Uncorked Monthly

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Listen to our featured interview with Kevin Willenborg – The winemaker at Vina Robles. Kevin Willenborg is a versatile winemaker who has over 35 years of extensive experience working in key regions such as Bordeaux, Napa Valley, Sonoma, British Columbia's Okanagan Valley, as well as California's Central Coast. A graduate of the University of California at Davis, his fast-paced career started with an internship at Chateau Petrus in the mid-1980s, which provided him with a great introduction to the industry's traditions and philosophy. Ever since he has enjoyed shaping world-class wines from the ground to glass. "Each wine has its own life. That life begins with the planting and development of the vines. It is then transferred from the earth through the vine as the grapes are harvested, crushed, fermented into wine, and eventually bottled. The role of the winemaker is to respectfully steward this life with care and attention to detail.”

A Life of Wine With tenacity and determination, Cathy Corison has forged a life of wine that has spanned more than three decades, transcended formidable challenges and surpassed her wildest dreams. Read and listen to our featured interview with Cathy at www.UncorkedMonthly.com

FEATURED INTERVIEW Listen in June 5th as I interview Jeff Morgan, winemaker of Covenant Wines. His journey to become a winemaker started from his passion for food and music. Listen in as Jeff shares his wonder life journey from musician to winemaker.

Having some fun. I wanted to produce something that celebrated David Bowie, Bruno Mars and Lenny Kravitz.

I had the privilege of interviewing Roberto Comincioli from Comincioli Wines. Listend in to our Podcast to learn more about Roberto as a person, winemaker, and how he grew up as a kid in the wine industry.

Welcome back to Uncorked Monthly, everybody. Today I have a special guest with me, Juan Muñoz-Oca. Juan is the head winemaker at Columbia Crest Winery in Paterson, Washington. And Columbia Crest, as many of you may or may not be familiar with, though, but they're recognized as the leading producer of acclaimed high-quality wines from Washington State. www.UncorkedMonthly.com

Recently I had the opportunity to catch up with Dick Keenan of Overland Wines and Kick Ranch Vineyards. Dick is a Notre Dame and Yale Law School graduate and former trial lawyer. After 31 years as a litigating attorney, Dick Keenan says there are three major things that have carried over into his second career: “What I most enjoyed in my law practice was working with great partners – bright, decent people you can rely on to do good work and back you up,” Keenan says. “Also, litigation involves complex facts that need to be explained; for that you need expert witnesses, so I got used to finding people who know their fields really well.” However, it was time to make a change, Dick approached his wife Kathy and told here that he would like to do something different. With her support, he made a break for it and become a wine grower and eventually a wine producer. www.UncorkedMonthly.com

I had the absolute privilge of speaking with Ms. Theodora Lee of Theopolis Vineyards, also known as Theopatra, Queen of the Vineyards. I learned that Theo is a successful partner and trial lawyer at Littler Mendelson where she defends employers in complex wage and hour class actions, discrimination class action lawsuits and general employment litigation. When I asked Theo why she pursed the wine industry, she responded "well, I guess I wasn't satisfied just practicing law full time and I had to go out and do something more interesting, so I pursued my passion. WINE!" www.UncorkedMonthly.com

While touring Champagne a few weeks ago, the region of France all the genuine Champagne wines come from, I had the pleasure to stop by at one of the most famous of local Houses: Taittinger, and meet with owning family member, brand ambassador, and marketing director, Vitalie Taittinger. After visiting the UNESCO World Heritage site of the crayères, the limestone underground galleries used to age Taittinger Champagne wines underneath their headquarter in Reims, I sat down with Vitalie to get to know her and learn more about her family’s prestigious House. Listen to the charming interview I had with Vitalie, and find some of the highlights at www.UncorkedMonthly.com

When Clare Carver first met the man who would eventually become her husband and business partner, she didn’t like him. Carver was living in San Francisco at the time. She hosted a party and a friend brought along Brian Marcy to meet her. He was a winemaker with a degree in fermentation science from the University of California at Davis. Hey, who opened my bottle of wine? www.UncorkedMonthly.com

Listen to the full podcast interview to meet Francesco and Luisa and hear from them all the details about their region, their wines, their family, and their passion. www.UncorkedMonthly.com

When a passion for life, community, and wine bring together a family. Julie’s grandparents found this piece of property in what would become known as Dry Creek Valley later on. Just a couple of miles west of the town of Geyserville, located in the northern corner of Sonoma County. What is most interesting about this purchase, was that Julie’s grandparents bought it in the middle of prohibition. Not many people did that back in those days. This was an established vineyard that and was planted in the early 1900s, but the winery went defunct at the beginning of prohibition, but the people who owned the property, another Italian family, had kept the vineyards going. There were about 25 acres of vineyard planted, again, in that early part of the 1900s. In fact, today, the Pedroncelli family still has a few very old vines left on the property. Life definitely changed for the Pedroncelli family and it all started when Julie’s grandparents found this wonderful slice of heaven and brought their three kids to begin there new life. Julie’s father, Jim was born at the winery in the early 1930s, and basically waited out prohibition and the family was ready to go once prohibition ended, and Jim Pedroncelli dusted off the winery equipment, and we went into making wine. The Pedroncelli Winery and family after eighty-nine is still going strong and still remains family owned and operated to this day. www.UncorkedMonthly.com

The Visionary - Mary McAuley As a seasoned “clambaker,” sommelier, and culinary school graduate, our Founder and CEO, Mary McAuley, had an “ah-ha” moment when charged with the task of selecting the wine for a (rather raucous) clambake she threw with her friends back in August 2011 in her seaside hometown of Mantoloking, NJ. Mary set out to help consumers who are lost when it comes to selecting a good wine to pair with certain foods, especially the coastal cuisine she grew up eating with her family and friends on the beach. She simultaneously realized the void for trustworthy brands on the American wine market and felt compelled to produce an artisanal and superiorly-crafted wine under a recognizable label to stand out from other big names sourcing from the untrustworthy bulk market or practicing unsavory production techniques. Ripe Life’s first wine, the Clambake Chardonnay, hit the shelves in July 2013 and was an instant success. Although Marys heart belongs to the sea, creating the Clambake Chardonnay has made her realize the plethora American occasions where people are 1. always drinking wine and 2. always eating the same things and plans to expand the collection to other lines in the near future with ideas like an aprés ski wine and a tailgating wine. Before graduating from The Institute of Culinary Education and, later on, The French Culinary Institute, she attended Georgetown University where she was a member of the Division I National Champion sailing team for four years and still makes it out on the water any chance she gets. Her death row meal would be a quarter pound of crémeux de bourgogne cheese with Rustic Bakery crackers, black cherry jam; paired with a 2001 Barbaresco. www.UncorkedMonthly.com

I recently had an opportunity to interview Sigrid Zirkle Carroll (Sisi), Managing Director at Weingut Richard Bocking (Traben Trarbach, Germany). Sisi is responsible for import and sales in North American of all wines and products produced by Weingut Richard Boecking, located in Traben-Trarbach, the heart of the Middle Moselle in Germany. Weingut Richard Bocking is a family run winery operating for close to 400 years. Sisi is the 15th generation of the family to be involved in this venture of labor, love and family. Listen in as I interview Sisi Carroll. www.UncorkedMonthly.com

Welcome back to Uncorked Monthly, today we have a special Memorial Day featured interview for you. Memorial Day is a day on which those who died in active military service are remembered and today, I have three special guests, Ray Coursen, winemaker for Purple Heart Wines, Paul Englert (VP of Sales & Marketing at C. Mondavi & Family) and Jeff Roy (Chairman at the Purple Heart Foundation). Listend and read the full interview at www.UncorkedMonthly.com

Isabelle Pangault is the new winemaker and brand ambassador at Les Vignobles Foncalieu.Les Vignobles Foncalieu, a co-operative of 1200 winegrowers that spans several regions of Southern France: Languedoc-Roussillon, Provence, Gascony, and the Rhone Valley.

Oak Barrels: The Winemaker’s Spice Rack, featuring Joe Freeman and Ed Morris from The Rubin Family of Wines. Ed Morris, associate winemaker for Rubin, has a background in coopering. (“Coopering”, or barrel making, comes from the Middle Dutch/Middle Low German term kūpe for tub or vat, based on the Latin word cupa.) Before going to work for Rubin in 2010, Morris was a cooper in Sonoma County. “Looking back on it, it was a long time in the making,” he reflects. “I’m a fourth generation craftsman. My great-grandfather was a violin builder, my grandfather was a clock maker, and my father was a carpenter and boat builder. So when I happened to get a job at a local cooperage, it was almost fated. So within the first week, I kind of felt at home and was completely infatuated with what was happening around me.” Morris keeps a collection of old coopering tools that he occasionally shows to visitors of the winery who ask about repair and maintenance of the barrels. Listen and read more at www.UncorkedMonthly.com

Coming soon will be another wonderful featured interview. This time Julien Miquel interviewed Julio Saenz, Winemaker of La Rioja Alta SA. Look for his article and podcast at www.UncorkedMonthly.com

Winemaker Giuseppe Sala of I Selvatici: Respecting the Past and Relishing the Present. Winemaker Giuseppe Sala of I Selvatici: Respecting the Past and Relishing the Present Winemaker Giuseppe Sala never had the chance to meet the man after whom he was named. Growing up working on the winery that his grandfather founded, however, Sala would sometimes sense the old man’s presence among the vines. When Sala and his father might grumble about the less-than-ideal weather, it seemed the departed Giuseppe was listening and asserting a loving force to part clouds and withhold rain. Now and then, young Sala’s parents would hear his grandfather’s laugh in his, or catch an uncannily familiar glance from his eyes. In these ways, Sala’s grandfather lives on. Listen and read the full featured interview at www.UncorkdMonthly.com

David Castrucci of Castrucci Vineyards: Wise Words and Deeds from Dad. t’s inevitable. As children, we learn by watching the adults in our lives. We pick up on clues without realizing it’s happening. We’re like blobs of Silly Putty being rolled over the funny pages and picking up images and dialogue along the way that get kneaded into the stuff we’re made of. Sometimes history repeats itself as one generation internalizes the examples of the one before it. Sometimes parents are self-aware enough to show their children a better example than the one they got. Listen and read the full featured interview at www.UncorkedMonthly.com

Brian Loring of the Loring Wine Company: No Labor Where There’s Love. Starting his own wine business wasn’t easy, but it was a dream come true for Brian Loring and he wouldn’t change a thing. In fact, if the entire zany process could be summed up in a movie montage, he says the soundtrack would be “Mint Car” by The Cure on account of these happy-go-lucky lyrics: Listen and read the full featured interview at www.UncorkedMonthly.com

Talking Taste with Tres Goetting, Winemaker for Robert Biale Vineyards. Razor sharp palate When I read that Tres Goetting, winemaker for Robert Biale Vineyards, had a “razor sharp palate”, I decided to open a dialogue with him on the subject of wine and taste. Even if my questions were impossible to answer, I still thought it would make for an interesting discussion. Tres_Original_smallGoetting had never heard such flattering words about his own palate before, so the “razor sharp” designation was news to him. “I think that is a good thing,” he said modestly. I asked him to verbalize what he thought it meant. Listen and read the full article at www.UncorkedMonthly.com

There aren’t too many winemakers like Julianne Laks. Despite a demure air of elegance, she’s quite the stand-out. Going back to 1977, she was one of only two women to graduate from the University of California at Davis that year with a degree in fermentation science. Directly out of college, Laks went to work part-time for Cakebread Cellars and was eventually appointed winemaker in 2002 – a pretty big deal in itself, as she is the only non-family member to serve there as winemaker. Listen and read the full article at www.UncorkedMonthly.com

Our featured interview with Giuseppe Sala will be published soon. However, you can listen to the podcast at http://uncorkedmonthly.com/event/featured-interview-giuseppe-sala-from-i-selvatici/ We will be publishing the full featured interview soon.

Sean Foster of the Merryvale Family of Wines Will Never Know the Smell of a Post-it. Foster opened with "I’ve never been a winemaker. I’ve never worked at a winery. Before becoming a professional writer, I earned my daily bread mostly in carpeted high-rise offices with industrial size Keurig machines and closets packed with surplus post-it notes.". Listen and read his amazing full featured interview at www.UncorkedMonthly.com

Northern Hospitality from Chateau Chantal in Traverse City, Michigan with Marie-Chantal Dalese and Brian Hosmer. Not when “northern hospitality” is giving them such a run for their money. Just ask the lady who coined the term. Marie-Chantal Dalese recently celebrated her one-year anniversary as CEO of Chateau Chantal in Traverse City, Michigan. And if anyone knows how to extend a warm northern welcome, it’s Dalese. Listen and read our featured interview with Chateau Chantal at www.UncorkedMonthly.com

Jeff Bundschu and Rand Rognlien of Vindie Wine on the Alchemy of Wine and Music. Bundschu and his partner Rognlien are the founders of Vindie Wine out of California. These guys have come up with a great way for wine lovers to discover and fall in love with new music. Listen and Read the full featured interview at www.UncorkedMonthly.com

Mollie Openshaw of Mood Swing Wines on the Joys of Menopause. “What you read (on my) website and what's on my bottle, it's about embracing life, taking life on the chin, enjoying every moment that you have. And if that means getting together with girlfriends, do it, and have a great time, and enjoy great wine in the midst of it all.” Listen and read the full article at www.UncorkedMonthly.com

This is the legacy of Brandon Allen, co-founder of Slo Down Wines.” We see the bearded Allen exhaling a plume of tobacco smoke in slow motion, and then he is seated at a glossy table top swirling a quarter-glass of red while poring over a hefty thesaurus. His index finger lands pointedly on the word, “shaft”. The voiceover continues, “A winemaker with a dream to create the perfect blend of grapes and then bottle it so he can score with chicks”. Listen and read more at www.UncorkedMonthly.com

Peju Province Winery: From Sublime Vision to a Family Business with Heart

Jenny Wagner is a seventh-generation Napa Valley resident and a third-generation winemaker. As a girl, Jenny took long walks around the property with her beloved grandmother Lorna Belle. Read more about Jenny Wagner and the Wagner Family of Wine at www.UncorkedMonthly.com

“I make wine for the people,” says Charles Smith, winemaker and owner of Charles Smith Wines in Washington state. “At every price, you should get value for your money. People work hard for their money. I think it’s the responsibility of the winemakers to give (the people) something true that has integrity. That’s what I do.” Read more about Charles Smith at www.UncorkedMonthly.com

Joe Freeman, Winemaker for The Rubin Family of Wines: Hearing The Vines Speak. Listen to Joe Freeman share his passion for wine and his story behind it all. Read more about Joe and the Rubin Family of Wine at www.UncorkedMonthly.com

The wines of Flanagan Estate Vineyards are known for being “very expressive in the nose”, so says their website at www.FlanaganWines.com. As winemaker Cabell Coursey said of Flanagan wines, “They’re all intended to be aromatically interesting.” Specifically, Coursey says the Pinot Noir communicates “crunchy red fruits – let’s say, cranberry, pomegranate, rhubarb.” Also, “The Cabernet we make is very classic – cassis and blackcurrants.

Listen to Tim Thornhill, Founder of The Mendocino Wine Company share his story about a dream of two brothers, Tom and Tim Thornhill – a shared vision for creating a utopia where their family members could converge from all over the country and live and work together. Read more about Tim Thornhill and the Mendocino Wine Company at www.UncorkedMonthly.com

Dave Phinney wouldn’t call himself an artist by any means, but I might. At least I’d say that he sees the world through an artist’s eyes. Who else could pair the weathered hands of a farmer with a child’s offhand remark about a butterfly, and transform them into a brand of wine? Phinney is a winemaker and founder of Orin Swift Cellars in Saint Helena, California. Aside from spending as much time as possible in the vineyards of Italy, Spain, Portugal and Argentina – and of course, Napa Valley – he’s also the creative brain behind the names, concepts and labels for Orin Swift’s wines. Read more about Dave Swift Phinney and the wines of Orin Swift Cellars at www.UncorkedMonthly.com

An Unlikely Lesson in Winemaking from a Grizzly Bear For the First Time Ever, the Sophisticated, Lumbering Icon of Punch Vineyards Opens Up to the Media. Listen in or read how Punch the Grizzly has “developed a love of the grape. We also find out just how much of Punch’s education in winemaking came from Punch Vineyards’ proprietor, Lee Nordlund.

So, you want to get to know the trio of Moniker wines by Mendocino Wine Company, and you have the opportunity to ask the winemaker himself, Mark Beaman, what these wines are all about. Listen in as Uncorked Monthly get's behind the why of his passion for wine and his real relationship with the wines he creates.

Andrew Codispoti, winemaker at Gervasi Vineyard http://www.gervasivineyard.com/