Here are a few pictures from this morning in Clarksburg. Yes, the shadow in these pics are yours truly. This shows you how we harvest this vineyard. The machine harvester has short paddles that gently knock the grapes and clusters off the vine and onto a conveyer belt. The conveyer belt moves the grapes into a bin that collects the grapes. Then from this bin, the grapes are loaded onto trucks that come to our custom crush facility that process the grapes under our supervision. All of this happens in the dark at nite mostly, as we start picking at 2am when the grapes are nice and cold. Just thougth I would show you all the technology that we utilize in our production. I think it is cool and hope you do too!!!
Several weeks ago, our winemaker Greg Kitchens and Jack Meyer went up to Walla Walla, Washington for the fourth annual Wine Bloggers Conference. This is quite the event! The process is a bit like speed-dating, you are presenting to approximately 25 tables of 8-10 people with about 5 minutes addressing each table and a 2 minute rotation between tables. It’s a fun format and the wine bloggers really do a great job tweeting and blogging about the wines. There’s a live interactive “tweet” board at the front of the room where everybody can see all the posts that are happening in real time. Luckily, we poured 3 phenomenal wines, so the real time reviews were in our favor! The first wines we poured were the new Pepperwood Grove “Big Green Box” Chardonnay (3 liter format) and our 2009 Crusher Rose of Pinot Noir. The second day we poured our popular 2008 Crusher Petite Sirah, the bloggers loved it!
Check out some of these pics and video…
Hear Greg’s funny voice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yevIsPY1xIM
This is also the time of the season where your winemaking team starts making regular visits into the vineyards to make sure our crop is being grown correctly and manicured appropriately. We had one block of Pinot Noir this year that has been a bit of a struggle. This block was very vigorous (rapid growth) and it was complicated further by a vineyard crew that missed some vital pruning. So we made the decision to open up the canopy (the leaf coverage above the fruit) and prune a few extra shoots of each vine which should concentrate the vine’s efforts. At this same time, we also asked that the grower drops a considerable volume of crop in order to get the vines back in balance. As you can see in the pictures attached, the fruit is spaced out for good airflow and opened up for some sunlight on the fruit.
And as you can see as well, we had the grower drop a lot of fruit on the ground to make sure the remaining fruit gets the concentration we desire for our Smoking Loon and Crusher Pinot Noir programs. It seems like a shame to drop this fruit but it is what is required for quality winemaking in the cellar. You will also see that the Pinot Noir is starting to turn color known as veraison. This is our indicator that these vines are changing their efforts from berry growth to berry ripening. This block should be approaching perfect ripeness in 45-60 days all depending on the weather.
Wish us luck as harvest is upon us.
As the in-house web designer, I have been in charge of the design of the new web pages. One of the concepts I drew up included a nice large “portfolio” shot – a pretty photograph of our top brands – but we didn’t have a current one. So, we set an appointment with photographer Rick Mariani in Vallejo, and I spent the whole morning with him getting the perfect shot. Photo shoots are one of my favorite things to do – I got to direct the Mia’s Kitchen shoot last year, and helped with Flock and The Crusher – and I was very excited to get to work on a photo shoot solely for a project of my own.
Rick’s studio was much different then the one I visited before in San Francisco where we shot Mia’s Kitchen, Flock, and The Crusher. It’s an old grocery store – big windows (blocked out though of course) and flat concrete floors, a very open space. I was really impressed with (read: drooling over) his photo equipment – he was shooting with a Mamiya RZ67 hooked up to his Mac, two large softboxes, flash, and a spotlight. I had fun looking though his room of surfaces, backdrops and props and selecting the ones I thought would go best for the feel I was trying to create – welcoming, comfortable, warm tones. Here are some behind the scenes photos:
A view from behind the camera
Rick, adjusting the camera for a shot
Each shot immediately loads onto the computer screen so we can get a preview and closeup of the shot
another angle - you can see the lighting setup better.
The final product!
Ok, so the highlight of my trip is hard to pinpoint. Saturday was Wrigley Field for a Cubs game versus the White Sox…check! 
I don’t know what was better, the exclusively Wrigley/Chicago Old Style beer, the baseball, or the exceptionally clean urinals! That’s right, I said urinals. Check it out, if you’ve ever been to Chicago, you’ve probably noticed how clean the city is in general…”dirty” politicking = less red tape = clean city…who knew! It’s amazing, it spills over into the 95+ year-old Wrigley Field bathrooms…I’m not complaining…the less I know the better, right?!
So, let’s move on….after a few drinks at the Cubby Bear in Wrigleyville, it was dinner time with my co-worker, Kari, at Kumas in Chicago. This was a pretty cool spot…biker bar, death metal, good food, great burgers…it doesn’t get any better! That’s their specialty, stick with it if you go, you won’t be disappointed. That evening was capped with a cocktail at the top of the John Hancock building. 95 stories in the sky, a Glenlivet on the rocks and a sunset view overlooking all of Chicago and beyond. Definitely do this if you’re in Chicago, don’t miss the opportunity! 
Oh, I lied, the final final night cap of the evening was a nice display of nude bikers trekking down the Chicago streets…mostly bad news my friends, a sight I could have gone without. Oh Chicago, you stole my heart that night….
Sunday was a full day of fun as well. Walking around the city on Miracle Mile, an architecture tour down the river (highly recommended), blues festival in Century Park and dinner at Gibsons (get ready for some serious food). Lunch was great as well, Chicago-style pizza @ Giordanos….amazing! They even had Pepperwood Grove Zinfandel on the menu…now a must-do for everybody visiting Chicago!
Monday and Tuesday were all business as I was in town for a Father’s Day survey to support our national program. We saw many different accounts around Chicago and the surrounding cities….Woodman’s, Binny’s, Whole Foods, numerous liquor stores and, my favorite, Angelo Caputo’s. If I ever own a grocery store, I am using this name….classic! The stores looked great and were all supporting our brands. It was good to see the Father’s Day point-of-sale up in the marketplace and it looked sharp.
Ray Isle's Burgers and Wine Pairing
Just got back from a great week in Aspen at the Food & Wine Classic. Productive week meeting with members of the wine trade (wholesalers and restauranteurs) but especially fun as a consumer. Amazing opportunities to drink and eat and educate myself. Especially fun was Ray Isle (of F&W mag) hosting a burgers and red wine pairing. Three burgers…each paired with one Napa wine and one Sonoma wine. Sonoma wines won all three straw polls!
Friday was (a small amount of) work, Saturday was lots of leisure. A morning hike and an afternoon Gondola ride up to the top of the mountain (11,800 ft) were sandwiched around a day full of wine tasting. If you have the chance, I highly recommend checking out Aspen F&W – It is like a very upscale, grown-up, fraternity party.
Sunday, I jumped on a couple of airplanes to get home for a leisurely Fathers’ Day. A trip to Train Town with Dad and my two boys and off to Mom and Dad’s for Dinner. For work, we put much effort into a Fathers’ Day marketing campaign, so it was nice to have the opportunity to relax and enjoy the day.
View from the gondola looking back at the town of Aspen. Extremely scary trip.
A bear track the size of my foot seen on our morning hike. Also extremely scary.
Writing a blog is not normally what you would fine me doing– I am usually knee-deep in the more visual type of creative work. As the manager of the in-house Creative team here at Don & Sons, I work with a great team of very talented designers who work on everything from outdoor signage, in-store pos, ads, websites and yes, wine labels! Almost every Don & Sons label is or has been designed in-house. Designing the new wine packages is a lot of fun and a lot of work, and it has been nothing less than a balancing act to keep all the projects moving along and still hitting deadlines.
We also support our national sales team and their requests for a variety of projects, from regional ads to customized sell sheets to coupon programs. In addition, Creative works with our Brand Management team on regional and national promotions. Our in-house web designer keeps things fresh and new on our site. The list could go on and on.
So this summer, the team is really excited because we added a much needed production artist to our department. Although part-time for now, she is a huge help. And an additional creative eye is always welcome.
We are all very fortunate to work on what we really love, and to work for a family who understands what we do and fully supports the process – even when some or our ideas seem wackier than theirs!
Welcome Tami, from the Creative Team, Chris, Leah, Zhuomei and myself and from everyone at Don & Sons.
-Marna Moretti, Creative Services Director
Before Sunday though, Sean Riebli (good looking guy in the pic below) and I poured B Side, Aquinas, Flock, and The Crusher at Vegas Uncork’d at Caesar’s Palace, sponsored by Bon Appetit. What a great event. 
While we were one of 25 wineries pouring wine that night, the spotlight was on the incredible array of high end restaurants serving up little samples. There was also a celebrity chef book signing, with Hubert Keller (Burger Bar in SF), Cat Cora (Iron Chef) and Charlie Palmer (Aureole at Mandalay Bay), among others. The people there were fantastic, the restaurants and wineries there were phenomenal, I saw Bobby Flay and took a really lousy picture of him, Wolfgang Puck said hi… it was a really good time for all. Vegas is a wild place, but events like these are worth coming out to even if you’re not a gambler (like myself). Laura Prepon (Donna from “That 70s Show”) was hanging out and had a great time as well. Big shout out to Bon Appetit and Elise Luquette for putting the weekend of events together, and for the kind (and affordable!) invitation.
I capped off my quick stay in Vegas with an afternoon watching my little cousins play soccer. Yes, people do actually live in Vegas! It was a great chance for me to both pour some wine and see some family that I don’t get to visit very often. And my little cousins rock at soccer! 
After a busy weekend in Vegas and with family, I’m happy to be back in Sonoma. Looking outside now, it looks like the strange, windy May storm has let up — we’ll have to post soon on the wild weather we’ve had so far this year! Maybe we can get Greg to talk about the 2010 growing season and how he expects this season’s wines to turn out. He’s certainly excited about his new rosé! Until then — drop us a comment and let us know what you did for Mother’s Day!
Cheers, Mike