OCWS
Imagine walking into a room of over 100 people and not knowing a single person. It sounds a little daunting! That is currently what happens when a new member attends his or her first Wine Society event. What if that new member knew at least one or two other people in the room? Does that […]
Sharing a good bottle of wine is one of the great affordable pleasures in life. The shared experience elevates any occasion by enhancing the senses, relaxing one’s demeanor, all while expanding our palette of flavors and aromas that are delicate, subtle and nuanced. I still have a hard time reckoning how wine smells and tastes […]
This is my final President’s Message. Thanks to all the members of the Orange County Wine Society for making it a memorable and successful year. This has been a great time and it has been an honor and a privilege to serve as your president. There are more thank yous to go out.
The overwhelming number of members who volunteer their time continues to astonish me. At the Annual Business Meeting, there were 150 volunteer awards handed out. All in all, 344 members volunteered 26,618 hours over the last year to make the OCWS the outstanding organization it is. All the individual and combined efforts allow us to succeed.
I want to thank some of the individuals whose extra efforts made the year fun for everyone. The fall 2025 Chili Cookoff Showdown, coordinated by Co-Chairs Alice Polser and Betty Jo Newell, was very successful. The tropically delightful, and equally successful, 2026 Spring Social Tiki Party at Baja Blues Co-Chairs were JoBeth Skaggs and Tricia Shelton. Both of these events were catered by the Cook’s Caucus and the theme dinners were fantastic.
Looking forward this month is the 2026 Fall Social Disco Party. The Cook’s Cacus will be there, so get out your bell bottoms, tune up the Bee Gees and don’t miss it.
Our organization functions smoothly, in a large part, due to the work of Business Administrator Rochelle Randel, Office Administrator Lynda Edwards, Accountant Charles English and Website Administrator Wendy Taylor. My thanks to all of them.
A special thanks goes out to Cellar Master Kevin Coy and his assistants, George Cravens and John Lane. They are the ones who make sure wine is available at all our events and they even keep the cellar cool.
The four biggest events of the year are the Commercial Wine Competition, the Home Wine Competition, The Courtyard and the Wine Auctions. Each one requires many, many volunteers and countless hours. A tip of the hat to all four of those committees whose many members (too many to mention them all here) make sure everything runs smoothly.
This year’s President’s Award deservingly goes to George Cravens. George spent seven years as an OCWS director. You can find his impact on the OCWS at virtually every event. George is a member of the Cook’s Caucus and a tireless volunteer for the Commercial Competition, The Courtyard, and wine cellar. Congratulations George.
The year has been a blast!
This year’s Gold Medal Mini Tasting lineup consisted of 10 Double Gold selections with four of the wines selected as Best of Class winners. The evenings scoring across the 12 host sites showed a clear preference by the OCWS membership attending.
Reds decisively carried the evening, with the robust Italian and California heritage varieties locking down the top half of the leaderboard.
The room clearly favored bold, fruit-forward and high-tannin profiles over the lighter-styled entries. A hearty thank you to all the hosts and the 180 members and guests who participated.
The next Mini Tasting will be November 14th, mark your calendars.
Thanks,
Don Mayer, OCWS Mini-Tasting Chair
Chef of the Evening Winners
| Pam Clause | Chicken Pesto with Ziti |
| Mike Levine | Chile Relleno Dip |
| John & Diane Strimel | Paella |
| Jean Rico | Chili Relleno Casserole |
| Kate English | Fruit Pizza |
| Tomie Casey | Chocolate Cake – Better than Sex |
| Alison Godleski | Salad with Shrimp |
| Adrienne Davis | Stuffed Mushrooms |
| Betty Jo & Jay | Jolen Potatoes |
| Pat Solis | Macaroni & Cheese |
| Harold Morehead | Banana Cheesecake |
| Linda Downey | Lemon Curd Parfait with Rasberry Liquor |
We are thrilled to invite you to our upcoming Mini-Tasting on November 14, where we will tackle one of the most intriguing debates in the wine world: Does Price Matter?
As wine lovers, we often find ourselves standing in the aisle or browsing a list, wondering if that higher price tag truly translates to a superior glass in our hand. This session invites you to look beyond the label and explore the fascinating intersection of economics, perception, and pleasure in every pour.
To unpack this question, our tasting will delve into the core elements of pricing from a marketing perspective, examining what the market is truly willing to bear for a bottle. When we invest in a premium wine, we have to ask ourselves: are we paying for an objectively exceptional product crafted with meticulous care, or are we simply funding a grandiose, fancy tasting room and high-end packaging? Understanding the business behind the bottle helps demystify why two seemingly similar wines can command vastly different prices on the shelf.
To put these theories to the test, our event will feature a direct side-by-side comparison across five distinct wine varietals, pitting a higher-priced bottle (>$35) against a lower-priced counterpart (<$25).
To ensure a fair evaluation, each round will compare two Gold Medal award-winning wines from this year’s Commercial Competition. When faced with the blind pour, will we actually be able to tell the difference, and where will our collective preference ultimately land? Sign up soon as space is limited for what promises to be a revealing and memorable evening of discovery.
It took our set-up crew over eight weeks to set up The Courtyard at the 2026 OC Fair. We have dedicated volunteers that provide one of the best venues. We all hope that you enjoy how we transformed The Courtyard for our 50th anniversary.
We repainted the refrigerator, decorated, served fantastic lunches for seven days, towed trailers across the ground four times and hung new signs. We helped earn around $40,000 in OCWS scholarships. It took 29 volunteers over 600 volunteer hours. And the live plants displayed in The Courtyard generated $350 in cash donations to Centennial Farm. It is an adventure awaiting to experience the fair set up around us every day.
Thank you for signing the sign! Through the back and forth, up and down and all around the crew came through!
—Leslie Hodowanec 2026 OC Fair Courtyard Coordinator
“SOME CALIFORNIA WINE GRAPE GROWERS SEE EARLIEST HARVEST IN DECADES” – Sacramento Bee; “EARLIEST HARVEST IN 40 YEARS KICKS OFF IN SONOMA COUNTY” = The Press Democrat; “WE’VE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE IT: EARLY HARVEST…” – New York Times; “HEATWAVES AND DROUGHT LEAD TO EARLY GRAPE HARVEST” – BBC; “LODI GRAPE HARVEST BEGINS WEEKS AHEAD OF SCHEDULE…” – CBS News; “EARLY GRAPE HARVEST PROMISES OUTSTANDING QUALITY” – German Wines USA; “THE EARLY GRAPE HARVEST, EARLIER THAN EVER” – Basqvium (Basque Country); “CHAMPAGNE’S 2026 GRAPE HARVEST BEGAN EXCEPTIONALLY EARLY” – Food & Wine.
If you’ve missed the news about this year’s wine grape harvest, and I am sure our home winemakers haven’t, the headlines above tell the story. The general belief is that there hasn’t been a grape harvest this early in the last 30 to 40 years. And the early harvest is not just happening in Santa Barbara where in June they started picking grapes for their sparkling wines. It’s occurring in Napa and Paso Robles, in Spain, in the Burgundy, Bordeaux, Languedoc and Champagne regions of France, in England’s sparkling wine area, in Sicily, and on the Eastern Coast of the US. Just about every wine region in the world is being affected. What’s going on? Why is this happening and how is it going to affect resulting wine’s quantity and quality?
This year’s normal weather pattern was early. There was a mild, wet winter, which produced a large water reserve that allowed the vines to continue to grow in the very hot, humid summer that followed. Practically every aspect of fruit development was almost a month earlier than expected. Ahead of a normal viticulture calendar vines sprouted and flowered, followed by bud break, and finally veraison, which is the critical fruit development when the grapes are changing colors and getting more fructose and glucose sugars while acids decline. The sunny hot weather that caused photosynthesis to increase, also caused the winemaker’s desired sugar accumulation that dictates the alcohol level of wine to rise and the acid level to decline. When that desired sugar and acid level is reached harvest has to being.
And it wasn’t just having an early harvest that had viticulturists and winemakers worried. The weather changes worried them too. The hot, humid summer had caused great concern regarding vines disease. The rain and wind that happened during flowering resulted in shatter and millerandage, the failure to fertilize the flowers and therefore produce smaller grape clusters. The winemakers were seeing smaller crop loads and lighter yields with a forecast of California grape harvest being down 8%. Interestingly, however, they didn’t see lower potential grape quality. The grape clusters that were being harvested had smaller berries but with more intense flavor concentration and therefore higher quality potential.
What happens next? What if the weather patterns are the new norm? What is being done to prepare for that future and keep us supplied with good wine? Grape growers and winemakers will have to adapt as the northern hemisphere’s climate changes and harvests start earlier. They are already considering the need to look into different grapes such as hybrids or new varieties for their regions that can handle the weather variations better than the wine grapes, vitis vinifera, that are today’s mainstays. But it’s not just different grapes that farmers are considering, they are also looking for new and different viticultural practices that break from the customs set centuries ago such as different canopy management, dropping fruit and moving more harvests to nighttime hours. Likewise, winemakers are having to adapt their wine cellar practices as they learn about the weather and its effects on their terroirs and their respective micro and macroclimates.
Media headlines abound regarding weather changes and early wine harvests. Farmers and winemakers are adapting to keep their businesses and industry in tune with the changes. As consumers, our changes must stay parallel with the wineries’. We need to start drinking their wine earlier!
I think Jessica Gasca, founder and winemaker of Story of Soil in the Santa Rita Hills, in Santa Barbara County, sums it up well, “We are in a new normal, which is to expect the unexpected.”
When you get that bottle of wine, vintage 2026, you can expect the unexpected if you wish or just sit back, open it and enjoy! Cheers!
–CL Keedy, Wine Education Committee
Ready to show your OCWS 50th
anniversary spirit at future OCWS
events? We have 50th anniversary
SWAG available for purchase.
Wear a 50th anniversary lapel pin
or embroidered patch with your
OCWS hat, shirt and/or apron.
—50th Anniversary Committee
SWAG ITEM PRICE
50th Anniversary
Waterproof Sticker $2
50th Anniversary
Magnets $4
50th Anniversary
Lapel Pins $5
50th Anniversary
Iron-on Embroidered
Patch $8
50th Anniversary
Wine Opener $8
50th Anniversary
Glass Toppers $6/each
$10/pair
50th Anniversary
Tea Towels $8/each
$15/pair
50th Anniversary
Wine Opener Set $12
50th Anniversary
Champagne Flutes $17/each
$30/pair
Payments can be made with cash,
check or Zelle (payment@OCWS.
org). To order your items, go to
OCWS.ws/50thSWAG.
The annual OCWS business meeting is scheduled for Friday, Sept. 11at 6:30 p.m. via Zoom. All members are invited and this is a great opportunity to hear from the board members and committee chairs on the state of the organization.
The Board of Directors candidates will have the opportunity to speak about their qualifications and goals. Please sign-up on the website and plan on attending.
We have had another successful year at The Courtyard at the Orange County Fair. Although wine sales were down year-over-year mainly due to slow concert ticket sales and extremely hot weather, The Courtyard is still, by far, the largest fundraiser for our organization.
I am still overwhelmed by the numbers of dedicated volunteers who fill every shift, fight the parking and the crowds to work, only for the satisfaction of helping the OCWS meet its goals. The final accounting numbers are not yet in, but I expect to have a good idea for the Business Meeting.
Our 50th year seems to be melting away and this is my penultimate President’s Message. It is the right time to begin thanking some of the hard-working folks who have made the Orange County Wine Society run so smoothly and successfully over the past 11 months.
First of all, it has been a truly great honor for me to serve as your president and I want to start by thanking the board for their hard work and giving me this opportunity.
Vice-President Fran Gitsham has been a thread who connects the entire organization together. Fran is the chair of the Commercial Competition, a supervising member of the Courtyard Committee and a wealth of knowledge. I want to thank her for offering support and being a great sounding board.
Thanks to Treasurer Linda Flemins for being a crucial watchdog of the OCWS finances. She has managed our cash reserves to ensure the best returns. Linda spent an inordinate amount of time dealing with our difficult insurance issues and navigated it very successfully.
Secretary Carolyn Christian not only kept our records, but, as chair, has dedicated a great deal of time to making sure the 50th Anniversary celebration has been a resounding success. Carolyn uses her chairmanship of the Marketing Committee to make sure the OCWS is cast in a shining light on many media platforms. Many thanks for all of her efforts.
Thank you to the five other board members who do so much to make the OCWS the great organization that it is. Sue England, Chair of the Photography Committee, always steps up to fill any need. CL Keedy makes the Winery Program run smoothly and represented OCWS with flair on ABC News. John Lane makes the cataloguing system work and liaisons with the home wine group. Daniel Vlahovic puts together wonderful outings and puts in much time at The Courtyard. Don Mayer coordinates hundreds of attendees to the very, very popular Mini-Tastings.
This is only a sample of the efforts by the OCWS board members. Everyone does more than I have space to list. Thanks again to all of them and more next month.
The event is sold out at this time. Call the office if you want to be on a waitlist. Signups for a trip in November to the Santa Ynez Valley are in full swing. Those interested can go to OCWS.org and find the trip under the “Events” tab. In case you missed the details, the […]
By Bob Topham and Beverly Genis
It is with great sadness that we share the passing of our friend and fellow Orange County Wine Society member and past Board Member, Walt Thurner, who passed away at his home after a long and courageous battle with oral cancer. May he rest in peace.
For more than 30 years, Walt was a dedicated and valued OCWS member. He was a past board member and an active member of the Cook’s Caucus. He served as a home wine judge for more than a decade, worked countless hours at the OC Fair and was known for stepping in to help whenever and wherever he could.
His commitment to our organization and its members reflected his quiet generosity and strong sense of community. Additionally, Walt served in the U.S. Navy and led a distinguished career at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. He later served as Chief of Police at the Metropolitan State Hospital, where his leadership and dedication earned the respect of those who worked alongside him.
His family is holding a memorial service to honor and remember him on Saturday, September 12, at 2 p.m. in Clubhouse #2 of Seal Beach’s Leisure World. Your presence and support would mean the world to Dolorie and her family. Please RSVP to Dolorie at (562) 889-4932.
Outdoor Activities Continue In September
September offers the perfect blend of lingering summer sunshine and the first touches of fall. From vineyard visits and wine tastings to outdoor dinners, golden sunsets, and OCWS gatherings, there are endless opportunities to capture beautiful wine moments. Wherever your adventures take you this month, don’t forget your camera, we can’t wait to see your favorite September memories!
Each month, the OCWS Photography Committee selects a Photo of the Month to be featured in the OCWS newsletter and showcased on our website. The winner will also receive a special bottle from the OCWS cellar!
THEME: Harvest Moments Through the Lens
SUBMIT TO: Photo@OCWS.org
RULES: OCWS.org, News, Photos
Here’s to the good times we share!
Feel free to capture and share the fun, candid moments from any OCWS event—we’d love to see the experience through your eyes! These photos are separate from the Photo of the Month Contest (no prizes are awarded), but they may be featured in our newsletter, marketing materials, or on social media. It’s a wonderful way to showcase your unique perspective and celebrate the spirit of the OCWS community.
REMINDERS:
• By submitting, you grant OCWS rights to use your photos for marketing.
• Only submit photos that are your own.
• Send your shots to photo@OCWS.org
Let’s raise a glass to the good times we share.
—Leslie Hodowanec, Arnie Gamboa, Hank Bruce and Sue England – Photo Committee