• 2010 Durell Vineyard Pinot Noir
• 2010 Silver Eagle Vineyard Pinot Noir
• 2009 Sonoma Valley Cabernet Sauvignon
• 2009 Sonoma Valley Cabernet Franc

ALLOCATION LIST DISCOUNTED TICKETS

Tickets are $40 advance, $45 at door, $10 designated driver. To receive your Allocation Member Discount Code for $10 off per ticket, check your recent Save-the-Date email letter or contact Hayden Schmidter at Hayden@ThreeSticksWines.com or by calling (707) 996-3328 x105.

To learn more, visit EighthStreetWineries.com.

The Three Sticks Team

The Three Sticks Spring Release will Include

• 2010 Durell Vineyard Pinot Noir
• 2010 Silver Eagle Vineyard Pinot Noir
• 2009 Sonoma Valley Cabernet Sauvignon
• 2009 Sonoma Valley Cabernet Franc

As a friendly reminder, wines are sold on a first-come, first-served basis, and many sell out before the end of the offering period. Please order early for best selection. Make sure to keep an eye out for our email on February 26th! If you have questions, please contact Hayden Schmidter at Hayden@ThreeSticksWines.com or by calling (707) 996-3328 x105.

We also invite you to come out to say hello and taste the wines at the Eighth Street Wineries Open House on Saturday, February 23rd from 11am to 4pm. CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE!

If you're new to Three Sticks, please CLICK HERE to request to join our allocation list.

The Three Sticks Team

“I’m very proud of our team for their due diligence in going through this important process, and honored that we’ve been recognized for their efforts by CSWA,” said proprietor Bill Price. “Achieving certification is a parallel track to everything we do here – it’ an ongoing process of pursuing excellence. While we have always focused on sustainable farming, the guidelines set forth by CSWA make us better winegrowers and citizens, which leads to improving the quality of life in our community and the quality of our wines.”

CSWA developed its third-party certification program to increase the sustainability of the California wine industry by promoting the adoption of sustainable practices and ensuring continual improvement. The goals of the certification program are to enhance transparency, encourage statewide participation and advance the entire California wine industry toward best practices in environmental stewardship, conservation of natural resources and socially equitable business practices. Certification is based on self-assessment on 227 best practices using the Code of Sustainable Winegrowing Practices Workbook, and then confirmed by a third-party audit.

To learn more about CSWA third-party certification program, visit http://www.sustainablewinegrowing.org.

And now, the rest of the story, as we prepare to share some very exciting times at Three Sticks for 2013!

In the Winery: Racking, Bottling & Blending

The winter months in the winery are generally consumed with racking barrels from the previous vintage and bottling wines from the vintage prior to last. The racking process consists of carefully siphoning off wine from one barrel, to remove it from the lees, to a clean barrel. Lees are deposits of dead and/or residual yeast. As a small winery, bottling wine is done with mobile bottling lines that are built into the back of a semi-trailer truck. When the truck backs in, it’s all hands on deck to bottle, cork, cap, label and box. Whew!

This is also the time when we sequester the team for a series of meetings to select our Sonoma Valley Cabernet Sauvignon blend. The games have now begun for the 2010 vintage to find that “just right blend” sourced from multiple mountain vineyard blocks that include Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Malbec and Petite Verdot. Early in 2012, we visited with Winemaker Don Van Staaveren to learn his blending process, which we covered in the blogs Three Sticks Cabernet Sauvignon & the Art of Blending - Part I & 2.

Hospitality Rising

As many of you know, Three Sticks Wines acquired The Vallejo-Casteñada Adobe in 2012. Considered one of the oldest occupied residences in Sonoma, the quaint home is located just off the beautiful town square. We are relocating our administrative offices to the property this year, and will use the existing dining room and living room to host private tastings by appointment only for our allocation members (we will not be open for public tastings), as well as to provide a space for displaying items of local historical interest on both a permanent and rotating basis.

With our new home, we’ll have many more opportunities to share special moments with our friends and fans, which means we needed just the right person to manage these special occasions and to be your liaison to Three Sticks. With that, we’d like to introduce you to Hayden Schmidter (pictured here), who will handle all things hospitality and take the lead with allocations for our 2013 new releases. Hayden can be contacted at Hayden@ThreeSticksWines.com or by calling (707) 996-3328 x105.

To stay up-to-date, make sure to “Like” us on Facebook and “Follow” us on Twitter. See you in 2013!

The Three Sticks Team

Wintertime at Durell Vineyard is a place of visual and physical contrast. Muted earth tones of pale Spanish moss cling in mass to the barren branches of deciduous oaks, all set against a backdrop of brilliant green grasses ripe from abundant winter rains. Geometric and dormant vine rows dissect both flat and undulating landscapes, roots held in check by frigid soils, while above ground busy crews prune canes in preparation for the coming bud break.

The sound track to this beautiful mosaic is also a work of contrast; the peacefulness of rural silence intermittently punctuated by the fleeting notes of songbirds, the barks of distant dogs, and the percussive snip of pruning sheers. Today, on this January morning, the sun is bright; the air is cool, yet warming.

We’re meeting with Rob Harris, Director of Vineyard Operations, to check on the status of Durell as the huge task of pruning begins. “Even though we’ve had a spell of fairly warm days, the nights have been near or below freezing,” explains Rob. “This keeps the soils cold and the roots dormant. This is what’s important to keep the vines in check. The earliest I’ve seen bud break here is mid-February. We like to see early- to mid-March to avoid frost issues in spring.”

The eastern vineyards of Durell are flat and rooted in rocky creek bottom soils, then rise to the west across sloping knolls and the steep hillsides of the Pacific Coastal Range. Rob says the lower vineyards can sometimes begin bud break three weeks earlier than the upper. With a crew of twelve to fifteen workers at a time pacing through vineyard blocks, we ask how he chooses where to prune and when, and does this affect the outcome of harvest.

“It’s a lot like life,” Rob shares, “there are no absolutes. When we prune, it does affect the timing of bud break – the earlier a cane is pruned the earlier it breaks bud. And we want to keep the upper and lower vineyard blocks somewhat close on timing, but not too close, otherwise all our fruit would come in at once at harvest, and that’s unmanageable.”

So this notion that winter is a time of dormancy in the vineyards is just not quite true – it is, but it isn’t. What the vineyard team does now extends all the way into the drama and passions of harvest. Below we share a series of photos with captions to illustrate some of the other tasks and farming decisions that are made in these short and sometimes stormy days of winter.

Hey, Rob, thanks for the tour!

The cut canes from pruning are dropped between the vines rows to be mulched to add natural nutrients back into the vineyard soils

Cleaning raptor boxes, erosion control, creek restoration, and fixing irrigation lines and fencing, are just some of the projects that occupy winter at Durell Vineyard

Cover crops such as annual legumes, e.g. fava beans, and crimson clover are utilized to enhance biological diversity, improve soil fertility and structure

Managing vast sections of open space at Durell supports natural habitat and biodiversity

And then, Mother Nature did her thing: the weather cooled and the fruit hung for nearly a month longer. Luckily, the weather held beautifully and the extended hangtime gave us what may be one of California’s finest vintages in decades.

We recently visited with Winemaker Don Van Staaveren, as well as our newest members to the winemaking team, Enologist Jenny Schultz and Production Enologist Todd Arnold (and Shaka, winery dog) for a little Q&A on harvest and their personal experiences.

Three Sticks: Don, we’ve been talking to other winemakers and vineyard managers, and we’re hearing consistent raves about the quality of the 2012 fruit, with yields generally up about 30 percent over the past couple of years.

Don: Harvest was very compressed. The early ripening fruit hung longer, and the late maturing fruit caught up. Everything came in during a very tight two-week window -- last year was six weeks. The quality is absolutely there; we’ve seen healthy fermentations, as well as excellent acidity and pH. As far as yields, Durell Vineyard is very self-limiting, which is why the estate delivers us exceptional Chardonnay and Pinot Noir fruit year after year. We’re up over 2011, but less came in than our projections. Durell does what Durell does, and that’s what makes it such a special site.

Three Sticks: Over the past few years, Three Sticks has selectively expanded our portfolio to source fruit from other top vineyards along the coastal AVAs of California. How did harvest look in these vineyards and what should we expect to see from these small-lot bottlings?

Don: For our Sonoma Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, which is actually mountain fruit, we’ve seen excellent grapes from the Bismark and Bald Mountain Vineyards. [Don grins] I’m especially impressed with the stellar Cabernet Sauvignon we sourced from the Moon Mountain District, which will be new to the 2012 blend. For Pinot Noir, we’ve got THE JAMES Sta. Rita Hills and Silver Eagle Ridge from the Sonoma Coast. 2010 was the first year we sourced Silver Eagle Ridge Pinot Noir – the first release will be in 2013. All looks top notch. For whites, we again have a tiny amount of Pinot Blanc from the Carneros, and another new source, Chardonnay from the One Sky Vineyard on Sonoma Mountain.

Three Sticks: Todd, you’re pretty new to the team here, but you’ve been working in winery cellars since 2006, learning on the job and expanding your experience. What was new for you this year, and what was your take-away from 2012?

Todd: The biggest thing for me this harvest was lab work with Don and Jenny. Basically, Don had Jenny and I switch it up, where she spent most of her time on the floor handling production and me in the lab. It’s a great example of how Three Sticks strives to build our team’s knowledge base and continually pursue excellence. It was great. On the harvest side, like Don said, the high acids and steady pH in all the wines is nothing like I’ve seen. We almost didn’t need our sorting table this year.

Three Sticks: Jenny, you’re our newest member of the winemaking team. After getting your MS in Viticulture and Enology at U.C. Davis, and then working harvests in New Zealand, South Africa, and California, what’s been your overall experience here, and what was it like getting out of the lab and onto the floor?

Jenny: Learning to drive a forklift was a highlight. My time on the winery floor also gave me a greater perspective on how the science of chemistry directly relates to the art and flat-out hard work that it takes to make great wine. I think the best example is that Three Sticks harvests its grapes in 40lb bins, unlike most wineries that use one-ton bins. People think we’re crazy. They have a nickname for our bins – I won’t share here. Yes, it takes much longer to harvest and then process from 40lb bins, but the pay off comes in the quality of gently handling the fruit. Instead of feeling frustrated by the extra hours, I actually experienced a sense of pride like I’ve never felt before anywhere else.

Three Sticks: Don, any final thoughts?

Don: Right now, everything is looking very good for 2012. We’ve got a bit more fruit and some new sources in tank and barrels -- and cement eggs -- so this will help with tight allocations for our growing number of friends and fans. In the end, as is always the case, a vintage will take time to truly reveal itself – and this is just one of the many reasons we love the challenge of making great wine.

CLICK HERE to join our Allocation List.

We also encourage you to reach out to our new Hospitality Director Hayden Schmidter with any questions concerning allocations and future releases at Hayden@ThreeSticksWines.com.

One of the most important touchstones of Three Sticks Wines is our ongoing quest for excellence in everything we pursue, embrace and create. This includes the people who make up our team, how we farm our vineyards, how we make our wines. We are certainly a winery with the commitment and resources to pursue excellence, however, like any burgeoning enterprise we must prioritize and take balanced steps to ensure our sustainability and to never sacrifice quality.

In our early years, this meant gathering our team, refining our vineyard practices and plantings, and focusing on state-of-the-art, handcrafted winemaking. With these leading priorities in place, we have now moved forward in securing our home for hospitality in the historic town of Sonoma, California. Of course, it came to no one’s surprise here at Three Sticks that proprietors Bill and Eva Price combined this search with a greater vision – to find a home that reflected our aesthetic and the experience of enjoying our wines, while also making an important contribution to the community.

So, it is with great excitement that we share the news that Three Sticks Wines has acquired The Vallejo-Casteñada Adobe, located just off the town square, and considered one of the oldest occupied residences in Sonoma. We will relocate our administrative offices to the property in early 2013, and use the existing dining room and living room to host private tastings by appointment only for our allocation members (we will not be open for public tastings), as well as to provide a space for displaying items of local historical interest on both a permanent and rotating basis.

We hope you will take a few moments of your valuable time to CLICK HERE and read the historical overview of The Vallejo-Casteñada Adobe written by former owner and resident, Robert C. Demler, Jr. If you are like us, you will find the prospect of being inside the Adobe -- to share wines with friends and personally experience the building’s deep historical connection to early European California -- both humbling and inspirational. We look forward to the day when we raise a glass together to celebrate goals achieved, and a small slice of our past preserved. Cheers!

The Three Sticks Team

Posted Sketch by Jon Dodge

Thursday, November 1st: Dallas/Fort Worth Dinner Event at Del Frisco's Double Eagle Steakhouse. Dinner currently sold out. However, if interested in attending, CLICK HERE to contact Michelle to see if there is any flexibility.

Thursday, November 8th: Three Sticks Release Party for our VIP allocation members. You know who you are! For inquiries, CLICK HERE to contact Michelle.

…Stay tuned for Dinner at San Ysidro Ranch in Santa Barbara - Early 2013.

Friday, April 5th SAVE THE DATE: Celebrate San Francisco Giant's Opening Day with Three Sticks at Paragon Restaurant in SF.

Holiday 2012 - Give the Gift of Three Sticks this Holiday Season! We have put together an incredible offering of our wines to make your holiday shopping easy. More to follow soon! For inquiries, CLICK HERE to contact Michelle.

Winter 2013 - 2010 Pinots and 2009 Bordeauxs. We have two incredible vineyard designated pinots - Durell Vineyard and Silver Eagle Vineyard from the Green Valley/Russian River Valley that will be released in early 2013 along with our righteous 2009 Sonoma Valley Cabernet and 2009 Cabernet Franc. Don't miss these small-lot releases -- CLICK HERE to join our Allocation List.

As always, thank you for enjoying our wines with us. It makes our work incredibly gratifying!

The Three Sticks Team

In Wine Country, harvest is a time of great excitement, anticipation, and frankly, blood, sweat, and tears. The recipe of ingredients in this emotional elixir changes with each vintage, dictated by what Mother Nature has delivered upon the vineyard managers and the winemakers. With some vintages, additional components are added, such as gut wrenching anxiety and outright fear of total loss.

Yes, growing and making wine is, at its very heart, farming.

For those of us who simply consume this beautiful juice — which many cultures consider a gift from the gods — harvest inspires visits to wine country to take in the sights, sounds and smells of fruit laden vineyards, crush pads bustling with winemaking teams, and the alluring scent of fresh pressed grapes and dense, oak barrels. For the overtly serious wine drinker, we seek out the most informed folks on the ground to prognosticate on the quality of the vintage at hand.

So, considering all of the above, we peeled away from our daily desk chores and headed out to Durell Vineyard to see how everything was shaping up for Harvest 2012. The drive through Sonoma Valley in most cases is reward enough, but when you know that you have an invitation to pass through the main gate at Durell, where so many great winemakers have clearance, the drive takes on new meaning — like a backstage pass.

We meet Viticulturalist and Assistant Vineyard Manager Jackie Mancuso in the tractor barn, jump onto a ranch grade ATV, roll out through the lower streambed vineyards, and up into the foothills overlooking the valley. We ask how the vintage is looking so far. “We’ve picked for our sparkling wine client, with the grapes coming in at about 20 brix,” Jackie says in a very even-handed tone. “Everything for still wines will be ripe in the coming days and weeks, depending on where they’re located on the estate.”

As we listen to Jackie share her insight, we snap some photos of the panoramic views of the steep and sweeping vineyard scape and ripening Pinot Noir bunches. We note that she didn’t really answer the question.

“You know,” we pose, “the weather this spring and summer has really been beautiful. We’ve been hearing a bit of chatter that things look grea…good…so far.”

Jackie breaks eye contact and looks out over the Sonoma Valley. She appears to be restraining a smile, “we have no complaints.”

Yes, growing and making wine is, at its very heart, farming. And with this comes a bit of superstition and knowledge to never second-guess Mother Nature. We believe we have our unspoken answer to the potential of the 2012 vintage, but out of deference and respect to the people who will work nearly 24/7 over the next couple of months to bring in the grapes, we must hold onto our opinions and speak delicately around the subject.

Click here to join our allocation list.

Friday, August 31st: Three Sticks Winemaker Luncheon in the Field at Durell Vineyard. This event is part of the Sonoma Wine Country Weekend and currently SOLD OUT! If you are dying to see Durell and enjoy incredible eats prepared by Sondra Bernstein and her team, please email Michelle at midell@classicwinesllc.com as we’ve increased the luncheon for our allocation members only: 707-996-3328 ext. 105 Tickets are $85 through SWCW.

Saturday, September 1st: Taste of Sonoma at Sonoma Wine Country Weekend - We are excited to be a part of the upcoming Sonoma Wine Country Weekend! This event brings together over 180 world class wineries with more than 70 chefs for a three day event that celebrates the best of Sonoma County. As a valued customer, and through our partnership with Sonoma Wine Country Weekend, we have a limited number of Taste of Sonoma and Sonoma Valley Harvest Wine Auction tickets available to you at our participating winery price. To take advantage, enter promo code: WINECLUB at the time of purchase. First come, first serve! Thank you for your support and we look forward to seeing you this Labor Day Weekend.

Sunday, September 2nd: Sonoma Valley Harvest Wine Auction – We are hosting a table! If you are planning to attend please call Michelle and she will see if we have room at the Three Sticks table for you to join us… Tickets are $500 through SWCW.

Thursday, September 13th: Three Sticks Release Party is being RESCHEDULED! More details following soon!

Winter - 2010 Pinots. We have three incredible pinots from 2010: Durell Vineyard, Silver Eagle Vineyard from the Green Valley/Russian River Valley and a second release of the extremely popular JAMES from the Sta. Rita Hills AVA.

As always thank you for enjoying our wines with us. It makes our work incredibly gratifying!

The Three Sticks Team

We are excited to announce that we are releasing TWO Chardonnays from Durell along with our 2010 Pinot Blanc. For the first time ever we will be releasing a Barrel-Free Chardonnay, that we affectionately call ORIGIN, in addition to our Barrel-Fermented and Aged Chardonnay. 

It is particularly thrilling to have new allocation members request to join our list nearly every day. Allocations for future releases will be carefully managed so we can fully supply you with the wines you desire. Additionally, we've created a top tier for those customers who have demonstrated their love for our Chardonnay to whom we can offer a bit of a larger allocation.

Click here to join our allocation list today!

Now we invite you to hear from proprietor Bill Price about Durell Vineyard and these two beautiful Chardonnays in our featured video below!

Three Sticks Wines invites you to join us and our neighborhood of winery friends for the 2012 summer edition of the Bi-Annual 8th Street Open House happening Saturday, August 4th from 11am to 4pm in Sonoma, California. Regular tickets are $35 advance / $45 at door and are available on the 8th Street Wineries' website www.eighthstreetwineries.com.

Your ticket includes all tastings and pairings at nine wineries, as well as a souvenir wine glass and the chance to win a half case of wine. If you're on our allocation list, make sure to check your recent offer letter to get your discount code!

At Three Sticks, we've got quite a day planned for our guests. Along with releasing our 2010 Durell Vineyard Chardonnay -- following the Wine Spectator's tremendous review naming Three Sticks one of the top 30 Chardonnay producers in California -- we're also introducing our first Barrel-Free Chardonnay that we affectionately call ORIGIN. In addition, our 2008 Sonoma Valley Cabernet Sauvignon will be on the table, with all our featured wines paired with delicious bites.

Click here to join our allocation list!

See you there!

Audi Proudly Presents
An Evening on the Beach
Featuring Ten Extraordinary Los Angeles Chefs on the Beach
More Info and Tickets: www.eveningonthebeach.com

Thursday, July 28
Jonathan Beach Club, Santa Monica
Benefitting St. Vincent Meals on Wheels

St. Vincent Meals on Wheels will be the sole beneficiary of An Evening On The Beach.  The Los Angeles-based non-profit serves over 4,700 meals a day, 365 days a year. Annually, over 1.1 million meals are prepared and delivered to people in Los Angeles, including homebound senior citizens, disabled and terminally ill patients and homeless adults and children.  www.stvincentmow.org

Back by popular demand, Sherry Yard brings her freshly made marshmallows, rich dark chocolate and graham crackers for an ultra-luxe version of S’mores, while delectable Kerrygold cheeses are featured on the charcuterie table along with Drago’s signature ciabatta. Master mixologists from the super hot Bar 1886 at The Raymond will be specially crafting two artisan cocktails perfect for a festive night on the beach.
 

Guest Chefs: Celestino Drago, Drago, Drago Centro; Michael Fiorelli, Mar’sel, Terranea Resort; Mark Gold, Eva Restaurant; Tim Guiltinan, The Raymond; Michael McCarty, Michael’s; Joe Miller, Joe’s Restaurant; Mark Peel, Campanile, The Tar Pit; Piero Selvaggio, Valentino; Mako Tanaka, Robata-Ya; Sherry Yard, Spago.

Our Three Sticks 2008 and 2009 Durell Vineyard Chardonnays have received back-to-back scores of 93 points, which speaks to the article’s review citing that our Durell Chardonnays are “remarkably consistent.”

Three Sticks - ?Sonoma, ?Owner Bill Price taps his own star vineyard, Durell, for this wine. "Billy Three Sticks," a play on the more formal William Stanley Price III, started in 2002, calling on talented winemaker Don Van Staaveren, who worked with Durell grapes while at Chateau St. Jean. The wine is remarkably consistent, in a rich, creamy style.

Bill is also honored to note that within this top 30 list, William Hunter of Chasseur, Tor Kenward of Tor, and winemaker Steve Kistler of Kistler Vineyards also made the list with their 2009 and 2010 Durell Vineyard offerings. We would like to say a deep and inspired "THANK YOU!" To Rob Harris, Dir. of Vineyard Operations and Steve Hill, Founding Farmer and Developer of Durell for their incredible skill at farming that amazing vineyard and always bringing out the best in the fruit.

If you are not already on our allocation list for the release of our 2010 Durell Vineyard Chardonnay, we invite you to click here to put in your request.

Cheers!
The Three Sticks Team

When looking back at the evolution of Three Sticks Wines

At the risk of embarrassing Don and perhaps, overreaching, we’d like to draw some comparisons to past and current talents who have overcome remarkable odds to achieve greatness from both sides of their fields, so to speak. In the world of sports, especially in this day and age, Babe Ruth is unmatched. He was both a pitcher and power hitter. His lifetime averages: .228 ERA, .342 BA with 714 homeruns. In the domain of literature, it’s rare to find a person who can both write and illustrate with equal inspiration — one Beatrix Potter delivered us such a gift through her series of children’s books. We must also remind ourselves that she was a great land preservationist. And in the performing arts, Denzel Washington has consistently delivered great performances on both stage and screen.

Clearly, our point here is that Don has proven to be a winemaker with the rare talent to produce exceptional wines from both Burgundy and Bordeaux varietals, as well as having the palate (and team) to create refined and balanced blends. We invite you to revisit our recent blogs Three Sticks Cabernet Sauvignon & the Art of Blending - Part I & Part II. If you are already a fan of our Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs we’d like to entice you to crossover to the Bordeaux-varietal-side-of-life with our two latest releases…

2008 Three Sticks Cabernet Sauvignon
This wine expresses the bold richness and depth that draws people to great cabernets with a downright hedonistic mouth feel and sense of pure balance that is our signature at Three Sticks. It shows beautiful wild fruit, cassis and creamy spice on the nose, a silky mid-palate with complex blackberry, stone and continued creamy spice flavors through a long, layered finish. It drinks wonderfully right now, and as all Three Sticks Wines do, will continue to develop over the next 10+ years. This wine is available in very limited quantities with only 238 cases made.

2008 Three Sticks Malbec
The headiness and exotic hibiscus qualities of this Malbec are arresting. The sweet dark cherry and raspberry tea palate: gorgeous — transitioning to a long, persistent finish supported by great structure and the Three Sticks characters of texture, balance and richness. A mere 44 cases were produced.

To order CLICK HERE and enter your login and password to review your allocation and place an order. If you're still thirsty for more information on our 2008 Three Sticks Cabernet Sauvignon, check out our video below with Prema Behan and winemaker Don Van Staaveren.