NEWSLETTER

Eight More Weeks To Go

June 30, 2007

The end of August typically marks the start of harvest with early-ripening sauvignon blanc coming in first. This is followed in September by pinot noir, other whites and a few warmer climate varietals. By October we're in full swing with cabernet, syrah and pretty much anything on a mountain. Looking at weeks instead of months changes the intensity and the immediacy of everything we do, but things are going well and we've picked up some new vineyards to fill all the new fermentation space that we have! In many respects this reminds me of our first year in 2004 where we were still putting up walls when the first fruit came in. I think we're a little bit ahead of that this year... but just a little bit. Here's what's going on:

Canihan Cellars - Best Red Wine of Show, 2007 San Francisco Int'l Wine Competition
What's better than when one of your wines wins a double gold medal at a prestigious show like the SF International Wine Competition? Well, when it wins Best Red Wine in Show in a competition with over 4,000 entries. Check it out! This was one of the first commercial syrahs we produced (along with consulting winemaker Alexandra Romanini) and Bill Canihan is a great guy, so we're super-happy about this. You can find out more at Canihan Wines.

2007 Shaping Up To Be A Great Year
Caution: Never, ever make projections about a harvest year until you've picked the fruit because anything can happen between now and then. Having said that, we are seeing the most promising year in our brief history and we're not alone. Unlike 2005 and 2006, the 2007 winter and spring were dry. This keeps the vigor of the vineyard lower, resulting in smaller berries and more concentration. We haven't seen many frost or shatter problems, fruit loads are good and the weather is warm. This harvest is expected to be about two weeks earlier than last year so maybe we'll get Thanksgiving off in 2007!

New Equipment is Arriving
Each year we have made significant upgrades to our winery equipment. This year we are upgrading our destemmer and putting in a post-destemmer vibrating berry sorting table to augment the pre-destemming cluster sorting table. If you're the obsessive type (like us), then you'll be able to get out every last bit of gunk (leaves, jacks, raisins, shot berries, etc.) in your fermentations, resulting in more pure expression of fruit. Plus, masses of shiny stainless steel equipment make us feel like we've got our own industrial Transformers to play with. We're also investing in new temperature management capabilities that allow us to rapidly heat and chill fermentations, fancy new lab equipment that allows us to perform chemistry analysis 10 times as fast as we could before. The result of this? Continued growth in wine quality.

Pinot Days - Sunday, July 1st, 1PM at Fort Mason Center
If you're in San Francisco on Sunday around 1PM and you're looking to taste some pinot noir made by over 150 great pinot noir winemakers, then you're in luck. Crushpad is a sponsor of this year's event and will be out in full force with a total of five tables to pour wine and talk about Crushpad, Crushpad Commerce and Crushnet. In addition to Crushpad, several Crushpad Commerce members will be pouring at the event, including Dain Wines, Pug Wines, Mark Moretti Wines and Twin Oaks. For more information, go to www.pinotdays.com.

Wine Plans Continue
If you are making wine in 2007, you should have been contacted about starting your wine plan. If you haven't, please drop a message to winery@crushpadwine.com and we'll get you started. This year we've added the "Wine Plan Companion" document to help you get started and if you're in town, we are doing weekly wine planning sessions at the winery on Thursday nights. Last year we were caught behind in wine plans and were scrambling to get many done at the last minute. It's a fun and educational process so we encourage you to participate now and not wait until the avalanche of grapes begins.

2007 Allocations Continue & New Vineyards Added
What shoes are to Imelda Marcos, fruit is to us. There's nothing cooler than walking a vineyard with a dedicated, experienced grape grower who has turned out great fruit year after year, buy some of that fruit and know it's going to make a lot of our clients very happy. We've sold out of some of our vineyards, but a lot of the best stuff is still available. As we approach harvest, we are going into the most intense couple months of allocations, so please contact Dave Gifford sooner rather than later.

Crushpad Seattle... The Expansion Begins
By the end of 2007, Crushpad will have made over 1200 different wines - more than any other winery in history. In doing this we have made a lot of small mistakes, learned from those mistakes, created processes, built sophisticated planning and operational software (we now have 11 people developing software), and feel like we have the solid infrastructure necessary to begin our geographic expansion. As an exciting, wine-savvy city located a few hours from a booming viticultural area, Seattle topped our list of candidate cities for our first new location. We have begun our real estate search, legal due diligence and are now starting to build the team. Our goal is to be in there by the end of 2007 and fully operational early next year. If you're interested in helping us in this endeavor, please contact me at michael@crushpadwine.com.

...Michael