Saturday, July 29, 2006


Our wine inspiration can come from anywhere ... Like from Santa Fe, New Mexico


We just returned from a long 4 day weekend in Santa Fe, New Mexico. For those who have never been, please try to schedule a trip soon. Its stunningly beautiful, perched hi up @ 7000 foot elevation. And yes, believe it or not, grapes grow in the New Mexico high dessert.

We enjoyed New Mexico's own GRUET sparkling wine grown from the outskirts of Albuquerque. Gruet NV Blanc de Noir at $13/bottle is a rare gem. Hints of peach, vanilla with the most sensual peach coral colors. Methode Champenoise is used. Gruet is a well known French Champagne house in Champagne France. One of the sons moved to Albuquerque in 1983 and started Gruet Winery based in New Mexico. My learning, if you're passionate & have the knowledge & werewithall, you can start a winery anywhere.

Aside from New Mexico grown grapes, we found Santa Fe to be extraordinarily adventurous & noteworthy in its wine lists at the many restaurants we happened upon. Like, Geronimo's. New Mexico's only Mobil 4 star restaurant. Quinn Stephenson, the wine buyer, is a California boutique wine fanatic. A rabid fan. He loves small, single vineyard productions like Garretson's lineup of Syrah's from Paso Robles and Merry Edwards's roster of Pinot Noirs. For us small wineries, a great person to know. What a pleasure it was to wine & dine with Quinn.

If you're needing wine for your picnics in Santa Fe, visit Susan's Fine Wine & Spirits store on El Cerrillos. Susan opened her own store just earlier this year with a mission to teach, and share the wines she loves from around the world. We bought a spectacular Jumilla from Roblemar, 2002 vintage for about $20/bottle. A meritage of Spanish Merlot & Tempranillo & Cabernet Sauvignon, that blends the best of all. Very well balanced with strong cherry fruit and a long mouth finish, it was great with our tamales & chicken mole tacos. What a great combo!

So our motto, venture off... travel to new places, try new wines, go out of your way to meet new people. You never know who will be your next mentor, friend, partner or customer.

Fish B of our team lives that motto well and we try to keep up. Thank you Leslie for the inspiration.

No doubt, our travels shape our tastes and decisions in the San Sakana wines we hope to share with all of you for many years to come. So who knows if we'll ever own our own vineyards, or source grapes from outside California but if exceptional wines can grow in the high dessert mesas of New Mexico, then maybe someday... We definitely made some good sales calls this weekend, so hopefully once we line up our NM wine distributors, we'll be sellling San Sakana wines to Geronimo's and to Susan's wine store.

I know I'll never forget what Santa Fe exposed me to this weekend. I hope you can all visit sometime soon and taste the magic yourselves.

Q's, comments - pls. email me at bettina@sansakana.com

Bettina

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Monday, July 17, 2006


The Best Burger Recipe with San Sakana 2004 Las Madres Syrah

This recipe is courtesy of our good friends Ken & Deb Kranefuss. That's Ken, sorry Deb didn't have a pic of the two of you.

This burger recipe is TOO DIE FOR, hope you can try it soon.

Open up a 2004 Las Madres Syrah at least 30 minutes before serving, if you open up just as you form the patties, all should be timed perfectly. The cherry fruits and black olive notes of the Las Madres Syrah pair heavenly with the blue cheese tang on the burger. Enjoy!

Blue Cheese Burgers by Ken & Deb Kranefuss

This recipe is a variation of a winning recipe on the Great American Hamburger Contest broadcast by the Food Network in 2005.

Makes 4 delicious burgers

Ingredients:

1 lb. ground beef
4 whole wheat buns or your favorite breads
1 egg
Salt and pepper to taste (other spices if you want, too!)
Blue Cheese or Feta cheese, 4 ¼ inch slabs
8 oz. sliced mushrooms
1T oil and 1T butter
1 green, red or yellow bell pepper, cut into rings, serve uncooked
(Bettina's note, the ring serves as an 'inner tube' for the cooked mushrooms to rest on)


1.) Mix beef, egg and spices in bowl. Divide into 4 portions
2.) Divide each portion in half again, roll and form smaller portions into 2 patties
3.) Place one slab of feta cheese between two patties. Pinch edges of patties together to form one burger.
4.) Broil or cook on grill 3-4 min on each side or to taste.
5.) While burgers are cooking, sauté mushrooms in butter and oil 4-5 minutes or until cooked. Set aside.
6.) Arrange cooked burgers on bread, place an uncooked pepper ring on top of burger, spoon cooked mushrooms inside pepper ring.

Add your favorite condiments.
Pour a large glass of Las Madres Syrah.
Write haikus.

Trust me, its great! Enjoy!

If there are any other recipes out there that you've paired with San Sakana wines, please share them with us.

Thanks again Ken & Deb for being our friends for life.

Bettina & Peter

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

What is California Style?

I just returned from a trip to Europe, where I had the great pleasure of sharing a bottle of San Sakana Las Madres Syrah with my Italian friends. Generally, we plan these events in advance: pick a night, pick a type of wine, arrange for an evening of tasting and comparisons. Aside from our syrah, I brought a small vineyard, low yield Sangiovese from Sonoma (good fruit but lacked depth and finish), and from Italy we shared a Ripasso, Brunello, and a Barbaresco. More about these later, but the reaction to Las Madres was what I wanted to write about.

Overall the Italians loved the depth and finish of the Las Madres; they also picked up the taste of black olives in the wine, and admired its great balance and long finish. What surprised them was the alcohol at 14.5% - not uncommon at all for a California wine, but with most Italian varieties in the 13-14% range, it is a noticeable difference.

So what makes this Californian? I think it is in the particular attention we pay to full physiological maturity of the grapes before harvest. California vineyards have been putting a lot of emphasis on this, and using indicators like grape seed appearance as the final indicator of full ripeness, rather than strict numerical targets of brix, pH and TA. Granted, the 2004 harvest in California saw a late season heat spell just before harvest, which pushed the sugars up as the fruit was still reaching peak maturity, and this accounts for some of the added alcohol, but even in 2005 with the cooler season, the fruit was allowed to hang until the physiological apex was reached. This is not to downplay the results achieved in other regions -- for sure, the greatest wines still come from France and each region plays to its strength in soil, climate, and fruit. Not better, but different -- and maybe that is what makes Californian wines what they are.

Now back to the wines -- by far the Barbaresco was the best: long finishing and deeply aromatic with a complex of flavors and aromas that kept you coming back for another taste, if only to identify that last aroma (was it really Chinese 5 Spice?). Wish I could remember the label, but it was a friendly evening and after 5 bottles of wine, I'm glad I remembered the types! the Brunello was a disappointment -- a wine specially selected and aged for 5 years should show more body, but this wine showed well, indicated promise in the mid palate -- then dropped off a cliff like a lover forlorn. Sad.

The Ripasso is an interesting wine, one which most probably haven't heard of. Amarone, as most know, is a Valpolicella wine made by taking Passito grapes and drying them on a rack for 2-3 months prior to fermentation. This process intensifies the fruit without making it overly alcoholic, and Amarone wines can easily age for 10 years before drinking. Ripasso is an entirely separate wine, typically an everyday red made in the usual way, but then racked over to barrels containing the must from the Amarone grapes for 2-3 weeks, then re-racked into their permanent barrels or foudres. The process gives tannin, color and flavor to the wine, and is a popular if inexpensive wine found throughout Italy. The Ripasso we tried did show some of the complexities of the process, though truth be told, it was competing with 4 other wines of unusual depth and power, so it was understandably overshadowed.

The moral of the story: any chance you get, bring a couple of bottles of Californian wine to share with your Italian friends, and the evening will always turn into a wine tasting party lasting until the Restaurant is forced to close!

Q's, pls. email me - peter@sansakana.com

Peter Himes
Fish C

Thursday, July 06, 2006


San Sakana Wine Haiku Society, how it all started....


When we started San Sakana, the idea was floated that we should do Wine Haiku, to keep with the Japanese theme. Some took it as a joke, but I believed that it could become a great theme for the winery. Life, Lust, Love, Wine and Food -- if you could have everything you want in these five areas, what else would you want?

So I started the San Sakana Wine Haiku Society, mostly to celebrate the role of Wine in our life's most intimate moments. Wine can and does share all of the moments which puctuate our life's journey, and often the memories we have of life's poignant moments -- both good and bad -- involve wine in some way. The Haiku Society is open to everyone; I publish every wine-related haiku I get. I also give credit to all authors. Truth be told, most of the haiku are mine (in fact, ALL haiku which don't list an author -- nearly 200 so far -- are all mine). I have found that haiku can express so much about life, whether pain or joy or the quick fiery passion of a growing lust. I invite everyone to read them and contribute what you can!

http://sansakana.com/category/haiku

Best
Peter Himes
Fish C
Haiku ist

PS today we got Googled for the first time as a haiku site! Woo hoo!!

Sunday, July 02, 2006




2006 Harvest Update

Summer's here. If you're in the Bay Area, you know. We've certainly had our share of HOT SUMMER DAYS & NIGHTS.

Set has occurred in most vineyards. Some are lagging slightly due to the late start this year with the long rains we had in the Spring. But for the most part, we are monitoring bloom & cluster growth and prepare for our heavy pruning stage. We prune aggressively in all of our vineyards. Seems illogical (at least from our accountant's point of view) but the less fruit we yield per acre the better the wine. Concentrated fruit per vine yields much more flavorful & distinctive wines. Its what we like to drink and so its what we strive for in our vineyard management practices.

Every vineyard's different though and thats the beauty of it all. Wines can vary so much, even within blocks of the same vineyard due to different microclimates, soil composition and fruit set.
Here's what's happening at some of our Vineyard sites...

Up in Mendocino, near town of Philo @ the Broken Leg Vineyard in Anderson Valley, this very cool climate vineyard benefits from cool foggy mornings which clears in the mid day yielding long hot afternoons then cooling off in the dusk for temperate evening conditions which our Broken Leg Viognier grapes love.

In Carneros @ the Las Madres Vineyard in Sonoma Valley, mornings start cool due to the San Pedro Bay effects then as the sun rises, temperature soars for long growing hours which clone 99 and clone 374 Syrah thrive on.

If in Santa Barbara @ the White Hawk Vineyard, days are hot and remain hot yielding ripe rich fruit that will bear distinctive cherry jam notes in the Syrah wines from this famed & special vineyard.

Or if in Cuyama Valley @ the Alta Mesa Vineyard, mornings are cool because of the 3200' elevation but temperatures can rise to the 100's by mid afternoon. The San Sakana acre block of Mourvedre clones thrive in this combination.

But before we know it, it'll be September and harvest prep and frenzy begins!

More about that later....

Q's, comments - please let me know.

Bettina