JC Cellars Blog

It has been a while since my last blog, and much has happened. First and foremost, we survived what was probably one of the toughest harvests that I have ever had. That being said, my first impressions of our wines from the 2011 vintage have been very positive. …

JC Cellars brought in the last of our fruit this past week, the last being my favorite Rockpile Syrah. This might actually turn out to be one of the best Rockpile Syrah I have made with plenty of hang time, great flavors with lower brix. Time will tell! …

Hear ye, hear ye….

Oakland Mayor Jean Quan made a very exciting appearance at JC Cellars yesterday and helped us do a few punch downs while she was here. Thanks for stopping by to show your support!

All our tanks are full up and we are waiting and waiting and waiting for more fruit to come in. I think we will see fruit from Paso Robles come in this next week, along with a touch of Sonoma Zinfandel. Then the waiting game begins again!  In the mean …

This weather has caused dear Jeff to simply go a little bonkers. All the vineyards are looking so nice, but Mother Nature wants to work her wicked ways and spoil all the fun. Rain is on the horizon for Monday – Wednesday. Who knows how much, but I can tell you I am pulling in as much as I can, as fast as I can. Today we brought in the famous Hayne Vineyard Zinfandel from 108 year old vines and some Petite Sirah. The future is looking bright I tell you!

Cheers!

Half Full,

Jeff

The weather was here, I wish you were beautiful. In other words if you missed out on our annual Beach Party, well you truly missed out! We had great Music, corn dogs, garlic fries and fabulous pizza made Weber grill (Outrageous) by Casey’s Pizzas. Let us not forget about the wine. Tons of wine was poured, including the four new 2009 Zinfandels (Iron Hill, Sweetwater Springs, Dusi and St. Peter’s Church). Put all this together and add a face painter and you have a party not to be forgotten.

Thanks to all who attended and I look forward …

Well, we are back from Mexico, and not a minute too soon in my opinion! Yes, we had great weather, Yes, the beer was very cold, especially having the Corona at the poolside bar on draught and Yes, the salsa is that much better in Mexico.

I am a touch depressed to have come back from the sun and fun, but let’s be real; I have a pretty good gig to come back to. In fact, the first thing I did when I strolled into the winery was try a bottle of the new Landy Sweetwater Springs …

Yes, Ladies and Gentleman it’s that time of year when the wife, kids and I disappear on vacation. We are heading to Mexico, for some fun in the sun (although the weather says otherwise). To get ready for the occasion, I decided to open a couple of bottles early this morning (9:30am!) that I consider to be sunshine in a bottle; the Rosé and the Dusi Zinfandel. The Rosé is exploding out of the glass and truly screaming for grilled foods, a lounge chair and some extra SPF. The Dusi Zinfandel is just starting to come around from bottling. …

Patience, waiting, thinking, obsessing, anxious, curiosity and employee peer pressure. These are the obstacles of a winemaker, who loves to taste his wine soon after it’s been bottled. We know a recently bottled wine goes through bottle shock. This is a period of time when a wine shuts down, shows off more tannic structure, has very little aromatics and in the end is just tasting odd. Nobody is sure why this occurs, except that a wine, no matter how big and burly it is, gets a little beat up during the bottling process.

Imagine for example, you’re …

This past Sunday, we were fortunate to have a visit by Harry Karis. For those who do not recognize this name, he is the author of The Chateauneuf-du-Pape Wine Book that covers the A to Z’s Of Chateauneuf du Pape. He is out promoting his book, stopping along the way to taste wines from many of the top producers of Rhone style wines in California.

We tasted wines for 3 hours together, tasting everything that I could get my hands on, including the 2001 Rhodes Vineyard Zinfandel, which was showing fantastically. I would have to say the wines …

On Friday the 14th, a friend of mine, Laurence Feraud of Domaine du Pegau, came in to town and stopped by for a visit to our humble winery. After a quick tour of the winery, we went straight to tasting through 14 different wines, ranging from whites, Zinfandel barrel samples, 07 and 08 vintage wines and then tasting through a couple of my favorite older wines (2004 Frediani Petite Sirah and the 1999 Bolduc Zinfandel).

If I had to say, her favorite wine was the Stagecoach Marsanne 2008. …