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How-To Store Wine Properly

Wooden barrels with wine in a wine vault, Italy

How you store your wines can significantly change what you taste in your glass. Whether you are storing wine for a few months or a few decades, there are some basic rules to help prevent wines from aging prematurely.

In this short video, “How-to Store Wine Properly,” we’ll cover humidity level, temperatures, location and discuss storing cork versus screwcap bottles. You’ll get some easy tips to help keep your wines in perfect condition.

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Wine Tasting Terms to Know

woman sitting on patio tasting red and white wine

While terms like “oaky” and “buttery” are self-explanatory, some terms are not. We’re here to help!

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Fermentation 101

Cabernet Sauvignon Grape hanging from the vine
Cabernet Sauvignon Grapes Ready for Harvest

Fermentation is the essential process of that magical transformation of grapes to wine. “The complexity and completion of fermentation should be a celebration of the land, a reflection of the vineyard, whether of a site, a style of vine husbandry, or vintage,” says Winemaker Greg LaFollette (also known as “The Grape Whisperer”). See what is going on in that bubbling fermentation tank.

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Natural, Organic, and Biodynamic Wine, explained

Man inspecting grapes in a vineyard
Ivo Jeramaz, Winemaker and Vice President of Vineyards & Production, inspects the organically farmed Grgich Hills Estate Vineyard in Rutherford, Napa Valley.

Wine club members are more curious than ever about what exactly goes into their food. And those who are looking for the “healthiest” food often choose the organic product, because it is free of chemicals, pesticides and often, additives.

The same goes for wine.

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All About American Viticultural Areas – The California Wine Club Blog

Napa Valley Rockpile Sub? AVAAVA
Beekeeper Cellars Vineyard in the Rockpile AVA, Sonoma

All About AVAs

American Viticultural Areas (AVAs) are delimited, geographical grape-growing areas that have officially been given appellation status by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Their purpose is to show off the diversity and quality of the wine region, with each AVA having a distinct “persona” that divides it from the other AVAs. The distinct “persona” is mainly categorized by climate, geology, and elevation. Size doesn’t matter: At less than a quarter of a square mile, Cole Ranch in Mendocino County is the smallest AVA in California. There is no winery here, just 60 acres of vineyards.

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Ask a Winemaker: How Do You Craft Natural Wines?

Jerry Sass, Founder/Winemaker of Sass Vineyards, pours one of his natural wines at a tasting.
Jerry Sass, Founder/Winemaker of Sass Vineyards, pours one of his natural wines at a tasting.

Winemaker Jerry Sass, Founder of Sass Vineyards, believes in using non-invasive winemaking to craft natural wines that evoke the terroir of their vineyards. Inspired by wines his father made from Finger Lakes grapes in Western New York, he founded his winery in the Salem Hills of OR in 1996.

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What Are Vineyard Trellising Systems & Why Are They Important?

What Are Vineyard Trellising Systems & Why Are They Important--Next time you take a vineyard tour, keep an eye out for trellising systems and ask about it. Why do they use it, how does it help the vines and the wines?

Gerri-Lynn Becker, President, The California Wine Club, checks out fruit and the trellising system at Lawer Estates’ Betsy’s Vineyard in Knights Valley.

If you’ve ever visited a vineyard, you may have noticed wires running down the rows with stakes driven into the ground every few feet. This is a trellising system, and it’s a tool used in many vine training systems worldwide.

There are important reasons for trellising. First and foremost is the nature of the vine. Unlike a tree, vines can’t support themselves, so a trellis provides this support. Also, trellises keep vines off the ground and therefore minimize disease. They help spread out the canopy for sun exposure, pruning and canopy management.

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Wine Harvest at Margerum Wine Company in Santa Barbara

Wine Harvest with Doug at Margerum Wine Cellars

This is a guest post from Doug Margerum of  Margerum Wine Company.

We picked our first grapes on August 3, the earliest on record for us.

The first grapes in during wine harvest were Sauvignon Blanc from Happy Canyon of Santa Barbara.  This year, yields are low, down 30-40%, but the quality is excellent.  We have a small crop with an early harvest and the drought has definitely affected us.  The weather has been consistent.

A Harvest Day at Margerum

It’s a busy time at our county wineries.  Grapes will be harvested over the next two months and we are very busy.  It is a terrific time to visit wineries as the smells of fermenting grape juice waft through the air.

4:40 AM – Rise and no shine (it is still dark) and dress in layers since the temperature outside is chilly and often foggy. By 11:00 am it could be well over ninety.

5:20 AM – Meet the vineyard manager at the vineyard as the light begins to appear in the east.  Get the crew started picking grapes making sure they are picking the right section, not picking any second crop, and leaving out of the bins all of the leaves, lizards, bugs, snakes, and other debris.  It’s important to get the grapes to the winery nice and cool.  We’ve already taken samples to get the “numbers.”  The numbers needed are: pH – the measure of acidity and alkalinity, Brix – percentage of sugar in the grape juice, and TA – the measure of the Total Acid of the principal acids found in grapes, mainly tartaric acid, and malic acid.  We’ll discuss what to pick next, when to pick and speculate on the ever-changing weather. My assistant winemaker visits other vineyards walking all the rows that are looking ripe and randomly picks clusters, keeping the different clones and varieties separate.

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The Truth About Organic Wine

Greenhouses on urban organic farm

Greenhouses on urban organic farm

Wine club members are more curious than ever about what exactly goes into their food. And those who are looking for the “healthiest” food often choose the organic product, because it is free of chemicals, pesticides and often, additives.

The same goes for wine. Wine lovers wanting to “drink green” will reach for an organic wine. However, a few caveats are in order.

First, like all wines, organic wines usually have additives. These can include egg whites or animal enzymes, so vegans be warned.

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Pinot Pinot Pinot!

Whenever someone says “I love Pinot!”, we always assume they mean Pinot Noir. We could be wrong. After all, there are several other worthy members of the Pinot family.

 

Pinot Gris (as in France) or Pinot Grigio (as in Italy, same wine) is a friendly, easy-to-love white quaffer that has earned many fans here in the U.S. in recent years. Pinot Grigio is Italy’s most popular white wine and in the U.S. ranks behind Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc. It’s rise in America has been rapid-fire. As noted in Charlie Olken and Joseph Furstenthal’s excellent reference, The New Connoisseurs’ Guidebook to California Wine & Wineries, “Just 20 years ago, there was no recorded Pinot Gris acreage in California, and even ten years ago, there were just nine hundred acres standing in local vineyards. Today, the California plantings have risen to 12,600 acres….” For a wine, that’s an overnight success.

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