Here at Hafner Vineyard, we grow three red Bordeaux varieties (Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec and Petit Verdot) and from those varieties we make two distinctly different wines - Cabernet Sauvignon and Next Red, our Malbec based blend. We thought it would be interesting to share why we decided to make these two wines, how they are different and what typical aromas we find in each.
Every July, our household and cellar team grow by one. We hire a young Frenchman as our winery intern for the harvest. He is between his second and third year at an agricultural university in Toulouse. He lives at our home with us and comes to work each day. We started this program in 1985, so Arthur Rebiere is our 34th intern. His internship is coming to an end, but he has made the most of his time here - exploring San Francisco, the Pacific coastline and Sonoma County. He and our dogs have become best friends.
We wanted to share a mid-Harvest update from our Winemaker Parke Hafner and Vineyard Manager David Huebel. We also created a fun video with sneak peeks from behind the scenes of the Chardonnay Harvest. Parke shares his thoughts on the benefits of an estate vineyard and how the Chardonnay is made. We hope you enjoy it!
Harvest is always an exciting time for everyone here at Hafner Vineyard and in our community. It's a moment that we've all been waiting for, the culmination of year's hard work. We start harvesting in the early morning when the grapes are cool. I love photographing these moments - bright lights illuminating the action surrounded by darkness. I came to work early one morning to capture some snapshots. Here I share a few of my favorites.
We always try to do the right thing to leave the planet better than we found it. Since we ship our wine from here to people at home, our wine takes many truck rides around the country, thus emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. As a team, we thought of different ways we could limit our carbon dioxide output. We decided that we would ship all our packages "carbon neutral" meaning we would buy offsets (investing in projects that capture carbon) to counter our output.
