Announcement:

After 39 invigorating years in business, Salamandre Wine Cellars will be closing the cellar door in late 2024.

We conducted our last invitational tasting in June, 2024, leaving Sandie, Mary, Dave, and me draped in nostalgia...and some sparkles of pride.

What will we miss? Our many friends...at our tastings, among the vines, on our little crush pad, and in the Santa Cruz winemaking community. 

I will miss the misty mornings in Arroyo Seco waiting for enough light to pick, the rattle and chatter of the harvest in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and the enchanting aroma of fermenting must. I will miss the exultation when a barrel sample jumps out and proclaims: I’m the one you’ve been waiting for!

I’ll miss being part of a civilized endeavor with an 8000 year heritage and worldwide expression. Through all of the ordeals through all those scratchy millennia, the act of making wine has stood as a perennial insistence that there is hope for the future.

Along the way, I worked with academicians seeking understanding of cultural influences and expanding the scientific knowledge of alcohol and unique grape compounds as they relate to social behavior and human physiology.

We’ll be able to sell our dwindling remaining inventory of red wines with an email arrangement ([email protected]) before December 31.

Thank you for bringing smiles, inspiration, and mischief to the Lair of the Salamandre.

​Wells Shoemaker MD, Winemaker
August, 2024