste Festival, which hosted over 40 wineries and 1,000 attendees, and will incorporate the festival’s signature high quality wines, personal winemaker interaction and renegade spirit.

Larry Schaffer from Tercero Wines will be pouring from his conical flasks at the Garagiste Festival: Southern Exposure

The Garagiste Festivals, are dedicated to discovering and promoting artisan garagiste winemakers and showcase high-quality, cutting-edge, small production, commercial wineries that produce fewer than 1,200 cases a year.

The term garagiste derives from a movement in Bordeaux from the mid 1990’s. It is the nick-name given to those who made “vin de garage” or garage wine and is in reference to a group of rebellious Bordeaux winemakers who were tired of the strict oenology and viticulture laws that govern the region. As they never had their own estate vineyard, the garagistes would have to buy their grapes, in some cases very sought after expensive grapes, they made wine of a modern style, unlike anything at the time.  The term which at one point was a back handed compliment, has evolved to define wine that is made in a small quantities or micro-cuvée.

“In response to overwhelming demand, we have expanded the festival a hundred miles south to Santa Ynez Valley, one of the most exciting garagiste regions in the country,” said Garagiste Festival co-founder Doug Minnick. “The Santa Ynez Valley is the perfect next location as we continue to expand the Garagiste Festival to expose more garagistes to even more wine consumers.”

South African winemaker Ernst Storm, South Africa, makes wine under his own label Storm and is also head winemaker at Curtis Winery in Los Olivos, is looking forward to the event, “I think it is a great way for consumers to taste and also talk to smaller producers that they would not have gotten in touch with otherwise. It gives us winemakers the chance to showcase personality driven wines from small batches made with a lot of care and attention to detail in an intimate environment.”  Storm will be pouring his 2011 Sauvignon Blanc-Santa Ynez Valley, 2009 Pinot Noir-Santa Maria Valley and the 2010 Pinot Noir-John Sebastiano Vineyard.

Larry Schaffer of Tercero Wines, who is known for decanting his wine in to laboratory beakers, has a different take.  “When you only make 4-500 case you don’t have much to get out there and shows like this are the perfect opportunity to showcase your wine to wine savvy consumers who don’t necessarily know about our names.”  Schaffer is planning to pour a variety of his wines which will include will be his 2011 Viognier and Grenache Blanc, as well as his Mourvedre.

Melissa Sorongon, co-owner of Piedrasassi, is looking forward to taste some of her compatriot’s wines, “Because a lot of these winemakers don’t have their own vineyards, it would be interesting to try wines made from the same vineyards but by different winemakers.”  Piedrasassi will have their 2010 Central Coast White, a blend of Sauvignon Blanc and Roussane as well as their 2009 Central Coast Syrah.

Garagiste Festival Southern Exposure – February 16th 2013 in Solvang

The Garagiste Festival: Southern Exposure takes place at the Mission-style Veterans Memorial Hall in  Solvang.  The one-day festival begins at 11:00 AM with the seminar “The Ultimate Barrel Tasting – Oak Flavors Tasted and Explained”. Winemaker and vineyard owner Michael Larner, of Larner Vineyard, and winemaker Ryan Render, of Rendarrio Vineyards and cooperage Tonnellerie Saint Martin, bring their knowledge of viticulture, winemaking, and barrels to the table in this special comparison barrel tasting of wines made by McPrice Myers from the Larner Vineyard. Attendees will learn and taste through a selection of wines made from the same vineyards but put through different oak treatments.  Basically, showing how oak can affect the finished product and change the profile of a wine.

Current wineries in attendance are: Altman Winery, Autonom, Baehner Fournier Vineyards, Blair Fox Cellars, Casa Dumetz, Center of Effort, Deovlet Wines, El Rey Wines, Frequency Wines, Ground Effect Wines, J. Wilkes Wines, Kaena Wine Co., Kessler-Haak Wines, La Fenetre Wines, Larner Winery, Luminesce, Nagy Wines, Native9 Wine, Pench Rance, Piedrasassi, Refugio Ranch, Roark Wine Co., Ryan Cochrane Wines, Shai Cellars, Storm Wines, Tercero Wines and Transcendence Wines., with more to come.

For tickets and more information on The Garagiste Festival: Southern Exposure, go to http://garagistefestival.com, or follow on Twitter (@GaragisteFest) or Facebook.