State’s 2014 wine grape production forecast to be 3.9 million tons

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California Wine Institute, Chrissy Whittmann, Michael David Winery, Wild Horse Winery & Vineyards

SAN FRANCISCO — California vintners and growers across the state are grateful to have finished another successful harvest, despite the state’s severe drought and the earthquake that rocked south Napa in late August, just as crush was starting.

According to the United States Department of Agriculture Pacific Regional Crop Production Report of August 2014, California’s winegrape production this year is forecast at 3.9 million tons, down 8 percent from 2013’s record high crop.

The 2014 harvest is the third largest on record, according to a news release issued today from the California Wine Institute.

A mild winter and spring led to very early bud break — reported as January in some locations — although the overall length of the growing season mirrored that of past years, the organization reported.

Moderate temperatures allowed for even ripening and one of the earliest harvests on record: July for sparkling wines and mid-October for the later-ripening grape varietals.

“The 2014 vintage was by far the earliest start of any harvest I can recall,” said Adam Mettler, director of winemaking for Michael David Winery in Lodi.

“Early concerns about adequate storage quickly faded as our vineyards continued to check in at 20-25 percent down in volume from the previous two years,” he said.

Winemakers have described 2014 as another year with high-caliber fruit.

“Quality is outstanding,” said Chrissy Wittmann, winemaker at Wild Horse Winery & Vineyards in Paso Robles. “There are small berries with good tannin and color release on the reds, and flavorful fruit with bright aromatics on the whites.

Robert P. (Bobby) Koch, president and CEO of the Wine Institute, said his organization is “keenly aware” of the state’s ongoing drought and its effects on the state’s entire agricultural community, including the wine industry. “We are doing our part as vintners and growers to mitigate water usage through a variety of sustainable practices.”

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Arroyo Grande’s Comfort Market specializes in quality, comfort food for lunch, dinner

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Comfort Market

Less than six months after opening, Comfort Market in Arroyo Grande is getting lots of attention from diners and restaurant writers alike.

A writer from the San Jose Mercury News recently paid a visit to Comfort and Ember and sang the praises of both.

Late one very warm October afternoon, I visited owner Kari Ziegler at the end of a long drive, looking for comfort — literally — from the heat of the road. She plied me with ice water, handed me the menu and suggested something cool and refreshing: The Morro Bay Tuna Niçoise Salad. It was marvelous, with fresh everything, from the bread to the tuna to the eggs to the generous slices of red onion.

 

Morro Bay Tuna Niçoise Salad at Comfort Market

Ziegler welcomes the praise and adoration from diners, because in addition to having a hand in everything from shopping to prepping, she photographs soups and sandwiches to promote Comfort via social media.

And it’s working: Regulars watch Twitter and Facebook to learn the daily soup specials. Ziegler likens it to being stalked — but in a good way.

Comfort Market photo/Portuguese white bean and linguica, one of Comfort’s recent daily soups

Ziegler, who owned the now-closed Gather Wine Bar further down Branch Street, has long had a bead on the community’s appetite for good food. If she and her staff make it, hungry people will come and eat it.

Ziegler relies on fresh, quality ingredients to turn out treasures such as the Taylor Ham & Cheddar, “a New Jersey classic,” with pork, cheddar cheese and a fried egg served on a brioche bun, or the Turkey Mango Stilton: Roast turkey breast with melted ginger-mago Stilton cheese and mozzarella, finished with local spinach and mayo on wheat.

Comfort Market photo/Taylor ham and cheddar on Brioche

Seriously, I’m drooling as I write.

Ziegler understands that running an eatery is rewarding — and exhausting. The restaurant business incorporates cranky customers for whom nothing is right, but also faithful fans who hang on your every entrée and talk you up like nobody’s business.

Ziegler and her executive chef, Jaime “Jimmy” Mendoza, who trained at Le Cordon Bleu, have teamed to offer a series of cooking classes that recently launched, appropriately, with a how-to on homemade soup.

As of this morning, only a few tickets remain for the next class, from 7 to 9 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 30. Visit Comfort Markets, or https://www.facebook.com/comfortmkt for more information.

Details: Comfort Market is open from 11:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily (although the doors close when the food sells out, which happens). Located at 116 W. Branch St., Arroyo Grande; comfortmarkets.com

In addition to on-site dining, Comfort offers custom picnic baskets, catering and a selection of pastas, sauces and more.

http://comfortmarkets.com/espresso-menus/menus/

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Fourth-annual Garagiste Festival returning to “home base” in Paso Robles Nov. 6-9

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Garagiste Festival, Paso Robles

 

More than 70 artisan “garagiste” winemakers will pour their wines at the only festival devoted to the smallest-of-the-small producers — many of whom produce just one or two barrels.

California’s Garagiste Festivals debuted in Paso Robles in November 2011, and two years later expanded to Solvang via “Southern Exposure,” held in late March at the Veterans Memorial Hall. This year a third Garagiste festival, “Urban Exposure,” debuted in Los Angeles on July 12 at Union Station.

For the return of the flagship event in November, more than 70 artistan winemakers will pour their wines. Of those, more than 50 hail from the Paso Robles area, and 90 percent of those pouring do not have tasting rooms.

Despite its growth and prominence among aficionados of fine wine, founders of the Garagiste Festival stay true to their roots and continue to direct a share of proceeds to the Cal Poly Wine and Viticulture Program in San Luis Obispo to support future winemakers.

Garagiste (“garage-east”) is a term originally used in the Bordeaux region of France to denigrate small-lot wine producers who often produced wine in their garages. Today the term is used to describe those who produce some the best wine in the world — just in small lots. The annual Garagiste Festivals limit participation to winemakers who make less than 1,200 cases per year.

For the upcoming Paso Robles event, which has relocated this year to the Ponderosa Pavilion at the Fairgrounds, organizers have added new events; click here http://californiagaragistes.com/2014-paso-fest/

Returning from previous years are “Shiners, Samples and Secrets,” where winemakers share barrel samples and other rarities; the “Opening Round,” which spotlights garagistes from Northern California; two wine tasting seminars; and the festival’s signature “Rockin’ After Party. All events will take place in Paso Robles or at the historic Carlton Hotel in Atascadero.

After their successful foray into Los Angeles, the co-founders and organizers of Garagiste Festival are eager to come home, so to speak, to Paso Robles.

“This has been a banner year for Garagiste Festival — a greatly expanded and sold-out Solvang event, and our premiere festival in Los Angeles (also sold out), and now a new and more central venue for our Paso festival, with four days of our most popular events returning,” said Doug Minnick, co-founder of the Garagiste Festival with Stewart McLennan.

“And while we are offering wine lovers even more opportunities to taste these fantastic wines, we continue to keep our attendee to winemaker ratio low because we believe that one-on-one interaction is the best way to make new wine discoveries … and it is what our attendees expect.”

Sign up for The Dirt at http://garagistefestival.com/sign-up/, or follow Garagiste on Twitter (@GaragisteFest) or via Facebook, where organizers offer profiles of participating winemakers in the weeks leading up to the festivals.

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Edible Santa Barbara Supper Club comes to Buttonwood Farm & Winery Sunday

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Buttonwood Farm & Winery, Edible Santa Barbara Supper Club, Karen Steinwachs, SY Kitchen

Come enjoy a fall evening at Buttonwood Farm & Winery with the food and wine team of chef Luca Crestanelli of SY Kitchen and winemaker Karen Steinwachs of Buttonwood this Sunday, Oct. 19, outside at Buttonwood.

Fewer than eight tickets remain for what’s sure to be a fun and very yummy evening. Tickets available via Edible Santa Barbara.

SupperClubButtonwood_Flyer

TTB publishes ruling establishing 11 new AVAs within Paso Robles

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Jason Haas, Paso Robles Wine Country Alliance, Tablas Creek

It’s official: The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) today published its final decision in the Federal Register, creating 11 new American Viticultural Areas (AVAs) within the existing Paso Robles AVA in San Luis Obispo County.

The 11 new sub AVAs: Adelaida District, Creston District, El Pomar District, Paso Robles Estrella District, Paso Robles Geneseo District, Paso Robles Highlands District, Paso Robles Willow Creek District, San Juan Creek, San Miguel District, Santa Margarita Ranch and Templeton Gap District.

The Paso Robles Wine Country Alliance, in conjunction with the Paso Robles American Viticultural Area (AVA) Committee, issued a news release applauding the ruling, noting that the announcement concludes a seven-year process by a group of 59 Paso Robles vintners and winegrape growers who created a unified approach to develop a comprehensive master plan for the greater Paso Robles American Viticultural Area.

“These new AVAs will be a powerful tool for wineries to explain why certain grapes are particularly well suited to certain parts of the appellation, and why some wines show the characteristics they do while other wines, from the same or similar grapes, show differently,” said Jason Haas, general manager of Tablas Creek Vineyard and Paso Robles AVA Committee member.

“Ultimately, the new AVAs will allow these newly created sub-regions to develop identities for themselves with a clarity impossible in a single large AVA.”

The petition for the 11 new AVAs was filed in the spring of 2007 by the Paso Robles AVA Committee. The petition proved to be the single largest AVA proposal ever filed with the TTB due to the scale and scientific data assembled to substantiate the request.

The ruling was published today on www.ttb.com. The official map of the 11 Viticultural Areas, as well as a comparison grid detailing climate, rainfall, topography, etc., is available on http://www.pasowine.com/media-center/the-avas-of-paso-robles.php

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Former “Tasting Panel” returns as “Thursday’s Bottle”

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Garagiste Festival: Southern Exposure, International Grenache Day, Jalama Wines, Samsara Wines, Sillix Wines

Here’s the deal: Ya’ll know I’m not up to consuming an entire bottle of wine every Thursday, so the blog feature I debuted as “Thursday’s Bottle” fell into the weeds pretty quickly after its launch earlier this year.

Much later, in a rare moment of genius, I thought: Why not marry “Thursday” with another former attraction: The CCWP “Tasting Panel”? I pulled the plug on the latter in mid-2013 after I decided it had grown too, well, “chatty.”

So once again, with little to no fanfare (considering my track record on longevity), welcome back to “Thursday’s Bottle.”

The rules? There are none. Let’s keep it simple:

When I stumble across a single bottle of wine so spectacular that deserves its own spotlight, that wine can stand alone as “Thursday’s Bottle.”

Otherwise, a consistent group of food and wine geeks as serious as serious can be will gather around a table, sip wine, talk and take notes. At evening’s end, I’ll gather all the notes and turn them into a story. Deal? Good.

I’ll always name the “tasters” and will never exclude a comment, but so that each of us can remain candid, I’ll never divulge who said what.

Oh, wait — there is one rule: We taste blind. No exceptions.

Four of us tasted grenache at my house on Friday, Sept. 19, which was International Grenache Day. Coincidence? Think again.

The players: Katie Baillargeon and Marcel Rivera-Baillargeon, UCSB creative writing professor and online marketing specialist, respectively; Angela Soleno, winemaker/owner, Turiya Wines; and myself.

The bottles: Three grenaches, all Santa Ynez Valley, two vineyard designates.

What we wrote:

Bottle One: “Weird nose; dust; barrel; medium body; long finish; good tannin structure; mid-range; soft; burnt match, smoky; cannot get past the smoke; cotton candy; burns going down; mild fruit; think it’s corked; long finish; mildly corked; bright color; long finish; would like this if it wasn’t corked.”

Bottle Two: “More fruit; wow; bigger, more elegant; black; yummy; lots of mid-palate spice; an elegant expression of Grenache; big and jammy; fruit forward; clay; cola; spice.

Bottle Three: “Tighter; sweeter; more oak; better with food — not a sipping wine; like a teenager, needs to be aged longer; has some SO2; thicker.”

Bottle one — 2010 Sillix Wines Grenache, Santa Ynez Valley
My first encounter with winemaker Blake Sillix was earlier this year at Solvang’s Garagiste Festival: Southern Exposure, and his syrah and grenache were stellar. To have this bottle be corked was beyond disappointing.

Bottle two — 2010 Samsara Wines Grenache, Larner Vineyard

Bottle three — 2011 Jalama Wines Grenache, La Presa Vineyard

Thursday’s Bottle, starring Sillix, Samsara and Jalama grenaches

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The CCWP Wine Week: Alma Rosa, Whitcraft Winery and BUBBLYFEST

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Alma Rosa Winery & Vineyard, BUBBLYFEST, Create Promotions, Drake Whitcraft, Holly Holiday, Richard Sanford, Whitcraft Winery

Alma Rosa adds to team

Alma Rosa Winery & Vineyards, located in the Sta. Rita Hills AVA, has added two new employees to its team.

They are Tom O’ Higgins, general manager, and Elaina Kroll, national sales director.

O’Higgins most recently worked for V. Sattui in the Napa Valley, and Kroll in national sales for Domaine de Cristia, and represented McPrice Myers and the Barrel 27 line.

O’ Higgins has deep roots in the wine business, having enjoyed stints in France, both in Bordeaux and in Epernay, and with several Napa Valley and Central Coast wineries. He will oversee daily operations at Alma Rosa, working closely with the Sanford family, Richard, Thekla and their daughter, Blakeney.

Kroll will manage national sales for the Alma Rosa brand, and work closely in tandem with the Sanfords, ‘O Higgins and winery owner Robert Zorich to elevate the Alma Rosa portfolio.

Drake Whitcraft leading Whitcraft Winery

It’s official: Drake Whitcraft is now full time winemaker and visionary behind Whitcraft Winery, founded by his father, Chris Whitcraft, in 1985.

Chris Whitcraft died earlier this year.

Since its inception — long before the now-popular Funk Zone in Santa Barbara, which houses it — Whitcraft has built its reception on small-lot pinot noir and chardonnay.

In 2006, barely into his 20s, Drake Whitcraft started making wine full-time at the family-owned winery. In more recent years, his father took more of a back seat to Drake’s growing love and obsession for what he considers to be his vocation: “If I weren’t a winemaker, there is nothing else I would want to do, save perhaps make music. My band mates and I have our instruments set up in my cellar, so between jamming with them and making the kinds of wines I want to make and drink, I’m probably the most blessed guy on Santa Barbara’s beach front.

From left are Burt Williams of Morning Dew Vineyards, Drake Whitcraft and the late Chris Whitcraft.

“It’s been hard going on without my dad here, but my main focus is to make wines he’d want to drink and be proud of, and that speak to our vineyard sources.”

Whitcraft has worked with new vineyards in recent years, including Presqu’ile and Pence in Santa Barbara County, and Morning Dew in Anderson Valley. He is also sources from the same vineyards his father utilized, including Melville in Sta. Rita Hills.

“It’s refreshing to see a young winemaker like Drake Whitcraft making great wine while still following the concepts his father established, which set Whitcraft apart as a unique winery,” said mentor and family friend, Burt Williams, of Morning Dew Vineyards.

Information: www.whitcraftwinery.com.

BUBBLYFEST nearly sold out

Listen up! Since the inaugural sparkling wine festival, BUBBLYFEST by the Sea, has nearly sold out, organizers are urging would-be attendees to buy tickets NOW.

Already snatched up by your friends and neighbors are the three-day weekend VIP tickets and Sunday’s Funday Champagne Brunch. Nearly sold out are Friday evening’s Cocktail Mixer and Saturday’s Grand Tasting.

Brisk sales have surprised even veteran event organizer Holly Holliday, who attributes the scarcity in tickets to the fact that her Create Promotions’ event is the only one of its kind in the nation.

“Sparkling wine is experiencing a resurgence,” said Holliday. “It peaked in the 1920s, when champagne became the drink that embodied the lightness and frivolity of the era. Now, it is rising again on more of a craft cocktail and artisan wine level. The movement has gone beyond traditional varietals, and is driven by creative producers and mixologists willing to take risks and invest themselves in the process.”

For tickets and more information, visit www.bubblyfest.com.

Copyright Central Coast Wine Press for http://www.centralcoastwinepress.com