Watching the rain fall outside reminds me that four years ago this month, just as the drought was starting, D’Aun and I purchased a new home. The property includes a chardonnay vineyard, and learning how to property manage the vines was a steep learning curve. We’re still learning about farming grapes, which has gone smoothly despite the drought. The biggest angst came from the business side of grape growing.
In the first year we felt cheated when our grape buyer (a mega-winery that will go nameless) reneged on a big portion of the contract. We saw the other side of the wine business, the one they don’t show in all those dreamy commercials about living blissfully in the country surrounded by perfectly kept vines. Of course I’ve been in business for over 3-decades and signed thousands of contracts, so none of the buyer’s misbehavior caused me any loss of sleep. But it was irritating.
So we switched buyers and have been with Wente Vineyards for the last 3-years. It’s been great. Love working with a locally owned family business. One big upside is they let me use a third-party company to handle all the farming. Our vineyard manager, Matt, is great to work with and has come through year after year with large crops producing solid chardonnay grapes.
For the past couple of years our grapes have gone into Entwine Wine. Entwine is a partnership between Wente and The Food Channel. Thus if you ever see a bottle of chardonnay “casually” sitting on the kitchen counter during a Food Channel show, it’s likely to be Entwine made from grapes grown in our vineyard. That’s kinda cool.
Obviously things change, and the next vintage of Entwine might not be from our grapes. But if you see Entwine in the store, grab a bottle of the chardonnay and let me know what you think. It’s a clean, crisp chardonnay without a lot of oak. We find it to be a good affordable wine that pairs really well with food. Which makes sense because Wente crafted the wine to drink with a meal (it’s the Food Network, after all, not the Wine Network). As they say on the Entwine website, it’s Born to Pair.
Our vineyard on a less rainy day!