Is this the Romantic Part…Yet?
Why are we asking this now? Probably because we have started racking about 130 barrels of wine, and it is not fun .Twelve years ago – when we first decided that making wine – we figured that this would be a great, new career. After all, we were educated, trained as teachers and scientists – Chemistry – and had nowhere to go but up. Couple that to having lived in the Napa Valley for ten years, and seeing how easy it was to make wine, and get rich & famous. How could we not succeed? Robert Mondavi and Francis Ford Coppola lived in Napa, and did it. They were famous, and for good measure Italian. Twelve years later, we now know that the only thing we had in common with either of them, or dozens of other incredible winemakers in Napa, was that some of them were the Italian, but that was about it!
Nevertheless when we moved to the Central Coast of California, we saw winemaking as a great opportunity. Becoming winemakers had to be fun, romantic and profitable: Great reasons to become involved. We decided that we could learn to make good wine, then great wine, and then folks would be begging us to make more, and sell it to them, no matter how much it cost. We lived in an area that was young and vibrant in the wine making world There were opportunities for apprenticeships, small wineries that welcomed free labor, and a great university in town that had an oenology program. So we did what many folks do when they want to learn. We developed a small home winery, worked for free at a commercial winery, helped tend a neighbor’s vineyard, and basically learned the trade. We were making wine, and wine that seemed as good as much of the stuff that was around us. What we did not know, and never seemed to notice during the first few years was how much work it was, and how tired we were some nights. More than once we turned to each other and asked “Whose idea was this anyway?” We joked about that for years, and still today ask once in a while.
As we developed our talent, and became known to a small circle of colleagues, we made wine for ourselves, then for others. After about 3 years we could say that we were somewhat successful, but still had not answered the question: Is this the Romantic Part? That part is important for all who love wine regardless of whether they make it, drink it or both. We will get to that in the next NewsBlog, but right now I am too tired to write that part.
The Unified Wine & Grape Symposium
Just returned from the Symposium, which was attended by about 12,400 people from around the world, all related in some way to the wine industry. (I kept thinking if we could just sell a couple of bottles of wine to each person there, we could pay for the wine, and this website!) That said the meeting was great. We were on site to explore equipment for a new winery that we have been asked to help establish, and for which we will also be the winemakers. The variety of equipment, 
targeting both small and large wineries, laboratories, farmers, and wine enthusiasts was awesome – apparently the largest display in the Western hemisphere. Four of us walked about 10 miles in two days exploring, then re-exploring the equipment that would be needed for the new 5000 case winery. We accumulated at least 100-150 pages of equipment specifications, and pricing data that we now have to digest, preparatory to making recommendations to the family building the winery near Paso Robles California. De Angelis Wines has made wines for this group for a couple of years now, and we are quite proud to have been asked to take this on while still operating our nano-winery.
Our major interests were two fold: The first interest was crush pad equipment. This included de-stemmers, sorters, presses and tanks. We were especially impressed by the variety of de-stemmers on the market, as well as the creative sorting strategies 
available (One pictured above at right) . Of importance in this exploration was a consideration of available power, as well as power consumption and safety. Secondly, we concentrated on sanitation equipment, i.e. power barrel washers, instant hot water, steam generators, ozone generators, tank cleaning apparatus, etc.
Throughout we mentally envisaged our budget, and could not help but wonder how close we could, or would, come to our original cost estimates. That will be known only after we receive a number of proposals from the vendors, and after we have had an opportunity to digest them, and make reasonable counter offers. One thing we especially had our eye on each day was the press shown on the left. Very nice, and probably the price of a mid size SUV!
January 28, 2012
Launch
The De Angelis Wines site is being launched on January 8, 2012. It has been a long time coming, and we have worked hard to make the site interesting to wine and food lovers, as well as to those interested in the art and science of wine making. We are proud to be a small winery, dedicated to producing small lots of very fine wine. That same attention to detail that goes into making a few hundred cases of each of our wines has been applied to this site. Please feel free to contact us should there be any errors, omissions or confusion due to our postings. We will correct any errors immediately. We cannot do this alone. Our community is a large one, and we hope to keep growing, but not too much! For this initial period, we will sell wine and ship wine exclusively in California to folks who live in California!. We have had inquiries about our wines from states other than California, and would like to be able to ship to any state in the Union. We cannot do that at this time. We do not have enough wine!
January 6, 2012
Changes Coming!
Why are we already talking about changing, and just what is changing? Actually, It may be easier to tell you what is not changing. We shall continue to make hand crafted, small lots of wine. We shall take time for that process to occur, and we shall continue to allow our wines to age both in barrel, and in bottle before we release them – just as we always have done. The varieties we make will remain basically the same with a few new blends being introduced from time to time. We shall continue our quest for great fruit, and process it into fine wine.
We are changing the look and feel of our labels, our marketing materials, and our approach to presenting De Angelis Wines. As anyone who has seen our wines in restaurants and in wine shops knows, we have maintained a classical approach – relative to artwork and message – for the past 6 years. Changes began to be considered when we were told that our wines are very good, win in blind tastings, and are very reasonably priced especially considering their quality and scarcity. Huh? We were also told that our current labels, and marketing materials do not do justice to what is in the bottle. That floored us at first, but being willing to look at oneself critically is important. The more we looked, the more we began to understand that we really did need to update our look and feel. It was time for a change!
Developing this website is the first step. Becoming involved with a very talented label designer is the second. If you are reading this, the web site is finished and active. Once we settle on new labels and a new feel, we will make certain changes to the site so that a consistency is resident in all our marketing materials.
We are also often asked to add more information to the back label. We are going to do that, and that will be part of the coming changes. We are working on all of that now, and hope to have everything completed by Spring of 2012. We will be offering previews here, and will solicit input from other wine makers and our Fans. Stay tuned — It’s going to be fun!
December 31, 2011