Category Archives: Cabernet Sauvignon

On the Road Again

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If things have seemed a bit quiet on the blogging front this week, it has only been because Your West Coast Oenophile took to the road in order to lay the foundation for Sostevinobile’s wine program. As I sit here composing my thoughts for this entry, I find it hard to believe my last business jaunt to the wine country was just over 18 years ago, when I bottled Spectrum HoloByte Wines at Healdsburg Wine Cellars, then part of Bill Hambrecht’s Belvedere portfolio, with the late Peter Friedman. There have been, of course, many, many personal trips to Sonoma and to Napa, and while there is an undeniable pleasure to the purely amateur pursuit of wine, it was certainly good to be back.
Technological changes since 1990 have altered the landscape everywhere, including the wine country. I discovered this almost immediately after crossing the Sonoma county line. Preoccupied with a cross-country phone conference (note to the CHP: always utilizing my hands-free Apple Bluetooth receiver as I drive), I missed the turn to Kenwood and found myself in Petaluma before I realized my error. Still, my egregiously late arrival at the Wine Institute’s workshop on self-assessing one’s green practices allowed me to develop a rapport with the California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance, an organization whose mutual interests will bear quite significantly on the selection of our wines. There is, after all (as I am wont to remind the Ginkgo Girl), a deliberate method to the madness.
At the conclusion of this gathering, I bypassed the tasting room at St. Francis and began my rounds with several of the vintners I encountered at ZAP. Most befitting the nostalgic aspect of my trip, it was extremely pleasant to visit with Dick Arrowood at his new Amapola Creek. Back in the days when my clients were bidding to acquire Chardonnay showcase Chateau St. Jean, Dick, who was then their winemaker, served as my sounding board up until Suntory outbid our team by $8 million. Dick moved on to start his eponymous label a few miles down the road and surprisingly cut a niche for himself as a red wine maker—his 1996 Arrowood Mataro opened my eyes to the wonders of this varietal.
Arrowood Vineyards was subsequently sold to Robert Mondavi, then became a pingpong ball in the Constellation–Legacy Estates fiasco a few years back. After Jess Jackson brought about a renewed stability by the winery, Dick decided to open an independent venture in the shadow of Monte Rosso. There, amid the cooperage of his pristine storage room, I sampled forthcoming vintages of Syrah, Zinfandel, and Cabernet Sauvignon, along with barrel samplings of Petit Verdot that was slated for blending. Call me the viticultural equivalent of Humbert Humbert, but nothing quite stimulated the palate as the budding young flavors of undespoiled juice.
I met with a number of new friends afterwards, from Bartholomew Park, another Phil Coturri client, to previously cited GiaDomella, whose splendid 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon will be gracing our table later this week. Seghesio Family Vineyards treated me to an array of their Zinfandels, as well as their food-commanding 2007 Arneis and 2006 Sangiovese that made me yearn to sample their forthcoming Fiano and Barbera..
I thought I might cap Tuesday’s adventure in downtown Healdsburg with some bar appetizers at Cyrus, but damn!—the Hotel Les Mars was closed for staff training. Alas, I settled for a last-minute sampling at the Rosenblum tasting room, then curled up in front of the fireplace at Merritt Sher’s tantalizingly geometric Hotel Healdsburg to make some final cellphone calls before heading out to cross the border….
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My karma ran over your dogma

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Wednesday was a day of several firsts for Your West Coast Oenophile, but the one I particularly wish to share was my introduction to the wonders of potato plastic! I’m not speaking of Mr. Potato Head, the beloved Hasbro invention that, way before Don Rickles vivified him in Toy Story, preoccupied untold hours of my childhood, but the biodegradable polymer now used to make disposable picnic and deli utensils, found in environmentally-conscious establishments like Whole Foods.
As in most matters, there’s a trade-off involved in adopting such products. While the knife and fork ably cut and handled the soft slices of Diestel turkey breast I enjoyed while my Trek bicycle was being tended to, I doubt their relative diminution of rigidity (as compared to conventional plastic) could stand up to the challenge of nimbly slicing through a flame-broiled New York Strip.
And, rest assured, where there are outdoor Weber grills, there will ultimately be marinated grass-fed steaks, with Zinfandel or a well-aged Cab, occasionally punctuating this fish- & pasta-eater’s culinary routine. And if that means having to furnish guests with conventional plastic knives and forks, it may just have to mean plastic knives and forks (of the dishwashable variety). Accommodating good friends, as well as good barbecues, must, at times, trump unwavering adherence to fervent ideology.
I illustrate the point because, as dedicated as Sostevinobile will be to embracing the most comprehensive environmental criteria we can establish, we cannot be held to infinitesimally narrow parameters, and in some areas where values compete, attending to the comfort and desires of our guests must be paramount.
I participated in the inaugural gathering Wednesday night of ChangeSF, a networking event for ecological activists or those merely concerned for how they might improve the environment, sponsored by Conscious Revolution and Bay Localize, two notable organizations dedicated to many of the same principles locally-based sustainability that Sostevinobile espouses. Most of the evening was quite informative and quite enjoyable, despite a certain woman, herself of a readily-identifiable Slavic extraction, who rather tactlessly deemed that mistaking my name for being Spanish, instead of its mellifluous and syntactically distinct Italian origin, was “close enough.”
Oblique ethnic slights aside, what I found more jarring was her dogmatic stance that Sostevinobile ought only to serve wines from wineries that used recycled bottles. Certainly a noble ideal, provided I were willing to restrict our fare to an attenuated selection of wines from only four, maybe five, wineries throughout the West Coast region. And certainly, as I informed her, we will scrupulously make every effort to ensure that the bottles we do use will be properly recycled afterwards, but this assurance did little to sway her.
No matter what our philosophical or political tenets might be, Sostevinobile is first and foremost a business serving customers, not an arbiter of inflexible standards or a philosophical incubateur< /span> (French, not Italian, but close enough). We will always hold as our primary commitment an unwavering effort to provide our customers the finest selection of sustainably-grown wines found throughout viticultural regions of the three states we serve. It is a benchmark of excellence we hope our patrons will come to appreciate.
And as this blog is intended to be informative, enticing, occasionally amusing, but never didactic, it’s time for me to step off my soapbox and bring today’s entry to a close. And with that, I bid my readers and Wednesday night’s latter-day Savonarola a heartfelt до свидания (Russian, not Polish, but close enough).

Now give me a red envelope!

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I hope all my readers will join me today in wishing a heartfelt 恭喜发财 (Gung Hay Fat Choy) to my beloved Ginkgo Girl! She knows I could never have accomplished any of this without her.
I wish I could be so unabashed in all my praise. But my most recent foray in wine tasting leaves me feeling a bit tepid. Before I assay the wines I tasted from the San Francisco Wine Society, let me first note my great admiration for Crushpad and the many splendid, up & coming wineries that have incubated in their Potrero Hill facility. A Donkey and Goat, (who blew away everyone at Rhône Rangers a few years back with their unreleased 2000 Syrah) Eno, VIE, San Sakana are but a few of the burgeoning wine producers who initially honed their skills at Crushpad’s custom crush facility, then moved onto their own operations. even as boutique operations, these wineries either bought or contracted their own vineyards, supplied (or functioned as) their own winemaker and diligently crafted their product as distinctive expressions of the oenological arts.
Now, however, many of winemaking aspirants subscribe to Crushpad’s systematic program, buying pre-designated grapes and relying on in-house technicians to develop their wine. Which is fine for the occasional hobbyist who simply wants to bottle a few cases to serve to his friends or custom bottle a wine exclusively for Joe & Bob’s commitment ceremony or for Aunt Martha’s 90th birthday, but seems to me to be somewhat disingenuous when bottling wine for commercial sale.
Don’t get me wrong—many of the wines the members of SFWS produce are indeed noteworthy. Jazz Cellars put out a most respectable 2006 Petite Sirah, sustainably cultivated at Eaglepoint Ranch Vineyard in Mendocino. Seawind Wines offered a pair of Pinot Noirs, the 2007 Split Rock Vineyard from the Sonoma Coast being a clear favorite. But how do you justify a $70 or $90 Cabernet that is bottled from grapes that are systematically available to program subscribers?
Even if a wine in this price range is no longer considered stratospheric, it still ought to have a distinct character to justify its price. Andy Beckstoffer’s To Kalon Vineyard inarguably produces some of the finest Cabernet Sauvignon ever made in Napa, but if my wine tastes the same as your wine and the same as our friend’s wine, where’s the unique value proposition?
One of the great beauties of wine is its symbiosis of artistry and nature. Terroir need not be the only determinant of a wine’s character or flavor (there are numerous 2eme Cru offerings that I have tasted whose highly-vaunted terroir tastes more of soil than of grape). A good winemaker is a craftsman, who puts his distinctive mark on every bottling, making it his personal signature. It would behoove many of the wine bottlers in the SFWS to focus on making their next vintages far more individualized and less homogeneous.
Of course, I give myself the prerogative to be contradictory or to go back on my word as this blog evolves. So, despite earlier promises to shy away from a rating system, I reserve the privilege of bestowing a special approval on any wine I find so exceptional, I cannot restrict myself to proper tasting technique for a wine professional. The category of Too Good To Swill & Spit will be awarded to any wine I encounter that begs me to linger and enjoy a full glass (if not bottle)! As such, my first  goes, somewhat ironically, to the 2005 Flying Wine Cellars Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon. What earns this wine my kudos is the roundness it derives from adding 15% Petit Verdot to its To Kalon Cabernet. A standout wine at this event, and an outstanding wine in general.
Anyway, enough of this banter this New Year’s Day, 4707! 红包拿来!