Winemaker's Dinner May 15

On May 15,  come join Joan and Tim at Baratin in Scottsdale as Charleen Badman and Pavle Milic create a three course vegetarian dinner paired with Canelo Hills Wines.  At 5:30 we will be pouring a sneak preview of one of our Memorial Day Summer Wines - Sonoita Dawn, a Sonoita grown Grenache blush with a touch of Malvasia juice as a fruit kicker.

For reservations and more info click this link:   

An online "I spy" game

Can you spot some new things in our winery park in front of the building?

  

We've been adding to our winery park since Ian and Rhian did the initial landscape design and manual labor almost two years ago. Last summer Ken Karrels of Diamond JK Nursery in Sonoita did some beautiful landscaping with plants that fit our grassland landscape, and the plants are coming back to life after their winter's rest.

This spring we had a steel ranch sign custom made for us by Mark Gillo in Chino Valley, AZ (click here for his website). Tim installed it over our entrance gate, and it looks great, don't you think?

In January  Tim built a bottle tree to echo the empty bottles Ian and Rhian had installed in the ground, and we "planted" it in the park. It catches the light beautifully at sunset.

 

If you haven't been to Canelo Hills in a while, come visit and see our new installations for yourself. Got any ideas for more additions? Send us an email!

Wine+Food=Baratin(AKA FnB)

I know it's old fashioned to post blogs these days with facebook swarming all over the communication networks, but I'm an old fashioned guy. And anyway I'll probably post this on facebook also.

Pavle Milic and Charleen Badman are tweaking the AZ winemaker's dinners a bit and moving them to their new enterprise Baratin. The evening will begin at 5:30 with wine sampling only and then segue into a three course pairing at 6:30. All the dinners look great, but ours on May 15 will feature the usual completely vegetarian pairing. Call for reservations. Here's the LINK to the flyer.

Kathryn and Nathan

We are tickled to share with our Canelo Hills family that on Saturday, March 3 Kathryn wed Nathan Leaf in Tucson. It all started with a winery reception as friends and family from as far away as Mexico City and London converged on the winery Friday night to celebrate and experience Arizona wine first hand. The winery was transformed through the talents of Lisa and Scott Schoneman. Wayne and Cheryl Tomasi and Allison Roncone poured wines and answered questions about the history and challenges of making wine in Sonoita. On Saturday, the wedding ceremony in Tucson was followed by a reception at the Savoy Opera House at Pinnacle Peak adding the perfect old west ambiance. Kathryn and Nathan had even arranged to have an authentic cowboy sheriff entertain the crowd. Although Kathryn has moved out of Tucson she is still very much a part of Canelo Hills and accomplishes most of her web and marketing work on-line. Once in a while we are lucky enough to have her return. Now Nathan has joined the family.

Winter Red Wine Release - 2012

I’ve been looking forward to the release of these wines for a long time. 2009 was a near perfect year in terms of the weather and growing season, near perfect that is in Southeastern Arizona grape growing terms. The fruit was not injured by any summer “weather events”, it was warm and dry at the end of the season and we could time the harvest around the ripeness of the fruit instead of a threatening hurricane from Mexico. We will be releasing the 2009 Estate Tempranillo, 2009 Sonoita Cabernet Sauvignon, 2009 Estate Finalé (an intense port style dessert wine), and 2009 Estate Scavenger’s Blend (a Syrah based blend). Also for the first time the 2008 Sangiovese Select will be available. It is comprised of the Brunello Clone of the Sangiovese grape and was barrel aged for 36 months. These are big wines with very limited production. We will have all of them available for tasting the weekend of February 10 – 12. It will be the only time all these fabulous wines will be on the tasting table at the same time. Come pay us a visit; you’ll be glad you did.

Statewide & International medals for Canelo Hillls

Canelo Hills wines recently won 4 awards in prestigious wine competitions. Read on for our news:

In this year's second annual Arizona Republic Wine Competition, we took home 3 prizes for Canelo Hills. Chosen from many entries of wines produced by winemakers throughout Arizona, the Canelo Hills 2010 Riesling and 2009 Finale dessert wine were awarded Bronze Medals.

We're especially proud of the 2010 Riesling; it was also selected as Judge's Favorite by Carlos Batista of Westin Kierland Resort and Spa. The competition took place October 24 and 25 in Scottsdale, and the 16-judge panel was made up of sommeliers and wine experts from some of the state's finest restaurants.

For a list of all winners, click here. The Riesling has very limited availability, for pruchase only in the Canelo Hills tasting room. Our  Finale will be released in Spring 2012.

This was the third year we entered the International Women's Wine Competition, and for the third year in a row Canelo Hills won a Silver Medal. Up against wines from around the world, the 2008 Sangiovese Select was awarded the silver by an all-female panel of industry experts: winemakers, buyers, and chefs. To view all the competition results click here.

The 2008 Sangiovese Select is comprised of 100% Brunello Clone Sangiovese (also known as Sangiovese Grosso) and aged for nearly three years in a mixture of neutral and one year-old American and French Oak barrels. It has wonderful red fruit aromas and flavors and very smooth tannins. Look for it to be released in late Winter 2012. 

Would you like a special email when the Sangiovese Select and Finale are released? Send us an email and we'll make sure you get advance notice.

The Medalists: Sangiovese Select, Finale, and Riesling

Harvest 2011

Bringing 2011 to a close was a labor. The season started with a series of frosts that greatly reduced the crop but after that the season was rather gentle on Canelo Hills Vineyard. No major weather or pest events threatened the fruit and as usual Joan's farming resulted in fabulous fruit. I suppose the fact that we got any crop at all in 2011 after the devastating August 2010 hail storm is a miracle and a tribute to Farmer Joan.









We ended up with very little of anything but for the Tempranillo. Perhaps a ton and a half of Tempranillo got harvested on September 19, about two weeks later than is typical. The fruit was beautiful. Joan and the picking crew scoured the rest of the vineyard and came up with a few hundred pounds of mixed Syrah, Zinfandel, Riesling and Malvasia. It all got tossed in with the Tempranillo so techincally the 2011 Vintage of Tempranillo is a bit of a field blend.




Last weekend I finished off the major tasks of Harvest and initial winemaking. It is always a mixture of sadness and relief when I clean up the press and push it back into the winery for the winter, awaiting 2012. Such is the cycle of winemaking.