December has arrived and with it there is now a light dusting of snow over the vineyard at Stags Hollow Winery.  The temperatures have plummeted to -11 C this morning which is approaching record lows for this time of year.  This is good news if you are an icewine producer but it has me a little concerned about what extremes Mother Nature may have in store for the vineyard again later this winter.

With Christmas just 17 days away, many of you must be rushing to complete your last minute shopping (I have yet to start) and we wanted to let you know that we are here to help.  This coming weekend, on Saturday, December 12th, the wine shop will be open from 11-4 for our annual Christmas Open House (in fact, the entire Cork Screw Drive Association of wineries will be open for your shopping pleasure).   During the open house, we will be pouring complimentary tastings of our award winning wines. The latest releases of  our wines will be available for purchase for the oenophile that you may have on your Christmas shopping list.

Wine Access Magazine just released their  publication with the results of the 2009 Canadian Wine Awards in it.  Stags Hollow Winery was honored with being named on their Performance Report Card list of the top 20 wineries in the country as the #18 winery.  In addition to our 2008 Sauvignon Blanc / Semillon being awarded a gold medal during the competition, it was also listed in the magazine’s White Wines of the Year as the #4 wine, and on the Top 25 Wines in the West list as the #8 wine.  Lastly, it also was listed on their Favorite 101 Wines of the Year list as the #86 wine.  It is truly an honor to be recognized in this way.

If you are planning to attend the open house this weekend, direct message or tweet me on Twitter @stagshollow , and I will try to hook up with you at the tasting room to pour you something special from the cellar!

The best use of bad wine is to drive away poor relations.

French proverb

Dwight

2009 has been a year of new releases for us, and this is our last for this year.  Just in time for Christmas, we have released a Port style wine called ‘Hart’.   Hart is another name for a mature male deer or stag. Hart was conceived last vintage during a late night in the cellar when, Larry(owner), Dwight(winemaker)and Rod(vineyard manager) were finally able to sit down and have dinner after a long day of processing fruit.  We had had some very ripe Merlot come in that had really high sugars and so a discussion ensued about its possibilities.

Rod had obviously been thinking about it prior to that evening and he just happened to have a bottle of port that he had made, in his lunch bag!   Out it came and after an “extended sampling” of his Port and much discussion on how to best make it, a decision was made to make one barrel. As Rod had the most Port experience,  he became the winemaker for our  first vintage.

Hart is made from 100% Merlot that was aged for 12 months in mature American oak.  Dark burgundy in color, it has rich, warm aromas and flavors of ripe plums with notes of dark chocolate.  Hart has been bottled in 500ml bottles with silk screened labels so it would make a perfect gift for someone special, someone hard to buy for , an employee just for you after a hard day shopping for everyone else!