Featured Winemaker

Bill Cates and Jeffery Fink

Tantara Winery

Bill Cates and Jeffery Fink

Friends for over twenty years, Jeffrey Fink, an architect and Bill Cates, were both orignally from Virginia. They converged in California on a mission: to transform noble fruit into world class wine and have a good time doing it.

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Featured Wine

Didier Desvignes Morgon Les Charmes 2006

Chateau Didier Desvignes

Grape variety: Gamay Noir à Jus Blanc.

Origin: Les Charmes named vineyard.

Colour: Red.

Soil: Crumbly, decomposed rock that is mainly made up of pyritic schist that is rich in iron oxides and manganese.

The vines: Goblet pruning with 3 to 5 fruit canes with 2 eyes. The soil is removed from around the trunk in autumn; worked in winter and shallow scraped in the spring.

Vinification: After manual harvesting and selective sorting of the whole bunches, these are vinified traditionally. Temperature is controlled; the cap is pushed under the juice using a grid. Carbonic maceration lasts 8 to 10 days.

Maturing: In stainless steel and cement vats. Clarification and filtering is carried out using the most natural and traditional procedures possible. The grapes from each plot of vines are vinified separately to obtain the best possible balance between the structure and finesse given by the terroirs.

Characteristics: Crimson robe, the aromas of a basket of red fruit backed up with tight, elegant tannins.

Keeping time: 5 to 8 years.

Matching it with food: Marinated meat, game, strong cheese.

Morgon Les Charmes

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California

Nearly three-quarters the size of France, California accounts for nearly 90 percent of entire American wine production. The production in California alone is one third larger than that of Australia; if California were a separate country, it would be the world's fourth-largest wine producer. The state's viticultural history dates back to the 18th century when Spanish missionaries planted the first vineyards to produce wine for Mass. Following a wine renaissance in the mid-20th century, Californian wine entered the international stage at the 1976 Judgment of Paris wine competition when Californian wines beat out French wines in both red and white wine categories. Today there are more than 1,200 wineries in the state, ranging from small boutique wineries to large corporations with distribution across the globe.

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