NEWSLETTER

Harvest is Here!

August 31, 2007

Our business is one of 10 months of anticipation followed by 2 months of complete insanity... and the 2 months start now. We received our first Sauvignon Blanc ahead of schedule and Dante's got nothing on the level of heat we're seeing right now. That means things are moving up picking-wise and we'll likely see 80% of all of our fruit in September (vs. about 20% last year). But it's glorious looking fruit with thick skins and I have no doubts that this will be the strongest vintage yet for Crushpad. So sit back, watch the Weather Channel, wish us luck and get in here and help!

Crushpad Invaded by Vayniac Nation
Those of you familiar with Wine Library TV's Gary Vaynerchuk know him as a super high-energy, passionate guy who is trying to change the wine world by educating and connecting with his community. That's our kind of guy. So we teamed up with Gary to produce the 2007 Vayniac Cabernet. This is a 500 case Napa Valley cabernet that will be created by his community of 30,000 raving wine lunatics at Crushpad. Join the fun by checking out the big announcement and then order a bottle or 12.

Get In Now for Harvest 2007 or Wait Another Year
Sitting on the fence or just waiting to get around to making a barrel? I think I mentioned this before, but winemakers really think about their lives in terms of harvests - e.g,. "I've got about 20 more harvests to go." And each harvest gives you one shot making a great - or perfect - wine. But next year it's one less opportunity. Do you really want to sit out another year? If not, we still have some incredible vineyards remaining (the advantage of my "buy all the great fruit that's available" syndrome). Contact Dave Gifford (dave@crushpadwine.com) to get moving.

New Media Section on Crushnet
We have added a new feature to Crushnet to support video. It's still early stage but check it out. We'll have different series such as Winemaker's Minute, Vineyard Profiles, Winery News, and we'll ultimately enable you to upload video as well. We've schemed a plan to capture as many of you as we can on video during crush and upload that to Crushnet. Kind of like taking a picture of you at the end of Splash Mountain, except it's video and you can even forward the video on to friends. I'm told this is viral word of mouth marketing... whatever. It should be fun.

New Vineyards - Last Minute Additions
We have just added two new Cabernet Sauvignon vineyards - one in Mount Veeder (Godspeed) and the other in Coombsville (Carrefour). The Mount Veeder vineyard is farmed at an economically ruinous 1.8 tons per acre and will produce super-concentrated, structured, long-lived mountain wines. Carrefour is low-yielding, but is a more fruit-driven wine and is an excellent candidate for our new Max Extract program that we're starting this year (where we pick extremely ripe and ferment the bejeezus out of it). Again, contact Dave Gifford (dave@crushpadwine.com) if interested.

Iron Winemaker
Many of you might have seen our announcement about Crushpad Japan. To clarify, we are not currently opening a winemaking facility in Japan - all of the wines will be made in San Francisco. But Japanese customers will have a local contact in Japan as well as a Japanese-language correspondent in San Francisco to report on what's happening and to receive Japanese customers. Live in Japan? Like wine? You've got no excuse now!

OK, I'm getting this out ridiculously late... have to wake up at 5:00AM to go see what's happening to 27 brix Zinfandel in Dry Creek.

...Michael