In The Beginning . . .

Welcome to the first of a series of posts I hope to continue to do weekly on all things tercero wines! It’s been a fun ‘journey’ thus far, over 5 years in the making, to get to this point and Christie and I are VERY excited to be releasing our wines shortly!

A brief background . . . It’s 2003 and I’ve achieved all I really set out to do in the publishing field . . . It’s time for a change, but what?!?!?!? Christie suggested wine – ‘You seem to really like the stuff – why not make a career out of it?’

My first thought was wine sales – I had a strong sales and marketing background and this would have been the ‘easiest’ route into the business . . . but we discussed this, and Christie stood firm – ‘If you’re going to do this, do it right!’

Next came a call to UC Davis, to Judy Blevins, the student coordinator for the Dept. of Viticulture and Enology. The main thrust of her comments were that many people had an interest in wine, but without knowing what the day to day chores a winemaker is responsible for, how can one truly know if this is what he or she wanted to do?

Off to Temecula I went, landing a part time job with Maurice Carrie Winery under the guidance of Mike Tingley. It was through this experience that I gained a greater respect for the entire process, and it confirmed my desire to explore this career path. I enrolled in basic chemistry and biology classes at a local junior college in order to begin fulfilling the prerequisites to getting into the program at UC Davis. About 18 months later, the acceptance letter came and off I went . . . .

It needs to be noted at this time that I ‘commuted’ for about two years between Orange County, CA and UC Davis. I would live up in Davis from Monday through Thursday or Friday (depending upon the schedule that quarter) and then either fly or drive back down to Orange County for the weekend! At this time, we had children ages 1, 3 and 5 and my ‘saint for a wife’ Christie was raising all three of them herself during the week! Needless to say, I am deeply grateful to her for not only for what she handled in my absence, but for what she ‘brings’ to our family each and every day! Minor digression completed . . .

At UC Davis, I gained the technical and theoretical basis for my understanding of the winemaking process, as well as a much greater respect for the viticultural side of the equation. I took part in blending trials, made small lots of ‘experimental’ wines, assisted in research studies looking at wine and cheese pairings as well as different strains of brettanomyces (brett), and undertook thesis research work looking at tannin levels in syrah wines. All of this lead to the next phase of the process . . . landing a job!

I was fortunate to hook up with Blair Fox, who had just become head winemaker at Fess Parker Winery in the Santa Ynez Valley. Christie and I had talked about where to ‘relocate’ once my schooling was finished, and we both agreed that the Central Coast would be the ideal place for our family, which now included three young children. Though I had offers from a few wineries, the chance to work with Blair and the chance to work with a number of different grape varieties, especially rhone varieties, eventually made my decision an easy one. Therefore, in September, 2005, we relocated to Los Olivos and started the next chapter in our family life!

After getting past my ‘deer in the headlights’ look at ‘surviving’ my first full time harvest, we set our sights on harvest 2006 as the first for our new venture. We crushed approximately 10 tons that year – syrah, grenache, mourvedre, and a little grenache blanc – and put into barrel a whole lot of wine! I will not bore you with my winemaking details, but feel free to contact me and I’ll be happy to discuss this part of the process with you if you’d like!

We actually bottled about 80 cases of wine in 2007 – our first Grenache Blanc and our first Rose. These have sat in a warehouse since last June as ‘shiners’ – unlabeled wines. These will be our initial ‘library releases’ . . . (-:

Our labels have been designed – thanks to the initial concept from Christie and the artistic renderings of Jimmy Giokaris, my nephew – and are currently in the process of being reviewed by the government agency that has the responsibility of doing so. The printer is nearly ready to roll as soon as we give them the go ahead. Our bottles and screw caps have been ordered and should arrive by the end of this week. If all goes well, we’ll have our seven wines bottled, and our two previously bottled wines labeled, by the end of next week! We can’t wait!

I’ll hopefully post a few pictures of the bottling process next week, as well as more information about upcoming events. Feel free to either post questions and comments here or send them along to larry@tercerowines.com. Have a great day and week! Cheers