January 19th, 2026
Dear Friends,
Happy New Year. Here at Nicholson Ranch, we were blessed with a wonderful 2025. Thank you for your continued appreciation for the wine we craft for you. We are honored to be a part of your table and your celebrations. Cheers to a wonderful 2026!
All the wine from 2025 is resting peacefully in barrels in our cellars, at the culmination of the journey that began in our vineyard. The grape growing season starts in March when the new buds emerge, followed by growth of verdant branches that bear flowers and fruit in June. The heat of summer days and the cool fall nights create sweetness and flavor. The idyllic seasonal journey picks up pace with harvest, as we pick the grapes off the vine and send them on a transformative journey from grapes to wine.
The most delicate leg of the journey begins when natural yeast resident on the skins of the grapes and in the ambient air of the tank room begin transforming grape sugar and natural compounds to make alcohol and flavor and texture components. The journey can be fraught with risk as bacteria compete with yeast to get to treasured sugar. We protect the grapes from bacteria by keeping the fermentation vats chilled (like refrigerating food) and by blanketing grapes with carbon dioxide (like vacuum sealing).
We taste and test the fermenting wine every day monitoring the gestating wine for infections. If bad bacteria get a big bite into our precious grapes, we would get cheesy, sour, and musty aromas in our wine. By coddling and protecting grapes and yeast we guide the floral wine safely to its secure destination in barrels. Second only to harvest, getting the wine into barrels is the most significant accomplishment for a winemaker. We had much to celebrate at the end of 2025 as we successfully guided the wine to their new barrel home.
Your wine shipment includes delicious wines from the 2022 and the 2020 vintage proudly representing their unique annual journey.
Enjoy!
Deepak Gulrajani