La Honda Winery Blog

The wine crush is coming, and when it does we’ll be busy 24/7; in the vineyards harvesting fruit, and in the winery running lab tests, and punching down and pumping over every 4 - 6 hours. It’ll be November before we get some sleep. But right now in the vineyards, verasion is over, and so the perfect moment to take a break and smell the roses before all hell breaks loose.

Up before dawn, Steve Maller, friend and noted professional photographer (www.stevemaller.com), and I headed out to capture images of our winery’s best local vineyards - to Saratoga, Los Altos Hills, Woodside, and La Honda we went looking for that perfect shot of Lonehawk, Marrone, Quartermoon, Silent Hills, Winding Way, and our La Honda estate vineyards.

By mid-afternoon, we were down off of the mountains and looking for food. We ducked into The Village Pub in Woodside (www.thevillagepub.net) , and asked for and received clearance to take a table even though we were dusty in our shorts and t-shirts. We had in mind a quick snack. Steve immediately began downloading the vineyard images onto his laptop, and before we new it a small crowd of Village Pub staff had gathered.

Out of that fray stepped noted sommelier K. Maxwell Klassen (max@thevillagepub.net) who jumped into action and lead us through some very choice menu items and some amazing wine pairings. Without exchanging a word, Steve and I knew we had fallen into the hands of a food and wine genius, and we silently put ourselves in Max’s hands. Over the course of the next two hours a barrel select Riesling from the Mosel was macthed perfectly with a charcuterie plate, a sensational Pinot Noir was matched with the perfect Halibut, and then the coup de grace - a sweet yellow peach topped with chilled shaved fois gras and matched expertly with a sumptious Sauterne.

For a local winemaker, I could not have asked for better way to set the stage for the upcoming crush. Thank you photographer Steve Maller, and thank you genius sommelier Max Klassen!

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 17th, 2008 at 12:08 pm and is filed under Winemaker notes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.