12.18
When Im not working, my passions are riding my horse or taking photographs.
I just turned 21 recently. A relief more than anything, because I work at a wine company and all my friends are over 21. I can finally start to really explore this business! I work in the Don & Sons marketing office as the webmaster. I keep the website updated, the blog moderated, the facebook account fresh, and the internal web portal up to date and running smoothly. I also work with the graphic designers, occasionally direct photography shoots, and even designed the new label for Mia’s Kitchen.
I grew up here in Sonoma County, Napa’s little sister, but still great wine country. Driving past acres and acres of vineyards is as normal as seeing a sky scraper to a city person; you don’t even notice. But I recently had the opportunity to see the vineyards a little differently. Well, for one, they were in Paso Robles, a AVA with a rich history of grape growing dating back to the late 1700′s, and located approximately halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Donny Sebastiani and Greg Kitchens (winemaker) invited a few of us from Marketing to go on a little field trip to SVP Winery, one of our suppliers for Smoking Loon, Pepperwood Grove, Flock and others. A brand new experience for me, we got to tour the facility and taste new wines, fresh from the tanks. We tried a couple whites (cloudy still, and green tasting – in the most raw form I could imagine) and a handful of reds (thick and juicy and nicely acidic) with both Kitchens and SVP’s winemaker, Jason Bushang, commenting and discussing the wines in very serious wine geek talk — its like a different language. Sam Balakian, owner of SVP, has been a supplier to the Sebastiani’s for many many years — he remembers selling wine to August Sebastiani, Donny’s grandfather.
After returning to town, we all met up at the hotel bar for drinks with some of our distributors from Young’s Market Company. The night continued at Villa Creek, where we dined for a good four hours on amazing food, fantastic wine, and enjoyed some really awesome conversation and company.
Below you can see some photos from the trip. Happy holidays everyone!
Leah – Nice photos and blog…thanks for sharing!
Great blog, Leah. I just figured I would chime in to explain the “wine geek” talk from the winemaking perspective. As the winemaker for Don and Sons, I wanted to make sure our team has a good understanding of these wines and where they are made. The wines we tasted in Paso Robles were all fantastic. Probably our best vintage in Paso to date. The wines were also very young, coarse, and still completely out of balance. But this is the reason why wine is aged before it is released. It is like simmering your pasta sauce after adding all the ingredients. You give it time to come around and become harmonious. Just you wait until these 2009 vintage Paso wines hit the bottle, these will be some great wines from our portfolio. Enjoy the wine, we will make more!!
Sincerely, Greg Kitchens
Leah, it sounds like an educational experience that included history of the Don Sebastiani Family, as well as the winemaking process and ended with wine and food. Something we all love and relate to.