“To makeĀ great wine you can’t be greedy,” says Fabien Castel, General Manager at The Ojai Vineyard.
Sue Hill and I are standing with Fabien Castel and winemaker Adam Tolmach in the The Ojai Vineyard estate experimental vineyard planted in 2017 with special UC Davis Pierce disease resistant hybridized vines — two reds and two whites– that will be blended into an as yet to be named wines. The white was just bottled and I’ve been promised a shiner– no label yet because they don’t know what they will call it.
Although the vineyard was harvested between two intense heat waves– 48 hours before this area of Ojai’s Ventura County reached 120 degrees– there’s still lots of ripe fruit for us to snack on.
And it’s good.
“Don’t you tire of eating grapes?” I ask Adam as he almost greedily enjoys handfuls of purple fruit. Clearly he still relishes this aspect of the business, forty years after he planted his first vineyard here along Creek Road, a route which leads to Ojai proper and The Ojai Vineyard Tasting Room on Montgomery Street which opened in 2010.
The Ojai Vineyard’s Fabien Castel with founder Adam Tolmach; Fabien has worked with Adam for 20 years now.
Yesterday as we harvested Malbec, Syrah, and Petit Verdot in the Clos des Amis Estate Vineyard on South Mountain, we were serenaded by two Los Angeles area violinists, Continue reading →
Are you busy planning where you will go when we can go again?
On a beautiful sunny morning in the Before Time, Gretel Compton and I climbed the windy road up from Santa Rosa past farms, around slow farm equipment, through oak woodland, and beside green vineyards to arrive at Sonoma County’s Balverne and Notre Vue to meet withĀ Alex Holman, winemaker forĀ 5-7k case production for both labels.Ā Continue reading →
Last week, I enjoyed watching the sun set, twilight fall, and the glow of the moon in Tuscany, Italy.Ā In front of the house with views of vineyards and the farm of Antonella Manulli, I chatted about sustainability and the Metodo Corino with co-innovators Antonella and Lorenzo Corino and their importer Sheila Donahue of Verovino.
This is one of the oldest places in the world for wine grape cultivation, going back 4,000 years.
As we talked, we all sat outside Ā with our dogs, enjoying the fresh air. Continue reading →
Lapostolle Alexander Cuvee Cabernet from 2010 and 2018 paired with the best burger ever
Hard to believe it, but back in November 2008, I started this wine blog, and in December 2008, I participated for the first time in Wine Blogging Wednesday #52’s challenge to write about a Chilean wine under $20 (anybody else remember Wine Blogging Wednesday?) Continue reading →
Bruce Freeman picking Zinfandel in upper Ojai CA late August 2020.
“The birds and the bees know when the grapes are ripe,” says Clos des Amis winemaker Bruce Freeman.
It’s 9am on a warm late August morning, and we’re knee deep in thickly trunked Zinfandel wherein large dark clusters of grapes hide bees with a few yellow jackets for good measure. The birds are out too, mostly mourning doves cooing like a daytime owl and acorn woodpeckers making a ruckus.
I’ve asked a silly question: if we’d picked the week before, would the bees be so bad? Would they have taken so much fruit?
Wouldn’t matter, says Bruce.
When the brix is right, the bees know it and they’re right there too ready for the harvest. They snuggle their little fuzzy butts right in there, humping the seeds to get the juicy, seed pulp, leaving hollow hulls and seeds behind.
Usually a highlight of the Wine Media Conference is tasting wine at various educational sessions, while visiting wineries, during wine pairing meals, and of course, at the ever popular and often ridiculed speed tastings. Over the years, I enjoyed all of this and more, including getting to know and spending time with my wine writing colleagues.
I missed going in 2019 as I was in France competing in the World Wine Tasting Championship, and in 2018 I had a paid poetry performance, so I was really looking forward to going to Eugene for the 2020 edition.
But this year, due to COVID, my colleagues and I could only chat along the sidelines of the sessions, instead of between sessions, and the tasting opportunities were limited to what was in our own cellars– and, if we were lucky, and already signed up for the now postponed 2020 conference, we had the opportunity to join one of four at home tastings. Continue reading →
wine predator.............. gwendolyn alley 