April, 2005

Greetings from Bialla Vineyards

Bialla Vineyards is becoming a reality!

What you want to know is, "When the heck do we get to drink this stuff?"

Well, we will bottle our '03 on Sept 6th this year -- and depending on bottle shock we'll put it up for sale shortly thereafter. Bottle shock is when the wine gets mad at you from being evicted out of its home, those expensive French barrels. It needs to settle down after being disturbed and shoved into a bottle with light all around. This can take a month or two, maybe a little longer. But you'll be the first to hear when it's ready. Either way, we'll have some juice to sample at our harvest party which we're planning to have on Sat., Sept 24th. Make reservations early as Napa is a definite hot spot around that time of year.

A couple things have happened since we last sent an update.

We completed the cave and now have a very elegant place to finish off our annual HARVEST PARTY. There are some pictures on the website if you'd like to see it.

We also finished designing our label and Jeffrey Caldewey did a fabulous job. He spent ample time at the vineyard working on concepts but fell in love with our house the minute he walked in. He said the mood, the history, the love and warmth he felt there did him in. We have what is believed to be the oldest house in Tiburon and is called the Castle in history books. The story is on the back of the label and on the web site. Once the label was done we had to redo the web site too to reflect the new design.

We were approved as wholesalers and my shady past did not surface in the personal investigation one has to be exposed to in the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau approval process. We also just got approval to become a fully bonded winery which is a big deal in Napa. We are very happy about that. Feel free to send this to a friend who might be interested in this limited release of what we think is a killer cult wine so they can add themselves to our mailing list.

Thanks for letting us share our story and -- very soon -- some damn good wine.

--Vito and Linda Bialla
Bialla Vineyards