Author: Wendy Taylor

Years ago, a chance encounter at a home in Northern California led to a newfound hobby that has played an important role in the McCormick family.

It was there that Richard McCormick heard about the Orange County Wine Society and the opportunity to make wine. For those who knew Richard , they know that he turned winemaking into a passion which is ever so apparent at the family home in Laguna Beach.

It’s been 10 years since Richard passed away, but his winemaking legacy perseveres thanks to his son, Michael, and the OCWS Home Winemakers Group that has mentored him along the way.

“One of the best things about winemaking is the community part of it,” Michael said. “It’s a ton of work but these guys become mentors and have helped us continue the tradition. It’s a really nice feeling.”

It’s hard to imagine a better place to make or store wine than the tri-level McCormick home that sits across the street from the beach with stunning views of the Pacific Ocean.

Once inside, there’s a wall adorned with numerous ribbons and plaques from the California State, Los Angeles and Orange County fairs honoring McCormick Winery and Cellars for its wines in the respective home wine competitions.

In order to meet the demand of his winemaking, Richard built a 400-bottle cellar in 2002. The bottles, both commercial and homemade, are tagged to help for easy reference. Another room is used for bottling and storage.

“His first ribbon was a silver for a Pinot Noir,” Michael said of his dad. “It just grew from there.”

Added mom, Robin: “I learned more about wine than I wanted to.”

Richard also was very meticulous, probably in part due to his mechanical engineering background. “Every single thing he did, he wrote it down,” Robin said.

His binders can still be found in cabinets around the house that chronicle the winemaking process and the adjustments. Blending probably was Richard’s favorite because he enjoyed the aspects of chemistry that would result in a great tasting wine.

After Richard died, there was plenty of wine that needed to be bottled. That’s when the home winemakers group rallied and helped out.

“Wine requires a lot of attention,” Michael said. “It’s a big (OCWS home wine) community. They rallied around our family. They were godsends.”

Much like his dad, Michael has caught the winemaking bug. Production averages around 20 to 25 cases a year that are typically dominated by Pinot Noir and Zinfandel.

Despite the amount of energy to make wine, Michael is proud to follow in his father’s footsteps.

“It’s not only about the enjoyment of drinking something you made and hitting your tongue for the first time,” he said. “It’s about sharing it with other winemakers and getting their input. It’s definitely fun to make something and seeing how it turns out.”

By Carolyn Christian

It seems like just yesterday we were wrapping up The Courtyard at the OC Fair and hosting holiday events in December, but here we are in April, getting ready for another Wine Auction, OC Fair Wine Competitions (Commercial and Home) and the fair. 

These are the organization’s flagship events. They make us who we are and keep us running.

As we approach our busy season, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of volunteering for these four events. You will not find another organization that provides these opportunities to buy wine at a discounted price, meet winemakers who make the wines we enjoy, taste the latest vintages, learn more about wine and share your wine knowledge with the public.  What an incredible opportunity this organization presents to its members.

My challenge to you as an OCWS member is to get just a little more involved this year. Volunteer at the auction to break up the day of food and wine, sign-up to steward at one or both of our wine competitions or sign up for one of the hundreds of shifts at The Courtyard.  Sign-ups for the auction are already open, and we are still in need of dozens of volunteers to make the event run smoothly: ocws.ws/AuctionVolunteerForm.

Volunteer sign-ups for the competitions are already open as well. Go to OCWS.org and log in to your account, then choose competitions at the top to access the Commercial Wine Competition and/or the Home Wine Competition pages. Each competition has its own volunteer form for you to complete.

Remember, the earlier you sign up, the better choices you will have. 

And there are even more opportunities when it comes to wineries. Help us promote the OC Fair Wine Competition by dropping off a brochure at your favorite winery or emailing your wine clubs. Email this link to your favorite California wineries: ocws.ws/OCWineCompMessage

If you have already volunteered at some point this year, you have my heartfelt gratitude for keeping our organization humming along. Our volunteers are truly our greatest asset.

As we approach our 50^th anniversary next year, I also invite you to share your memories of the organization and share your ideas on events and souvenirs to help us commemorate this milestone. Use this link to share your ideas: ocws.ws/50th

For new members, I encourage you to sign-up for the OCWS Friends Program to pair you with one of our seasoned members who can introduce you to others and show you the ropes. And if you joined after January 1, 2024, and haven’t attended a New Member Mixer, don’t forget to sign-up for the upcoming mixer on April 27.

            I am truly lucky to lead this organization of over 1,000 members (one of the largest wine enthusiast groups in the nation). I look forward to seeing you at one of our future events. Please stop by and say hello. Cheers to you all!

The Rhone Rangers, a hearty group of “unmasked” West Coast winemakers and wine growers focusing their efforts on Rhone varietals, was formed in the early 1980s. Their goal is to promote the Rhone varietals grown in the U.S. and educate the wine drinking public on the enjoyment of drinking these wines. The American-grown Rhone clones are from grape varietals that have been grown for centuries in France’s Rhone River Valley. Let’s test your knowledge of the Rhone Valley, their grapes and wine.

Last month’s Mini Tasting was designed to pit similar wines from France and Italy head to head to see if there was a clear preference of one country over the other. As the table below shows, the results were inconclusive from a total preference; however, when matched up 1A versus 1B, 2A versus 2B, etc., the Italian wine won four of the five matchups, with only the French Champagne outscoring the Italian Franciacorta by a wide margin. 

What the results did show was a clear preference for the red blends as the two outscored the combined total of the other eight wines. In fact, seven of the eight sites selected either 4A or 4B as their highest ranked wine with five of the eight sites selecting 4A or 4B as the 2nd highest ranked. The night’s winner, Tenuta San Jacopo, Orma del Diavolo, from Tuscany, is made up of 50% Sangiovese, 30% Merlot, and 20% Cabernet Sauvignon. This is in contrast to our second highest rated wine from Bordeaux, France, Chateau Larrivet Haut-Brion, 2016, which is a blend of 62% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot, and 8% Cabernet Franc. 

For this event, a total of 120 members participated across eight host sites. Hopefully, everyone enjoyed an evening with wines from some of the most famous regions in the world. For our next Mini Tasting on June 28, our expert judges will be comparing wines from the California Coast against wines produced using Inland wineries.

It’s hard to believe it’s time for volunteer signups for the 49^th OC Fair Commercial Wine Competition. We have signups online this month, same as in previous years. CLICK HERE TO SIGNUP.

We try to flexible and ask the same of our volunteers. We can work together to make this another fun event. There are many areas where volunteer help is needed, stewarding, glass washing, drying and bagging a few days before the event.

Continuing the efficiency, the computer room, scoring verification and medals mailing will be assigned. A sign-up form is included on the website that identifies stewarding days, bagging nights and other work parties with times and dates. To qualify for stewarding, you are required to sign up for two additional work parties. We offer bagging, moving of wine to and from the competition site and sorting post competition.

We need your support for our work parties to run a successful competition. The good news is that we have hired help for heavy lifting. No training is necessary as newer members will be teamed with competition veterans.

Carrying trays of glasses is required if you volunteer to steward. It’s physical and can get tiring. Along with stewarding, you need to be prepared to assist your steward captain by opening wine bottles at the required time, preparing glasses for tags and cleaning up the judges’ tables as needed, while listening to your captain for direction. We are expecting to have carts this year, more than we had last year, as we found this increased our effectiveness greatly.

It is imperative that the wines are NOT opened first thing in the morning as has happened in the past. We have been asked to have as much consistency in timing for the opening of the wines per flight, so all are open as close to the same time as possible. 

If you have any questions, please feel free to phone me at (562) 822-3382 or email at robyn@ocws.org.

We look forward to your participation in this very important event. Thank you.

—Robyn Strom, Volunteer Coordinator

One of the organizational values and goals of the Orange County Wine Society is to provide quality wine education and experiences to its members without marking up the pricing of events to make a “profit” off its members. As a nonprofit organization, we work very hard to fulfill our mission of supporting wine education for our members, the public, and the future generation of winemakers. In the spirit of being transparent, we wanted to share with you the recent challenges for our organization with regard to expenses.

OCWS was able to weather the recent pandemic through a variety of strategies including cutting back on costs and moving programming online. We survived what was a difficult period for many nonprofit organizations. Coming out of the pandemic, we have seen several factors that have led to substantial increases in the cost of doing business, especially those in the following areas:

• Increase in food pricing at all venues – All of our venues have increased the base cost of food and minimums required to secure the facility. Tax and gratuity have increased since they are a percentage of the food cost. One of our venues increased an incredible 72%, causing us to look for other venues to hold events.
• Increase in venue prices – Even if we are able to provide the food and/or wine for an event, the actual venue costs have increased substantially.
• Increase in insurance costs – As with all insurance, our alcohol liability insurance costs have skyrocketed. Our insurance carrier now charges for a per-event policy as opposed to our previous annual coverage. This has resulted in an increase of nearly 100%. We are continuing to search for annual coverage at a more reasonable rate.
• Increase in labor cost – With the aging of our membership, we have had to rely on paying young adults to help with the physically demanding task of moving wine and equipment.
• Increase in technology upgrade costs – Over the past few years, we have had to invest in the upgrading of our website and software to maintain a secure website and services for our members.

We are sharing this information with our membership so that there is a clear understanding of the cost increase in dues and events. Please know that the Board of Directors is doing everything in its power to control costs and minimize cost increases for our members. All events are setup to break even, except for The Courtyard and Wine Auction, our two biggest fundraising events during the year. We appreciate your support as we manage the organization through fiscally challenging times and remain committed to the organization’s mission.

—Carolyn Christian, OCWS President