Results tagged “WineCountry.com Personality” from Wine

The Chateau Julien team has included Winemaker Bill Anderson since the Wine Estate opened in 1982. After studying enology at UC Davis, Bill joined Chateau Julien Proprietors Bob & Patty Brower with release of the first vintage of Chateau Julien wine - 1982 Merlot & Chardonnay.  Experience and consistency over the years highlight the essence of Chateau Julien wines. Today, over three-quarters of the winery's portfolio consists of its flagship Merlot and complementary Bordeaux varietals. Winemaker Bill Anderson has balanced the art of winemaking and a commitment to quality with each of the nearly thirty Chateau Julien vintages produced since 1982.

Bill's passion for the winemaking process began at the early age of eleven. Bill was fascinated by early childhood stories of his father making wine with friends during the prohibition period. One fall afternoon at his home in the San Francisco Bay Area, Bill eagerly set out to experiment with the fermentation process using apricots from their newly acquired family orchard.  He found an old porcelain 10-gallon crock in the garage, gathered apricots from the backyard and started mixing sugar, apricots and small packages of Fleishman's yeast. While the results tasted awful, the initial aroma of fermenting fruit never left his memory and ultimately led Bill to the study of enology twenty years later. 

His philosophy today continues to be as simple as the elegance he achieves in his wines. "Elegance is what I keep in mind in winemaking. Simple, straightforward, clean; the truth is evident without frivolity. If you have good grapes and treat them well, do all the details every day and let them do what they will naturally do, you will have a good product." 

Chateau Julien Wine Estate
8940 Carmel Valley Road
Carmel Valley, CA 93923
831.624.2600

Charbay makes wines? Wines, Ports & a new Green Tea Aperitif. Miles is a 12th generation winemaker/master distiller from Yugoslavia. Trained in Europe as an Enologist & Viticulturist, it's what comes naturally to him and now to his son, Marko Karakasevic, too. Miles' life is a multi chaptered story with all that has happened since leaving his homeland. These days he lives beside his winery & distillery on top of Spring Mountain where he ferments, distills & bottles the unusual with the usual.

After he left his home, he studied in Geisenheim before heading to Canada where he was a chemist & a diver for Uniroyal. He was brought into America as an enologist to make wine in Michigan. There he met his wife, Susan, and they headed to California in 1970. He made wines & champagnes for United Vintners in Madera & Escalon California, (the company that owned Italian Swiss Colony). He fermented in one week as much wine as Napa Valley used to make in a year. Those were his big tank years.

Merryvale Vineyards - Vice President of Vineyard Operations

Remi Cohen has been a winegrower and vineyard manager in the Napa Valley since 2001. Remi oversees Merryvale Vineyard's grape growing operations, emphasizing wine quality, sustainable farming practices and green certification on their estate vineyards. 

Remi has worked closely with the Napa Green Farm Certification program and Fish Friendly Farming to develop environmentally friendly farming plans.  Sustainable practices include utilizing permanent cover crops for erosion control, utilizing compost to recycle nutrients, attracting beneficial insects through the use of insectaries, and adjusting canopy management practices to reduce disease pressure. 

What do you get when you mix Brooklyn attitude with Napa style?  The answer is some great tasting wine.  Chris Pisani, Winemaker for ZD Wines, is a rare combination of east coast street smart and California cool.  Growing up in a big Italian family, Chris learned to appreciate the very things that make Napa so memorable: great food, wine and company.  This real-world education made him a perfect fit at ZD Wines where family is the cornerstone of the winery's values, and great wine and food fall close behind.

During his formative years, Chris studied chemistry in college while spending time with his now-wife, Ina, whose father happened to make wines out of their house in Newburgh, New York.  Chris watched, learned, experimented and soon he was hooked.  The seed was planted and before long, Chris and Ina were moving to California for a taste of life in the wine country.

Like Gloria Ferrer Caves & Vineyards, Executive Vice President Eva Bertran is a dynamic blend of Spanish style, California charisma and Sonoma Carneros sparkling wine expertise. Part of the original team who helped to launch Gloria Ferrer, Bertran left her native Spain--where her own family was in the wine business--and settled in Sonoma 20 years ago. Since 1986, she has passionately promoted Gloria Ferrer wines, expertly leading diverse aspects of the business as enthusiastically as if it were her own family winery.

"There's a real Spanish sense of family here," explains Bertran of Gloria Ferrer's close-knit, collaborative team. "We pride ourselves on taking care of our employees." It's a tradition that began more than a century ago at Freixenet, which proudly employs people who are the third and even fourth generation of the same family to work for the sparkling wine house.

Fifty years ago, Rodney Strong started a winery that would ultimately become his namesake Rodney Strong Vineyards, in the northern Sonoma County town of Healdsburg.  It didn't start out that way, first blending wines and selling them with his wife, Charlotte from their home next to the Tiburon yacht club.  Their first wine was actually labeled Tiburon Vintners.

They did move here, though, and Rod became a significant influence in Sonoma County's budding wine industry in the 1960s and 1970s.  It's a fact, as dancer in his younger years, attending the School of American Ballet in New York and traveling to France to dance at the Lido, that neither he or anyone else would have predicted.  When he arrived in the county, the name changed to Windsor Vineyards, then to Sonoma Vineyards and eventually to Rodney Strong Vineyards in 1982.  Along the way, Rod was one of the first to plant pinot noir in Russian River Valley, the first to produce and release a Chalk Hill chardonnay and the first make a single vineyard cabernet in Sonoma County from Alexander's Crown in Alexander Valley

by WineCountry.com Staff Member Kasha Buckley

For me, Christmas always brings to mind thoughts of laughter, beautiful lights, decorations, holiday treats, anticipation of presents. Of course, it is also during this holiday season that we spend the most time with special friends and endearing family members while enjoying our favorite bottle of wine.

One of my earliest Christmas memories goes back to the early 80s watching my family share in the festivities with wine glass in hand.  At the time, I was far too young to partake, but it made me joyful all the same for the simple fact that it was oh so fun refilling my mother's and grandparent's wine glasses. It meant playing with the spigot because yes, ladies and gentlemen, our wine came in a box.

I have not personally tasted wine from the box, so cannot in good conscience vouch one way or the other for the quality of that wine. However, whenever I've mentioned this beloved family tradition, folks tend to break out with a few snorts and snickers.  And if you seem to think that boxed wine is a wine faux pas, let me tell you about a few of mine. Does anyone remember wine coolers in the two liter bottle? I do, and my excuse - I was young.  Gradually I did move on to Bartles & James in the actual glass bottles and even dabbled with the peach flavored "wines" which were at least in real wine bottles.