| Don't Eat The Cheese |
[Aug. 25th, 2008|08:53 pm] |
Sunday ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) don_negro and I attended the Family Winemakers of California 18th Annual Tasting. It was a lovely day to be out at the Festival Pavilion in Fort Mason Center. Next year I will know to (1) wear less clothing, as it was very hot inside the pavilion, (2) put my hair up, and (3) not eat the cheese.
There were so many winemakers there that even if we had just started with a single taste down a single row, we'd have been on the floor before we hit the aisle. The entire pavilion was filled, and there must have been over 300 wineries represented. So we picked a few arbitrary tastes as we walked down the end of the alphabet, and then I picked a strategy: go taste grapes I don't know. We liked everything we tasted, more or less. Here's what we tried:
Banyan Wines & The Hobo Wine Company
The winemaker, Kenny Likitprakong, told me he picked the name Banyan because he originally created his wines to be paired with southeast Asian cuisine. (A banyan tree, for those who don't know, is a thing of wonder. It grows up and then down and re-roots the branches, and can live a very long time.) The Riesling is the only Riesling I have ever liked; it is an old vine, dry creek wine.
Barreto Cellars
I'm a sucker for Spanish wine, and luckily there are a lot of wineries focused on Spanish grapes here. don_negro's note was "Awesome." The Verdelho is a grape I didn't know, a nice big white with a lovely large fruit feel and a complex finish without a "white wine aftertaste." The dessert wine was a port, sweet and amazing (maxomai you need this for Mass). Also tried the Touriga, a red, and loved that too.
Bokish Vineyards
Albariño was the grape I decided to chase first, since I had never heard of it before. It is a lovely white wine, and I am slowly learning that I don't hate white wine, I just hate buttery california chardonnays. Anyway, they have two, and the one from Clemens Hill was the better of the two, though they were both yummy. The Garnacha, another Spanish grape, is bright and will age well. So will the Tempranillo. The Graciano is 5% tempranillo, and is for drinking now, big and smooth flavor.
Dancing Coyote Wines
I put many stars by this one, it was one of the last we tasted. We met with Alex McCormack, who is a sales rep, and whose family owns the winery. He was such a nice guy. They have an Albariño, that was very fine, probably the best I'd tasted all day. Also a Verdelho that I like, and my new favorite Chenin Blanc. We also tasted the Petite Sirah, which I put three stars next to (that's the most room I had for stars).
Fort Ross Vineyards & Winery
This is the first place we stopped. (The entries are alphabetical here only because the tasting book is.) This is the CA winery nearest to the ocean, owned by some South Africans. The '04 Chardonnay was yummy (there are Chardonnays I like? This is shocking to me!), a Rosé that is made with Pinot Noir grapes, and a Pinotage. I'd never heard of Pinotage, but I loved it.
Four Vines Winery
This winery has something called the "freak show" series that Christian Tietje (the winemaker) came up with. Apparently he is into design. We tasted Anarchy (black bottle, yellow anarchy symbol) and "temperance." Must taste the others some time. I bet we go visit the winery sometime.
Grasso Vineyard
Frankly we stopped here because they had a bottle of wine boxed in a mini violin case (that was a wine box) and it was adorable. They make a very nice Cabernet Sauvignon.
Hendry
We stopped here in search of Albariño, but they didn't have it with them--fair enough I guess, as they only made about 300 cases of it this year. I asked about the grape and learned a fair bit about it, but didn't get to taste it here. Instead we tried the Pinot Grigio, next to which I wrote "find and buy."
Mahoney Vineyard
A nice Italian girl married a nice Irish man, and that's why Mahoney vineyards has the marvelous italian grape Vermentino. They also had a solid Albariño. Very chatty lady here was happy to talk to us (even though we had on green wristbands which meant "peon" as opposed to red which meant "vineyard owner" and blue which meant "seller/distributor").
Midlife Crisis Winery
With a name like that, how could we not stop? Another first for me, the Nebbiolo which is a red grape. I just wrote a nice big smiley face next to it. A nice bottle to have on hand.
Opolo Vineyards
A random selection on our part. They make many things, probably the biggest list on the pages, but we just tried one: '05 Syrah. Yup, good stuff.
Pierce Ranch Vineyards
Another stop on the Albariño tour. They have some other Spanish grapes too (Tempranillo, Touriga).
Roshambo Winery
As soon as we saw the massive Roshambus parked in front of the pavilion, complete with fuzzy dice and a dashboard covered in astroturf with little army men all over it, we knew we'd have to go find these guys. As irreverant as winemakers get, they had on striped ties and hung a little plastic gold medal over their table ID sign. To get away with being so offbeat, they had to have fine wine. Yum! I highly recommend "Rock" (as opposed to "Paper" or "Scissors") as a hearty red dinner wine. This would have been a fun place to hang out and talk smack all day long. Maybe later--we scored free tasting room passes.
Siduri Wines & Novy Family Winery
We just tasted the pinot noir. This was on the way off from Roshambo, out for another breath of fresh air and a glass of water.
York Creek Vineyards
Another stop on my "edjumakate me!" tour. Here we had a lovely Cab, but also something called Carignane, which is a bit like a granache but not. It is a French grape. We also tasted the Petite Verdot, which I liked a lot.
While admission wasn't cheap (like $55/ticket) this was a great way to get to know a whole bunch of little known wines all at once. Also not a bad way to figure out where to go tasting (Lodi area, who knew?) for family wines. Why you should give a damn about family winemakers: in general, they are not part of the huge factory agricultural scene. Many of the winemakers we talked to were working on going organic or using biointensive farming measures. They care about their products in a way that Oscar Meyer just can't. Family winemakers organizations have worked with state lobbying groups to repeal stupid laws that don't allow direct shipments to individuals, giving more people access to wine from small wineries, and allowing smaller wineries to widen the market for their products. Family wineries are more likely to take a chance on a new or relatively unknown grape, or experiment with new types of wines and mixes of grapes.
In addition, I met a guy who engraves wine bottles (with wine still in them). Originally I stopped because there was a Penn State bottle, which my parents will be getting for Christmas. Anyway, he turned me on to a family winery run by a Penn State grad and gave me the guy's number.
There were tables with cheeses and crackers, and some kind of aged Wisconsin hard cheese. When I got sick later, and don_negro didn't, we figured it must be the cheese. We'd had the same amount of wine (and I'm bigger than he is, which should make me more tolerant) and we'd eaten all the same things that day except for the cheese. I must have grabbed a piece that had been sitting out just a little too long. Well, the other option is that it was just too hot for me (though we did take breaks outside, in the breeze, and I drank lots of water). |
|
|
excited
stressed
anxious
