Intoxicate Diary Day 3: LangeTwins and Three

7-11 is very popular in Hong Kong -- you see it everywhere, sometimes even two stores on one street.
Finally, in the fourth day of our California trip, we saw our first 7-11 in California on the way to visit one of our biggest winery partners,  LangeTwins Winery.

LangeTwins Winery

http://www.langetwins.com/
LangeTwins winery was founded by Randall Lange and his twin brother Brad Lange in 2006. Randy and Brad are already the 5th generation in Lange’s family business, and the 6th generation is now also involved. COOL!
LangeTwins has a very big winemaking facility, like a big factory
When we got to the winery, Randy gave us a friendly greeting and some introductions, and then we began our winery tour!
So this is the starting point of LangeTwins Winery winemaking. Grapes are delivered by trucks to here, then dropped off ton by ton to this big container.

After that we pass thought the catwalk on the top of some giant grape butcher machine (the "crusher-stemmer").  Also, we saw many many different pipes and some HUGE tanks. Randy told us that their biggest capacity tanks hold 90,000 gallons of wine, which is what we see from outside the winery.
On the top of the tanks are little round doors through which they inflate nitrogen to prevent the wine from engaging with oxygen, which would cause it to rapidly mature and change. This allows the wine to have a good sleep while it ferments and keep the quality.
Then we enter the barrel room, which was HUGE.
We were so lucky that day because we also got a chance to see the bottling of wine using a mobile bottling system. Many wineries use this instead of carrying their own bottling equipment.

We are glad to see the final procedure of winemaking, but it's not a very good time to grab a bottle and drink it because, after bottling, the wine will have "Bottle Shock".  I describe this as similar to a human who, after a very long flight or drive, needs some time to recover.

These very systematic pipes are used to connect any barrel and any tank where you want the wine be stored. 

HUGE tanks again
It was our honor to visit this amazing facility, and we thank Randy very much for the great afternoon he gave us at LangeTwins.

Three Wine Company

http://www.threewinecompany.com/
Around fifteen minutes drive from southwest of Sacramento, we arrived at our second visit winery of today - Three Winery, which is located inside an historic Old Sugar Mill in Clarksburg.
Three Wine Company was founded by Matt and Erin Cline  in 2006. Before that, they founded their first family winery - Trinitas Cellars in 2001.

The day before we came to California, we had just met Matt and Erin in California Vintage, since they had just arrived for a visit with our guests in Hong Kong. We knew that they would not be around the winery in our trip, so their Tasting Room manager Kelly would take care of us. And she certainly did!

When we entered the winery, we saw a pretty lady with a lovely smiling face waiting for us, and we all knew that she was Kelly :)

 

After the greeting, we started our tour of Three Winery. Their tasting room is together with their barrel room, which was also quite huge.

On the other side of the barrel room were some big tanks.

Then we saw something interesting -- outside, one of the tanks got frost, so we asked Kelly if that would cause any problem to the wine.  Kelly showed us the temperature meter of the tank, which was still in the normal temperature range, so that the wine would not have any issues.

Doesn't the frost look like wine legs? :)

After that, we walked outside of the winery and saw that here were many oak barrels being cleaned.  COOL, time to learn more!

This friendly gentlemen showed us the equipment for cleaning the barrels. It uses over 100C hot, high-pressure water to clean inside the barrel and, after a while, the barrels were placed upside down to drain the water and dry. Sounds simple but it is very difficult. 

Then Kelly showed us their winemaking facility and walked us around the historic Old Sugar Mill.

Kelly told us that outside the Old Sugar Mill they hold lots of weddings and other special events.

Kelly had prepared some wonderful food for our wine tasting

Especially the Fig Jam, which Kelly's mother made. YUMMY!

After the wine tasting, we took quite a lot photos with Kelly, but she still kept that great friendly smile in every photo. Thank you, Kelly!

We had a great time at Three Winery!!

Than we headed back to San Francisco and got ready for our next day NAPA Tour!

 

Tasting Notes in this tour

LangeTwins

Caricature Red 2010 (bottle sample provided; yet to be tasted)

 

Three

 

Vin Gris of Carignane 2010 Contra Costa County

Fruit-driven style. Red Cherry, strawberry candies flavor on palate. Crisp and refreshing acidity.  Good wine for summer.

 

Old Vines Zinfindel 2008

Sweet baked red cherry and plum on nose. Big red fruit character and hint of sweet spicy on finish. Easy to drink tannin. Ready to drink now.

 

Field Blend Old Vines 2009

Elegant and beautifully focused. Jammy aroma of black currant and blue berry.  Very comfortable tannin and suitable to drink everyday.

 

Cabernet Sauvignon 2007 Suscol Creek Block 5

Elegant floral style. Well structured with black currant, cassis flavors on palate.  Soft and comfortable tannins firm up the finish.

 

Petite Sirah 2008 Contra Costa County

Deep Purple Color. Very Jammy aroma of blue berry. Ripe cassis, currant flavors on palate. Drink now through 2018.

 

Copyright 2011 by California Vintage Wine Bar