Tommy, Can You Hear Me?

Crazy thing: Kathy drives Laurel Road every day to get to notoriously clogged Highway 4, to spend an hour to get 16 miles to the end-of-the-line BART train station for the privilege of paying for parking, also paying, London Tube-style, a destination-based transit rate, to get in to San Fran, another hour later,. Yep, we are at the very end of this particular line. Currently, it’s $12 round-trip at this end of the line, every day.

Ten percent sales tax, a state income tax, the most populous state in the country, and California is broke. Oh, and BART is operating the same trains they bought 40 years ago, and the train interiors haven’t been steam-cleaned since Jimmy Carter maybe hauled out a Bissel. Double-You-Tee-Eff?

Anyhoo, we’re driving down Laurel a few weeks ago, and Tom Del Barba’s Zinfandel vines are sprouting shoots like a bad comb-over (as opposed to those really good, “couldn’t tell” comb-overs). A couple of days later, his Zin has had the full-meal tonsorial deal: the proverbial shave-and-a-haircut-two-bits, ready for burgeoning bud break!

And then I walk into our local Booze Castle to find two generations of the Del Barba old-vine grape growers at the cash register. Tom, the younger, asks if I remember him; yeah, dude, like I could forget someone I met at his grape harvest, and who invited me to taste grapes and check Brix in the refractometer! Tom even asked about das blog.

Man, his father, Fred, reminded me so much of my dad. Physically, dentally, and with the stories. I had asked about “handshake deals” growers would do in the past. Tom, having been screwed last minute by a winery suddenly deciding that they don’t need that extra ton o’ Zinfandel, is currently in negotiation to re-up his 3-year Zin deal with the folks who now own “Cardinal Zin,” having purchased it from Randall Grahm’s “Bonny Doon.” Papa Fred told me, and this at a cash register no less, about how he needed to be able to hold his head up back in the day, backing up his word, in the community.

“It really was all on a handshake,” Fred told me. He recalled one buyer who was supposed to come over at 11:30; when they didn’t come by 3:30, he sold the grapes to a neighbor. The late party finally arrived and offered $1,000 per ton, when, in those days $250/ton was big-time; Fred had nothing to give him, whatever the price; the buyer was late, and Fred had already agreed to sell it: no backing out of the deal that he had struck with the neighbor. “Now, it’s all in writing. And they show up when they say they will,” Fred added.

My unexpected luck in running into Tom and Fred at the liquor store prompted Kathy to suggest tasting a Zinfandel from our stash made from grapes from a vineyard close by the house. The land is not a Del Barba property, but it is but a block or two away from their holdings, and is itself situated on Laurel.

We’ve tasted and posted in the past about a few old-vine Zins harvested from the 20-acre site variously known as Jesse’s Vineyard (on Rosenblum and Rock Wall bottlings) and Duarte Vineyard (appearing on Turley labels). Years ago the vineyard was sold, by owner Joe Duarte, to housing developer Seeno Homes, who, because of the residential meltdown, hired vineyard manager Dwight Meadows to maintain the property until a market recovery. Jesse is Dwight’s dad. Different names; same great fruit.

In 2009, boutique winemaker Stefanie Jackson, then working as part of the Rock Wall Wine Company family of small labels, released 69 cases of her inaugural Virgo Cellars bottling. The 2007 Virgo Cellars “La Vierge” Zinfandel Contra Costa County is sourced entirely from Jesse’s fruit. In the glass, its deep garnet hues also reveal a bright, translucent plum with cranberry hints. On the nose, it’s all red fruit, cloves and baking spices. The mouth soon fills up with the tastes of cracked black pepper, cocoa and a touch of tea leaf. The finish goes on and on.

Stefanie Jackson has since moved on from Rock Wall and we haven’t been able to get in touch. She’s still very active as a winemaker but, alas, we hear that her Virgo Cellars label is no more. Too bad. Virgo’s inaugural vintage name may translate to “The Virgin,” but here’s a “first time” effort that’s truly memorable. For all the right reasons.