Wine Cottage Staff Goes on a Field Trip

Every month at the Wine Cottage Bistro we have a winemaker of the month. We offer their wines for free tastes and eagerly anticipate their winemaker dinner. In preparation for these activities we go on a field trip to their winery and taste the wines in the place where the winemaker does the work. Yesterday we were privilaged to tour the winemaking facilities of Fiddlehead cellars. Our staff is committed to always improving and learning as much about wine and the local winemakers as they can so to spend an afternoon tasting wine and learning about the techniques that makes Fiddlehead so unique was truly special.

Fiddlehead Cellars only makes 2 varietals, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir. This enables them to really focus on making those two, outstanding wines. First Karen told us that the Sauvignon Blanc grape is the Mother of Cabernet Sauvignon. The name alone should have told me that but honestly I had never put 2 and 2 together. That was very interesting. Their version is made in the Bourdeux style and is actually meant to be aged.

Karen who assists Kathy Joseph in winemaking gave us a wonderful tour. She showed us "Fern" their crushing tank and dipples, bad boy, nokia and Norm (named after the winemaker Norm Yost whose tank they are borrowing) the stainless steel tanks used to keep the wine prior to bottling. We saw all the French Oak barrels that are usually filled with wine but now the wine is in the bottles.

Winemaking is not for the faint of heart. Karen says that during crush and bottling they will work 18 hours a day. They pick the finicky Pinot grape in the dead of night to keep it cool and then take it to the winery and begin the process of destemming, crushing and making wine. You also don't take up winemaking because you want the big Chateau and winery. Making wine is expensive, labor intensive and quiet often not very profitable. Winemakers make wine because they have a passion for it. They put their heart and soul into every bottling and when you taste quality wines like Fiddlehead, it shows.

After tasting wine we were all ready for some great food. Since the Wine Cottage is closed on Tuesdays we opted for the other restaurant the Dwayne "the wine guy" Holmdahl recommends when he isn't recommending WCB and that is Sissy's in Lompoc. We all had an excellent meal, the soup of the day was a chicken noodle that was awesome and the special was buffalo chicken sandwich with blue cheese.

All in all, aside from the football game at Ryon park, it was a super day. Incidently, we won the football game, 4-2. I am way too old for that. I should have stopped at the wining and dining.