John Manion, Beloved Husband, Winemaker Extradronaire, VP Liquid Assets

It starts with sunlight, a good grape varietal, blessed terroir, knowledge to bring it together, and a lot of help from our friends and family! Viola, a wine that is fine!

Our backyard vineyard idea was a landscape solution to begin with. Could we really grow a pretty vineyard to look over, that would have four season interest, be drought tolerant, and maybe yield a good grape for a nice wine. A grand experiment that luckily has worked out well, and ultimately created a nice lifestyle for us at Domaine de Manion.

We use to enter a lot of home wine competitions, and did well with medals and awards. Later, my husband, John, was even asked to judge some of these competitions. With judging duties and the pandemic, we stopped entering our wines.

This spring for fun, we entered two of our wines in the 2022 Orange County Fair Home Wine Competition. We were surprised when we received a Gold Medal for our Syrah 2020 and a Bronze Medal for our Syrah Rosé 2021. We knew our wines were drinking well. It reinforces we are managing the vineyard well, and doing right by the grapes. John is a great winemaker, and he has a nice style with his wines.

Hail to the winemaker! The wine is fine!

Related Past Posts:

Hail to the Winemaker

Surprise at the Orange County Fair

Anticipating One’s First Grape Harvest

Bon Appétit et Bon Weekend…Bonnie

Vines Now Nearly Hiding “Coop de Manion”

The last time I mentioned our vineyard, Prepping the Vineyard, it was March and pruning had just finished. In a few months time, the vines have exploded in growth. In fact, you can hardly see the chicken coop through the vigor of the vines.

Vines Before In Spring After Pruning

I often joke that grapevines are like weeds, and they are. Besides all this growth vigor, the vines are flowering and tiny grape clusters are forming. It looks like it is a good fruit set for this year.

Grapevines Flowering

I really enjoy how the vineyard looks in the spring. The vines are a lush vibrant green, full in canopy, stretching for the sky, and basically happily unbridled.

Rows of Happy Grapevines at Domaine de Manion

Now as the vineyard marches toward harvest, the grapevines get down to business further maturing in canopy, growing the grape clusters, verasion or coloring of the grapes, and the ultimate ripening of the grapes in sugar brix for harvest.

It has been fun sharing the vigor of our vineyard. Is there something in your garden that explodes with vigor that you look forward to each year?

Bon Appétit et Bon Weekend….Bonnie

Happy Grape Clusters Ripening

I am always amazed at the vineyard from winter to spring to summer, and now to fall and the ensuing transformation of buds to fruit clusters on the grapevines. It is almost time to harvest at Domaine de Manion. Vintages each year are just like children, and years of your life, each one is always different, and unknown to the outcome.

I am simply going to leave you with one of the most memorable quotes on wine by Galileo Galilei, “Wine is sunlight, held together by water.”

It means that wine is the perfect combination of it’s terroir, natural rainfall, and perfect amount of sunlight.

May this year’s vintage be outstanding and remarkable at Domaine de Manion! Salut!!

Bon Appétit et Bon Weekend….Bonnie