Category Archives: Zinfandel

Does Howell Mountain warrant its own mondegreen?

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A mondegreen is a misconstrued song lyric. Probably the best-known example is from Jimi Hendrix’ Purple Haze, with “’scuse me while I kiss the sky” invariably being interpreted as “’scuse me while I kiss this guy.” Not that there’s anything wrong with that (to quote Jerry Seinfeld).

Hendrix aside, the indisputable King of the Mondegreens has to be John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival. Is there a person alive who can even come close to deciphering the words to Down on the Corner? Or Up Around the Bend? You can look up the lyrics to these songs on the Internet; it will absolutely amaze you what he’s actually singing!

Creedence could be joyous. Creedence could be political. Creedence could be incredibly poignant. Their most heart-wrenching song (with surprisingly well-enunciating vocals to match), Lodi, still remains incredibly evocative every time I listen to it. For several decades, it stood as the only thing most people knew about this quiet, Sacramento Delta town.

Those of us involved in the wine business in the early 1980s had another impression of Lodi. From the days when a wine could be labeled as a varietal if it contained 51% of a specified grape, Lodi thrived as a cheap source of bulk fillers, most notably Tokay (no correlation to Hungary’s etherial Tokaji) and, secondarily, Thompson seedless. There were a handful of wineries that were outside the incestuous, quasi-industrial—a frequent joke, back then, was that these facilities might be requisitioned as emergency refineries when the next oil crisis hit—troika of Gallo, Franzia and Bronco that ruled the Central Valley; these predominantly cooperative collectives, assembled from a vast swath of local growers, produced some of the most ungodly wine known to mankind. One outfit, known back then as Eastside Cooperative Winery, had an inventory of 212 wines (types, not necessarily varietals) that they offered. The one I still cannot forget was Chocolate Cinnamon Wine.

Eastside’s sole virtue, apart from their moderately successful Royal Host Brandy, was that they made their Lodi neighbors, Guild Wineries, seem almost competent. Or maybe not. In those days, Guild had one brand of note, Cresta Blanca, and another, Cribari, that I’m told had once been respectable but had been turned into a pallid version of Carlo Rossi. Their crushing and fermentation took place in Fresno, then they would ship the bulk wine up Highway 99 to Lodi, where it was cellared and bottled. This convoluted process baffled Your West Coast Oenophile, to put it mildly.
“Why are you exposing your wine to Central Valley heat in this manner?” I asked with well-warranted incredulity. Their response offered little clarification. “We think people perceive Fresno as a negative. We wanted the prestige of ‘Bottled in Lodi’ on our label!” Of course, people back then thought Ronald Reagan had no idea what was going on with Iran-Contra, either!
Back in the early 1980s, these aforementioned wineries and other nearby ventures had upwards of 500,000 cases of wine stacked in their warehouses (I saw 50,000 cases alone of Eastside’s inimitable Chocolate Cinnamon concoction). Then someone at Brown-Forman came up with the brilliant concept of wine coolers, a blend of indescribable wine with a base of fruit juice and high fructose corn syrup. Millions of gallons of hitherto unsalable wine were dumped into these 6-packs, and an entire sector of the wine industry was rescued from impending oblivion.
It was virtually impossible to screw up the wine cooler solution. Unless you were Guild. Brown-Forman had California Coolers, with their memorable ad campaign. Gallo, in its inimitable fashion, let Brown-Forman blaze a path, then swamped them, in typical Gallo fashion, with Bartles & Jaymes. Guild, on the other hand, came up with Quinn’s Quail Coolers, and one of history’s most misguided ad campaigns: Soar with the Quail. Fine, I suppose, except for the incidental consideration that the quail merely jogs and never gets off the ground for any appreciable period of time.

In similar fashion, I would like to think that it’s virtually impossible to screw up wine grown on Howell Mountain. If the Taste of Howell Mountain, which I attend last weekend, is any indication, my premise is well-founded. With not even a remote semblance of Guild to be found among the 40 wineries donating their fare to this charitable fundraiser, there was nary a flawed wine to be found. Great if you’re an inveterate imbiber; not so great if you’re an aspiring blogger. How does one differentiate (at least in print) among a plethora of stellar Cabernets and Zinfandels (with a smidgen of Syrah and other varietals) grown in this landmark AVA? 

The tasting felicitously began with a chilled glass of Sauvignon Blanc from host Charles Krug, the sole non-Howell presence at this benefit. I must concede that even I have frequently overlooked this excellent winery, which has unfairly suffered the perception of being “the other Mondavi” as well as being “the other Krug.” Since the mid-1990s, Charles Krug has meticulously endeavored to reestablish both its wines and its branding, and now oversees what I believe is the largest holding of organically-farmed acreage in the entire county. Moreover, with the sales of Robert Mondavi and Louis M. Martini to external, maleficent conglomerates, it remains the last of the independently-owned grand estate that dotted Highway 29 in the 1970s.
Outside on the lawn, tables were spread out generously around central islands for catering and silent auction bids to afford easy access to the assorted wineries offering a sampling of their recent vintages. Participants ranged from boutique operations like Blue Hall and Summit Lake to industry stalwarts like Cakebread, Duckhorn, Beringer and St. Clement. The highly-coveted
Cimarossa vineyard was ably represented by both Tor Kenward and its own eponymous label. Arkenstone, who also poured a Sauvignon Blanc to help mitigate the 85° heat, might have vied for the best nomenclature, but the unequivocal winner here had to have been Howell at the Moon.
Personally, I have long been a fan of Atalon, and was equally pleased to see the familiar presence of D-Cubed, Ladera, Outpost, Bravante, Diamond Terrace and even Atlas Peak (though I still bemoan the uprooting of their Sangiovese vines). A trio of Roberts (Robert Craig, Robert Foley, Roberts + Rogers) have also been long on the Sostevinobile roster. Others, like Cornerstone, Neal Family Vineyards, Fleury, Dunn Vineyards , Black Sears, Haber, CADE and another “Caps Lock” venture, SPENCE, provided welcome newcomers for our incipient venture. Semi-reticent (in their choice of nomenclature, not œnology) W.H. Smith and W.S. Keyes were fortuitous finds, while the rare chance to taste La Jota and Lamborn Family Vineyards was an unexpected pleasure.
I started off the day enjoying the gracious hospitality of Zelock Chow, proprietor of Howell Mountain Vineyards, and was happy to retaste his wines in the afternoon. Despite my usual gregarious nature at these events (I find people in the wine business so much more engaging than my familiars in the advertising world—and don’t even get me started on the Silicon Valley folks who think Friday night Happy Hour happens at Fry’s), I managed to complete my entire dace card, so to speak, and rounded out the Silent Auction segment with White Cottage Ranch, Piña Cellars, O’Shaughnessy, Rutherford Grove, Highlands Winery, Villa Hermosa, and Red Cap.
Another first for me, at this event, was the mobile wood-burning oven that was carted in to make individually-fired pizzas. Of course, the very next day, Pizzeria Delfina brought in a version twice this size to accommodate their booth at Golden Glass in San Francisco. Still, I’m convinced that if I land up closing out my twilight years in a Winnebago Vectra, I will be hitching one of these marvels to my trailer post.
Feeling fully sated and moderately lubricated, I joined the rest of the 400+ attendees inside for the live segment of the afternoon, presided over, quite genially, by auctioneer Greg Quiroga. Bidders both local and from afar had turned out to raise much-needed funding for Angwin’s Howell Mountain Elementary School, and by the end of the day, had contributed over $32,000 to the cause. While the auction proceeded, volunteers from the school and community offered liberal pourings of sparkling wine, and, for those who still desired, full glasses of the various wines we had sampled outside. The room had a bit of a cathedral-like aura to it, but the proceedings were anything but solemn. As School Board Director Wendy Battistini, a most gracious hostess, proudly proclaimed “Howell Mountain wines rock!”
I managed to linger for about another hour or so, mingling among some of the local winery workers and decompressing from a long day at work (you think covering eight tastings in one month is easy?). Before returning to home to the Ginkgo Girl, I stopped off at Taylor’s Automatic Refreshers in downtown St. Helena and kept the CHP at bay with one of their ever-delightful veggie burgers. The warm summer air at 9PM was a stark contrast to the weather that awaited me back in San Francisco.
I will return to the next Howell Mountain tasting at the Bently Reserve later this summer and assess these wonderful wines with much greater detail. For now, I’m too lazy to complete my research and find out from Uncorked Events why Howell Mountain hasn’t been included in their Napa Valley with Altitude tastings. The orphaned hill among its brethren mounts? The black sheep of the Napa Clan? Perhaps, in compensation, I should compose a Howell Mountain anthem. Perhaps I might even have to sing and record it myself with my distinctive atonal delivery. In that event, step aside, John Fogerty—the Howell Mountain mondegreens will abound like no others!

Why wine is better than beer. Or liquor. Or sex.

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OK, scratch the third comparison. Sometimes Your West Coast Oenophile can get a tad overzealous when starting a new blog entry. But, with the possible exception of grappa, wine is, according to my unabashed claim, notably superior to the vast array of alcoholic potables because it is a communal beverage. Whisky, ale, gin—these drinks are designed for individual consumption. Wine is meant to be shared, with friends or with strangers, in happiness or in sorrow, with all partaking from the same bottle. It is this unique, convivial quality of wine wherein lies its distinctive beauty.

The month of June began as all months should, with a celebratory kickoff. I received an invite from a loose collective of women heralding from assorted Napa wine ventures to join them for lunch and wine tasting at San Francisco’s Ferry Building—in other words, a marvelous excuse to break up the tedium of a Monday, to crisscross the City on my 14-speed Trek, and to meet new friends (I still haven’t figured out how I was included in their mailing) who share similar passions.
Being a long-time fan of Taylor’s Automatic Refreshers in St. Helena, any chance to patronize their outpost here has “Gott” to be good. And it didn’t hurt to be accompanied by a sextet of female denizens of the viticultural arts. After all, it wasn’t all that long ago when it seemed the only woman in the wine industry was Jill Davis!

My hostesses each brought a sampling of their own wines, ranging from Orin Swift’s ever-popular 2007 The Prisoner to the somewhat dyslexically-labeled 2008 Abi Blanc (a 100% Viognier) and 2007 Adi Rosé (of Syrah) from Beth Adams’ new Abigail Adams. From stalwart Patz & Hall, Anne Moses brought two of her finer Pinot Noirs, the 2007 Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir and the 2007 Jenkins Ranch.
Another familiar label, Viader, was ably represented daughter Janet, who organized this gathering. Her Howell Mountain offerings consisted of their eponymous 2005 Viader, a proprietary Bordeaux and their elegant Cabernet Franc, the 2005 Dare. From Buehler Vineyards, gregarious Italophile Misha Chelini graced the table with their 2008 Russian River Chardonnay and 2006 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. Quaintly named Jelly Jar Wines, a venture of Shannon Pistoni and her husband, proved to be no misnomer—their 2007 Old Vine Zinfandel was jammy indeed and quite pleasing to the palate. Finishing off the event, fellow pentasyllabic Italian surnamed Melissa Leonardini also chipped in with her Orin Swift 2006 Papillon, a traditional Bordeaux blend and the 2007 Volunteer, a side venture of her and her husband.
Amid such pleasant company and delightful wines, it would have been a shame to swill and spit, and so I allowed myself to forgo the illusion of further productivity for the afternoon and happily imbibe. Perhaps I may

have even consumed one  drop too many, for I somehow managed to forget to eat my obligatory Taylor’s Veggie Burger. Oh well, as the crew packed up their effects to head back to Napa, I gladly accepted the proffering of a nearly-full bottle of the Volunteer (I might have taken more, but where to carry on a road bike?). I managed to cradle the leftover portions we had ordered and passed them out to some transients sleeping on the grass beside the immortal Vaillancourt Fountain. Even for these desultory fellows, not a bad way to kick off the month.

What kind of wine goes best with apostacy?

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I would never think of serving venison for Christmas. A rabbit repast for Easter is, however, an indulgent heresy. Years ago, I tried adapting a Paul Prudhomme recipe for Cajun-style Coniglio Tetrazzini as the overture the post-prandial delectations of a young denizen of New Orleans who was summering in Santa Cruz, but, alas, she never did show for dinner,—or the follow-through breakfast I had so elaborately planned-and I was left to slough through reheated leftovers for the next four days.

Twenty-five or so years later, I decided to reprise my culinary fête for The Ginkgo Girl. Lacking my original recipe, I improvised, kneaded a batch of Red Pepper/Paprika dough instead of the Cilantro Fettuccine I had made the previous time, and cranked it through the spaghetti cutter on my well-worn Atlas Pasta Maker. Fresh spring vegetables (bell peppers, snap peas, button mushrooms) and butter were readily acquired on AT&T Coupon Night at Rainbow Grocery, but an exhaustive search found only Little City Meat Market stocked fresh rabbit for the coming Saturday.

Sunday morning, I set to task, first rolling out the noodles, then boiling and cooling them down as I prepared the sherry-cream base. In the middle of my preparations, I realized, much to my chagrin, that—horrors!—none of the wine we had on hand would complement the myriad flavors of my elaborate concoction.

Because it was Sunday, and a sacrosanct holiday to boot, I soon became aware that my options were quite limited. The Wine Club was closed; groceries, if open, were limited, at best; and all of my preferred wine shops were closed. Reluctantly, I settled for my last available recourse: BevMo.

Now, this isn’t to say that Calizona’s leading beverage chain does not offer a very nice selection of some very nice wines. One certainly can find a wealth of highly serviceable vintages in the $15-20 range that more than adequately address the need for an everyday wine. And their selection of higher-end wines is far from pedestrian. But a store like BevMo, quite understandably, leans toward predictably safe choices. There are rows upon rows of Cabernet, of Zinfandel, of Pinot, of Merlot, and of Chardonnay. They is an abundance of Sauvignon Blanc and Syrah, dollops of Roussanne and Marsanne, a smattering of Pinot Gris and Viognier, and an homage to Petite Sirah and an array of blends, both red and white. But none of these quite fit the menu.

The more traditional Chicken Tetrazzini could have withstood a strong white, perhaps a heavily-oaked Chardonnay that trend-seeking wine enthusiasts often deride. The peppers and spices that infused my rabbit/pasta mélange demanded something red, but on the lighter side. Don’t even think Valdiguié! Perhaps the charms of a California Dolcetto or the rare subtlety of a local Aleatico might have served my purpose, but the tiny tiers of the Other Reds rack offered only an array of GMS blends, a couple of
Petit Verdot and a lone bottle of Carignane. If memory serves true, there may have also been some $9 Sangiovese and a rather unassuming Barbera, but my quest for a well-paired varietal was not to be satisfied. Loathe as I am to admit it, Your West Coast Oenophile was stumped; eschewing the anathema of scouring the Imports aisle, I settled on a 2006 Cambria Pinot Noir (Julia’s Vineyard) and returned to the stove.

My fanatically Catholic mother would readily attribute my shortfall to the heterodoxy of my religious tenets—a divine retribution against my culinary foray. Who knows? I am not about to give her the satisfaction of acceding to her strictures. Next year, I intend to select the wine first and devise a recipe around it.

Whither Bambi Francisco?

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Somehow, Your West Coast Oenophile managed to lose track of Bambi Francisco at the 2009 Wine 2.0 Expo last Thursday. Because this gathering showcased the convergence of wine and technology, I could have thought up a highly inventive way to signal her, like Tweeting “tell Bambi I’m standing by the Cameron Hughes table” from my iPhone or by logging onto the Web app Nirvino had set up for the event and wryly posting “2007 Inman Family Russian River Valley Pinot Gris would sure taste great if Bambi were tasting it here with me” on their overhead screen. But like esprit de l’escalier, the notion didn’t occur to me until well after I had left.

Of course, I hadn’t been invited to this tasting to renew my acquaintance with this intrepid reporter, so while she filmed her podcast, I moseyed about the various nooks and crannies at Crushpad, searching for memorable wines to add to our growing roster at Sostevinobile and to include in this blog (a fairly formidable task, given the somewhat chaotic layout of the vent and program guide). Naturally, I first found myself at the table for Classic Malts of Scotland, where the temptation of Lagavulin 16 Year Old proved…too tempting.
Admittedly, it takes a few moments to cleanse one’s palate from the taste of Single Islay Malt Scotch, so let me take this time to explain what the intersection of wine and technology is not. At the bottom of the list, one would have to cite the automatonic wonder known as The Winepod™. This impersonal contraption has been billed as “George Jetson, Meet Winemaker” and could only come from the aesthetic void known as San Jose—throw in the grapes, flip on the switch and await your technologically perfect wine. Suitable, of course, to be dispensed in discrete 1 oz. shots at the nadir of the wine tasting experience, the late and not especially lamented VinoVenue. Technology, however, does offer the possibility of enveloping more people into the richness of the wine experience, and, as it has become the lingua franca of the under-35 set, there is much to be said for the virtues of marrying social networking and web-based communities to the sheer joy of œnophilia.
So onward to the wines I discovered (given the utter randomness of listings in the program guide, the order of my selections will likely seem splenetic). First up, though not because he invited me to the upcoming Pinot Days Grand Festival Steve Rigisch poured a pair of truly excellent 2007 Russian River Pinot Noirs, from Olson Ogden and his own Ketcham Estate. If this was a prelude to the June gathering, I am bound to be euphoric. 
Post-prandial fare came early Thursday evening, with a 2004 Port of Pinot Noir, which 122° West Winery calls Sonoma County Dessert Wine. Their 2006 Napa Valley Sangiovese was equally impressive. Strains of The Deuces’ WPLJ (not the Long Island radio station) echoed through my head with my taste of Rick Kasmier’s White Port of Chardonnay, a wine that may well become timely in the midst of this economic neo-depression. In a similar vein, I admit I cringed before tasting his Kaz Vineyards’ 2008 Stimulus (seems every advertiser these days feels compelled to use this term in their promotions), but with a lineup that includes Lenoir, Malbec, Barbera and DeChaunac, I suspect a trip to his Kenwood tasting room will soon be in order.
In stark contrast to Kaz’ 27 varietal offerings, Bedarra Vineyards from Dry Creek Valley produces a mere 250 cases of a single wine. Their second vintage, a 2007 Chardonnay, showed tremendous promise. Meanwhile, making their first California foray, Y Rousseau Wines presented their understated yet refreshing 2008 Russian River Valley Colombard Old Vines.
Similar modesty was not to be found in Walla Walla’s lone representative, Wines of Substance. While their labels cheekily borrows from Breaking Bad’s twist on the Periodic Table, their wines are anything but chemical in composition or taste, with both 2007 Riesling and their 2007 Merlot ably displaying why Washington excels in these particular varietals.
Loyal readers of this blog well know my partiality for the Italian interpretation of most cultural expressions or phenomena. Naturally, I gravitated to Dono dal Cielo’s table, where I was delighted with both the 2006 and 2007 versions of their Newcastle (the California hamlet, not Newcastle-on-Tyne, the more renowned British brewery enclave) Zinfandel. Of greater fidelity, Due Vigne di Famiglia offer a quartet of wines, punctuated by their salubrious 2006 Nebbiolo and my predilection a 2005 Dolcetto.
It would have been wonderful if Michael Giarraputo had been able to speak with me in Italian, but his Think Tank Wine Company is quiet conversant in the sustainable values Sostevinobile espouses. His 2007 La Encantada Vineyard Pinot Noir is an excellent organic expression of Santa Rita Hills’ signature varietal. Another winery aiming at a different kind of appeal, Courtesan Wines, echoed the highly romanticized version of this Venetian archetype, so sensually portrayed in Dangerous Beauty. Hints of sensuality were abundant in both the 2006 Courtesan (Cabernet Sauvignon) and 2006 Brigitte (Merlot), both hailing from Oakville. The big O of the evening, however, was O’Brien Estate, whose 2006 Seduction is a Bordeaux-style blend that lived up to the promise of its name. Their 2007 Chardonnay was also a worthy counterpart.
A Palo Alto venture, Cannonball Wine Company, inspired me to whip out my iPhone 3G and play the immortal saxophonist’s Mercy, Mercy, Mercy. Their 2006 Cannonball Cabernet was a deft blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah from a decidedly unkosher mélange of four vineyards in Dry Creek, Mendocino and Paso Robles. A more traditional blend was the 2005 Estate Bottled Cabernet Sauvignon from Lancaster Estate, a stellar Bordeaux-style assemblage of 90% Cabernet Sauvignon, 5% Malbec, 2% Merlot, 2% Cabernet Franc, and 1% Petit Verdot.
It’s a rare treat when a wine looks as good as it tastes. The labels Eric Kent Cellars commissions for their wines are vibrant, evocative and well-suited to their portfolio of Chardonnay, Syrah, and Pinot Noir from Sonoma. Most memorable of the evening was their 2006 Dry Stack Vineyard Syrah, a stellar Bennett Valley vintage with and equally memorable label from artist Colin Day.
Some people are drawn to wines by their rating points from Robert Parker or Wine Spectator. I tend to succumb to those wineries that can offer something contrarian in nature, as demonstrated by Delgadillo Cellars, which was just now releasing its 2001 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon! A splendid Old Vine Cabernet, this wine came closest to warranting the highly coveted .
I topped off the evening with a return to the Classic Malts of Scotland table and, later, an unanticipated (and soon to be contested) rendezvous with the traffic constabulary from the SFPD. Though highly improbable, I can categorically state that a late-night encounter with the elusive Ms. Francisco would have been far preferable. Then again, she never did show up that time for the showdown on the squash court she had always promised…

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!

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…

Rhymes with Moose

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What can one say about Ridge Vineyards that hasn’t already been written? Their library of single vineyard Zinfandels is seemingly inexhaustible, with new selections added or subtracted each year. Early on in this millennium, one such designate was Caboose, a late-harvest pick from their justly famed Nervo Station Vineyard in Alexander Valley. 


Flash-forward to 2007, and The Caboose is being bottled by another stellar Zin producer, Starry Night Winery (the sample I tasted at ZAP did not disappoint). Last night, the Ginkgo Girl and I explored the nuances of writing directly in a second language vs. the arduous constraints of mentally composing in one’s primary fluency before translating onto the page. Certainly, numerous icons of 20th Century literature—Stoppard, Conrad, Nabokov—have all shown themselves unparalleled masters of English linguistics, acquired subsequent to their original Slavic tongue.

As we deconstructed her latest essay, I uncorked my ATP bottle of the 2002 Zinfandel, Caboose from Ridge and poured her a glass in the Starry Night imprinted stemware we acquired at their Christmas tasting. I hope Skip can forgive the unintentional syllogism.

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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Bye, Bye Miss American Pie

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(I know I should have saved today’s heading for tomorrow, but I ran out of ideas)
She was slim and petite. Near waist-length, blondish hair with freckles. Kinda reminded me of a girl I had a semi-crush on in college, when I was nineteen. We never got much beyond the kissy phase, even though she gave me her phone number. First I got the roommate. Then the answering box. Then the roommate. Then three more answering boxes, followed by the “you caught me just as I was running out the door. Can I call you back later?” Alas, she never did. But she was my very first ZAP.
I left grad school and drove back to California, determined to carve a niche for myself as a playwright. Thought I could support myself as a starving artist, but managed to starve better than I arted. Somewhere down the line, I reassessed my strategy and began to believe that the field of advertising would be my temporary salvation, an unstructured corporate haven where the 30- & 60-second spots I’d write for TV and radio commercials would serve as creative calisthenics, little snippets of dialogue that kept me in tip-top form for the dramatic satires I would crank out after work. That inexorable cesspool of exploitation known as freelancing and the intermittent assignments writing brochures and piddly little newspaper ads provided none of that. Thanks ever-so-much for giving me the chance you promised, Jeff.
Somewhere along the way, a few of my fellow creatives turned me onto improvisational comedy and the workshop Jim Cranna ran in Fort Mason on Saturday afternoons. I can‘t say I ever really got the hold of it—public performance is still something that daunts me. But it was a good exercise that forced me into roles that had not been predetermined, a radical departure from how I functioned as a writer (dramatic and commercial), where I was the puppetmaster, proscribing each and every word my characters would utter.
Back in 1992, folks from the Improv Workshop used to gather afterwards at a dive-ish bar called Paul’s Saloon. Despite a striking resemblance, the proprietor, Paul, was a most unSanta-like fellow and one of the surliest barkeeps of his day (a few years later, he sold the business and sailed off on a transpacific schooner, where it was rumored that he was inadvertently harpooned by a Japanese whaling expedition). On other evenings, different ensembles from the class performed as improv troupes, including Women Who Laugh Too Much (and the Men Who Crack Them Up), who had invited me up to sing my incendiary Battle Hymn of the Republicans during the first Gulf War.
On a warm, dry Saturday early that year, my above-mentioned friend and I finished the class and se
t out to join the others at Paul’s. As we passed by the window of the rather compact meeting room at the head of Fort Mason’s Building A, we noticed a small gathering of folks and a scattering of tables with stations of red wine. So, rather than partake in the rounds of watery pilsners and abusive service, we nonchalantly slipped into what turned out to be the first ZAP festival.*
I swear this was the ONLY time I ever attended ZAP without legitimate credentials! But Your West Coast Oenophile has happily enjoyed the trade and public tastings ever since, as this annual convention has grown from an intimate gathering to the overwhelming spectacle it has become today. The 18th Annual ZAP Grand Festival this past Saturday, now occupying two entire exhibition halls on Fort Mason’s piers, was nothing short of what I have come to expect. Making Sostevinobile’s first public pitch to the wine industry, my partner David Latimer and I visited with more wineries than I can enumerate, yet still only managed to cover a minor portion of the presenters during our nearly six hours there.
At any of the major tastings like ZAP (Rhône Rangers, Pinot Days, Family Winemakers, etc.), I strive to skip over those wineries with which I am already well familiar—in this instance, Ridge, Rosenblum, Ravenswood—and focus on ones that are new either to the festival or to me. In years past, this approach has allowed to stumble upon the unreleased forays into Zinfandel by the inestimable Grebennikoff Vineyards or to discover what was then a ramshackle Healdsburg operation known as Wilson. This year had no shortage of surprises, either, including Brown Estate, D-Cubed, Charter Oak and Dick Arrowood’s new Amapola Creek.
Of course, there are time-honored friends, like Paul Tresetti, whose eponymous wine shop/restaurant was my salvation during my Year in Exile to the greater Modesto metropolitan area, as well as wineries like Starry Night and Pezzi King, whose bottles already occupy a significant portion of my collection. And of course, there are the must-tastes, like Seghesio and Turley, just because…
Turley brought along their 2006 Hayne Vineyard Zinfandel, which earned one of the two  I am awarding. The other went to GiaDomella, an amazing discovery from a few years back, whose 2006  Reserve Old Vine Zinfandel, seemed to be the consensus favorite among all with whom I compared notes.
And so another ZAP Grand Festival has come and gone, leaving behind pleasant aftertastes and pleasant memories all around. A few years ago, my original partner-in-crime reappeared, having had departed for a teaching stint in Maine, if recollection serves me right. She was couch-surfing somewhere in the City and gave me a number where I could reach her. I gave it my best shot, one or two or a dozen times, but never managed to connect again. Today, even Google’s mighty search offers no response, and so I ask: “whither Deborah Homan?”

*I may be mistaken, but I thought ZAP originally stood for Zinfandel Aficionados and Producers.

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).