Take a gander at Kathy’s photo of Ledson, a hunka hunka pile o’ tourist trap located in the Sonoma Valley on Highway 12 up to Santa Rosa.
Speaking of Santa Rosa, Kath and I attended a free screening of Hitchcock’s “The Birds” last night, projected on a screen set up on the greensward at Oakley City Hall, as part of our burg’s summer program. Just as creepy as I remembered it growing up as a kid in Ottawa (Canada’s capital, bien oui — which is French for “eh”), but taking on new significance since we now live in Northern California. The avian attacks begin in Bodega Bay and by film’s end have “migrated” south to Santa Rosa, our longtime entrée to Dry Creek and Russian River Valleys in Sonoma wine country. Apparently the film’s ambiguous ending could have been freakier: Hitch reportedly had a final frame depicting the Golden Gate Bridge covered in crows/gulls/ravens, but it was scrapped due to budgetary constraints.
Coming full circle, North Bay to The City: When Kathy and I lived in San Francisco in 1998, we did rent a car to escape to Sonoma. At that time, Ledson castle was just under construction; tasting was in a double-wide adjacent to what looked like cross between the bombing of Dresden, and Camelot.
But here’s the punch: Rumor had it that part of the financing came from a partner who tried to use drug dough, and that the DEA had stalled construction. OK, this was 1998, and I don’t really know the do, but we WERE tasting premium wine in a trailer. I remember the story being better than the wine, but 10 years later, I’m very confused.
“The Castle” is one of those destination spots, just the way it was planned, lo a decade ago. Limousines full of bachelorette parties drinking Cosmos enroute, stretch Hummers disgorging frats and sororities: all parties perfectly content to stumble past the signs admonishing them that only food and drink purchased on the property will be allowed. No prob; $15 for a tasting, providing that the pourer deigns to lock retina with ya.
The real deal is that Kath and I found out that Ledson, with no distribution (everything is sold onsite), had made some juice from our Oakley ‘hood. We wanted to confirm that the bottles in the wine shop labeled “Contra Costa County” were, as researched, from Oakley vineyards.
In Ledson’s galleria, selling cheese, olives, pickled vegetables, merch and, oh yeah, some wine, Kathy and I found some Oakley stuff not available anymore. Dude, we found a 2002 Petite Sirah labeled the specific-but-not “Contra Costa County,” our first clue that the wine might come from vines in our ‘hood.
We wanted to confirm the provenance of these Petite grapes, and were told to confirm with tasting room dude “Leon” (not his real name; that was “David”) where the grapes came from. We were told, CIA-I-could-tell-you-but-I’d-have-to kill-you-style” that he could not tell us the origin of the grapes. We said that we were from Oakley, and he admitted, reluctantly, that they were, indeed, from an Oakley vineyard.
“Leon” could not divulge whence the grapes came. Our whole deal is that these vineyards are already anonymous; Ledson, hook a bruvah up.
We kid, because we love.
The 2002 Ledson Contra Costa County Petite Sirah is crazy. It’s got an opaque ruby garnet look, with a nose of cane fruit and Mexican molé spice and blueberry. This stuff continues on the tongue, with a touch of cardamom, integrated into an elegance I’d have never thought possible. Petite never seems to get the love.
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