Pruning Season

This weekend weather could not have been more perfect for pruning our grapevines. Over the years, it has become an event we both dread in some ways and look forward to in others. It is a bit of an endurance test like running a marathon. You start out pruning one vine correctly then multiplying that times a few thousand. Each vine is similar in some aspects and completely different and unique in others. Pruning is a series of very quick decisions which cannot be undone, there is no ‘undo’ button and a mistake may take a few years to correct. Incorrect pruning can result in a severely reduced crop or a high volume crop which lacks many quality characteristics, and every variation in between.

Learning to prune is best started with a text book, then try your hand in the field and as my vineyard mentor John Schwaesdall says “Listen to everyone, then make up your own mind about how to proceed based on your conditions”, I’ve found this to be sound advice.

Pruning has basic principles which are true in all situations; however there are nuances which are specific to your varietal, microclimate, personal preference, wine-making technique and wine style. There are a few absolutes, but not many. Start out by speaking to someone in your area growing the same varietal successfully, this conversation and the peak at the freshly pruned vines is worth gold.

Here's to a Healthy New Year!

People often ask us how we stay fit and not become alcoholic, considering the fact that we are afterall wine drinkers who also love food and love to pair our wines with food.

On the one hand, we are thankful for having good metabolism and a certain amount of will power that helps keep us from over indulging ourselves too much. On the other hand, we believe that the physical aspects of grapes growing, maintaining a vineyard, harvest work, grape processing and winemaking work are plenty to keep us in good shape. Working on wine and pruning the grapevines during this winter season hopefully would help us take off some of the weight gained during the holidays.

Some diets do not allow wines. We would never go on those diets! We believe that having wine with dinner in moderate amount is a healthy habit, unless one has medical conditions that prohibit alcohol consumption.

Here is our final secret for staying fit in 2010: Keep eating wholesome and natural food grown by local farmers and drinking good wine made by your favorite local winemakers from locally grown grapes!

Salut!

Mahogany Mountain wine-food pairing event

Our Winemaker's Dinner at Barona Steakhouse was a huge success. It was sold-out! We had almost double the number of guests than originally planned for the private dining room. The gourmet dinner that Chef Duncan prepared to pair with our wines was excellent. Our wines received rave reviews from the dinner guests. The food was beautifully presented with artistic flair. I was too busy with the guests to take pictures of each course, now I wish I had because each course looked like a piece of art. I am thankful for the pictures that Holly, Michael's sweet and beautiful cousin, took for us while we were busy.

Let me savor one more time the delicious meal that was served. For a muse bouche, we had a salmon mousse in a puff pastry. It was paired well with our white wine and white zinfandel.

Then we had a surf-and-turf carpaccio of Ahi steak with olive tapenade and avocado. We paired it with our 2007 Zinfandel. The Ahi was fresh and delicious. The spiciness and rich fruit flavor from our Zinfandel went down so well with the rare Ahi and the olive tapenade. I will definitely take a bottle of our Zinfandel next time we go to Hawaii.

While I was still savoring the Ahi with our Zinfandel, the mixed green salad with warm St. Andre cheese was served. I still had some white wine left in the other glass and decided to drink with the salad. It was a perfect choice.

Then the server started to pour our 2007 Merlot. I had a sip of the Merlot and remembered why it has repeatedly been a sold-out wine at the Barona Steakhouse. The richness of the Merlot fruit blended beautifully with the natural oak flavor, as a result, the wine is balanced and smooth on the palate. I need to save a few bottles for next year wine competitions. Maybe, it will win some medals.

I hope I can find a similar recipe for the Roasted Buttersquash and Heirloom Apple soup. We all loved it so much. Surprisingly, it paired so well with the white Zinfandel and the Merlot too.

By the time, I finished the soup. I was half-full already. It was time to get up and started the raffles and prizes. The two tables in the main dining room kept winning all of the prizes! Teri and Sherry were two lucky ladies as they celebrated their birthdays together.


We were then served with the main course of our choice. I had the NY steak because I remembered how good the steak was last time we ate at the steakhous. It was perfectly prepared as I had requested: Medium with bright pink in the middle and no running blood. It was divine with our 2007 Syrah and 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon even though we had intended to pair with the 2007 Zinfandel. I told Shari and Mike who live next door to us that our Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon were planted right next to their property line. The rest of the guests loved our 2007 Zinfandel. Two tables each asked to order one bottle extra to have with their dinner. All of the red wines that we featured at the dinner had really nice color, nice leg and their aromas were beautifully released as I inhaled the fruit character of each wine.

Even though the servers were kept busy the whole evening pouring one wine after the other and exchanging wine glasses continually, we only allowed 1-oz pour for each wine and a moderate amount of wine during dinner. So nobody in our party had too much to drink. Everyone tried to keep their head clear for some chance at the slot machines or blackjack tables after dinner.

I had to get a doggie bag for the rest of the steak with the incredible baby potatoes, carrots and winter vegetables because I wanted to save some room for the dessert. The chef had informed me that he would use a bottle of our Port wine to make the grilled fig tart.

For the grand finale, the servers brought out tiny dessert wine glasses. These people really know how to get to my heart: they use the correct glasses for our Port wine! When the dessert plate was presented, I was in heaven. The fig tart was so fresh and with perfect sweetness from the fruit and the Port wine. The fresh fig halves were delicious. The vanilla ice cream and butterscotch sauce that was drizzled around the fig tart completed a picture of perfection in food artistry. I didn't detect any extra sugar in the tart. Its sweetness was so natural without any hint of added sugar. Do you think the pastry chef would be willing to share the tart recipe if I asked?

The evening flowed like a dream. Before we knew it, it was almost 10 pm! We started at 6 pm. Time flied when we had so much fun. It was simply the best wine-food pairing dinner that we ever participated. We pinched ourselves to make sure it was our OWN winemaker's dinner featuring our very own Mahogany Mountain wines.

I feel extremely humble and grateful for the excellent efforts that the Chef, Sous-chef, pastry chef, the restaurant manager and the three servers have put into the dinner. They represented the finest and the best in their profession. What a team! They made the evening a magical culinary and wine tasting event for all of us. I am so glad we have such a fine-dining place to go to in the back country!


Have a Happy Holidays! May you have a Blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year surrounded with lots of Love (and good wine!).

Winemaker's Dinner featuring Mahogany Mountain wines!

The winemaker's dinner that we are planning is coming along nicely. The chef finalized his wine-food pairing selections. The menu reads like a culinary dream! The chef is going to make a dessert using our Port wine. I know I will be in heaven when I taste the dessert knowing that our Port wine is one of the ingredients!

We are gratified that our dearest friends, co-workers, fellow winemakers, Ramona's vineyard association members, neighbors and Michael's cousins are all coming! It will be a huge turn-out! A lot more people have RSVP'ed than I had imagined in my wildest dreams. I told the chef and the restaurant's manager at Barona that I have built up their expectation and that everyone was so excited and they could hardly wait until next Friday. The chef calmly assured me that everything would be fine and they would be ready for us. Wow! I am so excited!

Field Trip to Sonoma

In early November, we went to Napa and Northern Sonoma to visit vineyards, buy winemaking supplies/equipment and do wine tasting. We met some winemakers and tasted limited-production wines, new releases and wines that were only available to wine-club members. The wineries that we visited paired their featured wine with just the right food in their cozy barrel rooms. The weather was perfect, sunny and clear. The vineyards were absolutely beautiful displaying vines in magnificent colors in various shades of gold, yellow and red. In Sonoma, Russian River and Alexander Valley, the winemakers and winery staff were especially down-to-earth, friendly and gracious to us when we introduced ourselves as winemakers from San Diego county. They shared with us their hospitality and traded secrets on winemaking techniques. Their wine-food pairing was divine. We loved the lamb meatballs paired with a hearty Russian River Zinfandel. They were very generous in pouring their best wines. We tasted excellent Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Cabernet and Zinfandel that were only available directly from the wineries ranging from $70+ to $150 per bottle. We loved the pork sliders paired with the mellow red wine at one winery and a delish slow-cooked pork paired with Pinot Noir and polenta at another winery. At one winery, the winemaker generously gave us a barrel tasting experience of their wines as he shared his thoughts on winemaking techniques. His wife served us an excellent coq-au-vent dish with polenta to pair with their Pinot Noir and then chocolate cake with their port wine. As a foodie, I could go on forever about the wine and food pairing experience. However, the trip was also an educational event. So, with all the will power that we could muster, we dragged ourselves away from tasting rooms, from the wine and food pairing to tour winemaking facilities and check out winemaking equipment. We enjoyed chatting with winemakers, equipment sales people and vineyard managers. I remembered a nice chat with a husband and wife winemaker team as they pressed their estate Zinfandel with the help of their two young two sons. We’ve learned so much how established wineries set up their winery facilities and tasting rooms, equipment that they use, fermentation techniques that they practice, etc.

As we’d plan to convert to solar energy as a main energy source for our winery in the future, we noted that many wineries in Napa and Sonoma have gone green, lots of solar panels everywhere we looked.

It was a very enjoyable fact-finding field trip. I went home with a great sense of humility and compassion for all of the winemakers and winery owners whom we met during those three days because I know how hard they have worked to build their winery business and how much time, efforts and money that they have poured into these wineries. As an old adage has said, “It’d take a big fortune to make a small fortune in winemaking business”. But winemakers like us do it for the love of wine!

Mahogany Mountain 2007 Merlot featured wine of the week!

I am so excited about this good news! We heard from our friends last week that Barona Casino's steakhouse featured our wine along with two other wines on their menu. Too bad that we had plans to go up to Sonoma for the weekend. Otherwise, I'd have loved to go to Barona and had a good steak dinner with our Merlot while the wine was being featured.

Coincidently, Mike's Mom happened to be in town so we told her that we would take her out to dinner at the Barona's Oaks Steak house and would have our wines with dinner! How fantastic would that be for Michael to show off his wines to his Mom. Then, the drama began. Just before heading to dinner, we found out that the restaurant has sold out our Merlot. Although we were disappointed, but since we already made reservation, we decided to go ahead with our dinner plan and would make do with ordering our white zin to go with the first course and maybe a red wine to go with our steak dinner.

It was our first time to go to the Barona Oaks steak house after their latest renovation that cost $15M. Oh My Gosh, it was posh! The dinning room had a delightful ambiance and was beautifully decorated with high end decor and furnishings. There was a piano player playing beautiful soft music the entire evening.

The wait staff treated us very well as soon as they saw us. They all were friendly and greeted us with big smiles. They gave us the best table in the house, right in front of a big fireplace. The table was magnificently decorated with very nice china and silverware. They even had a huge orchid flower arrangements at our table. There were very nice and "correct" wine glasses for wine tasting and enjoyment. That alone put us in a happy mood immediately. I took in the whole scene with great anticipation for a marvelous gourmet meal.

Our waiter was a really nice chap with a Germany accent but was born in Mexico! He told us with a big smile that he had been briefed that we were the winemakers from Mahogany Mountain. So he proceeded with his recommendation for the dinner. We ordered our Mahogany Mountain white Zinfandel to pair with a very good spinach salad with goat cheese, walnut and cranberries, at the recommendation of our waiter. It was fantastic. I loved the wonderful combination of the goat cheese, tangy dressing, walnuts and the dry sweetness from our white zin. Then we proceed to order the featured red wine (a Ramona red zinfandel from our friends' winery) to go with our steak dinner since the restaurant has sold out our Merlot. Lo and behold, the waiter came back with a beaming smile because while looking for the other red that we had ordered, he found the last bottle of our Mahogany Mountain 2007 Merlot! It must have been good karma! We all were so happy, especially Michael and his Mom! They were beaming ear-to-ear! His Mom was so proud of her son! After years of seeing him working so hard on the vineyards and building up the business, Ruby finally had a fleeting moment of pride. Of course, our Mahogany Mountain 2007 Merlot was an excellent wine for the steak dinner. The wine was dry but robust with fruit character, beautiful color and had a fantastic bouquet. Perfect match for the steak dinner that everyone at the table had ordered. The chef did an excellent job on the steak that I ordered medium rare: juicy, tender like butter and perfect rareness (without blood running everywhere).

We were so touched that the chef came out and said "Hi" to us. He was so nice and down-to-earth! We told him how much we had enjoyed the meal and thanked him for preparing the staff for our visit.

You should go check out the Barona Oaks Steakhouse. The dinner menu has excellent choices of steak, seafood and other white meat. Their prices are very competitive to other steakhouses of the same class. Our wines are listed in their wine list. On the main wine list (last page - local wines) our two wines (Mahogany Mountain White Zinfandel and Mahogany Mountain 2007 Merlot) are included by the bottle. The price of our wines is so puny compared to a bottle of a French wine that costs $7,500.00. Can you believe that? When we win lotto, we'd come back and order that!


Cheers
Kim

Estate Red Wine won Silver Medal!

We've recently received a Silver Medal from the Lum Eisenman Wine Competition for our estate Red Wine, a delicious blend of estate Cabernet Sauvignon and estate Merlot. The wine was aged for 18 months in American oak barrel. Having a medal with Lum Eisenman's name on it a lot to me even though this wine competition is a tiny competition compared to other medals that we've won from much much bigger competitions with entries from established wineries from every corner of the world. This medal means so much to me personally because of Lum Eisenman himself. Lum is our mentor from ground zero! He taught us the basics of winemaking 15 years ago. I still have a tattered copy of notes that I took during the two year "internship". Considering the fact that I was a wine novice with no background in winemaking whatsoever and a woman, Lum did not laugh at me when I first met him and told him that I was interested in his mentorship program and wanted to learn how to make wine from him. Anyone else would have laughed their head off and would have told me to go away. But not Lum, he created a mentorship program for us and tutored us every step of the way. I attribute all of the best winemaking practices to Lum. Lum is the most giving and generous person in the wine industry that I've met.