Welcome to Borra Vineyards

Pumpkin Pickin'

2010-10-19T09:41:00.000-07:00

Like their wine industry fathers and fathers’ fathers, Steve and Bev Borra’s grandkids Dominic, Trevor, Chantz and neighbor Chase spent the summer as pumpkin and gourd growers among the family vineyards. And now their beautiful bounty has been harvested and is ready to head to market.

With some almost appearing like some sort of spaceship, they are all very unique and will be wonderful to decorate with or simply heat and eat.

The boys are selling them at the Borra Vineyards tasting room Fri – Sun from 12 – 5pm. So come on by the winery for a bottle or two to go along with some mighty fine pumpkin pickin’ while supplies last.

The Busiest Week

2010-10-08T12:23:00.000-07:00

“You will not see a busier week,” was how Borra Vineyards winemaker, Markus Niggli, described last week’s crush.

Much of the focus was on picking old vine Zinfandel, Barbera and Merlot to be shipped to eager wineries in the Midwest and back East, the same way Borra and other Lodi wineries have done for generations.

On Friday, following four days in a row of early-week temps just over 100˚ F, Borra’s top-notch field crew picked Merlot from the “backyard” Borra Vineyards Home Ranch on the north side of the winery, as well as some Barbera.

Inspection of the Merlot revealed small berries with many already raisined or completely sun-fried in the center of each east-west running row due to bad fruit set. Unfortunately, what should be 40 tons from the field may only pick out to 15 tons.

That meant Borra’s crew, headed by Manuel Maldonado, were instructed to carefully select only the best “muy buena” Merlot grapes.

Borra is very fortunate to have a crew that has been working the same vineyards for years. Many small wineries are at the mercy of the availability of hired picking crews. It’s not uncommon for a winemaker who wants to pick on a Tuesday to be told the pick can’t happen until Friday.

With the Borra family owning both Borra Vineyards and Lodi Irrigation, this year-round crew can alternate between irrigation installation and vineyard work. As Markus says, “It’s a great cross venture with another business. During crush they’re not that busy, so they’re here and they’re fast.”

Each harvest seems to work about the same: as half-ton Macrobins were filled, cellar lead Federico hauled them a couple hundred yards back to the winery.

Meanwhile, Antonino from Lodi Irrigation, and others pitched in to help build sturdy thick cardboard bins to be used to ship grapes back East. Each bin was lined with a tough plastic bag before over a half ton of fresh-picked Merlot was dumped in.

To help insure freshness, a column of dry ice crystals was inserted down the center of each mound of grapes to form a cooling core that would last for the entire long trip ahead.

A tie of the bag, placement of a lid, and a few strap ties were the finishing touches before temporary storage in one of Borra’s refrigerated containers – which quickly filled to capacity awaiting a truck. (Trucking companies seem to be overcommitted this year.)

The next day, Markus and the crew pulled in the remainder of the Home Ranch Barbera, then hitched up the tractors to head down the block to Steve’s daughter’s – Gina Borra Granlee’s – house, a stone’s throw away.

That property is also home to the Borra “Church Block” vineyard: a mish-mash of inter-planted varieties including Alicante Bouschet, Carignane, and Petite Sirah. All these old, gnarly head-trained vines were picked at the same time and mixed together, yielding about 5 to 6 tons that will become Borra’s special Members Reserve Field Blend, made only for the winery’s La Dolce Vita wine club.

Markus will throw in about 3 to 4 tons of the just-harvested Home Ranch Barbera to top up the tank holding the Church Block collection, allowing the entire batch to ferment together.

Explaining a Vintage with an Espresso Shot

2010-10-01T11:17:00.000-07:00

Our winemaker, Markus Niggli finds new uses for breakfast cups and lab equipment to explain Lodi's greatest vintage yet...

Preserving Flavors

2010-09-26T21:15:00.000-07:00

With early next week’s weather threatening to crack 100˚ for days in a row, nearly-ripe white Mokelumne Glen Vineyards Gewürztraminer was facing the very real possibility of raisining and damaging sunburn.

Even though Borra’s winemaker, Markus Niggli, didn’t think flavors were optimal, he called in the crew to save the grapes from over-cooking and preserve delicate flavors by picking them last Thursday.

In the cool of the morning, almost three-quarters of a ton were harvested and delivered to the winery in two bins with grapes at a nice 50˚. (By contrast, I was picturing a line of trucks carrying 20-ton grape loads waiting to be weighed-in at Woodbridge Winery.)

Since he’d be getting a smaller load than expected – now a common observation with the 2010 harvest – he deviated from his normal procedure by “chaining” his crush equipment together.

Rather than dumping all the whole clusters directly into the wine press, Markus hoped to get more juice from the batch by first crushing and destemming the grapes and then immediately spreading the crushed grapes into his press.

Such an unusual set-up meant that his two-man crew of Federico and Platon would spend more time getting the equipment ready and cleaning up afterwards than on the actual crushing of such a small quantity of grapes. These small lots drive cellar crews crazy, feeling like they didn’t accomplish much for all their work.

Pre-crush, the Gewürz tasted, “Sweet. With a floral aspect,” said Markus. The sugar came in at 23˚ Brix, with acid at 3.7 pH and lots of berries showing a reddish tint.

As we watched the juice cascade from the slats in the bottom of the press like rain from a cloudburst, Markus said he would have preferred the sugar to be at 26˚ Brix, but didn’t have a problem with this white wine grape being red, “With Gewürz we want red berries, actually. The green berries are not really ripe enough. That’s why the juice is so dark.”

With quality control in mind, I grabbed two wine glasses from the lab and scooped up enough juice collecting in the pan under the press to get a good taste. Markus assessed, “Slightly green. Tannins are there. TA is low. 3.75 pH. Will need acid. If I get a barrel and a half, I’ll be happy.”

“Need acid,” means Markus will add tartaric acid early on to balance the sweetness and help preserve the wine at a pH closer to 3.4.

The nearly-empty press was rotated and inflated up to about 0.8 bar of pressure before it became clear that we weren’t going to get more juice out of this batch, which barely filled the bottom of a 500 gallon tank.

50 parts per million of sulfur dioxide were added to the sweet brownish juice to kill off unwanted yeasts and bacteria before the cube-shaped tank was forklifted into Borra’s refrigerated container for a three-week cool fermentation.

Provided the Gewürz turns out nicely, “I hope to be able to put it into the White Fusion again this year as 3-10% of the blend,” said Markus.

First Fruit for Borra

2010-09-20T23:56:00.000-07:00

Borra’s Manuel and Federico led a crew of about a dozen strong backs up at the crack of dawn to pick Chardonnay from Borra’s Gill Creek Ranch, north of Lockeford, last Friday, September 17.

When I arrived at 8:30 a.m., Federico showed me 11 half-ton full plastic Macrobins, indicating they were about half done pulling in the target of 11 tons for the day.

Except for barely 1% of the bunches showing a few brown raisins as the result of minor sunburn during this season’s two spurts of over-100-degree temps, the Chardonnay looked like radiant golden small-berried jewels.

I crouched down inside an empty bin, riding in the tractor’s trailer as Federico took me on our bumpy way out between the vine rows to visit the hard-working crew.

Along with an occasional few words of Español and pre-recorded raptor wails, the only sounds were the constant snapping of vines back into place as Chardonnay clusters were sickled off to fall into small plastic rectangular bins beneath.

These bins were dumped with a regular delayed rhythm into Macrobins on a tractor trailer, while two crew members standing on the sideboard teased out brown leaves and imperfect grapes with small shears.

Steve Borra soon arrived with winemaker Markus Niggli and an avid Borra fan and wine buyer, Cliff Aaby. “Whatever is sunburned we take out,” explained Markus.

Obviously very excited about this year’s high quality so far, Markus went on, “Fruit looks really insane. It’s about 26 Brix, pH is below 3.4. Fantastic.”

By about 10:30 a.m. the bins had been loaded onto a flatbed truck and trailer, and were on their way to the winery – not Borra’s, but rather Van Ruiten Family Winery.

Chardonnay and most white winegrapes have been traditionally dumped right into the wine press, stems and all, ever since the early Robert Mondavi days, when it became known as “whole cluster press.” It’s a way of locking-in the more delicate aromas and flavors – the best feature of cool whites – that would otherwise be lost with extra handling, warming and oxidation.

Borra’s press is right-sized for small lots of already-crushed and fermented red grapes, but would require many separate loads taking all day and into the night to be done with this Chardonnay.

On the other hand, as Van Ruiten has successfully grown to now become a medium-sized winery, their equipment has grown as well, and they are one of the few homes for a towering Bucher press. Think of the press as a humongous home juicer, if you will.

Borra’s 11 tons of Chardonnay would take only about 3 hours from loading to the final squeeze – much more efficient and better for quality than using a small press.

Macrobins were dumped one at a time into a hopper with an auger helping to ensure an even and less damaging delivery of grapes up a conveyer to load the press. Two cellar crew members equipped with plastic red rowboat oars help speed the work of the auger.

An improvised filter made from a Macrobin with a hundred drill holes serves to catch any big grape chunks that would otherwise wash out down into the drain, eventually plugging it up.

A big improvement on the backbreaking old wooden screw presses, the modern press is fully computerized and programmable, inflating, rotating and deflating on a flexible schedule.

Calling Van Ruiten’s winemaker, Ryan Leeman, from the field, Markus requested a gentler “Champagne” program that means he’ll get fewer gallons of juice from the grapes, but he’ll also nearly eliminate any raisin taste from those sunburned berries.

Soon this raw Chardonnay juice will be transferred back to Borra’s winery for fermentation.

This is a good example of the sort of teamwork between wineries that is consistently raising the quality of all Lodi wines.

Euro Moth Inspection

2010-09-17T22:32:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, starting at 8:00 a.m. sharp, the Borra Home Ranch Merlot and Barbera vineyards on Armstrong Road were inspected for the European Grapevine Moth by a team from the joint Federal/State Emergency Program of the California Department of Food & Agriculture and the USDA.

Mandatory inspections are the result of the quarantine that was set up August 3rd when two male moths were discovered in traps near Kettleman Lane and Curry Road. A couple thousand of these orange traps containing female moth pheromones and sticky flypaper are hanging throughout vineyards to detect any unlucky adult males that might be flittering about.

A swarm of moth caterpillars nearly destroyed a vineyard in Napa last September and none of us want the same to happen to our Lodi vineyards.

The Home Ranch Vineyard, against the north side of the winery and tasting room, is within the quarantine area, whereas Borra’s Gill Creek Ranch, on the east side of Elliot Road north of Lockeford, just missed being in the quarantine area.

Wineries that harvest winegrapes and crush them all within the quarantine area may pretty much go about business as usual. Borra, however, has a good business in selling grapes to wineries across the country, and the only way to legally ship grapes outside of the quarantine is with a special Certificate of Quarantine Compliance from the inspectors.

As explained by inspector Vincent Hicks using a finger to draw a diagram in the dirt, the first – and probably most time-consuming step in an inspection – is to establish a grid to make sure a statistically significant sampling of grape clusters is taken to determine whether or not the moth is present in the vineyard.

Their “systems approach inspection” has a 95% probability of finding moth caterpillars – if they are lurking – based on a “hypergeometric table” that determines the sampling grid for the vineyard. (The statistics can get pretty involved.)

For the layout of the Home Ranch Vineyard, that meant that Vincent needed to mark with green tape every 15th row of vines, where 2 bunches would be cut from every third vine down the row.

Altogether, Borra’s Manuel and his helper snipped off 300 bunches into 5 gallon buckets for the team of 4 to inspect on a folding table out amongst the vines.

The inspection team went about cutting and teasing apart berries on the bunches, looking carefully for caterpillars or evidence of their presence, such as messy little poops or tiny silk homes in the middle of bunches that look like a spider webs.

Fortunately, the team didn’t find any evidence of the moth when they called it a wrap at around 10:30 a.m. All they found was “nothin’ but spiders,” per inspector Dave DeWall. “And there’s a lot of them,” added Vincent.

In fact, spiders and getting occasionally yelled at by upset growers are the chief on-the-job hazards of the inspectors, who work through 3 to 5 vineyards a day, with around 100 under their belts so far this season.

Had a suspicious caterpillar been found, it would have been shipped up to Sacramento for expert identification to be sure it really was a European Grapevine Moth. And if it were, then Borra and growers within a half-mile radius would be notified that if they wanted to move fresh-picked grapes out of the area, they would need to be fumigated. In that case the entire quarantine area may need to be enlarged as well.

If inspection teams keep coming up empty-handed, then when the 10 head scientists supporting the program meet in Napa during the beginning of November, they’ll recommend the quarantine be lifted sooner rather than later.

What impressed me was the kindness and respect displayed by the inspectors. More than once they asked what we wanted to do with the inspected grapes when they were done. They looked a bit surprised when I said, “Dump them.” Which lead me to explain, “If Lodi were getting $3,000 a ton, maybe we’d save them.”

Meanwhile, Markus now has three permits good for a two week period to ship fresh Borra Merlot and Barbera out of California. All he needs to do is slap a “diamond” label on the grape bins and include a copy of the certificate of compliance.

Sampling Gewürz

2010-09-15T19:08:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, winemaker, Markus Niggli, and I (Jon Bjork, the Lodi Wine Guy embedded at Borra during crush), hit the field to check on some Gewürztraminer at Mokelumne Glen Vineyards.

Located between Lodi’s Mokelumne River and Bokisch Vineyards at the end of Cherry Road in Victor, these vines may supply an extra layer of complexity to the up-coming 2010 White Fusion.

Bob Koth, owner of Mokelumne Glen Vineyards, is an extremely passionate grower, as demonstrated by his almost crazy desire to grow German winegrape varieties in Lodi.

We tasted through a row of Gewürz and also wandered off into some Kerner and Dreirebe. The Dreirebe is traditionally made into a dessert wine harvested later in the season, however the berries were already packed with explosive amazing terpenoid flavors that were a favorite of my kids that afternoon.

Our verdict on taste was that the Gewürz needed more time to build more distinct flavors. That was confirmed by a sugar reading on about 10 squished bunches that showed 21.8˚ Brix.

Markus also stepped into his field office on the tailgate of the white pickup to check the water pressure in a single Gewürztraminer leaf. Based on a reading of just over 5 bar, there is no need to irrigate this row.

We’re looking for at least another week of warm days – if that’s possible this oddball cool season – before sampling again.

The Next Generation

2010-09-15T15:51:00.000-07:00

Our La Dolce Vita club members have been privy to some insider information that was included with their last wine shipment.

Now it’s time to let the rest of the wine drinking world in on what’s going on. Here’s the scoop from our club postcard:

“For awhile now I’ve had the pleasure of making wine with one of the most detail-oriented and determined cellar hands around. My right-hand man, Markus Niggli, has been a sponge, soaking up what I’ve spouted off from my years of hits and misses. Knowledge has also seeped into his head from a bunch of other up-and-coming winemakers/growers.”

“His excitement for winemaking is infectious. Makes me feel like I’m looking at a mirror when I first fell under the influence of “the wine bug.” You just want to crush every grape you taste to see if it makes a good wine or not.”

“I’m therefore happy to promote Markus to winemaker, responsible for the next generation of Borra wines you’ll be drinking from here on out.”

“As for me, I still get to hop on the tractor and work the vines, stick my nose in some barrels, give my two bits of feedback whenever I want, and - the best part! - twist caps off our latest Zin and Petite for plenty of ‘quality control.’ Salute!”

- Steve Borra

So next time you see Markus, give him a congratulatory pat on the back before you ask him to pour you his latest creation.

Sampling Crushed Grapes

2010-09-06T14:38:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, we sent Manuel out to our Gill Creek Ranch Vineyard in Clements Hills, located along Elliot Road, hugging the north bank of the Mokelumne River.

Manuel’s mission was to pick about 10 bunches or so of winegrapes from each of our vineyard blocks and squish them into 5 gallon buckets to be driven back to the winery on Armstrong Road.

After the grapes have mixed and marinated for an hour or so, Markus blows the dust off our handy Atago refractometer to check, “where the sugars are.”

“Zin looks to be 21.1˚ Brix. That’s OK, and means we are looking at the last week in September to pick,” says Markus, “based on about 1.5˚ Brix rise per week.”

“The Merlot has shattered and light small berries less than 22˚ to 23˚ Brix,” he said, which translates into potentially very nice wine, but less than usual. We take about 10 tons for our wines, but sell the rest of the vineyard to other wineries.

“The Viognier is 20.7˚ Brix – pretty low, but we would like to pick in September. The Chard is still tasting green and very much behind even though it is 23.5˚ Brix. We really want the flavors. Might be 3rd or 4th week of September.”

After Labor Day is when sampling will begin in earnest. This was just a preview.

So with harvest perhaps two weeks behind average, Markus has time to get all the crush equipment ready and organize the winery before spending 4 days a week in the ripening vineyards.

Liberating Barrels

2010-08-31T22:25:00.000-07:00

What’s the best way to free up barrels you’ll need for crush?

Bottle!

Today we bottled more than 910 cases of a number of Borra wines, yielding 36 barrels for re-filling.

Most Lodi wineries are done bottling by mid-August, but Borra sees an advantage with waiting until the last-minute.

“This way my barrels don’t stay empty for a long period of time, which can mean more chance for contamination,” says Markus Niggli. “Ideally I would bottle today and put new wine in tomorrow.”

Empty barrels are ozone-washed to kill off any living things left inside, gassed with sulfur dioxide, then bunged and stacked, waiting for wine to be pressed into them.

As for the process of getting wine into bottles, with the cost of a small automated bottling line heading easily into six figures, most small wineries work with equipment shoe-horned ingeniously into semi trucks and rented by the day.

We tend to use Mobile Wine Line of Galt, run by trusty head honcho and truck captain, Harry Hakala, along with a couple of life-long friends.

As of 9 a.m. this morning, the truck’s team, aided by a crew of about 7 from the neighboring Lodi Irrigation staff, had boxed up 111 cases of 2007 Old Vine Barbera, and a bunch of 2008 vintage wines, including 118 cases of Merlot, 58 of Members Reserve Intenso, 73 of Members Reserve Syrah. The photos show the team working on 550 cases of Red Fusion.

Empty bottles were constantly loaded into the back of the truck, filled with Nitrogen, then wine, screw-capped, labeled, and finally placed back into the same boxes for cold storage.

The process can be back-breaking, but is always very satisfying, knowing that the winemaking is absolutely finished.

“The cycle has closed,” says Markus.

While the team was hard at work, Markus and Steve Borra were busy with quality control: making sure the right labels were going onto the bottles; helping with wedging finished pallets of cases into a cramped storage room; tasting new bottles; and ensuring that everyone was to get their Dante’s Philly Cheesesteaks done up the way they wanted for lunch.

It will be a busy week, with this bottling, followed by over a hundred La Dolce Vita club shipments tomorrow, and the start of grape sampling for sugars on Thursday.

If all goes well, we could be picking our first Chardonnay of 2010 within two weeks.

15 Minutes of Fame

2010-08-23T12:38:00.000-07:00

Our Markus Niggli was just handed his 15 minutes of fame, appearing in two newspaper articles in Saturday’s Lodi News-Sentinel.

Here’s an excerpt from the first, entitled “Yellow Cab submits application to come to Lodi,” with several quotes from Markus:

The biggest competition for a taxi company serving wineries during the day is limousine service, he said, because the limos can be rented out for a long period, and there is no waiting for it to show up.

“Limo services are not too expensive,” Niggli said. “It is also probably better looking to come up in a stretch limo than in a cab.”

But he could see the cabs being used at night when the wineries have events.

“People might leave behind their cars, take the safe route and take a cab home,” Niggli said.

The second story, “Lyrics of the vine,” describes what Lodi wineries are doing to offer evening entertainment, along with excellent wines.

Here’s the full quote:

Borra Vineyards started combining wine and music four years ago with their Fusion Friday events, named after their Fusion wines.

Relaxation, entertainment and good wine was their motivation for the monthly summertime event.

“Music and wine are the two things that help you relax after a long, hard week of work,” Markus Niggli, Borra Vineyards winemaker said.

Niggli says there were about 40 or 50 people who would attend. Now, the even that combines food, wine and music brings in at least 150 people on the first Friday of the month during summer.

“You pull up in a winery site and it takes you away from daily life. For just a couple of hours, you can be yourself and enjoy the moment off,” Niggli said.

At Fusion Friday, guests sit at tables surrounding a Bocce ball field. In the beginning, many get comfortable at their tables with a full glass of wine or dinner prepared by a local caterer. But as the music plays and wine glasses get a little emptier, groups starts dancing and joining in games of Bocce ball.

Meanwhile, I touched base with Markus today as he was munching on a mouthwatering peach.

“The fruit this season looks great. Maturity is very nice. Normally we’d see sugars climbing. This year we have nice even sugars in grapes that are holding on to their acid,” he said.

Regarding current sugar levels, “The Viognier and reds are all under 20˚ Brix and we’ll start sampling late next week after our last bottling of the year. With this cool weather, we won’t be picking anything until the second or third week of September.”

Topping Up

2010-08-16T22:20:00.000-07:00

Every few weeks, Markus hooks up a canister of Nitrogen to a keg of extra Syrah and goes to work topping up each of our 220 barrels of aging Borra wines. A long hose equipped with a special nozzle make the job much easier than the old “watering cans.”

If we were to leave a barrel completely alone, eventually enough wine would evaporate through the microscopic pores in the barrel walls to create a pocket of air under the bung. Air leads to the growth of the bacteria that like to make vinegar, and we’re not currently in that business.

An automatic humidifier sprays a mist of water into the barrel room every few minutes or so to maintain just the right amount of moisture. Too much humidity leads to mold growth and greater loss of alcohol, whereas too little humidity results in water loss from wine, rather than alcohol.

In any case, it’s always amazing how much wine we lose to the “angels.”

We’ve got both the 2008 and 2009 vintages of red wines in the barrel room, with some to be bottled at the end of this month. Markus can have them all topped and the barrels polished with a sulfur solution in only a couple of hours.

The whites are almost always bottled fresh from the vintage in March of each year. So we don’t have a problem turning white wines a blush color via a topping boo boo.

Wine & Food Guinea Pig

2010-07-12T16:37:00.000-07:00

What's fun about having your own winery is getting to take a bottle (or three!) home and see what tastes the best with it.

This time we took a new 2008 Borra Members Reserve Petite Sirah that will be in our summer club shipment and tried to see if it would go with chicken.

I know any wine Nazi’s out there will be jumping off the walls at this potentially ridiculous combination of the most intense, dark varietal you can find with a lite white meat, but what’s life without a bit of experimentation?

In fact, the only reason for even attempting this fearful pairing was the spicy, molasses-laden Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ sauce that was slathered all over legs and thighs. (Plus, we just couldn’t wait to see how the Petite was coming along.)

And the verdict…

The Petite on its own was lush and expectedly huge with great concentration and a muscular backbone of rounded tannins. We got flavors almost like those succulent juice that flows from the bottom of foil in which was resting a slow-roasted tri-tip. The finish was like someone shook a black cherry tree and filled oodles of baskets.

So the wine – the most important part of this experiment – was exciting and hard to stop drinking.

The pairing, on the other hand, got – as expected – a big fat “D.” Only the sauce gave this pairing a passing grade. Surprisingly, a quiver of asparagus spears were also on our plates, slightly blacked by the BBQ, which turned out to be a decent pairing. Nice to see that something actually works half decently with this wine-killer vegetable.

Oyster Sunday 2010

2010-06-17T21:07:00.000-07:00

Like every year, during the Zinfest weekend here in Lodi, Oysters were on the grill all day long. Steve Borra Sr. and his crew barbequed the perfect lunch for all the sea food fans. Over 200 people stopped by and enjoyed food and wine during a perfect Sunday. Later that day, Stefanie D Band made sure everyone was moving! The music was great and nobody wanted to leave!

Just another great event at Borra Vineyards. Hope to see you all again next year on Zinfest Sunday.

2010 Wine & Chocolate Weekend

2010-03-07T18:33:00.000-08:00

The 2010 Wine & Chocolate Weekend was wonderful this year! The weather was absolutely perfect, giving us a little taste of spring!

We had the privilege of meeting so many new friends and seeing so many old ones as well! Our wines paired perfectly with the delicious chocolates and S’mores (specially made by the Borra Grandkids).

We hope everyone that made it by enjoyed their visit and will come back to see us soon! We snapped tons of pictures, so check out if you made it onto our Wine & Chocolate Slideshow! (We’ve also added our pictures to our Facebook and Myspace.)

Ciao for now!

First Sip 2009

2009-11-22T13:16:00.001-08:00

First Sip was a blast again this year. The weather cooperated, making the weekend cool and pleasant. Gina’s family biscotti and delicious homemade cookies paired perfectly with our wines. Everyone enjoyed samplings of our new Zinful Energy Spritzer, “ZinV” as well as samplings of many of our other delicious wines. Of course, Steve took this opportunity to grill up some mouth-watering Italian Sausage. What a fun weekend!

Final Fusion Friday of 2009

2009-10-11T16:55:00.000-07:00

October 2nd marked the end of our fun-filled Fusion Friday season! The weather was finally a bit cooler and made it a perfect evening.

Our wines paired perfectly with the delicious Mexican cuisine that Revolución 1910 provided! The Spanish ballads played by Sergio of Midtown really set the mood of the evening. What a great way to end our summer Fusion Fridays!

We hope that you will join us again next year for these fun and entertaining events!

September 2009 Fusion Friday

2009-09-27T19:19:00.000-07:00

Our September Fusion Friday was a blast as always! Our cool and refreshing White Fusion was definitely the wine of choice. Waterloo, CA’s ribs and pesto were a hit as usual! Although the weather was a bit warm, everyone seemed to thoroughly enjoy being outside visiting and listening to the entertaining music from The Esquires. We welcomed old friends and enjoyed making lots of new friends.

We are looking forward to our last Fusion Friday of the season on October 2nd. This will be a fun-filled evening with food provided by Revolucion 1910 and Spanish Ballads from Sergio. We hope to see you there!

August Fusion Friday

2009-08-18T11:52:00.000-07:00

Our August Fusion Friday was an absolutely picture perfect evening! This was our biggest Fusion Friday ever! It was a fun-filled evening with families, children, couples, anniversary parties, and more. We met so many new friends from all around. It was an absolute blast.

Stefanie D Trio provided great music that we had fun dancing to and Yasoo Yani supplied delicious food, which paired perfectly with our wines! Thank you to them and all of our attendees for making it such a fun evening!

Check out our slideshow to see all the fun! Don’t forget to become our friend on Facebook or Myspace if you want updates and/or to be tagged in one of the photos.

We hope to see you at our next Fusion Friday on September 11th.

June Fusion Friday

2009-06-17T14:33:00.000-07:00

Our June Fusion Friday was so much fun! The weather looked ominous at first, but by the time the event got started the weather was perfect. Everyone loved Stringin’ Along’s up-beat rhythms and many enjoyed dancing to them. The food from Shadow Oaks Steak House was great as well!

The slideshow shows how perfect and fun the evening was! It was so nice to meet many new friends and catch up with old friends! We hope you can make it to our next Fusion Friday on August 7th.

Oyster Sunday 2009

2009-05-20T15:02:00.000-07:00

Oyster Sunday was such an enjoyable event this year! Although the weather was pretty hot, everyone thoroughly enjoyed the oysters and Italian Sausage! One person even found a pearl in his oyster (check out the picture on our slideshow). We hope everyone had as much fun as us!

We’d like to thank Domingo Hipona and his band nSpired for providing such wonderful music! We’d also like to thank everyone who came out to the event and made it such a wonderful day. Check to see who made it on to our slideshow, there are some really great pictures!

First 2009 Fusion Friday

2009-05-13T12:26:00.000-07:00

Our first 2009 Fusion Friday was a blast, despite the weather. We had to move the event into our Fusion Lounge where the atmosphere was cozy, jovial, and relaxed!

We want to thank Scooters for providing great food as always and Tapestry for providing such wonderful music!

Below is a slideshow of our fun event. We all had a really great time and hope to see you at our next Fusion Friday, coming up on June 5th.

Borra Vineyards is now on Twitter

2009-05-06T09:13:00.000-07:00

Do you want to know what we've been up to at Borra Vineyards???

Now you can get updates about us on Twitter! We'd love to have you as one of our followers! We'll send out updates on events, wine happenings around the vineyards, specials going on and more!

http://twitter.com/BorraVineyards

Happy Tweeting!

Lodi Spring Wine Show

2009-04-06T11:27:00.001-07:00

The Lodi Spring Wine Show was a blast! We met many new and fun people, and also got to see a lot of old friends! We hope you had as much fun as we did!

We’d like to congratulate our raffle winner: Steve Garcia! He won a bottle of 2006 Red Fusion!

Ciao for now!

KCRA 3 A-List Nomination!

2009-03-06T08:46:00.000-08:00

Great News!

Borra Vineyards was nominated to be part of the 2009 KCRA 3 A-List Contest! This is a fun site where consumers can vote for their favorite businesses! We are competing to be voted the best winery! Check out our listing. You can write recommendations and vote for us!

Borra Vineyards KCRA 3 A-List:
http://kcra.cityvoter.com/borra-vineyards/biz/169316

Wine Club Pick-up Party ~ Feb. 2009

2009-03-05T14:04:00.000-08:00

We had a wonderful time at our first Wine Club Pick-Up Party of 2009!

Wine Club Members enjoyed wine tasting all of our wines, an exclusive barrel tasting with Markus of our 2008 wines, fantastic Italian Sausage sandwiches, and perfect weather to enjoy our relaxing country atmosphere!

It was so much fun to see all of our Wine Club friends! Check out our new slide show to see who made it!

Our raffle winners from this event were: Mark Alexander and Sharon Campbell! Congratulations, they will receive a bottle of 2006 Red Fusion!

Don’t forget, we also have a Myspace and a Facebook! Become a fan and get quicker updates, plus we can tag you in event pictures!

Wine & Chocolate 2009

2009-02-19T10:45:00.000-08:00

We had a fabulous time at the 2009 Wine and Chocolate Weekend! We met so many great new friends and got to see a lot of old friends too!

The wine paired perfectly with our chocolate sauce and fudge, and Stringin’ Along provided an up-beat and fun atmosphere!

We hope all of you that stopped by enjoyed your visit and will come back soon! Take a look at our Wine & Chocolate Slide show to see just a few of the friends who stopped by!

We'd also like to congratulate our raffle winners from the Wine & Chocolate: Jo Lewandowski and Cindy Spencer! They each receive a bottle of our 2006 Red Fusion.

Event Schedule 2009

2009-02-06T13:50:00.000-08:00

Event Schedule 2009

We have some exciting events coming up in 2009! We are currently getting ready for the Wine & Chocolate Weekend on February 14-15th. We hope you will make Borra your first stop! We will have great Wine & Chocolate pairings that will include our Fusion Chocolate Sauce, our Zinfandel Fudge, and more!

Our first 2009 La Dolce Vita Wine Club Pick-Up Party is scheduled for February 28th! Our Wine Club Members get to enjoy great savings on wine, fun Pick-Up Parties, exclusive wines, 2 free Friday Fusion Passes, and more! If you would like to find out more information about our Wine Club, feel free to give us a call or go to our website, www.BorraVineyards.com!

More information about our Fusion Fridays will be coming soon!

The First Sip

2008-11-24T20:38:00.000-08:00

We had a fantastic time at The First Sip on November 8th and 9th. We met so many new and wonderful people, and also saw a lot of old friends!

The wine was plentiful, the sausage was delicious, and the music by Swinging Along was so engaging and fun. We also got the pleasure of getting to see some beautiful hand-crafted wood furniture by Pete Troiani of Wine Cask Creations. Thank you to everyone who helped make our weekend so much fun!

We hope all who stopped by had a wonderful time and will come back to see us soon.

Our two lucky winners for the First Sip Drawing were: Wanda Van Santen and Sandy Knudson. They will both receive a bottle of our Red Fusion! Congratulations!

Connecting With You!!!

2008-07-29T13:55:00.000-07:00

To help better connect with you, I've now set up a myspace and facebook account! You can easily see pictures from our events and will receive bulletins and posts on upcoming wine happenings!

Myspace url: www.myspace.com/borravineyards

Facebook: Borra Vineyards

Can't wait to add you as a friend or a fan!!

July Fusion Friday

2008-07-29T13:47:00.000-07:00

Our July Fusion Friday was a ton of fun! We enjoyed a relaxing evening with great food provided by Yasoo Yani. I’d like to thank them for providing such wonderful appetizers. The entertainment from Two for Blues was a huge hit! I’d like to thank them as well for providing such wonderful music.

I hope you enjoy this slideshow of our event. I look forward to seeing you at our next Fusion Friday on August 1!

Second Fusion Friday

2008-06-07T15:34:00.000-07:00

Our second Fusion Friday of the year, last night, was just as successful as our first! The evening was perfect, with excellent food provided by Via Panera Fresh Catering. I’d like to thank them for providing such wonderful appetizers. Everyone also enjoyed dancing to music by John Ochoa, while the sun started to set. Thank you, John for helping set the perfect ambiance for the evening.

I hope you will enjoy this slide show showing just how much fun the evening was. We look forward to seeing even more of you at our next Fusion Friday on July 11th!

Ciao!

Steve

Polishing Up

2008-05-29T13:13:00.000-07:00

Last week we bottled more Red Fusion and prepared our White Fusion to bottle this weekend. Because we believe in non-interventionist winemaking, we rarely filter our reds. Also, our reds are usually aged for more than a year, so they clarify naturally over time through settling then racking.

However, because most customers don't like any cloudiness in their white wines, we usually give our Chardonnay and White Fusion a lite "polish" filtration. This means we use filter pads with spacious pores to allow all the best aroma and flavor components to pass through, while catching those that make the wine look dirty. The result are brilliant wines that are beautiful to hold up to the light and just look at.

Setting up the filter itself can take some work and concentration, as you can see. Each of the 40 white filter pads must be oriented perfectly, then the whole filter assembly is screwed shut as tightly as possible, or wine will leak all over the floor or squirt out the edges. That's why it's really nice to have a guy that weightlifts regularly as my assistant winemaker!

Ciao!

Steve

Fun at Oyster Sunday

2008-05-21T15:54:00.000-07:00

We all had another great time at our Oyster Sunday this year! I never get tired of cookin' them up for all our guests, especially those who've been a little chicken to ever try one. All I can say is you really need to see what a good barbequing can do to an oyster.

One of our special guests was Kay LaFleur. She brought along her friends Lee Anne and Sue from Minnesota and kindly emailed this photo of her and I, along with thanks for a fun afternoon. Thank you, Kay, for the photo! (Note to all of you readers: I love getting your photos!)

If you’re wondering who the older guy with the thick Swiss English accent was, his name is Paul Keller, a special guest from Switzerland. Besides being a good friend of our assistant winemaker, Markus Niggli, back home he is a wine steward, wine competition judge, and was even once the biggest Chateau Mouton Rothschild collector in Switzerland.

Pretty much immediately after his arrival in Lodi, Markus put him to work pouring our wines at ZinFest and Oyster Sunday. He said he thoroughly enjoyed describing his simple, but overwhelming passion for wine and travel over and over again to hundreds of people.

And if that weren’t enough, Paul also worked Monday and Tuesday at the winery, helping with filtration and moving barrels around. In the evening, we could see he was tired and looking forward to a glass of fine wine and a good steak. Afterwards he was perfectly content.

If Paul isn’t the perfect example of the expression “will work for wine,” I don’t know who would be!

Ciao!

Steve

Our 1st Fusion Friday of 2008!

2008-05-03T15:59:00.000-07:00

We had a blast at our First Annual Fusion Friday. Thank you for everyone that came out to join us. I thought you all would love to see some pictures. We want to thank Scooter's California Grill & Catering for providing some great appetizers & Rhondda Nunes & the Rockin' Blues Xpress for Rockin' the Blues for us. Join us later this month for another extravaganza! Steve will be BBQ'n some oysters and some Italian Sausage for us all. This event is Sunday, May 18th from 12:00-4:00pm. Hope to see you all there!

Vineyard Happenings

2008-04-24T17:28:00.000-07:00

Bud break has past, and we have completed shoot thinning. Now we start our mildew protection program with sulfur applications.

In this photo taken at 5:45 am a week and a half ago, Federico is sulfuring the Chardonnay vineyard. We will apply sulfur to the Chard every 7 to 10 days until verasion.

Ciao

Steve

Fusion Fridays

2008-04-16T21:49:00.000-07:00

Borra Vineyards would like to extend a invitation to come out and join us for a day of Fun, Wine, and Food.

Our Featured Wines

2008-02-16T22:41:00.001-08:00

Our Four Finest Barrels
Each year, Markus (Our Assistant Wine Maker) gets to surprise us with his selection of our finest red wines blended together, that he code-names "Mystere". He starts with Petite Syrah as his base, then looks to make and "adventurous creation that changes based on the best of what's available in the barrel room". I give him carte blanche to choose whatever he likes, and always look forward to the results!

For the 2005 47.5 degree Red, in addition to a barrel of Petite, he snagged one barrel each of Syrah, Alicante Bouchet ("because it's black as ink"), and Mourvedre ("which brings the unique, exotic floral aspect"). The resulting wine is full of aromas of sweet violets, red currant, and black olive, that turns deep, dark and brawny with creamy black cherry and a lingering finish. He aged 25% in one New French oak barrel to add notes of oak resonation with roasted vanilla bean. Better get you re-orders in soon for the few cases remaining!
Salute!
Steve Borra

Vineyard Happenings

2007-12-26T12:56:00.000-08:00

Hope you all had a great Christmas!

I thought you might like to see what's happening on the ranch this time of year, so here are a couple of pictures:

The frosty morn at Lake Gill at our Gill Creek Ranch picnic area. Only 28 degrees F. Kinda cold for us here in Lodi, though not quit as cold as my recent trip to Minnesota at 14 degrees below with chill factor. Now that's cold!

That is our worker, Platon, on the very smallest of my tractors weed spraying the Chardonnay at Gill Creek Ranch. Believe it or not, that little Kubota tractor has been covering about 450 acres of vineyard every year for the past 13 years. I bought it from my brother-in-law for $2,500 and expected it to die many years ago - after all it's just a toy.

Well, I've just spent valuable time talking tractors when I should be talking WINE! But that little four-wheeled guy is a very important part of our winemaking process, as great wines are made in the vineyard.

Happy New Year!

Ciao for now!

Steve