Juicy Girls

Gretchen Neuman
VinoVerve Editor

When I bring home wine, it is generally white. Not because I don’t like red wine, but for during the week, I tend to avoid red wine because sometimes the tannins wreak havoc on my head. So imagine my husband’s surprise when I came home with a bottle of red wine on a Tuesday. Better yet, a California Cabernet Sauvignon which I generally view as too big a wine for most occasions (California wines generally get too much publicity).  After he had a sip, he understood.

The wine, The Girls in the Vineyard is silky smooth, intense and fruity.  The wine makers, Rob and Kat McDonald and Matt Stone believe in bringing “wines from the vines to you without any fuss and where possible do a good deed along the way”.  To that end, they do not have a fancy tasting room, waste money on advertising or excessive print materials.  What they do provide is wine produced from sustainably grown grapes from the Amber Knolls Vineyard, the bottles are made near the winery to lower to carbon footprint of the process and the capsules are recyclable.   Additionally, the winery makes a $2.50/bottle or $30/case donation to the non-profit of your choice for those customers who purchase directly, but it is available locally if you aren’t looking to buy in bulk. Check Good Grapes for instance.

One of the reasons that I decided to write about this particular wine is where the grapes are grown.  The Amber Knolls Vineyard is in the Red Hills Lake County AVA.  Kevin was a bit surprised to hear that there were hills in Lake County.. but only until I pointed out that this particular Lake County was located in California.  Of course, with twelve Lake Counties in the United States, it is easy enough to be confused.  This particular Lake County surrounds Clear Lake which is the largest natural lake completely within the State of California (Lake Tahoe is partly in Nevada).

“So,” Kevin asked me, “Who are the girls?  Are they the daughters of the owners?  Or their pets?”  HA!  As if!  The folks at The Girls in the Vineyard specifically promise as part of their pledge NOT to sell you a “lifestyle” to avoid showing you pictures of their pets.

The Girls, as they turn out are the vines themselves.

This entry was posted on May 5, 2010 at 12:01 am and is filed under cabernet sauvignon, California, Red Hills Lake County, Stephen T Colbert Memorial Better Know an AVA, wine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.