Fans of Mark Aubert’s amazingly sublime chardonnays and pinot noirs should be happy to hear Aubert and his wife will finally have a winery of their own, having purchased a new facility in Calistoga, right along the Silverado Trail. It is slated to open in January 2011 after an extensive renovation to both the winery and visitor’s area. A winemaker and consultant for some very fancy names, including Peter Michael, Sloan, Colgin and Bryant, Aubert started his own brand in… Read More »

Boisset is opening a new “Taste of Terroir” tasting room on the Healdsburg Square, in the location formerly used by Gallo of Sonoma. Which is interesting since Jean Charles Boisset and Gina Gallo are married. Boisset Family Estates owns DeLoach Vineyards and Raymond Vineyards locally; in France they are the family behind Domaine de la Vougeraie, Jean-Claude Boisset and many other prestigious Burgundy brands. Taste of Terroir will give people a chance to try wines from both Sonoma and Burgundy,… Read More »

Richard Arrowood is making it official – no more job as winemaster at Arrowood Vineyards and Winery. Instead, he’ll concentrate full-time on Amapola Creek, which he and wife Alis founded in 2007 up in the hills not far from his namesake winery. Amapola, an organically farmed, 110-acre estate winery spread along the western side of the Mayacamas, makes cabernet sauvignon, syrah and zinfandel from the Sonoma Valley. In addition to his own 20 acres of producing grapes, Arrowood sources from… Read More »

WineIndustryInsight is reporting that Chalk Hill Winery is for sale and that the going theory is that Foley Family Wines will be the buyer. Foley, with offices in Sonoma, has been on a winery buying spree over the last few year, taking on ownership of Firestone Vineyards in Los Olivos and also more locally, Audelssa, Merus, Kuleto Estate, Wattle Creek and Sebastiani Vineyards and Winery, among other properties in Washington state and New Zealand. Back in March of 2009 I… Read More »

Apple’s got a new feature running on its home page – a detailed look at how Quintessa Winery in St. Helena uses iPhones to stay in better touch with its customers, an interesting, definitely marketingesque take on how the wine world is starting to experiment with different ways of reaching current and potential customers. An embedded video also helps tell the story. I wonder – who wrote this? What other wineries are on Apple’s radar? Is this now a new… Read More »

Mendocino-based Magnanimus Wine Group will move into the former Fetzer Food and Wine Center in Hopland this June, working with its new owners to remodel the tasting room and planning all manner of summer activities for the historic property and its expansive gardens. Among the new developments, a summer concert series is slated to kick off by late June, along with garden and tasting tours. Gary Breen and Anna Beuselinck, operating under the name Campovida, purchased the Hopland-based Fetzer Valley Oaks… Read More »

When a place has been around for 100-so years, it takes time to turn it into something new. So when the boys of Medlock Ames, winery owners Ames Morison and Christopher Medlock James, bought the landmark Alexander Valley Store and Bar where Highway 128 and Alexander Valley Road meet, they figured they’d take their time thinking about its next iteration. The new Medlock Ames tasting room, farm stand and Alexander Valley Bar is now open. When the previous owner put… Read More »