The fourth winery tasting at our five year AVAnniversary is Haas Vineyards. Mel will present his 2017 Cabernet Sauvignon.

If you’re ready for your close up, makers and wineries alike, email lamorindawines@gmail.com or reply to this post

Our third contributing winery to the AVA celebration is vS Vineyards. Kathryn and Gerard will present their 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon

Sunday we celebrate the 5 year anniversary of the Lamorinda AVA. Of course we would prefer an in person event and will have that once covid restrictions are lifted. In the meantime, we have just 4 tasting kits left available! If you were planning to sign up for a tasting kit, and haven’t yet, here’s the link: tinyurl.com/MAR28-AVA You can probably get two tastings from one kit. It’s a great way to try some of the non-commercial wines in the region

Highlighting our second contributing winery, Magalhaes Vineyard. Joao will present his 2018 Pinot Noir

If you missed our first winery over on Facebook, highlighting Davidson Vineyards

Have you RSVPed for our tasting celebration? RSVP ASAP for the 28 March event here: tinyurl.com/MAR28-AVA. We need to know how many bottles to pour!

Head over to Facebook (Facebook account not required) to read the profiles of our tasting 6 wineries. Over the next couple of weeks, we will highlight all 6 wineries. First up is Linda and Bill Davidson from Davidson Vineyards!

https://www.facebook.com/lamorindawinegrowersassociation/photos/a.1699132876982628/2919297598299477/

In honor of the Lamorinda AVA turning 5 this year, the LWGA is celebrating with an afternoon of wine tasting, story telling, and more via Zoom on March 28, 2021 from 4pm.

We are excited to offer tastings from some AVA non-bonded wines not available for purchase. The tasting will include wine from Haas Vineyard, Reliez Valley Vineyards, Cherry Family Winery, vS Vineyards, Magalhaes Vineyards, and Davidson Vineyard.

Please sign up via this link for the tasting so that we know how many tastings to prepare. You will need to pick up your tasting kit within Lamorinda in the week before the tasting. Details will be sent to those attending closer to the time.

As we are including non-bonded wines, this celebration is just for LWGA members and spouses. Once public gatherings are allowed, in line with State health guidance, we will host another celebration of the AVA’s 5 year anniversary for both members and the general public. We are all looking forward to this second celebration for many reasons!

Questions or comments? Email Amy Schofield at lamorindawines@gmail.com

See you there!

Dear Members,

Thank you to all of those that voted in the board election.

I wanted to share the results with you. All six board members that ran will will be serving on the board for the next two years. Below are the vote counts by candidate:

If you have any questions, please let me know.

Bill Scanlin, Treasurer/Past-President

Hello fellow LWGA Members:

I would like to start off with a big Thank You to the members who submitted a video of an informative item to share with the rest of us!

We had 5 videos that Gerard organized for our viewing, all of which were very interesting as follows:

Mel Hass showed us his beautiful vineyard with a fabulous view of Mt. Diablo, his wine cellar, and how he successfully dealt with the racoon problem with his electric fencing set-up;

Leslie Ward also showed us her lovely vineyard and view, and her wine storage facility and shared how important it was to consider how to cool your wine storage facility;

Dave Hicks had some very beautiful pictures of his vineyard overlooking his little piece of paradise on Clear Lake, his very practical work station positioned to avoid bending over, saving his back and showed his wine storage areas as well;

Gerard Van Steyn showed us how a smart winemaker will be able to move about their 30 gallon barrels with ease using his innovative sturdy carts built with purpose in mind. Gerard also showed us his Pomegranate wine which we all we dying to taste!

Daniel Howsepian had a video showing you how you can spend a lot of time to install a cork ceiling which took 39,276 corks, 126 total hours in a span of 30 weeks! Crazy, right! but so nice in the end.

There were lots of questions and was really fun to see! I hope we can do this again and see what else we can come up with to share. I already have my idea in planning.

I hope by now you would have received your survey with the elections e-ballots for you to vote for the LWGA Board candidates presented. Please submit your votes this week.

Thank you all again for being a part of the LWGA and we will continue to provide opportunities for you to participate. We are all looking forward to the 5th year anniversary of the Lamorinda AVA in March! Stay tuned for details.

See you all soon, and stay safe!!

Sincerely;

Daniel Howsepian

LWGA President

Hello LWGA Members:

Naturally I would like to say that I hope everyone is doing well, and that you have either gotten your Covid vaccine shots or are scheduled to get one.  It’s great that things are moving along on that front, and that we’ll all have the shots soon.  
Our next scheduled meeting is on January 31 @ 4 PM. and sadly we still cannot meet in person. 

Please log in at: https://warriortrading.zoom.us/j/9252007676

We have an exciting agenda for you!  We will be presenting LWGA members videos of special cellar or vineyard gadgets, special tools or methods devised to improve or help in the process.  We already have 4 short videos and if you have not sent in your video to Gerard, you still have a little time.  It would be good to get them by Saturday so that we’ll have the time to prepare for the Sunday meeting.  I’m looking forward to this meeting for sure!

I would also like to remind everyone that we will be holding our annual Board of Directors election as of February 1, 2021.  you will receive an email with the ballots. We have received one more candidate who has submitted his statements and I have it for you as follows:

 My name is Tom Morehouse. I have been a member of LWGA since it was formed and I am a founding member of the club. I have 200 vines consisting of Syrah, Mourvedre and Grenache producing a Rhone blend often called GSM. I manage the vineyard and produce my own wine, winning awards both in Contra costa county and at the  Golden State wine Society. I gave wine tastings in Graduate school in Gilroy to pay for college. I have an MBA from San Jose State University. I lived in Europe for 6 years and studied European vineyard and wine making there while working for an American shipping company. I am a member of the Golden Gate Wine Club and a past board member of both LWGA and GGWS. I am now retired and have time to get more involved with our club. I was a member of the AVA committee with David Rey and helped with many of the tasks finally producing an AVA for us and the area. I am interested in getting the club more involved with the area we live in, educating our neighbors and helping to get our name and wines more well known to the community. There are various ways to accomplish this task and I will work hard to bring us into Lamorinda and the community. Recently I gave a talk at the Orinda Rotary club and we served our members wine to the delight of the club members and even sold some to the members. I was part of the tasting panel that we started so that members can see how their wine competes with other wine makers and try to improve their product. I would like to help members to improve their wines by education both in the vineyard and the wine making process. I hope that you will vote for me to be again on our board and will work hard to make LWGA  more inclusive and more fun for the members. Please vote for me. Thank you. 

So good to have such a group willing to be on the board.

You can vote up to 6 candidates on your ballots. We hope you will participate in the elections!

See you on Sunday!

Sincerely;

Daniel Howsepian

LWGA President

This is a reminder that we still need more videos for the next Lamorinda Wine Growers Association meeting that will be this Sunday, January 31st at 4pm. We will be taking a virtual tour of member’s unique and interesting winemaking or wine cellars, or wine gadgets, or just plain fun stuff. This is a great opportunity to see how and where our wines are made or stored, and to get to know members better in the process. Here is a link for the zoom meeting: https://zoom.us/j/9252007676.

Before the meeting, please use your smart phone to take a short video for presenting at our next meeting.  The topics for the videos are as follows:

1.      A winemaking gadget that you have designed, manufactured, etc. that is unique or time saving.

2.      A brief tour of your winemaking area showing how you’ve set up the area.

3.      A brief tour of your wine cellar, especially if you constructed it yourself, instead of having a contractor build it for you.

4. A funny video on something related to wine or grapes. In these still dark days, humor is always welcome!

After you take your video, please send it to Gerard van Steyn at gerardvs1@gmail.com

Thanks, and Stay Safe