Upcoming Events
2020 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition
I am quite ambivalent about commercial wine competitions. In the best of circumstances they can be a bit of a crap shoot. You don't want to be the first wine that the judging panels samples (they aren't going to give a gold medal to the first wine they taste), and if you are in a really large category, like Chardonnay, where there might be 200 entries, you definitely don't want to be the last one judged (how do you still taste a wine after about 15 or 20?). That being said, they do have a utility. Commercial wine competitions are expensive to enter, so I don't generally enter very many wines, only the ones that I think will do very well, and allow me to gauge how my skills are developing. The California State Fair Commercial Wine Competition is the best known, the Orange County Fair competition is the largest, the San Francisco Chronicle is the most prestigious. Of the hundreds of wine competitions in America, these are the only three I enter regularly. The SF Chron is my favorite, mainly because they don't allow winemakers on the judging panels. This may seem counter-intuitive; it is not. Winemakers have a tendency to be myopic. They know what they do, they like what they do, their scope can be somewhat limited.
This can be problematic when your focus is obscure varietals that many, if not most, California winemakers have never even heard of. Wine writers, bloggers, critics, sommeliers on the other hand, tend to have a much broader wine experience. For this reason, my wines always do better at competitions like the San Francisco Chronicle competition. Which seques me to the 2020 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition:
Montoliva 2015 Nebbiolo - Silver Medal
Montoliva 2015 Teroldego - Silver Medal
Montoliva 2015 Sinistra - Silver Medal
A Silver Medal is awarded when the judging panel agrees that the wine is a "Very Good" example of the varietal/style. Not bad, although I believe that all three deserved a better score, there's my ambivalence towards competitions. Sometimes you just can't account for taste. Cheers, Mark
Montoliva 2015 Nebbiolo - Silver Medal
Montoliva 2015 Teroldego - Silver Medal
Montoliva 2015 Sinistra - Silver Medal
A Silver Medal is awarded when the judging panel agrees that the wine is a "Very Good" example of the varietal/style. Not bad, although I believe that all three deserved a better score, there's my ambivalence towards competitions. Sometimes you just can't account for taste. Cheers, Mark
Our 6th Annual Wine & Chocolate Pairing
Oh yeah, is this going to satisfy that sweet tooth! I recently had the opportunity to sample Amedei Single Origin chocolates, and fell in love. I was immediately thinking through..."ohh this one will pair up soooo nicely with our Barbera! and, and, and this one..definitely our newly released Dolcetto". So, I brought in 3 different Single Origin chocolates, from Ecuador, Madagascar and Jamaica. More about Amedei of Tuscany.
What: Our 5th Annual Wine & Chocolate Pairing
When: 1pm-4pm, Saturday, February 16th
Where: Montoliva Vineyard & Winery
Cost: Come on, we never charge for this stuff!
Anything Else: We have a limited supply of 1 oz samples, so we will be doing the pairings formally at 1pm, 2pm, 3pm and 4pm (although I don't recommend waiting until 4...we might run out by then). As an added treat, we have a limited number of bars of the chocolate you will be sampling available for sale.
Oh yeah, is this going to satisfy that sweet tooth! I recently had the opportunity to sample Amedei Single Origin chocolates, and fell in love. I was immediately thinking through..."ohh this one will pair up soooo nicely with our Barbera! and, and, and this one..definitely our newly released Dolcetto". So, I brought in 3 different Single Origin chocolates, from Ecuador, Madagascar and Jamaica. More about Amedei of Tuscany.
What: Our 5th Annual Wine & Chocolate Pairing
When: 1pm-4pm, Saturday, February 16th
Where: Montoliva Vineyard & Winery
Cost: Come on, we never charge for this stuff!
Anything Else: We have a limited supply of 1 oz samples, so we will be doing the pairings formally at 1pm, 2pm, 3pm and 4pm (although I don't recommend waiting until 4...we might run out by then). As an added treat, we have a limited number of bars of the chocolate you will be sampling available for sale.
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Friday November 29th
A Montoliva Vineyard & Winery Tradition.... 10th Annual Barbera Friday! 
The kitchen is cleaned up...well, more or less. The Detroit Lions lost...again. Getting up at 5am to be 10,000th in line at Best Buy just doesn't sound that appealing. What to do, what to do? Come on, we've been doing this for ten years now, you know what to do! We'll be open on Friday, November 29th, from 1 until 5pm. 6-packs of our tasty 2016 Barbera are only $96. A case of 12 is only $170! That's about $14 a bottle, and four out of five dentists surveyed agree, Montoliva Barbera is just about the best Barbera in California. But, that's not all, all Montoliva Magnums (1.5 liters) are 40% off Nov 29th, 30th and 31st. Here's a list of available Magnums reg price SPECIAL! 2012 Barbera $75 $45 2012 Estate Sangiovese $80 $48 2012 Teroldego $100 $60 2013 Sinistra $100 $60 2014 Primitivo $75 $45 2014 Mark's Magia $80 $48 2015 Estate Sangiovese $75 $45 2015 Nebbiolo $70 $42 2015 Sinistra $100 $60 2016 Negroamaro $75 $45 Supply of these magnums are very limited, I only bottle at most 3 or 4 magnums of each wine, a few of these there are only one or two left. (no other discounts apply!) |
Past Events
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Chicago Park Wine Society 4th Quarter Release
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Montoliva Vineyard & Winery 2016 Negroamaro
Negroamaro is Italian for "black" (negro) and "bitter" (amaro). Oddly named because the wine is not particularly dark, and it definitely is not bitter. This is our fifth Negroamaro. Strong black tea spiciness, with a hint of cinnamon. This is another obscure varietal, grown primarily in the Puglia region along the Adriatic coast. There are only about three acres of it in California, including the acre we planted in 2015. While most of our wines get a minimum of two years in barrel before bottling, I’ve found that our Negroamaro reaches the perfect balance of bright fruit and depth at about 18 months. We produced only 90 cases of this rare and beautiful wine, so we will sell out of this wine fairly quickly. Retail: $30/bottle Chicago Park Wine Society Price: $24/bottle Montoliva Vineyard & Winery 2014 Barrel Select Estate Sangiovese Remember the 2014 Estate Sangiovese? It was (is!) a really nice wine. 2014 was the third year of the recent drought, it was also the warmest year of the drought. Our estate vines were really stressed, and yield was pretty low, and the tannins were much more pronounced than usual. I knew by 2016 that this was going to be a pretty good vintage, sampled through the barrels, took the best three, and held them back for another year before bottling. This wine won a Gold Medal at the 2018 Orange County Commercial Wine Competition. Only 70 cases produced. $30/bottle Chicago Park Wine Society Price: $24/bottle |
What: Chicago Park Wine Society 4th Quarter Release |
Saturday, November 16th
Low music, exotic cheeses, delicious wine, softly discussing the day's events while the rain creates a gentle background ambiance. We feel a bit selfish for keeping this to ourselves, so Saturday, November 16th, we are going to roll out some cheese wheels, cook up some traditional Puttanesca sauce, see how it pairs up with a couple of different pastas. This year we are pairing up our wines with a few different goat & sheep's milk cheese, our fan favorite Puttanesca with '15 Sinistra (a Teroldego/Barbera blend), and lentil & spicy Italian sausage soup with our always amazing (if I do say so myself...and I do say so) 2015 Estate Sangiovese! We have a new dish we've recently added to our repertoire that we'll be pairing with our newly released '15 Nebbiolo. You are going to need some wine for your Thanksgiving table, so you may as well enjoy some food & wine pairings while you figure out what works best with your Mom's special turkey recipe (hint, it is probably our 2015 Nebbiolo).
What: 12th Annual Comfort Food
When: 1-4ish Saturday, November 16th
Where: Montoliva Vineyard & Winery
Cost: It's Free! Seriously...we don't charge anything for this.
Anything Else: Great wine, tasty food, fun prizes....you really want to be here!
A perennial favorite at Montoliva Vineyard & Winery
What do you get when you mix a warm foothill evening, wine, pizza and an outdoor movie? Montoliva Vineyard & Winery Saturday Night Movies in the Vineyard, of course. This is season...hmm, I think this might be our 11th year of showing movies in the vineyard. It has always been a pretty low keyed affair. Bring your lawn chair, beach blanket, and a mild sense of adventure.
What do you get when you mix a warm foothill evening, wine, pizza and an outdoor movie? Montoliva Vineyard & Winery Saturday Night Movies in the Vineyard, of course. This is season...hmm, I think this might be our 11th year of showing movies in the vineyard. It has always been a pretty low keyed affair. Bring your lawn chair, beach blanket, and a mild sense of adventure.
We provide a gorgeous setting, high quality 8ft x 10ft movie screen and state of the art sound, pizza from Main Street Pizza in Colfax, and of course, wine. As always we have certain themes. Our first movie of the year is always a Bogart movie. In mid-August, most years, we like to show a musical of some sort. Naturally, one or two movies related to wine. Toss in a personal favorite or three, and we've got a summer schedule! Gates open at 6:30pm, the pies are delivered around 7, the movie starts at dusk, around 8pm in mid-June. The cost is only $20 for a glass of wine, pizza, and a movie ($16 for members of the Chicago Park Wine Society). A bargain at twice the price. We even provide popcorn!
2019 Saturday Night Movies in the Vineyard
Summer's Movie Night ScheduleJune 22nd - Casablanca
July 6th - Somm (a great wine related movie) July 20th - A Hard Day's Night August 10th - City Slickers August 17th - French Kiss ~ our annual "Date Night" movie |
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