On the 19th and 20th please join me at the National Restaurant Association’s International Wine, Spirits & Beer Event in Chicago. We love introducing our wines into active good food dinning establishments!

On the 25th from 3:00 pm to 7:00 pm please join Matt and Buzz in Sacramento at the California Automobile Museum to promote Lake County wines including Chacewater. This should be a fun event and look forward to seeing everyone in downtown Sacramento.

I hope each and every Chacewater friend has an awesome and relaxing Memorial Day weekend.

All the best!
Paul

Thanks to all our fans – new and old for making this past year such a good one and turning out to support our events and enjoy our wines and olive oils!

Mark has produced some beautiful new wines that are just now being released. The 2012 Riesling Vineyard is now certified organic, and is tasting exceptional!  Mountain Peoples California and Luke’s new Maryland distributor Red Ink Imports will have it in the market soon. Keep your eyes open for this wine (or come by the tasting room for a sip).

In the olive mill,  Emilio has been busy putting most of his Nuvo Extra Virgin Olive Oils in bottle. We couldn’t be happier with the results!  California Olive Oil Council certified all six oils with excellent reviews. We are very excited to enter them in competition and introduce them in the market. Don’t miss these oils on your next visit to the tasting room or order a sample online.

Matt, Antonio and Tony are busy pruning our 31 acre vineyards in the Sierra Foothills. It’s important to take advantage of the dry weather we’ve been having.

I had a great time meeting and visiting with wine enthusiasts at the ZAP festival in San Francisco, and at Lake County Wine and Chocolate. I am looking forward to working with Mountain Peoples next month at the Beer and Wine Expo in Anaheim. My son Matt and his older brother Alex are scheduled to represent us in San Diego that same week end at the Family Winemakers wine pouring.  Come on by and see us!

Paul

The festival will feature vendors offering olive-related and other local products, samples, food, soaps, and more, as well as providing educational materials about olives and our local industry. Vendor and sponsorship opportunities are available. There is no cost to attend the festival; wine and beer tasting with a commemorative glass will be available for a $15 fee with proceeds benefiting Lake Family Resource Center.

Several related contests will be held up to and during the festival, including a Poster Contest, Amateur Recipe Contest, Olive Pit Spitting Contest, and People’s Choice Olive Oil Contest. For details, contact Livia Kurtz at (707) 279-0483.

The Kelseyville Olive Festival is presented by Rosa d’Oro Vineyards and Chacewater Winery & Olive Mill. Both companies are located in Kelseyville and produce wine and olive oil. For more information about Rosa d’Oro Vineyards, visit www.rosadorowine.com or call (707) 279-0483. For information about Chacewater Winery & Olive Mill, visit www.chacewaterwine.com or call (707) 279-2995.

Event proceeds from the silent auction will benefit the California Women for Agriculture’s Lake County Chapter and their AgVenture Program, the raffle benefits the Kelseyville Education Foundation, and the tasting sales benefit the Lake Family Resource Center. The Lake County Arts Council will also benefit from the event for their part in the poster contest.

Chacewater Wine Co. & Olive Mill, located in Kelseyville, a town tucked away in Lake County, California, is that winery, and they received the 2012 Golden State Winery award for their hard work.

“Mark Burch is our winemaker and deserves the credit,” said Paul Manuel, General Manager and owner. “He graduated from Fresno State and worked for Gallo, Sebastani,  Kendall Jackson and Wildhurst before coming to work for us. He is a wonderful winemaker, highly experienced and, I believe, underappreciated in Lake County.”

“I was quite surprised and elated to get the results of this year’s judging,” said Burch. “It was a phenomenal opportunity for me to get to work at a new facility with some great people. Paul is a great guy to work for and together all of us are proving to be a good team.

“David Weiss owns a nearby vineyard and has been here for around 14 years. He knows where the best grapes are grown and helped us get our foot in the door. We rely on him, since in addition to the grapes we get from Paul’s vineyard in Nevada County, we purchase all our white, and some red grapes from Lake County vineyards.

“I like to make clean, solid wines with true varietal character, that are not overdone or over oaked. To do this I have to stay up on the wine, from fermentation to bottling. When people ask me about my wines I don’t give them the usual talk, I tell them that if it feels and tastes right to them, they will enjoy it. Later they can work on identifying all the aromas and tastes that many winemakers talk about.

“We are permitted for 15,000 cases, but right now we are producing about 6,000,” Burch added.

The story of Chacewater began many years ago when Manuel’s father moved their family from Sacramento to 80 acres outside Nevada City.

“In 1988 the ‘49er Fire’ burned all the trees and brush on the land,” remarked Manuel, “and we were left with a mess. I had a construction company at the time and fortunately had the equipment to clear it.

“Several of our neighbors and friends had vineyards, so I studied what they did and, when my company wasn’t busy, I put my men to work preparing the land for a vineyard.

“My wife, Kellye, knows each of those vines intimately, since she was two weeks overdue when we planted the first 10 acres. She and the eldest of our three sons, Matt, who recently graduated from Purdue University with a degree in Agricultural Management, manage the vineyard, which is now 31 acres in size. Matt also helps me here at the winery.

“Our middle son, Luke, is a graduate student at the American University in Washington, D.C. He is our east coast sales representative for Maryland and the D. C. area. Our youngest son, Alex is a CPA for Ernst & Young in Phoenix, Arizona. They are all doing well and are very supportive.

“We simply sold our grapes for a while and after I retired from construction in 2004, we decided to take the grapes to Lake county for custom crush. Later we decided to go looking for a location for a winery and Lake County seemed to be the place to start.

“In 2001 St. Gregory of Sinai Monastery began building an olive mill there and planted about 10 acres of olive trees. The building and facility manager, and later the mill operator, was one of their Novices, Emilio De La Cruz.

“In 2008 they found it was interfering with their other work, so they decided to sell the land, orchard and mill. It was perfect for us, so we bought it and built a 10,000 square foot winery building next to the mill. Emilio stayed on to train our staff and a few years later he joined us full time so we can continue to produce the finest extra virgin olive oil in our mill.

“Our family is Cornish, with roots in the Cornwall area of Great Britain. We didn’t realize it at the time we moved to the Nevada City area, but my great grandfather, like many of the Cornish, had been a hard-rock miner there in the 1880s.

“On a visit to Cornwall we fell in love with Chacewater, a small village on the southern tip of England, that was the origin of the Manuel family tree. That seemed perfect for our winery name, and we included in our logo the unique Mark of a Chacewater church craftsman.

“Our vineyard, the olive mill and the winery facilities are all certified organic and audited once a year by the CCOF (California Certified Organic Farmers). Since we get grapes from other sources than our own vineyards, our wines are not necessarily organic. However, the facilities are, which means they are very clean and well maintained.

“Our wine is not the only thing receiving great awards, our Robust Tuscan Extra Virgin Olive Oil received Best of Class and Best of Show awards at the Los Angeles International Olive Oil Competition last March.”

The wines entered by Chacewater Wine Co. & Olive Mill in this year’s California State Fair Commercial Wine Competition were:

2010 Lake County Chardonnay (Double Gold, 98 points, Best of Class (Tie) North Coast Appellations and Best of California)

2009 Red Hills Petite Sirah (Gold, 95 points)

2008 Red Hills O-Eight Headache! (Gold, 94 points, Best of Class North Coast Appellations)

2010 Sierra Foothills Estate Merlot (Silver, 92 points)

2010 Sierra Foothills Estate Cabernet Sauvignon (Silver, 91 points)

2011 Lake County Sauvignon Blanc (Silver, 90 points)

2009 Red Hills Malbec (Silver, 90 points, Best of Class North Coast Appellations)

2011 Sierra Foothills Estate Rose (Silver, 89 points, Best of Class Sierra Foothills Appellations)

2011 Sierra Foothills Estate Zinfandel (Bronze, 86 points)

2010 Sierra Foothills Estate Syrah (Bronze, 86 points)

California Golden Winery                                                                                               Doug Noble

Chacewater Wine Co. & Olive Mill

5625 Gaddy Lane, Kelseyville, California

(707) 279-2995

Everyone welcome. Buy tickets here or call (707)-279-2995 with any questions. See you there!

In addition, our Mission Extra Virgin Olive Oil won a Gold Medal at the 2012 California Olive Oil Council Competition.

We are proud of the hard work and attention to detail from Chacewater Olive Mill Master, Emilio Dela Cruz. Congratulations on these results and we look forward to continuing to produce world-class award winning Extra Virgin Olive Oil and wines!

• 2010 Chacewater Chardonnay -  98 Points,  Double Gold
• 2009 Chacewater Petite Syrah – 95 Points, Gold
• 2008 Chacewater Red Blend – 94 Points, Gold
• 2010 Chacewater Merlot – 92 Points, Silver
• 2010 Chacewater Cabernet Sauvignon – 91 Points, Silver
• 2011 Chacewater Sauvignon Blanc – 90 Points, Silver
• 2009 Chacewater Malbec – 90 Points, Silver
• 2011 Chacewater Rose – 89 Points, Silver
• 2010 Chacewater Zinfandel – 86 Points, Bronze
• 2010 Chacewater Syrah – 86 Points, Bronze

This year, 2,890 wine entries were received from 688 participating wineries. Seventy-two judges on 18 panels awarded 2,156 medals, including 74 Double Gold, 268 Gold, 1,195 Silver and 734 Bronze.

Awards will be presented during California’s Grape & Gourmet, the state’s premier wine and food event, which returns to Cal Expo on Aug. 18. The results of the wine competition will appear in “California Wine” magazine, a publication of the California State Fair. “California Wine” will be available at Grape & Gourmet and Save Mart Supermarkets. For Grape & Gourmet tickets and information, go to www.bigfun.org

There were many strong contenders in the 73rd annual Los Angeles International Wine & Spirits Competition. Judged in May 2012, many varietals and price ranges were represented, with a new point system introduced, acknowledging each varietal’s special attributes and providing a new level of precision in the competition’s wine ranking systems, a benefit for the competition and wine enthusiasts.

Nearly 3,300 wines were entered, tasted by a 72-member panel comprised of international judges.

The public will have its first opportunity to taste the award-winning wines at FUN Decanted, a June fundraising event to benefit the education programs of The Learning Centers at Fairplex.