March 12, Tasting at Saralee's

On March 12, the Lost Canyon crew drove up to Russian River Valley to Saralee's Annual Wineries tasting. We arrived at 9:15am and there was a heavy fog. We warmed up by the fireplace as we waited for the other wineries to arrive. About 52 wineries buy grapes from Saralee Kunde. This is a great event she does every year, where all the wineries showcases their wines made from her grapes. Everyone takes their seats and the event begins. There are 6 wine glasses in front of each person. There is a lot of coordination going into this event. Once we taste through the 6, then we dump the glasses and another set of 6 is put in front of us again, until we are done. We tasted about 70 wines made from the different wineries using her grapes. Lost Canyon brought: 2007 Viognier(already bottled), then barrel samples of: 2007 clone 37 Saralee's Pinot noir, 2007 clones 115 and 777 Saralee's Pinot noir and 2007 Trenton Station. The winemaker or representative of the winery stands up to give some brief stats on the wine and then moving on to the next wine. We were finished around 12:30pm and headed out to the patio overlooking the vineyards, where we enjoyed a catered lunch. The sun came out right around this time too. It was a great day! Thanks, Saralee!!!
http://www.saraleesvineyard.com/

Viognier Release Party and Lecture

The world tour of viognier lecture and release of 2007 Catie's Corner Viognier was a success. Thanks to all of those folks who came out! Jack, co-owner and winemaker, gave a lecture that focused on the orgins of viognier, how white wines are processed differently than reds, and stylistic choices the winemaker has and how it impacts the final product. We had 100% viognier wines from France (Rhone region), South Australia, and then 2 CA regions from Lodi and Paso Robles. Of course, we also featured our 2006 and 2007 Catie's Corner Viognier.

February 23, Tales from the Vineyard event

The Tales from the Vineyard event was a hit. We had about 30 attendees come out on this cold and rainy Saturday afternoon. Saralee Kunde spoke for about 90 minutes about growing, trellising, clones, irrigation and high maintenance winemakers. She was an excellent speaker full of knowledge and entertaining stories. While she was giving her presentation, Martha and her volunteer went around and filled everyone's glass with wines we make from Saralee's grapes. They were as follows: 2007 Viognier, 2005 Saralee (sold out, but we broke out some old stuff), 2006 Saralee, 2005 Trenton Station, and 2006 Trenton Station. Thanks to everyone that came out for the event, thanks to our volunteers: Brian, Rick, and Ray and big thanks to Saralee Kunde for taking time out of her busy schedule to stop by and do this lecture! Stay tuned for our next event on March 15 where Jack States (owner and winemaker) will take us on a world tour of Viognier.

Filtering and Bottling the week of Feb. 13-16, 2008

Thursday and Friday we had to prepare the 4 wines to be bottled on Saturday. We filtered the 2007 Viognier, 2006 Las Brisas Pinot noir, and the 2006 Alegria Syrah on Thursday, with the help of one of our faithful volunteers. Friday, we filtered the 2006 Trenton Station Reserve. Things went smoothly, I think we are learning from our past mistakes.
Saturday we had an early start to get ready for bottling. Volunteers arrived at 7:30am, had a bit of coffee and a snack then they had to get trained on their various positions in the truck. We bottled 1063 cases in 3 1/2 hours. Not bad! Thanks again to all of the volunteers, we really appreciate your help. Cheers to you!!!!

Racking, part 2

This week, we finished racking by doing the Syrah 2007. Everything went smoothly and the wines are tasting great! We were so lucky to have such beautiful sunny weather. This makes barrel washing pretty enjoyable!
Next week we will be filtering the 4 wines we plan to bottle on February 16. Check back in for details on the bottling and photos of volunteers helping us out.

Racking of 2007 wines

This past week we started racking our 2007 wines. Racking is done 2x a year at Lost Canyon Winery. Racking is when we take the wine out of the barrels, put the wine in a tank, wash the barrels and then put the wine back in the barrels. We started with the 2007 Pinot noir. This year we had the different clones that make up each of the wines ripen at different times so we had many separate lots. We blended the clones together at this point and were able to taste the difference of keeping the clones separately. This was very interesting. The wines are tasting fantastic!
Thanks to our volunteers for coming out and helping with this process.

Wine Enthusiast Ratings are in!!!

The Wine Enthusiast ratings are in on Lost Canyon Pinot noirs!

- 2006 Morelli Lane Pinot noir, 92 rating
- 2006 Las Brisas Pinot noir, 91 rating
- 2006 Widdoes Pinot noir, 88 rating
- 2006 Saralee Pinot noir, 87 rating

These results will be published in the April addition of Wine Enthusiast. We are very excited with these scores!!!

Cheese Tasting, Lecture, and Wine Pairing

January 19th was our first event of 2008. It certainly went off with a bang!
We had Jill Giacomini Basch, of Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Company come by Lost Canyon Winery and talk about 7 different local cheeses that were all presented and tasted with our 2005 Syrahs. We had over 75 people show up and unfortunately couldn't let them all in due to amounts of space and cheese. Thanks for everyone coming out!! See you at the next event, Feruary 23, 3-5pm, where we will feature our "world class" grower, Saralee Kunde.

Lost Canyon Winery in the studio with Gene Burns!!!

Jack and Bob (2 of the owners) were on Dining Around with Gene Burns, January 12 at 10:30am. For those of you who don't know, Gene Burns talks food and wine on Newstalk 810, KGO Radio. This was a spontaneous happening, they had a whole to fill in their program and we jumped at it! We brought a 2007 Viognier barrel sample along with some of our 2006 Pinot Noirs. If you missed it check this link to listen the original show. http://www.kgoam810.com/article.asp?id=549358

Happy New Year! We hope to see you in 2008!

All of us at Lost Canyon Winery wish you a Happy New Year!
Please check in with us in January for a list of events for 2008.
We will be lining up an event every month and the blog will be active reviewing the events.
Hope you are celebrating with Lost Canyon Wine!!

Holiday party and December 2007 Open House

We have been preparing for weeks for our wine club member annual party and the December 1 and 2 Open House and now they are a glimmer in the past. Friday night was a great evening. The cellar cleaned up nicely, hard to remember those grape covered days. Jack chopped down a Christmas tree from half moon bay and we had it decorated near the entrance for all to enjoy. Randy put up the spot lights, highlighting the barrels containing our 2007 wines and we had the Christmas lights wrapped around the ceiling beams on as well (they are up all the time, but this is the only time of your we have them on). Martha had been preparing and cooking for days. This was the menu...the food was fantastic!!! Enjoy the photos from the event. Thanks, Wine Club members for making Lost Canyon Winery what it is! Also, thanks to the volunteers that helped out with the craziness on Friday night and the open houses. We really couldn't do it without you all. Happy Holidays!!!!

Beef & chorizo empanaditas

Pair with Trenton Station Syrah

Prosciutto and fig jam on baked brie crostini

Pair with Stage Gulch Syrah

Vegetarian version: fig jam & Gorgonzola cheese crostini

Pair with Alegria Syrah

Roasted five spice duck in scallion-hoisin crepe

Pair with Morelli Lane and Widdoes Pinot

Vegetarian persimmon, pear, golden raisin relish on Fontina crostini

Pair with Saralee Pinot

RRV Pinot Noir release party

The RRV Pinot Noir release party was this Saturday from 1-5pm. It was a success. Martha did all the delicious food. There was toasted brie on bread, Gruyere puffs, Pate and olives.
There were a lot of local wine events going on....Periscope cellars, Urbano Cellars, Rosenblum Cellars and Dashe Cellars. At our release party, we had some media and trade friends show up along with new walkins and lots of wine club members (this was the first time they could pick up their futures).
Our wine club members have been very excited about our new Pinot Noir, Widdoes vineyard from Dutton Ranch. These grapes are in the Green Valley AVA, which is a smaller AVA in the larger RRV AVA. This wine consists of only 1 clone, the Berringer suitcase clone, also known as the Martini clone. If you haven't tried this one yet, get down to our tasting room Friday-Sunday from 1-6pm for a tasting. This Pinot Noir will go quick. We only made 350 cases!! I was pouring Widdoes Pinot Noir on Friday to some chemical sales guys and one of them described the smell of the Widdoes as the inside of a new Cadillac. I don't personally agree with his nose, but I thought it was a cool description.