Archive for September 3rd, 2006

2006.09.03

Wine and Blogs; a Mankas Hills Offer

It’s a well known fact: bloggers and wine mix quite well. Maybe not at the same time, but sometimes yes. And there are many wine blogs to peruse at your leisure.

Though I, like most of my friends, are far from sommelier-caliber abilities we do love to have a glass or four when we gather. The problem with a lot of wine for us is the cost; I hesitate to spend fifteen dollars or more on a wine I do not know.

That’s why I was rather excited to get an email from my friend Roger to let me know that Mankas Hills Vineyards was giving away a bottle of wine to bloggers in specific.

Mankas Hills Vineyards is a small endeavor and not very widely known yet. We have some excellent Cabernets which we would like everyone to find out about and we really believe in the power of word of mouth and Web 2.0.
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So here is our offer: Mankas Hills Vineyards would like to send a free sample bottle of our new 2004 Amelie Cabernet Sauvignon – Merlot out to anyone who has a blog and lives in the United States.

In actuality there are some legal limitations on who can and cannot receive the wine. Even so, it’s an amazing offer and I wrote in to join the recipient lists if possible. I also asked about the name of the wine as Amelie is one of my favorite movies.

Yesterday I got an answer from Andrea at the winery. “The wine is called Amelie after my daugther. My father, who started the winery along with his brother, wanted to give sometime special to his newborn grand daughter and so he thought he would name a wine after her. She was born in 2004 just like the wine.” I love family businesses because something as simple as this shows the importance of family, love and legacy.

Although there is “no obligation” to blog about the wine, I’m actually looking forward to it. The 2004 Amelie recently won a silver at the San Francisco International Wine Competition (annoying Flash site). Mankas Hills Vineyard is in the Suisun Valley on the other side of Napa from Sonoma. I think I should so some research and plan a trip up there with friends since I’d never been there before…