Zinfandel Zaniness Returns to SF

All tastes turn to Zinfandel this week as the world’s largest gathering of fans of California’s adopted grape unfolds in San Francisco.

Zinfandel Advocates and Producers (ZAP) is in the midst of a week of Zinfandel-focused events that culminates with the Grand Tasting on Saturday.

More than 150 wineries will be pouring samples of their best zins at the SF Concourse at 8th and Brannan in SF. Tickets for the Grand Tasting are $59 in advance and $69 at the door.

For a more formal food-and-wine experience, check online to see whether tickets are still available to the Viva Las Vegas Winemakers Dinner at the St. Francis on Friday (Jan. 27). Tickets to the charity event, which includes a live auction, are $225.

Quick Peek at Some Favorites

I checked out some of the featured wines at a special wine-and-food pairing preview Thursday in San Francisco. I’ll file a full report on the Grand Tasting later this weekend.

Kokomo

I enjoyed two bottles from Kokomo Winery in Healdsburg, both from the 2009 harvest.

The Winemakers Reserve from the Timber Crest Vineyard ($32) was a bit more extracted with nice blackberry/raspberry fruit. Wine Spectator gave it a 92 rating.

The Pauline’s Vineyard Zinfandel from Sonoma’s Dry Creek Valley is blended with a very small percentage of petite sirah, which adds a bit of tannin to the mix and pushes the level of complexity up a notch. There’s nice raspberry fruit, but not overly sweet.

Delicious Dusi, Beautiful Ballentine

Janelle Dusi sells most of the grapes grown on her family’s 100 acre spread in Paso Robles, but she keeps 10 percent of the crop and bottles it herself under the J. Dusi Wines label.

Look for the 2009 J. Dusi Zinfandel ($35) is you want an approachable red wine that’s fruit forward with enough acidity to balance out the brambly zinfandel character. You can taste her grapes in wines made by several other high-profile producers, including Turley, Tobin James and Four Vines.

Another 2009 reserve wine, from Ballentine Vineyards in St. Helena, stood out from the crowd.

The Ballentine Block 9 Reserve ($31) is blended with 4.5 percent Petite Sirah to produce a wine with high-tone raspberry fruit and a dusty back beat that was delicious.

Fresh and Affordable

Two lower-priced wines also caught my eye and taste buds.

The 2010 Deep Purple Zinfandel, grown in Lodi, sells for $12. It’s a fruit bomb with lovely blackberry aromas that lead to a lip-smacking finish.

The 2008 Old Vine Zinfandel from CalStar Cellars in Sonoma, also made from Lodi fruit, follows the same pattern, but with a slightly higher-level taste profile.

There is gobs of blackberry fruit, balanced with enough acid to produce a delightful mouthful of balanced taste in a $15 bottle.

Cavalcade of Cabernets Coming Up

New releases from four Napa Cabernet Sauvignon specialists are coming up next weekend, with special events planned at Silver Oak, Bennett Lane, Girard Winery and Consentino Winery on Saturday, Feb. 4.

Silver Oak is pouring its 2007 Napa cabernet at two locations — its Oakville winery and its winemaking operation in Geyserville. Tickets are $40 and $30, respectively.

Girard is charging $20 for tastes of its 2009 Spring Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon at its winery in Yountville.

Consentino, also in Yountville, will offer a pre-release taste of its reserve Cabernet.

Bennett Lane will be offering tastes of its 2009 Cabernet and 2009 Reserve Cabernet for $25 at the winery in Calistoga.

Rock-Solid Rosenblum

If you tried a different Shauna Rosenblum wine every day this month, you’d still have five left over to uncork in February.

Prolific ain’t the half of it. She makes 36 wines — red, white, sweet and sparkling — at Rock Wall Wine Company in Alameda. The winery is located in a giant hangar on the old naval air station, not far from where her dad, Kent Rosenblum, created world-class zinfandel at Rosenblum Cellars.

Shauna Rosenblum, Rock Wall Winemaker

I dropped by Rock Wall  recently to meet Ms. Rosenblum and try three of her current-release petite sirahs — two from Napa and one from Mendocino and all from the 2009 vintage.

They will be poured along with wines from 55 producers at the petite sirah extravaganza called Dark and Delicious held at Rock Wall on Feb. 17. Click here to purchase tickets for one of the best wine tasting productions in the Bay Area.

Carver Sutro

This $40 bottle has a Napa lineage. The Carver Sutro grown near Calistoga is from a vineyard that dates back to the early 1900s when the land was farmed by Italian immigrants.

This deep, dark wine is silky smooth, no mean feat with this often-tannic grape, and there are flavors of rich blackberries along with a bit of mint.

Gamble Ranch

The Gamble Ranch, to Rosenblum’s taste, is like a “chocolate brownie with cream.”

It’s also from Napa. The vineyard, near Rutherford, dates from the 1960s.

I liked the cocoa highlights and house texture of richness that stops short of “over-the-top.”  Flavors of black cherry and plums work well alongside manageable tannins that provide enough stimulating bite to sustain interest in this $35 wine.

Rucker’s

The Rucker’s was the least expensive ($22) member of this trio and my favorite.

This fruit-forward Mendocino wine was easy to approach and paired well with a bowl of chicken cacciatore. Rosenblum described it as having chocolate overtones and I can definitely agree that it’s on the cocoa side of the flavor wheel.

Variety Matters

Rosenblum is bringing out new wines all the time, including a new “Super Alameda” blend called Romancer that debuts right before Valentine’s Day.

Romancer is a blend of equal parts malbec, mourvedre and petit verdot that debuts on Feb. 10 with a party at the winery.

A big star already is the Rock Wall Chardonnay from the Santa Lucia Highlands ($25). This tropical-scented wine rolls Asian pear flavors around the tongue in a style that won Best in Class honors at the 2012 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition.

Ahoy, Norton

Another debutante waiting to be unveiled is a tiny batch of wine made from Norton, a red grape that was hot back in the 1840s when the Midwest was the nation’s wine-growing sweet spot.

Norton is being re-discovered on a relatively small commercial scale outside California with some vineyards in places like Virginia and Texas yielding interesting table wines.

The Rock Wall Norton is sourced from a three-acre California vineyard that yielded less than one ton of juice. I’ll keep you posted on the release date.

Sipping at Altitude

Outside a few good restaurants and hotel wine lists, you have only one really good wine tasting stop to make on the South Shore of Lake Tahoe.

Apres Wine Company is a tasting bar/restaurant/retail shop tucked into a strip mall about a 20-minute walk  along Lake Tahoe Boulevard from the casinos.

I discovered this oasis of wine on a weekend getaway to the mountains for some R&R after the holidays.

Lots of interesting wines for sale in the shop, including about 50 different tasting selections. About half are self-serve, using the Enomatic dispensing system.

Enomatic Wine Dispenser

I love these dispensers. They work with a smart card that you buy from the shop and then use to activate the multi-bottle dispenser.

There is also a traditional bar at Apres, but all the wine is dispensed from Enomatic dispensers, which use an inert gas to protect the contents of each open bottle from spoiling. The company promises fresh wines for up to 30 days after opening.

I had the opportunity to taste seven different California Chardonnays — all that were open on a recent Friday night.

Cattle Ranch Conversion

I enjoyed the 2008 Boekenoogen most of all. It’s a delicious wine I’d never seen before from the Santa Lucia Highlands in Monterey County.

The vineyards were planted on a working cattle ranch that founder John Boekenoogen realized  in the late 1990s had great potential for grapes.

He was right.

The wine ($35 retail)  is medium gold in the glass. It’s not a see-through wine. There’s some nice body to it.

The wine starts with a core of rich fruit. There are tropical pineapple highlights and some nice spice (clove?).  Just the right touch of oak freshens up the nose and there’s a bit of vanilla, too.

This Chardonnay partnered well with a plate of bacon-wrapped figs and apricots stuffed with goat cheese, drizzled with balsamic vinegar and topped with a basil chiffonade. A $5 order of four pieces disappeared almost immediately and I just had to have another.

Stellar Sonoma Standby

I have never been disappointed with a bottle of Sonoma-Cutrer white wine, so I was very interested in trying the latest vintage of their Russian River Ranches bottling.

The 2010 does not disappoint. It’s lighter in weight and color than the Boekenoogen. The flavor profile features more of a lemony tang that develops over time into more subtle hints of grapefruit.

This $20 Chardonnay — the winery’s entry-level bottling — is made from a blend of estate vineyards in the Sonoma Coast appellation.

Input Here

I’m expanding my Chardonnay horizons this year and welcome our input on new wines to try.

I’d love to hear your suggestions. Post a comment here, if you like.

Chardonnay, A Look Back and Forth

I’m determined to uncork some great California Chardonnay in the coming months, but before I look too far ahead maybe I should revisit some wines that made a good impression in earlier tastings.

While  I have focused on white wines from time to time, most of my interest has been on the red side of the wine spectrum — Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Merlot, Syrah, Petite Sirah and others.

My goal for 2012 is push deeper into the Chardonnay pool and hopefully hook a few winners.

Three S’s

Summertime, seafood and shellfish all go better with white wines, including Chardonnay, which is the most widely planted grape in California.

In most cases, Chardonnay is not combined with other wine grapes, but there are exceptions.

Sometimes, two or more varietals will be mixed with Chardonnay to create a blended still wine. Sparkling wine -is often made from white-skinned Chardonnay alone but sometimes Pinot Noir is added to the mix.

Good Look Back

Some of the tastiest Chardonnays I’ve sampled in the past year or so were from Ferrari-Carano Vineyards and Winery in Sonoma County.

A visit to the winery for a private tasting was sensational, turning up three recommendations. A return trip is definitely coming in the weeks and months ahead.

I’ve also enjoyed many bottles of Chardonnay from Sonoma Cutrer, a premium producer which draws some of its  fruit from the Russian River AVA (American Viticulture Area).

There are many other interesting names in the Sonoma Chardonnay club, including Flowers, Kistler Vineyards and Walter Hansel Winery  among many others– all of which I have enjoyed.

There is a whole cadre of smaller producers working with fruit from the Sonoma Coast appellation that will also given further scrutiny.

On the Napa side of the world, there are many well-known Chardonnay producers with names like Mondavi, Far Niente, Beringer and Franciscan.

The Chardonnay that put Napa Valley on the fine white wine map was a 1973 vintage from Chateau Montelena, winner of the historic Paris Tasting of 1976.

Further South

Ridge Vineyards is known world-wide for its impressive lineup of red wines, especially the highly respected cabernet sauvignon from the Monte Bello Vineyard in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

They also grow Chardonnay in that vineyard and the Ridge Monte Bello Chardonnay is often a great wine. Click here for my take on the current release.

One of my “go- to” reasonably priced white wines is a Chardonnay from Edna Valley on the Central Coast. The style reflects a core of tropical fruit with sweet oak highlights. It’s been a consistent performer over the past two decades and I can’t wait to try the latest release.

Geographically in between Ridge and Edna Valley sits Chalone Vineyards, a pioneering producer of Burgundian-style Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Limestone deposits under the shallow soil of the Chalone AVA in Monterey County are often compared to the chalky soils of Burgundy’s where some of the world’s most expensive Chardonnay is produced.

More Choices

Napa and Sonoma often grab the most consumer attention, but astute wine lovers know that good bargains and great-tasting Chardonnay come from a wider territory.

I’ll also be looking at other viticulture regions — Lodi, Santa Barbara County, San Luis Obispo and Mendocino County — for more good choices in Chardonnay.

Cough, Sniffle, Sneeze: Thanks, Santa

We have a lot to be thankful for at this time of year, but I’m just glad to have my taste buds back.

I’ve had a case of the holiday flu, which for the last week or so has pretty much killed my sense of taste and smell.

With that experience behind me, I’m ready to start the new year with a new-found appreciation for the pleasures to be found in Wine Country 2012.

New Look at an Old Favorite

It’s been popular — and easy — to bash California Chardonnay over the years, but I’d like to reverse direction and focus on finding the best this varietal has to offer in the Golden State.

California Chardonnay

I’m not going to forget red wine, but I am going to make a special effort to seek out more Chardonnay wines to sample in the months ahead.

Chardonnay can be flinty and dry as a bone. It can be sweet and fleshy. It can be kissed lightly (or overwhelmed) by oak from barrel aging.  Tastes run from crispy apple to honeyed tropical fruits with a wide range of other nuances

All wine takes a taste cue from the soils and climates in which the grapes are grown. Chardonnay is no different. In fact, I believe it can show more about its background than many other grapes.

In France, you find world-class Chardonnay in the Burgundy and Champagne regions. The unique soils, variable weather and vineyard practices combine to produce  wines that reflect the essence of place.

California Style

In California, Chardonnay styles are all over the board.

It’s the most widely planted grape in the state with more than 95,000 acres in vines. Chardonnay sales accounted for 28 percent of all California tables wines sold in 2010.

Different soils, sub-climates and growing conditions can produce a wide range of flavors and taste characteristics in both still and sparkling wines.

I’ll be looking for both regional influences and wine making styles to compare and contrast the choices we have as wine consumers looking for the next glass of California Chardonnay.

Hurry Up and Wait, Part 2

In my last blog, I complained about having to wait to taste a new wine recently delivered from an online merchant.

The wine, Bookwalter  Subplot No. 25, had been recommended by Jon Rimmerman of Garagiste in early March. That’s when I placed the order for six bottles of Bookwalter’s blended red wine made from a melange of grapes grown in Washington’s Columbia Valley.

Rimmerman’s business is securing access for his customers to great deals on artisanal wines from all over the world. Like many quality-conscious online retailers, the Garagiste only ships wine to its buyers twice a year — in the Spring and Fall — to avoid exposing the bottles to serious extremes in temperature during transit.

He also warns his flock not to drink the just-arrived wines for weeks, or even months, to allow the juice to recover its composure after the journey from warehouse to their house.

Premature Opening

I’m not very good at waiting, so I defied the recommendation and opened a bottle soon after arrival.

The wine was closed up. It felt disjointed.

The  first taste was nothing special and there wasn’t much of a bouquet, so I set the glass aside for an hour.

Maybe a little more time would help.

The time in the glass did some good, but it still tasted off.

There were good, deep black fruit flavors, but nothing held the taste together. It felt unfinished, so I put the bottle in the fridge, with its screw cap  twisted nice and tight.

Worth the Wait

Three days later, I poured another taste and discovered what this deeply colored red wine  — made from Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, Petite Verdot and Barbera — was all about.

The fruit tasted of a melange of black fruits that coated the tongue with plum, black currant and black cherry flavors spiked with touch of Christmas spice. The wine started with deep, serious bouquet of red berries and lightly toasted oak.

The tastes lingered on the back of my tongue for about 20 seconds; serious hang time for a wine that sells for less than $14 in retail outlets, like K&L Wines in San Francisco, which has some of this delicious concoction in stock even though the winery is completely sold out.

I’ve got to believe that, given some time to sit in my cellar, this wine will show even better over the next few months.

If I can’t hold out that long, I’ll decant the next bottle and let this wine breath for several hours to give it time to wake up from its beauty sleep.

Hurry Up and Wait Some More

There is something to be said in favor of delayed gratification, especially with some wines that need a bit of time to reach perfection, but it’s a hard rule to follow when so many holiday temptations are near at hand.

Take the special holiday sale being thrown by Diageo, the big beverage company with a slew of California wine brands in its international portfolio.

I got an e-mail from a Diageo marketer with an offer I couldn’t resist sharing. The “Friends and Family” holiday sale offers wines by the case and some single-bottle offerings at a 60 percent discount, with free shipping.

Wines from  11 different brands, including BV (Beaulieu Vineyard), Sterling, Rosenblum Cellars, Acacia and Chalone Vineyard, are all included.

Here’s a link to shop online. The sale ends Saturday, Dec. 3. Tell me if you found something you liked.

Delayed  Gratification

I just received a shipment of wine that I purchased eight months ago.

Unless I’m buying futures, I don’t usually plan that far in advance, nor wait that long to receive a shipment, but I didn’t have a choice.

I bought the wine from Garagiste, an online retailer run by Jon Rimmerman.

Jon’s sole purpose in life is to scout out interesting wines at great prices from around the globe and sell them to his e-mail list of followers. Nearly every day there’s something new to share, including vivid commentary about each offering, its background and its producer.

I’ve enjoyed his reports and now I’m ready to see if his recommendations (in a limited sample) are worth following.

Less is More

Rimmerman’s taste lean toward restraint (less intervention from the winemaker) and terroir (wines that taste of the place they are from).

I took his advice and bought six bottles each of Bookwalter Subplot 25 (a Cabernet-based blend from Washington) and 2010 Saint Antonin from Lou Cazalet in southern France.

The Subplot (all of Bookwalter’s wines have a literary name) is a blend of several vintages (2010, 2009, 2008 , 2007 and 2005). Grapes in the blend include Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Malbec and others from some of Washington’s top vineyards.

I got it for $12.96 per bottle. That compares to $45-$60 for the winery’s other wines.

Harmonic Convergence?

Below is vintage Rimmerman, riffing on the Saint Antonin, a $13.80 wine from the not-yet-famous Faugeres, a wine appellation in the Languedoc-Roussillon region:

“If you were to pick a poster-child for the stature, tannin and overall harmonic convergence that is 2010, it could be this wine  – a traditional Faugeres from the schist/mineral soil of the region without any wood or oak influence of any kind,” he wrote.

“Without belaboring the point (or going on one of my diatribes), I urge all of you to try this relatively unknown entrant that (like La Gramière a few weeks ago) is set to influence an entire region with their “less is more” attitude and attraction for capturing the essence of each vintage in a bottle.”

I’ll report back when I taste these wines in a few weeks.

I have to wait, according to Rimmerman, for the wines to settle. They need to regain their composure after shipping from his temperature controlled warehouse in Seattle. That’s where my wine has been sitting since last Spring.

It’s Garagiste policy to wait until the threat of warm weather is totally gone before sending any precious liquid cargo to the buying public. That’s why it took so long for my case of wine to arrive.

I’ll give Garagiste the benefit of the doubt, but I really hope it’s worth the wait!

Bottle Your Own in Half Moon Bay

La Nebbia Winery in Half Moon Bay is holding a bottle and cork day on Saturday, Dec. 10. They’ll be filling bottles with 2009 Syrah  for $4.95 a bottle. The wine is from Yuba County, which ain’t Napa but it produces some decent table wines.

If you don’t bring your own bottles, they’ll provide clean fifths for an extra $1.50 apiece. The event runs from 9 a.m. to  4 p.m. If you can’t make it, call the winery at  650-726-9463 to reserve some wine for the holidays.

Turkey Wine Time

I’m on a red wine kick for the holidays and have picked out an interesting Napa blend to pair with a big roasted bird on a holiday plate.

Turkey with a variety of side dishes presents a moving target that’s hard to hit with any single wine — red, white or rose.

My wife and I are dining out with neighbors on Thanksgiving at the Buckeye Roadhouse in Mill Valley and I picked an interesting bottle from my cellar to mark the occasion.

The wine is called Chaos Theory and it’s a proprietary blend from Brown Estate

A visit to Brown’s off-the-beaten-path Chiles Valley property — where they excel at zinfandel — is a treat. It’s also hard to arrange unless you’re a wine club member (which I used to be).

I picked the 2007 Chaos Theory for several reasons. I’ve enjoyed the wine in the past; the name always inspires discussion; and I want to see how a little time in the cellar has affected the flavors.

The wine is a blend of Zinfandel and Cabernet Sauvignon from the Brown Estate vineyards. The current vintage, 2009, retails for $40.

The zin-cab combo is not something you see every day, but it works great at Brown. There’s just enough of the brambly zin features that I like to go with a moderating influence of the cabernet that smooths things out.

And, besides, the oddball name will give us something to talk about in between bites of turkey with all the fixings.

Siblings Deneen, Coral and David Brown from Brown Estate

High-Flying Wine Dispute

You’re  not going to find anything except French wines  to drink on Air France. If you fly Alitalia, you’ll surely be drinking Italian onboard.

National pride shows up at 30,000 feet.

So what kind of wine does US Airways pour for its coach passengers?

Chilean.

That’s right. Nothing from Napa or Sonoma — or anyplace else in California — made the cut.

What gives?

US Air chose to offer a trio of Chilean wines, at $7/glass, on a recent flight to Florida.

I’m sure they got a good deal on the South American juice — a Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Chardonnay — but why not put something on the list with a red-white-and-blue background ?

I bet I could pick dozens of California wines that would deliver the same or better quality at a comparable  price of the Chilean wine, which retails for less than $12/bottle.

Unexpected Domestic Offering

On another leg of my trip, this time flying Air Tran, I ran into a Cresta Blanca Chardonnay.

The name seemed vaguely familiar, but I had to look it up.

Cresta Blanca was one of the first wineries established in the Livermore Valley back in1882.

The winery did not survive Prohibition, but the label was resurrected and went through other owners who couldn’t keep it afloat.

The land was purchased by Wente Vineyards back in 1981. Today, the historic old winery is part of the Wente sparkling wine complex and Cresta Blanca is a value-priced label in the Wente line-up.

The Cresta Blanca is a moderate-weight wine with a nice fullness in the mouth. It didn’t show much on the nose, but there was nice citrus streak alongside the chardonnay fruit that lingered pleasantly on the palate.

You can buy the Cresta Blanca at BevMo stores for $10-$12/bottle.

I wonder how it would taste on a US Airways flight?

Buehler: Best Buy on Napa Cab

I don’t usually jump up and shout when I find a good wine to write about, but that’s just what I did after trying the 2008 Buehler Vineyards Napa Cabernet Sauvignon, a great-tasting bargain at less than $20 per bottle.

Buehler has been growing grapes for 36 years  in the hills below Howell Mountain (near St. Helena) and began producing red wines in 1978 when about 700 cases were made.

Production took off after the Buehler family hired now-famous winemaker Heidi Peterson Barrett to add a professional touch to the process.

Barrett left in 1988 and was the celebrated winemaker for another Napa project, Screaming Eagle, which has since become one of the leading ultra-premium labels in the country commanding four-digit prices. She was part of the vanguard of ground-breaking female winemakers who blazed a trail through California’s mostly male-dominated  wine industry.

Buehler’s current winemaker, David Cronin, worked at several premium wineries in Napa (Far Niente and Joseph Phelps) before bringing his talents to Buehler in 1993.

I have been drinking Buehler’s cabernet and zinfandel since the 1980s and found the wines to good quality and fine values over the years.

The 2008 rises to another level that stands out from the crowd of great Napa cabs.

I didn’t fully realize what all the fuss was about until I got an e-mail from a wine retailer, The Wine Mine in Oakland, where the Buehler cab was selling at a ridiculously low price of $16 a bottle.Robert Parker, the dean of American wine writers, had given the wine his seal of approval with a 90-point rating, and that apparently ignited a firestorm of interest.

By the time I strolled into the Wine Mine for a tasting on Saturday, they’d sold all 60 cases that were available. In one week!

The winery has also sold out of this wine, but it is in distribution nationally and available at some retail locations around the state, including a rumored 20 or more cases at Adronico’s. No word yet on what the price will be, since Andronico’s hasn’t begun selling its cache yet.

When this blog was published, there were supplies available at K&L Wines in San Francisco and online at Wine.com — at prices below $20.

The wine is medium to full-bodied with a touch of cassis, finely integrated tannins and a sense of gravitas or weight that marks it as a serious wine.  It is a silky smooth red wine that would show well against Napa cabs that retail for triple its price, and I believe it could really give many more that go for $100 a run for their money.

It’s ready to drink now, but could use a bit of decanting. A taste from a bottle that had been open for three days revealed extraordinary flavors and freshness, so it should improve with age, if you can resist drinking it now.

This wine would make a great match for a holiday feast or as a holiday gift for someone special. Just be sure to keep a few bottles for yourself and let me know what you think of it.