“Saving the World, One Adjustment at a Time.”

We are supporting Geoffrey, one of our winemakers, who is embarking on an incredible Mission-Chiropractic Trip to the Dominican Republic!! There will be thousands of patients who need their love and miracle hands. They are serving in several cities around the Puerta Plata and Santiago area.

To raise money for their trip, they are selling “Chiropractic Superhero” bracelet. If you want to support Geoffrey and his fellow chiromissionnaries, please make a donation. If you don’t want the bracelets, but still want to donate, please feel free to do so. Please send a check made out to “Geoffrey Hargett” to the following address:

Geoffrey Hargett

P.O. Box 1513

Ramona, CA 92065

For each donation, we’ll enter your name in a raffle for a wine basket donated from Mahogany Mountain Vineyard & Winery. The raffle will take place on December 17. You don’t need to be present to win.

Pick me, Crush me, Make me Wine!

Starting in August, we spent all of our spared time working in the vineyards. There were lots to do, from putting up the bird scare tapes, checking the grapes, testing the Brix (sugar) level, to thinning the grapes and adjusting watering levels. Since we do from A-Z as far as grape growing and winemaking at Mahogany Mountain Vineyard, this is our busiest time of the year as many tasks must be coordinated and done in a very short time.  I was able to apply my project/program management techniques!

We have a bumper crop this year. We don't know how we could have pulled it off without help from our families, neighbors, relatives and the Ramona Valley Vineyards Association's members.  One of our cousins, Hanni, who is originally from Europe, told us the story about how the whole village in an Italian town where her late husband's family lived would help out one another at harvest time, even when they hated one another and didn't speak to one another under normal circumstances, due to some old grudges.  They all would help each family harvest and had a meal together afterward, then went  home until the next harvest season!

Check out a new article on ramona.patch.com at the link listed below:

http://ramona.patch.com/articles/crush-time

(if the link does not work for you for some reasons, go to ramona.patch.com and look for the article, "Crush Time" written by Vincent Rossi)

Cheers!

Harvest Season is here!

We're going to harvest again this coming weekend:

- Saturday, September 10 at 4:15 pm

If you want to come and join us our harvest (this is your last chance for this season!), please RSVP asap via email to info@mahoganymountain.com.  We'll keep you posted with more details that you need to know. 

This would be your last chance to help with the 2011 harvest at Mahogany Mountain Vineyard as we've been harvesting the last two weeks!  So far we've harvested Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Mourvedre and Zinfandel. We are so grateful for the help and support from our family, cousins, friends and volunteers from RVVA.  Thank God for their help to quickly harvest the grapes as soon as they reached our desired Brix level and taste test!  Otherwise, they would have been exposed to the rain which came on Monday 9/5 right after we crushed the Mourvedre! We hope the sun will come out soon.

It's time to harvest again!!!

Thanks to our friends, family and RVVA members, we had a great harvest last weekend.  The Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon came in beautiful, had lots of flavor and tasted so good. It has been a good harvest season so far.

We'll harvest again this coming weekend! Hope you can join us.


Saturday, Sept. 3, at 4:00 pm in the afternoon

Monday, Sept. 5, at 7 am in the morning. If you are an early riser and would want to get here earlier than 7 am, it would be fine with us. . We'll try to be there between 5:30 - 6 am.

Important:

Please RSVP via email to info@mahoganymountain.com and let us know which day you’d plan to participate and how many people in your party so we can have a good headcount for refreshment.
Thanks so much in advance for your help. See ya soon!

It's Harvest Time!

Thanks to the sunshine and hot weather in Ramona, our grapes are ripening rapidly, a lot faster than we have planned. Our annual grape harvest parties last year were really fun with lots of help. We hope you can join us this year.

We expect to have some grapes ready for harvest starting this weekend! Sorry for the short notice. If you can help this weekend, it would be great. We’d be harvesting Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon.

This weekend, we'll harvest grapes on both days, Saturday, August 27 and Sunday 28 morning at 7 am (we’ll probably start at 6 am, but you can come between 6-7 am). We’ll have a champagne brunch afterward. ;-).

If you can make it this weekend, please RSVP via email to info@mahoganymountain.com so we can send you more details.

Cheers!

Mahogany Mountain Vineyard and Winery featured in Vision Magazine

Starting the vineyard in 1997, Kim and Michael aspired to create an all-natural, great tasting “organic” wine. Beginning their journey as amateur wine makers, they joined the San Diego Amateur Winemaker Society and studied under a gentleman winemaker ... read more

The Plot Thickens and Creating Alcohol in wine

We participated in a fundraiser event for the Intermountain Volunteer Fire and Rescue Department Auxiliary yesterday evening at the new and beautiful Ramona Public Library.

Robin, Mahogany Mountain Winemaker and Batwoman

The theme of the evening was “The Plot Thickens, a Night of Mystery at the Library”. Many folks showed up in beautiful costumes. Some of the costumes were fantastic like the beautiful Batwoman and Robin who were gracious enough to pose for pictures. I also loved the costumes from the Sherlock Holmes worn by a lovely couple.  There were two lovely young ladies dressed in Princesses costumes who stopped by and chatted with us about our winery. I would have loved to take a picture of Scarlett O’Hara (Gone with the Wind), in a beautiful dress with big hoop and beautiful straw hat.

As part of the fundraiser, six wineries in Ramona, including Mahogany Mountain Vineyard & Winery, Pamo Valley Winery, Chuparosa Vineyards, Woof’n Rose Winery, Kohill Winery, Edwards Vineyard & Cellars and Pyramid Vineyard & Winery, offered wine tastings and donated wines to the fundraiser volunteers for selling by the glass to raise funds for the event. Several party goers commented to us that they were astonished by the high quality of Ramona wines that were being offered for tasting. People from other towns told us that they did not realize there were so many wineries in Ramona. This gave us, winemakers and winegrowers, a chance to chat with the public about grape growing, handcrafted wines and wine making process. Some people were surprised to learn from me that in wine production, yeast converted the natural sugar in grapes to carbon dioxide and alcohol. They had thought that alcohol was an extra ingredient that was added to wines! Phew, I was glad to set the records straight on that. I told them that the amount of alcohol in a wine would usually depend on how much sugar is in the grapes when they were harvested. I further explained that the quality of the wines would depend on the grape grower’s and winemaker’s art (or skill) in finding the ideal time to harvest grapes – depending on the grape variety, region or terroir, winemaking style and a host of other factors.

It was truly a fun evening for a good cause! I was told that all proceeds from this event would be used solely for the daily operating expenses for the Intermountain Volunteer Fire and Rescue Department. With the fire season approaching, it felt good to be able to contribute to a worthwhile cause that would benefit the fire fighting force in the backcountry as the last two big county-wide firestorms had taught us that fires started from the remote areas could spread to the urban areas.

Carpe Diem! As Scarlett said, “After all... tomorrow is another day!”