Wine News: December 2008 Archives

(2012 Update!) See the list of Napa Valley & Sonoma wineries that will be open for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

*Napa Valley & Sonoma Restaurants Open for the holidays - Click Here
*Events Calendar Guide - Click Here


CHRISTMAS EVE

Napa Valley

• Chateau Montelena Winery ~ 707.942.5105
• Hours: 9:30am - 12:00pm

• Back Room Wines ~ 707.226.1378   
• Hours: 02:00pm - 5:00pm

• V. Sattui Winery ~ 707.963.7774   
• Hours: 9:00am - 3:30pm

Sonoma

• Gloria Ferrer ~ 707.933.1917
• Hours: 10:00am - 3:00pm   

• Imagery Estate Winery ~ 707.935.4515   
• Hours: 10:00am - 3:00pm

• Thumbprint Cellars ~ 707.433.2393
• Hours: 11:00am - 4:00pm

• White Oak Vineyards & Winery ~ 707.733.8429   
• Hours: 10:00am - 1:00pm

Ring in the New Year at Chandon! 

Join Chandon for a Roaring 20s party on New Year's Eve. Enjoy a decadent six-course tasting menu paired with Chandon wines. Then, dance the night away to live music with  Soul Project. It will be a party to remember for ages. Don't delay, tickets are selling fast. Buy Online toay!

More Details:

• December 31, 2008
• Dinner & Party Tickets: $225 (plus tax & gratuity)
• Party Tickets Only: $75
• Formal Portraits Included
• 1920s Cocktail Attire (Black Tie Optional)

Call 888.242.6366 for more information and to make your reservation or visit Chandon.com for party tickets only!

CLICK HERE for more Details.

NAPAVALLEY, CA - Brrr....it's definitely cold in Northern California!

Yesterday saw snow at Cade Winery on Howell Mountain in Napa Valley. Snow adorned the vineyard as well as the branches of the Manzanita trees from which CADE bases its logo. The eco-winery, opening in March 2009, will be the first LEED-certified, solar powered and organically farmed winery in the area and will likely be the only Gold-LEED-certified winery in California.

More information, visit www.cadewinery.com
Located at 360 Howell Mountain Road, South Angwine, CA 94508

By Courtney Cochran

Social shopping site Snooth - which allows users to log and rate wines, compare scores with friends and click to buy wines from thousands of merchants across the US - has released an iPhone application that bests many of the other wine apps I've seen. Signing up took me less than two minutes (I simply created a user account on my iPhone at iphone.snooth.com), and moments later I was searching wine reviews using their location-based search services. My search for a Rosenblum Zinfandel selling for less than $50 in my area - the service uses zip codes to power its location-based search - yielded a result at The Wine House in San Francisco, which currently carries the bottle for $33.95. Had I wanted to purchase the wine, I could have used Snooth's "click to call" option embedded in the search result to dial the retailer's number and have the wine put on hold.

By Courtney Cochran

On the heels of news that COPIA: The American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts' petition for Chapter 11 protection was turned down by a federal bankruptcy court, many of us are left wondering just what went wrong at the sprawling multi-use center located in the heart of wine country.

Opened to great fanfare in 2001, the 12-acre non-profit center - which features three restaurants, a museum, classrooms, a 3.5-acre garden and outdoor performance space - was one of the last projects spearheaded by late Napa Valley scion Robert Mondavi, who passed away in May of this year. The center has struggled since opening to attract the kind of crowds initially expected, a fact that's made it difficult for management to maintain payments on some $78 million in outstanding bond debt. After attorneys for the insurance company backing the bonds convinced a bankruptcy court judge that it was not acceptable for COPIA to take on additional loans that would be secured ahead of the $78 million in bonds, the center announced that it is closing, likely for good.

By Courtney Cochran

In these sketchy economic times, it seems that nothing is safe from deflation, devaluation and the many other disturbing indicators of economic mayhem wreaking havoc across our land. But thanks to urban winery Crushpad's newest creation, Bailout Wine* , these signs of malaise are no longer quite so frightening - at least not when it comes to the state of the wine scene.

By Courtney Cochran

If you haven't noticed the rash of vampire-related TV shows and films appearing on screens stateside, then perhaps it's because you've been sleeping under a rock.  To wit, Twilight - the newly released megapicture chronicling an "epic" romance between a vampire and a teenage girl - is currently raking it in at the box office, while standout new HBO series, True Blood, has hard-core sci-fi fans and regular viewers alike abuzz about its racy plotlines that follow centuries-old vampires as they "mainstream" into contemporary life in a rural southern town.