March 24th 2021

Dear Friends,

Happy Spring! It is an early Spring in Wine Country with many sunny and warm days in the low-70s. The mustard is blooming, adding to the color palette of all the wildflowers on our hills. We are open again for outdoor tastings. The green hills and the colorful flowers provide a beautiful vista for our guests as they sip Nicholson Ranch wine in our courtyard.

In the vineyard, the vines are waking up from a dormant winter with tiny buds emerging from last year’s branches. From each bud will grow a shoot that will extend in length every week. By mid-May these shoots are six-feet tall. Each shoot has a leaf every three inches, each leaf alternating in direction positioning them for maximum sunlight. The first two leaves that emerge are accompanied by grape-flower buds. These buds will flower in mid-May, the flowers will pollinate and form tiny berries by early June. The sunshine and the warmth in the three months of Summer will make the fruit bigger and then sweeter and then more flavorful, each an important step to producing the most delicious grapes you have ever had. As every winemaker knows, good grapes make good wine. My job as a winemaker is to nurture the vines, harvest the grapes carefully and provide an ideal environment for the grapes to ferment and the wine to age. Other than that my job is to get out of the way and let Nature take its perennial course.

Spring and Easter is a time to experience and reflect on renewal. The past twelve months have posed extraordinary challenges, but the new buds in the vineyard, however tiny they may be, are Spring’s reminder that it is a new year with sunny days ahead for all of us.

Plan your trips and visits to Nicholson Ranch and experience the seasons in the vineyard.

Cheers!

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Deepak Gulrajani

January 13, 2021

By MandaM

Dear Friends,

Happy New Year! We all look forward to a happy and healthy 2021 along with the hope we return to life as we knew it.

Winter is a slow time of the year at the winery, as it is with all farmers. I usually travel to India, Europe or sometimes seek out new wine countries in the winter. Like so many of you, my travels were curtailed. This year, food and wine were the vehicles to transport me to the land of fond memories of journeys past. Our trips to India and Puerto Rico, my wife’s heritage, are reprised through the cuisines of our respective homelands. Our journeys to wine countries are replayed by popping open a bottle of wine acquired on these trips. A Brunello from Italy recreated our visit to Montalcino with its steep walking paths and even steeper city walls. A Burgundy from Cote d’Or took us down the Route des Grand Crus that runs through some of the most famous Pinot Noir and Chardonnay vineyards. Last year’s trip was to a new wine region, Valle de Guadalupe in Mexico. Opening a bottle of Nebbiolo recreated the live fire cuisine of the pioneer chefs of Guadalupe. “Stay-at-Home” this winter gave us the opportunity to revisit many places through food and wine.

Winter is also the time that young wines go through a second fermentation called malolactic fermentation. As you all know, grapes that we harvest in September and October go through their first fermentation as wine yeasts eat the abundant sugar in grape juice to make alcohol and a bouquet of enticing aromas (floral, spice, tropical). The young wine is often tart and light on the palate. Many of you know that a second fermentation, called malolactic fermentation, takes the wine to the next level. Malolactic (often shortened to ML), as the name suggests is a transformation (by bacteria) of tart, malic acid to softer lactic acid. Malic acid is abundant in apples, and lactic acid helps create the flavor and texture of cheese. This second winter fermentation transforms the tart light wine to a silky and creamy full bodied luscious liquid.

Following ML fermentation, several months of aging in barrels integrates the flavors and enhances the texture before the wine is bottled. We usually bottle our wines after 18 to 22 months of aging in the barrel. Spring is our normal season for bottling. Covid upended so many things, including our bottling schedule. We pushed back our Spring bottling well into the Fall, after harvest. This means that all our 2018 wine are more full-bodied than usual, having spent an additional six months in barrels.

This February wine club release includes the 2018 La Colina Chardonnay, the 2017 “777” Pinot Noir and the 2018 Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir. Open any of our wines to revisit your trips and “travel in spirit” to Nicholson Ranch and Wine Country.

I hope to see you soon in person.

Deepak Gulrajani