And the Awards Just Keep Coming!

State Fair Winners - Casque 

"Best California MicroWinery"
Red Wines & White Wines

1. 2009 Vermentino (DOUBLE GOLD - 98 POINTS)  This nearly perfect score was awarded to just a few in the larger wine category and was a surprise score in the Micro Winery category. This wine has yet to be released, but will be poured at the Grape and Gourmet event on July 7th.
2. 2007 Cabernet Franc (GOLD - 95 POINTS)  Also one of the highest scoring winners in the Micro Winery category.
3. 2009 Viognier (SILVER - 91 POINTS)  This wine is not yet released, but will be poured at the Grape and Gourmet.
4. 2008 Calotte Blanc (SILVER – 88 POINTS)  Note that the 2007 Calotte Blanc was the first wine Casque Wines released and won a Best of Class at the San Francisco Chronicle 2009 Wine Competition, America’s largest competition.

The wins for the Vermentino and Cabernet Franc garnered Casque Wines the title for 2 out of 3 awards for Best California MicroWinery (Red Wines and White Wines).  The MicroWinery category was created for small production commercial wineries who make less than 2000 cases a year.  They are scored on the same scale as the larger commercial wineries, but don't need to adhere to the requirements for wine that needs to be made available for State Fair activities.

Click Here for the List of the Best Show Wines for the 2010 State Fair

The Vermentino and Viognier will be released next Wednesday, July 14th at the Bistro La Petite's Bastille Day event that will Feature 3 of Casque's award winning wines paired with some exotic small plates of food.  Click Here for details about the event and to purchase tickets.

Best White Wine:
The 2008 Casque Calotte Blanc (Amador County) is on the top of my list.
Notice that the fruit is from Amador again, and oddly enough, that this wine is crushed and barreled at Cooper Vineyards (do you see a trend here?). Loomis-based Casque is a “virtual” winery owned by winemaker Kevin Stevenson and his partner, Mark Breunig. The 2007 inaugural vintage of this wine—crushed at Mt. Vernon— won top honors for its class at the 2009 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition, and the new offering is again very, very pleasing to this palate. There is a caveat in anointing the best white wine and that is there is a dribble of white produced in our region compared to red, and that’s because the growing conditions are too harsh—white vines prefer much cooler temps. The obvious exception, however, is Rhone varieties thrive in our region, so you’ll find occasional plantings of Viognier, Roussanne, Marsanne and all of these are blended in the Casque Calotte Blanc along with an unusual variety called Vermentino. All of the grapes were crushed and fermented and then aged in stainless steel separately before being blended. So what you get is crisp clean flavors of apple and stone fruits with a wonderful mouthfeel. It is priced at $22 per bottle, the same as all Casque wines, and a new Rouge version has just been released.

Thanks Gary!!

IN PROGRESS ONLINE - September 2009 Newsletter
 

Office of Economic Development, Placer County, California

Placer Wineries Win State Fair Medals

Casque Wines, one of the county’s newest wineries, and Pescatore Winery, founded in 1997, walked away from the 2009 California State Fair Wine Competition with several medals. Casque’s two inaugural red wines won two of 37 medals given in the new Microwinery category - a Silver for its 2006 Syrah and a Bronze for the 2006 Cabernet Franc. Casque produces small lots of hand-crafted Bordeaux and Rhone-style wines. Earlier this year, Casque’s 2007 Calotte Blanc, a white Rhone-style blend, won “Best of Class” at the San Francisco Chronicle 2009 Wine Competition. Pescatore Vineyard and Winery garnered a Bronze Medal at the State Fair for its 2007 Petite Sirah, the same wine that won a Gold Medal at this year’s Chronicle Wine Competition. Using only grapes grown in Placer County, Pescatore produces annually 600 to 700 cases of wine, including Zinfandel, Syrah, and Barbara. Both wineries will be represented at the 2nd Annual Placer Valley Wine & Art Party, featuring 14 Placer County wineries and their award-winning wines, at Fountains at Roseville, Saturday, October 17, 6 to 11 p.m. The party includes the works of 50 artists on display and a full concert with three live bands. For more, visit Casque Wines at http://www.casquewines.com / or Pescatore Winery at http://www.pescatorewines.com/.

The Auburn Journal ran this article on March 18th.  They missed all the locations in Auburn that carry our wines:  Carpe Vino (Placer and Beyond Tasting Room), The Club Car, Le Bilig, and Monkey Cat.

Loomis News:  We made the front page!  Check out the story.

See our picture and hear about Placer County's emerging wine trail.

Channel 10:  Read the article and watch the video of the news report by clicking on Channel 10

Sacramento Bee:  Chris Macias had good things to say at the Sacramento Bee link

Check out the KFBK Story.  So much for modern technology, a bad phone connection now has Kevin Swanson as one of the owners instead of Kevin Stevenson. :-)

Casque Wines, Northern California’s newest winery, wins “Best of Class” at San Francisco Chronicle’s 2009 Wine Competition

Sierra Foothills winery specializes in Rhone and Bordeaux style wines

LOOMIS, CA. Casque Wines’ 2007 Calotte Blanc, their inaugural white wine, has won the prestigious Best of Class award at the San Francisco Chronicle 2009 Wine Competition in the category of Rhone, Other White Varietals and Blends, an award that tops all other winners of gold, silver, and bronze medals. Le Casque 2007 Calotte Blanc is a Rhone style blend of Roussanne, Viognier, Marsanne, and Vermentino. The annual SF Chronicle event is America’s largest wine competition, with over 4700 wines from 26 states competing for a limited number of awards.

“Everyone at Casque is extremely proud to have the first wine ever produced win such a prestigious award” stated Kevin Stevenson, the partner managing winemaking. “We have just released our reds which weren’t ready in time for the San Francisco competition, but they are also showing just as much promise. We can’t wait to enter them in other competitions, and believe they represent the high quality of fruit sourced from the Sierra Foothill region. This is just the first step in our journey and it is already a big one for us.”

Casque Wines, owner of the Le Casque wine brand, uses the time honored European tradition of blending several different varietals together to create a wine that is greater than the sum of its parts. These boutique wines are available in limited quantities, with 400 cases produced in 2008 and include the 2007 Calotte Blanc, 2007 Unfiltered Roussanne, 2006 Cabernet Franc, and 2006 Syrah. Production will increase in 2009 with more red and white blends and selected varietals available.

Casque Wines is a boutique winery whose wines are currently sold on-line through www.casquewines.com, and through boutique wine shops and restaurants in the San Francisco, Sacramento and Placer County regions. Their brand, Le Casque (pronounced “cask”), was founded by Mark Breunig and Kevin Stevenson in 2006 to produce small, hand crafted lots of Bordeaux and Rhone style wines from the absolute best vineyard sources in the California Sierra Foothills.

For information, visit Le Casque on-line at www.casquewines.com.
 

Media contact:  Tina Morarity-Breunig - tina@casquewines.com - 916-660-9671