Rhymes with fog

The artistry of the grape

I didn’t mean to pay Bargetto short shrift in my last posting. I was originally introduced to their Chaucer’s line of Olallieberry and Raspberry wines, as well as the only domestic Mead of which I am aware. Some years later, on my first visit to their winery, I learned that they produced an intriguing range of Italian varietals (including their aforementioned 2002 La Vita), along with Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Merlot and other familiar grapes. Even though my quest for their excellent Dolcetto proved futile this time, I still returned back to San Francisco with a bottle of their 2004 Santa Cruz Mountains Nebbiolo to share on our Saturday night excursion.

The Ginkgo Girl and I joined fellow boarding school survivor Jon Welles and his wife for The International Theater Ensemble’s multimedia adaptation of Nikolai Gogol’s Нос (The Nose) at San Francisco’s Phoenix Theatre. The Nebbiolo proved a worthy complement to Paulette’s pre-performance hors d’œuvres—just what we needed to hold us over until we ventured out to dinner at the new Heaven’s Dog.

I’m told there is something propitious about the name, and it certainly has no bearing on the cuisine. Über-successful restaurateur Charles Phan has deviated here from his native Vietnamese cuisine, but proves himself equally adept at what he describes as Chinese comfort food. Moreover, there is a common dedication to sustainable design and cuisine not only between this restaurant and Sostevinobile, but with star mixologist Thad Vogler’s upcoming Bar Agricole and with Bardessono’s Phil Sherburne, who sourced much of the recycle materials built into the decor. The evening’s singular revelation came, however, from Your West Coast Oenophile’s adroit choice of a wine to accompany the eight or so menu selections that adorned our table. The 2007 Scholium Project Verdelho Naucratis Last Slough Vineyard is a wine boasts far more than a protracted name. Though principally a Portuguese varietal, winemaker Abe Schoener has crafted his expression, from Scholium’s Suisun Valley vineyards, more as a “straight Grüner Veltliner knock-off.” Let him call it what he will, it made for superb pairing.

I look forward to savoring more of Scholium Project’s wildly-experimental œnology in the not-too-distant future.

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!

It’s the dean of the matter!

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Sostevinobile isn’t just about wine. We are an enterprise striving to incorporate sustainable practices in every aspect of our business. But before Your West Coast Oenophile became a green adherent, I was Big Green. Not in the sense of the timeless icon of the Minnesota Valley Canning Company, but adopted symbol for a quaint New Hampshire college nestled on the Hanover Plain.

Dartmouth teams were once known as the Indians, but this facile ethnic stereotype was eventually deemed offensive (rightfully so) and an impediment racial understanding at the College and thus discontinued (how ironic that the putative progressive wing of the Bay Area cannot muster the same righteousness over a certain vapid musical pastiche* on stage in North Beach)! The moniker Big Green was adopted as a temporary substitute, but subsequent mascots, like the Woodsman, succumbed to strains of Monty Python’s Lumberjack Song, while Jack-O-Lantern’s truly inspired Keggie never attained official sanction.

Currently, there is a groundswell to recast the Moose as Dartmouth’s official emblem. As seen above, Moose is a beloved member of our

San Francisco household and a key transitional figure in our oft-times reclusive relationship. The Ginkgo Girl and I wholeheartedly endorse his selection.

But as faithful readers of this blog well know, I am wont to digress. The reason for my protracted preface is to segue into my excuse for the paucity of entries over the past week. For the last several days, I have been enmeshed in alumni interviewing applicants for the Class of 2013, hoping to cull the next great Classical Languages scholar or Creative Writing major. Given the pace of global warm, New Hampshire may well be the leading subtropical destination by the time these would-be matriculants graduate. With a sustained Mediterranean climate and the anticipated proliferation of Sostevinobile venues throughout selected West Coast locales by then, who knows? I may be endowing a new Department of Enology at my reunion that year.

One can only dream…

*Aspersions already have been and will continue to be cast at that jejune atrocity Beach Blanket Babylon whenever my bile acts up.

(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.

God didn’t make the little green apples…

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Your West Coast Oenophile felt a bit like Peyton Manning Thursday. Not in the sense that I could suddenly pinpoint a perfect 40-yard spiral pass nor did I feel I had become the foremost celebrity, apart from my auto-iconic former college roommate, of Indianapolis, that pseudocosmopolitan enclave primarily known for hosting of amateur athletic championships. Rather, much as Colts QB must have felt seeing his younger brother Eli succeed him as Superbowl champion, I beamed with fraternal pride as I navigated a series of wine tastings from select vineyards in Washington and Oregon.

Much corollary can be found in the dynamic of the early rivalry that matures into a genuine enthusiasm for the parallel success of one’s siblings. Being the eldest, or primus inter pares as those of us who maintain a strict credence in primogeniture are wont to describe ourselves, usually means being the first to achieve success outside the confines of the familial setting. At first, there is an almost natural tendency to denigrate the efforts or abilities of those who follow us hierarchally, the self-validating belief that “he or she will never be as accomplished as I am.” Over time, however, the solidification of one’s credentials and position gives way to a more benevolent desire to one’s consanguineous rivals achieve a measure of parity in their own right.

I freely acknowledge that early on in my wine pursuits, I scoffed at the notion of wines from California’s brethren West Coast states. I remember being approached by an AMREX colleague back in 1983 about presenting an Oregon property to the rum producers I was endeavoring to help expand their portfolio. “Oregon has enormous potential,” he proposed, but I was not to be persuaded.

Some twenty-five odd years later, it is not a revelation but an avid concession to declare that our Northern neighbors are producing wines on par with, if not infrequently exceeding, the vintages produced here. Notable Oregon wineries like Domaine Serene, Adelsheim and Argyle excel throughout the entire range of Pinots: Chardonnay, Blanc, Gris and Noir, as well as the sparkling wines based on these varietals. Washington has established its primary reputation in Syrah and Merlot, but has garnered impressive accolades for the Cabernet Sauvignon produced by Quilceda Creek, Leonetti and others.

Renowned winemakers like Randall Grahm, Piero Antinori and Jed Steele have all ventured beyond their California footholds into the Pacific Northwest. The wines I sampled over lunch Thursday underscored their confirmation of the quality these viticulture regions can produce. Northstar is an affiliate of Washington’s Château Ste. Michelle devoted exclusively to Merlot; their 2005 offering shows that this varietal can actually be made into a wine.* The signature 2007 Eroica Riesling, a collaboration with the esteemed Ernst Loosen may not parallel the heights of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, but will certainly open the eyes of any Chardonnay devotee.

Later that afternoon, I happened upon a more heterogeneous sampling of Oregon vintages, amid an array of Nike footwear and the offer of a complimentary eyebrow waxing I judiciously declined. The 2007 Torii Mor Pinot Gris may sound at first like a New Zealand import but was readily identifiable as a noteworthy Willamette Valley expression of this versatile grape. Similarly, the 2006 Willakenzie Pinot Noir Willamette Valley did much to fortify the reputation of this AVA. The wine, though, that came closest on Thursday to earning a much-coveted

was the 2005 Foris Cabernet Franc Siskiyou Terrace, a Rogue Valley production of this underappreciated varietal. I was more than happy to accept a second (and a third) sampling.

I did manage to finish the evening with tastings of a number of California wines. Though past the point of taking meticulous notes, I found the mayoral Plump Jack Cabernet and both Byron Pinot Noirs eminently agreeable. More of a revelation to me was the setting, a hitherto unknown cultural gem that now occupies the former Museum of Modern Art space in above the Green Room in San Francisco’s Veterans Building. granted, the Museum of Performance & Design may not rank in significance with San Francisco’s major repositories or even the above-referenced Indianapolis Museum of Art, but as long as they refuse to acknowledge that cacophonous abomination known as Beach Blanket Babylon, Your West Coast Oenophile will happily grant them plaudits.

*As opposed to the sub-$10 swill that so inflamed Miles Raymond.

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.

Go East, Young Man!

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Is there a substantive difference between Napa and Sonoma or are they merely two faces of the same coin? Your West Coast Oenophile does not engage in the San Francisco vs. Los Angeles dichotomy nor harbor any desire to plunge into this debate. Sostevinobile strives to be inclusive for all the wines that meet a sustainable threshold while exemplifying the highest standards of winemaking. To paraphrase Charlie the Tuna, we seek wines that taste good (and with good taste).

Nonetheless, there is a physical demarcation between these two premier winegrowing counties, so I headed east across the border for the second day of my wine swing. The powers that be were not about to underwrite a stay at Meadowood nor dinner at Bouchon (or even Ad Hoc, for that matter), so I settled for a highly overrated motel and a quick bite at Bounty Hunter. Afterwards, I fell sway to the siren call of Ali Weiss, a gifted solo performer gracing the nearby Downtown Joe’s with a full encore set. A complimentary CD and a couple shots of Balvenie later, I zigzagged back to my pool-less downtown resort, to the strains of a less mellifluous siren and an eventual night’s sleep.

As with my day in Sonoma, I started off tending to the environmental development of our premises. Immediately, I recognized that Bardessono, a premier green resort which had just opened two days before, was by far the preferable place to have stayed. Renowned eco-developer Phil Sherburne and I sat out by one of his pebble-lined reflecting pools and discussed matters of sustainable development and mutual interest. I hope we forged a relationship that will bear considerable fruit as becomes as Sostevinobile a more tangible reality.

From there, the rest of my day was devoted introducing our project to several of the wineries, a circuit that ranged from the quaint basement operations of Charter Oak to the opulence of Staglin and Darioush, a gleaming personal monument along the Silverado Trail. Someday, I would hope I could produce a Cabernet to rival their 2005 Signature Cabernet Sauvignon! In between my stops, I managed a double Joel Gott, first at his obligatory Taylor’s Automatic Refresher, a McDonald’s-be-damned paragon of drive-in burger stops, then for a golf cart-chauffered tour of The Ranch, a humongous custom crush facility in what once housed Sutter Home’s White Zinfandel operations.

An impromptu stop at Conn Creek reintroduced me to their 2005 Anthology, as well as a number of deep, rich Cabernets I had tasted last fall at Taste Napa Valley; this time, the experience was amplified by the charms and graciousness of a hyperenthusiastic young wine pourer named Amy, who confided that she had been “bitten” by the wine bug (a generation ago, I might have been “smitten”). And herein lies a contrast Your West Coast Oenophile is willing to make, between the impersonal harshness of the urbanized realm and the heartfelt accommodation one feels amid the tranquility of the vines.

From the jaded perspective of a city dweller, I am amazed how readily, with little prior introduction, people in Napa and throughout the wine country invite you into their homes and how warmly they receive you. Be it the understated setting of Rob Fanucci’s grandfather’s cottage or Shari Staglin’s commanding Rutherford estate, the civility is unaffected, if not a natural extension of their dedication to the wine that they craft.

Back when I began combing the Napa Valley, I used to stop by the Jim Warren’s St. Helena real estate office, lured, in part, by the cookies his wife Maggie would bake for me. Jim, whose father had been the governor of California and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, was a crewcut, pipe-smoking former Marine who nonetheless took on a decidedly avuncular liking to me. “It’s not just the wine,” he’d pointedly advise me. “It’s the lifestyle.”

Wish I could tell him today how right he turned out to be.

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.