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Published on: 8/23/2008
Last Visited: 8/23/2008
Joe Hart at Hart Winery in the Temecula ValleyTemecula, Calif. -- This harvest season, a handful of Temecula Valley grapegrowers and winemakers are adhering to a set of guidelines that they've agreed upon as members of the Temecula Valley Quality Wine Alliance (TVQWA).Formed last month, the group was created to draw attention to Temecula Valley wines and to continue perfecting the varietals and blends coming out of members' wineries.
"At our next meeting we're going to start doing some internal tastings of our own wines, and we'll be looking at some benchmark comparisons to get a feeling of how we compare," said Joe Hart, owner and winemaker at Hart Winery and one of the founding members of the newly formed alliance.
"Since it's a small group, we can be more honest about each others' wines and make helpful suggestions on how to improve them.When you get in a larger group, that is much more difficult," Hart said.
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"Our association is being pulled in a lot of different directions," Hart said of the TVWA.A number of that older and larger group's wineries have restaurants and overnight facilities, Hart said, leading some of them to focus more on the valley as a destination."That is important for all of us, because most of our sales are direct sales--such as the tasting room or wine club or Internet.
"The valley has suffered--rightly or wrongly--from a somewhat negative quality image in the past," Hart said.