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The best way to tell when grapes are ready for winemaking, is to listen for "Yum" from your kids. |
What a Ride It’s Been So Far
1998
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Late, cold, small, great quality harvest — We crushed about seven tons each of spectacular chardonnay and pinot noir from Dutton Ranch with the help of many good friends. You know who you are and we thank you. The "get to know your partners" harvest.
1999
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Struggle through the unglamorous realities of bonding, financing, incorporating, and label design etc. Dan misses the KJ admin. departments.
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Blend and bottle our first vintage 350 cases of Chardonnay, and 342 of Pinot Noir.
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Late, great harvest — almost 20 tons each of Pinot and Chardonnay, and 2.8 tons of killer old vine Zin. This is getting serious.
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1999 Sonoma County Harvest Fair: Steve Dutton wins Young Farmer of the Year Award. Dan Goldfield wins 10 medals (5 gold, 3 silver and 2 bronze) for wines he made under the labels of La Crema and Hartford Court.
2000
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Dutton-Goldfield Winery is featured in Wine Enthusiast, Wine Spectator, Wine News and Food & Wine magazines (a tribute to our unpaid PR agent, Loie, who wrote our press release).
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Struggle through the unglamorous realities of ordering, invoicing, compliance and financial reporting (let’s not forget begging for bank loans) — Dan really misses the KJ admin. departments.
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Dutton-Goldfield Wines hit the road — we’re selling wine in Utah (think skiing), Colorado (think skiing again), Wyoming (ditto), New York, Southern Cal., Texas, Missouri (Loie’s home state), Minnesota, Arizona, as well as our home in Northern Cal. With so little to spread around we are holding a bit back specifically for our mailing list friends.
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Blend the beautiful 1999 vintage; almost 2,000 cases this year, including 5 barrels of "Freestone Hill" Pinot Noir, 6 barrels of "Rued Vineyard" Chardonnay, and 7 barrels of "Morelli Lane Vineyard" Zinfandel in addition to our larger blends of Dutton Ranch Chard and Pinot.
