KENNETH SONG/NEWS-PRESS PHOTOS
After a long 13 months of back-and-forth openings and closings, the county entered the orange tier last week, and wineries can now operate indoors at 25% capacity.
Wine tasting rooms in Santa Barbara’s Funk Zone are predicting that local residents and wine lovers all over the nation will be “champagne” at the bit to go wine tasting this summer.
After a long 13 months of back-and-forth openings and closings, the county entered the orange tier last week, and wineries can now operate indoors at 25% capacity. For wineries that were able to weather the storm — many thanks to direct-to-consumer bottle sales — employees in the industry are saying summer 2021 will bring back much needed revenue with a wave of vaccinated consumers.
“We already have a huge flux of people coming on the weekends, so it’s probably going to get even crazier for the summer,” Mars Wakefield, a sales associate at Melville Winery’s tasting room on State Street near the Funk Zone’s entrance, told the News-Press Thursday afternoon. He said that Melville tends to attract mostly tourists, and he’s had customers from Los Angeles, the Bay Area, Texas, Chicago and even Arkansas.
“People are starting to travel more, which is great,” Vincent McGranahan, another sales associate at Melville, told the News-Press. “We’re starting to see people from all over the country, which is awesome … Even before the orange tier, people would come up from Los Angeles all the time, every weekend. They spill into Santa Barbara, and we love them.”
Sales associates at Melville Winery’s tasting room say that they anticipate a busy summer now that people are traveling more.
Mr. McGranahan said Melville’s loyal wine club members helped keep the tasting room running throughout the closures, and while some members had to cancel their memberships, many have re-signed up after the worst parts of the pandemic.
“We have a very substantial amount of wine club members, so we were still sending out shipments. People were still buying wine when they could, so I think things are doing OK,” Mr. McGranahan said. “We’re very fortunate with the local community gathering and supporting local business as well as wine club members from all over the country.”
Reservations have been booked full on Saturdays at Melville, but weekdays tend to be a little slower. The associates said many customers still choose to dine outdoors, especially as the tasting room still requires a food purchase to dine indoors.
“We’re just looking forward to seeing more people,” Mr. McGranahan said. “Pouring wine is always a good time, but the people is what makes it fun.”
Patrons sip on wine outside the Melville Winery Tasting Room in Santa Barbara on Friday.
Paradise Springs Winery’s tasting room in the Funk Zone is doing quite well these days according to the manager, Ashley Ramirez, who said that business has actually increased by 25% from pre-pandemic numbers. Since moving into the orange tier, Ms. Ramirez said business has increased by at least 30%.
“I don’t know if it’s stimulus checks or whatever, but people are spending,” she told the News-Press. “I think people got so isolated and cooped up inside, and then all of the sudden, their freedom is back, so it’s nice.”
Tourism is high at Paradise Springs like other wineries, with visitors from “L.A. and S.F. all day long,” according to Ms. Ramirez. In addition, while customers now have the opportunity to sip drinks indoors, the manager said people are still choosing to dine outdoors at Paradise Springs’ large outdoor patio.
“I don’t know if it’s like a fear we have of the indoor space available … Maybe they’ve gotten used to being outdoors all the time, but I would say the first choice is definitely outdoors and then you get the random people that want to come inside,” Ms. Ramirez said. “We also remodeled the patio and it’s really inviting with great ambiance, so I would say more people actually want to sit outside because it feels very European now all over Santa Barbara.”
Paradise Springs Winery is the first bi-coastal winery in the United States, with another location in Virginia. Kirk Wiles, CEO and founder of Paradise Springs, said both locations are doing well.
“I think survival was the name of the game,” he told the News-Press. “Everyone stepped up and found a way, and people still wanted to come out and support. People in Santa Barbara love their wine, and it’s a tight-knit community, so I think you saw a lot of locals wanting to support local business — that’s what helped us get through.”
Paradise Springs Tasting Room Manager Ashley Ramirez pours a glass of wine inside the Springs Winery in Santa Barbara on Friday.
Also working in Paradise Springs’ favor was that it uses more of a direct-to-consumer model rather than restaurant wholesale.
“That part of the business hasn’t fallen out for us like it has for others,” Mr. Wiles said. “If anything, the DTC has drastically picked up because customers aren’t going to restaurants or out to consume alcohol; they’re doing it at home so they want to order more actually to drink at home or wherever it is they enjoy it.”
The winery founder spoke to what he believes is a societal change that’s approaching as a result of COVID-19, representing a good sign for the world of wine.
“I think this whole pandemic has had people shift priorities in life and shift the way they think and the way they consume,” he said. “It’s definitely changed consumer behavior, and the fact that we’ve been on the good side of that for the last 13 months — I see it continuing.
“People are more intuitive on connecting what they’re doing with food and wine, and that bodes well for our industry.”
If someone wanted to know where to get a good beer in Campbell, there would be no shortage of answers. But you probably wouldn’t guess that Sandis, a civil engineering firm headquartered on Winchester Boulevard, is home to the best secret taproom in the valley.
The beermaking tradition started years ago when the company was located in Sunnyvale. A few employees were homebrewers and they started bringing their equipment to work, making beer during downtime in the office. “When our management found out that’s what we were doing, they thought it was great,” said Nate Dickinson, an associate principal with the firm. “We started brewing for company events, and it kind of became a little happy hour kind of thing.”
Nate Dickinson, an associate principal at Sandis, pours a beer in the taproom at the company’s Campbell headquarters. (Sal Pizarro/Bay Area News Group)
Sandis President Jeff Setera says the brewing became an outlet for employees to exhibit their passions outside of work. “It’s a nice way to show there’s something beyond what we do for a living, and to be able to share it together and with a select group of clients,” he said. “It’s a little bit of a unique culture, and we want people to be creative and show their creativity.”
About a year into the beermaking, the brewers bottled about 20 gallons of beer that was given to clients for the holidays, which was a big hit. And then came the move to Campbell, where there was a small conference room near the reception desk no one was sure what to do with. “The idea of putting together a taproom kind of came to fruition,” said Dickinson, who with colleagues combined civil engineering experience and brewing knowledge to outfit a five-tap refrigerated system.
It’s not your every day breakroom. Pint glasses and smaller taster glasses — branded with the Sandis logo, of course — fill shelves below the taps, and glass-topped pony kegs serve as coffee tables holding bottles of water and bar snacks. The office has been closed during the pandemic, but Dickinson — the company’s only current brewer — has kept the taproom maintained for employees who stop by to pick something up (or fill a growler). Most of the current beers have been named to reflect the moment — Covid Cure IPA, Corona Buster IPA, Pandemic Porter and Hazy SIP (“Shelter-in-Place”) IPA — and a menu board lists particulars like alcohol content and bitterness.
Sandis Vice President Laura Cabral, who has fond memories of a chocolate porter, said being a company that also makes beer is a helpful marketing tool. “When our business development folks go to a client’s office, it’s a really nice icebreaker to bring a four-pack of beer with them and then you have this additional thing to talk about,” she said. “There’s always a lot of questions, and we can invite them back to our beer room for a meeting.”
Dickinson. a San Lorenzo Valley native and Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo grad, easily ticks off a list of engineering projects he’s proud of working on, with the renovation of Frost Amphitheater at Stanford University at the top of the list. But it’s harder for him to name his favorite beer. Besides, it’s the camaraderie the taproom has fostered he really appreciates.
“To open this up on a Friday afternoon and let the engineers from one side and the surveyors from the other side share a beer and unwind and talk about what they have going on has really helped make the community in this office,” he said. “It’s a really nice way to end the week.”
TECH CHALLENGE ENDURES: Of all the real-world problems the Tech Challenge has tackled over the past 34 years, figuring out how to conduct the innovation competition during a pandemic that had most students distance-learning apart from each other might have been the biggest. But having every aspect of the yearlong program be virtual was just a bump in the road for the more than 1,200 students who participated in the signature program of the San Jose-based Tech Interactive.
This year’s Tech Challenge: Ultimate Upcycle — presented by San Jose-based Zoom Video Communications (in more ways than one) — asked teams to build a useful item out of cardboard that could be transformed into something else using the same pieces. The student teams — ranging from fourth-graders to high school seniors — presented their creations and answered questions about them during online showcases last weekend. If you want to see the best of the best, awards are being presented May 2 at 3 p.m. You can get more details at www.thetech.org/thetechchallenge.
And if you’ve been aching to get back to the Tech in person, there’s good news on the horizon. The downtown institution plans to reopen May 29, and tickets go on sale May 3. Get hours and other information at www.thetech.org.
BAR PATRONS PAY TRIBUTE: There was an emotional gathering at Jack’s Bar in San Jose on Thursday night to say farewell to Travis Walter, who managed the bar for 11 years and died at age 53 on April 29, 2020 — a time when getting together to remember him wasn’t possible. A U.S. Marine Corps veteran with a broad frame and broader smile, Walter made friends working for San Jose bars for more than 20 years, including the Flying Pig Pub on South First Street and the Flying Martini Bros. in San Pedro Square. It seemed like an endless stream answered Jack’s owner Jordan Trigg’s invitation and showed up to say goodbye.
I’d known Travis for two decades, but another longtime friend, Carl Foisy, told me a story about him I’d never heard. Bar patrons would often urge him to have a drink with them — as bar patrons will — even offering to buy. He’d resist and then finally relent, pouring himself a shot from a bottle of Jack Daniel’s he kept behind the bar, and toasting the happy customer. What they didn’t know was the bottle was filled with iced tea for just such an occasion. There was plenty of the real stuff flowing Thursday night at Jack’s in his honor, though Foisy said he considered sticking to iced tea.
May 01, 2021 at 09:00PM
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Silicon Valley civil engineering firm Sandis also brews its own beer - The Mercury News
John Grochau of Grochau Cellars in the Eola-Amity Hills AVA tasting and sharing his thoughts on a ... [+]Vermentino from winemaker Nate Wall of Troon Vineyard in the Applegate Valley
Photo, courtesy Oregon Wine Board
Starting May 1, Oregon wine lovers are set to celebrate Oregon Wine Month – a month long celebration of the best in Oregon’s rapidly growing wine industry. The event is occurring, even as winery tasting rooms in 15 Oregon wine producing counties are slated to temporarily close, because of the extreme risk of COVID transmission, starting the first week of May.
This is the 9th year of Oregon Wine Month, and it gives wine lovers many different ways to celebrate the event with four collaborative ideas winemakers and wine lovers can engage in, both virtually and in-person.
The first is a social media campaign hosted on Instagram and Facebook called Pour It Forward (#pouritfORward), which serves as a chain of appreciation between Oregon winemakers across the state.
Thirty-one Oregon winemakers are featured in the campaign, which debuts on May 1. In videos posted every day of Oregon Wine Month, winemakers will talk about their favorite among their peer made wines in engaging videos lasting 60 seconds or less. To see the campaign, go to the Wine Board’s Instagram and Facebook channels during the month of May. Videos will also be housed on the Oregon Wine Month site.
The first video on May 1, features winemaker John Grochau of Grochau Cellars in the Eola-Amity Hills AVA tasting and sharing his thoughts on a Vermentino from winemaker Nate Wall of Troon Vineyard in the Applegate Valley AVA. The following day, Wall discussed a Mencia from Analemma Wines in the Columbia Gorge AVA.
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The month-long campaign will feature wineries from all corners of Oregon’s rich and varied winemaking landscape – from The Rocks District of Milton-Freewater to the Chehalem Mountains in the Willamette Valley.
The short videos provide a window into the collaborative Oregon wine industry and gives a platform for winemakers to praise wines made by their talented peers. As well as on social media platforms, the videos will also be housed on the Oregon Wine Month site.
Other episodes in the Pour It Forward series feature winemakers like Master of Wine Billo Naravane from Rasa in The Rocks District and Walla Walla Valley, fellow Willamette Valley alums Doug Tunnell of Brick House, Grant Coulter and Renée St. Amour from Hundred Sons Wine. They are just of few of the 31 winemakers who will be showcased.
Second, the Oregon Wine Month sweepstakes returns this year with even bigger prize package for those eager to visit Oregon wine country. This year the stakes feature two spectacular prizes with two grand prizes – one trip to the Rogue Valley in partnership with Rogue Valley Vintners and one trip to the Willamette Valley in partnership with the Willamette Valley Wineries Association.
The third Oregon Wine Month enhancement is a series of free educational seminars led by Master of Wine Bree Stock. Stock is a leading authority on the Oregon wine industry.
In her first seminar, 370 people from all over the globe registered to hear Stock explain the virtues and true character of Oregon wine. The four webinars are open to anyone who wants to learn more about Oregon wine and the state’s iconic wine appellations. The webinars on May 10, May 17 and May 24 will explore the Willamette Valley, Southern Oregon and the Walla Walla Valley and Columbia Gorge.
Finally, there are a broad array of other Oregon Wine Month events and stories on the OWB's calendar and in the new story library. These events range from outdoor tastings, virtual cooking classes, trivia contests and innovative wine and food pairings, which feature delicious combinations of wine and chocolate or wine matched to Oregon’s abundant seafood.
If you are thinking of making a trip to visit the Oregon wine country, either this month or at a later date, there is a detailed trip planning guide and a listing of many more ways to engage with Oregon’s winemakers on the Oregon Wine Month 2021 website.
May 01, 2021 at 05:30PM
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Celebrate Oregon Wine Month With The Launch Of The Pour It Forward Campaign - Forbes
There’s nothing quite like a cold beer to finish a long workweek. Unless, of course, that beer reminds you of the threats of climate change, whether suffocating heat waves, explosive wildfires, mega-droughts, devastating floods or their risks to human health and the environment.
That’s actually the goal of Torched Earth Ale, a new beer from New Belgium Brewing Co., based in Fort Collins, Colorado. With each sip, you’ll get a not-so-subtle reminder that your favorite brew may no longer taste the same if we don’t take immediate action to slow climate change and adapt to its effects.
Torched Earth Ale is part of New Belgium’s Fat Tire family of beers, which the company says “became America’s first certified carbon neutral beer in 2020.”
How does Torched Earth taste? In a word, awful.
“If this was the beer of the future, I’d probably drink less beer,” said Cody Reif, R&D brewer with New Belgium Brewing, in a promotional video about the beverage.
The dark, starchy brew is made with less-than-ideal ingredients that would be more available and affordable to brewers in a climate-ravaged future, including smoke-tainted water, climate-proof dandelions and drought-resistant grains.
The brewing company said that extreme weather events and constant drought would cause the loss of entire crop years, placing perishable ingredients like hops and malt at risk. Torched Earth Ale’s smoky hint is a reminder that ingredients could be perpetually tainted by smoke from wildfires, which have grown larger and more dangerous in recent years.
This is certainly true of the brewery’s home state of Colorado and across the western U.S., where 2020 brought the worst wildfire season on record in many areas.
Beer is big business. Reports from Climate Central, a nonprofit climate communications organization, illustrate how much the beverage contributes to local economies.
Citing data from the Brewers Association, Climate Central reported that the craft brewing industry alone contributed more than 580,000 jobs in 2019. The economic impact was highest per capita in Colorado, Vermont, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Maine.
For New Belgium, its campaign is more than just about raising climate change awareness by promoting a less-than-delicious beer. It’s also about motivating its drinkers to demand climate action.
Along with the beer, New Belgium is launching the “Last Call for Climate’’ campaign, a call to action for Fortune 500 companies to adopt a 2030 climate plan, an essential step on the journey to net-zero emissions.
“If you don’t have a climate plan, you don’t have a business plan,” said New Belgium chief executive Steve Fechheimer in a press release. “Aggressive action to help solve the climate crisis is not only an urgent environmental and social imperative — it’s also a no-brainer for companies seeking to create long-term shareholder value.”
Only 30% of Fortune 500 companies have a “meaningful” climate action plan, the brewery claims.
”As a medium-sized company, New Belgium can only have a medium-sized impact. We need more of the big guys to step up, too,” Fechheimer said.
May 01, 2021 at 08:00AM
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Colorado brewer makes an awful tasting beer on purpose - The Bulletin
There’s a certain skip in our step as the first shades of spring take hold, and everywhere a spectacle of color comes to life. The purple crocuses rise toward the sun; a burst of yellow that only daffodils and forsythia bring; verdant grass to quote John Updike, “the color of liquid green.” A panorama of coral, violet, and gold sweeps the sky.
Beauty on the verge is April, a vision of hope and something we thirst for these days. What better accompaniment than rosé, a darling of the wine world, especially come spring, and a veritable chameleon at that.
Rosé wines come in a kaleidoscope of colors, textures, and styles—running the gamut from dry to sweet to sparkling, and made all over the world with myriad grape varietals. Black grape varietals are most commonly used, although some gray varietals, such as pinot gris are introduced. Grape juice is clear, hence the color and personality of rosé comes from the skins of the grape. The skins are left to macerate with the grape juice, dependent on the color desired, and the grape varietal used. Heartier black grape varietals such as syrah and mourvèdre will inevitably offer more extraction. Likewise, thin-skinned varietals such as pinot noir and nebbiolo will more easily produce a lighter style of rosé.
A common method used for making deeper, more structured, and tannic rosés, which often look and behave like a light red wine, is the saignée method, which is a process of “bleeding off” a portion of juice from a red wine during fermentation, then use it to make a rosé. Blending white and red wine is another way to make rosé, but not commonly practiced, as it eliminates the complexities of both the finished product and the process. Ultimately, a rosé’s disposition is a matter of timing and the intention of the winemaker.
To help kick off this season of optimism, four passionate North Shore wine retailers share a selection of their favorite, harbinger of spring, vintage 2020 rosés, poised and eager to take center stage.
+ 2020 Upwell, Lodi, California $18
A collaboration between winemaker Eric Clemons and Coeur Wine Company, made with Spanish varietal tempranillo. Deep in color, ripe fruit, lovely aromatics, and quietly brooding. Distributed by Arborway Imports
+ 2020 Christina, Burgenland, Austria $19
Christina Netzl produces a deep wine of undulating texture and heightened aromatics where cherries and strawberries keep time with a steady minerality. Made with Zweigelt, this is a wine for contemplation. Distributed by Olmstead Wine Company
+2020 Seehof, Rheinhessen, Germany $20
A staple for the team at Lucille, juicy, aromatic, and quaffable, with great acidity, made entirely of pinot noir, from winemaker Florian Fauth. Distributed by Vineyard Road
+ 2020 Domaine Zafeirakis, Thessaly, Greece $20
Made with indigenous varietal limniona, a fruity, mineral laced, and herbaceous style, and of salmon hue, from fourth-generation winemaker Christos Zafeirakis. Distributed by Vineyard Road
+ 2020 Leonardo Bussoletti, Umbria, Italy $19
Bright pink, deep, aromatic, fruit forward, with loads of raspberries and strawberries, and a touch of savory mischief. Made with native varietal ciliegiolo. Distributed by Mucci Imports
+ 2020 Gönc Winery, Ptuj, Slovenia $20
Whimsical and just plain cool, the one-liter Grape Abduction is meant to put a smile on one’s face. Strawberries and cream, peaches, wet stones, and fun. Distributed by Gilbert Distributors.
+ 2020 Ulacia Txakoli de Getaria, Basque Country, Spain $22
Made with native varietal hondarrabi zuri, it’s easy to imagine sitting at the edge of the ocean’s breath. Brimming with salinity and slightly spritzed, this is fruit-forward territory balanced with lively acidity. Distributed by M.S. Walker, Inc.
+ 2020 Domaine Pellé, Menetou-Salon, Loire Valley, France $20
Rich and ripe red fruit, with taut, well integrated acidity, from a discovery appellation, just next door to Sancerre. Pale of color, with elegant aromatics, made with pinot noir. Distributed by D.B. Wine Selection.
April 30, 2021 at 03:54PM
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4 North Shore Wine Experts' Spring Rosé Picks - nshoremag.com
