Wine 101
Grape to Glass: Your Magic – How to Enjoy Wine
It’s time to enjoy!Aging wine in the bottle is also called cellaring. If you’ve brought a bottle home and you’re storing it in a dark, cool place, you’re aging your wine. In pop culture, it seems like old wine is always better wine – but truthfully…
Grape to Glass: Bottling
After the winemaker feels like the wine is complete, it’s time to bottle the wine for distribution.TimingWine ages in two different ways. Aerobically – that’s when it’s fermenting in the tank, completing the chemical changes that take it from grape juice to wine. Wine also ages…
Grape to Glass: Barreling and Aging
History of barrelingAfter we stored our wine in clay pots and before we kept wine in glass bottles, most wines were stored and sold in barrels. Although we no longer store and transport wine in bottles, we’ve become accustomed to the flavors that barrel storage brings to the…
Thanksgiving Day Wine Guide
Once you have your Thanksgiving menu planned, it’s time to move on to the next most important part of the meal – the wine.Below is our guide to creating perfect Thanksgiving pairings from appetizers to dessert!All of the wines featured in this guide are available in the Wine…
Grape to Glass: Fermentation
Fermentation is the process in winemaking where sugar converts to alcohol. This is where we turn grape juice into an alcoholic beverage. Back in the 1800’s, Louis Pasteur noticed that there was a connection between yeast and fermentation. He recognized the process where the yeast acts as the catalyst…
Grape to Glass: Harvest & Crush
California’s wine country comes alive during harvest and crush. In most of the Northern Hemisphere, harvest takes place during late August through early October, with sparkling wine grapes harvested in late July, and late harvest grapes picked later in October. For the previous 10 months of the year, winemakers…
Grape to Glass: Ripening
Ripeness in grapes for winemaking is determined by many factors. The decision to harvest grapes is determined by the kind of grape, the location, the length of the growing season, the sugars and the acidity. Unlike other fruit like bananas and apples, grapes don’t keep ripening when they’re…
Grape to Glass: Veraison
In the world of grape growers, veraison is an exciting time. Not only is it when the grapes start to change color, it also means that harvest is just around the corner.Usually in mid-August, the grapes begin to take on their final colors of purple – but this happens…
Sisterhood Direct Social Director Interview: Meryl Holland
This is the first in our series of interviews with the first group of women to join Sisterhood Direct as Social Directors. Sisterhood Direct is a brand new direct wine service that lets you make money while you share your love of wines. In case you missed it, catch up…
Crafty Party Planning: Matching Wine Labels and Invitations
When it comes to planning a party, coordination is key. Now you can take your party to the next level with personalized invitations and matching wine bottle labels.Our friends at Windsor Vineyards have partnered with Evite to create four custom invitations and six matching wine labels for summer birthday…
Grape to Glass: Flowering & Fruit Set
So far in our Grape to Glass series, we’ve covered rootstock and bud break, the first two segments in the lifecycle of the magical winemaking grape. Now, it’s time for a couple more exciting stages: flowering and fruit set.We created the graphic below to help explain each…
Grape to Glass: Bud Break
“Wine is sunlight, held together by water.” – Galileo GalileiBefore harvest time arrives in California and other wine growing regions around the world, the grapevines that produce our favorite wines must work their way from season to season. Within each of those seasons, new and exciting changes happen to the…