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| | RHONE WANNA-BE'S
Perhaps credit for the planting of the major Rhone varietals in California goes
t o Joseph Phelps, who offered a varietal Syrah back in the mid 1970s.
We think,
however, even more credit goes to Randall Grahm of Bonny Doon Vineyard. Grahm began
in his quixotic quest to master Pinot Noir. He came to realize that California's
climate was more suited to Mediterranean varieties than Burgundian. He's brought
attention to Grenache (the primary grape of French Rhone wines such as Côtes du
Rhône or Châteauneuf-du-Pape), Syrah (the noble red grape of the Northern
Rhône, producing
wines such as Hermitage and Côte-Rotie) and Mourvèdre (also known as Mataro or
Monastrell in Spain and the backbone of the robust reds of Provence called Bandol).
A prominent Rhône Ranger winemaker sent a note saying Randall Grahm's interest in Syrah
was piqued after his tasting a 1982 Syrah from Paso Robles made by Bob Lindquist (Mister
Qupé). Mr. Grahm told us he doesn't recall it that way.
Sometimes Randall Grahm had been the victim of his own success, losing out on buying the
fruit he's brought attention to as other wineries have been willing to pay
(higher) premium prices
for these grapes!
There was a legal entanglement some years ago over some grapevines originally said to be
Roussanne. It seems some people have paid money to Sonoma Grapevines for cuttings or
Roussanne, planted these "sticks" in the ground and then, several years later,
they're harvesting fruit. Unfortunately these grapes were Viognier, not
Roussanne.
Oops!
What was Monsieur Grahm thinking, anyway? He brought over
what are cleverly dubbed "suitcase varieties" (grape cuttings stashed
in luggage and brought over directly from Europe. Mr. Graham claimed to
have gotten the cuttings from a vineyard in Chateauneuf-du-Pape where Viognier
is not especially prominent, but Roussanne is more widely cultivated.
He reportedly "gave" the cuttings to the nursery, while the owner of
the nursery asserts he paid for the vines.
One factor seems lost on many California producers of "Rhône-styled" wines.
European connoisseurs have historically turned to the Rhône Valley for wines when Bordeaux and
Burgundy priced themselves out of reach. It is still possible to buy glorious
Rhône wines in the $15-$30 range.
Many of the California Rhône Rangers' (as they're called)
wines are in the $25-$100 category! Frankly, we've tasted some mighty fine Rhône
wines which cost a fraction of what the California wineries are asking. Many local
producers are banking on, apparently, scarcity as a factor in allowing them to seek these
luxury prices before their wines have reached the same quality level.
Others are banking simply on the novelty of having a wine they hope will compare
favorably to those being made in Europe.
Randall Grahm sold his Bonny Doon brand to some company that features
labels geared towards marketing. The company that now owns this historic
brand, for example, offers a seltzer called "Bubble Butt."
Perhaps that tells us all we need to know???
Actually, though, there's a
particular dynamic which is driving the ridiculous prices for a lot of
the marginal wines.
For many of the scads of producers in the Paso Robles/San Luis Obispo
area, the wines are good enough to sell to tourists who are out
for a weekend away from Los Angeles or San Francisco. This
is the same for Lodi, too. Add Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino and Santa
Barbara to this list, too, why don't you?
Wineries with $40-$125 price tags are able to sell their precious bottles to
folks who are just out for a day or two "on the road" and
these expensive souvenirs cause vintners to expect others to pony up
silly sums of cash for the same plonk.
If you have an idea of the "value" of wine, then you might be
unwilling to pay so much for so little. If you're just out on the
wine trail and collecting some souvenir bottles, well, knock yourself
out.
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We have good quality Côtes-du-Rhône wines in the shop at eleven to sixteen bucks. And
$20-$40 will get you some really good French bottles...
Not a lot of them have a great understanding of the wines they are trying to
imitate. One fellow recently stopped by with a Viognier, telling me
"The wine from this vineyard doesn't taste right when it's bone
dry." I kept my big mouth shut (for once) as I was thinking "It doesn't
taste right sweet, either!"
He had a freshly-bottled Rosé. Only 15% alcohol, too! As for his
Syrahs, none was likely to keep Rhône Valley winemakers awake at night knowing
there's competition from California! I asked him what Rhône winemakers he
liked and he ran off a list of many good wineries. Too bad his wines
didn't taste as good to me as some of our well-priced Côtes du Rhônes.
(That winery went out of business, by the way.)
Another
fellow made a Syrah Rosé of huge alcohol (he claimed it's around 19.0% alcohol
and dry!) and asked $75 for a bottle. He's no longer in business, we
learned recently. Wonder why???
We wonder if so many proponents of California's
Syrah/Grenache/Mourvedre and Viognier/Roussanne/Marsanne, etc. wines have even
tasted good wines from France's Rhone Valley. It seems as though most
producers have no clue as to what makes top French Rhone wines
"special."
In an edition (now some years ago) of Robert Parker's "Wine Advocate," many of the
micro-production Syrah wines are evaluated. Highly praised are wines which
some consumers may find undrinkable. The wines are picked at high levels
of sugar and end up producing wines nearly as alcoholic as a martini! We
don't agree with this notion that bigger, more intense wine is necessarily
better.
Amazing is the fact that Mr. Parker wrote a book on the wines of the Rhône Valley. He seems to have a good idea of what the wines from France, the
benchmarks, ought to taste like. Yet he is advising consumers to throw
serious amounts of money at wines which are less-than-stellar, in our view.
(Look at some of Mr. Parker's reviews of Australian wines. Yikes!)
Further, by heaping what we view as unwarranted praise on many of these wines,
Mr. Parker is encouraging winemakers to make these behemoths since those are
wines which get the highest numerical scores. Winemakers will
continue to pick at higher and higher levels of sugar and make wines more potent
than Sherry!
I spoke with one well-established winemaker whose wines get good reviews from
Mr. Parker. He said he felt a bit "sick" when reading Parker's
Issue #154 from notes gathered over the summer of 2004. "I thought
about writing a letter to him suggesting that he's totally lost with respect to
these wines. But I don't want it to sound like 'sour grapes' since he does
rate my wines. And besides, such a letter might adversely impact the
scores for my own wines."
We poke fun at ourselves on our wine-tasting pages pointing out that our
blind-tasting comparisons are for "sport" and they are not
"rocket science." The notion of scoring every wine with a
numerical score on a 100 or 20 point scale seems silly, since these numbers
really are a personal reaction to a particular wine. And they are
"valid" (if you wish to give them any credence) for the flight of
wines in which they are tasted. That is, a 90 point wine in one line-up,
might merit only 85 points in another, while garnering 93 points amongst a
weaker field of challengers.
But to attain the lofty scores many winemakers seek, one is obliged to make
"extreme" wines. You have to have a wine with more color, more
body, more intensity than other wines. These wines, evaluated in the
context of a "wine tasting", may show far differently than they do in
the context of dinner-time wine "drinking."
A "taster" has but a minute or two to evaluate a wine. They
don't "live" with the wine for an hour while dining. We've found
many of these huge monsters to be fatiguing and, frankly, uninteresting after
the first glass.
We admire the enthusiasm of some of the local winemakers, but think some might
benefit from additional study in the realm of wine and how it pairs with
food.
It's, perhaps, fortunate that the old-time fashion of flambéing food tableside in
restaurants is pass, since many of these wines might catch on fire and cause
serious damage! Some of the white wines are well over 15%
alcohol! These can burn a hole on your palate.
Some Wines We Like:

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- THE OJAI VINEYARD
Winemaker
Adam Tolmach owns this gem of a winery with his lovely wife Helen. He
had been an early pioneer in Santa Barbara wine history, having been a
co-founder of the Au Bon Climat winery with Jim Clendenen. Both
fellows are graduates of the University of Zaca Mesa, another old Santa
Barbara County winery. (Bob Lindquist worked there, too, he of the now
famous Qupé winery.)
A-B-C specialized in Burgundian varieties and this was a much-heralded
little brand in its early days. The partnership eventually dissolved,
as Adam sold his interest in ABC to Clendenen and devoted full attention to
The Ojai Vineyard.
Adam's grandfather has bought a property in Ventura County, just south of
Santa Barbara. There Gramps cultivated melons and corn and the old boy
sold these at a roadside stand in the town of Oak View.
Tolmach made some striking wines in the early days. He still makes
striking wines, actually, but in those days his wines were seemingly bigger
and deeper than most in the market. (We were early fans of his
Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnays, too.)
Adam hasn't changed much, although there have been constant refinements and
enhancements in his vineyard work and cellar practices. But these
days, some of the wines being made in California seem to be pushed in a
direction to maximize color, alcohol and intensity as these features help a
wine stand out in a blind-tasting. And, at one point, wine critics
tasted wines "blind," so those elements allowed a wine to rise
above the competition.
These days we're fairly certain most of the current crop of critics taste
wines knowing what they are evaluating and there are certain preconceived
notions muddying the murky waters of wine criticism.
So today's Ojai Vineyard Syrah wines are not the biggest or "baddest"
wines on the table. But they can be some of the most intriguing and
interestingly complex wines on the dinner table.
Adam still makes a fair bit of Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay
and, crazy fellow that he is, Riesling is now part of the Ojai portfolio.
Tolmach works diligently with a stable of growers to produce his remarkable
wines. In the early days he was buying grapes as most winemakers
bought grapes, "by the ton." But the grower, cultivating
vineyards for tonnage is usually working at cross-purposes with a
winemaker.
So Adam was early on the bandwagon of buying fruit "by the
acre." This meant he would pay a grower the price he'd pay for so
many tons per acre, but he would direct the farming to produce a smaller
crop with the idea of increasing the quality of the grapes.
He's continued to refine his partnership with growers with whom he
works. As there has been a warming trend over the past few decades,
Adam keeps an eagle eye on the various vineyards as the harvest season looms
on his horizon and he's not at all interested in picking fruit with such
high levels of sugar that the grapes are a bit dehydrated. His
other refinement is a reduction in new wood used for aging the wines.
When you make a number of single vineyard bottlings, you can make them taste
quite similar by seasoning the wines with the impact of new barrels.
Tolmach now prefers to highlight the actual characteristics conferred on the
wines by toning down the wood.
We have one Ojai Syrah in the shop presently (along with Sauvignon
Blanc and Pinot Noir).
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- The 2017 Santa Barbara Syrah is a classic.
Adam blended in a healthy percentage of Grenache, but we find Syrah taking
center stage here.
There's even a drop of Sangiovese (!) in the blend. About 30% of the
grapes went into the fermenter "whole," so there's a really nice
berry fruit to this.
You can easily compare this to a good St. Joseph or Crozes-Hermitage.
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If
you want to blow your doors off, consider the 2015 Syrah from the Sebastiano
Vineyard.
The vineyard was planted in 2007 and the Pinot Noir vines are within the
Sta. Rita Hills appellation, but the Syrah and Grenache are just outside the
delimited area.
Ojai doesn't purchase these grapes "by the ton," but pays for them
"by the acre" as noted previously.
In a vintage such as 2015 there were hardly any grapes in the vineyard and
Tolmach tells us the yield was a mere one-third of a ton per acre!
The resulting wine has tremendous intensity and yet it's more along the
lines of a really good Northern Rhône than it is California, over-the-top
Syrah.
In fact, the wine is just 13.5% alcohol, not the usual 14.5-15% of so many
California Syrahs.
It displays lots of dark fruit notes and comparing it to a good Côte Rôtie
is not out of the question.
It's a fabulous example of Syrah and, served blind to a capable taster, we
suspect they'd identify it as coming from France, not California.
But then, this is The Ojai Vineyard and Adam routinely makes "old
world"-styled wines.
The 2015 may age quite handsomely, but it is showing so beautifully right
now, resisting the temptation to drink it is a challenge.
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- Currently available:
2017 OJAI Santa Barbara Syrah $29.99
2015 OJAI "John Sebastiano" Special Bottling SYRAH Winery
price $65 SALE PRICE $57.99


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CEDARVILLE
Susan
Marks and Jonathan Lachs met while studying at UC Davis and they had
careers outside of wine in order to generate enough cash to invest in
their winemaking folly.
She worked in some biotech capacity and Jonathan was a Hewlett-Packard
staffers back in the day. I know they had some experience working in
wineries in California's Central Coast and the fantasy world called Napa
Valley.
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They settled in the town of Fair Play which is located in El Dorado
County. Gold Country. Way up yonder in them thar' hills, if you know
what I mean.
It's a beautiful little property and they farm it with thought and care.
Organic farming practices have been in place for a number of years now.
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- We are saddened, though, by the passing of Susan in mid-2020 from a
prolonged illness...Jonathan, though, says he will continue her legacy and
grow grapes and make a little bit of wine.
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Wine grower and winemakers Jonathan Lachs.

It's a small winery and most wines are produced in lots ranging in quantity
from 75 to 300 cases.
- The vineyards surrounding the house and residence are in the Fair Play
appellation. This is, by the way, California's highest elevation
vineyards, with most of the acreage ranging from 2,000 to 3000
feet. The soils are sandy loam and granite, with modest
rainfall if we're not experiencing drought conditions. The large
swing between daytime and night-time can be dramatic, allowing the fruit
to retain nice levels of acidity.
I suspect Lachs and Marks thought they'd be making primarily Zinfandel and
Cabernet Sauvignon, but these days they're growing a number of Rhone
varieties and with success.
We've had a few Rhone varietals from Cedarville.
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The 2014 vintage Grenache comes from 20 year old vines grown on their own
estate. We found it to be a rather charming and well-balanced
version of this Rhone grape.
The wine features a nice red fruit character, with hints of strawberry and
red cherries. There's a faintly spicy element, as well...might be
from the modest amount of Syrah they blend into this or it could simply be
the Grenache showing its own spice tones. It's a medium-bodied and
gentle version of Grenache. We view this as being immediately
drinkable, but we wouldn't be surprised to taste it in five years and find
a more stunningly complex red.
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- The 2019 Viognier comes from a north-facing slope, which is great in
terms of challenging the vines to ripen their crop. The problem can
be , though, at such a high elevation, frosts can adversely impact the
crop load when the vineyards are in the early stages of the Spring
season.
The soils are loamy and granitic which they say helps in producing a wine
with a mildly stony quality along with its classic peach/apricot-like
character. To its credit, the wine can be identified in the glass as
Viognier, unlike many of the "mystery whites" we encounter.

The
2016 Syrah comes from vines that are nearly two decades old, so they've got deep
roots and this helps add to the quality of this lovely wine.
Taking a page out of a winemaker's book from the Northern Rhone in France,
Cedarville's Syrah is co-fermented with a small percentage of
Viognier.
The wine sports a nice dark berry sort of fragrance and it's medium-full on the
palate without being especially astringent.
They only make a few barrels of this wine, by the way.
We suspect the wine will blossom handsomely with sufficient bottle
aging...though it is quite enjoyable in its youth, the wine seems to have enough
stuffing to turn into quite a surprising bottle if left alone for five or ten
years. On the other hand, if there's a leg of lamb in the oven tonight,
your bottle may be too tempting to allow it to develop.
Another feature of Cedarville wines is they are well-priced and afford consumers
of not only good quality, but good value.
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Currently in stock: 2014 CEDARVILLE El Dorado
GRENACHE $25.99
2019 CEDARVILLE El Dorado VIOGNIER $21.99
2016 CEDARVILLE El Dorado SYRAH $25.99


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- ALBAN VINEYARDS
John
Alban is one of the leading lights in the Rhône Ranger contingent. His name
seemed to first appear on various wine labels as the source of grapes such
as Syrah, Marsanne and Roussanne.
Then he launched his own label, much like many people who grow grapes.
When you see how much money some winemakers ask for the wines from your own
fruit, there's certainly the temptation to start making your own.
Early vintages were a bit inconsistent. Some wines were pretty nice,
while others were not to our taste. Though the current crop of Alban
offerings get good reviews from many critics, they are not wines of
universal appeal, but the "basic" (if you want to call them that)
offerings have been good as John seems to have the vineyard and cellar work
'dialed in.'
Alban makes a couple of Viognier wines, for example. Most of the time
we seem to prefer the basic, entry level "Central Coast"
bottling. It is typically more forward, lower in alcohol and simply
"easier" than the Estate wine. The 2016 has arrived recently
and it's a medium-bodied, mildly peachy rendition.
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Syrahs are, of course, a main attraction at Alban. There are
several.
Patrina is a big, dark, teeth-staining red. We are waiting for a new
release.
Then there's one called Reva. It's even bigger and blacker in
color. Nothing in stock presently..
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- We tasted one called Lorraine and another called Seymour's. It is
obligatory that one fasten one's seatbelt when tasting these.
They are absolutely inky, dark, full-throttle red showpieces.
I was at a dinner event with a winemaker from France and a bunch of Bay
Area wine people. Someone brought one of these whiz-bang bottles of
Alban Syrah. If you are impressed by how much a wine can stain your
teeth more than you are by its character, then you will probably appreciate
these latter two wines. They are wines to admire for their power and
strength, but drinking more than a sip may prove challenging to some.
- Currently available: 2018 Central Coast Viognier $25.99
Patrina 2016 Syrah Sale $49.99
REVA SYRAH : Sold Out
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HARRINGTON
Regular
customers (or lurkers here on the web) at Weimax have often seen bottles of
Bryan Harrington's wines in the shop. His winery is located in an
out-of-the-way spot in an industrial warehouse zone of San Francisco, hardly the
bucolic Napa or Sonoma winery experience.
Harrington makes all sorts of tiny batches of interesting wines. He began
as a Pinot Noir winemaker and these days has broadened his horizons to all sorts
of Italian varieties.
In 2017 he was able to acquire some grapes from the McEvoy Ranch. You
might recognize that name from the world of olive oils.
They also grow some interesting grapes and have made a bit of wine under their
own banner.
Harrington's Marin County Syrah is a baby and you might describe it as a wunderkind.
It's really showy and delicious already and it's going to continue to blossom
over the next several years.
We like the dark plum fruit and there's a touch of spice to this with other dark
fruit notes.
We put a bottle in our little wine tasting room and the reaction to this has
been most favorable...remarkable as Syrah is not usually appreciated by many
California wine aficionados.
Currently in stock: 2017 HARRINGTON McEvoy Ranch
Marin County SYRAH $32.99

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VAUGHN DUFFY
This
fledgling label has been around since 2009 and it's the work of a young
couple who are new to the wine business.
Sara Vaughn is a speech pathologist and Matt Duffy, an English lit major,
launched this new brand which speaks eloquently if you understand Syrah.
He was working in a little wine bar/art gallery in Marin County and the
couple lived in San Francisco. Being exposed to a wide variety of
wines from around the world, they dreamed of making their own wine and
joining the party.
Matt, by the way, is not the former third baseman of the San Francisco
Giants.
This Matt Duffy attended the Siduri School of Winemaking in Sonoma,
learning how to make Pinot Noir and Syrah. From there he's been
employed by a custom crush facility in Santa Rosa where nearly two dozen
wine companies have their wine made. And this is where the Vaughn
Duffy wines are vinified.
We tasted a small range of Duffy's wines and found a particular Syrah to
be of seriously good quality. It's got an odd name: "The
35s are Nice." Duffy's Uncle Bob (whose wife we surmise was
Aunt Mary Jane) was, apparently, as fan of cannabis and the old boy often
mentioned "the 35s are nice." We are pretty much clueless
to that entire arena, but were amused that they claim to have made a mere
35 cases of this excellent Syrah.
Only after Duffy and his sales rep ambled out of the shop did it dawn on
us that 35 cases of wine equates to 420 bottles, another sly reference
demonstrating their attempts at both irony and coincidence have, pardon
the pun, gone to pot.
We read somewhere that the term "Baker" is a slang reference to
a smoker of marijuana. We, again, are clueless on that subject, but
it is ironic that the fruit for this Syrah comes from Stephen Singer's
"Baker Lane" vineyard in Sebastopol. The vineyard has
numerous clones of Syrah. We like that the wine is in the direction
of good Northern Rhône Syrahs. It's certainly comparable to some
good Crozes-Hermitage wines in our view.
Duffy matured the wine in small French oak for about a year and a
half. Wood is not, though, much of a feature of this wine. We
like the mildly smoky, bacony, hickory notes. The wine is
medium-bodied and not a high octane fruit bomb.
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Currently in stock: 2013 VAUGHN DUFFY Sonoma Coast
SYRAH "The 35s are Nice" (Of course, you should be
able to guess its price) Sold Out
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PEAY
The Peay brothers, Nick & Andy and Nick's wife, winemaker
Vanessa Wong, comprise the trio that run this nice little enterprise.
They scouted prospective vineyard sites up and down the west coast before
settling on a wild patch of land (formerly devoted to an apple orchard and
sheep-raising) a few miles inland from Sea Ranch. This is situated,
then, in a little pocket on the western edge of the northernmost portion of
the Sonoma Coast appellation. The Peays have a 51 acre site with about
two-thirds of it devoted to shy-bearing Pinot Noir. There's a modest
couple of sites with Syrah, two plots of Chardonnay and a smattering of
Viognier, Roussanne and Marsanne just for curiosity.
Nick Peay handles the vineyard work, having spent time in a previous life
with affiliations at Schramsberg, La Jota, Newton and the very practical
Storrs winery in Santa Cruz. He also did a bit of industrial espionage
at the nearby Flowers winery, before shipping out to Coldstream Hills in
Australia one year.
Andy Peay is a Dartmouth graduate and spent time in the world of Wall Street
high finance and UC Berkeley economics. At one point he worked a
harvest at Cain Vineyards and he was hooked. Today he oversees the business
side of the enterprise.
Nick's wife Vanessa-The-Winemaker-Wong has some nice names on her résumé.
After her university studies, she ventured to France and spent time at
Chateau Lafite-Rothschild in Bordeaux and Domaine Jean Gros in
Burgundy. She came home to California and was employed by the
Franciscan winery before signing up with the Peter Michael Winery.
Then in 2001, the Peay adventure began and it seems to be sailing along
rather nicely.
They make a modest quantity of Peay-labeled wine and have a second label
called Cep for the declassified lots. They hedge their bets
financially by selling a small amount of fruit to two other top
wineries: Williams-Selyem and Failla.
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- The 2016 "La Bruma" is comprised of 5 clones of Syrah. Something
like 10% of the fruit was "whole cluster," while the rest was
conventionally processed. Twenty percent new oak gives a faintly sweet
quality to the wine, which really captures elements of cool-climate Syrah as
there is a fair bit of dark fruit and some of the olivey, tapenade-like
character we look for in Syrah.
It's a really "serious" wine with a lot of character.
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Currently in stock: 2016 PEAY Sonoma Coast "La
Bruma" SYRAH $54.99
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MORGAN
We
don't think of Dan Lee as a Rhone-iste winemaker as he mainly produces
Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir.
He's now a graybeard vintner and we first met him when he was making wine
for the Jekel brothers in Monterey. That was back in, what?, the
late 1970s or early 1980s.
He and his wife Donna launched the Morgan winery project with the 1982
vintage and they make bright, fruity, well-polished wines.
For us, perhaps the most interesting bottlings are the Morgan Riesling and
this modestly-priced blend called Cotes du Crow's. It's a blend featuring
Grenache which you typically find in Côtes-du-Rhône wines from the
southern Rhône. And there's 37% Syrah which you'd find in,
say, a Crozes-Hermitage (hence this Crow's reference). But they've
been using a bit of Tempranillo which you would definitely not find in
those French bottlings.
The 2016 vintage, maybe the second or third we've offered, has 7%
Tempranillo. The wine is matured in French oak for about ten
months. Ten percent of the barrels are new, but the wine really
spotlights red fruits and a mild spice note.
It's a medium-bodied red that rather gentle and quite nicely drinkable in
its youth.
It's well-priced and competes nicely with good bottlings of Southern Rhône
wines we have in the shop.
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Currently in stock: 2016 MORGAN Monterey COTES DU CROW'S Red
Blend $18.99
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COCHON WINES
- A
couple of wine industry friends launched their winemaking enterprise back
in 2004 and focused on making wines from grapes more commonly found on the
Iberian Peninsula.
We're really delighted by this 2018 "Whole Hog" red blend.
It's quite a mix of grapes and regions.
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It's 55% Syrah with grapes coming from the Petaluma Wind Gap and a site
just south of Stags Leap in the Napa Valley. Then there's 16%
Mourvedre in Dry Creek in Sonoma. There's 14% of Grenache and 10% Carignane coming from
Sonoma's Dry Creek Valley. Four percent Cinsault comes from a Lodi
vineyard that's claimed to be well more than a hundred years old.
And the remaining one percent is Viognier.
Some of the fruit was left as whole clusters to obtain more berry-like
notes in the wine. And then they mature this in cooperage that's a
bit larger than standard French or American oak barrels. These are
called "hogsheads" and so now you know why the wine is
dubbed "Whole Hog" and the brand is called Cochon.
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The wine is a delight and every time we taste it we encounter a new
wrinkle or element. There's dark berry fruit and some underbrush.
Add to that some spice notes. It's dry and there's a modest level of
tannin, so the wine smooths out nicely in the company of lamb or
well-seasoned beef. Or how about a grilled pork chop to complete the
"cochon" theme?
Only 175 cases were made.
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Currently in stock: 2018 COCHON "Whole Hog" RED
BLEND $20.99

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SHYPOKE
- You're probably wondering what the hell is a "shypoke"?
How did this winery get its name?
Well, in fact, "shypoke" is another name for a heron.
These birds were known as "shitepokes" and and, yes, the
"shit" is attributed to the behavior of herons...a result of
their propensity to defecate, so get your umbrella ready when you see some
flying overhead.
The couple tending the Shypoke vines have a long heritage of
grape-growing. This is the work of Peter and Meg Heitz. His
great grandparents came to California from their homeland in France's
Alsace and they settled in Napa in the late 1800s/early 1900s.
This brand of the Heitz family is not related to the famous family which
started the prestigious Heitz Cellar winery in the 1960s. But Peter
Heitz told us they had sold grapes to the legendary Joe Heitz.
His great grandparents had established vineyards in the Calistoga area and
his parents owned vineyards at the other end of the Napa Valley, in
Carneros.
Peter studied biology at UC Santa Cruz and returned "home" to
Napa where he worked for Beringer. He told us he has a "day
job" working for the Turnbull winery as its winemaker.
"This allows us to make a small amount of wine under our Shypoke
banner and we can produce wines we like to drink."
We tasted a unique blend which we all enjoyed. It's called
"Keep" as they got in the habit of putting that word on barrels
of their estate-grown Grenache. Peter explains they buy a small
amount of Grenache from a grower in Mendocino which Peter claims is
"the best," while his own Grenache is "maybe the second
best in the world." So he writes the word "Keep" on
those barrels and he keeps them for blending into his proprietary red
wine.
Shypoke, located in Calistoga, also grows a bit of the rare Charbono
grape. We have long been fans of that variety, having grown up
drinking the Charbono of the Inglenook winery back in the 1970s. For
years we had Charbono featured in the shop from another Calistoga-area
winery, Summers. Jim Summers passed away in 2018 and his wife Beth
closed the winery sadly.
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Peter Heitz blends some of his Charbono with his estate Grenache, giving
some blackberry-like fruit notes to the raspberryish Grenache. Then
he adds a bit of Petite Sirah and a dollop of Malbec. The 2017
vintage is a seven barrel blend. The cooperage is well-seasoned, so
the wine doesn't show oak influence, allowing him to highlight the dark
fruit notes of the Charbono, Petite Sirah and Malbec while incorporating
the red fruit tones and touch of spice from the Grenache.
Seven barrels, so there's not a lot of this wine to be had. It's $40
a bottle at the cellar door. We are delighted to feature it for
$34.99. We view this as a wine that's ready to drink...not sure this
will blossom into something greater with cellaring, so plan on enjoying it
over the next few years.
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Currently in stock: SHYPOKE 2017 Napa Valley
"KEEP" Red Blend $34.99
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HERMAN STORY
Herman
Story is the name of winemaker Russell From's grand-daddy, so that's that
story.
Russell's story is he was at Cal Poly as a student and got himself an
internship at the Lockwood winery in Monterey County. (Lockwood had
more than 1800 acres in Monterey and the brand has since been swallowed up
by Boisset Family Estates.) He also worked at the Tantara winery in
Santa Maria, California. From also was exposed to wine and food
while working at a little Italian restaurant in Pismo Beach. Rosa's
Ristorante Italiano carries From's wine, so they're fans, too.
He's a fan of pedal-to-the-metal wines, so you shouldn't be searching for
subtlety in the wines of Herman Story. They are not for the
faint-of-heart.
We have a 2016 Syrah called "Nuts and Bolts." The fruit
comes from several vineyard sites in the Paso Robles area and south into
Santa Barbara County. It carries, though, the appellation of
"California."
It's a mere 15.8% alcohol on the label, so it could be even higher.
You'll want to fasten your seatbelt when drinking this at the dinner
table.

When we tasted this, we pegged it right around 15.5% alcohol and
expected that the various critics would be giving the wine some serious point
scores, so if you want to put some numbers on the table, grab a bottle of this.
The wine shows lots of black fruit notes and somehow seems to avoid being
jammy. We found it to show a touch of oak as it was matured in French oak
cooperage, 80% of the barrels being brand new. The critics predict this
will cellar handsomely into the next decade. We'd be inclined to open this
over the next two or three years.
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Currently in stock 2016 HERMAN STORY California
SYRAH "Nuts + Bolts" $47.99
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RAMEY
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Dave Ramey is a winemaker's winemaker.
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He wrote a magnificent thesis in 1979 which will likely cure your insomnia
issues.
- Ramey has tattoos from various wineries: Simi, Chalk Hill,
Matanzas Creek, Dominus, Rudd Estate and now his own...We find his
Chardonnays to be routinely excellent and he's got a nice touch with
Syrah, as it turns out.
He's dabbling with Syrah...nice red wine and it's neither the bombastic
"fruit bomb" made by many California winemakers and it's not the
Rhône styled wine, either...
It's been a while since we've picked up a Ramey Syrah but we can always
get some bottles for you if you like.
Currently in stock: 2007 RAMEY Sonoma Coast SYRAH Sold
Out

CLICK ON THE BOX BELOW FOR FURTHER SLEEP-INDUCING READING
By Sleep Specialist, DAVID RAMEY


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BONNY DOON
VINEYARD
We had been a long-time admirer of the amazing early works of the crew at Bonny Doon Vineyard.
The "flagship" wine in the galaxy of California Rhone wines from
super-star winemaker Randall Grahm is called "Le Cigare Volant", a French term
translating to "the flying cigar" (we call them "flying saucers", the
French, apparently, view UFOs as being akin to cigars).
The
wine, a California interpretation of " Châteauneuf-du-Pape", pays homage to the
citizenry of the Southern Rhone Valley who passed legislation banning the landing of
"flying cigars" in their vineyards. It is, to date, the only law I am
aware of, which has not been broken in France. Over the years the blend has changed
and been refined, sometimes by what varieties have been available and other times by the
taste of Grahm and his selections for the blend..
A
few years ago Randall had become enamored with a process being employed (or deployed) by a fellow in the
southwest part of France. This method involves adding tiny oxygen bubbles to the tanks
during it's maturation. Randall feels it is possible to manage the tannins with this
method, so he made a somewhat "stronger" version of the Cigare in 1997.
I was privileged to taste a number of samples, from non-microbouillaged (as it's
called) to a "little" MB to a lot of "MB." The heavier dosed
versions were, in fact, the more interesting wines.
The winery became quite successful in its marketing efforts and Randall's
playful wine names and often artistically-enchanting labels brought much fame
and a little fortune to the brand.
Randall was an anti-establishment character and a bit of an iconoclast (as well
as an icon). Of course, contrarians are always popular with many people
who root for the underdog. And Randall worked with lots of
"underdog" grape varieties and the wines were must-haves for many
shops and restaurants.
Bonny Doon had a vineyard near a men's correctional facility and so Randall
produced a line of modestly-priced "house wines." But these were
labeled "Big House" Red and "Big House" White. They
were popular and the brand grew like a weed until Randall rounded up all these
playful labels and sold them to some wine group in Livermore, California. Many people
who had worked at Bonny Doon lost their jobs as a result. Part of
the sales contract mandated that Bonny Doon stop using the cartoon-like labels
with which they're identified.
In 2020 Randall sold the Bonny Doon Vineyard brand and winery to some outfit
called "WarRoom" and that enterprise offers some brands seemingly more
the work of a marketing department than of winemakers.
They have a wine called The Big Red Monster and a seltzer called "Bubble
Butt."
They have scaled back the range of wines being offered by Bonny Doon.
Here's a snippet from the back label of a Bonny Doon Cigare Volant bottle:

Do you think a serious wine producer would be adding or flavoring a premium
quality wine with oak chips?
- Currently available: Nada. Niente. Nuthin'.
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- EDMUNDS ST. JOHN
Getting his start in the retail end of the wine biz, Steve Edmunds
makes small lots of wines in
rented space in the East Bay, a far cry from some idyllic
site along the Rhone Valley!
His wines have often been quite good, demonstrating his eye for good fruit and then
capturing the grape in the bottle. Steve says he's not out to woo The Critics.
"Our wines may or may not receive the
highest numerical ratings bestowed by the most popular wine journals. At the
moment when
the wine is in the glass, and the glass is placed before the taster, the numbers are
meaningless; if I can offer someone a wine that is thrilling to smell, that is
unforgettable to taste, that taster, being only human, cannot help but respond. If that
response is forthcoming, I will have done my job."
So Steve's wines are, to a certain degree, not for the wine drinker
who's looking for a ton of new oak. You won't find his wines to be manipulated to
suit the current taste of the market. Edmunds enjoys the sense of "place"
one finds in many European wines; the element the French call "terroir."
"It is our goal to produce wines of the
highest level of quality, integrity, and authenticity, the hallmarks of which are balance,
nuance, and elegance, wines that express their origins in place and time, wines through
which "the earth speaks" in a clear and strong voice."
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- There's a rather nice Rhone-ish blend from the 2014
vintage. It's a Californian take on France's Châteauneuf
du-Pape. Nice wine with good balance, a bit of fruit and a touch of
spice.
The Edmunds St. John labels used to read: "Produced and Bottled by Intuition and
Blind-Luck." We didn't believe him.
A recent vintage was labeled: "Cellared and Bottled by Wayward
Pilgrims Of The Vine." The new 2010 Rocks & Gravel is
"bottled by the skin of our teeth."
- Currently available: 2014 EDMUNDS ST JOHN "ROCKS &
GRAVEL" SALE $26.99

EPIPHANY CELLARS
The
Epiphany label is the work of Eli Parker, whose father is Davy
Crockett.
Okay, well, his Pop is actor Fess Parker, who played the role of Davy
Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier. Dad later portrayed Daniel
Boone, another wild, wild west pioneer.
Fess may not have been the first pioneer in Santa Barbara wine history,
but he amassed a fair bit of acreage and did launch the Fess Parker Winery
& Vineyard.
We typically found the Fess Parker wines to be a bit ordinary,
frankly. We'd tasted some wines from grapes Parker had sold to
others and these were often superior to the wines Parker put his name
on. But we've noticed a steady improvement over the past few years
and the wines of the Epiphany label to be a bit of a revelation.
In 2013 we included a Rhone-styled blend in a blind-tasting. The
2009 blend of Grenache and Syrah won the tasting, finishing in first place
ahead of 7 other Grenache and Grenache blends from California. The
wine carries the proprietary name of "Revelation" and it was
certainly a pleasant surprise. It showed a nice blackberry sort of
fruit character and had mild tannins and a bit of acidity to keep it
balanced.
We inquired about a new vintage of this wine and the winery rep was more
intent on selling their entry-level wines which we did not find to be
terribly exciting. "We only have a few 6-packs of the Revelation,"
she told us, indicating she was not at all interested in our tasting the
wine or in carrying it in the shop.
One day, when her wines are not selling, perhaps she will have an epiphany
of sorts and realize her wines are not selling.
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Stay tuned.
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Currently in stock: 2012 EPIPHANY CELLARS Santa Barbara
"REVELATION" Sold Out
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PRESQU'ILE
Matt
Murphy hails from Arkansas and his family had a farm in nearby Louisiana
where he'd hang out during the harvest...that's where he became interested
in agriculture.
While at the University of Colorado in Boulder, he spent a summer working
at Napa's Signorello winery and this proved to be a life-changing
experience.
After finishing his studies in biology in Colorado, he again came west and
landed at an ambitious Santa Maria Valley property called Ambullneo.
The assistant winemaker there was Dieter Cronje and the two became good
friends. Ambullneo was a short-lived venture and the fellow who
owned the place was hell-bent on making impressive,
show-pieces.
After a short stint with Ambullneo, Murphy decided to throw caution to the
wind and launch his own brand. The name Presqu'ile is Creole and
translates, they tell us to "almost an island."
With the help of his parents and siblings, Matt found a 200 property
that's 16 miles from the Pacific Ocean and it has a diverse landscape,
allowing for vines at different elevation levels and varied soil
types.
Murphy and Cronje planted numerous clones of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay,
along with some Sauvignon Blanc and a tiny bit of Nebbiolo and
Syrah.
We tasted through the roster of Presqu'ile wines are were delighted with
the 2014 Syrah. It's an impressive wine that really captures the Rhône-like
soul of the grape. The fruit comes from their estate vineyard and
they left about 30% whole clusters in the fermentation tanks.
The wine then went into French oak barrels for about a year and a
half. Twenty-five percent of the wood was brand new.
It's a limited release, by the way.
You might taste this blind and guess it to come from the Northern Rhône.
It's got the spice and berries of a really good Crozes-Hermitage or Saint
Joseph. With a bit more time in the bottle, perhaps we'll liken it
to a good Côte Rôtie.
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Currently in stock: 2014 PRESQU'ILE Santa Maria
Valley SYRAH Sold Out
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Thackrey is located in the sleepy burg called Bolinas, California.
The locals there routinely abscond with state or county signage, pointing
visitors in their direction, making it difficult to find.
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- SEAN THACKREY
Here's a real artisan winemaker, someone who makes wine by
"feel," not by recipe. Located in the middle of nowhere
(that would be the town of Bolinas, which is unmarked as the locals keep
swiping the road signs pointing in their direction), Thackrey buys fruit
from a variety of sources and creates some amazingly good wines.
Thackrey has been branded by some as a "Rhone Ranger," but he's
not embraced that designation since he doesn't want to be viewed as
"copying" an original. Thackrey has training as an "art
historian," so the idea of making a knock-off of a masterpiece is
hardly appealing.
His wines are named after stars and constellations and it's no wonder many
people describe the wines as "heavenly." His grape sources
have changed over the years, some vineyards being snatched by competitors
either in terms of ownership or buying contracts. Even so, Thackrey
manages to offer rather complex, "soulful" wines.
The flagship bottling is an interesting "minestrone" called
"PLEIADES." It's the "winemaker's secret blend,"
varying from bottling to bottling, but always managing to be something
intriguing. Thackrey, who doesn't make wine in large quantities,
doesn't make wine for "everyone." And he notes "Why
waste an open bottle on a closed mind?"
These have been labeled with a "lot number." The blend has
changed over the years, but the wine remains typically "Thackrey"
in style, with some brown spice notes on the nose and palate.
We tasted a new bottling
in July of 2014 and found the wine to be perfectly standard in quality, but
nowhere close to the really soulful bottlings Thackrey had five to ten years
ago.
This past year, 2018. we found the current bottling, XXVI, to be a fairly
standard wine but not as charming as the XXIV we had previously.
- It's a mix of Sangiovese, Pinot Noir, Viognier, Zinfandel and Syrah,
"to name but a few." More recently, in mid-2019, we
tasted the wine and it seem to have seen better days, frankly.
We later found out there was a snafu in Thackrey bottling his second round
of the XXVI batch of Pleiades. It seems he undertook bottling without
the help of a trained enologist and, oops!, neglected to add a small measure
of sulfites to stabilize and preserve the wine.
As a result, that bottling deteriorated rather speedily and this was not a
happy occurrence.
We had a taste of the XXVII batch and there's a world of difference in the
quality of the wine at its core. The fruit elements are finer and
there's nice red fruit to the fragrances and flavor. It's a
medium-bodied, gentle red. We find it to be good and worth putting on
the dinner table.
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- Currently in stock: PLEIADES XXVII $23.99
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SCAGGS VINEYARD
We've
often said "It takes a lot of singin' and dancin' to sell a bottle of
wine." New vintners, especially in Napa and Sonoma, routinely
enter the business thinking selling $50 to $100 bottles of wine is easy and
that customers line up to throw hundred dollar bills at them. When
they find out they'll need to sing and dance, they often give up the ghost
(and the winery).
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- We tasted a nice Napa Valley red and were pleasantly surprised to learn
the wine was made by a winemaker whose work we routinely admire: Ken
Bernards. (He and his wife own the Ancien winery and he makes
good Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.)
The Scaggs of Scaggs Vineyard is a professional musician, so he's quite
accustomed to singin' and dancin'.
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Scaggs and his wife Dominique bought a home in Napa in 1996 and they didn't
plant vines, initially, but fruit trees. It was to be a
"home," not a commercial endeavor. One day a friend of
theirs was driving by and he had grapevine cuttings which did not get
planted earlier in the day on a vineyard job. He was willing to give
them to the Scaggs and they planted these...Syrah cuttings from the Hudson
vineyard in Carneros.
When the vines started growing the following Spring, Scaggs says they put
down roots not only in the hillside, but within he and Dominique.
They're friendly with importer Kermit Lynch, another fellow who sings and
dances to sell wine and so the Scaggs had some familiarity with the Southern
Rhone Valley. They later extended the vineyard, planting Mourvedre and
Grenache.
What can I say...Production is quite small. The Lowdown is winemaker Ken
Bernards doesn't produce over-the-top, pushing-the-envelope,
full-lock-power-slide sorts of wines.
We
had
a 2005 Mourvedre blend...it was a medium-bodied red blend which played some
notes reminiscent of Southern Rhones, but with its own particular style and
character. The main verse is the Mourvedre with the chorus being sung
by Grenache and Syrah.
Having been in the bottle for a while, the bouquet is nicely developed,
showing some fruit tones of dark berries and a dusty, spiciness which may
be, to some degree, the terroir shining through. It's reasonably
harmonious on its own, but really sings with Provençal-styled foods.
It seems, though, they retired this label and now feature a blend dubbed
"Montage."
- The 2013 Montage is in stock presently. This vintage is 47%
Grenache, 32% Mourvèdre, 12% Syrah and 9% Counoise. It shows some red
fruit along the lines of pomegranate and a touch of herbs and spice...sage,
maybe?
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Currently in stock: 2013 SCAGGS Mount Veeder "Montage"
Red Blend SALE
$39.99
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- JOSEPH PHELPS VINEYARDS
 Napa
Valley's Joseph Phelps Vineyard was ahead of its time in planting Syrah in the Napa Valley back in the
1970s.
Mr. Phelps lived in Colorado and ran a very large construction
company. He even opened an office for the firm here in Burlingame.
He had been hired to build a winery in Napa and he fell in love with the
place. There was a modest property near Heitz' winery on Taplin Road,
east of the Silverado Trail and Phelps engaged the owner about selling the
place. It was most used as pasture land for cattle. The owner
didn't want the property to be turned into some commercial circus and Phelps
assured him he'd preserve the site for vineyards and winemaking.
We recall, visiting the brand new winery in the mid-1970s, that the winery
was built around an old tree, or two, out of respect for the property and
its previous owner.
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- Phelps tasted some Northern Rhône wines and was a fan of Hermitage.
He also knew that some Bordeaux estates, under dark of night, had
"fortified" their Cabernet and Merlot blends with some
"Hermitage" wines. (Chateau Palmer in Margaux offers an
"historic" bottling of such a blend, by the way.)
So Phelps took it upon himself to plant some Syrah in Napa and see what he
could produce.
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- But Syrah as a tough wine to sell, even back then, despite its
rarity.
They made some Napa Valley Syrah and later had a blended red called
Pastiche.
These became difficult to sell when the market became flooded with Syrah and
Rhone blends.
Phelps made a wine called Le Mistral from grapes grown at the Ventana
Vineyard in Monterey County. They sold the brand to the Ventana owners.

Today, many years after the sale of the Pastiche brand, Ventana makes a
blend of Grenache and Syrah but incorporates Pinot Noir into this.
Oh well.
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We fondly remember the late Joe Phelps and he was a real pioneer in Napa
Valley winemaking!
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- Currently in stock: Nothing Presently


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DOMAINE DE LA TERRE ROUGE
Winemaker
Bill Easton used to be an East Bay wine merchant before heading for the
hills many years ago. He's quite a fan of Rhone varietals and dabbles
in Viognier, Roussanne, Mourvedre and, of course, Syrah.
We're not big fans of most Amador and Sierra Foothill wines, but we've
usually found Easton's wines to have a point of elegance and refinement
which most other area winemakers there seem to miss.
Especially good is Easton's selection of his best barrels of Syrah.
The 2002 Ascent, as he calls it, is quite good, being deep in fruit and
showing nice spice tones on the nose and palate. I like the woodsy
element in the wine, too. It's got some oak, but the wood (French oak
from a favorite cooperage) adds to the festivities, rather than hogging the
spotlight.
Currently in stock: 2002 Terre Rouge Sierra Foothills
"Ascent" SYRAH Sale $69.99

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PISONI VINEYARD
Though
most people identify the famous "Pisoni" name with Pinot Noir,
this family is also making a small quantity of Syrah. They use the
"Lucia" name for their wines from various Santa Lucia Highlands,
Monterey County vineyards.
Gary Pisoni is not a fellow one would consider "normal."
He's a really enthusiastic wine "geek" and embarked on a quest to
grow Pinot Noir that's as good as (or better than) the benchmark estates in
France's Burgundy region.
His name appears on a dozen or so different winery brands, all of whom pay
him amazingly large sums of money for fruit from his precious
vineyards.
Now that his two sons are finished with their college studies, they've
joined the family enterprise. One has a "B.S." degree in
enology (most people will tell you there's a lot of BS in the wine
business!), while the other is schooled in finance and business.
While many vintners view Syrah as a hot-climate grape variety,
Yet some of the best Syrah wines come from vineyards where it's
significantly cooler, challenging the vine to mature its fruit before the
growing season comes to an end. As a result, the Sonoma Coast and
Monterey appellations, more famous for Pinot Noir, seem to be good locales
for Syrah as well.
The Pisoni's Syrah fruit comes from one of three vineyards.
There's the Garys' Vineyard, a site owned jointly by Gary Pisoni and Gary
Franscioni (ROAR winery). This is right in the middle of the Santa
Lucia Highlands appellation.
There's a sort of second "Garys' Vineyard" site near the first
"Gary's Vineyard."
This is called Soberanes.
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- Then from Pisoni's own vineyards is a site named for
Gary's sister: Susan's Hill.
- It's a higher elevation site and there's a bit of wind
moderating the maturation of the Syrah.
The 2013 is a beautifully robust red and there are elements which may
remind you of some Northern Rhône wines. Winemaker Jeff Pisoni
leaves a significant percentage of "whole clusters" in
fermenting this wine. Indigenous yeasts, too. The wine goes
into French oak for about 15 months. Forty percent of the barrels
are brand new.
We like the spice notes and dark berry fruit. There's a touch of an olive
note, too. Drinkable now and it ought to cellar well through 2025.
Perfect for lamb or duck especially.
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- Currently in stock: 2013 LUCIA "Susan's
Hill" SYRAH $49.99
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- BEHRENS & HITCHCOCK
This brand came about as a collaboration between a restaurant guy (B) and a winery guy
(H). We thank one of our customers, some years ago, for putting us in touch with this dynamic
duo. The fellow had tasted a B & H wine in his travels and so we've been a supporter
ever since. They make rather small quantities of the various bottlings. Their
1997 Napa Syrah, for example: only 375 cases were produced. That wine won one
of our Syrah tastings.
The partners split and now it's Les Behrens and his wife Lisa Drinkward, who
manages their vineyards, who own the place. They will still offer some
wines under the B&H label, but are also creating a new brand using the
name of Les Behrens' mom: Erna Schein. She was, we're told, quite a
proficient baker and the label design for the new label features an icon of
her electric mixer. Well, it beats the hell (literally) out of another
"critter" label.

We currently have a few bottles of a nice Petite Sirah: it has intensely fruity
notes which are somewhat along the lines of a whole-berry fermentation wine, yet the
tannic backbone of some Rhône-styled reds. It will stain your teeth.
The Homage to Ed is in honor of Ed Oliveira, a high school principal and
winemaker in Arcata who's known to Les Behrens for working with his kids and
giving him some guidance as to winemaking philosophies. The wine is
quite deep and a real mouthful. Fasten your seat belt when opening
this wine.
- Currently in stock: 2000 Petite Sirah Napa Valley $38.99
2005 ERNA SCHEIN "Alder Springs" Homage to Ed $56.99
2005 ERNA SCHEIN "Spring Mountain" Petite Sirah $47.99
- 2003 BEHRENS & HITCHCOCK CHIEN LUNATIQ SYRAH $59.99
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SHAFER
Not
many people associate Shafer with Rhone Ranger varieties, since the winery
produces Cabernet, Merlot and Chardonnay for the most part.
But they've been making a rather nice, showy red blend called
"Relentless." It's named in honor of winemaker Elias
Fernandez, who's been a part of the Shafer "family" since the
1984 vintage.
The wine comes from vineyards at the southern part of the Stags Leap
District. It's actually a field blend and they estimate the 2012
vintage is 89% Syrah and 11% Petite Sirah.
The wine goes into brand new
French oak and it's one of the benchmarks for Napa Valley Syrah. The
wine is hardly in the style of most French Rhône Syrahs, having deep
black fruit notes, the typical "international" style of power,
body and oak of modern, high point-scoring Napa reds. They pick
the fruit at a high sugar level and it's usually north of 15% alcohol.
Brand new French oak is used to try to tame the wine and the wood is
easily evident on the nose.
There are not many wines which are bigger than this.
We receive a few bottles each vintage and usually have some bottles out on
the rack for sale.
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Currently in stock: 2012 Shafer
"Relentless" SALE $89.99
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WAXWING
Scott Sisemore studied microbiology and then got a degree in
viticulture and enology at UC Davis before working in a few wineries.
He was affiliated with our friends at the Olivet Lane/Pellegrini winery in
Sonoma and now he makes tiny lots of good Pinot Noir and Syrah.
He really seems to have a nice touch with Syrah, managing to capture some of
the smoky, bacony notes we appreciate in good Rhône Valley Syrahs.
He's been buying grapes from the Lester Family Vineyard in the Santa Cruz
region. It's been a terrific wine over the past several
vintages. Very elegant and gentle like Pinot Noir, but with berries
and spice of Syrah.
Scott lucked into some Syrah grapes in 2014 from a small site in Sonoma's
Bennett Valley. It's a shade more fruity and let's say "less
serious" than the Lester Vineyard wine. It's a bargain, though,
at $20.
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- Currently in stock: 2014 WAXWING Santa Cruz Mountains
"Lester" SYRAH $29.99
2014 Three Creeks Sonoma (Bennett Valley) Syrah Special Pricing $19.99
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MEYER FAMILY'S (Silver) Oaked SYRAH
You may
not know the Meyer name or associate it with Syrah, but the late patriarch
of the family was a real pioneer in Napa Valley winemaking. He
established a little winery in the 1970s which featured Cabernet Sauvignon
exclusively and, today, it's one of the most popular of all west coast
Cabernets.
Justin Meyer was a novice in the Christian Brothers many years ago, learning
the wine business from various fellows there, including the famous
winemaker, Brother Timothy. Meyer was supposed to become the manager
of the business, but he had other ideas and left the brotherhood, got
married and started a little Cabernet production called "Silver
Oak."
Meyer was also involved with another winery called Franciscan, where they
made a range of wines. But his real goal was to make one wine and make
it the best they could. His notion was not to make a wine which
required 20 years of cellaring, but to produce something very drinkable upon
release. Hence, his idea for Silver Oak was to have a wine which had
spent plenty of time in wood and then got a nice bit of bottle aging before
it was sold.
Well, he and partner Ray Duncan built one hell of a mouse-trap with Silver
Oak, but Meyer saw his family would need its own business because there were
too many Meyers and Duncans to co-exist at Silver Oak. When
Justin Meyer passed away, his family had established a little outpost in
Mendocino's Yorkville Highlands.
A fan of Port, he bought all sorts of port-styled wines in bulk. These
he matured further in wood and blended to create "Meyer Family
Port."
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The Meyer Family winery, located in Mendocino, features "port,"
still today, but they make a nice little red wine of Syrah.
It's not a wine which will recall great Rhone Syrahs, because the style of
the wine is, to our taste, more woodsy and nicely oaked, much like Justin
Meyer's old Silver Oak Cabernets.
Early
vintages were made from Sonoma County grapes which they'd purchased.
Today they grow their own in Mendocino.
The wine was matured for nearly 2 years, with one-third of the barrels being
new American oak. About 12% new French oak was employed and the rest was
kept in neutral barrels.
We like the woodsy character of this wine and it's a delight at our current
sale price.
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Currently in stock: 2012 MEYER FAMILY "Yorkville
Highlands" (Mendocino) SYRAH (List $28)
SOLD OUT
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SKINNER
The
Skinner family can stake a claim to having been in the California wine
business back in the 1860s, though this branch of the family is a fairly
recent arrival to winemaking.
James Skinner came to California from Scotland in the 1840s and was part
of the California Gold Rush before buying a property and planting
vineyards in El Dorado County. By the 1880s, Skinner's was one of
the larger wine producers in the Sierras...until tragedy struck and there
was some sort of mishap in the distillery where Skinner lost his life.
Fast forward to 2006 when Mike and Carey Skinner re-established the family
name in them thar hills with two vineyard sites: a 20 acre site in
Fair Play planted to all sorts of Rhone varietals and a 14 acre vineyard
in the El Dorado appellation.
They have a 2010 vintage of El Dorado Mourvedre which we found
to be quite nice. You won't mistake this for some gamey, funky,
astringent, rustic Bandol, that's for sure. They captured a nice dark
fruit element in the wine and lots of berry notes. The tannin level is
modest and the wine is medium-full on the palate.
In other words, this is a terribly civilized bottle of red wine and it's
surprisingly good!
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Currently in stock: 2010 SKINNER El Dorado
MOURVEDRE Sold Out
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RED CAR
Red Car is all about
stories.
It's the work of a couple of guys with Hollywood backgrounds.
Screenwriter Mark Estrin teamed with movie mogul Carroll Kemp to produce
small quantities of Syrah and Pinot Noir. Kemp had been suggesting
they team up in a winemaking project, since they both enjoyed a good glass
of vino. Estrin had resisted this proposition until he received a
fortune cookie message saying "The venture you are thinking about will
bring you wealth and fame." That proved to be the impetus for
Estrin to accept Kemp's invitation.
They bought barrels and grapes and started making wines at a custom-crushing
facility in Santa Maria. The wines have garnered a modest amount of
"buzz" amongst wine geeks and critics.
Sadly, Mark Estrin died in the Spring of 2005, so who knows what direction
this enterprise will take.
We had tasted a nice, lavishly-oaked, international-styled Syrah from Red
Car, a wine dubbed "All Night Radio." They have been
sourcing fruit from good vineyards up and down California's coast, so it's
not surprising they're able to make some pretty wines.
The bottling in stock is called "Shake Rattle & Roll" and it's a
liqueur-like rendition of Syrah. It's one of those wines which sends
old-timers into apoplexy. Today's Generation-Somethings-or-Other
seem to embrace this sort of huge, deeply-colored, intensely fruity,
over-the-top Syrah. Five vineyards of Syrah and a drop of Grenache
from another vineyard account for this wine.
Production is limited, of course.
The winery moved to Sonoma County and they're making a nice range of wines.
Currently in stock:
2005 RED CAR "Shake Rattle & Roll" California Syrah $55.99
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ANDREW RICH
Andrew
Rich is making some terrific wines in Oregon's Willamette Valley.
He produces such a remarkable range of wines, we initially thought of him
as a "Rhone-iste," but he vinifies a stellar Sauvignon Blanc, a
few soulful Pinot Noirs, a few Bordeaux varietals and even a sweet
Gewurztraminer.
Andrew is one of the founders of the Carlton Winemaker's Studio, a place
where fledgling vintners can test their wings and launch their brands.
So, Andrew's wines nest nicely in this little facility, along with a bunch
of other interesting producers.
We currently have a wine Andrew calls Tabula Rasa. Is this Andrew's
"blank slate" or is it an "erased" slate on which he's
working?
Either way, his 2011 vintage is a lovely bottle of wine.
The fruit comes from Washington State. It's a blend of Syrah,
Mourvedre and a small percentage of Grenache. The wine is
medium-bodied and easily worthy of comparison to good Southern Rhones such
as Cairanne or Vacqueyras.
There's a nice red fruit/dark fruit note here and even a touch of
spice. It seems to be intended for immediate drinking and we can't
imagine this getting much better with additional bottle aging, but you
never know.
Anyway, it's a good bottle of wine and Andrew, despite the name,
isn't getting Rich making this sort of wine at this sort of price.
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Currently in stock: 2011 ANDREW RICH "Tabula
Rasa" Red Blend $16.99
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More Rhone
Wannabees
(Petite Sirah, etc.)
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