If you would like to come and celebrate harvest with us this weekend, you’re in luck! This Saturday, October 8^th, is the annual Harvest Festival  here in Santa Barbara County, and Cambria Winery will be pouring our wines, along with over one hundred other producers from the Santa Barbara County area! 

The festival is from 1:00 – 4:00 pm, at Rancho Sisquoc Winery in Santa Maria. It is a great time to meet staff from local wineries right in the middle of harvest, and to learn more about this harvest and their wines! In addition to being able to taste wines from many local producers, you will also get a chance to try the wares of many local food purveyors, eat delicious snacks provided by local restaurants and caterers, and listen to live music. 

For those of you who would like to do even more this weekend, you may also want to consider participating in the Vintner’s Visa program. The Vintner’s Visa is a weekend long pass to taste for free at twelve participating wineries, including Cambria! The Vintner’s Visa will be valid all day on October 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th. In addition to complementary tastings, participating wineries may also be having special barrel tastings, food and wine pairings, or library selections, and discounts on wine. At Cambria, you’ll be able to use your Vintner’s Visa to get a 10% discount on any wines you purchase all weekend!

But that’s not all that is going on this weekend for Cambria! This Sunday, October 9th, Cambria is also going to be hosting our annual Fall Open House! Our Open House will run  from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm, and we would love for you to attend. For the event, we will be pouring our delicious wines alongside tasty snacks, including bruschetta, cheese and crackers, brie, fruit and a selection of sausages. We will also be offering exciting harvest wine discounts for anyone who is interested in purchasing wine!

We hope that you’ll be able to come and celebrate with us this weekend, either at the Harvest Festival in at our Open House! Happy tasting, and happy fall!

Calling all Southern Californian Cambria fans! If you are going to be in or around Newport Beach on Thursday, September 29th, you may want to attend our Cambria Wine Dinner at the Hyatt Regency!

The Hyatt has put together a night of delicious food and wine pairings for the evening, all featuring our Cambria wines! The dinner will feature dishes paired with our Tepusquet Viognier, Katherine’s Vineyard Chardonnay, Julia’s Pinot Noir, Tepusquet Syrah, and Late Harvest Viognier. The dinner is also going to include some just-harvest Cambria grapes that will serve as “edible centerpieces” during the night.
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Here’s a look at the menu:

 If you are interested, you can RSVP by either calling (949) 729-6057, or by e-mailing onie.carreon@hyatt.com. We hope you can make it!

In honor of all the amazing, hard-working teachers out there who are just starting their well-earned summer break, Cambria will be celebrating Teacher Appreciation Day this Saturday, June 11th! All teachers with a school I.D. will taste for free all day Saturday, from 10:00am – 5:00pm. So if you are a teacher, please stop by and relax with a glass of wine with us this Saturday! If should be the perfect day to bring a picnic, taste some wine, and enjoy the natural beauty of the estate!

Happy Thursday, and Happy Global Chardonnay Day! 

That’s right, today is Chardonnay Day, which makes it the perfect day to celebrate with a glass of Chard, whether it’s a classic that you already know you know and love or one made from a region or in a style that is totally new to you!

It’s also a great time to check out the Chardonnay Symposium! The Symposium is an annual event that takes an in-depth look at Chardonnay, from growing the grapes to styles of winemaking. Last year’s event was fantastic, and this year promises to be even better, from a Chardonnay clonal tasting on Friday night to two panel discussions between some well-respected winemakers and moderators Steve Heimoff, critic for the Wine Enthusiast, and wine wrter Karen MacNeil, author of The Wine Bible! Between the fantastic moderators and panelists, the beautiful location, and the wines, this year’s Chardonnay Symposium should be a wonderful experience!

I celebrated Chardonnay Day yesterday with our newly released 2008 Katherine’s Vineyard and some cheese and crackers, and will be having some of our 2007 Katherine’s tonight at the San Diego Thirsty Girl!

How will you be celebrating?

We at Cambria are going to be participating in some great events within the next couple of weeks, both at the winery and elsewhere, so come and be a part of the fun! First of all, I’ll be traveling to Austin and Dallas next week to attend Thirsty Girl, which will be holding events in Austin on that Wednesday, April 13th, and in Dallas on Thursday, April 14th. So get thirsty, Texas!

Then, Cambria will be taking part in the annual Vintner’s Festival in Lompoc, CA, on Saturday, April 16th. We will be pouring wines during the all-day tasting event that Saturday, and then will be opening up our tasting room for a special Open House on Sunday, April 17th, from 11:00 am to 4:00 pm. For our Open House, we will be serving delicious snacks from Testa Catering, including Caramelized Garlic and Onion Pizza, Bacon-Wrapped Cheese-Stuffed Dates, and Spicy Crab Hush Puppies with Creole Dipping Sauce! We’ll also be pouring some absolutely delicious Cambria wines and offering specials on wines, so come and relax with us and enjoy the lovely April weather!

If you are interested in making a weekend out of your visit, you should also check out the events schedules for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to see what else is going on that weekend. Wineries will be putting on all sorts of special events as part of the Vintner’s Festival weekend, including special winemaker dinners, winery tours, barrel tastings, library tastings, food and wine pairings, and live music, so you’ll be sure to have plenty to do all weekend long, no matter where you go!

You should also check out the Vintner’s Visa if you are planning on purchasing wine. The Visa gives buyers access to special discounts at participating wineries that weekend, including Cambria. As a part of the Vintner’s Visa program we will be offering a 10 % discount on all of our wines to all Vintner’s Visa holders that Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Other participating wineries may be offering discounts like us, or may be offering comped tastings, library tastings, special pre-release tastings, or gourmet refreshments. Check out this list to see all of the other special offers!

And in May, we’ll be participating in some other great events, from Thirsty Girl tastings in Chicago and San Diego, to a food and wine tasting event at the winery in honor of Armed Forces Day, to an intimate winemaker’s dinner with Cambria winemaker Denise Shurtleff at Ruth’s Chris in Santa Barbara. So stay tuned for more exciting Cambria news!

It’s already April, and you know what that means…the Chardonnay Symposium is only a couple of months away! For those of you who don’t know, the Chardonnay Symposium is an event solely devoted to exploring Chardonnay, from the intricacies of the winemaking process to the breathtaking diversity of styles produced. Last year’s event was the first Chardonnay Symposium ever, and it was wonderful, from the fascinating panel discussions with some of the most respected Chardonnay winemakers, growers and producers in the business, to the delicious tasting lunch at Byron Winery, to the fun and extensive Grand Tasting at Tres Hermanas, where we had the chance to taste through the wines of hundreds of Chardonnay producers from around the country. As successful as last year’s Chardonnay Symposium was, though, this one promises to be even better, as both Steve Heimoff, wine critic for the Wine Enthusiast, and Karen MacNeil, author of The Wine Bible, are going to be moderating the morning panel discussions!

I am going to be helping to promote the symposium on my blog, so stay tuned to hear more about the Chardonnay Symposium soon! And mark your calendars…July will be here before you know it!

For more info, check out www.thechardonnaysymposium.com, www.twitter.com/DrinkChardonnay, and the Chardonnay Symposium page on Facebook.

We have another fun Thirsty Girl event coming up which I am really looking forward to! The event this time will be Thirsty Girl LIVE! Seattle. The party will be at Maggiano’s Little Italy Restaurant in Bellevue on the evening of Thursday, March 24^th, from 5:30-7:30pm.   

I last mentioned Thirsty Girl on the blog back in November, right before the Thirsty Girl LIVE! Bay Area event that I attended in San Francisco. Basically, the Thirsty Girl events are wine tasting and networking parties hosted by Leslie Sbrocco, a well-respected wine writer, author, and expert in all things wine. Leslie is touring the country with seven wines that she has picked to be a part of her everyday wine “wardrobe” – seven wines which she thinks are delicious, but are also affordable, and are great wines to drink on a day-to-day basis. These wines include a sparkling wine, a Sauvignon Blanc, a Chardonnay, a Riesling, a Pinot Noir, a Cabernet Sauvignon, and a Zinfandel. And of those wines, she has selected Katherine’s Vineyard to be her Chardonnay pick for the Thirsty Girl tour!

This event should be lots of fun, like always! Besides the seven delicious featured wines, there will also be lots of yummy appetizers, each one paired with one of the wines, as well as Thirsty Girl swag to win and lots of fun accessories to wear if you want to take your photo in the Thirsty Girl photo booth! I’ll be pouring Katherine’s and answering questions that anyone has about Cambria.

And if food, wine, and a fun atmosphere aren’t enough of an incentive to come, you’ll also be helping out a good cause! A portion of all ticket sales will be going to the Seattle Dress for Success chapter.

If you wish you could come to the Thirsty Girl event but can’t make it to Seattle next week, you should definitely check out the Thirsty Girl website, especially the section on upcoming events! The Thirsty Girl event tour will be going on for another couple of months, so there’s a chance that they could be coming to your area soon!

 I hope to see you in Seattle!

If you don’t have anything planned for St. Patrick’s Day this weekend…

you should come and visit us at Cambria! We’ll be throwing our annual St. Patrick’s Day party this Saturday, March 12th, from 11:00am – 3:00pm, and we’ll be going all out in our festivities this year! Besides the great atmosphere, you should come to hear traditional Irish music, to take advantage of the wine specials we’ll be offering throughout the day, and to have some of the delicious food and wine pairings that we’ll be serving! Dolce Catering will be providing the food, all of which has been selected to pair beautifully with Cambria wines.

On the menu will be Seared Irish Sausage, Pinot Noir Braised Beef Short Ribs with Garlic and Mustard Roasted Baby Potatoes, and Wild Rice and Barley Stuffed Mushrooms. And for dessert: Apple and Raisin Bread Pudding! We’ll be pairing our Tepusquet Syrah to go with the meatiness of the Seared Sausage and the earthiness of the stuffed mushrooms, and the short ribs will actually be braised in our Bench Break Pinot Noir, which should make the combination of short ribs and Bench Break a perfect match! We’ll be matching our wonderful Rae’s Chardonnay with the apple and raisin bread pudding.

I hope you can make it out and celebrate with us! There is supposed to be beautiful weather in Santa Maria this Saturday, so between the sunshine, the delicious wine, and some seriously mouthwatering-sounding food, it should be a great day!

If you are from the Bay Area, or will be visiting San Francisco this week, I wanted to invite you to a wine event taking place on Treasure Island in San Francisco this Thursday, November 18^th, from 7:00-9:00pm. The event is called Thirsty Girl LIVE! Bay Area, and it should be a lot of fun! Delicious appetizers are guaranteed, and there will also be some fun holiday shopping items available, including chocolates, cosmetics, jewelry, art, hair products, plastic wine bottles, artisan olive oils, and Thirsty Girl gear. I will be at the event pouring Katherine’s Vineyard Chardonnay and talking about the wine. So if you are available, please come to shop, eat, meet new people, and see some beautiful views of the San Francisco skyline! As well as, of course, to drink some Katherine’s Vineyard Chardonnay!

In case you haven’t heard of Thirsty Girl before, it was founded by Leslie Sbrocco this past year as a way to celebrate life, wine, and travel. Thirsty Girl LIVE! Bay Area is just one of a series of events being put on by Thirsty Girl in major cities across the country. Each event features seven of the wines that Leslie considers important items in her “wine wardrobe,” one of which is our Cambria Katherine’s Vineyard Chardonnay, which is the selected Chardonnay for the Thirsty Girl event tour! Leslie will also be introducing and talking about her wine choices for the sparkling, Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel categories.

In addition to the wines, the food, the shopping, and the people, we are also going to be in a fun new venue called The Winery SF. The Winery is an urban winery, and is supposed to have a beautiful view of the San Francisco skyline.

If you are interested, please come out to the event and visit us! I’d love to meet you!

To learn more about Thirsty Girl (or pick up some tickets), you can visit the Thirsty Girl website:

www.thirstygirl.com

See you in San Francisco!