Free SO2! A wine blog.

It's 2010. I will blog about wine more.

2010-01-29T18:11:00.000-08:00

So my "Harvest is over!" post was two months ago already, but since then I've bought a house, moved into it, went back to New Jersey for Christmas, came back to the Bay Area, and went right back to work. But now I will try to start back up again.

Back in December I applied for the UC Davis Extension Winemaking Certificate Program. I was accepted, and am currently taking Introduction to Winemaking. Some of it is redundant, as I currentlywork in wine production, but it's helping to fill in the gaps.

I actually should try to get a lecture in before dinner, so I will leave you with this interesting article from The Cellarist from The San Francisco Chronicle about the current price and consumption trends of CA wine. Enjoy!

Why California wines aren't selling

Brant Ward/The Chronicle, 2007

More deals can be found on Bay Area shelves.

California wineries got a jolt of reality this week when industry analyst Jon Fredrikson delivered some shocking numbers at the Unified Wine & Grape Symposium in Sacramento.

While overall U.S. consumption of wine was up slightly, 2.1 percent to 323 million cases, California wine shipments were down around 1.6 percent, to 236 million cases. It was the first drop in 16 years for the California numbers, which have been drumbeat-steady in their growth.

The shift caught a lot of attention, but behind the numbers is a more complicated story. I called to get a bit more insight from Fredrikson, president of research firm Gomberg, Fredrikson & Associates, which produces widely used industry reports.

So what's up? People want to drink, but anything that smacks of luxury is not moving.

"It's not an oversupply, its an under-demand. We went through a financial heart attack," Fredrikson told me. "We pushed the reset button in demand. People just scaled down buying patterns. They're still buying wine. We're not like General Motors."

The biggest shift, which he and other analysts have repeatedly described in the past year, is the near-complete stagnation of wine priced more than $20. Fredrikson's data shows that buyers who once spent $20 to $30 have moved lower. The $3-to-$6 category and the $9-to-$12 category have seen the strongest growth. On balance, that rewards the larger California producers and brands — Fredrikson mentioned brands like Sterling, Cupcake and Edna Valley — while smaller labels have more likely been caught in the worst of the downturn. Clearly there's a price sensitivity that wineries will have to adapt to.

"I've never seen it before, how people moved down to much lower price points," he said.

There's more. One major holdup has been the middle part of the three-tier system. As retail sales slowed, distributors started to shrink inventories and require tighter credit. Wine that might have been moved out the winery door probably wasn't making it to the warehouse. And though the very top allocated wines, which occupy a tiny sliver of the market, almost never disclose sales figures, anecdotal stories have been emerging in the past year that indicate virtually no expensive brand has been immune.

At the same time, the industry has been trying to figure out how to discount wine to reduce inventory. Suddenly, top-flight wines are being offered to restaurants to serve by the glass, or sold at lower wholesale prices to provide a higher margin — anything to try and avoid lowering the actual retail price. But that's now happening too, and retailers have started to pass along those discounts. (Of course, it's not unreasonable to believe that some expensive wines needed a price correction.) The alternative, as Fredrikson pointed out, is that spendy wines would get sent off to closeout at sites like Tilsoldout.com. If your local retailer has had an abundance of deals lately, this is probably why.

"There are purists who say you can never discount your brand," Fredrikson said. "That's not realistic in this market."

A couple other points:

California's dropping numbers are a bit more complicated than they seem. According to Fredrikson, total shipments from California wine companies were up, mostly because some large companies are buying more bulk imported wine to bottle here. It's the California-grown wines themselves that have been down. If you didn't think global sourcing was a reality, here's a wake-up call.
Much of the drop in California wine was overseas. Shipments to the U.S. of California wine were barely down — though in a constantly growing market, that's still grim news — but of the 4 million fewer cases being shipped, 3.2 million were in exports.

Fredrikson's conclusion? It's a very good time to be a wine buyer. The excellent 2007 vintage is coming onto the market, and with the pressure to sell wine and price aggressively, we're going to be able to enjoy ever better prices. We're still drinking plenty; we just don't want to pay as much.

Harvest is over!

2009-11-15T20:53:00.000-08:00

The reason I haven't blogged for the past 2 months was because of a little thing in the wine industry we like to call "harvest." Harvest 2009 at Merryvale was quite different than Harvest 2008 at Rosenblum. At Rosenblum, there were two lab interns that took alternating shifts so I worked 10 hour days, Mon-Thurs, coming in occasionally on Fridays for some OT. At Merryvale, during the peak of harvest, I worked 7AM-7:30PM Mon-Fri and put in close to full days on Sundays. It was also a more physically demanding job, as I was doing things like yeast additions which required lugging buckets upon buckets of juice up several flights of stairs. If we were lucky, we got help. In addition to this harvest making me stronger both physically and mentally, I also learned a lot more about the different aspects of wine production. Plus, you have to appreciate a job that makes 10 hour days look short and 8 hour days laughable.

A few pictures from harvest:

The Cellar: Ready and awaiting grapes

Our first Sauvignon Blanc grapes of harvest!

Sean, the Senior Winemaker, and Remi, the Vineyard Manager, getting ready to toast to a successful harvest

Liddy and Andrew sorting Cabernet

So this weekend, November 14-15, was the first weekend I had completely off since August. The funny thing is that once the last grapes come in and get inoculated, harvest comes to an almost screeching halt. At this point, we have a few white wines in barrels still going through slow native fermentation and the remainder of work to be done is checking red wines to see if they've completed their malolactic fermentation. Once Thanksgiving rolls around, the rest of the interns and temporary workers will be gone and we'll be left with a skeleton crew until next harvest. For me, I'll be working until Christmas, taking time off to go home for the holidays, and returning as a lab tech in January. In the off-season, I'm hoping to do a lot more sensory work and get idea of everything else that happens between harvests. It is also my intention to enroll in UC Davis Extension's Winemaking for Distance Learners Certificate Program. I'll be sending my application within the next few weeks with the intention of starting the first intro class at the beginning of January. I'm very much looking forward to being a student again! This time, a student of wine. Doesn't get much better than that.

Some wines from Orin Swift

2009-09-06T11:43:00.000-07:00

For a majority of the time I've been at Merryvale Starmont, we've been bottling for a winery called Orin Swift in St. Helena. They only produce 5 wines: one Sauvignon Blanc, one Cabernet Sauvignon, one Zinfandel, and 2 high-end red wine blends. We've been bottling 4 of the 5 wines and in addition to being great wines, they're stylistically some of the cooler bottles I've seen. They're all pretty different, but fit together well as a cohesive piece of art much like a collection of clothes on a runway. The information below is taken directly from the Orin Swift website, and the only thing I have to add to their own descriptions is to watch out! This maybe be no surprise, but these California reds are heavy-hitters in the alcohol department. Great to sit down with before dinner, but they haven't really complimented any meals I've had with them.

Mercury Head

2006 Cabernet Sauvignon

Mercury Head Cabernet Sauvignon is named for the silver mercury head dimes that adorn our bottles. This wine is a blend of our two best Cabernet vineyards. We are blessed to buy Cabernet from a handful of great people who are also great farmers who farm great vineyards. We've learned a lot from these guys, and we're proud to count them as friends; Gary Morisoli (Morisoli Vineyard, Rutherford) and Doug Wight (Taplin/Lewelling Vineyard, Saint Helena). The 2006 Mercury Head is 100% Cabernet Sauvignon, entirely from these two vineyard sites and is true to its varietal characteristics.

Tasting Notes

The color is deep dark garnet. It has aromas of wild ripe field berries, figs, dust, earth, cranberry, black cherry, spice, dark coffee, chocolate, leather, violets, and currants. The palate is also dominated by dark brooding fruit, pomegranate, plus a little root beer and licorice. It is solid with a firm chewy mid-palate. The finish is long with smooth, w

ell integrated tannins.

The 2006 Mercury Head was aged in French oak barrels (forty per

cent new) for sixteen months. This wine is very drinkable now but will benefit from cellaring in the short term and could rest for up to ten years.

Bottom line is we're extremely pleased with the wine and think you will enjoy it too.

Suggested retail price - $75

2006 Papillon Napa Valley Red Wine

Orin Swift Cellars second release of the Papillon.

The artwork for the label is a photo taken by world renowned photographer and wine lover, Greg Gorman. See more information on Greg Gorman and his photography.

Tasting Notes

Ruby red with notes of campfire, toast and sweet vanilla. On the palate - wild strawberry, rhubarb, and sassafras. And the finish - 30 plus seconds with an impression of cherry pie.

65% Cabernet Sauvignon
27% Merlot
4% Petite Verdot
2% Malbec
2% Cabernet Franc

Suggested retail price - $55

Saldo

2007 California Zinfandel - Inaugural Release

Gaining experience and contacts in the Northern California Zinfandel growing community through the success of his Prisoner label, Orin Swift Cellars owner/winemaker Dave Phinney has gained access to some of the best Zinfandel vineyards in California. Dave recently decided he wanted to make a high quality Zinfandel and what he created did not fit the constraints of a single AVA.

The term "saldo" has many different meanings in Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. In Spanish it mainly refers to "balance on hand", and sometimes it can mean "from here and there". This wine represents the best of the best lots made by Dave from vineyards all across Northern California.

There are grapes from Sonoma, Napa, Amador, Mendocino, and Contra Costa counties. Some of these great vineyards include Monte Rosso, Eagle Point, Rockpile, Bismark, Beatty, Page Nord, Duarte, Solari, Evangehlo, Battuelo's, Tofanelli, Korte, Mable Tiedemann, Frediani, Lewers, Alta Vista, and Bald Mountain just to name a few. Dave is so committed to this concept he is now developing his own Zinfandel vineyard in Sonoma specifically for this project as well.

Winemaker Notes

The 2007 Saldo has a deep dark ruby color. It has aromas of red raspberry, ribena, campfire, toast and sweet vanilla. On the palate there is wild strawberry, rhubarb, and sassafras. The wine is expansive with a 30 plus second finish. There is an impression of cherry pie on the end. Drink now and enjoy over the next five years.

Blend

85% Zinfandel
10% Syrah
5% Petite Syrah

California Appellation

54% Sonoma
16% Napa
15% Mendocino
9% Amador
6% Contra Costa

Suggested retail price - $28

The Prisoner

2007 Red Wine

The 2007 blends the lush berry flavors of Zinfandel, the power and concentration of Cabernet Sauvignon, the dark black fruit of Syrah, the intensity and structure of Petite Sirah, the flesh of Charbono, and a hint of Grenache - all combined for a decadent wine with great complexity.

50% Zinfandel
24% Cabernet Sauvignon
14% Syrah
9% Petite Sirah
2% Charbono
1% Grenache

We continue to receive an overwhelming amount of inquiries about "The Prisoner". Not just the wine, but the image on the label. The image is inspired by an original etching depicting a prisoner in chains Dave Phinney received as a gift from his mother and father (Orin and Swift).

Suggested retail price - $35

Follow me on Twitter!

2009-09-03T22:38:00.001-07:00

So Harvest 2009 has officially begun, so I don't know how much time I will have to write formal blogs. However, I do wind up having a lot of wine thoughts during the day at work, so I tend to tweet a few times a day. Follow me @emschwig for wine and not-so-wine related tweets!

Rosenblum Open House

2009-09-03T21:43:00.000-07:00

So now it's September and I'm still catching up from my July adventures. Thankfully, there was only one wine-related event before August rolled around.

On Sunday, July 26th, I took my friend Michelle with me to the harvest open house at Rosenblum Cellars in Alameda. Having worked at Rosenblum last harvest, I was able to attend the holiday open house last November. The two events were pretty much identical, except this time around I didn't embarrass myself by dropping my glass on the floor.

Rosenblum offers very few white wines, so I sampled a Marsanne (or Roussanne?) while Michelle chose the Viogner. After our brief tryst with the whites, we moved on to the main event: Zinfandels! My plan of action was to taste only Zinfandels this time around, because that is what Rosenblum is known for and because I wanted to get a better idea of how they actually tasted as a varietal. I'd like to say it helped, but I still have a lot to work on in the realm of tasting.

Michelle receiving a pour of Snows Lake Zinfandel

About halfway through our Zinfandel journey, we stopped for some Zinfandel ice cream. Tucker's in Alameda makes this amazing ice cream using actual Rosenblum Zinfandel. This delicious ice cream is speckled with dark chocolate chips and is unique but not weird. It's a perfectly balanced ice cream and I would highly suggest it if you're lucky enough to stop by Tucker's on a day that they have it.

Michelle skipped the rest of the Zinfandels and moved on to a handful of Syrahs and Petite Syrahs which she thought she would like better. She wound up surprising herself by preferring the Zinfandels over the Syrahs. Rosenblum has a convert! Michelle left with a bottle of Snows Lake Zinfandel and Kathy's Cuvee Viogner. I still had a bottle of Lyon's Reserve Zinfandel in my collection, so I decided against a purchase this particular day.

It was a lovely July day in the Bay Area, and I thank Michelle for accompanying me to this open house at my wine "Alma Mater." Check out Rosenblum Cellars at 2900 Main Street, Alameda, CA. Their tasting room is open daily from 11-6 and all tastings are free!

Ridge Vineyards

2009-08-21T22:12:00.001-07:00

The weekend before I started at Merryvale, Marc and I headed down to Ridge in Cupertino. It was one of the last wineries in the Santa Cruz mountains area that I wanted to get to before I moved up to Napa. It was also the last of the 3 R's known for their Zinfandels, accompanying Rosenblum and Ravenswood.

The Santa Cruz mountains are beautiful, but the wineries up there feel like they take forever to get to due to all those steep hair-pin turns. It was a lazy day, so by the time we got down there, the tasting room was only open for another hour or so. The view was beautiful, but the tasting experience was lackluster. Either our pourer was not too knowledgeable about the wines or she was just anxious to get out of there. She was a lot less talkative than most tasting room employees I've encountered. However, she did waive the $5 tasting fee for us. I wasn't impressed with Ridge so much as to buy a whole bottle, and it didn't look like I was getting a discount, but we settled on a 375 ml bottle of 2004 Lytton Spring Zinfandel (79% with 18% Petite Syrah and 3% Carignane). It's still in the bottle, in my overflowing wine rack. A review will come whenever the cork gets popped.

Grapes on the vine

View of the South Bay

Marc enjoying the view

Picnic benches outside of the Ridge tasting room

Gene Simmons Wine Moment

2009-08-09T20:51:00.000-07:00

So I'm watching Gene Simmons Family Jewels and he sends Shannon Tweed and her sister to a winery to represent him because they're going to make a wine for him. They're trying to brainstorm names for the wine and Shannon's sister suggests "Genie In A Bottle," but my favorite suggestion was by his son Nick: Gene Simmons Balls Wine. Classic.

No word as to when this wine will come out or what it will be called, but I will let you all know when I find out.

Speaking of musicians with their own wine labels, a little while back I ordered a bottle of Claypool Cellars (yes, that's Les Claypool of Primus fame) Purple Pachyderm, a 2007 Russian River Valley Pinot Noir. It is now in my possession and I am waiting for the perfect opportunity to open it up. It's in the queue with about 8 other wines.

The very cute Purple Pachyderm logo

Les Claypool and his winemaker Jay Meyer

I am so behind!

2009-08-05T21:33:00.000-07:00

So I just got my internet set up here in Napa, so I am behind on my posts. I still owe you Ridge and Rosenblum Open House entries.

In more recent news, we're currently bottling Merryvale's premium Profile. I've had many days of being able to taste this wine, and, without quite knowing exactly how to articulate it, this is a damn good wine. It will be stellar if you can hold onto it for a few years. The 2004 vintage is comprised of 79% Cabernet Sauvignon, 12% Petit Verdot, 7% Merlot, and 2% Cabernet Franc. I think the 2007 make-up is slightly different, but not exactly sure how. You think I'd know these things, but I get all of my sample bottles without labels. Retail price: a cool $75.

My new Merryvale adventure

2009-07-25T14:19:00.000-07:00

During my several months of unemployment, I was debating whether to stay in wine or branch out to the "green" jobs becoming so prevalent in this area. My head was telling me to do something that would be transferable to other parts of the country in case Marc and I moved. But my heart (and my mouth) told me wiiiiiiine. Even after trying to network at green events, going to green job fairs, and going to green information sessions, the only interviews I got were in the wine industry. I interviewed at a company in which I'd be a technical rep, talking with clients and feeling out their needs. It would be a departure from what I was used to, but they seemed to like me and would pave the way to becoming a wine consultant.

After that first interview, Merryvale called to offer me an interview for their Starmont facility. I went up to Napa and met with the assistant winemaker and the cellar master. We seemed to really hit it off and they showed me around the gorgeous facility. This particular job really appealed to me because Merryvale's Starmont facility is a green facility, complete with solar panels, water recycling, energy efficient lighting, efficient insulation, etc. The best of both worlds! Also, it is absolutely gorgeous. I get to drive through the grape wines on the way down Stanly Lane, lavender and white roses surround the winery, and Napa actually feels like summer.

View of some of the grape vines from the parking lot

Some grapes on the side of the building

My favorite lavender!

Right now we're doing bottling, so I'm just doing a lot of QC lab work for that. Behold, my lab! So big. So new. So pretty.

White wine production for dummies (and lab techs). Hey...

All and all, a good start to a good job. I'm currently working Mon-Thurs, 7AM-5:30PM. I have to be up at 5 to get to Napa from San Mateo, but I'll only be doing that for 4 more work days then I'm moving up closer to Napa. Once September rolls around, I'll be there up to 6 days a week for up to 12 hours a day. Much more hardcore than Rosenblum. Let the harvest begin!

Wine Bloggers Conference

2009-07-24T23:20:00.000-07:00

Note to self: Register for the 2010 Wine Bloggers Conference, taking place in Walla Walla, Washington. Also, build up Free SO2 into a stellar wine blog before then.

This year's conference is happening this weekend and is being held right up the road in Napa and Sonoma, but unfortunately, it is sold out.

Merryvale, Ridge, & Rosenblum Open House

2009-07-24T15:22:00.000-07:00

Coming this weekend!

Waking up at 5AM and coming home at 7PM is not very conducive to blogging. Check for blog updates at the end of the weekends!

Friends! Californians! Countrymen! Send me your wine!

2009-07-17T23:29:00.000-07:00

One more quick thing. The other night, a wonderful friend named Jim Smith bought me a bottle of wine on his drive back from LA to San Francisco. Of course I am going to blog about the wines that I buy for myself, but I will also definitely blog about the beautiful wines (and champagnes) given to me! Yes, you will get props. Yes, I will even put a picture of you in the blog entry. No, do not send me Sutter Home white Zinfandel.

The Wine Avenger

2009-07-17T23:22:00.000-07:00

Remember that time I mentioned that I was shocked to find out that Zinfandel wasn't white Zinfandel? I just picked up "The Wine Avenger" by Willie Gluckstern, a book I checked-out of the library today. The second sentence of the introduction pretty much says it all:

"The maturing American generally learns his first lesson in wine appreciation at age sixteen, puking white Zinfandel in the high school parking lot."

Classic.

Ravenswood '06 Big River Zinfandel

2009-07-17T21:10:00.000-07:00

The objectives of this blog:

1. Review winery and tasting room visitations
2. Review individual wines
3. Give general insight into the wine making process

So far I really have only been able to accomplish number one, so I'm now branching out to number two. And when I find myself having only time to work, sleep, and blog, I will start to expand on number three.

What I am drinking right now:
Ravenswood '06 Big River Zinfandel
Retail: $35

I opened this bottle a few days ago, after purchasing it a few weeks ago from the Ravenswood tasting room in Sonoma. My palate is no where near developed, so I'm going to refer you to the winemaker's notes on this one!

winemaker's notes:

The 2006 vintage of Big River Zinfandel expresses the most pure characteristics of old vine Zinfandel with a combination of concentration, complexity, and a richness that is unsurpassable. This wine is big, round, and berry filled, with almost a hint of dill, yet filled with jammy and raspberry characteristics. You’ll notice immediately the spicy, plumy character of this particular wine in the nose. Its soft, round, plumy flavors are the essence of old vines expressing their "old vineness."

Ah Zinfandel, the poster child of California wine. One of the first thing I learned about CA wine is that Zinfandel is actually a dark red wine! Who would have known?! The pink-colored rose, White Zinfandel, is what us east coasters think of when we think of Zinfandel. How naive we are. Zinfandels are too big, too fruit-forward for some, but there will always be a spot in my heart for them after having been at Rosenblum for my first wine industry job.

This Ravenswood Zin is delicious. I've just had 2 glasses while watching Say Yes to the Dress and now I'm tearing up at the beautiful brides and the superb quality of this Sonoma Zinfandel.

Cool sidenote: This particular bottle, in addition to all the legal information required, includes these interesting facts that you don't get on every bottle:

Picking date: Sept 23, 2006
Bottling date: June 2008
Total cases: 1655
Total acidity: 0.64g - 100ml

More on total acidity for a future blog post.

Happy drinking!

Domenico Wines

2009-07-13T15:38:00.000-07:00

On Friday I had the urge to go somewhere and do a wine tasting. I would have like to go to Ridge, but they're only open on Saturday and Sunday. I was half-tempted to drive down towards Santa Cruz to go to Bonny Doon, but decided that would be a better trip to take with someone. Using my handy Wines of the Santa Cruz Mountains, I decided on Domenico Wines right in San Carlos. I arrived at 12:30 and the door was locked. I called the main number and a woman let me in. She said it was a new door and didn't know how to unlock it from the inside. I then did a tasting which was $5 for 5 wines, which was a little annoying because the web site didn't say anything about a tasting fee. Most web sites will mention if they have a tasting fee, so when I don't see one I assume they're complimentary. But $5 for 5 is not a bad deal, and the tasting fee is waived if you purchase a bottle.

The wines were pretty decent, but I was not able to get much information other than what was written on the tasting sheet. The person who normally works the tasting room has Friday off because they work on the weekends, so the woman who poured was also Domenico's administrative assistant. Disappointing. She was nice enough, but couldn't tell me much and just giggled a lot during our light conversation. I sampled a wine, 3 reds, and a dessert wine, but none of the wines popped out at me and the experience did not seem worthy of a purchase. However, if you want to stay on the peninsula and spend $5 to try some new wines, Domenico is a great option. They're open everyday from noon-5.

On Sunday, Marc and I headed down to Los Altos for an art & wine festival. It was a beautiful day to be outside (although I keep forgetting how strong this CA sun is and I got burnt) and this was a fairly large event. To sum it up, the art was professional and beautiful, the food expensive, the wine underwhelming. It was $5 to secure a wine glass or beer mug and you paid by the glass. Granted it was a hot day, but everyone at this festival was drinking white wine. I opted first for a glass of Claret by Roudon-Smith Winery, which was a Merlot, Zinfandel, and Syrah blend. Nothing mind-blowing, but a pleasant red for a reasonable $4. I then chose a Syrah from Martin Ranch Winery. It was very good and put me over the edge with the combination of too much sun and not enough food. Martin Ranch was also kind enough to be giving out complimentary tasting cards for their tasting room. Unfortunately, it's all the way down in Gilroy, so I don't know if I'll be able to take advantage of it at the moment. For now, it's staying in my purse with my card for a complimentary tasting at Kendall Jackson.

Overall, and underwhelming wine weekend. Good news is that my first day back to work in the wine industry is tomorrow!

Thomas Fogerty Winery and Vineyards

2009-07-08T16:07:00.000-07:00

Today started out with yoga, a bowl of high-fiber cereal and a banana. I'd also been itching to go down to Half Moon Bay to Raman's Chai & Coffee as suggested by some friends at the yoga studio. $3 bought me an ample-sized Real Chai, and while it was not as spicy as I had expected, it was super sweet and delicious!

I drove back up to Rt. 280 to head down south to Woodside and Fogarty Winery. This is an extremely winding ride up Woodside Rd, so try not to be alarmed. After a leisurely 4.5 mi trip down Skyline Blvd, I arrived at Fogarty on my left, where some vineyards just starting to get their grapes greeted me.

The winery and tasting room is perched on top of Skyline, with gorgeous views of some of their vineyards and the lower Peninsula.

I entered the tasting room and was met with glances from a quartet of 50-something-year-old women. A tasting room is an excellent place to people-watch, but you really need a high threshold for bullshit (pardon my French). But wineries are places that people love to go and talk about wine, whether they know anything about wine in the first place or not. I've gained a new respect for the men and women who work at these tasting rooms, for both their knowledge and expertise as well as their ability to deal with the winos so pervasive in this part of the country. Not to toot my own horn, but I think I'm a good tasting room guest because one, I'm a quiet taster. I usually keep my opinions to myself unless a wine is really really good or has a very distinct characteristics. Some wine tasters just like the sound of their own voice. And two, I ask good questions of the staff/sommelier because I am familiar with the industry and the processes. This also makes for refreshing conversation on both ends.

But back to the wine, Thomas Fogerty has a tasting fee which is $6 for a select list of 3 wines (Riesling, Chardonnay, and I believe a red wine blend) and $12 for the flight of 5 in which there were over 12 to choose from. In this case, I would go for the $12 tasting because the wines in the limited flight were honestly nothing special. I had been spending a lot of money recently on wine, so I opted for the $6 flight, but once the Tasting Room Manager Rick Davis and I started talking, I was able to get my complimentary industry tasting.

I can't remember all the wines I ended up tasting, but in addition to the three wines listed above, there was a heavy-oaked Chardonnay (way better than the 07 Skyline Chardonnay), Gewürztraminer, a Rose of Barbera, Lexington Meritage, a side-by-side tasting of two Cabernets from both the Santa Cruz Mts. and Napa Valley, Grenache, and a Barbiolo (Barbara/Nebbiolo blend). I almost bought the Grenache (because honestly, not enough wineries produce this delicious varietal), but eventually settled on the Barbiolo. The Grenache is part of a personal label of the winemaker (Michael Martella) with a very funky label. But ultimately, I wanted a Thomas Fogerty wine, the Barbiolo was so different, and if I bought one bottle, I got the second one for $1. I walked out with 2 bottles of the 2003 Barbiolo (75% Barbera, 25% Nebbiolo) for $36.

Thomas Fogerty is worth the hair pin turns if you're looking for a nice tasting experience on the peninsula. Great view. Friendly staff (thanks Rick!). Just watch out for those pesky Peninsula winos.

Ravenswood/Sebastiani

2009-07-03T22:28:00.000-07:00

Marc and I made our way up to Napa today for a few different reasons. Primarily, it was to look at a house that I'm going to be renting a room out for the next few months. I'm happy to say the house looks great (with a real yard!), and my roommate and her dogs seems to be pretty cool. Well, that was easy!

Our next stop was Ubuntu in Napa. Ubuntu is an upscale vegetarian restaurant that has been calling my name since we moved here. We decided to skip the wine because we were going to go wine tasting after lunch and the wines by the glass were almost all over $10. But we decided on the chickpea fries with romesco dipping sauce for an appetizer. They had lots of herby flavor even without the sauce. For our main course, Marc chose the strawberry margherita pizza while I chose the homemade fregula pasta in a spicy rosemary sauce. Marc said his pizza was one of the best he's had (and I must admit, the strawberry worked amazingly well with the fresh mozzarella and basil) and my fregula was super delicious. All of the rosemary rocked my world. Below are our two dishes. Yes, I ate the flower. My only complaint (other than the waiters/runners/hosts all running around amorphously, tending both to everyone and no one alike, and quite frankly making me feel a little rushed), is that I could have used a little more. Fancy restaurants, please stop doing this! I paid a lot for your lunch, please give me a 1/2 C more of your delicious pasta!

Our next stop was Ravenswood. It's a pretty recognized brand nation-wide, with over a million cases in production annually. It's also in the big three R's: Rosenblum, Ravenswood, & Ridge. I now only have yet to visit Ridge. I suppose I should do that soon, as it's down in the Santa Cruz Moutains and closer to me now. So the gentleman that poured our wine was a swell fellow, who generously give us two for the price of one tasting fee due to my membership in the industry. Very nice. So we tasted our way through a Gewurztraminer, a few Zinfandels, the Icon (a retro, pre-Prohibition red wine blend, a pretty $75/bottle), a Cabernet Sauvignon, and a Zinfandel Port. A bottle of the Big River Zinfandel came home with me, a vineyard designate.

*A note to wine-drinkers not living in close proximity to Wine Country: unfortunately, most of the California wines you find yourself mulling over are vintner's blends. They're the mass-produced wines that get shipped all over the country. You might find Ravenswood's Zinfandel Vintner's Blend at your local Wine & Spirits, but it's not nearly the caliber of stuff you'll be able to get at the winery itself.

So one thing I really enjoy about Ravenswood is their slogan: NO WIMPY WINES. They also like to translate that saying into different languages and put them on bumper stickers. Our pourer hooked me up with two: NO VINOS SIN HUEVOS (literally, no wine without balls) and NULLUM VINUM FLACCIDIUM. I'm far from the cult of Latin, but I dig this particular saying.

Along those lines, I had talked earlier about the three R's: Rosenblum, Ravenswood, and Ridge. All three are known for big, bold, fruit-forward wines. Surprising to me, of the few people in wine I've talked to about Rosenblum so far, not big fans. To be fair, I'm only a week into my meeting wine people/talking about wine/blogging about wine endeavor, but I've already gotten two luke-warm responses. I understand that people might not like their wines due to the ABV %. Rosenblum wines are monsters when it comes to their % of alcohol, which makes them difficult to pair with food. Still, if you want a POW! Right in the kisser! kind of wine to stand by itself, I'd submit that Rosenblum delivers. Most about Rosenblum in the future.

Right down the road from Ravenswood is Sebastiani, which we got into right under the wire due to a wedding that was going to take place after the tasting room closed. James was our pourer, musician, coder, and father of 2. He also remembered Nichole (from Periscope) from when she worked there. He said she was the one who signed him up for the wine club years ago! It's a small wine world. We also made friends with the couple next to us, 40-somethings with an adopted 7 month old girl in which the man very much reminded me of one of Marc's uncles. The tasting fee was $10 each and after chuckling about the Eye of the Swan White Pinot Noir and going through a bunch of other wines, we were being given the eye. I left Sebastiani empty-handed this day, though it will be easy enough to go back.

The wedding looked like it was going to be lovely, though.

Periscope Cellars

2009-07-01T22:21:00.000-07:00

So today I went out to lunch with my ex-Rosenblum buddy Kevin Wiens. After being denied Vietnamese in Oakland (this place was only open Thursday-Tuesday), we went next door to a breakfast place which unfortunately turned out to be sub-par. While I was in the East Bay, I decided I wanted to do a tasting of some sort. I was debating finally visiting St. George Spirits/Hangar One Vodka located on the old Alameda Navy Base. I've been there with Kev to borrow DI (deionized) water for the lab, and another time to talk with the distiller prior to my Diageo interview, but I've never been there to utilize their vodka tasting room. Ultimately, I decided to wait for a time that Marc would be able to join me. After lunch, I hopped up to Emeryville to sample the offerings of Periscope Cellars.

First let me digress a moment. I do want to go into detail about how I arrive in the very exciting world of wine and all of my adventures up until this point. However, I decided that I was going to start this blog today, and I need to get my first blog-worthy thoughts down before they escape me. So look for both current and flashback posts. I also promise to attempt to be more concise, I first need to find my wine blog "voice."

So I've been meaning to get up to Periscope Cellars for a few months now. Like Rosenblum, it is an urban winery which is a concept I like a lot. The only real requirement for winemaking (other than grapes, duh), is space and a water source. Well, even wineries up in Napa and Sonoma wind up having to transport grapes, so why not transport them to San Francisco, Alameda, or Emeryville? Periscope Cellars occupies part of a building that was once a WWII submarine repair facility, hence their name. Very cool. I was their only visitor on this particular Wednesday afternoon, so I had a chance to talk with Nichole Ise who also was so kind as to show me around. While significantly smaller than Rosenblum, the urban winery vibe was similar, only Periscope has a small space that they use as an art gallery. The next show opening is July 10, and I definitely want to try and make it up. They also do "Sip and Stretch" on the third Thursday of each month. That's right. Yoga and wine. Be still, my heart!

So after walking around their little operation, I started out tasting another wine from a different winery that also pours at Periscope. A really nice guy named David led me through some wines from Eden Canyon Vineyards. They only make a handful of wines, and after tasting their 2006 "Estate" Cabernet Sauvignon ($34) and their 2007 "Creston" Zinfandel ($24), I decided to take a bottle of the Zin. It was far from the big, bold Rosenblum Zinfandels and was actually very sweet despite it being a dry wine.

I then moved on to Periscope's wines. Nichole was a great hostess and her business card says it all: Supreme Tasting Room Overlord, Interstellar Director of Marketing, Royal Mistress of Events & Omnific Art Gallery Curator. That is a busy woman! So I started out with the most adorable Rose. I say adorable because it's packaged in a 187 ml bottle, closed with a crimped bottle top like beer, is only $5, and comes with a pink plastic straw! I know very little about Rose, but I could not say no to this one.

I also tasted the Pinot Noir ($24), Zinfandel ($20), and Syrah ($20) (all 2006 vintages) and left with the Syrah in addition to the Rose.

All and all, I was extremely pleased with my Periscope experience, and urban wineries in general. There's nothing snobby about these wines, so don't feel intimidated. No need to politely nod your head when the sommelier suggests flavor notes of cardamom and marigold. Not that kind of place. Did I mention the tasting was free?