Life On Our Vineyard
Summer 2008
Welcome!
It is mid-summer as I write this and our vines are well along their way of producing Cabernet grapes. Verasion has started and the grapes are slowly ripening under the warm sun. For those that don’t know the term, verasion is when the grapes start the ripening process and begin to turn from green to red. For us, this usually means our harvest is completed in mid-to late October, depending on how warm or cool of a summer we have. Since our vineyard is located in the southern part of the Napa Valley, we tend to get the cooler nights with not-too-hot days – perfect for the slow and steady development of a Cabernet vine!
During the past few months, we have had a very busy spring and an equally busy summer so far. We traveled to London and then Italy this past May, visiting our first (and currently only!) retail shop at Waddesdon Manor in the UK. The country home of Lord Jacob Rothschild, we were honored to learn that our wine was the only non-Lafite brand carried within the wine shop at Waddesdon Manor. Our 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon was placed prominently next to several Opus One bottles with a small sign that said, “The Napa Legend and the Napa Newcomer.” We were quite surprised and honored to be included here!
In Italy, Bob and I traveled to Portofino and then the Lake Como area, trying various super-Tuscan varietals along the way. (To share a secret – Bob is experimenting with our own Napa Valley Super Tuscan). One of our favorite destinations was a two-hour ride from Portofino --- the Chateau-du-Chevre-du-Or in Eze, France. We had a spectacular lunch with fantastic French wines and an amazing view overlooking the Mediterranean. If you haven’t been there, we highly recommend it. France and Italy are always favorite destinations for wine and food sampling.
In June, we traveled to Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic for a 10-day family vacation with Alex. We tried some interesting new wines from each of those countries, especially in Prague where we sampled some of the local wines that tasted similarly to a nice merlot. Even Alex had a “pinkie” taste of the local wines!
Upon return, we traveled to Jackson, Wyoming for the Jackson Hole Wine Auction where we were asked to pour our wine for the first time at the “Taste of Jackson Hole” event on June 27th. We were delighted with the overwhelming response we received at this event and were pouring until almost eleven o’clock that evening when the event was supposed to end at ten! We were interviewed by the local newspaper while at this event and were featured the next week in the “Stepping Out” section. Click here to see this article ……All in all, we had a lot of fun making friends and meeting new customers for our wine!
So now, it is the beginning of August and we are preparing for the Family Winemaker’s event to be held in San Francisco on August 24th and 25th. We poured for the first time here last year before our 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon was even released and had a great number of new friends sign up with us before our October 2007 release. This year, we will be pouring both our 2003 and, for a lucky few, our as-yet-to-be-released 2004 Ackerman Family Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon. This wine will be released in Mid-October this year and we have only 400 cases of it. For those of you who enjoyed our 2003 Cabernet, you will equally love our 2004 version – it opens a little faster than the 03’ with the same beautiful balance with subtle nuances of cherry, pepper and a hint of spice. We recently tried the ’04 with a smoked buffalo tenderloin at Couloir Restaurant in Jackson, WY and were delighted with the way our wine worked with the flavor of the beautifully prepared meat. A winning combination!
We would also like to welcome our new restaurant partners who are listed on our website. We will be adding more restaurants in the weeks and months ahead, so stay tuned.
As we approach October, stay tuned for more details of our 2004 Ackerman Family Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon release. There’s still a small amount of our 2003 Cabernet available so stock your cellars if you haven’t already because, when it’s gone, it’s gone for good!
Thank you again for making this first year at Ackerman Family Vineyards a success. We look forward to more great harvests ahead!
Sincerely,
Bob & Lauren Ackerman
