Blog
Coming Soon…
Thursday, January 19th, 2012
Make sure your mailing list and wine club information is up to date…Pinot Noir is coming soon!
A Note on Wine Quality and Cost by John Dragonette
Wednesday, October 6th, 2010
As you probably know, winemaking involves careful attention to detail in all steps of the process, including care of the maturing wines in the cellar. The wines are not just sitting idly in barrels; we are constantly monitoring, topping, racking if need be, and watching other indicators. The typical 18-24 month period, known as elevage, is actually fraught with activity, analysis, and contemplation. Topping our barrels the other day and occasionally tasting as I went along (it is not a totally thankless job), I was truly excited about the quality of the wines we made in 2008 and 2009. Apparently you have been too – the 2008 Pinot Noirs are flying off the shelves (only a bit of the Fiddlestix remains). The 2008 Syrah we just bottled promises great things when it is ready for prime time as well. And the 2009s are a cornucopia of terrific new vineyards and varietals. It is an exciting time for us.
And yet there is a serious recession going on. We get it. We see the effects everywhere. In the wine business, for some this has meant troubled wineries, distributor consolidation and heavy discounting by distressed producers. Some of these “deals” are indeed deals, and some are perhaps wineries dumping less than their best wines. In some cases the wines should never have been priced as high to begin with. We know that much of this wine is being sold below cost – it has to be. This does not bode well for the health of the winery. But more importantly perhaps, this era of discounting and price cutting can have serious ramifications for wine quality going forward. If price is all that matters, there are ways to save money – starting in the vineyard. Growers can produce vastly more grapes per acre, they can skip important mid season steps, and they can skimp and save on labor, meaning, usually, lower quality fruit. Wineries can buy grapes from huge industrially farmed vineyards in poor locations. Or we can stop producing wine grapes here in Santa Barbara entirely and buy bulk juice from someplace else with super cheap land and labor. But is that what wine is all about?
We feel very strongly that the consuming public and in particular our fans, can tell the difference between wines from only top vineyards, meticulously farmed and carefully vinified from those made “on the cheap” with super high yields, indifferent vineyards and all manner of winemaker tricks. We believe that you who have tasted our wines (and those from other serious producers) appreciate the purity and expression of a fine wine. More serious wines cost more to make. There is a reason that the French and Italians, and more recently the Americans have classified grape growing areas to highlight quality, limited permitted yields and banned certain practices. In short all wine is not the same.
We believe that despite the downturn, the wine drinking public is becoming more and more educated in terms of wine quality; meaning grape origin and growing practices, winemaking processes and producer commitment. We can tell this by the types of questions we are getting in the tasting room, and the interest we see in us and other small artisanal producers here in Santa Barbara Wine Country. We think they can tell the difference in the purity of wines produced by hand from excellent raw materials and without manipulation. And, we believe that as more and more people become wine lovers they will appreciate and demand quality wines over innocuous ones that simply happen to be cheap. We pledge to continue to farm grapes and produce wine with ultra high quality as a goal for those wine consumers.
As we go along with these mailing list updates, we intend to continue to inform you, the wine loving public, as to the care and attention our wines receive the particulars and costs of high quality farming, and other salient topics. We think you will appreciate knowing a little more about the realities of grape farming and wine production. We want you to understand our philosophy and why we started making wine in the first place. So stay tuned!
Bottling fun
Wednesday, August 25th, 2010
As most wine production people know, when it comes to bottling, the best a winemaker can hope for is that nothing goes terribly wrong. One expects a bit of broken glass, label malfunctions, and cork setting problems but hopes to avoid major problems that leave crews sitting around idle for hours while repairmen argue in Italian over the un-locatable fix to the problem. For example our first bottling ever involved about 25 cases of bad-labeled bottles and four hours of troubleshooting the problem before we had to abandon the bottling and reschedule it for a few days later when replacement parts could be found. In another (very small) bottling, only seven of the eight fillers worked properly, and after messing with the line for a couple hours, we gave up and had to uncork the half filled bottles and pour the wine back into tank. Not the most efficient process to be sure. There is a lot riding on these fateful days. Our precious juice has made a very long (and expensive) journey from vine to fermenter to barrel and we are anxious to get it safely into bottle.
Of course bottling day is the culmination of many months of planning. We have to design and re-design the labels several times (and then submit them to the Federal Tax and Trade Bureau for approval), evaluate numerous bottle samples from several manufacturers (and of course, the one you like best will likely be back-ordered after spending 3 weeks making the decision to use it), evaluate cork samples, and choose wax colors (yes, we are gluttons for punishment and wax all of our bottles by hand). Not to be overlooked in the bottling process is racking and blending the wine which is a delicate operation, particularly when you bottle unfiltered, and we have to carefully separate the juice from the lees. On bottling day itself, there is a whir of activity, with unloading bottles, reloading the filled bottles into cases, palletizing the cases and storing the finished ones out of the ways. The entire operation looks like a giant beehive; people scampering in all directions, all-intent on their work activities.
So it is with great relief that we announce that despite a few hiccups, Dragonette Cellars had a hugely successful (and remarkably efficient) bottling last week. We managed to get about 1100 cases of 2008 Syrah and 2009 Sauvignon Blanc into bottle with only a single broken bottle (and that was only an empty!) and only a handful of bad labels. It should be noted here that we did narrowly avoid having 325 cases of Syrah being unlabeled as the freight company lost 1 of the boxes of labels shipped from our manufacturer. Luckily, I was able to track the package down to Santa Maria and was able to dash off and go get it as we bottled up one of our Sauvignon Blancs first. Whew!
A huge shout out goes to the friends and family that came out to give a hand with this bottling. The crew was magnificent and made the day as easy as it could be. Grazie!
Dragonette Cellars adds a wine club
Wednesday, February 24th, 2010
OK, OK, OK, we give. Everyone kept asking, “When are you going to have a wine club I can join?” The wait is over. You will now be able to get all the Dragonette Cellars wines you want without lifting a finger. We have a few different options that will hopefully fill everyone’s needs. Wine Club signups can be done either through our online store or by emailing/faxing/mailing in the order form.
Announcing our Fall 2009 release
Thursday, September 24th, 2009
We are proud to announce the release of our very limited production 2007 Pinot Noirs.
Announcing our Spring 2009 Release
Thursday, July 2nd, 2009
We are proud to announce the release of our debut Sauvignon Blanc, our delicious summer Rosé, and the first of the great 2007 Vintage Reds.
