Villa Creek Cellars

LITTLE LAMANCHAS

Tamara — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 22:54:49 +0000

We are pleased to announce two freakishly adorable additions to the current menagerie. Lady & Gent were born Thursday, March 26^th in the early evening. The tiny Lamancha goats are being bottle-fed in order to ensure maximum friendliness, and mom, Tamina, will continue to provide milk for yummy home-made cheese.

And yes, they really are that cute.

THE WAIT

Tamara — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 20:12:59 +0000

Patience.

2010 High Road will be here sooner than you think. Plus, it’s kind of your fault – shouldn’t have snatched up all that 2009 so quickly.

RAIN

Tamara — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 17:59:28 +0000

Rain on the Maha Estate.

PLANTING

Tamara — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 00:01:44 +0000

These past few months watching tractors pull out the walnut trees, crawlers till the hillside, and tractors collect the ginormous rocks, just makes me more impatient to see the 3 acres of Grenache sprouting up on the Maha Estate.

Last weekend, Nicole and I took a trip to the very top of the hillside to look down on all the progress and take some photos. It’s pretty spectacular up there and (despite the workout) I can’t wait to hike it again.

HARVEST TIME

Tamara — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 23:56:54 +0000

Making wine is crazy hard work. 15-hour days of manual labor, plunging your hands into freezing cold bins of grapes, stomping until you feel like your legs might fall off. And let’s not forget how much beer there is to drink.

Good thing the finished product tastes so yummy.

FALL PICK-UP PARTY

Tamara — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 10:00:15 +0000

Awesome music, insanely good food, and some pretty excellent wines – the Fall Pick Up Party was okay… I suppose.

Chef Tom Fundaro (of Villa Creek Restaurant) prepared approximately 27 coursesincluding a whole roasted pig and lamb, two kinds of paella, burrata salad, and too many other delicacies to name.

The Mark Adams Band churned out tunes for nearly 4 hours and the Villa Creek Team got to mingle with our wine club members, who happen to be some of our favorite people. Can’t wait to see you all again in the Spring!

JAMMIN’

Tamara — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 01:30:27 +0000

What should have been a tragic gardening moment, turned into culinary inspiration when the goats escaped from their pen and attacked the pear tree. Knocking a fruit-heavy branch down, the goats forced us to consider what to do with so many almost-ripe pears. Undaunted, JoAnn said “Let’s make jam”. It was settled.

The next day I showed up to jam. After several hours of peeling and dicing we had 10 pounds of tiny pear cubes mascerating in 5 cups of sugar, 1 cup of honey, and several lemons worth of juice. Holy hell did those pears taste good. The other 7ish pounds of pears were peeled and sliced for pickling. A vinegar concoction of JoAnn’s invention, some more honey, bay leaves and lemon rind filled the already too hot kitchen with a sweet vinegar steam (not the best feeling ever, but a kickass fragrance).

Following the recipe and direction of www.savingtheseason.com, JoAnn’s favorite canning and preserving resource, the pears for jamming were stewed for hours and hours. However, we made sure to maintain careful supervision so as not to ruin the beautiful black Le Creuset pot the pears were simmering in. The result = super duper awesome pear jam. Good on toast, even better heated up and served on vanilla ice cream, and possibly best of all – directly from the jar with nothing but a spoon.

LIMEYS AND VILLA CREEK WINE

Cris — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 18:01:26 +0000

JoAnn and I enjoyed a wonderful meal with a group of English wine writers at Villa Creek last night. It was the first time in quite a while that I sat down and had a selection of Villa Creek wines with food. What impressed me the most was how the wines were so complementary to the food and conversation. I really like the wines I make but it’s not often I enjoy them in such company with the amazing cuisine of chef Tom. It was nice to enjoy the wine for what it is, a social catalyst that inspires witty conversation and fun.

The wines:

2007 Garnacha

2008 Garnacha

2009 Garnacha

2010 Pink

2004 Mas de Maha

2008 Mas de Maha

2005 Bete Noire

2008 Bete Noire

2008 High Road

The Menu:

Charcuterie plate of Maha Estate Pig- head cheese, country paté, 10 month aged jamon.

Roasted Cauliflower Bagna Cauda

Barbara’s Babies (little gems of romaine) with Moscato vinaigrette

Catalan Spinach

Chorizo stuffed quail over lardon salad

Maha Estate pork rib eyes with buttered potatoes and house made sauerkraut.

OLIVES

JoAnn — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 23:22:47 +0000

Now that I have amassed a decent number of fruit bearing olive trees, I don’t have to beg, borrow or steal olives from friends and neighbors. This is my second attempt at brining olives. The first, a couple of years ago, resulted in good yet bretty (yes, like in bretty wine) olives. I found a recipe in an a favorite book called “The Lost Arts” by Lynn Alley. I followed her instructions to a T, soaking and changing the water daily for 10 days, then brining them for 3 months, with brine replacements every 10 days. (Not a big time commitment – It takes about 5 minutes to change the water or brine.) I picked the green olives in late November, when they were just starting to ripen, for the brine method. I allowed the olives on one tree to ripen fully to the point where they were black, starting to shrivel and were almost edible. Following Ms. Alley’s instructions, I performed the dry salt cure. I can’t even begin to tell you how awesome these are!! I packed them in twice their weight of kosher salt, wrapped them in a piece of linen and suspended them from a limb of the very tree from whence they came. (I can’t imagine what went through people’s minds as they walked past this spectacle on the way to our front door.) They were ready to go in a month and are now safely packed in olive oil in my pantry.

SCENES FROM A WAXING

JoAnn — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 23:06:53 +0000

Many of you are wondering why? Why did we abandon the Stelvin closure and move back to cork finishing our wines? Though we still love the idea of screw caps, as our red wine making has shifted to a more structured style across the board, the corks serve the wine better. The oxidative effect of the cork will soften the wines in the near term making them more approachable when young. Did we miss the ceremony of the corkscrew? Absolutely. Does the wine present better with cork and wax? Most definitely. But as always, the style of the wine, of what’s in the bottle, dictates the proper closure. Those of you who love the Stelvin closures will be happy to see them on our 2010 Pink and 2010 White to be released in April.