From Sandra's Desk:




January 2020

Happy New Year!
 
2020!  Amazing!  
 
There's something about owning a vineyard that seems to speed up time.  As the vintages fly by and you look to the next year, you may lose a sense of real time flow.  You make changes,  add varietals, wait for their maturity, but this process is a mish mash of time. Unlike children that grow at a consistent pace, wine grapes seem to take forever to mature and then BOOM!  You suddenly have acres of grapes to buy barrels and glass and foils for and then harvest and make wine and bottle and sell it. A vineyard and wine business entail long spans of time waiting for things to happen followed by intense activities in the harvesting and winemaking process, followed by years of waiting again to sell the wine.  It's a "hurry up and wait" business.  So, when you tell me that we began our vineyard project in 1999, I think to myself…Wait!  That's 21 years ago!!!!  But when I measure it in all of the things we have accomplished in those 21 years, time slows down again.  We planted three separate vineyards and after beginning with just three varietals we now have 12 varietals and several blends and reserves.  It has turned into a family business with a tasting room in downtown Carmel, an extensive wine club with several variations on a theme, and employees who are like family, some of whom have been with us since their fathers worked for us and some who actually ARE family.  We feel very blessed to have this business.  Of course, Alan's primary business of music still feeds our family, but the wine business is in all of our hearts and through the wine business we feel connected to our community. YOU live in our community. Like us, you enjoy the finer things in life.  Actually, you are us. We are you.  And we can't think of a better way to live our lives than sharing it with you. Thank you for your support through these many years. We wish you all a very Happy New Year with lots of family, love and yes, even a little local wine.
 
Salute!
 
Sandra

From The Winemaker:

  Happy New Year! Saying and writing/typing 2020 is soooo weird to me. Being a kid of the late 70's through the 80's and a late teen in the early 90's it seems like yesterday we were living in a simpler-world. The idea of the year 2020 conjures images of a world filled with flying cars, pills for meals,and droids cruising around like Star Wars. Some weird drink in a Astro pub filled with creatures from different planets etc,,, who knew, other than the fancy gadgets and some really weird math in elementary school things aren't all that different. I farm acreage of grapes in a way that is really no different than they did those many moons ago, and make wine as it was done long before that. I still use cassette tapes, drink Coke, and freakin still have to pull a string to start my weed wacker, chainsaw, and lawn mower ( that is the one thing that irks the heck out of me). Other than my wife's creepy robot vacuum, I haven't seen a "droid" that I know of.  What we dreamt up 2020 would look like was pretty cool but really still a fantasy. So, yes it was a simpler time but we really aren't that far removed. As a kid my dreams and aspirations obviously had nothing to do with wine, in fact, my parents rarely, if at all, drank wine, so wine wasn't even on my radar, my experiences with wine came much much later. My first real experiences with wine came when I was playing and teaching baseball in Germany/Europe. The kids my age, 21-24, seemed so much more sophisticated there. They drank wine, starting at a younger age and not necessarily to have an end result but as a conversation enhancer, a feel good SOUL lubricant. It was such a different experience here, where the kids that age were most definitely NOT drinking wine, and for sure, knew nothing about or appreciated the process. Sucking down on a California Cooler or Zima for Gods sake, actually happened, ugh. In the 20 years that I have been doing this, that part has changed. I have seen a younger demographic getting interested in wine and that group is not only appreciating wine but also have a passion for it, very cool to see. I have mentored quite a few, in both the farming end and wine making side, and all have dreams of being part of the wine industry,,, super cool. Anyway, I know I ramble so, Happy New Year and Enjoy each day!!!! Cheers Frank