What has Your West Coast Oenophile done for you lately?

Leave a reply

I shouldn’t feel derelict. I have striven to record each event he has attended on behalf of Sostevinobile with utmost fidelity. But I have a backlog of thirteen different wine forays to record since my last entry here, not to mention my participation in orchestrating three significant wine tastings, a handful of sustainable workshops and forums, and the arduous grind of assembling the financial backing for this venture. With Rhône Rangers Grand Tasting rapidly approaching, I must reluctantly admit I cannot give all these past gathering the thorough review readers know I strive to record in each blog entry. Rest assured, however, that each of the more than 100 wineries I have visited with during this period will be faithfully entered into Sostevinobile’s ever-expanding database and accorded full consideration when we launch our wine program. So, for now, let me give you a succinct overview of what Your West Coast Oenophile has done for you lately:

 

Just before Valentine’s Day, the up & coming rockstars at Rock Wall in Alameda put on a decadent pairing of wine and confections aptly billed as Chocolate Kisses & Bubble Dreams. The first wine event to be held in their brand-new Bubble Dome, a airy, geodesic edifice adjacent to the winery’s converted airplane hangar at the decommissioned Naval Air Base, the afternoon gathering appropriately debuted Rock Wall’s two new sparkling wines, the 2009 Sparkling Grenache and the Grenache-blended 2009 Mixto. After the party, several of the wineries that contract Rock Wall’s facilities, including Carica, with its delectable 2006 Kick Ranch Syrah, and Ehrenberg Cellars, which featured its 2008 Petite Sirah alongside its just-release Zinfandel futures.


Valentine’s Day 2010 proved a decidedly muted affair, as I still grapple with the vacuity of home life post-Ginkgo Girl. As such, a trip to the wine country during the middle of the week proved a much-needed tonic. This sojourn included a visit to Silenus Vintners, a collective of Napa artisan winemakers not unlike Rock Wall that includes B Cellars, Due Vigne di Famiglia, Gridley, Ideology, Ilsley, Matthiasson, Poem Cellars, Ramian, and Venge. Tasting Room Manager Scott Turnnidge guided me through their rotating selection of wines from their nine producers, some familiar, others revelatory. Naturally, I couldn’t resist trying the 2006 Due Vigne Dolcetto after first sampling the 2008 Due Vigne Viognier, but found myself most allured by the 2006 Ramian Estate Debauchery.

From Napa, I head north and across Silverado Trail to Hall Wines’ Rutherford estate, one of the more picturesque hilltop wineries in the Valley. Again, ably guided by Laura Aguilar, the special Artisan Tour took our small group through the organic estate vineyards, the vast holdings and the custom-designed wine caves before treating us to a select tasting of Hall’s choicest crimson-labeled Cabernets, including the 2006 Exzellenz Sacrashe Vineyard and the eponymous 2006 Kathryn Hall Cabernet Sauvignon. Next up, I scurried to Benessere for a belated sampling of their 2006 Sorridente, a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Aglianico, and their 2006 Sangiovese (it would have been a violation, of course, to sample their Grappa of Trebbiano on site, so I took a bottle home for later evaluation).
Ostensibly, my trip this afternoon was for the invite to Orin Swift’s release party, somewhat ironic in that their recent sale of the Prisoner and Saldo to Huneeus meant the swan song for these labels. But the curious confines of St. Helena’s Odd Fellows Hall could not deter my fondness for David Phinney’s Burgundian Meritage, the 2006 Papillon or his phenomenal 2007 Mercury Head Cabernet Sauvignon.
Having recently left Benessere for his own ventures, winemaker Chris Dearden had invited me to meet him at Yountville’s V Marketplace 1870 but neglected to inform me that he was pouring his Cha
nticleer as part of First Taste Yountville. Arriving with barely 15 minutes left to the event, rather than simply enjoy a leisurely his 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon and the 2008 Chanticleer Sangiovese, I raced to acquaint myself with those participants still lingering as wineries like Casa Piena and Dominus folded their tables. I did manage to squeeze in some quick samples from Bell Wine Cellars, Corley Family, Gamble, Gemstone, Grgich Hills, Ghost Block, and Piña before we were shooed from the exhibit hall and wove my way back to downtown Napa for a final invite to BarBersQ’s showcasing of new wines from Mia Klein’s Serene and Elizabeth Spencer.
My own debut in organizing a formal wine tasting took place the following Saturday at the New Year’s Gala for the National Association of Asian American Professionals, San Francisco chapter (NAAAP-SF), a modest debut featuring wines from McNab Ridge and Wild Hog—a modest effort, to be sure, but certainly a cut (or six) above Crane Lake. The next day, Carica’s Dick Keenan kindly supplied me with passes to WORDUP, the benefit tasting featuring the Winemakers of the Outer Richmond, Upper Panhandle, and the Presidio.This eclectic assembly included three of Ed Sandler’s ventures: The Industrial, Sandler Wine, and, as always, August West; the dual personæ of Qupé (Rhône varietals) and Verdad (Spanish varietals) from Bob Lindquist; fellow wine bar entrepreneur Bryan Kane’s VIE and Sol Rouge; CADE and PlumpJack from Gavin Newsom’s hospitality empire; the rather peripatetic Foggy Bridge; local stalwart AP Vin; are chance to visit with Carica and sample their just-released GMS blend, the 2007 Temptation; Harrington, who had generously contributed a couple of cases of their Pinot Noir to my Play Café’s fundraiser four years ago; familiar winery veterans Freeman, Calera and Pelligrini; quasi-familiar ventures Ici/La-Bas and Skylark; hitherto unfamiliar nomenclature Mojon’s Bench and Captûre; Italian varietal specialist Uvaggio, with its newly-truncated nomenclature; Syrah specialists Renard, with their superb Viognier farmed at Dick Keenan’s Kick Ranch vineyard; and lastly, the highly-prized handmade Brown Label Vermouth of the semi-cryptic Sutton Cellars.

Mine’s bigger

Leave a reply

I’m not quite sure what compelled me to attend the Unified Wine & Grape Symposium in Sacramento last month. Perhaps Your West Coast Oenophile was feeling a bit cooped up in San Francisco. Maybe I felt a leisurely drive past miles of rolling hills might feel therapeutic (few sights can rival the verdant Northern California countryside following a spate of winter rains). Part of me thought I might find fresh sources of funds for Sostevinobile, but, in truth, my primary incentive was a free exhibits pass I received from Kantharos, the Process Water Systems recently installed at Kendal Jackson’s Cardinale winery designed to reduce, if not eliminate, the need for wastewater ponds by filtrating and recycling water runoff.

 

My route to the Sacramento Convention center took me past the State Capitol but, alas, Arnold was nowhere to be seen (I half-hoped I might espy him taking a break in his cigar tent). I thought that Arnold’s famed Hummer might be the biggest vehicle in this town, but it turned out to be downright puny compared to some of the behemoths I encountered inside the Exhibition Hall. This array of backhoes, tillers and harvesters could make mincemeat out of the Guvernator’s ride, and given the way he has handled California’s economy over the past two years, as well as oversight of the whole state, I’m pretty sure there were more than a few attendees at the Symposium who would have volunteered for the task—provided Schwarzenegger were guaranteed to be inside!

It turns out the Symposium had little to do with showcasing wine, although a few of the exhibitors did offer tastings (Tablas Creek!)—not quite Plato meant by Συμπόσιον. True, there had been a wine reception following the informational forums on the previous day, but my excursion to Sacramento proved little more than a respite from desk duties. Besides, I had won a free ticket to the Good Eats & Zinfandel Pairing that evening and would have plenty to imbibe when I arrived back in San Francisco.
This soirée offered a (somewhat) less harried preview to Saturday’s Grand Zinfandel Tasting at ZAP. The most ginormous of all of San Francisco’s Grand Tastings every year, ZAP #19 was much like ZAP #18 was much like ZAP #17 etc., ever since they reached the point of filling two entire exhibit halls at Fort Mason. Although this year’s event may have been a tad less crowded and with slightly fewer participating wineries. And, like Family Winemakers this previous summer, the absence of an Aidells Sausage table was acutely felt (6+ hours of wine tasting demands protein)! 
Having covered last year’s event in this blog, a flowery description of the setting seems superfluous. This year, I devised a two-pronged attack to make my way through the event—sample all the new members, then try to reach every table I had missed in 2009. An ambitious approach, to be sure, but one at which I succeeded quite admirably. As such, let me now enumerate my discoveries:
I began the afternoon in the Festival Pavilion—wineries H-Z, which brought me first to Paso Robles’ HammerSky. Both their offerings impressed me, but I strongly favored the 2007 Open Invitation Zin Blend, Paso Robles, an estate wine rounded out with 10% Merlot. Of course, I could not resist visiting with their tablemates, the incredible Harney Lane, a winery that never fails to impress me. As I expected, I immensely enjoyed both their mainstream 2007 Zinfandel Lodi and the designate2007 Old Vine Zinfandel Lizzy James Vineyard.
Somehow, I had missed J. Rickards Winery at last year’s tasting, so I was glad I could atone and savor their 2006 Zinfandel Ancestors Selection Block, a wine they describe as grown “from our block of vines replicating the century-old zin-yards of Alexander Valley” (given the plethora of “Old Vine” Zins I would encounter throughout the day, I welcomed the implied contrast of this designation). Next table over, J. Keverson Winery stood totally new to ZAP and to me but impressed in their debut with 2006 Zinfandel Hales from Dry Creek Valley and the 2007 Zinfandel Buck Hill, a Sonoma appellation. 
Apart from being the first Vice-President to accede to the Presidency upon the death of his predecessor, John Tyler also holds the record for most (15!) children by a White House occupant. Sonoma’s Bacigalupi family, owners of John Tyler Wines, may not be quite so prodigious, but I still found myself enjoying a three year vertical of their wine, the 2003 Zinfandel Bacigalupi Vineyards standing out among its successive vintages. Next up, Napa’s JR Winery showcased a trio of Zins, of which I found the 2006 Zinfandel Los Chamizal and the 2007 Zinfandel Rocky Terrace the most compelling.
In Miwok mythology, the animal-spirit of the Hummingbird that predated human culture was known as Koo Loo Loo. Yountville’s Koo Loo Loo Vineyards may not be supernatural, but their organic vineyards yield a compelling wine, as evidenced by both their 2007 Organic Old Vine Zinfandel and its successor, the 2008 Organic Old Vine Zinfandel. Northwest of this winery, Mariah Vineyards of Point Arena marked its first ZAP with their 2006 Estate Zinfandel Mendocino while Ukiah’s McNab Ridge offered a 2007 Zinfandel Mendocino and a fortified vintage, the 2005 Puerto Zinfandel Port Mendocino.
Mendocino is also home to Neese Vineyards and their Giùseppe Wines, paying homage to their grandfather with the 2002 Nonno Giùseppe and the 2003 vintage of this Redwood Valley Zinfandel. Back in St. Helena, Nichelini, the winery that had introduced me to Sauvignon Vert last year, made quite the bold statement with their 2007 Zinfandel Chiles Valley. Ottimino, a quaint diminutive loosely translated as “Little 8,” is a Zinfandel-only winery in Occidental, Sonoma’s rustic Italian enclave. This exclusivity serves them well, as evidenced by their 2006 Estate Zinfandel, Russian River Valley, the 2006 Zinfandel Von Weidlich Vineyard and the 2007 Zinfinity (aka Little ∞).
Before they started selling off some brands last year, ∞ might also have stood for Constellation’s targeted wine output; they have since slipped back into a comfortable 3rd place among the largest wine producers. A brand they did keep, Paso Creek, is based in St. Helena but produced a 2007 Zinfandel Paso Robles. On the other hand, Proulx, the premium label from Blackburn Wine Company, is a small lot operations based in Paso Robles and offered two vineyard-designate wines from this AVA, the 2007 Zinfandel Reserve Paso Robles and the 2007 Zinfandel Jack Barrett.
The three R’s of Zinfandel have long been considered to be Ridge, Ravenswood, and Rosenblum, which has been subsumed by Diageo. Its worthy successor, Rock Wall, brought along a trio of Kent Rosenblum-inspired Zins: the 2007 Reserve Zinfandel Monte Rosso Vineyard, the 2007 Zinfandel Sonoma County, and the 2008 Zinfandel Jesse’s Vineyard. Other prominent R’s include Rafanelli, Robert Rue, Rombauer and, of course, the Sierra Foothills’ Renwood Winery, with their patriarchal tribute, the 2007 Grandpère and its companion 2006 Grandmère and 2006 Old Vine Zinfandel. Renwood, however, should not be confused with another veteran winery, Haywood Estates of Sonoma Valley, whose versatility shone brightest in its 2006 Zinfandel Los Chamizal Vineyards and its 2007 Zinfandel Rocky Terrace.
Sextant Wines showcased a trio of their Paso Robles Zins, but their real standout was the unlisted 2007 Night Watch, a blend of Petite Sirah, Grenache, Syrah and Zinfandel. Another unusual twist came from Starlite Winery, founded by former Stars maître d’ Arman Pahlavan and directed by Merry Edwards, a winemaker widely acclaimed for her Pinot Noir. Her versatility with this varietal was readily apparent, nonetheless, with the 2006 Zinfandel Alexander Valley and its worthy successor, the 2007 Zinfandel Alexander Valley. And yet another surprise came from ZAP newcomer Sierra Starr Vineyards, which countered its three Zins with a rather novel wine, the 2009 Zinjolais, a young, fruit-forward expression crafted like a Beaujolais Noveau!
I have to admit, there’s something instantly likable about a winery that calls its port-style bottling Portentous, and the Stephen & Walker Winery lived up to my preconceptions with a vertical of their Sonoma Zins, the 2005 Zinfandel Dry Creek garnering the most favor. I should also have cottoned to the 2007 Controlled Chaos from Thacher Winery, but my preference was for their 2006 Je T’Aime from Paso Robles. Meanwhile, the Valdez Family Winery in Geyserville topped all punsters with their 2007 Bottlicelli, a Rock Pile Zinfandel.

I was a bit surprised that I hadn’t previously partaken of Tofanelli’s wines, so I indulged in both their fine pourings, slightly favoring the 2007 Estate Zinfandel Napa Valley over its predecessor. As Virgil’s Vineyard was a newcomer to the tasting, I had no similar regrets in not having tasted his wines before but regaled in the mischievous delights of his 2008 Smuggler’s Son, a liquid paean to his grandfather’s Prohibition activities.
Some feel that the term
“Old Vine Zinfandel” is somewhat cliché, a marketing ploy at best. XYZin gives this moniker clarity with the precision of their Vine Age Series, offering a 2007 Vine Age Series, 100 Year Old Vines, Dry Creek Valley, the 2007 Vine Age Series, 50 Year Old Vines, Russian River Valley, and a fin de siècle 2007 Vine Age Series, 10 Year Old Vines. Winemaker also likes to bill XYZin as the last word in Zinfandel, but she is wrong! Napa’s Z-52 is a Zinfandel-only project from Philip Zorn and Brent Shortridge, with three vineyards in the Shenandoah Valley, another in Lodi, and my favorite of their single vineyard offerings, the 2007 Zinfandel Brsada Vineyard from Sonoma Valley. And holding up the end of the list, Templeton’s ZinAlley poured both an admirable 2007 Zinfandel Paso Robles and an alluring 2007 Zinfandel Port.
Having reached the end of my list, I now needed to address the beginning and head to the Herbst Pavilion. I did, however, first stop off and visit with my former squash opponent, Jack Jelenko, whose many wine forays have now led him to Villa Toscano in the Shenandoah Valley. Though specializing in an eclectic mix of Italian-, Spanish and Rhône-style wines, this winery cum bistro nonetheless handles Zinfandel quite ably, the 2007 Fox Creek Old Vine Zinfandel narrowly eclipsing their other two tastings. Over on the A-G side, I stumbled upon another noteworthy Shenandoah selection, the 2007 Zinfandel Potter Valley from Ione’s Clos du Lac, who also impressed me with their 2007 Reserve Blend Zinfandel.
Were it not for Italy’s perennial representative at ZAP, Accademia dei Raccemi, Barnard Griffin of Richland, WA would have garnered top honors for most remote entrant. Nonetheless, its 2006 Zinfandel Columbia Gorge fit right in with its California kindred. A stellar representative of that same vintage came from newcomer Arrowhead Mountain, whose 2006 Zinfandel Sonoma Valley hailed much closer to home.
I am not one of those wine bloggers who believes he can impart to his readers the particulars of how a certain wine tastes—every person’s palate is his or her own, and, frankly, the whole idea of this journal is simply to expose my readers to an array of wines I have enjoyed and let them discover what they find in it. Among those fellow scribes who do offer their rendition of a wine’s component flavors, flint or flint-like may be a frequently-cited epithet, but I have yet to hear a wine described as Flintstone. However, I was pleased to discover Sonoma’s Bedrock Wine Company, a promising young venture with young promising wines: the 2009 Zinfandel Stellwagen Vineyard and the 2009 Zinfandel Dolinsek Ranch. Coffee is a term more frequently associated with wines like Petite Sirah or Petit Verdot, but Peet’s Coffee baron Jerry Baldwin has focused his wine aspirations on Zin, with a commendable debut of his 2008 Rattlesnake Ridge Zinfandel from his Gerald Baldwin Wines.
I won’t try to make correlations between Beaver Creek’s name and the flavors of its wines. Their organic and biodynamic wines speak for themselves, as their 2007 Zinfandel Lake County attests. Close to the Lake County border, Howell Mountain’s Bella Vetta in Angwin sources its Zinfandel from estate vineyards in Dry Creek—certainly, their 2006 Jack’s Cabin Rockpile Zinfandel stood up admirably to its pedigree. On the other hand, I wonder how Celia Dineen Brown and her family managed to stay standing with the crowds that flocked to their table! Brown Estate superseded their popularity from last year’s ZAP with a striking 2008 Zinfandel Napa Valley, their dessert-style 2006 Arrested Zinfandel and a spectacular blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Zin
fandel, the 2007 Chaos Theory. Another winemaking family, the Hopes of Paso Robles, debuted their fourth line, Candor Wines, with a non-vintage Zinfandel Central Coast.
Usually sparkling and distilled wines come first to mind when I think of Philo, but Claudia Springs dispelled this perception with a quintet of vineyard-designate Mendocino Zins, including their 2007 John Ricetti Vineyard Zinfandel, the 2006 Valenti Ranch Zinfandel and their superb 2006 Rhodes Vineyard Zinfandel. Further south, I associate Alexander Valley more with Cabernet Sauvignon, but relished my chance to try Gia Passalacqua’s Dancing Lady and their vertical selection of Old Vine Zinfandel Della Costa Family Vineyard, with preference toward the 2007 vintage.
This year, ZAP decided to alphabetized the numerically-named wineries as if spelled, thus 585 Wine Partners and 5 Mile Bridge Wines were found among the Fs. The former, the victim of a ruthless coup d’etat the very next day, offered two organically-grown Zins, the 2007 Steelhead Zinfandel Dry Creek Valley (a joint venture with Quivira) and the 2008 Green Truck, along with their noteworthy 2008 Powder Keg Zinfandel. 5 Mile Bridge hails from Paso Robles and like 585, offers reasonably-priced wines that belie their quality, the 2006 Zinfandel Margarita Vineyard and the 2007 Stinger, a considerable bargain at $10.
I always make sure to visit with fellow Big Green wine producers, like Peay or Limerick Lane, so upon learning of Jay Fritz’ Dartmouth heritage, I circled over to the Fritz Winery table to taste their 2007 Estate Zinfandel Dr Creek Valley and a deliberately understated 2007 Late Harvest Zinfandel. I wound down ZAP with Gamba Vineyards from Fulton, a final Zin-only producer, whose 2007 Estate Old Vine Zinfandel and 2007 Zinfandel Moratto Vineyard made a superb coda to my 5 hour marathon.
Fortunately for me, no other Grand Tasting approaches the size of ZAP, so I hope to make up for lost time with more abbreviated summaries of the five or six events I attended in February. Something much bigger—the realization of Sostevinobile—demands that I do…

Definitive proof that wine can cure common cold!

13 Replies

I haven’t been remiss in attending to this blog. It’s just that Your West Coast Oenophile has been pulled in many directions as of late, principally in my efforts to secure the funding Sostevinobile needs in order to be open by September. Then add to the mix that I had to purchase a new computer and port over all my applications and files from the old workhorse that could no longer keep up with the software I require.
Much to its credit, Apple makes migration from one Macintosh to another almost seamless. My first efforts over my home-based WiFi network did freeze up a couple of times before completion, so switch to a direct transfer via Ethernet and within less than two hours had my new Mac a perfect mirror of its predecessor, only running blazingly fast with Snow Leopard, 4GB of RAM and a dual processor somewhere in the range of 10x’s the speed with which I had been contending. Inevitably, I encountered a small glitch or two that required assistance from Apple’s highly commendable tech support, a service that most gratefully is not outsourced to an overseas locale, with specialists whose efforts at approximating colloquial English parallel my utterly futile attempts to dunk on a 10′ rim.
If only the same could be said for Adobe Systems. With my new system, I was finally able to handle the latest issue of Adobe’s Creative Suite, a leap of several versions. Rather than allot a couple of weeks to diligently learning the nuances of these upgrades, I thought by availing myself of their phone-in assistance, it would expedite my learning curve.
Wrong! The only thing worse than the average 65 minute hold time before someone would field my call was the dreaded sound of “Good afternoon, Mr. Marc. How might I facilitate a diligent response to the urgency of your dilemma?” And even that would not have been so bad, but this mangled attempt to offer assistance belied the assumption that the speaker on the other end of the phone had even the remotest connection to technical competence.
Over the course of a four-day period, I endured some twenty hours of complete ineptitude in my efforts to unravel the basic functionality of core features highlighted in the What’s New window of InDesign CS4. With frontline tech support failing to find a solution to my query, my issue was escalated to senior level staff and assigned a case number for further reference. These diplomates of the highly prestigious India Institute of Science only managed to exacerbate my problem, insisting after many hours of research that only a third-party PlugIn could allow me to create a new document and type without the constraints of page limits, a necessary requirement in my 20 year practice of eschewing all Microsoft products for the superior software of its competitors.
Given that this functionality was a major highlight of InDesign’s new capabilities, I objected vociferously and set off to find an answer on my own. Finally, despite twelve phone calls to Adobe and my nearly non-stop torrent of invectives, I managed to uncover the solution up front and center from the Helpful Tips on Adobe’s help site, the same basic manual from which these contractors were supposedly referring for the past 14 months. Forget raising money for Haiti—I am contemplating starting a Facebook site that will solicit the funds I need to acquire an atomic weapon to eradicate Bangalore from the face of the planet!
Meanwhile, in addition to the several days I lost mired in this inexorable abyss, I also contracted my annual winter cold shortly after filing my last blog entry. Nothing too serious—certainly not H1N1—but tiring and annoying nonetheless. Sudafed and Ricola during the day, steam bath after my workout, overly generous glass of hot brandy with honey before bedtime, and within 7-10 days, I’m back with a vengeance (if my usual pattern holds true). So, feeling only slightly debilitated, I pedaled across San Francisco to attend the Santa Cruz Mountains Winegrowers Association trade tasting at Farallon, a venue for wine tasting that I have repeatedly lauded in this blog.
Coming but a few days prior to the ever-overwhelming ZAP festival, this event compelled me to include an additional criterion to my usual tasting protocol: no Zinfandel! However, I seemed to have been less judicious in limiting my actual intake (vs. the professional swill & spit technique). Or perhaps it was an interaction with the over-the-counter remedies I was taking. Whatever the case, I stopped for a short respite and a chance to stretch out my legs in the lobby of the Kensington Park Hotel once the tasting had ended. Inadvertently, two minutes lapsed into two hours, and I awoke to find myself comfortably draped in a plush, Louis XIV armchair, unaware I had dozed off almost instantaneously. A bit embarrassing, perhaps, but, amazingly, my congestion was completely gone!
So maybe the New England Journal of Medicine will not accept my claim that wine can cure the common cold. This is a battle I will take up in a different forum. My readership here will choose to believe me or not; in any case, I am sure all will prefer to hear about my discoveries at the aforementioned tasting.
And, indeed, discoveries were made. Those who follow this blog should not be surprised I took an immediate shine to Watsonville’s River Run, a winery making its inaugural appearance with the SCMWA. I only wish owner J. P. Pawlowski had brought his entire inventory with him! River Run’s 2008 Chardonnay Moutanos Vineyard was a superb organic expression from Mendocino, as was the 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon Moutanos Vineyard. I found much to like in their 2006 Merlot San Benito County and cottoned to both the 2006 Carignane Wirz Vineyard and their Rhône homage, the 2008 Côte d’Aromas, a blend of Syrah, Mourvèdre, Carignane, Viognier, and Grenache. I yearned, however, to sample the 2007 Négrette San Benito County, only the second time I’ve encountered this varietal from California, and I would have veered from my self-imposed prohibition for a small swill of the 2004 Zinfandel Port.
I probably should have asked Dan Martin of Martin Ranch Winery who J.D. Hurley was. The lower end label for this Gilroy winery seemed to be eclipsed by their more distinctive Thérèse Vineyards (eponymous for Dan’s wife) line, which impressively debuted their 2006 Thérèse Vineyards Syrah Santa Clara Valley and an affable 2006 Thérèse Vineyards Sangiovese.
Another new acquaintance, Hillcrest Terrace Winery, prefers a more orthodox Burgundian catalog, but excels in both Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Standouts were the 2008 Chardonnay Santa Cruz Mountains Regan Vineyard, the always dependable 2007 Pinot Noir Santa Lucia Highlands, and a profound 2008 Pinot Noir Santa Cruz Mountains Fambrini Vineyard. Closer to San Francisco, the La Honda Winery shares a zip code both with rock & roll legend Neil Young and the experimental cyberwine forays of Clos de la Tech. Not to be eclipsed by T. J. Rodgers, they offered an impressive Cabernet Sauvignon/Sangiovese blend, the 2006 Super Tuscan La Honda Ranch Experimental Vineyard. Actually, La Honda farms 30 vineyards throughout the Santa Cruz Mountains appellation, including parcels in Woodside, Portola Valley, Atherton, Los Altos Hills, and Saratoga, while making its wine in Redwood City. Of their many selections, I particularly liked the 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon Santa Cruz Mountains Lonehawk Vineyard and their 2007 Pinot Noir Santa Cruz Mountains Sequence. Also impressive was the 2006 Meritage, with Cabernet Franc and Malbec in addition to its backbone of 76% Cabernet Sauvignon.
Odonata is the taxonomical term for the order of aquatic palæopterous insects that includes damselflies and dragonflies, a species whose agility at inflight copulation puts the Mile High Club to shame; Odonata is also a family-run winery in Santa Cruz focused on organic grapes and sustainable wines, agile themselves at making a splendid 2007 Malbec St. Olof Vineyard, the very straightforward 2008 Chardonnay Peter Martin Ray Vineyard, and their 2007 Durif from Mendocino.
Having visited with the other participating wineries at a number of Santa Cruz tastings last year allowed me to take a more casual or social approach to sampling the afternoon’s offerings. Methodically, I wound my way down the list in alphabetical order, starting with Bargetto, a winery which intermittently shows flairs of brilliance with its Dolcetto. Though a straightforward expression of this varietal was not part of Bargetto’s current inventory, its proprietary 2004 La Vita, a deft blend of Dolcetto, Nebbiolo and Refosco from its Santa Cruz vineyards easily contented me. And my earlier partiality towards Black Ridge Vineyards remained intact as I tasted their current release, the 2007 Estate Pinot Noir Santa Cruz Mountains.
Clos Títa handcrafts small lots of artisanal wines emphasizing Pinot Noir and Bordelaise varietals. This event afforded my first tasting of their 2005 Gironde, an elegant mélange of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot from their Chain D’Or vineyards in Santa Cruz. Similarly, I had tasted the Pinots from Clos LaChance on a number of occasions, so I focused instead on their 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon Central Coast from their Hummingbird Series and a striking proprietary Bordeaux blend, the 2006 Lila’s Cuvée.
The late Kathryn Kennedy was noted as one of the first women to start her own winery, as well as for her exclusive focus on estate bottled 100% Cabernet Sauvignon in Saratoga. It seemed only proper to visit her table after her recent passing for a tasting of three of her vintages. Indeed, the 2006 Kathryn Kennedy Small Lot Cabernet S
anta Cruz Mountains stands as a fitting tribute to this viticultural pioneer.
Medical pioneer Thomas Fogarty has long followed his success with angioplasty in crafting wines that have proved enormously beneficial not only for the heart but to the palate. Again, having recently tasted several of his Pinots, I focused on his 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon Santa Cruz Mountains and the 2005 Lexington Meritage, a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc from the Santa Cruz Mountains. Fogarty’s winemaker, Michael Martella, shared an impressive array of wines from his eponymous label, starting with the 2008 Sauvignon Blanc Monterey County. But, not unexpectedly, he excelled with his assorted red wines, a quartet that included the 2006 Grenache Fiddletown, the 2005 Petite Sirah Mendocino, a wondrous 2006 Syrah Hammer and the 2006 Zinfandel Fiddletown (OK, I succumbed)!
I don’t know if it’s possible to have every Ridge Zinfandel, but I’d wager my home stockpile comes pretty close. Now, had they been pouring their 2003 Monte Bello, which was depicted in the tasting program, I might have lingered at their table for a while, but I did manage to pay a visit with their mountaintop neighbor, Don Naumann and revisit with his always approachable wines, the 2006 Chardonnay and his 2005 Merlot Estate Grown.
Another prominent Santa Cruz vintner, Sarah’s Vineyard has long stood out for its Pinot Noir and, like Ridge, featured a label of the same on their page. Nonetheless, I veered away from the tried and true and opted for the 2005 Syrah Besson Vineyard and the 2007 Grenache Santa Clara Valley. I also revisited with Saratoga’s Cinnabar, cherry-picking their 2007 Chardonnay Santa Cruz Mountains, the 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon Santa Cruz Mountains, the 2005 Cabernet Franc Lodi and their proprietary blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, the 2007 Mercury Rising. But, alas, it seemed that the 2004 Teroldego Central Coast, a wine I had so thoroughly enjoyed last year, failed to make the journey to San Francisco.
I’d been impressed by the Gatos Locos wines I had sampled at Clements Ridge when I visited Lodi in the fall, so it behooved me to stop by the table of their producer, Vine Hill, and to retry their 2007 Gatos Locos Chardonnay Mokelumne River and the 2006 Gatos Locos Pinot Noir Santa Cruz Mountains. I found their 2006 Vine Hill Pinot Noir Santa Cruz Mountains compared quite favorably. But by then, the armchair in the lobby was beckoning, and my medical breakthrough was not to be denied.

Wanna come up and see my composting?

Leave a reply

Call me prescient. Right after I graduated from college, I dreamt that Burger King had opened up a bar, and I was its first bartender. There I was, clad in one of their vapid uniforms, complete with yellow & red beanie, drawing Michelobs and chatting up patrons with the usual “How about them Mets?” and what have you. In a word, not the best use of my Dartmouth education. Lo and behold, the nightmare becomes reality! The first Burger King bar is set to open in Miami next month!
Your West Coast Oenophile won’t reveal how many years have past since that sweat-soaked nightmare, but let’s just say we’re past any statute of limitations for me to allege copyright infringement or make any form of claim to theft of intellectual property. Besides, profiteering from a Burger King enterprise might well nullify my credentials with Slow Food or any other segment of the sustainability movement. Still, even I can appreciate the irony that I am once again dreaming of opening a very different kind of bar, albeit this time with a far more holistic approach.
Irony seems to abound these days. I attended the Post-Holiday Party in Oakland this past Wednesday, a cocktail & networking event hosted by the Green Chamber of Commerce, Green Drinks East Bay and the Sustainable Business Alliance. The event’s sponsor, Alameda County’s chapter of StopWaste.org, came armed with a plethora of printed handouts, most strikingly a 32-page, 8½” x 11″ pamphlet entitled Paperless Express: A Paper Use Reduction Guide for Your Business. At least it was printed on 100% recycled paper (50% post-consumer waste)!
Of course, we all have moments of sustainable apostasy, including yours truly, who drove from San Francisco to attend this gathering—a mere two blocks from the 19th Street BART station. My excuse was I need to get back to San Francisco in time to catch the première of Phèdre at ACT, a feat I managed, despite the rain, in a mere 19 minutes from the time I left Oakland to parking one block from the theater, picking up my ticket from Will-Call, and securing my seat in the loge! Just try doing that on a regular basis!
So far, such milestones haven’t just been personal. 2010 portends to be a watershed year for Sostevinobile and, more broadly, the entire sustainable wine community in California and on the West Coast. At long last, the California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance has launched its official certification program. It will still be a while before wines that have earned official certification as sustainable are commercially available, and even longer still before this standard garners sufficient market penetration to become the basis for Sostevinobile to qualify the wines we select for our program, but it does offer a model on which we can base our criteria for gauging the sustainable practices of the wineries and wine labels we consider, particularly with it model of progressive achievement (as opposed to creating a rigid, quantifiable benchmark) for assessing a winery’s implementation of sustainable practices. Still, with all the fealty Sostevinobile has paid to local, sustainable vineyards and wineries, it seemed bewildering that the Wine Institute and the California Wine Growers Association to fail to include this blog at the press conference announcing the debut of this program. But rather than belabor the point, I have sought to ensure that future developments will not reiterate this oversight.
At least the California College of the Arts remembered to invite me, not just to one recept
ion but a pair of openings held on the very same night in different galleries on their San Francisco campus. The first, The Magnificent Seven: Selections from the Life and Work of Michael Bravo, seemed to be an exhibit only someone truly immersed in this métier could fully appreciate. The upstairs exhibit, Route 1: R for Replicant offered a far more accessible, multi-disciplinary display, including some of the most engrossing 3-D photography I have ever experienced.
The truly amazing part of this reception, however, was the complimentary. I have become inured to the frugality of wine selections at art openings, and , historically CCA has offered no exception to the ever-so-predictable Two Buck Chuck, the “official” wine of art openings (or some relatively similar swill). Instead, this evening featured a case of the 2008 Sangiovese Monte Rosso Vineyard from Kenwood’s Muscardini Cellars, which an e-mail I had received only a few days before listed as being pre-release. Ceres, CA and its Central Valley satellites be damned! This handcrafted Italian varietal expressed itself superbly, well worth the $38 one must pay retail for one of these bottles. Donated or purchased—I have no idea, but certainly a standard to which other galleries and multi-billion dollar endowed universities ought to aspire for their programs.
Nonetheless, the true high point since I last posted here was a news report on the latest wave in marital discord—couples whose relationship founders because they have differing adherence to sustainability or in their commitment to containing the sources of global warming and other ecological perils! Imagine actually petitioning the court for divorce on the grounds of environmental incompatibility! Thermal negligence! Carbon cruelty!!
The offer I make now is sincere and has nothing to do with my trying to fill the void in my life after my irreconcilable split with the Ginkgo Girl: come to Sostevinobile with proof that you have been divorced because of your spouse’s lack of adherence to your sustainable beliefs, and your wine will be on the house all evening! Afterwards, if you want to check out my water flow reduction system…

Getting Lei’d in the 2010s

Leave a reply

Welcome to 2010! Call it hubris (ὕβρις), if you will, but I like to think this will be Sostevinobile’s era. Time, of course, will tell.
2010 marks a number of personal milestones. It now has been 20 years since I’ve touched a Microsoft program, other than to reaffirm what an execrable excuse for software the megalomaniacs in Redmond, WA produce. It also marks 35 years since “food” from McDonald’s (or whatever substitute they serve) has tainted my palate. And it’s now been 10 years since I’ve succumbed exclusively to my well-documented febrile predilection.
Nonetheless, things in 2010 have started out quite well for Your West Coast Oenophile (like most folks, I’d have to say that, after 2009’s debacles, where else could they go but up?). Typically, I gauge my prospects for each new year by how I fare in my inaugural squash match, a particularly telling sign this year since I had been plagued with assorted leg injuries over the past 12-15 months. This diminution of my agility, along with a concomitant rustiness to my game, had allowed numerous opponents whom I could previously dispatch with remarkable ease, to prevail effortlessly against my dizzying array of lobs, boasts, and rails.
And it seemed this streak of unmitigated losses might continue, as my opponent, John H., manhandled me throughout the first two games of our match and mounted a formidable 4-point lead midway through the third. But, as the saying goes, squash is to racquetball what chess is to checkers, and I knew I could muster the psychological fortitude that would prove the ungluing of adversary. I steeled my determination and held on to even the score at 10-10, then won 13-11 in the tiebreaker. The spell now broken, I coated through the fourth game and held ground in the fifth before breaking out with an 11-7 victory and, with it, the match. Decidedly, a true portent for the ensuing twelve months, both on and off the court.


An enlightened detail from Custom   

The next day, I managed to prevail against the misdirected zealotry of the San Francisco constabulary and have my most recent traffic offense, a baseless charge of crossing through an intersection without stopping at the blacked-out signal light, dismissed as a gross miscarriage of justice. Actually, the officer on duty merely failed to file his report and appear at the hearing, but I do like to inflate my victories whenever possible.
Later that evening, I had the pleasure of attending the unveiling of Roman Padilla’s new art show entitled We are All Commis, a visual paean to sustainability. Commissioned by Hotel Biron, a quaint confrère near San Francisco’s Hayes Valley. This series of directed pastiches includes several fragments from my more whimsical writings—the first time Sostevinobile has been enshrined in art! Needless to say, copious amounts of 2006 Talmage Barbera and 2006 Siani Farms Carignane from Cazadero’s organically-farmed Wild Hog Vineyard were consumed over the course of the evening’s festivities, though not enough to test whether my earlier triumph over the SFPD might be replicated.

A clarion call?
A most heartening development for Sostevinobile in 2010 has been the sudden rash of blogs and discussions challenging the consistency of restaurants and other locavores establishments serving imported wines. The first has been a rather provocative LinkedIn discussion, started by Jon Wollenhaupt of Excel Meetings & Events in San Francisco and chronicled by SFGate bloggers Michael Bauer and Zennie Abraham, posed the question: “Should the ‘Eat Local’ ethic apply to wine as well? Should San Francisco restaurants only serve Napa/Sonoma wines?”
This thread has already reached 162 entries, including my own, and while it has veered off on numerous tangents that hardly seem germane to the origin query (particularly among restaurateurs in states that have limited production of local wines), it has shown that people here and throughout the West Coast do question the rationale behind serving imports when an abundance of excellent wine is available here. 
Another wine blogger, Amy Atwood, posed a similar question on her mydailywine column: “Drink Local Wine Debate: A Harbinger of Change?” Much to my surprise, the most aggressive response came from local Australian wine evangelist Chuck Hayward, formerly of San Francisco’s Jug Shop:

“Do you mean to tell me that amongst the almost 3000 wineries spanning over 100 AVAs in California that they all make wines that are “too much?” They found those five wines, I am sure there are plenty of wines out there that meet the stringent criteria that somms want today. Just get to work and find them!!


“The real issue here, however, is hypocrisy. Preaching local and then saying that the wine portion of the dining experience is exempt is just plain elitist and hypocritical.”

I can only wish I had the temerity to make such an indictment, though outside of this forum, Sostevinobile has iterated much of the same. With so many others now echoing our central tenet, I suspect a successful launch and enduring run for our venture lays just beyond.

Still, the most auspicious omen for the upcoming decade assuredly has to have been losing, then amazingly recovering my iPhone Bluetooth earpiece. Seen to the right at nearly 150% its actual size, this teeny device fell, imperceptibly, from my pocket Wednesday evening sometime after I had shopped at San Francisco’s Rainbow Grocery. Several hours and stops later, I discovered that the Bluetooth signal on my phone had disconnected, but it wasn’t until I returned to my flat that I realized the earpiece was no longer on my person. A frantic search throughout my blue Corolla confirmed my worst suspicions—my headset had been lost, and hopes its retrieval, quite slim.

No, this is not a hash pipe!

I placed late night calls to Nihon Lounge and to Heaven’s Dog,the two establishments where I had stopped for cocktails and where I had reached into my front pocket for a pen to sign my receipts. Their searches in the vicinity where I had sat turned up empty, but I was reassured they would call me after the morning cleaning crew had swept through the bar. On the other hand, Rainbow did not reopen until the morning, so I had to wait until then before speaking with their Customer Service team.
The morning calls proved just as futile. Resigned to having to purchase a new device, I headed off to Traffic Court, determined to plead my case as vociferously as needed for my exoneration. I entered the court room at 1:36 PM and by 1:40, I had my dismissal  in hand. Having allocated the whole afternoon for this appearance, I decided to take the time I’d been spared and make one final, implausible search to find my lost Bluetooth. After a futile return visit to Heaven’s Dog, I made a meticulous search of the area nearby where my friend and I had parked the night before, hoping that I might find the earpiece squashed on the pavement (whereby I could still claim it under Apple’s warranty). No such luck. I then pedaled over to Rainbow, in search of the same remnant, then figured I might make one last futile attempt to investigate the space where we had parked by Flour + Water.
From fortitude comes fortuity
As I had before, I crouched down and looked beneath the automobile that was now parked in the same space alongside 13th Street. As I ought to have expected, nothing. But just as I prepared to remount my 14-speed Trek, there on the sidewalk, out in plain sight, completely intact, lay my 1½” long Bluetooth earpiece, as if no one had even touched it over the past 18 hours!
I pressed the activation button and it connected to my iPhone with nary a glitch. Phoning my drinking companion from the night before, I queried through the remote microphone, “How do I sound?” “Fortuitous,” he replied. Here was the first crest of a wave of luck I whole-heartedly intend to ride throughout 2010.
And so far, I seem to be (at least until I show up at the 2010 Olympic Club Singles Squash Invitational this coming weekend). I discovered a pair of wines, grape varietals which have enjoyed cursory mention in this blog as components of blends, but not as distinct wines. The 2008 Sylvaner Flood Family Vineyards from Rancho Sisquoc showed faint reminiscences of a Riesling or a Gewürztraminer and married nicely to a Cajun-spiced catfish I prepared. On the other hand, I found the 2007 Chasselas Doré Pagani Ranch that Berthoud Vineyards produced a wine with no easy comparisons and a somewhat incongruous match for the Dungeness crab I steamed over the weekend. It did, however, pose a fairly decent complement to the store-prepared Italian Wedding Soup I consumed the next evening as the start of my avowed weight loss program for 2010.

The next evening, I attended my first party for 2010 at the Tonga Room, a San Francisco landmark purportedly destined for demise later this year. Guests at this kickoff event were asked to create name tags with their New Year’s resolution or other goals for 2010. Never one to turn down the opportunity for a pun, I scribbled in “Here to Get Lei’d,” a line that my friends and Facebook fans know belies my true avowal:

2010 New Year’s Eve, I will be pouring the West Coast’s finest bubbly at Sostevinobile!

What’s in it for me?

Leave a reply

There’s an off-color joke I enjoy telling about Donald Trump (or Willie Brown, if the audience is local). A woman approaches The Donald (or Da Mayor) at a cocktail party and gushes effusively, to the point of finally declaring that all she wants to do is drop to her knees and (insert whatever euphemism you prefer for performing an act of unilateral gratification). Trump (or Brown) steps back, glares at the woman, and, with arms akimbo, inquires “yeah, well what’s in it for me?”
Your West Coast Oenophile recently attend the 2nd Annual Green Wine Summit in Santa Rosa, the same event at which last year I first publicly unveiled my concept for Sostevinobile. This time round, I came with media credentials, intent on reporting my observations of the various seminars and attendees, as well as any discoveries among the donated sustainable, organic and biodynamic wines poured at the numerous tastings and receptions accompanying this event. But, over the course of the two-day workshop, it gradually dawned on me that the standards I had set for Sostevinobile’s sustainable wine program could create some ambiguity without more attenuated definition, if not possibly raise question, in the consumer’s mind, about the validity of our allegiance to sustainable practices.
As I endeavor to complete my installment on the Green Wine Summit, I recognize that other essayists have amply, if not more precisely (and more promptly), chronicled the particulars of this event in articles and in other blogs. As such, I would like to present my readership with an overview of how this second Green Wine Summit has refined my criteria for the sustainable guidelines for the wines we will be pouring at Sostevinobile.
The central tenet on which I founded Sostevinobile, that an eating and drinking facility’s stated adherence to locavore principles must include the wines it serves, remains immutable. There can be no wavering from our fundamental premise of serving sustainably-farmed and produced wines only from the West Coast. The viticultural industries in California, Oregon, and Washington have matured and expanded to the point that we have become a single wine region, with inextricable links that transcend state borders or other boundaries. Granted, this reality may extend our radius beyond the 500-mile perimeter that is generally considered the litmus for sustainable practices, but Sostevinobile will be taking sufficient steps to ensure that our wider tolerance for transportation and shipping distances does not increase our carbon footprint nor that of our producers.
Where our benchmarks must be honed is in what we will define as sustainable for the wines we serve and how we can credibly convey these standards to our clientele and the public at large. As the Green Wine Summit’s Master of Ceremonies Paul Dolan highlighted, transparency and authenticity in marketing stands as paramount if claims to sustainability are to carry any weight with consumers. Amid the plethora of confusing—if not conflicting—progressive epithets the food and beverage industry wishes to ascribe to its products: organic, whole, vegan, fair trade, natural, fish-friendly, salmon safe, biodynamic, equitable, etc., the label “sustainable” needs to incorporate well-defined rigors and pervasive applicability throughout an enterprise or risk indifference from consumers.

Therein lies the rub. Standards for sustainability in the wine industry can be widely disparate, and even established certifications like the Central Coast’s SIP, Lodi Rules, Napa Green, or Oregon’s OCSW must continually be updated and expanded to accommodate new understanding and changing environmental concerns. Little wonder, therefore, that it has taken over three years for the California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance (CSWA), a cooperative project of the Wine Institute and California Association of Winegrape Growers to formalize its certification program, to be launched in January 2010.
Sustainability has long been a hallmark of the California wine industry. Since 2003, CSWA has sponsored the Sustainable Wine Program, a self-assessment inventory a winery or vineyard can conduct on itself to assess and improve its sustainable practices; to date, nearly 1,500 vintners and growers —representing approximately 60% of the state’s wine production and vineyard acreage—have assayed the sustainability their operations at 125 workshops, while more than 5,500 have attended 160 targeted education workshops.
Despite these impressive statistics, as CSWA Secretary Steve Smit noted in several panels at the Green Wine Summit, the current marketplace necessitates the need to extend these assessment into a formal certification program with third-party verification of the 58 prerequisites. Importantly, however, these criteria are processed-based, meaning that they are designed to encourage participants to improve their sustainable practices, rather than exclude organizations for failing to attain a pre-determined threshold, as performance-based certifications do.
Washington wineries conduct a similar self-assessment program, Vinewise that has been teamed up with LIVE, a non-profit that offers third-party certification through the International Organization for Biological Control program, and VINEA, a cooperative certification like SIP or Napa Green for the Walla Walla Valley. Oregon’s certification program launched in 2008 and released its first certified sustainable Chardonnays this past summer, with certified Pinot Noir due for release in the spring of 2010. With California’s program still not formally underway, it will be a number of years yet before wines certified as sustainable under a unified, statewide standard become available here.
With a genuine paucity of officially certified wines available, Sostevinobile faces a delicate balance in maintaining the diversity and quality of its wine program while upholding the fidelity of our avowed sustainable principles. While the Green Wine Summit clearly demonstrated that we must be rigorous in holding the wineries we feature to an invariable standard if we are to hold any credence with our clientele, it has also shown me that our role is to help promote greater sustainability throughout the wine industry, not to attempt to preclude West Coast wineries from participating in our programs, particularly if they are genuinely moving towards increasing the sustainability of their viticultural practices. This is a role Green Summit panelists showed corporate titans like Walmart and General Electric now are playing in steering their vendors and clients toward corporate responsibility for their environmental impact; though Sostevinobile will far smaller in our scope, we can and we must utilize any clout we wield to help enable the same critical agenda.
Ultimately, society will reach a point where, even if sustainability is not universally adopted standard, there will be sufficient consumer backlash to render any flagrantly non-sustainable venture incapable of competing in the marketplace (I have stated many times in this blog that Sostevinobile hopes this evolution will include a convergence of the standards for organic and sustainable). Until we attain such ubiquity, both within the wine industry and within the culture at large, our most productive course will be to promote a standard to which our vendors need ascribe in order substantiate their inclusion in our wine programs.
A fellow Green Wine Summit attendee, ConsciousWine™, demonstrates a compelling framework for codifying their threshold for determining a viable level of sustainability, with their basic Four Principles:

  1. Use no synthetic chemicals in the vineyards whatsoever,
  2. Utilize practices supporting the vitality of the land for our kids and beyond,
  3. Reflect the unique character and personality of the vineyard in their wines and
  4. Rock the house (i.e.: it’s in the bottle).

ConsciousWine further delineates its criteria for endorsement with 12 specific applications (biodiversity, minimal water usage, sustainable worker policy) for which they seek to
have their Four Principles followed; Sostevinobile must, of course, conscientiously devise our own benchmarks, then oblige participating wineries to incorporate a definitive statement of their commitment to and deployment of these requisite sustainable practices on their external Website. Our purpose is to embrace the genuine efforts of wineries to establish themselves with what the CSWA deems as the Three E’s of Sustainability: Environmentally Sound, Socially Equitable, and Economically Feasible (or, as the Green Chamber of Commerce states more succinctly, People, Planet, Profits). As certification for sustainability becomes more pervasive, we will adapt our programs to this changing landscape and attenuate the standards by which Sostevinobile selects its wines accordingly.
Much of the rest of the Green Wine Summit focused on the need for effective communications and marketing of sustainable practices, both in terms of furthering the groundswell for public demand as well as for creating a consistent voice to ensure that claims to sustainability carry true meaning (as opposed to “greenwashing”) for consumers. Another prominent highlight of the workshop was the emergence of water preservation and conservation as an issue carrying increasingly important weight in the quest for a truly sustainable economy, particularly in areas like California with its limited water resources.
I attended the Summit in the hope of learning more about the state of green practices within the wine industry; I left with a greater understanding of the imperative placed on enterprises like Sostevinobile for promoting and encouraging these developments, while implementing as much of them as we ourselves can in our own arena. After all, as keynote speaker Gil Friend observed, creating a sustainable ecosystem isn’t anything new—Nature itself has “3.85 billion years of experience in creating efficient, adaptive, resilient, sustainable systems.” Knowing that “the R&D has already been done for us,” as Friend is fond of noting, the task ahead becomes relatively simple: an informed and dedicated commitment to the well-being of the living systems that ultimately sustain the human economy, and to the well-being of the human economy that sustains all living systems. That’s what’s in it for us.

Marc’s flat-out mean & lean post-Thanksgiving slimdown: the sequel

Leave a reply

I didn’t do so well last week. 1,788 words when I was aiming to come in under 1,000. And that was meant to include this entry, as well! I just hope all will be forgiven by the time I reach the end of the electronic page this time!
I wanted to get my review of Holiday in Carneros out before December, but the demands of raising funds for Sostevinobile occupy front and center for Your West Coast Oenophile. I am determined to generate a financial tsunami this month!
It was another kind of tempestuous storm that afflicted my very temperamental digestive system on the morning before I set out for Carneros. If only Jacuzzi had a Jacuzzi at their winery! Or, failing that, a stiff shot of grappa to quell my agita. Instead, I settled for a few gulps of olive oil, great hospitality, and some splendid wines.
The formal event paired an assortment of Italian appetizers with their 2008 Gilia’s Vernaccia, an appealing 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon, and the 2006 Rosso di Sette Fratelli, a Merlot named for the brothers who founded the various Jacuzzi enterprises. But, as Tasting Room Manager Teresa Hernando quickly showed me, the winery’s true forte is in its wide range of Italian varietals and blends. Given my self-imposed limitations for the afternoon, I skipped the 2007 Pinot Grigio and opted for the 2008 Arneis before moving onto a selection of reds. Here I bypassed the 2006 Primitivo and, surprisingly, the 2006 Sangiovese for a sample of the 2006 Aleatico, their Mendocino 2007 Barbera, and the incredible 2007 Nebbiolo from Carneros. As often happens, my retasting of the 2006 Lagrein seemed less sweet than it had at the Napa Valley Wine & Grape Expo, thereby mitigating my disappointment in Whitcraft’s discontinuation of this varietal. With time pressing, I thanked Teresa and promised to return for a more comprehensive tasting in the near future, making mental notes of their family commemoratives, the 2006 Giuseppina, the 2005 Valeriano, as well as their Chardonnay, the 2006 Bianco di Sei Sorelle (Six Sister’s White). Seven brothers + six sisters = 13 siblings! Is it any wonder we associate hot tubs with…?
My friend Sasha Verhage from Eno had told me a while back about his satellite tasting room in the Cornerstone Place complex just down the road from Jacuzzi, and while the tasting collective Grange Sonoma was not pouring his wines, they did feature a number of their other members, which gave me the opportunity to try the 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon Alexander Valley from Mantra. Around the corner, the wafts of wood-fired pizza lured me to Roshambo’s new base of operations since Turley acquired their Dry Creek winery. Sales manager Steve Morvai offered generous pours of the 2006 Justice Syrah and the 2006 Rock, an equal blend of Zinfandel, Syrah and Petite Syrah, while enticing me with descriptions of his own Syrah project, Les Caves Roties de Pente, a Bonny Doon-like tweak of a renowned Rhône producer. Another Cornerstone tenant, Larson Family Winery, poured a selection of both their own label, and Sadler-Wells, a joint venture between proprietress Becky Larson and Jean Spear, a veteran wine marketer. While I found both the 2005 Sadler-Wells Chardonnay Carneros and the 2005 Sadler-Wells Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast perfectly amiable wines, the 2006 Larson Family Winery Cabernet Sauvignon Sonoma Valley proved the true standout.
I think I failed to locate Bonneau’s tasting room on Bonneau Road because it was housed inside the Carneros Deli. My loss, I am sure, but the reception I received at Schug amply mitigated for my miscalculation. Despite their legendary prowess, I initially tried to beg off from sampling their selection of Pinot Noir (too much sensory overload from the previous day’s PinotFest) and pared their much-welcomed bowl of Creamy Wild Mushroom Soup with both the 2006 Merlot Sonoma Valley and the 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon Sonoma Valley. However, an introduction to scion Axel Schug convinced me to indulge in their truly wonderful 2007 Pinot Noir Carneros, along with the equally appealing 2004 Cabernet Reserve. Only the many stops still on my itinerary kept m
e from sampling the rest of their library wines being poured.
If you produce both wines, why would you call one Pinot Grigio and the other Pinot Blanc (or, for that matter, Pinot Gris and Pinot Bianco)? Granted, I understand the marketing concept, but the linguist in me argues for consistency. Allora, my query seemed to generate a bit of bewilderment at Robledo Family Winery, which perhaps should call the pair Pinot Gris and Pinot Blanco (or so my Easy Translator widget indicates). Rhetorical conundrums notwithstanding, I was immensely please finally to meet this pioneering family and experience their hospitality. Patriarch Reynaldo Robledo’s storied ascendancy from farmhand to winery owner has been well documented on their Website and in other media, but their wines demonstrate that this evolution is far more than a Horatio Alger tale. I did appreciate both the above-mentioned 2006 Pinot Grigio and the 2006 Pinot Blanc, but the eye-opener was their 2005 El Rey Cabernet Sauvignon, an exceptional Lake County varietal. Even more striking, the 2005 Los Braceros, a blend of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Syrah, pays homage both to the Robledo’s roots as well as their winemaking virtuosity. 
For some reason, I’d always thought Adastra was a Paso Robles winery. The name sounds like a Paso Robles name. As I crossed over to the Napa portion of Carneros to visit their ramshackle barn, it even felt like Paso Robles. But Dr. Chris Thorpe’s certified organic winery is authentically Carneros, and it only takes a sip of winemaker Pam Starr’s opulent Pinot Noir, the 2006 Adastra Proximus to recognize the winery’s sense of place. No Miles Raymond dilemma here—I found the 2006 Adastra Merlot as enticing as the Pinot, while the 2007 Ed’s Red, Adastra’s second label, proved an intriguing blend of 43% Syrah, 39% Zinfandel, 13% Petite Sirah, 4% Cabernet Franc, 1% Petit Verdot. 
Burgundy and Bordeaux took center stage at nearby McKenzie-Mueller, a boutique winery just across the street. The 2006 Pinot Noir and 2006 Chardonnay made a nice introduction to this previously unfamiliar label, but winemaker Bob Mueller’s forte lay in the components of a Meritage, in particular the 2005 Merlot, the 2004 Cabernet Franc, and the truly outstanding 2006 Malbec. Even the curious strains of a male folk duo singing Eartha Kitt’s Santa Baby could not detract from this delightfully unpretentious destination.
As laidback as Adasta and McKenzie-Mueller may have been, Ceja proved just as ebullient. Pint-sized owner Amelia Morán Ceja made a most irrepressible hostess as she escorted me back to the bocce courts for a taste of tri-tip that I washed down with a generous pour of its perfect complement, the 2005 Syrah Sonoma Coast. The 2006 Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast certainly held its own, but their trademark Pinot Noir/Syrah/ Cabernet Sauvignon 2007 Vino de Casa Red Blend seemed positively redolent. I managed to taste their 2005 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon while listening to Amelia expound her recipe for the risotto she was readying to prepare for 37 or so family and friends, then headed out to complete my loop for the afternoon.
Alas, the hour I spent at Ceja meant I missed the last moments at Étude, who was just closing down as I entered the new tasting room. Michael Mondavi’s Folio, with its seemingly incongruous Irish flag out front, also was unattainable, so I headed over, as promised, to the Carneros Inn and FARM, their onsite restaurant from the Plump Jack Hospitality Group. The setting was warm; the pulchritudinous Ms. Cheung’s effusive greeting even warmer. As if I hadn’t sampled enough wines this afternoon, she poured me a complimentary selection from her wine list and sent over a much-appreciated bowl of Truffle Fries. Just the reinvigoration I needed before heading back to San Francisco.
Was my entire excursion to Carneros merely a pretext to visit Yvonne? A chance to see her hard at work in her role as manager/sommelier? Or maybe a promising portent for Sostevinobile? We may well have to wait to 2010 to find out…

Marc’s flat-out mean & lean post-Thanksgiving slimdown

2 Replies

No more interminable digressions! No more anecdotes from my checkered past! From hereon until the New Year, I have vowed to keep my Sostevinobile blog tight, sparse, and directly to the point. Call it what you will, but Your West Coast Oenophile is commencing his annual post-Thanksgiving ritual.
To be honest, this isn’t a response to my overconsumption. Rather, it’s the realization I must devote December to the unenviable task of raising the capital Sostevinobile needs to launch in 2010. After months of laying the groundwork, it’s time for a full-fledged assault, casting aside my “arduous” schedule of four-five wine tastings a week.
Before Thanksgiving, I was able to sandwich in a pair of tastings, however: PinotFest in San Francisco and Holiday in Carneros. Many fans of this blog will surely be clamoring for me to include my next installment of Waiting for Pinot before launching into my findings at Farallon’s 11th annual “Public Tasting of a Sexy Wine,” but, like Vigneron and Donatello, they will simply have to bide their time. I will preface my remarks, however, by commending Peter Palmer and his staff for always staging an impressive event (even though the tray of Ahi tuna medallions on fried wontons made its way by me only once). The private rooms in the Kensington Park Hotel where Farallon holdings its periodic industry tastings are warm and capacious, with presenter tables spaced amply apart. The catering is splendid (as one might expect from Farallon); the servers, more than accommodating; the crowd, knowledgeable and professional. In short, all the right elements for a splendid wine tasting.
The best part of this event, besides unexpectedly running into Yvonne Cheung, was the chance to meet with so many wineries from Oregon. The A-List of Oregon Pinot producers starts with Argyle and Adelsheim, a pair of wineries whose high profile sometimes tends to belie just how spectacular their wines can be. Argyle has, of course, gained as much of its reputation of late from its line of sparkling wines as it has for its Pinot Noir, and the 2007 Argyle Brut Rosé, blended from both Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier deftly showcased their prowess in this area. Their 2006 Reserve Pinot Noir Willamette Valley was as strong a vintage of this particular bottling as I can remember. Likewise, Michael Adelsheim demonstrated his family’s winemaking and artistic prowess with their popular 2007 Adelsheim Pinot Noir Willamette Valley and their single-vineyard 2007 Elizabeth’s Reserve Pinot Noir. Veering slightly off-course, he also poured the 2007 Auxerrois Willamette Valley, a fairly obscure white varietal resulting from cross between Pinot Noir and an ignoble (!) varietal known as Gouais Blanc.
Tony Soter gained considerable acclaim for his wines at Étude, before pulling up stakes and establishing his eponymous winery in Carlton, Oregon to make Cabernet Franc and Pinot Noir. Soter obviously studied well in Carneros, judging by the pair of Oregon Pinots he poured: the 2007 Pinot Noir North Valley and a dazzling 2006 Pinot Noir Mineral Springs. Also staking its claim to “Oregonically grown” royalty was the aptly named Rex Hill, with noteworthy selections in their 2006 Pinot Noir Reserve Willamette Valley and the 2006 Pinot Noir Jacob-Hart. 
Domaine Drouhin sounds like a name that might have been lifted from Le Morte d’Arthur or Chaucer (coincidence I subsequently discovered from their Website—their Chardonnay is called Arthur); this Oregon branch of a 13th Century Burgundian house having not previously come to my attention, I was especially pleased to sample their flagship Pinot, the 2006 Laurène and the 2007 Pinot Noir Willamette Valley. Chehalem, on the other hand, is a name that could only come from Oregon; their trio on hand from the numerous Pinots they produce included the 2006 Oregon Pinot Noir Reserve, the 2007 Corral Creek Pinot Noir, and a distinctive 2007 3 Vineyard Pinot Noir.
Despite my exhortations,
I could not convince owners of Ponzi Vineyards that they ought to produce a wine called Madoff. In contrast, Dick Ponzi produces wines that are incredibly straightforward and honest, “neither fined nor filtered…crafted to be delicious upon release,” as ably exemplified by the 2008 Tavola Pinot Noir and the 2007 Pinot Noir Willamette Valley that he poured. Though the Wine Spectator declares that “all Oregon Pinot Noirs are measured by the Ponzi yardstick,” I suspect Domaine Serene may feel their wines warrant similar accolade. The Wine Spectator and Robert Parker may differ over whether they prefer the 2006 Evenstad Reserve Pinot Noir to the 2006 Jerusalem Hill Pinot Noir, but it will require a bottle of their 2005 Monogram to get me to reveal my choice!
Bridging the divide between Oregon and California stands, Siduri/Novy, Adam Lee’s sister labels. My fondness for his Siduri Pinots has been noted several time in this blog, but I was extremely please to see that he had brought along the 2008 Novy Blanc de Noir, an exceptional white wine crafted by gingerly pressing the Pinot Noir grape to extract its juice without skin contact. Descending latitudinally, I made the acquaintance of Greenwood Ridge, an organic winery in Mendocino. If only it were possible to describe their 2007 Pinot Noir Mendocino Ridge better than Wine & Spirits’ citation as “a meaty Pinot Noir for Coq au Vin with Morels!” Still, my appreciation for this wine pales in comparison with their 2008 Sauvignon Blanc Meyer Vineyard (a wine I discovered subsequently at the Green Wine Summit)—perhaps the best expression of this varietal I can recall enjoying.
I managed to taste Kosta Browne’s 2007 Pinot Noir Russian River Valley and 2007 Pinot Noir Amber Ridge Vineyard for the second time each in as many months and found my appreciation for these wines still enormously favorable. The treat this afternoon, however, was sampling the private efforts of associate winemaker Shane Finley and his much-storied Spell label; his 2008 Spell Pinot Noir Weir Vineyard shows how well he has taken Michael Browne’s tutelage to heart. His utterly splendid 2007 Shane Syrah Mendocino, however, shows an artistry all his own.
Like Kosta Browne, Littorai was a winery whom I had sampled at Pinot on the River; their 2007 Pinot Noir Hirsch Vineyard was a superb discovery this time around. Pey has poured their fare at several tastings I attended this past year, but I still relished my first sampling of their 2007 Pey-Marin Pinot Noir Trois Filles Marin County and the equally spectacular 2007 Pey-Lucia Frisquet Pinot Noir Santa Lucia Highlands. The real treat, however, was the 2008 The Shell Mound Riesling, Marin County that Jonathan Pey managed to smuggle in.
Another familiar presence, though one I do not usually associate with Pinot, was Thomas Fogarty. The debate over the efficacy of angioplasty may be somewhat nascent, but his efforts with this varietal proved undeniable. Besides, I would far prefer to unclog my arteries with his 2007 Pinot Noir Santa Cruz or the 2007 Estate Pinot Noir Rapley Trail and most certainly via the catharsis of his extraordinary 2007 Estate Pinot Noir Windy Hills. I have no idea whether Costa de Oro has any medical affiliations, but their Pinots were beyond therapeutic. Apart from their soothing 2008 Pinot Noir Santa Barbara County, the 2007 Estate Pinot Noir Gold Coast Vineyard and especially the 2007 Estate Pinot Noir Riserva Oro Rojo would provide extraordinary palliative therapy for almost any condition.
Some names in the Pinot world need no introduction, but an opportunity to taste their wine can never be overlooked. Robert Sinskey’s renowned organic winery in Napa falls into this category and came through with flying colors on their 2005 Pinot Noir Vandal Vineyard. Similarly, the highly-touted Williams Selyem from the Russian River Valley showed why 2007 has proven such a banner year for Pinot, with their 2007 Hirsch Vineyards Pinot Noir and their triumphant 2007 Westside Road Neighbors Pinot Noir (having missed out on my WS List member allotment this fall, I was doubly pleased to enjoy this sample).
Sometimes you are predisposed to like a band even before you hear their music, simply because they have such an appealing or quirky name, like Foo Fighters or Death Cab for Cutie. I was similarly drawn to Radio Coteau and, ultimately, far from disappointed. Of the four Pinot Noirs I tasted, the 2007 Terra Neuma stood out, followed closely by the 2007 Savoy. The 2006 Savoy presented a classic contrast between these two vintage years, while the 2007 La Nebalina lagged a tad behind its 2007 counterparts. While Lynmar Estate is not a particularly esoteric name for a winery, its 2007 Terra di Promissio lures one in automatically to this splendid Pinot, a worthy Sonoma Coast variant to Lynmar’s home-based 2007 Russian River Valley Pinot Noir.
The Napa Valley usually is not considered a stronghold for Pinot, so sampling El Molino’s efforts with this varietal was most illuminating. As in Sonoma and on the Central Coast, the comparison between vintages was quite stark, with the 2007 Rutherford Pinot Noir clearly preferable to its nonetheless admirable 2006 Rutherford Pinot Noir. Moving forward, I tasted was the 2008 Pinot Noir Santa Maria Valley from Foxen Vineyard, who also furnished their highly-specific 2007 Pinot Noir Bien Nacido Vineyard Block 8. Ah, if they had only brought along their selection of Sea Smoke bottlings!
A number of Central Coast wineries made strong impressions with this tasting, starting with Barbara Banke’s hands-on project for her Jackson Family Wines, Cambria Winery, offered its own highly-specific 2007 Pinot Noir Clone 2A. Michael Michaud’s eponymous winery bottles its wines with varied, alluring pastel labels that most certainly do not belie the quality of his Chalone appellation wines, notably the 2004 Pinot Noir he sampled. Even more enticing was the 2007 Estate Pinot Noir Arroyo Grande Valley from Talley Vineyards, producers of the trendy Bishop’s Peak label.
In my quest to find California producers of Lagrein, I had recently uncovered Santa Barbara’s Whitcraft Winery, but was dismayed to learn from founder Jonathan Whitman they had discontinued the varietal. I nonetheless allowed myself to be consoled with a quartet of his Pinots, starting with the 2006 Melville Pinot Noir Santa Rita Hills, then moving onto the 2007 Aubaine Pinot Noir from Nipomo. The 2006 Morning Dew Ranch from Anderson Valley represented Whitcraft’s “northern” excursion, the 2006 Bien Nacido Pinot Noir N Block his pinnacle. My palate reached its threshold with Cobb, a Pinot specialist from the Sonoma Coast. Their wines proved that their considerable advance accolades were no hype, as I greatly relished both the 2007 Pinot Noir Rice-Spivak Vineyard and the 2007 Pinot Noir Coastland Vineyard. One can only wonder whether their 2007 Pinot Noir Joy Road Vineyard would have completed a trifecta.
I promised Yvonne I would see her in Carneros the next day, and as my next installment will attest, I was true to my word. Fortunately, I had not promised a similar timeline for completing this entry. My overwhelming schedule for Sostevinobile these past few weeks has set me woefully way behind.

Shticks of One and Half a Dozen of the Other

Leave a reply

The late, great Abbie Hoffman used to cite Mad Magazine as one of the most profound influences on his political philosophy. I would add that anyone whose formative years fell with the span of the 1950s or 1960s would attribute their anarchist or outré tendencies not just to Mad but to the musical parodies of Allan Sherman. No one else could concoct such inspired lyrics this excerpt from the purloined title to this installment illustrates:

Do not make a stingy sandwich
Pile the cold cuts high
Customers should see salami
Coming through the rye

Had he lived, Allan would have turned 85 next week. Your West Coast Oenophile attended a dizzying whirlwind of wine tastings, business meetings and sustainable summits, all in the pursuit of making Sostevinobile a viable enterprise. My half dozen or so undertakings included:
The San Francisco Green Festival
I hereby promise I will never again complain about the enormity of ZAP! This comprehensive three-day expo at the San Francisco Concourse, with 1062 trade booths, along with numerous stages, food and drink stations, and a full slate of lectures and forums overwhelmed even the most fervent attendee.

Granted, many of the exhibitions I eschewed may have held a significant personal interest; the sheer enormity of the event dictated that I restrict my time to those presentations that would likely offer a direct applicability to the sustainable designs Sostevinobile intends to implement in order to obtain LEED certification. Within the limited block of time I could allot on Sunday, I first paid my obligatory calls on acquaintances that have lent their support to my efforts, like Dharma Marketing Services, Green Key Real Estate, and Inka Biosphere. I missed the entire slate of lectures, including the Punahou Kid’s putative pal, Bill Ayers, and his wife, Bernadine Dohrn, but did manage to visit with a number of solar technologies, the Green Restaurant Association, and a green billfold manufacturer, a concept which, sadly, is designed to make your wallet qualitatively thinner, not, as I would have hoped, quantitatively fatter.

 

Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh!

To no one’s surprise, I eventually found my way to the sustainable wine section, where a handful of organic vintners displayed their wares. I wish that Coturri had not run out of wine so early, but I anticipate seeing them next week at the Green Wine Summit in Santa Rosa. On the other hand, La Rocca Vineyards came amply supplied, affording me opportunity to sample several of the wines I’d missed at the CCOF Organic Beer, Wine and Spirits Tasting. I found much to admire in their 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon and their 2006 Chardonnay, as well as their lower-end 2006 Zinfandel; still, rumors of a $50 Barbera and a reserve 2002 Lush Zinfandel left me with a sense of askance. Once again, Frey Vineyards held a strong presence, even without the soon-to-be wed Eliza. I do wish I could be more sanguine about their 2005 Biodynamic Syrah, a wine that cried for better vinification, but I was quite pleased by my first taste of their 2007 Organic Sangiovese.
Being a wine importer, Organic Vintners would normally fly beneath Sostevinobile’s radar; however, they do contract out a line of vegan wines from Mendocino that they bottle under their own label. I found their samples of the 2008 Organic Vintners Vegan Chardonnay and the 2007 Organic Vintners Vegan Pinot Noir accessible and refreshing. The surprise of the afternoon came from Beaver Creek, a biodynamic winery from Middletown (Mendocino County) showcasing their first release. The four wines owner Radan Bruno Kolias poured all made enormously favorable impressions, notably his 2007 Merlot Rutherford, the 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon Lake County, and the 2007 Zinfandel Lake County. Nonetheless, in this age of austerity, his one wine priced below $60, the 2007 Red Wine Napa Valley, proved the standout of the afternoon, a traditional Meritage that highlighted how skilled biodynamic farming can educe the intensity and incredible flavors inherent in each component.
On my way out, I passed by a table for Rudolph Steiner College, an institution in the Sacramento town of Fair Oaks, billed as a “center for anthroposophical studies and transformative adult education,” as well as a college for preparing teachers for the Waldorf system. Steiner may have concocted the elaborate rituals and practices of biodynamic farming, but I still managed to bypass their application forms.

The biggest door in all of San Francisco
Duty called unexpectedly the next night. I had hoped to spend a quiet evening at home, but around 7 PM I espied an Internet posting for a wine tasting at Local Kitchen & Wine Merchant, one of the more successful wine-focused operations in San Francisco. I say wine-focused because local manages to be a restaurant, enoteca, wine shop, tasting room, and corner convenience store, all in one setting. It also boasts a massive, 25′ high front door designed to ward off all but the most intrepid. Or perhaps it was inspired by another Allan Sherman parody:

Last night I met a man from Mars, and he was very sad
He said, “Won’t you help me find my girl friend, please?”
So I asked him, “What does she look like?”
And the man from Mars said, “She’s…
Eight foot two, solid blue,
Five transistors in each shoe,
Has anybody seen my gal?

I feel I can make small jest because Sostevinobile and Local, though widely disparate, are kindred operations with much to offer each other on a coöperative basis. The complimentary admission provided me and other members of the wine and restaurant trade speaks to this notion of camaraderie or alliance. 
The tasting lacked any air of pretentiousness, so it seemed only fit to start off easily with San Francisco-based Heron Wines, an interesting collection of low-priced wines Laely Heron makes from vineyards she contracts locally and abroad. Her California wines approachable and eminently fair, for their price point; though Merlot is apparently her forte, I found the 2007 Heron Chardonnay the most compelling of the four wines being poured. At the other end of this evening’s spectrum, Trefethen showed its considerable chops, as it were. Its 2005 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon Oak Knoll District, a wine rounded out with 4% Malbec and 2% Petit Verdot, certainly can hold its own against any Napa Cabs from this esteemed vintage, but their standout on this particular evening was certainly the 2008 Dry Riesling, a subdued wine would pair marvelously with a wide array of entrées or, as an apéritif, would be sure to “Loosen” up any affair.
It was good to “Bump” into Sandra Rex (iPhone aficionados know what I mean) from Deerfield Ranch Winery at this tasting and sample her 2005 Red Rex, a Cabernet Sauvignon-Merlot blend nuanced with Sangiovese, Petit Verdot, Syrah, Cabernet Franc and Zinfandel. Less complicated but as appealing were the 2004 Shiraz Cuvée and the 2004 Merlot Cuvée. Though restricted to the traditional Bordeaux varietals, the 2006 Meritage from Dry Creek Vineyard offered a nonetheless distinctive balance of 36% Merlot, 25% Cabernet Franc and 23% Cabernet Sauvignon, with 8% each of Petit Verdot and Malbec.
Raymond is a winery that can trace its roots back to the founding of Beringer in 1876. Their five-generation Napa heritage seemed abundantly evident in their 2005 Reserve Merlot and the 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon being poured at Local. Another long-standing wine operation, Gallo, showcased a pair of its North Coast acquisitions, the 2007 MacMurray Ranch Pinot Noir and the 2006 Napa Cabernet Sauvignon from Louis M. Martini.
Landmark Vineyards is a Kenwood winery known for its lush Chardonnays and colorful appellations. I enjoyed both the 2007 Overlook Chardonnay and the 2007 Steel Plow Syrah, but found the 2007 Grand Tour Pinot Noir easily the most memorable. On the other hand, I will always remember Alexander Valley’s Trentadue Winery because I belatedly discovered their sparkling wine two weeks after my 32nd birthday; this evening, their 2005 La Storia Zinfandel left a much happier recollection.
Two titans of California sparkling wine share a distributor, Maison Marques & Domaines, as well as a table at the event. Both the NV Roederer Estate Brut and the NV Scharffenberger Brut were exceedingly delightful. Their sister operation, Carpe Diem, is a California-based project from Christian Moieux of Château Pétrus and Dominus fame, with his Yountville site releasing its new 2006 Carpe Diem Cabernet Sauvignon and his Firepeak Vineyards in Edna Valley crafting the elegant 2006 Carpe Diem Pinot Noir.
The final station of the evening also featured a selection of different labels from Niven Family Wine Estates. Under its Baileyana label, I found both the 2006 GFC Chardonnay and the 2007 GFC Pinot Noir exceedingly delightful. The more moderately price Tangent line offered an impressive 2008 Riesling and the 2007 Ecclestone, an eclectic blend of Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, Albariño, Viognier, and Riesling.
I lingered well after the tasting had finished, comparing notes with Local’s Carl Grubbs and helping to polish off much of the wine that had been left behind. How I managed to pull open the 25′ front door afterwards, I’ll never know.

Euthanamerica
The generational divide is hardly something new. Even things that now have become inextricable totems of our culture often met considerable resistance at their inception. Note Allan Sherman’s timeless paean to parental disaffectation, Pop Hates the Beatles:

My daughter needs a new phonograph
She wore out all the needles
Besides, I broke the old one in half
I hate the Beatles!

Needless to say, there are stark contrasts between the up & coming generation of winemakers and the generation that preceded them. Today’s new winemakers are folks for whom recollection of the Vietnam War holds no immediacy and who have known Michael Jackson only as being white. They bear no connection to that era when bigger meant better, more meant more, and the goal for most vineyardists was to force as many tons of grapes per acre that the land, along with chemical intervention, could sustain. Throughout California and the rest of the West Coast, this generation pays fealty to the notion that sustainable stewardship of the soil stands imperative not just for preservation of the environment and insulation against climate change but for the production of the highest quality of wine, as well.
Twenty of this generation’s most prominent practitioners of the viticultural arts took part in last week’s California’s New Generation Vintners and Growers, a joint presentation of The Wine Institute and the California Association of Wine Growers at Sausalito’s glistening eco-resort, Cavallo Point. Part demo, part workshop, this event bracketed a series of informative colloquia with a delectable tasting of numerous wines these 30-somethings are producing.
Not surprisingly, most of these representatives have enthusiastically embraced new media and social networking. The panel on Hip & Trendy Marketing highlighted a wide array of tools and techniques they have embraced for promoting their wines and keeping wine enthusiasts engaged in an active community. Everything from blogs and content-rich Internet sites (vs. strictly e-commerce or a static informational web presence) to audio and video podcasts to active Web 2.0 presence on Facebook, Twitter and the like, as well as targeted live events and promotions, all form essential components to this new mix. To put it another way (in references that may fly by this group), Orson Welles and Bartles & Jaymes have most definitely become passé!
Also passé is the kind of homogeneous winemaking style that prevailed in the period when jug-style blends dominated the viticultural landscape. As elucidated in Evolving California Wine Styles, today’s terroiristes focus on a winemaking style that reflects both the characteristics of the viticultural appellation from where the wine is grown as well as the individualized stamp of the winemaker. No longer can myopic attempts to be universally dismissive of the wines originating from here hold any weight, as sweeping generalizations like “California’s high alcohol content” of “fruit-forward focus” loom as relics of a by-gone era.
Much to Sostevinobile’s pleasure, green guidelines are not a matter of conversion to these new vineyardists and winemakers, rather principles by which they have always functioned. Though the terms “organic” and “sustainable” can sometimes be mutually exclusive, this generation is overseeing a convergence of both into a unified standard for upholding the ecological integrity of their vineyards and operations. Equally, these practices highlighted in Eco-Friendly Growing and Winemaking are deemed vital to the environment at large, elemental to the production of superior wine, and essential to the preservation of lands that often have been held by multiple generations of each family.
The notion of heritage holds strong for many of these panelists. In their opening session, Next Generation: Passing the Torch, ties to the wine industry and to family-held wineries ranged from 2nd generation legacies to 5th and 6th generational operation of holdings founded in the 19th Century. And, if not unabashedly heterosexual, this current wave of winemakers is certainly intent on passing on their legacy to yet another generation. Of the 20 young winemakers we met, at least eight were either pregnant or had a spouse imminently expecting!
My companion for this afternoon, San Francisco wine broker Karen Mancuso, and I both readily enjoyed the face-to-face contact with these rising stars of the wine world, and, of course, the opportunity to sample their wines. As we were scheduled to attend a reception for the Auction Napa Valley that overlapped this event, I may have bypassed a few stations, but found much here to merit my encomium.
Although Mike Heringer’s family dates back six generations in Clarksburg, his Heringer Estates winery is a label I had not previously encountered. I found his 2008 Viognier was the perfect complement to the extraordinary crab cakes from Murray Circle that circulated throughout the tasting room, while discovering his 2005 Petite Sirah proved truly serendipitous. I failed to convince one of the servers that the trays of crab cakes were intended exclusively for me; nonetheless, I did receive an overly generous second portion that balanced equally as well with the compellingly dry 2007 Riesling from Jason Smith’s Paraiso Vineyards.
Edna Valley Vineyard is a Diageo holding that produces a number of wines, particularly Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, in high volumes that stores like Safeway and BevMo readily scoop up; these vineyard-designated bottlings are well-priced and easily stand a cut or two above the various “Coastal” labels that occupy the same shelves. Less familiar is its moderate production of underrepresented varietals like Grenache, Mourvèdre, Pinot Gris, and Viognier, as well as a number of small bottlings sold only through their tasting room in San Luis Obispo. From this latter category winemaker Josh Baker brought the 2007 Estate Chardonnay and the 2006 Estate Syrah, a pair of wines that resonated with the same craftsmanship that distinguished this winery when it was still part of the Chalone portfolio. Still independent following six generations of family farming, Bogle produces a well-recognized budget brand that exceeds expectations for its price range. This Clarksburg winery’s vineyard manager, Warren Bogle, showcased his 2006 Petite Sirah, the varietal for which Bogle is primarily known.
Having a name like Cane Vanderhoof almost predestines one to achieving something distinctive in life, and the 2005 Sangiovese Temecula Valley and the 2005 Three Block Syrah he brought from his Miramonte Winery in Riverside County indeed validates my presumption. Andrew Murray may not have as distinctive a moniker as Cane’s, but his devotion to Rhône varietals helps create wines that are as intense. I greatly enjoyed his just-released 2007 Grenache, as well as a 2006 Syrah whose single vineyard I failed to note. Of course, there was no ambiguity in identifying the 2007 Rockpile Ridge Zinfandel from Mauritson Estate, along with winemaker Clay Mauritson’s subtle 2008 Sauvignon Blanc Dry Creek Valley. 
As Karen’s wine brokerage connects her more directly with strictly growers who do not produce their own label, she was happy to introduce me to Nicholas Miller, whose family farms Bien Nacido, Solomon Hills, and French Camp Vineyards. From their grapes, we sampled the 2007 Chardonnay Clos Pepe from The Ojai Vineyard and a most compelling 2005 Syrah from Kynsi Winery. I needed no introduction to Alan Viader, as his sister Janet is always kind enough to invite me to innumerable wine tastings. And I needed no incentive to taste Viader’s 2006 DARE Cabernet Franc, after I had so delighted in the 2005 vintage earlier this year.
Another old familiar I whose current vintage I was happy to sample was the 2008 Gewürztraminer from Navarro, whose winemaker Sarah Cahn-Bennett had managed to avoid the pregnancy pandemic cited above. I can’t recall whether Cheryl Murphy Durzy from Morgan Hill’s Clos LaChance was enceinte, but she did manage to coax me into trying her 2006 Lila’s Cuvée, a superb GMS blend rounded out with Carignane. Rounding out (no pun intended) the tasting were the twin labels from Nick de Luca: Dierberg Estate and Star Lane Vineyard, ably represented by the 2006 Dierberg Vineyard Chardonnay Santa Maria Valley and the 2006 Star Lane Merlot Santa Ynez Valley.
I managed to squeeze in a few quick pleasantries with Judd Finkelstein, Kathy Benziger, and Aaron Lange, all of whose families I’ve met on several previous occasions before we were compelled to make our abrupt exit. About a mile before reaching Oxbow Public Market in downtown Napa, Karen looked at her iPhone calendar and exclaimed, “Oh no! The party isn’t until Thursday!” It was too ludicrous a scenario not to laugh. We decided instead to drop by the Bounty Hunter, where proprietor Mark Steven Pope, self-billed as “MERCHANT♠NÉGOTIANT♠VINTER” treated us to some of his own bottlings of Cabernet Sauvignon from Beckstoffer Vineyards. À propos of our misadventure, we dined on Bounty Hunter’s fabled Beer Can Chicken, the one that’s roasted with a full can of Tecate plugged up its…cavity.

Devi essere ancor più bella nel buio…
As Karen and I combed downtown Napa Tuesday evening, my iPhone rang with a call from the young Siciliana I was scheduled to meet after work on Wednesday. Why wasn’t I at our destination?
Again, my bemusement got the better of me. The next night, she reprised our meeting at Paréa, a quaint cafe in the Mission focused on Greek wine and cuisine. Despite this billing, I found the 2005 Pinot Noir Willamette Valley from Benton Lane a more apt compliment to the cold dishes we ordered. I think she ordered something Greek. I think she told me about a breakthrough sustainable UV technology her company was promoting. I kept thinking “if only she spoke Italian…”

$10,000,000,000,000 and counting
Thursday was my turn. I actually rose before 8 AM and pedaled across the City to the William J. Rutter Center at UCSF’s new South Beach campus in order to attend the Teaming USA Bay Area Workshop. I registered in the cavernous, ground floor lobby (everything at the William J. Rutter Center is cavernous), collected my three pounds of handouts, loaded up on some much needed coffee plus an Apple Crumb muffin, then scoured the Robertson Auditorium for an available seat.

 

 I had thought this full-day workshop was intended to help emerging business like Sostevinobile navigatethe sea of opportunities available to start-ups and small businesses inthe wake of the Federal Stimulus Program. After all, the invite hadread: “Teaming USA will focus on preparing a business to be ‘contractready…’ Attendees will learn how to secure proper certifications,clearances, and registrations and identify new selling areas throughthe 85 billion dollar federal stimulus funding for California.”

Turns out I was way off the mark. This program was actually designed to enable small businesses to partner with large enterprises and help secure their government contracts. As such, the auditorium was overflowing, if then some, all looking to help enlarge the Federal deficit. As I slinked out the side entrance, I couldn’t help but contemplate that I could get everyone there to enjoy just one glass of wine at Sostevinobile, we’d be profitable within the first week!

An act of Providence
Despite how it may sound, Brown Entrepreneurs is not a Dick Cheney-sponsored, knee-jerk reaction to Green Technology. The local chapter of the Brown University Alumni Association has been holding these informal klatchs for the past several months in the hope of spurring the development of new enterprises spearheaded by its San Francisco graduates. Twenty-four hours before Thursday’s gathering, I unexpectedly discovered I had been selected to pitch my development plans for Sostevinobile. A golden opportunity, or so I thought, to meet with a number of potential investors and solicit the start-up funding we are currently seeking.
Despite having cracked the bifocal contact lens on which I have become so dependent of late, I was determined to make a stellar impression. I printed up several handouts of Sostevinobile’s Keynote presentation and summary, polished my Luccheses, and rehearsed my elevator pitch about a dozen or so times. Luck even seemed on my side, as I managed to coax the bartender at the University Club to serve me a relatively decent Pinot Noir (instead of the utterly dreary Salmon Creek that has become their standard pour) before joining the group in the private room that had been reserved for this event.
Much to my disappointment, the Entrepreneurs was more of a support and discussion group among a handful of people either contemplating new ventures or simply interested in the field. Not a VC or angel investor in sight. Despite my misconception, I resolved to deliver my spiel with comportment and enthusiasm.
Or so I intended. To put it gallantly (if not Gallicly), when it comes to public speaking, ceci n’est pas mon forte. Then again, I had attended Brown for its Graduate Program in Playwriting, a genre that enables me to compose words and have others speak them for me. matter. Still, the realization of Sostevinobile rests, at least for now, entirely upon me, and it was a valuable lesson to flub my delivery in front of an audience of this nature, rather than one that might have offered me funding.
Back when I moved to Providence, the Brown campus radio station, used to delight in taunting celebrity freshman JFK Jr. with Allan Sherman’s outré novelty hit, I Think I Slept with Jackie Kennedy Last Night:

Met this girl and she was real nifty
Even though she was pushing 50…

Oh wait, that was David Roter’s song…