Spring 2010 Release

What's in a name?

Pronounced "FAY-la", ours comes from the Italian island of Sicily, a melting pot of southern Europeans, so it's often mistaken for Spanish or French heritage. Since we launched our website, dozens of Failla's have joined our mailing list, many during searches for ancestors and long-lost family members. Few can resist the discovery of an eponymously-named wine.

Failla is a rare breed in the modern wine industry – a family business with owners who worked at the craft of winemaking for years before investing their life savings to build a winery with no one but the bank for partners. Not better or worse, simply increasingly uncommon. The 21st-century independent family winery is in peril as venerable labels are acquired and assimilated into corporate “beverage portfolios”. Many Napa wineries are financed by the triumphs of moguls in such disparate fields as auto racing, TV dinners and animation who personify the old joke: “How do you make a small fortune in the wine business? Start with a large fortune and buy a winery!” Finally, Ehren is the epitome of an only child; he won’t even let his mother invest. And frankly, the recent news of iconic winery dynasties forced by shareholders to give up their ownership only strengthens his resolve to remain independent.

Besides, the word brand is defined as "an emotional relationship between a consumer and a product that takes the product beyond the commodity level”, and families are nothing if not emotional. Often the best part of discovering a new winery is being invited to join the “family”, through mailing lists or wine clubs, invitation-only parties and winemaker dinners. And how many of you have an Uncle Louie whose homemade wine often graces your table despite its repeated attempts to fuse the inside of your mouth to your gums? Wouldn’t it be great to have an Uncle Ehren instead? A personal connection whose wines you are proud to serve and anxious to drink? Scan the Events page on our website (www.faillawines.com); if we will be in your area, send us a suggestion for a special tasting you would like to host for your friends, and your Failla “family” will try to oblige.

March finds Ehren in Shell Beach, CA for the World of Pinot Noir’s By The Sea Grand Tasting, then Chicago for a winemaker dinner at L20, on to Manhattan for our New York distributor’s portfolio tasting and finally Boston for a winemaker dinner in association with the Boston Wine Festival. Together Anne-Marie and Ehren ring in Easter Weekend with winemaker dinners at the Inn at Palmetto Bluff on April 2nd & 3rd.

2008 tested every vintner in California with record-breaking assaults by Mother Nature. While frost is hardly unusual here, the duration of the unrelenting cold snap that began in late March was unprecedented; our growers awoke to frost alarms 20 out of 30 days and lost anywhere from 10-80% of their crop. Spring 2008 was also the driest on record for much of California and in June, the “Govenator” declared a statewide drought for the first time in over a century. Dry thunderstorms and lightning unleashed over 25,000 lightning strikes across Northern and Central California, igniting more than 2,000 fires. While “cigar box” and toasty notes are welcome aromas in wines like ours, wildfire smoke is not, leaving a nose redolent of ashtray and creosote. But be assured that the wines we offer here were untarnished by the capricious course of the conflagration (Sorry, I couldn’t help myself!).

Due to the miniscule quantity of 2008 Alban Viognier and Estate Chardonnay bottled, they will not be allocated to any of our distributors; in fact, only you, our most tenacious and voracious customers, are being offered an opportunity to purchase these wines.

2008 Edna Valley Viognier, Alban Vineyard (45 cases produced)