Harvest Time in the Wine Country

It's a great time to be in the wine country. All the wineries are doing what they do best, making wine.

If you love wine and haven't experienced seeing wine being made, it really is worth a visit. It all begins with the pick early in the morning and then they transported to the winery to be processed for fermentation. At our winery we may have ten different types of grapes coming through at various times this month.

19th Hole Wine will be doing a Chardonnay this year from Alexander Valley. We'll be aging it in oak to give it that buttery touch that most of us enjoy. I expect we'll be bottling this wine next Summer in July or so. We expect it'll be a bargain at $20 a bottle. The previous vintages from this vineyard are award winning Chardonnays at $30 plus a bottle.

I'm really excited about a new merlot blend we're bottling this month. It is blended with 15% Cabernet Franc and 10% Cabernet Sauvignon all from Sonoma County. We'll price this wine at $15 a bottle.

In the same bottling run we'll also put into bottle our Sonoma Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. This is 100% Cabernet Sauvignon from 2008 and we expect to sell this at $30 a bottle.

Give us a call if you'd like to watch us make the wine or if you'd like to come up to taste. Our phone number is 707-529-6458.

Recap of San Francisco Chronicle Wine Tasting

We just wrapping up our wine tasting event at Fort Mason in San Francisco last Sayurday. I announced in an email to our contest entrants from the tasting that Candy Baker (Medford, OR) and Heidi Whitehouse (Modesto, CA) were the winners of a golf lesson and a couple bottles of wine.

It was our first go and I found the crowd to be great. They were interested in the wines and very friendly. Interestingly many tasters under 32 years old. Us folks in the wine business love that generation because so many of them really enjoy their wine and bring a refreshing openess to what they'll try!

The event flies by. The doors open at 1:15 pm and the place is full very quickly. It was orderly (at least where I was) with just enough of a crowd to keep us on our toes. I'd say in three hours I poured for 300 people. Our Cabernet Sauvignon was most requested followed by our limited Chardonnay. At 4:45 the crowd was signaled to go and they did. By five o'clock the place was cleared out (pretty impressive).

Our next wine tasting is February 25th in San Francisco followed by the Family Wine Maker's tasting in Del Mar, CA March 14 and Pasadena (for trade only) March 16th.

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Any excuse to go to Pebble Beach works for me. The First Tee Open is on and my favorite golfer on tour Michael Allen tees it up as the favorite (in my book at least). I'll be easy to find, I'll be wearing a 19th Hole t-shirt (if you want o...ne they're $25 and I'll need your size. After the round we'll meet at Rio Grill for some appies and some 19th Hole wine. Read More

The Masters Delivers Again

Although turning my shoulder on my family as they did Easter lunch I had a great Masters viewing. I was not going to miss this one with Phil and Tiger charging up the leader board!

The weekend was kicked up a notch with our 19th Hole Wine Club outing Friday, the second round of the tournament at the Presidio in San Francisco.

We had twelve golfers teeing off at 8:00 am and we each picked a player from the Masters field to be out partner. Mike Zaczek won his first major on the 19th Hole Golf Tour with his partner for the day Phil Mickelson (Mike net 72 and Phil 68 with a steller late charge).

Presidio Golf Club was in surprisenly good condition and the weather was pristine. Of course when we played another nine in the afternoon it was blowing and more typical of the old military course.

Video Blog from the Sonoma Valley February 27

Kris Moe continues his reports from the vineyards during the various months of the season.

19th Hole Wines in LA as Lefty wins at Riviera

I had the pleasure of watching the Los Angeles Open Wednesday through Friday. I set up a 19th Hole wine club event on Thursday which gave me a valid excuse to be in Los Angeles.

The players love this gem of a golf course. It's beautiful, straight forward, steeped in history and challenges these guys with all the shots and usually fine weather.

I spent most of my time watching my friend Michael Allen play with two super players, Vaughn Taylor and Bill Haas. I was most impressed with Luke Donald who was the group in front of us. He makes it look really easy, strikes it very solid and boy can he roll the ball on the greens!

I can't imagine a better golf tournament to spectate. It has a great field, it's a nice walk and the holes parallel each other so often times you can jump over to another group.

It's really worth going to one of professional events. I think you'll really benefit from watching these great swings, pure ball striking and the tempo of their shot routines.

Bodega Bay Golf Outing June 13th

I've moved the 19th Hole Golf Outing to Bodega Bay Golf Club and we're full with four groups. The next outing is during the second round of the British Open in July. Hope you can make it.

I have a US Open contest on my golf school site so I'll encourage you to pick a winner, beside Tiger. The winner will get a two-day golf school with me in the wine country. Enter here or send an email to me at kris.moe@sbcglobal.net