Happy New Year!

A Happy, Happy New Year from Rebecca and I to you and your family!

Sitting here at the fire place in our mountain cabin with great memories from an awesome New Year celebration.  Time for Rebecca’s famous Bloody Mary as I think back at the last day of the year:  .Zoom call with my siblings in Denmark and Greece and an early toast.  We then got a little snow in the morning and took the dogs for a nice long hike – they loved plowing through the fresh snow.  Cooked and enjoyed the NYE celebrations from around the world.  Off course with some great wines!  Somehow more Chablis is getting into our life and a 2014 Monte de Tonnerre from Collet was a great way to get it started.  Barbecue in 28F is chilly but good for the crab and ribeye and I started enjoying the 2005 Le Corton from Delarche – still my favorite burgundy vintage and who can turn down a Grand Cru.  For dinner we supplemented it with a 2014 Barroche Chateauneuf-du-Pape and that carried us through the evening.  At midnight we celebrated the New Year with a 2000 Cristal – tiny bubbles and very delicate.   Forgot to open an Ampelos wine….

2020 – It’s Over…

OK, we listened last night to everyone saying bad things about 2020 and talking about high hopes for 2021.  We feel the same way but there were a lot of great things that we got out of 2020 as well.  We are now opening up a new chapter in life with 2021 and although we know that the coming months will still be challenging and devastating for many people there is light at the end of the tunnel.  So let me share with you my wishes for 2021:

2021 Wishes

• Farming goes on!  None of the vines, insects or microbia in the soil got the memo about the virus.  The vineyard is in tip-top shape – we just wish for some rain.  The driest fall/winter we have seen in the twenty years we have been farmers.  I wish that we would all focus on taking better care of Mother Earth.  We need her!
• Winemaking goes on!  Rebecca and I love the process of taking grapes from the vineyard through the whole process ending up in bottles of “homemade” wine.  In 2020 we decided to experiment with two new projects – something real exciting is coming out soon so stay tuned.  My wish is that even with the challenges like 2020 we will always be able to continue with experiments and have fun doing so.  Somehow the word retirement is not on the horizon.
• Friends and family have always been so important in our life.  We are blessed with so many great friends and although last year had a big impact on our social life we still managed to see many great people along the way and have a fun together.  But my wish for this year is that we will re-connect with as many of you as we can.  At the ranch, in the vineyard, at the tasting room or the winery, at winemaker dinners, wine festivals and events.  I wish 2021 to become the year we hug more people than ever before.
• A fellow Dane, H C Andersen wrote back in the 1800’s “To roam the roads of land remote, to travel is to live”.  Rebecca and I love traveling and this has been a big gap in our life last year.  I can’t wait to feel the touchdown from landing in Copenhagen airport again.  Cant wait to get off the ferry sailing into the Greek island of Folegandros.  Cant wait for another New Years Evening in New York.  Another taco and cerveza in Todos Santos, Mexico. Or experience any one of the new destinations we have on our bucket list.  I wish for travel!
• And the wine:  Lets face it, there is a reason you read this email!  Like us you like wine!  We once again want to thank you for your great support of our farming philosophies – and our wines.  It has helped us to support our great teams families and made it possible for Rebecca and I to get through last year in fairly normal way.  We farmed, we harvested and we made wine.  I wish 2021 will be the best year ever for Ampelos – thanks to your support.

Boy I am really enjoying that spicy Bloody Mary.  So with that in hand I will again wish you a:
GREAT 2021!

Merry, Merry Christmas!

Its Christmas Evening!
Time to celebrate! In my home country Denmark they celebrated Little Christmas Evening Yesterday.  And this is really when all the traditions begin.  As I have done to Rebecca over the years, and she has discovered herself, there are so many Christmas traditions in my home land.  So when I started making “rullepølse” (rolled, spiced sausage…) and leverpostej (liver pate) earlier this week she didn’t blink an eye.  And when I decided that we should head to Solvang Yesterday to get some Danish cookies and candies she understood.  Back “home” we will celebrate by cooking, eating and drinking for a week+.  Rebecca and I have enjoyed it may times at my sisters 100+ years old half-timbered farm home overlooking the fjord in Denmark.  Heading to the 800 year old white church while snowing on Christmas evening is another great tradition.
This newsletter will be a little more personal than usual.  But I think it is the right time for that!  For about five years now I have been writing to you about the beauty of farming and winemaking – with great friends and wine lovers. But lets reflect a little bit…

A Tough Year…
Its been a very different year for all of us. A very challenging one and for most people probably the hardest one ever.
We all believe that the coming year will be different, but our minds and hearts are still where they should be!  And we all know that the next time we celebrate this Holiday we will hug harder, sing louder, stay longer, think deeper, smile and laugh more and realize how important our family and friends are!  Especially when we can be with them.
As we all know this crisis has impacted so many families one way or another.  If you have lost someone close to you our warmest thoughts goes out to you.  It’s been a real tough year for all of us!  But we will get through it and “through the years we all will be together” will become a reality again!

But Farming And Winemaking Goes On!
I love walking though the vineyard at any time of the year.  It is simply so life confirming to see how the vines, the soil, the insects and the microbial life changes from season to season.  And although the vineyard looks “dead” it is not.  A month ago we seeded the rows between the wines with great organic cover crop (bell beans, several different peas, vetch, oats and rye) and we are now observing how they are sprouting out – within weeks it will be an ocean of nitrogen and potassium sources.  Good conscious farming.
And in the winery the year is wrapped up but we are working on getting the first 2020 wines ready. As many of you know we have run out of 2019 Rose of Syrah, Viognier as well as Riesling – so its time to get the new wines ready. We are bottling them at the end of January so stay tuned…
All for now!

So with the duck in the oven, red cabbage cooking, a glass of bubbles in hand and a sunset over the vineyard Rebecca and I are wishing you all

A VERY MERRY, MERRY CHRISTMAS!
AND A TOAST TO AN AWESOME NEW YEAR!

Thankful & Grateful

Dear Ampelos Family, 

Sitting here on an early Sunday morning with coffee in hand looking over the valley where the first sunlight is gently hitting La Purisima Mountains. Nice and relaxing! Harvest is complete and last week Jesse and Matt filled the last barrels: 172 in total this year! Harvest was a good one: Yields a little above average, pickings and winemaking was nicely spread out and although the world is in crisis we will think back at 2020 harvest as a highlight of the year. Low pH and high acidity on everything and many batches came in with low, well balanced sugar levels. Colors and flavors are already very promising. 

Thanksgiving…lots to be thankful for

We had a few friends over and of course, enjoyed some amazing wines. Rebecca and I enjoy good wines and it is fun to open things from our cellar with good friends. We kicked off with a Heidsieck Monopole Rose – great dry bubbles. Then a very surprising 1996 Kistler Sonoma Coast Chardonnay and although it had an amber hue the flavors were amazing and still young. Wow! We moved on to an Anderson Valley Pinot Noir made by our old friend Vern Toulouse – dark fruit and nice spices followed by the wine of the evening: 1998 Mazy-Chambertin Grand Cru from Esmonin. Next up was the unusual Blaufrankisch from Ken Volk and onto Bordeaux: a beautiful 1996 Lynch Bages from Paulliac (always been a favorite red wine for us from this area) followed by a big, bold 1999 Duckhorn Merlot. Finally for dessert a 2007 Quinta do Tedo Port. Half of the wines vintage started with a “1”! What an amazing lineup and a great way to celebrate this special day! Rebecca did her magic in the kitchen….

Wrapping up in the vineyard

The vines have done their job for the year and they are checking out for the winter. Leaves are turning yellow>orange>brown and dropping. We have cultivated the soil to be able to plant the seeds for the cover crop and now we are just waiting for the winter rain to kick in. Next week it is time for the biodynamic cow manure spray (BD 500) and we will hand apply the rich cover crop to the vines throughout the vineyard. 

Time to connect and stay in touch

Rebecca and I have never in our lives had so much communication with our siblings –in US, Denmark and Greece – as during this crisis. We all got the technology challenges figured out and every second Sunday I am on Zoom with my family checking up on things. I know most of us are doing this and somehow it is amazing to see how important we are to each other. We have time to care about people dear to us – it is such a beautiful thing! It is also a great time to stay in touch with, YOU, our passionate wine lovers and friends. We are already working on the next series of virtual tasting shows.

Grateful this holiday season Thank you! We can’t say thank YOU enough for your support of our small business!  It is because of your love and support that we have been able to keep our entire team working throughout this pandemic! Cellar, vineyard, tasting room and admin has been rock solid throughout this time and we are so grateful.With the holidays upon us we are excited about our special offerings that feature our delicious wines AND support 3 other local small businesses!We have partnered with Paso Almonds, 24 Blackbirds Chocolate and BoCo Designs for truly personal holiday gifts.  Warmest regards, Peter & Rebecca All Things Ampelos Ampelos Cellars

We Are Rolling!

It’s Art and Science
It’s an exciting, yet very challenging time of the year! I (along w Rebecca) need to make picking decisions, but using my senses is not what they taught me at engineering school – it was all about numbers. Deciding when to pick grapes challenges your senses to assess leaf colors, feel of the clusters, seed development, grape flavors, texture, tannins, acids etc. and at the same time we measure the sugar (=brix) and pH (related to acids)And based on that we make most critical decision of the year: When to pick!  Thursday we recorded a video in the vineyard where Rebecca and I talked about this and it will be available on our website this week.This past Friday we kicked off our new series Wine School 101: “How To Be The Virtual Harvest Crew”. It was the first of 8 lessons in how to get those grapes to the glass. During this “semester” we will take you through Math, Chemistry, Science and more! We PROMISE it will be the most fun you have ever had in school! The school supply list is easy… WINE! Join us!
Each Friday at 4:30 PM PST Rebecca and I will host “class”. We will start with a harvest event and finish with tasting an Ampelos wine with you. Professors’ Work are excited to get our virtual shows going again!

Challenging Weather…
Yes, it has been an unusual weather…as we say every year.  There is no usual year – they are all different.  Spring and summer were nice and relatively mild, but then came August with 10 hot days.  We know how to prepare for it by adding a little extra water so we are prepared.  After the 10 days of heat it got nice and chilly and then, BOOM the heat kicked in again!  Right now it is a sizzling 115F outside – may be the hottest we have ever recorded! Since the leaf canopy is still in good shape this will accelerate the maturing of the grapes and we are gearing up to harvest this coming week!

Umbrellas and Asphalt 
The mandatory outdoor operations of restaurants and tasting rooms in California has gotten many of us into a creative mode!  Cool fences, lots of wine barrels, cozy corners on raw asphalt, hay bales, colorful umbrellas and happy servers that are excited to be working again.  It’s really a pleasure to go out these days – and we are getting used to the masks, hand sanitizers, etc.  Restaurants and wine bars are getting curious about new releases and finding wine treasures in the valley.  We have had a handful of wine buyers here the last couple of weeks and it is so exciting to share our wines with them looking over the Sta. Rita Hills valley and our Ampelos vineyard. This valley and our vineyard are so special and when they get to experience the terroir of where our wines are crafted it is something they never forget!

First Impressions
A week ago we brought in the first Pinot Noir (for red wine) and they are already towards the end of fermentation.  This morning Rebecca and I handled the punch-dows, sugar checking and other winery work. We are pleased to share that our first impressions of the 2020 vintage are stellar! Lots of color, nice flavor concentration and already an amazing balance.  We are getting really excited about this vintage!(The picture above shows the gorgeous purple “foam” that bubbles up when we “punch down” the fruit during fermentation.)

Stay safe out there, be real good to everyone around you…and enjoy a nice glass of Ampelos wine!
See you Friday…Cheers!Peter & Rebecca

Getting Ready!

It is getting closer

This is the most exciting time of the year in the vineyard:  Harvest is coming!  With excitement and a lot of work we have been following the vines as they have gone through their almost magical transition from just a little bud in March to now having up to 10 feet long bright, green branches with dark clusters hanging at the bottom.  So when Rebecca and I see the pickup trucks hauling picking bins of clusters down 246 we get that exiting feeling in the stomach: Its getting close!  Time to dust off the refractometer and pH reader and start checking the numbers.  Time to squeeze clusters in zip-lock bags and taste the juice. And this week was a pretty warm week here in Santa Rita Hills so the grapes are getting ready.

Jesse and Matt is making sure that winery equipment gets assembled, cleaned and fine tuned. Jesus and Chencho is checking tractors, cleaning bins and chasing birds away. Yes, harvest is coming!

First pick

Speaking of harvest, we actually did the first pick Monday morning at 3 AM.  For five years now we have been working with our good friend Norm Yost who gets grapes from us, makes a batch of Blanc de Noir sparkling wine and we get half of the bottles two years later.  Grapes for sparkling wines are usually picked weeks earlier than for red/white wines to get higher acids and less sugar. The flavors were great and for the geeks out there, here are the numbers: 19.6 brix, 3.07 pH, 9.3g/L total acidity and 4.12 g/L malic acid.

Rebecca and I felt so good about being out in the vineyard with the crew to get started and it is always a special feeling to haul the grapes out of the vineyard.

Want to be part of the harvest tema?  

Introducing the Virtual Harvest Crew Series at Ampelos!

From the Grapes to the Glass

We have now completed close to 40 virtual wine tasting shows – starting to get a hang of it….  At our brainstorming session with Heather and Cobie the other day we decided to introduce an exciting virtual tasting series for the fall:  Winemaking!  Let’s share this exciting process all the way from picking decisions, harvesting, crushing, fermentation, racking, pressing and all the way up to barrel aging with you all!  We will introduce our weekly Virtual Harvest Crew in an upcoming email – so stay tuned.  A fun way you to be a member of the harvest team!

We will be doing these weekly at 4:30 PM PST and will be including video clips from the week. And off course we will be opening a bottle of wine and get your weekend started with wine, video and a toast!

Fires!

Based on the 11000 lightnings we had last weekend the state is now under serious fire attacks. We thank all of you for checking with us but we are doing fine. The closest fires are in Santa Clarita about 100 miles east of us. But we are in touch with our friends up and Napa and Sonoma and we worry about them.

Picture above is from Thursday evening where we had a bit of smoke in the valley. Gone the next morning!

Better Late Than Never…

What happened?

I know it has been a while since you heard from me late. Nothing earth shaking but just a lot going on…including vacation. I know that many of you have been following Rebecca and I as we traveled up the coast and into Montana but that is a different story. This newsletter I wrote a couple of weeks ago and I decided to send it out anyway. But more will follow soon – since so much is happening right now. Good things!

Sunday in Montana…

Its Sunday morning again.  Sitting her with my morning coffee but at a different place.  At 9000 feet looking over the gorgeous Big Sky valley in Montana.  Rebecca and I are hanging out here for a few days at our good friend John Wagner’s place – and it is stunning.

After three months working seven longs days a week to keep the Ampelos wheels turning we thought it would be good to get away for some days.  Every two years for the last decade we have been visiting Montana and we just love it up here.  The mountains, the rivers, the light evenings, the valleys and the new frontier appearance and spirit that still lives here.  Great time to hang out during the nice summer months – the winters and long and brutal (we hear).

Lots of fun and hard work: The Ampelos Wine Channel

Its been an interesting journey the last few months.  Rebecca and I have learned that “stubborn optimism” is the key to keep things going!  Many of you have joined in on the over 30 Virtual Wine Tastings we have done via Zoom so far.  Not only in English but I have done 8 of them in Danish as well for our great wine supporters in my home country.  Check out our website under Events/Virtual Tastings where there are links to the videos.  Not super quality but it’s the real thing.  The two of us have been packing, shipping and hauling boxes to FedEx store.  We have been posting on Social Media, doing podcast and wine tasting interviews, assessing cluster levels for the upcoming harvest, finding good and conscious winemakers for the excess grapes we will have.  And we are constantly in a (stubborn optimistic) discussion of how the two of us can keep it all together and still feed the families that depend on us.  Somehow it looks like we will make it through these crazy times.

Back at the ranch….

I am staying in daily contact with Jesus and Chencho in the vineyard and everything is in good shape.  The first color change (veraison) happened a few days ago and I cant wait to get back home and work on the final preparations for the upcoming harvest.  Looks like a great one coming up!

One Crazy Summer…

Change Of Plans…

OK, we had planned for this newsletter to go out Sunday – but suddenly our plans for the day changed. Sitting on my sofa working on emails as I looked over the sunny valley I noticed a little smoke coming up. Not a good thing at this time of the year. I raced over to 246 and noticed the fire developing. 5 hours later it had burned through almost 1000 acres before the fire fighters got it under control. What a crazy afternoon as I did my best to guide them through John Sebastiano Vineyard. The vineyard blocks survived pretty well, but most of the rest on the ranch burned down. Sad picture – I can see the black field (pic below) from our sofa. 

It’s Summer Time In The Vineyard

Things are great in the vineyard: The shoots have been growing fast and have now almost reached their full length. When flowering started a month ago we had some strong winds, but our worries were put to bed as we had a fast fruit set and very little shatter. The tiny clusters are now growing like crazy and it looks like a real good crop level. Jesus and Chencho have just finished shoot positioning and tucking and tomorrow we start leaf pulling. All those delicate and crucial fine tuning tasks that give us amazing grapes at harvest.

Bottling Time

Monday our face masked, good friends joining us for bottling and we got the 2017 ‘Lambda’ Pinot Noir and 2017 Syrache (Syrah/Grenache) to its final destination: The bottles! Always such a good feeling when we wrap up at the end of the day with a glass of wine and enjoy the new pallets of finished wines stacked up at the winery.  

We Are Open!This week our governor gave us the OK to open tasting rooms for business as usual. We celebrated with sparkling wine for everyone. Friends and customers joined us and it was great to feel that things are getting closer to normal.Come out and see us Thursday – Monday.

 June Virtual Tastings Go On…Rebecca and I have now done over 20 Virtual Wine Tastings over Zoom and are still having a blast. Two weeks ago our good friend, Wine Enthusiast journalist Matt Kettmann joined us for a virtual Pinot Noir clone tasting and blending. We had a great time and together with several hundred wine lovers out there we tasted 2018 barrel samples and created blends from the clones. A very fun time and a great way to stay connected! 

In the meantime, Rebecca and I have also started to go out again. Lunch in Los Olivos, dinner in Los Alamos and brunch in Lompoc. With face mask and sanitizer we are connecting with old friends – and it’s a good feeling that life goes on.

Be safe out there and enjoy life and let’s raise a glass tonight! 

Cheers!Peter & Rebecca

May Flowers…

May is a great time in the vineyard! The vines are growing as fast as they can – sometimes you can see it from day to day. The clusters are growing, too. They turn from fragile little things with a size like a fingernail to several inches long in a matter of weeks and then suddenly one day as I am walking in block 1 or 9 I spot the first tiny flowers. Almost overnight it seems like I see them everywhere. Vines are self-pollinating so we don’t need bees, but a little heat and a little breeze is fine. Too much wind can become a problem and the storms we had last week got me nervous, but things are looking fine.

Virtual Tastings! Now that’s fun. Rebecca and I have now done a Friday Happy Hour Virtual Tasting for the last 7 weeks – ever since California started the Shelter-In-Place. We select four wines that we send out to our great, loyal customers and each Friday at 4:30 PM we open a bottle together, talk, tell stories, show around the vineyard or ranch and have fun. It’s really been a great time for us and given us an opportunity to bring different parts of the ranch/vineyard/winery into everyone’s home.

In two weeks we will be doing a special Pinot Noir barrel tasting and blending session! Now that’s different! I am also doing a similar series with our many Ampelos fans in Denmark: 7 PM Copenhagen time – which means that on Saturdays I pop the first bottle of wine at 8 AM! Serious work…

We are all in difficult times and trying to do our best to keep the wheels turning. As the crisis kicked in Rebecca and I took a serious look at our financial situation to make sure we could stay financially sustainable (here is that word again). Working with landlords, consultants, employees and distributers and using our IT background (although that was way in the past) we developed a good plan and so far it has worked well! We have promised Jesus and Chencho who takes care of the vineyard and ranch throughout the year that they will keep their job and still be able to feed their families. The same with Jesse, Matt and Lucy in the winery and our tasting room. We are so lucky to have these awesome people as a part of the Ampelos family and we could not do it without all of you Ampelos fans out there!!!

Last, but far from least, Rebecca and I decided that we needed to add a little more happiness/chaos/energy to our life so we found another dog: Athena. A choc lab/pit bull mix that was found in a field outside Bakersfield. What a great dog she is – still a puppy! Driving Artemis and Apollo crazy at times but also making them younger. We get lots of laughs out of watching her and the crew. And enjoying her cuddling with the new family….

Be safe out there and enjoy life and let’s raise a glass tonight!

Cheers!

Peter & Rebecca

It’s a Great Day! It’s Earth Day!

I had a great morning in the vineyard. No one told the soil or plants about the crisis! The vines are as happy as they can be. The soil is full of worms and energy. Yes, it feels good to be a farmer. The nice rain we have had this spring is really showing right now – we are about 25% above average! And it came with a nice pace: Rain for a day – dry for a week – repeat. We have finished mowing the cover crop and disking it into the soil. It provides a ton of natural fertilizers for Mother Earth.

Downtown LA

Its Earth Day! Let’s think about it for a second: it is so much about how can we take better care of the Earth – we really need it! So interesting to hear the reports coming out about clean air in China, LA etc. The other night when I took the dogs out for a last lawn visit I looked at the stars and planets as I usually do and although we have pretty clean air up here I swear that I saw Venus as bright as I have ever seen it. Wow!

We are almost done with bud break and some Pinot Noir and Riesling shoots are already over a foot long. The leaf colors tells us that the vines are healthy and the soil full of nutrients. It’s a true please to see how nature moves on and the little clusters are nicely developing. Could be another great year here in Santa Rita Hills!

Rebecca and I went into think tank a few weeks ago to discuss how we were going to ensure that Ampelos fares as well though this crisis as possible. Our sibling reunion with spouses in Spain got cancelled. My annual trip to Denmark go cancelled. What now? We decided to focus on enhancing our digital relationship with all of you through social media etc. but most important we started an ongoing series of Virtual Wine Tastings using Zoom. Every Friday afternoon we are now hosting a tasting and vineyard tour – three episodes in so far. We are having a blast putting them on. And last Saturday I started a similar series in Danish! Come join us.

Most important – please raise a glass to Mother Earth tonight!

Peter & Rebecca

 

 

Ampelos Wine Channel – Virtual Wine Tasting

Live From The Vineyard!

WOW! That was absolutely fun! Last Friday we had out first Ampelos Wine Channel – Virtual Tasting – Episode 1. Rebecca and I had a blast from the chicken coop and the cover crop talking about how we got into this, our farming and organic fertilizing while we were enjoying the 2018 SRH Pinot Noir with you. We almost blew the roof off on our Zoom subscription which is pretty amazing for the inaugural run! We had Ampelos supporters from all over US as well as several from Europe participating – even though it was late there. What a great way for us to start the weekend!

Rebecca and I have been working on answering all the questions, but there are a few that we will cover in the upcoming episodes. We also learned that we need to improve on the sound and the video and we have purchased additional AV gadgets for the upcoming Fridays and we just managed to get the 1GB video file compressed and uploaded to YouTube – here is the link in case you were not on the Virtual Tasting: https://youtu.be/fDMh0Zv0sSo

So to those of you that are already dialed in for our virtual tasting program: Thanks so much for being part of this, having fun and enjoying our wines.

See You Today at 4:30 PM PST / 7:30 PM EST

It’s been raining a lot, but we hope to still be in the vineyard…

To the rest of you: If you want to join in we can still get you connected!

Join the fun here:

 https://www.ampeloscellars.net/virtual-wine-tastings.html

Finally:  Private Virtual Tastings Available

Do you have a special Ampelos bottle in your cellar you have been waiting to drink? Time to celebrate a birthday or anniversary while staying in?

Let’s celebrate together! We are offering private virtual tastings by appointment.

You pick the wine and we will join you via Zoom. This is your time… we can cover wines, winemaking, barrel aging, wine collecting, farming, viticulture… the possibilities are endless!

Send Rebecca an email to book a date today!