Silver Belle
Our limited edition 2014 Jardin d’Hiver Cuvée makes its fleeting perennial appearance in a wintry silver gift box. The dry, brisk, and richly layered Late Disgorged Ultra Brut pays homage to the Château’s spectacular “winter garden” conservatory that overlooks the rolling hills of Carneros.
$69 | Member Price: $55.20
Note: Available Dec. 1
Château Culinary Collection
Your favorite home entertainer will adore this bounty of gourmet delights, elegant marble serving board, and gold cheese knife that accompanies a bottle of our award-winning 2015 Estate Brut Cuvée. All the perfect sparkling pairings are here: Sonoma’s own Journeyman Meat Co. artisan salumi; San Francisco’s amazing Jamnation “Cheese Lovers Mini Trio”; a jar of Black Bow Sweet’s Sea Salt and Black Pepper Cashews; Rustic Bakery Artisan Fruitcake Crisps; and a wheel of ambrosial Mt. Tam, Cowgirl Creamery’s signature triple-cream cheese. (Please note, this gift set requires overnight shipping.)
$134 | Member Price: $107.20
Note: limited amount of cheese so will sell pack without cheese once sells out
Duet Delight
Delight them with our best-selling winery exclusives, 2016 Brut Rosé and 2015 Estate Brut Cuvée, nestled in our signature blue gift box. This sparkling duo displays the elegance, versatility, and verve of our Carneros fruit.
$92 | Member Price: $73.60
Colors of Carneros
Three deliciously distinctive wines highlight the magic and majesty of Carneros! Our 2016 Brut Rosé, 2018 Estate Pinot Noir, and 2015 Estate Brut Cuveé embody the depth and breadth of our six estate vineyards translated through masterful winemaking and presented in our signature blue box.
$139 | Member Price: $111.20
Award-Winning Wines with History
Rescue Dog Wines Red Wine Blend
2020 North Coast Cabernet Sauvignon
Improbable Story Produces Gold Medal Wine & Foster Home for Dogs
The winery’s origin story is always an interesting conversation starter, yet the tale behind Rescue Dog Wines has few peers. Founders Blair and Laura Lott forged a unique compromise when they decided to pull up Bay Area stakes and relocate to the Central Valley. Blair would return to his agricultural roots and grow grapes while Laura would use the property to foster dogs, specifically boxers with the NorCal Boxer Organization. They hadn’t agreed to bottle or market the wine from their Lodi vineyard, that is until the juice from their grapes proved too good to pass along. Rescue Dog Wines was born.
“We took over a distressed property with an exhausted vineyard that required a full replanting,” recalls Blair. “Both of my parents grew up on farms in Georgia. My goal was to grow grapes as my way of farming again. We figured we’d produce a single ‘friends and family’ barrel for special occasions.”
Blair first became fascinated with winemaking while living in Melbourne, Australia. Laura caught the wine bug during an early date the couple took to Napa. Blair was all in on selling their triplex and moving out of Alameda, having tired of being a landlord for the other two properties. “Grapes don’t complain,” he says.
Susy is a Lodi based winemaker and consultant with local and international vineyard and winemaking experience. She’d studied agronomy in Bolivia and moved to the U.S. to study organic agriculture at the CalState San Luis Obispo, then advanced to receive her Winemaker Certificate at UC Davis’ prestigious Viticulture Department. After hearing about Rescue Dog Wines, she knew she wanted to become involved.
“Blair and Laura are very passionate people,” Susy says. “This is an amazing project which is why I approached Blair to join the team.”
Susy had never heard of a winery with such a clear mission, specifically, 50 percent of all profits go directly to animal welfare support. She also says the wines are outstanding, a testament to the Lotts’ excellent palates and ability to blend wines.
"The wines are very fruit-forward, aromatic, and easy to pair with food or drink by themselves on hot days. The Cabernet Sauvignon and other reds more than hold their own at dinner too. As a winemaker and former student of organic agriculture, I am particularly proud that some of our wines are made with sustainably farmed fruit."
Susy and Laura share another passion beyond excellent wine and animals, a deep commitment to the Lodi region.
“Lodi has been always been an underappreciated location,” says Laura. “This is to our benefit on a certain level. This area attracts passionate winemakers who can’t afford to grow wine elsewhere.”
Susy adds that, far from being an outsider in the California wine scene, Lodi vineyards grow more than 100 varietals and are now supplying other regions including Napa and Sonoma with grapes.
Laura liked living in the city but was tired of commuting to the South Bay for work. Her interest in dog welfare, formed from her devotion to Daisey, a boxer-mix, grew into an obsession as she learned more about the number of dogs that need fostering each year. She knew living in the country would provide the room for her to foster dogs, boxers are known for being rambunctious. As a condition of fostering, Laura would have the right to approve any new homes for the dogs they have taken in.
"My MO when approving a new owner is that they provide as good or better a home than we do,” Laura says. “It’s a high bar so we feel really good every time we can place one of our dogs in an outstanding home.”
Well, not always that good. Fostering dogs comes with an inherent challenge, having to give away an animal you have welcomed into your family, nurtured, and grown to love. The departure of Annie, who Laura says went to an amazing home, was particularly rough on Blair.
“I said, ‘wait, you’re giving my dog away?’” says Blair. “We had really bonded and it was very hard to see her go, even though I knew Laura would be selecting a new foster dog right away.”
While fostering dogs is a predictable process, producing Gold Medal wines was never part of the plan, though Laura still wonders if it was in the back of Blair's mind all the time. For his part, Blair was happy to be working the soil again with his farm manager Aaron Shin, producing something that gave so much pleasure to people. His small-batch output was creating high-quality results, but it was his inadvertent marketing genius that resulted in the first label being printed.
“We had definitely moved here with growing in mind,” but because we were also going to foster dogs the name ‘Rescue Dog Wines’ jumped into my mind and wouldn’t leave. I decided to try it out on Facebook and we quickly grew to over 10,000 followers. We sold out our first batch online, moved to a larger wine-making facility, and decided it was time to hire a head winemaker, Susana Rodriguez Vasquez; as well as méthodes champenoise winemaker Eric Donaldson.
Like the Lodi appellation, Rescue Dog Wines continue to gain notice among peers and judges alike. The Beloved Mixed Red and Predominantly Poodle Sauvignon Blanc each received a Gold Medal at the 2020 SF Chronicle Wine Competition. The Rescue Dog Wines Red Wine Blend took home another Gold this year.
We often discuss wine as an essential element of the “good life.” Laura and Blair Lott go much further, donating 50 percent of Rescue Dog Wines' profit to more than two dozen animal welfare agencies from Georgia to California. If their wine is distributed somewhere, there's a very good chance the local animal shelter, adoption agency, or humane society receives a portion of the proceeds. From a desire to return to the country and to foster dogs, Blair and Laura have grown Rescue Dog Wines into a Gold Medal label that provides the good life for our best friends too. Visit the Rescue Dog Wines website to learn more.
For the Love of Dogs
SHOP OUR WINES
Predominantly Poodle Sauvignon Blanc
Bubbly Boxer Demi Sec Sparkling Wine
Laura Lott
-Founder-
Blair Lott
-Founder-
Eric Donaldson
-Winemaker-
Susana Rodriguez Vasquez
-Head Winemaker-