Category Archives: Syrah

Præternatural Wine

Your West Coast Oenophile feels more like an OenoFill this week, having spent nearly ten hours visiting tables at Family Winemakers of California this past Sunday and Monday. It’s like undertaking a Master’s Swim class; no matter how hard you try, you can’t help but swallow a bit as you complete your interminable laps. I know I ought to rally and make it to at least some of the tastings for San Francisco Natural Wine Week that is now upon us, but we will have to see.

Natural wine is a bit hard to define, even for its proponents. There are elements, of course, that completely sync with the values that Sostevinobile espouses; nonetheless, there are indeed times when in the craft of making great wine—be it léger de main or the sheer artistry of a skilled vintner—when intervention can be warranted. And, as I have often rebuked those who monomaniacally extol the merits of terroir above all else, wine should taste of the soil, not like the soil. That small quibble aside, I’m sure the lure of good wine will lure me to at least one of the events. As they say in France, nous verrons…

The prospect of enjoying natural wine has made me ponder whether I’ve ever tasted præternatural wine. Some would justifiably apply this term to the 1945 Château Pétrus or the famed 1947 Cheval Blanc, and although I lack direct evidence, I feel confident they would be right. For me, the closest I can recall was the 2005 David Arthur Elevation 1147, a phenomenal wine that hinted at the greatness of their legendary 1997 vintage. Soon, quite soon, I hope to have added many of these ætherial wines to my list of “conquests.”

Præternatural wines do not often appear at industry grand tastings, but, as it has many times over the past 19 years, Family Winemakers did showcase a number of extraordinary bottlings. Not to mention some very good wines, as well. If only I had the endurance to taste every one of them. Figure if I allocated a scant five minutes per station, in my ten hours on the floor, I’d still only connect with 120 of the attendees—barely ⅓ of the wineries on hand—and that would be without a moment’s pause!

So, with apologies to all I must overlook, let me summarize my discoveries from this year’s gathering. In the spirit of generosity, I will first cite the 2007 Philanthropist from Indigène Cellars of Paso Robles. The somewhat odd placement of the accent grave in their name underscores their contrarian approach to the wines they blend. This assemblage of Cabernet and Petit Verdot that winemaker/owner Raymond Smith inoculated with white wine yeast might evoke cries of “Sacré Bleu” in Bordeaux, but here it drank quite artfully. Another winery from Paso Robles debuting at this tasting, HammerSky Vineyards, also presented a Bordeaux-style blend, their 2007 Party of Four, along with their noteworthy 2007 Zinfandel. Finding myself next to Paso stalwart Halter Ranch, I of course indulged in their nicely-aging 2004 Ancestor.

Older wines are not usually par for the course at these industrial tastings, so the 2004 Brion Cabernet Sauvignon from B Wise Vineyards was a happy exception. So, too, were the 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon and 2004 Syrah from Reynoso Family in Alexander Valley. Slightly younger, the 2005 Crazy Creek Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon from DeLorimier Vineyards, part of the Wilson Winery’s growing portfolio, did its Alexander Valley roots quite proud, while the 2005 Lytton Cabernet Sauvignon was quite the amiable Cab from Zinfandel territory. Many California wineries that blend their Cabernets with traditional Bordeaux varietals often omit Malbec, citing difficulties with growing this grape. Discovering the 2004 Malbec from Elements of Sonoma was therefore all the more gratifying.

The up & coming wineries in Paso Robles, Santa Maria, and Santa Barbara, on the other hand, often feel unbound by the rigidity of the French classifications, and have developed evocative Meritage blends from Bordeaux and Rhône varietals, among other apostasies. Jettlynn Winery poured two of their Masters Blend, the (predominantly 2006) NV Mon Couer, a Bordeaux blend with 4% Syrah in the mix, and the aptly-named NV Opulent, which softened with 10% Syrah. Once again, a mere table over introduced me to another Paso neighbor, Justin Kahler’s JK Wine Company, with its contrasting 2005 Syrah Chalone and 2007 Syrah del Rio, a strong showing for their Family Winemakers inaugural appearance.

And what would be a tasting without satisfying my penchant for esoteric varietals? Santa Maria’s Kenneth Volk Vineyards offered their 2006 Négrette while Arbios Cellars pleased with their 2007 Praxis Central Coast Lagrein. Slightly more familiar, Templeton’s Clavo Cellars shone with a noteworthy 2006 Grenache Blanc, while its red twin 2007 Grenache Mendocino marked Elizabeth Spencer’s high point. One could luxuriate all day in the intriguing varietals Tablas Creek produces, but I held myself to a quick sip of their 2008 Picpoul Blanc while introducing myself to fellow wine blogger Tommy Oldré. A number of Iberian wines proliferated the event, notably Fenestra Winery’s 2006 Alvarelhão, while veteran Cal-Italia specialist Graziano Family impressed with both their 2005 Enotria Dolcetto and 2007 Enotria Barbera.

The curiously-named Herman Story showcased an exemplary 2007 White Hawk Vineyard Viognier, while Calluna Vineyards, a name that might have been derived from Jerry Brown’s tenure as Governor Moonbeam, held forth with both their Bordeaux-style 2007 Calluna Cuvée and the 2007 Merlot Aux Raynauds. Twisting the tongue almost as much as Sostevinobile, Coquelicot Estate also featured their 2006 Syrah and a Meritage, the 2006 Mon Amour.

Mon amour is a term I am sure many a wine connoisseur has longed to whisper to Flowers Winery’s Keiko Niccolini, and it was not just the allure of their renowned Chardonnay and Pinot Noir that drew me to her table. So, too, did my well-documented fondness for the Yates sisters lure me to try their 2006 Cheval, a pure Cabernet Franc. Lust, of course, does not enter into my friendship with Peter Thompson of Andrew Geoffrey Vineyards, but his 2005 Diamond Mountain District Cabernet Sauvignon did inspire lascivious thoughts.

On the green side of winemaking, it was most gratifying to connect finally with LangeTwins, the Lodi appellation recently honored for their solar implementation. Their 2005 Midnight Reserve is a Bordeaux blend as admirable as their commitment to sustainability. Organically-farmed Ackerman Family presented a selection of their limited-release Cabs, culminating in a “sneak preview” of the 2005 Ackerman Family Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon. Terra Sávia was one of the few wineries bold enough to call themselves organic; their 2005 Petit Verdot made a bold statement in its own right.

I like to think of Ventana Vineyards as a somewhat traditional winery and have long been impressed with their Chardonnays, in particular; nonetheless, their 2007 Gewürztraminer Monterey Arroyo Seco was a notably subdued expression of this tangy varietal. Schug Carneros Wine Estate did, however, make their statement with the 2006 Chardonnay Heritage Reserve. Another winery that stood out in this vein was Athair Wines, with a notably crisp 2007 Chardonnay.

On the traditional red side, notable Cabernets abounded from Lawrence Harrison Vineyards, a winery led by their 101-year-old proprietress, with their 2005 Leo Joseph Cabernet Sauvignon; Tayson Pierce Estates, whose 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon barely attained the single varietal threshold, with a 75% Cabernet/25% Merlot blend; Alexander Valley’s Roth Estate, Lancaster Estate’s Cab-only division, with their 2006 vintage; Darms Lane, also a single-varietal producer from Oak Knoll in Napa, with their 2005 Darms Lane Cabernet Sauvignon, and Castello di Amorosa, Dario Sattui’s monumental erection, with their 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley.

I was hard-pressed to pick a favorite between the 2005 Hestan Cabernet Sauvignon and the 2005 Meyer Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon, both from Hestan Vineyards (perhaps they could have settled the debate if they’d brought their 2005 Stephanie Cabernet, as well). Recipient of numerous Robert Parker accolades Gemstone Vineyards offered a similar dilemma with their 2006 Facets of Gemstone Estate Red Blend, a Bordeaux-style Meritage, and the special release 2006 10th Gemstone, a Cabernet with 20% Petit Verdot blended in. Portfolio Winery, a venture in art and in wine, offered no dilemma, pouring their exquisite 2005 Portfolio Limited Edition, a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc.

is the selective accolade I bestow on wines that truly strike me as præternatural—or close to it. Certainly Clos Pepe fit the bill with their seductive 2007 Pinot Noir Santa Rita. Also dazzling in the Pinot realm was consensus favorite Wedell Cellars, with both his 2006 Wedell Cellars Santa Rita Hills Pinot Noir and his staggering 2005 Hillside Vineyard Pinot Noir from Edna Valley. Amid all the hubbub on the floor of the Festival Pavilion, I fell sway to the worldly charms of Jennifer Hong from TGIC Importers, who steered me to the wines of Skipstone Ranch; both their 2007 Makena’s Vineyard Viognier and Bordeaux-style 2005 Oliver’s Blend dazzled with their organically-farmed grapes. Jennifer, however, held the great surprise to the tasting herself as the representative for Paso Robles’ Opolo Vineyards. Their 2005 Rhapsody was yet another standout Bordeaux Meritage, but the 2006 Montagna-Mare, a blend of Barbera and Sangiovese, truly stole my heart.

As an addendum, I did manage to sneak out and attend the Natural Wine Week tasting at Arlequin in the midst of composing this piece. Look for my findings in my next blog entry.

What a difference a bridge makes!

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In my endless quest for a leaner, sleeker physique, Your West Coast Oenophile twice cycled from San Francisco to Muir Beach over the recent seven day span. Nice to reconnect with the Pacific Ocean. Nice to know my legs still have enough endurance at my particular age to make the climb over the slope of Mt. Tamalpais to the flat stretch of shoreline at the foot of Muir Woods. Nice to have a healthy tan, once again, in places the sun doesn’t ordinarily shine…

Anyway, when Sunday rolled around, I felt entitled to a day of leisure. I locked up my 14-speed Trek road bike and headed over the Bay Bridge to Mayberry on the Bay, the quaint little hamlet also known as Alameda Island. Even though it is no more than a stone’s throw from Oakland, Alameda can feel worlds apart, an oasis of by-gone times where people left their doors unlocked and knew all their neighbors. Alameda’s terrain is uncommonly flat, compared with the rest of the towns encircling the Bay, and its prevalent architecture appealing yet without even a hint of modernity.

I worked on the island for a year, following the 1989 earthquake, a rather challenging commute while the Cypress Freeway remained felled. Nowadays, the roadways leading from the Bay Bridge have all been restored, while the Alameda Naval air Station has been decommissioned, two factors that have dramatically changed the landscape here. Both Rosenblum Cellars and St. George Spirits now operate out of the former Navy base, while newcomer Rock Wall’s facilities has recently opened nearby. But what drew me over on Sunday was an eclectic gathering billed as EcoLuxe: Lifestyles of the Green and Fabulous.

A modern, state-of-the-art, sustainable building would probably contrast rather jarringly amid the stately and dilapidated Queen Anne Victorians that dot the residential part of Alameda. The new home EcoLuxe was featuring was actually set on the back corner of a subdivided lot, barely visible from the street, not unlike the carriage houses one finds at some of the grander mansions here in San Francisco. I found myself circling the block two or three times before I realized I was actually at the correct address. Upon arriving, I was effusively greeted by Jerusha Stewart, hostess for this event and self-promoting proprietress of The Last Single Girl in the World.

I am told that Jerusha puts on events—extravaganzas, actually—populated by some of the most beautiful women in the Bay Area. Soon, I may have to find out. This event, however, was more of a low-key affair.

A nice affair, actually. There was a very nice photo exhibit in the garage area. Success the Smart Way offered an array of green cleaning products, along with a raffle for a basket of goodies. Out back, the team from Garden Fare showcased the diverse edible garden they had planted around the perimeter of the patio, offering some of the largest (pomelo-sized!) onions known to mankind. All in all (as I’m sure fans of the old Andy Griffith Show would concur), Aunt Bee would have approved,

Upstairs, noted vegan soul food chef and cookbook author Bryant Terry prepared an organic gazpacho from heirloom tomatoes. Though I am not one to relish the constraints of vegan cooking (no mozzarella?), I have to admit this cold soup was quite refreshing on a warm summer afternoon. Of course, the house itself was quite temperate, having been designed with meticulous attention to green details, including a 2.45kW Rated Solar Energy System, High Efficiency (92%) Heating with heat recovery ventilation, and passive design for natural lighting and ventilation. Architect Sinan Sabuncuoglu employed a host of recycled materials in his building, with liberal use of bamboo and cork flooring, reclaimed Caeserstone countertops and durable Trex decking material forged from reclaimed wood and plastic. In vogue everywhere beyond the expanse of greater Mt. Pilot, highly-efficient recycled cotton denim furnished non-toxic insulation throughout the house.

Back in the 1960s, Aunt Bee would likely have put the kibosh on alcoholbeingserved at an afternoon gathering, but in these modern times, Sostevinobile was pleased to find dedicated sustainable wine producer Bouchaine supplying the libationsAgain, the chilled 2008 Rosé of Syrah was a perfect “grab a few rays on the sun deck” refresher. The 2006 Chardonnay was also quite welcome outside, while the 2006 Pinot Noir seemed to blend nicely with the ambience of the living room. If I had to offer a criticism of this trio, however, it was that none of them truly stood out, seeming rather competent than enticing. In an odd sort of symmetry, this spec house, too, seemed a tad ordinarily, despite all its environmental bells and whistles. Given its setting, sharing a lot with a more dominant front house, it seemed to lack the kind of easy, airy spaciousness that one usually associates with a green environment. Still, I applaud the motivation and efforts of both winemaker and builder alike.

Hostess Jerusha announced that this party was her swan song, for the time being, as she was relocating to sweltering Phoenix sometime this week. I bade my farewells and zigzagged my way across Oakland to inspect the much-heralded Camino, a veritable temple for the farm-to-table movement. Even Camino’s æsthetic, with a complete absence of common spirit brands and a wealth house-made ingredients derived from seasonal produce and herbs. And, of course, to my eternal consternation, every single wine of Camino’s list is imported!

I know I ought to be grateful that such contradictions are providing the niche upon which Sostevinobile is founded, but I felt compelled to express my incredulity. I treated myself to a cocktail made with brandy and vermouth, infused with the house-made bitters and tapped out a few note on my iPhone before heading around the corner for the debut of Lake Chalet.

The folks from San Francisco’s Beach Chalet, a venerable institution they have modernized as a brewpub since its fall into disrepair in the late 1980s, have taken on the remodel of this facility on Oakland’s Lake Merritt. There’s still a few finishing touches that remain, but when all is complete, the three sections of this enormous waterfront complex will hold over 400 seats! the place is beautiful, of course, even spectacular, with its sweeping vistas over the water and dominant position along what is arguably Oakland’s most beautiful landmark. I just don’t see how they can make a go of it.

Driving to the Lake Chalet is a challenge. One-way streets make accessing the restaurant a somewhat arduous proposition, often requiring a loop around several blocks in search of parking. A water approach is a whole other story. Unlike waterfront bars one finds in Berkeley or Tiburon or even along San Francisco’s Embarcadero, the Lake Chalet sits atop an artificial lake that offers no ingress from the San Francisco Bay for any kind of sail or motor boat. Nautical enthusiasts can only dock alongside the restaurant if they are launching from somewhere along Lake Merritt. Filling even a major fraction of the seats here on a regular basis will be an enormous challenge (as a comparison, the recently-closed Pres a Vi in The Presidio also offered an unparalleled setting, a well-respected parent operation, ingress from both San Francisco and Marin, yet never came close to filling their 325 seats during their barely two years of operations).

My visit to the Lake Chalet was brief; my urge to cross the bridge back to the West Bay quickly overcame me. I’ll return someday soon, to be sure. After all, with another birthday on the horizon, I need to come up with a place the Gingko Girl can take me.

Hinduism had damn well better be wrong!

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This isn’t part of my incessant rant against those infuriating outsourced call centers whose mangling of even the most basic tenets of conversational English (“how might I best facilitate the rectification of your importuned perturbance most congruently Mr. Marc?”) manages to elicit threats annihilating Bangalore from this foresworn pacifist. Rather, I speak of their—one would certainly hope—erroneous concept of reincarnation, where even a minor malfeasance could condemn a poor soul to enduring a subsequent lifecycle as an aardvark or some scatophagous species like a housefly.

If there really is reincarnation, I want to come back as Jamaican or a Caribbean Islander. Not because I find the accent so appealing. Nor is it necessarily the allure of a tropical climate or the island cuisine that is primarily focused on fresh fruit and seafood. And rest assured, Your West Coast Oenophile is not secretly harboring a desire to switch from wine to rum. Or ganja. No, in my next life, I simply want to be a professional steel drum player.

Wafts of reggae fusion filled the lawn at the Oakland Ferry terminal Saturday afternoon as the East Bay Vintners Alliance staged their fourth annual Urban Wine Experience. For a moment, it almost seemed that UB40 was entertaining the crowd, but the sound belonged entirely to Bay Area Caribbean stars Pan Extasy, with their star percussionist, Ashton Craig. To call Craig a virtuoso on the steel drum is an understatement—his tantalizing arrangements of The Temptations’ Just My Imagination and Van Morrison’s Brown Eyed Girl to reggae standards like No Woman, No Cry and I Can See Clearly Now provided the perfect backdrop to these sun-drenched festivities.

I was in attendance on behalf of Sostevinobile and, of course, to taste the wines that an eclectic collection of 16 East Bay vintners exhibited. The organizers of this event smartly paired each of the wineries with an individual food purveyor from the East Bay, as well, and I would be remiss in not recognizing the contributions of Adagia Restaurant, Angela’s Bistro, Asena Restaurant, Bellanico, Bucci, C’era Una Volta (a return visit from June’s Golden Glass), Culina, E-22 Café, Fabrique Délices, Levende East, the resurrected Miss Pearl’s Jam House, Pappo, Savory Cook Special Event Catering, Whole Foods, and—truly the last word in culinary circles—Zza’s Trattoria, Enoteca & Catering. As readers might expect, the abundance of Italian cuisine was hardly a disappointment. Various duck dishes seemed to abound, as well; a portent of which may well have been the huge gaggle of 60+ waterfowl I espied as I drove into Oakland, huddled together on nearby Coast Guard Island as if in complete trepidation of what lay ahead down the road.

As I had at P.S. I Love You, I started the tasting with Rock Wall, eager to sample what they were producing beyond Petite Sirah. Though young, I found their 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley showed great promise. Standout for me, though, was their 2007 Zinfandel Sonoma County, which I felt exceeded the Reserve version they were also pouring. Over at the next table, parent winery Rosenblum Cellars filled in for the regrettably absent Stage Left Cellars. Frankly, if they would always pour their 2007 Rockpile Zinfandel, I’d be happy to let them substitute for any winery they wished!

Rosenblum also poured their 2007 Fess Parker Roussanne. I generally find Roussanne preferable to Marsanne, except in the case of Alameda’s groundbreaking winery, where the latter varietal has always outshone the former (this afternoon proved no exception). Ironically, Rosenblum’s former winemaker, Jeff Cohn’s JC Cellars poured their 2007 Preston Vineyards Marsanne, alongside an excellent catfish entrée from Miss Pearl’s Jam House; I found it slightly wanting compared to his previous efforts, but satisfying nonetheless. Better exemplifying his skills was the 2007 Smoke & Mirrors, a Syrah balanced out 9% Petite Sirah and 6% Zinfandel. Quite a satisfying wine! At the next table, Rob Lynch’s Irish Monkey can best be described as a quixotic operation with some notable offerings. Their chilled 2008 Chardonnay Davis was most welcome in the 85°F heat, while their 2006 Syrah Lovall Valley was noteworthy in it own right. As instructed, I washed down C’era Una Volta’s creamy polenta plate with the 2006 Sangiovese Amador—indeed, it was splendid.

Valdiguié is not the most complex varietal, despite its tongue-twisting morphology; still, it readily adapts to a blush expression (again, quite welcome on a sweltering afternoon). I chilled down with Urbano Cellars’ version, their 2008 Vin Rosé, Green Valley and also found myself grateful for their 2006 Petit Verdot, Lodi. Unfortunately, their next door neighbor, Urban Legend, had promised to bring a tantalizing selection of Sangiovese, Teroldego, and Nebbiolo, but only mustered a premature sample of their unreleased Barbera. Allora!

A number of familiar faces were pouring this afternoon. Oakland standout Dashe Cellars brought an exceptional 2007 Zinfandel, Dry Creek Valley and 2008 Vin Gris, Dry Creek Valley (a blend of 40% Grenache, 30% Zinfandel and 30% Petite Sirah) to match. I also enjoyed their 2007 Dry Riesling, McFadden Farms Potter Valley. French-affiliated Aubin Cellars offered a fetching pair of Pinots from their Verve Label, the 2007 Pinot Noir Monterey Old Vines and the 2006 Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast—I forget which I preferred!

Even if Eno Wines was substandard, it would still be a pleasure to see Sasha Verhage and his wife Kiara. Nonetheless, their 2006 Yes Dear (Grenache, Eaglepoint Ranch), 2006 Acre of Happiness (Zinfandel, Teldeschi) and 2006 In Your Own Time (Syrah, Las Madres) all stood out as exemplary. I’ve also long enjoyed the wines from R & B Cellars, though I had yet to make the acquaintance of Kevin Brown before this afternoon. Ironically, none of their musically-themed labels (Swingville, Zydeco, Serenade) echoed the diverse selection (socca, reggae, calypso, Caribbean Jazz) that Pan Extasy included in its repertoire, which may account for why I was extremely partial to his 2004 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon and am eagerly awaiting the 2005 version.

This penchant for quaint names extended to Prospect 772, perhaps my favorite discovery of the afternoon. Along with some intriguing offerings from Bucci’s in Emeryville, including a shaved fennel cold dish, I reveled in their 2008 Baby Doll Dry Rosé, the self-styled pugnacious 2006 The Brawler (a Syrah tempered with 4% Viognier) and their standout 2006 The Brat (a 80% Grenache/20% Syrah blend). Another newcomer, Andrew Lane, blended Syrah, Zinfandel and Valdiguié to make their 2007 Andrew Lane Rosso Napa Valley. More distinctive, however, was their 2005 Andrew Lane Merlot and their multi-vintage Gamay Noir Four Vineyards Napa Valley.

On the food side of things, the Urban Wine Experience began with a Duck Paté and finished with a Duck Confit. This latter concoction paired up admirably with the 2005 Troubadour Paso Robles, an equal blend of Grenache and Petite Syrah from Tayerle. Though not listed on the program, they also poured their just-released 2006 Sun King, a Bordeaux-style red blended from Cabernet Sauvignon, Petit Verdot and Malbec. Of course, I managed to save some room for dessert, which consisted of pure liquid delight in the form of Mango Wine and Persimmon Wine from Adams Point.

On my way out, I held the iPhone up to Pan Extasy’s bandstand, so the Ginkgo Girl could hear a portion of what she had missed. It would be a shame if she misses any more of these gatherings. Nicely tanned and filled with both good wine and good duck, I strolled through Jack London Square and quiet soberly made my way back to San Francisco (after all, it would have been a shame to meet my end after such an enjoyable afternoon).

I still sometimes think the world is merely a figment of my imagination and therefore feel compelled to remain alive forever. But if I do go and reappear, I had better not downgrade to mallard the next time around. Human (or better) is a must, and if I am not gifted with an uncanny ear for melody, an intuitive sense of rhythm, and agile hands that can hammer out an intoxicating Calypso melody across the gleaming metal surface of a kettle drum, then at least let me come back as tall as fellow locavore pioneer and Caribbean rum authority Thad Vogler!

Goodnight Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are.

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Someday, someone (not Your West Coast Oenophile) should open a winery primarily focused on Petite Sirah and call it Schnozzola Vineyards. Or, to be a little less obscurant, Durante Cellars. The connection? Whenever I hold up a truly wondrous glass of this underappreciated varietal, its lush, ebony tincture devoid even of a hint of pellucidity, I find myself quietly humming strains of Inka Dinka Doo, the signature song of this beloved, malapropistic Italian comedian.

OK, so even if a wine could be characterized as having a big nose, I’m not sure it’s an epithet I’d readily employ. Unquestionably, however, I would characterize Petite Sirah as a big wine. Bold and forthright, with a flavor that can hold its own against a Filet Mignon or venison. Not to mention Pasta al Sugo di Salcisse. Or exquisitely-rendered Ostrich medallions. Suffice it to say that Petite Sirah can easily be matched to any entrée that pairs with Zinfandel; Zins may express a great range of complexity, but, in general, Petite Sirahs will hold their own over a longer duration.

Last Tuesday, I ventured out to Livermore to taste a smorgasbord of these wines as part of the Seventh Annual Petite Symposium but on by the varietal’s principal advocacy, P.S. I Love You. Fittingly, this gathering was held at Concannon Vineyards, which holds claim to the first varietally-labeled release of Petite Sirah in California. I should have known this, of course, but flubbed my response when queried on the matter by Jim Concannon, an embarrassing moment not unlike the exchange from Cheech & Chong’s Let’s Make a Dope Deal (our first question: what is your name, Bob?).

Fortunately for me, none of the wineries pouring their fare managed such an egregious faux pas. I started off at Rock Wall’s station. This new wine venture is fondly known as Rosenblum—The Next Generation, and with her 2007 Rock Wall Petite Sirah Mendocino County, daughter Shauna manifests her heredity quite ably. Next table over Rosenblum père held his own, as expected, with a trio of wines, the most notable being his 2005 Kick Ranch Petite Sirah. At the next stop, I discovered Nord Estate Vineya
rds, where owner Julie Nord poured generous samples of her 2004 Napa Valley Petite Sirah Jonquil Vineyards.

Clarksburg is a small town in Yolo County and an AVA that encompasses parts of neighboring Sacramento and Solano Counties, as well. The 2004 Heringer Estate Petite Sirah was a fine example of what this region is capable of producing. Clarkburg’s most prominent winery, Bogle Vineyards, showcased three versions of their Petite Sirah, the 2007 Petite Sirah, the more striking 2006 Petite Sirah Reserve from Quick Ranch and a compelling 2006 Petite Sirah Port selected from the same vineyard. Actually, there were quite a number of different regions represented, despite the relatively small size of this tasting, including a selection of four distinctive Petites from host Concannon of the Livermore Valley, highlighted by their 2005 Captain Joe’s Petite Sirah, Livermore Valley.

Several Sierra wineries showed why Petite Sirah readily adapts to this cold climate. Fiddleton’s Cal-Italia specialist, Il Gioiello, featured their 2005 Estate Petite Sirah from Amador County (Sierra Foothills). From Nevada City, the ebullient Alex Szabo brought his 2006 Szabo Vineyards Petite Syrah Block 1. And Oakstone Winery’s Steve Ryan showcased his 2007 Petite Sirah Jeoff and Katy Vineyard from Fair Play. At the opposite end of the spectrum, Edwards Cellars from Ramona (San Diego County) showed a respectable 2004 Petite Sirah Ramona Valley from this notably warmer region. Mediating between these two extremes, the Central Coast’s Vina Robles pour their 2007 Petite Syrah, Jardine.

The permutations of how different wineries spell this varietal certainly argues for standardizing it as Durif, its other nomenclature, in honor of French nurseryman Dr. François Durif, who cloned this varietal by pollinating Peloursin with Syrah. As this debate continues within the wine world, it seemed in arguable that the 2006 Artezin Garzini Ranch Petite Sirah Mendocino County from Hess Collection was as big as its name. Nearby in Lake County, Langtry Estate, the umbrella operation to Guenoc, featured both their 2006 Guenoc Petite Sirah Lake County and a very sumptuous 2005 Langtry Petite Sirah Serpentine Meadow, a fitting tribute to winemaker Maria Navarro’s craft. Nearby in Cloverdale, winemaker Miroslav Tcholakov displayed both the 2004 La Storia Petite Sirah from Trentadue and the award-winning 2006 Miro Cellars Petite Sirah, his own label. Also from Sonoma County, Fortress Vineyards debuted their 2007 Petite Sirah Red Hills Lake County.

is a plaudit longtime readers of this blog know that I dispense rather sparingly. today’s entry will be no exception. Still in keeping with my Durante motif, I must bestow an Ha-cha-cha-cha-cha on the 2007 Silkwood Petite Sirah from Monnich Family; this multi-award winning wine was every bit as velvety as the texture of its distinctive label. Another gold medal winner from the Central Valley was the 2006 Petite Sirah from Maley Brothers of Woodbridge.

Of course, it seems only logical that Petite Sirah should have had its greatest representation from Napa County. The inveterate Stags’ Leap proffered their 2006 Napa Valley Petite Syrah. Single Varietal producer Fulton Mather increased the tally with his 2005 David Fulton Winery, Estate Petite Sirah. And, from among the multifarious labels produced by RDJ Artisan Wines, the 2007 Seven Artisans Petite Sirah from Clayton Road Ranches (Suisun Valley) placed a wonderful coda to the afternoon.

While I appreciated the intimacy of this tasting, I do need to admonish P.S. I Love You for not providing a program that detailed the wineries on hand and the individual wines they poured. Expecting to find such a guide in the press kit, I was initially at a loss for composing this entry until I corresponded with each of the attendees.Not only did nearly everyone e-mail back immediately back with their particulars, it was extremely gratifying to see how the wineries expressed such tremendous enthusiasm for Sostevinobile and for having their wines included in our program. As the irrepressible Jimmy Durante so often said, “Everybody wants to get into the act!”

My Big Green Weekend

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Confession: it’s been a while since Your West Coast Oenophile has honed in the sustainable component of Sostevinobile. All things in due course, so they say, and my focus on putting together such a comprehensive wine program must remain the paramount focus of my efforts (oh, and then there’s the not inconsiderable demands of sourcing the financing needed to power our proverbial environmentally-friendly engine). Nonetheless, my sojourn this past weekend introduced me to an array of sustainable ventures and innovations encircling the San Francisco Bay.

I finally made the trek Saturday to the new Berkeley Bowl West, a paean to both sustainable food and environmental design, with its 140,000 sq. ft. solar-powered facility. There’s a decidedly different dynamic to this outpost, though hard to tell whether it’s just the newness of the site (technically, they’re still celebrating their Grand Opening) or whether something different is indeed underway. The new store seems almost minimalist in comparison with its parent location—not in terms of its selection of fresh produce, which remains quite vast, but in its sense of layout and decor. The new store is clean and linear, whereas the old store seems cluttered and funky.

Described by its architects as “a one-of-a-kind, green, environmentally friendly, and sustainable marketplace”, the former feels like a showcase for green architecture;the latter, an elaborate indoor farmer’s market. The clientele at Berkeley Bowl West looked notably different; still in time, perhaps, a more tie-dyed æsthetic will emerge. Also absent, in a most welcome sense, were the interminable checkout lines that inundate the Oregon Street facility.

The solar rooftop panels at Berkeley Bowl West are expected to generate 149,633 kWh—the equivalent of 179,560 lbs. in carbon dioxide emissions—every year. Amidst the illumination provided by this renewable energy, I made my perfunctory inspection, sampled a few of the freebies, snuck a sun-dried tomato slice from the bulk bins, then wandered across the courtyard to its adjacent satellite, the Berkeley Bowl Cafe, where I actually purchased a ginger ale and cookie to sustain me on the drive up to Carneros (I find comfort food a welcome deviation when the Ginkgo Girl is out of sorts).

I used to drive to Napa via the East Bay quite a bit in the 1980s, so I could look in on the grandmother of a friend who had returned to the East Coast for graduate studies. Since her passing, I’ve tended to head over the Golden Gate Bridge and cross over from Sonoma, which seems less industrial and CHP-prone. No matter what, I made the trek in ample time to arrive midway through the inauguration of Cuvaison’s green tasting room at its Carneros Estate Vineyard.

This new facility was designed by San Francisco architect Douglas Thornley, this pristine structure, along with its companion office space, is again decidedly minimalist in its approach and features a wide array of energy saving technologies, including denim insulation. The design of the tasting room takes maximum advantage of its elevated perch looking out onto the Carneros Valley. It is a vista few wineries can rival.

Cuvaison Estate Wines is a certified Napa Green Winery, both here and at its Calistoga facility, with 1,428 solar panels that generate up to 252kW at the Carneros winery. Its environmental practices focus on Winery Water Conservation and Quality, Soil Management, Solid Waste Reduction and Management, Energy Efficiency and, of course, Wine Quality. With ample helpings of dim sum (what? no potato plastic utensils?) provided by San Francisco’s Yank Sing, I managed to sample five of their current releases. Greeters poured each guest the 2008 Vin Gris of Pinot Noir as they signed in—given the heat of the afternoon, this splendid Rosé almost seemed a necessity. I followed this introduction with a taste of their 2008 Sauvignon Blanc, an unpretentious expression of this varietal that had extracted any hint of grassiness. The 2007 Chardonnay Carneros was clean and straight-forward. Similarly, Cuvaison’s 2007 Pinot Noir Carneros and 2007 Syrah Carneros seemed to straddle a mid-point between food-focused wine and the kind of vintage one tends to quaff simply for its inherent pleasure. I told winemaker Steve Rogstad I found these wines “restrained” in their presentation and structure; he seemed immensely pleased.

The views beyond Cuvaison’s terrace, as well as those alongside it, made it hard to pry myself away from these festivities, but I was obliged to trek onward to the quiet Sonoma hamlet of Sebastopol in order to inspect the new operations of Pizza Vino 707. Owner and fellow Hotchkiss survivor Stephen Singer is perhaps best known for developing the wine program at Chez Panisse; ironically, the Eurocentricity of this program amid Chez Panisse’s pioneering S.O.L.E. (sustainable, organic, local, ethical) food commitment provided my impetus for developing Sostevinobile. Stephen produces a remarkably restrained Syrah under his own Baker Lane label, also in Sebastopol. The ostensible purpose of my visit was to taste the Baker Lane Pinot Noir, but the restaurant has yet to stock these wines or the other local vintages they plan to feature, so I held my visit to exchanging a few pleasantries before returning to San Francisco.

On my way home, however, I became sidetracked by the festivities at Sebastopol’s 75-year-old Enmanji Buddhist Temple. Obon Oduri can best be described as Zen line dancing (thankfully without the cloying strains of Billy Ray Cyrus’ Achy Breaky Heart). I couldn’t help but sit along the sidelines and spectate as the ring of kimono-clad women and men in varying degrees of Western attire traipsed around the makeshift platform, waving lotus-shaped fans as they sauntered by.

Zen is, of course, the Japanese expression of Buddhism spiritually akin to the tenets of the sustainability movement, but is frequently coöpted by alternative practitioners here in the western United States. I could not help but marvel at the seeming anomaly of Asian congregants at Enmanji—an oxymoron to those who have ever attended zazen at the Green Gulch zendo in Muir Beach. Nonetheless, to a casual observer, Enmanji seems little different than any other mainstream American parish, with its temple, Sunday school classes, ample parking lot, and combined meeting hall/gymnasium.

Several years ago, I worked up a comedy routine about being the only white student at a Buddhist parochial school, St. Siddhartha’s, where I starred on the senior high basketball squad, the Flaming Monks. Towering above the rest of my classmates at a lofty 5’7″, I was Russell, I was Chamberlain, I was Kareem! (Many years later, I found myself having similar fantasies as I gazed upon a roomful of the tops of heads as I mingled among the San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association, but this remains fodder for a later blog entry).

In all seriousness, the celebration at Enmanji was a delightful event I felt privileged to have a chance to witness it. Happy to find so many kindred spirits in this remote sector of Sonoma County, I treated myself to an oversized cupcake and commemorative fan before heading back to San Francisco. Along the way, I stopped in Mill Valley to fill my car up with gas and myself with a well-deserved shot of grappa at Piazza D’Angelo before heading across the Golden Gate Bridge.

Summer weather in San Francisco can be remarkably fickle. After a gloriously warm day on Saturday, I envisioned rising Sunday morning and cycling across the Golden Gate Bridge for some much-needed solar rejuvenation on the sands of Muir Beach. With a pristine tan invigorating every square centimeter of my dermis, I then planned to ride into Cow Hollow and join

my fellow Dartmouth alums in greeting the Big Green Bus at the San Francisco stop along its nationwide tour. A dense fog and high winds, however, curtailed my trek as I rode through the Presidio; with pale complexion and only minimal expenditure of energy, I rolled downhill and joined the gathering at Perry’s on Union Street.

The tonic of my (would-be) athleticism was countered by the sobering revelation of discovering several offspring of my coevals, now undergraduates at the College, in attendance. Still, we managed to bond as contemporaries in our common zeal for sustainability. Since 2005, 15 students have dedicated themselves each summer to manning a 1989 MCI coach modified to run on reclaimed biodiesel fuel and crisscrossing the continent in this working laboratory for alternative energy and sustainable living practices. With solar panels , deep cycle batteries, a 4000-watt Xantrex XW series inverter, bamboo flooring from EcoTimber and computer cases forged from recycled PET plastic bottles, it is commendable endeavor.

Amid the festivities and comradery, I offered to treat one of the young volunteers to a glass of wine. She ordered a Malbec from (shudder!) Argentina. Oh well! Perhaps in 2010, Sostevinobile will be able to host this annual gathering and share our insights into sustainable viticultural practices with these laudable trailblazers from the Big Green!

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!

PINOTPHILIA!

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Pinot Noir double-entendres have long abounded. Any day now, I half-expect Fred Franzia (or one of his relatives) to come out with a low-end “expression” of the varietal and call it SubPinot. If there were clever marketers in South America, they might come out with Pinot Che, a joint Bolivian-Chilean (shades of Vin Mariani?) effort. Pinot Envy might be a tad facile, but has been used numerous times over the years, so I’m not sure who can lay claim to originating it. The clever folks at Paul Mathew Vineyards push the envelope a bit further—maybe quite a bit further—with their slogan Let Me Put My Pinot in Your Mouth! I am more than happy to pay homage to such deft mastery.

Still, I cannot extricate myself from this thread before extolling my own foray into the esoteric and alliterative practice of Pinot punning. Not long after ATF withheld label approval for my George Herbert Walker Blush—A Kinder, Gentler Wine, I again approached Pat Paulsen with a surefire way to save his winery from being padlocked by the IRS. The concept was utterly straightforward. After 25 years of futilely pursuing the White House, Pat was to hold a news conference announcing that he was giving up politics and assuming the mantle of junk bond king from disgraced financier Mike Milken, who had just pled guilty to six charges of securities fraud and reporting violations (out of an indictment of 98 charges of fraud and racketeering). Following his announcement, he would open an office on Wilshire Blvd. called Paulsen Burnem Baad, which would offer the most worthless junk bonds ever issued. However, foreshadowing the emergence of Wine Clubs that nearly every winery now offers, these bonds would yield their bearers four shipments a year of wine from Château Lompoc, also known as The Wine Served Behind the Finest Bars in America. Each of our four wines would feature a series of twelve scenic labels: Pat playing tennis with the warden at Club Fed, etc. We planned to offer two generics: White Collar Crime and Caught Red Handed, as well as a pair of evocatively-named varietals: Chino Pardonnay, and, of course, Penal Noir.

Pat’s business sensibilities were not as acute as his comic timing. By the time he finally decided to move forward on this idea, the IRS had seized his winery and taken the keys to Asti’s City Hall (having purchased the entire town, Paulsen had declared himself mayor by sheer fiat). Alas, Château Lompoc turned out to be the last direct foray into the wine industry Your West Coast Oenophile attempted until launching Sostevinobile.

I suppose there might be a moral to this story, but, for now, it eludes me. And so it was with great pleasure that I managed, for yet another year, to elude the Gomorrahist gala known as the Pride Parade to undertake the formidable task of handicapping the Pinot Days Grand Tasting last Sunday. With the Ginkgo Girl off on some personal quest, I managed to rise well in advance of the noontime whistle and headed straight from my coffee and morning ablutions to the Festival Pavilion at Fort Mason. Though focused on but a single varietal (albeit surreptitiously joined by its Burgundian cohort, as well as a handful of Syrahs), the Tasting managed to exude a distinctly heterogeneous feel, with a panoply of over 200 wineries pouring Pinot Noir and sparkling derivatives from California and Oregon.

Judging by the turnout, the promoters of this annual event had every reason to feel gay—I mean, elated. Unlike the noticeably sparser attendance at Rhône Ranger and ZAP this past year, the crowd flocked to Pinot Days in full force. If only this were a harbinger for the economy as a whole! Their fortuitousness, however, became my challenge, and within moments of my arrival, I realized there was no possible way to cover every one of the wineries on hand.

Of course, I might have visited more of the attendees, had I not gotten caught up in a handful of conversations with long-standing acquaintances in the trade (my apologies to the promoters of Pinot Days, but if these talks turn into much-needed funding for Sostevinobile, we’ll all be better off for it). Bill Canihan, arguably the leading vintner in San Francisco’s Marina District, sampled his wonderful 2006 Canihan Wines Pinot Noir and snuck in a taste of his highly regarded 2006 Exuberance Syrah while we caught up on a wide range of wine happenings. Across the aisle, I reacquainted myself with the folks from Olson Ogden, whose 2007 Russian River Pinot Noir matched the show-stopping Pinot with which I was introduced to them three years ago. To their left, another old familiar, Orsi Papale featured a rich 2006 Russian River Pinot Noir. On their other side, I met Joe and Mary Toboni, the husband-wife team behind Oakwild Ranch, as well as their eponymous vineyard that supplies Pinot Grapes to several other Sonoma ventures. A sample of their 2007 Russian River Pinot Noir showed why their grapes are so highly prized by others.

Oakwild Ranch is listed as a San Francisco-based venture with a decidedly Sonoma name; Russian Hill Estate is a Sonoma venture with an ambiguously San Francisco name. I found no confusion, however, in delighting in their 2007 Russian River Pinot Noir and its compatriot 2007 Russian Hill Estate Pinot Noir. Also from Sonoma, acclaimed winemaker Don Van Staaveren showed his considerable prowess with the 2005 Sand Hill Pinot Noir, Durell Vineyard that made me wish I had had enough time to retaste his Three Sticks wines

This time, I did not miss his Eighth Street East neighbor Talisman Cellars, with their splendid 2005 Hawk Hill Vineyard Russian River Pinot Noir. Equally pleasing was the 2007 Longbow Pinot Noir from Arista Winery. Nearby in Santa Rosa, BATON Wines produced a formidable 2007 Laguna Ridge Pinot Noir while Benovia Winery produced a more modestly named 2007 Sonoma Pinot Noir. Normally, I’d have been a bit wary of a winery that lists, as its address, that capital of colorless conformity, but San Jose’s Coterie Cellars came through admirably with both their 2007 Fairview Pinot Noir and 2007 Saralee’s Vineyard Pinot Noir. Also hailing from an urban locale, Furthermore Vineyards offer a 2006 Pinot Noir, Bohemian Vineyard, Russian River Valley that attracted considerable fanfare.

Once again, I became entangled in a long conversation with fellow Dartmouth alum Andy Peay while sampling his always remarkable 2007 Estate Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast. This mired me for quite a while amid the P’s, where the aforementioned Paul Mathew Vineyards showed their wine pedigree with their 2006 Paul Mathew Pinot Noir TnT Vineyard. From Carmel Valley, Pelerin Wines may have lacked business cards but more than compensated with a trio of Pinots: 2006 Cuvée St. Vincent, 2007 Rosella’s, and a wonderful 2007 Santa Lucia Highlands. I’m debating whether Sostevinobile can properly included the geographic anomaly of Périple, an Idaho winery that sources its grapes from California and ferments them here before bottling in Boise (talk about a carbon footprint!), but 2007 Russian River Valley-Pinot Noir Inman Olivet showed little ill effect from the long journey through the Grand Tetons. A more environmentally-friendly trek brought Point Concepcion’s 2007 Cargasacchi Vineyard Pinot Noir Santa Rita Hills to Fort Mason, and it proved a fortuitous discovery.

The sweltering heat of the afternoon made the 2008 Ramona Rosé of Pinot Noir from Nicholson Ranch a refreshing relief; its companion 2007 Pinot Noir Sonoma Valley Estate proved no slackard, either. I suspect that Kastania Vineyards derived its name from an Anglicized version of the original, and I suggested that a castagna (chestnut) might be a more fitting emblem than the gufo (owl) they currently employ. Nonetheless, their 2006 Kastania Pinot Noir, Estate Proprietor’s Reserve proved overwhelmingly true to its name. Nearby, the 2007 Pinot Noir Sleepy Hollow Vineyard, Santa Lucia Highlands from hope & grace displayed as big a wine as its gargantuan name. Sadly, I had time for just one more winery, but I closed out the tasting on a definite high note with Hirsch Vineyard, whose 2007 M Pinot Noir and justly acclaimed 2006 Hirsch Vineyard Pinot Noir proved well worth the wait.

If there was any downside to this year’s Pinot Days, it was the relative paucity of Oregon wineries in attendance. Of course, it is always welcome to see Domaine Serene at any gathering, but with only 5 or 6 other wineries making the trek from north of our state border, one still must surmise that the weakened economy is taking its toll. Notably absent on this day was Styring Vineyards, who nonetheless furnished the event with an evocatively sensual video. The all-too-oft-quoted Miles Raymond could not have put it to word any better, nor could my own alliterative phraseology and innuendos have composed such an ultimate paean to heterosexuality as The Passion of Pinot.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Since 2003, Slow Food San Francisco has sponsored the Golden Glass, a celebration of food and wine that adheres to the principles of the Slow Food Nation. The recent 6th Annual Festival in Fort Mason was its grandest yet. Given the roots of this movement, it should come as no surprise that the focus of the festival was predominantly Italian, with numerous local favorites, including A16, Perbacco, È Tutto Qua, Bacco, Pizzeria Delfina, Poggio, C’era Una Volta, Emporio Rulli, Acquerello, and Trattoria Corso purveying their fare. Local Italian food artisans included Caffè del Doge, Fra’ Mani Salumi, Fresca Italia, Massimo Gelato and Stella Cadente Olive Oil.

The Golden Glass, as the name suggests, also presented an opportunity to sample an enormous selection of wines, again focused on Italian vintages. And herein lies the rub. If Slow Food is dedicated to the preservation of sustainably-operated, local farming, why was this convergence so focused on imported wines (the dozen wineries that did participate represented the first time The Golden Glass has even included California)?

Not that Italian wines don’t have their well-deserved place. After all, I know of no one on the West Coast who grows Fumin or Negroamaro or Grecante, to name but a few varietals, or who even attempt to make a straw wine (passito) like Cornarea’s Tarasco 2005. It has been well-documented, in this blog and elsewhere, that local efforts to produce Italian varietals have had to retrench considerably and are justing to make a revival. But if the true focus of Slow Food Nation—and, by extension, The Golden Glass—is to promote local, sustainable agriculture, then the vast array of wineries in this area that implicitly adhere to their manifesto ought to be the backbone of this tasting (this is, after all, the foundation on which Sostevinobile is building our wine program).

Of the West Coast wineries that did participate, several did display their efforts with Italian varietals. Iberian varietal specialist Bodega del Sur brought their 2006 Sangiovese to contrast with their 2006 Tempranillo and 2008 Verdelho. Berkeley’s Broc Cellars showed their 2006 Luna Matta Sangiovese, along with a 2007 Cassia Grenache that stakes their claim to fame. Ever ubiquitous, Bonny Doon’s Randall Grahm surprised with his 2005 Ca’ del Solo Nebbiolo, a notably worthy expression of this varietal. On the other hand, it was no anomaly that Girasole Vineyards had a 2006 Sangiovese, and restaurateur Lorenzo Petroni premiered his eponymous label with his remarkable 2004 Brunello di Sonoma Poggio alla Pietra and a Super Tuscan style 2006 Rosso di Sonoma.

I had tasted the wines of Verge Wine Cellars but two nights earlier at A Community Affair, but was pleased to resample his 2007 Syrah Dry Creek Valley. Pey-Marin had poured their Pinot Noir the week before at the MALT tasting in Larkspur, but this time accompanied it with a refreshing 2008 The Shell Mound Riesling. Magnanimus Wines distributes organic and biodynamic wines from Mendocino County; I particularly liked Ukiah Cellars 2008 Chardonnay Mendocino and Mendocino Farms 2007 Grenache. From Hollister, Alicats brought a notable 2006 Syrah Gimelli Vineyard, while Sonoma’s Nalle Winery shone with their 2006 Pinot Noir Hopkins Ranch. Edmunds St. John, to whose philosophically-strewn newsletter I have long subscribed, showed the kind of consistency with their 2005 Syrah Wylie Fenaughty I have come to expect from their vintages, while Clos Saron from Oregon House displayed the versatility of the Sierra Nevada Foothills 2007 Pinot Noir Home Vineyard.

The Golden Glass has always been a marvelous event, and Your West Coast Oenophile looks forward to a long, enduring relationship between their parent Slow Food San Francisco and Sostevinobile. This year’s festival was a wonderful opportunity for me and the Ginkgo Girl to catch up with so many restaurants that have come to love us and to share in this most vital advocacy. We are looking forward to an even grander Golden Glass in 2010, with the anticipation of its increased outreach to the rich abundance sustainably -grown wines from California, Oregon and Washington.

TAPAS: taking off where ZAP began

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I like to create my own anagrams. Back when Your West Coast Oenophile contemplated becoming a children’s doctor, I devised POPPA, which stood for Pediatricians Opposed to Prophylactics, the Pill, and Abortion, a self-aggrandizing scheme aimed at providing an endless stream of new patients for my future practice. Later, while working at Tetris™ distributor Spectrum HoloByte, I came up with the quintessential Pranksters Hired to Undermine (Your) Competitors’ Quality and Usurp (Their) Prominence and Profitability, otherwise know as PHUCQ UPP. Of course, I am always happy to give due credit to others who can hold their own in this arena, and, as Randall Grahm aptly noted in his off-the-cuff discourse, the contrivance to come up with Tempranillo Advocates Producers and Amigos Society in order to educe TAPAS was sheer mastery.

Maybe because I decided to forgo the quintennial gathering of my own amigos from our days of sequestration back in Lakeville, Connecticut, I decided to attend the trade seminar on Spanish varietals, prior to the 2nd Annual TAPAS Grand Tasting at Fort Mason on Sunday. My friend Markus Bokisch broadly elucidated the history and transformation of Albariño vinification quite ably, not terribly surprising once you’ve tasted his own deft manipulation of this varietal. Similarly, Penelope Gadd-Coster navigated aficionados through an overview on Tempranillo that was highly enjoyable and never didactic.

Onward we went, from the seminar in Building D to the quaint antechamber in Building A, known as the Golden Gate Room. Hard to believe this nowadays, but it was in this very same room that the gargantuan ZAP Grand Tasting, which now occupies two entire piers, first took place. A good omen for TAPAS, to be sure, and a much easier venue to reach than the late, great Copia, where their inaugural tasting was held.

This year’s gathering included 36 member wineries from California and Oregon, plus one lone representative from Arizona. In other words, just about the right density to remain manageable for one afternoon. My simple plan of attack meant rounds of seven wineries at a time, interspersed with a recharge of the incredible paella the chefs from Marco Paella were generously doling out from the back of the room. Maybe because of their alphabetically primacy, I first turned my attention to Oregon’s Abacela, a winery owned by TAPAS president Earl Jones. Standout among their pourings was a 2005 Tempranillo, Reserve, Southern Oregon, and I reserved some space for a revisit near the end of the afternoon with their 2006 Port, Southern Oregon, whose memory from last year’s tasting still lingered. A nearby swing brought me to Plymouth’s Bray Vineyards, whose noteworthy 2008 Verdelho preceded a taste of their striking 2006 Vinho Tinto, a blend of 5 Portuguese varietals: Tinta Cão, Touriga Nacional, Souzão, Tinta Roriz, and Alvarelhão (my spellcheck hasn’t a clue about any of these)! Bodega del Sur from Pacifica(!) similarly offered their 2007 Carmesi, an intriguing blend that spanned multiple viticultural designations, combining Tempranillo, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Syrah. Then again, compare these wines with Boeger Winery’s 2005 Milagro, a decidedly more Spanish-leaning mélange of Tempranillo, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Graciano.

Graciano, of course, has long been my favorite offering from Bokisch Vineyards, though I found myself more partial this time to their 2007 Garnacha, Lodi. Another paragon of this varietal was the 2007 Garnacha, Denner Vineyards, Paso Robles from Villa Creek Cellars, whose equally delightful 2007 Mas de Maha, Paso Robles combines Tempranillo with Garnacha and Mourvèdre. I am used to referring to Garnacha by its Rhône designation, Grenache, and I often flip between Mataro and Mourvèdre; calling this latter varietal Monastrell, as does Paso Robles’ Viña Castellano was unfamiliar to me. Nonetheless, this house produces a fine bottling of such but truly stood out for both its 2004 Tempranillo and 2005 Tempranillo. Viña Robles is of course, another neighbor taking liberal advantage of Paso Robles’s abundance of Rhône varietals, using Petite Sirah, Syrah, and Tannat to add to Touriga to make their 2007 Red Blend.

Maybe someday Bonny Doon will swap me a couple of cases of their finest (would that they still made grappa!) in exchange for my insights into Web design. A striking visual site, but a Web presence is supposed to be all about rapid access to information. To be fair, almost every design house I know is as self-indulgent with their own site; still, Randall, who needs hallucinogenic graphics when your 2007 Angel Paille already fits the bill? The good folks at St. Amant Winery offered their version of a post-prandial wine with their 2006 Vintage Port, Amador County, while St. Helena’s Tesouro Port Cellars blended Touriga, Tempranillo, Alvarelhão, Souzão and Tinta Cão to make their 2005 California Dessert Wine, a deceptively generic name for such an intriguing wine. Further north, in Jacksonville, Oregon, Valley View Winery topped the alcohol charts with their 2007 “Anna Marie” Port, Rogue Valley.

Though currently Sostevinobile does not plan to include Arizona in its mix, the Grand Canyon State was ably represented by Callaghan Vineyards, whose 2007 Padres accentuated its 58% Tempranillo with both Petit Verdot and Cabernet Franc. Iberian wine houses permeated in a number of atypical locales, like Livermore’s Fenestra Winery, which finds its strength in Portuguese varietals, including its 2006 Alvarelhão and 2006 Touriga. Also from Livermore, Murrieta’s Well blends their 2007 Zarzuela with Touriga Nacional, Tempranillo, Souzão and Touriga Francesca. Closer to San Francisco Bay, Danville’s Odisea Wine Company offers blends of epic proportion, my favorite being their 2007 Two Rows Garnacha, a duet of Grenache and Tempranillo. Poised at the Bay’s edge, El Cerrito’s Tejada Vineyards offered similar fare with their 2005 Tempranillo & Garnacha Blend, as well as a noteworthy 2006 Tempranillo, Reserve. Quaint Murphys in the Gold Country lays claim to Hovey Wine, with its standout 2007 Rolleri Cuvée Tempranillo, Calaveras County; the urban confines of the City and County of San Francisco, meanwhile, is home to James Judd & Son’s 2006 Tempranillo. Circling back to Jacksonville, Red Lily Vineyards offered one of the day’s standout wines, their 2005 Tempranillo, Rogue Valley.

Anomalies (at least as far as I am concerned) in nomenclature also abounded, to a degree. The parlance of business school should have nothing to do with the soaring, elegiac beauty of viticulture; still, the 2006 Tempranillo, Lake County from Six Sigma Winery represents a commendable undertaking. I kidded the proprietors of Irish Family Vineyards that their label seemed as much an oxymoron as Pasquale’s Corned Beef & Cabbage, but their 2006 Grenache and 2007 Touriga Nacional warrant no ribbing.

Providing their own laughs, of course, was the ever-outré Twisted Oak, with a quartet of nonetheless highly respectable wines, including a 2008 Verdelho from Lodi’s highly regarded Silvaspoons Vineyards. Another familiar face was Constellation’s Clos du Bois, valiantly striving to maintain an individual identity with its 2005 Tempranillo, Alexander Valley, Sonoma Reserve. This blog has also given considerable plaudits in the past to Quinta Cruz, a pre-eminent Iberian wine producer, whose 2006 Touriga combines both Touriga Nacional and Touriga Francesca.

A number of wineries came out with commendable Rosés (Rosado). After Penelope Gadd-Coster’s morning presentation, many folks flocked to the Coral Mustang display to try her 2006 Tempranillo Rosé. Solvang’s D’Alfonso-Curran dazzled with their 2007 Grenache Gris. Trenza/Tangent Wineries offered a 2008 Trenza Rosado, an uncommon Spanish-style rosé from the familiar Rhône the GMS blend. Verdad Wine Cellars, the Spanish division of Rhône-style pioneer Qupé, blended 90% Garnacha with Tempranillo to make its bone-dry 2008 Rosé.

Truth (verdad) was clearly expressed in the 100% Tempranillos from a pair of Napa wineries. Truchard Vineyards offered a vertical from 2000-2005, the standout being their current 2005 Tempranillo. Striking, too, was the 2007 Tempranillo, Shake Ridge Vineyards, Amador County from Yorba Wines. Less orthodox were the predominantly Cabernet Sauvignon blends with Tempranillo from Parador Cellars, although their 2006 Tempranillo Reserva Rancho Chiles was delightful.

Lacking a clever segue, I can only list the remaining presenters without the benefit of thematic continuity. Barreto Cellars proved strongest in their Portuguese offerings, particularly their 2005 Touriga, Lodi. From the next vintage, Pierce Ranch Vineyards shone with their 2006 Touriga . The wonderfully-labeled Dancing Coyote dueling whites from each country, with a slight edge going to the 2007 Verdelho, Clarksburg over the 2007 Albariño, Clarksburg. Premier grape grower Ron Silva, bottling as Alta Mesa Cellars from his own Silvaspoons Vineyards, truly excelled with his 2008 Alta Mesa Cellars Verdelho, Lodi.

The standout producer for the afternoon also crushed Silvaspoons grapes. Matt Rorick’s whimsically named Forlorn Hope Wines dazzled with four wines. The 2008 La Gitana was one of only two Torrontés at TAPAS. The 2008 Suspiro Del Moro was, I believe, the only single-varietal Alvarelhão. A third white was his Verdelho, the 2007 Que Saudade. Lastly, he blended Touriga, Tempranillo, Tinta Cão and Tinta Amarela to make his superb 2006 Mil Amores.

It will take perhaps not mil amores but definitely mil amigos to continue sustaining TAPAS. With my strong predilection toward Italian varietals, I have watched the rise and subsequent retreat of these varietals on the West Coast, as well as the dissolution of their trade association, Consorzio Cal-Italia after its promising beginnings. Despite these vicissitudes, including Antinori’s lamentable decision to uproot the Sangiovese vines from its reacquired Atlas Peak, I see inklings of a resurgence in Italian varietals here on the West Coast and, one would hope, a restoration of the Consorzio on par with Rhône Rangers and other specialized advocacies.

I wonder whether Spanish and Portuguese varietals will need to endure a similar oscillation before truly taking hold here. Like Sangiovese and Viognier, I suppose it will take a few tries before vintners truly grasp the full nuance of Tempranillo and its compadres. And, of course, there is still the issue of acceptance from a public that has scant familiarity with these wines. Most people still associate Spanish wine with Sangria and, unfortunately, the taint of Mateus and Lancers still clouds perception of Portugal’s offerings. As always, though, I wish TAPAS all the best with their mission and look forward to the day they, too, move out of Building A and occupy the piers of Fort Mason, just like ZAP (okay, maybe just one pier—there isn’t a paella pan large enough to accommodate both exhibit halls)!

Bambi & Thumper

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1991. The Year of the Palindrome (as was 2002). Too long past now to attribute as a “few years back.” It was a cold, drizzly November evening, with the sun setting by 5 p.m. The perfect kind of evening for drinks inside the fireplace at the Pelican Inn. The perfect kind of first date setting that ends in “how do you take your coffee?”

My date had moved West from Indiana only a few weeks before. I think this may have been her first trip to Marin. As we began the climb up Panoramic towards Muir Beach, she took my hand in a premature but not unappreciated sign of affection. It all seemed to be going swimmingly until—WHACK! A young deer darted out in front of my Tercel and went sprawling across the highway. By the time I stopped the car and got out to look, the deer had picked itself up and had darted off, easily as shaken as I was. After inspecting the grill and finding no appreciable damage, save an infusion of deer hairs it took a month to fully clear out, I returned to the wheel and headed back toward our destination. Around the next bend, a sizable jackrabbit ran out in front of my car, again forcing me to jam on the brakes and nearly swerve off the road. “Great,” I thought to myself. “I’ve been with this girl for less than an hour and already I’ve very nearly killed both Bambi and Thumper!”

Fast-forward to June 2009. This past weekend, I found myself once again pedaling from San Francisco to Larkspur for a return to the 2009 Marin County Pinot Noir Celebration. This annual tasting benefits the Marin Agricultural Land Trust (MALT), a most worthy preservation project that has safeguarded over 40,000 acres of West Marin farmland for perpetuity, and features the growing roster of wineries producing Pinot Noir below Sonoma County. As it has been every year, the array of Pinots has been wide and consistently quite
good, from well-regarded stalwarts like Dutton-Goldfield and Pey-Marin to boutique operations like Precedent Wines and Miller Wine Works. But the star of this event has to be its succulent barbecue, generously supplied by the Point Reyes Vineyard Inn and Devil’s Gulch Ranch, featuring our

aforementioned Disney friends in the guise of Rabbit Sausage and Barbecued Venison! Let it be known that Your West Coast Oenophile is generally not long on sentimentality!

The 15-mile trek from Pacific Heights to the Historic Escalle Winery in Larkspur does much to stimulate one’s appetite, and let’s be honest, a heaping helping of savory grilled forest fare demands that a good Pinot Noir be lustily imbibed, not tepidly swilled and spat. But with the tasting running uncommonly until 7 p.m., there seemed plenty of time to work through the 16 wineries pouring their expression of the fickle Pinot grape.

In general, I was a bit surprised in the contrast between these wines and the Pinots I had recently tasted at Larkspur’s Sideways tasting. At the May event, each of the wineries showed decidedly better with their 2007 vintage than with their 2006. Here, the converse held true for those wineries who had comparable selections. An interesting anomaly I have yet to fathom.

Being an inveterate Classicist, I beelined over to the far corner where Sean Thackrey was pouring his 2006 Andromeda, a pure expression of Pinot Noir that contrasts with the intricate, esoteric blends like his noted Pleiades XVI, a mélange of Syrah, Sangiovese, Mourvèdre, Barbera, Carignane, Petite Sirah and Viognier, among myriad others. A man who culls many of his winemaking techniques from ancient Hellenic transcripts, he and I will have to discuss Aristophanes’ peroration from Πλάτωνος Συμποσίον the next time we encounter.

The winemaking community in Marin being a small, tight circle, it was not unexpected that I would encounter several of the producers I had met at previous festivals. David Vergari continues to refine his style, as exemplified in both the 2006 Marin County Pinot Noir and its 2007 successor that he poured. That ever-ebullient raconteur Mac McDonald, disappointingly, was off at another engagement, but the 2007 Chileno Valley Marin County Pinot Noir from his Vision Cellars was still splendid despite his absence.

Even though angioplasty’s efficacy is currently being challenged in some medical circles, the wines of patent-holder Dr. Thomas Fogarty (and, presumedly, his residuals) remain undiminished; his 2006 Corda Family Vineyards, Marin County Pinot Noir easily testified too this endurance. His assistant winemaker, Nathan Kindler, also debuted his own venture, Precedent Vineyards, with a noteworthy 2006 Pinot Noir, Chileno Valley Vineyard. And the Corda Winery, who produces Fogarty’s Pinot grapes, brought forth their own moderately-priced 2006 Marin County Pinot Noir.

The two revelations of this event included Brookside Cellars, with a 2006/2007 duet of their Pinot Noir Marin County, grown at Nicasio’s Moon Hill Vineyard. Even more memorable was the erotophonic Orogeny Vineyards, whose justly-priced 2006 Pinot Noir Redding Vineyards was close to orgasmic (I can’t wait to try their various expressions of Chardonnay).

One slight limitation to events such as this gathering is that only one varietal is served. Such was the case Saturday, although Gary Miller of Miller Wine Works did slip me an illicit taste of his Syrah. The one official exception to the afternoon was Point Reyes Vineyards, whose sparkling NV Blanc de Noir, Marin County, made solely from Pinot Noir, provided a refreshing contrast to the still wines of the afternoon.

I’d be remiss in not mentioning the very forthright 2006 Kendric Vineyards Marin Pinot Noir. Stewart Johnson’s Kendric Vineyard in Northern Marin also supplies the grapes for Miller Wine Works. Remiss, however, is a term I’m tempted to apply to both Stubbs Vineyards and Moon Hill Vineyards, who departed well before the 7 p.m, closing and prevented me from making further acknowledgment of their wines. They may want to stay on for their full commitment in 2010.

Having sampled all the available wines, I hopped back on my bicycle and wobbled over to the Bay Club Marin, where I had pre-arranged to rendezvous with The Ginkgo Girl. Still spinning from the tequila-infused Ginger Cake I had lovingly crafted for her very significant birthday the night before, she had declined to join me at the tasting but drove up so we could attend Marin Theatre Company’s presentation of What the Butler Saw. Joe Orton’s posthumous masterpiece, a scabrous satire with Aristophanic overtones, had nothing to do with Pinot Noir, but then the allusive title has no bearing whatsoever on the play. Somehow, a very apt symmetry to close the day with.