Needless to say, I’ve been anxiously awaiting April 25th and the results of the Crushpad Challenge for 2 months now. After starting my day with a doctor appointment and a fun argument with my car insurance company, I was *very* excited when I saw the call from the 707 area code come in.

Sadly, the content of the call wasn’t the actual conversation that I had dreamed of.

The funny thing about life is that we all pretend to think that we know where it SHOULD be headed. There’s lots of sayings around this, like: “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans” (or my personal favorite) “Everything happens for a reason”.

The thing about these sayings is that they all imply a degree of faith in that there is a higher power at work, and that we are just along for the ride. This might be true, and in fact while I think that it is, there is also a degree of influence which we hold over our hopes, dreams, and more.

Basically it comes down to the fact that you have to be comfortable in taking a leap of faith, and trusting that inner voice inside of you that says to keep going – especially when things get hard, harder, or even ‘holy sh*t’.

Bijan Sabet (prominent VC @ Spark Capital) had a great post recently about what it takes to be successful at a startup. The part that stuck with me was:

“Since then I’ve jumped off a cliff several times. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. But all in all I’m glad for the entire set of experiences.

Startups are never easy and never predictable. It requires a leap of faith and an inner voice that says: aw hell, I’m gonna try this and give it my all even though you have no idea how it’s going to turn out.”

Whether its been moving to CA (again), working for a rocketship ride of a startup, or shooting for the moon with this Crushpad contest, these have all been similar “leaps off the cliff” for me and my family.

Things rarely turn out like we plan them to, and the trick is to roll with the punches and enjoy the ride. It is important to recognize though, that just because things didn’t pan out as expected, it doesn’t mean that you aren’t still moving in the right direction towards your larger goal.

There are many ways to learn how to make wine, and to become a successful winemaker. The Crushpad Challenge was just one of many ways (albeit a great one), and I am actively looking into other ways to do so. The people at Crushpad have been very supportive, and I hope that we still can find a way to work together.

My father, in his unique way, was always the one who would be first in line to remind me of what was truly important when things got tough. His actual quote was “Son, you got the world by the ass. Stop worrying and go enjoy it.” Truer word have not been spoke, and I do my best to remember this every waking moment.

Wine, to me, is about sharing with those that matter to us the most. Without them, it is an empty pleasure. I may not have won the Crushpad Challenge, but I am a very lucky man for the many other wonderful things in my life – especially my family and friends. This experience, and all of your support, has helped to put that in perspective and I am still amazed by the amount of people who were willing to help me chase after this silly little dream of mine.

This isn’t over. This is just additional motivation. Stay tuned…

P. S.
Who are we kidding? I probsbly woulda drank it all anyway.

I’ll be honest…the thought of having the ability to make my own wine, brand it, market it, and hopefully provide the experience to people of ENJOYING that wine has been keeping me awake at night. So much so, that we took a trip up to Napa Valley this weekend to check out how the vines are progressing (above).

Making my own wine and sharing it with others is something that I’ve aspired to for years – as anyone who knows me can attest. Whether it was our honeymoon in Napa 8 (gulp!) years ago, the regular trips to visit, teaching a wine tasting class at work, starting a wine blog, and even buying Crushpad’s “Fuse Box” wine blending kit to try my hand at it – I’ve been consumed by this for years.

Onefortywines.com has been a great outlet for this. Combined with Twitter and Facebook, I’ve met a lot of great people, been able to interact directly with wineries, and had the chance to share my love of all-things-wine with anyone interested in listening.

One thing that I heard repeatedly from everyone throughout the contest was that they were happy to support me because they shared the same dream. They knew that if I won, that they would have the chance to see firsthand what this entire process is like, thanks to my social media and blog outlets. Well, have no fear, as this is exactly what I told the judges when interviewing, and I believe that it was well received.

Wineries, like many “offline” businesses are having a tough time leveraging social media as a distribution channel. This is partially due to the fact that they don’t quite realize that it needs to be a dialogue and not a sales pitch. This isone of the key reasons that OneFortyWines has worked – I only review or discuss things that I think that people will enjoy…and I don’t sell ANYTHING.

My hopes are to apply this same model to this contest and my wine brand. I want to be engaging, educational, and help people see what it’s really like to be a winemaker first hand (from their living room couch). I am going to need help in making decisions – from final blends, to bottle and logo design, and more – and I want this community to help with that.

If after all this you want to try the wines WE made on this journey, that can be easily arranged. If not, at least you hopefully learned something and are still a fan.

More to come, and fingers crossed that the judges agree!

I will NOT let you all down!

Cheers,
-z

As you all know by now, I am asking for your help (relentlessly).  Yes, make your little jokes, ha ha ha.  This time though, there is wine on the line…and that’s not funny.

For those of you who don’t already know of Crushpad, they are a state of the art custom wine making facility.  They secure grapes through the vineyard contracts they have with many of the top vineyards in Napa, Sonoma, Bordeaux (France), and more.

Beyond sourcing top quality grapes, they will also hold your hand through the entire process if you are a newbie, or let you run if you are an experienced winemaker.   Crushpad will also help you to age, bottle, design a label, and even sell/distribute your wine if you so choose.  They can literally make your winemaking dreams come true for those lucky enough to have an extra $10-15K lying around.

Sadly, I don’t.

I have had the awesome experience of blending my own wine, via Crushpad’s home blending kit that they call ‘Fusebox‘.  I did this ~ 2 years ago, and I was hooked.

Fusebox gives you six 1/2 bottles of wine, each a different varietal – Cabernet Sauvignon (x2), Cabernet Franc, Merlot,Petite Verdot.  These are the 5 traditional grapes of a Bordeaux (also called a ‘Meritage’ blend in the US).  The 6th bottle is what they call a ‘Mystery Wine’, but is a pre-blended version of each these wines in what Crushpad feels (and I agree) is the correct blending.

Also included in the kit are various other lab equipment items and wine blending tools, allowing you easily and quickly experiment and find YOUR perfect blend.

Once all said and done, you can even send your blend ratio back to Crushpad, and they will bottle you up a case of your own custom wine blend.  Pretty frickin’ sweet.

So when I caught wind of the new contest that Crushpad was running, I couldn’t help but to enter.  I’ve enclosed the full application that I submitted below if you are interested, but the important part is HOW TO WIN – which is getting as many people to vote for OneFortyWines as possible.

Unsure exactly why…but the folks at Crushpad didn’t make it EASY to get votes.  There are a couple steps that you need to walk thru to successfully vote, but I will genuinely be indebted to you for ever and ever and ever and ever and ever.   You will hopefully know a (soon to be) unfamous wine maker, and you will always drink for free when you visit my winery.

Here’s how to vote:

• STEP 1: Visit Crushpad’s Facebook Contest Page here: https://www.facebook.com/crushpad?sk=app_301784786521549
• STEP 2: ‘LIKE’ the Crushpad page.
• STEP 3: Click the ‘Browse/Vote’ tab on the contest app (sort by ‘most votes’)
• STEP 4: Find ‘ONEFORTYWINES’ and click VOTE!
• STEP 5: Repeat tomorrow and the next day and the next day….

I like to think of this as the first step on a long, awesome journey into wine-making, and I plan to share every step of the way with anyone interested thru this blog.  I want to work with anyone who is interested and wants to provide feedback, and genuinely make this something that people can all be a part of in some way.

I know I’m a wiseass, but this time I am seriously asking for help for this opportunity to follow my dream.  I am also accepting $15K donations to shortcut the contest process as well.  Whichever ya’ll prefer.

Thanks again, and any/all help is appreciated!

HERE’S THE APPLICATION:

What type of person would most enjoy your wine?

My goal is to educate people about what they like in a wine, THRU WINE, so that they have the skills to identify what they love, make better buying decisions, and pass along their passion/interest to others.

• This wine should appeal to the range of people who:
  • …know they like wine & want to learn more but don’t know how to go about it
  • …to true wine lovers who understand the true elements of a wine that make it enjoyable

• Wine lovers especially will immediately identify the key elements of this wine that they will be looking for: vineyard, style, blend, oak – and know that the QPR is 150%+, and would be willing to pay more than $12-15 dollars a bottle to do so.

• This wine is designed to be a ‘go to’ bottle when found.  One of those bottles you see in the store and think – “I gotta have that.  I KNOW that wine will be awesome…”

• This wine that should make you feel like you have identified a small, up and coming producer BEFORE the wine is a breakout success.

What will your wine be called?

OneFortyWines is the ‘winemaker’.  This is the brand I have created thru my personal wine review blog (www.onefortywines.com) and via Social Media such as Twitter & Facebook.

Working names for this bottling are:

• ‘Watch What You Wish For’
• ‘Gravitas’
• ‘Fueled by Grapeness’
• ‘Liquid Cope’

What Vineyard Area would you harvest from? (the crush pad locations)

• I would like this wine to ideally be a Cabernet Sauvignon/Syrah/Cabernet Franc blend (60%, 30%, 10%).

Vineyards that I would love to source from are:

• Neal3 Vineyard, St. Helena, Napa – I love Neal wines, and having the opportunity to source their beautiful, fruit forward fruit to join with the Syrah would be an amazing combination.
• Stagecoach Vineyard, Napa – I love anything from Stagecoach.  They are consistent, the perfect blend of fruit/tannin blend, and an overall lucious wine-making vineyard used by some of the best in the business.
• Reverence Vineyard, Coombsville – I think that Coombsville is the dark horse in the Napa Valley right now, and that some of the best wines in the valley are either being made there, or will be shortly once more people catch on.  The are well rounded, ‘friendly’, and a pleasure to drink.  This would blend perfectly with Syrah as well.
• White Hawk Vineyard, Santa Barbara (Syrah) – In order to blend Syrah in…I need to source it from somewhere!  I chose White Hawk over Parmalee b/c I (personally) think that Sonoma Syrahs are a little too tight due to the cooler climate.  If it’s going to blend in with Cabernet and compliment it, the Syrah needs a backbone.

What oak barrel type would you use?

• French (70% New)
• I think that the subtleness of a nice French oak barrel is complimentary rather than an actual flavor component.
• I’d like the oak to add structure and toastiness to the wine, without overpowering or becoming a dominant flavor.

How would you present your brand, what is your wine’s story?

I love talking about wine – that’s why I started OneFortyWines.com.  I’m genuinely passionate about it, and want to share this passion with the world.

The wine I want to make would blend my wine-appreciation roots that brings the ‘big friendly bear hug’ of Syrah together with the wines I have come to love the most – Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignons.

If I were to win, I recognize how lucky I would be to have the opportunity that others can only dream of.  I plan to share every step of this journey with people thru my wine blog and social media outlets, so that they may feel close to the process of strategizing, growing, making, branding, bottling, and marketing this wine as well.

Brand Notes:

• I want to make a high-quality, luxurious,yet unpretentious wine that illustrates the best qualities of wine from this region…but with a slight non-conformist twist.

• This is *not* an everyday drinker, it is something to be appreciated – but not so much that you wouldn’t hesitate to open on a Tuesday after a bad day.

• This wine is meant to be shared, enjoyed, and appreciated.  This means that it needs to encompass a few key elements that make a wine universally enjoyable, without being too overbearing.  Easier said than done, but the right blend can accomplish this with class.

• I want people to understand that they can live vicariously thru my dream of becoming a winemaker in the 21st century.

• I want to document the process (in a positive light), use Social Media and a blog to document the decisions, and encourage engagement via Twitter hastags, FB comments, and more when they drink this wine.

• Mostly, I want people to understand that wine doesn’t have to be pretentious, elitist, or confusing to be enjoyable.

How would you sell or distribute your wine?

While I am strong at marketing (esp online and thru social media), and would use these resources to drive interest and ideally purchase of the wine.  However, given that wine sales & distribution is something that I have no experience in, I would fully leverage the resources available thru Crushpad.

For marketing, I plan to use my social media presence (Twitter, FB, OneFortyWines.com Blog) to clearly lay out the elements of THIS wine that make it good – vineyard, viticulture, blend, etc.

These elements will also be encapsulated in a brief description of WHY on the actual bottle, with encouragement to visit the site for the full details and experience.

Each bottle will have an online ‘portfolio’ associated with it – containing detailed tasting notes, growing season information, production information (pictures, process, decisions), and everything else that goes in to the production of the wine up until the release of the wine.

Additionally, I will use many engagement features of the wine to drive traffic to the site(s) in order to further educate customers about the wine and establish a brand:

• Twitter hashtags for people to write their own Twitter comments or reviews.
• Interactive FB fan page
• QR codes
• Engage customers/fans so that they get involved in ‘crowd-sourcing’ next year’s vintage.
• Contests to win wine, or assist in the next vintage’s harvest, etc.

About Me
My name is David, and my goal is to break into this industry by leveraging my passion for great wine with CrushPad to ideally make some seriously awesome wine.

I am a dedicated husband and father to two beautiful young girls, and I’d love to use this opportunity to educate them about agriculture, the art & science of winemaking, and bonding experience of building something together.

I started OneFortyWines.com, and I am a wine blogger in my spare time.  The name stems from my efforts to ‘learn’ twitter.  I decided to see if I could ‘tweet’ 140 character wine reviews in order to gain a better understanding of how to use Twitter to gain followers and broadcast a brand.  Quickly, I learned that as verbose as I am, that I would need FAR more than 140 characters to convey everything that I had hoped to, and OneFortyWines.com was born.

I try to take a different approach to writing about wine than more ‘wine review’ sites.  My goal is to write about wines I love, and therefore I don’t cover anything that I don’t like.  I also try to explain as much about the background of the wine, the winemaker, the location, the style, and the grape varietals as well.  My goal is to educate those who are interested in learning more about wine in an interesting and non-threatening way.

By day I work for an amazing startup in San Francisco called CloudFlare.  I love what I do and wouldn’t change it for the world, but making wine is a dream that I have  had for many years, and now that I live within driving distance to CrushPad, I am closer to making this dream a reality than ever!

During our trip home over the holidays recently, it was brought to my attention that I don’t really review wines that people can buy everywhere or that they are usually wines that the average person wouldn’t buy.  This is true, but it’s also intentional.

There are countless wine blogs out there that will review the mass market wines that you can get at the local supermarket.  I have a few rules about the things that I choose to ramble on about:

1. I only write about things I LIKE.  I’m not in the game of assigning wine’s points on a 100 point scale.  Decide for yourself.
2. I only write about things that I find interesting, different, or that have a good story associated with them.
3. I only write about things that hopefully will educate the reader about something beyond ‘buttery Chardonnays’ or ‘oaky Cabernets’ – such as new varietals, growing regions, or interesting winemakers.

With that said, I also want to go on record as saying that I appreciate GOOD wine.  Contrary to popular belief (and possibly the wines reviewed to date), GOOD wine doesn’t mean expensive wine, or boutique wine, or just Californian wine.  GOOD wine comes in all shapes, sizes, and prices…and the 2010 Benziger Sauvignon Blanc proves it.

In my opinion, Benziger suffers from the fact that their name sounds too much like ‘Beringer’.  For all I know about wine, early on I had a hard time distinguishing between Beringer, Benziger, and BV.  I don’t know why…but I did.  I kinda lumped them all together when I was learning.  Unfortunately, I had a cheapo bottle of BV that turned me off to all of them.

However, one day I bought a Benziger Chardonnay for a party b/c it was reasonably priced at around $12.  It blew me away.  Well rounded, fruit forward without being sugary and cheap, and enough acidity to balance it all out.  I chalked it up to a fluke and moved on in my elitist wine drinking.

Recently we had a party for Halloween, and one of our guests (who knows a bunch about wine) brought over a Benziger Cabernet Sauvignon.  I remember thinking as I opened it that Benziger was a dependable mid-market producer…but then I tasted it.  It was FANTASTIC.  I don’t want to oversell it, but for what I assume was a <$20 bottle of wine, it kicked ass just like that Chardonnay did a few years back.

(SIDE NOTE:  Two other producers in the <$20 category who I think are consistantly great for their Quality:Price Ratio are Sebastiani & Rodney Strong.  Note that all 3 of these producers are from Sonoma…hmmmm.)

So this brings me to the 2010 Beringer Sauvignon Blanc.  I think that this was $11.99 at the SUPERMARKET.  (So there!).  I’m not a fan of paying more than $15 for a whites…especially Sauvignon Blancs…so this was the upper end of my comfort zone.

This had all the makings of what I think Sauvignon Blanc should be:

• Light in body, but with a little ‘viscosity’ that doesn’t make you feel like you are drinking $5/btl Pinot Grigio
• Strong acid backbone, but doesn’t make you pucker
• Beautiful, bright lemony citrus notes
• Secondary flavors of tart fresh green apples and earthy stone-like minerality that keeps the wine honest and not too far down the sour path
• Not too high in alchohol, so that it is refreshing without being inebriating

All in all, I’m a big fan of both Benziger and this wine.  Find it if you can…and let me know what you think!

Wines are marketed to us in many different ways – by varietal (grape type), by appellation (growing region), or by some other type of descriptor such as ‘Table Wine’, ‘Cuvee ____’, ‘Meritage’, and more.

I’m generalizing here, but the point remains the same: wine names can be difficult to understand – especially when many of them mean the same thing.  It’s important to understand WHY these differences in labeling occur, so that you can safely navigate a wine store or restaurant list, and hopefully find a few bargains while at it!

NEW WORLD VS. OLD
Here the ‘new world’, since we don’t limit or restrict the TYPE of grape that goes into a wine from each growing region, we generally refer to wines by there varietal (aka – grape type).  Popular examples include Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, or Chardonnay.  There are still rules that you need to adhere to in order to use a specific regional designation such as ‘Napa Valley’, but these are mostly geared around the percentage of grapes used in the wine that were GROWN in that region.

In the ‘old world’ wine growing regions such as France, Italy, or Spain – wines are primarily named for the regions in which they are grown.  Examples of these are Bordeaux (France), Chianti (Italy), and Rioja (Spain).  In each of these regions, any wine is allowed to be grown, but in order to get the ‘certification’ to carry the name of that region (such as Bordeaux), there are requirements which must be met.  These can range from limiting which specific grape types go in the wine (or at least a certain percentage thereof) or how long they are aged for.

The approved grapes which comprise the RED wines of these sample regions listed above are:

• Bordeaux = Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Petit Verdot, and/or Mourvedre
• Chianti = Sangiovese
• Rioja = Tempranillo, Garnacha Tinta, Graciano, and Mazuelo

It’s important to note that there are many exceptions to the rule, and many of these ‘exceptions’ offer some of the finest wines FROM those regions.  A great example of this is what is referred to as a ‘Super Tuscan’, where it is grown right along side the famous Brunellos of the world, but can’t carry the name “Brunello di Montalcino” since they usually blend in Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, or Syrah.

TEMPRANILLO
One of these interchangeably named grapes (as far as the label goes) is the Tempranillo grape.  This varietal is the primary and most popular (red) grape in the regional designation of ‘Rioja’ (pronounced REE-OH-HA) in Spain or the ‘Tempranillo’ name if grown elsewhere, such as here in the US.

Simply put – Tempranillo rocks.  I owe my appreciation to Rioja/Tempranillo to my buddy Brian, who hosted the first wine tasting party that I ever attended, of which the focus was on Rioja.  This is a wonderful and under-appreciated grape, which hits that balance of both food-friendly and able to stand on its own.  The best part is that Rioja’s are still relatively affordable, with lots of great values to be found in the $10-20 range.

Spain applies grape restrictions to the Rioja designation (Tempranillo, Garancha, and ______), as well as quality grades which allow you to quickly understand the caliber of wine that you are choosing.  These would be the domestic equivalent of ‘Reserve’ or ‘Estate Grown’ here in the US.

In Spain, these quality grades are:

• Crianza – one year in cask, and at least 3 years old
• Riserva – three years old, and at least 1 in oak
• Gran Riserva – three years in bottle, and at least 2 years in oak

So what about domestic Tempranillo?  Honestly, I haven’t found many Tempranillos here in the US, and I certainly haven’t tasted any that impressed me…until I tried the ’08 Picchetti Vineyards Tempranillo.

PICCHETTI VINEYARDS
Nestled high up in the Santa Cruz mountains, Picchetti Vineyards is a family owned winery which has primarily been focusing on Italian varietals (Sangiovese, Primativo), along with some of the ‘native’ grapes that grow so well here in CA (Cabernet Sauvignion, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir).  They aren’t afraid to experiment either, as they recently released a strong effort of a Malbec, as well as lesser known varietals such as Teroldego.  I’ve lost count of all the different wines they make in total, and all of them are only available at the winery itself.

We stumbled upon Picchetti when we first moved to CA in 2004.  It’s a very relaxing and unassuming property, especially given the fact that it bumps right up against Ridge Vineyard’s famed ‘Monte Bello’ vineyard – of which Picchetti also shares some blocks of Cabernet Sauvignon.

The tasting room is setup in a large open barn, and has a warm rustic charm to it.  The team at Picchetti is ALWAYS welcoming (even with kids), and aren’t afraid to let you taste an extra wine or two – even if they aren’t actually pouring that wine that day.

After your tasting is over, you can make your way out to the shade of a GIANT eucalyptus tree in the middle of a gently sloping field where you can picnic and enjoy a nice glass of wine (I recommend the Rose’ or Chardonnay in the summer), all while the kids play and chase the chickens and peacocks that freely roam the property.

In the warmer months (June -> October), they also have live bands play every Saturday and Sunday, usually along with a local gourmet food truck too.  On top of this there are plenty of great events like release parties, Halloween events, Hierloom tomato festival, and more to attend.

Personally, we just love heading up there on a Sunday afternoon with some cheese, crackers, salami, olives, grapes, and strawberries, having a glass of great local wine in the sun and playing with the kids.

I’m not surprised that I enjoyed their Tempranillo as much as I did.  I love the varietal, and I find wines from the Santa Cruz mountains to have a great character to them.  This is a great aspect about Picchetti’s winemaking style – they are true to their region, and don’t try to force a specific taste or style (such as a big, buttery Chard) onto their wines.  They allow them to speak for the region in which they are grown, as great wine is supposed to be.

TASTING NOTES:

• Bright black fruits, complimented by a warm toasty oak.
• The overall fruit profile is someplace between cherries and raisins.
• There is a subtle spice, maybe white pepper. Tea leaves. Licorice.
• If there was such as thing as a lavender flavored cola – this wound be what it would smells like.
• As it opens (about 1 hr) it begins to lean toward a bit of a Zinfandel.
• It ends with a dry, dusty, beautifully long tannic finish.