Category Archives: Grenache

Eccolà, Slow Food! Noi Californiani make SUSTAINABLE wines, too!!

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Colleen was a girl of certain type—but she wasn’t. Well into her mid-twenties, she still looked like she retained her baby fat, giving her a soft, slightly roundish appeal. On the surface, she had a complete lack of pretense or guile, perhaps even an aura of naïveté. She wore her hair long, parted in the middle and without any concession to fashion or style; her attire, if memory serve correct, was generally a pair of denim overalls with a plain or calico shirt underneath. She was exactly the kind of girl you wanted to take on a picnic somewhere in a secreted mountain meadow, then make love on a blanket until the sun went down.

At the tender age of 17, Colleen firebombed a McDonald’s. In the stealth of the night, she tossed a Molotov cocktail into a new franchise under construction in Washington, DC and burned it to the ground. She was never caught and the McDonald’s never rebuilt. Leslie Bacon ought to have struck with such surgical precision.

 

Today, Colleen would find a kindred spirit, albeit less prone toward literal conflagration, in Carlo Petrini. Petrini, revered worldwide as the founder of the International Slow Food Movement, first came to prominence in the 1980s for taking part in a campaign against the fast food chain McDonald’s opening near the Spanish Steps in Rome.

Originally, Petrini started out contributing culinary articles(!) to Italy’s Communist daily newspapers Il Manifesto and l’Unità (anyone know who their sports columnist was?). He has edited multiple publications at publishing house Slow Food Editore and writes several weekly columns for La Stampa. In 2004, he founded the University of Gastronomic Sciences, a school bridging the gap between agriculture and gastronomy.

The Slow Food Movement has spread across the Atlantic to North America, where is has found a most zealous advocate in Berkeley’s Alice Waters. Last year, Waters was instrumental in bringing Slow Food Nation 2008 to San Francisco, a highly-

publicized gathering that drew 85,000 enthusiasts to venues in Fort Mason and at the Civic Center, where the plaza was turned into a working Victory Garden that produced over 1,000 lbs. of organic food during its 4-month tenure.

Since 2003, Slow Food San Francisco has sponsored the Golden Glass, a celebration of food and wine that adheres to the principles of the Slow Food Nation. The recent 6th Annual Festival in Fort Mason was its grandest yet. Given the roots of this movement, it should come as no surprise that the focus of the festival was predominantly Italian, with numerous local favorites, including A16, Perbacco, È Tutto Qua, Bacco, Pizzeria Delfina, Poggio, C’era Una Volta, Emporio Rulli, Acquerello, and Trattoria Corso purveying their fare. Local Italian food artisans included Caffè del Doge, Fra’ Mani Salumi, Fresca Italia, Massimo Gelato and Stella Cadente Olive Oil.
The Golden Glass, as the name suggests, also presented an opportunity to sample an enormous selection of wines, again focused on Italian vintages. And herein lies the rub. If Slow Food is dedicated to the preservation of sustainably-operated, local farming, why was this convergence so focused on imported wines (the dozen wineries that did participate represented the first time The Golden Glass has even included California)?
Not that Italian wines don’t have their well-deserved place. After all, I know of no one on the West Coast who grows Fumin or Negroamaro or Grecante, to name but a few varietals, or who even attempt to make a straw wine (passito) like Cornarea’s Tarasco 2005. It has been well-documented, in this blog and elsewhere, that local efforts to produce Italian varietals have had to retrench considerably and are justing to make a revival. But if the true focus of Slow Food Nation—and, by extension, The Golden Glass—is to promote local, sustainable agriculture, then the vast array of wineries in this area that implicitly adhere to their manifesto ought to be the backbone of this tasting (this is, after all, the foundation on which Sostevinobile is building our wine program).
Of the West Coast wineries that did participate, several did display their efforts with Italian varietals. Iberian varietal specialist Bodega del Sur brought their 2006 Sangiovese to contrast with their 2006 Tempranillo and 2008 Verdelho. Berkeley’s Broc Cellars showed their 2006 Luna Matta Sangiovese, along with a 2007 Cassia Grenache that stakes their claim to fame. Ever ubiquitous, Bonny Doon’s Randall Grahm surprised with his 2005 Ca’ del Solo Nebbiolo, a notably worthy expression of this varietal. On the other hand, it was no anomaly that Girasole Vineyards had a 2006 Sangiovese, and restaurateur Lorenzo Petroni premiered his eponymous label with his remarkable 2004 Brunello di Sonoma Poggio alla Pietra and a Super Tuscan style 2006 Rosso di Sonoma.
I had tasted the wines of Verge Wine Cellars but two nights earlier at A Community Affair, but was pleased to resample his 2007 Syrah Dry Creek Valley. Pey-Marin had poured their Pinot Noir the week before at the MALT tasting in Larkspur, but this time accompanied it with a refreshing 2008 The Shell Mound Riesling. Magnanimus Wines distributes organic and biodynamic wines from Mendocino County; I particularly liked Ukiah Cellars 2008 Chardonnay Mendocino and Mendocino Farms 2007 Grenache. From Hollister, Alicats brought a notable 2006 Syrah Gimelli Vineyard, while Sonoma’s Nalle Winery shone with their 2006 Pinot Noir Hopkins Ranch. Edmunds St. John, to whose philosophically-strewn newsletter I have long subscribed, showed the kind of consistency with their 2005 Syrah Wylie Fenaughty I have come to expect from their vintages, while Clos Saron from Oregon House displayed the versatility of the Sierra Nevada Foothills 2007 Pinot Noir Home Vineyard.
The Golden Glass has always been a marvelous event, and Your West Coast Oenophile looks forward to a long, enduring relationship between their parent Slow Food San Francisco and Sostevinobile. This year’s festival was a wonderful opportunity for me and the Ginkgo Girl to catch up with so many restaurants that have come to love us and to share in this most vital advocacy. We are looking forward to an even grander Golden Glass in 2010, with the anticipation of its increased outreach to the rich abundance sustainably -grown wines from California, Oregon and Washington.

TAPAS: taking off where ZAP began

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I like to create my own anagrams. Back when Your West Coast Oenophile contemplated becoming a children’s doctor, I devised POPPA, which stood for Pediatricians Opposed to Prophylactics, the Pill, and Abortion, a self-aggrandizing scheme aimed at providing an endless stream of new patients for my future practice. Later, while working at Tetris™ distributor Spectrum HoloByte, I came up with the quintessential Pranksters Hired to Undermine (Your) Competitors’ Quality and Usurp (Their) Prominence and Profitability, otherwise know as PHUCQ UPP. Of course, I am always happy to give due credit to others who can hold their own in this arena, and, as Randall Grahm aptly noted in his off-the-cuff discourse, the contrivance to come up with Tempranillo Advocates Producers and Amigos Society in order to educe TAPAS was sheer mastery.
Maybe because I decided to forgo the quintennial gathering of my own amigos from our days of sequestration back in Lakeville, Connecticut, I decided to attend the trade seminar on Spanish varietals, prior to the 2nd Annual TAPAS Grand Tasting at Fort Mason on Sunday. My friend Markus Bokisch broadly elucidated the history and transformation of Albariño vinification quite ably, not terribly surprising once you’ve tasted his own deft manipulation of this varietal. Similarly, Penelope Gadd-Coster navigated aficionados through an overview on Tempranillo that was highly enjoyable and never didactic.
Onward we went, from the seminar in Building D to the quaint antechamber in Building A, known as the Golden Gate Room. Hard to believe this nowadays, but it was in this very same room that the gargantuan ZAP Grand Tasting, which now occupies two entire piers, first took place. A good omen for TAPAS, to be sure, and a much easier venue to reach than the late, great Copia, where their inaugural tasting was held.
This year’s gathering included 36 member wineries from California and Oregon, plus one lone representative from Arizona. In other words, just about the right density to remain manageable for one afternoon. My simple plan of attack meant rounds of seven wineries at a time, interspersed with a recharge of the incredible paella the chefs from Marco Paella were generously doling out from the back of the room. Maybe because of their alphabetically primacy, I first turned my attention to Oregon’s Abacela, a winery owned by TAPAS president Earl Jones. Standout among their pourings was a 2005 Tempranillo, Reserve, Southern Oregon, and I reserved some space for a revisit near the end of the afternoon with their 2006 Port, Southern Oregon, whose memory from last year’s tasting still lingered. A nearby swing brought me to Plymouth’s Bray Vineyards, whose noteworthy 2008 Verdelho preceded a taste of their striking 2006 Vinho Tinto, a blend of 5 Portuguese varietals: Tinta Cão, Touriga Nacional, Souzão, Tinta Roriz, and Alvarelhão (my spellcheck hasn’t a clue about any of these)! Bodega del Sur from Pacifica(!) similarly offered their 2007 Carmesi, an intriguing blend that spanned multiple viticultural designations, combining Tempranillo, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Syrah. Then again, compare these wines with Boeger Winery’s 2005 Milagro, a decidedly more Spanish-leaning mélange of Tempranillo, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Graciano.
Graciano, of course, has long been my favorite offering from Bokisch Vineyards, though I found myself more partial this time to their 2007 Garnacha, Lodi. Another paragon of this varietal was the 2007 Garnacha, Denner Vineyards, Paso Robles from Villa Creek Cellars, whose equally delightful 2007 Mas de Maha, Paso Robles combines Tempranillo with Garnacha and Mourvèdre. I am used to referring to Garnacha by its Rhône designation, Grenache, and I often flip between Mataro and Mourvèdre; calling this latter varietal Monastrell, as does Paso Robles’ Viña Castellano was unfamiliar to me. Nonetheless, this house produces a fine bottling of such but truly stood out for both its 2004 Tempranillo and 2005 Tempranillo. Viña Robles is of course, another neighbor taking liberal advantage of Paso Robles’s abundance of Rhône varietals, using Petite Sirah, Syrah, and Tannat to add to Touriga to make their 2007 Red Blend.
Maybe someday Bonny Doon will swap me a couple of cases of their finest (would that they still made grappa!) in exchange for my insights into Web design. A striking visual site, but a Web presence is supposed to be all about rapid access to information. To be fair, almost every design house I know is as self-indulgent with their own site; still, Randall, who needs hallucinogenic graphics when your 2007 Angel Paille already fits the bill? The good folks at St. Amant Winery offered their version of a post-prandial wine with their 2006 Vintage Port, Amador County, while St. Helena’s Tesouro Port Cellars blended Touriga, Tempranillo, Alvarelhão, Souzão and Tinta Cão to make their 2005 California Dessert Wine, a deceptively generic name for such an intriguing wine. Further north, in Jacksonville, Oregon, Valley View Winery topped the alcohol charts with their 2007 “Anna Marie” Port, Rogue Valley.
Though currently Sostevinobile does not plan to include Arizona in its mix, the Grand Canyon State was ably represented by Callaghan Vineyards, whose 2007 Padres accentuated its 58% Tempranillo with both Petit Verdot and Cabernet Franc. Iberian wine houses permeated in a number of atypical locales, like Livermore’s Fenestra Winery, which finds its strength in Portuguese varietals, including its 2006 Alvarelhão and 2006 Touriga. Also from Livermore, Murrieta’s Well blends their 2007 Zarzuela with Touriga Nacional, Tempranillo, Souzão and Touriga Francesca. Closer to San Francisco Bay, Danville’s Odisea Wine Company offers blends of epic proportion, my favorite being their 2007 Two Rows Garnacha, a duet of Grenache and Tempranillo. Poised at the Bay’s edge, El Cerrito’s Tejada Vineyards offered similar fare with their 2005 Tempranillo & Garnacha Blend, as well as a noteworthy 2006 Tempranillo, Reserve. Quaint Murphys in the Gold Country lays claim to Hovey Wine, with its standout 2007 Rolleri Cuvée Tempranillo, Calaveras County; the urban confines of the City and County of San Francisco, meanwhile, is home to James Judd & Son’s 2006 Tempranillo. Circling back to Jacksonville, Red Lily Vineyards offered one of the day’s standout wines, their 2005 Tempranillo, Rogue Valley.
Anomalies (at least as far as I am concerned) in nomenclature also abounded, to a degree. The parlance of business school should have nothing to do with the soaring, elegiac beauty of viticulture; still, the 2006 Tempranillo, Lake County from Six Sigma Winery represents a commendable undertaking. I kidded the proprietors of Irish Family Vineyards that their label seemed as much an oxymoron as Pasquale’s Corned Beef & Cabbage, but their 2006 Grenache and 2007 Touriga Nacional warrant no ribbing.
Providing their own laughs, of course, was the ever-outré Twisted Oak, with a quartet of nonetheless highly respectable wines, including a 2008 Verdelho from Lodi’s highly regarded Silvaspoons Vineyards. Another familiar face was Constellation’s Clos du Bois, valiantly striving to maintain an individual identity with its 2005 Tempranillo, Alexander Valley, Sonoma Reserve. This blog has also given considerable plaudits in the past to Quinta Cruz, a pre-eminent Iberian wine producer, whose 2006 Touriga combines both Touriga Nacional and Touriga Francesca.
A number of wineries came out with commendable Rosés (Rosado). After Penelope Gadd-Coster’s morning presentation, many folks flocked to the Coral Mustang display to try her 2006 Tempranillo Rosé. Solvang’s D’Alfonso-Curran dazzled with their 2007 Grenache Gris. Trenza/Tangent Wineries offered a 2008 Trenza Rosado, an uncommon Spanish-style rosé from the familiar Rhône the GMS blend. Verdad Wine Cellars, the Spanish division of Rhône-style pioneer Qupé, blended 90% Garnacha with Tempranillo to make its bone-dry 2008 Rosé.
Truth (verdad) was clearly expressed in the 100% Tempranillos from a pair of Napa wineries. Truchard Vineyards offered a vertical from 2000-2005, the standout being their current 2005 Tempranillo. Striking, too, was the 2007 Tempranillo, Shake Ridge Vineyards, Amador County from Yorba Wines. Less orthodox were the predominantly Cabernet Sauvignon blends with Tempranillo from Parador Cellars, although their 2006 Tempranillo Reserva Rancho Chiles was delightful.
Lacking a clever segue, I can only list the remaining presenters without the benefit of thematic continuity. Barreto Cellars proved strongest in their Portuguese offerings, particularly their 2005 Touriga, Lodi. From the next vintage, Pierce Ranch Vineyards shone with their 2006 Touriga . The wonderfully-labeled Dancing Coyote dueling whites from each country, with a slight edge going to the 2007 Verdelho, Clarksburg over the 2007 Albariño, Clarksburg. Premier grape grower Ron Silva, bottling as Alta Mesa Cellars from his own Silvaspoons Vineyards, truly excelled with his 2008 Alta Mesa Cellars Verdelho, Lodi. 
The standout producer for the afternoon also crushed Silvaspoons grapes. Matt Rorick’s whimsically named Forlorn Hope Wines dazzled with four wines. The 2008 La Gitana was one of only two Torrontés at TAPAS. The 2008 Suspiro Del Moro was, I believe, the only single-varietal Alvarelhão. A third white was his Verdelho, the 2007 Que Saudade. Lastly, he blended Touriga, Tempranillo, Tinta Cão and Tinta Amarela to make his superb 2006 Mil Amores.
It will take perhaps not mil amores but definitely mil amigos to continue sustaining TAPAS. With my strong predilection toward Italian varietals, I have watched the rise and subsequent retreat of these varietals on the West Coast, as well as the dissolution of their trade association, Consorzio Cal-Italia after its promising beginnings. Despite these vicissitudes, including Antinori’s lamentable decision to uproot the Sangiovese vines from its reacquired Atlas Peak, I see inklings of a resurgence in Italian varietals here on the West Coast and, one would hope, a restoration of the Consorzio on par with Rhône Rangers and other specialized advocacies.
I wonder whether Spanish and Portuguese varietals will need to endure a similar oscillation before truly taking hold here. Like Sangiovese and Viognier, I suppose it will take a few tries before vintners truly grasp the full nuance of Tempranillo and its compadres. And, of course, there is still the issue of acceptance from a public that has scant familiarity with these wines. Most people still associate Spanish wine with Sangria and, unfortunately, the taint of Mateus and Lancers still clouds perception of Portugal’s offerings. As always, though, I wish TAPAS all the best with their mission and look forward to the day they, too, move out of Building A and occupy the piers of Fort Mason, just like ZAP (okay, maybe just one pier—there isn’t a paella pan large enough to accommodate both exhibit halls)!

All aboard!

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Sometimes public wine tastings are all about the wine. Sometimes it’s the event itself that takes center stage. This past month, Your West Coast Oenophile has attended two tastings put on by the Santa Cruz Mountains Winegrowers Association (SCMWA); both gatherings proved to be impeccable.
I waxed rather eloquently in a previous posting about their trade tasting at Trevese in Los Gatos. My most recent encounter was for their annual Wine with Heart benefit, held for the second time at Roaring Camp in Felton. The afternoon could not have been more pleasant.
I suspect I am not alone in having climbed Highway 17 from Los Gatos to Santa Cruz innumerable times since the late 1970s without ever veering off near the summit and discovering a vibrant community nestled in the hills. Perhaps this semi-clandestine location is what has allowed Felton to retain its quaint charm. In any case, Roaring Camp features a recreation of a turn-of-the-century whistle stop and still operates a Southern Pacific rail line that runs to the boardwalk far below. 
Many wineries gave both time and tastings quite generously to this event; their contribution to the medical research this event helps sustain is quite laudable. But, like a good Lothario, I compulsively seek out that which I have yet to conquer. Ahlgren Vineyards started me off with a stark contrast the understated 2005 Ahlgren Sémillon and a boisterous 2004 Ahlgren Cabernet Franc. From Campbell, Pinder Winery (not to be confused with Pindar, a meretricious Boeotian lyricist from the 5th century BCE, as well as a modern-day Long Island winery) displayed their Rhône-style virtuosity with their 2006 Viognier and 2004 Mourvèdre Contra Costa. Aptos Creek Vineyard, a decidedly boutique affair, offered a 2004 Pinot Noir Santa Cruz County that made one wish it were not such a rarity. The same could be said for the 2007 Chardonnay from Bruzzone Family Vineyards. A third micro-producer, formerly known as Dragonfly Cellars but transitioning to their taxonomic equivalent, Odonata Wines, sampled the remainder of their 65-case special 2006 Durif. 
Keeping things local, Hunter Hill Vineyards resonated with a 2005 Estate Syrah Santa Cruz Mountains and a 2005 Estate Merlot Santa Cruz Mountains. Fernwood this afternoon (not to be confused with Fernwood 2Night (nonetheless made mirth with their 2006 Central Coast Petite Sirah and 2006 Il Cane Sangiovese. Not to be outdone in the pun department, Burrell School brought a wide selection of their academically-themed wines, the standout being their aptly-named “Spring Break,” the 2005 Syrah Estate Pichon Vineyard. Handcrafted Pinot Nor from Clos Títa included their eminent 2005 Pinot Noir Cuvée, Santa Cruz Mountains. In keeping with the Santa Cruz aura, two organic wineries were showcased: Silver Mountain Vineyards with their 2003 Alloy (a Bordeaux-style blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Petit Verdot and Merlot) and Zayante Vineyards, whose 2007 Santa Cruz Mountain Estate Clos du Z combines Grenache, Petite Sirah, and Syrah.
. This highly-coveted designation has to be resuscitated for the amazing 1997 Blanc de Blanc Méthode Champenoise Sparkling Chardonnay from Equinox . A one-man sparkling operation, this 100 percent Chardonnay spent nine years en triage, and was bottled with no dosage. If only he had brought his 2006 Bartolo Fiano as well!
But regrets were not to be had on this gloriously sunny afternoon. After the tasting portion had closed down, guests were treated to a ride on Roaring Camp’s Santa Cruz, Big Trees & Pacific Railway halfway down the mountain toward Santa Cruz. It reminded me of the train ride Dr. Zhivago and his family took from Moscow to Yuriatin. Only it was warm here. And the train cars were open-air. And these were not the Urals. And I don’t recall wine freely flowing in the movie. Several of the wineries brought their leftover bottles along, and generous glasses from Naumann Vineyards, Byington , Cooper-Garrod Estate and Bonny Doon kept everyone well-oiled for the ensuing 1½-hour trek.
Of course, all good things must come to an end. Back at the camp, the Ginkgo Girl and I took in the lingering rays of sunshine before heading back to San Francisco. Even she had to agree, it had been a most splendid afternoon.

It ain’t just about the wine!

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Be Altitude: Respect Yourself. Back when The Staples Singers released this album in 1972, Napa Valley wine had yet to earn a decent modicum of respect beyond limited confines within the Bay Area. Thirty-seven years later, it seems fairly inarguable that these wines have elevated themselves to more than a pinnacle of success.

Last Thursday, the insightful crew over at Uncorked Events put together a tasting from some of the finest recent viticultural endeavors in California. April 23rd has long been one of the more propitious dates on the calendar, marking the birth of both William Shakespeare (1564) and Vladimir Nabokov (1899); Napa Valley with Altitude did its considerable part to complement this historical legacy.

The event focused on wines from the three sub-AVAs that demarcate the Mayacamas Mountains: Mt. Veeder, Spring Mountain, and Diamond Mountain. Not surprisingly, Cabernet Sauvignon, along with kindred Bordeaux varietals and blends thereof, dominated the tasting selections. Chardonnay had numerous proponents, as well, along with a smattering of Syrah and one heteroclitic Sangiovese to appease Your West Coast Oenophile.

With 36 wineries on hand, it would be nigh impossible to highlight each here. Virtually every wine I tasted offered depth and complexity, and it is in no way intended as critique if I fail to delve into greater detail.Certainly, Sostevinobile will be pleased to offer the preponderance of these distinctive vintages (as fall within the economic determinants we are compelled to observe). But before I attempt to assay the list of wines I felt warranted particular kudos, I’d like to elucidate what truly distinguished this tasting from so many others that I attend.

I probably sample a few thousand wines each year, both within my professional capacity and for my private enjoyment. This process often requires me to attend many of the large trade and public tastings put on by various wine associations and commercial promoters. While these duties may not prove as enviable as, say, being the official ice cream taster at Dreyer’s, it is definitely one of the more pleasurable tasks to which one can be assigned. Still, these events can be overwhelming—the ZAP Grand Tasting, for instance, fills two exhibit halls at Fort Mason!

However, for a tasting of its scale, Napa Valley with Altitude was the most pleasurable event I have encountered in quite a long while. Three rooms at the Fort Mason Officers’ Club were commodiously laid out to accommodate each of the sub-AVAs, creating an intimate locus for sampling wines and interacting with each winery’s representative. The rooms all afforded panoramic views of San Francisco Bay and Aquatic Park, which were bathed in sunlight Thursday afternoon. Generous helpings of both warm and cold hors d’oeuvres—a must for keeping up with five hours’ worth of wine tasting—were continually replenished by the caterers from Mariposa Kitchen and from AG Ferrari. Sofas, tables, and even a fireplace in the vestibule offered a welcome retreat from the din of the gathering when such was needed for composing notes or merely collecting one’s thoughts. All-in-all, even with a moderate crowd in attendance during the public segment, this venue seemed closer to a private living room than a leviathan warehouse. If only all wine trade events could feel so accessible!

And then there was the wine. Most of my colleagues beelined over to Spring Mountain Vineyard’s 2004 Elivette, a Bordeaux blend that emphasized Cabernet Sauvignon. Back when my friend Mike Robbins owned this winery, it was featured as the setting for Falcon Crest; the current ownership still makes an enviable Cabernet Sauvignon (2005), as well.
Another old friend whose Cabernet never disappoint was Peter Thompson, who was on hand to pour his 2005 Andrew Geoffrey Cabernet Sauvignon. I confess to indulging myself more than once at his table. On the other hand, I never knew the late actor Richard Farnsworth, who, despite his appearance in Olympia Beer’s insipid commercials from the 1980s, nevertheless always managed to evoke a kind of warm & fuzzy feeling in whatever role he played; Richard Graeser’s portrait on his Graeser Winery labels might seem a veritable doppelgänger for the Grey Fox star, but his flagship Bordeaux-style 2005 Couer de Leon was unmistakable. Other standout Diamond Mountain District Cabs from the Class of 2005 included Dyer Vineyard, Diamond Terrace, the old pros at Martin Ray Winery and Schramsberg scion Hugh Davies venture into still wines with his J. Davies tribute.

Perhaps “old pro” is a tad premature for describing Newton Vineyard, but their strict adherence to offering unfiltered wines shone exemplarily in their 2005 Merlot, 2006 Chardonnay and 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon. As with their fellow vintners from Diamond Mountain, the rest of the Spring Mountain contingent shone most brightly with their 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon—notably Marston Family Vineyard, Peacock Family Vineyards, Vineyard 7 & 8, and, with striking panache, Sherwin Family Vineyards 2005 Estate Cabernet Sauvignon.
A Spring Mountain newcomer to me, Terra Valentine Winery, poured a trio of their estate-bottled Cabs. Ever-so-slightly, the 2005 Wurtele Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon, stood out among the three. Unabashedly proclaiming itself, Mount Veeder’s Vinoce Vineyards 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon might have inspired one to abjure all others (OK, maybe that’s a bit extreme). Still, my remaining notes do seem to focus on other vintages, like the 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon from Diamond Mountain’s Kiss Ridge Vineyards or the bi-county mélange Pride Mountain Vineyards assembles for its stellar 2006 Napa/Sonoma Cabernet Sauvignon. From Spring Mountain, Paloma Vineyard’s 2006 Merlot heartily echoed the 2001 vintage that garnered them a #1 ranking among Wine Spectator’s Top 100 Wines.
Mount Veeder’s representatives tended to feature standout blends. sounding almost Shakespearean, Godspeed Vineyards married Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec and Syrah to produce their 2005 Trinity. Marketta Fourmeaux, the longtime producer of her eponymous Marketta Vineyards label, introduced her latest foray, Hand Made with its 2006 Mt. Veeder Blend (Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, Merlot). Wine ingénues Mary and Whitney Yates might have had the Ginkgo Girl fuming at the attention I paid them, but their Yates Family Vineyard’s 2005 Alden Perry Reserve, a Merlot-dominated blend balanced out with both Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon, would surely have appeased her.
The sisters Yates also impressed with their 2005 Cheval, their showcase 100% Cabernet Franc. Another breathtaking 2005 Cabernet Franc came from Spring Mountain’s Guilliams Vineyards, a fitting tribute to the birthday and translated surname co-owner Shawn Guilliams was sharing with the aforementioned Bard of Avon. Despite the name it shares with the nomenclature-obsessed Grand Cru châteaux, LaTour Vineyards shared a superb Burgundian-style 2006 Napa Valley Chardonnay. With no conflict to its name, Paras Vineyard offered a remarkable array of wines, resounding with their 2007 Grenache, 2005 Syrah and a contrasting pair of Viognier from both 2005 and 2006.
The earliest vintage of the tasting came from Random Ridge, with a 2001 Cabernet Sauvignon that hopefully proved a harbinger for where all the wondrous 2005 Cabs I tasted at Napa Valley with Altitude will be heading. But readers of this blog will not be surprised that the 2006 Fortunata, their extraordinary expression of Sangiovese, was the wine that held me rapt at this most delightful event.

Best to Drink from Years 7DD to 7E5; San Jose Mercury News Rating: 5E pts.

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That’s Silicon Valley parlance for “drink between 2013 and 2021” and a “95 point rating.”** These hexadecimal assessments may even be modest for Ridge Winery’s 7D5—I mean, 2005 Monte Bello. As I mentioned to my hosts last Sunday, at Ridge’s First Assemblage tasting for the 2008 Monte Bello, I have yet to taste such a complex 2005 Cabernet (70% Cabernet Sauvignon, 22% Merlot, 6% Petit Verdot, 2% Cabernet Franc), so much so that it demands being set down for at least 15 years. Winemaker Eric Baugher insists that the current vintage, an uncharacteristic blend of 81% Cabernet Sauvignon and 19% Merlot portends to become one of their benchmark releases, superior, in fact, to the 1971 Monte Bello that placed first in the 2006 reenactment of the Judgment of Paris.


Your West Coast Oenophile tends to be a bit of an agnostic when it comes to Ridge. I have always held them in exalted esteem not so much for their single vineyard Zinfandels but for the “off-varietal” selections they produce intermittently: Mataro (Mourvèdre), Carignane, and Grenache, as well as single varietals and blends with Syrah and Petite Sirah. But the real virtue of the winery comes out on a crystal-clear day like Sunday, where panoramic views from some 2200′ up make Silicon Valley look like a vast Legoland below—a realized metaphor, as some might say.

Ridge is not the only winery on Black Mountain. As you approach the hairpin turns en route to the summit, you first encounter Picchetti, a winery and preserve that is all too frequently overlooked by Ridge pilgrims, much in the way the more demure Jan Smithers got overlooked for the amply-endowed Loni Anderson on WKRP in Cincinnati. If you somehow manage to miss Ridge, you’ll encounter the rarely-accessible Fellom Ranch Winery. Almost as far up the mountain, on the side of Montebello Road overlooking the valley, Don Naumann operates his eponymous Naumann Vineyards from the aerie he built just below Ridge’s original operations. Like Fellom Ranch, it is only open on select weekends and by appointments. 

Last Sunday, Naumann held a couple of private tastings and put out their sandwich boards to direct visitors to their deck. Having never had the opportunity to visit this winery, I took my chances and veered off to the side on my way back from the Assemblage tasting. I would hazard to guess that few, if any, would-be burglars would set their sites on a home 16 miles up an inexorable series of hairpin turns, so it’s a fairly safe assumption that a stranger traipsing across your back porch at 5 PM is likely there to try your wines. Even though Don had already closed up for the day, he happily brought out two glasses and two bottlings each of his Chardonnay and his Merlot. The latter, which he grows on his two Montebello properties, quite clearly constitutes his pet project and his passion show in the wine. The 2004 Estate Merlot was an honest, fruit-forward expression of the varietal, easily drinkable now and a wonderful complement to a lighter cut of beef or a red meat medallion (think ostrich)! In contrast, the 2005 Estate Merlot is a wine waiting to happen, not quite the two decades before the Monte Bello will reach maturity, but easily three-five years away from hitting full stride.

Don and I must have spent close to an hour sitting on his porch, over looking the expanse of Santa Clara County, discussing winemaking, viticulture and my plans for Sostevinobile. He could not have been more hospitable. Recently, the Ginkgo Girl and I rented Bottle Shock, a somewhat apocryphal version of the 1976 Judgment of Paris tasting. I recall Bill Pullman’s Jim Barrett telling Steven Spurrier (Alan Rickman) how people in the Napa Valley were different and genuinely bonded together as a community. Jim Warren of Freemark Abbey always used to tell me, “It isn’t just the wine. It’s the lifestyle we have here.” I wish I had understood that better while he was still alive. The same could be said for the beauty and tranquility along Montebello Road and the people who inhabit it.

There is a pre-fab, monlithic conformity to much of Silicon Valley that seems, apart from the form & functional design of the Apple product line, almost impervious to a sense of aesthetics. Fortunately, this rigid orthodoxy has not made it up the way of the Valley’s western slopes. The people who operate the nearby Lehigh-Hanson Cement Quarry have ambitions to expand their operations significantly, a move that would have significant environmental repercussions throughout the nearby region, including the vineyards on Black Mountain. To counter this proposed devastation, please visit and endorse Quarry No!

**The hexadecimal conversions were hard enough to derive. Please d
on’t even think to ask for them in binary!

Quo vadis, Rhône Rangers?

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I am one of those people who is chronically late.*** The last time I arrived early for anything was the day of my birth, which arrived nearly a month before my parents had anticipated. Apparently, I have been compensating for this miscalculation ever since, so much so that I’m known in my Italian circles as Marco Sempre Tardi. A compliment, to be sure.

In a previous incarnation, Your West Coast Oenophile was involved with a pulchritudinous, albeit nefarious, woman who hailed from the Beijing region and managed to achieve the hitherto incomprehensible feat of systematically arriving even later than I did. Much to her delight, I nicknamed her Tardissima.
Beyond that, pleasant recollections of said perfidious Clytemnestra remain few and distant. “Time wounds all heels,” John Lennon wryly noted, and, without waiting for the inevitable repercussions to expiate her calumny, I have moved onto genuine domestic bliss. Because my beloved Ginkgo Girl and her circle of friends have all adopted English alternatives for their proper names, I, in turn, have recently decided to endow myself with a Chinese name: Tai Da (太大).
As per usual, my penchant for digression does have its purpose; in this instance, veering from overt promulgation of the artifacts and milestones of my own ethnicity, I am striving to demonstrate a catholic appreciation for the significant contributions other cultures have made. In the viticultural realm, my pronounced fondness for Italian varietals grown throughout the West Coast belies the delight I take in the diversity of other wines produced here, especially for the incredible spectrum of grapes affiliated with the Rhône region.
I have been attending the annual Rhône Rangers convention in Fort Mason for many years before I officially represented Sostevinobile at this year’s gathering. This year, I even managed to arrive well before the gates were opened to the public (though sufficiently late for the trade portion to keep my reputation unblemished). With 123 wineries pouring, I had to be judicious in selecting the ones which I could sample.
Sadly, that meant having to bypass many familiar stations, like Ridge, Bonny Doon, the always-wonderful Lava Cap, Arrowood, and Rosenblum, among others, in favor of wineries to which I had not previously been exposed. So, after paying courtesy calls to numerous new-found friends from Paso Robles (L’Aventure, Halter Ranch, Tablas Creek, and Justin), not to mention Anaba, the dean of Sonoma’s Eighth Street, I quickly found myself at the table for Cass Winery, a clandestine outpost on the east side of Paso Robles what bears no connection to my former squash opponent and noted wine critic, Bruce Cass. With six wines featured, their standout was the 2006 Grenache-until partner Lisa Plemons brought out their 2006 Mourvèdre, the first  I will bestow.
Zigzagging over to the lower reaches of the alphabet, I next treated myself to Healdsburg’s Stark Wine, a feint misnomer. With a well-balanced 2007 Viognier and a quintet of Syrahs on display, this winery excelled with both the 2005 and 2006 vintages of its bipartite Syrah, Teldeschi and Unti Vineyards.
Next up, Naggiar Vineyards from Grass Valley apparently makes every varietal known to mankind, but brought along only a handful of their Rhône selections. Much like Cass, the 2006 Grenache and the 2006 Mourvèdre proved the most memorable.
I visited with Washington’s titan, Château Ste. Michelle, whose various subsidiaries were spread throughout the hall, for a chance to lose my Cinsault virginity before I ambled onward to Frick Winery, a serendipitous discovery out of Geyserville. Their 2006 Cinsault, Dry Creek Valley might well have deserved a , were it not only my second exposure to a wine from this varietal; unquestionably, their 2007 Viognier, Gannon Valley merits this accolade. In addition, their fraternal twins, the 2006 Grenache, Dry Creek Valley and the 2006 Grenache Blanc, Owl Hill Vineyard win significant kudos.
While we’re on the subject of first times, I was also introduced to my first wines from Idaho, courtesy of Sawtooth Winery. Their 2006 Viognier, Snake River Valley displayed distinct undertones of right wing militia (I jest)—actually, it was quite amiable for a wine in its price range, even though it falls beyond Sostevinobile’s sustainable boundaries. On the other hand, Paso Robles’ Jada Vineyard seems mired in East Coast nostalgia, or so one might infer from labels like 2006 Red Blend, “Hell’s Kitchen” and 2006 Syrah, “Jersey Girl.” Just as long as they don’t try to pair their wines with meats from Satriale’s, I guess they’ll do fine.
I swung by Preston of Dry Creek to sample their 2007 Cinsault (my third experience!) before tasting four wines from Jemrose Vineyards, a relatively new venture out of Bennett Valley. Both the 2007 Viognier Egret Pond and the 2006 Gloria’s Gem, a Syrah blend, were highly impressive, but it took the 2007 Grenache Foggy Knoll to win a .
Even with my iPhone’s GPS functionality,  I’m not sure I’ll ever be  able to find Oregon House, CA. Still, every couple of months, the good folks at Renaissance Winery and Vineyard e-mail an invitation to visit. Naturally, I can never bypass their table at Rhône Rangers or at Family Winemakers. As I expected, my effort was well rewarded with a wonderful 2006 Viognier and a -worthy 2004 Mediterranean Red, a GMS blend.
Meantime, the state of Oregon was well-represented by none other than Domaine Serene, the much-honored Pinot Noir house. Their 2007 Viognier Rockblock Del Rio and 2005 Syrah Rockblock, Seven Hills did nothing to diminish their considerable reputation.
Down in Santa Maria, Sans Liege could well see their esteem catapult with their 2006 Grenache, my final  of the tasting. And San Francisco’s own Skylark Wine Company’s 2007 Syrah Rodger’s Creek might easily top the 91 points Wine Spectator awarded its 2006 version.
One of the few independent Washington wineries on hand, DeLille Cellars, merited further attention for its Doyenne line, especially the 2006 Syrah, Doyenne Signature. Sarah’s Vineyard ably demonstrated that not everything that comes from Santa Clara County need feel (or taste) fabricated. My final stop of the day, Napa’s Hagafen Cellars, left me smiling with both their 2005 Syrah, Prix Vineyards Reserve, and the favorite 2007 Roussanne that I managed to taste at the event.
Unfortunately, there were several wineries I did not have the chance to taste, like the quirky Four Vines Winery from Templeton, either because they ran out of supplies, or because they packed up prematurely. Despite my delight in the many wines I did taste, I have to say that this year’s Rhône Rangers Grand Tasting was a bit of a letdown. Many established favorites, like Eno, Broc Cellars and A Donkey and Goat—not to mention Alban and myriad others I am overlooking—chose simply not to participate. Half of the festival participants seemed to be food vendors or peripheral manufacturers. More disconcerting was the paucity of attendees during the public portion of the event. The mere trickle of a crowd, rather than the customary deluge that hits once the doors open, seems to indicate that the Punahou Kid has a long way to go before his léger de main can right this economy.
Quo vadis, publicē? Surely, it cannot be that—shudder!—the public has lost its interest in drinking good wine (along with the corollary conclusion that Fred Franzia has won)! Whatever the cause of this dire phenomenon, note here that Sostevinobile is poise to ensure that the pleasures of œnophilia will be back, stronger than ever!
***Astute devotees of this blog will note that I had promised to post my Rhône Rangers comments three days ago.

On the Road Again (redux)

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And what is so rare as a day in June? Perhaps a midweek March afternoon, winding up a country hillside halfway from nowhere for nine miles to stumble upon an organic farm where a striking 5’9″ Chinese girl touts organic olive oil and tea tree scrubs while ever-so-slightly mispronouncing “bruschetta.” The Mt. Olive Organic Farm wasn’t a scheduled stop or even the point of my trip, but it serves as a paradigm for all the unanticipated discoveries I made during my Paso Robles swing last week.
In terms of winery destinations, Your West Coast Oenophile has been, as I suspect many others are, egregiously Napa/Sonoma-centric for more years than I care to enumerate. There have always been pockets of vineyards interspersed throughout the state, and I’ve happily visited a number of them here and there. But the notion of a concentrated, cohesive, cooperative wine community outside of the aforementioned region seemed a bit unfathomable (even though Sideways had clued me in to the existence of such). So, naturally, I was quite taken by surprise to discover that the juncture of US 101 and Hwy. 46, long seen as little more than a convenient pit stop en route to Los Angeles, had exploded into a major AVA blanketing both sides of the freeway.
Let me end any suspense here and now: during my three day Paso Robles swing, I did not manage to visit all 240 wineries (suffice it to say that such a feat would have lent considerable credence to the Ginkgo Girl’s suspicions of my incipient dipsomania). Still, I did manage to take in quite a selective range of what this vast AVA has to offer.
My first stop in Paso Robles tended to the sustainable component of Sostevinobile, a most informative workshop on sustainable building jointly sponsored by the good folks at PG&E and the California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance. Wonderful to learn of the numerous energy rebates potentially available to our San Francisco flagship site, as well as the requirements for LEED-CI certification. This ever-evolving project continues to take many turns at each juncture. The workshop began with a tour of the Eos Estate Winery, the Central Coast’s first winery to supply 100% of its own electrical consumption. Years ago, I met the Arcieros, former owners of this estate, and introduced them to the forebear of Bacar and the Ferry Plaza Wine Merchant, Eos Restaurant and Wine Salon in Cole Valley—a natural marriage, or so it had dawned on me. But progress is progress, and one would tend to believe that should Sapphire Wines apply the same exacting diligence to their wine operations, their potential will be impressive.

After the workshop, I drifted eastward to the amazingly eclectic Tobin James, a must-see winery that also serves as a counterpoint to Healdsburg’s Dry Creek General Store 1881. In a strange way, my awkward efforts to snap a picture from my iPhone perfectly captures the élan of this place. The quirky charm of the ramshackle place belies the seriousness of their winemaking, which, in turn, exposed a common conceit to which I admit
succumbing occasionally, that being a predilection to correlate quality and price. While I had the chance to sample several of their varietal offerings, including a most agreeable 2005 Sangiovese Il Palio, their standout was also their most economical wine, the 2006 Chateau Le Cacheflo, a proprietary blend of Syrah, Sangiovese and Barbera that retails for a relatively paltry trickling from one’s “cash flow”—somewhere in the vicinity of $11.99.
By no means, however, does Tobin James hold a monopoly on Italian varietals bottled on Paso Robles’ east side. Poised at the intersection of the two main thoroughfares, Martin & Weyrich, a longtime favorite, featured a number of traditional Italian wines and esoteric blends, including their signature 2005 Insieme, a
mind-boggling mélange of Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfandel, Nebbiolo, Sangiovese, Barbera, Pinot Nero and Petit Verdot (please don’t suggest they add Graciano—that’s reserved for blending in their 2002 Flamenco Rojo)! Still, I found myself particularly enticed by their well-rounded 2004 Nebbiolo Il Vecchio, a worthy rival to any Barbaresco priced even double the $22 it commands.

Martin & Weyrich also produces a wine they label Etrusco, not really a Super Tuscan so much as a Cabernet rounded out with Sangiovese. Some dominazioni purists may regard such a blend as heresy, but the folks at Martin & Weyrich are in good company. Across 101, L’Aventure commits similar apostasy with their artful marriage of Bordeaux and Rhône varietals. Yes, mes amis, Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah can happily reside in the same bottle, as their aptly-named 2006 Optimus attests. Conventional Cabernet and Rhône GMS (Grenache-Mourvèdre-Syrah) blends are well represented in L’Aventure’s library and offer quite the sophisticated counter to Paso Robles’ rustic perception, while their new Syrah-based 2008 Estate Rosé will by no means remind anyone of White Zinfandel.
I spent my final day in Paso Robles scouring the westside hills, on a loop that took me to Adelaida Cellars, Justin Vineyards, Tablas Creek, Halter Ranch and the geologically-imbued Calcareous Vineyard (would that the folks at Linne Calodo have been remotely as accommodating in their response to my inquiry)! My first stop, Adelaida, is a winery that embraces a wide swath of the viticultural terrain: Bordeaux, Burgundy, Rhône, and Piemonte, as well as the obligatory homage to the local signature grape, Zinfandel. Their 2007 Viognier inarguably lived up to its billing as a balance of crisp minerality and aromatic fruit, a subdued expression of this somewhat haphazard varietal. Similarly, the 2005 Nebbiolo brought an unabashed smile to my face. I of course delighted in their 2005 Viking Reserve Cabernet, as strong a $75 Bordeaux blend as any of its Northern competitors, but, as per usual, found myself most intrigued by the 2006 Version, a jam-packed blend of Mourvèdre, Grenache, Syrah, Cinsault and Counoise.
Leave it to Tablas Creek, however, to tantalize me with a 100% Counoise bottling. The 2005 Tablas Creek Counoise came about, as it has in occasional prior vintages, when their estate pantings yielded more fruit than needed for their Esprit de Beaucastel and Côtes de Tablas. This is a rare expression of this grape for California and a wondrous d
elight. Tablas Creek also poured me their 2006 Tannat (an 88% blend softened with Cabernet Sauvignon) again a rarety on the West Coast and again an amazing discovery. 2006 Roussanne, 2006 Grenache Blanc, 2006 Mourvèdre—I could wax ad infinitum—Tablas Creek, along with Alban Vineyards and Qupé, has always represented the holy grail of Rhône-style wines from California to me, and this visit exceeded my expectations. That their 120 acres of plantings are all organic certified only enhanced my appreciation.
I would be quite remiss if I did not acknowledge Monica, whose splendid hospitality and individualized attention truly made my Tablas visit thoroughly enjoyable. Her counterpart at Justin, Sara Lutsko, was equally delightful and could have even tempted me to…but I digress. Justin is a winery that also features one of Paso Robles most acclaimed restaurants. Judging by the hairpin turns and utter remoteness of the setting, diners would be wise to book a room at JUST Inn, their onsite bed & breakfast. Justin takes a decidedly Pythagorean approach to their labels, and indeed their blends often do sum up a² + b² to produce a decidedly synergistic c². Case in point, their 2006 Justification, an atypical blend of Cabernet Franc and Merlot, or the 2007 Orphan, a Cabernet Sauvignon + Syrah combination. I joked that they ought to pair their 2006 Savant (another Cabernet & Syrah hybrid) with a wine labeled Idiot (cf. Rainman for the reference), and they came close with their 2007 Obtuse, a port-style dessert wine made from 100% Cabernet Sauvignon. My kudos, as well, for their 2006 Tempranillo Reserve (mistakenly priced, one would hope, at $312.50! on their website) and their distinctive 2006 Petit Verdot. And did I mention the 2006 Isosceles, their justly-famed Bordeaux meritage?.
It seems that many of the attendees at the Green Building Workshop beat me to Halter Ranch, a small, unimposing venture that both Jill Whitacre and Kira Costa of the Central Coast Vineyard Team highly touted. Their judgment makes me wish I could have followed up on all their recommendations. As one of the first Central Coast wineries to be certified for Sustainability in Practice (SIP), Halter Ranch put forth a lineup of estate grown varietals and blends of both Bordeaux and Rhône clones, distinguished by their 2007 Viognier and their 2005 Cabernet Franc.
By now, everyone knows that bombastic scene, with Leonardo Di Caprio, arms spread back like an erne, perched atop the Titanic’s bow, proclaiming “I am King of the World!” Yet that is exactly the feeling one gets from the panoramic loft that houses Calcareous Vineyard’s new tasting facility. The grandeur of this setting, with 270° views sweeping across the entire valley, is impossible to depict with the constrictions of HTML text, but it should become an obligatory stop for any Paso Robles tour. Against this commanding backdrop, one could easily luxuriate in their 2004 Reserve Zinfandel, the 2006 Twisted Sisters Chardonnay, a York Mountain 2006 Pinot Noir or the 2006 Petit Verdot. Still, I have to confess a fondness for their 2006 Très Violet, a GMS blend that veers from duality of Grenache or Mourvèdre predominance and allows Syrah the upper hand.
I drove back to San Francisco along the Pacific Coast Highway as a coda to my revelatory visit. As I passed through Soquel, I detoured to Bargetto Winery in the hope of finding a final touch of Dolcetto to round out my excursion, but, alas, they were sold out and I had to settle for a taste of their 2002 La Vita, a proprietary blend of Dolcetto, Nebbiolo and Refosco from their Santa Cruz Mountain estate vineyards. It is a hard life I lead…

Taking the pledge

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From the look of things today, we are going to need all the help we can get if we’re going to steer ourselves out of this economic morass. This task is so formidable, there’s actually a rumor floating around that embattled Illinois Senator Roland Burris is going to quit so that the Punahou Kid can resign, reclaim his former seat, and hand the Presidency over to Joe Biden (could anyone blame him if it were true?). But rather than dwell on speculative fantasy, I, for one, am ready to do my part and right here am making my patriotic pledge: Your West Coast Oenophile will, just like the chastened, stimulus-laden bankers on Wall Street, continue to undertake my responsibilities and accept not a penny more than $500,000 in annual salary until this financial crisis has fully abated. Even if that means foregoing the Napa Valley Wine Auction this coming June.
Speaking of investment bankers, the Ginkgo Girl and I dropped in on my longtime friend Alan Jones on our way back from Sonoma last night. Alan is a former Exonian who preceded me in college at a couple of not-so-preppie student organizations, Black Praxis and Foley House before veering off to business school at Wharton. From co-op to coöpted, as I like to kid him, but then his wine collection and recently expanded wine cellar dwarf my humble assemblage, so perhaps he had the better idea.
Alan’s hospitality remains legendary and his pours are generous to a fault (or so the CHP tried to assert nearly two of decades ago), so he warrants citation on these pages. But I would be remiss in not elaborating on the splendid tasting we attended earlier in the day.
Not every winery can be described as idyllic, nor need they be to make exceptional wine. I have known several, like Starry Night and Kalin Cellars, to be housed in industrial parks, racking barrels six tiers high in cramped warehouse spaces and contracting itinerant bottling lines twice a year. Yesterday introduced us to a septet of little-known bonded ventures clustered in an industrial complex outside the town of Sonoma. It would have seemed more symmetrical had this cooperative tasting billed as The Eight Street Wineries included eight distinct labels, and, in fact, it did, but our typically tardy arrival prevented us from reaching MacRostie Winery, the sole venue housed separately from the rest. Nonetheless, I can assuage my guilt, and appease them for this transgression, by offering earnest plaudits for their many excellent Chardonnays I’ve had the pleasure to imbibe over the years.
The seven wineries we did manage to visit, as part of my never-ending quest to source an intriguing array of West Coast wines for Sostevinobile, were, in no particular order: Enkidu, Anaba Wines, Ty Caton, Talisman, Parmalee-Hill, Three Sticks and Tin Barn Vineyards. A more eclectic montage of monikers would be hard to assemble. And certainly each brought forth a wine, if not several, that I hope will find its way onto our roster.
I’m not ashamed to admit that my cuneiform reading skills have slacked off considerably, so I’ll take Enkidu winemaker Phil Shaehli at his word pertaining to the genesis for each of the esoteric labels he assigns to his wines. Babylonian floods aside, however, the true standout was his accessibly-appointed 2006 Tina Marie Pinot Noir. We found ourselves equally enjoying the 2006 Durell Vineyard Pinot Noir across the way at Three Sticks, no surprise considering the pedigree of both the vineyard and veteran winemaker Don Van Staaveren. With a quartet of 2005 Pinots, the Ginkgo Girl and I were evenly split on which of Talisman’s releases we preferred, but then isn’t that the true beauty of wine?
Don van Staaveren is also winemaker for Parmalee-Hill, a name that adorns so many labels—Flowers, Kistler, Patz & Hall, Saintsbury, Saxon-Brown, Steele—it’s almost impossible to keep track; little wonder their eponymous label is consistent across the board. Tin Barn was like a small time warp, in that their current releases all hail from vintages three to four years previous than most other wineries are now offering. Orson Welles, who, to be sure, turns agitatedly in his grave at the mere mention of his namesake restaurant in San Francisco, may have uttered the catch phrase, but Tin Barn’s wines really are sold when their time has arrived—case in point, their ready-to-drink-now 2003 Syrah Sonoma Coast, Coryelle Fields Vineyard. At the other end of the Rhône spectrum, Anaba presented both their red and white Coriol blends, the former being predominantly Grenache, the latter skewed heavily in favor of Viognier. Both were quite breezy, but proprietor John Sweazy truly stood out among the pack with his 2007 Anaba Sonoma Coast Chardonnay.
I am neither being remiss nor showing favoritism by holding my last comments for Ty Caton. Being the inveterate punster that I am (I still insist that proprietress Marcy Roth of Sausalito’s Bacchus & Venus wineshop should change the store’s name to Grapes of Roth), I lobbied shamelessly for a limited-release, vineyard-designated Napa Cabernet, Ty Caton To Kalon, but it is not to be. Oddly, though, amid his generally excellent lineup of estate-produced varietals, his almost faithful Bordeaux-style meritage, the 2005 Ty Caton Estate Field Blend stood out as the pinnacle of his winemaking talents.
And, on that note, it’s time to bring this post to a close and curl up with the Ginkgo Girl. This week has me traveling to Paso Robles, with much ground to cover and much to report on my wine explorations. Never let it be said that this erstwhile ’Kissie doesn’t earn his $500k the hard way!

(Daniel) Boone’s Farm

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OK, I’ll admit it right off the bat. I was hard up for a clever title (among the sundry reasons why I haven’t attended to this blog in nearly a week). But never let it be said that Your West Coast Oenophile has ever made a correlation between Fess Parker Wines and that saccharine swill known as Modesto Mouthwash. Indeed, I have been a long-standing fan of this paragon of Santa Barbara wineries, especially of their many noteworthy forays into Rhône varietals. In particular, the Roussanne, the Marsanne, the Grenache, and the several offerings of Syrah they bottle under their Epiphany label exemplify some of the finest expressions of these varietals in California.


But it is another of their wines I choose to cite this day. A couple of nights ago, the Ginkgo Girl brought home a number of entrées from (no relation) Spicy Girl, the literal translation (from Mandarin) of an Inner Richmond Szechuan restaurant known for their über-spicy cuisine. I’m not sure how many Scoville units they can boast, but to give you an idea of how hot this food can get, I had to retreat to the wash room several times throughout the course of the meal to rinse off my contact lens, so much sweat was streaming from my forehead into my eyes.

Maybe I would have been better off not seeing what I was eating. Certainly, my taste buds were receiving enough stimulation to cover all five senses! Nonetheless, a meal of this intensity demands the perfect wine to complement it, and I deftly chose a nicely chilled bottle of the 2007 Fess Parker White Riesling. This off-dry white had just enough hint of sweetness to quell the intensity of the Spicy girl feast while balancing out the dominant pepper and ginger flavors—exactly what a food wine should do for this cuisine. An exemplary, affordable interpretation of the Riesling varietal I am looking forward to revisiting long before the next conflagration of my palate.

Il Comitato per la Restaurazione del Papato Italiano

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The aforementioned title belongs to an organization I’ve spearheaded since 1978’s investiture of Cardinal  Wojtyla (Ioannes Paulus PP. II) as the first non-Italian Pope since 1523. As it remains with his successor, Cardinal Ratzinger (Benedictus PP. XVI—I knew studying Latin for twelve years would eventually pay off), our rallying cry has always been “questo papa non conta!” Someday soon, the Italian people will reclaim this office, which, like the mayoralty of San Francisco, rightfully belongs to us.
Of course, I’m not ignorant of church history and realize that the papacy has not only not been the exclusive province of the Italians, the Holy See has not held uninterrupted in Rome since ~42 A.D. From 1309 to 1377, the papacy was relocated to the French city of Avignon, in no small part because of Pope Clement V’s desire to be near the source of his most favored wines. Clement planted vineyards just north of Avignon, near the banks of the Rhône, which were assumed by his successor, Pope John XXII, who also built the famed castle which gives this commune and AOC its name: Châteauneuf-du-Pape.
Many of the Rhône varietals have found considerable success throughout the West Coast’s AVAs, including Syrah, Mourvèdre (Mataro) and Grenache, the principal grapes designated for Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Many wineries here make their own homage to this very approachable Rhône blend, led by Bonny Doon’s impresario Randall Grahm and his satiric Le Cigare Volant (note my generous attribution here, even if Boony Doon’s former label, Big House, plagiarized my unlaunched Château Lompoc—the Wine Served Behind the Finest Bars in America). Another of my perennial favorites has been the Kunin Pape Star, a blend that is delightfully skewed towards Grenache.
Finally, I manage to open a bottle of 2006 Michael Grace GMS last night to accompany a quick-broiled salmon fillet I served for dinner. GMS is a blend from grapes grown at Laetitia’s Santa Barbara Highlands Vineyard, balanced between 60% Grenache, 10% Mourvèdre and 30% Syrah. An approachable wine to be sure, quite drinkable alone or as a companion to the aforementioned salmon. Affordably priced for a wine of its complexity—only wish the Ginkgo Girl and I had discovered it while we were making our way through the week of post-Thanksgiving turkey entrées.
Basta per oggi…