I recently sat down with winemakers Bibiana Gonzalez Rave, owner and winemaker of Cattleya and Alma de Cattleya, and Jeff Pisoni, winemaker of Pisoni Vineyards. The two winemakers are married...
If you like to find the unknown winery, the small production winery or just meet new winemakers, then the Garagiste Festival is for you. Throughout the year, Garagiste Festival takes place in Paso Robles, Solvang, Los Angeles and now Sonoma. For the second time, Garagiste Festival returns to Sonoma on April 13th and I wrote about what you might and why you might want to go in my recent column in the Napa Valley Register which you can read here.
Everyone knows the riddle: “How do you make a small fortune in the wine industry? Start with a large one.”
The dream to own a winery and make wine can seem like a fantasy. Land costs in Napa and Sonoma are prohibitive when a vineyard in Napa will cost anywhere from $120,000 to more than $370,000 per acre and a vineyard in Sonoma can cost $70,000 to more than $150,000 per acre.
Even if you do not own a vineyard, buying quality fruit in Napa and Sonoma can be costly. In 2016, Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon averaged $6,829 per ton and Sonoma Pinot Noir averaged $3,678 per ton. But, despite these costs, there are small winemakers out there who are striving to make the best wines possible, even without a venture capitalist behind them.
Last summer, I was invited to judge for my first time at the Central Coast Wine Competition 2018. When it came time to the final round, we were voting for the Best White Wine and ended up selecting a Grenache Blanc. After the competition was over, we all went into the back to see what the wine was that won. It was the Alara Cellars 2017 Grenache Blanc that won “Best in Show” for white wines. The label was quite eye-catching but none of us had ever heard of the winery that was owned by Janu Goelz. That was because it was the first vintage of Alara Cellars. Fast forward more than six months and I met Janu and Jason Goelz for lunch when they visited Los Angeles and they shared their story of how they met and about their two individual wine labels which I wrote about in the Napa Valley Register and am sharing here.
When you think of wine production in Northern California, you likely think of Napa or Sonoma. Of course, there are other wine regions in Northern California, such as Mendocino and Lake counties.
