Vintners News

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On Saturday, August 21, a group of wine lovers showed up at Vintners Own Winery to create a wine profile for a barrel of Cabernet Sauvignon. The barrel sharing group recently bought a full barrel from our winery, which will be bottled with a custom label and shared among its members in 2012. The wine profile is the first step in the winemaking process, where clients sit down with Vintners Own winemakers to conceptualize a blueprint for their customized wine.

Saturdays barrel sharing group was co-organized by Bob Scheidemann and Steve Bergman, two Houstonian's who work in the oil and gas industry. Steve has been interested in red wine tasting for the last 30 years and in 2005 taught a class at UT Dallas called 'The Geology of Wine' which explored the effect of terroir on grapes.

"I had independently been searching for a suitable winemaking entrepreneur when Bob told me about finding Vintners Own," Steve said. Bob and Steve are both members of a Merlot barrel sharing team which they got together in 2009. After testing the waters with a Merlot, they assembled another team to create a Cabernet Sauvignon. 

"Our group consists of colleagues and friends who all share a passion for drinking good wine, and for many of us, getting to lift the hood and learn all the art and science involved is a real joy," Steve said.
The groups first goal on Saturday was to reach a consensus for the Cabernet blueprint. They decided to bring in five familiar brands of beloved Cabernet to narrow down possible characteristics in their wine, such as alcohol content and acidity. The five bottles, which came from the Napa and Sonoma regions included: Chalk Hill, Freemark Abbey and Sequoia Grove. 

The different types of wine were put up to an olympic style blind taste test and voted on. Blind taste tests which are conducted by Soda companies (think Pepsi and Coke) Vodka companies and wineries are often used to determine which product is most favored by a panel of voters. The 'blind' part of the test was conducted to weed out favoritism and biases toward one particular brand. The winner of the test on Saturday was Sequoia Grove Cabernet, Vintage 2005.

After the blind taste test, profiling began to further define the groups desired characteristics in their barrel. During profiling, structure of wine is separated into distinct categories, such as sweetness, tartness, dryness, mouth feel and color depth. Not to mention flavors such as: earthy, woody, caramel, nutty, hebacious spicy and floral. The group chose, on a scale of 1-5, how prominent these features will be in their Cabernet. Other decisions such as yeast type, tannin level and oak blend were also chosen. The winemakers at Vintners Own will use this blueprint to create a customized wine for the Olympics of Cabernet group. 

A Vintners Own Membership is a window into the exciting world of winemaking. Learn the intricate details that make up the old world tradition of winemaking as you participate in the different stages of the winemaking process. Watch and join in the process as grapes are transformed into spectacular customized wine! As the wine makes its journey to bottle, you will discover how different techniques are used to shape wines, and you will receive two cases of wine you help to make. Share the fun of winemaking with a friend or family member; every membership includes a free guest pass!

Members who join the program will get to join in year round activities, including: sort, crush, press, tasting, and bottling. At the end of the winemaking process, each member will receive two cases of delicious wine!

In addition to receiving two cases of custom wine, members are entitled to a 20% discount off all wine sold by Vintners Own. Chose from a multitude of varieties: Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Syrah, Petit Syrah, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Rosé, Merlot, Zinfandel and our Reserve Red Blend.

Members are invited to participate in all the following winemaking activities throughout the year:

Crush - At our custom crush facility, you will use our sorting tables to ensure the only the best grapes are made into wine. It’s real hands on! 

Press - Pressing is the act of applying pressure to grapes in order to separate juice or wine from grapes and grape skins

Blending Session – While much of the winemaking process is scientific, blending is the winemaker’s art form. Blending sessions provide members with an insider's perspective on winemaking. Last year Benedictine Rhyne, a native of Aix-en-Provence and a wine consultant, joined barrel owners to blend their 2009 Sonoma Merlot.

Tasting Events – Join us during our many tasting events throughout the year. Stop in to barrel test wine as it slowly matures from barrel to bottle, or join us for one of our many wine and cheese tours!

The Stomp – Every year we sponsor the “Annual Rodeo Stomp” – an enormously fun event and a chance to meet with the movers and shakers of the Houston Rodeo.

In Texas, grape harvest can start anywhere from early July to late September. In the high plains area of Texas, around Lubbock and around the Guadalupe Mountains in the Trans-Pecos region, harvest is in September which coincides with the harvest seasons in California and France. This year, Vintners Own is sorting and crushing a lot of Texas Fruit. Here are some photos from Reddy Vineyards, one of the largest vineyards in the Texas High Plains. Vintners Own will be processing 12 tons of fruit from Reddy Vineyards.

Call us to see how you can get your own wine dispensing system!

Vintners Own Wine and Cheese Pairings!

Figuring out a good wine and cheese pairing can be a daunting task. There are literally hundreds of types of cheese, not to mention the added difficulty of figuring out which type is which- in fact, the same, exact cheese is often called by a different name depending on country origin! Then there is the actual task itself- finding a cheese and wine pairing that not only fits your budget, but is truly a great pairing.

At Vintners Own we love a good wine and cheese pairing, which is why we've done the work-the pairing- so you can stop by the winery and enjoy the fun-eating and drinking!

We started out search with the idea that a good match often happens when wine and cheese are from the same region. Since we are a local custom crush winery, we decided to narrow our search to Texas Cheeses. We rigorously tasted and tested several different types of Texas cheese with one goal in mind- to find a cheese that not only pairs well with our wine, but brings the flavor and aroma to a new level.

We started with really high expectations and with the help of the Houston Dairymaids, found several pairings we really enjoy. In each, wine and cheese are taken to new heights. 

Vintners Own Pairings:

Havarti and Chardonnay

Basket Chevre and Rosé

Bosque Blue Cheese and Dale Brown Cabernet Sauvignon

Greens Creek Gruyere and Syrah

Vintners Own Wine and Cheese Seminar includes a tour of Vintners Winery as well as a sit down wine and cheese pairing. Give us a call for more information or to schedule your own Wine and Cheese Seminar!

713-880-3794

Friends, Family and Wino's, you are invited to Vintners Own to join in on our summer fun. Aside from creating customized wine, we have various activities happening at the winery, at all hours of the day. We are offering a winemaking workshop this summer. (If you've ever been interested in the ins and outs of the wine bottling process, you'll like this one!) The workshop includes blending wine, choosing a bottle, cork and foil and finally creating your own label! At the end, feel free to take home the bottle of wine you have designed. This is a great activity for wine clubs, or friends and family who enjoy getting together over a bottle of wine.

For those more interested in the eating and drinking part of winemaking (that part is our favorite too!), we invite you to host your own wine and cheese party in our barrel room. We've paired a Brazos Valley Havarti with our Chardonnay, and a Gruyere from Dublin, Texas with our Syrah. The subtle nutty flavor of the Swiss classic really brings out the licorice and fennel flavors in our California Syrah!
 

For Rose drinkers, we have a fresh and creamy chevre made at Pure Luck Farm in Dripping Springs. The herbal undertones of this cheese bring out the best in our light, refreshing Rose. Finally, to go with our Cabernet Sauvignon, we found a lovely blue cheese. More precisely, Bosque (pronounced BOSS-key) Blue Cheese which is also made in Dublin, TX. It is robust in flavor, much like Stilton and a little crumbly too.

As a side note, we love the cheese we have paired with our wine, but we are open to seeing other cheeses as well...

Wine Regards!

Author and Leadership strategist Linda Stiles has teamed up with Vintners Own Winery to create Vintage Leadership, a 12 month long assemblage of winemaking and leadership training. Stiles, who has written several books on personal and professional leadership modeled the program Vintage Leadership after her book The 9 principles of leadership. Stiles 9 steps, including; creating a vision, fostering an open mind, developing focus and maximizing motivation will go hand-in-hand with individual steps of the winemaking process.

Grape harvest will be paired with leadership vision while having patience will be learned by tasting young wine during the aging process. The benefit of fostering an open mind will be taught in conjunction with wine variations. As any winemaker will tell you, subtle changes and variations, such as oak chip choice, yeast additions and acidity levels have a huge effect on the overall composition and taste of wine. An open mind is not only necessary, its profitable.  

Employers and employees alike will will gain a new set of leadership skills, and an understanding of the logistics that go into making wine. Not to mention the two cases of customized wine with personalized labels that everyone gets to take home at the end of the workshop. 

We figure, great leadership, like great wine doesn't happen over night! Anyone intending to lay a sturdy leadership foundation is a candidate for this program.

For more information contact Linda Stiles:

linda@lindastiles.com 

713-208-2015
www.vintageleadership.com

To learn more about winemaking and special events at Vintners Own: Visit our Events page! 

During summertime at Vintners Own, we get really excited about shipping in fruit from Napa and Sonoma Valley in California for grape harvest. This year, we are even MORE excited because we are crushing scrumptious grapes from the high plains in Texas where some of the best Texas wine is produced.

Vintners Own has partnered up with Chris Caldwell, the winemaker of Caldwell-Crosby and Reddy Vineyards in the High plains to crush, ferment and bottle the first Caldwell-Crosby Vintage. I sat down with Chris to ask him a little bit about Texas wine and his new brand.  

“We really just jumped right in,” Chris said, “this went from being a hobby to a commercial business.”

Chris' dad, who represents the Caldwell name in the brand, has been traveling to Napa for nearly 30 years and has always wanted to make wine. He and his good friend Jim Crosby decided to fund a brand, which, they originally planned to produce and bottle in California.

While Caldwell and Crosby debated on where to produce the delectable fruit for their wine, they couldn't resist the idea of creating an all-Texas wine.

"Texas is where Napa was in the 60's," Chris said, "opportunity and potential in Texas is huge."

Currently, Caldwell-Crosby has contracts for 12 tons of fruit with Reddy Vineyards, one of the larger vineyards in the Texas High Plains. This area of Texas is prime grape growing land due to the area climate.

At the end of the 2010 winemaking season, two Caldwell-Crosby 
all-Texas wines will emerge from this year’s harvest: a Cabernet Sauvignon and a ‘Bordeaux’ blend.

At Vintners Own, we can't wait to work with Caldwell-Crosby on their Texas brand! 

Culturemap Houston features Vintners Own 'Wine by the Glass' program.