San Diego Union Tribune’s “Wines for Labor Day BBQs” tasting.

Dear SR Team,
Below is a nice review of the 2006 Barbera from the San Diego Union Tribune’s “Wines for Labor Day BBQs” tasting. I’ve also included a note from the wine writer who does the reviews, she is a big fan of Shannon Ridge.


“I gotta tell you that the Shannon Ridge wines are a happy surprise - I've liked just about everything from them and the Barbera totally rocks! So does the price point.
Cheers!
Sue Straight”


http://www.wine.signonsandiego.com/pages/story.php?StoryID=262

Panel Favorite Red Wine! shannonridge Shannon Ridge Winery 2006 Barbara, Lake County $20“Smooth as a baby’s butt.” That’s what one of my panelists said about this delicious, quaffable, smooth red wine. Aromas and flavors of blackberry, black cherry, vanilla and baking spices are all wrapped up in a richly textured mouthfeel. Almost too easy to drink!

Customer preference poll - New glass for Sauvignon Blanc

Our in-depth R&D department(headed up by VP of Sales) is trying to determine what is the best bottle for next year's Sauvignon blanc. Stay with our lightly green tinted bottle or really try and show off the exceptional clarity our Sauvignon Blanc has and put it in a Crystal clear bottle.
We are taking the question to our Shannon Ridge friends and conducting a very un-scientific survey.
Here are a couple of photos showing where we are and what it might look like in new packaging. New packaging is on the left.
Please leave comments below or fill in the poll to the right....all feedback appreciated, Chris

The Govenator endorses California Food and Wine.

From Decanter magazine...
Schwarzenegger to promote Californian wine, food
August 23, 2007

Panos Kakaviatos

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is set to promote the state's wine and food in a series of TV ads. Modelled after a successful string of California tourism advertisements featuring actors like Clint Eastwood, the new spots will feature 'stars of California's food and wine world,' said Nancy Light, communications director of California's Wine Institute. Light told decanter.com that well known chefs and winemakers would be featured. It was too early to disclose names, she said. It has not been announced exactly what part the governor will play. The television spots, which start in February, will be funded through a five-year promotional partnership, announced this week, between the California Travel & Tourism Commission (CTTC), a private non profit company, and the Wine Institute. 'California is the most visited state in the US for food and wine-related activities,' said CTTC Executive Director Caroline Beteta in a press release. America's largest wine producer, California has nearly 2,300 wineries and accounts for 90% of US wine production. According to statistics quoted in the CTTC statement, the top 17% of American leisure travellers – some 27.3m people – have engaged in culinary or wine-related activities when travelling. Well-educated and more affluent than other US travellers, they cross most age groups, and take almost seven domestic and international trips per year: 15% more than the average US leisure traveller. To further develop such travel, the partnership will also fund a new culinary website and sponsor publicity and special events over the next five years, Light said.

Current awards for Shannon Ridge...not bad for a new winery...

2007 Awards & Accolades

2006 Sauvignon Blanc
100 Best Buys of the Year – Wine & Spirits Magazine
91 POINTS- Wine & Spirits Magazine – Vote “Top 6 in America”
GOLD and BEST of CLASS North Coast AVA-California State Fair
GOLD and Chairman’s Best of Class - Long Beach Grand Cru
GOLD- Pacific Rim Wine Competition
GOLD- San Diego International Wine Competition
SILVER-Critics Challenge
SILVER-Riverside Wine Competition
Silver-North of the Gate
87 POINTS – Wine Spectator

2003 Zinfandel
GOLD- San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition

2005 Barbera
GOLD- Dallas Morning News Wine Competition
PLATINUM-Critics Challenge
SILVER- Pacific Rim Wine Competition

2005 Cabernet Sauvignon
GOLD-Long Beach Grand Cru
SILVER-Riverside Wine Competition
SILVER-Critics Challenge
SILVER- San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition
SILVER- Florida State Fair Wine Competition
SILVER- Houston Wine Competition

2005 Syrah
Gold-North of the Gate
SILVER- Pacific Rim Wine Competition
SILVER- San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition

2003 Petite Sirah
GOLD/SWEEPSTAKE WINNER- San Diego Wine Competition
GOLD- Florida State Fair Wine Competition
90 POINTS- Wine Enthusiast Magazines
SILVER-Riverside Wine Competition

2006 Viognier
GOLD-Long Beach Grand Cru

The kind of "Dear John" letter you like to receive.....

The following is from an email that John Girty, Vice President of Sales & Marketing received Monday morning from Wine and Spirits magazine:

Dear John:

I'm happy to report that your Shannon Ridge 2006 Lake County Sauvignon Blanc will be featured as one of the "100 Best Buys of the Year" in our upcoming November 2007 BUYING GUIDE annual issue.

The "100 Best Buy" listing will be accompanied by the score (91 in your case) and review we gave the wine when we first recommended it earlier this year.

The BUYING GUIDE is our biggest and most popular issue of the year, featuring Wineries of the Year, Top Wines and Best Buys of the Year, Grower of the Year, Wine Personality of the Year, the year's best new wine books, wine accessories, a calendar of wine events for 2007, holiday gift ideas and more. Its our best-read issue.

Our NovemberBUYING GUIDE will be published October 16.

Family Winemakers tasting, San Francisco, CA

Family Winemakers tasting started yesterday. My week began in Georgia moved to Alabama, back home in time to throw a "going away" party for my youngest son Nick as he prepares to move to Boulder, Colorado and then on a plane to San Francisco. I'm sitting in my room at the Hyatt and looking out the window at the San Francisco bay covered in fog. Only the base of the bay bridge is visible....fog horns sounding in the background....what a great city!

After a couple of cab rides I arrive at the Fort Mason Center, a National Historic Landmark and part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, the Center houses about 30 nonprofit organizations and is the setting for more than 15,000 meetings, conferences, performances, and special events, attended by 1.5 million visitors each year. Lines have already formed around both sides of the building with consumers and trade waiting for the 12:00 hour so they can rush in for the magic juice we call wine. Overall there are over 300 family owned wineries, some very small only producing a single varietal, others with a full range. Very quickly, the building is full and the sound level is ever increasing with the shuffle of feet, clinking of glasses and the sound of caps being turned and corks being pulled. Here are a few photos of our table and some crowd shots to give you a feel of the event.

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After the show, Clay, Margarita and I are headed back to the Hyatt when Clay spots Joey Luiz, our tasting room manager walking down the street. We pull over and give Joey a ride back to his car which was like 300 miles away according to Clay (10 minute drive equals 300 miles to Clay at this point). We are out to dinner with the group and have a thoroughly enjoyable dinner discussing wine making, grape growing and overall how to continue to grow quality and awareness of this incredible growing area in Lake County. We are committed to getting Lake County back to the World Class status it had prior to prohibition.

Today's show is for trade only so I look forward to another great day of educating folks about Shannon Ridge and the Lake County wine growing industry.

Let the Harvest begin!

Crews started this morning as the sun came up on what looks to be Lake County's first vineyard to start harvesting Shannon Ridge winegrapes.
The first varietal to be picked was Sauvignon Blanc from the Morine Ranch vineyard above Clearlake Oaks.
As the sun came up harvest crews were already picking Shannon Ridge's Sauvignon Blanc, One of the first vineyards to begin picking this years winegrapes.
(Below) Hand crews are used on the mountain side Shannon Ridge Winery's Morine Ranch above Clearlake Oaks
(Below) Vineyard manager Celestino Castaneda jumps in the bin for up close inspection of the first bin to be harvested.
Thanks to
Rick Gunier

Vineyards, the good, the bad and the ugly!

Over the years I've conducted many wine training sessions, educational dinners, tastings, judgings etc. It seems that the questions are always somewhat similar, people want to know more about the wine or where it was grown, but one question has always stood out. I was asked by a customer once why, as they were traveling in California Wine Country, that some vineyards were huge, overgrown and almost touching the ground while others looked like nicely manicured lawns. My answer was that one owner just let the vines grow (remember, like english ivy, vines will grow like crazy if you let them) and accepted whatever quality the grapes might bring while the nicely manicured look actually produced more consistent high quality grapes. "How could that be", she asked. Well, as the vines grow uncontrolled, the canopy thickens and creates a shelter effect over the grapes which reduces air flow (air flow helps prevent mildew and fungus growth) and limits fruit maturation due to less direct exposure to sunlight. The well manicured vineyard keeps the canopy (leaf) growth to a minimum which keeps good air flow and fruit exposure for more uniform fruit development. There are various ways to trim back the canopy, specialized machinery that cuts the overgrowth back with blades or bursts of high pressure air which shatters the leaves but dosen't damage the grape clusters..or the old fashion (costly) way of having a crew manually go through and trim back the canopy. While in California several weeks back I was walking through our vineyards and was reminded of this question while viewing not only how beautiful Shannon Ridge vineyards are but how it is necessary to keep the vineyards maintained in order to grow the highest quality grapes. Our director of Marketing, Rick Gunier also reminded me of this yesterday (Thanks Rick!) and sent a few photos he took yesterday of the vineyards, enjoy!







P.S. Grape harvest began in the Sacramento Valley yesterday.





Rick wrote"While up on the ranch today I noticed the care we take of our vines. Thought you might like to blog a little about it.
We go great lengths to protect our Tempranillo vines, Our bird friends also love them. So to keep the crop for our wine lovers we have to use netting over each roll that boarders our natural rural neighborhood.

Corks vs Screwcaps

Watch this video from the Bruce Sanderson Wine Spectator interview with Michel Laroche of Domaine Laroche in Chablis who began experimenting with screwcap vs corks on his 2002 vintage Chablis after cork taint had affected 10% of his 2001 vintage.
Now you see why more high quality wineries are going to Stelvin closures (screwcaps). (P.S. Shannon Ridge delivers the freshest wine via Stelvin closures)

Chris

Family Winemakers of California Tasting 2007

Aug 19 - 20 Come vist Shannon Ridge at the Family Winemakers of California Tasting 2007 (San Francisco, CA) I'm flying out on Sunday morning August 19th and will be pouring product alongside Clay and Margarita, John Girty, Rick Gunier and other members of the team...hope to see you there.

www.familywinemakers.org.

Family Winemakers of California will hold their annual tasting on August 19 and 20 in San Francisco, California. “Tasting 2007” is open to the wine trade, media and consumers on Sunday, August 19 at Fort Mason Center’s Festival Pavilion. It will be an opportunity to taste great wines and meet the winemakers and owners behind some of California finest wineries. Over 400 wineries poured 1,000 wines and upwards of 30 wineries make their debut at the event. For more information, visit

Wine Boom: 22 local area wineries translated into $75 million for Lake County in 2006

There's no doubt Lake County is one of the fastest growing wine regions in the state of California. Jumping from only four wineries six years ago, and 14 wineries one year ago, today there are a total of 22 wineries. Last year's crop translated into a $75 million industry for Lake County in terms of wine that was produced from its grapes. So, you may ask, what is the reason for this relatively sudden local wine industry boom?

Read entire article here Part 1

Read article here Part 2

Mountain Fruit growing...future of California grape growing?

View the video below for an interesting view of how global warming could affect the future of grape growing in the areas of Napa and Sonoma. Good thing we are further North and growing fruit in a mountain area.....

Lake County wineries vote to form trade group

LAKEPORT, Aug. 3, 2007 – The Lake County Winegrape Commission today announced that several local wineries have come together to form the Lake County Wineries Association to promote greater public awareness of the wine region.

click here to read the article in it's entirety:
Lake County wineries vote to form trade group

View our presentation on video

This is a little better. I used my video camera and taped it off the computer. Hopefully my techno son Nick can come through with some flash programming to realy clean this up. Video is better and sound has been added....please watch. We are coming to a state near you soon........


Shannon Ridge Vineyards & Winery presentation

Chris

A kid in a candy store..or, how I became "Cowboy Chris"

So Clay and I are working the Florida market two weeks before I actually started with Shannon Ridge when suddenly on the drive from Orlando to Ocala to work a tasting for ABC Fine Wine & Spirits Clay mumbles and points to a bilboard advertisement for "Western World Superstore". He's on the phone selling grapes to some Napa winery so all he can do is grunt and point at the sign. Being as astute as I am in interpreting grunts and pointing, I ascertain that Mr. Shannon has a fancy for "all things Western" so we pull off the highway and head towards "Western World Superstore". We walk in and Clay is as giddy as a school girl that just had the Captain of the Football team wink at her. Boots, Boots, and more Boots. Did I mention Cowboy Boots? Clay is so so excited at the number of cowboy boots this place has that he can hardly contain himself. Granted, this is a guy that mostly wears cowboy boots every day. Oh yeah, so do the kids and his wife Margarita. I wouldn't be surprised if on my next visit that the dogs, the horses and the sheep all had some form of cowboy boots on. Anyway, Clay's enthusiasm is spreading and before you know it I'm trying on boots. I'm thinking to myself how crazy it is for this city slicker to be trying on boots. I did have a pair of cowboy boots when I was around 18-20 years old and the memory of how uncomfortable they were still lingers with me today. End result...I get caught up in Clay's enthusiasm and fork over $180 and now have myself a dandy brand new pair of Ariat Boots. I Love them and wearing them on the ranch (Shannon Ranch) was great. I felt right at home. Now you can call me "Cowboy Chris" only when I have my boots on (shopping for a hat next) ....Rumor has it that John Girty will be shopping for some boots when he is in Texas........ceb