Tonight was the Stolpman Industry Open House at the tasting room in Los Olivos.  Tom Stolpman was behind the bar pouring barrel samples and Peter Stolpman was pressing the flesh with other industry folks, in his new role as National Sales Director.  I saw a number of people from Consilience and Tre Anelli including Jodie Boulet-Daughters (one of the owners), Brett Escalera (winemaker / one of the owners) and Janeen (tasting room manager).   I have a confession to make – I am a rabid fan of Stolpman wine –all the red and rosé wines for my wedding were Stolpman.  I think that winemaker Sashi Moorman is very, very good at his job.  With that disclosure, I have to say that I enjoyed many of the wines at Stolpman including the Hilltops Syrah and the soon-to-be-released Sauvignon Blanc.  The Sauvignon Blanc is lovely – totally done in steel, which preserves its wonderful white grapefruit flavors and citrus nose.  This is definitely a wine I’ll be pouring at backyard barbeques this summer.  Also, the recently released Grenache tastes really good right now; it has evolved in a very positive way since I tasted it a month ago.  After tasting through the wines, I walked down the street for an impromptu dinner with Louise (from Brander), Janeen (Tre Anelli) and Joy (Janeen’s sister) at the Los Olivos Café.  We shared a few appetizers – spring rolls, mini sliders with horseradish sauce and a fresh green salad.  The food from Los Olivos Café is always good – and the wine was wonderful.  We shared a bottle of the 2006 Dragonette Sta. Rita Hills Pinot.    I’ve been hearing good things about Dragonette and was excited to try out their Pinot.  I was not disappointed.  Dragonette is a partnership of two brothers, John and Steve Dragonette and their close friend Brandon Sparks-Gillis.   The ’06 vintage is only their second – but the wine from this triumvirate doesn’t taste like a new kid on the block.  How did they pull off this feat?  First and foremost, hard work and a lot of research; plus they sourced fruit from very high quality growers.  Case in point, this vintage is made of fruit from the esteemed Gaia (formerly Ashley’s) Vineyard (Fess Parker) and Fiddlestix (Fiddlehead) Vineyard.  Then, using tried and true, time consuming methods, they hand harvested, cluster sorted and then destemmed the grapes.  You could taste the passion in the end product – it was delicate, with a nose of strawberry, cherries and juniper berries.  The finish alluded to dried red fruit like cranberries and Bing cherries.  Dragonette only produced 144 cases of this Pinot Noir – so get it while you can!