How do you Punch Down Syrah in Your Garage?

Make Sure You Have Friends Visiting!

…because it's a lot easier and more fun!

Mike had harvested 3 tons of Syrah grapes from our Healdsburg vineyard, and they were soaking in bins in our garage to develop color and flavors. While the grapes are soaking, a cap of grape skins rises to the top of each bin. That cap needs to be “punched down” daily to reincorporate it with the juice. Punch down is hard work, which why it’s best to entice friends to help. Enter our long-time friends Meg and Dale who came to visit from our home state of Colorado.

Dale helped Mike 8 years earlier with punch downs in another garage at our home in Silicon Valley when Mike made his first wine from Cabernet grapes. They had just as much fun then as they did in their long-awaited encore performance! Meg and I once again made sure we had something else to do – shopping, lunch, sipping a glass of wine.

That’s probably why I didn’t recognize that Mike was becoming captivated with making wine and that we would eventually find ourselves in the wine business with our friends cheering us on every step of the way!

Jun 3, 2019 at 8:27 AM Permalink

How do you Crush Syrah in Your Garage?

With Help from Family & Friends!

…and a little help from John Deere

We were finally able to move to our Healdsburg vineyard in June 2002. We had replaced half of the Chardonnay vines with Syrah in 2000 and the young vines were just starting to produce fruit. A true viticulturist would have advised dropping all the fruit and letting the vines mature another year. This is so the fruit will not compete with the vine reserves needed to develop the vines and root system. Well, Mike had other ideas. He wanted to MAKE WINE!

He harvested 3 tons – which sounded huge to me – to make wine in our garage. Mike’s brother Bob and wife Anne came to help. Our neighbors also came to lend a hand and loaned us a small crusher/destemmer. Having a machine that crushes the fruit and removes the stems in one step not only saved us a lot of time but also results in better wine by making sure all the stems are removed.

We learned right away that Healdsburg is a friendly place and neighbors are always willing to pitch in. The friendly spirit of Dry Creek Valley turned out to be one of the most wonderful aspects of living in this special place.

May 6, 2019 at 8:20 AM Permalink

Amista Sparkling Grenache - Winning Wines Created by Women

"Winemaker Ashley Herzberg makes every bottle of this Grenache sparkle - literally - using the Methode Champenoise, the process used to make French Champagne", says Alison Blain Barz in Uptown.

Check out Viticulture Visionaires, Winning wines made by women.

May 1, 2019 at 1:27 PM Permalink

5 Reasons for a Sparkling Wine Club

Why We Created Amista Sparkling Friends

Because sparkling wine is meant to be enjoyed with friends!

1. As a lover of Champagne and sparkling wine, I know that bubbles lovers want their bubbles. We already had a wine club for our red and white wines. But if you're like me, you want the choice to get only sparkling wines in your club.

2. We will use any excuse to share an extraordinary wine and food pairing. We launched “Sparkling Friends” in 2014 at Passport to Dry Creek Valley, the premiere wine and food event in the area. And we showcased our Blanc de Blanc with fresh shucked oysters! 

3. Winemaker Ashley Herzberg and I like to experiment with grapes that are not traditionally used in Champagne, especially our Rhône varieties. Having a wine club sort of pushes us to play with new wines to keep things interesting. We now have a collection of sparkling "gems”, and we want to keep creating more!

4. We want our Sparkling Friends to have first “pop” at our limited production, estate grown sparkling wines. We are a small “grower sparkling house", much like the small grower Champagne houses in France. Our production is extremely limited, and our sparkling wines often sell out before the next release.

5. Ashley and I say we make sparkling wines for ourselves, and we also love to share! That’s what friends do – share their discoveries with their friends! Amista means making friends, so it just makes sense.

Apr 1, 2019 at 2:27 PM Permalink

How to Find a Vineyard in Healdsburg

We bought ours on the Internet!

Well almost. Mike answered a questionnaire: “Can you afford a vineyard?”

When we left California for my job in New Jersey we brought along a barrel of Cabernet, Mike’s first garage-made wine. But it wasn’t enough to drink the wine, he wanted to make more! So, he started searching for properties in Healdsburg, one of our favorite spots in wine country. He came across a realtor’s website and decided to answer a survey. Big mistake! He was soon communicating regularly with said realtor who had three properties “that would be perfect for us, but they wouldn’t last long.”

Somehow, I found myself on a plane to SFO and then off to Healdsburg, where four of our closest friends met us to help inspect the properties. They gave us helpful advice like where we should build the house and place their guest rooms. We decided on this beautiful vineyard in the heart of Dry Creek Valley and the rest, as they say, is history.

I thought we were simply buying a vineyard property. Little did I know it would evolve into starting a winery, opening a tasting room, and venturing into Rhône varietals and a collection of sparkling wines. It’s been quite a journey!

Mar 4, 2019 at 4:05 PM Permalink

How Anyone Can Become a Winemaker

All You Need is a Little Help from Your Friends!

...and wine is better with friends!

Two of our dearest friends, Meg and Dale from Colorado, stood with us in our first vineyard as we said good-bye to California just before moving to New Jersey for my job. We all shed a little tear knowing we would never see that Silicon Valley vineyard produce grapes. it was only a year old, and it usually takes three or four years to mature enough to yield a full crop. 

Earlier that year they were there to help with the punch-down of some Cabernet grapes Mike bought from a local vineyard to make his first wine in our garage. I learned that a punch-down is when a device (think of a big potato-masher) pushes down the cap of skins that have risen to the surface of the fermenting grapes, breaks it up and submerges it again. Red grapes usually spend a couple of weeks “on the skins” to give the wine the desired color and flavors and need regular punch-downs. We didn’t have a “device”, so Mike and Dale used their arms, and both got purple up to their armpits. Meg and I escaped to a wonderful little bed and breakfast on the coast. My plan was always to be otherwise engaged when there was work to do!

But I was there, and so were Meg and Dale, when the wine was ready to drink. They came to visit us in New Jersey where we had transported the barrel of Mike’s first wine. It spent a couple of years in our basement aging and when it was ready to drink, we bottled some up and served it to friends at dinner. It was delicious! I learned later that Mike said to himself, “I wanna make more wine!” What I said to myself is, “Wine is even better with friends!” Those would turn out to be the themes of our journey into wine.

Feb 4, 2019 at 3:22 PM Permalink

What Pairs with Sparkling Blanc de Blanc?

In my book, almost everything!

How about seared sea scallop, grapefruit, and avocado salad?

Amista means making friends and some of our best wine and food pairings come from friends. My friend Hallie is my inspiration. She’s a busy career woman, a mom, and an amazing home chef.

Her simple salad is made with Mache as the greens (butter lettuce would also be wonderful), tossed with sliced avocado and fresh grapefruit segments. The dressing is light with just a touch of Dijon mustard. It’s topped with seared sea scallops and makes a lovely first course or light lunch. Our Blanc de Blanc makes it sing!

Inspire your friends with this simple, delicious recipe!

Jan 7, 2019 at 9:28 AM Permalink

Why Make Sparkling Syrah?

Our Sparkling Syrah started as a class project

...and turned out to be a joyous unplanned surprise!

We’d been making Chardonnay and Syrah from our estate vineyards and Zinfandel and Cabernet with fruit from our Dry Creek neighbors since we launched Amista in 2004. We made our first Rosé of Syrah in 2005. In 2007, our winemaker asked if he could have some of the rosé juice to make a sparkling wine in his winemaking class using the traditional Methode Champenoise. We said, “Sure, as long as we get to taste it!”

It was delicious, so in 2008 we decided to try making our own Sparkling Syrah. It was beautiful – a glittering raspberry color – and became an instant hit. I call it “joy in a bottle”.

It looks festive on a holiday table and pairs beautifully with a wide array of Thanksgiving dishes. Because it stays on the skins for several hours, it picks up some tannins making it a great match with everything from barbecue to spicy foods like Thai and Mexican. Like many of our unplanned discoveries, it launched a whole new adventure. I am delighted that we were the first to make sparkling wine in Dry Creek, especially since I love bubbles!

Dec 6, 2018 at 7:46 AM Permalink

Best Sparkling Wineries in Sonoma and Napa

Dec 1, 2018 at 2:43 PM Permalink

Amista Featured in a Dog Friendly Visit to Sonoma County

"If you like bubbles, this is your spot...and we can't think of a better way to start off the day", says Bay Area Buzz. 

Read A Dog Friendly Visit to Sonoma County with Wine Road in Bay Area Buzz 

Nov 15, 2018 at 11:45 AM Permalink