I am busy finishing our 2006 Cedar Lane Sauvignon Blanc as I am hoping to bottle it next week, and have to squeeeeeze a weekend, semi-business trip in between now and then.  I’m excited about this sauvignon blanc — the whole winery is perfumed with it’s aroma.  More next week when we will (hopefully) be bottling this up!!

A Sea of Blue…..

Here is Cara putting the finishing touches on our 2005 Hilltop Ranch Pinot Noir.  We are excited about this wine as it is the first vintage from our own estate vineyard in Carmel Valley.  This will be a special package and will be released in November 2007……

The finalists for the 2007 American Wine Blog Awards have been announced, and This Blog is a finalist in the “Best Winery Blog” category.  The other nominees (and some of my favorites, too) in this category are:  Mary Baker’s Dover Canyon Winery Blog, Pinotblogger with Josh at Capozzi, and Stormhoek from South Africa.  Thanks for the nomination and good luck to all.

If you have enjoyed reading this blog, if you have found it to be informative, entertaining or insightful, if you think this blog is worthy, click here to express yourself and vote.  While you’re at it, take some time to check out the other categories as well.  There are folks out there in the wine blogging world who are doing great things — find out what they are doing and vote for your favorite in each category.  Thank You.  Voting ends Friday, February 16th.

A very thoughtful relative gave us this wonderful book by Susan Sokol Blosser:  At Home in the Vineyard.  I’m glad she did.  I just finished reading it and highly recommend it if you are at all interested in the history of Oregon Pinot Noir, Sokol Blosser Winery, and/or women in the wine industry.  This is a story about two visionaries (Susan and her husband) with a little “hippie” influence in the 70′s who undertake the daunting tasks of planting and managing vineyards, starting a winery and raising a family in a sleepy, rural region in Oregon (now the world-famous “Dundee Hills”).  It is also a story about Susan’s own perserverance as a woman in a man’s world in the 1970′s and how she overcame the challenges of running a business in that environment. 

For me this book was really inspirational.  Learning about how hard Susan and Bill worked to bring their (then) naive and crazy dreams to life is a reminder that anything can happen with enough effort and resolve.  The folks who started the wine industry up in Oregon are all regarded as “Pinot” pioneers and leaders, but with a laid-back, Oregonian manner that has set a postive and intelligent precedent for the rest of us to follow.  Cheers to Oregon and to Susan Sokol Blosser for making her story available!

  You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one…….John Lennon

Last week we had a fun “Wine-down Wednesday at Tarpy’s Roadhouse.  The place was packed and we saw many of our friends and we made many new ones as well.  Here are some photos:

 

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This past Wednesday, we had a dinner at Grasing’s.  Kurt Grasing did a wonderful job with the food, and we tasted for the first time our 2005 Tondre Grapefield Pinot Noir which was very well-received.  Look more for this wine in the near future…..

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Click here to read the Monterey County Weekly’s story on Cima Collina from their 2-01-2007 issue.