Talk about cold! It is warm in the East and cold in the West! What's with that? Picture (1) was taken at the Petit Chateau on Saturday January 13th and picture (2) was taken on Sunday, January 14th, 2006. The ice pack is getting larger. The temp was 20 degrees on Saturday and 25 degrees on Sunday. The vines do not even know what is happening. Guess global warming has not started yet!
If you were in attendance at the Fall Winemaker Dinner - you witnessed the making of the final Cepage of "Bravura". The final blend contains a small amount of our 25 Reserve vintages from 1982 through 2006. This was an historic moment opening all these great old vintages.
Good news! - As reported by Wine & Spirits Daily on January 11th ---- "Break open the Chardonnay. Scientists say they have found evidence that the pulp of (white) grapes are just a heart-healthy in laboratory experiments as the skin, which means white wine may be just as healthy as red.
Friday's Wall Street Journal brought back many fond memories of the Ferrari 275 Tour. We visited this incredible Wine Estate. Wall Street Journal quote - "Brunello Di Montalcino excites a very special kind of passion in some people. They don't just like this special red wine from Italy's Tuscany region. They love it" I agree, this was an incredible visit and those making the trec to Tuscany must visit.
On Friday Januarry 5th, Jessica (our Granddaugher) and the oldest of our 4 grandchildren turned 7 years old. She is the daugher of Dan and Amy Santucci and reside in Pennsylvannia.
Each bottle of "Bravura" is hand numbered with a bottle marker. This requires great coordination to number each case of wine containing the bottle numbers of each bottle. Obviously the low numbers will be the most exciting and valuable. This is the largest project of this nature we have ever embarked upon and the production department wants to kill me.
Every bottle of "Bravura" is hand waxed. This means a very labor intensive process of applying a little wax to the top of the cork, then dipping the neck of the bottle into the hot wax just long enough to adhere to the bottle. Then to prevent the wax from running, the bottle is immediately placed in cold water to freeze the wax and prevent the wine from injury due to the hot wax dipping. Each bottle (3,584 total) will go through this process.
On November 30th we bottled "Bravura". We bottled 3,584 bottles of 750ml, 100 - 3 liter, 2 - 6 liter, 2 - 9 liter and 2- 18 liter bottles. After more than two years work, Bill and Marta can finally rest that the wine is now safe and sound in its' permanent home, until you uncork the wine.
U.S. Wineries grow 11% in 2006. As of November 2006, the number of wineries in the United States has increased to 5,645, according to the latest Wine Business Monthly. This figure includes 4,383 bonded grape wineries and 1,587 "virtual," or non-bonded, wineries, and excludes mead or non-grape wineries.
The year 2007, will mark our 25th year in the wine business. We have been planning for the past two years to release our first proprietary wine. The name we have chosen is "Bravura" meaning the result of our hard work and effort. This wine will be released soon. The blend is Merlot and Malbec. Bill Anderson, our winemaker of 25 years, believes this is his personal best effort. We thank him for all his hard work and dedication to this wine.
Patty and I wish you all the Happiest of Holiday's to you, your family, friends and loved ones!
This year was such a great year that we received a suprise visit from the North Pole. Wow - It was Santa, in person! Children and adults alike were all thrilled! Happy Holidays to all!
As promised, the menu from the Holiday Dine Around at Highlands Inn. This was incredible! Thanks to Robert Weakley and the Chef for putting this together for us. We will be back next year. Any finally, Glenn Hammer (picture taken by Pat Phinney) after about one minute in the limo. A tired and happy guy!
"Bring your best" was created 5 years ago. A group of us Carmel Valley folks decided to have a Holiday gathering at the Baja Cantina and bring a great bottle of wine (or many great bottles of wine). Then we added food, with lobster, Pate', cheese (the good stuff) and a Executive Platter from the Baja kitchen. We can't wait till next year. What a month of parties!
Seafood, shrimp, oysters, tuna and more! Opps, forgot the scallops! Check out the white and black truffels!
On what promised to be a very wet day, the group moved from Bernardus to Highlands Inn for the second course. The food and wine to be announced!
What we believe to be our 10th Holiday dine around, the group - consisting of Glenn Hammer, Patrick Phinney, Bill Boykin, Tom Kincheloe and Bob Brower had a feast and incredible wine selection this year. We started at Bernardus, Pictured first, you can see Chef Staminof was joining us as the meal progressed. This luncheon started at noon and ended at 8:00pm. More on the wines and lunch on the next blog post.
It is right here in Carmel Valley. Visit the Baja Cantina and get your fill of local Carmel Valley everything. You can meet all the locals and even some who want to be! The atmosphere is incredible. You can see the entire restaurant profile on itunes - podcasts - under Chateau Julien Wine Estate.
As 2006 comes to a close (December 6, 2006) we began the cleanup of the vineyard by discing the vineyard in Carmel Valley. Simply this is turning the ground over and removing any vegitation that has grown since harvest. Rain is forcast for the weekend and this is a great time to clean up. Next, pruning? January, what?
Once again, the labor intensive process of stirring the Chardonnay to add intensity of flavor. The barrels are removed from there storage location in the "Chai" and each barrel is hand stirred to place the lees back into the wine. This keeps our winemaker up at night, until bottled.
Once again, we had the Holiday Spectacular at the wine estate. This was the fourth annual event with this incredible group. The Chai came to life with the Choral Project. Daniel Hughes founded the Choral Project in 1996. He is an accomplished composer/arranger and has a new choral series through Santa Barbara Music Publishing. Try not to miss this event next year. It was sold out early.
I am going to El Paso, Texas for a Chateau Julien Wine Estate winemaker dinner. This will be the fourth annual dinner at Jaxon's. Kate and Gary have 4 restaurants in the West Texas area and are freinds of the winery. Look for our Pinot Grigio and Sangiovese at their great restaurants. See you in Texas.
Today we celebrate the bottling of our first proprietory wine called "Bravura". This wine is a blend of Merlot and Malbec, grown on our Estate vineyard. Our winemaker, Bill Anderson, created this special bottling to celebrate 25 years of winemaking at Chateau Julien Wine Estate.
As November comes to a close - just a few more pictures of our annual Winemaker dinner held on November 11th. Good news!!! Tomorrow, November 30th we are bottling Bravura. This is our "proprietory wine" made to celebrate 25 years of great winemaking at Chateau Julien Wine Estate.
