Pompous Twits tasting: "Mac's New Wineries of the East Bay"

Tasting report by Mac McCarthy

It was a tough month for an event, even with such a promising theme – a mere 11 of our Pompous Twits were able to appear for this month's tasting event, held at the Palomares Cafe in Castro Valley, CA. 

We actually had too many wines – 17, plus a bonus starter wine from Dave Hulet, a Molyneaux that was a great start. With Dave's help, I trimmed back the wine list a bit – cutting out an Occasio Pinot Grigio and a Longevity Syrah Rose, then discovered that I had left a Longevity Merlot at home, to my disappointment. But this brought us down to a more manageable 13 wines, plus Dave Hulet's Rodrigue Molyneaux Cabernet Sauvignon from Livermore.

Here are my tasting notes, with my scores on a 10-point scale, and reference information on the wineries below. If you see errors in this report, be sure to let me know, but otherwise indulge me --  as it appears I was drinking that evening....

Bottom line: If you missed this tasting, you are sorry you did – these were mostly wonderful wines, and mostly unknown vintners to the assembled Twits, or at least untasted examples from the wineries they did know. So it achieved my goal of showing off some of the best of the new wineries from Livermore, Alameda, and Oakland. These wineries are all less than ten years old, and in some cases less than a year old.

The following tasting notes benefitted from input from John Engstrom. Tanks, John!

Flights

1.  White

Satyrs' Pond "White Wine," 2008, Pinot Grigio and Viognier blend, 12.8%, $16 (Livermore)

             Jinny Horner pronounced this round white wine "delicious" and I think the rest of us agreed. John said it had a great nose and was refreshing. I give it a 6.5.

2. Merlot, Mourvedre

Longevity       Mourvedre, 2008 Livermore, 2% Petite, 1% Syrah; 14.7%, 25 cases, $19 (Livermore)

            Interesting nose. Interesting, hard to describe flavor too. I give it a 6.0. John thought it had more fruit, was less meaty than other Mouvedres. He gave it a 6.5.

R&B                Metronome Merlot, 2007 Towne Ranch, Napa Valley; 14.9%, $18 (Rock Wall, Alameda)

            It was ok. 5.5. John felt it lacked distinguishing characteristics and gave it a 5.0.

3. Misc. Reds

Rock Wall      Rock Star Rouge, Red Blend, 2007, CA 14.6%, 42% Syrah, 37% Temperanillo, 21% Cinsault, $14  (Alameda)

            This blend was acceptable but didn't knock my socks off. I gave it a 5.5. John, on the other hand, said it had racy aromas, it';s the bottle he took home (the Rock Wall Zin being gone), and he gave it a 7.0!

Longevity       Barbera, 2006, Lodi, 13.6%, $18 (Livermore)

            Rich and round for a Barbera. You know how hard it is to find a consistently good Italian wine. 6.0. John: Surprisingly non-acidic for a Barbera, round and full now, though aging may be problematic: 6.5.

Cuda Ridge  Petit Verdot, 2008 Livermore Valley, 15.2%, $32 (Livermore)

            Wow! Bright blackberry nose, bright black-fruit taste, an eye-opener. Mac's favorite of the evening. 7.5. John wasn't as impressed: Lacked the backbone of a really good PV, but very fruit forward; he gave it a 6.5.

4. Cab & Cab Blends

Nottingham   Ralph's Red Blend, 2007, 60% Cab, 40% Merlot; 14.15%, $29 (Livermore)

Cuda Ridge  Cabernet, 2007, Livermore Valley, 12.5%, $30 (Livermore)

Irish Monkey Cabernet, 2006, 'El Dorado Complete, 13.2%, $35 (Oakland)

            These three Cabs were absolutely terrific – everything you want from a Cab. I give Ralph's blend a 6.5; it was just fine. (John: "Zzzzzz! 5.0") The Cuda Ridge was excellent, definitely a 7.0 and worth every penny. (John: Best of the Cabs, with a nice balance – 7.0.) The Irish Monkey, with an extra year under its belt, showed richer, sweeter tastes that IMHO give it an 8.0 and the edge for the evening. John disagreed completely: "A little 'thin,' tasted more like a Merlot to me; 6.0."

Ferrell             Cabernet, 2006, Sean's Vineyard, 14.6%. (Los Altos Hills)

            This is a homemade wine from the Los Altos Hills, and was a perfectly acceptable Cab that had the misfortune to go up against three top-notch examples of the Cab-making art – I give it a 5.5. John: "More interesting than Ralph's Red, but unpolished: 5.0."

5. Bigger Red

JRE                Zinfandel, 2007, St Helena, $12  (Rock Wall, Alameda)

Rock Wall      Zinfandel, 2007 Sonoma Co., a heritage clone; 15.6%, $25 (Alameda)

      Well, you might think you could get a bigger red in a Zin, but after those knockout Cabs, these Zins could do no better than a respectable pair of 6.0 scores – fine Zinfandels with no flaws. John agreed with me on the JRE: Fine but not exceptional – 6.0. But the Rock Wall Zin: "Best wine of the night, impactful. 8.0!" Zowie!

6. Dessert Red

Adams Point California Dessert Wine with Natural Chocolate Flavor, NV, 19%, port-style, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Petite Syrah, with chocolate flavor. $16. (Oakland)

            Not bad – not damned bad at all. The chocolate aromas wafted up from the glass like a dark chocolate bar, and the taste was a nice finish to a terrific evening. 6.0. John: "I detest wines wiht added chocolate, but this smelled better than most: 3.5." Ouch!

Background on the Wineries

Since these are new and little-known wineries, some background may be in order.

Longevity Wines

35 Rickenbacker Circle, Livermore 94550

http://www.longevitywines.com  888-325-9463 or TheLongFamily@longevitywines.com
Tasting room open Sat & Sun noon-5pm. Or call for appointment. 

Longevity is about three years old, a hobby-turned-passion for Phil and Debra Long (Long – Long-evity!). As with so many small Livermore wineries, their tasting room, open most weekends, is small, uncrowded, and friendly – if you show any knowledge and appreciation of wines, you will enjoy Phil and Debra's wonderful examples of the art and discussions of their plans and dreams. I believe their production is under 1,000 cases total, but they have ambitions to grow a lot in the coming few years. Their small-lot wines mostly sell out every year; joining the wine club is a good idea.

Other wines from Longevity:

            Chenin Blanc – One of the few Chenin Blanc makers in California, Longevity's is terrific.

            06 Lodi Barbera, 58 cases, $18

            07 California Cab, Contra Costa, 55 cases, $22

            Contra Costa Syrah, sold out of course.

            07 Lodi Viognier 56 cases $18

Cuda Ridge 

5385 East Ave., Unit B, Livermore 94550   510-304-0914 

http://www.CudaRidgeWines.com

Larry and Marge Dino named their winery after Larry's favorite car, the Barracuda! His wines are mainly Bordeaux-style blends. Like Longevity, the Cuda Ridge tasting room is open most weekends, is small and amongst the barrels, and Larry loves to talk about the wines, the philosophy, and their plans to grow their small production much larger. They've just introduced a wine club, which is worth joining.

Cuda Ridge's wines include:

            Livermore Sauvignon Blanc, $18             Livermore Merlot, $22

            Livermore Cab Franc, $26                         Livermore Cab Sauv., $30

            Livermore "Renegade": Zin, $29              Livermore Petit Verdot, $32

Rodrigue Molyneaux

3053 Marina Avenue, Livermore, CA

Tasting Room open weekends 12:30pm - 5:00pm

http://rmwinery.com/

Wines:

Amianco white

Sangiovese

Barbera

Cabernet Sauvignon

Primitivo

Primavera Rosa (Cab)

Port (Cab)

Cabiovese (Cab-Sangiovese)

Cabera (Cab Barbera)

The Rock Wall Wine Coop, Alameda

2301 Monarch Street, Suite 300, Alameda, CA 94501

The Tasting Room is open Thursday-Sunday from noon to 5pm

Rock Wall hosts seven small wineries in all, including Carica, Blacksmith, and Virago.

Rock Wall Wines

Rock Wall's own wines, produced by Kent Rosenblum's 26-year-old "cellar rat" daughter, Shauna Rosenblum, and other members of the Rosenblum circle. They make good Zins, of course, given Kent's access to the finest vineyards, but expand also into other wines, including a rare Tannat (that sells out quickly, or we would have included it in this tasting). They like to brand their blends "Rock Star."

             Zinfandel, Sonoma County          Zinfandel, Jesse's Vineyard

             Zinfandel, Reserve, Sonoma       Chardonnay, Santa Lucia Highlands

             Chardonnay, Russian River         Sauvignon Blanc, Napa Valley

             Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley

             Petite Sirah, Dry Creek Valley      Petite Sirah, Mendocino County

             Tannat, Solano County                 Rock Star Blanc (Sauv Blanc, Chard) California

             Rock Star Rouge (red blend), California

Rock Wall also hosts R&B Cellars and JRE, below.

R&B Cellars

Red wines with names with a jazz music theme. About ten years old, apparently started as another partnership between Kent Rosenblum and a winemaking colleague making Cabs. When I first heard of them, their excellent Cabs were selling for under $20; now they have reserve Cabs selling for $50, which was over our price point for this tasting. R&B brands its wines with musical themes, mostly jazz, such as their Swingsville Zin and Metronome Merlot.

JRE    (John Robert Eppler)

Very small lots: Fume Blanc, Zin, Cab, red blends, and a late-harvest Zin. We tried his Zin at this tasting.

Irish Monkey           

1017 22nd Ave – Oakland

http://www.irishmonkey.net/     (510) 915-5463

Loretta Lynch accused her Irish husband, Bob, of having a wine monkey on his back. He had been producing award-winning beers but was determined to shift gears into wine. So they named their small urban winery Irish Monkey. Or so the story goes.

Like many new, small wineries, the Lynches like to distinguish themselves by making offbeat wines, or traditional wines with their own special twist. They produce a number of wines from Portugese grapes, some Italian-grape wines, a pair of Malbec blends, and a sort of variation on port in the form of a Touriga-based wine dosed with brandy and sugar.

    Wines of Irish Monkey:

Torrontes                   Sauvignon Blanc

Chardonnay             Viognier

Sangiovese               Pinot Noir

SyrBec                       (A Syrah-Malbec blend)

MerBec                      (A Merlot-Malbec blend)

Merlot                         Syrah

Primitivo                    Cabernet Franc

Cab Sauvignon        Meritage

Touriga National      Sweet Captain's Table (Touriga, Brandy, Sugar)

Oakland/Berkeley

Adams Point

http://www.adamspointwinery.com/

Bill Galarneau of Adams Point makes wines from tropical fruit (and port-style dessert wines from grapes). "We specialize in Mango Wine, Mango/Papaya Wine, and Persimmon Wine. Our dessert wines include: Mango Dessert Wine, Persimmon Dessert Wine, Red and White After-Dinner Wine, and Chocolate Dessert Wine." "The wines pair well with Thai, Hawaiian, and Caribbean food, and food from the regions where tropical fruit are grown."

I've had the Mango and the Persimmon; and they are not as bad as you would naturally expect. Fortunately, the Chocolate Dessert Wine is made from actual grapes, though the specific varietal is not mentioned on the site. The facility is in West Berkeley, the exact address not mentioned on the site either, unfortunately.  The easiest way to try his wines is by attending the annual (twice-annual?) East Bay Urban Wine Trail event – details can be found at http://eastbayvintners.com/ .

Los Altos Hills

Ferrell Wines

Patrick Ferrell is a publishing entrepreneur who started the successful GamePro gaming magazine, and founded the annual E3 convention for the console- and PC-gaming industry. Currently he is starting up an activities-based social network called Activnet.com.

One of his hobbies is home winemaking, producing robust Cabs each of the past few years from grapes grown on his property in the Los Altos Hills on the San Francisco Peninsula. The wines are not commercially available, but I thought I would bring an example to our tasting, for the fun of it.

Followup Pinot Noir Tasting...

As a followup to our investigation of the Gallo French Pinot that might not actually be a Pinot, I gathered some friends to check the wine and compare it to other inexpensive Pinots.


One taster's comment as soon as he tried the Gallo Red Bicyclette: "Hmm. Lacks varietal character." I swear I didn't prompt him!

We then tried some other cheap Pinots for comparison, a $9 Castle Rock that tasted much better than that; a $9 Australian Little Penguin with a lot of flavor, though more aggressive in style; a $20 Vichon that was dead, dead, dead, though it was only an '06 - surprised the heck out of us. And one of the group brought a Chandon priced around $35 that brought the entire evening to a delightful conclusion!

Conclusions: 1. The Red Bicyclette was marginally drinkable but you couldn't tell what grape(s) it was made from; 2. there are other cheap PNs out there that have more flavor and more Pinot qualities, though none are showstoppers; 3. $9 Castle Rock is as enjoyable as everybody says it was, and easily the best tasting value; 4. It's possible to pay $20 and wish you had a $6 Pinot, and 5. Chandon shows it's possible to pay $35 and get that heartstopping Pinot experience!

Falcor, Girard, Etude--On the Napa & Sonoma Wine Trail with James Jazz King

One great thing about social media is meeting new people. Twitter has earned me a couple of new wine-loving friends, including James Jazz King, a "personal wine educator for hire," whose Twitter handle is @UrWineGuy.

James went up to Napa for a weekend a few months ago to check on a few wineries for his wine-tour business, and invited me to join him. I jumped at the chance, especially since he was testing three wineries I hadn't tried before: Falcor, Girard, and Etude. (He also went to Domaine Carneros but I missed that stop due to map problems combined with my natural stupidity.)

James Jazz King conducts tours of California wine country, and produces wine and food events for companies who want to impress clients with their sophisticated hospitality. This includes corporate wine tastings for conferences, fundraisers, leadership awards, new-product launches, executive retreats, and similar events where the quality of the wine and food must impress. To this end, James has built relationships with top wineries in Sonoma and Napa, as well as the wine areas of Oregon and Washington. He's a graduate of Wharton, and lives in San Diego. He can be reached at his Web site, King Group Events.

I met James and his wife and young daughter at Falcor , which is in the southwest side of Napa Valley. James and his family were charming and welcoming. And the relationships James and his wife have built with the winemakers became apparent right away as we were greeted by Falcor Director of Marketing and Operations Doug Berlogar. Also clear, as we tasted some of Falcor's wines, was the scope of the Kings' knowledge of the wines; they clearly knew what they were talking about.

The Falcor tasting room looks like the board room of an expensive law firm, one that happens to have a winemaking facility through one of the doors. The wines were equally impressive. I believe we tried the $42 2005 Durell Vineyard Chardonnay, which was delicious. We then had the $65 2003 "H" Block Cab (with 2% Merlot, 2% Cab Franc, and 3% Petit Verdot) that knocked my socks off. (That's my wine-blogger technical description.) And we also tasted the $36 2005 Dry Creek Zin (which has 9% Petite Syrah). Also yummy. The Kings chatted about business--the wine business and the tour business.

Next we drove over to Etude Wines in Carneros, just off Highway 121. We tasted a number of their wines and, I have to say, I didn't care for any of them. Isn't that strange? They were all sharp-edged. The Kings, though, seemed to like them; that makes me wonder about the condition of my tastebuds....

We finished up at Girard, whose tasting room is in downtown (so to speak) Yountville, a tiny, charming community in the middle of Napa Valley. The tasting room, just off the main street in a complex of shops, was busy that Saturday afternoon with drinkers and tourists, but we managed to elbow our way to the bar to try some wines that were, I was relieved to find, quite good. (So my tastebuds were functional after all.) The 2007 Girard Artistry blend, Napa, $40, was worth the elbowing; and the 2007 Girard Petite Syrah, Napa also, tasted like a wine that had earned its high ratings -- 93 Points from Wine Enthusiast, 4 Stars from  Restaurant Wine -- by dint of actually tasting good. I liked it.

It was a tasty and educational day with a host clearly knowledgeable and capable. I appreciated his invitation, and suggest you look up James Jazz King when next your company needs to make a good impression at a client or customer event -- or just when you want to take your group on a custom-made, hand-crafted tour of the West Coast's finest wines.

Red Bicyclette: First Impressions of a Wine Scandal

Last month some French wine businessmen were sent to jail on charges they substituted for cheap Pinot Noir a volume of even cheaper wine, Syrah I believe, maybe with some Merlot mixed in, nobody's sure. They sold this in large volume to American bottlers, mainly Gallo, who put it in some of their low-cost wines, most notably something called Red Bicyclette.

The idea that the Gallo buyers couldn't tell cheap Pinot from cheap Syrah has generated guffaws in the industry. The ease with which the French traduced the gullible Gallo Americans must have been a point of pride in France. But it does leave one to wonder how Gallo could have been cheated in this way. Can't Gallo's buyers tell Pinot from Syrah, however cheap? Don't they have people along the supply line to taste-test random bottles from time to time, checking for just such funny business? Has no one learned from the repeated scandals in Italian wines a couple of decades ago?

Apparently not.

So what has become of all this even-cheaper falsely labeled wine? Did Gallo withdraw it from the retail pipeline? One assumes. After all, fraudulent sales in France are equally fraudulent labeling offenses in the U.S. of A.

Well, as the man says -- evidently not!

Alerted by Lew Perdue, publisher of the Wine Industry Insight newsletter, on Mar 22, 2010 I bustled over to my local Safeway, in Castro Valley, California, to purchase two bottles of Red Bicyclette, one of many Gallo subsidiary labels. 2008 Pinot Noir, says the label; Produit de France (nice touch!); Vin de Pays D'oc. Bottled in France. Damage: $6.99 each.

I decorked one of the bottles to see what's up with that.

Cheap Wine Is Cheap Wine, As You'd Expect.

This isn't the worst cheap wine I've ever drunk; on the other hand, it sure doesn't look, smell, or taste like any Pinot I've ever drunk, either.

The nose has that odd lightly funky note that hints at Syrah, in the French style. Not offensive, nor attractive.

It's clear, but a little darker than I would expect. Or is that suggested to me by my knowledge of the sketchy history of this bottle?

On the tongue, again this isn't offensive for a wine in this price range: The acid isn't overdone, there's some tannin-body without going overboard, and there's some flavor, too; it's not thin, insipid, and sharp-elbowed, as is so often the case with $6 wines. It lacks complexity and has limited interest; but Trader Joe's has done me worse with its own label of French import, at a similar cost.

But it's not a Pinot -- I'm no expert, but even I can taste that much. I'd guess a Syrah blend, but my guess is influenced by the news reports. It doesn't have that light flavorfulness that can be such a joy in a French Pinot; it sits too heavily in the glass for that.

I can imagine customers here reacting with the same shrug: I dunno what it is, exactly, but it's not awful, and the price ain't awful either. I'm not spitting it out. Not sure I'd want to trudge through a case of this -- it's plonk; acceptable plonk, but plonk nonetheless. If it were $1.99, it could give Charles Shaw a run for his money.

I can also imagine the perpetrators rationalizing in the same way: Americans wouldn't know Pinot from Syrah or Merlot with a map and a flashlight; their sophistication stops at whether it's red or white. The kind of Yanks who shell out six bucks at a grocery chain aren't looking for typicity; they're looking for a cheap drink that won't gouge their tongues out. If the occasional quaffer notices this isn't what they're used to in a fine Red Bicyclette vintage, they'll probably blame themselves.

And they're probably right.

ZAP! Great Annual Zinfandel Fest Ready to Start!

ZAP Zinfandel Festival from kjraymond on Vimeo.

ZAP -- the famed Zinfandel festival held each year since 1991 in San Francisco, largest single-varietal event in the world -- kicks off this week (late January 2010), culminating in the public tasting Saturday afternoon, Jan 31 -- where 10,000 or more Zin lovers are expected to stagger down ten aisles of wonderful wines in two large buildings on the City's waterfront with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge. The theme this year: Zin in Paradise! And it's apt -- by midafternoon, I will certainly feel that I am in paradise, surrounded by my Zinful fellow enthusiasts!

With over 300 wineries serving up tastes of more than 800 -- yes, *800* -- Zinfandel wines, the event is the annual highlight for lovers of Zin, the 'all-American' wine that derives from vines first grown in Croatia. Zin is capable of producing the biggest, jammiest, richest wines of all.

As enthused as Zin lovers are today, it was only 20 years ago that Zin was dismissed by almost everyone as a junk wine, partly because it was primarily known as the basis for so-called White Zin, a type of rose made with low acid content so it would be easy to drink for beginning drinkers who don't care for the tannins and acids of other reds or even roses. But as one develops one's palate, the lack of acid to balance the sweetness in Zin makes it seem flabby, like a soft drink. Once drinkers  move on from white Zin, they never look back.

Which is fine -- except that wine drinkers in the U.S. mistakenly thought White Zin was the only was Zin could be -- a wine with trainer wheels for college kids. But several California winemakers, including Kent Rosenblum among others, believed the Zin grape was capable of producing a great red wine.

He and others formed ZAP -- Zinfandel Advocates and Producers -- and over the years turned around the reputation of Zinfandel. The ZAP festival was one of their big publicity weapons. Its success has led to similar campaigns by enthusiasts for other underappreciated wines, such as RAP, an annual SF festival for rose wine lovers, a group also damaged in the US by the White Zin curse.

Zinfandel is one of the wines that led me, step by step, to enjoy wine, then to explore wines, and discover the joys not just of Zin, but also of Syrah, Cab, Merlot, roses of every kind, the vasty depths of French wines, the glories of Pinot Noir, and the nooks and crannies of wines from strange and wonderful places of this world.

I'll be a volunteer at ZAP tomorrow, as I am every year, helping out in the Zin Zone, where I'll be wearing a colorful Hawaian shirt and lugging around wine boxes for the wineries. I hope to see you there!

V. Sattui 2007 California Gamay Rouge, Napa

12%, $17.75 at the winery.

I was lucky enough to have some of this rose at a recent tasting and to take the remains home for further contemplation.

Gamay Rose's are light and flavorful, and this one is so fruity and tasty it's almost like candy in a glass. I have to say, I really like it. A great aperitif, it also went well with roasted chicken. And some chocolates I had for dessert.

I understand this is only for sale at the winery or online with no retail or restaurant sales. It's well worth the list price of $17.75. If you prefer your rose's with plenty of fruit (rather than the ultra-dry style favored by other critics anxious to separate themselves from the risk of association with sweet white Zinfandel), you will enjoy this wine, as I did.

Mac 10 Jan 10

Chalone 04 Pinot Noir, Estate - Yes indeedy!

Chalone Vineyards 2004 Pinot Noir, Estate, The Pinnacles, Soledad, Monterey County, CA. 14.2%. $38.

I picked up several bottles of this at the annual Diageo wine event in Napa, where interesting bargains are to be had. In this case, they were selling Chalone Pinot Noir at about a third of the list price, so I got a few bottles, and opened one this evening.

It's delicious. It's exactly what I want from a Pinot -- light but flavorful, with a nice finish, which is how I characterize Burgundy-style Pinots. (Many West-Coast Pinots go for a more aggressive flavor profile: more intense, concentrated flavor. But if I want concentrated flavor, I'll drink a Cab, or Syrah, or Zin.)

Stuff's dee.li.cious. Yum! How's that for sophisticated wine-reviewer wordsmithing?

Luna Vineyards Pinot Grigio--Great Beverage Wine

I was pleased the other day to get three bottles of wine from a winery I didn't know, Luna Vineyards -- new wineries are always fun. The bottles are attractive, with beautiful, elegant labels. The wines are all from Napa: a 2007 Pinot Grigio, a 2007 Sangiovese, and a 2006 Merlot.

I opened the Pinot Grigio first, and tried it on its own as an aperatif -- I don't like it straight. It has a pleasant aroma, but there's not a lot of flavor: The fruit I expect from Pinot Grigio is too restrained for my tastes, and the acid a little too prominent.

Then I tried it as a beverage, to wash down a pork roast with cream sauce -- and it perked right up. The plainness, and the acid bite, cleared and freshened the palate, and made the flavorful pork even tastier.

Tanzer gives it 90 points and finds peach and orange blossom flavors -- I have no idea where he's getting that.

The wine lists at $18; K&L sells it for $15, and likes it, calling it "a rich, mouthful ... that also includes a splash of Chardonnay for extra intrigue... a favorite for its texture and mouthfeel, clean fruit and minerality. This is a food-friendly white for any night of the week." Well, the food-friendly part is right, but I wouldn't recommend you take this to your next winetasting -- it doesn't work in that context. But to go with dinner tonight (or even lunch tomorrow), it works.

I'll try the two reds another night.

My Two Favorite Livermore Valley Wineries Revisited

In the past two years of going to wine festivals and other wine events in the Livermore Valley (an area to the east of San Francisco), of the 40 or so excellent wineries that make this area well worth visiting, two new wineries in particular have stood out from the crowd: Longevity, and Cuda Ridge. I stopped by both at the Livermore Holidays in the Vineyards festival this weekend, and it reinforced my high opinion of each of them.

Longevity:

Winemaker Phil Long and his wife Debra and their small staff turn out some truly wonderful wines. What distinguishes them in my mind is that they create wine pleasures in both red and white -- since I'm a red-wine guy, it takes a lot to make me drink whites very often.

Phil produces a very tasty Chenin Blanc, one of this country's most overlooked wines. Chenin Blanc used to be popular as a regular table wine decades ago, but that popularity, as often happens in wines, ruined it: Everybody jumped on the bandwagon, and it didn't take long before the word Chenin Blanc could only be found

in jug wines, and the varietal was mainly grown as blending filler for other low-end jugs. A great grape, turned into swill. A wine to conjure with in France, made a laughingstock here. What a pity.

A few California winemakers are reviving Chenin Blanc, in small quantities, and it couldn't happen to a nicer grape. Phil's $18 version is a good example of the new generation: tasty, round, food-friendly, it's the kind of white wine that red drinkers like, the kind people describe as "a white to drink if you're tired of Chardonnay."

Phil also does a tasty Viognier ($18), and a surprisingly enjoyable Chardonnay -- another of those "The Chard for people who don't like Chard" wines! ($21)

Of course, I'm a red drinker, so it's Phil's reds that really light my fire: His $23 06 San Francisco Bay Merlot is delicious, his $22 06 Contra Costa Cabernet silky, and his $18 Lodi Barbera is much better than almost any Barbera's you've had lately.

He says his upcoming 06 Contra Costa Syrah is terrific, and I believe him. (He also says the 07 Syrah coming up behind it will be even better!) They also do a Rhone blend that's currently sold out.

Find Longevity Wines at http://www.longevitywines.com and order some up today. It's a small operation (500 cases, on their way up to 2500), and its wines sell out early as people like me are discovering them. You can also find it in stores in the Livermore area if you're from around here. Best of all, join their Club and get reds, whites, or mixed four times a year.

Cuda Ridge

Larry and Marge Dino specialize in Bordeaux-style blends, and other blends inspired by Bordeaux -- but with a California twist in how they taste -- a twist that's very, very good! If you are anywhere near their place in Livermore, you've got to go to http://www.cudaridgewines.com/ , find them, and make any excuse you can to visit and taste. You'll be happy you did.

They use all Livermore Valley grapes, and are another small winery producing over 500 cases at the moment, with plans to grow to 1,000 cases -- still not enough to expect to find it in wine shops outside of California (but in many states you can order online, thankfully). Otherwise you'll find them in restaurants around the Livermore area.

This weekend I again tried their Merlot and their Cab -- deceptive labels, since they really are the Dino's interpretation of a Right-Bank Bordeaux Blend (meaning, mainly Merlot) and a Left-Bank Bordeaux Blend (meaning, mostly Cabernet). Each is delicious -- a steal at $22 and $30 respectively. Here's the thing: When you choose a Bordeaux, you're looking for a well-rounded, balanced blended red wine with character, depth, and subtlety. But no matter that you pay (within reason) for a French Bordeaux, you are often disappointed -- truthfully, aren't you? So often that brand-name second-tier Bordeaux is just flat and bland and plain -- sorry, I mean: Subtle and sophisticated. Yeah.

What you're really looking for is what the Cuda Ridge Merlot and Cab give you: Balance, rounded mouth-filling taste, and a nice finish that tells you that you've just had something good. Forget $75 French Bordeaux -- save your money and please your taste buds much more with this stuff.

Cuda Ridge also makes a $26 Cab Franc that is better than any I've had before -- rich and smooth, without the harsh edge you often find in this varietal. As with all Cuda Ridge wines, this is a blend, with a bit of Merlot, a bit of Cab, and a bit of Petit Verdot to fill it out -- and nicely done!

Petit Verdot is an interesting grape, little known here, and used almost entirely as a blending grape in France. Well, wait until you taste the Petit Verdot from these guys -- rats, it's sold out. Next release is in February at $28 -- but they are only making 11 cases. The bastards! That's illegal, innit? This stuff is absolutely delicious in the barrel -- though you know how deceptive barrel tastings can be: That gorgeous fresh fruit is so delightful, but it changes once you bottle it. Whether that change is good or OK, one can only tell by trying. Which I plan to do. (One visitor averred that this Petit Verdot would age well, but the idea of holding onto tasty wines for a few years is expecting more willpower than I've ever demonstrated in any area of my life, I'm sorry to say.)

We visitors also got a barrel swig of their newest wine, a Livermore Valley Zinfandel that's wonderful and also different from a typical Zin -- as always, they blend it, in this case with some Cab and some Petit Verdot (they loved the Petit Verdot in there, but tried adding Merlot and that flattened the taste -- Merlot crashes right into Petit Verdot somehow and neutralizes its high notes; so they tried a pinch -- like a couple percent -- of Cab, and that did the trick). The result is a Zin that's more like an interesting Bordeaux than a regular fruit-forward, dense Zin -- the kind I like, you understand, but this one is very different. It won't replace Rosenblum Rockpile Zin in my heart of hearts -- but I may have to build an extra shelf to on side to accommodate this one, because dammit it's just good. It will come out in the February time frame too, I believe.

I'm going to try to get these two winemakers to come show their wares to our BAWDY wine group one of these months soon. I know I sound like a shill for these two wineries, but I'm not - I don't get anything from either of them, not even a free bottle of wine -- but I do get a wonderful wine experience that I enjoy so much I want to spread the word and the flavorful fun to everyone else. If you manage to get your hand on one of these delicious wines, you'll be telling everybody you meet, too, trust me!

Two Disappointing Wines....

Opened a bottle of 2004 Chateau La Fleur Bibian ($15) the other day. It's a Listrac-Medoc "Cuvee de Coeur" Grand Vin de Bordeaux, and it's nothing. Sharp-edged and with insufficient fruit, it's a disappointment.

At the other end of the ambition scale was a bottle of Rosemount Shiraz, an 05 on sale at BevMo for five bucks - I see why. I loved Rosemount's Shirazes when they first came to the US a few years ago -- all the fun and fruit and

smiles of California Merlots back in the 80s when Merlot first became a popular drink.

Of course, we know what happened to Merlot -- popularity meant everybody jumped on the bandwagon, slapped together bottles of disappointment, grew Merlot grapes where they weren't supposed to grow, and ruined an enjoyable wine.

Guess that's happening to the Australian Shirazes -- once fun, now stupid; once with light, bright fruits, now bland. Dammit. Volume eventually kills, doesn't it?

Wonder if Yellowtail has crashed to the ground by now? It sure is grinding out oceans of their reds....

HOW SAVVYTASTE WORKED THE CRUSHPAD WINE BLOGGER BLENDOFF

Your SavvyTaste wine blog somehow managed to squeeze into the Crushpad Fusebox Wine Blogger Blendoff Contest that pitted ten wine bloggers against one another to see who could come up with the best blend of five Bordeaux-style wines.

The gimmick was dreamed up by the people at Crushpad of San Francisco, a custom-crush facility that, in addition to renting its equipment and space out to small winemakers, offers regular Joes the chance to play winemaker. For a price between five and ten thousand dollars (depending on the grapes you choose), you get to choose your grapes (such as Cab and Merlot and Zin), produced by top growers in Napa and Sonoma, watch them come into the facility in the fall, help out with the crush (with your friends, a dirty and reputedly fun job), choose the yeast clone, pick the oak type, and a number of other choices, then design your own label. (They advise you at every step, send you email so you can keep track of things, and even let you skip steps if you're busy and just let them do it.) The following year you get 25 cases of your own "cult" wine, as they put it, which you "made" from grape to bottle, with your own label personal on it. The

cost works out to $20 to $35 a bottle -- not a bad price, especially if you are the kind of person who likes to give wine gifts to friends--now you can give them your own wine!

Junior Winemaker Me

Not everyone is up for that elaborate an experience, of course--I've dreamed of doing it, along with the members of one of my wine groups, BAWDY (Bay Area Wine Drinkers-and-a-Y), but we have never quite gotten around to it. So the clever boots at Crushpad came up with "Fusebox," a nifty low-rent variant. And then they came up with the equally clever idea of throwing this competition to generate publicity.

We had so much fun with the thing that I am glad to get coopted into helping generate that publicity!

Open the Box, Mac, and Let's Get Started!

Fusebox costs $80. You get a box full of half-bottles of Napa-sourced wine -- two Cabernet Sauvignons, one Merlot, one Cab Franc, and one Petit Verdot -- the five main blending grapes used to make Bordeaux (lacking only Malbec, for some reason). You also get a nice corkpull, and some chem-lab-style plastic measuring devices for accurate (heh!) measurements as you test various blends.

I of course have never *blended* a wine, except when I've accidentally taken a sip from the spit bucket. (Not bad, you'd be surprised...) But heck, worst case me and my friends taste some wine, how bad can it be?

Well, not bad at all - in fact, even more fun than I expected. Except for the tiny panic attack when I realized we were going to have to come up with a label design, and for some reason we weren't going to be able to use Crushpad's easy-designer service (they weren't able to get it set up to let us do it for free -- by the way, FCC regs suggest that I mention that we got this $80

Fusebox set for free in order to perform in this competition. So draw your own conclusions about conflicts of interest that might arise when somebody gives me a box of good Napa red wines...)

Borrow Two Friends and Blend

Now I don't know anything about design and have no design tools. So I talked to my buddies at Bawdy and it turns out that Bonnie Black was willing to give the label design a go, and she and her beau Gordon Coslow were willing to come over my house and help me figure out how to do a wine blending. Which they don't know how to do either, but for wine, they'll try.

So we popped open the bottles, dug out glasses, set out the marking sheets and informational materials, and set to work tasting the wines provided. The Cab was very good. The Merlot I liked but Gordon thought it was kind of flat. The Cab Franc was very tasty. (Tasty: That's a technical term used mainly by experienced wine reviewers.) The Petit Verdot was a surprise -- a nice perky acidic tang that we really liked.

I tried to talk through the notion that wine blending is a matter of figuring out what each wine can add to the other wine tastes: If the Cab has a good opening and a good finish but seems a little flat in the middle (which I thought it did), then maybe one of the other wines will have a bigger middle that complements that. Bonnie and Gordon weren't buying it.

So we took the "recipe" cards provided, which gave the blend percentages of some famous French Bordeaux such as the 1996 Chateau Lafite Rothschild, which it says here is 83% Cab S., 7% Cab F, 7% Merlot, and 3% Petit Verdot, and 2000 Chateau Margaux, which is a simple 80% Cab S and 20% Merlot, and we made those blends to see what they tasted like.

They were pretty good.

Time To Get Crazy

Then at Gordon's suggestion, we took a dollop of our Cab S and added a splash of Cab Franc, and well, it actually did taste better than either alone! Imagine our surprise!

So we threw in some of that interesting Petit Verdot and Lord! It perked up very nicely, filling in a blank spot in the taste profile that we hadn't even know was there!

We were giddy with surprise that we could actually tell the differences as we mixed the wines! Hey, maybe there's really something to this blending thing!

Next we opened the sixth bottle in the package: The Mystery Wine, it was labeled. This is a preblended combo that we're supposed to taste and see if we can identify the blend. (Yeah, right!) We popped it open and tasted: No idea, but it tasted very good, so we had some more.

Then we went back and retasted our blend. Gordon pointed out that the mystery wine was smooooother than ours, where that Petit Verdot was maybe a little too perky. He suggested we calm it down with some of that Merlot that he thought was bland.

We added just a bit of Merlot and -- Jaysus! Our blend just settled right down and purred like a kitten! The perk was still there, but now it was like a piccolo in a chamber orchestra!

Miracles Can Happen

We couldn't believe it! We had made a blend that tasted better than the starting components! Us! Who don't know anything! Woo hoo!

Now the hard part: We had to calculate the percentages of each component. We had been keeping track, but every time we added another wine to the brew, the ratios of course shifted. Fortunately, Gordon has an engineer's knack for numbers, and we managed to wrestle the ratios into shape.

Our final blend turned out to be 70% Cabernet Sauvignon, 17% Cabernet Franc, 9% Petit Verdot, and a mere 4% Merlot (that's all it needed to do the job!).

Gleeful, we whipped up some more of the blend and split it between ourselves and corked the results for our future enjoyment. (Sorry, I drank mine share all up the next day.)

Art for Wine

Now all we had to do was knock out a label work of art and we're home free! Bonnie went on my computer and called up her graphics program from the Cloud, and saved it to my desktop as a PDF file. Bonnie and Gordon went home happy.

But I discovered that the graphic didn't fit the specs we had gotten from Crushpad. And I don't have a PDF editor. Oh nooo Mr Bill! I ended up using Microsoft Powerpoint, believe it or not, to gin up a not-awful image in the right size -- Powerpoint can save as PDF, as it turns out.

I can't imagine that we'll win this competition, given our level of ignorance of the process, but I can tell you that we had a really good time, far more fun than I had expected. And we learned a surprising amount, considering that we weren't trying to learn anything at all.

What I'd Really Like is a Mixed Case of My Competitors!

If by some chance we do win -- say, all the other nine wine bloggers abruptly drop out on the grounds that they're just too good -- we get a free case of the blend we dreamed up. With out label on it. When that miracle doesn't occur, we can buy a case for $300 instead. That in fact is what regular customers of Fusebox do - you come up with a blend, email the blend in and a label design (using their graphics program instead of Powerpoint!), and then you can order wine to your custom blend at about $300 a case. Instant Christmas present that will impress your friends and baffle your enemies! And if the blend really turns out well, you can keep ordering more cases of your special blend.

Crushpad is at http://www.crushpadwine.com and its Fusebox system can be found, with all details, at http://www.crushpadwine.com/blend/fusebox .

If your blending experience inspires you to step up to the full Crushpad winemaking experience, you might find yourself on the way to becoming a real winemaker, even selling your wine (Crushpad offers commercial sales services). Apparently several customers have made the move to making a living making wine! And some are said to have gotten 90-plus points on their wines from the leading raters such as Wine Spectator and R. Parker. Phew!

I Feel a Blending Party Comin' On!

Or, if you're more like me and fun is fun but let's not get crazy here, you can still keep the party going by ordering Fuseboxes for your winetasting group. How's that for a party? Instead of just bringing wine, you bring wine blending! Each Fusebox is good for four or so people, or about $20 each, a decent price for this much fun.

Great images: Describing Roy Orbison's voice--or a smooth wine.

As writers, we always appreciate a well-turned phrase.

I'm reading the Wikipedia entry for Roy Orbison, and at one point they quote various singers attempting to describe what most referred to as his "operatic" voice -- some of these images are amazing:

*Roy Orbison's voice*

Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel both commented on the otherworldy quality of Orbison's voice; a particularly poetic comparison was Dwight Yoakam's, who stated Orbison's voice sounded like "the cry of an angel falling backward through an open window". Barry Gibb of The Bee Gees went further to say that when he heard "Crying" for the first time, "That was it. To me that was the voice of God."

Bob Dylan marked Orbison as a specific influence, stating that there was nothing like him on radio in the early 1960s:

"With Roy, you didn't know if you were listening to mariachi or opera. He kept you on your toes. With him, it was all about fat and blood. He sounded like he was singing from an Olympian mountaintop. [After "Ooby Dooby"] (h)e was now singing his compositions in three or four octaves that made you want to drive your car over a cliff. He sang like a professional criminal... His voice could jar a corpse, always leave you muttering to yourself something like, 'Man, I don't believe it'."

Angel falling backwards. Drive your car over a cliff. "He sang like a professional criminal." -- I don't even know what that *means* yet it stuns me!

Sigh.... Reminds me of a phrase the Europeans sometimes use when describing a particularly smooth wine, a phrase that is so weird it could only have been dreamed up in another language: "Prior to the French Revolution, the Vigne de l'Enfant Jesus vineyard [Beaune-Greves, Burgundy] belonged to an order of Carmelite nuns especially devoted to the Infant Jesus. Legend has it that the nuns were so enamored of the wine's silky texture that they exclaimed, 'It slips down the throat as easily as the Infant Jesus in velvet pants.' " You still hear this phrase at trade tastings; I just hear an Italian winemaker say it the other day.

mac mccarthy

Bottling Time at New Jersey's 40 Wineries

This little video takes you to one of New Jersey's 40 wineries -- yes, that's 40 -- where the harvest should just have ended.

It's bottling season at New Jersey’s Alba Vineyard

An article on the NJ.com Web site describes the newly burgeoning Jersey winegrowing scene, in an article about how the recent bad weather there is creating a problem for the 2009 vintage.

The 2009 New Jersey wine vintage. A phrase I never thought I'd hear, and I'm from South Jersey!

Wine Advice for a 27-Year-Old

My friend Steve Drace wrote to ask me what I'd recommend in the way of wines for an event being hosted by his son, who is 27 and unfamiliar with wines. My response could be helpful as a starting point for the youths in your family who are just starting out!

Steve:

Fortunately, wines for 27-year-olds are easy to find and tend to be inexpensive, especially if we're talking about untrained palates, who will prefer flavorful wines low in tannins (and lower in alcohol too).

There are several strategies here. Pick one.

Strategy 1: The best selling and least expensive wines in the supermarket or BevMo tend to be easy to drink, which is why they are so popular. You can just buy bottles with very familiar names, especially ones you've always heard are for unsophisticated palates. They actually taste good and tend to be low in tannins. Their biggest sin is most likely to be bland taste, but only for some of them.

Examples: Toasted Head, Kendal Jackson, J. Lohr, Beringer, Bogle, Acacia, Ch. St Jean, Edna Valley. Look for Merlots and Pinots, and fewer Cabs because Cabs can be too big for new palates (or, done badly, too awful). Also of course lots of whites.

You could pick up six or eight bottles of plonk and have a mini-tasting at home with the hosts, motor through the bottles, pick the ones they liked best, and buy enough bottles of that subset to do the job. (This also works especialliy well for Two-Buck Chuck--that is, Charles Shaw, at Trader Joe's -- which offers three or four wine styles at any given moment.)

Strategy 2: Drop by your nearest BevMo and tell the clerk what you're doing: Buying inexpensive and inoffensive BUT TASTY wines for inexperienced drinkers in their late 20s. Many BevMos have clerks who actually know what they're talking about. Not all, though, so don't invest heavily without testing.

Strategy 3: Target has wine, as you may know. They currently have a shelf labeled "12 wines for under 12 bucks." Happily, each bin of wine has a callout that says how much tannin and oak they have. Pick the ones that are lower in tannin, lower in oak, and higher in flavor.

Mac's Favs: Trader Joe's Nero d'Avolo I love. I like Rosemount Shiraz's and Yellow Tail's many wines (Trader Joe's and BevMo, about ten bucks). Bonny Doons can be fun, especially their whites. Try some Italians: Chianti is easy to drink, and some of their whites are tasty, and Valpolicella is hard to pass up. Coppola is highly variable depending on the exact label: His "Rosso" blend was terrific and under $10. Beaujolais are nice if you can get them cheap (at TJ's for example). I like Folie a Deux's Menage a Trois blend, around ten bucks. J. Lohr once made something they called Wildflower, cheap; delicious! Haven't seen it in a while. I liked Trader Joe's French Classic Cab (not the merlot) that I got a few years ago for $3; surprisingly tasty. J.W. Morris, a Trader Joe brand, makes delicious Chenin Blanc (white) and Gewurztraminer and Reisling, for $3.99 (Four-Buck Chuck?). You should be getting some of them for yourself, the heck with the kid! Ca'Na at BevMo for three bucks is unbelievable at any price, let alone that one, but I understand they sold that out. Keep an eye out anyway, just in case.

I have lots of others on my list but they start to get real pricey from here out, so we'll skip that.

And if you're attending, get one bottle of something really good for yourself, and nurse it. An R&B Cab, one of the Rosenblum black-label Zins, a JC Cellars Syrah, a Rock Wall anything.

Hope any of this helps!

Good luck! Keep track of what you end up doing and how it turns out and let me know -- I'd like to post your experience to our SavvyTaste web site, since this is exactly the situation a lot of people face from time to time, and every guide is a good guide.

best,

mac

Of course, he didn't! Sigh!

Pompous Twits tasting: "Weird But Wonderful!"

I said I was behind on my posts, but this is ridiculous! I was plowing through my files for materials from some recent tastings and I came across this unposted report on a fun tasting we did for my other wine group, The Pompous Twits (of Hayward, CA and environs).

The theme was "Weird but Wonderful!" and we were encouraged to bring our most unusual bottle -- whether the grape or the nationality or the blend or the name, bring something we haven't seen before.

And the 11 attending Twits responded memorably! Here is my report from February 2005.

Eleven of us gathered at the newly relaunched Rue de Main in Hayward on Saturday February 21st for this new BYOB event. We tasted 17 wines, most of which fit the Weird classification, some of which even arose to the Wonderful category. Here is a summary, as best Mac was able to copy down the names.

First, two introductory "pump primer" champagnes to get us in the right mood. And it worked!

1. Mumm Cuvee Napa Sparkling Pinot Noir - The Pinot added a nice fruity note to this champagne!

2. Frank Variville 1996 Grand Cru Champagne Brut, brought by Dave Hulet. Very nice!

3. Champagne Le Nombre d'Or, L'Aubrey Fil a Jouy-les-Reims - this was Dave's first contribution to the Weird category -and I thought it was pretty wonderful!

4. Kinneskillan 01 Pinot Noire Okanagan, from somewhere in Canada. Oh dear! Very amusingly weird!

5. Volcano Winery Macademia Nut Honey Wine, Hawaii -- really a nice mildly sweet dessert wine. From Canada to Hawaii in two bottles!

6. Domaine de Belliviere - Le Rouge-Gorge-Coteaux du Loir 2002 - a red of unusual grapage. Interesting! Only $20 said Dave!

7. Saint Gregory Mendocino Pinot Meunier 2002 - Nice sweet undercurrent to this one.

8. Creston Vineyards 1995 Pinot Noir Paso Robles. Hmm. Some people liked it!

9. Grgic Plavac Mali 1996 Croatia - made by the same Grngch as here in California, but from a grape that is a precursor to Zin, we're told.

10. Imagery Series, International Imagery Red Table Wine - no year - A blend of wines from around the world. Corked, unfortunately. That could have been fun.

11. Finca Sandoval Manchuela 2002 - A Syrah of some sort from Spain.

12. Topolos Sonoma Alicante Bouschet 1997. A nice light Alicante.

13. Pine Ridge Onyx 99 Napa Rutherford - a Malbec-Merlot-Tannat blend. Not the most common blend in the world -- I'll bet some of you have never (knowingly) even tasted a Tannat!

14. Souzao 1996 from Bonny Doon -- the Portuguese port grape has here been transformed into a table wine -- interesting dense!

15. Tradition (?) Tiara Rhone Reserve diVieux Cardinal - a declassified French vineyard. And for a reason, too!

We finished up with a couple of regular wines to end our most interesting evening:

16. Ridge Pajano Ranch 1997 Zin

17. Retzlaff 2003 Merlot (newly bottled)

A most curious and entertaining evening, I think, and one that should