Guys,
There's three seats left at a Rioja tasting I'm putting together for
Saturday October 1, or perhaps Friday September 30. It will be a pretty
unique tasting: there will be Riojas from 1935, 1942, 1952, 1964, and some
more recent wines as well (none younger than 1981). There will be 12
pours, so 2 oz of each wine per pour. There will be 18 wines in all. The
wines are already purchased, so we'll just split the cost, which should
come to around $180 per seat. Venue is not nailed down just yet.
Let me know if you are interested.
thanks,
Lee
wine list:
Flight 0: Cava, 2003 Do Ferriero Albarino "Cepas Vellas",
1976 Lopez de Heredia Vina Tondonia Blanco
Flight 1: Lopez de Heredia 81,78,76 Bosconia, 76 Tondonia
Flight 2: CVNE Vina Real 81, 76, 75, 70
Flight 3: 64 Bosconia, 64 Chateau Pavie St Emilion, 68 Glorioso
Flight 4: 52 Vina Real, 42 Bosconia, 35 Glorioso
Flight 5: 1913 Madiera
Mostly an update. I'm double and triple booked this week, so
may not be on line much.
----- Forwarded message from "Jim L. Ellingson" <jellings(a)me.umn.edu> -----
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 11:45:45 -0500
From: "Jim L. Ellingson" <jellings(a)me.umn.edu>
To: wine(a)thebarn.com
Subject: [wine] Cab's at JP's. BBQ at Gregory's.
Greetings,
Just a quick note.
Wed: 2nd/final Sale Tasting at Liq. Depot. 5-7 pm byocrackers
Thursday Cabs at JP's
JP's American Bistro
JP Samuelson and our friend Karl
2937 S. Lyndale 55408 (612) 824-9300
No idea who's/how many are coming.
bob
betsy
bill
nicolai
karin
jim
ruth_if_its_raining
Friday BBQ at Warren/Ruth's house. Ruth's brother Steve's in town.
Bring a Dish to share, a sufficient quantity and quality of wine.
Hot Tub available....
Janet
Joyce
Warren/ruth/brother steve
the usual suspects
I-94 to Cretin-Vandalia. Go south to Randolph, East to 2139.
Warren, Ruth Gregory 698-5337
2139 Randolph 55105
wrcgregory(a)qwest.net
Next Week: Prix Fixe and Pinot at Bobino
Joyce has the list, menu, etc..
We're at capacity, have a waiting list.
Joyce Hegstrom 781-3599 624-5020 jhegstrom(a)csom.umn.edu
Cheers,
Jim
----- End forwarded message -----
--
------------------------------ *
* Dr. James Lee Ellingson, Adjunct Professor jellings(a)me.umn.edu *
* University of Minnesota, tel: 651/645-0753 fax 651 XXX XXXX *
* Great Lakes Brewing News, 1569 Laurel Ave., St. Paul, MN 55104 *
Greetings,
Just a quick note.
Wed: 2nd/final Sale Tasting at Liq. Depot. 5-7 pm byocrackers
Thursday Cabs at JP's
Friday BBQ at Warren/Ruth's house. Steve's in town.
Dish to share, sufficient quantity and quality of wine.
Hot Tub available....
--
------------------------------ *
* Dr. James Lee Ellingson, Adjunct Professor jellings(a)me.umn.edu *
* University of Minnesota, tel: 651/645-0753 fax 651 XXX XXXX *
* Great Lakes Brewing News, 1569 Laurel Ave., St. Paul, MN 55104 *
Here's the original article.
DRAMA IN AMADOR
Great grapes, hard feelings ferment at landmark California vineyard
- W. Blake Gray, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, August 11, 2005
Click to ViewClick to ViewClick to ViewClick to ViewClick to ViewClick to View
In 1992, Scott and Terri Harvey seemed to have everything going right.
They owned and lived on one of the most desirable vineyards in California. Every day Terri tended what are believed to be the state's oldest Zinfandel vines, while Scott walked across Steiner Road to work. He was the winemaker and president of an ambitious new business, Renwood Winery, whose chairman and CEO, Robert Smerling, planned to put Amador County Zinfandel on the world's most prestigious wine lists.
Scott named their vineyard "Grandpere," in tribute to its age. In French, grand-pere means "grandfather."
Desirable land inflames passions. Planted to Zinfandel before 1869, the Original Grandpere Vineyard is the source of some wonderful wines. It is also at the center of a divorce, a nasty business breakup, lawsuits, aerial surveillance and lingering hard feelings and distrust throughout the tight- knit community of Plymouth in Amador County.
The vineyard itself is a marvel. A grant deed in county records proves its existence in 1869, yet the vines look young for their age.
"In 1986, there was a drought here," says Rusty Folena, who worked for Scott Harvey at Santino Winery then and is now winemaker at Vino Noceto. "All the other vineyards looked stressed and yellow. This vineyard looked healthy. Maybe the roots went down to China to get water. It was isolated for a long time, so it hasn't had some of the vine diseases."
Scott considered himself lucky to own such a historic plot of land. He and Terri worked for years to rebuild the century-old house on it, adding a second floor and a wine cellar of which he's still proud.
Now Scott is in that cellar in name only -- Terri, now his ex-wife, has bottles of Scott Harvey Wines, a label Scott started years after his bitter departure from Renwood.
Where did this vintner's dream life go wrong? Did the pressure of Scott being forced out of Renwood ruin the marriage, as Terri says? Or, as Smerling says, did Scott decide on his own to leave Terri for another woman, leaving the winery and Terri in the lurch?
"Scott's got a lot of regrets," Terri says. "He's very passionate about this place."
Scott, who has remarried, says he and Terri married young and may have divorced anyway; he admits having an affair during their marriage. He says he's happy living and making wine in St. Helena. But he also says, "It was hard to leave that place, I'll tell you."
Now Terri owns the house and the vineyard, though Scott still gets some grapes from the property as part of their divorce settlement. But in a twist of law, they lost the trademark "Grandpere" to Renwood. So Renwood makes a Grandpere wine -- without any grapes from the vineyard, because Terri refuses to sell them to Renwood -- and Scott does not.
Through a settlement, wineries that use Terri's grapes can say they're from the Original Grandpere Vineyard, but they have to use the entire phrase or they can't use it at all. Scott, tired of litigation, doesn't use it at all.
"(Smerling) outmaneuvered me," Scott says. "I don't want to promote a wine from a brand-new vineyard that he calls Grandpere."
The relationship between Smerling and Scott is so shattered and litigious -- lawsuits have flown back and forth -- that they don't even agree today on whether Scott quit or was fired when he left in 1995. Smerling says Scott walked out while Smerling was in Boston, forcing Smerling to scramble to replace him. Scott says Smerling had the locks on the doors changed overnight during the 1995 harvest season.
Both agree that Scott challenged Smerling over the direction of the company, and that at a meeting of Renwood's board of directors in New York, the board supported Smerling and ousted Scott as president.
Smerling asked the Amador County district attorney's office to investigate Scott, claiming he embezzled from the company; the district attorney's office did investigate, both Scott and Smerling agree, but refused to prosecute.
As rancorous as their relationship is now, it's a shame the three-way partnership broke up, because each had something to contribute. Amador County has benefited from each of them.
A farm girl and peacemaker
Though she was born in San Fernando Valley, Terri, 45, became a farm girl just months after her father, a Los Angeles firefighter, moved the family to Amador County when she was 11. Now her knowledge and intuition with grapevines make her a good enough farmer to manage three vineyards in addition to her own. Tall and strong enough to lug around heavy equipment, Terri can see from her car when an individual vine needs care, and apologetically pulls over immediately to prop it up.
"You have to respect the vines," she says. "I get out here and think about how long they've been alive. I do all the pruning myself, out of respect. Each one of these old guys has arms going every which way. You gotta study each one and figure out which way to prune it."
Smerling and Scott Harvey are quick to complain about each other, but neither speaks badly of Terri. She often begins her sentences by repeating the last thing said to her, as if to start off by agreeing. Spend a few hours with Terri and she begins to anticipate the end of your sentences and say them at the same time, rather than repeating -- so that she is constantly in harmony with you.
Scott and Smerling are fighters; Terri is a peacemaker. She is the one who brokered the deal for the use of the trademark, walking across the street to Renwood to deal directly with Smerling at a time when Scott and Smerling needed attorneys present for their conversations.
Scott, 51, is a talented winemaker who got his first head winemaking job at age 23 at Story Winery in Amador County. In 1979, he became winemaker for Santino Winery and met Terri, who was working on a farm.
"I knew her father," Scott says. "I waited until she got out of high school before I started dating her."
Scott was able to buy the Original Grandpere Vineyard because the previous owners, John and Virginia Downing, knew him through his work at Santino, which made wine from the grapes.
"John came to me one day and said, 'I'm going to sell you my ranch,' " Scott recalls. "I said, 'Great!' But I couldn't afford it."
Scott and Terri farmed the grapes and paid off the Downings in installments. Meanwhile, they moved from a modern home into one built in the 1880s.
"The first night we slept in that house, the wind rattled through it. You could hear the rats running around," Scott says. "Terri just cried."
But together they rebuilt it. Scott also went through the old vineyard with a chainsaw, cutting off some of the excess growth. Scott wanted lower yields of more concentrated fruit. Downing had been selling the grapes primarily for White Zinfandel; he also sold some to a group of Italian American garbage collectors from San Francisco who made their own wine and who, Terri says, still occasionally call asking about the grapes.
When Scott left Amador County in 1996, he became winemaker and president at Folie a Deux Winery in St. Helena. That brand was sold to Trinchero Family Estates in 2004. Scott now makes wines under his own name and also for St. Helena-based Cloud 9. With both brands, he produces delicious wines with good forward fruit, complexity and lingering finishes.
In 1998, Scott married Jana Litman, who works in sales for Raymond Vineyard and Cellar in St. Helena. (She is not the woman Scott had an affair with during his marriage.) Jana is now a partner in Scott Harvey Wines.
>From venture capital to wine
Smerling, 49, came to the wine industry late in life after a successful career as a venture capitalist in Boston, specializing in biotech. He brought a demanding, scientific emphasis to an Amador County winemaking scene that was still years behind Napa and Sonoma counties in technique when he arrived.
"Everybody in (Amador) County deals with me," Smerling says. "I'm the man. I put the place on the map."
When Smerling and the Harveys were still collaborators, Renwood took grafts of the vines from the Harveys' vineyard and planted them nearby, across a creek. Those Grandpere clones are the source of Renwood's Grandpere wine, and Smerling says he is doing the wine world a service by preserving them from phylloxera, an aphidlike insect that is now spreading through Amador County.
"The original mission of the winery was to preserve vineyards," Smerling says. "When I arrived in Amador, I saw all these incredible gnarly old Zinfandel vines. And then I found out most of them were producing White Zin for Gallo. We control most of the key vineyards of Amador now. We've taken cuttings of the three vineyards we care most about -- Jack Rabbit Flat, D'Agostini Brothers and Grandpere -- and we planted them on (phylloxera- resistant) rootstock."
Obsessed with quality, Smerling has indeed helped raise awareness of Amador, and he's not shy about taking credit.
"The best thing that ever happened to Mr. Harvey was his association with Renwood, because we're a happening company," says Smerling.
Renwood does make excellent wines. Last year in Japan, I took a $20 bottle of Renwood Barbera to one of those blind tasting-dinners where everyone tries to impress their friends with the bottle they bring. As I expected, my friends brought mostly grand crus from Bordeaux and expensive Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignons. My Renwood bottling, which went much better with food than a Cab, came in second overall. First place went to a Chateau Lafite- Rothschild from the 1980s that must have cost more than 10 times as much as the Barbera.
Troubles with neighbors
But despite Renwood's quality wines and considerable charitable contributions in Amador, including sponsoring summer reading programs and scholarships for high school students, Smerling says he is not well liked. He quit the Amador Vintner's Association and blames anti-Semitism for problems with his neighbors.
"The day after Scott walked out, we started having swastikas painted on the building," Smerling says. "We had death threats. The story of Amador is ridiculous hatred, old-fashioned bigotry, scared of the future, scared of change.
"The story here is a story of anti-Semitism in Amador County. The county has a tough time with a Jewish winery owner."
Chaim Gur-Arieh, a former member of the Israeli Defense Forces who owns the winery C.G. di Arie Vineyard & Winery with his wife, Elisheva, says he has not experienced any anti-Semitism in Amador County.
"Robert is a guy that looks for conflict," says Gur-Arieh, originally a food scientist who invented the technology to make Cap'n Crunch cereal. "Maybe some ignorant people were bullied by him and they got back at him in this way."
As the C.G. di Arie winemaker, Gur-Arieh, 71, appreciates the quality of Terri's grapes, and currently makes the best wine available from them (see tasting notes).
"These grapes that she has, they're phenomenal," Gur-Arieh says. "Her grapes have complexity and elegance. I don't know if it's the age or the terroir, but they're wonderful."
But the history of litigation over the name keeps C.G. di Arie from putting the Original Grandpere Vineyard on the wine's front label, even though it might boost sales.
Renwood ended up with the Grandpere trademark because it bought Santino, which had it originally.
"It was going to be our flagship wine," Smerling says.
Scott says Smerling went behind his back to register the trademark. Smerling vehemently denies this, saying Scott was always aware of the status of the trademark because he was an officer of both Santino and Renwood. Lawsuits have gone back and forth, and Renwood emerged victorious.
"Grandpere has value out in the marketplace, and (Smerling) knows it," Terri says.
Terri says she is legally entitled to a limited use of Grandpere as part of a 2002 settlement with Smerling. Smerling says it's his largesse that allows her to use the name. Both Smerling and Terri agree that she must use the entire name, the Original Grandpere Vineyard, or she can't use it at all.
Vino Noceto and Macchia wineries make wines from Terri's grapes that use the phrase on the front label.
Of Vino Noceto's label, Smerling says, "We sent them a letter. The typeface is too big." Smerling says according to his agreement with Terri, the letters of the Original Grandpere Vineyard must be no larger than one-half inch.
Scott doesn't use the name at all. Instead, both the Scott Harvey Wines and Cloud 9 bottlings say the grapes are from the Harvey Vineyard. Harvey as in Terri Harvey -- as part of their divorce agreement, she is buying his share of the house and land through grapes, and she expects to finish paying off Scott after the 2007 harvest.
Terri says Scott has been good about paying child support, but her life supporting three daughters -- Paulette, 23, Michelle, 21, and Victoria, 17, all of whom are still in school -- has still required long hours laboring in vineyards, hers and others. She says she has suffered from lupus and shingles, both stress-related illnesses.
Her boyfriend, Gordon Binz, 49, replaced Scott as Renwood's winemaker in 1996. He is now winemaker at nearby Villa Toscano.
"I fired him," Smerling says. "But we're still chummy."
Binz and Terri started dating in 1996, a few months after Scott moved out for good. They lived together for seven years, though Binz has since bought his own house 12 miles away above Fiddletown.
"I needed a place to go that didn't have grapes," he says.
Binz and Scott both say they are friendly with each other. Binz is wary of speaking of Scott's ongoing animosity with Smerling ("It was like a bad divorce," he says), because Binz was involved in some of the lawsuits through a partnership with Terri in the vineyard.
"I used to pride myself on never having an attorney," Binz says. "At one point I had three."
Terri has also had several attorneys, and helped farm grapes for one. Like Binz, she would love to put the whole long battle between Scott and Smerling behind her.
Scott says, "Between Terri and I, if I had to do it over again, I probably would have tried harder. The tremendous psychological pain of Smerling trying to destroy our lives, our marriage wasn't strong enough to survive it."
Uncertain future
It's hard for anyone to forgive and forget, and hardest perhaps for Terri. Whenever she's out working in the Original Grandpere Vineyard -- pulling out young willow trees that grow back every year, or carefully pruning -- she only has to look across the street to see Renwood's fenced compound.
Smerling is certainly casting an eye her way.
Terri says her vineyard has so far avoided infestation by phylloxera, even though several nearby vineyards have had to be ripped out and replanted. She says part of her agreement with Smerling on use of the Original Grandpere Vineyard name is that 80 percent of the vines must be original; apparently he's counting. She ripped out some vines last year that she says were no longer productive.
"Her vineyard is riddled with phylloxera," Smerling says. "We've got the infrared photos that can prove it."
If Smerling's right -- he could be, as phylloxera is not always detected by the naked eye -- California's oldest vines are living on borrowed time. Phylloxera kills vines quickly, usually within a few years of the first infection; vines that are already weak can die within a single summer. Terri, who already struggles to make ends meet, would have difficulty going several years without income while waiting for newly planted vines to produce saleable grapes.
"He'd love to get this place," she says of Smerling. "But he'll never get it. He doesn't own me."
A taste of Grandpere
The flavor of a particular vineyard is harder to discern when several different winemakers are working with the grapes. The unifying flavor seems to be dry, sandy Amador County dirt -- but my favorite wine on this list, the C. G. di Arie, is not particularly earthy, perhaps as a result of food scientist/winemaker Chaim Gur-Arieh's technical innovations.
The Renwood Grandpere wine is made from cloned vines that are less than 15 years old, the age at which Ridge Vineyards winemaker and CEO Paul Draper, a Zinfandel expert, says Zin vines reach maturity. At this point I prefer the complexity of some of the other wines, but I hope I'm around in a decade to taste later vintages of the Renwood Grandpere against wines made from the original vineyard.
2003 C.G. di Arie Southern Exposure Shenandoah Valley Zinfandel ($30) -- Enticing aromas and flavors of blackberry and raspberry with lots of spice -- cinnamon and clove -- and hints of tar and black pepper. Mostly blueberry on the medium-length finish; leaves a little pepper on the palate.
2001 Cloud 9 Seity Amador County Zinfandel ($35) -- Smells red, tastes black. Aromas of red plum, raspberry, red currant, earth, black pepper and violet. On the palate, it's black plum, juicy black currant, black pepper, earth and a little raisin. More graphite and violet as it gets more air.
2003 Macchia Prestigious The Original Grandpere Vineyard Amador County Zinfandel ($24) -- Big, juicy and alcoholic (16 percent). Flavors of juicy black plum, licorice, earth and huckleberry with additional aromas of earth and black pepper.
2002 Noceto OGP Amador County Zinfandel ($30) -- Very light red color. It feels like you can smell and taste the dry, sandy dirt of the vineyard, along with red plum and roasted red pepper.
2002 Renwood Grandpere Amador County Zinfandel ($32) -- Light red color. Balanced, though somewhat shy, flavors and aromas of red and black plum, earth and roasted red pepper.
2003 Scott Harvey Old Vine Selection Amador County Zinfandel ($25) -- Nice aroma of raspberry, cherry, mulling spices and earth. Complex flavor with raspberry and cherry fruit, a hint of watermelon, a pleasantly smoky note and touches of earth and fresh celery. Very long finish from the first sip. The grapes come from several vineyards; 22 percent are from the Original Grandpere Vineyard.
-- W. Blake Gray
E-mail W. Blake Gray at wbgray(a)sfchronicle.com.
Page F - 1
URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/08/11/WI…
--
------------------------------ *
* Dr. James Lee Ellingson, Adjunct Professor jellings(a)me.umn.edu *
* University of Minnesota, tel: 651/645-0753 fax 651 XXX XXXX *
* Great Lakes Brewing News, 1569 Laurel Ave., St. Paul, MN 55104 *
>From the SFChronical via our friend Bruce:
----- Forwarded message from Bruce Adomeit <badomeit(a)startribune.com> -----
Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2005 15:45:25 -0500
From: Bruce Adomeit <badomeit(a)startribune.com>
To: ondcuff(a)aol.com, Sms55113(a)aol.com, jellings(a)me.umn.edu,
Subject: Responses to Amador article in S.F. Chronicle
If you read the email from me about Amador wine shenanigans, you'll be interested in these letters, which the S.F. Chronicle published today. /bruce
Vintners, readers respond to "Drama in Amador"
-
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Editor -- W. Blake Gray's article on Aug. 11, "Drama in Amador," is great fiction, up there with nukes in Iraq. Mr. Gray, so desperate for a story, dug up 10-year-old events. He then allowed himself to be duped. Mr. Gray never bothered to go visit the Grandpere Vineyard at Renwood Winery, nor did he care to see the evidence that proves his story was the fantasy of the Harveys, to whom he refers as "Terri" and "Scott." He used bush-league techniques such as not using my first name, not mentioning my teenage children or my wife, Rene, the namesake of the winery. He tried to discredit me by quoting someone who has no firsthand knowledge of the facts, nor lived in Amador County when they occurred.
The truth is simple: Scott and Terri Harvey created Grandpere Vineyard in 1994 across the street from their own vineyard. The new vineyard was sold to Renwood in 1995. The Original Grandpere Vineyard owned by Ms. Harvey has phylloxera, whether she admits it or not, along with much of Amador County. Her vineyard is a mix of new Barbera, new Zin and old vines. Her quality was not to Renwood's standards, and we want to buy 100 percent old-vine Zinfandel, so we did not renew her contract in 2001. Renwood wanted to be the peacemaker, so we did buy Ms. Harvey's and Mr. Binz's winery stock in 2002, so they could keep their vineyard.
Mr. Gray did not tell the whole story when he said we prevailed in court. Mr. Harvey sued Renwood twice -- once in Amador County, then in Napa County -- and lost both times. He settled his federal trademark case after the BATF ruled that Renwood has the rights to Grandpere and Grandpere Vineyard. The hidden costs were the lost bonuses for employees who made great wine at Renwood during this waste of time and money. Instead of promoting Amador County and the great wines the county produces, when the press comes calling, some people want to talk about adultery. At Renwood, we make wine, create good jobs and promote the great grapes grown in our county.
Mr. Gray did the readers a further disservice by attempting to compare three different vintages of wines, made up of different grapes. Some of the wines tasted contained various quantities of the original Grandpere vineyard grapes. Renwood's 2002 Grandpere Zinfandel is big, bold and spicy, full of rich aromas of blackberries with subtle hints of cocoa. Renwood produces Grandpere from 100 percent original cuttings, on head-pruned vines. Future generations will be able to enjoy Zinfandel from California's oldest known vines. We invite you to see for yourself and taste the difference.
ROBERT I. SMERLING
Founder & CEO
Renwood Winery
Plymouth
Editor -- I read with great interest your article. I've been involved in the Amador County wine community for more than 25 years -- as a retailer during the 1980s, communications director at Montevina Winery during the 1990s and, currently, adviser to the Amador Vintners' Association and several Amador County wineries.
There's much I could say about Robert Smerling's various allegations, but two things, in particular, deserve a response.
First, Smerling did not put Amador County on the wine map. That distinction belongs to North Coast wineries like Sutter Home Winery, Ridge Vineyards, Mayacamas Vineyards and Carneros Creek Winery, which during the late 1960s began producing spectacular Zinfandels from Amador's pre- Prohibition vines.
Those wines attracted a new generation of vintners to the region -- Cary Gott at Montevina, Leon Sobon at Shenandoah Vineyards/Sobon Wine, Buck Cobb at Karly Wines and Ben Zeitman at Amador Foothill Winery -- who further cemented Amador's reputation as a source of high-quality Zinfandel and other wines.
Second, never in my hundreds of visits to Amador have I heard or seen anything that could remotely be construed as anti-Semitism. (I'm Jewish.) I believe the region's Jewish vintners -- including Zeitman, who has been at Amador Foothill for 25 years -- would say the same.
It's unfortunate that Robert Smerling failed to acknowledge the contributions of the wine pioneers who preceded him and made accusations that risk tarnishing the reputation of a wonderful region to which he ostensibly is committed.
STAN HOCK
Kensington
Editor -- "Drama In Amador" is a clear example of irresponsible journalism.This drama that you refer to took place nearly a decade ago. Great scoop!
Amador County is producing a bevy of new and exciting wines from both long-established wine families and bold, invigorating newcomers alike, and this tabloid-style reporting does a tremendous disservice to your readers, the reputation of your Wine section, the Amador region in particular and the wine industry in general.
I certainly hope that this sort of writing is more an aberration for an otherwise well-edited section, and I look forward to reading more fact-based reporting rather than the wild and self-serving claims from, at best, questionable sources.
THOMAS A. QUINN
Folsom
Editor -- Congratulations for a well-researched and informative article.
It is true that we are a very tight-knit community, and I have found it to be a very trusting, generous and welcoming one. In my 29 years of living here and making wine, I have lived, worked, collaborated with and known the many Jewish families who are winemakers, winery owners, vineyard owners and neighbors in our community. I can assure you that they are all loved and respected.
I know that scandal and controversy sells, but how about balancing the story with one about a couple, now married 47 years, who raised their six children while starting a winery, and now are passing that very thriving business on to those children?
LEON SOBON
Founder
Sobon Family Wines
Editor -- Very interesting story, but as a huge, huge fan of C.G. di Arie (I think it's the best Zinfandel on the planet), I don't know if I should curse you -- I would hate to see my supply lines dry up.
But thanks for an entertaining read -- seems like microclimates can affect more than just the grapes. I learned a lot about an area (and a vineyard) that I've been a fan of for a very long time.
ANDREW CONWAY
Folsom
Editor -- I bought grapes from Scott Harvey's former Grandpere vineyard for home winemaking from 1985 through 1995. He used to charge us $400 for a half-ton of fruit and never changed his prices. He seemed to enjoy teaching about winemaking and sampling our product. I would bring him a couple of cigars and we would have a great time.
When he was unable to sell us any more Grandpere, we bought grapes from different vineyards from him, the last being from Bowman Vineyard behind Vino Noceto and Domaine de la Terre Rouge.
There are those in Amador who would like to Napa-ize the Shenandoah Valley and those who would like to preserve its heritage and keep it similar to what they have. Due to the pressure of real estate and the growing population, the area may become developed in the near future. An example would be how Cadenasso Winery in Fairfield finally gave way to development. Wooden Valley Winery has to be feeling that pressure also, as I was in Suisun Valley a couple of weeks ago and could see the houses edging closer.
Thanks for the article; it was insightful and painfully honest.
CARL BURKE
Sacramento
----- End forwarded message -----
--
------------------------------ *
* Dr. James Lee Ellingson, Adjunct Professor jellings(a)me.umn.edu *
* University of Minnesota, tel: 651/645-0753 fax 651 XXX XXXX *
* Great Lakes Brewing News, 1569 Laurel Ave., St. Paul, MN 55104 *
An Update. Some new info. I had a "YES" from annette, this week and
last, but apparently didn't move her out of the "Guess List" pergatory
and into Yes List Nirvana....
I have some additional info regarding Bill, Russ.
BTW, the wine list for the LD tasting is on line at
http://www.liquordepot.com/
----- Forwarded message from "Jim L. Ellingson" <jellings(a)me.umn.edu> -----
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 17:18:44 -0500
From: "Jim L. Ellingson" <jellings(a)me.umn.edu>
To: wine(a)thebarn.com
Subject: Zins at Sapor on Thursday
User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.4i
Updates as I know them. Also an article on pairing wine w/ spicy food.
Liq. Depot Sale tasting is this Thursday at 5:00.
We're going to Sapor at 6:30 on Thursday.
Style du jour is Zinfandel. $5 per person in leu of corkage.
Probably going to Bobino, tasting menu, on 9/8/08.
Ruth is going to the fair several times.
Not sure who's coming on Thursday. Will guess.
Sapor, 6:30 p.m. on Thursday $5 per person in lieu of corkage.
Recall that we got into some hot water when someone inadvertantly
brought something that they claim was on their list.
I belive it was a Zin from Seghesio and/or Ch. Souvreign....
Never mind that it was a different vintage and blah-blah-blah...
Anyway, part of their wine list is on their web site.
If you happen to bring something that's on the list
(easier than you might think. Ask Russ about a split of
something obscure he'd bought at a winery that was on
their shelf as well.... ) We'll just save it for
another week. We're never short of wine.
http://www.saporcafe.com/
428 N. Washington, Mpls
612 375 1971
Yes/Guess:
Annette S
Warren/Ruth (will be there if the clouds are sufficiently dark)
Betsy
Bob
Nicolai
Jim
More guesses....
Lori
Roger LeClair
Dave
Bill won't be there tonight or next week or at Bobino on 9/8
Russ is planning to join us on 9/1, 9/8
Sapor is very close to Sam's Wine Shop (closes at 8:00 M-Th).
Tasting Menu for 9/8/08 at Bobino.
$36 per person plus tax, tip, etc.
Menu also available
Need to supply a good estimate of the number of people who
want the Tasting Menu by Tuesday 9/6/08
Open question: Is this Any Pinot or Basically Burgundy?
Bubbles Pinot/Burgundy Tasting Menu
September 8th, 2005
Bobino Cafe
Amuse Bouche
Fresh Black Mission Fig, Fourme D??? Ambert Moussiline, Local Arugula
.Poached Foie Gras au Torchon
Braised Apricot, Braeburn, Cabbage, Brioche Croustade
Crispy Leg of Duck Confit
Taleggio Panna Cotta, Pickled Cherries, Hazelnut, Port
Roasted Beets
Endives, Watercress, Humboldt Fog, Smoked Tomato-Orange Caramel
Rare Seared Ahi Tuna
Wild Mushrooms, Truffled Charred Onion, Red Wine Demi
----- End forwarded message -----
--
------------------------------ *
* Dr. James Lee Ellingson, Adjunct Professor jellings(a)me.umn.edu *
* University of Minnesota, tel: 651/645-0753 fax 651 XXX XXXX *
* Great Lakes Brewing News, 1569 Laurel Ave., St. Paul, MN 55104 *
An Update.
BTW, the wine list for the LD tasting is on line at
http://www.liquordepot.com/
----- Forwarded message from "Jim L. Ellingson" <jellings(a)me.umn.edu> -----
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 17:18:44 -0500
From: "Jim L. Ellingson" <jellings(a)me.umn.edu>
To: wine(a)thebarn.com
Subject: Zins at Sapor on Thursday
User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.4i
Updates as I know them. Also an article on pairing wine w/ spicy food.
Liq. Depot Sale tasting is this Thursday at 5:00.
We're going to Sapor at 6:30 on Thursday.
Style du jour is Zinfandel. $5 per person in leu of corkage.
Probably going to Bobino, tasting menu, on 9/8/08.
Ruth is going to the fair several times.
Not sure who's coming on Thursday. Will guess.
Sapor, 6:30 p.m. on Thursday $5 per person in lieu of corkage.
Recall that we got into some hot water when someone inadvertantly
brought something that they claim was on their list.
I belive it was a Zin from Seghesio and/or Ch. Souvreign....
Never mind that it was a different vintage and blah-blah-blah...
Anyway, part of their wine list is on their web site.
If you happen to bring something that's on the list
(easier than you might think. Ask Russ about a split of
something obscure he'd bought at a winery that was on
their shelf as well.... ) We'll just save it for
another week. We're never short of wine.
http://www.saporcafe.com/
428 N. Washington, Mpls
612 375 1971
Yes/Guess:
Warren/Ruth
Betsy
Bob
Nicolai
Jim
More guesses....
Lori
Roger LeClair
Annette S
Dave
Sapor is very close to Sam's Wine Shop (closes at 8:00 M-Th).
Tasting Menu for 9/8/08 at Bobino.
$36 per person plus tax, tip, etc.
Menu also available
Need to supply a good estimate of the number of people who
want the Tasting Menu by Tuesday 9/6/08
Open question: Is this Any Pinot or Basically Burgundy?
Bubbles Pinot/Burgundy Tasting Menu
September 8th, 2005
Bobino Cafe
Amuse Bouche
Fresh Black Mission Fig, Fourme D??? Ambert Moussiline, Local Arugula
.Poached Foie Gras au Torchon
Braised Apricot, Braeburn, Cabbage, Brioche Croustade
Crispy Leg of Duck Confit
Taleggio Panna Cotta, Pickled Cherries, Hazelnut, Port
Roasted Beets
Endives, Watercress, Humboldt Fog, Smoked Tomato-Orange Caramel
Rare Seared Ahi Tuna
Wild Mushrooms, Truffled Charred Onion, Red Wine Demi
Updates as I know them. Also an article on pairing wine w/ spicy food.
Liq. Depot Sale tasting is this Thursday at 5:00.
We're going to Sapor at 6:30 on Thursday.
Style du jour is Zinfandel. $5 per person in leu of corkage.
Probably going to Bobino, tasting menu, on 9/8/08.
Ruth is going to the fair several times.
Not sure who's coming on Thursday. Will guess.
----- Forwarded message from "Jim L. Ellingson" <jellings(a)me.umn.edu> -----
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 14:16:44 -0500
From: "Jim L. Ellingson" <jellings(a)me.umn.edu>
To: wine(a)thebarn.com
Greetings,
Muffuletta was wonderful. Very relaxing in the back room.
Sapor, 6:30 p.m. on Thursday $5 per person in lieu of corkage.
Recall that we got into some hot water when someone inadvertantly
brought something that they claim was on their list.
I belive it was a Zin from Seghesio and/or Ch. Souvreign....
Never mind that it was a different vintage and blah-blah-blah...
Anyway, part of their wine list is on their web site.
If you happen to bring something that's on the list
(easier than you might think. Ask Russ about a split of
something obscure he'd bought at a winery that was on
their shelf as well.... ) We'll just save it for
another week. We're never short of wine.
http://www.saporcafe.com/
428 N. Washington, Mpls
612 375 1971
Yes/Guess:
Warren/Ruth (if it's raining. Being on a stick is no excuse for being soggy)
Betsy
Bob
Nicolai
Jim
More guesses....
Lori
Russ
Roger LeClair
Annette S
Dave
Karin
Sapor is very close to Sam's Wine Shop (closes at 8:00 M-Th).
August 17, 2005
Choosing Bottles to Face the Heat
By ERIC ASIMOV
WHAT do Thai, Japanese and Chinese food have in common? Not to mention Indian and Mexican food, Middle Eastern and Haitian, and, as long as we're at it, barbecue?
When deciding what to drink with any of these cuisines, the reflex is usually to grab a beer. Or a Coke. Or water - lots of water.
I have no problem with any of those choices. Beer in particular is especially appealing with all of these cuisines, although most restaurants serving these foods have been the absolute last to discover the world of great craft beers.
Wine - the right wine - can go beautifully with any of these foods. It's not necessarily better than beer, but if you love wine why shouldn't you be able to enjoy it with Thai, Haitian and anything else? The key is choosing the right wine, because when you are dealing with foods that are forcefully spiced, and often with lots of chili heat, many wines can easily be overwhelmed.
It's understandable that people rarely select wine with any of these cuisines. These foods do not come from wine-making regions. They are made for beer or even whiskey.
Cultural attitudes can also play a role. As Americans are in the habit of associating beverages with social aspirations, well, let's just say that you have a better chance of finding wine at a Nascar race than you do at a barbecue pit.
So what is the right wine to go along with these foods? More often than not, it's Champagne. No wine, believe it or not, is as versatile with so wide a range of food as Champagne, and that especially includes foods that are assertively spiced. Chicken chaat with chili, cilantro and that icy feeling in the top of your mouth that comes from coarsely ground Indian black salt? Champagne is your baby. Griot, the Haitian dish of pork chunks that are marinated in vinegar, chili and lemon juice, then fried? You won't go wrong with Champagne. Sichuan twice-cooked pork? Champagne, definitely.
Champagne is a great choice with sushi. And if you go to Blue Smoke in Manhattan, a barbecue pit mutated into an urban New York restaurant, where you will actually find a wine list, go directly to the Billecart-Salmon. It's the perfect, and perfectly ironic, choice with the smoky pulled pork. Can it be mere affectation that R.U.B., the barbecue joint on West 23rd Street, offers Dom P�rignon with its Taste of the Baron, a big sampler special for two, all for $275? Well, maybe it can, but if money's no object, you would not be sorry.
On first glance, it's obvious why Champagne would go so well with beer cuisines. It's the bubbles. But that doesn't explain all of it. Cava and prosecco have bubbles, but they don't have the intensity of Champagne. California sparkling wine has bubbles, but it often is a little too heavy to refresh. I recently tried a sparkling shiraz from Australia with falafel and hummus with hot sauce, and frankly, I wish I had used more hot sauce to drown out the thick, sweet yet bitter flavor of the shiraz. No, the bubbles are important, but Champagne also has a crucial element that the other sparkling wines too often lack: high acidity.
Acidity gives wine snap and zest. It gives it a sense of freshness and helps to stimulate the palate. Even sweet wines, like a German riesling auslese, when balanced by acidity, can be thoroughly refreshing. Good acidity in a wine is essential if it is to accompany foods that aren't typically thought of as good with wine.
Thai food is generally ceded to the beer camp. It's hard to beat a great pilsner with a spicy Thai curry, but you know what? A good Bourgueil comes awfully close. Bourgueil, a village in Touraine on the Loire, produces reds from the cabernet franc grape that can be raspy with acidity, but when the acidity is balanced by sufficient fruit you have a delicious wine. Are Bourgueils, along with similar wines from the neighboring villages of Chinon and Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil, great wines? No, but they are great food wines.
If you don't believe me, have a meal at Holy Basil, a Thai restaurant in the East Village. Pimnapa Suntatkolkarn, the chef and an owner, has constructed a wine list that I wish could be a model for every moderately priced restaurant, and she always offers a good Loire red. At a meal there I tried a 2002 Bourgueil "Les Galichets" from Catherine and Pierre Breton, as well as a 1995 Rioja Reserva from L�pez de Heredia. The Rioja is wonderful, and about twice the price of the Bourgueil, but with a pungent, tart yet balanced dish like crisp duck with panang curry and kaffir lime? The Rioja had no business on the table. The Bourgueil, though, was perfect - refreshing and stimulating. The Rioja no doubt would receive a higher score in a blind tasting, but at a Thai dinner, the Bourgueil blew it away.
Ms. Suntatkolkarn believes in choices, though, and she has wisely put on her list such versatile wines as a Mosel riesling from Selbach, a Saint-V�ran from Daniel Barraud, two whites that combine good acidity with fine mineral flavors, and a Brouilly, an easygoing yet intense Beaujolais from Ch�teau Thivin. These are wines that I would not hesitate to drink with most highly spiced cuisines. She might want to add a Champagne or two, and, alas, reconsider her beer selection.
Other red wines can be versatile, too, like barbera from Piedmont in northwestern Italy, for one, and C�tes-du-Rh�nes, unless they are too oaky. Burgundy and mellow pinot noirs, of course. Sushi and pinot noir is a surprisingly excellent combination, though you need to be careful. Burgundies are generally good choices, because they have sufficient acidity, but American pinot noirs can often be too sweet.
With one recent sushi dinner I tried an Oregon pinot noir that I have enjoyed, a 2002 from Francis Tannahill called the Hermit. Unless you pour on the wasabi and soy, sushi depends on a subtle interplay of quickly etched flavors, and the rich, intense Tannahill was overwhelming. A much better choice was a 2000 Carneros Heritage Reserve from Schug, a low-key pinot noir with good acidity. Like the Bourgueil, it was the kind of wine that doesn't necessarily win high marks in the ratings wars, but proves itself at the table.
Cabernet, merlot and other Bordeaux varietal wines may be among the world's most popular, but when it comes to foods off the wine trail, they tend to be overbearing brutes. Tannins, which are generally plentiful in cabernet, and spicy foods are like rivals whom you don't want to invite to the same party. Inevitably, they'll butt heads. When cabernets age and the tannins soften, the roles reverse, and it's the spicy food that does the bullying. But like the best-intentioned matchmakers, evidence doesn't stop some Bordeaux and cabernet lovers from placing their favorite wines in ill-conceived pairings.
Until he sold his restaurant, Henry's Evergreen, on the Upper East Side a few years ago, the owner, Henry Leung, offered an excellent list of powerful California cabernets with Cantonese food. With such bottles I found myself wishing for a steak. Fortunately, Mr. Leung offered some fine rieslings and other choices to go with the house specialties.
Perhaps the most famous Vietnamese restaurant in Paris is Tan Dinh. It's not the food that has won it acclaim, although it's very good, but its list of Pomerols. I could not nearly afford one of the better Pomerols. But the bottle I tried was thought-provoking. I had two thoughts, actually: Bring on some roasted lamb, or bring on the Champagne.
--
------------------------------ *
* Dr. James Lee Ellingson, Adjunct Professor jellings(a)me.umn.edu *
* University of Minnesota, tel: 651/645-0753 fax 651 XXX XXXX *
* Great Lakes Brewing News, 1569 Laurel Ave., St. Paul, MN 55104 *
Greetings,
Bobino is booked up this week. Brian is no longer there.
Look for a tasting menu for some later date, perhaps 9/1/08.
So we need an alternate destination for this week..
Liq. Depot Sale starts this week, w/ a tasting at 5:00 on Thursday.
I would prefer something closer to the Depot but am open.
Things Close include:
Erte
The Modern Cafe
Sapor
(your suggestions here)
I've posted an article on the Dry Creek Valley from the
Wine Enthusiest.
Cheers,
Jim
Al Vento was good fun. That place is very busy, and for good reason.
Next week, Brian at Bobino will put together a Pinot/Burgundy
tasting menu for us. Joyce is handling the details.
Early guess at a head count is at least 12.
Will be exciting w/ the large stems and the small tables.
Cheers,
Jim
DRY CREEK VALLEY
Always known for its Zinfandels, this Sonoma Valley wine region is worth a visit for friendly tasting rooms pouring Rh�ne varieties and the quirky charm of Healdsburg.
Drivin. Dry Creek
Only 16 miles long and 2 miles wide, Dry Creek is easy to tour. Two days should do it, one for each of the roads that traverse the valley.s length. There are about 50 wineries in the AVA (see the Winegrowers of Dry Creek Valley.s Web site, www.wdcv.com, for details). Overnight, you.ll want to stay in Healdsburg.
The west is the best
West Dry Creek Road offers the greatest visual bang for your buck. Here are Everett Ridge, Forth, Pezzi King and Lambert Bridge. Just beyond Lambert Bridge is A. Rafanelli, which requires an appointment. Around the corner is another Dry Creek pioneer, Quivira. A few miles north is Preston. A final stop on West Dry Creek, up in the hills before it dead-ends, is Zin specialist Bella Vineyards.
The leisurely east
A drive up Dry Creek Road brings you to Zinfandel producers such as Deux Amis, Wilson, Nalle and Mauritson. Just beyond, you.ll see the old Dry Creek Store, a convenient place to stop for lunch. Don.t forget to turn onto Lambert Bridge Road to visit Dry Creek Vineyard.in many ways the valley.s mother ship. To the north is Unti Vineyards. Also on Dry Creek Road is the Family Wineries tasting room, shared by six wineries. (See www.familywineriesdrycreekvalley.com.) A few miles on, Yoakim Bridge offers very good Zinfandels and Syrahs. One of the final wineries on Dry Creek Road is Ferrari-Carano. Their wines are good, but most bear a Sonoma County, not Dry Creek Valley, appellation. The same is true of the last winery on Dry Creek Road, Lake Sonoma, worth a visit for its value wines and incredible down-valley view.
Also worth visiting are Mazzoco and Ridge/Lytton Springs, both well east of Dry Creek Road, and Seghesio, which is closer to Healdsburg on Grove Street. Gallo of Sonoma.s tasting room is in Healdsburg.
It.s a warm spring day in the Dry Creek Valley. S�bastien Polhan is outside the winery at Unti Vineyards, where he.s winemaker. He.s looking downvalley, where the nearly treeless valley floor undulates gently along Dry Creek, which, in rainy wintertime, rushes down to the Russian River, 12 miles southeast.
Polhan, who was born in the south of France, looks up at the sky. .It seems to me, knowing the Languedoc-Roussillon and the southern Rh�ne Valley, that the climate is similar to here,. he observes. .Not a huge temperature difference between winter and summer, and fairly dry..
Dry Creek Valley has had a long history of grapegrowing and winemaking. The Native American Pomo people called it Mihikaune, or Dry Creek Valley, for the stream that.s nothing but an arroyo seco, a dry wash, by high summer. The first grapevines were planted by California-born Mexicans in the 1830s. Following the Gold Rush in the 1850s, Americans who had failed to strike it rich in the Sierras emigrated toward the coast. They planted the Mission grape, which made .a rude wine,. according to an 1879 history of the region. At some point, probably during the Civil War, someone planted the noble grape that would establish Dry Creek.s reputation: Zinfandel.
Zinfandel.s delicate balance
Dry Creek.s heat makes Zinfandel dependably good. Days are warm to hot, and almost totally rainless, throughout summer and harvest. The best fruit doesn.t come from the bottomlands, where soils are generally too fertile. Instead, it is grown in the benchlands and up into the foothills and mountains; here, yields are low, and flavors are intensely concentrated in the well-drained, nutrient-poor, gravelly clay loams, whose red color testifies to their volcanic origins.
Zinfandels crafted here are rarely overly alcoholic or have residual sugar. The absence of these flaws, which are so commonly found elsewhere, is a testament to the technical abilities of Dry Creek.s vintners. .Balance is what comes to mind for Dry Creek Zin,. declares Scott Adams, who co-founded Bella Winery. .And they are ripe in fruit,. he adds, .especially from up here [in the north],. where the heat builds with each mile further from the Russian River. That word, .balance,. comes up in every discussion of Dry Creek Zin. .I.m looking for a nice, full-bodied, round, complex Zin, and above all a balanced one,. says Rafanelli.s winemaker, Rashell Rafanelli-Fehlman. Instead of concentrating on single-vineyard Zins, as does Bella, she makes only one, a blend from vineyards from around the valley.
Then there.s Doug Nalle, whose Zins define an earlier-picked style that makes the wines ageworthy and, maybe, more food-friendly. He blames .market pressures. for inspiring vintners to let their grapes get riper and riper with each vintage.
Other wineries that do a consistently good job with Zinfandel include Deerfield Ranch, Forchini, Preston, Ridge.s Lytton Springs bottling, Unti, Alderbrook, Fritz and Quivira.
The E&J Gallo winery also crafts very good Dry Creek Zins under a variety of brands, especially Rancho Zabaco and Gallo of Sonoma. Gallo, in fact, has a very long history in the valley, and is by far the largest vineyard owner. They long used the old Frei Brothers brand, which was founded in 1900, for grapes for bulk wine, and have lately resurrected the brand as the source of Merlot with a Dry Creek Valley appellation. Gallo.s Frei Ranch production facility, located in terraformed hills above Dry Creek Road, is huge, and about to get bigger after the county approved plans for its expansion, in June 2005.
Top Wines of the Valley
Two notes: Wine Enthusiast will publish a Syrah tasting feature in the September issue; for that reason, we.re not including Syrah reviews in this mixed case. Also, in this article, I single out only wineries in Dry Creek Valley, and only wines made from grapes grown there. But look also for some outstanding Dry Creek Valley wines from outside wineries: Zins from Rosenblum, Imagery, Ridge and Rancho Zabaco; Carlisle.s Syrah; and Chardonnays from Clos du Bois and Handley.
93 Rafanelli 2002 Cabernet Sauvignon (Dry Creek Valley); $40. Starts with aromas of cassis and black cherries.now one is the star, then the other. Finally, new oak kicks in. It hasn.t begun to come together yet, but when it does, you.ll find a rich, dense wine, with a wonderful tease of tannins. Drink 2008.2012.
92 Forth 2002 All Boys Cabernet Sauvignon (Dry Creek Valley); $18. Here.s a nice Cab that.s easy to like for its ripe berry, chocolate, olive and herb flavors and rich, smooth texture. Yet it has complexity. Drink now for the sheer exuberance of youth.
92 Unti 2003 Grenache (Dry Creek Valley); $26. With a little Syrah and Mourv�dre, this young, dark purple wine is tight, tannic and acidic. It needs time. Even as little as six months should soften it, and tease out the sweet cherry and spice flavors. Finishes with fabulous complexity.
91 Lambert Bridge 2002 Crane Creek Cuv�e (Dry Creek Valley); $50. Mainly Merlot, this Bordeaux blend is enormously rich in sweet cassis, cherry and cedar. It.s assertive, yet possesses an elegant architecture of rich, dusty tannins and crisp acids. Hold for at least five years.
91 Mauritson 2001 Growers Reserve Zinfandel (Dry Creek Valley); $33. Far more tannic and concentrated than Mauritson.s regular Zin. Its blackberry, blueberry and pepper flavors are just delicious. Still, it should benefit from a few years of aging.
90 Bella 2002 Belle Canyon Estate Zinfandel (Dry Creek Valley); $30. This fine example of a Dry Creek Zin is very forward in ripe cherries and raspberries, but possesses great structure from rich tannins. Deeply satisfying, it has fine balance and elegance.
90 Nalle 2003 Zinfandel (Dry Creek Valley); $26. Here.s a young, dark Zin with vibrant tannins and high acids that frame blackberry and cassis flavors. With alcohol below 14%, it.s quite elegant. Should develop well through the decade.
90 Thumbprint 2002 Schneider Vineyard Merlot (Dry Creek Valley); $30. Forward and inviting aromas of violets, black cherries, vanilla and charred oak join roasted meat and grilled wild mushroom notes, in this smoothly textured, complex Merlot. It.s gentle in tannins, with a taste of currants in the finish.
89 Preston 2003 Cavallo Barbera (Dry Creek Valley); $25. Purple in hue, this full-bodied wine has powerful aromas of plum sauce, cherry pipe tobacco and white pepper. It.s tannic but very soft, with a dry, cherry-leather finish. Try this assertive wine with bold fare.
87 Dry Creek Vineyard 2003 DCV3 Fum� Blanc (Dry Creek Valley); $25. Ripe and creamy, with fleshy peach and melon aromas brought to attention by notes of jalape�o and grass. Like the nose, the palate deals mostly ripe melon and peach flavors with touches of grass, white pepper and greens. Bulky and full.
87 Quivira 2003 Fig Tree Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc (Dry Creek Valley); $16. From estate grapes, this intensely flavored wine shows citron, lemongrass and fig flavors, brightened by acid. Semillon, barrel fermentation and sur lie aging all bring a rich, nutty creaminess, and a slight sweetness, to the finish.
The Sauvignon Blanc story
Dry Creek was declared Sonoma.s second American Viticultural Area in 1983 (the first was Sonoma Valley, a year earlier). Zinfandel.s success was crucial to making that happen, but the rapid rise of Sauvignon Blanc also contributed.
In 1972, Dave Stare started Dry Creek Vineyard, the first new winery in the valley since Prohibition, and one of the varieties he planted was the grape he.d fallen in love with while traveling in France.s Loire Valley. .The county farm advisor told me that nobody could grow Sauvignon Blanc here,. Stare recalls, with a rueful grin. .He recommended Chardonnay, Riesling or Gew�rztraminer. I ignored his advice and planted Sauvignon Blanc.. It was a perfect fit: Sauvignon Blanc thrived in the vigorous bottomland soils Zinfandel didn.t like.
Dry Creek Sauvignon Blancs are made in various styles, from grassy and unoaked to creamy, barrel-fermented bottlings like Dry Creek Vineyard.s DCV3 (which they call Fum� Blanc). .You get somewhat of a range of expression, depending on picking levels,. confirms Julia Iantosca, winemaker at Lambert Bridge. Iantosca looks to pick at higher brix, .so you move into more fresh alfalfa character, a sweeter green quality, and also lemongrass with hints of melon.. That.s an apt description of the classic Dry Creek Sauvignon Blanc, which is usually crisp in acidity, too. Iantosca likes to blend in a tiny amount of Viognier, about 3 percent, because .it enhances Sauvignon.s character and aromatics.. Like many others, she recently began using the Musqu� clone of Sauvignon Blanc, which adds a Muscat-like perfume to the wine.
Cab.s uphill struggle
The earliest Dry Creek Cabernets generally exhibited a dusty, herbal character that was not as rich as a Napa Cab. But better viticultural techniques in recent years, as well as improved clones and warmer harvests, have tended to make the Cabs fruitier. Dry Creek Vineyard.s general manager, Don Wallace, finds .big cherries and chocolate flavors, with hints of coffee,. in his Endeavor Cabernet, grown from an eastside vineyard. Rafanelli-Fehlman, whose Cabernet is arguably the valley.s best, credits hillside plantings for the wine.s balance and longevity. .The grapes have thick skins that hold up well to heat. You can let our Cab hang in the vineyard [until it.s ripe]..
Goin. Rh�ne
In the California-wide sprint to achieve star status with Rh�ne varieties, Dry Creek is right up there at the head of the pack.
.All of the Rh�ne varieties do well in Dry Creek Valley.Syrah, Grenache, Cinsault, Viognier, Marsanne and Roussanne,. declares Bill Frick, owner of Frick Winery. (He might have added Mourv�dre, which loves the heat.)
Dry Creek.s climate, as Polhan observed, is remarkably similar to that of the Southern Rh�ne Valley. There were probably always some scattered French varieties mixed in with the old Zinfandel vines.Carignane, Alicante Bouchet.which, as Frick points out, is one reason why Dry Creek Zins were so good from the start. .They were field blends,. says Frick.
In 1977, vintner Lou Preston installed a couple of acres of Syrah. He.d started with the usual suspects, Zin and Sauvignon Blanc, but soon, what he calls .unusual varieties. captured his fancy. Preston did something unusual: He planted his Syrah and Petite Sirah side by side. His explanation? .The two grapes sounded alike.. Today, Preston.s Vogensen Ranch Syrah-Sirah is a rich, hearty blend that.s not unlike a good Languedoc red.
Frick hopped onboard the Rh�ne train later, in the late 1980s. He had been growing Napa Gamay in his sparse, dry hillside vineyard, and although it made .a spectacular wine, like a big Pinot Noir, people pooh-poohed it. So I thought, what else can I grow in this kind of ground? I planted Syrah..
Unti Vineyards. George Unti and his son, Mick, arrived a little later and also planted Syrah, to four different clones. .Zinfandel we grow because, when you.re in Dry Creek Valley, you have to,. jokes Polhan. But when it came to choice, the Untis planted Rh�ne grapes, as well as Sangiovese and Barbera. Slowly but surely, Dry Creek vintners began to appreciate, not only the valley.s suitability for Syrah and other Rh�nes, but the public.s embrace of them.
Adams, at Bella, had begun with Zinfandel, but turned to Syrah when he realized that .Zinfandel and Syrah have an affinity. Syrah has the same weight as Zin, the same bold character, with a different flavor profile.. A Dry Creek Valley Syrah is a warm-climate wine. You don.t get the dark color, or the sturdy tannins and bright acids, of a Santa Maria Valley or Sonoma Coast Syrah. Instead, the best are dramatically rich and hedonistic in jammy, chocolaty fruit.
Not everybody in the valley is going the Rh�ne route. There are only about 300 acres of Syrah today throughout the A.V.A., compared to 2,226 acres of Zinfandel. But Dry Creek Syrah and Rh�nes are grabbing the attention of sommeliers and connoisseurs. .Zinfandel will be the King of Dry Creek forever,. declares Frick, .but Rh�ne varieties have a real future..
Hot, Hot Healdsburg
No wine town has become so glitzy, so fast, as Healdsburg.
The town.s founder, Harmon Heald, one of those failed Forty Niner gold miners, would hardly recognize his old settlement, but the Plaza he staked out is still there. Lined by redwoods, it.s at the center of a district of restaurants, antique shops, art galleries, bookstores, clothing boutiques, kitchen supply stores and tasting bars.
Longtime residents are awed by how upscale Healdsburg has become. .I.ve seen a lot of changes, and it.s great,. says Rafanelli.s winemaker, Rashell Rafanelli-Fehlman, .but there are times you wish you could go back..
Downtown Healdsburg is about strolling and people watching, shopping, wine tasting.and, after all that exercise, eating.
Dining
Barndiva, 231 Center Street; tel: 707.431.0100; www.barndiva.com. Open just a year, this watering hole is packing them in. .We don.t really know what Barndiva is,. says the young general manager, Lukka Feldman, whose mom owns it. Barndiva is a restaurant, lounge, cruising ground, place to hang out and listen to loud music, and most definitely a spot to drink. Open late, it.s casual-hip, attracting an eclectic crowd. The mostly-Sonoma wine list probably boasts the town.s most extensive by-the-glass selection.
Bistro Ralph, 109 Plaza Street; tel: 707.433.1380. Supposedly the first modern restaurant in Healdsburg, this small, lounge-style space, right on the Plaza, offers chops, duck, veal and seafood with Mediterranean touches. The wine list, thorough and imaginative, is all Sonoma, and cuts across all varieties and blends. Good by-the-glass selection, with many below $10.
Cyrus, Les Mars Hotel, 29 North Street; tel: 707.433.3311; www.cyrusrestaurant.com. Cyrus had buzz before it opened earlier this year, thanks to co-owner Nick Peyton and chef Douglas Keane, who both did stints at Masa.s, Gary Danko and Jardiniere. Then, once it opened, it moved immediately into Sonoma.s top rank of restaurants. After a caviar-and-Champagne presentation, you can order off the menu or do the tasting menu (7 courses, $85; $47 for wine). Cyrus.s wine list relies a bit heavily on famous names, but sommelier Jason Alexander says he.s searching for less predictable brands. Great cheese cart, great desserts.
Dry Creek Kitchen, 317 Healdsburg Avenue; tel: 707.431.0330; www.hotelheadsburg.com. It.s remarkable how DCK has meshed with the style of Healdsburg. It feels like a veteran, even though it opened only a few years ago. Founded by celebrity chef Charlie Palmer, DCK.s food is prepared with new chef de cuisine Michael Voltaggio.s refined sensibilities. The big wine list is all Sonoma, although it could have a greater by-the-glass range. The tasting menu, especially when paired with wines selected by DCK.s sommelier, Leo Hansen (who.s also the winemaker at Stuhlmuller), offers the best opportunity to graze. Desserts are outstanding.
Madrona Manor, 1001 Westside Road; tel: 707.433.4231. The restaurant at Madrona Manor [see .Lodging. for more information] is a glamourous destination, a place locals go to for a celebration. Just minutes outside town, in a Victorian hillside mansion, Madrona offers California interpretations of classic fare, using the best local ingredients. The large, flashy wine list has a good representation of Sonoma County and Napa Valley bottlings.
Ravenous Cafe & Lounge, 420 Center Street; tel: 707.431.1302. Housed in an old Victorian cottage, Ravenous offers California cuisine in a warmly intimate, casual space. Menus change daily. Ravenous is a favorite for hungry winemakers who like big portions. .It.s not foofy, so to speak,. says Bella.s Scott Adams, adding, .It.s food you might make for yourself.. There is a good selection of Dry Creek Valley and Sonoma County wines, at reasonable prices.
Zin Restaurant and Wine Bar, 344 Center Street; tel: 707.473.0946. Zin.s fare is rustic and hearty. The food, served in a spartan, barn-like space, has a homemade feel, and entrees are large. The wine list is serviceable, with the accent on Zinfandel, and glass pours are generous and inexpensive. Zin is popular with a younger, blue-jeans-and-earrings crowd that includes a good number of cellar rats. Lodging
Hotel Healdsburg, 25 Matheson Street; tel: 707.431.2800; www.hotelhealdsburg.com. When HH opened, back in 2001, some people thought it was too big, too Bauhaus for Healdsburg. If you.re looking for faux-French palatial, go elsewhere. HH is about zinc, stone and steel, glass sky bridges, natural fabrics and plank-wood floors.
Morning buffet, included in the price, offers eggs, smoked salmon, yogurt, piles of fresh fuits, bagels, the whole nine yards, served in the modernistic lobby.
Madrona Manor, 1001 Westside Road; tel: 707.433.4231; www.madronamanor.com. Located 3 minutes outside town, this romantic inn and restaurant is housed in an ancient Victorian mansion perched on a hill, with a gorgeous view. B&B-style rooms are luxuriously cozy; some offer jacuzzis. The inn also has a large heated swimming pool. Rates from $245-$485 a night, for two.
Les Mars Hotel, 27 North Street; tel: 707.433. 4211, 877. 431.1700; www.lesmarshotel.com. Les Mars, which opened just last March, is the counterpoint to Hotel Healdsburg. It.s grand style in the European tradition. From the antique-filled lobby to the suites, with four-poster beds, 19th century prints, fresh orchids, Louis XVI bureaux and gas fireplaces.not to mention jars of Bulgari lotions in the bathroom.this is upscale all the way.
The suites are airy and quiet. Rates range from $495 to $995. Tout Healdsburg is talking about Les Mars, and it.s safe to say it will be a while before anything opens in the area that outclasses it.
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* Dr. James Lee Ellingson, Adjunct Professor jellings(a)me.umn.edu *
* University of Minnesota, tel: 651/645-0753 fax 651 XXX XXXX *
* Great Lakes Brewing News, 1569 Laurel Ave., St. Paul, MN 55104 *
Al Vento was good fun. That place is very busy, and for good reason.
Next week, Brian at Bobino will put together a Pinot/Burgundy
tasting menu for us. Joyce is handling the details.
Early guess at a head count is at least 12.
Will be exciting w/ the large stems and the small tables.
Cheers,
Jim
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Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2005 11:40:09 -0500
From: Warren Gregory <wbgregory(a)qwest.net>
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Subject: red, whites and pinks
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Jim, here are the brief notes. I thought it was great fun, no bad wines and
good food. A nice variety.
The theme was red and whites with a lighter touch for the warm weather.
Pink wines and sparkling was also encouraged. We were sequestored in the
back room at Muffuletta.
Billecart-Salmon NV Champagne / led off the evening and I kept a bit in a
glass until the end. It was very nice, creamy and mature but not at all
tired. "one of the most dependable NV champagnes available" ... for $27
Pine Ridge 2003 Chenin Blanc (81%) Viogner (19%) / Some tasters sensed
the presence of the Chenin in this nicely balanced, restrained wine. Some
guessed old world.
Omaka Springs 2002 Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc / wow, green pepper that
never softened. Crisp and very lively but a bit sharp.
Mankloof Wine Collection 2003 South African Chenin Blanc / varietal had
most of us stumped but after pulling the bag we could see a similarity with
the Pine Ridge. Sweet fruit flavors and little acidity, seemed very warm
blooded.
Dr. Konstantin Frank 2001 Johanisberg, Finger Lakes Riesling / seemed old
world to some (a good thing) pungeont nose and dancing acid. A well
proportioned reisling.
Lawson's Dry Hills 2004 Marlborough Pinot Noir Rose / We all liked this
pretty, deeply colored rose wine. Strawberry and raspberry fruits in nose
and flavor with charming, nearly dry finish. Why do we not drink more rose?
go to Solo Vino for a vast selection.
Louis Tete 2001 "La Tot" Beaujolais Village / this one has appeared on
previous Thursday evenings. A true country French wine with an edge of
gravel to temper its soft approachable fruit.
Mas de Gourgonnier 2002 Le Baux de Provence / perhaps the darkest wine of
the night, not heavy though, with some earth and floral notes along with red
fruit and texture on the palate.
August Kesseler 2002 Spatbergunder Rheingau "Cuvee Max" troken / the wine
of the night if only because it was such a welcome surprise. We sensed Pinot
but the bottle shape was wrong (silly us). Some spice and dill notes, proper
acidity and a lingering herbal red fruit finish. Good with the salmon and
dashi.
Monsanto 2000 Chianti Classico / several picked up on the Italianate
nature of this red but we missed Tuscan origin. Be aware that wild boar is
on the Muffuletta specials sheet and this wine made the best match with
that. very balanced and elegant with no indication that its ready to quite
being very good.
----- End forwarded message -----
--
------------------------------ *
* Dr. James Lee Ellingson, Adjunct Professor jellings(a)me.umn.edu *
* University of Minnesota, tel: 651/645-0753 fax 651 XXX XXXX *
* Great Lakes Brewing News, 1569 Laurel Ave., St. Paul, MN 55104 *
