Highlandtown Wine Festival

So I entered the zin in the wine contest for the Highlandtown Wine Festival last weekend. What a hoot - we had an absolute blast. The wine was selected as the 3rd place winner (out of 18 in the red category) behind entries from Mr. Dominic Parravano and Mr. Dominic Petrucci. Both gentlemen also won the white wine contest although they switched places. They pretty much win every year so I need to get my hands on some of their juice. ;-) That's Baltimore City Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake who has asked me to send her a bottle. How about that!?

Highlandtown Wine Festival

Another Thought For A Day

"Wine to me is passion.
It's family and friends.
It's warmth of heart and generosity of spirit.
Wine is art.
It's culture.
It's the essence of civilization and the art of living."

--Robert Mondavi

Thought for the Day

I came across this snippet while browsing a wine board and it sums up rather nicely how I view wine and the wine world right now.

“We all go through changes in taste . . . and that’s part of the fun of wine. . . . I’m not impressed with being impressed, anymore. I think when you’re 25 you’re impressed with being impressed. That is, you get a little older, things that seemed impressive maybe aren’t so interesting after all.” —Littorai winemaker Ted Lemon, interviewed by Grape Radio. It brings to mind the Terry Theise Manifesto—“Beauty is more important than impact. Harmony is more important than intensity”—but to see the idea gain traction in California is a real man-bites-dog story.

—Keith Levenberg

Clos Pepe

Some pics from our recent visit to Clos Pepe Estate Vineyards in the Santa Rita Hills.

My first customer. Hey, the shit is free.

Bottling!

Here's a short video from the other day of the bottling of the '07 Zin. We bottled 24 cases in rapid fashion thanks to everyone's help. We also bottled two wines for Amelle - Zin and Pinot! Look for them soon from Eric Buffington - very impressive stuff.