News & Events

October 02, 2009 Welcome Renée Dale!

There is a new face at the top of Spring Mountain – kiwi Renée Dale, who joins the Pride wine team as this year’s international harvest enologist.  Originally from Auckland, New Zealand, Renée has traveled the world learning about winemaking, studying in Italy and working at Coldstream Hills winery in Australia, Stags’ Leap Winery in Napa, and Villa Maria and Trinity Hill wineries in New Zealand.  While traveling the globe working two harvests each year, she has also created a poster featuring the beautiful winery doors of New Zealand’s Hawkes Bay region (visit http://www.fotorap.com/wine.htm to take a peak), and writes an insider’s blog about her winery experiences at www.harvesthopper.blogspot.com.  She can also grill up a mean steak, so she has become quite popular around the winery.  Come on up to say hello!

September 16, 2009 2009 Winesong!

Brrrrrr!  Saturday, September 12th was a gray and chilly day at the Mendocino Botanical Gardens, but spirits weren't dampened as the sell-out crowd of 1,100 enjoyed a terrific day wandering the trails, tasting great wine and sampling delicious food.

Despite worries over the economy, it was a joy to see how successful auctioneers David Reynolds and DawnMarie Kotsonis were in getting guests to raise their paddles high to benefit the Mendocino Coast District Hospital.  As a spectator said, "Mendocino is an island.  That hospital is our lifeline."  The bidding was a testament to that.  Watching DawnMarie (pictured at left) work the crowd was worth the price of admission alone, and David Reynolds hammered home $69,000 in under fifteen minutes through fund-a-need pledges designated for a new portable ultrasound machine that the emergency department desperately needs. 

The Pride lot comprised of wine and a visit to the winery, raised $3,800 and was purchased by two couples from San Francisco who had just tasted Pride wine for the first time at Winesong! this year.  They are looking forward to visiting us and we are looking forward to treating them to a full immersion course in life and winemaking at 2200 feet!

It was a pleasure to be part of such an important and successful event.

August 28, 2009 PMV @ The Battle of the Bay

Pride Mountain Vineyards joined San Francisco 49ers owner Dr. John York and his daughters Jenna and Mara York in the owner’s suite at Game 2 of the 2009 pre-season.  Guests from Pride Mountain Vineyards included founder Carolyn Pride, her daughter and son-in-law Suzanne Pride-Bryan and Stuart Bryan, and their children Elizabeth Bryan (pictured) and Katy Bryan, and winemaker Sally Johnson and her husband Max Blum.  Katy is currently training as a photographer, and spent the day photographing the game from the sidelines.  The game was the annual “Battle of the Bay,” pitting the San Francisco 49ers against the Oakland Raiders, and provided the 49ers with a nail-biting win in the fourth quarter.  Dr. York’s guests, including the Reverend Cecil Williams from San Francisco’s Glide Memorial Church and legendary retired linebacker Dan Bunz, enjoyed a selection of Pride wines – our 2007 Chardonnay and Viognier as well as our 2006 Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon.

August 21, 2009 Birdies for Breast Cancer Charity Golf Classic

LPGA leader Cristie Kerr is also a leader in the fight against breast cancer.  Every year she hosts her Birdies for Breast Cancer Charity Golf Classic to raise funds to help women with breast cancer, and most recently has created the Cristie Kerr Women’s Health Center on the campus of the Jersey City Medical Center.  The Cristie Kerr Women’s Health Center will provide screening, education, recovery and support services for women with breast cancer.  Services will be available for women with and without medical insurance.

Kathy Bertolino, Pride Mountain Vineyards’ CFO enjoys playing golf with the LPGA pros at Liberty National Golf Course in New Jersey on August 14, 2009.  Kathy golfed like a pro herself, with Team Bertolino shooting a 67 on 18 holes.

Cristie Kerr is joined by Suzanne Pride Bryan for the Birdies for Breast Cancer gala dinner and auction. 

Pride Mountain Vineyards provided the wines and Celebrity Chef Todd English and his team provided dinner for the event at Liberty National overlooking the beauty of the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline. Here Suzanne poses with Chef Todd and his team in a calm moment before dinner.

August 21, 2009 Sun Valley Center Wine Auction

On July 22nd, we headed to Idaho to participate in the 28th Annual Sun Valley Center Wine Auction.  On hand to present our wines was Stuart Bryan, national sales manager.

Events for the 2009 program included Vintner Dinners at area restaurants and private homes, educational seminars featuring Riedel Glassware, the annual Wine Auction Gala, and a Wine Tasting Extravaganza for the wine trade and consumers.

Pictured here at the Vintner Dinner at Chip and Sandra Fisher's residence are hosts Chip and Sandra Fisher (left), Trina Peters, board president, Courtney Gilbert, curator of visual arts, and Bill Ryberg executive director for the Center.  The dinner featured the wines of Pride Mountain Vineyards and Hyde de Villaine paired with five courses from acclaimed chef John Tesar from Tesar's Modern Steak & Seafood in Houston, Texas.   Forty people enjoyed the evening in a magical creek-side setting.

Shown in preparation for the Vintner Dinner are Stuart Bryan (left),  Chef John Tesar of Tesar's (center) and Sous Chef Jeremy Robison in the Fisher's kitchen. 

August 20, 2009 Two engagements in one day!

Ezra Williams chose the view at the top of Pride Mountain Vineyards as the perfect back-drop to propose to Jenica Horn, presenting her with a beautiful engagement ring.  The couple, both from Sacramento, California, are excited about planning their wedding, and say they will be back to relive this special moment.

Alexandra Samara was completely caught off-guard when Nolan Duncan popped the question at Pride Mountain Vineyards high above the Napa Valley.  The couple’s dear friends, Spencer and Cindy Bain of Illinois helped Nolan plan the big moment.  Alexandra and Nolan are from Texas and plan on using a 5.0 liter bottle of Pride Mountain Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon for their guests to sign at the wedding.

August 14, 2009 Society of Wine Educators Tasting

The Society of Wine Educators held their annual conference in Sacramento the last week of July and concluded the festivities with an in depth tasting of Spring Mountain wines on Saturday, August 1 in the caves at Pride Mountain Vineyards. The Society’s goal is to foster and promote the professional education and development of the individual in particular, and the professional education and development of the wine industry as a whole. Pride’s own Scott Stooker is a member of the Society and helped lead a discussion panel explaining both the diversity and similarities of Spring Mountain District terroir, philosophy, and production. In addition to the wines of Pride Mountain Vineyards, selections by Vineyard 7 & 8, Fantesca, Guilliams, Keenan, Paloma, Barnett, Cain, Schweiger, Spring Mountain Vineyards, Newton & Erna Schein were featured at the structured tasting and served at the luncheon that followed.

August 14, 2009 Festival del Sole

Festival del Sole takes place every summer in the Napa Valley. The Festival features concerts by some of the world’s most celebrated musical artists, five-star cuisine, opulent venues, art exhibits, and wines from Napa’s top vintners, all blended in a unique celebration of the art of life. On Wednesday, July 22nd 2009, Pride Mountain Vineyards was honored to participate in the Festival, playing host to thirty guests who enjoyed a spellbinding outdoor musical program by Duo Doori-Moa (violinist Michelle Lee & cellist Taeho Oh), a three course lunch prepared by Tra Vigne Chef Nash Cognetti, and a variety of wines presented by the entire Pride family and winemaker Sally Johnson. The afternoon concluded with a barrel tasting tour through the caves, led by owner Steve Pride, who offered guests a sneak preview of the upcoming 2008 Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon.

August 03, 2009 Veraison is upon us!

Right on schedule, purple berries have been spotted in our Sangiovese and Merlot blocks.  Chardonnay and Viognier grapes are also beginning to ripen, turning from firm and green to soft, translucent and golden.   Our crop is not heavy this year, although we do have more fruit than in 2008, which was the lightest year in our history.  Vines appeared to be carrying a large crop when our new clusters first appeared this spring.  However, as the grape flowers bloomed, many berries did not “set” (become pollinated), resulting in loose clusters with plenty of access for sunlight and air – ideal conditions for ripening concentrated, flavorful fruit.   As can be seen in the photo, berry size is small, with the Merlot grapes pictured in this cluster bearing a stronger resemblance to the small berried Cabernet Sauvignon grape.  Since most wine flavor precursors are found in our grapes’ skins, rather than the juice of the berry, this is an excellent sign for the quality to come.   The timing of harvest at the moment appears to be typical, and we anticipate picking our white grapes in mid-September, with the red varieties reaching maturity in October and through mid-November.  But, nature is always unpredictable, and we are sure to have a few surprises before this year’s vintage is put to bed.

- Sally Johnson, winemaker 

July 07, 2009 Bottling Day!

If the final stage of a wine’s life cycle is the transfer from open bottle to waiting glass, then this is its penultimate stage….the bottling line. After going through harvest, crush, fermentation, cellaring, racking, and many, many blending trials, this is where winemaker Sally Johnson (shown), bottling manager Chris Bergen, and the rest of the Pride Mountain Vineyards crew put the final wines to bed, where they will rest for four to six months before being shared with you.

Shown here is the bottling of Pride Mountain Vineyards 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon, 2007 Vintner Select Cabernet Sauvignon, 2007 Vintner Select Merlot, 2008 Napa Chardonnay, and 2008 Vintner Select Chardonnay on the afternoon of July 7, 2009.

July 06, 2009 Spring Mountain District Association Summer 2009 Newsletter

Those of you in the know, know that you can while away an entire day tasting great wines on Spring Mountain.  But did you also know that the Spring Mountain District Association has a website and a mailing list through which it sends out quarterly newsletters?  Click below to read the Summer 2009 Newsletter or go directly to the SMDA website for more information on the wineries in our neighborhood and to sign up for the mailing list!

Spring Mountain District Association Website 

Spring Mountain District Association Summer 2009 Newsletter

June 01, 2009 Sally Johnson Goes to Seattle

Winemaker Sally Johnson (pictured on the left with mailing list clients Rhonda and Rob Porter) joined a savvy crowd of wine lovers for the fourth annual Triple Sip event in Seattle.  The event featured top wineries from California and Washington, a delicious menu prepared by local restaurant Wild Ginger, and the rocking sounds of Andre Feriante, the Paul Gregutt Band and the Robert Foley Band.  A portion of the proceeds from the sold-out were donated to local high school music programs.

May 27, 2009 2009 Fruit Set: Nice Mother Nature

 Our vines have just started to flower and, hallelujah, the weather is calm and clear! In the photo, you see a lower cluster that has just begun to bloom and an upper cluster that is just about to. Grapes self-pollinate.  In the first hour after one of the flowers bursts open, microscopic pollen grains fall from the tips of the five white filaments onto the the would-be berry at the center where they hopefully attach to the stigma (the white circle with the green dot at the center if you zoom in on the photo). This sets in process a chain of events that culminates in a grape berry. If it is raining when the flower opens, the pollen can be washed away, or if it is too hot and windy, the pollen can dry up and blow away. When this occurs, only a fraction of the berries set and this has implications throughout the entire growing and ripening season.

The amount of fruit on the vine controls the canopy vigor. A poor fruit set causes the vine to put too much energy into shoot growth. Come the ripening season, the vine has trouble diverting its energy from the canopy into the ripening clusters. So a light fruit set can actually lead to under ripe fruit at harvest, which is perhaps opposite from what you may have thought.  If there is too much fruit on the vine, most commonly due to too many clusters, the canopy will not grow enough and there will not be enough photosynthesis to ripen the clusters. So there is an optimal balance to achieve between fruit mass and canopy growth. The main goal of high-quality viticulture is to achieve this optimal balance each growing season. Many factors influence this balance including: choosing the proper rootstock for each soil type, how the vines are trained and pruned, whether there was damage from a spring frost, how much water the vines receive, and quite importantly, the weather conditions at pollination. One thing is for certain: each growing season is unique.

In those years where Mother Nature has conspired to alter the optimal balance of the vine, all is not lost. But it means considerable human intervention can be required to get the vines where they need to be.  Fortunately, so far in 2009, Mother Nature is in a benevolent humor: the vines are optimally poised for a great vintage.

May 27, 2009 Pride Goes to the Nantucket Wine Festival

Suzanne Pride Bryan and her husband Stuart Bryan arrive in Nantucket for the 13^th Annual Nantucket Wine Festival.  Pride Mountain Vineyards presented a six-year vertical of the Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, 2000 through 2005, at the “Great Wines in Grand Houses” tasting seminar at a private home “on island” on Saturday, May 16, 2009.  Pride Mountain Vineyards was also showcased at a winemaker dinner hosted by Stuart and Suzanne at Nantucket’s La Languedoc Restaurant. 

May 27, 2009 Suzanne Pride Bryan and Peggy Fleming Raise a Glass

Suzanne Pride Bryan and Olympic Gold Medalist Peggy Fleming, both cancer survivors, share a toast with Fleming’s Victories Rosé crafted by her Fleming Jenkins winery. Proceeds from the sale of Victories Rosé go to the fight against breast cancer. Suzanne Pride Bryan and Peggy Fleming are pictured at the 49er Foundation annual Winter and Wine Fest fundraiser for disadvantaged youth at Squaw Valley on Saturday, March 28, 2009.

April 21, 2009 Winemaker Dinner at Dry Creek Kitchen

Suzanne Pride Bryan, co-owner (left), stands with Les Goodman (center) chef de cuisine of Dry Creek Kitchen and Pride Mountain Vineyards Winemaker, Sally Johnson (right) at the April 16 Winemaker Dinner in Healdsburg. Pride Mountain will also be pairing with famed chef Charlie Palmer at their Washington D.C. venue, Charlie Palmer's Capitol Hill on October 26, 2009.

Hosts at the recent dinner, part of a series of four dinners Pride Mountain is scheduling in Sonoma County in 2009, are shown with their "favorite wine" of the night. Stuart Bryan (left), national sales manager for Pride Mountain Vineyards, is shown with the 2006 Cabernet Franc, Dan Prentice (center) displays the 2007 Viognier, and Drew Munro (right), wine director for Dry Creek Kitchen, presents the 2006 Sangiovese -- one of the few times the wine has been featured at a winemaker dinner.

April 14, 2009 Notes on the New Release Schedule from Steve Pride

Hello everyone,

For the past fifteen years we have wanted to give our wines a few more months of bottle age before releasing them to you.  Our Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay and Reserve wines have historically been released with only a month of time in the bottle.  So this year, we plan to use the slow economy to your advantage by delaying by a few months most of our offerings.  This helps you in two ways: (1) you will now always receive wines that have recovered from the effects of bottling and that can be enjoyed immediately if you like your wines very young, and (2) because with every passing month the economy is getting better, you will be offered the wine with a chance that either your finances or your uncertainty about the economy will be on surer ground.  Before presenting the new release schedule, let me first share a few words about the effect that bottling has on the wine. 

Just before wine is bottled, it gets a small dose of sulfur dioxide (measured in parts per million) to protect it during its enhanced exposure to all sorts of surfaces (hoses, tubes, glass, etc.) and to benefit the long-term aging of the wine.  During bottling, there is also very little oxygen present because the bottles are filled with nitrogen prior to the wine going in (you may not have realized that the small gap between the wine and the cork in the bottle is initially filled with nitrogen).  The effect is that the sulfur reacts very slowly due to this small amount of oxygen and it can take up to several months for a wine to return to normal after bottling.  During this period, the wines tend to be shut down with less bouquet and a lack of fruit concentration compared to what they had just before bottling.  This is what is commonly referred to as “bottle shock”.  It is not a great time to drink them.

So we have decided to eliminate your exposure to bottle shock with the following revised schedule for when our twelve wines are offered (the date corresponds to the day that the email offer is first sent out): 
 
1.  Spring Offering, April 28, 2009:  2008 Viognier and 2007 Syrah (two months after bottling; these two wines, and our Sangiovese, are the quickest to recover).
 
2.  Summer Offering, August 4, 2009:  2007 Merlot and 2007 Cabernet Franc (four months after bottling).

3.  Fall Offering, November 3, 2009:  2008 Chardonnay and 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon (four months after bottling).

4. Vintner Select Offering, January 12, 2010:  2008 Vintner Select Chardonnay, 2007 Vintner Select Merlot, and 2007 Vintner Select Cabernet Sauvignon (six months after bottling).

5. Reserve Offering, March 16, 2010:  2007 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon and 2007 Reserve Claret (six months after bottling) and 2008 Sangiovese (three months after bottling).     

We plan to follow this yearly schedule into the indefinite future.  It was chosen based on what is best for the wine and, therefore, for your wine enjoyment.  We would be interested to know if there is a consensus opinion against certain of the release dates, however.  Please email us at contactus@pridewines.com if you would like to share your opinion. 

With my best wishes and my sincerest thanks for your continued interest in Pride Mountain Vineyards, 

Steve  Pride

April 07, 2009 Take the Elevator Home!

The Fairmont San Francisco hosts many wonderful events each year and when they do, they generously offer the winery participants a great rate so that we can "take the elevator home" at the end of the evening.  As a member of our mailing list, they are now making that offer available to you!  Simply call (800) 441-1414 and ask for the Take the Elevator Home rate.

The Fairmont San Francisco

March 05, 2009 Winter Road Trips

In Oregon:

Oregon Classic Wines Auction is celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2009. The recent Appreciation Dinner for this year’s Honorary Winery Ambassadors, Board of Directors and successful high bidders, was held at Domaine Serene, situated in the Dundee Hills southwest of Portland, Oregon.

Pictured at left are Stuart Bryan of Pride Mountain, Honorary California Winery Ambassador and National Sales Manager for the winery, with his daughter Elizabeth Bryan, a student in the Architecture Department at University of Oregon, Eugene. With them are Kathleen and Allen Shoup of Long Shadows Vineyards, Honorary Washington State Ambassador in 2009.

Stuart pictured with Honorary Oregon Wine Ambassadors, Grace and Ken Evenstad, owners of Domaine Serene Winery and hosts of the Appreciation Dinner.  Each course was paired with wines from the Honorary Wine Ambassadors with cuisine of the Chef Pascal Chureau of Portland’s Lucier and Fenouil restaurants.

In Costa Mesa, California:

At the recent Winemaker Dinner at Charlie Palmer’s at Bloomingdales, in Costa Mesa, California, Chef Amar Santana (left) joins Stuart Bryan, National Sales Manager at Pride Mountain, Sally Johnson, Winemaker, Ahmed Labbate, General Manager of Charlie Palmer, and Michael Frumin, Sommelier for a tour of the Cellar Room.  The reservations-only event was attended by 48 people and featured a four-course dinner paired with five Pride Mountain wines on January 19.

Enjoying conversation and meeting guests before the dinner at Charlie Palmer's are Sally Johnson, winemaker for Pride Mountain, and Carla King, founder of wine brokerage firm, Free Run Juice. 

January 28, 2009 An Update on Our 2006 Red Wines and the Winemaking Team

Hello everyone, Steve Pride here.  I just wanted to share a few thoughts about our current release wines and current winemaking team.

Our red wines from the 2006 vintage distinguish themselves from 2005 by having finer tannins that are better integrated at a younger age.  To be sure, these wines have a definite structure to them as you should expect from us, but the ripe finish is more elegant and refined than in recent vintages.  In general, all of our 2006 red wines are more forward and integrated at their young age than their 2005 counterparts were at a similar age.   This flies in contrast to the reputation the vintage is acquiring for having produced Bordeaux varietals that bear an excessive tannic structure.  With our own unique climate at 2000’ above the Napa Valley, the nature of our growing and ripening season is often in notable contrast to what other wineries in Napa and Sonoma experience. 

For those of you who use Robert Parker’s advice to make buying decisions, please note that he reviewed our 2005 Reserve wines in his recent Wine Advocate #180.  These wines were referred to as the 2006 Reserve wines in his report.  Mr. Parker has not yet tasted our 2006 Reserve wines that were bottled just before Christmas and will be sold in February (more about them below).

An update on winemaking at Pride Mountain Vineyards:  The last vintage in which Bob Foley was involved in all aspects of the winemaking was the 2004 vintage.  Starting with the 2005 vintage, many of the harvest decisions were made by our long-time associate winemaker Romel Rivera.  Romel and I put all the blends together on the 2005 wines and made all of the fining decisions.  The 2006 vintage saw Romel making the vast majority of harvest decisions.  It also was the first vintage to be entirely handled by the new winemaking team of Sally Johnson, who we hired in May of 2007, Romel Rivera and myself.  This is the team we plan to go with into the indefinite future.  The 2006, 2007 and 2008 vintages are all knock outs in concentrated ripeness and bode well of the future.  Please come sample them for yourselves this winter at the winery.  We would love to see you.

This new team has instilled a bit more elegance to the finish of our red wines without taking anything away from the intense fruit concentration that is one of our hallmarks.  Although we want our wines to continue to stand out from the pack by having a bold structure to the finish (no worry there), we also want to emphasize a lingering sensuality that is never marred by overly gritty or chewy tannins.  Mother Nature did this for us on the 2006 vintage while from the 2007 vintage onward, we have removed the stems from the must, reduced the intensity of our presses and changed certain protocols for the handling of the lees.  The effect is to remove any excessive residual chalkiness from the finish of certain lots while filling out the mid-palate.  Our 2006 reserve wines possess this quality and are going to be absolutely sensational after they rest in the bottle for the upcoming year; they are among the very finest wines we have ever made.

In the vineyards, the 2007 vintage saw the emergence of a new team involving our long-time consultant Paul Skinner (with us since 1990), who many believe is Napa Valley’s top expert on vines and soils, Sally Johnson and myself.  The three of us have implemented many changes in each vineyard block designed to obtain optimal balance between fruit and canopy.  Further, roughly 10 of our 83 acres have been replanted over the past three years in a goal of getting the optimal rootstock and clone on each block (and sub-block) across our entire estate.  We now separately vinify more than 50 lots of wines in our cave each vintage in order to individually track all of the improvements we are making in the vineyards.  By improving those blocks that had historically made weaker wines, the final blends are necessarily getting better with each passing vintage.

Despite the current economic situation, I wish you all a prosperous and enjoyable 2009.  You can count on all of the wines to be released by us in 2009 to be as good, or better, than any wines we have produced.  We are sparing no costs (this past year we spent hundreds of thousands of dollars updating our crush and production equipment, for example) and are cutting no corners, in order to make the best bottle of wine we can for you while still holding the line on prices.  Your fidelity over the years is greatly appreciated.  I can assure you that we here at Pride take nothing for granted and will continue to challenge ourselves to meet, and hopefully exceed, your expectations each and every vintage.

All the best,    Steve Pride

Pictured left to right above: Steve Pride, Sally Johnson and Romel Rivera

December 18, 2008 Happy Holidays!

The holiday season is always a time for reflection. With that in mind, all of us at Pride would like you to know that we are thankful to each and every one of you for your support of the winery. That you choose to enjoy our wines is something that we don't take for granted. There are many, many wonderful wines in the world and we sincerely appreciate the relationships we've forged with you and the investment you've chosen to make when purchasing our wines.

We wish you all the most joyous of holiday seasons and a very happy new year.

November 26, 2008 Live in the Vineyards

Hospitality tours, winery events, pouring wine, hanging around with beautiful pop music starlets…..the hard work never ends for Pride Mountain Vineyards’ Hospitality & Events Coordinator, Mike Campbell.

Over the weekend of November 8th and 9th, Pride Mountain Vineyards, along with several other notable Napa Valley wineries, participated in Live in the Vineyards, an invite-only, private concert held at Napa Valley’s famed Silverado Resort. Described as a once-in-a-lifetime private weekend getaway, with acoustic concerts featuring the hottest singer/songwriters of the moment, Live in the Vineyards provided intimate acoustic concerts, vineyard tours, and wine & food pairings for approximately 220 radio contest winners from across the country.

Headlining the standing room only Sunday night show were current pop sensation, Colbie Caillat (shown here with Mike and a bottle of 2006 Pride Mountain Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon) and the amazing Sarah Mclachlan (shown here with Mike and future pop music starlet, Sydney Campbell). Other performers included up-and-comers Matt Wertz, Thriving Ivory, the Gabe Dixon Band, Erin McCarley and John McLaughlin.

November 10, 2008 Harvest Fiesta 2008!

Sunday, November 10th dawned clear and cool, providing perfect weather for the 150 or so vineyard, office and sales employees and their families who gathered for the annual Harvest Fiesta thrown every year by the Pride family to celebrate the end of harvest. Big inflated jumpy gyms for the kids (young and old), musical entertainment by Mariachi Terasco, our vineyard manager, David Orosco's famous pork carnitas, and libations ranging from Pride wines to some excellent tequilas, ensured that a good time was had by all.

Many thanks to Tim Bouchet, our Director of Retail Sales, for putting together such a great party!

November 10, 2008 Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines!

Winemaker Sally Johnson was one of a panel of test drivers for the Robb Report’s upcoming “Car of the Year” issue. After hosting the eclectic panel of test drivers, made up of car aficionados and philanthropists, for a pre-event dinner at Pride Mountain Vineyards on Thursday, November 6th, Sally and the group spent following day rating the performance of thirteen luxury sports cars by zooming through the back roads of the Napa Valley. Though the identity of the cars is top secret until the magazine is published, Sally tells us to expect some surprises among this range of innovative cars. She promises a well-rounded selection that offers something for everyone – from over-the-top luxury models to exhilarating speedsters and cutting-edge vehicles leading the charge towards breakthroughs in performance and efficiency.

Her personal favorite? You'll have to wait till the issue hits newsstands in March, 2009 to read all about it.

November 03, 2008 2008 Harvest Overview

With weary bodies but upbeat spirit, our vineyard crew paused for a photo after picking the last grapes from our Rock Arch Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon vineyard on Thursday October 30th.  The crew had more than earned their moment of rest after this year’s harvest, as uneven fruit ripening conditions required multiple picks of each vineyard block. 

2008 presented us with exceptionally low yields (less than one ton per acre in some blocks) and exceptionally high quality – but we sure had to work to get it.  The low yields resulted from our worst freeze ever in late April and unusually hot and windy conditions at fruit set which resulted in only a fraction of the usual number of berries being pollinated. Uneven ripening began with the uneven fruit set and was exacerbated by temperature extremes during veraison, when ripening began.  Our solution was to pick each block as many as three times, instructing our experienced vineyard crew to pick just the clusters that were fully ripe on each pass through the blocks.  The resulting wines display a range of flavors, from luscious red fruit through jammy black fruit, coffee and cocoa.  We expect 2008 to be similar to 2001, 2002 and 2006, some of our ripest, most expressive vintages.   

Hours after picking the last grapes from our ranch on Thursday October 30, the skies clouded over and the rain began to fall.  Now that our 2008 harvest is over, the rains are both welcome and much needed, as our soils soak up the moisture that will provide sustenance to our 2009 vintage.

October 29, 2008 2008 Touch the Terroir

The week of October 13th, the Spring Mountain District Association hosted twenty-seven sommeliers and wine buyers from around the country for four days of seminars, tastings and "work-withs" at member wineries.  Participants met winemakers, worked with vineyard managers and enjoyed accomodations that ranged from guest suites in the homes of our gracious neighbors to cabins in the vineyards.

 For the complete press release, click here to visit the Spring Mountain District's website.

September 20, 2008 Welcome Mari de Jager!

This vintage offers something new and exciting for the Pride Mountain Vineyards crew - we are hosting our first international harvest intern, Mari de Jager from South Africa. Mari joins the team after completing a degree in cellar management at the University of Stellenbosch and working stints in Champagne, Austria and at Vilafonte Winery where she trained under renowned winemaker Zelma Long. Her outgoing personality and her enjoyment for long days of hard work made her an instant hit with her new coworkers at Pride Mountain Vineyards, and she is here pictured paying homage to Lucy and Ethyl by stomping our first Merlot grapes of the season with her bare feet. Although we don't usually crush our grapes this way, we thought it was an appropriate induction, and Mari was happy to oblige! Be sure to say hi to Mari if you visit the winery during her stay, which will last through the end of the year. Mari will begin a degree program in enology when she returns to South Africa.

September 08, 2008 Grapes!

Still looking rested and relaxed, our winemaking team Romel Rivera, Ruben Ayala, Sally Johnson (winemaker) Phillip Aquino and Lawrence Cortez saw the first grapes of 2008 on Thursday, September 4th. While two weeks earlier than first pick last year, Sally reports that the year seems to be on track, neither particularly early nor particularly late. Yields are low, but fruit quality, happily, is very high. Stay tuned for more detailed reports and photos!

July 21, 2008 Veraison!

On Monday, July 14th, we spotted the first pink berries in our estate vineyard. This is “veraison,” always an exciting time at the winery as we look forward to another harvest. Sangiovese, one of our earliest red grape varieties, is leading the charge, beating even the white grapes in the progression towards this year’s harvest. We expect the Chardonnay and Viognier to begin to soften and turn from green to gold within a few days to a week, but color in the Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc will most likely not appear for another two weeks. This is about the same as last year or even a little earlier, but it’s still too soon to predict whether this will be an early, typical, or late harvest. Last year, for example, all factors pointed to an early harvest, but in September, vineyard temperatures dropped, and we didn’t really start picking until after a week of late October “Indian Summer” finally appeared.

The onset of veraison is affected by many factors, including the timing of bloom, weather during bloom and weather after berry set. This year, bloom occurred over an extended, cool period, with occasional wind, heat spikes and rain, weather conditions that keep every winegrower awake at night hoping that the crop will set. As bloom and
berry set were completed, we saw that our Merlot vines (and, to a lesser extent, some Cabernet Sauvignon blocks) experienced moderate shatter, where some flowers were not fertilized to form berries. The result is grape clusters that are loose and open, with plenty of room for air to flow and sun exposure – a perfect environment for creating
concentrated, ripe flavors. Our crop is light this year. Frost in the early spring and shatter at bloom reduced what was already a small crop – many shoots have only one cluster and some have none at all, where they would have two clusters in an average year. With weather that has so far been excellent for fruit quality, we will produce less wine this year, but expect to achieve great intensity and concentration. Predictions are for moderately warm weather through the end of July, and we will be eagerly watching our vineyard blocks as they progress through veraison and begin the long ripening process, culminating in the 2008 harvest.

Sally Johnson
Winemaker

May 30, 2008 The hippest place to be on a Thursday night

It may be quite a commute for some, but the patio at Go Fish in St. Helena is the place to be on Thursday nights! The cocktails are good and the sushi is fabulous, but the real reason to go is to see our own Mike Campbell (stage left) and his partner in crime, Scott Castro, strut their stuff as they shed the trappings of their day jobs and emerge as Hall1. A soulful, alternative acoustic guitar duo, the two combine lush vocal harmonies and intelligent lyrics with well crafted guitar melodies, offering many memorable original pieces, along with a diverse and beautifully interpreted range of covers.

Go Fish
641 Main St.
St. Helena, CA 94574
Thursday nights from 6:00 - 9:00 all summer long

We'll look for you next week! 

May 01, 2008 Spring Wine Offering - Tuesday, May 6th

Watch your mailbox! Tuesday, May 6th will be the day to order your 2007 Viognier, 2006 Merlot, 2006 Cabernet Franc and 2006 Syrah. As always, the most limited production wines in our spring offering are our Syrah and Cabernet Franc and we expect them to sell out quickly. Those of you who like to stock up on Viognier and Merlot will also want to order early, as this year we will be accepting "wishes" for a second order of one or both of these two wines. Wishes will be granted in early June as inventory allows, and in the order in which they were received. The best part? If we have enough wine to grant your wish, the shipping for your wish order is on us! (Wish orders, if available, will be billed automatically and packed and shipped separately.)

Stay tuned! Online ordering will be available once you've received your email announcing the offering. We look forward to hearing from you then!

April 08, 2008 What? You Weren't Watching TV at 3:00 Yesterday Afternoon?

After being two of the thirty-six member judging panel for the National Women's Wine Competition earlier this month, winemaker Sally Johnson and Tracy Dutton, beverage manager at the Culinary Institute of America in St. Helena, CA were invited to appear live on the View from the Bay on Monday, April 7th. Tasting through three wines with host Janelle Wang, Sally and Tracy also had a few moments to talk about the significance of women both as wine consumers and as important players in the wine industry.

Watch Sally & Tracy's segment on the View from the Bay

April 04, 2008 Oh, That Southern Hospitality . . .

Fortunately for those of us at the winery, the Peachtree State is a long way away . . . otherwise we might see a lot less of Carolyn Pride. Returning from a trip with son in law and national sales manager, Stuart Bryan, for the High Museum Atlanta Wine Auction last weekend, it was clear that she truly enjoyed the gracious hospitality and the cultural opportunities presented by our friends 2500 miles away.

The fundraising weekend kicked off when hosts Sara and John Shlesinger opened their beautiful home to a wonderful dinner featuring Pride wines, prepared by Executive Chef Robert Gerstenecker of the Four Seasons Hotel Atlanta (left, with Carolyn Pride and Assistant Sous Chef, Hakan Coskun).

Friday night brought the Gala Dinner and Auction, where after another evening of great wine, food and company, our magnum vertical of 2000 - 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon and a VIP trip to the vineyard for two couples raised $11,000 for the High Museum Atlanta.

Not to be outdone by their neighbors in Atlanta, the final stop on this weekend of southern hospitality was a lovely wine dinner put on by the brothers Greg and Gary Butch at their much lauded restaurant in Savannah, Elizabeth's on 37th. Thirty plus guests enjoyed a lovely menu of Chef Kelly Yambor's creations based on locally sourced ingredients and the restaurant's own house grown herbs and edible flowers, complimented by Pride wines chosen just for the occasion.

Thank you to everyone involved in making this such a great weekend!

March 21, 2008 It Must Be Spring!

As the first sleepy shoot tips poke their way out into the crisp spring air, we begin our journey towards Harvest 2008. Sunny days and high temperatures reaching the mid-seventies signal the end of a long and unusually cold winter.

This photograph was taken on Friday March 21, 2008 in our Mountain Top Chardonnay vineyard and are the very first buds to break on the ranch this year.

Since evening temperatures are still quite chilly and regularly drop into the high-thirties, the risk of frost damage to these delicate buds is especially high. Vineyard Manager David Orozco has not been getting much sleep. Instead, he spends his nights watching the temperature dial creep down and rushing turns on our frost protection, provided by overhead water sprinklers, whenever the temperature dips.

While our earliest grape varieties, Chardonnay and Viognier, are starting to grow, Merlot buds are just beginning to swell, and Cabernet Sauvignon vines have at least two more weeks before they will begin to bud out. Pruning is now finished, leaving just two buds per spur at regular intervals along the vine’s horizontal cordon. These 24 or so buds (the exact number varies depending on the soil type and grape variety) will produce one to two clusters of grapes each. The clusters will develop over the next six to eight weeks and will bloom some time in May. At that critical point in their development, the number of berries per cluster will be determined by ambient temperature and weather conditions. Until then, we can only imagine what Mother Nature may bring us this year.

Sally Johnson, winemaker

March 10, 2008 Do You Know This Man?

That's Kirk DeAlba - standing in what will soon be our new storage building!

Rarely sighted, but always here and always busy, Kirk is the general contractor who has been responsible for all of the construction here at Pride since 1997. The old winery, the new winery, the barns, the renovation of the Pride's home . . . with a creative eye and an uncanny ability to just look at something and figure it out, he's seen them all through from start to finish. Now he's helping us get organized with a dedicated storage area so we can keep more wine on site and get Chris and the shipping department out of the cave, making more room for barrel storage and winemaking.

Thanks, Kirk!

January 15, 2008 231 Pairs of Shoes for Soles4Souls!

In an effort spearheaded by Tim Bouchet and Katherine Rantz, there are 231 pairs of shoes in our shipping area, packed and ready to ship to Soles4Souls!

Over the holidays, co-workers, friends, and colleagues from neighboring wineries cleaned out their closets and brought shoes they were no longer wearing to Pride.

Begun in 2004, Soles4Souls was organized by Wayne Elsey, a veteran of the footwear industry, to provide aid to the hundreds of thousands of people impacted by the Asian tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita. Netting 900,000 pairs of donated shoes to assist with these relief efforts alone, Soles4Souls has now distributed over three million pairs of shoes to people in need in over 40 countries on five continents, including the United States, Honduras, Guatemala, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Swaziland, Sudan, Uganda, Romania, Iraq, Peru, Thailand, and Nepal.

The shoes collected at Pride will be shipped to a warehouse in Las Vegas and then forwarded on to Sole4Soul's hub in Roanoke, Alabama. Once in the distribution center, the shoes will be inspected for suitability, sorted by gender and size, packaged into common Soles4Souls boxes, and shrink-wrapped together onto a shipping pallet. There the footwear will await distribution to the first qualified charity or regional partner who expresses a need.

Watch a video about the beginnings of Soles4Souls and see how you and your company or organization can help people around the world in need simply by doing a little housekeeping.

January 03, 2008 2007 Harvest Notes

The rollercoaster ride of the 2007 harvest has finally come to an end! Budbreak was early this year with a warm spring that protected the vines from frost damage. Fruit set was perfect, which is key for us to get ripeness. By September, we were poised for an early and very ripe harvest. Leading up to the picking of the first grapes, predictions were for a Thanksgiving spent eating turkey, not pumping over vats of fermenting must, but there were a few surprises in store for us along the way!

Our first pick of the season, the Lower Mountain Top Viognier block, seemed to confirm these expectations, coming in on September 19^th with ripe, spicy flavors and perfect acid balance. But from that point on, it was a whirlwind of weather from hot to cold, from sunny to cloudy, and the dreaded appearance of a week-long rain storm during what would otherwise have been the busiest point in our harvest. The quality of the ferments has been excellent, but the season was a nail-biter that added more than one grey hair to the heads of our Production team.

Our Viticultural Consultant, Paul Skinner, described this harvest best when he said that it was “three harvests in one.” The “first harvest” was the initial, early harvest during the last two weeks of September, when we picked perfectly ripe Viognier and Chardonnay, with flavors bursting from golden berries and crunchy, brown seeds. As September wound to a close, the weather cooled, and we waited with empty fermenters as our red grapes stubbornly refused to ripen. Tasting the blocks each day, we wondered if the flavors would ever reach the level of concentration that we hoped for. Our early harvest was turning into an average one, not particularly early but not late either (although “late” has a different definition for us up here on Spring Mountain). Suddenly, on October 4^th, the Syrah berries transitioned almost overnight from fruity/sweet to jammy, exotic and seductive! Finally, we were ready to pick our first red grapes of the season. Syrah was followed by several Merlot blocks and even one superb Cabernet Sauvignon from our terraced, rocky Canyon Ranch block.

The “first harvest” concluded by mid-October, with only about 25% of our grapes picked. From there, we faced a few days of off-and-on showers and were disappointed to taste the flavors in our remaining Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon blocks going backwards. We waited anxiously, hoping the flavors would return, and our patience was tested as weather reports suggested that we might not get any more sunshine or dry weather. The risk of bunch rot and mold was extremely high, so we sent our vineyard crew into the fields to do a second round of leaf-pulling, hoping to take advantage of any sunshine that managed to squeeze through the clouds. Our valley-floor winery friends were finishing their harvest, but Spring Mountain grapes needed more time, and we weren’t sure we would get it. More rain arrived, and the flavors went backwards again. The “second harvest” was a period of inactivity and anxiety punctuated by the occasional picking of the rare block of grapes (our Sangiovese, our Wind Whistle Merlot) that reached full flavor development despite the cool, cloudy weather.

Finally, the “third harvest” arrived! Indian summer! The end of October and the beginning of November greeted us with sunshine, blue skies and temperatures in the high 70’s to low 80’s. With 70% of our grapes still on the vines, we couldn’t have been happier. We waited patiently through the first three days of heat and sunshine to let our vines soak it up, and slowly the flavors began to transform. Finally, ripeness was reached! We picked the remaining Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot blocks one by one as they ripened, culminating in the picking of our Rock Arch Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon block on November 7^th and 8^th. We are happy to trade our newly-grey hairs and our Thanksgiving pump-overs for the concentrated, inky-black and jammy character of our young 2007 wines. As we now begin to rack the wines from barrel to barrel, we can look back on the harvest and say that it was a good one… and we are almost ready to start thinking about the next one…

Sally Johnson, Winemaker, Pride Mountain Vineyards