Sep 10
We are lucky to get front page coverage by The Rafu Shimpo, a Japanese-English language newspaper based in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, California. The paper began in 1903 as a one-page, mimeographed Japanese-language newspaper and is now one of the oldest ethnic newspapers in the country.
In the article here, you will learn more about our family history over the past 123 years since my grandfather arrived in California. We hope you enjoy the information!
We are pleased to announce that our third wine, a Petite Sirah, is now available to our newsletter group. Only 55 cases of the inaugural vintage were produced.
To learn more, please see this recent article about the efforts that went into this wine.
As always, thank you for your support!
Jason, Mitzi and Kate
In February, the 2015 Zinfandel was awarded a Gold Medal by the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition, the largest and most prestigious wine competition in the United States. This is our 4th consecutive Gold Medal or better. Additionally in May, Wine Enthusiast awarded the Zin 90 points, the 3rd such rating across our past 4 vintages. The tasting report is here. We are humbled to receive such national recognition for our wines. Sadly, though, it is already SOLD OUT. The 2016 is set for release in November, so please make sure you don’t miss out.
Our wines have been featured by the Lodi Wine Commission with a wonderful article by acclaimed wine expert Randy Caparoso @randycaparoso.
Please see the link here.
It’s always humbling to see our small winery featured like this. Thank you to everyone for their continued support that pushes us to always strive for the highest quality wines.
The San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition has awarded our 2015 Mikami Vineyards Zinfandel a Gold Medal. A testament to our continued focus for quality and consistency, this our 4th consecutive Gold Medal or better award from the Chronicle.
As many of you know, the SF Chronicle Competition is the largest and most prestigious wine competition in the United States, with nearly 7,000 entries from around the country.
Here is our San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition results for our vintages since 2009:
2015 – Gold
2014 – Double Gold
2013 – Double Gold
2012 – Gold
2011 – Silver
2010 – Best of Class
2009 – Gold
To our loyal fans,
Allocations for our 2015 Zinfandel release have begun.
Depending on your priority group, you will receive an email extending to you a 7-day window to contact us and make your request. After this time, we will move to the next priority group.
Please Note:
1. Only 100 cases of the Zin are available this year. This is due to the fact that 2015 saw extremely low fruit yields.
2. We will collect payment information after we receive your request.
3. Wines will ship the week of February 5.
4. Pricing remains the same: $39/bottle, $225 for 6-bottles, $450 per case. Shipping fees will be waived for orders of 6-bottles or more.
First off, thank you to everyone who inquired about us during these horrible fires. With the vineyard in Lodi, the vines are fine. However, as many of you know, we do our winemaking in Napa, at Fontanella Family Winery’s facilities. We are indebted to the tireless efforts of the Fontanella team and the firefighters of Napa who saved the facility from these flames that were literally just thousands of feet away.
Secondly, we encourage those who can to make a donation to http://www.napavalleycf.org/supporting-napa-county-fire-relief-efforts/. Our thoughts are with those directly impacted by the fires. Photo by Jeff Fontanella.
On October 8, we were invited to join award-winning reporter, Robert Handa, on his show Asian Pacific America. As one of the only Bay Area shows focused on Asian American cultural affairs, we were honored to be invited to talk about our family and our wines.
During the first segment, our conversation focused on our family’s history, with the second focused on a brief overview of wine pairings. You can watch the segments here. Please let us know what you think!
We started before dawn on September 8, and this year we harvested both the Zinfandel and Petite Sirah on the same day. We are excited about the quality of the fruit with the heavy rains last winter promoting healthy vine growth. The heatwave we encountered at the end of August was certainly a challenge, but careful canopy management in the vineyard minimized its impact. Kian is busy in the winery and fermentation has already finished. Not much longer before we’ll have the first wine, our Rosé, available. Stay tuned!
As a quick note: The 2014 Zin is nearly sold out. To purchase some wine, please email us ASAP.
In addition to all of the vineyard activities, we’ve been busy building great relationships to have our wines more available to the general public.
First, we are thrilled to have Mikami Vineyards Zinfandel now being served at San Francisco Chronicle Top 100 restaurant, Iyasare, in Berkeley. Iyasare has been consistently recognized as one of the finest modern Japanese restaurants in the Bay Area. Secondly, for our loyal customers in Japan, we are being served at the popular restaurant, Wine Terrace Yu-Me, located in the Fuchu area of Tokyo. Additionally, last month, we had a great time pouring our wines at the famous Olympic Club of San Francisco. Through all of these relationships, we hope to introduce our wines to folks who are as fanatical about handcrafted, limited production wines as you are.
As always, thank you for all of your support! We appreciate it greatly!
Jason, Mitzi, and Kate
Happy Summer! We have many updates from the vineyard and winery to share with you. As always, thank you for your support of our family winery!
Vineyard Update
It’s been an “interesting” Spring and early start to Summer. The Spring season saw relatively cool temperatures, with vigorous vine growth due to the extensive ground moisture from the drought ending rains of Winter. Then, on June 11, a rare hailstorm was observed in parts of Lodi. By contrast, just one week later on June 18, extreme temperatures over 105 degrees were recorded, beginning a heatwave that continues as I write this. As a result, we have taken careful steps to manage the vine canopy to ensure better coverage for the west side of the vines but still opening up the vine for enhanced airflow. Veraison is now just around the corner when we will see the first color of this year’s fruit.
2016 Rosé – SOLD OUT
Thanks to overwhelming interest by all of you, we are completely sold out of our 2016 Rosé. For those interested in receiving an allocation next year, please remember that priority is given to those that buy a case or more of our flagship Zinfandel. While we are looking to increase production of the Rosé for 2017, it will still be in the “tens” of cases, so please make sure you stay alert when we open up pre-orders early next year.
2016 Petite Sirah
Last month, Kian and I barrel tasted our inaugural Petite Sirah vintage, and we can’t adequately describe how excited we are! Harvested in September 2016, the wine demonstrates the deep color, rich tannins, and the fruity, blueberry notes you would expect from a PS. Like the Rosé, we expect this to sell out immediately. Priority purchasing is given to those folks who purchase a case or more of the Zinfandel. We will provide more details as we approach bottling in 2018.
