Winemaker's blog

Come September, or Settembre, it's harvest time in Colorado. If we've averted Colorado's spring frosts and hail. Received sufficient temperatures with optimal minimums and maximums throughout the growing season. Controlled pests, diseases and mildew pressures. Properly managed the canopy, yield, vigor, and irrigation. Then! It's time to begin considering the optimal time to harvest the fruit. Incidentally, this vintage looks fantastic.

The wine industry, in general, is extraordinarily concerned with its impacts on the environment. We want our vineyards to improve with age and global climate change is altering the growing regions of today, and tomorrow. Only recently have we as a society become more concerned with, and able to quantify, our impacts on the environment.

Our goal at Settembre Cellars is to produce age-worthy wines, and as such, I thought I'd share some thoughts on some of the factors that make a wine age-worthy. I'm often asked how long one should, or could, cellar our wines. A majority of the wines on the market are not cellared and are consumed relatively quickly after purchase (this is particularly true of the low priced manufactured wines). Of the wines sold, only a small percentage of the red wines (and even smaller percentage of the white wines) are in fact age-worthy.

I've been asked frequently about our choice in using natural cork as the closure in our wine bottles as well as other alternative closures options. There is a fair amount of buzz in the industry and consumer world on closures and acceptance varies quite dramatically by country. I've decided to use this blog post to briefly answer the question why we use cork and also compare it to two leading alternative closures: screw caps and synthetic cork.

Following a Pre-Release party for our Friends & Family Club Members Settembre Cellars made its public debut at the Swallow Hill Wine Festival in Denver Colorado this past Sunday. The combination of Music, Food, and Colorado wine, made this a fun venue to pour. We brought with us to the tasting the Barrel Fermented Chardonnay, Sangiovese Rosato, Syrah, and Cabernet Sauvignon; all from the 2007 vintage. As a winemaker, it brings me great joy to see folks eyes light up when having their first experience with our wines.

Welcome to Settembre Cellars new web site! We've launched this site coincident with the release of the 2007 Vintage. I'm really pleased with these wines and look forward to sharing them with you. All of the wine's I produce are dry including the Sangiovese Rosato which has a captivating evolution in the glass (one needs time to fully appreciate this wine). The Chardonnays: think Burgundy. The Syrah has a touch of spice and the Cabernet Sauvignon a hint of chocolate. Enjoy the new site, come see us at an upcoming event, and enjoy the wine!

Ciao,
-Blake.