All posts tagged Wine Types

New Year’s Eve, Halter Ranch Victorian, If Those Walls Could Talk!

The Restored Victorian at Halter Ranch Winery

Victorian at Halter Ranch

We got to spend New Year’s Eve, 2011 in style this year at a swanky restored victorian, thanks to the amazing people of Halter Ranch Winery and the Cork Dorks.  Adam Montiel and Jeremy West are the “Dorks” that do a weekly radio broadcast on 92.5 The Krush that features local winemakers. We were honored to be invited to join this New Year’s Eve extravaganza at the Halter Ranch  property, with Adam and Jeremy and a bunch of other wine biz friends. The property is located on the west side of Paso Robles, roughly where Vineyard Drive meets Adelaida Road. Read more…

Cass Winery Chef, Jacob Lovejoy at Garagiste Festival

Cass Winery Crew Hard at Work at the Garagiste Festival

The Cass Crew

Back at the Garagiste Festival we chatted with Jacob Lovejoy, the amazing chef at Cass Winery and Cass Catering. It was a beautiful day at Windfall Farms in Paso Robles for this wine event and to end the day outside eating some of the grub prepared by Jacob and his crew, it was amazing. Read more…

Ancient Peaks Serves Up Wine With Old School Charm

100% Pinot Noir Rose from Ancient Peaks

100% Pinot Noir Rose from Ancient Peaks

There’s a great little tasting room right in downtown Santa Margarita called Ancient Peaks. It’s located right on the quaint (another word for small, rustic, old) little main drag…if you drive too fast, or blink, you’ll miss the main street of this small town; but that’s the great thing about it! Read more…

Do Your Wine Marketing Tactics Stink???

So, getting back to the discussion about wine marketing and your wine brand; we’ve been unsure how to attack this. Mostly due to the fact that there are numerous ways and opportunities as a winery to market yourself and provide amazing customer service. We weren’t sure whether to put everything into one blog post or to write a book…instead, we are going to break it up and have each blog post contain a couple of points that we think could benefit a winery. In other words, we have a lot to say! Read more…

Allen Shoup Talks Shop About the Future of Wine

In  the next in our series of interview clips with Allen Shoup, he discusses the future of wine growth in the United States (specifically California, Oregon, and Washington) and also mentions Turkey, Italy, France, Chile, and so on.

Conversations with Allen Shoup

The time we had with Allen was extremely informative, be sure to check out the other short video clips with him where he covers everything from Gary Vaynerchuk and social media to his mentor Robert Mondavi and his wine project Long Shadows Winery.

One of the most fascinating things this wine blog (although we prefer to think of it as a lifestyle blog) has done is give us the opportunity to talk to so many different people and hear their thoughts and stories on life in the wine world. At the end of the day, the thing we enjoy the most, is the people and the stories. We thank Allen Shoup once again for his time and generosity in sharing a few of his thoughts and stories!

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Christian Tietje…"This is Where the Funk Happens!"

We ran into another heroic Paso Robles winemaker while at the 2011 Garagiste Festival…Christian Tietje of Cypher Winery told us about what he’s up to these days, along with some of the unique “toys” that winemakers are working with this year. He’s got a big personality that you will see in this video interview as well as taste in his wines.

The Garagiste Festival features small-production winemakers that maybe don’t have a tasting room, or the opportunity to get in front of the public very often. Festival goers can taste some of the most creative and unique wines, as well as those hard-to-find wines from the cutting edge winemakers in the area. Christian is one of these winemakers…while he does have a tasting room on 46 West, he’s making some incredible wines and wanted to tell us all about them.

Who is this Christian Tietje?

Instead of trying to capture Christian in written word, we figure we will let this video and his own words give you a glimpse into his world.

Cheers…and enjoy!!!

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Non-Alcoholic Sparkling Wine…Why???

We went on the hunt for something a little different; something new and refreshing, that could be enjoyed by anybody at any time! What might this be, you ask (yeah, the title was a give-away)??? Exactly! Non-alcoholic sparkling wine. Now, before you start wondering what we’re up to, we’ve found that there is a time and a place for things like this…for example; you love wine, wine tasting, food and wine, wine and friends, well you get the idea, but you’ve just found out that you’re pregnant and you can’t drink!

Wait! What? Yes, that’s right! I’m pregnant. I’m not all that far along and some might think we’re crazy for telling you so early on, but we’re excited NOW and want to share it! This is our first-ever experience with this kind of thing and we couldn’t be more ecstatic about it all!

So, in light of being healthy and all that, I’ve given up drinking alcohol. I thought this might be a difficult thing for me, since I’ve been enjoying my wine for a VERY (20 years or so, don’t do the math) long time. I’ve heard everything from “I didn’t drink a drop my entire pregnancy” to “It’s fine to have wine when you NEED it” to “I know a mother who drank and smoked all through her pregnancy and her kids were okay!”. All very interesting arguments, but I figure that this is my one shot at bringing a person into this world and I’m going to do everything I can to make it my best shot!

Non Alcoholic Brut Sparkling Wine from J. Lohr

JLohr NA Brut Sparkling

Not to ramble on…but I’m a pretty healthy girl; I rarely get sick, I’m not allergic to anything, I can stomach just about anything, my ancestors lived really long lives (some over 100 years old) and I’m stubborn as a mule. I figure that all these things put together should give the little one a pretty good chance, along with the fact that Hoot’s got strong genes and an even stronger conviction. So here we go! Off on another adventure…and we’re happy that you’re along for the ride with us!On to more important things, shall we? Yes, the Sparkling! J. Lohr Winery makes a whole line of Non-alcoholic wines under the label Ariel. They’ve got everything from Sparkling to Chardonnay, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and more! With the Holidays coming up, I thought the Sparkling would be perfect…and it even tastes good (no, really it does)! Almost like the real thing! I used to wonder why anybody would bother drinking NA wine and now I know one VERY good reason! Pregnancy! A girl just needs a little something fancier than sparkling water in her glass once in a while!

Cheers!

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Bar Bites at Thomas Hill Organics

Our most recent food adventure took us to what’s locally known as “THO” which is short for Thomas Hill Organics. This restaurant is the product of a local farming family that wanted to bring fresh food from farm to table in a unique atmosphere in the downtown Paso Robles district.

So, this wasn’t our first time visiting THO, we’ve been in a handful of times; each of which the food was incredible, the service amazing, and the overall vibe, great! But, we’ve got a confession to make…we haven’t gone back for probably a year or more as a result of our last experience. There’s no need to get into specifics, but it involved sitting at the bar and overhearing two different sets of people that worked there discussing customers, other staff members, complaining about kitchen functions, etc. This is a BIG no-no in customer service, and it was disappointing to say the least.

Now don’t misunderstand, we know that every establishment has their good days and their not so great days. Our point in sharing the story is simple; as a customer service establishment, you never know how your level of service is affecting your clientele. It’s all in the details; maybe customers don’t sit at the bar very often (it was really shallow and not the most comfy bar to sit at) so they didn’t think about not talking shit in front of us, or maybe the management never paid attention or…who knows? But the result was that they missed out on our patronage for a chunk of time. Bummer for us and for them.

The outcome of all of this is that we went back…even after a year, to give it another try. Maybe it was time, maybe the disappointment had worn off, or maybe we just knew it would be okay this time around. It was awesome; back to the great service, incredible food, and wonderful atmosphere! Yay!!! We walked away feeling like we’d had a great time and can’t wait to go back! Good job, THO, and thank you for a great meal.

Now, down to the details; we were in for lunch…it was a cold winter day in Paso Robles, the iPhone said 30 degrees at 11am (brrrrr for us) so we bundled up and headed in. We chose to brave the elements and sit outside on their enclosed courtyard patio. The waiter was kind enough to bring us our own personal heater which was awesome!

We started with the Pork Belly Tacos with Pomegranate and Cilantro Salsa…

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These tacos were incredibly tasty…with a rich ancho chile sauce, there was a tiny bit of spice, some sweetness from the salsa, and just an overall exciting group of flavors. The perfect way to start our lunch.

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After the tacos, we moved on to the Roasted Turkey Sandwich smothered in Celery and Apple Salad with Currants, Cashews, and Cranberry Relish. This sandwich was like glorious Thanksgiving nestled inside of a pillowy, fresh, roll. Incredible!

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This was the perfect lunch for us; light, incredibly tasty, in a cool spot. The flavor combinations were fresh and original and everything just popped! You can definitely taste each ingredient and the farm to table feeling comes through in the brightness of the dish. Again, thank you to Thomas Hill Organics for a great experience! We’ll see you soon!

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Wine Marketing; We've Got Something on Our Minds…

After much conversation, we will be starting to discuss wine marketing as a whole on this here blog. What that means to us is talking about what we think wineries can do to improve their brand image, customer relationships, and thereby increasing sales. After visiting over 200 wineries, dozens of wine events, countless bars, restaurants, and hotels…we feel we have a voice worth listening to in regards to customer engagement, tasting room etiquette, brand building, overall customer service, and the use of social platforms to build customer communities.

Why Wine Marketing?

Our experiences, combined with our educational backgrounds and life experience of running small businesses, as well as the addiction we have to business in general, customer service, social media, and strategy…has blended into our even bigger love of the area in which we live (Paso Robles) and of the wine community. What all this adds up to is that our main goal is to be helpful, not to bash anyone.

While out and about in our area, and beyond, we’ve come across things that leave us begging for more. We’ve also come across things that leave us wondering what the hell happened. These “things” can be anything from the people to the smells to the products to the overall scene. It can be something really subtle that turns somebody on or off, or it can be something blaring…but the important thing is to be aware of the whole picture and how it affects a business.

So here we go people, join us on this journey to making the wine world even better…and your feedback and thoughts along the way will be expected. As you start seeing posts about the above mentioned stuff, we will want your feedback on good and bad customer service moments and what could have been done better. By providing these tips and information, the hospitality industry (especially in Paso Robles, but not limited to) will be able to see where they can improve their relationships with us…the end consumer!! Cheers!!

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Ranchero Cellars at the Paso Robles Garagiste Festival

We caught up with Amy Butler of Ranchero Cellars at the first-ever Paso Robles Garagiste Festival. This festival is geared towards those small production wine gigs that maybe don’t have a tasting room or just don’t get the recognition that they deserve. They’re the ones in the garages and warehouses making small-lot wines that will knock your socks off! And they’re all gathered here, at the Garagiste Festival.

Ranchero Cellars and Amy Butler

Amy Butler is the mind behind Ranchero Cellars…she’s been making wine for a long time, even though she’s a young, cutting edge artist in the Paso Robles wine region. Amy likes things like rusty spurs, old tractors and many things Americana…she celebrates the natural style of making wine from interesting varieties, using minimal techniques during the process, and puts out wines that show off what the land can create; great wines from solid fruit.

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