Our lovely 200 vine vineyard we affectionately call Tarabrook (named after the love street we live on in Orinda) was planted with the first one third of the vines going in 5 years ago, followed by the rest of the vines a year after that. Because our terraced hillside faces north, we were advised by the Novavine professionals to plant Tempranillo if we wanted to plant a red varietal. Tempranillo, as you may be aware, is the noble grape of Spain.
Almost any red table wine from Spain will have Tempranillo as its backbone varietal. Our harvest was rather small this year but we know it will only get better with the maturing vines. My winemaking partner, Chris Cook, and I, along with our wives, have been picking grapes and sourcing grapes in Contra Costa County, Alameda County and beyond to places like Napa, Lodi, and the El Dorado Hills as we are approaching a 100 cases a year in our winemaking. We are looking into the possibility of going commercial with our wines. All of our wines (5 varietals) have received awards in the 2015 California State Fair, with our Livermore Petite Sirah getting
gold and Best in Class. Our Lodi Zinfandel received a silver at the2015 International Home Winemaker’s Competition. I’m the guy in the orange shirt with my wife, Penny and fellow winemaker partner, Chris Cook…..
