7x7 Magazine Names Bubble Room One of "50 Things to Do in Wine Country Before You Die"

Always ready with a fresh angle, 7x7 Magazine has done it again with their "50 Things to Do in Wine Country Before You Die" list and we're thrilled to see our Bubble Room has made the list. 

The Bubble Room is our beautifully appointed full-service tasting salon here on the grounds of J Vineyards & Winery in Healdsburg, California. (Here's a 360 degree view of it.)

At the Bubble Room, guests enjoy three delicious courses of peak season food paired to J wines. (The current menu is here.) Reservations are recommended. Reserve online now or call us at 707-431-5430.

The Bubble Room was also recently named one of 7x7's top ten unique tasting room experiences. 

We love that 7x7 included a few other Healdsburg favorites on its list, too, like enjoying live music and dancing on Tuesdays in the Plaza, "while indulging in food from local merchants like pulled pork sandwiches." (Although, please note this is a summertime event series, so it's not currently happening.)

So, make a day of it and visit J today!

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This Just In! California 2012 Winegrape Crop Even Larger Than Expected

The ever vigilant Jeff Quackenbush of the North Bay Business Journal checked in with the Sonoma County Winegrape Commission this week and learned the 2012 winegrape harvest might be even better than expected this year with tonnage anywhere between 15 and 20 percent more than initial estimates.

"Now it's about tank space and barrel capacity than weather," said Nick Frey, President of the Sonoma County Winegrape Association.  

That's certainly been true here at J, where we've actually wrapped up our harvest. Last week, Winemaker Melissa Stackhouse was waiting for tank space before giving the green light to finish final picking of the Jewell Ranch Chardonnay grapes.

The Jewell Ranch Vineyard is located on a rolling ridgetop near the idyllic town of Graton. After pressing, the Chardonnay goes into a selection of oak barrels from the Vosges region of France, which impart an elegant vanilla character to the wine. (Pear and butterscotch flavors are this wine's other most distinctive notes.)

Jeff reports that crop yields are up in Mendocino County's Anderson Valley growing region too — about 20 to 25 percent above the average year.

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Three Inspired Sparkling Wine and Cheese Pairings

Holiday party season is just around the corner, so what better time to think about festive sparkling wine and food pairings? Here are three inspired ideas to get your (cheese) wheels turning. 

• Tête de Moine and J Vintage Brut. A great conversation starter, Tête de Moine or "Monk's Head" is a semi-hard Swiss cheese with a deliciously nutty aroma and a highly unusual presentation. To fully develop Tête de Moine's flavors, your cheese monger carefully pares it with a special shaving device called a Girolle. The result is a thin, delicate rosette of cheese with curled edges — a bit like an oyster mushroom. In this form, Tête de Moine has a deliciously silky body that melts in your mouth. The name of this cheese from the Swiss monks of Bellelay who began making it in the year 1292. Tête de Moine is fantastic with a dry sparkling wine like our J Vintage Brut, which has bright pear and citrus characters.
  


• Gougère and J Brut Rosé. Gougère are puffy little balls of savory cheese pastry —  delicious served right out of the oven with a chilled glass of our J Brut Rosé. We especially love these Laura Chenel Chevre Gougere because the slight tang of the gougère's goat cheese tastes so delicious with the Brut Rosé's vibrant fruit flavors and crisp bubbles. This is such a fun pairing and guests absolutely love it. Gougère are surprisingly easy to make, too. The dough freezes well, so just make some ahead, take out of the freezer in the morning, then pop a batch in the oven a half hour before guests start to arrive. Gruyere, Comté, and Emmentaler cheeses are great in gougère as well.
  
  
• Cheese and Charcuterie Platter with J Cuvée. One of the most festive food trends right now is the cheese and charcuterie platter, a great way to engage guests and show off local producers. The easiest way to pull a platter together is to include a diverse array of selections: one fresh cheese like a Burrata, a soft cheese like Brie, a semi-soft cheese like Friulano, a hard cheese like Parmigiano Reggiano, and a veined cheese like a Gorgonzola. Cured meats like salami and cooked items like pancetta will round out your platter. Treat the cheeseboard like a centerpiece and flank it with a few buckets of chilled J Cuvée. With aromas of crushed hazelnut and flavors of lemon zest, Fuji apples, and Bartlett pears, the Cuvée is a versatile sparkling wine that will pair beautifully with all your platter selections.

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Harvest News: Wrapping Things Up!

"All estate fruit is in," Winemaker Melissa Stackhouse tells us and there's just a bit of weekend picking left to do before the 2012 harvest season will be complete. 

Wine country is buzzing with what exceptional quality we're seeing in the fruit this year and we're anticipating that some truly outstanding wines will come of it. (Melissa, for instance, was recently heard using the word "spectacular" to refer to our 2012 Russian River Valley Pinot Noir.) 

Come to think of it, now would be a great time to join Club J — our wine club — so you're sure to be first in line for the special 2012 releases down the road.

You'd think the conclusion of harvest would mean a brief respite for Team J, but our days are actually getting busier as the holiday season approaches. It’s that time of year when people are making sure there’s plenty of wine on hand for end-of-year festivities and of course it's an especially popular time of year for sparkling wine.

It puts us in a festive mood  to be able to help with these holiday preparations. If you'd like some advice about which varietal or sparkling wines would go well with your holiday dinners this year, just get in touch. We'd love to hear what you have planned for the season. 

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Four Fun Things to Do in Sonoma This Weekend

Sonoma County's weekend weather is looking as if it'll be fairly Octoberrific on Saturday — temperatures in the low 70's and just enough crispness to make things feel autumnal. Here are our top picks for having fun in wine country this weekend.

1. Discover a New Way to See Art. ARTrails is an incredibly unique chance to visit the studios of over 150 Sonoma County artists on a free, self-guided tour. Grab an ARTrails catalog from the Santa Rosa Visitors Bureau or peruse the online directory and spend a day or two checking out some of the best art in Sonoma County. ARTrails takes place on the second and third weekends of October from 10am to 5pm. More info here.
   
   
2. Do Some Savvy Shopping. Over 60 artisans, craftspeople, and small businesses will be on hand at the 2nd Annual Savvy Shopper Expo, exhibiting an array of gifts for the whole family. This is being held at the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts in downtown Santa Rosa, which is also another location where you can pick up one of the ARTrails catalogs mentioned above.


3. Enjoy Wine and Food Pairings on a Picturesque Patio. The wonderful J Terrace experience will only be available for another few weeks in 2012, so come and enjoy it now, while you can! You and a friend sit under a white canvas umbrella on our warm, creekside patio while sharing a platter of peak season foods (current menu is here) accompanied by J wines. Cost is $40 per couple ($35 for Club J members). The Terrace experience is available through October and reservations are recommended, but walk-ins are welcome, too. Call us at 707.431.5430 to make a reservation or request a reservation online. 


4. Taste Something Special. If you're more in the mood for an indoor experience, J Vineyards is offering a brand new wine tasting experience  — the Legacy Tasting — featuring small lot and library style wines. Click here for the full Legacy Tasting menu. The Legacy Tasting is offered daily on the hour and costs $30 per person or $10 if you're a Club J member at the Signature level. More details here.  

If you're not able to make it to Sonoma this weekend, consider visiting on Sunday, October 21st for the incredibly fun Pinot on the River Festival where over 100 top West Coast producers — including J Vineyards, of course — will be pouring special, limited production Pinots. It's a fantastic day of casual wine and artisan food tasting. The $75 ticket covers everything and can be purchased online.

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Fall Food & Wine Pairing of the Day: Gruyère and J Vineyards' 2011 "Hoot Owl" Viognier

"Who are you, October," asks poet Al Young, and we'd really love know the answer. The nights grow crisp and our appetites sharper during this mysterious month, so for the next few weeks we'll be featuring food and wine pairings that celebrate the unique alchemy of autumn.

One of our favorite pairings this fall is a nice Gruyère with our 2011 Viognier from the famed Hoot Owl Vineyard in the Alexander Valley. 
 
Gruyère, of course, is a Swiss cheese with a mild nutty flavor that perfectly rides the line between subtle and distinctive. It plays beautifully against the fresh fruit aromas of the Hoot Owl Viognier and the wine's lush mouth of silky vanilla mingles seamlessly with Gruyère's gentle earthiness. 

Gruyère is one of the best cheeses for baking, so we love it in a gratin like this Swiss Chard and Sweet Potato Gratin from Smitten Kitchen or this Wild Mushroom and Onion Gratin by Epicurious. A bubbling layer of Gruyère would make the perfect topping for this delightfully dark French Onion Soup from The Kitchn and we've even been known to succumb to the guilty pleasures of this Gruyère Spinach and Artichoke Dip.

Gratins make great party fare because many of them can be prepared the day before and popped in the oven just before guests start arriving. Serve with thinly sliced toasted baguette and you have an easy, mingle-friendly first course. If you'd like to step up the celebratory atmosphere, serve your gratin with some J Cuvée 20 Brut, too. Enjoy!

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New Report: An Exceptionally Great Grape Harvest This Year

According to a new report, the 2012 growing season is as "textbook perfect" as many vintners can remember. With harvest well underway, most are reporting above normal crop yields and high quality fruit. 

Our own Melissa Stackhouse, VP of Winemaking for J Vineyards and Winery, is quoted in the report. 

"The quality of the fruit is nothing short of exceptional," she said.

Other winemakers, too, are reporting ideal weather, healthy bunch weights, and superlative grapes. 

"Mother Nature is helping to make this an exceptional harvest," said Jim Mickelson, President of Kunde Family Vineyards.  

The report represents the perspective of vintners throughout the region. It's being issued as a series of updates by the Sonoma County Vintners and Sonoma County Winemakers.

Here at J, the sparkling wine portion of the harvest ended in mid-September and transitioned smoothly into Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Pinot Gris. We expect to be finished picking grapes before the end of October.

It's a banner year in the making, so keep your eye on 2012 wines from J Vineyards & Winery!

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This Just In! New J Vineyards Legacy Tasting Now Available

Great news! J Vineyards is offering a brand new wine tasting experience  — the Legacy Tasting — designed to showcase our truly special releases in the elegant setting of our exclusive Legacy Lounge, located in the J Visitor Center.

Each year the J winemaking team crafts a number of specialty releases to complement the J portfolio. With the new Legacy Tasting, you'll enjoy these small lot and library style wines, like our 2009 Nicole's Vineyard Pinot Noir (which recently received a 91 from Ken's Wine Guide) and our 2003 Late Disgorged J Vintage Brut — an intricate, highly nuanced marriage of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier fruit. 

Click here for the full Legacy Tasting menu.

The Legacy Tasting is offered daily on the hour and costs $30 per person or $10 if you're a Club J member at the Signature level. Complimentary Legacy Tastings are available for Club J members at the Experience, Elegance, and Luxe levels.  

Artisan cheese and charcuterie plates are also available with the Legacy Tasting for an additional fee. Click here to make a reservation. 

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Twitter Suddenly Sparkling with J Wines

Over the last week, it seems like every Tweet we spot out there is about one of our sparkling wines. Shorter days seem to have put J Wine fans into an especially festive mood. 

• Rick Bakas is a forward-thinking wine connoisseur with a big social media following, so we were thrilled when he tweeted out his domestic sparkling wine picks for fall, which included our J Brut Cuvée.


• Kim's Gems is a Stella & Dot stylist who tweeted, "Making chocolate dipped strawberries and treats to go with our J Winery Brut Rosé to celebrate with an awesome group of Stella & Dot stylists." Now, the Stella & Dot stylists know a thing or two about great parties, so we were honored to be included.
  


• The Chef Series folks from KABC Radio used the Emmys as an occasion to pop the cork on some J Brut Rosé and hang out with friends.
  
• Deann kept it simple when she tweeted, "Relaxing by the fire with some J Brut Rosé sparkling wine." Warm fire, cool bubbles. Clearly, Deann knows how to relax in style.

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"It's like being in another world of food and wine." Grape Camp Visits J Vineyards

J Founder & President Judy Jordan Toasts the Grape Campers

Yesterday J Vineyards hosted a unique group of 34 highly educated wine lovers for a special tour and tasting. The tour was a part of Grape Camp — a three-day immersion program offered by Sonoma County Winegrowers. 

Part education, part vacation — Grape Camp is a fascinating deep dive into the world of wine and how it's made. Participants spend three days learning from master winemakers and vineyardists, taking insider tours of wineries and getting hands-on experience — from picking and sorting grapes to blending wine by hand. The program is designed to be both informative and relaxing, so educational segments are punctuated by delicious meals in special locations throughout Sonoma. At the end of each day, participants unwind at the Applewood Inn. 

Yesterday Grape Campers were met at the front door by J Founder and President Judy Jordan and VP of Winemaking Melissa Stackhouse then gave our visitors a tour and tasting. Afterward, everyone headed to lunch at Relish Culinary School in Healdsburg. 

J Winemaker Melissa Stackhouse Chats with the Grape Campers

People who participate in Grape Camp rave about it. One participant said, "No book, no magazine article can capture what the experience is really like." Another described it as an "incredible line-up of first-rate venues and hosts. I really felt like a special insider." 

The 2012 Grape Camp did sell out, so if you're considering participation, we recommend booking your spot early!

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