Sapphire Hill Newsletter

Welcome to Our Fall 2006 Edition

Harvest is fast approaching at Sapphire Hill. It is a warm early September day in wine country. We had a very late Spring in the Russian River Valley this year, with significant rain that delayed the vineyards' bloom and set. As of this date, we are about a week to ten days behind a "normal" year--whatever that is!

The Estate Pinot Noir will be the first grapes to come in, as always. The harvest yields look to be 20-30% more than last year--but the quality looks to be quite good. All of this bodes well for beautifully intense wines from the 2006 vintage.

Winery Update

We're about to crush our Fifth vintage at our winery and tasting room in Healdsburg!  28 new barrels have arrived and everything has been cleaned and sanitized. If you are visiting Sonoma this fall, please stop by to experience crush and we promise to put you to work!

We love to have visitors, and with our oldest child Hannah off to college this fall (Univ of CA-Santa Barbara) we need the help. Many of you have met Hannah at our events. She is a terrific grape sorter, so we are hoping her younger brother Griffin will be up to the task. Griffin is 13, but just reached the 6-foot tall mark so he is an able body.

Everything from the 2005 vintage was bottled in early August except the Estate Syrah and "The Harlot", our proprietary red wine blend. These will be bottled after crush in Dec or Jan, 2007. We have found the additional time in barrel really rounds out the Syrah--which is also a major component of The Harlot.

Our tasting room is now open to the public from 11am to 4:30pm Thursday-Monday, and other times by appointment. Come by and try some of our new releases. We're at 51 Front Street--just blocks off the historic Healdsburg plaza.

Wines From the 'Hood

We are pleased to announce the release of our 2003 Sapphire Hill Pinot Noir-Russian River Valley. Made entirely from our three Dijon clones of estate-grown Pinot Noir, we cold-soaked the grapes for nine days prior to fermentation which ultimately began with the indigenous yeast that develops naturally in the vineyard. 2003 was a warm year for pinot noir and the wines have great structure and length. The wine was rated 94 Points and won a Gold Medal the California State Fair!

The wine was bottled unfined and unfiltered to preserve all the essence of the fruit. As a result, we were rewarded with a lovely, sophisticated wine that is truly a classic. Only 660 cases were produced.

We have also released our 2003 Estate Syrah. It is a spitting image of a Cote Rotie from the Rhone region of France--leather, cedar, dark berries, cigar-box and roasted game. And all that in one bottle!
 
Events and more Events
As a member winery of the Russian River Wine Road (they're the folks who put out that terrific map of area wineries), we have been happily busy planning a hat trick of consumer events focusing on wine, good food, fun, wine, music and, oh yeah, more wine.

In November, we celebrate A Wine & Food Affair, a fabulous tasting and eating fete.  We will chase away the winter blues in January with Winter Wineland, and then jump into spring with the ever popular Barrel Tasting Weekend.  Whew!  If you missed these fantastic festivities or were lucky enough to participate, check out the coming schedule of events (and a map to our tasting room) at the Wine Road's website, www.wineroad.com .

We will be at the ZAP tasting at Fort Mason in San Francisco on January 29, 2007 www.zinfandel.org. We look forward to seeing you at the tasting room and winery this fall!                                                                      

Tim & Anne