Elevating The Artesa Experience: Pairing Fine Wines with Gourmet Cheese & Chocolates

As summer slips away, the kids are back in school and harvest season approaches in the wine country. Artesa’s Assistant Winemaker Nori Nakamura told us in the last Artesa blog entry that harvest this year will be late and fast. What better time than to see for yourself how the grapes are ripening with a “Vines and Wines” tour and tasting, one of several specialty programs available to visitors looking for an intimate experience away from the crowds and with your own assigned guide and wine educator.




While “Vines and Wines” is offered seasonally (for another few weeks or so) until workers descend into our vineyards practically around the clock, a number of additional tour options await groups looking for specialized attention leading to a truly memorable experience at Artesa Winery. Thanks to Vino Visit, a new online booking service available on Artesa’s website, you can reserve an educational tour and program, day or night, from the comfort of your home.

One of the newest specialty programs is “Chocolate Indulgence,” a daily-offered journey through five of Artesa’s finest reserve wines paired with five hand-produced chocolate truffles from local Napa chocolatier, Anette’s Chocolates. “It was extremely hard finding the right pairing between chocolate and wine,” said Tasting Room Manager Michael McKinley. Staff went through literally hundreds of chocolates finding just the right match with Artesa’s handcrafted ultra-premium wines, an endeavor anyone with a sweet tooth would envy.

“Vino con Queso” is Artesa’s intimate wine and cheese tasting which starts off with a glass of Codorniu Napa Grand Reserve sparkling wine. Artisan cheeses are purchased daily at Napa’s Oxbow Market to ensure maximum freshness, to be presented with Artesa’s small production Limited Release and Reserve wines.

Assistant Tasting Room Manager Rick Dudley pointed out that the staff selected to lead these educational tours and programs attended seminars and classes dedicated to this type of specialized pairings. Come see for yourself how locally produced gourmet chocolate can elevate one’s wine tasting experience. Or maybe fine cheese is more your style. Visit www.artesawinery.com/tours anytime to book your reservation for this or any other specialty program. You won’t forget the experience anytime soon.

Vineyard Update from Artesa's Assistant Winemaker

A cold, wet spring pushed back bud break for three weeks this year and we are now finally experiencing a full bloom everywhere in the Napa Valley. With the current vine growth, the 2010 harvest may start very late and will likely be very hectic.

We have already hired our harvest interns from USA, Spain, Italy, and Australia for this year and we are excited for their arrival. To be honest, we would like to think that harvest is still three more months away but we know it will be upon us very soon.

In preparation, we are busy bottling our '09 Chardonnay, Carneros and '09 Pinot Noir, Carneros and we cannot wait to show you these beautiful wines.

-Nori Nakamura, Assistant Winemaker, Artesa Vineyards & Winery, Carneros, Napa

Meet Rich Richardson, Artesa's General Manager

It is been a fast six months since Rich Richardson joined Artesa Vineyards & Winery as General Manager. After several years at Justin Vineyards & Winery in Paso Robles, California, he was looking for a change.

Several things attracted him to Artesa. The first time Rich walked up to the winery, he was struck by the views, as many inaugural visitors are. “It was like a national park,” he remarked. Beyond aesthetics, he liked the fact that Artesa is family-owned, much like his previous winery. He is also a huge fan of Pinots, and Artesa has a stellar lineup. “The single-vineyard Block 91D Pinot Noir is outstanding,” he raved in a recent interview. “I like the depth; it’s very complex, well-structured. It’s got great viscosity and good color, and it pairs well with a wide range of dishes.”

What is behind such great wines is not just top Napa and Sonoma grapes, it is also “the passionate, artistic people here…[with] the resources to continually improve wine to be the best it can be,” Rich pointed out. For example, he cites Winemaker Mark Beringer, “who brings a level of success from Duckhorn.”

People, product and principles fueled Rich’s journey from the California Central Coast northward. Strong was his desire to return to Napa. Among his list of reasons Napa beckoned was the sophistication and diversity of the area. The area’s exciting cuisine prompts him and his wife to dine out around town often, and with San Francisco less than an hour away, this wine capital of America was too hard to resist.

When you find Napa too alluring to pass up, please come by Artesa and see what Rich lives and breathes every day.

Artesa Out On The Town!

Next time you’re going out to dine and you’d like to drink some of our award-winning wines, whether you’re in Napa or Sonoma, think of these wonderful restaurants who proudly pour Artesa!

Napa:

Bistro Don Giovanni

Annalien

ZuZu

Uva

Compadres

Mustards



Sonoma:

The Swiss Hotel

El Dorado Kitchen

Taste of the Himalayas

Steiner’s Tavern



Artesa is proud to announce that Sambuca in Texas, Georgia and Tennessee is now pouring our Elements!

Artesa Hosts Carneros Run Benefit

"Please check out the following pictures from our Carneros 5K & 10K Run/ pancake breakfast on Saturday, March 26th. Very successful and fun event. We had 1,000 people turn out for the event this year.

For next year’s event we will field an ARTESA “running” team. We would also like to have a running category for Wine Club members. First-place finisher for the 10K and 5K get a prize, same with the ARTESA running team.

Excellent team effort to pull this off so well. Great event for a great cause, the Carneros Volunteer Fire Department!"

- Rich Richardson, Artesa Vice President & General Manager

Artesa Vineyards & Winery is having a Wine Naming Contest!

We want YOU, our biggest fans, to help name Artesa’s newest releases from Winemaker Mark Beringer. In addition to renaming of our single-vineyard Cabernets and one of our single-vineyard Pinots, we’re also looking to name three new WINE CLUB EXCLUSIVE blends that will be released in the next 12 months. We are over the moon that Mark has decided to reach out to our Club Members for help with this very important project!

Mark is hoping to find a new name for our Foss Valley Cabernet Sauvignon and the Block 91D Pinot Noir. But in addition, he’s got three amazing new blends coming out that needs names as well: a Rioja blend, a Cabernet/Bordeaux Blend, and a Merlot/Cabernet Franc Blend.

If we choose your name, you will receive a very special gift from Mark and the entire Artesa family, as well as having your name mentioned on our website, in our newsletter and in other print publications right alongside Mark Beringer!

Artesa’s Vines and Wines Vineyard Tour Returns

Have you ever wanted to taste a grape right off the vine? Now is your chance to give this a try, and much more. Lace up your hiking boots, grab a glass of bubbly and journey down to the vineyard. Enjoy a glass of Pinot Noir while standing in one of Artesa’s estate Pinot Noir vineyards where the grapes are grown and discover how the coolness of the San Pablo Bay breeze has influenced the wine you are sipping.

This year, guests have the option to make their reservations online through Vino Visit. Go to artesawinery.com and click on Visit Artesa. Reservations are required - $40 per person / $30 per person for Club Artesa members.

“The Art of Making People Feel Like VIPs: A Profile of Artesa’s Anne Salazar”

Walking into the modern, high-ceiling Visitor Center of Artesa Vineyards and Winery, you might overhear a cheery, British-accented “Hello Love” from Anne Salazar as she greets guests. As VIP Specialist and Wine Educator, she is more likely in one of the private event rooms in the back doing a sit-down tasting or downstairs in the cellar conducting a tour for trade representatives or other visitors needing that extra attention and a quiet, intimate experience at one of Napa’s premier wineries.

Essentially, Anne can and does meet anyone from business executives to a group celebrating a birthday to a couple marking an anniversary. In the process, she consistently displays an uncanny ability to make each of them feel important and valued. That innate skill is ingrained her personality and rooted in her rich experience. She has lived in a dizzying succession of places throughout her life and met a wide variety of people, each an opportunity to inform her vibrant and unquenchable mind.

After living in a dozen places in England, Canada and the United States as part of a military family, Anne started a new life in Napa Valley three decades ago and worked at Domaine Chandon, Conn Creek and Franciscan wineries, among other places. She was wooed by Artesa in April 2008 by Director of Hospitality Linda Champagne, who regards her as “legendary” and one of Napa’s best assets. “She has boundless energy surpassing those half her age, loves her job everyday and is extremely knowledgeable,” attests Linda.

What drives her? “The product is so interesting, you never learn everything there is to learn,” Anne responds, providing a window into her insatiable appetite to discover new things. Moreover, Anne finds the industry fun, each day furnishing her a chance to meet interesting people from whom she can learn something new.

The sheer joy Anne gets from making people feel important, from the time they are at Artesa to the time they leave, also greatly motivates her. “Life can be frustrating and tough sometimes,” she says. “So for an hour or two, I can make you feel valued and leave Artesa feeling good about yourself and the experience you’ve just had.”

Though she humbly declines the distinction, Anne Salazar is one of Artesa’s VIPs – for the inimitable way she makes everyone feel like a VIP. Her trademark “Hello Love” greeting and warm embrace are the quintessential currency of hospitality she has honed from decades of work and life experience and shared regularly at Artesa with wine lovers from all over the world.

An Artesa Winery Pet: Bodie

Welcome to a new feature of Artesa's blog, a feature on one of our winery pets.

First, some background on Bodie’s wine-loving owner: A local product hailing from St. Helena, Artesa’s Vice President of Finance, Tim O’Leary, is one of the longest employed people at the winery, even when it was known as Codorniu Napa. For twelve and a half years, Tim has been in charge of finance either as controller or in his current position. That places his starting date shortly after Artesa’s first crush in 1997. (The winery was reborn as Artesa at a black-tie dinner celebration on July 24, 1999.)

On August 23, 2001, a Yellow Labrador Retriever named Bodie was born and became a member of the O’Leary family, as well as the Artesa family. As the first “winery pet” featured in our blog, Bodie brings with him a brother, a Black Labrador Retriever named Jake, born last year on the Fourth of July. Jake, incidentally, has been described as Bodie’s favorite toy. When not carousing with Jake, Bodie loves typical dog things such as swimming. Less common is that when Bodie knows he did something wrong, he smiles (which is rare, for the record). Think about that next time you run into a smiling Yellow Lab with a Black Lab trailing not too far behind him.