Fid­dle­head wines have found act­ing fame once again! Get out of the sum­mer heat and treat your­self to the movies — we sug­gest “The Kids Are All Right”. And don’t be late because it doesn’t take long for Fid­dle­head to make its appear­ance! But some­thing is not quite right…

Astute wine drinkers take note: some­how our Estate Pinot Noir label is plas­tered on a Bor­deaux bot­tle. And it’s the SAME (front) label on both the bot­tle front and back! Okay by me…I get two plugs on one bot­tle as the cam­era does a 360 degree pan. I guess you would call it poetic lib­erty, as with this go-around I must have been asked for some labels instead of the wine itself. And when it leaves my hands, it’s all up to the props guy and the direc­tor!

The other fun wine boo-boo is with the Alma Rosa men­tion and their “1998” bottling…I believe Alma Rosa was founded in 2005! Con­grats to Richard and Thekla!

Tags: Alma Rosa, Fiddlehead, Fiddlehead Cellars, Kathy Joseph, movies, Pinot Noir, The Kids Are All Right, Wine

Should I drink this wine now or lay it down in my cellar?

The short answer is: It depends on how thirsty you are!

The wrong answer is: It depends on how much the wine costs.

The right answer is: What’s for din­ner (i.e. can it hold up to bright acid­ity or will it over­power ele­gance)? And will the wine weather the long-hall (i.e. will it still have enough aro­mat­ics and tex­ture to seduce the palate)?

For a lit­tle insider infor­ma­tion, many winer­ies respond to this ques­tion by telling you it is good now or later because they don’t know what you want to hear and which style you cher­ish more. At Fid­dle­head, I will tell you the same…but for a dif­fer­ent rea­son! Read on…

In my hum­ble opin­ion, it has a lot to do with bal­ance in the wine and the intended style. Some of the wines that are best to drink now are younger wines and are crafted to be very soft and silky, in part because they have low acid­ity and big fruit. Often times these wines will not age well in the cel­lar. But they’re deli­cious today!

Some wines attack the inside of your mouth like bit­ter choco­late (high tan­nins) or an under-ripe tomato (high acid­ity) and just need a lit­tle time in the bot­tle — in other words, in your cel­lar — to show their silk­i­ness and qual­ity of deli­cious­ness. But in addi­tion to a vel­vety qual­ity, they gain an admired com­plex­ity that young wines sim­ply do not have. It’s these dif­fer­ent styles that make the world go ‘round. There isn’t a right or wrong!

At Fid­dle­head, I care a lot about the bal­ance in the wine; it’s just how my palate works. What this means to me is that all of the com­po­nents are bal­anced by each other in terms of their inten­sity. This includes the aro­mat­ics and all of the com­po­nents stim­u­lat­ing the palate, includ­ing the fruit, the alco­hol, the tan­nins, and the acid­ity. When I first bot­tle a wine these com­po­nents are in bal­ance but still in a youth­ful, awk­ward stage. With a cou­ple years of bot­tle age, the edges soften and these com­po­nents meld together to feel and taste deli­cious to your palate. It is my com­mit­ment to hold these young wines (on my buck!) and to release them with just enough bot­tle age so that you may enjoy them imme­di­ately upon release. I don’t want to have to tell you that the wine is awk­ward now but that you’ll enjoy it with a few years of bot­tle age. The more sophis­ti­cated your palate gets, the more you appre­ci­ate this con­cept of bal­ance.

So what’s the big deal of hav­ing a wine cellar?

In gen­eral, in the first five years in the life of a wine there is more youth­ful fruit inten­sity and more aggres­sive mouth feel. And as wines age they dimin­ish in their fruit inten­sity, in other words, the young fruit becomes less rec­og­nized as fresh fruit and more savory, and the palate sen­sa­tion grows in its silk­i­ness. But only patience allows you to see this. We love to show older vin­tages of our wines because of how suc­cess­fully they age…even our non-oak aged Goose­bury Sauvi­gnon Blanc! It’s amaz­ing to taste a wine with 20 years of bot­tle age. And those of you who came to our Anniver­sary cel­e­bra­tion were able to taste our rock star 1989 Pinot Noir!

It is a rare occa­sion that you are able to taste a library wine and even pur­chase it as an older wine. Most winer­ies force you to take the gam­ble on your own. But we’re not most wineries…and your luck just changed! For the sum­mer, we are pour­ing a dif­fer­ent library wine (Pinot Noir exclu­sively) each month which is also avail­able for pur­chase. And if you join us at our Cel­e­bra­tion of Har­vest Open House in mid-October, you’ll be able to judge for your­self as we pour a whole line-up of new and old. Take the Fid­dle­head chal­lenge and come see what I mean. At this event, tell me that you have read this com­men­tary and I will give you 10% off the cost of your library pur­chase that day!

Tags: aging, Fiddlehead Cellars, Goosebury Sauvignon Blanc, Harvest Festival, Q&A, Questions, Santa Barbara, storage, tannins, time, when to drink, Wine, wine cellar

A Trib­ute to My Father — by Kathy Joseph, Con­duc­tor of Chaos
My dad encour­aged me to explore, to expe­ri­ence the world, to be good to other peo­ple, to be tol­er­ant of dif­fer­ences, to respect oth­ers, to chal­lenge myself, to have con­fi­dence and to be hum­ble. He taught me to stand up straight, not to be waste­ful, not to play with my food and not to crack my gum. He taught me the value of my dol­lars, what was proper Eng­lish and proper punc­tu­a­tion, to have love for the arts and the impor­tance of the First Amend­ment. He taught me right from wrong, the value of good food and good friends. My dad encour­aged and sup­ported my inde­pen­dence, my indi­vid­u­al­ity and my ambi­tions. He is my friend, my men­tor, my sound­ing board and I sim­ply love him to pieces. Happy Father’s Day, Dad!

A Trib­ute to My Father — by Ter­ence Liv­ingston, Sales Guru
I owe every­thing to being in the wine indus­try to my father. I was one of the for­tu­nate chil­dren, grow­ing up with fresh food and wine on the table. Mon­terey Penin­sula Cel­lars Hearty Bur­gundy (3L) got us through the 70’s. I was 6 for my first glass of wine (the glass was almost big­ger than me!) My 21st birth­day was spent with my par­ents in the Russ­ian River tour­ing great winer­ies. My father thought this was a great idea…and I agreed! Fam­ily gath­er­ings revolved around the kitchen bar, watch­ing my par­ents pre­pare the meal, while shar­ing great wines and sto­ries with each other. I can’t remem­ber once when the tele­vi­sion was on dur­ing din­ner (unless it was the Stan­ford / Cal Game). Food and Wine, great sto­ries, laugh­ter. My father and I have been able to have some incred­i­ble wine tast­ing expe­ri­ences. Once, we man­aged to visit 13 winer­ies, taste 58 wines, then make it for din­ner AND an after drink! He brings out the “A” game in me!
Happy Father’s Day, Pops. Look­ing for­ward to many more enjoy­able din­ners to come, and many more wines to be opened and shared.
Love, Sonny Boy

A Trib­ute to My Father – by Maria Jensen, Tast­ing Room Enter­tain­ment Com­mit­tee
My Dad,
If it weren’t for my dad, I would not be here today.
If it weren’t for my dad, I wouldn’t be the per­son that I am today.
If it weren’t for my dad, I wouldn’t be the hap­pi­est per­son alive!
Thanks Dad for you and all that you’ve given me, your warmth, your lov­ing, your car­ing and most of all your heart!
I almost lost my dad 3 years ago and that’s when I came to real­ize how much he really meant to me. I love him more each day and trea­sure every­thing he says, especially.….…..I Love You!

A Trib­ute to My Father – by Karen Ward, Com­pli­ance Whiz
My dad is the most prac­ti­cal per­son I have ever known. He always has a Swiss Army knife in his pocket and hemo­stats clamped to his belt loop. (A retired sur­geon) I spent a lot of time with him put­ter­ing around the house when I was young. So, now I’m the one who does all the minor home repairs and gar­den­ing. Thanks Dad, (I think) for all that prac­ti­cal knowl­edge. Karen Ward

A Trib­ute to My Father – by Stacey Black, Account­ing Mas­ter­mind
My dad is a huge foot­ball fan. He rarely misses a tele­vised pro game. Super bowl Sun­day was a sacred day when I was grow­ing up. Many an after­noon my brother, my dad and I ran plays in the street. I didn’t appre­ci­ate then that my dad was unusual in includ­ing a daugh­ter in the game, but I do now. Thanks to my dad, I can still throw a mean spi­ral.

A Trib­ute to My Father – by Lora Ric­co­mini, Wine Club Styl­ist
I don’t think of my dad so much as a reg­u­lar dad, instead I think of him as kind of a super­hero. By day, a mild-mannered gov­ern­ment worker; by night and by week­end, he’s more like a super dad! He’s able to paint entire rooms in a sin­gle hour, con­verse intel­li­gently on almost any sub­ject (he has a mind like a steel trap), simul­ta­ne­ously make a mean mush­room risotto while tweez­ing the small­est sliv­ers from the tini­est fin­gers. And when the world is in dire need…his mus­tache stretches, he cracks a joke and the sur­prised world laughs. At the end of the day, at the end of the week­end, super­hero per­sona fully set aside, he’s my dad.

A Trib­ute to My Father – by John Faulkner, Cham­pagne Mae­stro
“Dad and I back­packed up to the head­wa­ters of the San Joaquin’s north fork in the sum­mer of ’06, and camped in the loom­ing morn­ing shadow of Ban­ner Peak and Mount Rit­ter. We were the only two there—or at least, it felt that way—and that’s what mat­tered. We talked about all sorts of things, but bonded most from our shared expe­ri­ence of feel­ing small and iso­lated and awestruck by our sur­round­ings, which were silent glacial lakes and moun­tains. I don’t know that I’d ever shared such tran­quil­ity and quiet with Dad: (I grew up with two younger broth­ers and a dog.) My broth­ers are out of the house these days, and we’ve lost our dog, and it’s in spite of the quiet that we’ve now found tran­quil­ity. I think back often to the Sierra trip, and remark an expe­ri­ence that Dad and I had not known before, and have known dif­fer­ently since. I think back on quiet, unspo­ken bonds.”

A Trib­ute to My Father — by Natalie Leschuk, Slave Dri­ver and Party Plan­ner
Ten things I love about my dad…
1. That he’s always ready on the other end of the phone with an answer to a com­pli­cated
com­puter ques­tion.
2. How he insists on mak­ing cheesy eggs for me when­ever I spend the week­end with him.
3. That, from his exam­ple, I’ve learned the impor­tance of a strong work ethic.
4. That he calls to check-up on me when I’m feel­ing under the weather.
5. His deli­cious BBQ din­ners.
6. That he takes time out of his busy day to send me news arti­cles that I might take an
inter­est in.
7. The joy I get from watch­ing a hockey game with him.
8. That he’s my per­sonal auto mechanic, always check­ing under the hood of my car to
make sure I’m safe on the road.
9. That he’s a true fam­ily man.
10. That he would do any­thing for me
Thank you, Dad, for being such an inspi­ra­tion!

Tags: dad, Father's Day, fathers, Fiddlehead Cellars, John Faulkner, Karen Ward, Kathy Joseph, Lora Riccomini, Maria Jensen, Natalie Leschuk, Stacey Black, Staff, Terence Livingston

Why Happy Canyon?

It’s a place, it’s a wine, and it’s sat­is­fac­tion. Read the wine notes, drink the wine, and take advan­tage of free ship­ping through Feb­ru­ary 15th!

While Pinot Noir makes up 80% of our pro­duc­tion these days, Sauvi­gnon Blanc has always been an impor­tant part of my port­fo­lio. In fact, my love for Sauvi­gnon Blanc started back in 1984 when I was the Wine­maker at Robert Pecota Win­ery in Napa Val­ley. His­tor­i­cally in Cal­i­for­nia, Sauvi­gnon Blanc was a non-descript white wine. With the more worldly per­spec­tive I gained at Pecota, I learned the glory of this vari­etal when grown in appro­pri­ate places and when man­aged in the vine­yard and win­ery. So, very early on I came to appre­ci­ate the char­ac­ter and dis­tinc­tion of Sauvi­gnon Blanc grown in the Loire, ver­sus Bor­deaux, ver­sus New Zealand. Each expres­sion is excit­ing and yet won­der­fully unique, and all wor­thy of atten­tion.

The real rev­e­la­tion came when I dis­cov­ered that, with fruit from the Santa Ynez Val­ley, I could cre­ate these three unique per­son­al­i­ties by vary­ing the vine­yard source and choices in the cel­lar. This was def­i­nitely an artis­tic wine­mak­ing oppor­tu­nity wait­ing to hap­pen. Sauvi­gnon Blanc for the seri­ous palate. So my mis­sion has always been to make Sauvi­gnon Blanc that is beyond the ordi­nary, to make Sauvi­gnon Blanc that has unique expres­sion and tex­tural rewards. My pri­mary focus is to make a wine that is attrac­tive to all dis­crim­i­nat­ing palates. I am look­ing to make a wine with lay­ered fruit with­out being overly fruity and with depth and con­cen­tra­tion with­out being over­bear­ing. And over the years, I have been able to exper­i­ment with choices to imple­ment what has proven to be an ideal com­po­si­tion that sat­is­fies that palate of red wine and white wine drinkers alike.
In my port­fo­lio, this wine is called Happy Canyon.

The Wine­mak­ing Techniques:

1.  A Loire-styled wine, tar­get­ing bal­ance between fruit and texture.

 

2. Mod­est alco­hol lev­els for drinkability.

 

3. Fer­mented 1/3 in Stain­less, 1/3 in new French oak, 1/3 in neu­tral French oak.

 

4. Ripeness is assessed by taste with a desire for riper, more fruit-driven fla­vors (verses greener char­ac­ter­is­tics) and vibrant (but not exces­sive) nat­ural grape acidity.

 

5. The grapes are care­fully farmed so that the vines’ phys­i­o­log­i­cal indi­ca­tors of ripeness coin­cide with max­i­mum ripe fla­vors. (i.e. we max­i­mize the pur­pose of the plant)
    

 

6. Whole clus­ter pressed to min­i­mize harsh tan­nin extrac­tion and to max­i­mize del­i­cacy in the fin­ished wine.
    

 

7. Tight grain Damy bar­rels are the cooper of choice to max­i­mize the ele­gance and to incor­po­rate oak, more for tex­ture and less for aroma.

 

8. Strictly non-malolactic to pre­serve true vari­etal character.

 

9. Aged on the lees in bar­rel for 9 months to max­i­mize body and creamy mid-palate textures.

 

10. Bot­tle aged to mature the wine out of a youth­ful, awk­ward stage into a resolved wine with finesse.

Tags: Fiddlehead, Fiddlehead Cellars, Happy, Happy Canyon, Kathy Joseph, Sauvignon Blanc, Wine, wine tasting

How time flies when you’re hav­ing fun! We made it through 2008 and I could not have had the same suc­cess with­out the sup­port of my staff. Now that the vine­yard begins its new cycle, I find it appro­pri­ate to share the con­tri­bu­tions of my vine­yard fore­man, Rafael.

Rafa joined Fid­dlestix in 1996 when I bought the prop­erty (which was being farmed to flow­ers for seed). At that time, GPS was not com­monly used for vine­yard devel­op­ment and instead we marked the plant posi­tions using a rope with knots tied every four feet (the spac­ing between plants). Each knot was then marked with a plas­tic knife. It is amaz­ing to me to see the pre­cise pat­tern observed in the vine­yard today. Rafa man­ages as few as two and as many as fifty work­ers in the vine­yard. His unwa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to me and Fid­dlestix is most admirable and most appre­ci­ated.

His wife, Delia, also works the vine­yard and makes sure their three chil­dren are happy, well-fed and well-educated. I’ve watched them grow up from young kids to aspir­ing young adults. Not only does Rafa take pride in the grapevines but he also man­ages the weeds, the flow­ers, the roads, the equip­ment, the barn and most any­thing else that hap­pens unex­pect­edly. My hats off to Rafa and his fam­ily who make Fid­dlestix what it is today!

Happy Hol­i­days to all of you. We take pride in your work!

Cheers!

Tags: Fiddlehead Cellars, Fiddlestix, GPS, Happy Holidays, Rafa and Delia, vineyard

It’s time to get in the hol­i­day spirit (yahoo!), which is always a nice segue from my har­vest high. It’s now time for fam­ily and friends, laugh­ter and good food, music and gai­ety, and…Fiddlehead Pinot Noir and Sauvi­gnon Blanc (yahoo!). It’s a reminder to me of how wine brings peo­ple together, that wine is good for your health when enjoyed in mod­er­a­tion and how sat­is­fy­ing it can be to the palate and the spirit.

I’m also rewarded in truly enjoy­ing the wines I decided to make twenty years ago; both the vari­etals and the style con­tinue to impress me with their ver­sa­til­ity (any­time, any place, and food), and their age­abil­ity. If any of you are still won­der­ing what wine to serve with your hol­i­day feast, I promise you that you can’t go wrong with any of our selec­tions of our Sauvi­gnon Blanc or Pinot Noir. They are guar­an­teed to be crowd pleasers!

My Fid­dlestix Pinot Noir is known for its spice, depth and vel­vety qual­i­ties. But don’t take my word for it – read our cus­tomer tes­ti­mo­ni­als located on our web­site under the STAY IN TOUCH sec­tion. Their com­ments mean a lot more to me than a num­ber score from a famous wine writer. And I am com­pli­mented by the other great wine­mak­ers who tell me how much they love work­ing with the grapes I sell them from Fid­dlestix, and that they appre­ci­ate my atten­tion to detail with the farm­ing. It has always been my com­mit­ment to farm for buy­ers with the same respect and ded­i­ca­tion that I farm for myself.

And the com­ment I hear most often about my Sauvi­gnon Blanc is “I didn’t think I liked white wine until I tasted your Sauvi­gnon Blanc!” If you haven’t tasted Hun­ny­suckle, our lim­ited edi­tion, bar­rel fer­mented (but not too oaky!), bottle-aged, white Bordeaux-style Sauvi­gnon Blanc, it’s a made-for-food wine that is the chef’s choice of the Fid­dle­head line-up.

And back to hol­i­day inspi­ra­tion, the great thing about own­ing the com­pany is that there are no rules, so I like to mix it up as often as I can. So for this hol­i­day sea­son we’re offer­ing the oppor­tu­nity to pur­chase big bot­tles for the first time ever! Come visit us in the “Lom­poc Wine Ghetto” on Decem­ber 5-7th for our cel­e­bra­tion called “Merry Mag­nums!” — we are join­ing with sev­eral local winer­ies for a jump on hol­i­day shop­ping! Visit the EVENTS page to read all about it!

Tags: Fiddlehead Cellars, Fiddlestix, Fiddlestix Pinot Noir, Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc

Our Sauvi­gnon Blanc is com­ing off the vine, the birds in the vine­yard are swoop­ing with inter­est, fer­ment­ing grape juice (tast­ing more like delec­table grape­fruit juice) is bub­bling away, new toasty bar­rels are arriv­ing and older neu­tral bar­rels are depart­ing.

Our crew has had their refresher train­ing on the fork­lift; we are equipped with a healthy stash of bat­ter­ies, duct tape, and prun­ing sheers. So we are feel­ing quite ready for action.

My assis­tant wine­maker, John, is hun­gry for knowl­edge and tend­ing to every last, impor­tant detail. Ter­ence is off the pave­ment and back into the wet and sticky cel­lar. Natalie and Lora are jeal­ous of the win­ery action and are itch­ing to leave the Davis office for their win­ery rub­ber boots. Maria, Susan and Joan are in the Tast­ing Room shar­ing our daily har­vest sto­ries with verve and vigor. And we have a new win­ery kitchen in place (the envy of our win­ery neigh­bors!) to feed my hard work­ing crew and an occa­sional guest or two.

The pinot is just begin­ning to trickle in….but it looks like we are in for a vin­tage that is short in sup­ply and long in qual­ity. At Fid­dlestix, the clus­ters are small with lit­tle itty-bitty berries. And these days you can find me cruis­ing the vine­yard on the ATV, assess­ing which blocks are ready to pick. The weather is behav­ing, so it looks like another great vin­tage, indeed!

But even with this flurry of activ­ity, we are find­ing time to pack our wine club ship­ments. We’re liv­ing green these days and my nephew, Ari, has been busy in our ware­house build­ing our earth-friendly wine ship­pers. This month, Wine Club mem­bers get dis­counted Lol­la­palooza and L’ORVERT!

I love your feed­back, your sto­ries and your pic­tures. Please send more…so I can post you and your Fid­dle­head mem­o­ries in our brand new “Cus­tomer Tes­ti­mo­ni­als”
page on our web­site (under the Stay in Touch tab).

From my pas­sion to your glass. Cheers!

Tags: Fiddlehead Cellars, Fiddlestix, L'OVERT, Lollapolooza, September 2008, Staff, vineyard

As promised, Fid­dle­Fest was a fid­dlin’ good time! Thanks to all who joined us at the barn at Fid­dlestix Vine­yard for, hands-down, the best Fid­dle­Fest ever! Theresa’s choco­late extrav­a­ganza cake tasted as good as it looked and the Hitch­ing Post II wowed us again with their grilled culi­nary delights. Of course the real show was the selec­tion of the wines on the table! And for those of you who weren’t able to join us, click here to see what you missed. Many thanks to Mar­vin Bern­stein and Bob Dickey for the visual doc­u­men­tary that truly cap­tures the moment. A big thank you also goes to Kathy Mar­cks Hard­esty for her fab­u­lous com­ments in the New Times SLO high­light­ing the event.

And now back to the vine­yard! I am duly excited because it appears that the vine­yard is some­what recov­er­ing from this year’s spring frost dam­age. More than usual, sec­ond crop is emerg­ing (about 20% in the affected blocks), but as always, it will be removed when we do our green drop at about 80% verai­son. In my mind, it is def­i­nitely worth the reduc­tion in fruit in order to main­tain even ripen­ing and to achieve the high­est qual­ity fruit out of the vine­yard. That’s why we make such good wine!

In the cel­lar, I have dili­gently tasted through all of the ’07 reds with the help of my award-winning staff (which required a blind tast­ing of each and every bar­rel and is not nearly as easy as it sounds!). I am happy to report that we all agree that there are more Lollapalooza-potential bar­rels than ever before and, in addi­tion, two pos­si­ble Doyle bar­rels! Seven Twenty Eight has been blended and put back into bar­rel and boy are we exited!

As you know, the 2005 Doyle first goes out to our Stradi­var­ius Club and then will be released to the gen­eral pub­lic on Novem­ber 1st. Email us at rsvp@fiddleheadcellars.com to be put on our wish list and be sure to spec­ify the num­ber of bot­tles you would like.

Stay tuned for more updates on the vine­yard as we pre­pare for the 2008 harvest…and I might even share sto­ries of my immer­sion stud­ies in Oax­aca, Mex­ico. Cheers!

Tags: Doyle, FiddleFest, Fiddlehead Cellars, Fiddlestix, Lollapalooza, vineyard

Did you think this was my down time? No way! What a good time I had in Char­lotte, North Car­olina at the Food & Wine Week­end. They sure know how to throw a great event! And I had a blast mar­ket­ing in Napa. It was quite a thrill to get place­ments at The French Laun­dry, Bistro Jeanty, Go Fish, Celadon, ZUZU, Mus­tards, La Toque and Dean and Deluca…all in one day!

Great buzz is in the air about Fid­dle­Fest, our annual event where wine­mak­ers who pur­chase Fid­dlestix Vine­yard fruit assem­ble in that glo­ri­ous barn at Fid­dlestix for an after­noon of Hitch­ing Post bar-b-que, live fid­dle tunes and a tast­ing extrav­a­ganza. If you love pinot noir and you care about ter­rior and you like great wine from small pro­duc­ers then you are crazy not to be at Fid­dle­Fest! The auc­tion items this year (pro­ceeds ben­e­fit Arts Out­reach) are sim­ply stu­pen­dous.

In addi­tion to the other 15 winer­ies, we will be offer­ing ver­ti­cals of Seven Twenty Eight and Lol­la­palooza to help solid­ify your impres­sion of this very cool place. We also have been known to slip in a taste of Doyle. Once again, the event is at Fid­dlestix Vine­yard on Santa Rosa Rd, mile marker 7.28. And if you come the day before, you’ll catch Fid­dle­head pour­ing at the San­ford & Bene­dict barn across the street in a late-afternoon appel­la­tion tast­ing.

And then there are the new releases to get excited about! The just released 2005 Seven Twenty Eight is what pinot noir is meant to be. Great, incred­i­ble bal­ance, fab­u­lous acid­ity and true to Sta. Rita Hills fruit. Once again, I am hold­ing my ground on aging my wines that extra year before release to ensure your Fid­dle­head expe­ri­ence is per­fect. The 2006 Happy Canyon Sauvi­gnon Blanc has that great Sancerre per­fume bal­anced by bright Santa Ynez Val­ley acid­ity. The 2006 Sweetie is another show-stopper; don’t miss try­ing it with a great salty blue cheese…it’s a match made in heaven!

I’m hav­ing a great time work­ing on the 2005 Doyle label — its way cool just like the wine and the man! Don’t miss out on this single-barrel selec­tion; only 288 bot­tles to be had! Of course the Stradi­var­ius Club get first dibs, but we’re happy to add you to our reser­va­tion list. Look­ing at a Novem­ber 1st release, just in time for the Hol­i­days.

In the vine­yard it’s been another chal­leng­ing year. Uncle Spring Frost has been rear­ing his atti­tude once again. It’s going to be a short 2008 vin­tage, but set is not yet com­plete and we are still guess­ing our yields. To be continued…

Tags: 2005, Doyle, FiddleFest, Fiddlehead, Fiddlehead Cellars, Food & Wine Weekend, frost, Happy Canyon, Lollapalooza, Sauvignon Blanc, Seven Twenty Eight

Pinkie’s Party was a resound­ing suc­cess! Great food, fun music com­pli­ments of the House Red (Pink) Band, and wildly cre­ative pink cos­tumes which far exceeded my expec­ta­tions. A big con­grat­u­la­tions to the win­ners of the cos­tume com­pe­ti­tion: Joseph and Laura, who we dubbed the “Post it Pair” for Most Unique/Creative, Marten and Theresa “Cake Lady” Ander­son for Best Cou­ple, Denise “Props Queen” Cia­r­cia for Best Over­all Female, and Joe “Bowl­ing Bully” Ric­co­mini, for Best Over­all Male. Once again Susan Williams came out in her glory to cap­ture the title of Best Acces­sories, Alli­son Fraser won for her Pink Shoes, and Sue “Fuzzy Hat” Thomp­son took the prize for Best Head­gear. I can’t wait to see the crazy cos­tumes that will come through the door next year! And stay tuned for the next Fid­dle­head cel­e­bra­tion – we will open our doors for an open house on Sun­day, April 20th in con­junc­tion with the Santa Bar­bara County Vintner’s Fes­ti­val. Once you’ve been to a Fid­dle­head party, you know why peo­ple keep com­ing back!

If you love a great dry rosé, and who doesn’t??, now is the time to order! The 2007 Pink Fid­dle is in short sup­ply and is already going fast. And be sure to check out our new Fid­dleGear– Doyle longsleeve shirts, Lol­la­palooza shirts graced with the poetic haiku, and snazzy Fid­dle­head hats. We now have new signs at the win­ery so we’re easy to find! We love com­pany at the tast­ing room and love to share the fun we have with every cus­tomer who walks through the door, so drop by for a visit.

Fid­dlestix Vine­yard is fully pruned, sig­nal­ing the begin­ning of the 2008 vin­tage. The wild vines have turned into orderly lit­tle sol­diers. It’s espe­cially beau­ti­ful at Fid­dlestix these days. Thank good­ness for these rains!

Tags: Fiddlehead, Fiddlehead Cellars, Fiddlestix Vineyard, Pink Fiddle, Pinkie, Pinkie's Party, vineyard, Wine