Wine Stars

Each semester our Intro to Wine Business class schedules a fieldtrip to a local winery in order to see and hear about cost/quality issues with the various vineyard farming methods and cellar operations.  It is always more useful to see actual equipment and trellising systems, and hear about their impact from vineyard/operations managers than just learn about it in class, from a book, and/or via video.  In order to be fair, we generally flip-flop back and forth between Napa and Sonoma wineries, as well as change winery size each semester.  This Spring we were scheduled to visit a large winery [...]

The classic red wine tasting this week was fabulous.  We had some great wines that were donated – and in fact, two of those won top favorites for the night with 47 Millennials present at the tasting and final voting.  Of course, there are only 4 classic red wines:  pinot noir, cabernet sauvignon, merlot, and syrah.  However, being that we live in California, we had to throw in a Zinfandel.  For the mystery wine of the night, I selected a Malbec from Argentina….because Malbec is so popular now.  The students did a great job of guessing the varietals correctly in [...]

This week in Bus 305W, 48 millennial students tasted through 6 excellent California white wines.  It was the beginning of the semester introduction to classic white varietals:  chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, riesling, chenin blanc, and semillion.  We also threw in a 6th “extra credit” wine, which was a gewurtraminer.  The class did very well guessing the varietals correctly – even though we tasted blind.  Just to refresh your memory, there are only 5 classic white varietals in the world, even though there are more than 24,000 different names for grapes, and 150 commercially produced varietals.  However, in order to be considered [...]

One of the highlights of this semester was the SSU Wine Club tasting with Iron Horse Vineyards located in the Green Valley AVA of Sonoma County.  Green Valley is a small special section of the Russian River Valley which has a cooler climate and more fog than surrounding areas.  Located just 13 miles from the Pacific Ocean, it is an ideal place to grow chardonnay and pinot noir.  Iron Horse is one of the largest of the 8 wineries in this appellation, and has become quite famous for its sparkling wines.  The wine tasting was hosted by Joy Sterling, CEO [...]

If you haven’t visited Anderson Valley yet, in Mendocino County, you are missing a magical wine region of California.  About an hour’s drive north of the Sonoma State University campus (and 2 hours north of San Francisco) you will enter the enchanting Anderson Valley.  It is filled with rolling vineyards tucked into the hillsides and hollows of the valley, with many charming small family wineries.  Legendary for their highly rated pinot noir and chardonnay, the cooler climate of the Anderson Valley also sets itself apart by being one of the only wine regions in California to specialize in white Alsatian [...]

What better way to start a new Fall semester on campus than with a wine tasting of Sebastiani wines.  For this first tasting, the room was filled to capacity with over 50 Millennials.  Julie Butler from Sebastiani’s Hospitality group brought 6 wines to taste.  Three were from Sebastiani Vineyards and Winery located in Sonoma, California, plus an additional 3 wines from Firestone Winery in Santa Barbara County.  You may not be aware that the 100+ year old Sebastiani Winery was acquired by Foley Family Wines in December of 2008.  Foley Family also owns 8 other wineries, including Firestone, Merus in [...]

With the hot weather we’ve been having this summer in Sonoma County and other parts of California, I had a craving to taste some summer wines such as dry roses and off-dry muscats. I’m sure that some of this had to do with the fact that I’m currently reading the book, Extremely Pale Rose, which is a fun romp through the wine regions of France looking for the lightest pink colored rose wine. Anyway, I headed to some of my favorite wine stores and also had some wines donated by friends and we had a relaxed tasting by a swimming [...]