Lake County Field Trip

Dylan & enologist Mauricio trekked north yesterday - checking on the Sauvignon Blanc grapes at Maile Field & Lars Crail's Dancing Crow Vineyard. Mauricio thinks perhaps the first week in September on these grapes, though he'll be keeping an eye on the fruit and the Brix.

Originally pear orchards planted by Maile's family, the vineyard encompasses 28 acres and has been certified organic since 2004.
Pear trees still surround the property, and the 2008 vintage of Cartlidge & Browne Sauvignon Blanc has lovely pear aromas. Coincidence?

They also stopped by to see Buzz, who's been providing us with amazing Merlot for years.

Harvest is right around the corner!

January-ness, No Rain, Wine awards

It's been a crazy January weather-wise! From morning frost to highs in the upper 70s the other week ... I'm all confused, and the wild mustard and grapevines are no different! (Yes, I am anthropomorphizing them, I admit it.)

A few rain drops have just fallen outside, but they're evaporating almost as soon as they hit the ground, "and I start to complain that there's no rain." Any Blind Melon fans out there?

The folks over at Napa Valley Wine Blog had a neat post about January in the Napa Valley - that it's like stepping back in time. My dad prefers to wine taste in Amador and El Dorado Counties, lamenting that Napa isn't like it used to be 30 years ago ... I'll send him the way of some of their suggestions!

Things have been fairly quiet here, though we've had some fun tasting crews, and this past week we released our C&B Reserve Dessert Syrah, which has been a big hit!

Even better, we were thrilled to find out that a number of our wines took medals at the 2009 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition! We were honored to be recognized among more than 4,000 entered wines.

The 2005 Lot 205 No. 1 Red is truly #1! It took Best of Class in Bordeaux Blends up to $14.99.

Our other award-winning wines:

2007 Lot 205 Cabernet Sauvignon, Gold Medal
2006 Lot 205 Merlot, Silver Medal
2006 Cartlidge & Browne North Coast Merlot, Silver Medal
2005 Cartlidge & Browne Red Hills Lake County Cabernet Sauvignon (Snows Lake Vineyard), Silver Medal
2006 Cartlidge & Browne Amador Zinfandel, Bronze Medal
2005 Moser Scharding Sonoma Valley Pinot Noir, Bronze Medal

Saturday, February 28, 2009 is the public tasting for the Wine Competition. We'll be pouring our winning wines, and so will all of the other fantastic winery awardees. Tickets are on sale, and the advance purchase price is fabulous!

Cheers!
Lynae

Happy 2009 from C&B!

Dispatches from the Tasting Room:

All of us at Cartlidge & Browne would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year filled with health, prosperity & great wine!

Thank you all for your support—we wouldn’t be where we are without you. From wine lovers in New York to visitors from Sweden to our lovely regulars from American Canyon and nearby—we love you all!

2008 has been an amazing year here at C&B: Over the months we released several great new wines, gotten settled in our tasting room’s new location (It’s warmer here than the warehouse! We have chocolate daily!) and revamped our wine club. In top 10 retrospectives on 2008, wine writers have hailed this year for the greening of wineries. And we love it! We are dedicated to making eco-friendly decisions when it comes to our packaging (to the point of changing how our case boxes are produced), conscious use of energy, and maintaining a clear vision of our carbon footprint.

We embarked on a new wine venture - Lot 205 Winery. Consisting of six varietals, Lot 205 wines are 100% California appellation wines and sure to please everyone – from novice to connoisseur. Deb Harkness at Good Wine Under $20 enjoyed the 2006 Chardonnay & Gary Vaynerchuk was quite impressed by the 2005 Petite Sirah. Click here for these 100% California Wines with a Twist! And we now have the 2006 Petite here in the tasting room.

RELEASES of 2008!

C&B 2006 North Coast Merlot: Ripe cherry & red currant notes, this wine is velvety with lush cocoa tones. Winemaker Paul Moser called this an ideal Merlot.

C&B 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon - Snows Lake Vineyard, Red Hills Lake County: Hints of cedar, cassis, sweet tobacco and chocolate-covered cherries. Rebecca Scharding Steinschriber, our assistant winemaker, says she can always tell a Snows Lake Cab by the bittersweet chocolate notes. It’s truly a Cabernet lovers’ Cab no doubt! If you haven’t tried a Lake County Cab, I highly recommend this wine. The 2005 vintage is almost gone from the tasting room, and we’ll be moving in to the 2006 in January.

C&B 2007 Pinot Noir: Rich baked cherry, sweet toast with juicy red fruits. Our Pinot Noirs are always sure to please the Pinot lovers’ palate. We are completely sold out of this at the winery, yet if you are looking for another amazing Pinot, you should try our winemakers’ label—Moser Scharding. They produced only 514 cases of the 2005 Pinot, which came from two amazing vineyards in Sonoma Valley – Durell & Parmalee-Hill.

C&B 2007 Chardonnay: Aroma of stone fruits & vanilla oak spice, as well as pear nectar, apple pie & butterscotch flavors. We just released this about a month ago & this may just be one of our best Chardonnays yet.

C&B 2007 Sauvignon Blanc Dancing Crow Vineyard: (ORGANICALLY GROWN) Flavors of citrus, melon, mango & guava. This SB is all about amazing tropical fruit. It went quick—we are sold out of this in our tasting room, but our 2008 is vintage is being released in February.

C&B 2006 Zinfandel Amador County Deaver Vineyard: Ripe black fruit, raspberry high notes. Very generous and rich with jammy lush fruit character and solid mineral core.

COMING SOON! (aka, we can't wait for these fun releases!)

• C&B Dessert Syrah - A delicious port-style wine - we have an extremely limited quantity available only at the tasting room.
• C&B 2008 Sauvignon Blanc Dancing Crow Vineyard, Lake County (ORGANICALLY GROWN)
• C&B 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon – Paso Robles
• C&B 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon – Knights Valley (Totem Ridge Vineyard)

Cheers!
Dylan & Lynae & the rest of the Cartlidge & Browne Team

P.S. What are you going to quaff this evening? Lynae's thinking maybe the 2005 Snows Lake Cabernet with dinner and then a 2005 Domaine Carneros sparkler later on ... Happy New Year's one more time!