Made it to Riverbench Vineyard & Winery!

I was immediately impressed with the turnout (all ages and backgrounds) and the desire to learn from the other attendees. Jim Stollberg, Vineyard Manager for Riverbench and owner of Maverick Farming Company, led us into the vineyard first. Jim was the perfect tour leader. He’s extremely knowledgeable and down to earth, allowing attendees to interrupt with all kinds of questions about what goes on in the vineyard during the spring. He talked about bud break (which is in full force at Riverbench), pruning styles, and how to protect your fresh, new buds from frost.

This bud already has all the fruit inside it for 2011 harvest!

Did you know that by turning on sprinklers during frost, the freezing of the water droplets creates heat which in turn protects the fragile buds from being frozen? I didn’t!

Jim also talked about the importance of getting SIP Certified and how it challenges them to become a cohesive company working together towards a common goal of sustainability and promoting a healthy environment.

Listening attentively!

No vineyard tour is complete without a wine tasting of the final product. Jim stuck around and chatted with all the guests as we sipped Riverbench’s fabulous Pinot Noir and Chardonnay on the patio. It was the perfect day and I loved all of the intelligent questions and education. Everyone left confident that they had learned something new!

Lining up to taste some fabulous wines!

Stay tuned for the next Vineyard tour with CCWGA at Laetitia Vineyard on May 21 from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM. RSVP with John Burke, Executive Director for CCWGA.

**SIP hats are available for purchase for $15! Email info@vineyardteam.org to purchase yours today!

Our tasting training center

We began by blindly testing our sniffers on a line-up of wines enhanced to smell like an individual characteristic found in that wine.

The line up

Dry grass? Red fruit???

Then we tasted four solutions (bitter, sweet, astringent, and sour) so that we could feel where these flavors hit our taste buds. And the grand finale…an official tasting of four Firestone wines.

Another lovely day on the Central Coast

We ended the day with full senses and a homework assignment to smell everything. I look forward to improving my sensory memory and wine evaluation. As they say, practice makes perfect and there is no better place for wine than right here on the Central Coast.

Featuring Central Coast Wine & Cuisine!

SIP Certified vineyards and wines were in abundance at this event. Ancient Peaks, Baileyana, Chamisal, Claiborne & Churchill, Edna Valley Vineyard, Laetitia, Saucelito Canyon Vineyards, Tangent, Tolosa, Wolff, and Zocker were all showing off the SIP seal. We were pouring a great Baileyana Syrah that was highly sought after and received a lot of enthusiastic feedback on the SIP program.

The SIP Gals

See you at next year’s Harvest Celebration!

Photographer Steven Gould in action

The artist's point of view

After two days of arranging, tweaking, shooting, color correcting, evaluating, and selecting we are thrilled with our picks!

Final pick

Staging the scene

Seeing the SIP seal

The photo shoot was no easy task but the models were great and the photographer showed each and every one in their best light. See more pics in our online gallery!

CCVT Executive Director Kris O'Connor (3rd from left) along with other industry awards winners Clay Brock (4th from left) and members of the Dusi family.

The peer-driven award was chosen by members of Paso Robles Wine Country Alliance, Independent Grape Growers of Paso Robles, Central Coast Vineyard Team (no comments from the peanut gallery — we played fair!), San Luis Obispo Vintners Association and past award recipients. Clay Brock of Wild Horse Winery and Vineyards in Templeton won Winemaker of the Year and Winegrape Grower of the Year went to an entire family: the Dusis of Dante Dusi Vineyard. All the winners were honored at a industry event on July 30 at the Mid State Fair.

In presenting the award to O’Connor, CCVT Founding Member and Past Chair Dana Merrill (Mesa Vineyard Management and SIP-certified Pomar Junction Vineyard & Winery) recalled the year 1998, when “what we really needed was an executive director, but all we could afford was part-time.” O’Connor brought numerous skills to that part-time job, including having co-authored a textbook, extensive field experience in soils and irrigation, and fluency in Spanish.

Over the years, part-time became full-time – and then some – and Merrill noted that CCVT grew as well. Today, it represents some 80,000 acres in the tri-county area of San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Monterey Counties, and the SIP Program can currently be applied to 10,000 acres, with more in the pipeline.

“It really shows you what can be accomplished with voluntary efforts,” said Merrill, “and a lot of that come back to what kind of leadership Kris provides.”

When O’Connor took the podium, one of her first phrases was “Who would have thought it?” Indeed, as she noted, “Sustainability was not a buzzword back in 1994 (CCVT’s first year). It’s been an amazing thing and so much credit should go to those founding members who dared think outside the box.”

Besides all the numbers that bear witness to CCVT’s and SIP’s growth and achievements, O’Connor also pointed out the success of the annual Earth Day Food & Wine Festival, saying “How cool is it to be able to celebrate Earth Day around farmers and other ag people?”

She also shared an anecdote which really brought home the vibrant, organic growth of CCVT. A few years ago, O’Connor was visiting some vineyards in Chile; when she starting her presentation about CCVT, one of the Chilean members of the group reached into his backpack and pulled out a piece of reference material he had already been using. It was a copy of the Spanish version of the CCVT’s PPS (Positive Points System).

How do you say “Woot! Woot!” in Spanish?

One of the big highlights this year was the chance to taste “The Wine” – the wine that recently snagged 100 Parker points, Saxum Vineyard’s 2007 James Berry Vineyard Proprietary Red. Produced by Justin and Heather Smith, this label is near and dear to Central Coast Vineyard Team since Justin’s dad, Pebble Smith, was a CCVT founding member.

Justin not only graciously hosted a private tasting for a lucky few at the winery on Saturday morning, but also poured at the Earth Day main event that afternoon. Since allotments of the ’07 James Berry all but vanished from the general market soon after the Parker blessing, I can only say, “THANK YOU FOR SHARING, JUSTIN!!”

Justin Smith offers some barrel samples of one of the '09 James Berry components.

Robert Parker called the ’07 James Berry “Utter perfection,” and who are we to argue. A blend of 41% Grenache, 31% Mourvedre, and 28% Syrah, all three varietals brought their strengths to the table. This wine had the most perfect pitch I’ve ever tasted in a wine, with bright notes and fabulous depth, sturdy but not overwhelming tannins, and stunning balance.

At the private tasting, Justin also offered another treat – barrel tastings of the three main wines slated to go into the 2009 James Berry Red. Tasting each of these wines individually really gave a sense of how Justin was orchestrating the ’09 fruit and how each really does bring a specific theme to the finished wine. First was a bright Grenache with a joyful sense of pure fruit, being aged in concrete tanks; second was a 50/30/20 MSG with big earthy Mourvèdre on the nose but not a lot of tannins, co-fermented in new oak; and third was a Syrah with some great tannins and rich but subtle mid-palate notes. Given how all these wines are showing now, the ’09 James Berry should be one to watch for!

The lucky folks who joined Justin Smith for a private tasting at Saxum Vineyards before the Earth Day Food & Wine Festival main event.

the estate vineyard for Ancient Peaks Winery

Ancient Peaks Winery’s estate Margarita Vineyard is one of the latest to earn SIP (Sustainability in Practice) Certification in recognition of the vineyard’s numerous sustainable viticultural practices.

“We are proud to have met the rigorous standards of the SIP certification process,” said co-owner and vineyard manager Doug Filipponi. “This certification recognizes what we are doing to ensure natural quality in our wines, and it reflects our passion for being good stewards of the land.”

Margarita Vineyard stands alone as the southernmost vineyard in the Paso Robles appellation, nestled into the rugged Santa Lucia Mountain range just 14 miles from the Pacific Ocean . Margarita Vineyard resides on the historic Santa Margarita Ranch (where the CCVT annual Earth Day Food & Wine Festival is held), which was first planted to vines by Franciscan missionaries in 1774. The vineyard spans 996 acres planted to Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Zinfandel, Syrah, Sauvignon Blanc and other varietals.

Sustainable practices at Margarita Vineyard include deficit irrigation, natural cover crops, wildlife corridors, rotational groundwater usage and the use of compost tea in place of synthetic fertilizers. Stream and wetland health is preserved by the avoidance of tillage practices that might cause soil erosion. Vineyard pests are managed naturally by promoting habits for native predators, a program that includes 34 bat boxes, 471 bluebird boxes, 29 owl boxes and 13 predatory bird perches. No oak trees were removed in the planting of Margarita Vineyard, and wetland setback requirements were exceeded.

Ancient Peaks is a family-owned winery specializing in wines from the estate Margarita Vineyard, and is named for the tall peaks surrounding the estate vineyard which were forged by the collision of the coastal plates, geologic forces which give the vineyard five distinct soil zones—ancient sea bed, shale, sediment, granite and volcanic.

A longtime supporter of Central Coast Vineyard Team and the SIP program – some of Castoro’s vineyards are SIP certified, as well as being certified organic – Niels started as a local cellar rat back in 1981, when no one knew what a Paso Robles was. He and his wife Bimmer launched Castoro (Italian for Niels’ nickname: “Beaver”) in 1983, and over the years, it can certainly be considered one of the labels that helped put Paso Robles on the map as a stellar wine region.

Over the years, the Udsens quietly but steadily practiced responsible stewardship of their vineyards, and have clearly emerged as successful role models for sustainability and community leadership. To name just a few of their efforts: their employees are encouraged to recycle, there is no bottled water sold at the tasting room, the events room at the Templeton tasting room is largely powered by solar panels, and Castoro was one of the first wineries in the area to offer employee benefits.

Under the direction of Niels, Winemaker/Enologist Tom Myers, and Assistant Winemaker Mikel Olsten, Castoro Cellars has grown into a 60,000 case label (plus a thriving custom crush facility and mobile bottling service). Typically, there are about 15 varietals bottled, from the flagship Zinfandels to the more obscure varietals such as Cabernet Franc. Several blends and vineyard-designate wines are always on hand as well, but – despite the breadth of available wines – we’ve never found Castoro to be about quantity. All the wines are classic varietal interpretations, some with forward fruit if the grape and vintage suggest it, but the rest show veteran finesse and restraint in the winemaking process, making them wonderful wines to pair with food.

Keynote speaker was Deborah Lyons, an environmental sustainability specialist for Hewlett-Packard in Palo Alto, the largest information technology company in the country and recently named as the greenest company in America by Newsweek magazine.

According to The Tribune’s Biz Buzz Report on November 11, 2009, “Lyons’ message was that saving the planet is good for businesses — and the bottom line. She came to San Luis Obispo hoping to inspire local enterprises to measure their energy usage and waste, be efficient with their resources and find new ways to save costs. But after listening to what county businesses were doing to reduce their carbon footprint, she said, ‘I’m the one who’s inspired’.”