Brentwood-bound

Yesterday, Kathy and I fired up the Lisa Marie and drove to our neighboring city of Brentwood for the “Best of Contra Costa” tasting at the local wine shop downtown.

It was a fun, casual event featuring a quintet of CoCo vintners each pouring three wines that have garnered medals at various events, including the prestigious San Francisco Wine Competition across the bay.

Unlike most wineries we’ve talked about on this blog, these featured wineries, though located in Contra Costa County, tend not to source fruit from the ancient vines around Oakley or Antioch to our north and east. Three of the producers, in fact, have their own estate fruit physically planted in vineyards in Brentwood and the town of Byron even farther east and south.

And unlike the Oakley old vines planted to Zinfandel and Rhone varieties, the CoCo wines featured yesterday comprised a wonderfully surprising gamut of Chardonnays, Viogniers, Merlots, Cabs and Bordeaux-style blends — even a couple of varietally bottled standouts: a Petit Verdot and a Malbec from estate-grown fruit!

Last year, we featured Parkmon Vineyards in a post, and spotlighted a couple of bottlings using fruit from Evangelho Vineyard up in Antioch. Parkmon was pouring at the tasting yesterday; their offerings didn’t contain any juice from our ‘hood, but their award-winning 2008 Sangiovese had a pleasantly earthy, almost Pinot Noir-like edge.

Another stellar effort was the “J Jaden” Port-style dessert wine from Tamayo Family Vineyards. Named for the family’s second grandson, and utilizing authentic Portuguese varietal grapes as an authentic homage to CoCo’s early settlers, it’s a deliciously unctuous treat: just the thing for the last days or weeks of Port-drinking Season. It’s a deep red color, and the aromas of dried currants and raisins keep wafting up from the glass. In the mouth, there’s a warm toastiness among layers of sweet, raisiny fruit.