We are always excited, and welcome new members to the Cubanisimo family of clients sharing our wonderful wines with the public. We have listed in this section some of the clients, and now will be adding: Woodstock Wine and Deli They are located on 4030 SE Woodstock Blvd. in Portland, Or. Their phone is 503-777-2208
Mauricio
Well the Labor Day Celebration was a total success, and we again connected with old friends, and made lots of wonderful new friends. Cubaneo, and Cana Son, the two salsa bands were outstanding, and crowd favorites. The “Ropa Vieja”, the croquetas, the mariquitas, the fruit salad were big hits as we continue to blend our wines with some Cuban tapas during our weekend celebrations. The Latin Jazz Group of Greg Wolf was very good, and provided for a lovely Sunday afternoon. We are already making plans for next year’s events on Memorial Day weekend, and then again on Labor Day weekend.
We are going to stay doing the Salsa lessons at our tasting room with Debra Secke year round, and will keep in contact with all through our client list.
We are planning the first Annual Halloween Celebration at Cubanisimo Vineyards for the Amigos of Cubanisimo Vineyards(Club Members Only), and will hold this at our estate. Later in the year(December), we will hold our first Christmas Wine/Dinner which will have limited seating, and we will announce it after all the arrangements are made in the next month.
We are getting ready for harvest, and the excitement at this time is combined with anxiety as we pray for good weather in the last two to three weeks. The winegrapes looks very good, the crop load is modest this year. More on this will come to you through our newsletter.
Finally we bottled the Rosado de Pinot noir, and it has all the elegant qualities typical of our Rosados, though it is representative of the vintage (2006) in the challenge we had with elevated brix, and as such one notes a hint of residual sugar. We are very pleased, and look forward to sharing this very popular wine with all.
We also bottled the 2006 Pinot noir, and this year we have a wonderful elegant Pinot noir from our Victoria Vineyards bloc, and a beautiful, silky classy Pinot noir from our Vendemia Vineyard bloc we are going to be selling as our reserve. The latter with only 50 cases available. The 2006 Pinot noir will not be released till January 2008, but we will doing a pre-release tasting during our Thanksgiving Weekend tasting.
The soil replenishing we did last year is starting to show its effect with our vines looking wonderful, and healthy. Raul Torres, our vineyard supervisor, is doing an outstanding job as usual. Our fruit set is remarkable, and our fruit load is modest as we planned for by how we prunned this year. We are getting ready to reduce the vegetation component by trimming shoots, and leaf pulling. This not only helps the plant focus on our wine grape development, but also helps with the air circulation which helps control mildew, and other nasty infestations. The larger vineyard, Victoria, is our 16 year old block, this is mostly Pommard pinot noir clones, and less than 20% Wadenswil. Our new pinot noir block, Vendemia, is developing wonderfully, but it is facinating to see the different clones express themselves in the same vineyard. Vendemia was planted 4 years ago. In Vendemia, we have mostly 777, 114, and 115 pinot noir clones. We have new plantings of Pinot gris which many of you know about, this vineyard we call, Pequeno, due to its size, and these vines are growing well, with production expected by 2009, at the earliest.
As to the winery, the 2006 pinot noir will be lesser production due to my desire to see the effect of pushing down the crop load, 900 cases. However, the wine is evolving in the barrels elegantly, and I expect it to be a maginificent expression of our vineyards capabilities. I am planning this year to stabilize our crop load so as to have 12-1500 cases of pinot noir each year, if the good Lord allows it.
Our Rosado needed to be kept in the barrels, older age barrels, to allow for the sugars to ferment down as we, and all our clients/club members, prefer it dry. The flavors will be all that our Rosado fans have grown to expect. We will have some for presale sampling at the Labor Day celebration, but will bottle later in September. We officially sold out of our Rosado 2005 yesterday. At times I feel its like a child who has grown up, and done well, and has moved out. Mixed sentiments, but know the wine is going to the enlarging family of Cubanisimo wine drinkers, so this is good.
Enough sentimentality. Feel free to communicate to us anything else you wish to know about from Cubanisimo Vineyards.
Mauricio
In Portland our wines are sold onsite at:
Pambiche Restaurant in NE Glisan Fruition Bistro in NW 23 Caprial’s Bistro in SE Milwakie The Veritable Quandry in SW 1st St.
In Portland, the offsite sales stores (selling to the public) are:
E&R Wine Shop in SW Portland Winestock in Oregon City Fred Meyer in Tualatin John’s Marketplace in Multnomah Village Lamb’s Thriftway in West Portland Portland Wine Merchants in NE Portland(Hawthorne District) Blackbird Wine Shop on SE 44th Ave and Freemont Burdigala Wine Shop in the Selwood District E&R Wine Shop on Macadam Vino Wine Shop
In Salem our wines are sold onsite at:
J James Restaurant Bentley’s Restaurant Blue Pepper DaVinci’s Restaurant Old European Inn Restaurant
Salem offsite sales stores are:
West Salem Roth Santiam Wines on Commercial Fred Myers on South Commercial St
In Monmouth, we are now enjoying our relationship with Elaine Stuart who owns The Red Vase flowershop, and she sells our wines out of her new wine shop.
In Silverton, we are being sold onsite, and to the public at the Silvergrille Restaurant
In Ashland, we are being sold at Allyson’s Kitchen Chateaulin Restaurant/Wine Shop Kobe Sushi Restaurant
In Eugene, we are being sold at the Belami Restaurant, and at the Midtown Wine Shop
Resturants with Cubanisimo wines: Michael’s Kitchen in Hollywood, Las Culebrinas (in Bird Rd, and the Grove), Texas de Brazil, Cielo Garden and Super Club, Vino Tecla Club, Alfaro’s in 8th St, Oceanaire Seafood Room, Biscotti’s Expreso Cafe in Jacksonville, Old Vine Merchants in Orlando
Establishments selling Cubanisimo wines:
Navarro Discount 305-444-7530
Sosa Family Cigars 305-446-2606
Sun Liquor 305-442-0804
Cork and Bottle Fine Wines 305-271-1119
Chandi Liquors 305-358-5478
Crown Liquors 305-238-0560
Red Road Liquors 305-260-7787
Sky Lake Discount Liquors 305-948-9877
Leons Wine & Liquor Ctr 305-261-0221
West Kendall Liquors 305- 274-4547
Well, we are beyond budding now, the early leaves are showing themselves, and another exciting growing season begins at Cubanisimo Vineyards. We have all the well established pinot noir plants all pruned, and trained, and have added acreage in pinot gris, and a small lot in front of the wine tasting room to show visitors up close how this wonderful crop grows, and all the intricate aspects of the management of the vineyard.
Our 2006 pinot noir in the barrels is tasting elegantly well. This will be an extraordinarily good vintage for us, and we are all quite excited. The Rosado de pinot noir 2006 will be out in June, and it will be at least as wonderful as the 2005; we are barreling the Rosado for a short time in older barrels to add an element of complexity.
We will keep you informed as the year evolves.
Mauricio
We have done tastings, and many shows, but our own wine tasting room is about to open. The wine tasting room is entering its last phase of construction. and the area is being polished to start off looking fine, and showing our commitment to detail. Still, there is the anxiety of the first opening of our doors to the public from our wine tasting room. I am sure we will have some glitches, but we are looking forward to enhancing our relationship with our faithful clients, and providing a place folks can proudly come bring friends, and enjoy in a wonderful environment our wonderful wines, and perhaps get to know more about the Cuban culture. See you all in April during the weekends, Friday through Sunday, 11am to 5pm, and know we will be open each weekend until Labor Day. Check back with us to get the announcements of what we will have at Cubanisimo Vineyards estate, and wine tasting room during Memorial Day weekend. Mauricio
The event was fantastic, it was well organized, and the setting was beautiful. The wine, and food shows were outstanding. The response we obtained from those who attended was exuberant, and Cubanisimo Vineyards is looking forward to increasing their presence in South Florida, and being at the festival next year.
The Wine Compass ladies, Melanie Melan, and Nicoletta Roselli visited us at our booth, and started for us the festival with a great boost with their laughs, their positive comments, and their style.
The Southern Wine and Spirits, and Transatlantic representatives were supportive, and enthusiastic. We owe a lot to Jorge Picos, Ron Sedia, Manny de la Paz, Rafael de Zendegui, and the outstanding marketing, and sales staff who are becoming close friends of Cubanisimo.
We visited clients while in Miami such as Grazianos Restaurant, Las Culebrinas, The Oceanaire Restaurant, and visited our old friend Philippe at Happy Times, and made new friends such as Jack from Leon’s Liquors, Vanessa from Lucky Liquors. Time ran out as we wanted to enjoy Michael’s Kitchen in Hollywood, but this strong supporter of Cubanisimo will not be missed next time.
We relished chatting with Luis J. Crucet Jr. of Blu Moon, Deepak Daryanani, Tim Manuel of Crown Plaza, and with Fernando Ruiz, and Frank Fernandez, all these gents, and many others were supportive, and very complimentary.
We were really excited to see the members of the Amigos de Cubanisimo, our wine club, such as Joe Zambrana, and Dr. Jose L. Salgueiro, and the friends they brought on to visit, and enjoy our wines.
Finally, we have to mention the phenomenal help Cubanisimo Vineyards had from local family members like Frank Myers, Victor D. Collada, Mariela M. Collada, Rick Hevia, my son, Maurice Collada III.
Debra Franzen, my partner, and I, want to thank all for a marvelous experience.
Mauricio
We are proud of our wines, proud of the owner’s Cuban heritage, and want to share our wines, and our story with our current, and future clients. This blog site will be used to keep all informed of events, and activities going on at Cubanisimo Vineyards, as well as keep you all aprised of product developments, and wine production.
Mauricio
