We will be at Estate on the West patio from 6-9pm, pouring Pepperwood Grove’s Big Green Box wines – Cabernet Sauvignon, Old Vine Zinfandel, Chardonnay, and Pinot Grigio. Please RSVP, as there is limited space! All attendees must be 21 years or older.

Can’t wait to see you all! Look for a post with pics and videos from the night on Monday!

Now, why in the world am I doing a blog post on vegan wine you may ask? Well, I was contacted by a fan on Twitter the other day asking me if our wines were vegan. The first thing I thought was…well, its wine…made from grapes…how could it NOT be vegan?? But a quick google search and an email to our winemaker told me otherwise. And it has to do with finings.

Finings are substances used in winemaking usually at or near the end of the winemaking process where the winemaker adds an agent to the wine that binds to and removes organic particles, yeasts, etc., to improve clarity or adjust the flavor and aroma. Finings are usually derived from animals – such as gelatin, isinglass, chitosan, casein and egg albumen – thus making the wine not vegan. The finings and other matter are of course removed and filtered out of the wine before its bottled, but  I suppose (guessing, I’m not vegan) because the wine came in contact with an animal derived product it’s no longer considered vegan.

We are doing an interview about vegan wine and how to taste wine for this fan on Twitter, so look for a link to that soon!

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!