| Year | Varietals | Yield | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Cab and Zin | In Barrel. Cab from MR, Zin from Solis-Frattelli. Everything finished well. Both taste really GOOD! | |
| 2022 | Merlot and Cab | In Barrel. Both varietals from MR. Wanted Zin but late rain ruined everything so only choice was Merlot. Trouble with Merlot finishing Malo. | |
| 2021 | Syrah and Cab | 52 cases, over 625 btls | Bottled Sept '23. Cab is from MR lower vineyard. Syrah is Dos Ninias. |
| 2020 | Syrah and Cab | 700+ btls | Bottled August 2022. Syrah is from Solis Winery and Cab is from MR upper vineyard. Heat wave shriveled the syrah the week prior to harvest. |
| 2019 | Syrah and Sangio | Roughy 650 btls | Whole process went smoothly. Presumably:Dos Ninas(2019). Bottled in 2021 |
| 2018 | Syrah and Sangio | 700 btls | Everything went exceptionally well despite Covid. Both:Dos Ninas(2018). Bottled in 2020 |
| 2017 | Syrah and Malbec | n/a | Syrah was solid but had a little trouble with Malbec. Initial tasting after bottling showed it needed a little more time in bottle. Adding a splash of water helped. Not necessary anymore. Syrah: MR, Malbec:Dos Ninas (2017) |
| 2016 | ZinSyrah (blend) | n/a | Zin was low and Syrah was high PH that year. Found that blending all three together (10% Petite Syrah) made a good blend. Zin fermentation was VERY troublesome. PS: Denise, Zin: Denise, Syrah:Poppa? (2016) |
| 2015 | Zinfandel | n/a | This year we co-fermented Zin and PS in 2 barrels. We bottled one barrel after 1 year and left the 2nd go another year. There’s some debate about how these were distinguished on the label. Had trouble getting fermentation to finish. Harvest was in 2015, all ZIN from MR. Also produced small quantity of Pinot Rose but it was awful. |
| 2014 | Zinfandel and Petite Syrah (From Al Denise Through Martin Ranch) | 41 btls PS 344 btls Zin | PS aged in SS tank, Zin in used barrel. Zin came out pretty good! Harvest in 2014 via MR. Also produced Pinot Rose in small tank. |
| 2013 | Zin, Merlot and Cab | 13.6 Gal Cab 7.5 Gal Zin | 300lbs Merlot, ?? Cab and 1000lbs Zin. These varietals came from Gale’s Vineyard in 2013 (last year with Gale who sold his property due to health issues) Aged Merlot and Cab in Carboys, Zin in used Barrel. All added cubes for Oak. |
| 2012 | Merlot and Zin | 109 btls Zin and Cab | Cab: 200#, Zin 300# Harvest from Gale’s Vineyard. Aged 1yr in Carboys using cubes for oak. |
| 2011 | Merlot and Cab | 12 Gal Merlot n/a CAB | Cab: 150#, Merlot 200# Harvest from Gale's Vineyard, aged 1yr in carboys using Oak Chips. |
Note that the year represents the harvest year. Generally, we take 2 years from harvest to bottle. We recommend you wait another year but some of us can’t wait and run out by the end of the year we bottle!
About Us
Five Guys Winery is a wine club originating with 5 people. The short history is that one guy and a friend decided to make wine one day back in 2008. It was horrible. So, they tried again in 2009 with similar results. But when they swapped tastings of their wine with pastor Bernard, his wine was fantastic. The main difference was that Bernard started with grapes whereas they’d been using kit wines. That got Ray and John interested in 2010 and so they bought grapes from Gale’s Vineyard outside of Morgan Hill, CA. Then in 2011, they invited Bill, John L and Ken – making it 5 guys. In October of 2011 we moved into Bill’s Garage and started making wine. Every year, the wine was getting better and our processes were being refined to be more consistent. In 2013, Gale announced he could not keep doing the vineyard so in 2014 we switched to buying fruit from Martin Ranch Winery. That relationship has been amazing and our wines are amazing thanks to David, Dan and Therese.
There’s really only room for 4 barrels in Bill’s garage. In 2015, we decided to keep the wine in barrel for 2 years so we buy crushed fruit in October and then keep two varietals in barrel for almost 2 years. We bottle in the late summer so we have room for the October harvest.
Turns out that each of the five guys has a particular skill that contributes to the venture. And there’s rarely any disagreement (except how many times we rack).
We started this website primarily to help us remember what happened and to share the joy of wine making with friends. We do hope you are entertained.
People ask us if we sell our wine (which is very flattering), but we decided that we never want to go into commercial production as this would involve a ton of paperwork and accounting. Also, we just don’t want the pressure. Our goal from the start was to make wine good enough that we wouldn’t be embarrassed to give it away. Many people ask us when they can get our wines so we feel we have met that objective. Now, the club is an excuse for 5 guys to get together at least once per quarter and drink/talk about wine (and whatever else is on their minds!) “Whatever happens at the winery, stays at the winery”.