Rhone Rangers After Party

As promised, here is the photo from our night out after Rhone Rangers. The red eyes are from the flash, not the wine :-)

Atelier's Rhone Rangers After Party Gang

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Atelier's Velvety Syrah at Rhone Rangers last weekend

We showed our 2003 Alexander Valley Syrah at Rhone Rangers this weekend. The morning started off cold and rainy, but quickly cleared up and became a lovely sunny day in San Francisco. There were over 120 wineries showing their wares, Atelier being one of them. We were very happy with the reception our wine received from consumers and trade alike. People described the 2003 Syrah to us as fruity, smooth, and "velvety" with a rich dark color. The Rhone Rangers volunteers seemed to especially enjoy our wine. We thank everyone at the event for their kindness, support, and encouragement.

After the tasting, we went to dinner at the Eastside West Restaurant and Raw Bar http://eastsidewest.citysearch.com/ with nine of our closest friends and family. The company was great, the food was great, and of course we enjoyed Atelier wine with dinner, which was enjoyed by all.

Stay tuned for photos from the event. I plan on posting them later this week.

Cheers,
David

The First Syrah Bottle...

Here's a picture of the last bottle off of the bottling line:
Hurray! Time to enjoy some wine.

Bottling

Today we bottled our 2003 Alexander Valley Syrah. This was our first year using a mobile bottling line, and it was awesome. 153 cases bottled with incredible quality and consistency in about 2 hours. This is a huge improvement over last year's manual bottling efforts with about 10 of our friends and 15 hours of hard labor. Hurray for modern machinery. Stay tuned for photos of the first bottle of the line...

Atelier Winery's 2003 Syrah @ Rhone Rangers March 19th

Sunday, March 6, 2005: It’s a beautiful day in wine country: sunny, clear skies, and 80 degrees. And it is an exciting day for us at Atelier Winery as we prepare to bottle and launch our 2003 Syrah at the Rhone Rangers tasting in San Francisco on March 19th.

We just returned from Napa where we have been cellaring our Syrah for the past 18 months. All this time in French oak has matured the wine and developed it to a stage that we find perfect for drinking. The plum fruit now has hints of spice and caramel courtesy of barrel aging and the texture of the wine is soft and supple. The full-bodied style makes the wine a great accompaniment to rich cheeses and roasted vegetable and meat dishes. The Syrah will be ready to drink in just two weeks and will continue to develop complexity in the bottle for another 2 to 4 years.

To ensure that the Syrah makes it to your cellar, join the Atelier Wine Club and be among the first to receive shipment of our new release. Members enjoy their guaranteed annual wine shipment of Atelier Zinfandel and Syrah at a 20% discount, which also applies to all future purchases. Choose your level of participation at 2, 6, or 12 bottles per shipment, and stay tuned for more information regarding “members only” tastings and social events. To learn more and enroll in the club, see the attached membership form.

We are celebrating the release of our 2003 Syrah with the general public at Rhone Rangers in San Francisco on March 19th. Join Atelier, 120 other wineries, and several thousand wine enthusiasts at Fort Mason for the 8th annual Rhone Rangers tasting. Get your tickets early at: http://www.rhonerangerevents.org/sf/

Last, but not least, we have launched our new and improved website. Check it out at: http://www.ATELIERWINERY.com . You can learn more about Atelier Winery, our wines, and take advantage of our fully enabled e-commerce website and buy wine online. We’d like to thank George Behrman and Kat Thomas of Aplin Uno Creative (www.auc.com) for contributing their artistic and technical talents in helping us develop our new look and web site. Check it out, and let us know what you think.
At Atelier our motto is to “Enjoy in good company.” Feel free to share the Atelier newsletters and e-mail with a friend or two. New people can join our e-mail list by sending an e-mail to join@atelierwinery.com .