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<< Previous   of   Next >> Associated Press/Ghost Block  (click to enlarge) Ghost Block Cabernet Sauvignon   ADVERTISEMENT   CONTACT THE HERALD Melanie Munk, Features Editor munk@heraldnet.com   Published: Sunday, October 25, 2009 Vintners make certain wines shine at Halloween By Michelle Locke Associated Press BERKELEY, Calif. — Splatter a bit of blood on your wine label and you might just have a seasonal superstar. At least, that’s been the experience for Michael Machat, founder of Vampire Vineyards and a rather busy man this time of year. His wines, which feature a drop of blood on the label, are available year-round — certainly benefiting from Hollywood’s enduring interest in things that go bite in the night — but “it just becomes easier selling this time of year,” Machat said. His isn’t the only meeting of ghoul and grape. In Northern California wine country, there’s Ghost Block, made of 100 percent cabernet from the Rock Cairn vineyard in Oakville, next to Yountville’s Pioneer Cemetery. Heading toward the Sierra foothills, Twisted Oak Winery in Calaveras County (home of Mark Twain’s Celebrated Jumping Frog) puts out River of Skulls about this time of year, with a label featuring a vivid red skull. This is the third vintage of the wine, a limited-production single-vineyard mouvedre (a red wine grape), which derives its name from the English translation of calaveras, “skulls.” Other wineries getting into the Halloween spirit include Elk Creek Vineyards in Kentucky, which sells Ghostly White chardonnay and Bone Dry Red cabernet sauvignon. And from the Sonoma region’s Armida Winery in Healdsburg, Calif., comes Poizin, a zinfandel, with some bottles sold in a little wooden coffin inscribed “the wine to die for.” Vampire Vineyards’ Michael Machat said he got the idea for the name in the 1980s, when he read Bram Stoker’s “Dracula.” The first bottling was a syrah from Algeria, though he later took the concept further with grapes from Transylvania, a region in Romania. Since then he’s moved the production to California and the wine has been made with grapes mostly from the Paso Robles area of the Central Coast. Vampire sells several varietals, with merlot, cab and pinot noir generally the most popular, Machat said. Apparently it’s better red for the undead. READER COMMENTS Be the first to comment. You must be a registered user and verify your e-mail address to post comments to blogs or articles on HeraldNet. To register, click here. To read other terms and conditions, click here. Log out

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