12/31 - Barbara Drady, Dr. Ken Landow,

Barbara Drady - President - "Affairs of the Vine"    

President and founder of Affairs of the Vine, one of the industry's top wine education and communications companies, Barbara Drady has always loved wine. Her many years in the wine industry, combined with "her thirst for knowledge" for wine have resulted in her extensive knowledge of wine, winemaking, and wine growing practices.  Barbara is the creator of the innovative "Wine Boot Camp" concept which has gained wide media attention and industry recognition. She developed, designed and directs the Wine Shootout competitions that allow wine lovers to pit their palate against the experts.  Drady has been a featured guest on radio talk shows demystifying wine and has been a visiting educator at University of California, Davis, the California Culinary Academy, New England Culinary Institute, and other culinary schools throughout the United States. Barbara has been recognized by Wine Business Monthly and Bay Area BusinessWoman as one of the leading women in the wine industry.

Dr. Ken Landow - "New Year's Eve Hangovers"

During our more than twenty years in the Las Vegas/Henderson area, we can proudly point to numerous accomplishments. Dr. Ken Landow was trained at UCLA and USC Medical Centers and remains a Clinical Professor of Medicine Dermatology at the Keck USC School of Medicine.  Perhaps you know of him from his more than 20 years as the host of the long running KVVU-FOX 5 medical moments, What's Up, Doc?, or Medicine Week in Review.or maybe you remember his columns in the Las Vegas Review Journal throughout more than 10 years.or perhaps the KDWN radio call-in show still airing on Wednesday evenings for more than 20 years.or possibly from reading some of his many published articles in Postgraduate Medicine.  Dr. Landow brings his expertise and extensive knowledge of both medicine and dermatology to our practice. As Medical Director, he offers up-to-date information on a host of topics. Please feel free to use our web site for a wide array of information on a variety of medical topics.or perhaps your interests will direct you to our latest medical newsletter highlighting some of the important issues of the current medical scene.or maybe you're looking for an interesting link to a medical site for the answer to a question regarding the skin or some other health related problem. And don't forget to scroll through some of Dr. Landow's writings on a variety of subjects. Whatever's on your mind, please feel free to browse through our site or email us with any lingering questions

12/24 - Lorenzo Torelli, Gabriella Torelli, Matt Viotto,

Lorenzo Torelli-Lesky -  President  Casa Torelli Imports

Michael Jordan & Lorenzo talk about an "Italian Christmas".  Casa Torelli will leverage the success and recognition our founder M. Gabriella Torelli has had in producing and selling private label Italian knitwear lines in the U.S. and Canada. Ms. Torelli’s success marketing Italian products for the U.S. has not gone unnoticed by her peers and vendor base in Italy. In an effort to find new distribution opportunities for their wines, a group of fine Italian producers approached her to create an avenue to the U.S. consumer market. After an exhaustive review and sampling process with her staff of oenologists and sommeliers, a group of select wineries were chosen. This producer network is viewed by Casa Torelli as working partners, and is a keystone asset of the company.  Casa Torelli’s portfolio represents genuine and traditional wines from 6 regions and 11 Wineries. The wines selected for the U.S. market are not only true to their varietal but traditional in their winemaking heritage. The wine makers and Casa Torelli reviewed the market to insure their selection and offering of wines would also compete on a price to quality ratio for a national distribution model.  Casa Torelli was also fortunate to have the opportunity to create a select grouping of wines for one of the most well known and passionate Italians -- Mr. Thomas Lasorda. Mr. Lasorda shared the same passion for his culture and love for Italian family values as the Torelli’s and made the relationship between the Lasorda and Torelli families a perfect match. Tommy Lasorda has had a lifetime of success by putting together a team of passionate and loyal players, while creating a family environment to compete. He has undoubtedly chosen to create the same with his wines and Casa Torelli Imports.

Gabriella Torelli

Our founder and namesake, M. Gabriella Torelli, was born and raised in Florence, Italy. She moved to the United States in 1963, were she raised a family of three sons while establishing and operating various small successful businesses. She then returned to her roots, and partnered in a textile manufacturing business in Florence, Italy. Her goal was to create a private label manufacturing opportunity for major retailers in the United States. She has built and maintains ownership in this successful knitwear company to date. Today Ms. Torelli is fulfilling one more passion and desire to create a business with her sons. In starting Casa Torelli she felt that her family’s ties to its’ Italian culture and tradition would be the basis of this business -- and its’ center point is the family gathering for dinner while enjoying great Italian wines. Since she and her partner already ran a small vineyard in Tuscany, it made perfect sense for her to create an import business to bring a variety of fine Italian wines to the United States with her family and sons.

Matt Viotto - Talbott Estate Vineyards

In 1982, Robb Talbott began planting his original Diamond T Estate vineyard on a cold, windswept mountaintop in Carmel Valley. Conventional wisdom was against him, and many said the steep, exposed site with its massive shale boulders was “too cold,” “too difficult to plant” and “too challenging to grow on.” But Robb had a vision—a vision he held on to as he prepared the cliff-side vineyard by hand, breaking apart its massive boulders with a 12-pound sledgehammer. “It all began with my first taste of a great Burgundy,” says Robb. “That experience profoundly shaped my palate, and as I grew older I knew that I wanted to create unique and exceptional Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs. Wines that took their inspiration from the traditions of Burgundy, but had their roots in California’s soils.”  To achieve this goal, Robb Talbott established one of the Central Coast’s most esteemed estate programs, featuring two of Monterey County’s grand cru sites: Diamond T Estate and the legendary Sleepy Hollow Vineyard in the Santa Lucia Highlands. Though located a mere 18 miles apart, these two vineyards offer remarkably different growing conditions, yielding rich and distinctive Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs that embody their unique terroirs. At its heart, the history of Talbott Vineyards is the story of one family’s determined focus and commitment to excellence. In 1950, Robert Talbott, Sr., his wife Audrey, and their son, Robb, moved to Carmel, California, where they started a luxury tie company. Audrey sewed the ties by hand and Robert, Sr. sold them up and down the California coast. During silk buying trips to Europe for their business, the Talbotts visited French and Italian vineyards and soon became interested in fine wine. As their interest grew, they aspired to produce their own California wines, using the Burgundian techniques that they had become passionate about.  In 1982, Robb planted Diamond T, and the Talbotts built their original winery in idyllic Carmel Valley. For his first plantings, Robb selected the storied Corton-Charlemagne Chardonnay clone, planting it in Diamond T’s almost soil-free chalky shale. Robb knew that the vines would have to struggle to survive at Diamond T, producing miniscule yields and wines of great intensity.  After years of working with fruit from Sleepy Hollow Vineyard, in 1994 the Talbotts achieved another important milestone when they were able to acquire the property—making Talbott an all-estate winery. Featuring blocks of old Wente clone vines planted in 1972, Sleepy Hollow has earned a reputation for producing wines of great depth and voluptuousness. Today, Sleepy Hollow’s River Road block is home to the winery’s state-of-the-art winemaking facility, where Robb Talbott and renowned winemaker Dan Karlsen guide Talbott’s storied Chardonnay and Pinot Noir programs. These estate wines have gained a reputation for their lushness, grace and great aging potential, and have become benchmarks of quality on the Central Coast.

12/17 - Tami Semler, Shayn Bjornholm,

Tami Semler - Malibu Family Wines

Today, our vineyards consist of approximately 60,000 vines on 65 acres, with expansion plans to reach 100,000 vines. With the high altitude and separation from the coast, along with an ideal blend of weather conditions and rich, rocky soil, it's the perfect environment for growing premium wine grapes. As a joint family endeavor between the Semler Family and the DeJoria Family, we take great pride in the gentle-handling, traditional techniques that give our wines their special character. We hope you enjoy our wines as much as we enjoy creating them! The rich, fascinating history of Saddlerock Ranch began more than three centuries ago when the vast expanse of land surrounding the Santa Monica Mountains was part of the original Spanish Land Grant. The area of more than 200,000 acres was a perfect site for sheep and cattle, and up until the 1930's, was known as El Malibu. Local caves are filled with ancient pictographs painted by the Chumash Indians, dating back to the Portola Expedition of 1769. The beautiful pictographs of this culture have become very rare due to erosion and weathering, but some of the most well preserved examples remain on the ranch and have been studied by archeologists and photographed for books on the subject.  Today, the Semler Family owns Saddlerock Ranch. Ronnie and Lisa Semler, along with their nine children, have lived on the ranch for over twenty-seven years.

Shayn Bjornholm, MS -  Washington State Wine Commission

Winemakers from all over the world have chosen to establish themselves in Washington, where they can create wines reflecting this region's unique characteristics. Their hand-crafted wines are receiving wide acclaim from critics regionally, nationally and internationally for their consistently high quality. Many of them have received scores of 90 and above from the major wine media. Overall this is a higher percentage than other leading wine regions. Washington State is a premium wine producing region located in the northwest corner of the United States. Although a relatively young wine industry, it is now the nation's second largest wine producer and is ranked among the world's top wine regions. Washington wines are found nationally in all 50 states and internationally in more than 40 countries

12/10 - Rob Jensen, Emilio Estavez,

Rob Jensen  Testarossa Winery 

Rob Jensen, a fourth generation Northern Californian, has always had a great passion for California winemaking: its past, present, and future. Extensive travel to Europe's great wine growing areas, combined with living in Italy during his university days, further increased this passion and eventually led to the founding of Testarossa Winery. In fact, the name of the winery comes from a nickname given to Rob during his studies in Italy: Testarossa, meaning redhead in Italian.  Although Rob's degree is in Electrical Engineering, with a minor in Italian language and culture (Santa Clara University, 1986), he has studied grape growing, winemaking and chemistry at the renowned School of Viticulture and Oenology at UC Davis. During Rob's nearly twenty year high-tech career he held several sales and marketing positions in pre- and post-IPO companies in Silicon Valley. In October 2001, Rob left his high-tech career in Silicon Vallley to work full-time at the winery. Rob's technical background, love of the arts, and business experience made it a natural for him to dive headlong into the wine business, an industry that is equal parts science and art.

Emilio Estevez - Actor - Wine Grower

 CALLUSED palms and bandaged fingers; broken fingernails stained black with dirt -- Hollywood actor and director Emilio Estevez proudly shows off his vineyard worker hands as he walks the vine rows.  Four years ago, Estevez planted this half-acre Pinot Noir vineyard around his Malibu home. Today, wine labels featuring a pen-and-ink drawing of his front-lawn vineyard -- a wink to the ego satisfaction of bottling his own wine -- are ready to be slapped on his first serious vintage, the 2007 Pinot Noir aging in a single half-sized oak barrel in his wine cellar. Estevez, along with dozens of his Malibu neighbors, has added vintner to his list of credits.

12/3 - Mike Sullivan, Mel Knox,

Mike Sullivan - Benovia Winery  
At Benovia Winery, we embrace the time-honored philosophy that it takes great vineyards and great people to make great wine. Each of our wines is handcrafted to showcase the uniqueness of our estate vineyards or to explore diverse expressions of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from select vineyards in the Russian River Valley and beyond. Our winemaking team is a group of accomplished professionals with some 150 years of combined experienced led by Benovia Winemaker and Co-owner Mike Sullivan. In the vineyard, our goal is to know each vineyard block and its special qualities, to attentively meet each vine's needs, and to promote optimum ripeness and flavor development. Every day, Benovia straddles the line between innovation and tradition.  We have made a significant financial investment in upgrading our vineyards with the latest farming and irrigation technology, but we rely more on knowledge, instinct and experience to handcraft Benovia's exceptional, high quality wines. At harvest time, Mike Sullivan can be found in the vineyards, tasting the grapes and making the critical decisions on when to pick and when to wait. The grapes are harvested at night or early morning to ensure that they arrive at the winery in peak condition. The process of creating Benovia's flagship Pinot Noir wines begins with careful and attentive hand labor. The grapes are conveyed to the destemmer with a sorting table. Each cluster is inspected by hand prior to destemming. A second sorting area allows us to inspect each berry after destemming. Nothing goes into the fermentation tank that isn't ideally ripe and free of debris. Pinot Noir is a delicate grape, and needs to be treated gently to produce wines with power and finesse. After a pre-fermentation maceration of five to eight days, we allow the indigenous yeast to complete fermentation and encourage very long, slow malolactic fermentation. Employing the full knowledge of fermentation science, we can control quality without too much handling, preserving the character of the wine. After settling, the juice (now called "must") is moved to French oak barrels to ferment at a cool temperature for approximately four to six weeks. The barrels are inoculated for malolactic fermentation, and the lees are stirred weekly until the process is complete. This method helps the malolactic fermentation, integrates the new oak, and builds body and structure in the wine.  Our Chardonnay grapes follow a similar process with the same care and feeding in the vineyard and gentle handling at the winery. After hand-sorting, the clusters are transferred directly to press. Whole cluster pressing helps minimize the amount of harsh malic acid and astringent tannins that naturally exist in the skins, seeds and stems from entering the wine.  The Zinfandel grapes we grow at our historic Cohn Vineyard are also harvested whole cluster, sorted, destemmed, and then berry sorted before going to press.  Our wines spend 14 to 16 months aging in French oak barrels until they are ready to be bottled and labeled at our winery.  "What I love about winemaking is that perfection is unattainable," says Mike Sullivan. "Winemaking is about the journey and not the destination."


 Mel Knox  - Mel Knox Barrel Broker     In 1972 I was vaguely thinking about attending law school or graduate school when I got a job driving a delivery truck for a huge liquor store where two college friends were running the wine department. The next thing I knew I was a full-fledged wine nut. From 1974 until 1981 I worked as a wine buyer for the Wine and Cheese Center of San Francisco. We ran a tasting bar with a fairly advanced tasting program. I can remember tastings of Sauternes going back to the 30s, clarets going back to the 19th century, older California wines, older Barolos and Barbarescos, German wines going back to 1937, and so on. One time we tasted every Ridge Monte Bello ever made - there were fewer examples then but it still took two days. Through this store I met a tremendous number of winemakers, tasted wines from all over the world, and learned a lot. I started selling barrels in 1980 and have never stopped.