NEAR SIERRA VINEYARDS

Lodi-Jahant Appellation

Specializing in Petit Verdot

Home of

"The Verdot Merlot"™

&

"The Merlot Verdot"™

We hope by visiting us in this manner you will get a chance to know us better and experience the passion we have to excel in bringing a premium red blending wine grape to completion for some of the more prestigious wineries and winemakers in this part of California.  Petit Verdot wine, or wine with Petit Verdot in it, makes for excellent Petit Verdot wine.

The Verdot Merlot™ wine, and the Merlot Verdot™ wines are Meritage wines that have these two wine varietals as primary constituents in the blends.

News:

4/16/2008

Unfair wine distribution through wholesalers.....wine distributors take 50% of the price of a bottle of wine.   Growers and wineries have to raise prices to meet their expenses and profit - yes, profit.....they need to stay in business to produce more wine.....GROWERS get hit the hardest!!  The Specialty Wine Retailers Association is fighting for the consumer for more choice and lower prices to purchase wine.   more......

3/30/2008

More evidence natural antioxidant found in grape skins and red wine kills cancer. more.......

3/19/2008

Boomers who start drinking in middle age cut their heart disease risk!  more........

3/5/2008

A sparkling Petit Verdot?? ......more

2/28/2008

Petit Verdot wine as a straight varietal wine??  Who heard of such a thing!  Wine making is based on tradition - the old world charm of oak barrels carefully cared for in the environment of caves of perfectly natural temperature and humidity.  The real world of winemaking has less ambience associated with it due to evolution and the spreading of wine grape varieties grown in areas other than the Old World. 

And so it is with wine grape varietal evolution.  Have you ever wondered why Petit Verdot has so few acres in California, or any other part of the world?  It has to do with suitable climates for specific varieties.  Petit Verdot wine grapes require a long growing season to reach maturity and to develop into a grape suitable to go into a great wine.  Petit Verdot wine grapes were the least grown in Bordeaux, France.  It is one of the five Bordeaux varieties: Cab Sauvignon, Cab Franc, Merlot, Malbec, and Petit Verdot.  The French translation for PV is 'little green one'.  The message behind this title is that it usually never matured properly in the 44 deg latitude, even with the warming waters of the gulf stream.  Therefore, Bordeaux red wines had sparingly amounts of Petit Verdot in them, because they didn't have very much!

Lodi, California has a latitude of 38 deg north, 6 deg south of Bordeaux, France.  That is 420 miles warmer!  Australia has developed numerous acres of PV in areas at 34 deg latitude (700 miles warmer than Bordeaux.   In these areas where growing degree days are not limiting, there has been tremendous success. 

So, in a nutshell, history dictated the climate as the limiting factor in developing Petit Verdot wines, not the grape variety itself. 

We hope by learning about Petit Verdot that you can fully realize the potential of this forgotten variety.

1/22/2008

Check out the Petit Verdot Wine tasting blog by Gary....and 317 reviews of the wine !!!!!  more......

1/21/2008

The U.S. topped Italy in 2007 as the world's second-largest wine market and is heading toward beating France as the world's largest market. more......

Malbec varietal sales increased 56% from 2006 to 2007. Red wine sales have increased 8.8% compared to 6.2% for whites.  more......

1/11/2008

Meritage Wines turned 20 years old. Meritage association. more.....

11/1/2007

Lodi-Lockeford Annual Growing Degree Days for wine grapes from 1998-2007 for the time period March 1st through October 31st.

11/1/2007:

Avg monthly Growing degree units (GDD) for growing Petit Verdot wine grapes for the last 6 years is shown in the graph below.  March, April, May, and August were among the highest over this time period.  July and September were among the lowest GDD.

9/25/07: (updated 11/10/2007)

2007 early season grape growing degree days (GDD) are the highest in the last six years.  Equates to early harvest and/or higher Brix for making Petit Verdot wines.  NSV Brix readings, and estimates, are shown in the graph below.

(Updated: Final Brix readings are around 25.2 with exceptional weather filling out the last 3 weeks before harvest)

3/14/07

U.S. wine exports, 95 percent from California, totaled $876 million and 404.5 million liters in 2006, an increase of 30 percent in value and 4.0 percent in volume compared to 2005. In Europe, where the U.S. ships more than half of its sales abroad, exports surged 48 percent by value......more.

Fact:

Lodi is the leading grower of Zinfandel (42.78%), Cabernet Sauvignon (32.36%), Merlot (30.56%), Chardonnay (28.1%), Sauvignon Blanc (28.52%), Viognier (31.6%), Pinot Gris (30%), Sangiovese (39%), Petite Sirah (44.75%) and 14 other varietals in California.

Premiere Napa Valley 2007 - 11th Annual Barrel Auction Breaks $2 Million Mark -- 85% of lots sold are Bordeaux varieties!! ......most have Petit Verdot wine in the blends........more

July, 2006:

Lodi American Viticultural Area (AVA) partitions seven (7) new sub-viticulture regions....more

More Petit Verdot Wine Variety Information and Characteristics