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Grand Opening

Jan05
2010 Leave a Comment Written by admin

I’m not sure exactly what made me think of it today, but I got to thinking about how orders of magnitude effect us at Uncorked Ventures.

To explain more fully, today is Uncorked Ventures official grand opening. We’ve sent emails to both our personal databases as well as our interest list

Ok, so if you’re wondering what an order of magnitude is…..most people know it in terms of how earthquakes are measured (at least here in California) as a magnitude 7 is 10 times greater then a magnitude 6.

So before our official launch we received an order from our father in law/mother in law, which was very nice of them and made them our first official customer.

Today we started receiving orders about 10 minutes of sending out our list. I’ve been asked by a few people about my goals etc for the clubs.

This is where orders of magnitude come in. 10 wine club members in the near future is a good start. 100 wine club members makes us think that we’re really getting there and that this business will be a huge success. 1,000 members is beyond all expectations.

Matt and I have tried to keep a clear head about our expectations, but we realize how blessed we are to have the opportunity and support to take this journey together. I am sure it will be an interesting ride over the next couple of months with plenty of emotions on all sides, but today I am incredibly happy and hopeful for the future of Uncorked Ventures.

Thank you all for all your support. To my family and friends I truly would not be where I am without you.

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Happy New Year!

Jan04
2010 Leave a Comment Written by admin

Happy New Year-Feliz Ano Nuevo!

I’ve been thinking quite a bit the past few days about what I want to continue talking about as business at Uncorked Ventures changes forever in the next few days. Given the new year I considered writing about some of my goals for the new year whether those are business related (wine club members, export time tables) or interpersonal (blogging more often, continuing to be open about our business) or even personal.

I realized after watching Julie and Julia with my wife that one of the reasons people are interested in blogs is because they give you some insight into a person’s life. I don’t ever want this space to become a corporate blog that sounds like a series of press releases or marketing pieces. Frankly, when I see those types of blogs I don’t go back and read them ever again. A generation ago being able to interact in this type of medium was unheard of, but why not embrace it completely?

So, in short order some of my resolutions for the new year:

-To blog each work day, even if it is 5 sentences long.

-To interact with my readers more, what are you interested in hearing about this business?

-To continue building lasting friendships.

-To appreciate all that my wife does each and every day.

-To Export a container of wine at some point in 2010.

-To build a wine club list of the most satisfied members in the industry.

Ok, so what are we doing today? Fun stuff actually, we’re working to set up our affiliate program. Excuse the marketing talk for a while but an affiliate program is basically a way for a web based company to gain a sales force that you pay only based on sales (commission basically).

In this case, if you find an Uncorked Ventures wine club or wine gift that you like by coming through a different site, like the Wine Club Directory we pay that website owner a commission.

It’s a simple set up and frankly we’re excited to get started. Given our ability to purchase wine directly from wineries, instead of going through a distributor like most, if not all of, our competitors we can offer affiliates a generous commission without sacrificing quality to our customers.

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A fun day…at the happiest place on earth.

Dec23
2009 Leave a Comment Written by admin

A fun couple of days.

I always enjoy getting the chance to spend time with family, especially those that live so far away. On Monday I had the chance to go to Disneyland with most of my family, including my brother in laws first time. We had a good time, it was a long day with long lines(over 2 hours for Space Mountain, just to have it break down as we got to the front) but the park is always fun to see around Christmas when they go all out for decorations.

11:30pm after a full day at Disneyland

It’s an advantage to living in Southern California that I can get in the car and drive for the day-especially when family is in from out of the country.

At Uncorked Ventures we’re doing a series of tastings over the next week or so which should lead to some interesting blogs once things settle down after the holiday season.

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Crazy Week…..OVER

Dec18
2009 Leave a Comment Written by admin

What a crazy week.

So I attended what has been a holiday tradition for my wife and I for some time last night, La Pastorella here in San Diego.

Pastorela

For those who don’t know what a pastorella is, it is basically the semi-religious or very religious(depending on the version) story of the shepards going to witness the birth of Jesus.

We peculiarly like this version for a couple of reasons. To start it’s the 2nd longest running holiday live play in San Diego, next to the Nutcracker. Secondly and most importantly it is incredibly well written poking fun at events of the past year. This year included a few jabs at Sarah Palin, a Michael Jackson impersonator and by far the most talented cast I’ve seen them have. It’s a humorous look back at the year, which is something that my wife and I enjoy quite a bit.

Over at Uncorked Ventures we’re still working on the new version of our website. Of course, there are plenty of database constraints that we’ve had to work out including everything from shipping prices per state to which couriers to use to deliver wine to each state.

It’s a long process, but one I’m comfortable with the progress we’ve made, especially the past few days. It’s an exciting time!

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A First, Podcast Review of 2 Wines

Dec15
2009 Leave a Comment Written by admin

Carlisel and Audelssa Podcast Review

Please let me know what you think about my first Podcast review of Audelssa’s Reserve Cab and a Carlisle Zinfandel.

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A Nice Information Site

Dec11
2009 Leave a Comment Written by admin

So one of the things I’ve looked for personally as well as professionally for Uncorked Ventures, for some time is a truly great vintage chart. Not every time that I’m in a wine store I’m going to remember if 2005 was a good year for Merlot in Australia. I stumbled on a nice chart over at Enobytes which also provides a lot of quality tools for the wine lover in all of us, including 90+ point wines under $20….which is always an area people are interested in.

Check them out. Their vintage chart that I was so impressed with.

I think you’ll appreciate their conversational style as well as their willingness to interact with readers through email, their forum and even video.

Have a great weekend.

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Tonight is Gonna Be a Good, Good Night

Dec10
2009 Leave a Comment Written by admin

Or today is the day as the case may be.

So today our first official shipment went out to a corporate wine gift client. Frankly speaking it’s hard to believe we’re here already. It’s been a whirlwind 48 hours or so, trying to create a newsletter and get it printed on such short notice is no small task.

smiley face

It’s an exciting day at Uncorked Ventures for more then that one reason though.

Secondly our web developer is making huge progress on the site. He’s got the thing basically built on the new server and we’re just waiting to cross the t’s and dot the i’s so to speak by making sure the front end of the store, the payment processor and the back end inventory model are all talking to each other correctly. I look back at the basic site we have up now and it reminds me how far we’ve come since July. Back then I was stressing out about how we’d be able to accept payments on a subscription basis-if Paypal could do it, if not how do you integrate the shopping cart etc……I will definitely be the happiest guy around when the site is completed, on its new server and looks incredibly professional. It will also be nice to have that off of my plate so to speak. If I don’t have to play a web developer full time again, I’ll probably be happier for it and Uncorked Ventures will be more successful because of it as well.

Thank you all for reading. Much more to come, especially with the full scale launching coming up soon.

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Spammers, Ugh

Dec09
2009 Leave a Comment Written by admin

Ugh….Spammers have found my blog.

So I awoke today to 65+ spam comments on my blog. I had a good laugh at some of the stuff people thought were going to be ok…..I’m not interested in men’s Gucci shoes, prescription drugs, cheap handbags or even male enhancement. Ok, small rant over, but come on spammers if you’re going to take the time to leave a comment at least act like you’ve read the post first, ok?

As for Uncorked Ventures we continue to work with our web development team to have our new site up and running as soon as humanly possible. Getting the back end to work correctly is taking a while longer then we initially thought, but the end result will certainly be worth the wait.

We’ve also begun to write/craft our initial newsletter that will be going out to the corporate gift orders we’ve received, plus a little bonus to everyone on our interest list that signs up for one of our wine clubs.

It’s a fun time and I’m very much looking forward to January when we get to do it all for real, for the first time.

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New Zealand Wine

Dec08
2009 Leave a Comment Written by admin

At Uncorked Ventures we are often asked to provide a quick primer on different wine regions and how to select wine. What varietals are best known from each region, is a very common question. I hope you enjoy this short primer on wine from New Zealand.

New Zealand Wine:

It has been some time since New Zealand burst onto the wine scene in the 1980′s with their Sauvignon Blanc, which at the time was a complete revelation in comparison to the oak/butter flavor profiles being proliferated by California Chardonnay. At the time their focus on high acidity to keep flavors on the palate for the longest possible time was a unique winemaking event.

New Zealand wine photo 1

What makes wine from New Zealand interesting and unique today you ask? The terroir as the French would say. New Zealand is the most southern wine growing region in the world today. They site approximately the same distance from the equator that Washington State sits north of it, for comparison. This distance from the equator gives the winemakers some unique aspects to build on. Grapes often lose acidity during warm summer days, however in New Zealand their temperature still drops quite severely at night year around, so the grapes actually gain acidity at night. This dichotomy gives the wines their higher acidity and allows for more intense flavor profiles because the grapes can be left on the vine well into the fall without as high of risk as you’d have in other regions. Additionally, as a long thin island(or two island for that matter) nation these natural temperature changes are emphasized by the lands interaction with the ocean.

Kiwi Photo 2

New Zealand follows the lead of the United States and other new world wine producers by labeling their wine by varietal. To carry a label of Cabernet Sauvignon for example, the wine needs to include at least 75% Cabernet Sauvignon. Winemakers in New Zealand often will go farther then that though, they typically only label their wines as single varietals if they are 100% of that varietal, for example 100% Cabernet Sauvignon. Additionally if more then one varietal is used they list them in decreasing order which makes rational sense, but is fairly unique in the wine world.

One area many wine drinkers do wish New Zealand would upgrade their regulations comes with the use of place names. Although there are no laws currently acitve regarding place names, unlike the United States New Zealand winemakers typically list the place as where the grapes were grown.

Ok, so what do they grow? New Zealand grows the typical cast of characters in the wine world. Almost all New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc carries the traditional style from the 1980′s and the winemakers of the region have taken that success and transferred it to other wines. Specifically the Kiwi’s do quite well with Riesling, Pinot Gris and Chardonnay. Red wine varietals are not as well thought of internationally, but the opportunity is there to make some truly outstanding Pinot.

In conclusion, if you’re looking to try a wine from New Zealand, try a white wine and specificaly a Sauvignon Blanc. I’ll bet you’ll be happy you did as the acidity and flavor profiles may be quite different than you are used to.

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Permits Happen While You’re Sick Sometimes

Dec03
2009 Leave a Comment Written by admin

So you know the old phrase life is what happens while you’re making plans? I got a little bit of a taste of that over the past week or two, seems to be the way things work with Uncorked Ventures lol!

Thanksgiving was quite nice and we enjoyed a few standout bottles of wine including a Copain with our Thanksgiving meal, as well as Audelssa reserve Cab and a Carlisle Zinfandel. All quite good, as well as some chepos from Trader Joe’s.

I mention life happening while we’re making plans becuase it seems as if we’ve been waiting forever for alcohol beverage control to approve our permits here in California. Well it finally happened on Monday, however my enjoyment of the day was dampened because I was feeling AWFUL. We’re talking 101 fever, sick to stomach etc etc. Funny how you wait so long and then the day comes and instead of being re-energized to really get to work….you’re stuck in bed sleeping 18+ hours on both Monday and Tuesday.

Luckily I’m feeling quite a bit better today, glad to have fought off the stomach flu because I literally have tons to do, marketing pieces, more SEO (which never ends), talking with wineries and other within the industry etc etc.

I should have a couple of actual wine reviews over the next couple of days.

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A trip to Sony Pictures for my better half

Nov20
2009 Leave a Comment Written by admin

To effectively answer the question posed on my previous post, you’re looking at a mechanical harvester. I have never seen one running in person because the wineries we work with are generally smaller and most, if not all, believe in sorting slower and by hand. Wine is a labor intensive process, which is generally not as glamorous as the general public believes.

I was reminded of my first impressions of the wine industry by a conversation with my wife yesterday after she returned from a day long tour of Sony Pictures with a group of her high school students. To start, yes not everything in movies is, as they appear which is similar to the wine industry. Things are often not as fancy, sophisticated and pretentious as they seem. I know she enjoyed her trip and I appreciate Sony providing a scholarship for one of her very deserving students whom have overcome so much on their way to college. Very cool that she got to see some of the voiceover effects and part of the Spiderman 4 set being built, let alone being able to hold an academy award….which evidently is quite heavy.

The other thing on my mind from yesterday is the fact that California makes some really good wine. Last night we had part of a very cheap bottle of Merlot marked simply with the California AVA. For more information on AVA’s please click here. So often I think people forget that wine, improves from the company of both good people and good food. Although this bottle wasn’t anything I would ever suggest to a friend, or ship to a club member, we enjoyed it along with each others company.

I hope everyone has a nice weekend! As always please stop by and join our interest list over at Uncorked Ventures.

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Guess The Picture

Nov17
2009 Leave a Comment Written by admin

beast

So I recently came across this photo over at the BK Wines Blog, no cheating please-any guesses what we’re looking at?

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Epicuro Benevantano Aglianco 2007 Review from Trader Joe’s

Nov16
2009 Leave a Comment Written by admin

I’m often asked by people now when they find out that I’m starting a wine business, what the difference is between a great bottle of wine and some of the impersonators….which are good table wine, but not world class quality.

This weekend gave me a good example to use in that explanation. My wife and I were having dinner with someone who although he enjoys wine, perhaps his palate is not as sophisticated as others are at this time. For example he hates Pinot Noir, drops an ice cube in his white wine etc.

So we didn’t want to spend much on a bottle of wine to bring with us, but we wanted to have a drinkable bottle for ourselves at the same time. Over the years I’ve heard good things about the quality/price ratio offered by some of the wine carried at Trader Joe’s, so we thought we’d give it a try. As a plus since moving we’re now in walking distance of a pretty nice Trader Joe’s, which has an active wine selection.

A quick Google search took me to a wine blog dedicated to Trader Joe’s wine, Jason’s wine blog. It’s an impressive site, unlike a lot of wine blogs(this one included) he really gets to the point even offering top 10 lists of his favorite wine for each season at TJ’s. If you’re going to be buying a bottle of wine at TJ’s, I’d highly suggest giving his blog a quick glance…you’ll be glad you did.

Ok, so the selection was pretty picked over when we showed up(around 4pm on a Saturday) so we weren’t able to find anything that Jason had previously recommended as a Buy It….so we tried a label called Epicuro, which he has said he likes.

What we ended up with was the Benevantano Aglianico 2007. My overall impression was that it was worth the $5 we paid for it. On the nose it didn’t offer much, the overwhelming taste was a dark cherry, the texture was quite velvety which was nice. I’m sure a lot of people would describe the wine as smooth….given some of the more traditional Italian wines and their tendency to be overly tannic I was surprised by the bottle. Would I buy it again? Not really sure. Perhaps if we needed a 12th bottle to make a case, although I do think there are going to be other, better options even in that price range. It isn’t that I didn’t think the bottle was a good value, simply that it was neither interesting nor memorable. At any price range I want to have some experience with wine, so this bottle didn’t do it for me.

As always please visit us over at Uncorked Ventures. Have a great week!

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Copain Monument Tree Pinot Noir Review

Nov13
2009 Leave a Comment Written by admin

So I’ve been saving a specific bottle of wine to enjoy with my wife since my first trip to Napa and Sonoma after starting Uncorked Ventures, a Copain 2007 Monument Tree Pinot Noir.

I believe I’ve talked a little about Copain before in this space, but I am a fan of much of the wine they make and their winemaker Wells Guthrie. He has a rather unique style for the area and has really been at the forefront of pushing other winemakers to attempt to control the alcohol levels in their wine. Much of the wine that Copain makes ends up with alcohol content 1-2% lower then the competition. They’re able to do this by being very careful about where they source their grapes(usually colder climates) as well as how/when the fruit is harvested(middle of the night when possible to control heat transfer during fermentation).

From a business to business perspective I appreciate the way that they’ve treated us as a start up and as a consumer I greatly appreciate the fact that their wines occupy a range of prices starting at around $20 for their Tous Ensambles series. I do believe they leave some money on the table on a number of their wines which are sold in the $40-$50 range-which are consistently great values many scoring 90+ ratings from Parker and the Wine Entusiast.

Ok so about that Pinot…..as good as I remember it. In fact maybe a bit better given the 6 months or so of rest as well as the thirty minutes of decanting(yeah, yeah I know not ideal). On the nose it’s hard to pick up individual flavors, but it definitely is a dark berry type of smell. On the palate it is noticeably brighter then you’d imagine with cherry being the predominant flavor-the structure of the wine is quite good and really shows Wells ability as most Pinot’s don’t hold up this well.

Overall at around $50, to me it is a clear buy. I am an unapologetic Pinot Noir fan(both because of the flavor profiles and the story of the grape itself) which comes sometimes much to my business partner and father in laws dismay, but I will be interested in comparing this Pinot to some of the more highly hyped Oregon versions.

Lastly I would be remiss if I did not mention where the Monument Tree moniker comes from. Monument Tree is a vineyard about a two hour drive north of San Francisco. Since Copain aims to trim alcohol levels they source fruit from both the Central Coast of California(think on the ocean just north of Santa Barbara) as well as some of the cooler valley’s north of SF. As you can see Monument Tree vineyard is named after a redwood tree which still stands in the middle of the vineyard.

Monument Tree

As always thank you for reading-I look forward to making the announcement soon about our initial shipping date.

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A Short Rant on State/State Regulations and Big Wine Clubs That Don’t Care About Them

Nov11
2009 Leave a Comment Written by admin

One thing that I wasn’t aware of when I got into this wine business was how difficult, confusing and frustrating the state by state shipping laws were going to be,

Initially I thought that each state would have their own set of rules, we’d have to apply individually, but that given our status as a 3rd party wine club that only is selling for people to drink off site, things would be fairly straight forward. Let’s be honest we’re simply a warehouse which is at best having 5 interactions with loading/unloading per month, if I were a politician I would think that was a good business to have in my community, if you’re inclined to allow alcohol at all.

I know I’ve talked about this before and I certainly don’t intend to complain too much about each state, as I do realize that is a large part of the strength of the Republic I call home, however when we see state after state continue to tighten restrictions, it makes me ask….why?

Oklahoma, really? I can’t say I’ve ever had a wine from Oklahoma, but if a state wanted to try and protect its own wineries to stop the import of California wine, I’d at least hope it would be a state like Oregon(which is quite fair in their regulations) since they produce a ton of great wine in their own right. Even a state like Washington, again with some great wines, will only permit us if we have a warehouse space in the state….I don’t really like the rule, but hey I can understand it.

Part of the realizations about understanding the rules of each state brings me to our competitors like Sunset Wine Club…..which is not properly licensed. It seems a lot of the newspaper/magazine/charity wine clubs are simply putting their name on a club and having a 3rd party run the club for them since it means that they don’t think they need to be licensed. Unfortunately that isn’t the way the law reads, the alcohol beverage control agencies in both California and Virginia have clarified this as recently as June….now if they choose to enforce it is another matter(Sunset has said publicly that they aren’t worried). I hope they do simply because every company, big or small, should be playing by the same rules.

As always please come visit us over at Uncorked Ventures, we should have a brand new sparkeling version of the website here in a week or two!

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Again, it’s been too long

Nov10
2009 Leave a Comment Written by admin

So again it’s been too long since I gave an update on this blog. It’s been a busy couple of weeks for me personally as well as professionally.

On the work front Uncorked Ventures is still waiting for our final permits from the state of California. Government workers can sometimes frustrate me because I always feel that they aren’t necessarily as efficient as the business world typically is, but seeing how the increased work load has affected my wife, who is a high school counselor, I can appreciate that we’ll probably have to wait a week or two longer then we would have in other years because of the budget/personnel cuts that have hit the state.

We’re still having work done on a new version of the website, the preliminary sketches we’ve seen are exciting. I never had planned to have the quick version of the site that is up now be the final working version, the new version looks 1000x better (at least!) and will also help us to be able to better communicate with both customers and suppliers based on the back end upgrades that are taking place.

I’m also working on setting up a few jobs as a guest blogger to get the company name out there some more, as well as continuing to attempt to produce video as well as articles which can help us communicate with potential customers as well as find potential customers based on the SEO help that these things can provide.

Lastly I’m starting the process of setting up our affiliate program this week. It’s a complicated process, but if someone writes a nice review of our wine clubs on their directory site, or wine blog we’re happy to pay a commission based on any sales that come from that. Yes, our website will be able to track these type of things for us in unison with an affiliate network. Creating these marketing pieces is not something I’ve done before, but the work is both interesting and fun…..I think we’ll be able to create a compelling version of the company for anyone wishing to send customers our way.

On a personal note my wife and I moved last week which in affect put me out of commission for a few days. Good news: she’s closer to work which is great….the area is walkable and my commute is still about 10 feet from bedroom to office.

I have at least 10 wine reviews that need to be posted so I’ll be getting to those over the next few days, I hope!

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30 Days

Oct28
2009 Leave a Comment Written by admin

So it’s been too long since my last blog and I have tons to write about including the red wines from our tasting panel. The past couple weeks has been busy, we’re officially at the 30 day mark of waiting today with ABC(alcohol beverage control for those not in the industry, not the tv network) which is exciting because we could be permitted and shipping any day now.

More updates as time comes available, but it has been nice to have my business partner in San Diego for a few days which has given us the opportunity to get some stuff done face to face which is a welcomed change.

I hope you all are doing well.

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Tasting Event Notes, White Wine

Oct12
2009 Leave a Comment Written by admin

This past Friday night was the first of what we hope will be a series in tasting events brought to you by Uncorked Ventures. We had planned this evening with the help of our friends Sarah and Chris to bring together a group of their friends who are self professed wino’s in an effort to legitimize the choices that Matt and I have begun to make about the wines that we’d like to source in our first few shipments.

Tasting Photos 001Tasting Photos 002Tasting Photos 004Tasting Photos 005

To start we’d like to say a short thank-you to Sarah and Chris for hosting and providing food-it’s was a nice event and we hope to do it again sometime soon when schedules allow.

We had a group of about ten people tasting, we tasted everything blind in combination with appetizers that included prosciutto wrapped figs, bread, cheeses and other various items…all of which were very good.

We started the evening offering two different Napa Valley Chardonnay’s. The first was purchased from Beverages and More for around $22, it was a 2005 Bouchaine Napa Valley Chardonnay. The second was a free sample sent to me from Prime Vineyards in Napa. Prime sent over their 2008 Chardonnay.

The Prime Chardonnay came out with a score about 5% better than the Bouchaine.

We asked everyone to score each wine on sight(2pts), aroma(5pts), taste(9pts) and overall quality(4pts).

Prime scored 1 point better in total than Bouchaine on average per taster, however most people thought that although Prime had the potential to be a much, much better Chardonnay it was too young to be a real winner. Additionally, although the nose of the wine was outstanding, the taste was too tropical for most people’s tastes. We came to an agreement that both wines were probably being oversold by a few dollars.

To me, I see a lot of potential in the Prime Chardonnay. Yes, the flavors are complicated, but given their success with the wine’s nose and their Cabernet Sauvignon (coming later) it is a wine I will be tracking over their next few vintages. I’d also like to try the wine after it had been set down for a year or two to see how the flavors evolve in that time. I do give them a lot of credit in that they didn’t follow the standard Napa Chardonnay route and simply make the main flavors consistent with oak/butter….the experimentation is something that I think can lead to much better wine down the road.

We had assumed that the white wine tasting would end up being more of a warm up for the reds as we’ve spent much more time working to find workable red wines for our club. We were happy to see that a small, boutique winery was able to come out with better scores then a nationally distributed wine. In some way I felt that started to legitimize our business model.

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This Week Brings Challenges + Successes

Oct07
2009 Leave a Comment Written by admin

Before I spend some time going over our second day in Napa, I thought it might be interesting to talk about what we’re doing this week.

Matt is running down some options for Uncorked Ventures to be able to ship into three tier states. Three tier is basically bureaucratic nonsense meant to make sure the distributors make their cut of the money, but the idea is that a winery sells their wine to a distributor, the distributor sells to a retailer and the retailer sells directly to the consumer. As you can imagine, for a 3rd party wine club this isn’t a good set up for us. Unlike a few of our competitors we won’t be breaking the law in any state, there are some options for us to ship directly to our customers in places like Florida and New York which employ the three tier system. We hope to have partnerships set up at some point in the next couple of weeks.

On my end, although still largely focused on SEO efforts (up to #4 for our first search term), I have also been planning for our first wine tasting even this Friday evening. I’m a little disappointed that my wife will miss the first part of the tasting, but being able to bring together a group of 10+ people who know wine (only 2 of which I know) is going to not only be a good opportunity to get feedback on the wine that we have sourced, but also an opportunity to pick up a few new clients. Frankly, having some data about the wine is going to be something I’ll want more of moving forward. We’ll be pouring a combination of wine we’re planning on shipping, wine we’ve been sent as a sample and wine we frankly think is over-hyped.

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Day 1 In Napa

Oct06
2009 Leave a Comment Written by admin

As Matt and I wade deeper and deeper into state specific shipping laws I realize how unnecessarily complicated some state governments can be. Does it make sense to anyone to only allow direct shipments to consumers only if they have already visited a winery? Other then blatant protectionism, is there really any reason for this? Simply put, I believe a customer receiving a referral from an internet source, or an online wine club for that matter, is just as valid as a referral from their local liquor/wine store that may not have the same depth of knowledge, or access to world class wines.

Ok, so I digress quite a bit. Let’s talk some about my first day in Napa.

Our day started with an 11am appointment at Larkmeade Vineyards. Although my business partner had made this appointment I was interested to try the wine from Larkmeade for a couple of reasons. To start they’ve received some great scores from every professional wine judge. Their 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon received 94 points from Robert Parker and has had a string of 90+ point vintages since the year 2000 when the modern age of Larkmeade effectively began. Some basic research also informed me that they were a main supplier of fruit to the likes of Duckhorn and Cakebread. I know if I owned the winery, my competitors would be hard pressed to purchase my best grapes.

Larkmeade Winery

The history of Larkmeade is heavily tied to that of the Valley itself and San Francisco. A short version goes something like this: Lillie Hitchcok Hoite (yes, the tower in SF is named after her) started the winery sometime between the time she bought the land in 1875, and 1885 when the local newspaper (the St. Helena Star) made mention of the winery called Larkmeade Cellar. Fast forwarding a bit, Larkmeade was one of the 7 initial members of the Napa Valley Vintners Association: names that include Beaulieu, Mondavi, Louis Martini and the Napa Valley Wine Co. The winery itself was sold in the 1950’s….but the family kept the vineyards. They started making wine again in 1990, with current operations being finalized in 2000….including a new tasting room in 2006. It’s a beautiful spot by the way as you can see from the pictures.
Sorting at Larkmeade
At Larkmeade we were fortunate to have an appointment at the same time as Dana Jackson whom was at Larkmeade doing research for his new IPhone Application called AOC Travel Guides. One of, if not the most impressive wine applications I have seen for the Iphone it will help you plan your trips in wine country. He takes time to give you information on less known locations…do you really need to be told about French Laundry? If you’re from the east coast though you might be interested in the most family friendly wine tasting rooms, or the best Mexican food cart in Sonoma. His app also gives interviews with winemakers and true insider information that most people won’t get during a normal tasting experience. To me, it is bound to be a success and for the $4.99 that he’s planning on charging, I’m sure you’d be happy with the purchase instead of an old, out of date travel book that you spent close to $20 for.

Can you tell I enjoy new media?

Ok, so how about the wine at Larkmeade? I was extremely impressed by the Estate Cab Sauvignon, especially at the price point they are charging. Their proprietary red is also a very, very good wine. We were impressed and enjoyed having the chance to see their operation up close. I love history and having a chance to see a historic Napa vineyard that is producing true world class wine, in a gorgeous setting is an experience I think any wine lover would enjoy. After a quick stop in by the winery general manager, Collin, they also poured a sample of their Salon red wine, which I believe they are currently sold out of. It’s complex, but simply put an amazing wine that I’d rate higher then the estate Cab Sauv. I was very impressed by the quality and also the quality/price ratio we saw at Larkmeade.

Larkmeade Bottle + Business Cards

After Larkmeade we headed out to lunch at the All Season Café in downtown Calistoga. The meal was good and the price was right(around $10 per plate).

Since we had been so appreciably late on our previous meeting with Audelssa, we decided to make sure to leave ourselves enough time…..especially since their ranch is back on the South-West side(or Sonoma side) of Mt. Veeder. The drive was an interesting one as we wound our way through backroad after backroad and both of us being convinced multiple times that we were not only lost, but would probably never find it. As it turns out, the ranch is fairly easy to find and well worth the trip. From most of the ranch you can not only see the city of San Francisco, but also the Golden Gate Bridge. As Matt said when it was pointed out to us(it appears surprisingly far away from the city because of the angle) Very Cool. Pictures can’t do it justice.

Audelssa view

We tasted through an entire range of their wines, again and were impressed by what we found. They are perhaps trending completely right bank with their entry level blends, which I find to be a good thing. We have found three bottles that we plan to source for our different wine clubs, which is an impressive number for a smaller production winery.

Audelssa bottle

After tasting with Mike we were on the way to the car and asked for a short tour. There was quite a bit of activity outside with grapes coming in, being sorted and samples being taken from fermenting grapes. At this point we were introduced to their winemaker Erich who was kind enough to give us a quick tour, talk a little about his winemaking philosophy. We enjoyed the conversation and really realized the next afternoon how similar the winemaker styles are at Audlessa and Alpha Omega, both of whom believe in longer fermentation cycles and only naturally occurring yeast.

audelssa barrell

Erich at Audelssa

After finishing our conversations and driving off the mountain we got ourselves checked into our hotel.
Matt and I finished our night at Barbers Q. One of the best BBQ experiences I’ve had. We split (yes, split) a sampler platter which has ribs, sausage, brisket, pork, onion ring strings…..we added a side order of fries. The fries were great, everything else was among the best BBQ of its type I’ve ever had….except the brisket which fell below what I’ve had in trips to Texas. The brisket was much better the next day…more on that later….but yes we are there two days in a row.

All together it was a very enjoyable day, it was nice to see and taste Audelssa again…Larkmeade is a standout and good company always makes the trip more fun being it Matt, Dana or Mike from Audelssa.

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2 Days In Napa-Short Version

Oct01
2009 Leave a Comment Written by admin

At Uncorked Ventures we spent the last two days visiting wineries, both new and old to us in Napa and Sonoma. I’ll give you a quick primer now and include more detailed write ups at the beginning of next week when I have more time.

Tuesday was a day that we had a number of tasting appointments. We started at Larkmeade which is affectionately referred to as the oldest start up in the valley. We enjoyed the wine and our time there and met an IPhone developer whom will be of great interest for wine lovers.

After Larkmeade we grabbed a bite to eat and started heading over the hill to the Ranch and new tasting facilities on the Audelssa property. Since we were two hours late the first time, we didn’t want to be late again. Going up Mount Veeder was interesting and we did find our way, arriving 45 minutes early. The property itself is breathtaking with views of both the city of San Francisco as well as the spiers of the Golden Gate bridge. As with our first experience with Audelssa, we were impressed by the wine. As an added benefit we were able to meet their resident winemaker Eric, see them sorting fruit and see open top containers of fermenting grapes.

On the way to the hotel we stopped in unannounced at Girard vineyards tasting room. My business partner Matt has had some experience with their wine and I was impressed with the quality/price ratio that they are offering.

Wednesday was a complete day for us. We arrived at Alpha Omega around 7am and spent the next 5 hours or so doing jobs around the winery in accordance with either harvest or bottling. We stirred the lees in oak barrels, we helped to box about 200 cases of wine and we pushed down the grape skins of some pinot noir.

After having lunch at Rutherford Grill we went back to the winery and spent over two hours doing a barrel tasting with their assistant winemaker Henrik. It was a very special experience. One thing we really like about Alpha Omega(and our other partner wineries) is that they take their winemaking very seriously without being pretentious about it. We were are very lucky to have that level of access and we enjoyed our time there very much.

We stopped and tasted some at another location on the way home, without any standouts to speak of.

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One Down

Sep28
2009 Leave a Comment Written by admin

So we had our meeting today with ABC in San Francisco. Getting there turned out to be fairly eventful as a couple of blocks of market were closed because of a bomb threat on a muni bus, of course the bus was parked about a half block down from the building we had our meeting inside of. Additionally, the parking lot we had planned to use was blocked off as part of the perimeter. After getting out of gridlock and being extremely happy that we left with plenty of time to spare, we made it to the building, stopped for a cookie and headed up to our meeting.

Everyone at ABC was very nice and friendly and the process was fairly simple. Our paperwork was all in order, except for a short letter that we were unaware of. Of course, any time you’re dealing with a staff that is completely overworked and over extended, being prepared and friendly yourself greatly increases your chances of a positive outcome. We were cognizant of that going into the meetings and were happy we took the time to try and put ourselves in their place afterward.

Murphy's

After the meeting we asked the security guard in the building for a lunch recommendation and he sent us over to Murphy’s Pub which was a few blocks away. I had a Hefeweizen and a tri tip sandwich which were both quite good, and frankly as good as I’d expect in San Francisco.

We finished the day by setting up our alcohol signs at our warehouse location which is really coming along. We have some final clean and set up to take care of, but the space is basically ready for us to install our air conditioning unit into.

Tomorrow brings a day in Napa. I’m greatly looking forward to it.

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What a Week It Will Be

Sep25
2009 Leave a Comment Written by admin

So over the next couple of days I’ll be packing for my second major trip to Northern California since the launch of Uncorked Ventures. I’m looking forward to the trip for a number of reasons, it will certainly be busy but I’m sure on the way home on Sunday, we’ll be closer to shipping then we have been before.

Monday will be an interesting day. We have two meetings in SF to help get our permits moved along. Frankly I’m glad I can be there for them and I do agree with my business partner Matt in that these two meetings are going to be the most important part of the trip.

Tuesday morning we’re planning on heading out fairly early. We’ve debated doing some formal tastings with small producers we’re interested in, but given the number of wineries we have mutual interest in already, we may simply go and taste a few places with the intention of approaching them formally around the new year. Again, we won’t ever ship something we wouldn’t buy for our own cellars and getting out in the field is an important part of the wine club business. We don’t ever want to simply wait at the office and only work with suppliers that ship us samples, we want to be out there, literally looking for new, high quality wineries before anyone else knows about them.

Wednesday brings us the real reason for the trip and something I’m incredibly excited to have the opportunity to do. We’ll be working a day of harvest at Alpha Omega. Exactly what we’ll be doing, we honestly have no idea, but we have heard that Cab Franc and Merlot are close to ready to picked so given good temperatures over the weekend, we may get to be involved with some interesting red wine grapes.

For me personally, I’m also interested in having the chance to compare and contrast the set ups at Alpha Omega and Eagles Nest. I know the two wineries would both freely admit that they probably don’t have much in common and I honestly don’t expect to find much of anything in common at all, but I think it will continue to give me an idea of the challenges facing the wine industry and of course the triumphs.

I think the more I can understand the process and ultimately the concerns of winemakers and their staffs the better we’ll be able to tailor our business to insure our customers(both domestic and international) get the highest quality product each and every year no matter how good, or bad, the overall economy is.
Thursday brings a sort of family obligation, which I won’t mention here (it’s a good thing, that I’m happy to be there for) and then my wife will arrive on Friday.

All in all, I’m very excited for the trip….we should have plenty of pictures and blogs both during and after it has concluded.

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60 Days In

Sep22
2009 Leave a Comment Written by admin

Over the past few 60 days or so of working to start Uncorked Ventures I’ve found so many things to enjoy about working with wineries, I count myself very lucky to be in the field. Looking back at our progress, we’ve been able to move ahead much quicker then we even originally planned. I just got to think back at where we’ve come from because one of our free trials of a software (that was 60 days long) has expired and added another $15 per month to our cash outlay.

What comes up for us in the next 60 days?

To start I’ll assume what we’ve heard about the permitting process is accurate and that we’ll have all of our federal paperwork completed and our paperwork with the state of California will either be approved, or be very, very close to being approved. We’ll certainly have our warehouse location built out completely and ready to store wine. I also believe we’ll be on the first page of Google for at least two of our target search terms. Lastly I think we’ll have made significant progress with our export side of the business, which has probably taken more a back seat over these past 60 days than we originally planned.

We’re certainly moving forward with that process as quickly as possible, with some help both from world trade organizations as well as the US government. At this point, it looks like we have our options for export down to three countries each one with its own tax, ease of forming a business and geo-political concerns.

Of course we’ll keep you updated. Again, thanks for reading.

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Eagles Nest Winery-Bottling Day

Sep21
2009 Leave a Comment Written by admin

Eagles Nest Winemaking Trip 001

So, over the weekend I had one of, if not the most, enjoyable day since starting Uncorked Ventures. My wife and I went to Eagles Nest Winery in Ramona, CA about 15 miles east of where we live) to help with the bottling of their free range Cabernet Sauvignon.

We arrived around 9am and had a couple of moments to chat with Dennis and Julie, who fill the multiple functions of winery owner, vineyard manager and winemaker. They were both extremely pleasant and both my wife and I enjoyed chatting with them both throughout the day, even though I imagine my thoughts about meeting the two of them are similar to what people think about my wife and I….Julie is much more chatty then Dennis is….just as Michelle is much more chatty then I am.

After meeting some of the volunteers, including Bill Eyer of Cuvee Corner we went with Julie down to another part of the farm to help organize some of their standing inventory because we would be bottling approximately 75 cases later in the day. We spent about two hours moving boxes, organizing wine and generally trying to create some extra space where available. I’m not the most organized guy in the world (far from it) so it was good to have Michelle there to help….plus we weren’t complaining in being an air conditioned room as summer has made another appearance in California.

After getting last year’s vintage organized we moved up to the bottling room with the other volunteers. What we found there was a bottle filler….A pump moves the wine from the barrel up into a holding tank and then four bottles can be filled at once, there is a sensor to shut off the filler once a bottle is filled to the correct level.

Eagles Nest Winemaking Trip 007

Eagles Nest Winemaking Trip 008

After being filled they are moved over to be corked. As we found throughout the day the ladies did a better job with the new corking machine as they weren’t as impatient as the guys. The guys typically moved too quickly and would cause the machine to lose pressure and necessitate a couple minute wine drinking break….maybe it wasn’t such an accident lol!

Eagles Nest Winemaking Trip 005

Eagles Nest Winemaking Trip 006

After corking it came time for the seal to be placed over the cork. Here we found another new machine of Italian origin. After getting a good laugh at the instruction manual (yes it was in English as well as Italian) because it never suggested a setting for the heated element, we tried out a few different techniques. It seems that the correct technique to have a balanced melt of the seal is to move downward quickly and then slightly pause at the bottom, before moving up again quickly. I can definitely say, this was not a strong suit of mine….I enjoyed filling the wine bottles much more!

Eagles Nest Winemaking Trip 002

Eagles Nest Winemaking Trip 003

Eagles Nest Winemaking Trip 004

Normally you’d also apply the label at that time and near the time when we left they started applying some of the labels, but Eagles Nest does a lot of custom labeling for customers so much of the wine is not labeled until directly after sale….which also necessitates part of the organizing of the wine storage area!

A picture of some of the wine going down to the storage area:

Eagles Nest Winemaking Trip 011

All in all both Michelle and I had a great time. Eagles Nest served a lunch of lasagna, garlic bread, salad and wine as well as sending us home with two of their dessert wines. They have a cottage on the property which is like a really, really nice studio apartment which is available for rent. It is just a ways down from where Julie and Dennis (the owners) live and is in the middle of the vines as well as having an amazing wrap around porch with a view of the entire Ramona Valley.

Since this is mostly a wine blog and I am starting a wine business it would not be complete without a mention of the wines we tasted.

During the bottling process we were able to taste their free run Cab…which we generally thought was ok. At lunch we had a glass of Souzaoo which I thought was pretty good and an excellent pairing with the lasagna.

After seeing the winery up close and seeing the amount of time, effort and capital that Eagles Nest is spending to improve its product I have a new appreciation for the struggles that new wineries face. It also makes me understand the old adage from Napa that in the wine industry it takes a large fortune in order to make a small one.

This is the type of family owned, small production winery that we’d love to be able to work with, assuming they are producing world class wines.

At this time, to be perfectly honest I’ve tasted wines in that same price range that I’ve been more impressed with. We have been invited to come back and taste some other wines with Dennis and Julie and may take them up on that offer in the future.

I would encourage anyone in the San Diego area, if you want to spend a night at a very nice location with very nice people and take home some wine that’s better then what you find in Temecula, give Eagles Nest a try.

Eagles Nest Winemaking Trip 021

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