{"id":25,"date":"2011-08-29T19:31:02","date_gmt":"2011-08-29T19:31:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.sostevinobile.com\/?p=25"},"modified":"2011-08-29T19:31:02","modified_gmt":"2011-08-29T19:31:02","slug":"22-bottles-of-wine-on-the-wall-22-bottles-of-wine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.sostevinobile.com\/?p=25","title":{"rendered":"22 bottles of wine on the wall, 22 bottles of wine\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/font>Seven down, two to go. And even with this pithy approach to succinct (for me) <\/i>postings, Your West Coast Oenophile<\/b> has barely made a dent in the backlog of chronicles to which Sostevinobile<\/b><\/font> has committed.<\/font><\/font><\/font> \u201cIt\u2019s all about the wine,\u201d I keep telling myself. \u201cThe wine has no time frame\u2026\u201d
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22<\/b><\/font>) Earlier in this series, I offered a few observations about the diminishing attendance at industry tastings in San Francisco, including Ros\u00e9 Avengers & Producers<\/a>\u2019 annual PINK OUT SF!<\/a>. Though I am finding the continued attrition of both attendees and participating wineries at these industry tastings increasingly disconcerting, I would be remiss in not acknowledging my discovery here of Paradise View<\/a>, a Sonoma Coast winery producing an international potpourri<\/font> varietal<\/font><\/font>s, including Arneis, Albari\u00f1o, Malbec, Roussanne, and Lemberger (or Bla\u00fcfrankish, if you prefer)<\/i>. Despite its unspecified varietal identity, the 2008 Ros\u00e9<\/b> poured here furnished an impressive introduction to this skilled, eclectic venture.
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21<\/b><\/font>) This is the age at which I arrived in California, with a freshly-minted Dartmouth diploma stashed somewhere amid my worldly possessions, which fit snugly in the rear of a 1978 Dodge Omni<\/a>. At the time, the only California wineries I could name were Gallo, Sebastiani, Paul Masson, Almaden, and Inglenook. Today, my Rolodex is approaching 2,500 distinct labels, with new discoveries almost daily\u2014even in pockets where I thought my knowledge was comprehensive. Case in point\u2014although I have covered individual wineries and at least a dozen tastings for the Santa Cruz Mountains Winery Association<\/a>, I had not encountered Villa del Monte<\/a> until the most recent South Bay Trade tasting at The International Culinary Center<\/a> in Campbell. My reaction to their focused 2009 Reserve Pinot Noir Regan Vineyard<\/b>? Where have you guys been hiding?<\/i>
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Speaking of hiding, I must commend the Culinary Center for coming out this year from behind their glass-enclosed culinary lab and catering the tasting this year. Recalling how excruciating it had been last year, when we had to shuttle between two tasting rooms and content ourselves to stare longingly at their amazing feats of gastronomy through impermeable glass displays, I had scheduled a luncheon meeting beforehand with Lathrop Engineering<\/a> to architect my design for a low-cost nitrogen preservation system for Sostevinobile<\/b><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font>\u2019s wines. Oh well! I never claimed foresight to be my forte!<\/font><\/div>\n

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20<\/font><\/b>) I\u2019ve registered www.sostevinobile.net<\/a> to be deployed as an extranet, once we are ready to start taking orders. The goal is to allow every winery and producing label in California, Washington, and Oregon who can meet <\/font>Sostevinobile<\/b><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font>\u2019s<\/font><\/font> c<\/font>riteria for sustainability to access and manage their own information in our database. When that day does come, my first order of business will be to hire a Filemaker programmer to build this platform for us. In the meantime, I am compelled to enter each winery I encounter into a very rudimentary data file, and, like everything else, I frequently fall way behind in this responsibility with all I compelled to handle.<\/font><\/div>\n

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As such, I failed to realize that I had already visited with Paradise View when I retasted them at T.A.P.A.S.<\/a> a few weeks later. No similar confusion, however, with Acampo\u2019s Riaza Wines<\/a>, an indisputably new discovery that came close to flooring me with their knockout 2008 Tempranillo Amador County<\/b>.<\/font><\/div>\n

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19<\/b><\/font>) <\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font>It was extremely hard for me to assess the success of the T.A.P.A.S. Grand Wine Tasting. Last year, the somewhat thin crowd coul
\nd be attributed to the unforeseen change of venue when Crushpad, which had committed to host the event, suddenly pulled up stakes and relocated to Napa; that same day, SF Vintners Market<\/a> held its event in Fort Mason, as well, while the nearby Union Street Festiva<\/a>l commandeered nearly every available parking slots in the Marina. This year again, the street fair wreaked havoc with the local traffic, while the crowd inside Herbst Pavilion seemed just as sparse.
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T.A.P.A.S.<\/b>, of course, is still very much a nascent undertaking, and, to be honest, 44 participating wineries does not warrant so cavernous a space. Nonetheless, I can\u2019t gauge whether this event is gaining traction, declining, or simply maintaining its status quo<\/i>. Over the past couple of years, I have become increasingly concerned over the attrition of attendance at nearly all the major tastings, hoping it is not a harbinger for the state of the wine industry itself nor, circumspectly, for Sostevinobile<\/b><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font>. Now I have even greater reasons for wanting to see groups like T.A.P.A.S.<\/b> and Rh\u00f4ne Rangers<\/a><\/b> thrive, as I am heading an effort to resurrect a similar organization for West Coast producers of Italian varietals. Look for an announcement about Risorgimento<\/b><\/i> in an upcoming entry.<\/font><\/div>\n

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Of course, part of the pleasure of T.A.P.A.S.<\/b> <\/font><\/font> is simply the effort I must put in to make sure I have the correct orthography for the sundry Spanish and Portuguese varietals I taste my way through. And just when I think I\u2019ve got a handle on every Tinta and Touriga out there, along comes Ron Silva, adding yet another indecipherable grape to the list! Still, the barrel sample of the 2010 Trincadeira<\/b> his Alta Mesa Cellars<\/a> provided proved a most delectable discovery.<\/font><\/div>\n

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18<\/b><\/font>) <\/font>Marie Antoinette Nichelini-Irwin had introduced me to Sauvignon Vert, a varietal I thought I had never tried until I learned it was the same grape as Tocai Friulano (as I am all too fond of saying, sempre i francese imitano gl\u2019italiani<\/b>)<\/i><\/font><\/font><\/font>. After Toni died last year, I thought that <\/font>Irwin Family Vineyards<\/a> might have been her legacy, but there is no correlation. This first generation endeavor made an impressive introduction with their <\/font>2008 Tempranillo Piedra Rioja Block 22<\/b>, their sole <\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font>production.<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/div>\n
1<\/b><\/font><\/font>7<\/b><\/font>) <\/font>A first-time entry from Lodi was Jeremy Wine Company<\/a><\/font><\/font>, a relatively new hand-selected boutique venture from industry veteran Jeremy Trettevik, focused on both Italian and Iberian varietals. Here, the 2010 Albari\u00f1o Lodi<\/b><\/font> <\/font><\/font><\/font>proved an exceptional introduction to this notable endeavor.<\/font><\/div>\n
16<\/b><\/font>) <\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font>My friend John Monnich of Silkwood Wines<\/a> would take affront, but I am all-too-fond of denigrating wines from Modesto as being a front for Ernest & Julio<\/a>. Another exception to this blanket generalization is Duarte Georgetown<\/font><\/a><\/font><\/font>, whose exceptional 2008 Divide Tempranillo El Dorado<\/b><\/font><\/font><\/font> proved every bit as alluring as its highly commendable 2007 vintage.<\/font><\/div>\n
15<\/b><\/font>) <\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font>The next time I decide to get lost in Winters, the Yolo County hamlet juxtaposed between the Napa Valley and UC-Davis, I will make every effort to track down Turkovich Family Wines<\/a><\/font> <\/font><\/font><\/font>(provided I can finally <\/b>get GPS service or AT&T cellular reception anywhere in these environs)<\/i>. Meanwhile, I can only content myself with their stellar array of wines, led by the exceptional 2009 Tempranillo Yolo County<\/b><\/font><\/font>.<\/font><\/div>\n

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14<\/b><\/font>) Readers here know how much I gushed over the Reserve Chardonnay from Jarvis<\/a><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font> this past spring. Here, their virtuoso winemaking continued, the results very nearly as impressive with their exceptional 2009 Tempranillo Napa Valley<\/b><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font>.<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/div>\n

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13<\/b><\/font>)<\/a> No surprise that I would offer glowing reviews for the wines Markus Bokisch<\/a><\/font><\/font> produces. This time round, their game never been as on as with their 2008 Graciano Mokelumne River<\/b><\/font><\/font>, easily the best vintage produced of their signature red varietal.<\/font><\/div>\n
12<\/b><\/font>) Introducing Markus and his wife Liz to Matthew Rorick felt like an inkling of what the late Tom Dowd must have felt pairing Eric Clapton and Duane Allman<\/a>. Hyperbolic praise? Not if you had sampled Forlorn Hope<\/a><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font>\u2019s 2006 Mil Amores<\/b>, yet another truly astounding blend of Touriga Nacional, Tinta C\u00e3o, Tinta Amarella, and Tinta Roriz (aka Tempranillo)<\/i>.<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/div>\n

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M\u00e1s a venir<\/i><\/b>, even with less than a dozen bottles left\u2026<\/font><\/div>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seven down, two to go. And even with this pithy approach to succinct (for me) postings, Your West Coast Oenophile has barely made a dent in the backlog of chronicles to which Sostevinobile has committed. \u201cIt\u2019s all about the wine,\u201d I keep telling myself. \u201cThe wine has no time frame\u2026\u201d 22) Earlier in this series, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,42,82,24,64,71,66,68],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-albarino","category-graciano","category-rose","category-tempranillo","category-tinta-amarela","category-tinta-cao","category-touriga-nacional","category-trincadeira"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.sostevinobile.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.sostevinobile.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.sostevinobile.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.sostevinobile.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.sostevinobile.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.sostevinobile.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.sostevinobile.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.sostevinobile.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.sostevinobile.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}