Californian wine trip part 2: Los Olivos, Solvang and St Barbara wine country

Posted on April 26, 2011 by Caroline

After a few days soaking up the sun in SoCal I headed up to the Santa Barbara region to catch up with my friends Sam and Cath from 1000 corks – an excellent US wine search engine BTW – and together we headed up to Los Olivos. You can read Sam’s recount of our day out in the 1000 corks Los Olivos blog post

After the film Sideways, Los Olivos instantly became a major wine tourist destination. It was interesting to find out that the locals are in two minds about the tourist hype the movie created… Sure it is great to be able to sell most of your wine through your cellar door – but at the same time a lot of the producers I spoke to told me Los Olivos is actually more suited to Rhone varieties – whilst obviously Sideways is all about Pinot Noir… After 2 days of tasting my way around the region I can but agree with them – the Rhone varieties are king around here!

Blair Fox Winery

The sign that first caught my eye and made me want to visit this winery first:-)


The first winery we visited was Blair Fox Cellars, a small boutique winery producing some excellent Rhone varietals. Blair spend some time in the Northern Rhone and got truly inspired by the wines from Côte-Rôtie, Condrieux and L’Hermitage. He continued to work in Santa Barbara and overseas (Hasselgrove, Mclarenvale) for a while before he decided to make small parcels of Rhone varietal wines under his own name. For these wines he sources the fruit from Santa Barbara’s premium vineyards. I was totally blown away by the wines and they were definitely some of the best I tasted in California and would like to share my favourites here below;

2008 Blair Fox Viognier – 103 cases produced: a lovely Viognier in a Condrieux style; Full bodied, concentrated flavours of peach, apricot and honey suckle and a medium + finish
2005 Blair Fox Paradise Road Vineyard Syrah: Interesting Syrah with good tanins, with flavours of blackberry, fig and a little black tea, a little salty minerality and a medium + finish
2006 Blair Fox Purisma Mountain Vineyard Syrah: Another great wine produced from biodynamically grown grapes. Integrated flavours of black cherry, blackberry and a little black currant, some white pepper, velvet tannins and a medium + smokey finish
2007 Blair Fox Thomson Vineyard Syrah – 96 cases produced: Concentrated flavours of black cherry and mulberry, a little saltiness, and hints of cloves and cinnamon, great acidity and grippy tannins and a long finish – this wine will probably become quite velvety with a little bottle age. I loved it!

We visited a few other wineries that day but nothing really stood out until we walked into the Qupé, Verdad and Ethan tasting room around 4.45 pm -for a last tasting of the day.

Qupé, Verdad and Ethan tasting room - absolutely stunning wines!


Qupé wines had been recommended to me by my roving Sommelier buddy Robert Giorgione so I did have great expectations which often can be dangerous. I am however very happy to say that the wines really over delivered:-) I also thoroughly enjoyed the excellent service and background information provided by my fellow sommelier Robert Wyngard – the tasting room manager at Qupé, Verdad and Ethan.

Qupé winery is owned by Bob Lindquist – one of Santa Barbara County’s Syrah pioneers. He made his first Syrah in 1982 at Zaca Mesa with grapes from Paso Robles, and has gone from strength to strength ever since. All of the Qupé wines I tasted were wonderfully balanced, and awesome expressions of Syrah. Bob’s wife Louisa Sawyer makes wines from Spanish varieties grown in the family’s biodynamic Edna Valley Vineyard and his oldest son Ethan produces a very small parcel of high end wines under the Ethan label. Below some tasting notes of my favourite Qupé, Ethan and Verdad wines:

2010 Verdad Rosé – 700 cases produced: A Grenache Rose from biodynamical fruit from the Demeter Vineyard in Edna Valley, 100% wild yeast fermentation in stainless steel.
Dry, crisp medium bodied rosé with flavours of strawberry and raspberry and a medium + finish.

2009 Ethan Grenache Blanc – 125 cases produced: wine made from grapes grown on the eastern side of the Santa Ynez Valley. The wine was barrel fermented in a cold room, and then barrel aged for another 10 months before bottling – all oak used was neutral oak.
Dry, creamy and very rounded and well balanced Grenache Blanc, with medium+ flavours of peach, nectarine and tangelo and a lingering finish.
I was very impressed with this wine and it was without doubt the best Grenache Blanc I have ever tasted.

2007 Qupé Syrah Purisima Mt Vineyard -142 cases produced: wine produced from biodynamic fruit. Floral Syrah, with hints of Lilac and Wisteria, flavours of ripe raspberry and blackberry and allspice, good tannins and a medium+ finish.

2005 Qupé Syrah Bien Nacido Hillside Estate -940 cases produced: Rich and full bodied wine with grippy tannins and plenty of acidity, flavours of black plums, sweet liquorice and a hint of mint in the long lifted finish. Whilst pleasant to drink now, I feel this wine would become silky and velvety with a few more years of bottle age.

My second day in Santa Barbara wine country I visited the cute little town of Solvang – a copy of a traditional Danish town in search for some outstanding Pinot Noir. I had heard a lot of good things about Jim Clendenen Au Bon Climat wines and went to the Tastes of the Valleys to try them. Tastes of the Valleys is a cute little wine bar on the main street of Solvang – they sell flights, glasses and bottles of wine as well as cheese platters, and even have an off licence so guests can purchase the wine they have just tasted/drunk and take it home.
I tried the following Pinots:

2008 Au Bon Climat Isabelle Pinot Noir: A voluptuous Pinot Noir, with medium+ tannin and acid and good mouth feel, flavours of sour cherry, some earthy stalky notes, and a long spicy finish.

2007 Au Bon Climat Santa Barbara County Pinot Noir (Los Alamos Vineyard): Ripe raspberry, strawberry and sweet cherry flavours, a hint of clove and sweet spice, medium + tannin, acidity and mouth feel and a medium + finish.

I tasted a few more wines at Solvang before heading back to Los Olivos. The day before we had tried to taste the Carhartt wines however the small tasting room was chock a block so we had given this winery a miss – but all these people and the good reviews on Yelp had made me really curious and wanting to taste the Carhartt wines…

Carhartt Vineyard Tasting room

The cute and very small Carhartt Vinyard tasting room in Los Olivos


Carhartt Vineyards was born when Mike and Brook Carhartt planted 10 acres of vineyard in the Santa Ynez Valley in 1992. Brooke crafts small lots of artisanal wines from the Estate grown Merlot, Syrah, and Sangiovese and from some small parcels of high quality bought fruit for the whites and the Pinot Noir. The tasting room is cosy but tiny, it does however has a lovely wee courtyard where one can relax in the garden furniture:-) The tastings are generally conducted by Brook and Mike themselves in a friendly and jovial way. My top Carhartt wines were:
2009 Carhartt Vineyard Pinot Noir: A quintessential Pinot Noir, displaying elegant flavours of red berries, cherries and a little eartiness, medium tannin, acid and body and a hint of Eucalyptus in the finish

2009 Carhartt Vineyard Sangiovese: Very Chianti like in style, this wine is high in acid, medium in body and tannin with sour cherry flavours and a hint of all spice and a medium + finish.

2005 Carhartt Vineyard Merlot: Ok I know I was in Los Olivos but this f***ing Merlot was better than any Pinot Noir I tasted in the last 2 days:-) It was rich, with velvet tannins, great acid and good body, displaying flavours of red currant, sweet cherry and ripe strawberry, a hint of clove ad vanilla on the lingering finish. I bought a bottle and we enjoyed it that same night with dinner!

2007 Carhartt Vineyard Syrah Santa Ynez Valley: A well balanced meaty Syrah with great tannins, good acid and body and rich flavours of blackberry, a little black tea and leather resulting in a smoky finish

I thoroughly enjoyed my two days around Santa Barbara wine country and can highly recommend this region to anyone wanting to visit a more quiet Californian wine region!

Posted in Californian wine trip, Rhone Varieties, wine eductation, Wine Regions, Wine Review, wine tasting | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Californian Wine Adventure – Temecula Valley

Posted on April 4, 2011 by Caroline

I have always wanted to learn more about Californian wines so I decided to take a 2 week wine road trip through California to taste my way up from San Diego to Mendocino county:-)

85% of US wine comes from California and Vitis Vinifera (wine grapes) are grown over the length of the state – with the bulk of the grapes coming from the San Joaquin Valley and the Sacramento Valley. These valleys are located a little inland and are very hot so the focus here is generally on quantity rather than quality.

Smaller wine producing regions are located closer to the coast and most of them boast to focus on premium quality wines – so quality rather than quantity. Being a great fan of premium wines I will visit a few of the smaller regions hoping to learn more about about quality Californian wines. My first stop was Temecula Valley near San Diego.

Temecula Wine Country

Temecula Wine Country

Temecula Wine country is located a little inland about an hour from San Diego, Orange County or Palm Spring and it very much markets itself as a premium wine tourist destination. The lovely Katie from Travel + Wine had first introduced me to the region and the two of us visited Temecula last week.

We started off the day with lunch at the South Coast Winery – we had a table on the (covered) patio with vineyard and garden views. We ordered the Golden Bear Cheese Palette with the wine pairing and went for a sparkling flight consisting of the South Coast Extra Dry, South Coast Blanc the Noir (pink Sparkling) and a Sparkling Syrah – all three non vintage and made in the traditional Champenoise method. The Extra Dry paired fabulously with the Humbold Fog goat’s cheese served with fresh honey, the Syrah went well with the Point Rey blue cheese and the Blanc de Noir paired best with the aged local Winchester.

Golden Bear Cheese Palette w flight of sparkling wines

Katie and I enjoying the Golden Bear Cheese Palette w a flight of sparkling wines at the South Coast Winery in Temecula

After our lovely lunch we drove off to visit a few other wineries and taste. This is when I realized that Temecula is first and foremost a tourist destination and wine appreciation and education is not really a priority…

All tasting rooms we visited had hefty tasting fees (between $15-$25) which in my opinion were totally unjustified: the staff was clueless as to how the wine had been processed and had not much to add to the limited tasting notes provided. It seemed they had no desire to understand or learn any details about the wines they were pouring – which made me kind of sad…

The wines we tasted were totally unbalanced -thin, too high in alcohol and often very salty… Fruit characteristics were hard to find and after a few tastings we just gave up and went to sit out in the sun to enjoy the views – which were definitely a lot better than the wines!

What amazed me was the exorbitant pricetags wineries were asking for their wines – the average pricing was around $45, with quite a few wines up to $80. With prices like that I would expect a much higher level of quality and I think it’s probably a good thing that the wineries sell most of their wine to wine club members as I fear these wines would really not do well in regular wine stores…

Luckily I did have one nice Sauvignon Blanc from Doffo back in Oceanside with Katie and Ricardo – it was very tropical in style (lots of Passionfruit and Guava), good acidity and easy to drink. We did not visit the winery as it was closed the day I visited.

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You can get what you want if you want it bad enough!!

Posted on February 28, 2011 by Caroline

In January, I had an inspiring talk with my @rovingsommelier friend Robert Giorgione and felt like I wanted to learn more about wine yet again. Being quite disappointed that I wasn’t going to start the WSET diploma (thank you very much IT audit – grrr) I was looking at a few other angles. My friend Russell decided I should go for the certified Sommelier exam – he even looked up all the details and there was one just coming up in February so I registered with the Court of Master Sommeliers. The exam was full so I was put on the waiting list and a few days later I got my place confirmed and was good to go. So far so good!! I ordered the books I needed from Amazon and was feeling quite exhilarated!

But as the books arrived my health went down hill very fast and furious. I was in and out of work, spend loads of time at the doctor and hospital where I went through quite a variety of tests… And because no-one knew what was wrong with me I also had become a nervous wreck… Me who always really enjoyed learning new things was now struggling to keep on going and work my ways through the books… However stubborn as I am, I really wanted this ticket so I stuck to it – trying not to beat myself up too much if I hadn’t quite gotten as far as I had planned to for the day.

As the exam loomed closer I started to feel confident again – except for the practical part. It had been absolute ages since I last worked a restaurant floor and I really only had my experience as a customer to go by…

I also started to get nervous for the tasting part – as I had barely had any wine since I fell sick but was hoping all the wines I had tasted in the past where going to flow back into my memory and I would be ok… I just had to stay positive:-)

So last week Thursday came way too quickly and I wasn’t feeling too sure of my cause. I went to the Hakkasan Training Centre where the exam was being held with loads of butterflies in my tummy. We started with the tasting and indeed everything came back to me – I nailed the wines (a French Chardonnay -about 2 years old and a NZ Pinot Noir – 3-4 years old.) I was so very lucky to get a New Zealand wine and this gave me courage for the rest of the exam. The theory was quite easy with mainly wine questions – there was quite a bit of detail on the famous crus but I was prepared so I scored quite high once again. A short break and then the practical – this was very nerve racking as a lot of students were comparing answers and horror stories… The practical test was Sparkling service – the opening of the bottle and pouring was not too difficult once I actually stopped shaking, but when I had to start walking around with a tray full of glasses and serve a fictitious table and after that walk all around the room I started to panic a bit – walking with a full tray has never really been my forte… Luckily I managed to hold on to the tray and not to drop any glasses:-)

After this there where some questions – some which were totally unexpected but I managed to answer most of them. Still I did not feel too confident as some of the questions were really random and I was really not convinced about my tray walking and serving abilities…

A few of us went to 1707 for a drink to calm our nerves – we had to wait till 3.30 pm for our results. All of us were really nervous and most of us thought we had failed.

My name was the last one to be called out and I was so very happy as only 12 names were called. I did feel really bad for the 8 people who hadn’t made it – at least for a minute. After that I was too busy drinking Champagne to celebrate my success :-)

The reason I wanted to share this story is that I really believe I only passed because I wanted it so badly. Everybody was telling me to postpone the exam, take it easy and not worry too much but I really really wanted this so I made it happen. I believe everybody had this ability – but often we forget about it – which is a pity as it means we allow ourselves to miss out on good things! As Gary V says – Crush it!! Or in other words – believe in yourself and go get it!!

I want to thank my friends and family for their support and their confidence in me – couldn’t have done it without you guys!!

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Wine Bloggers Wednesday (#WBW70) – 2008 Petalos Bierzo

Posted on February 16, 2011 by Caroline

A little while ago I read about the Wine Bloggers Wednesday (#WBW70) project being restarted and this got me quite excited! The theme for this first Wednesday is Spanish wines and my friends at Catavino suggested to pick something a little out of the ordinary. So instead of looking for a Rioja, a Priorat or Ribero del Duero I decided to venture out and look for something I did not know yet. I found this Mencia from Bierzo at Grape District in Haarlem. The shop had labelled this wine as smooth and velvety, I liked the pretty label (yes I know I am such a girl!!) and was intrigued by the Mencia grape so I bought the bottle.

Once I got home I looked up Menzia in my Grape & Wine book by Oz Clarke and this is his description: “This grape of the North of Spain gives light, fresh, acidic reds with a raspberry and black currant leaf flavour, not unlike a slightly raw Cabernet Franc, and good tannin. It is delicious drunk young and doesn’t need the oak it is sometimes smothered in.” I still was not too sure what to make of the Mencia so when I had some friends over for dinner a few days later I just couldn’t resit opening the bottle. The wine was deep purple in colour with long legs, and showed aromas of lavender, liquorice and dark cherry. It had a good mouth feel, good tannin, great acidity and semi strong favours of blackberry, cherry, liquorice, cedar and some kind of astringency reminding me of strong black tea in the middle palate. We paired the wine with a roast beef, roasted baby potatoes and red onion, sweet baby carrots, broccoli and sautéed Brussels sprouts, and with the food the wine somehow became sweeter and showed more red fruit characters – though none of us got the raspberries. We had some more wine with the cheese platter and decided it paired well with the old Dutch cheese and the Italian Cambozola. I found the wine opened up a lot when left in the glass and think I should have maybe decanted it… I will definitely buy another bottle to try this as I really enjoyed the Bierzo Mencia and at a mere €15 I feel it over delivers!

I liked the fact that the producer’s name is Deciendientos de J Palacios – it intrigued me as was Alvaro Palacios who first put Bierzo on the map according to the World Atlas of Wine by Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson. He was fascinated by the slate terraces in the Bierzo region which were so very different from the predominantly clay soils of his Native Priorat and loved the more delicate style of wines which were produced here. I do wonder whether he was related to José Palacios??

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Karmozijn – Haarlem

Posted on February 14, 2011 by Caroline

Just over two weeks ago, we visited the Karmozijn – a tiny restaurant in the Gierstraat in Haarlem.

The Karmozijn is Haarlem’s famous one man band restaurant – ie the owner Ton Overbeek is the chef, sommelier and front of house at the same time. The restaurant is so small that I managed to walk past it for the 1.5 years I have been living here – and it is on my main way into town:-)
It actually is more like large dining room, very cosy and homey, and as soon as we got in Ton made us feel right at home. Ton has been running the restaurant for the last 11 years and it is pretty hard to get in unless you’ve reserved well in advance as this place really serves outstanding dishes. The cuisine is what I would call French/Dutch fusion – or a French delivery of traditional Dutch dishes. A perfect example of this was the peasoup bitterbal – both pea soup and bitterbal are very basic (ie flavourless) , quintessential Dutch dishes, but the combination served up by Ton was very flavoursome and quite delicate. The dishes were beautifully presented, and came with sides which enhanced the flavours of the main dish. All the ingredients used were in season, fresh and organic. I really struggled to choose as all the options sounded so good!!

The winelist was small but very well priced, especially when considering the quality of the restaurant. Ton has a love for French wines and I really enjoyed the discussion we had about the list. He had some fabulous Champagnes but as my friends had decided that on this cold winter night la couleur du jour was definitely red, we ordered a mid priced (32 Euro) Crozes Hermitage. It was delicate, spicy and had plenty of flavours of plums and mulberries. It worked well with the amuses and our Duck Confit starter. The presentation and flavours were exquisite, and the wine paired so well that we decided to order another bottle – but from a different producer this time.

We chose to take our time in between dishes and the wine continued to flow freely as we tasted our way down the Rhone. The Chateau Neuf du Pape (at 42 Euro’s) brought out all the flavours of my perfectly cooked Venison, it was dark spicy, with strong stewed black fruit flavours.
We finished off with a Gigondas (again a bargain at 32 Euro’s), full of spicy, smoky, blackberry and cedar flavours which worked awesomely with the delicious strong cheese selection.

It was past midnight when we left the restaurant, with full bellies and our heads in the cloud after a wonderful gastronomic night!

A trip down the Rhone River

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Born Digital Wine Awards – Recognition for us online wine journalists!

Posted on January 27, 2011 by Caroline

At the close of the European Wine Bloggers Conference (EWBC) in Vienna Robert McIntosch from wineconversation.com and Ryan and Gabriella Opaz from Catavino.net introduced us to the Born Digital Wine Awards (BDWA), a kind of Pulitzer Prizes for online wine communicators.

On the BDWA website the organisers describe the awards as following: “The Born Digital Wine Awards are an attempt to give value to the new wave of online wine journalism. Each year, the best examples of electronic publishing, including videos, will be reviewed by a panel of top industry professionals from within and without the wine industry.”

Just like the Pulitzer Prizes aims to honour excellence in the journalism and art world, the BDWA is looking for excellence in online and digital wine journalism. It is a proper award in the sense that there are real prizes involved – the winner of each category will be taking home a €1,000 – and that the prizes will be awarded by some real heavy weights in the wine, journalism and publishing world. The latter in my eyes is an even bigger and more prestigious acknowledgement as it will be an honour to be recognized by Jancis Robinson, Elin McCoy, Evan Schnittman, Hervé Lalau, Patrick Schmitt and Robert Joseph.

The fact that these busy and highly recognized judges are willing to make time to review and evaluate our online wine content surely means that our message is gaining importance in the wine and online journalism world. One of the categories is content created by wineries so if you as a winery have invested in outstanding online content or marketing material do consider to enter. Entry forms and submission details can be found on the submission page of the BDWA website.

Entry categories are the following:

  • Best Investigative Wine Story
    For a distinguished example of investigative reporting by an individual or team, presented as a single wine article or series (video, written text)
  • Best Editorial Wine Writing
    Outstanding examples of wine writing, giving prime consideration to literary quality and originality
  • Best Wine Tourism Feature
    Speaking about a particular region as a tourist destination with a focus on wine (written text, video, photo)
  • Best Wine Themed Video
    Video content that either educates, demonstrates or builds awareness for wine (video)
  • Best Winery Self Produced Content
    Outstanding examples of content created by wineries to promote their brand and reach out to key audiences

    • The judging will be in English – however it is important to note that content can be submitted in any language and a professional translation service is being offered.

    Posted in General wine biz stuff | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

    Wine pairing with an Amsterdam Twist:-)

    Posted on January 16, 2011 by Caroline

    On Saturday I met my friend Ilkka Siren and was lucky enough to sit in on the filming of a historic episode of Viini TV. Ilkka had paired up with Franco from the Green House Seed Company and I was to witness the first ever wine and weed pairing. I have to admit to find it all a little unusual and weird but soon enough I was really impressed by the professionalism of this tasting.

    Ilkka had picked 6 different wines which were to be paired with 6 of the 7 strands of weed that Franco had brought with him. As the filming started the boys first tasted the wines – with Ilkka explaining a little on every wine – they started with a Champagne, then an Assyrtiko from Santorini, a dry Muscat from Italy, a Bordeaux blend from South Africa, an amazingly ’63 indigenous Portuguese blend and the last wine was a 10 year old Tawny (port).

    After the initial tasting of the wines, Franco talked Ilkka through the different weed strands and I was amazed to hear about all the different flavours (Franco even had a flavour wheel!) and then the boys chose their best matches by squeezing the buds and smelling them and comparing them to the wines. I hope to be able to post some footage – once the boys have finished the editing of the film and have sorted out the legals as this really was a tasting with a twist!!

    Once the filming was done we all got to taste some of the wines which were paired with some awesome cheeses, olives and chocolates and off course a few puffs.

    The 1963 Portuguese blend was voted as the absolute winner of the tasting – the wine had such depth and several layers adding to the complexity. On the nose there was a lot of dried fruit, sultanas and dates, some smokiness, cedar and hints of cigar and some stewed plums. To taste the wine was even more amazing, the tanins were velvety, the acidity was still crisp, the wine had a good mouth feel with flavours of dried and stewed black fruit, notes of vanilla and hazelnut and toastiness in the medium to long finish.

    Posted in wine tasting | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

    New Zealand Annual Trade Tasting 2011

    Posted on January 15, 2011 by Caroline

    On Tuesday 11 January I went to the New Zealand Annual Trade Tasting (ATT) at Lords in London. It was the 30th Edition of the NZ London ATT and I guess New Zealand wine has come a long way in the UK since the early beginnings of the tastings… On Tuesday there were around 400 wines from 94 wineries available for tasting.

    When I came in I had a stroll around the room first to get a feel for the tasting and I noticed that the room had a real Rugby 2011 feel – most principals were wearing rugby jerseys in support for the 2011 Rugby World Cup in October, there were small rugby ball on the table and big World Cup banners set up around the room. It felt like being back in New Zealand were most people live, breathe and play Rugby:-)
    The other thing I observed was that whilst 94 wineries is a pretty impressive number there were definitely less wineries than the last time I had been.This I found a little weird especially since the total amount of NZ wineries has been on the rise these last few years…

    I remember my first ATT in 2006, when I was representing Omaka Springs Estates and was looking for a new distributor for the winery. We were at the back of the room, in a draft corridor – the tasting was held over two days at that stage and the trade tended to spread out of the 2 days which meant the large room often felt kinda empty. On Tuesday the room was definitely buzzing!!

    I had been asked by Paul Zijlstra from Bula Wines to have a look for a €10 retail Sauvignon Blanc, and my Swedish friends asked me to have a look for anything unusual and outstanding. Since the second request was more challenging than the first I decided to go look for some wines that were slightly different and really surprised me.

    Whilst I tasted a lot of very good wines only a few really had the WOW factor, and of those there were only 2 wines that I had not tasted before. The first one was the Clos Marguerite Aged on Lees Sauvignon Blanc 2009 and it really blew me away!! The wine has been aged on the lees for 1 year, but unlike the Cloudy Bay Te Koko, the Clos Marguerite is 100% stainless steel fermented. The result is a very balanced, round, almost creamy wine, with hints of ripe apricots on the nose, a full mouth feel with rich yet delicate apricot, peach and Meyer lemon flavours and a very long finish. It is the most unusual Marlborough Sauvignon I have ever tasted and it was extremely delicious!
    Clos Marguerite is a small family owned producer, with vineyards and a winery in the Awatere Valley, south of Blenheim. Jean-Clarles and Marguerite Van Hove, the owners spend a lot of time in France and believe in having a quality estate which produces excellent wines on a small plot of land – their total production is about 5000 cases. They both work in the vineyard, hand pick all their grapes and Jean-Charles makes the wines in the family winery by combining old world wine making techniques and new world technology.

    The second wine which was new for me and totally surprised me was the Felton Road Bannockburn Riesling Central Otago 2010 (RRP £15.00 ). On the nose, this Riesling showed traditional characters of lemon, lime and a bit of flintiness, but on the palate the wine showed rich flavours of apricot, peach and even a bit of honey, great weight and good acidity and lovely length and really reminded me of a German had Spätlese. I would be interested in seeing this wine develop over a few years and if it wasn’t for Easjet’s restriction I would have asked for the closest retailer and purchased the wine on the spot!

    Felton Road again is a small winery owned by Nigel Greening and based in Central Otago and very well known for it’s excellent Pinot Noirs and their biodynamic vineyards.

    Other favourites were Trinity Hill Tempranillo Hawkes Bay 2008 (have drunk heaps of the 2007 so this was to be expected:-)), Neudorf Chardonnay Nelson 2008 (which definitely stood up against the premier Crus Chablis we were comparing to), Schubert Vineyard Block Pinot Noir Martinborough 2008, Man o’ War Dreadnought Syrah 2009 and Craggy Range Gimblett Gravels Le Sol Syrah Hawkes Bay 2007.

    From the self pour tables the one I enjoyed the most was the Syrah table – the catalogue described this as New Zealand Syrah – the one to watch and I can but 100% agree. I like the cool climate Syrah’s coming from Hawkes Bay and Waiheke and will most definitely be following NZ Syrah category in years to come!!

    As always the tasting was very well organised with this year even bus services to other tastings in place. The lunch buffet was delicious and the flat white at the coffee bar I had before leaving is the best coffee I have had since leaving New Zealand:-)

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    Why every winery should be signing up for AVIN codes?

    Posted on January 9, 2011 by Caroline

    On Monday I met with my friend Andre Ribeirinho from Adegga.com and we had a good conversation about the AVIN. Up till then I had only heard very little about this project, but the more I talked to Andre, the more intrigued I became. I would like to share with you why I believe every winery should sign up and implement the AVIN code for all its wines.

    But first of all let me elaborate a little on the AVIN. AVIN stands for All Vin Identification Number – it was created as a project by the social tasting note site Adegga.com as their unique identifier which they use as master data for mapping purposes. They then realised that everyone could benefit from a system which easily identifies any wine in the world and a separate company was set up. Today the AVIN is a unique 13 digit number which is used to track wines in the same way the ISBN (International Standard Book Number) has been used for books since the 60’s. It’s formatted in the same way and looks like AVIN6452997073019.

    The benefit of the AVIN is similar to the benefit of the ISBN – i.e. it is a UNIQUE identifier for a specific wine. By this I mean that if a winery or a distributor registers their wines and add the AVIN to their tasting notes and on the label all this info can and will be collated. Furthermore, bloggers, writers and wine reviewers can add the AVIN to their review or article, and again this info will be collated back to the correct wine, which means that if a consumer enters an AVIN in Google, or any other search engine, he will get all this information back.

    An added benefit of the AVIN is that a QR code is created for every AVIN, and with the rise in popularity of Mobile Tagging this means that the information linked to the AVIN is very easily retrievable by any customer.

    In summary, this is why I believe every winery should be signing up for AVIN codes.

  • It’s free.
  • The winery is in control of the information entered about their wines.
  • By actively using the AVIN as part of your wine marketing strategy, and integrating it on the tasting notes, or on your website when you have received an accolade for a particular wine, and adding the QR code on your label, the chances are high that you directly can influence or inform your customer
  • More than 30,000,000 labels have been printed to date with an AVIN on, and about 24,000 wines have been registered for the AVIN. Whilst this is just a small number compared to all the wines in the world, as always it is better to be on board earlier rather than later as its easier to influence in a less crowded space
  • Google is investing heavily in mobile tagging technology and it is highly possible that implementing the AVIN can improve your SEO ranking
  • More and more wine bloggers are using the AVIN, and I have heard through the grapevine that Jancis Robinson would like to start using AVIN for her Purple Pages wine reviews:-)
  • I have also heard that International Wine Competitions would like to start using the AVIN as well
  • With the increase of digital wine lists on i-Pad , the AVIN can really add value as it once again allows you to directly communicate with your customer
  • And lastly the AVIN is cool! Wine bottles with the AVIN QR code printed on the bottle draw attention as they are a novelty, and people want to use the QR scanner on their phone as it’s a cool thing to do!

    • I hope that these points have convinced you that the AVIN is here to stay and that it would be a great thing to sign up for the codes and actively promote it’s usage sooner rather than later! If I have convinced you please visit the AVIN website to register and sign up for the codes:-)

    The board of AVIN advisors consists of André Cid Proença, Andre Ribeirinho and Emidio Santos – all 3 founders of Adegga.com and
    Gabriella and Ryan Opaz – founders of Catavino.net and the European Wine Bloggers Conference (EWBC).

    Posted in General wine biz stuff | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 13 Comments

    Lessons learned from Ryan O’Connell’s #levin20 presentation on social media and wine marketing

    Posted on January 1, 2011 by Caroline

    Today I would like to share the presentation Ryan O’Connell from O Vineyards gave at le #levin20 – I found a video of his presentation last week and I have been thinking about what he was saying ever since.

    First let me explain a little more about LE VIN 2.0 – it’s an event which was organised for wine professionals in Paris on 8th December of which the purpose was to gain a better understanding of the web.02 and use it to add value to your wines and gain access to new markets. Unfortunately yours truly unable to attend, but live stream coverage and twitter and blog post have enabled me to just about recreate the day:-)

    LEVIN 2.0 (or #levin20 on Twitter) was in my opinion a very important event and evidence of this can be seen in the list of important wine web people who shared their experiences. These include amongst others Gary Vaynerchuk from Winelibrary TV, Philippe Hugon from vinternet, Marc Roisin of vinogusto.com , Yair Haidu of Haidu.net and Rowan Gormley of nakedwines .

    Back to Ryan O’Connell – Ryan is a talented young winemaker who owns a vineyard and winery together with his family in Carcassone in the Languedoc. Besides making wine Ryan is quite active in Social Media – and actually although he says that girls don’t stop him in the streets (yet!) he’s quite a well known web02 wine character. In his presentation he talks about how Social Media networking has changed his marketing strategy. He compares Social Media to the more traditional way of marketing, ie wine shows. The shows is where you network and expand your professional relationships as well as try and form customer relationships. This is both possible in Social Media as well says Ryan, and in a less competitive and crowded space. At the wine shows, as a small producer on a very small stand, it is very hard to take the attention away from the larger producers who often invest in a fancy stand that draws the (professional and consumer) crowds. However, a lot of them haven’t made a similar investment in Social Media yet, so it is possible and actually very feasible for a smaller producer to steal the lime light here;-) However, fame and stardom never come easy – and so to get anywhere in Social Media a company needs to do more than just have a blog on their website, open a Facebook page and Tweet occasionally. No to make it one has to actively engage and look for relationships – both on a professional and consumer level.

    As said on several occasions by Gary Vaynerchuck you have to be willing to give a lot, help people out and really work at communicating with similar minded people before things start to pay off. However if you do invest the time and effort you can and will meet awesome people online, either fans of your wine – they have had it somewhere before, and by engaging personally with these people you will create the very sought after brand loyalty. And by communicating and sharing ideas with other professionals they will open their network to you, and it is very likely that you will be introduced to someone who can and wants to sell your wine.

    And as Ryan pointed out – it does help to talk about more than just your brand.. Ryan set up a regional body – Love that Languedoc – and shared that he has created a lot more interest for his wines by promoting his region rather than just the wines – it gives him a point of difference and adds more value for anybody wanting to understand Languedoc wines.

    Whilst I do believe that social media is no replacement for a wine show, I know that whilst the area is not overly crowded yet, it’s a great networking tool which I highly recommend using.
    I also recommend following Ryan’s example and share information on your region or country; I know from experience that if you are willing to share knowledge on more than just your vineyard you draw people to you and they will remember you for it – on or off line!

    Posted in networking, wine marketing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments