We are thrilled to announce the release of our 2010 Brosseau Vineyard Pinot Noir.

Tom and I have been watching the progress of the wine in the bottle and we are thrilled with the progress.

Please see the above link “Buy or Wine” to purchase and enjoy it!

Crushpad Bordeaux and the Cazes family of Chateau Lynch-Bages Join Forces
Partnership Plans to Expand Crushpad’s Custom-Winemaking Experience

April 26, 2012, Bordeaux, France / Sonoma, CA, USA – Crushpad Inc., the world’s leading consumer winemaking operation, and the Cazes family, owners of Chateau Lynch-Bages, Ormes de Pez and other wine and hospitality holdings in France and abroad, have partnered to expand Crushpad’s one-of-a-kind custom-winemaking services in Bordeaux for wine enthusiasts from around the world.

Drawing on the expertise of the Cazes family, Crushpad will establish its own winery in the pioneering wine-tourism village of Bages near Pauillac. The new location allows Crushpad to target a broader international audience and also provide a full range of educational and custom winemaking services in a unique home-away-from-home atmosphere. In addition to benefiting from their own winemaking facility and some of the industry’s most experienced experts, Crushpad clients will have the option to tap the full complement of Lynch-Bages’ tourism and lifestyle services. These include the Cordeillan Bages “Relais et Chateaux” luxury hotel, two-star Michelin® restaurant, Ormes de Pez guesthouse, Café Lavinal, Cercle Lynch-Bages wine school, and other wine-related offerings.

“We’ve followed Crushpad’s activities in Bordeaux with growing admiration and agree with their philosophy that wine lovers’ experiences are not complete without the option to produce their own high-quality cuvée,” says Jean-Charles Cazes, CEO of Chateau Lynch-Bages. “Crushpad’s model fits extremely well into our wine and tourism activities and offers visitors something truly unique in the industry ‑ the chance to fully experience the art and technique of winemaking and the joy of the end result.”

Since 2009, Crushpad Bordeaux has been guiding both individual and groups of wine enthusiasts and corporate clients in the creation of their own luxury-class barrels of wine from vineyards in Bordeaux’s most coveted appellations, including Margaux, Pauillac, Saint Emilion and Canon-Fronsac. With the support of leading viticulturists, winemakers and consultant Eric Boissenot, Crushpad clients are encouraged to fully immerse themselves in the total winemaking experience — conceiving, producing, blending and branding their own unique wines for personal consumption or commercial sales.

“Crushpad’s consumer winemakers embrace the opportunity to create their own wine story. With a winery in Bages and the benefit of the Cazes’ expertise, our clients get an even more complete winemaking experience — one that has historically only been reserved for individuals with significant means or those born into a winemaking family”, says Stephen Bolger, CEO of Crushpad France.

“We recognized early on that being able to produce wines from Bordeaux would hold great appeal for our clients and wine enthusiasts,” adds Peter Ekman, Chairman & CEO of Crushpad Inc. “We couldn’t ask for a better partner than the Cazes family to work with us to expand our innovative approach to consumer winemaking.”

Crushpad’s winery in Bages will be operational for the 2012 harvest. Clients wishing to get a head start can ‘adopt’ and blend their own Bordeaux barrel from the 2011 vintage. For more information, contact Stephen Bolger at stephen@crushpadwine.com or visit www.crushpadwine.fr.

See Tom and our wine consultant Eric Boissenot creating the final blend of our 2010 Bordeaux

Crushpad Bordeaux: Blending with Boissenot from J Durieux on Vimeo.

Thank you to all who stopped by to taste and hear about Rouge Wines on Friday September 27.  Tom was there almost the whole afternoon and for those of you that got a preview of the as-yet-unrealesed wines, you were very lucky!  Tom brought a bottle of our 2010 Brosseau back to Rochester and without a doubt this is an incredible wine.  The completely unique Brosseau and Chalone terroir and characteristics are really on display and we look forward to releasing this wine in the spring for you to experience!

We bottled the 2010 Brosseau, Pinot Noir from the Chalone Appellation yesterday – our new label style for this wine is below and we are excited about the deep garnet color and our early impressions of dark cola and pine forest.  We’ll release it as soon as things settle down in the bottle.

Tom will be pouring the most comprehensive selection of Rouge wines ever assembled this friday in Sonoma California.

Crushpad’s tasting room is located at:

389 4th Street East
Sonoma, CA 95476

Tom will be pouring from 12:00 pm through the afternoon; please join him to try not both our current releases of:

2008 Cabernet, Ink Grade, Napa

2009 Viognier, Cuvee Punky

and also the as-yet unreleased:

2010 Brosseau Pinot Noir

2010 Bordeaux (these are barrel samples sent from France especially for this tasting session)

2010 Stagecoach Cabernet (barrel sample)

2011 Viognier juice and even some grapes (right out of the tank at the winery!)

Tom seeking the advice and determining the actual blend of our 2010 right bank wine.  Here he working with Eric Boissenot and his assistant Marco Balsimelli.  Eric suggested the addition of the Grand Pontet merlot to our base blend of Le Ruisseau merlot and Ikory Ouest cabernet franc; everyone agreed that it added a layer of complexity that was missing.  We’ll let Eric’s training and biography below speak for itself, and given that he was very pleased with our wine – we were too!

Eric Boissenot is by many considered the oenologist / consultant of choice for the some of Bordeaux’s most prestigious chateaus and has already provided critical input to the Rouge Bordeaux 2010 right bank (i.e. merlot and cab franc) wine blend as illustrated in this photo of the recent en premier tasting and blending session with Tom Roger in Bordeaux. Recently named one of the French wine industry’s 100 most influential personalities by La Revue de Vin de France, one only needs to look at Eric Boissenot’s prestigious client list to gauge the quality of his work. They include: Lafite Rothschild, Margaux, Palmer, Pichon Comtesse, Pichon Baron, Ducru-Beaucaillou, Leoville Barton, Leoville La Cazes… and the list goes on. At Tom Roger’s visit to Chateau Lafite Rothschild, Eric’s efforts were widely complimented by the Lafite winemaking staff. More importantly, Eric is working with Rouge Wines and other Crushpad clients on both vineyard selection and management as well as winemaking support for wines produced from these parcels at Crushpad’s facilities at Chateau Teyssier and providing the final blending support for its clients.

Two of the earliest members of the Rouge wine mailing list, Sally and Jim Farr hosted a Rouge wine tasting dinner of their own, reporting that “everyone loved the wines!”

As you can see, Rouge wines are already traveling around the country.