Monday, December 27, 2010

Not a Creature was Stirring …


That’s because building the cocktails is my job!

Sorry for the sucky Christmas Day photo of our 17-year-old, kitty chemo patient being comforted by my hand-knit sock monkey present from Santa. Yeah, it’s a bit “Tiny Tim, ‘Deity of your choice’ bless us, every one,” but as we’d just watched “The Muppet Christmas Carol” the night before — the only version of the Dickens classic that Kathy can stomach, BTW (love the in-jokes, especially the sign on the building in the background, “Micklewhite & Co,” a nod to Michael Caine’s real surname) — well, ‘tis the season for treacle and suckiness.

In the decades that Kath and I have been together, we’ve whittled our Christmas traditions down to a few standards of presents, rituals and meals for the holiday season, since it’s just the two of us. It starts with a de rigueur viewing of the Pee-wee’s Playhouse Christmas Special on Thanksgiving, putting up the tree mid-December and an obligatory Christmas morning gift exchange of brand-new flannel pajamas and two-player board games.

Christmas meals have been similarly honed to delicious regimen. We’ll have a Dungeness crab pasta dish on Christmas Eve, and, invariably, a slow-cooked salmon fillet plated with a chunky, spicy cherry/jalapeño/lime/cilantro salsa for Christmas dinner. I grew up in Canada with the stuffed turkey thang (of course, Canuck Thanksgiving is the first Monday in October; as a kid, I could never understand “Miracle on 34th Street” with Santa at a Thanksgiving parade.), so it came as a big surprise to me when our unique and contrarian Christmas meal plan would, in the last few years, often result in Costco, of all places, running out of salmon and/or Chilean cherries. And now that we’re in the far East Bay of Northern Cali, as opposed to Seattle where Kumamoto oysters are virtually on tap, the hunt for fresh salmon and crab, never mind out-of-season cherries, required Kathy to plan our December 24 grocery shop with military precision.

Since the Asian market in Antioch closed this summer (their landlord went into foreclosure), our source for live crab dried up; we’d have to hope that our local outpost of the Raley’s supermarket chain had cooked Dungeness available, since the weekly circulars made no mention of it. Kathy set the alarm for 7 a.m. Christmas Eve, and while I ground the coffee beans, she pored over recipes for new side dishes, and made the list for our classics. And, yeah, she did check it twice.

Before jumping in the shower, she had me call Raley’s to see if they had crab. “Yes, ma’am [I have that kind of voice],” Bob the pleasant seafood manager told me, “and we have plenty.” Kath was still nervous, and we soon hit the road, with the supermarket our first stop. We split up once inside: Kathy to get crab and chicken livers (sautéed in raspberry vinegar with crème frâiche makes a heavenly breakfast), I to try to find cherries. All kinds of imported berries in those plastic clamshells, but no cherries; then, as I was about to give up, I spotted zipper bags of imported cherries beside the grapes. $6.99 per pound, but we’d been burned by Costco before. I grabbed a bag and reconned with Kath.

Next stop: Costco. Last year, we thought they opened at 11 per our membership level; they had opened at 10. This year, we got there shortly after 10 only to discover that they had opened at 9. Kathy went salmon fillet fishing; I hit produce to check for cherries. Good thing we found them at Raley’s; Costco had none. They were even out of limes. Luckily, I’d stocked up on citrus earlier in the month; we did not want this to be the Year Without a Margarita. Plenty of salmon and steelhead, though. As we’ve done for the last few years, we bought an extra fillet to smoke on Christmas Day in our Big Chief electric smoker.

Final stop: Trader Joe’s, for all those funky little gourmet extras, such as haricots verts and Meyer lemons. There’s a relish from one of Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse cookbooks that uses Meyer lemons, but this year, we’ve decided to use ‘em for Lemon Drops.

Hope y’all had a nice December 25; Kath and I did. Christmas jammies and board games, chicken livers and board games, a round of afternoon cocktails while listening to a Kevin Pollack Chat Show podcast, a slow-roasted salmon fillet with blueberry-cherry salsa and green beans with bacon vinaigrette, and paired perfectly with a 2009 “Vin Gris of Carignane” from 3 wine company.

It’s a rosé from CoCo grapes that preens a beautiful salmon color, appropriately enough, considering the food pairing, with tints of strawberry fruit and cranberry juice. The nose is all floral notes of cherry, rose petal and that ubiquitous cranberry. There’s nothing subdued about the mouthfeel, echoing its darker coloring: lots of cane berry fruit and bashful acidity providing a long finish. It’s a rosé in no way content to hide in the shadows of the genre.

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Last Train to Clarksburg


Kathy and I gassed up the “Lisa Marie” last weekend and motored east along the Delta levees to The Old Sugar Mill in the town of Clarksburg, CA, for the release party of two 2008 CoCo Zins from Matt and Erin Cline’s 3 wine company.

I’ve mentioned this previously, but over the last decade or so, Kath and I have belonged to dozens of winery-specific wine clubs. At one point, when we lived in San Francisco, I suspect that our deliveries were singlehandedly paying the UPS guy’s salary. But moving up and down the West Coast over the years, our affiliations with particular terroir often altered, and then, no longer being natives, the sense of pride of membership in a truly “local” wine club dissipated. We often canceled after leaving the area.

Seattle was a wild wine club ride for us. For starters, this last Seattle return, like a Cher “Farewell Tour,” was the longest we’d ever spent at one address in years. Pre-computer-address-book, anyone looking up our phone number in their personal log would have been met by a Dead Sea Scroll of paper fibers barely holding together under the rigors of eraser and deletions. But when it became apparent that we might just stay put up here, visiting wineries, and signing up for their clubs (still kind of a Washington state novelty in 1999), became a logical extension of our Cali experience.

For Kathy and me, the subscription always began with an inaugural visit to a tasting room hosted by someone who was chill, funny and knowledgeable. Hell, yeah, we’re going to buy a bottle from you; might as well get the 20 percent disco right now, in exchange for your hitting the credit card every quarter! And then, as a club member, you make a return trip, expecting the love, and that exact same pourer sees you. But not only do you get no greeting, but he/she is working so hard to avoid eye contact with you that you swear you can see saline solution squirting from their sockets.

And don’t get me started on the wife of the Woodinville-based-winery owner who actually telephoned me to ask if we would cancel our reservations to their winemaker dinner, so that she could make room for guests of her choosing. I gladly canceled both reservation and membership in their wine club.

The coolest wine club north of Seattle? It’s actually the one run by a huge conglomerate. Chateau Ste. Michelle knows how to do it right, man. They are big, but we have been seeing the same friendly faces — hello, Margaret; hello Mary Kay — greeting us for years. Doing something correctly for customers and employees, ya think? Kath and I moved back to Seattle in ’99, and we did not have a car until 2002. One of our signature moments at that time was to phone Ste. Michelle to say that we’d like to cancel UPS deliveries and go “Will Call.” It was the perfect excuse to taste and tour around Woodinville, but CSM was always the civilized spot: private tasting area for club folks, tours if you wanted, your guests welcomed wholeheartedly, and an annual, wine-soaked, free concert (recent performer Natalie McMaster) for club members.

But please don’t get me started on the wife of the other Woodinville-based-winery owner who actually telephoned me to ask if we would cancel our reservations to their winemaker dinner, so that she could make room for guests of her choosing.

OK, so where am I going with this wine club thang? Well, I know that I posted a while back about our financial boot to the head, and how we canceled ‘em all, including, regretfully, CSM (maybe part of that “we don’t have ties to WA state anymore” vibe I alluded to earlier). But, a couple of months ago, Erin Cline invited us to a release party, and Matt’s wines are so evocative of his ties to our new CoCo ‘hood, that we had to join their “Dirt” wine club.

They are 3 wine company; we are now members of only 1 wine club. Theirs.

The 2008 three Zinfandel Old Vines Contra Costa County is a local ‘hood blend comprising a bissel Carignane, Mataro and Alicante, but a double-digit-dose of Petite. At 18 bucks, it jams with youthful blue color, baking spices (Kath is talking clove, cinnamon) and we both hipped to a white pepper vibe. I got a bunch of dried fruit, acid and pepper on a good finish.

So now, Matt has released a 2008 Zin from Frank Evangelho’s property. I love when we see the same vineyard names cropping up; it makes me feel that it’s real property, unlike “Driving Range.” Man, that would have been such a great moniker if someone had actually staked it out. Das Frank exhibits some inky raisin, with a nose of spicy blueberry and a touch of eucalyptus, with pepper grains and a bit of tannin on the finish.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

The Rhône Arranger


No one wants to be a pioneer. Whether being the first person to restore a craftsman house in a dodgy ‘hood, or being a winemaker placing all his or her (oak) chips on the next big grape variety to spark a consumer frenzy, it’s downright scary to be first in line leading with your chin.

That’s why it’s so hard to remember that, once upon a time, the notion of introducing the North American wine-drinking public to such exotic varietal grapes as Syrah, Grenache and Mourvèdre would have been met by a Frankensteinian reaction along the lines of, “You haff toiled mit sings zat man vass meant to leef alone!”

And one of the first winemakers to raise the lightning rod and jolt American imbibers’ neck-bolts was Randall Grahm, the erudite, passionate, mercurial honcho of Bonny Doon Vineyard. There’s been a lot of grape juice under the bridge in the intervening decades since Grahm was deemed the de facto leader of a spirited pack of west coast vintners dubbed “The Rhône Rangers” for their zeal for all grapes Southern France, and the moniker does seem inseparable from the man, to his mild dismay. Truth is, dude has reinvented his Santa Cruz-based Bonny Doon winery repeatedly, and the alterations and expansions show no signs of letting up. I had a chance for a telephone chinwag with Randall Grahm to get some insight into wine in general, and Oakley fruit, with which he has a longstanding familiarity, in particular.

Cardinal Zin, Big House Red, Old Telegram, Cigare Volante, Pacific Rim: Homes has created (and often sold off) more branded product than Outback Steakhouse. And RG’s tasting notes and D.E.W.N wine club newsletter are packed with perspicacious, alliterative prose so dense that it sometimes makes James Joyce’s “Ulysses” read like a “Garfield” strip. And yet, the man knows where the bodies are buried when it comes to sourcing fruit up and down the West Coast.

Kath and I had first encountered the Doon when we’d moved to Seattle (the first time) from Los Angeles in 1991. We were both partial to big red wines, but were intrigued by Cigare Volant (its “flying cigar” nomenclature giving props to a report of a Rhône UFO sighting a long time ago), a lighter-style red available at the Pike Place Market Cost Plus for a then-budget-busting-for-us $18.99.

And, it turns out, a lot of the Cigare grapes were grown right beside the Oakley post office, a few miles from our current house. It also turns out that Randall Grahm has long had an on-again/off-again affair with CoCo growers. They’re all farmers here, much to my chagrin; I’d love to see some old-viners get in the winemaking game, either directly or via hired consultants. One might think that at 100+-years old, the vine is gonna do what that vine is gonna do. Apparently, RG got into a whole pile of steaming when he pruned entire clusters of grapes off of these already-stingy gnarls. The growers, paid by the yield, were not happy.

Oakley has “wacky soil,” he says. And, through pruning and some irrigation, “I’d just like growers to step it up.” His Twitter account unabashedly and no doubt apocryphally limns the McDonald’s at which he and British wine writer Jancis Robinson allegedly dined in Oakley.

He stopped making his Rhône -style “Vieux Télégraphe” homage, a Mourvèdre-based “Old Telegram” from Tom Del Barba’s Oakley grapes, years ago. As his original estate succumbed to blight, plans for a Central Cali Valley estate foundered, and his WA state Riesling project seems sometimes to be a mere distraction for him.

Randall Grahm wants to continue to create “interesting, kick-ass wines.” There’s no reason to think that this terroirist can not continue to innovate and be energized; he’s currently planning a totally biodynamic spinoff operation. This pioneer certainly doesn’t need any blogger from Oakley to validate his eonophilic ambition.

Of the many Rhône varietals Grahm has championed, Carignane is the one he’s most resolute about being criminally undervalued, and that its potential for true elegance is too often ignored. Bonny Doon puts out a red blend titled “Contra,” the 2009 of which holds a majority interest invested in Carignane, and the rest a veritable dog’s breakfast of Grenache, Mourvèdre, and single-digit percentages of Petite, Zin and Syrah. The fruit is sourced from both the Bien Nacido Vineyard way south in the Santa Maria Valley, and a property owned by the Gonsalves family and located just north of us on the other side of the driving range. I wrote about this site a couple of months ago, after I had dropped by the vineyard to discover harvesting about to begin. This is the property located on a dead-end beside an empty new business park, and which frequently serves as a dumping ground for unwanted items. The harvest crew chief told me that they once found a derelict sofa among the old vines, and that Randall decided to feature it on the “Contra” label.

Well, recently, Kathy was able to rustle up a bottle of Bonny Doon 2009 “Contra,” and there it is: a white (-ish) loveseat, front and off-center against a background of gnarly, neatly pruned old vines. In the glass it’s a bright translucent Bing cherry color with deep reflections of blue around the edges. At the nose its Beaujolais-like perfume emits whiffs of cherry cola and red currants. It’s nimble across the tongue, too: spicy blueberry notes with hints of tannic “fur” on the sides and roof of the mouth, and balanced by nice acidity on the lengthy finish.

Randall Grahm calls his Contra bottling “a field blend that contravenes contraindicated conventions.” Much like the man himself: a winemaker often contradistinguished by his very contradistinction.

Sunday, December 5, 2010


I know that we’ve written previously about the Livermore Valley, located about a half-hour south of us here in Oakley. It’s an area with quite a storied wine culture, with a couple of big wineries, Concannon and Wente, having been the “anchor tenants” of this region for decades. Years ago, the region even got its act together to petition for its own Livermore American Viticultural Area (AVA). The petition was granted, and that puts them miles ahead of our area of old-vine plantings; I’d love to see Oakley getting some label love similar to Livermore’s. Grrrrrr.

The first weekend in December, our southern neighbor throws open the proverbial doors for the Livermore Valley Wine Country “Holidays in the Vineyards,” wherein some three dozen wineries, big and boutique, roll out the barrels for one memorable vinous open house.

Kathy and I first attended the event last year. Having been Oakley residents for all of three months, it was a big adventure to motor south to Livermore Wine Country, rather than north to Napa or Sonoma. But when one is greeted at the first winery stop by a Santa clenching a glass of Cabernet Franc, one quickly gets into the vibe. It was very reminiscent of Woodinville, a commuter community north of Seattle, whence Kath and I moved 15 months ago. Washington state has a flourishing wine industry, but the grapes are grown way over on the eastern side of the state. Ironically, the Seattle side of the Cascade mountains, and Woodinville in particular, is home to many of the most prestigious wine start-ups in the Pacific Northwest. Grapes are routinely trucked over the mountains after harvest, and fermented in business parks and warehouses all over Woodinville, these wineries’ base of operations. Visiting these seat-of-the-pants facilities makes for a great day of tasting, and every time we’d venture north, we’d spot another tasting room sandwich board that wasn’t there the month previous.

We got the same feeling in Livermore: a Woodinville/Nam flashback right down to the industrial park setting and the sandwich boards. And though we normally eschew the gang mentality of special tasting events/festivals, Livermore’s Holidays in the Vineyards was a hoot. Doesn’t hurt that the wine is good, too. Last year, we had such a good time that we went back the next weekend to check out some wineries we’d missed. And truth be told, we went back in February of this year, and witnessed the boorish tasting room behavior (i.e., lingering at the bar after you’ve received your pour, and stretch-Hummer/clown car crowds/bachelorette parties descending on the tasting room) that we were expecting during Holidays.

The saving grace of that spring Livermore excursion was our final stop at Phil and Debra Long’s Longevity Wines, of which we’ve written a couple of months back. And the Longs source some of their fruit from a younger vineyard in Knightsen, just a few miles from our house.

With apologies to Thomas Wolfe: Just maybe, with wineglass in hand, you can go home again.

This year’s Holidays in the Vineyards weekend was another fun event, with manageable crowds, decent weather, another vintage of fine wine being poured, and a few new wineries taking part and offering pleasant surprises in the glass. Cuda Ridge winery even featured a return gig for Santa (see photo of Saint Nick lovingly cradling our Petit Verdot stocking stuffer). What also became apparent is that the Livermore Valley is rapidly becoming our go-to region for Port-style wines made from authentic Portuguese varietals grown locally. These wines are a definite shout-out to the immigrants from Portugal who settled in the East Bay (Oakley, most notably), and Livermore’s Charles R Vineyards offers a 2006 “Vino de Amor” featuring the Touriga and Souzao grape varieties in the unctuous mix. It’s the kind of juice that wafts up to your nose before the first drop hits the glass. When it finally does, its deep hue showcases a touch of caramel at the edges. It’s a note that continues in the nose, alongside notes of toffee, raisins, mocha and nuts. On the tongue, its rich brightness frames the alcohol in a refined border of raisins and other dried fruit.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Grapes and Gardens


One of the confounding conclusions that we’ve come to, over the last several months of this blog chronicling our exploration of local vineyards, is that these neighboring grape growers are fully, blissfully content to leave the actual winemaking to others. A lot of wineries repeat the industry saw about “great wine starts in the vineyard,” but it strikes me that the weather-dependent farming aspect of winemaking would be the riskiest part of the entire process.

And in our own miniscule way, and having now lived in Oakley for an entire cycle of the four seasons, Kathy and I discovered just how tough it is to coax a plant —any plant — to maturity around here.

When Kath and I moved into our foreclosed McMansion just before Labor Day 2009, we were really excited about getting a California garden going: raised beds, fresh herbs, citrus trees that we could actually plant in the ground, and tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes! Plus, our front and back yards were a virtual clean slate (Our house was a former model home for the development, supposedly with all the bells and whistles; a neighbor told us that the former owner, in addition to “looting” the plantation shutters and assorted fixtures from the house, also held a garage sale to sell off the landscaping). We had no desire to ever use the underground sprinkler system (some of the pop-up heads were busted, and the whole property was divided into five confusing watering zones), and we were eager to go drought tolerant. So, off to the local home-and-garden center we went for yard tools, citrus trees and, eventually, a rototiller to chew up what remained of the lawn.

Flash-forward to the end of this summer, and it became apparent that our gardening experiment was a complete disaster. The original sod had been installed with a backing of plastic mesh, which continually jammed the rototiller. Our “soil” consisted of clay that was packed so hard that there were entire spots we couldn’t even get a pointed shovel to pierce. And the intense sun and summer heat, which we thought would allow the citrus, rosemary, lavender and thyme to thrive, instead baked them so hard that our poor Meyer lemon tree looked like something after a nuclear holocaust. Hours of work and money spent, wasted.

So, with the rainy season looming, Kath decided that the time was right to call in the professionals. She did some Web research, and we had landscape designer Kelly Marshall come out for a consultation. We liked her style, she dug our style, and we decided to take the next step with her. A few days later, Kelly was out to take measurements and photos of the front and back yards, and on the afternoon of Halloween, she came to the house with her design, a scale architectural drawing of our property, with her plant choices placed and labeled. Her plant and color selections perfectly complemented our sensibilities. It was nothing short of amazing, and we decided to take the final step.

As designer, Kelly doesn’t do the physical install herself, but she recommended a landscaper with whom she’d worked in the past. I phoned Moises Garcia of M&G Landscape to come out, review Kelly’s design, and prepare a bid for the installation. By the end of the week, he came back to the house with his bid for the install of Kelly’s elements, including a new drip irrigation system, flagstone walkways, removal of every vestige of sod/weeds and existing plants, soil amendment, pea gravel and mulch placement, and in-ground planting of all of Kelly’s recommended foliage. Gotta tell ya, his bid was a fraction of what we were expecting to have to pay. We said yes.

Moises turned out to be an artist as well as technician. I was home to watch much of the weeklong transformation, and his blend of hard physical work, perfectionism and easygoing manner was astounding. Many times, I’d look out the window thinking to myself the landscaping equivalent of “Oops, he missed a spot” only to discover that it was all being taken care of. I saw him out with his tape measure, Kelly’s scale rendering in hand, making certain that Kathy’s raised beds, now being located in the back yard on new gravel, were perfectly spaced. I’m still amazed at how he was able to tap into select portions of the old irrigation pipe infrastructure to deliver water to the new drip system in areas separated by existing driveway, patio and walkways. I was grateful that he hauled away all the old vegetation, weed barrier, rocks and stumps (Moises made sure that all stumps were dug out, not just cut to ground level) and cleaned all debris off the driveway and paths at the end of each work day. He thought of everything, and didn’t cut corners as he put those thoughts into action.

On the penultimate day, the plants were delivered. Kelly came out to physically place the plants according to her schematic. The next day, Moises and his crew put ‘em into the newly amended soil; as one section was planted, drip tubing would be snaked through the landscape and covered in new mulch. Ingenious, efficient and, ultimately, gorgeous.

Kelly told us at our initial meeting that this time of year was the perfect time to do this kind of project: The young plantings avoid the scorching heat and benefit from the abundant winter rains as they overwinter.

The weather was beautiful for the five-day project; within two days, the rains came. Seems that not only were Kathy and I lucky to find Kelly Marshall and Moises Garcia, but our dealings with Mother Nature was fortuitous, too. We are now more than happy to leave the “farming” to the grape growers.

We’re pleased to raise a glass to Kelly, Moises and Ma Nature. The 2007 Cline Ancient Vines Carignane hails from CoCo County fruit. It exhibits a translucent eye of strained plum in the glass. The nose is actually the most demonstrative aspect of the wine, but needs a lot of swirling to give up its aromas of clove and other baking spices. In the mouth, it’s rather light, but with a nice streak of acidity and a short-to-medium finish rendering it a great quaff.

Sunday, November 21, 2010


My, aren’t Kathy and I quite the jet-setters now?

Another local Country Club sponsored a wine tasting event last Saturday, and it was a real trip.

Brentwood’s Shadow Lakes Golf Club has a new Event Center, and, despite its “big box” vibe, turned out to be the best venue for the gig. Boutique wineries ringed the walls, finger-food met in the center, and family-style seating became the norm.

Unlike the event last weekend at the Discovery Bay Country Club, which featured sales reps pouring selections from their often-huge winery portfolios, the Shadow Lakes clambake served to showcase individual, small-production wineries at each table around the room. Often, the owner or a member of the family was the one pouring.

Kathy and I adopted our strategy of staking out a seat at one of the round tables, then spelling each other off for food and/or the next pour. It wasn’t long before we were joined at our table by a rollicking party of residents from a nearby 55-and-older residential community. They were an uninhibited bunch, and it didn’t take more than a minute before Kath and I were swapping stories, wine preferences and lots of laughs with our newfound drinking buddies (See photo above; from left: Ed, Carole, Brooke's head and tennis shoe(!), Noreen, Jan, Don and some cheesy blogger). We ended up having a blast; (we closed the place down), and Noreen even sent recipes via e-mail the next day.

And even though there were probably fewer than a dozen wineries participating, some producers brought what seemed like their entire repertoire. You couldn’t possibly sample everything on offer, unless you wanted to end up like the guy in the Oakley Press last week: arrested for DUI on, I kid you not, Chianti Way.

Individual bottles were available for pre-sale, for pick-up at a later date; Kath and I ordered a few different bottles from some of the participants, one of which was our old pal Rock Wall, the new venture from Kent and Shauna Rosenblum. Several months ago, when we were just starting this blog, this father/daughter winemaking team was one of my first interviews. At Shadow Lakes, Rock Wall Wine Co. was pouring their 2008 Zinfandel from Jesse’s Vineyard, a plot of land located a few blocks from our house here in Oakley and managed by Dwight Meadows, one of my latest interviews (everything does seems to come full circle around here). Turns out that Kathy had bought a bottle of this wine several months ago, so we dipped into the stash and pulled the cork a few days after the Shadow Lakes event. The Rock Wall ’08 Jesse’s Zin is just a baby, but at 16.3% alcohol, it’s a baby getting ready to start teething. In the glass, it’s got a young purple color with notes of blue on the rim. The nose is currently subdued, with hints of stone and dark fruits, while on the tongue, smoky earth and blueberry flavors waft up. There’s good acidity here, with some real heft on the “back nine.” The long finish reveals even more flavor. It’s a wine to hang on to for a while, to let it all come together as this baby matures.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Thirsty Howell III


The town of Discovery Bay, California is located about a 20-minute drive southeast of our Oakley burg. It’s an affluent little hamlet, full of well-heeled folks of all ages, who, if they haven’t all retired early, seem to have figured out how to make a good living in yachting or golf. Any rush hour commute to or from Disco Bay would be horrendous; notorious Highway 4 is the access point to this community of big homes often situated either on the water, or ringing the fairway.

The Discovery Bay Golf and Country Club has several tiers of membership, the top trio of which requires an initiation fee of $4,000, in addition to monthly dues in the hundreds of dollars. All but one level requires members to spend a quarterly minimum on food and beverages.

But, twice a year, the DBGCC throws open its doors to host its Wine Tasting & Sale, held at the clubhouse, and featuring dozens of wine reps at a dozen tables, pouring oceans of juice from their respective portfolios. It’s an outrageously crowded event, featuring hot-and-cold-running Tommy Bahama on the dudes, and more than a few women who, to paraphrase Raymond Chandler, “from 20 feet away looked like a lot of class; from 10 feet away (they) looked like they were meant to be looked at from 20 feet away.”

So it’s a bit disconcerting balancing the “Dahling, dahling” social aspect (of which we’re not a part; see “Initiation: Four Large”), with the actual wine aspect of the event, especially when you’re trying to get a pour, but stuck behind a lady of a certain age sporting both leopard print and sun damage, who decides that the Beringer Reserve Table is the perfect spot to stop and catch up with fellow country club member Lovey.

Kath and I have a pet peeve anyway about tasting room etiquette and visitors who hog the bar after getting their pour, and an event like this does nothing for our blood pressure. But this is our second wine event at “The Club,” and this time we perfected our system begun last time. It depends on the weather (luckily, the first Saturday in November had to be 80 degrees under cloudless skies), but the trick is to grab your wine, fill up a plate with food, then head outside, event program in hand, to the open tables on the gorgeous patio. When we were ready for another glass, one of us went to the appropriate pouring table with both glasses, leaving the other to hold down the fort. Brilliant!

There wasn’t necessarily a lot of ultra-high-end stuff being poured (though a Joseph Phelps Cab, the Stag’s Leap “Artemis,” and Rodney Strong’s “Symmetry” were nice to see on the menu), but there’s a lot of variety at different price points from all over the world. And local Brentwood wineries, Tamayo and Bloomfield, show up to shout out to CoCo County. There were even a couple of old faves from our old stomping grounds in Washington state.

Also, cases were available for purchase at wholesale. All in all, a fun way to pass a fall Saturday at “The Club.” And, at $25 for nonmembers, the price sure beats that $4K initiation.

No surprise that our ubiquitous pals from Diageo were out in full force at the tasting, pouring selections from their abundant book. Natch, they were pouring a few Rosenblum bottlings, though none screamed, “Oakley, Oakley!” It prompted Kath and me to dip into the cellar for a Rosenblum blend we’ve had on hand awhile. Actually, in this case, I use “blend” to refer to a mix of vineyard sources, though it’s a pretty good bet that the Rosenblum 2007 Zinfandel Contra Costa County counts a little Oakley fruit in the mix. In the glass it exhibited a deep, dark garnet color, while aromas of cocoa, plum and blueberry immediately had Kathy reaching for the bottle to check the alcohol level (a relatively modest 14.6). On the tongue, nice acidity modulated any overpowering of the palate, and there was that blueberry again. Kath thought that it was reminiscent of a Zin from Sonoma’s Dry Creek region. A nice bottle of wine, this.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

IGRO ZIN


That license plate on the white Ford Explorer was confirmation that I had indeed arrived at the Oakley workshop/office of local grape grower, vineyard manager and self-described “landscaper,” Dwight Meadows. He had invited me to drive out for an interview, and I was getting nervous as I found myself leaving the acres of old vines to snake the streets of a newly built, posh subdivision in search of his “shop.”

Finally, I made the turn onto the final cul-de-sac to find the suburban pavement and sidewalks yield to a small area of grapevines, tractors and the aforementioned Explorer. After intros, Dwight Meadows led me into a nicely appointed office, put his feet up on the polished wooden desk, and explained the incongruity of the location …

In 1972, Dwight, with his wife, the former Carla Cutino, moved to Carla’s hometown of Oakley and began working for her dad at Cutino’s Feed and Tire Store downtown on the main drag, eventually purchasing the business from pater Tony Cutino. As time passed, they got involved in the grape and wine business, acquiring, bit-by-bit, land and vineyards around the area. They built a house and workshop/office compound surrounded by acres upon acres of old vines, which Dwight farmed for years, supplying grapes to Kent Rosenblum and the Thomas Coyne winery in Livermore.

Dwight and Carla sold the Feed and Tire Store to an employee about a dozen years ago, and the grape biz became the cornerstone of his umbrella company, Diablo Vista Vineyards.

But then, a few years ago, the school district erected the spanking-new Freedom High School adjacent to their property, and about a million California regulations automatically kicked in to protect kids from pesticide use. Dwight told me that it got to the point where he could pretty well farm only between the hours of 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. The final straw came when the contractor hired to install the school’s soccer field used a weed killer that wiped out an entire year’s crop of Dwight’s grapes. That’s when he threw up his hands and sold all but a few acres of vines surrounding his house and shop to a housing developer. Which explains why this little island of rurality exists amid shiny new houses and freshly mown lawns on paved streets that didn’t exist a few years ago. Even the address of Dwight and Carla’s existing house changed; it now has a new number. And a completely different street!

Dwight isn’t particularly bullish on recent enthusiasm by some local officials to establish a “trust” to preserve Oakley’s old vines. “It works in Brentwood,” he says, because their agriculture is around the development. Unlike Oakley, with new development plopped right in the middle of agricultural land; it seems that the very thing that kindled Kathy’s and my fascination with Oakley grapes — their appearance in the craziest suburban settings — is the same thing that could jeopardize preservation efforts. “Vines around here are doomed,” Dwight opines. I hope he’s wrong, but once bitten …

These days, Dwight Meadows keeps his hand in by managing his reduced vineyard holdings, as well as other properties owned by others. He’s not much interested in expanding his ownership role in other plots. Kath and I posted recently about the Duarte/Jesse’s vineyard site currently owned by a housing developer. Dwight farms that parcel for Seeno Homes — he calls his vineyard management style “farming as landscaping” and “weed abatement” — and sells the Zinfandel from Jesse’s (named for his 91-year-old father, whose new beekeeping venture has added a line of honey to the Diablo Vista Vineyards portfolio) to Rock Wall Wine Company, and to Diageo for their vineyard-designate Rosenblum bottling. He seems happy just to mange the piece: At 20 acres yielding a scant 14 tons of Zin, “you couldn’t even pay the taxes,” he says.

“Carla’s Vineyard,” located over by the Kmart and named for his wife, is another site he tends. He also looks after a 37-acre vineyard, planted two-thirds to grapes and a third to olives, and located at Trilogy, a 55-and-older residential community that offers dozens of lifestyle options including membership in a winemaking club that uses the on-site vines. There’s a 5-acre piece over on Live Oak that he manages for an individual whose dream of a “ranchette” went sour when he couldn’t keep up with the weeds and overgrowth. He used to farm 40 acres in nearby Knightsen, but the boron in the water was too much to battle.

With a tight client list of Diageo, Rock Wall, Thomas Coyne and a few home winemakers, Dwight Meadows seems content. “Wine has gotten to be a pretty rough business,” he says, and I can see his point. An ongoing surplus of California wine, corporate consolidation, growers being squeezed on grape prices: It’s easy to understand when Dwight, a man who laughingly admits to drinking maybe two glasses of wine a week, swears, “I will not plant another vine on my own. Fifteen years ago, that was my business. Not now; the return on investment just isn’t there.”

Dwight Meadows graciously gave me a bottle of Thomas Coyne 2007 Mourvèdre made from grapes harvested from the remaining then-82-year-old acreage surrounding his house. With a garnet-accented color a little darker than cranberry juice, it’s lighter than a lot of textbook Oakley expressions of Mourvèdre, but the nose gives up whiffs of smoke, tar, bits of toffee and even a touch of spearmint gum. It’s soft in the mouth, with a suppleness that seems to fold in on itself with light, bright acidity and cherry and pomegranate flavors. Even a hint of butterscotch in there somewhere.

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Now Leasing!


I revisited the Live Oak plot that Cline Cellars has been using for years. It’s a real study in contrasts; I could not believe the turf on the return trip. Entire blocks of old vines ripped out willy-nilly, replanted with nothing.

Matt Cline hipped me to the location of the site, and directed me to the grapes. Here’s the deal: They ripped out some old vines to put in an apartment complex, and a public storage facility. Cline Cellars obviously thinks enough of the fruit to designate the vineyard on a label, but the romance ends in a really jarring juxtaposition of ancient and new: a boxy stucco cube stuck in the middle of old vines, right on Oakley’s main drag. It’s yet another example of old agricultural parcels being sold off like a crazy quilt.

I also talked to grape broker Mike Parker the other day. He’s the cat who will meet buyers at the Oakley ARCO gas station, then hook them up with local growers who want to sell any excess fruit they may have. Although harvest is over for this season around here, Mike has seen an uptick in the deals he’s been brokering with home winemakers. It seems that that we may have a lot of garagistes bringing their game to the local market. CoCo growers have the goods, some Napa and Sonoma growers messed up with the sun/heat gamble this year, and hobby winemakers seem to be getting extra access to some prime old-vine fruit.

And I’m sure that any winemaker would love to get their hands on some of that Live Oak Zinfandel. Part of the decision to revisit the vineyard was the discovery of a 2007 Cline Live Oak Zin in our stash. As noted in earlier posts, Cline Cellars was one of the first leads we had when beginning our local vineyard identification project. They’ve been a presence in town for decades, and many of their vineyard designations on their labels are named for the cross-street which they abut. Despite the fact that the Live Oak parcel has slimmed down to make way for storage and apartment buildings, its fruit, as handled by the Cline team, comes fully furnished with a deep garnet hue, and a plush nose of tar and molasses. Amazingly complex and rich, this Live Oak Zin hints at blueberry juice and spicy tobacco notes. It’s huge, and totally unlike anything I’ve tasted from an Oakley site. First month, last month, and deposit, indeed!

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Field Blend


Sometimes I just have to ask myself, “Dude, where the heck are we living?”

A stray kitty won’t leave our back yard, Black Widow spiders love our front porch, Lemon Lady gave me a verbal beatdown, and there was an arrest for public intoxication on, no joke, Merlot Lane. “Sideways,” indeed.

It’s mid-October, and only now is the weather starting to get a bit cooler here in Oakley, CA. Not furnace weather; more like Henley-instead-of-a-polo-shirt weather: longer sleeves for the shorter days.

Our local daily newspaper features a wonderful columnist, Gary Bogue, who writes about pets and wildlife found in our neck of the woods — Kathy once had to stop the car while a rafter of wild turkeys (Paul Hellweg’s “The Insomniac’s Dictionary,” Chapter VI, “Collective Nouns for Animals”) crossed a major arterial road — and receives notes from folks who routinely find tarantulas at home, then take them back to nearby Mount Diablo. (Sorry for another diversion, but I’ve been meaning awhile to comment on a local nutjob, fresh off his methadone and new to salvation, who wanted to rename the local historic peak “Mount Reagan,” citing that “Diablo” is (d)evil. Locals, municipalities, counties, and ultimately, the feds, decided that this dude needs a hobby.) In a recent column, Mr. Bogue stated that, given 30 minutes, he could find a Black Widow in any backyard. NIMBY, we thought.

But then! Kathy goes out last week to investigate a strange noise; it turned out to be nothing. But when she takes off her garden clogs to come into the house, she spies a spider with the unmistakable red hourglass mark, in a web on our front porch. We’ve since noticed another Black Widow (apparently not a male, since he’d have been brunch by now). These two now have the names “Audrey’ and “Constance.” Check out Kathy’s Blair Witch-style photo of Audrey, above. Not only did she just want to snap the photo and get off the front porch ASAP, Kath no longer leaves her garden clogs outside.

Our second Halloween in Oakley is a week away, and we are trying to get a handle on the number of trick-or-treaters. In our White Center ‘hood near Seattle, we had, maybe, seven kids total in 8+ years. In Oakley last year, we were bombarded with hundreds! (And, man, we were scrambling for candy after we ran out of our original stash; half the candy we gave out last year was year-old Seattle traif I found in a closet.)

Last year, Kathy and I carved pumpkins, watched “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” and then, as twilight loomed, sat outside in the front porch Adirondacks, cocktail in hand, to dispense treats. We were overwhelmed. Just when you think you’re done, another wave swells. And then there are the unavoidable teenagers, too old for this sort of thing, who don’t even attempt to dress up.

But, this year, Constance and Audrey are really going to figure in the front porch mix for us. We have more candy this time, but we have Black Widows, too. Just a heads-up, all you teenagers sans costume.

So, last Saturday morning, the scrub jays are squawking like crazy in our backyard redwood tree. Kathy goes out to investigate (sense a pattern here?), and up in the branches of the sequoia, is an adult tortoiseshell kitty. It’s talkative as heck, meowing at Kathy who is urging the little one to come down. Kitty’s not stuck in the tree at all: It works its way down the branches and follows Kath to the back door. Now, we have neighborhood cats that use our backyard as a shortcut, or to hang out staring up at our bird feeders. But they take off when a human approaches. This tortie meows at us, follows us around, then goes back to chill up in the tree!

Which is where Kitty was Sunday morning, after the first rain we’d had here in five months. Uh-oh. It wouldn’t leave our backyard. We gave it some kibble and water. Kathy posted a “Found” notice on Craigslist. And at evening feeding time for our two indoor cats, Kitty trotted right up to the screen door and meowed loudly and incessantly for food. As darkness fell, Kitty curled up on the broad arm of an Adirondack chair. It was heartbreaking.

Monday was more of the same. As Kathy got up in darkness to get ready for work, Kitty again raced from the tree to the door, yowling steadily through the glass. Later that morning, I phoned our vet for advice; Contra Costa County Animal Services could come out and take Kitty to their shelter. But they are closed Mondays. Kitty was still in our yard Tuesday, and, with no responses to our Craigslist post, Kathy and I spent all morning online trying to investigate “no-kill” animal organizations in our region. We finally agreed to give Animal Services a call after being assured that they work really hard to place adoptable animals, an adjective that fits this fluffball to a T. As long as Kitty gets a clean bill of health, there’s a great chance of finding that “forever home.” I kind of miss the little chatterbox already.

Hey remember Lemon Lady, the neighbor down the street with the huge, old lemon tree in her front yard? When I originally approached her months ago, offering to pay her for lemons, I actually thought she’d go all grandma on me and insist that I help myself for free. Instead her response was an immediate “$3 a bag, and don’t go haywire with the bag!”

Well, I guess I went haywire with the bag, because the last time I went to harvest, she lit into me for my plastic bag “splitting apart because it was too full.” As the saying goes, “If life hands you lemons, that’s a better deal than having to pick them yourself from the tree of a cranky neighbor.”

Harvest is in for this year, and our ancient Oakley-area vines are starting to shut down for the season. But that doesn’t mean that there’s no activity in the vineyard. The other day I was driving down Empire on my way to Target for a flu shot, when I spied a gent piloting a tractor by the side of the road in front of Rich Pato’s vines (which we’d just been talking about in the last couple of posts here). I took a flyer, parking the car on a side street and sprinting across four lanes of traffic, to chase down the tractor. I ended up exchanging pleasantries with Rich Pato himself. It’s always cool to match a vineyard with a wine label, and put a face to a name.

It’s also nice to match the cooler post-harvest nights with sweeter Late Harvest bottlings. We found a half-bottle of Cline’s 2006 Late Harvest Mourvèdre, made from a block of varietal fruit on their Big Break property here in our fair city. The Mourvèdre had an extra three weeks of hang time, to impart extra ripeness in the grapes. In the glass, it’s Port-like in its color, opacity and viscosity. There’s a deep nose of blueberry, with a hint of nuttiness. Unctuous but not cloying in the kisser, this LH balances an earthy sweetness with a bit of tannic grip, too.

Sunday, October 17, 2010


Funny how this “dirt detective” biz works. In our effort to, essentially, drink our way through our neighborhood, Kathy and I have been trying to identify who grows what grapes from the 100+-year old vines around here, and which winemakers they sell ‘em to. Sometimes, the leads double back on themselves, and you get confirmation that you’re indeed on the right track.

The Napa-based Orin Swift winery is one that has popped up on our CoCo County grape radar before, as recently as last month. Kath and I tasted their “Saldo” Zinfandel, sourced from various vineyards around the state, but showing some specific love to local plots such as Evangelho and Duarte. Then, when last week I chatted with local grower Rich Pato, and he told me that this year he’s selling his Zin and Mourvèdre to Orin Swift, I figured that lightning striking twice was something even I couldn’t ignore. You don’t have to tell me six times; five is plenty. (Fool me once, I’m a fool. Fool me twice … uh, screw it, I’m gonna clear some brush on my ranch.)

After a bit of telephone- and e-tag (during crush, no less), I was able to have a great, spirited chin-wag with Tom Traverso, marketing pooh-bah and O.G. (Original Grunt), one who was yelling “Push!” when Orin Swift was birthin’ its babies.

Years ago, he and OS winemaker Dave Phinney, a couple of Cali dudes, were college roommates at U of F.

I’m talkin’ University of Florence. Italy. No kidding. After class, Tom and Dave would visit a local wine shop around the corner, asking about what’s good, and bringing that day’s selection back to the crib to drink on the courtyard overlooking the local soccer field. Wine fever took hold: Gooooooooooooaaaaaaaaal!

Stateside, they both embarked on a series of internships, from wine retail to cellar rat. Tom landed on the sales and marketing side of the biz with a gig at Gallo; Dave Phinney worked an apprenticeship everywhere from Mondavi to Whitehall Lane. Wine fever was rising: It wasn’t too long before Dave got the itch for his own label. Through winery contacts, he scored baby’s first batch of Zin, Cabernet and Charbono. A generous gift of a Goya etching provided the inspiration for the nomenclature and label design of Dave’s “The Prisoner,” a funky-fresh Zin-Cab blend, currently comprising mostly Napa fruit.

“Saldo” exists to showcase their great Zinfandel contacts. Vineyard sources vary year to year, but CoCo fruit seems to always be a nice bit of the mix.

“Sourcing is key,” Tom Traverso insists. And others seem to have noticed: Both “Saldo” and “The Prisoner” were acquired earlier this year by ultra-premium “Quintessa,” a $pendy, heretofore-Bordeaux-blend concern. Dave Phinney still makes the new portfolio wines (no name change) for the new bosses, though it seems that Tom Traverso’s cubicle is now on the Quintessa side of the carpet.

And Orin Swift — the name, BTW, a cool mash-up of Dave’s mom’s maiden name and his dad’s middle name, not necessarily in that order — continues to look to CoCo for taste-tay fruit.

We dip a toe this week into the Hot Tub Time Machine in order to taste a past Rosenblum bottling made from Pato Vineyard varietal fruit that is, this year at least, all being sold to Orin Swift. Check out the photo above depicting the Pato property post-2010-harvest. In 2007, Rosenblum Cellars made a Pato Mourvèdre, and it’s another stunner from this grower/vintner team. In the glass, it trades in the inkiness of the 2007 Pato Petite for a lighter, plummy, garnet hue. In the nose it’s all clove, dusty smoke and tar, with a mouth-feel that’s smoothly weighty and unctuous. It’s not an overly fruit-forward wine, but the medium-long finish gives up just a hint of raspberry sweetness. There’s some real old-vine elegance and complexity at play here.

Sunday, October 10, 2010


The other day, I finally had a chance to chat by phone with Rich Pato, a local grower whose grapes have been made into wines Kathy and I have enjoyed for years. And now it turns out that we live about a mile and a half from Pato Vineyards here in Oakley.

Originally planted in 1896, back in the days when Oakley was a convenient railhead for shipping grapes back east, Rich’s plot comprises 26 acres planted to old-vine Petite Sirah, Zinfandel and Mourvèdre. Located directly across busy Empire Avenue from Stan and Gertie Planchon’s vineyard, it’s also a textbook study in Oakley’s past and present: Directly adjacent to majestic vines looking forward to their 115th birthday, there’s an ongoing engineering-and-asphalt development designed to widen Empire to double its traffic capacity. From “railhead” to “Road work ahead. Fines double in work zones” in a scant hundred years. As someone who makes his livelihood farming this single plot of vineyard acreage, Rich Pato describes the seemingly never-ending Empire-building as “a pain in the neck.”

Over the years that Kath and I recognized the vineyard designation, we were most familiar with “Pato Vineyard” appearing on specific Rosenblum bottlings. When founder Dr. Kent cashed out his Rosenblum chips several years ago, selling to drinks doge Diageo, the new owners continued the love. Grape contracts come and go, ebb and flow, and sometimes the big boys, instead of putting the hammer down on the grower, can see the fruit for what it is: exceptional.

Rich Pato (BTW: pronounced “PAW-toe”) tells me that, currently, he’s contracted out his Petite to Diageo, his Zin and Mourvèdre to Napa-based Orin Swift (we talked about their “Saldo” bottling a couple of posts ago), and one little block o’Zinfandel to Turley Cellars, who, I’m discovering, have their fingerprints on a lot of Oakley Zin. Hmmm.

Don’t know how she did it, but Kath got her mitts on a 2007 Rosenblum Pato Vineyard Petite Sirah. It’s a wondrously inky-black, opaque pour into the glass. There’s pronounced cocoa, earth, tar and spice on the nose. In the mouth, it’s all elegant raciness of blueberry and integrated acidity on a long, long finish. Great stuff.

Sunday, October 3, 2010


While Kathy and I have written a fair bit about Erin and Matt Cline’s Three Wine Company and their bottlings sourced from fruit near our ‘hood, it was nevertheless pretty cool to receive Erin’s oh-so-gracious invitation to join them at the winery for their Paella Party in celebration of their newest CoCo County releases.

The Three facility joins four other boutique producers situated in The Old Sugar Mill, a gorgeously restored, uh, sugar mill, located about 70 miles east and north of our burg of Oakley, in Clarksburg, CA. Serving as a sort of incubator for smaller-production vintners, the Mill offers space for crush, barrel storage, tasting rooms and special event facilities, all under one capacious, stylish roof.

Motoring east toward the Central Valley is always less of a hassle than journeying toward Ess Eff, and, despite still not being able to escape one of NoCal’s ubiquitous toll bridges, we found ourselves tooling along the delta levee highway through thickets of corn, hay and acres upon acres of wine grapevines.

A few miles from the Mill, we passed signage for Bogle Vineyards, about whom we’ve written a while back. Bogle sources lots of fruit from Oakley’s Continente vineyard, but turning off the highway to drive what seemed like 10 miles on a narrow road snaking through nothing but rows of vines, I’m kinda hard-pressed to see how they have to buy anything. And yet, Bogle is a fairly big producer, so, in retrospect, it makes sense to contract out, especially since the tasting room was pouring some nice stuff that you’ll never see at Safeway. Nice prices, too; glad we stopped in.

Then it was on to Three, and the Duck Paella bacchanal! We had a blast: The paella catered by Sonoma’s Hidden Oak B&B was delicious, and Matt’s wines were as tasty as we’d all come to expect from our previous posts. The CoCo connection was reinforced that day, as well; Matt had been in Oakley that morning, and a truck full of Oakley Carignane was just working its way into the de-stemmer. (See Kath’s photo: I think it “augers” well for CoCo Carignane.)

We also ran into Aldo Ghiozzi of the Contra Costa Wine, Grape and Olive Growers Association, who’d invited me to my first meeting a mere couple of weeks ago. Erin Cline then introduced us to Becky Robinson and Shanin Ybarrondao of ZAP (Zinfandel Advocates & Producers), a nonprofit org dedicated to engendering knowledge and appreciation of the varietal. ZAP holds a monster Zin-centric gangbang tasting in San Fran every year; Kathy and I last attended in 1998, when we lived in the city, and had a teeth-staining good time (or so I was told the next day).

As it happens, the two wines released at Three’s release clambake hail from CoCo: a Lucchesi Vyd Carignane; and an old vine Field Blend — that beautiful old-skool harvest amalgam of grapes from assorted vines stuck indifferently into the ground by OGs (Original Growahs) more than a century ago.

We ended up joining Three’s wine club; the local connection to the wine releases was purely coincidental. On a personal note, Kath and I have, at various times, belonged to dozens of wine clubs over the years, in Cali, Washington state and Oregon. We suffered a bit of a financial hit a few months ago, and it became obvious that a quick amelioration of some of the pain was to cancel all the “surprise” charges on the credit card. Oh sure, it was always a pleasure to meet UPS guy Wayne once a week — who hates Christmas in June? — but that VISA dude once a month? Not so much. We dropped all of our wine club subscriptions: One in Sonoma we had just joined in February of this year; one in WA of which we’d been members since we’d moved back to Seattle in 1999. Then there was the Napa sparkling wine club with which we lived an on-again/off-again affair: Every time we joined, our work sitch turned to shi-ite; we’d quit, and things improved for us. We always believed that North Americans don’t drink enough bubbly, but toss me a frickin’ bone people!

But, things are indeed looking better these days, and Saturday of last week, we joined the Three Wine Company wine club. Two bottles every quarter, and prices are good. Kathy even signed up for the “will call” option, a great excuse to gas up the “Lisa Marie” and pick up our wine in person at The Old Sugar Mill.

As Kath has been singing the past few days, “Take the last train to Clarksburg … .”

Three Wine Company’s 2008 Old Vines Field Blend Contra Costa County is a funky-fresh one-stop-shop mix of 34% Zin, 21% Carignane, 19% Mataro (aka Mourvèdre) 16% Petite Sirah, 8% Alicante Bouschet and 2% Black Malvoisie (an old-skool California synonym for Cinsault). I’m always amazed that a “field blend” — essentially a wine that’s made from grapes harvested from a vineyard’s multi-varietal vines planted in possibly random fashion — could even be parsed by varietal percentages. Greater minds than mine …

This CoCo blend has a nice garnet look reminiscent of fizzless Mr. Pibb. There’s a brambly rusticity on the nose: dusty baking spices (clove, cinnamon). The earthy cocoa tannins balance nicely with some acidity on a decently lengthy finish.

Sunday, September 26, 2010


Well, another mystery solved! A while back, Kath and I had posted some tasting notes on a pair of vineyard designated Zinfandels from the Turley label, one of which was sourced from the Duarte Vineyard. Jesse’s Vineyard, a smaller plot located within the borders of the Duarte site has, for years, provided fruit to Rosenblum and now, the Rosenblum founder’s new venture, Rock Wall Wine Co. But we never could pinpoint the location of the Duarte site.

Until a couple of weeks ago, when I ran into Tom Del Barba during harvest at one of his own neighboring properties, and had the site confirmed by Rock Wall winemaker, Shauna Rosenblum. Turns out that we’d been driving past two big old-vine vineyards on busy Laurel Road for almost a year: One is Tom’s; he told me that the eastern one is Duarte.

The Duarte Vineyard story is one that’s being retold a lot in Oakley. According to Tom Del Barba, Joe Duarte had been farming the land for years, when local developer Seeno Homes offered him big dough for the vineyard, intending to rip out the vines and build McMansions (there’s a big development already built just behind the vineyard). Well, the housing collapse put the boots to that plan, so rather than let the land sit fallow, Seeno leases the (currently) intact Duarte/Jesse’s vineyard site out to a local grower and county land commissioner named Dwight Meadows. Dwight has vine interests in several parcels countywide (In fact, Shauna Rosenblum’s oh-so-tasty Montepulciano mentioned here months ago sources from younger vines planted in neighboring Brentwood and managed by Dwight Meadows). Completing the small-town vibe is the fact that Dwight is married to the former Carla Cutino, whose family ran the eponymous tire shop in town, and whose given name graces Carla’s Vineyard, located beside the Kmart. “Carla’s” is yet another of Rosenblum Cellars’ vineyard designates.

Jane! Stop this craaaaazzzzy thiiiiiiing!

Tom Del Barba professed to being a little mystified as to why, when Seeno abandoned immediate plans to build, Joe Duarte didn’t step up to reclaim growing rights via a lease. Over the years, Joe has worked as a real estate agent and owner of a mobile home community. Could be that, after years of farming the land, and a nice payout, he saw his future.

And, perhaps, heaven help us, the future of Oakley’s old vines.

Hey, the Duarte name lives on, thanks to some committed winemakers who love the fruit, and keep slapping the designation on the label. Kath and I have, in the cellar, a 2008 Turley Duarte Zin, as well as Zins from the main property’s Jesse’s Vineyard block by boutiques Rock Wall and Virgo Cellars. Notes to come. Duarte fruit figures in a wine we had the other night.

“Saldo” 2008 California Zinfandel is made by Dave Phinney of Napa’s Orin Swift Cellars, from fruit sourced, as the appellation (and Iberian name: “saldo” can mean anything from “what’s on hand” to “from here and there”) implies, from sites all over the state. Here, Duarte and Evangelho vineyards are representin’ CoCo. It’s a deep, dark, almost opaque plum color, with a dark, earthy nose of bacon and black stone fruit. On the palate, it’s pretty weighty, with a tight coil of black pepper spiciness and tannin. There’s 8% Syrah and half-again Petite Sirah. Give it 15 minutes in the glass before it starts to strut.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Red Harvest Redux


As mentioned earlier, harvest in das ‘hood is in full ring-a-ding-ding. I’ve been toolin’ around Oakley and neighboring Antioch — just call me Jimmy Olsen, Cub Reporter — hoping to snap some pix of crews rocking the fruit.

We posted last week about meeting Tom Del Barba supervising a Zin harvest for The Wine Group’s Cardinal Zin; the other day I saw industrial-size bins, laden with purple gold (way to mix lexicon, colors and metaphors, Tone), by the side of Main Street at Cline’s Big Break Vineyard.

Also last week, I drove into that industrial park cul-de-sac that, all along, I thought was Frank Evangelho’s vyd. As they say in the wine biz, “Mea Gulpa.” It made perfect sense that the site of an empty industrial park beside an ancient vineyard would have been the locus of a municipal eminent domain battle to widen a road and rip out some vines. We were actually off by two blocks — city blocks, not vineyard blocks. As usual with this thang, we got one answer, which raised two questions.

Our “Evangelho” vyd, on the one side of the driving range, is actually owned by the Gonsalves family, growers/owners of many plots around CoCo. Frank’s parcel is on the other side of the golf range. I guess that’s what’s so weird: I admit that I didn’t survey his vyd, but I couldn’t see any evidence of concrete or asphalt encroaching on his vines.

Now, the (formerly-thought-by-us-to-be-Frank’s) Gonsalves property on the other side of the links, is just plain problematic: It is a dead end; it was indeed developed to house heretofore nonexistent businesses; as said dead end, it is the perfect dumping ground for all your large-scale garage sale items that a handwritten “FREE!” sign won’t take care of.

Which brings me to the coolest needle to this whole funky thread. I was invited a couple of days ago to a meeting of the Contra Costa Wine, Grape and Olive Growers Association. It’s a cool, if loose-knit, casual gang of wine aficionados, industry honchos and retailers dedicated to bringing the love to CoCo.

At the meeting, I struck up a conversation with Mike Parker, a wine broker with many years in das biz, and just as many stories. Mike specializes in bringing together growers who find themselves with extra fruit, and winemakers big and small who need a ton here to round out a blend, or a row there for their home winemaking hobby. Mike said that it’s a real sign of the times when established growers are courting home winemakers, and a lot of garagistes lost out this year when some Napa growers pruned back the leaf canopy on the vines to promote ripening, only to have the clusters fry when we had a hot spell. Hobbyists who usually buy Napa fruit had to come up with a Plan B: Hello, Oakley!

Mike happened to be at the Gonsalves property minutes after I was, and he brokered a monster grape sale one day later. He did have to laugh when I told him that that cul-de-sac was a notorious dumping ground: That day workers were picking for Bonny Doon’s “Contra” blend, whose label actually showcases a derelict couch tossed at the end of the road. It’s the dominant feature of the Contra label: a ratty sofa surrounded by old vines.

And, two doors down, they’re laughin’ and drinkin’ and havin’ a party. Or getting ready to, anyway: See Evangelho photo above, the site for Parkmon’s 2007 Evangelho Zinfandel, which Kath and I tried a while back

Tons of blackberry juice and cane fruit, like it came straight off the vine.
It’s big on the nose, but full of bramble berries, alcohol and cracked pepper. You’ll worry that you’re going to catch a tastebud on a thorn. It’s rich, yet elegantly subdued on the finish. Very tasty.

Saturday, September 11, 2010


Well, here it is the week after Labor Day. Kathy and I have been physically in the Oakley homestead for one year, and all over the ‘hood, some vineyards are starting to be harvested. I can’t believe that we missed any of the telltale signs of harvest last year. You know, little things like swarms of workers in the vineyard, forklifts and grape bins by the side of the road, and huge long trucks being filled up with grape clusters. Maybe moving in to the new joint blinded us to all the activity. Hell, we were the ones who, when we finally noticed the grapes at the side of the road, thought that they were Concord or Thompson Seedless table snacks.

Last week, I saw a big crew cutting bunches in a vineyard a few blocks south of the house, and when I stopped to inquire who owned or leased the parcel, the Spanish/Inglès language barrier was too much to overcome.

So this week, with Kath unavailable for midweek photo chores, I grabbed the camera and toured some area vineyards in the hope of being able to snap an action photo or two of harvest in play.

The guys weren’t out at last week’s stop, and nothing was shakin’ at Stan Planchon’s or Rich Pato’s plots. But when I turned to head home along busy (and vine bordered) Laurel Road, I came across bins, a forklift and one long honkin’ truck being filled with big blue clusters.

I pulled over to take pix of this crazy, but efficient operation. On one side of this two-lane, 40-miles-per-hour thoroughfare was the vineyard, where workers were harvesting the grapes; on the other, just outside the fence surrounding the municipal playfield, was the forklift and the cargo truck in which the grapes would be transported. A tractor pulling three bins full of grapes would navigate across Laurel, release the bins beside the truck, reload with three empty bins, then cross the road to do it again. Rinse, repeat.

I introduced myself to a gent in baseball cap and shades, who just happened to be Tom Del Barba, the latest generation of Oakley grape growers who’ve been farming the family old-vine estates for decades. And he turned out to be both welcoming and informative when it came to describing the ins and outs of the grape-growing biz.

Although a Del Barba vineyard designation rarely graces a label, estate fruit has been a key component in several bottlings over the years. Cline, Bonny Doon, our pal Matt Cline at Three Wine Company, and most recently winemaker Tadeo Borchardt at Neyers are among Del Barba Vineyards clients past and present.

The stuff being picked today at the Laurel property was a prime ingredient in Bonny Doon’s Cardinal Zin, and the relationship with CZ’s new owners, The Wine Group, continues the love. In fact, Bonny Doon founder/winemaker, Randall Grahm is a big fan of the Del Barba Mourvèdre, having used it for his Old Telegram and Le Cigare Volant projects.

Tom popped a random grape from one of the Zin bins into his refractometer and invited me to sample the wares as I checked the sugar reading. Hovering around 26.5 to 27 brix, the reading did not belie the sweet ripeness in the mouth.

Tom was also a wealth of information and lore about some of the crazy-quilt vineyards we were trying to identify. Turns out that Duarte is located a few blocks over, also on Laurel, the other Del Barba parcels are situated all along Rose Avenue, and — wonder of wonders — because of the way Main Street curves, that post office plot of Alicante and Mataro is actually the back part of Del Barba! And that that post office plot is one of Randall Grahm’s faves! No further questions your honor.

Oh, and do you remember Mabel, that feisty, wrestling-loving 87-year-old who lives around the corner from us? We posted about her back in early May: She’s the one who lives beside the untended old vineyard that had been owned by her late sister. Turns out that Tom Del Barba contracted to farm the property for the sister’s heirs, but when a housing developer offered them a boatload of dough, the heirs tried to break the contract. Things got ugly, but were resolved somewhat when Tom was paid to walk away. Then the housing bubble burst, development fell through, and now the land sits neglected. But Tom did get to know Mabel, and, man, does he have a great story:

Seems that a fly-by-night paving crew stopped by to ask if Mabel would like her driveway done, not realizing that they had just finished scamming her son a few blocks over, promising a thick coat, then skimping on the amount of asphalt. Octogenarian Mabel lit into them with a string of F-bombs that’d have Jason Mewes going, ‘Whoa, too much, Bee-yotch!”

Kath spotted a pizza delivery vehicle at her house the other night; guess there was no F’in way she was gonna miss an F’in’ second of Smackdown to F around in the F’in kitchen. We love her.

Also back in May, we promised (threatened?) y’all notes from our tasting of the Jade Mountain 2006 Mourvèdre from the Evangelho Vineyard in nearby Antioch. I swung by Frank’s vineyard the other day, and it sure looks like harvest is ramping up. So, in keeping with the harvest theme this post …

The wine has a bit of a Beaujolais look to it: light plum, cherry highlights. There’s some distinctive soft dustiness on the nose hints of cinnamon and clove. In the mouth, there’s big acidity that has you anticipating the next sip. Tannins add some weight to an enticingly tart, reasonably long finish.

Parting shot: Before I took my leave of Tom Del Barba to let him get back to the TCB of harvest, he asked me, “Hey Tony, do wineries read your blog?”

Somewhat immodestly, and perhaps mendaciously, I replied, “Oh, yeah!”

“Well tell ‘em I’ve got an extra ton of Zin for sale.”

4 Sale:
Ripe, Old-vine Oakley Zinfandel from a Classic Del Barba Vineyard Property
Nice Brix, Nice Price
Ask for Tom


Cheers, neighbor.

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Spinelli Doctor


Well, our success rate at identifying specific vineyards pictured in Kathy’s photos is pretty low. It’s dawning on us that any local vineyard designation appearing on a wine label is either made up, meant to honor the family that originally owned it but no longer does, corporate-owned, family-owned, leased, left to rot, or any possible permutation of said.

Compounding the frustration is that, with very few exceptions (Frank Evangelho’s eponymous vineyard, for instance), one very rarely sees the same vineyard name appear on multiple wineries’ labels: another frustrating thing about Oakley’s lethargy toward branding this area as a wine destination. Of course, with the city’s police department proudly touting its stats as the burg with the county’s highest number of DUI arrests, any wine tourism advocates probably shouldn’t hold their breathalyzer.

Another dead end for our Mystery Machine has been the preponderance of family names on everything from tow trucks to tire shops. Cutino Tires hails from the maiden surname of Carla Cutino, she of Rosenblum’s “Carla’s Vineyard” beside the Kmart. We blogged earlier about a Massoni Vyd., whence the Grenache for Cline Cellars’ “Cashmere” blend comes; at the Brentwood Farmers’ Market a few weeks ago, Kath and I bought some produce at the Massoni Farms stall — blank stares when asked about Massoni Vyd: no relation.

Which is why we didn’t bother pulling over to the Spinelli Trucking big-rig that had been parked near the Oakley/Brentwood main drag for weeks.

“Spinelli” is one of the Oakley vineyard designates that Kath has been running into for months. Both Three Wine Co. and Trinitas have been giving the love to this formerly family-owned, now contracted-out, parcel.

Who ya gonna call to get to das bottom of this? The usual suspects!

Keyser Sőze ain’t got nothing on Matt Cline.

Matt, formerly of Cline Cellars with brother Fred, lately of Trinitas with wife Erin, and most recently of his and Erin’s Three Wine Company, called me back to clarify Kathy’s photos of vineyards in weird spots around our hamlet. Between his decades at his various projects, this cat definitely knows who’s doing the do. I asked him to clarify the Spinelli Vyd. location.

“Matt, nice to hear from you; how are you?”

“Up to my elbows in grapes.”

At least, I think that’s the body part he referred to. We have two Spinelli Vyd wines in the cellar, and I suspect that Keyser, uh, Matt, has his fingerprints all over both.

There’s the Three Co 2007 Spinelli Mataro (his, for all kinda reasons, not the least of which is his insistence on eschewing the varietal synonym “Mourvèdre”), but also a 2005 Trinitas “Spinelli Live Oak” Zinfandel, with the new owners’ signature on the bottle. Since Matt and Erin sold Trinitas on Christmas of 2006, with no vyd contracts as part of the deal, I’m surmising that the sale included some inventory from the previous vintage, made by Matt, and that when the time came for Trinitas’ new owners to bottle the 2005, they were able to put their names, as proprietors, on the bottle.

Between Matt’s long-term relationship with the Spinelli growers, and the little historical blurb on the Trinitas label, we were able to solve the Great Spinelli Caper, leavened with a little extra Matt Cline insider flavah.

Assuming the history to be accurate, the current property was planted over 100 years ago by Portuguese settlers named Azevedo. In 1955, a Gustavo Spinelli and his family began managing the vineyard for the Azevedos, purchasing the 18-acre property outright in 1970. Apparently a mere 5 acres of vines remain, and Matt now leases vineyard acreage at Spinelli from a corporate owner.

Matt was indeed able to pinpoint the vineyard location for me, as one that Kathy had photographed months ago, when we were marveling at the juxtaposition of ancient vines and modern buildings. Few were more jarring than the west side of Highway 4 at Live Oak Avenue, and confirmation of corporate ownership came when Matt colorfully hipped me to the fact that smack dab in the middle “of some of the greatest Zin in” CoCo, some developer erected an absolute “monstrosity” of an apartment building. He also told me that the shopping center at the west end of Big Break Road (the eastern side featuring a venerable Cline Cellars property), anchored by a Raley’s supermarket and our veterinary clinic, was formerly the site of a great Mataro vineyard.

Three wine Company’s 2007 Spinelli Mataro is blended with 6% Petite, 2% Carignane and 8% of an old-skool blender, Black Malvoisie. It exhibits a youthful tinge of blue on the rim of translucent plum, and a nose of violet, rose petal and cinnamon or clove. In the mouth, it’s all acidic fruit: cranberry, blueberry and the like, with a nice tannic grip. It’d be great with food.

I have a call in to the folks at Trinitas; when we get the scoop, we’ll taste some of their juice!

Sunday, August 29, 2010


Man, ya gotta hand it to Matt Cline. Dude tells it like it is, and the way it is actually is the way he tells it. And I don’t mean that in the obituary sense. C’mon, you know what I’m talking about: When the best descriptors in an obit notice include “he marched to his own drummer’ or “not afraid to speak his mind,” not to mention “some said curmudgeon” or “irascible,” you know they were talking about a mean SOB in life.

Matt’s not dead, and he’s a cool dude.

Sitting down to chat with this venerable winemaker the other day, I opened with my stock line about Kathy and I, living in Oakley, CA for just now one year, being blown away by the sight of old-vine vineyards directly beside new housing developments, in one of which we now live. I got schooled immediately.

“More like housing developments right beside old vineyards,” he noted. Touché, Monsieur Cline.

As noted before, the Cline family, and the Jacuzzi side of la familgia, have been a major presence in CoCo County, and our Oakley burg in particular, for generations; their roots to the region as deep as those of the century-old vines themselves. Matt calls the gnarly, ancient plants “stupid vines”: They’re old, content to rest in infertile sand, unproductive, and only too happy to withstand the river delta winds that can shut down their physical ripening “just like fog.” But, as he opines, major brands like Rosenblum and Bonny Doon “would have been nowhere without Oakley fruit.”

For over 16 years, beginning in 1984, Matt worked alongside his bro Fred at the family biz, Cline Cellars, watching production ratchet up exponentially from 300 cases to 250,000 cases annually.

Matt eventually struck out on his own to found, with his wife, Erin, and partners, the Trinitas label, making his first vintage in 2001. He made Trinitas’ early wines at Wente, south of Oakley in Livermore, before eventually making the move to their own facility in Napa. A few years later, with the ‘05s in the barrel and the ‘06s in the tank, Matt contemplated buying out his partners. To his pleasant surprise, the partners made a generous offer to buy HIM out.

He sold on Christmas 2006. The day after Christmas, he and Erin started Three Wine Company. One of their first releases was “Rotten Riesling,” a late-harvest-style varietal wine with grapes affected by the “noble rot” botrytis fungus, and which proceeded to win the San Francisco Chronicle Sweepstakes Award.

The interesting thing about the sale of Trinitas is that Matt’s Oakley-area grape contracts were not part of the deal. And that’s when Matt schooled me again: A surprising number of these orphan vineyards in unusual locations through the region are actually owned by housing developers and corporate concerns who persuaded old-time growers to sell their acreage. And, when the economy went south and stalled development, many of the new owners decided that it made sense to just leave the vines and lease them out to other growers and winemakers. It’ll be interesting to see just how many of these small, area vineyards, that Kathy and I pass daily, we’ll still see if the economy improves.

BTW: you know that vineyard right beside the Oakley Post Office? Matt leases it! It’s planted to Alicante Bouschet and Mataro (Matt never call it “Mourvèdre” If “Mataro” was good enough for the immigrants who planted it, it’s good enough for Matt), and he co-ferments it with Zinfandel for some of his blends. He also leases some plots of Petite Sirah, and sources old-vine Carignane from the Lucchesi Vineyard located on a sand dune in an area purchased by the state of California as a waterfront preserve.

Matt Cline doesn’t have much good to say about over-ripe, super-extracted Zinfandels flooding the marketplace. “It needs some Carignane and Petite Sirah for complexity," he states. Emphatic to the end, he repeats, in case anyone missed it, “Zin ain’t Zin without some Carignane.”

Which actually makes a great segue to a couple of bottles that Kath was able to obtain. The Three 2007 Lucchesi Carignane is sourced from that state-owned sand dune vineyard mentioned above. It’s an absolutely gorgeous bottle of wine: a look of translucent coruscating garnet, and a nose of earth, citrus peel and smoky chocolate-covered cherry. It’s bright in the mouth, with hints of white pepper and a fine acidity contributing to the long finish.

Three’s 2008 Contra Costa County Petite Sirah is a big bruiser. Swirling the wine shows off a heavyweight with a blue edge to indicate its relative youth. It shows off a nose of dried blueberry, with boysenberry jam and touches of tobacco and cedar. Earthy berry flavors on a frame of nicely integrated tannins go on and on.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

“Oh, Sandy” + “Hello, Delhi”


OK, “Grease”-ey meets cheesy, but check out the photo above, with that ancient, wizened, gnarly limb intertwined with the sand.

Wait, that’s my arm. But the sand is the real deal. That’s what these 100-plus-year-old vines have been rooted in. As noted before, I can kill mint in a backyard garden. But these wine vines thrive for a century in this shi-ite?

We’ve written previously about the Larry Turley Zinfandels sourced from local plots (and we’re still trying to locate those local plots) in Oakley, and how the winds from the delta, formed by the confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers and the eastern winds from San Francisco Bay, conspired to form a whipped-up land that time forgot. A soil scientist at UC Davis opines that these sandy, wind-borne sediments were deposited from dry riverbeds at the end of the last Ice Age some 10,000 years ago, suggesting a drought during the Holoscene Epoch, the most recent period of the Cenozoic Era. Skool me, bruvah!

Grapes have been here for 150 years. Again, this type of “soil” means that the phylloxera vine louse can not burrow under dirt and kill the roots, as has happened so many times before elsewhere; sand falls in upon itself and leaves no traces. No pests, but no nutrients either?

Nature, I don’t know how you do it.

Kathy and I checked in with a Rosenblum 2007 “Heritage Clones” Petite Sirah from CoCo; not strictly Oakley, but grapes from a bit of east-neighboring Clarksburg town, too. Pretty murky-in-a-good-way look, with a nose of dried cranberry and blueberry. Big on the tongue, with nice acid and concentrated dried stone fruit, and a nicely furry tannic grip.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

A Few Rollover Minutes With “Veraison”


Well, we’re finally starting to see what all the old vine fuss is about here in Oakley and environs. The green grape clusters are starting to undergo what’s known as “veraison,” that period at the very beginning of grape ripening.

The tight clusters are starting to soften up and they start taking on all the colors of their particular grape type. And since most of the century-plus-year-old vines around the ‘hood are red/black varieties, we’re starting to see a lot of beautiful rich colors that bode well for Harvest 2010.

Check out the photo op that Kathy captured from one of the many sandy old-vine vineyards close to our house. Truly, the wine universe is unfolding as it should.

Oh, I keep forgetting to tell you about some street names here in Oakley. Even though the city seems content to sit tight on tons of untapped wine tourism potential, it’s not shy about giving a shout-out to the trade in general when it comes to municipal street nomenclature. Sherry Circle, Sauterne Way, Bordeaux Drive; even giving props to pioneers (Mondavi Court) and wineries (Korbel Court): some of it is just too much. Our local weekly paper, The Oakley Press, publishes a police blotter. A while back, it was reported that two suspects were arrested: one on Pinot Court; another on Merlot Lane. For DUIs.

Just a quick drive from Pinot Court to Superior Court.

Hey, Kath and I posted a few months ago about Ledson, that Versailles-like tourist trap-slash-winery up in Sonoma. They’re the ones that use some CoCo fruit, but were super-cagey about what vineyard sites they used. Well, we tasted the Ledson 2007 Contra Costa County Mourvèdre (unfortunately spelled “Mouvedre” on the front label). Luckily, the winemaking far surpasses the proofreading; it’s a gorgeous pour. Deep, dark plummy color; with hints of plum galette — almond paste, brown sugar — on the nose. I even detected cracked pepper and a bit of smoke. Nice and round in the mouth, with a really long finish.

Saturday, August 7, 2010


Funny thing for an alleged “investigative wine blogger” trying to discover who owns what vineyards and grows what grapes here in Oakley to admit, but I hate making “Das Call”: that picking up of the telephone to make initial contact with a local winegrower/farmer who doesn’t know me from Marvin Shanken.

When Kathy and I started this thang in April, I likened our Bay Area Web caper as a case worthy of something out of Dashiell Hammett. Truth be told, it’s more akin to Rex Stout, with me being the agoraphobically housebound Nero Wolfe, and Kath doing all the Archie Goodwin research and legwork: She’s the real “little engine that,” never mind “could,” but actually "does."

So, when K came up with the phone number for an Oakley grower whose vineyard name has been appearing, for years, on a Rosenblum Cellars Zinfandel label, I studied my telephone script (not kidding), and dropped the dime.

I was hoping to speak to Stan Planchon (actually, I was hoping that I could leave a message for Stan Planchon), owner/farmer of an 8-acre vineyard that’s been in his family since 1904, and is located a few blocks west of our house.

I launched into my “hello-my-name-is … we have this wine-blog … we just moved to Oakley” rap, when the animated, dusky female voice on the other end of the line proclaimed, “Welcome to the big city!”

Gertie was in da house. And Stan’s wife and I spent the next hour swapping opinions and CoCo wine country gossip, all as she schooled me on some nuts and bolts of grape growing in CoCo. BTW: Stan couldn’t come to the phone because, at 88 years of age, he was outside BUILDING A FENCE!

The history of the Planchon Vineyard is a real study in wine trends. As noted, the property has been in the family for over a century. Currently, the 8 acres is mostly old-skool Zin, with a couple of rows of Cabernet Sauvignon, and vines yielding about a ton of Barbera.

Check this out: In the ‘80s, when White Zinfandel was the craze, Planchon sold his Zin for triple/quadruple the going rate to a particular Napa concern. Gertie always thought that it was a big waste of a great red grape, but when did you ever hear of a White Zin producer wanting great fruit? It’s crazy, yet they got top dough, so there were no complaints in Oakley.

Eventually the pendulum swung back to red, and that’s when Rosenblum founder, former veterinarian Kent Rosenblum, came a-knockin’. Stan Planchon had been making his own wine from the homestead for years; according to Gertie, when Dr. Kent stuck his nose in a glass, he contracted for half the Zin acreage, with a promise to put “Planchon Vineyard” on the label. Apparently, another Napa Zin-meister wanted a ton of Zin (contractually, Planchon was allowed to keep 3 tons for “personal use,” with no restrictions on what he did with it.). After vinting, Napa Boy wanted another ton. Word got out that someone else wanted Planchon fruit, and Rosenblum Cellars extended the contract, and terms.

Booze behemoth Diageo bought Rosenblum Cellars a couple of years ago, and founding winemaker Dr. Kent was retained as consulting winemaker for their vast portfolio of vineyard-designate Zins, Petites, Mourvèdres and other varieties sourced state-wide. But contracts will expire, and all parties are free to do the do (in a couple of years). Kent Rosenblum has already branched out to Rock Wall Wine Co., a separate venture spotlighting some small-production labels, with singularly visioned winemakers, including Shauna Rosenblum and Stefanie Jackson, sourcing grapes from This Old Hood.

I’m not the only one to hope that the big pockets of Diageo, who’ve enjoyed a long love affair with Planchon, pre- and post-Rosenblum-purchase, establish an Oakley-first tasting room/event facility surrounded by its ancient vines.

I read in today’s newspaper that Japan supposedly celebrates longevity in its citizens, but has lost track in documenting so many of them. We have 100-year-old vines in Oakley. Why can’t North America know when they’re drinking their wine?

It was an absolute hoot jawing with Gertie Planchon, and it was very satisfying to be able to finally wrap up one Oakley vineyard mystery in a straightforward fashion. Here’s one local grower whose residence is nestled within his vineyard. We know the vineyard address, we know what he grows, we know who he sells to. He doesn’t manage any other vineyards (though he and Gertie do have a property up in Oregon), and when I asked Gertie if they own any other local sites, she cracked me up. “Please, Tony! We’re dumb but we’re not stupid. Stan’s 88; he’s put his heart and soul into this place.”

Case closed, ma’am.

About an hour ago, Kath and I stopped off, after a grocery run to Trader Joe’s, for her to snap this post’s photo (above) of the beautiful Planchon grapes. What would be a better occasion to come home, and pull the cork on a 2006 Rosenblum Zinfandel Planchon Vineyard? I was doing the “winetasting” thang: look, sniff, taste. Kathy does it too, but she’s faster (and her tasting notes are better than mine). I was still working on the wine’s opaque purple color and a spicy nose of black pepper and smoky earth, when Kath proclaimed, “Hurry and get to the part where you drink!” Absolutely, uniquely delicious wine! All black licorice and baking spices, with acidity to hang it on for a long finish. Deeee-lish.

Oh, forgot to mention: Driving home after snapping the photo, we spotted Stan in front of his house. Working on a fence.