Lobster boil

We had the second annual Lobster boil the 24th and it was a huge success. 75 lobsters, shrimp potatoes, Artichokes and sausage were eaten to the tune of a lovely jazz-swing band. After dinner a bunch of us danced to great swing music.

Better come next year.

Recently I got an email that said: Just wanted to let you know that we bought a bottle of your 2007 Fleur de Montagne at the Sunrise Farmer\'s Market and drank it tonight with pulled pork sandwiches, fresh potato and green bean salad and zucchini stew over garlic bread. The wine was incredible! Our family enjoyed it very much...smooth but complex, in a French tradition, but with greater complexity and less mid mouth flatness than many French reds I have tried. We all thoroughly enjoyed it. This is our first bottle of wine from your vineyard, but with such a wonderful entree, I am sure we will be coming up to visit and sample more of your offerings soon! Thank you so much for helping to make our evening so enjoyable, Steve


Have you seen our new sign? Stop by and see it as well as taste some great wine.

John

Lobster fest and great music

Saturday July 24 is the day of second lobster dinner. We will serve fresh Maine lobster, shrimp, artichokes, corn on the cob and sausage. To accompany this feast we will pair a white wine and a red wine both of which will enhance your dining experience.

We will also have a band in the background for your listening enjoyment. It is a real bargain at $80.00 or $70.00 for club members. More on the band later.

Sign up at 800 946 3916

COMMENTS FROM CUSTOMER AND LOBSTER BOIL

Recently we have had several nice comments from customers. I am repeating them here:

Richard Says: As a personal note, we really enjoyed our time at your winery on Saturday. We all agreed that you have a destination winery. Our feeling is that your picnic facilities and wines are both worth the trip to enjoy even without visiting other wineries in the area.

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Received 6-7-2010: Just wanted to let you know that we are enjoying a Sierra Vista Viognier Doux tonight. Wow, is it ever the perfect after dinner drink. Nice work!, Michelle, Spearfish, SD

Received 5-26-2010

Several years ago Bob and I bought a large ( x 4) bottle of your Syrah - Red Rock Ridge at auction. We put it down per the instructions written on the bottle waiting for the appropriate time to open it.
Since 2002 we get together with two couples twice a year and have an Italian Feast. Great fun! The event lasts for about three days and we make all of the food from scratch including whatever noodles are included in the menu. Needless to say, a lot of wine is consumed with different wines with each course.
We recently hosted the feast and chose to open your Syrah. We let it breath a bit, decanted it and served the wine in special Riedel glasses.

THE WINE WAS EXCELLENT. Thank you so much for producing an excellent wine and also making it available for the silent auction.

DON'T FORGET OUR LOBSTER BOIL July 24, 2010: GO TO our events page at www.sierravistawinery.com/pages/events.php FOR INFORMATION

five zero

Last Thursday Barbara and I celebrated our 49Th wedding anniversary at the Taste restaurant in Plymouth. We picked them because they just ordered some wine. We had a lovely dinner and a good time: champagne and foie gras before our entree. Next year is the great 50 that is five zero. Watch for a great celebration at Sierra Vista with entertainment and everything. We may even do some ballroom dancing. Our daughter, Lynette and her husband Carl make up a pro/am ball room dance team. I would like to have them come and entertain us with some "dancing with the stars" type ballroom dancing. Then we might have some regular ballroom dancing for the rest of us to enjoy.
So watch here, our facebook page and our emails for info on when and what time. It will be close to June 3rd. We may have a special wine bottled for the occasion.

Changes at Sierra Vista

We have had a personel change at Sierra Vista. Yesterday we had a going away luncheon for Tyler Grace who is leaving SV to join with his father in a new venture called Grace Patriot Winery in Camino, Ca. We wish him all the best. To take his place, which will be difficult, we have invited a young man, Carter Coleman, to join us. He received his introduction to the wine world at Alderbrook Winery in Sonoma. Welcome Carter.

What people say

Today I got an email from some people who won our wine at a silent auction. Here is what they said:
Several years ago Bob and I bought a large ( x 4) bottle of your Syrah - Red Rock Ridge at auction. We put it down per the instructions written on the bottle waiting for the appropriate time to open it.
Since 2002 we get together with two couples twice a year and have an Italian Feast. Great fun! The event lasts for about three days and we make all of the food from scratch including whatever noodles are included in the menu. Needless to say, a lot of wine is consumed with different wines with each course.
We recently hosted the feast and chose to open your Syrah. We let it breath a bit, decanted it and served the wine in special Riedel glasses.

THE WINE WAS EXCELLENT. Thank you so much for producing an excellent wine and also making it available for the silent auction.

All for now, John

What bloggers say

Recently I sent some wines to Sue Straight for her evaluation. She used to run the San Diego Union Competition(I think) but now does wine evaluations. She assures me she is non partisan and that the tastings are not biased and are truly blind. The following are some evaluations. To see more go to:
http://wine-wench.com/cgi-bin/wordpress/. She gives a maximum of five stars.

Syrah (also called Shiraz in Australia) is originally from the Rhône Valley in France, but it is grown in many parts of the United States and is becoming one of Australia’s top wines. Syrah (and Shiraz) tends to be a big, full-bodied wine with flavors of blackberry, cherry, green herbs, leather and smoked meat.
There is no, I repeat NO relation between Syrah and Petite Sirah.
Try pairing Syrah with hearty dishes, such as roasted lamb, eggplant parmesan, grilled and smoked meats, stew, chili and robust cheeses.
My panel and I tasted 15 Syrahs from all over California. The following 9 were our favorites (There were lots of rockin’ good wines in this flight!):

Five Stars
Sierra Vista Syrah
2006 Reserve, El Dorado County $25
There is a French word, “garrique,” that one of my wine geek friends turned me on to – it means “hillside wildflowers.” One sniff of this lovely wine and you’re Julie Andrews, running down a wildflower covered hillside, singing “the hills are alive…” I love my job. Seriously, though – aromas of garrique, red cherry, red raspberry, vanilla and spice set the stage, both in the nose and in the mouth. Delicious!


Five Stars
Sierra Vista Syrah
2006 Red Rock Ridge, El Dorado County $32
Just be glad that I’m not Elmer Fudd reviewing this delightful wine – Wed Wock Widge fwom El Dowado. Sorry – couldn’t help myself! It really is a wonderful wine!Mouthwatering aromas of juicy red fruits (raspberry, strawberry, red cherry), baking spices and smoke delight the nose and continue as flavors in the seamless, silky mouth. Delicious! Serve with wabbit.

This post is all about great Cabs priced between $20 and $30.
Check this out ~ these wines come from Napa Valley, Sonoma County, El Dorado County, Paso Robles and Lodi. These appellations ALL produce rockin’ good Cabs! Neener, neener, neeener – good Cabs don’t come from Napa Valley exclusively!
Oh yeah – we bloggers now have to say this ~ all wine samples were provided complimentary by the participating wineries. Thanks wineries!



Five Stars
Sierra Vista Cabernet Sauvignon
2005 Reserve, El Dorado County $26
Think about a big slab of warm cherry pie with vanilla ice cream and you’re halfway there! This Cab is absolutely delicious and balanced, with aromas and flavors of cherry, vanilla, cinnamon and toasty oak, all wrapped up in a velvety mouth feel.

These wines are still current so come taste them and you will like them.

John

Spring

Wow! Has it been a month since the last post? Sorry! Looks like our effort to keep up this blog has gotten a little soft lately. Spring and Fall are always the busiest times for us. In the Spring we have pruning to get done, bud break, wine clubs and of course El Dorado's famous Passport weekends! After passport we always feel we can take a breath for a little bit. This year was a pretty good turn out. Better than expected since The Winery Assoc did not end up selling out on tickets. We got over 1000 people coming through on both weekends, rain & shine. The unique thing about this Spring is it seems it never wants to end. Today is May 12th and as I was driving to work yesterday morning I saw up to four inches of snow on the tops of cars! The ground at the Vineyard was white, but come 9am everything was melted and the day was heating up. Today is one of those dreamy Sierra foothills spring days. Maybe Summer now will start to show its beautiful face. At least we will have plenty of water this year for the vines!

history and own roots

Recently I bought a little device that converts slides to digital. I can then transfer them to my computer. The other day I found a picture of our first winery building amongst the debris of clearing the land. I am including that here and as I find more "historical" Sierra Vista Winery photos I will show them here.

on another subject more than half of our vineyards are planted on their own roots, no foreign rootstock here. I know from our trial plot that rootstock changes the taste of the grape. I wondered if there were any trials done so I googled own Root grape vines and came up with this URL It is a nice short article that gives more pertinent information than I have. Read it and see why our cabs and Syrahs and even Zins have good ageing potential . Read it. It's not long. http://www.aromadictionary.com/articles/grapevinerootstock_article.html

I am posting this a little late and I apologize about that. A couple weeks ago Sierra Vista participated in a a wine makers dinner at La Provence Restaurant down in Roseville. Both John and Barbara thought it was a success and everyone seemed to have a great time. The food and wine pairing was splendid and I wanted to post the menu for all the foodies out there.

Appetizer-
Petit Pates Au Olives Et Chevre
Nicoise olive pastry with Fleur Vert goat cheese, wild arugula and arbequina olive oil. This was paired with the 2007 Fleur de Montagne, which is a Chatauneuf- Du -Pape style blend of Syrah, Grenache, Mourvedre, and Cinsault.

Main Course-
Faux Entrecote De Sanglier Au Poivre
Seared wild boar strip loin, pommes Lyonnaise, brandy peppercorn sauce. This was paired with 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon.

Dessert-
Gateau Crepes A L'Orange et Abricots
Crepe cake filled with orange cream, glazed with dried apricot confection. Served with the 2006 Viognier Doux, which is a late harvest viognier.

Still snowing

Here it is April 5t and it is still snowing. We had a trace over night and it is snowing at 11:30 AM. I am glad it is cold because the Chardonnay is leafing out and we have not finished pruning it. This cold will keep it somewhat dormant so that the guys can finish pruning before it all buds out. That will set it back so maybe we can get past the frost problem this year.

We had successful Rhone Ranger tasting with a couple distributors expressing interest in hearing more about Sierra Vista and a restaurant in Walnut Creek will be putting us on their wine list.

Our new 2009 Chardonnay is just about ready to be released and the Fume also. Both are really nice, better than the 2008 maybe. You come taste and decide.

The next two weekends will be hectic with passport coming on.

By the way I am interested in finding a NCAL blogger who tastes and discusses wine on his blog. If you know of one let me know at syrah@sierravistawinery.com.

Thanks,

John

March snow

Yesterday we had another snow storm that appeared to be equal to the December storm So I sent Autumn home. Shortly after she left she came back. There was a propane truck stuck on our driveway so she couldn't get out. But we got her out through the Reeves place(where our Zinfandel comes from). Barbara was in town shopping and doing her pilates thing and had no clue we were getting dumped on. When she got almost home she found the drive way was still blocked by the propane truck. We had to carry the groceries up by hand. Quite a jaunt on a 18%grade driveway covered by snow and a propane truck. The snow stopped about 3 with about 6 inches fallen. Because it had been so warm it melted quite rapidly on the road and I was able to plow what was left after the stuck truck got out about 4 PM.

Today we tasted some zinfandels and decided to release the 2007 Reeves Vineyard Zin. We felt that the 2006 would benefit from a little maturing in the bottle. Look for it to be re-released in a couple years.

Till next time, John

It is cold and rainy outside so of course my mind is wondering off to warmer climates. There are many grapes suited for warm climates but one of my all time favorites is Grenache. It just so happens that John and myself have been working on getting the blend down for our 2009 Grenache. I can't spoil the fun by telling you all what it will be, but it is looking good. Oh the anticipation of the wine world!

As some of you know, Grenache is one of the most widely planted red grape varieties in the world. It does ripen late, so it needs hot, dry conditions. Our little ridgeline up here in Pleasant Valley proves to be a perfect place for the spicy, berry-flavored grape. One would mostly find it in blends, since it tends to lack color. Syrah is a very common blending companion for Grenache. Grenache is the dominant variety in most Chateauneuf-du-Pape where there has to be a minimum of 30% but is typically over 80% of the famous blends. We tend to use around 40% of Grenache in our Chateauneuf-du-Pape style Fluer Du Montagne.

Grenache is a great wine for a warm day, for it brings out the wanderlust in a person with its spicy, dusty fruit basket up-set character. Just now I am dreaming of beaches and craggy windswept hillsides as I look out and see huge snowflakes streaming down. Hmmm, the thought of Grenache and what it brings to mind is warming my soul. I guess that makes it good for a cold day too!

Eden Vale Inn

This week Barbara and I were treated to two nights at the Eden Vale Inn just off of Lotus Road near the town of Lotus, Ca. On the way there Tuesday night we went to the Thai restaurant now known as Thai Basil and had an excellent dinner with Sierra Vista Fume Blanc. They also carry the Syrah and pair it with their fixed price dinner. Wednesday morning we were treated to a great breakfast and some great company, Mark Hamlin the owner and Chris Kinsey who is establishing a new company called Custom wine Concierge ate with us. So Wed. when we weren't talking or reading we took a drive and saw some enormous beautiful homes in the area. Wednesday night we went to the Sierra Nevada House in Lotus and had a great dinner and may have sold the owner wine for their next wine list. Autumn was instrumental in reacquainting Howard, the owner to our wines also had dinner with us.

Thursday we had another great breakfast and came home after taking a short row on their little pond. I tried to upload some photos but they were taken in high resolution tiff mode and would not upload to this blog.There is one on our Sierra Vista Facebook page and you can go to http://www.edenvaleinn.com/ for a view of the whole B&B. The beds were great and there was no noise. How restful. Just received three photos from Chris Kinsey in jpg format so have added two of them

Old Clone Zinfandel--What Is It?

Once upon a time, around the turn of the century, 1900 that is, some early pioneer farmers planted a Zinfandel vineyard down near the D'Augustini pond in El Dorado Country. No one knows the source of their plants but they produced distinctly different grapes than many other Zinfandel vineyards in the area.

Several years ago a modern day wine making pioneer discovered this vineyard and approached the heirs of the original farmers to see if he could get some cuttings of this special Zin. They said emphatically "no". Being very disappointed he told his sister. Without telling him, his sister decided to go in person to talk to the heirs. When she arrived at the farm she found that the people were not at home. She decided to look at the vineyard in question and saw that it was dying with just a few live canes left. Being a good hearted woman, she pulled out her trusty pruners (she always carries them) and did a very good job of pruning some of the vines. It helps the vines grow better you know. Then not wanting to leave the mess she gathered up the clippings and brought them back to her farm for disposal. She told the wine making pioneer what she had done. In the dark of night he went over and salvaged about 20 buds and grafted them onto some existing Zinfandel plants. Ten of the grafts took and from those 10 plants enough buds had been obtained for 15 rows of that Old Clone planted over a hundred years ago. It turns out that the heirs of the Old Zinfandel let their whole vineyard dry up and die. Good thing the wine making pioneer's sister saved the strain with her good hearted ways!

Soups on coming up Valentines and Presidents day weekend.

Sierra Vista is having a soup and wine pairing this weekend. Also a treat will be the Belgium Chocolate being served by Yours truly as a pairing with the Five Star Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon. Come by and try the Thai style and sausage soup au pisto prepared by Beth Sogard.

Today we are putting the 2009 Fleur de Montagne into new oak barrels for month just to give it a small amount of oak. It is delicious.

See you Sat or Sunday.

John

Happy Birthday John!

Today we have reason to celebrate! Our long time leader and Winemaker John MacCready is blowing out the candles on his birthday ice cream pie! We had a nice little lunch down in the tasting room. Even the kitties were invited! I have to say John seems younger than ever. He seems to have more energy than I do and he is four decades older than I am. How does that happen? What is he eating? Must be the Wine!

Also, Tyler our trusty Wine maker's assistant is blending the 2007 Red Rock Ridged Syrah for the El Dorado Winery Association event "Bring Out The Barrel" this weekend. The Red Rock Ridge syrah is made up of mostly the Estrella Clone that was planted back in 1979. Remember folks we have the oldest Syrah vines of anyone in the Sierra Foothills! The Estrella Syrah has this beautiful oval shape and exudes with luscious juiciness. We also throw in some 174 and 383 clones for color. We are all excited for the turn out of this wine.

The only thing left to say is, stop in to taste it!

Hello to all the Sierra Vista Winery fans!

Let me introduce myself, my name is Autumn Berry and I am the new Sierra Vista Winery Operations manager and Wine Club Coordinator. I am going to be jumping in on this Blogger bandwagon from time to time for John MacCready our fearless winemaker and proprietor here at Sierra Vista. I just want to warn all of you that I am not a writer by trade so I do apologize if I have any grammatical errors on this blog.

We want this blog to be a little insight to what goes on at a winery from day to day or week to week. Weather it is actual winemaking news, info on exciting happenings or random thoughts on wine; we want to communicate this wine life to you. Life is always changing and moving forward and it seems like that pace is sometimes accelerated in the wine business. There are however, those precious moments where the pace slows down enough for us to notice the little details and slow changes that occur up here on Red Rock Ridge. For instance, Lucy our new little kitten caught her first bird today and is well on her way to becoming a full-blown hunter. Now we just have to get her brother Rickie to catch up.

That said I do hope you enjoy our posts and my influence on them.
TTFN!!

A new blog

Well it has been a long time since I wrote a new blog. The big occurrence here was the week without power at the winery after the big Dec snow storm and the two new kittens we have acquired.

Yesterday Autumn and I blended the new 2009 Fleur de Montagne. It is going to be a great vintage for the Fleur. She is a great help with her wonderful palate.

Last month she put on a wine and cheese 101 course where she opened some eyes to what wines pair best with different types of cheese.

Jan 16th she will present "A closer look at wine" which is all about how to taste and judge a wine.

In the future Autumn will be doing most of these blogs so look for more frequent postings.