History
We're a start-up company in the garage. We made our first barrel of wine in 2004, purchasing a half ton of grapes from a local grower. We planted our own vines in 2007. We won dozens of winemaking awards in amateur competitions (that's pretty impressive for a dog!) then went professional in 2009.
Specialties
We create artisan wine by hand, foot and paw from San Diego County grapes (mostly our own) one barrel at a time. We know each of our 1,200 vines by name and each grape cluster is inspected before and at harvest. Production is limited to less than 2-tons per acre to increase flavor. At harvest, we cold-soak the juice several days to extract wonderful fruit flavors and color. During fermentation, we punch down the cap four times a day by hand to extract more flavor and color. After fermentation, we press gently by hand using a basket press to extract free-run wine and just the right amount of tannin. After the wine has settled a few weeks in holding tanks and undergone malolactic fermentation we battonage - stir up the lees - to extract more flavor and improve mouth feel. The wines are then racked into either French or hybrid French/American oak barrels and aged for another year or two or more to impart subtle oak flavors. The wines are unfiltered, and production is typically limited to one barrel of each type of wine. The wines are quality inspected by a dog's nose before bottling and labeling by hand - if the label is crooked, that's part of the charm. We're helping put San Diego County wines on the map!