Calwineries News
Written by: Ben Bicais on Monday, July 28 2008
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The 2008 San Luis Obispo Wine Industry Awards were recently announced at the California Mid-State Fair. The awards are organized by the Paso Robles Wine Country Alliance, Grape Growers of Paso Robles, and the San Luis Obispo Vintners Association. These awards are particularly prestigious in California Wine Country because the honorees are nominated and voted for by other members of the local wine industry.
William Sheffer of Halter Ranch Vineyard was named Winemaker of the Year. Before leading the winemaking team at Halter Ranch, Mr. Sheffer made wine for several other notable San Luis Obispo County wineries, including, J. Lohr Vineyards & Wines, Eberle Winery, and Adelaida Cellars.
Ric Fuller of Shimmin Canyon Vineyard was awarded the title Wine Grape Grower of the Year. His past experience includes working for Paul Masson Vineyards as well as planting the only privately owned research vineyard in San Luis Obispo County. Fuller was a founding member of the Paso Robles Wine Country Alliance.
The Wine Industry Person of the Year was awarded to Jerry Lohr, founder of J. Lohr Vineyards and Wines. During the late 1960s, Dr. Lohr was one of the first people to recognize San Luis Obispo County’s potential as a world-class winemaking region. In 1971, he planted his first vineyard in the Arroyo Seco AVA.
Dennis T. Collins was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award (posthumously). Over his career, he worked with many of California’s best known wineries including Gallo, Franzia, and Bronco Wine Company. He founded Big Red Vineyard in 1996, and also began working as the General Manager for Treana Vineyards in 2002.
Wine is big business in San Luis Obispo County, and contributes approximately $1.8 billion a year to the local economy. Over 1 million tourists visit the wine region annually.
Written by: Ryan Fujiu on Wednesday, June 27 2007
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Since Calwineries launched in November, we have been trying to connect our users and visitors to California’s wine country. California is a huge state, and is considered by many to be its own independent wine producing country. To help bridge the gap, we have recently launched a couple of new features to foster a deeper connection to California and its wine.
Rather than trying to tell you what to like, we wanted to let you decide for yourself. For each winery and wine, you can click the “mark as favorite” button which saves that page to your profile as a bookmark. Clicking the favorite button is also a vote for that wine or winery.
Rather than organizing the wines and wineries alphabetically, we decided to organize them based on their popularity in our community. Each time someone marks a wine or winery as a favorite, the number in the favorites ticker increases. Our winery and wine pages are organized so that the most popular are at the top, which hopefully makes these pages more relevant to you.
Marking a winery as a favorite not only keeps track of what you like, but it also keeps you up to date with that winery. In your profile, you can see any recent news from the wineries you marked as favorites. You can also sign up for the RSS feed and get the news sent straight into your RSS reader. By visiting your profile, you can see any recent news or releases from your favorites.
The most recent addition to Calwineries is functionality that allows you to sign up for winery mailing lists and wine clubs. This is the next step in connecting you to your favorite wineries and wines. Instead of having to go to each winery website to sign up for mailings, you can do it straight through Calwineries.
We are proud to welcome Inertia Beverage Group to the Calwineries family. Inertia is an industry leader in winery software, and we are happy to work with their team and client wineries. Calwineries is continuing to grow and develop, and we would like to thank you, our users and visitors, for your support. If you have any suggestions, please let us know.
Wineries with Mailing Lists on Calwineries
Written by: Ryan Fujiu on Friday, February 02 2007
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Friday, February 2nd – The Lake County Wine Alliance distributes funds from Auction. The Lake County Wine Alliance held their 2006 Wine Auction at Steele Wines in the Red Hills AVA.
Thursday, February 1st – Simi Winery Releases 2004 Cab. Alexander Valley’s Simi Winery released their 2004 Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon.
Wednesday, January 31st – Ceja Vineyards takes duty as host winemaking family at Mustard Festival. This year marks the 14th anniversary of the Napa Valley Mustard Festival, and Napa-Carneros’ Ceja Vineyards is the host winemaking family.
Tuesday, January 30th – Galante Vineyards Open House set for February 3rd. Carmel Valley’s Galante Vineyards is opening their doors to a open house to for wine futures tasting.
Monday, January 29th – Inman Family Releases new Pinot Noir. Russian River Valley’s Inman Family is set to release their 2005 Olivet Grange Vineyard Pinot Noir in February.
Written by: Ryan Fujiu on Friday, December 08 2006
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Dear Calwineries Members, we had an unfortunate incident yesterday where we lost a few comments. The exact cause of this mishap is under investigation, but be assured that we are getting to the bottom of this.
We apologize for any of your comments we may have lost. Unfortunately, situations like these are part of the growing process and assure you that we are doing everything we can to make sure this doesn’t happen again.
- Calwineries Team
Written by: Ben Bicais on Thursday, November 09 2006
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Welcome to the first post of the Calwineries Blog! We are excited to launch, and hope that our site and blog provide you with valuable information on California wine. Our site is designed to make the complicated subject of California wine more accessible and approachable.
To lay out California’s wine country, we have constructed interactive maps of all of the major regions in the state.
In our experience, interaction is the best way to learn about wine. So we encourage you to take advantage of our discussion sections on each page by asking questions, commenting, or contributing any other musings that you may have.
Feel free to make a profile and keep track of your favorite wineries, varietals and wines. You can also have contacts and keep track of the comments you have made in the discussion sections. If there are any questions, feel free to contact us. Enjoy!
2008 Wine Industry Awards – San Luis Obispo County
