Last month was bittersweet for us here at Hafner Vineyard. One of our longest tenured employees, José Luis Lopez, retired from Hafner Vineyard. We will miss his talents, his work ethic and his wonderful smile. I take great pride in the longevity of our employees, many of whom have worked with us for decades. As one of the owners of the business, I don’t think of them as someone who works for us, but rather someone who works with us. For me, it is all of us working together that makes Hafner Vineyard the family business that we are.

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We are often asked, “What is the sediment in my glass and why is it there?” As Master of Wine and Master Sommelier Gerard Basset explained, “They are harmless by-products of wine, and some equate their presence as a mark of quality, in that the wine has not been overly manipulated in the cellar." Tartrate crystals, often referred to as “wine diamonds”, come from tartaric acid which is one of the three acids naturally found in grapes. 

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We have lived through several wildfires, but none was more impactful or harrowing than the Kincade Fire that reached our ranch in October 2019. We were aware of the impact of smoke taint, but this was our first experience. Here we share what we learned from producing our 2019 Cabernet pre and post fire. With a wine that has smoke taint, the smoky aromas can be appealing, but it is in the mouthfeel and aftertaste that smoke taint reveals its unpleasant character. Ultimately, we decided to sell all of the wine produced after the fire. That means we have less than half of our normal production for the 2019 Cabernet that was just released. 

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We are delighted to announce the release of Hafner Vineyard’s first sparkling wine, our 2020 Blanc de Blancs. This has been many years in the making, and we are excited to share it with you. As the name implies, it is made of 100% Chardonnay and produced in the “Méthode Champenoise”. Making sparkling wine is different from still wine, so we wanted to give you a behind the scenes look at the past few years many our first vintage. 

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We have a longstanding intern program that began in 1985 when a friend of a friend asked if we would host a French enology student. A few years earlier, Sarah and I were interns in Burgundy and realized how impactful an internship could be, so it was easy for us to say “Yes!” Fast forward to 2023 and we welcomed our 38th intern…Jonas Armagnacq to our winery and our home. He has quickly become part of the family both at home and at the winery, bringing hard work and a lot of laughter to our days. 

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