Holiday Cheer!

 

Thanksgiving launches the holiday season so Norm and I want to get you in the spirit! We invite you to join us for our Holiday Open House on Saturday and Sunday, December 3rd & 4th, from 11am to 4pm. A tasting fee of $15 will include a Flying Goat Logo Glass (specially designed for Pinot Noir) and tastings of current and library wines, as well as barrel samples. Appetizers and live music will be featured on Saturday, December 3rd, from 2-4pm.

Joan Montalvo & Norm Yost pouring for tasters during our 2010 Holiday Open House

We will be offering holiday gift packages, including magnums of 2008 Pinot Noir Garey Ranch Vineyard. The magnum format is always popular this time of year as it is the perfect way to share your favorite wines with family and friends. We also have a selection of library magnums for the extra special gift.

Remember Goat Bubbles for your holiday toasting! The 2009 Blanc de Blancs is currently available. Join Club Celebrate to get access to 2010 Cremant and 2009 Blanc de Noirs.

Flying Goat Cellars Tasting Room is located at 1520 East Chestnut Court in the Lompoc Wine Ghetto. Our regular hours are Thursday- Sunday 11am-4pm. We will be open on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. We will be closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day. We hope to see you over the holiday season. Cheers!

I also want to mention that on exhibit at the Tasting Room is Fran Collin’s installation “Wine Ghetto Portraits”. Fran Collin is a Santa Barbara-based photographer who has a penchant for food photography, especially chefs, restaurateurs and now winemakers. His portfolio includes such luminaries as chefs Paul Bocuse, Michel Richard, Daniel Boulud, Alain Ducase, Alice Waters and Julia Child. Over a series of photo shoots in the Ghetto last spring, Collin captured the portraits of Richard Longoria, Norm Yost, Kathy Joseph, Steve Clifton and others. Some of his photos were featured in Edible Santa Barbara this  past summer. Collin’s portraits are available for purchase at the Tasting Room.

Kate Griffith & Norm Yost Portrait in the Tasting Room

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Harvest Horrors & Halloween

We finished pressing off the last lot of Pinot Noir from Rio Vista Vineyard this week. The wines show beautiful color concentration and promising fruit intensity. Norm says, “The youthfulness of the wines is still overwhelming, reminding me of my youth as a gangling teenager.”

Flying Goat Cellars Carved Pumpkin by Tyler Worth

Now we’re in the Halloween spirit with a custom carved pumpkin by Tyler Worth of WhatsWorthDrinking.com. No tricks at Flying Goat Cellars Tasting Room this weekend but lots of treats with our vineyard designated Pinot Noirs and sparkling wine. Free tasting for all who visit us in costume on Saturday, October 29th, and Sunday, October 30th. We are offering 2007 Pinot Noir Rio Vista Vineyard, Clone 2A, on sale for 25% off. A great buy at $30!

Halloween 2010: Kate as Lizzie Borden & Norm as Jorge of Burgos

       In honor of Halloween, we will feature “Harvest Horrors: Tales From the Dark Side of Winemaking” on Thursday, November 3rd, from 4:30-6:30pm at our Tasting Room. Norm and other local winemakers will share their past and present harvest experiences, including “the harvest from hell” and “is it over already?” “’Harvest Horrors’ allows us a chance to sit back and reflect on challenging harvest experiences with a sense of humor and a glass of wine,” says Norm. My academic studies in communication and cultural anthropology gave me great appreciation for oral histories, especially in unique subcultures like boutique winemaking. Join us for old fashioned storytelling at the Tasting Room, 1520 East Chestnut Court, Unit A. This is part of our monthly First Thursday with Wine & Culture in the Ghetto.

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Flying Goat Cellars Harvest & Release Party

Harvest is well underway for our Flying Goat Cellars 2011 Pinot Noirs. Last week we crushed Solomon Hills Vineyard clone 113 and RiverBench Vineyard Martini clone. Dierberg Vineyard clone 115 was destemmed and crushed this week. Next Monday we’ll destem and crush Rancho Santa Rosa Vineyard clone 667 and have Dierberg Vineyard Martini clone picked. Sometime next week Bien Nacido Vineyard Martini clone will also be picked for us.

Norm is reporting very tiny clusters. He says, “We have been having great ripening weather that is not too hot but rather mild temperatures. The yield in the vineyards is lower than expected and the berries are so small that there is not much juice extracted from them.” Watch out as there may be a scarcity of Flying Goat Cellars wines for the 2011 vintage.

Norm checking Pinot Noir grapes at harvest

On October 1st, we’ll have our third Club Celebrate release, which is our newest wine in the Goat Bubbles portfolio. It is Crémant from an unrevealed varietal and we are sure that you will find it as tasty as our other sparkling wines. It’s not too late to sign up for the Club to get in on the Pick Up party and the early release of this awesome new sparkler. Contact me at 805-736-9032 or info@flyinggoatcellars.com to sign up.

The Santa Barbara County Harvest Festival is just around the corner. We hope that you will join us at Rancho Sisquoc on Saturday, October 8, and for our open house at the tasting room on Sunday, October 9. Our open house is from 11am-4pm and will include a grape stomp from 1-2pm. All are welcome!

On a final note, we received accolades in Food & Wine MagazineOctober 2011 issue by a noted sommelier in New York City. Now that’s the kind of publicity that we love!

Norm Yost works the forklift while Jeff Hendrickson feeds grapes into the hopper, which then feeds grapes into the destemmer/crusher.

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Check out our new website and blog!

Welcome to Flying Goat Cellars’ new website. We hope you like our fresh look! Lucinda Kinch of Light Rae Design is the creative talent behind the new site. We appreciate her patience in working with us to move this project forward.

Norm at Rio Vista Vineyard

To keep the site dynamic, I will be writing a blog every couple of weeks. We seek to keep you better informed about what is going on at Flying Goat’s Tasting Room and what winemaker Norm Yost and his cellar team are up to. If you are in the area, be sure to come by for our First Thursday (of the month) at the Tasting Room featuring “Wine & Culture in the Ghetto” from 4:30-6:30pm. We’ve been hosting a wide range of cultural activities, including art openings, poetry readings, book signings and live jazz.

Josh Hamilton

Cellar master Jeff Hendrickson and cellar rat Josh Hamilton were helping Norm with bottling when they jumped into an early harvest on August 19th. Sierra Madre Chardonnay for Blanc de Blancs came in first followed by Sierra Madre grapes for Cremant. (The varietal is still a surprise!) All the grapes have been delicious!

Rio Vista Vineyard Pinot Noir

Norm and I visited Rio Vista Vineyard last week and were impressed with the Pinot Noir. We’re seeing very small clusters with small berries, which is promising for more intense fruit flavors. Norm thinks they’ll be coming in on time this month, maybe just in time for my next blog!

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