This year we decided to pour at the Family Winemakers of California tasting at Fort Mason in San Francisco.

This was a two-day event, 1-6 PM each day. That’s a long time to be standing on your feet on an unyielding concrete floor!

The event was primarily for the Trade (distributors, restaurants, retail shops, wine bars), but there was a 3-hour Consumer segment.

Attendance was up considerably this year. Approximately 1,700 of the trade attended on both Sunday and Monday! The consumer portion had about 700 attendees, also up from last year.

Since we’re relatively new and unknown, it gave us a great opportunity to let people learn about us and for us to meet those in the trade.

The photo to the right is Louise acting as our “booth babe”.

We’ll try to use this blog and Facebook more to let people know when our tastings are going to occur. Let us know if you have any ideas.

Every year the Napa Valley Wine Library holds a big tasting in the grove at the Silverado Country Club in Napa, CA (map).

This year, there will be about 100 Napa Valley wineries pouring their Cabernet Sauvignons and Cabernet Sauvignon blends. Charnu will be one of those wineries.

The event is next Sunday, August 15, 2010, from 5-7 PM. To get in you need to be a Napa Valley Wine Library member, but that’s easy to do. It’s $75 in advance, using a form on their website, and it’s $85 at the door.

It’s a terrific opportunity to taste a lot of Napa Cabs in one place and at a reasonable price. I strongly recommend that you come taste some Charnu and a lot of other great wines.

Disclaimer: I’m on the Board of Directors of the Napa Valley Wine Library, so I’m biased. But I was going to the event before I was ever associated with the organization, and it really is worth it.

If you’re on our mailing list, you know that we now have a white wine — Charnu 2009 Cuvée Blanc. We announced this to our Mailing List subscribers this Spring, and everyone who’s tasted it has loved it.

Because we made so little Cuvée Blanc (54 cases), we initially limited it to our Wine Club members. But by now they’ve had their chance to get some. So, because so many people asked about purchasing, we decided to open up sales to everyone.

It’s a blend of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon. Mark’s tasting notes say:

“The 2009 Charnu Cuvee Blanc has a vast and expressive nose, accented by notes of honeysuckle, jasmine and white peach. Flavors of clove and baked apple flesh out its creamy palate. An essence of Meyer lemon lends a bright acidity to the long finish. It is a succulent wine that can be enjoyed immediately.”

It’s a great summertime wine, so go to the online store and get some while both Summer and the Cuvée Blanc are still here.

Every Friday evening Acme holds a complementary tasting, usually for a specific winery or winemaker. In this case, Mark was there pouring the three wines for which he is winemaker or co-winemaker (more on that in a moment). They were all Cabernet Sauvignons, and the wineries were:

• Charnu Winery
• Anomaly Vineyards
• Zeitgeist Cellars

Zeitgeist Cellars is the brand of Mark and his wife Jennifer Williams, who is winemaker at Spottswoode Winery, another very highly-regarded local winery.

Also present was their daughter Kiran, who can add the tasting to a growing resume that includes being present at vineyard evaluations, harvest, bottling and blending sessions.

Did you attend the Acme tasting? If so, let us know what you thought.

Harvest Update

The Charnu 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon is resting comfortably in its tanks, safe from the rain that has plagued the Valley recently. The Lewelling block has already fermented to dryness, and the Stanton block is well on its way.

The 2009 harvest has finally begun in earnest for Charnu. Monday morning we harvested the grapes from our Lewelling Vineyard block, located South of St. Helena on the West side of the valley.

The morning was nice and cool, a welcome change from the hot spell we’ve been having lately. Luckily, the hot spells this year have not been as prolonged or as poorly-timed as last year.

This is the smaller of our two blocks, and we ended up with almost 3 tons. That’s 35% more than last year (but that was a lower-than-average crop).

When we got the grapes down to the winery in Napa, we found that the temperature was about 10 degrees lower than in St. Helena. Good for the grapes, but a bit chilly for those of us used to the warmer summer weather.

Destemming and sorting went smoothly. The grapes were in good shape, so there was only the normal sorting-out of a few raisins and unwanted debris.

Now the grapes are sitting comfortably in the tank, getting ready for fermentation.

Harvest is always a bit of a relief, knowing that you’ve successfully gotten through the riskiest part of the process.

Since I do web design, I decided to set up our website (http://www.charnuwinery.com) to work on an iPhone. I’m hoping that this also makes it work well on a Blackberry (which I can’t test). If you have one of these, check it out and let me know what you think.

But the skeptic in me wonders how useful this really is for wineries. I can see it for some businesses, say restaurants. You’re with some friends and on the spur of the moment decide you want to get something to eat. You use your mobile device to find a restaurant that sounds interesting, and then to get their phone number and call them.

Where this breaks down for wineries is that wineries are actually rather rare . They tend to be concentrated in places like Napa Valley. People have to make an effort to get to them, so usually already have some idea of which ones they’re going to visit.

They probably used the web to find those wineries, but I’m guessing they used a PC/Mac to do it, and not their mobile device.

But maybe I’m missing something. Can you see yourself needing to visit a winery’s website on your mobile device? If so, what’s the scenario.

Let me know what you think.

It’s amazing how many details go into setting up a release. Scrubbing the Mailing List. Updating the order forms. Making sure that everything is set up correctly in our online store.

For us, there was a lot more to do for this release than would normally be required, because we are significantly expanding the states we can ship to.

The 2005 release went essentially just to California. There wasn’t much of it, so it didn’t make sense to apply for direct inter-state shipping permits.

As you may already know, shipping wine direct to consumers in another state is a quagmire. Every state has different rules. In some states it’s illegal. In others, the process is so cumbersome or expensive that it’s impractical. For states where you can get a permit to ship direct, you are generally signing up for a significant reporting effort. States often require out-of-state wineries to submit monthly sales tax, excise tax and shipment reports even if there were no sales to that state in that month.

This release, we decided to get shipping permits for all states that “made sense”. That obviously means states that permit it. But more importantly, it means states that are likely to be a market for our wines. So we hope to be able to ship to:

• Alaska
• California
• Colorado
• Florida
• Iowa
• Michigan
• Minnesota
• Missouri
• New Mexico
• Nevada
• New Hampshire
• New York
• North Carolina
• Ohio
• Oregon
• Texas
• Virginia
• Washington
• Washington D.C.

As you can see, this is a big change for us. Is it completely set up yet? No. We could still run into delays dealing with state bureaucracies. But we think we can get all of these eventually.

What about other states? We’re not willing to skirt the laws. If you can’t have the wine shipped to somewhere legal, your best option may be a storage facility such as 55 Degrees in St. Helena (www.fiftyfivedegrees.com). If you rent a locker there, we will deliver your wine to 55 Degrees for free. At that point, it’s yours. You can instruct 55 Degrees to ship your wine to you whenever you like.

So we’ve jumped into the wacky world of inter-state direct wine shipping with both feet. It may be a wild ride.

What do you think of all this?

Our vineyards look great, the best ever at this date. The high heat we had last week does not seem to have hurt them a bit.

The sugars are developing nicely, but they still need more time for tannin development.

If everything goes well, we will probably be picking near the end of September.

Of course, Mother nature can always speed things up.

Does the idea of tasting a lot of great wine in a superb setting appeal to you?

Then here’s an event you should mark on your calendar for next year.

Every August, the Napa Valley Wine Library holds a big wine tasting event on the golf course of the Silverado Resort in Napa, CA. This year’s edition was held on Sunday, August 16.

The tasting covers the range of wine varietals in  a 3-year cycle:

• Cabernet Sauvignon and other Bordeaux varietals
• Other reds
• Whites

This year, the theme was Other Reds. Some 65 wineries were pouring the usual suspects — Syrah, Petite Sirah, Zinfandel — as well as less common varietals like Sangiovese, Tempranillo and such. There were even a number of Napa Valley Pinot Noirs!

Next year will feature Cabernet Sauvignon and other Bordeaux varietals. Given that this is Napa Valley, just about everyone produces a Cabernet. And wineries line up to pour at this event. The last time this was held, 114 wineries poured; I would expect more next year. We’re hoping Charnu Winery will be one of the ones pouring.

This tasting is a “member-only” event, but don’t let that make you think it’s not for you. Membership in the Napa Valley Wine Library is only $60 per year and is open to everyone. This gets you 2 tickets to the tasting and other benefits of Wine Library membership. The Napa Wine Library website has more details.

So if you’re going to be in the area next August, be sure to check this out. Highly recommended.

Sidenote: If you’re really a wine geek (or geek-in-training), there’s an accompanying varietal seminar and luncheon the Saturday before the tasting. This year, the seminar was held at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in St. Helena. There was an expert to lead a tasting of other red varietals paired with small plates from the French Laundry restaurant! Then a lunch prepared by the CIA.

Disclaimer: I recently joined the Napa Wine Library Board of Directors, so I’m biased. But I’ve been going to the event for years. It’s definitely worthwhile.

Photo by Carolyn Martini

It’s about time.

Why are we doing it? We’d like more direct contact with Charnu friends, fans and supporters. Since we can’t always meet face-to-face, we hope that our blog and other social media efforts will fill the gap.

The emphasis here will be on interaction, not simply broadcasting information. We plan to still use emails to our mailing list to announce new releases and such.

What, your not on our mailing list? Then why don’t you sign up?

What are we going to talk about? Well, what we have planned right now is:

• Details on what’s happening at Charnu Winery – where we’re pouring, who we meet there and what people have to say
• Local events that might be of interest to people coming to Napa Valley to visit
• What we think about what’s going on around the Valley and in the wine industry
• Pointers to other wine blogs that have interesting content

But in the end we’ll take this blog in whatever direction everyone wants to go.

So don’t be shy. Comment. Tell us what you think, what you want to hear about.

Photo by bzo