Do You Love Merlot?

January 31, 2009

What a month. We launched our first ever strategic partnership, hired a viticultural rockstar, finished the ferments on around 1,000 barrels, visited France (more on this next month, but it was an awesome and eye-opening trip), got a new release of crushnet.com out... we even had TV crews in shooting about bailoutwine.com and we should be on Bloomberg and CNBC next week (unless we get pre-empted again by that Lego hair model* Blegojevich). And my Garagiste boxes started showing up - it's like xmas in January. Not a bad month. Here's what else is going on...

Reminder: Client Mashup - February 21st, 2PM to 6PM Just a reminder that we're having our Mashup event on the 21st. Note that this event is for clients as well as their family and friends to taste their recent wines and compare and contrast to other made from the same (and other) vineyards. RSVP here. If you are not able to make it to the Mashup, your wine samples will be sent out the following week.

2009 Allocations beginning in February We are creating the initial vineyard list for 2009. Most vineyards will be back and we're adding a few. Although it's a little early for a definitive statement, it looks like we're entering our third consecutive drought year. For most vineyards that means continued small berries and lots of concentration (like 2007 and 2008). That also means growers are looking at another year of low crops and water worry. Luckily we have locked in most of our vineyards in long term contracts as competition again seems intense for fruit (despite gloomy economic news, the low yields in 2007 and 2008 have created a shortage of high quality fruit). Dave Gifford (dave@crushpadwine.com) will be reaching out shortly with more info... or call him if you want to accelerate things with an adoption of a 2008 barrel.

Former Mondavi Director, Mitchell Klug, Joins Crushpad We have been working with Mitchell for the past couple of years in his role at Premier Pacific Vineyards - a partner who has been consistently delivering great fruit. After planting thousands of acres of high end vineyards over the past several years, Mitchell is broadening his focus and we're the lucky recipient of that. Before PPV, Mitchell headed up vineyard operations for Mondavi, including To Kalon and Opus One. The dude planted Opus One. Mitchell is going to up our viticulture game so much it's ridiculous (yours truly was the primary lead for vineyards historically). We have seen his work at vineyards such as Coombsville where he turned a just OK site into the thickest, black Cabernet Sauvignon you've ever seen. He's going to be a game changer for all our wines and we consider ourselves very lucky.

Bin to Bottle and Crushpad Partner for Larger Production We have entered into a strategic partnership with Napa Valley's Bin to Bottle - a custom crush facility whose economics are geared towards larger production than the small production focus of San Francisco. For larger Crushpad clients as well as new clients who are already in the business in Napa, we are providing our same exact services, except we just do the production on Highway 29. The big investments we've been making in the commerce technology can now be utilized by more wine brands, lowering everyone's costs and enabling us to deliver new services. Alan Baker is going to be heading up to Napa, although you'll still see him in San Francisco from time to time. More info.

I'm Not Watching Any !#$%^&^( Merlot Movie Everyone ready for Merlot to come back? Tired of Sideways references (which ranks up there with 911 and the internet as a force that changed everything)? Well, then come to the first San Francisco screening of Merlove at Crushpad on March 5th @ 6:30PM. We'll be serving popcorn and ju ju bees, and some great guest Merlot producers will be pouring wines that will make you forget why you ever switched to Pinot. BYOM (bonus points for Petrus or Le Pin) and if you get in soon, you can get one of the coveted VIP couch seats! RSVP online.

Wine Shipping This is a reminder that starting on January 1st, we have a one dollar per case monthly storage fee for your personal wine. We're happy to store wine and we have a fair bit of warehouse space, but if you want to have wine shipped between now and the end of May, we're giving 10% off all ground shipping. Check out your wine that's ready to ship on Crushnet.

Congratulations to 5 Points - 91 Points in Wine Spectator 5 Points Cellars

Double Gold at San Francisco Chronicle Competition for Nicholls 2006 Cab Nicholls Wine