For over forty years of crafting world-renowned wines, the Flora Springs name has become synonymous with perfectly balanced Napa Valley Chardonnay. The legacy began when our inaugural vintage in 1978 was awarded a gold medal at the Orange County Fair. A few years later our status of gold was bronzed when James Laube selected Flora Springs as one of his “First Growth” producers of Chardonnay in his book California’s Great Chardonnays.
Enter to win: Tweet or Instagram with us on May 24th using hashtag #ChardonnayDay, #WhiteWineEmoji and @florasprings in your tweets/posts.
We will pick one lucky Flora Springs fan to win a Flora Springs prize pack.*
*Must be 21+ to enter. Void where prohibited. Wine will not be included in the prize pack. Chance of winning depends on the total number of entries.
Don’t forget, if you love Chardonnay, we need your help and support in creating a White Wine Emoji! Make your voice heard and please help us by showing your love for white wine by signing the official #WhiteWineEmoji petition here.
Winetasting should be fun and exciting and by no means overwhelming or stuffy. Wine is a beautiful thing and we at Flora Springs, enjoy educating and hosting people from all over the world. Wine appreciation doesn’t just have to happen at a winery or tasting room, but it can also happen in your very own home. Here are our tips for pulling together a fun and educational winetasting event that you can host with family and friends from the comfort of your own home.
Tasting wine is a tactile experience that allows a person to use all five senses. When tasting wine there are typically five different components a balanced wine will have. Look for sweetness, acidity, tannin, fruit and body.
There are also different ways that you can run the tasting:
Do you want to do a vertical tasting of the same wine with different vintages or do you want to consider doing a horizontal tasting which includes different wines from the same vintage?
Another thing to consider is doing an unbiased tasting by running it blindly. Blind tastings are always educational and fun to see which wine comes out on top. Be sure to bag each wine so your guests won’t know what they are tasting until the big reveal at the end. It will also help to have a pen and paper for guests to record their notes and rank the wines based on their preferences.
Now for the process of tasting, an easy way to remember the steps of winetasting is to remember the five S’s listed below. A few things to remember, it is always better to use a white tablecloth and the same type of glass when doing a wine tasting so that you can truly see the color of each wine and have an equal comparison by having each wine hit the same part of your palate, especially when comparing wines against each other.
See – Once you have wine in your glass, look at its color. Look at the wine in the bowl of the glass as well as the color of the wine on the edge of the glass. Is it different? The color can offer clues as to whether the wine has been aged in oak, is oxidized or can offer hints to the variety of the grape.
Swirl – Next, before tasting, swirl the wine in your glass and give it some air by allowing the aromatics and bouquet to fill up the bowl of the glass.
Sniff – Now, use your sense of smell to assess the wine’s bouquet or aroma. Is it intense or subdued? Is there an odd smell or a pleasant smell that reminds you of something familiar?
Sip – Fill your mouth with a generous taste of wine and hold it on your palate for a few seconds. It is common to also slurp in some air with the wine to help your palate appreciate and recognize all the textures, flavors, weight, and overall structure that the wine has to offer. How does the wine travel across your palate? Is it full and broad in body? What is the fruit or oak profile like as it travels across your palate?
Savor – Now swallow the wine and make note of its finish. How long does the taste stay with you? Was the wine balanced in only a few or all of its components?
By following these steps, you are now ready to host your very own wine tasting at home! Below is a recommended list of items you will need:
by The Nittany EpicureanHappy #SauvignonBlancDay! In addition to being a day celebrated by Star Wars fanatics, today is #SauvignonBlancDay – a global celebration of the sauvignon blanc grape. Wine lovers and winemakers come together today across the world to celebrate this grape that makes outstanding white wines in regions across the globe. We’ll celebrate the day by enjoying this sauvignon blanc from Flora Springs:
2016 Sauvignon Blanc produced & bottled by Flora Springs (St. Helena, California).
This wine is 100% sauvignon blanc from Napa Valley. Following fermentation, the wine was aged for seven months in a combination of vessels – stainless steel tanks, large wooden oval casks, concrete tanks, small oak barrels and stainless steel drums. It comes in at 14 % ABV.
The wine showed a pale straw color. Lemon curd, peach, grapefruit, apple and whiffs of orange blossom all arrived on the nose. Apple, grapefruit, tangerine, lemon, slate and peach followed on a palate redolent with nuanced citrus notes. The wine exhibited great acidity and minerality, along with good structure and length. This wine would be a great aperitif on a warm day and would pair classically with freshly shucked oysters or poached shrimp.
The cool and rainy spring slowed the start of the growing season at all of the Flora Springs ranches. Bud break started several weeks later than the past several harvests, however, this additional span provided more time for the vineyard crew to conduct other activities. One of which was to apply a compost tea to all of the ranches to stimulate soil microbial populations. Discing has recently been conducted at all the ranches as well. Jenny Rohrs, our Viticulturist, is examining the vines block by block to prioritize which ones will be suckered and leafed first.
In the winery, we are just finishing up our annual “Musical Barrel” routine – whereby, we move all the past years vintage into the cave, and move the previous year’s vintage (2016 in this case) into our barrel room. As noted previously, this enables us to draw from these barrels more efficiently when making blends prior to bottling. We continue to top the barrels in both the cave and barrel buildings. The wine experiences a certain amount of natural evaporation – roughly 5% or more over the barrel aging process. To ensure the barrel does not have any headspace, which would result in oxidation over time, we top them up every 3 weeks throughout the entire aging period. We are also getting into the start of the bottling season. We have bottled the Pinot Grigio and Rosé, and will be bottling the Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnays over the next several weeks.
Do you love white wine? We here at Flora Springs do and are asking, “Where is the #WhiteWineEmoji?
While there is a rainbow of cocktail emojis and 2 beer options, even a champagne emoji, white wine lovers only have a red wine emoji to choose from when proclaiming their love for white wine.
Help Flora Springs advocate for the establishment of a #whitewineemoji. Sign and share the official petition, and we are relying on you to spread the word with every white wine lover you know, and help us call attention to this issue. Share your posts on Instagram and Facebook. Retweet us, and for every one of your white wine posts include:
#WhiteWineEmoji and tag @FloraSprings
Only we can raise awareness together, so go ahead and document your love for white wine. Wine lovers who text, post and share their #currentstatus of #whitewinemoji wine tasting solidify this need.
For a limited time, when you purchase the #WhiteWineEmoji Napa Valley 3-pack, or complete a tasting of Flora Spring’s current white wine releases, get an exclusive #WhiteWineEmoji button.
We’ll continue to shine a light on the need for a white wine emoji until we see one loaded onto every smartphone keyboard! Don’t you think it is about time?
This year Flora Springs, in conjunction with Arts Council Napa Valley, celebrates the 8th annual Arts in April event at The Room. Contemporary artists have been busy all month long with demonstrations, installations, and musical performances that showcase the creative genius of artists at work paired with wine flights featuring the winery’s artist series labels. We invite you to join in on the fun for the final weekend of this series.
This Saturday, April 28th will feature the awe-inspiring Dominic Fontana of tapedmetalcanvas.com. Tape and metal artist Dominic uses various methods and materials to carve, weave, and layer colorful metallic tape. He often transforms each piece into a balanced, symmetrical, and often abstract piece of artwork. Dominic has also had his work featured throughout the month at The Room and you can have some fun with his pieces and the flash on your iPhone.
Also, featured will be the sounds of Lauren Hulbert is a folk-rock singer-songwriter. She has a sultry, warm voice and a wide variety of raw and authentic songs. For more information about this event click here.
Below are a few snapshots of other artists that have been featured earlier this month for Arts in April.Brett Crawford of startvault.com is a painter, metal sculptor, printmaker, illustrator and street artist are a few of the titles California native Brett Crawford holds. His work can be found in galleries and on walls all over Los Angeles. His preferred medium for large works is spray paint, but he is versatile and not limited to one material.Amandalynn is a muralist inspired by the female form and spirit, Amandalynn depicts strong, seductive women and illustrates their strength through line work and decorative patterning.Katie Colver is a singer-songwriter and guitar player. Her voice is earthy and powerful, and her music is most influenced by folk and rock music of the 70s.
Matriarch Flora Komes was born in Hawaii and Flora Springs has always had a natural affinity for all things Hawaiian. Yesterday, Flora Springs hosted the Preferred Palates Wine Club Pick Up party on a warm sunny afternoon at The Estate with a traditional luau theme. Guests got the chance to make their own leis while enjoying the sounds of the islands with the “chuck-a-chuck” acoustics and whispery nylon strings of the traditional luau-style ukulele music.Tastings of the current Wild Boar barrel sample, as well as Wild Boar library vintages were enjoyed with the festive pairing of a whole roast pig.Learn more about our Wine Clubs and the benefits of each.
Flora Springs will celebrate National Library Week by pouring select library wines at both The Estate and The Room next week, April 8-15. Featured wines will include rare, cellared vintages of Flora Springs’ flagship red wine blend, Trilogy. Library wines will also be available.
Nat Komes, third-generation family member and Flora Springs General Manager, has a particular affinity for libraries, as his mother worked as a librarian when he was growing up. He said he developed a great love of reading which he shares with his own children. In fact, while spending time at the library reading to them, Komes said he has found inspiration for several of his wine projects.
“We’re excited to celebrate National Library Week by opening our wine library throughout the week,” said Komes. “Library wines are older, unique, and rare wines that have been purposefully stored to age. Just as libraries transform minds, the aging process transforms wine, often in unexpected and delightful ways.”
Flora Springs’ limited-time “Libraries Transform” tasting experience will be held at both The Room (677 South St. Helena Highway, St. Helena) and The Estate (1978 West Zinfandel Lane, St. Helena), open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., seven days a week. Reservations are required to visit The Estate. Additional tasting fees for the library wines may apply. For more information visit florasprings.com or call (866) 967-8032 or 967-6723.
1994 hails Flora Spring’s first release of the Single Vineyard portfolio with the Rutherford Hillside Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon. Three years later in 1997 we added the Rennie Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon. Today, Flora Springs now offers five exclusive, limited-production Single Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignons with the addition of Wild Boar, Out of Sight and Holy Smoke. Each production is highly limited and drawn from select blocks from our family-farmed estate vineyards that consistently produce wines of exacting quality.
The 2015 vintage will be known for its higher quality and lower yields as compared to previous years. The growing season began with warm temperatures in late winter and early spring resulting in an early bud break. In May, colder temperatures during bloom caused fruit set to be uneven, yielding a much smaller crop compared to earlier vintages. Winemakers and vineyard managers worked closely together as the season progressed to ensure grapes ripened uniformly. The harvest, which was in full swing by mid-August, was one of the earliest on record in Napa Valley, and most vintners completed picking by mid-October. Although the continuing drought was a concern around California, Napa Valley received 75% of its annual rainfall average in 2015 making it less worrisome for Napa vintners.
Our Preferred Palates Wine Club Members have a guaranteed allocation of these very limited wines. Learn more about the benefits of membership.
The simple practice of meditation can bring immense peace with profound results. Nature has a lot to do with reconnecting with our souls, and in today’s day and age, with all the hustle and bustle it is more important than ever that we take care of ourselves. You deserve to feel at peace, balanced and centered. So today, take a moment for yourself and listen to the healing sound of flowing water from our natural springs and appreciate the beauty and renewal that Spring season promises. Do something good for your soul. Tonight, light some candles with your loved one, share a bottle of wine and toast to all that we should be grateful for. Happy Friday
Do you love white wine? We here at Flora Springs do and are asking, “Where is the #WhiteWineEmoji?
This year Flora Springs, in conjunction with 
Brett Crawford of 
Amandalynn is a muralist inspired by the female form and spirit, Amandalynn depicts strong, seductive women and illustrates their strength through line work and decorative patterning.
Katie Colver is a singer-songwriter and guitar player. Her voice is earthy and powerful, and her music is most influenced by folk and rock music of the 70s.
Guests got the chance to make their own leis while enjoying the sounds of the islands with the “chuck-a-chuck” acoustics and whispery nylon strings of the traditional luau-style ukulele music.
Tastings of the current Wild Boar barrel sample, as well as Wild Boar library vintages were enjoyed with the festive pairing of a whole roast pig.
Flora Springs will celebrate National Library Week by pouring select library wines at both The Estate and The Room next week, April 8-15. Featured wines will include rare, cellared vintages of Flora Springs’ flagship red wine blend, Trilogy. Library wines will also be available.
