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.

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.

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success and for the $4.99 that he’s planning on charging, I’m sure you’d be happy with the purchase instead of an old, out of date travel book that you spent close to $20 for.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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

So, I’ve been asked quite a few times in the past couple of days for my opinion on USA Today launching its wine club. To start, yes we’re always concerned when a significant competitor comes into the market, but after some basic research I can’t say I’ll give it another thought.

To start, we’re talking about drastically different price levels. USA Today is working with My Wines Direct and providing 6 bottles each quarter for about $70. Some quick, inexact math leaves me at $11 per bottle for club members and I can only assume that USA Today is paying somewhere in the range of $5-$8 per bottle from the wineries. Thinking of the type of wine that we’re working to source, I cannot imagine any winery that we’re currently working with selling any wine they make at such a severe discount. In that way this new wine club probably isn’t going to be a big competitor, they’re simply marketing to a different audience. That’s ok and that price level certainly makes some sense, we’re comfortable that a $30-$40 per month for our entry level club is a good place to start so we can still provide top notch wine to our customers.

The one thing that I do think is very interesting in regards to their club is that they will have tasting panels helping to select the wines. Frankly speaking that sounds like a ton of fun and something that I’d like to be able use on some level with my clubs. I enjoy the social aspect of wine, I did end up with a couple of thoughts and plans for action after reading the USA Today wine club article.

On Twitter I’ve talked in passing to Sandy Aichner, a Realtor based in Lake Norman, North Carolina. She is part of a wine tasting group that includes about 700 members. These type of wino groups are a clear target market for our wine club. I do believe that with the type of wine and food pairing that we’re set to feature will allow us to reach out to groups like this, even though they already work with a number of local wine merchants. I know from conversations with a few of our partner wineries that Alpha Omega and Audelssa are just starting to be available outside of California, getting some of our wine in the hands of groups like this one is going to be a goal once all of our paperwork is approved by the state of California and in this case, North Carolina…..which doesn’t have the easiest paperwork requirements for third party suppliers like ourselves as we have to include all brands that we’ll be shipping.

Secondly I’ll be working on hosting a virtual tasting of some type. I’d like to use Skype, but this is on the to-do list. I think finding easily attainable wine across the country could be difficult. Costco? Beverages and More?

As always thanks for reading, please leave your comments!

We’re excited to partner with(yes in alphabetical order): Alpha Omega, Audelssa, Copain and K Vitners(from Washington state). We also have a couple of wineries from the Central Coast that we like and should work with as well. To be honest, from a wine sourcing standpoint we’re in excellent shape, at least for our September and October shipments.

After meeting with Cornerstone Cellars as well as Elizabeth Spencer I don’t anticipate moving forward at this time with either of them.

So what’s next on the Uncorked Ventures agenda? We’re constantly working on SEO stuff because we do believe that long term that is going to be a key to our business. Matt and I are also more activly engaging our personal networks to see what they’d like to see from our wine clubs. One thing that has come up repeatedly is a corporate gift either on an ongoing monthly basis or a one time gift for either a birthday or holiday.

Those conversations will lead to another section of our website(Gifts) which we plan to have completed by Tuesday of next week. You’ll also see some changes in format to the About Us page, the Other Media page as well as at least 3 new articles added to the Education section around that same time period.

Lastly we’re continuing to work toward sourcing new and exciting wineries. We have a few that we’re looking forward to speaking to on our next visit to Napa and Sonoma.

Specifically I think we may be a little Cabernet Sauvignon heavy right now, so a great Zinfandel producer would be nice…..of course I also love more Pinot Noir.

Audelssa was a winery that I was looking forward to tasting with at the end of our trip for a couple of reasons. Like most of the other wineries on our list they are family owned and have been very open to talking with us. I’ve appreciated the time Dan gave me on the phone, including his stories of previous frustrations with exporting wine, especially the taxes and exploding prices involved, I’ve gotten to know Gloria a little bit from both Twitter and email (we are at a similar place, how do you correctly use Twitter to actually sell a product?). Lastly I am pretty much fascinated with their V 27 concept.

A quick run-down of V 27 and remember I worked in real estate for a while, so this is probably especially interesting to me. V 27 explained simply is a timeshare. They are building a Tuscan Villa on their mountain ranch (where they grow most of their grapes) after buying into the concept you’d have the right to stay there, I believe 4 weeks a year, plus the capacity to create your own red wine blend with their resident winemaker. Please don’t hold me to exact details, but I’ll say I think it is underpriced for what they’re charging….how many people do you know that would love to have a second home in wine country? What about a 2nd home that comes with the ability to bottle your own wine? Pretty interesting concept huh? I’m guessing you know more then a few people who would be interested depending on price….. and this is going to put you back well less, well much less, then a 1 bedroom condo in Napa/Sonoma. Plus, check out the view:

Ok, so we were set to meet with Mike at their Glenn Ellen tasting room at 2pm on Thursday Aug 13th. Matt and I thought we would have plenty of time since our Copain tasting was at 10am and the trip, according to Mapquest, would take about 45 minutes. We left Copain around 12:30 thinking we’d still have time to get a quick lunch at a small cafe in Glen Ellen and decided we would take, what we thought at the time, the safe route to the tasting room. The safe route takes us down the 101 south to the 12 east and then right on Arnold Drive….more on that later.

After being on the 101 for some time and discussing our previous meetings, both the positive and negative, we realized that we were seeing signs such as Welcome to Petaluma. I’m not a bay area resident but I do now that Petaluma is about 30 miles north of San Francisco….we were suppose to catch the 12 somewhere around Santa Rosa…..which is 17 miles further north.

Needless to say that meant we weren’t going to have time for lunch…..so just make that right on Arnold. Well to make a long story short we missed Arnold…mostly because it isn’t marked Arnold from the 12….it’s marked Glen Ellen….yeah we should have known better, but what can you do.

In any case we arrived at the Audelssa tasting room at least an hour late, Mike was still waiting for us, which was quite kind especially because the air conditioning was being worked on. It was set up to be a bad tasting, we hadn’t eaten all day, were hot, tired and frustrated.

We sat down and got a chance to try all the different wines(which are all red) and we were impressed by all of them.

We started with the Tephora which is a $25 retail bottle, we hadn’t seen the price point yet and were guessing that it came in around $40 which has been backed up by other friends and family when we’ve had them try it as well, except one family member who named the $25 price tag exactly, but I’ll let her stay anonomous for now.

In fact we opened one of the bottles I brought home last night and my mother in law (who knows her high end wine, especially those of French varietals) said quite simply that for $25 she’d definitely buy more of this wine which is a nice compliment in my book. My wife agreed that it was certainly worth more then the $25 that Audelssa is charging. The bottle went very, very well with a steak from the BBQ and also with a couple of pieces of dark chocolate for dessert.

The two real standout wines for my palate were the Zephyr which is a right bank Rhone blend which was an interesting wine. I don’t believe I’ve tried any, at least not many, wines from Napa/Sonoma that come from volcanic soil like this one does. You definitely get a stronger fruit taste then you do from many Napa/Sonoma wines, we were told it is because the grapes are grown at altitude which leads to a much smaller yield and more intense flavors of the fruit then you get at the valley floor.

Lastly Matt and I both quite enjoyed the Summit estate wine. Like many great blends it takes some of the major parts of all its components like the Cab Sauv, Merlot and Cab Franc. I’d hesitate to try and describe it in detail here, but I will say that it is very nice wine. I’m having a moderate size dinner party over the weekend to finish up my 30th bday activities and will be bringing a bottle with me. Of anything we smelled the entire week, this was perhaps the best and I do enjoy complicated tastes in my wine….so this was a real winner and one that I’m looking forward to trying to figure out more about this weekend.

Overall Audelssa was a good tasting experience and offer a nice series of wines that we can feature in our wine clubs. Despite our experiences their Glen Ellen tasting room is pretty easy to find. At Uncorked Ventures we’re looking forward to working with Audelssa and featuring their wines in one of our first wine club shipments.

We started our day at Copain which is one of the most beautiful sites you’ll ever find. Their vistas are gorgeous and the people from Juliana their tasting room manager to Jennifer their sales director, to John the assistant winemaker were available and happy to answer questions and generally talk about the way they make wine and how they do business. We tasted perhaps ten different wines over about two and a half hours, all of which were excellent and in our opinion…..under priced. I’ll give more detailed reviews of the wines at a later date, but we’re very excited to continue working with Copain.

After leaving Copain we had thought that the easiest way to head to Sonoma for our afternoon meeting would be to take the 12 across. Of course we somehow missed the turn off for the 12 and ended up in Petaluma(about 20 miles too far south) before realizing what we’d done. On the way to the Audelssa tasting room we saw a sign for Glen Ellen(the small town where the tasting room is located) but our directions were for a turn off at Arnold Drive. Well after a couple of wrong turns and another 15 miles in the wrong direction we spoke to Mike who gave us a better idea where to turn. We eventually found our way to the Audelssa tasting room……about an hour late.

Audelssa is one of those wineries that when you look into the quality of wine they produce frankly you’re surprised that you’ve never heard of them….at least I was. They have multiple varietals rated 90+ points by Robert Parker and honestly I had never tried the wine before ending up in their tasting room. Neither Matt nor I were disappointed with the wine, far from it. In fact it was certainly competitive with everything else we tasted/ Audelssa has a great family story and great wine which I’m looking forward to explaining in more detail some time in the next week. We had an enjoyable conversation with Mike in their tasting room and really look forward to featuring their wines as part of our wine clubs and export services in the future.

We finished our day at the Girl in the Fig restaurant on the square in downtown Sonoma. Great meal at my sister in laws favorite restaurant.

Needless to say it’s been a very fun trip and also extremely productive as well for Uncorked Ventures. I honestly did not think that about 45 days into this new business venture that we’d be able to source this type of wine from 4 top notch wineries.

More to come, but this is an exciting time.

At Uncorked Ventures our trip to Napa next week is really coming together, we’re very much looking forward to tasting and speaking with Alpha Omega, Cornerstone, Copain and Audelssa, all of which have been confirmed.

I’m very happy that we’re going to be able to source the type of high quality wine that our customers will demand for our different wine of the month club options. As always the winemakers and everyone involved in the business has been a joy to work with and I’m very much looking forward to the trip and meeting everyone in person.

I hope everyone is able to have a good glass later tonight and that the weekend gets off to a great start!

Tomorrow will bring a rather lengthy blog about our tasting as well as anything else we try along the way.