A big thanks to all our Club Members who joined us at Pietro’s in Lodi for our Fall Wine Club Pick Up Party.  It was a blast!

Owner Jim Murdaca and his crew pulled out all the stops and put together a huge spread of authentic Italian apps – antipasti, caprese, sausages, meatballs, bread sticks (awesome!) grilled veges…you name it.

Some of our Wine Clubbers got artistic with the LangeTwins coloring books we had available.  Be sure to check out Jan DeGraf’s coloring of ‘Brad in blue’ and ‘Randy in red’ – just like the Twins were routinely dressed as kids when Mrs. DeGraf was their school teacher in 1955.  Lots of history in our family winery’s Wine Club.

I spent the afternoon manning the wine bar, pouring tastes of our complete lineup.  Our newly released 2008 Chardonnay was a hit – even with non-Chard drinkers!

Check out the slideshow below for the greatest hits.

Hope you can join us for our next party, our 3rd Annual Wine Club Dinner here at the winery November 14th.  See pics from last year’s party here.

Our 2009 Wine Club Easter Egg Hunt was a huge success as marked by the crowd! It was a great family event with the kids racing through the pasture trying to fill their baskets with eggs.

Our own “E.B.” led the charge and posed for photographs with his new friends.  We had plenty of games – thanks to Carol Ronsko, Joe and Kendra’s preschool teacher at St. Paul’s Lutheran in Lodi.  She was able to research and find the ‘recipe’ to make giant bubbles.  Hula hoops, beach ball toss and of course, “corn hole” made it a great morning.

Perhaps the most interactive booth was painting the owl and bird boxes that Aaron and Phil place in the vineyards.  Aaron was very specific that we had to use camouflage colors and the kids all got into the act of creating a masterpiece with the boxes.  One little girl was really focused on painting the inside of the box and somehow was able to squeeze her whole arm and the paintbrush through the narrow entry hole.

Our good friend, Gar Wright, of Wright Insurance created the pulled pork barbecue lunch with homemade coleslaw.  Helping Gar was his son Eric and co-worker Josh Newfield.  We fed nearly 300 people – kids and adults alike really got into cupcake decorating booth.  We had frosting and green colored coconut everywhere!

Volunteer Dr. Elizabeth Hereford was assigned to the wine tasting table – and she was on task to illustrate and support the heart-healthy benefits of drinking red wine.  It’s always good to have a cardiologist in the cellar!  She was supported by retired CHP officer Bob Whitmire and his wife, Terri. None of them broke for lunch – they are truly great ambassadors for our wines.

We pulled out a barrel of the soon-to-be released 07 Zinfandel.  Our very first Zin! Vic Vandenburg grabbed the wine thief to pull samples for folks and we could never get him away from his job.  Joe and Mandy took pre-orders for the Zin – if you missed the opportunity, email Joe and we’ll make sure to save you some of the yummy stuff.

And thanks to neighbor Kevin Olympius for bringing over a pen of goats for the kids to watch – Randy has contracted with him to bring in the goats to mow down some pastureland for LangeTwins.  And that’s about as sustainable as you can get.

In case you hadn’t heard, Scott Zaballos of Danville won the ‘guess the jelly bean’ jar with a best guess of 3840 beans.  We have no idea how long he took to calculate that guess – I think it was his degree from Cal Poly that likely helped…

Gar Wright made the observation as we watched everyone just relax, eat and play that a day like this was about relationships.  And we do appreciate the friends and supporters of our Wine Club.  Mark your calendars for 2010, the Saturday before Easter – and maybe next year Drew Scott’s sister-in-law will be able to sing the entire verse of the Michigan State fight song with me!

Easter is quickly approaching!  We hope all our local Wine Club Members and their friends can join us April 11th for our 2nd Annual Easter Egg Hunt.

The event is exclusive to our Wine Club Members, their children and their grands.  Club Members are also welcome to bring along a few friends.  Please RSVP by emailing or calling Charlene at 209.334.9780 with your guests’ names.

We’re looking forward to an afternoon of photo ops with the Easter Bunny and mad scrambles for hidden Easter eggs with your little ones – be sure to bring a basket!  We’ll also have lots of games to play and a fantastic BBQ lunch by Chef Gar Wright.

As part of our sustainability effort, we invite you to help us paint some owl nesting boxes before they are placed in our vineyards.  We’ll see who can attract owls into their new homes faster – the kids or the adults!

For those of age, we’ll be tasting from the barrels and pouring a few of our wines.  Wine Club Members will receive 25% off all bottle sales and 30% off cases! Stock up on those whites for the warm Spring days ahead.

If you can’t join us on April 11th, we’d like to offer a $10 credit towards your next wine order.  Please send me your ‘no-RSVP’ and I will email you back your unique coupon code to use at our online store!

Here are some pics from last year.  Hope to see you there!