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6th Annual Blending Seminar- Feb. 25th

Wednesday, January 11th, 2012

Have you ever wondered, or more like dreamed, of what it was like to be a winemaker? Well this is one event where you can step into the shoes of a winemaker and experience what it is like to create a wine.

In our 6^th Annual Blending Seminar, guests will have the chance to create a white wine blend which will be bottled under the Mission V white wine label. During the event guests will work alongside our winemaker and cellar crew to learn the ins and outs of winemaking. Teams of 6-8 guests will be asked to come up with a final blend to submit for a blind tasting that will take place after each team has created their winning blend. The blends will be blind tasted and voted on by all participants and the winning blend will be announced and then bottled for the Jan 2013 release of the Mission V wine club exclusive blend.

Guests will wrap up the afternoon with a catered lunch in our Heritage Room overlooking the Edna Valley. Guests of the event will also be given the opportunity to purchase a pre-release of the wine before any other club members at a discounted price!

Here’s a quote from a wine club member that attended last year’s event: “ The Tolosa blending seminar is an amazing and fun learning experience. Where else can you taste wine, be creative, and blend a new Tolosa Mission V wine? All of this and enjoy a wonderful luncheon while voting for your favorite blend, it’s definitely an adventure to remember.”

This event is limited to club members and does sell out quickly. Give us a call to make your reservations at (805)782-0500 or register online by clicking here >> $45pp all inclusive. Saturday February 25^th, 11am-2pm.

Katie Noonan

Marketing & Event Director

(805)782-0300 ext. 20

katie@tolosawinery.com

www.tolosawinery.com

Join us:

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Tags: blending seminar, winemaking event
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Harvest update- it’s raining

Tuesday, October 4th, 2011

"The first rains of the winter moved in this morning. We’re set for a little rain today, and apparently a lot tomorrow. It’s an arctic storm which means that it will be cold and will move through quickly. During the harvest this is the best type of storm if you’ve going to have one. The alternative is tropical moisture which with its combination of rain and warm still air can cause common rot to quickly destroy your fruit.

Not all rain during harvest is harmless, and several vintages I have made were diminished by rain, but by and large it is benign. I recall my very first harvest in 1979 at Acacia when a storm moved in like this year towards the end of picking. I was very concerned, but Mike Richmond my mentor and boss at that time said, "Don’t worry, it always rains during harvest." Good advice in general about attitude towards weather if you’re going to be at all happy as a farmer. Our second harvest together we were receiving the very last fruit of the season and as we were loading it into the press the first rain of the season began falling. It felt both fated and magical. My fondest memory of harvest rain was in the late 80′s. I don’t recall the exact vintage but I suspect it was ’87 or ’88 as my son who was born in ’83 was 4 or 5 at the time. We were driving to Lee Hudson’s always anticipated harvest party. The fruit had been in for a week or so. Rain began falling heavily as we drove up. The party, always held outside, continued despite the rain. Everybody danced in the mud and got soaked. As the evening wore on, and the rain intensified, the adults retreated under the shelter of the barns while the children like little savages continued to dance around the bonfire until we took them home and to bed."

- Larry Brooks, Winemaker

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The first grapes have arrived!!

Tuesday, September 13th, 2011

Harvest has officially begun at Tolosa! Today we brought in our first grapes from our Pinot Noir block 593, which most customers know as our Lily Gil. Block 593 is the highest point on the eastern hills of Edna Ranch. It is on a mix of soils the dominant one is reddish and of volcanic origin. The flavor influence of the soil trumps the clonal material in this location. We also brought in the neighboring Pinot Noir block 587. In a few of these photos you’ll see winemaker, Larry Brooks, who is starting his 34^th harvest, doing analysis of the grapes as they are being processed and in the last photo he is using the refractometer to measure the brix.

Come on by in the next few weeks to catch a glimpse of the action from our patio while sipping on the final product!

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Tags: Harvest
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Something To Crow About

Tuesday, May 24th, 2011

Last week, I was asked to emcee the monthly meeting of the San Luis Obispo’s American Wine Society’s lecture, which included blind tastings of Pinot Noir.

Feeling as “inadequate” as I usually am, I first reached out to my co-member and “wine wife” Nancy Rodgers and secondly, most importantly, our winemaker, Larry Brooks.

Larry agreed to summarize his thirty plus harvests in California, as well as guide us through three flights of three wines each(nine in all).

Larry’s years have paralleled not only California’s own “identity” with Burgundy as such, but the difficulty encountered in the early years including rootstocks, potential planting sites and of course, winemaker’s objectives.

All of this being especially timely since the recent brawl broke out at “WOPN” when California’s Pinot Noirs and most specifically their alcohol levels, were critiqued. Which Larry explained to us, for most part, “missed the entire point”!

The real fun however, came during blind tastings. Candidates included: Edna Valley (3), Russian River(2), Oregon(2) and of course Burgundy(2). We ranked each using “Nobles” wine wheel and evaluated by: Appearance, Aroma, Taste, Aftertaste and Overall impression. Votes were totaled for overall best and tallied “Chicago style” – in other words-vote early and vote often!

The winner-Tolosa’s 2007 Edna Ranch ($28) Pinot Noir!

John Shakley, Concierge

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Ageworthy Wines!

Tuesday, March 29th, 2011

The last few weeks have been informative on the subject of the age-ability and general quality of Tolosa’s Pinot Noir. Our LA rep Jeff Kandell told me about a “Pinot Noir Shootout” that one of his accounts was hosting. This event puts together 20 world class wines and a large group of qualified professional tasters in an effort to rank aged red wine. The account had done a Cabernet Shootout previously and now wanted to try the same thing with Pinot Noir. I talked with my friend Mike Dunn who had participated with his Dunn Vineyards Cabernets in the first event and he said it was both legitimate and worthwhile. Tolosa decided to sponsor the event, which took place at Red, White and Bluezz in Pasadena, by donating some wine to be used for charitable fundraising, and the account asked if we had a wine made between 1990 and 2001 that we’d like to enter in the competition. We ended up entering our 2001 Estate Pinot Noir. Nobody, ourselves included imagined that the Tolosa wine would score that well against some extremely tough competition, including a La Tache from the famed DRC. We were pleasantly surprised to finish 9th out of the 20 wines. Only one California wine beat Tolosa and that was in 7th to our 9th place. More than half of this heavyweight group finished behind us in the ranking. Our wine at $55 was also the least expensive wine in the flight. As one journalist put it, “While hardly two buck Chuck the Tolosa wine was a bargain given the company it was in.” I think these results speak not only to our Pinots age worthiness but also to the overall quality of our Pinot Noir.

Stimulated by this information we surveyed the other Pinots in our library and found that many of them are the equal of this 2001 and some to my taste, superior. I particularly like the 2002 Estate Pinot Noir and the 2003 is delicious as well. Only the 2004 has faded, but given how hot that vintage was that was not shocking. We tasted all of our “1772″ Pinots as well as the Estate and they are ageing on pretty much the same pattern, but in a denser deeper mode.

In light of this tasting and seeing how great some of our Library wines are tasting we have decided to host a Library Tasting here at the winery on Sunday April 10^th, 2011. At the Library tasting guests will be able to taste our library wines varying in vintages we feel are at their prime. We will be featuring both Estate and “1772” series in the following varietals; Pinot Noir, Syrah and Chardonnay. It’s just $15 for General Public and $10 for Wine Club. You can sign-up online by clicking here or by calling the tasting room at (805)782-0500. And trust me after tasting some of these wines you will see how Tolosa’s wines are uniquely age worthy!

-Larry Brooks.