No sooner did our CEO, Michael Brill announce in Crushpad’s October newsletter that we were harvesting the last two vineyards of the year, then the skies opened up and began to rain — the first meaningful rainfall since spring. Bob Fosse couldn’t have choreographed it better. Of course, trick or treaters are now cursing Michael’s [...]
Tags: 2008 harvest
Posted by Patrick Hurley in Wine Making at Crushpad | No Comments »
Bill Ward, the wine writer for the Minneapolis Star-Triune posts a nice article on Crushpad customer, Peter Kitchak and his Kitchak Cellars brand. Peter lives in Minnesota but launched and operates his own award-winning Napa wine brand — Double Gold at the SF International Wine Competition — using our Crushpad Commerce service.
Tags: Crushpad Commerce, kitchak cellars
Posted by Patrick Hurley in Crushpad in the News, Our Customers, Starting a Wine Business | No Comments »
The 4th annual Pinot on the River Festival was held along the western edge of the Russian River AVA in Forestville last weekend. Autumn is in the vineyard, evidenced by senescence; the aging of vine canopies where leaves change from photosynthesizing green to getting-ready-for-winter’s-slumber orange, yellow and red. The colorful backdrop was perfect for some [...]
Posted by stu in Crushpad Events, Our Customers | No Comments »
We’re really happy to be back in Chicago again this year, pouring at Pinot Days on Saturday, November 15th at Navy Pier. We’d love to see you there and share some amazing Sonoma Coast, Russian River and Anderson Valley pinot noirs with you.
We’re also hosting a get together the next day over at our friends [...]
Tags: pinot days
Posted by Patrick Hurley in Crushpad Events | 2 Comments »
We posted some video a few days ago of Crushpad Commerce customers, Brian Mast and Jennifer Waits when they stopped in to sort their 2008 Pinot Noir from La Encantada!
Now Brian is back. This time being interviewed on VinVillage Radio. Listen to it here.
Posted by Patrick Hurley in Crushpad in the News, Our Customers, Starting a Wine Business | No Comments »
Congratulations to Crushpad Commerce customers, Matt Raymond and Kelly Naughtin and their Canine Wines brand. We wrote about them a few months back when they were featured in the Contra Costa Times. Now the American Winery site is showing them some love with a nice post here
Canine Wines is a great story. With the [...]
Tags: canine wines, Crushpad Commerce
Posted by Patrick Hurley in Crushpad in the News, Starting a Wine Business, Wine 2.0, Wine Making Videos | No Comments »
2008 Pinot Noir from La Encantada
Crushpad Commerce members Brian Mast and Jennifer Waits from Waits-Mast Family Cellars sort their 2008 Pinot Noir from La Encantada!
You can learn more about their wines here: http://www.waitsmast.com/
Posted by alan in Our Customers, Starting a Wine Business, Uncategorized | No Comments »
• Late October in sunny Northern California.
• A Sunday day trip to the Russian River Valley.
• Tasting from 100 small production artisinal Pinot Noir producers.
If that sounds like a day well spent — and who could honestly argue otherwise? — trek up to Forestville on Sunday, 10/24 and join Crushpad for the Pinot on the [...]
Tags: pinot noir, pinot on the river festival
Posted by Patrick Hurley in Crushpad Events | No Comments »
Stu leads the volunteer cellar rats through all of the winemaking steps in a single visit to Crushpad
Each morning at 10am, Crushpad friends and family cross the fermentation threshold to take part in Crushcamp. This winemaking overview attempts to squeeze a semester at UC Davis into 3-hours; with grapes stains from splatter, spatter, smear and [...]
Tags: crush camp
Posted by alan in Crushpad Events, Wine Making Videos | No Comments »
Yesterday Kristen, one of our new winery staff members, got the honors of doing a little old fashioned grape stomping. This particular bin of grenache had some whole stem inclusion and we wanted to break up those berries that didn’t break during punchdowns.
Tags: crushpad, grenache, harvest, stomping grapes, winemaking, winery
Posted by noah in Wine Making Team, Wine Making Videos, Wine Making at Crushpad | No Comments »
In wine making, barrels are kind of the unsung heroes. Though easily taken for granted, they’re quite important to achieving the characteristics you want in your finished wine — a fact that my recent trip to the Radoux cooperage up in Santa Rosa only reinforced. These guys are real craftsmen. After the jump, [...]
Tags: Radoux, Seguin-Moreau, wine barrel making
Posted by victoria in Uncategorized | No Comments »
After a long season the critical decision of when to pick the fruit involves a lot of variables
Deciding when to pick wine grapes is a very complex process. We evaluate both analytical ripeness and physiological ripeness when making pick decisions. Ideally the grapes would be physiologically ripe at the exact moment the sugars and acids [...]
Posted by alan in Vineyards, Wine Making Videos | No Comments »
Knowing the chemical makeup of your grapes on harvest day is critical to getting your wine started properly.
A lot of thought and debate goes into when you pick a vineyard but once those grapes hit the winery, you have to react to what mother nature and the hard working vineyard crew delivered. This means that [...]
Posted by alan in Wine Making Videos | No Comments »
Ferment temperatures are key to hitting your stylistic goals, both for aromas, and flavors. Making small batches of wine presents a set of challenges not faced by massive wineries where they have huge temperature-controlled vats. Your ferment temperature needs to be hot enough to get the level of extraction you want but if you let [...]
Posted by alan in Wine Making Videos, Wine Making at Crushpad | No Comments »