Hello Wooters!
First off, Marsha and I would like to shout out a sincere thank you to all you wooters who participated in Lang Wines' previous woots, purchased our wines and provided (mostly) gratifying comments.
We were winegrowers for 25-years; together with two other airline pilot families, we fenced and cleared the land, planted and established Twin Rivers Vineyards in El Dorado County. Hard work, yes, but very rewarding. Our first wine, a 1983 El Dorado County Zinfandel, was a gold medal winner at the 1985 Orange County Fair Wine Competion (fortunately, we kept our day jobs). We learned that great wines begin with the very best grapes; world-wide, those superior grapes are most often found in small, family-owned vineyards where the 'owner's shadow'(and his sweat) is always in the vineyard.
In the picturesque gold-country valleys of California's historic Sierra Foothills above 1500 feet elevation, family owned and tended vineyards are the norm. Vines here are planted in small, often irregular, hillside plots of five to forty-acres, where deep, granite-based soils, cool nights and warm days produce winegrapes that make wines with a readily identifiable sense of place.
Lang Wines mission, together with winemaker Mark McKenna, is to find the exceptional vineyards from amongst the merely very good and bring well-deserved attention to the owner-growers whose dedicated efforts make the excellence of our wines possible.
Both Mark and I will be checking in on Woot from time to time over the next few days to follow the Woot conversation; we look forward to responding to your questions, comments and critique.
Bob & Marsha Lang
