Meet the Winemaker: Thacher Winery

Last week my fiance and I went to an awesome event at Grateful Red, a wine shop in Clarendon. It is the "sister" wine store to Screwtop Wine Bar (which I have reviewed before here).

It was a "meet the winemaker" event, and this was my first ever event like this. 

They had a long picnic table set up inside the shop, so people could sit down and relax while tasting the wines (and eat the various meats and cheeses, yum!).

Winery: Thacher

Winemaker: Sherman Thacher

Varietal, Region: Sauvignon Blanc & Zinfandel (both pictured above), Paso Robles, California

Arlington Store, Neighborhood: Grateful Red, Clarendon

Price: bottles range from about $22-60

We tried 5 or 6 wines, a few reds and a few whites. The ones pictured above are my favorites. Sherman stood at the front of the room while we tasted the wines and explained the history of each one, and how he got started which was very cool. 

History: Sherman Thacher said he took wine and beer making classes when he was in school at UC Davis (although I'm extremely proud to be an ECU pirate, they definitely didn't have those classes there!). 

He then worked for a brewery for 15 years including when he was starting up his winery. In 1993 he went and bought one ton of Zinfandel grapes that were planted in 1910. How cool is that?! The following year, he bought another three tons of grapes and before having his own land he used several different wineries in Santa Cruz for production.

In 2004, he and his wife bought property in Paso Robles and four years later Thacher Winery and Vineyard opened.

Another thing I really liked that Sherman pointed out was that he makes all of his wines with minimal interference, as to not interrupt the natural process. An example he gave about this: one of the white wines was too acidic because of an especially hot summer season so he blended it with another white grape to mellow it out, instead of using an additive.

All in all, a great experience and I'm looking forward to future events.

Cheers!