‘Twas Three Days Before Christmas

And up in Sonoma,

‘Twas a feast full of color,
Mouthfeel and aroma.

Hey, so what’s new, huh?

Well, this time our little jaunt up to Sonoma Valley last Saturday began with one of Kathy’s screaming Internet deals from livingsocial: an 80-minute massage for each of us, preceded by a refreshing glass of bubbly, at the Sonoma Holistic Center, located a mere chakra’s throw from the downtown Plaza square in the actual historic city of Sonoma.

It was wonderful! So much so that my blood pressure stayed out of the red zone when having to make a left turn onto the main drag afterward.

And since we were at the south end of the Valley anyway, it didn’t take a whole lot of arm-twisting to get Kath and me to motor a few clicks north to Kenwood and our new hang, Naked Wines. As posted before, we’ve amassed a considerable, if quickly eroding, “store credit” with Naked, having scored three $500 NaWi vouchers at substantial discounts during Sonoma County PBS station KRCB’s recent on-air wine auction.

It’s always a great time up at the NaWi wine works; tasting room diva Ashley, director of winemaking Robin, and founder-slash-honcho Rowan are convivial and generous hosts up at the ranch. Last Saturday, December 22, K and I tasted a few new releases from some of our fave winemakers in the NaWi stable, including more than one Pinot Noir, which broadens their already extensive varietal portfolio.

Our plan was to not make it a full day on the wine road, but since we were next already heading south to go back home to Oakley, Kath suggested that, since we’ve had a two-for-one Internet coupon for Imagery Estate gathering moss in our voucher file, let’s live a little before hitting the return leg in earnest.

Ow, Ow: my arm.

We’d visited Imagery, a sprawling site neighboring the Arrowood winery, a sibling winery to Benziger, some time back, but we must have hit the joint on an event day. That time, the place was packed to its well-appointed rafters; there was no chance of nosing, let alone bellying, up to the tasting bar. And if I remember correctly, I think I even got into it with a couple of walking dudes who refused to move from the middle of the road as we were trying to leave the parking lot. Good times.

But this time, the Saturday before Christmas, could not have been better, and all thanks to the woman behind the stick, our pourer Karen. She gave us her full attention, and we must have talked grape with her for an hour, all the while being treated to off-the-menu selections and bottle pours from under the table. Kathy looked around and noticed that almost every other host/hostess at the bar was sticking strictly to whatever was printed on the tasting card; Karen hooked us up, boy-eeeeeee.

Check out Kath’s snap of Imagery’s hearth at the end of the tasting room: Karen’s hospitality had us glowing like that proverbial Yule log.

And the extra presents under the Imagery tree concerned our purchase of a gorgeous (gustatorily and visually: as befits the name “Imagery,” every selection sports original artwork on the label) bottle of 2008 Lagrein crafted by winemaker Joe Benziger. Lagrein is a Northern Italian varietal grape, rarely seen in these parts, and sourced from French Camp Vineyards in California’s Paso Robles region (Jacuzzi, too, does a Lagrein, also sourced from Paso).

It seems that Karen forgot to charge us the “one” in “two-for-one.” And she figured that we were wine club members entitled to a significant discount. Or maybe she was just slyly spreading a little extra holiday cheer to a couple of wine lovers heading home.

Ho, ho, hope it’s the latter: our own little Miracle on Highway 12.

Of Bivalves and Bubbly

Oyster jones, y’all.

Fortunately, Kathy had an appointment in das city, and we agreed to meet après for snappy hour © at Waterbar, on the San Fran waterfront by the Ferry Building.

Four dozen oysters at $1 each, but no Muscadet on the list? I’m shocked, Rick, shocked!

But with dollar oysters available from 1130h to 1800h, a crisp Sauvignon more than did the do. It took a while to snag a table; this is no secret happy hour.

Last Saturday evening was the Holiday Open House for Hess wine club members, up the winding Mt. Veeder road at the lower end of the Napa Valley.

Kath and I decided to make an afternoon of it, with an overnight stay due to the twilight start of the event.

Now, I have a file for each of our regular regional wine haunts: a Livermore folder; a Lodi folder; upper Sonoma (Healdsburg, Dry Creek, Russian River) and lower Sonoma (Carneros, Santa Rosa, Kenwood, Glen Ellen) each, among other regions, has its own — if we visit a delineated wine area, it has an informal plastic-sleeved dossier consisting of maps and tasting coupons for that region.

We brought our Napa Valley infopak, the proverbial heart on/in said plastic sleeve. Plus, with 2012 (and maybe more; I’m typing this on 12/12/12 after all: Holla, Mayans in das house!), coming to an end, K and I thought that this might be a great opportunity to avail ourselves of our Lot 18 card, which obviated so many Napa tasting fees until the end of this year.

Nothing lasts forever, despite what DeBeers would have you believe, and we figured that, aside from a wine club connection with Hess, this could be a nicely civilized “Shalom” to the Napa “Twenty-Dollar-Tasting-Fee-Not-Refundable-With-Purchase” Valley.

Highway 29, the Valley’s main drag is a winery’s Pushmi-Pullyu: bachelorette parties, tiaras: It’s all good, as long as we don’t have to share the bar with the Cosmo sippy cup.

Hit Clif Family up in St. Helena, one of our Lot 18 entreaties. Kath and I had the great fortune to meet both founders, Gary and Kit, as we sipped the Clif Family juice. We met them both, and then, as my bro at Cambridge might say, they were on their bike.

We’ve really dug being Hess club members. For one thing, as Kathy says, it’s like having a membership to an art museum, with the bonus of a complimentary open wine bar downstairs.

We also dig that Hess Collection winemaker Randle Johnson has embarked on his “Artezin” label side project spotlighting varietal grapes, not, as the nomenclature might suggest, just Zinfandel, some of which are sourced from vineyard sites, such as Evangelho, in our Oakley ‘hood.

Apparently I get paid by the comma.

Occupy IKEA. And, Oh, Yeah, Alameda

Another Black Friday and another jaunt to IKEA in Alameda County, followed by a trip to Rosenblum with their parent’s umbrella current commitment to vineyard designated varietal juice from our ‘hood, St. George Spirits and their neighbor Rock Wall.

OK, a little bit disturbed to find IKEA culpable of using East German prisoner labor back in the day, maybe putting the “No” in “Nortorp.” I vass only following hors d’oevres (meatballs and lingonberry excluded).

So we get a couple of groovy pillows, then hit the trail for Rosenblum Cellars, where we know we can get juice made from Stan and Gertie Planchon’s fruit, as well as same from the late Rich Pato’s estate directly across Empire Avenue here in Oakley.

As noted in an earlier post, Rosenblum’s corporate parent, Diageo, maintains a commitment to Plato and Planchon fruit. It’s all we can do to keep our fingers crossed for this exquisite varietal Zinfandel, Mourvedre and Petite Sirah.

Believe me, there is no need to plough these ancient vines under in order to house the likes of me. Just saying.

On to St. George and the dragon net (Look up Stan Freberg, y’all).  Had a great distillery tour, hitting all the food groups from pear to potatoes; juniper to generics. As usual, the St. George tasting bar let their universe unfold as it should: concentrated flavors where appropriate; subtle notes otherwise. Sweet. And don’t let a chained link fence dissuade you: They finish painting the Golden Gate Bridge and they have to start all over again; across the Bay, we can just be cheerleaders.

Rockwall is a mixed bag, man. Staff at the tasting room is OK, and the view out the oversized windows toward San Francisco is outrageous. The wine is good, too. So I can’t put my name on what’s just a little off, but for Kathy to go for something completely out of the ordinary won big points from yours truly.

Yeah, she could have gone the Zin or Rhone route; Baby girls gots it goin’ on and and on with the funky varietal Tannat, from Solano and Yolo Counties.

Sight unseen, mouthfeel untasted, untested.

Yet.

Thirsty Thursday Two

So we had an opportunity to participate at home in another cool bout of “Thirsty Thursday,” the live Webcast winetasting from the gang at Naked Wines.

Broadcast from Naked HQ situated in beautiful downtown Napa, ThirsThurs features a predetermined lineup of vinous offerings shipped out to prospective participants nationwide, and then invites said sippers to imbibe along with staff and special guests, all the while typing in real-time questions, tasting notes and general roundtable silliness from all concerned.

Last week’s edition was decidedly Syrah/Shiraz-centric, and spotlighted a pair of diverse Central Coast Cali blends from that original Rhône Ranger, Randall Grahm; a Western Aussie Shiraz from Fletcher Wines; as well as a Mendocino County Syrah from venerable vintner Jim Olsen, a seasoned wine pro who, in a previous lifetime, tended the juice at La Crema, among other oaky haunts.

Jim was the onscreen special guest for this Naked Wines Thirsty Thursday Thanksgiving Special beginning with a sort of “happy hour”: his California Chardonnay hailing, too, from Mendo. It’s a tremendously elegant Chard, exhibiting Jim’s light but firm hand on the oak.

And then, sometime between the instructions for everyone to pour, taste and discuss the delicious Jim Olsen Syrah 2011, and then the very tasty 2010 Fletcher Western Aussie offering, things got downright giddy.

First, we watched as the first course of a full Thanksgiving meal was served to our on-camera hosts and guest in a sort of reverse 3-D: a disembodied hand delivering a steam tray of victuals from behind the camera to those in front of it.

Great: I get to watch them eat a catered dinner while trying to juggle the Riedel.

But the back-and-forth Instant Message repartée between us salivating coast-to-coast TT participants was a wonderfully raucous mélange of intelligent wine questions, perceptive tasting notes and good-natured round-robin smack talk. Some of Kathy’s wine pals from Naked Wine’s various online boards were logged on for TT, and, in a cool way, I found myself marveling at this community; it felt like Old Home Wine Week.

I still find myself marveling, again, in a good way, the inclusion of Randall Grahm in the Naked Wines family. NW’s portfolio usually consists of the results of very talented winemakers, some with decades of experience making wine for “Da Man,” finally getting the resources to do it their way.

But Randall Grahm has done it his way for years, through good times and bad; he’s the very winemaking cat who puts the “icon” in “iconoclast.” With his 2011 Syrah-Viognier sporting a full 26% of the latter, we had to wonder if the juice was varietally co-fermented (usually a co-ferment job on these two limits the Viognier to a few percent, if that).

And his Central Coast 2011 “Close But No Cigare,” a blend of 76% Mourvèdre and 12 each Syrah and Grenache, is a lip-smacking second-label riff on his own “Le Cigare Volant.”

It’s nice to have both of these efforts, with which we regretfully toasted the conclusion of another Thirsty Thursday, in the Naked Wines fold.

But I still hope that Jim Olsen got the last piece of pumpkin pie.

Outlet Malls & Oenophilia

Oh gang, craziness!

Man, the biggest thing to hit Livermore was the grand opening, almost 2 years in the making, of the Paragon Outlets mall just west of Livermore wine country.

Dude, this joint is going to do nothing to alleviate any traffic on 580, an artery to Kali Klown Kar Kulture.

Prada, Armani, Kate Spade, Brooks Brothers, Saks 5-O, plus a host of the usual factory suspects ensured that this proverbial ribbon-cutting was the biggest thing to hit this burg since Interstate 580 was paved with Petite Sirah must (I’m kidding, Merv, I’m kidding).

So, Kath has Thursday, which just happens to coincide with the grand opening, off, and she heads off for some shopping. Apparently it was crazy, but she knows how to work the crowds, so it was relatively painless for her: parking and lines.

Now, on Saturday, not so much for me. The turnout for this super-premium retail joint made sure that mall officials had to find extramural parking for everybody. Man, this parking sitch, with overflow stationing relegated to unpaved environs surrounding the mall, was some ungawdly combo of Children of the Corn IV and Brentwood’s annual festival celebrating das cob. It had me wondering if I was banished to Billy Mumy’s “Twilight Zone” territory.

See, we were meeting for a Livermore Valley Winegrowers Association-sponsored event winetasting event, “Sunset Sip & Shop,” chez mall. Ten bucks, get your glass, visit the myriad barrels on the outside mall manned by Livermore vintner staff, and then make sure not to spill a Merlot on that sweet ETRO jacket lining.

Guys, it was coolo. Outdoor sipping at multiple stations of the cross, featuring many of our Livermore faves: Occasio, Nottingham, Longevity, to name only a literal few.

As mentioned, K had to work previously, and I had the heavy lifting of visiting, solo this time, Livermore’s Steven Kent/La Rochelle winery compound on a release day to taste and pick up our Pinot Noir allotment.

A mellow mood quickly turned to road rage when it was apparent that the mall exit ramp extemporaneously extended miles down the “free”way. Eventually parked amid Anthony’s cornfield scarecrows, and brushing the hay from mein togs, I promptly got lost as to Kathy’s and mine rendezvous spot.

Whether “in” Brooks Brothers or “at” Brooks Brothers (what we got heeeeeeah is a failyah tuh communicate), we did meet up in time for the sold-out wine event to provide our ID’ed wristbands in order to taste with abandon.

Almost every winery was pouring a red and a white/sparkling; Kath was on a red jones; me on a clear for some reason (downright thirst, ya think?).

Gotta tell youse guys that, despite all the parking access/egress stuff, this dusk sip and shop was really fun. Half the merch that Kathy bought on Thursday was gone by Saturday; and the wine event allowed us to be smug to see a line, a hundred souls long at Kate Spade, with nary a stem in hand to ease the anxiety.

‘Twas nice to see the local wine folk kickin’ it, though I wonder if the next Livermore Valley Winegrowers Association event will be a car wash & straw-detailing down the way at Charles R.

Because one never wants that bad mix of hay and spilled Touriga onto factory-installed leather. I hear that it messes up that new-car smell.

Sometimes for the better. So I hear.

Dungeons & Draconis

Our little youngster, the contradictorily named Old Sugar Mill, is really enjoying a growth spurt.

I truly get the fact that no one wants to be the pioneer in a ‘hood “on the cusp of gentrification.”

But Sugar, Sugar, ahh Honey, Honey.

Winemaker Matt Cline and biz-savvy wife Erin Cline were some of the first folks in, turning potential into kinetic energy with 3 Wine Company:

 http://www.threewinecompany.com/

Matt works the juice. He sources some sites near, dear and clear to our particular hearts: Contra Costa County grape-er-age smack dab in Oakley.

The Cline fam has its rootstock here. This blog began as an experiment to try to figure out where these magnificent grapes went, and into whose bottles. Heaven forbid that Oakley would see a vineyard designate parcel on a wine label: Live Oak, Big Break, Bridgehead. These are all Oakley roads surrounded by 120-year-old vines.

Actually, Heaven forbade the forbidden: Cline Cellars, with its intensive holdings in the ‘hood, and hardcore brand recognition, stepped up the integrity. Highly sought-after vineyard Zins display character that I thought could only come from a Wine Spectator editor ransacking a thesaurus.

OK, so Matt at 3, after a decade, and an affinity for Oakley fruit, comes back to take a whack at Live Oak.

The charming and oh-so-knowledgeable Kelly at 3 poured Kathy and me a side-by-side of Matt’s Zinfandel from Live Oak and his Evangelho.

Folks, I wouldn’t know finesse if it punched me. Joke, that.

Matt, you must get more of that Live Oak; your take on it is stellar. Nicely done, doctor.

Wasn’t so long ago that that the Mill, trying to lure small tasting rooms into the fold, was hit or miss. Several pioneering tasting rooms, a couple of “coming soon” teasers, and a few empty storefronts. Today, there’s no room at the inn: winery outlets line the main indoor drag, and the development of phase II is actually proceeding.

Which brings us to Draconis, a new tenant just outside the building and becoming the vanguard of said second phase of Sugar Mill reno. That the wine is outrageously tasty is a bonus. Like Todd Taylor’s juice elsewhere in the building, Matt Powell’s Draconis bottlings eschew blending, opting for a 100% expression of varietal fruit. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, back at the 3 Company ranch, Matt’s 2010 Live Oak Zinfandel is an elegant counterpart to even his Evangelho Vineyard Zinfandel from up the street. Unlike his bro’s Cline Cellars bottling from the same site, this stuff demonstrates the winemaker’s touch: his take on extraction, oak treatment and ripeness are all evident. No need to take your jacket to the cleaners: nothing shakes your lapels limp on this wine.

Thirsty Thursday

Guys, I had the funkiest experience last week.

Sorry for yet another Naked Wines pimp-out, just like my VISA Signature schmoozefest last year, but this particular event rocked the Riedel.

OK, first, full disclosure: Tonight is Halloween, and, suburban as we are, we are getting the hell out of Dodge. Unlike in our former digs in the Seattle ‘burb of White Center (as the local sign shop printed, “Not So Center, Not So White”), we have run out of candy 3 years running.

But when the 12-year-old punk demanded, last year, that I put more swag into his pillowcase, I was done.

Dude, I lived in Beverly Hills on more than a couple of Halloweens, where it seemed that parents would bus their kids in, thinking that the residents were handing out Faberge Eggs or insured jewelry.

So, tonight, I’m turning the lights off. I hope that FedEx makes the scheduled delivery before dusk so that the now-13-year-old punk will not find our house as his gateway from theobromine to extortion.

But, I digress. Now, that funky-fresh thang I mentioned at the top of the page.

So, we’re doing a virtual-time tasting with the winemaker.

Matt Iaconis has spent time all around the globe, on his quest to make his own juice from the sources that presented themselves to his singular vision.

A Moscato from Lodi; Chard from Napa; and a Cab from Paso Robles: East, North and South. With Instant Messaging remarks from all over the country.

There’s video with our Naked Wines host, Adam, audio from same and Matt, and IM questions read onscreen by videographer extraordinaire Vanessa.

Great questions, and great wine.

Kath and I can’t decide which is better: hunched over a QWERTY or a quaff.

Naked Wines & Virgin Product

I know that we’ve posted about www.nakedwines.com, the vintner incubator that utilizes monthly subscribers’ premiums to financially back passionate winemakers who want to focus on the dream of winemaking, without having to spend most of their work week schmoozing distributors and bankers.

Roget does not have enough superlatives in his tome to describe how much fun Kathy and I are having as “Angels,” the name that Naked affixes to their $40/month devotees, who receive discounts in the 40-to-50% range off the already deep-discounted prices for the bottles.

And at this low price point, Kath and I have never had much past luck with French or South American bottlings; Naked put the boots to that. We’ve received multiple diverse cases from them, and have yet to taste a dog in the bunch. Old World, New World, with global winemakers from the U.K. to Ukiah, CA: This is an ever-changing roster of vinous talent that has made juice for the big boys and/or spent apprenticeships on the Continent, and now have the freedom to make varietal wine to their own specs.

It’s custom crush, but we’re the ones smitten.

So how cool is it that the universe unfolds as it should, with a Sonoma PBS station holding their annual on-air wine auction (featuring gift certificates to Naked Wine), and Naked’s official launch party in the Sonoma County of Kenwood to inaugurate their new tasting room and winery facility, all on the same weekend?

Kathy and I had dropped by the Naked winery a few weeks ago, on a “soft opening” weekend and were as impressed by the facility as we were the vino.

But by the time the dust cleared the other day, K and I had been successful PBS bidders on more than one Naked Wines gift cert, padding our Angel account, for a fraction of the list price, to quadruple digits! We may need a new wine cabinet.

The launch party last Saturday was a blast. We didn’t walk three steps before a generous pour of Spanish Rosé was splashing around our glass. Wending our way to the back patio, past the live band, we immediately caught the gaze of Rowan Gormley, founder and all-round honcho, who greeted us like old friends.

We got a chance to meet many of the winemakers who call Naked their new winemaking home; nice to put faces to the myriad bottles in the portfolio. It was especially cool to taste what Kath called “baby wine,” that still-unraveled blend of juice and yeast working its way toward vinous cohesion; several newbie winemakers were pouring what, when fully knitted, will eventually become Naked retail selections. It’s all stuff that’s almost as heady as the biz model.

And with our freshly minted gift certificates, Kathy couldn’t wait to put together an order. Thirty bottles later, she hit all the food groups: Chablis, Sancerre, Cali Chardonnay, Viognier, Cabernet, Zinfandel, with a soupçon of Shiraz, Pinot Noir and Rhône-style blends fixed into the mix.

Toss in free overnight shipping and a 40% discount, and we’ll be drinking pretty well, sampling small-production wines from the Languedoc to Lodi, and all without leaving the house. Clothing optional.

Geez, What Month is This?

It definitely will not last long, but, with the price spike in gasoline around here in California, Kathy and I decided to be good to our wallets and forego any wine jaunts this past weekend. Sonoma, Napa, Livermore, Lodi, Clarksburg: Y’all are just going to have to wait.

At least until this coming Saturday.

But with an e-mail coming in to us last week from Brentwood’s Enos Family Farms announcing that strawberries and heirloom tomatoes were both still on the vine for U-Pick, the timing couldn’t have better for us to stay a bit closer chez nous.

Enos Family has a regular retail booth at the Brentwood Farmers Market every Saturday morning, but the actual farm and farm stand isn’t very far from the market’s downtown location. Enos is an organic concern smack in the middle of what I refer to as “growers’ gulch,” an expansive array of like farm acreage offering seasonal U-Pick and/or harvested fare from the fields.

So, here we are, on a sunny Sunday in the middle of October; it’s 80 degrees at 10:30 a.m. If it weren’t for every other farm sporting signs exclaiming “Pumpkin Patch Now Open!,” Kath and I wouldn’t have a clue that we were a mere two-and-a-half weeks from Halloween.

At the Enos stand, we were directed to the farm rows housing the three Food Groups of produce that we wanted to pick, and we set off, a trio of buckets in hand.

First up was the strawberry patch. Now, check out Kathy’s photo of these mofos. In October! Crazy, Daddy-o. We’ve been enjoying these sweethearts all week, with a bissel Balsamic glaze on top, for dessert.

Next on our proverbial cook’s tour was a trek to the back forty and the tomato plots. It was heartbreaking to see so many gorgeous, albeit extremely mushy or split, specimens on the ground. But we were ultimately able to eke out a nice harvest of assorted ripe varietal organic heirlooms off the vines. We’ve been enjoying them sliced, with a little grey sea salt and a good oil from a particular Livermore olive grove, and in sandwiches. Most notably, Kathy slow-roasted a bunch of them quartered with entire cloves of unpeeled garlic and olive oil for over three hours, in preparation for a soup adapted from Gwyneth Paltrow’s book, “My Father’s Daughter.”

This is also the time of year when, wherever we’ve lived — Seattle, Portland, Cali — and no matter how extended or truncated the growing season, K gets a hankerin’ to go all Laura Ingalls Wilder and put up a batch of pickles.

That’s what the third bucket was for: pickling cukes for refrigerator dills. There were plenty of pickles-to-be for the picking at Enos Family Farms and, after a quick detour to the market for fresh dill weed, Kathy was back in our kitchen working a new recipe for refrigerator dill slices. Ready in just 24 hours, these bad boys are outrageous, bay-bee. The recipe comprises, among other ingredients, cider vinegar, canning salt, pickling spice, garlic, onion and dried, crumbled chipotle peppers!

If this isn’t really October in CoCo County, with strawberries and cucumbers and ripe heirloom tomatoes all overlapping seasonal readiness, then what month is this?

Go ahead, U-Pick one. We-Did.

Appointments With Destiny/Luxury

So, we’re digging it deep into October, again with nary a cloud in the Oakley sky, but the clock is ticking on our Internet tasting cards that expire at year’s end.

Kathy and I have a deal that became our welcome mat back to Napa, home of the outrageous tasting room fees. The card comped the fees, but the prob is that many of these participating joints are not open on weekends. Unfortunately for Kath, but fortunately for me, K had to work a Saturday, meaning that she could take the previous day off: Appointments on weekdays, here we come!

We hadn’t been to Mayacamas, up Mount Veeder, since we lived in San Francisco two dog lives ago. Host Beth Mattos was wonderful, hooking us up with the history of the winery’s 1889 founding with Mr. Fisher, the San Fran pickle king who, alas, lost his legacy in the 1906 earthquake. Many sales later, the current iconoclastic winemaking concern frankly, doesn’t give a shi-ite. You won’t find a white wine with less than three years on the label; five for the reds. And at a mere 4K cases of juice, the fact that they’ll still hold back stuff for the library is crazy. One buys a 6-year-old Chardonnay, no big deal; but, apparently to drink the 2010 Sauvignon Blanc before 2017 is anathema.

Down the hill to Hess to pick up our club shipment: a small allotment of Malbec, a Petite and an estate Sauvignon. I had no time to visit my favorite burning typewriter before our next appointment with Desti/Lux.

Reynolds Family was OK, but we never got the sense that we were expected. It seemed a catch-all at a tasting bar. $20 plus tax. I’m just sayin’. Thank you Lot 18 Tasting Card for nixing that charge. Fun Fact: Kathy and I finished our tasting, bought a bottle of their Pinot, then chilled outside on the terrace with our packaged lunch made in Oakley. Our tasting room hostess passed us repeatedly to pour for an eight-top.

Did they buy? I don’t know. But, as K noted, how bad would it have been for our host to see us forking lunch on the couches, and ask if we wanted a “splish” with our meal? It’s painless, and the goodwill is endless. As it is: Seeya.

And then we get to more class acts.

We have a 3 p.m. with Kristen at Oakville Ranch. We used to be club members but it has obviously undergone some changes since a weird split from Miner Family. Gotta love the family dynamic. Pick one: family or your nose.

Guys, we are tasting the most opulent wines, in a greenhouse atop Silverado Trail. Lush, plush, and even deluxe. The Cabernet Franc hit us bigtime. Props to Oakville for hitting it hard on the varietal bottling. Nice.

And then we met up with Jessica Loesch from Couloir and Straight Line wineries. It could not have been more civilized, y’all.

The joint is so small that they do tastings off-site: Winemaker Jon Grant holds no real estate, but knows the sites he wants up and down the state. His Couloir (hey, my Canuck upbringing made the French translation to “hallway” or “corridor”) label is a nod to his extreme skiing vibe (the “chute”), giving the love to single vineyard Pinot Noir sites from Marin to Mendocino.

With Jessica hosting us at Calistoga’s Solage resort, al fresco no less, Kath and I tasted through a quartet of label selections, each wine a wonderful expression of pleasure and place.

No surprise that we bought all four selections offered from the portfolio, but, because we tasted off-site, Jessica picked up our bottles and hand-delivered our wine to us at Mumm Napa, where we were winding down our day with a flute o’ bubbles. Again, thanks Lot 18.

It can’t last forever; I know that. But as long as the deals are valid, we’ll keep stocking the cellar.

Sebastopol Saturday

We had the jones to hit a few Sonoma County places west of Santa Rosa, an area comprising the burgs of Sebastopol and Forestville, among others, that specialize in cooler-climate varietal Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and even some Sauvignon Blanc and Riesling varietal bottlings.

Being that much closer to the Sonoma Coast and Russian River AVAs, the towns and wineries we toured last Saturday provided plenty to satisfy said jones (didn’t Said Jones used to be on “The View”?).

Our first stop, at the crack of 9:30 a.m., was Merry Edwards, and a civilized tasting held in what we dubbed “The Board Room,” a sliding-door alcove off the main entrance. Meredith Edwards, nicknamed “Merry” in college, has been a driving force in Cali winemaking for decades.

From fighting the “males only” vintners’ club back in the day when a female with an enology degree from UC Davis might land a gig as lab assistant, to a singular passion, fostered during a sojourn in France, to espouse a Burgundian sensibility, Merry Edwards has built a reputation that puts her in the illustrious company of your Heidi Barretts, Helen Turleys and your Zelma Longs.

Off to Lynmar Estate, and the gorgeous grounds surrounded by the estate Quail Hill Vineyard, with the winery facility up the hill. It also happened to be one of our VISA Signature comp-tasting participants. Nice juice; a sentiment echoed by an adjacent industry distributor hosting a pair of wine pros from South America.

Kathy and I kept Sebastopolicing the vicinity, stopping in at Red Car Wine Co., and Dutton Estate.

Red Car, named for the erstwhile vehicles that used to ply the erstwhile extensive Los Angeles trolley system, was founded by an erstwhile ‘80s film producer specializing in, then, straight-to-VHS product. Ah, I remember it well: ‘twas the time of action star Jeff Speakman’s visage staring out at you from the Blockbuster shelf (to paraphrase comic Kevin Pollack, “You have a Jew as an action star; Jeff Speakman screams, ‘STOP WITH THE KICKING!’ ”).

The all-caps denotes the name of one of Pollack’s ‘90s comedy specials. And, yes, K and I rented it, years ago, from a local Hollywood Video. Erstwhile, VHS and BTW. RIP.

With John, tasting host at Red Car when Kath and I stopped in, it’s a good bet that the winery and its Sonoma Coast-sourced product will, to use a totally inappropriate metaphor for an LA streetcar system, ensure that the rubber meets the road. Wonderful stuff in the glass.

But, damn you, J! He busted me on being Canadian. Of course, he used to play ice hockey avec beaucoup Quebecois, so he caught a hint of my accent that I have been trying, I thought successfully, to suppress for decades.

I mean, it’s not like I said that the Pee-Knot-Nwarrrr would go great with a Montreal Smoked Meat, eh. Though, it just might.

Jacques, je te dis: Maudit! But I do agree with you about Don Cherry: Encore une fois, je Dis: Maudit!

Hey, so on to Dutton Estate and their high-scoring, great-tasting stuffing. Apparently, there’s Dutton Estate and there’s Dutton-Goldfield: two separate joints, two bros who decided to pursue different projects after years of working together, one with a partner.

Dutton Estate is pretty hassle-free: a chill room that was signing up wine club members as we got our first pour. The facility is more than a little bit country, but the juice rocked.

A jaunt up to Forestville (no passport stamp required) treated us to the varietal bottlings up at Joseph Swan, where crush was in full swing, and the berries were coming in big time. Ironically, it was the only Zinfandel we picked up this trip, and sourced from the Sonoma Valley (the home of Naked Wines’ new tasting facility, Mayo, Ledson et al). Kathy and I got a glimpse of the glamorous world of winemaking as we watched bin after bin of grapes awaiting hand punch-down, by a true “cellar rat” assistant, working to add color to the vino from the skins.

We hit Taft Street back across the “papers, please, Mein Herr” border to Sebastopol, where ginger winery kitty Finnegan somehow led us to purchase a winery exclusive: A 2009 Russian River Riesling.

And then on to our Pinot ‘ppointment at Freeman, complete with a visit to the caves and an apres tasting. An awe-inspiring visit: gorgeous cellars and a welcoming, knowledgeable vibe from this quintessential Pinot and Chard house.

Our final stop was NPA (Natural Process Alliance), a loose amalgam of like-minded winemakers embracing a sustainable, green vibe on the Coast. Kath and were lucky to taste with Kevin, and the Salinia Sonoma Coast Chardonnay he poured was outrageous in its flavor profile.

Presidential debates time: “W” didn’t drink no more, although he “choked on a pretzel” while watching football on television; Milt Rooney is Mormon.

We can go home to Oakley, but whaddya serve at table to Bidzina Ivanishvili? Georgia on my mind. Sebastopol on my map.

Angels With Flirty Cases

Kathy and I motored up to Kenwood, California, in the Sonoma Valley to check in on our newest wine investment.

We first got hipped to Naked Wines through one of Kath’s myriad Internet specials. Originally a U.K.-based wine incubator designed to shoulder the marketing responsibilities for small-production winemakers, allowing them to do what they do best, Naked has made converts of us.

Offering a Web-based special of a full case of juice from all over the globe, crafted by experienced vintners who are perhaps fatigued of churning out product for bigger labels, Naked Wines has yet to disappoint us, a pair avowedly New World-centric (and West Coast USA, at that) in our palate preferences.

Our first case was, literally, all over the map. French Minervois; blends from Spain, Chile and Portugal; as well as small production lots sourced from Lodi, Napa, Sonoma and Monterey: around the world in weighty ways. And we were hooked: Kathy and I had both been put off in the past by a lot of Old World wine at reasonable (OK, low) price points; their rusticity and rough edges didn’t jibe with our (OK, my) need for approachability in a wine.

But from that first sip of Minervois to the final gulp of South American Carmenere, we knew that Naked invested in passionate winemakers we could trust. The vintners, freed from business constraints, could hook up with a responsible custom-crush-and-marketing mechanism. And said small engine could combine business savvy, a unique biz model and international consumer tentacles to, literally, pass the savings on.

To paraphrase the Los Angeles crack dealer in the alley off Franklin Avenue, across from my beautiful Hollywood Tower apartment, speaking to a neighbor years ago: “Hey baby, the first one’s free.”

But I digress. The “Naked” model (and the semi-provocative moniker is meant to, like that of chef Jamie Oliver, connote transparency, exuberance and simplicity) seeks to form an all-inclusive pool of worldwide “Angels”: investors who contribute $40 per month to their own wine account. Then, as banks used to do back in the day, Naked Wines invests these funds in their select group of winemakers, freeing them up just to do their thang. As Angels, one’s funds are still in their personal account to spend on the wine, with prices discounted some 40%.

Kath and I went all in. And then, two months later, with $80 in our Angel account, we found out that Naked Wines was opening a physical presence of winemaking facility and tasting room in the Sonoma burg of Kenwood.

These particular Angels may not have wings, but as long as the Prius holds out, we’ll be flying up to the Valley to rescue souls, even if the only two are our own.

Y’all, what a perfect New World outpost this location is for the U.K. vanguard’s arrival, escaping to Cali climes. And how nice was it for an ex-pat Canuck and a Washington state alumna to sip, sun and shade.

A gorgeously welcoming tasting room, although the tree-canopied brick patio ringed by mature vineyards kinda obviates bellying up to the well-appointed bar inside; a full custom-crush winemaking operation with all the toys, including oak barrels (your Angel dollar$ at work!), and a client list of vetted winemakers that keeps on growing (Karmically, it’s sorta cool to see that it’s not just the consumer who has to wait for a spot on the mailing list for a hot winemaking operation); and a staff that definitely knows their shi-ite from a list of three dozen global selections: Naked is the real deal.

So much keepin’ it real that Rowan Gormley, Naked founder (dare we say “The Nude Dude”?), late of an online beverage concern that became part of Richard Branson’s Virgin Wines, yet another Lego snapped onto the amalgam, was the gent strolling out to our table on said patio to pour us our Grenache Rosé from Navarra, Spain.

Check out Kath’s photo: Rowan (at right) uses the “thief” to hook us up with some young red in the winemaking facility. Yep, the Naked founder, newly relocated to Cali, takes the time to lead a few folks on a tour of the newly “Nude” digs.

Yep, we gladly spent our Angel bucks, draining the account. Then spent some more. Kathy and I rolled back home with two cases costing what might have bought us six individual bottles at the neighbors’ joints.

Man, it’s the kind of joint that you want to visit weekly, California highway tolls be damned.

And then, Rowan, the newly transplanted frickin’ founder of this enterprise, after taking us on das tour, invites us to “have a bit of lunch” with his fam at an adjacent table.

Damn you, Naked Wines: You draw a very crisp pencil line between stakeholder and stalker. We will see you soon.

OK, ya think I just crossed that 2H Ticonderoga pencil line?

The Yountain of Truth

We had a great time exploring some heretofore unvisited joints up Napa Valley’s western flank. Lots of names we recognized, but none of them on the main 29 drag.

After the Hess event, we headed back to our Spartan digs at Maison Fleurie in Yountville. I had one of the best sleeps I’d ever had out of town. OK, there was a moment when, at 3 a.m., the empty wine bottles from neighboring bistros hit the Dumpster (CSI: Yountville). Other than that, and a possible scavenger in said Dumpster trying to score bissel California Redemption Value bank, Kath and I have had many worse neighbors.

OK, I mess up the Internet directions from this boutique gem to our first appointment off Silverado Trail.

But the downtown Napa Valley town of Yountville (basically Washington Street) is OZ.

And so I try to follow Mapquest and Google Maps, in Y-ville that apparently prides itself on street signs on posts at stroller-level, rather than semi-quasi-sorta-kinda driver-level.

Yep, I don’t follow Kath’s carefully calibrated directions, because I messed up on the wooden posts.

Anyhoo, we end up off the twisty trail to Burgess, located in Angwin, a Seventh Day Adventist conclave that abstains. I mean ABSTAINS. 

Burgess’ tasting guru, Mike, was the king. We started out overlooking the spectacular scene featuring the water that provides Napa with its aqua (see Kath’s photo), and then tasting the all-red portfolio that is now Burgess.

We bought a Burgess Merlot and a Napa Grenache. Rarely does a Cali Merlot put the boots to our Washington state varietal allegiance. The Burgess bottling triggered a vinous ‘Nam flashback, man.

So, we’re heading home, and south is a couple of joints, back on Washington St. in Y-ville that K had hooked us with before the white-knuckle drive that always becomes my trip home.

Girard is great; we’ve praised them before. Disruptive road construction right in front of their tasting room must be driving them bugs. We dig the wines, but, just as a winery becomes “yours” if the hosts are cool, the opposite reigns as well. Our Lot 18 discount card got us the free tastings, but dude neglected to give us the one-time percentage discount on purchases. We phoned, when we got home two hours later, to hip him to the “inadvertent” slight; he was a snot to Kathy, telling her that she’d have to return in person to make the adju$tment (Pity our pal from Philly on the flight home).

All was made right a day or two later, when Kevin, our host on our first visit months ago, phoned me at the house to waive any and all (all!) charges to the card. Class, man. And that’s why Girard is not a write-off destination.

So, back to the present in Yountville; we stashed our Girard purchase in the hatch of the Lisa Marie, and then walked past Chef Thomas Keller’s French Laundry garden. We were a shade of envy more green than a New World Sauvignon, considering our poor raised beds chez Oakley.

We had a reservation a few blocks down Washington, at Ma(i)sonry. It’s a wine collective-slash-art-gallery specializing in artisans both mixed-media and Meritage. Kath and I were so fortunate to be attended to by Daniel Orrison, Director of Hospitality; a moniker could not be better engraved on a business card.

Our Internet deal allowed us a restricted tasting; Daniel took us off the grid and all over the map, pouring juice based on our broad preferences. A couple of succinct questions, then a wine hook-up from a voluminous list of winemaking partners.

All outdoors. All surrounded by outrageous sculpture.

Cheers, General George Yount. I know for certain that this was not what you envisioned while reaching for that scabbard.

But, sir, well, dot dot dot.

Appointments With Destiny Redux

Napa. Tasting room appointments. Two of the $carie$t words-slash-phrases ever uttered.

Kathy did the research, and off we were to Spring Mountain, up the hill to the west of the Napa valley. We had such a blast on the other side, up Pritchard Hill east of Silverado Trail, that we had to do the do.

OK, one thinks about appointments to taste 95-pointers in a rarified atmosphere well above The Valley.

Welcome to Keenan and a Spring Mt. estate tasting hosted by Laura and pup Scrappy. Not a frill in sight, and Laura was the coolest. Didn’t hurt that the Keenan juice was tasty. Laura even sent us away with ripe figs from the site trees.

Hit Domaine Charbay up the mount. Lucinda led us through the distilling process, and then hooked us up with some of their still wines (as opposed to wines from the ‘still’). On the way to the sermon on the (Spring) mount, we noticed Terra Valentine, an appointment-only winery a couple of hairpin turns south of Charbay. Lucinda called on our behalf for a Valentine rendezvous in an hour, so we repaired to the garden for lunch, a Port-style wine and a cigar. Eleven-thirty ayem, surrounded by Buddha’s Hand citrus and a cloudless blue sky: And how was your morning?

Terra Valentine was outrageous, man! It’s a crazy quilt of a stone fortress built by a self-sufficient European émigré described candidly by Blake, our tasting host, as, well, a “nutjob.” An uber-crisp Riesling on the rock balcony looking down onto the Napa Valley floor merely set the scene. Blake next led us into our formal tasting venue, a sit-down room paneled in spare wood that William Randolph Hearst couldn’t use at his Xanadu down at San Simeon!

Nothing like a grand mash-up of Cabernet Franc and Charles Foster Kane, baybee.

Kath and I had a love/not-like vibe on the Mt. with our next winery, Pride. Guide Tracy was awesome, hooking us up to the fact that the winery straddles both Napa and Sonoma counties: Grapes picked in each county have to be weighed in same for tax purposes. (Check out the boundaries in the photo; and Kath and I used to think that Washington state masking tape on the floor [one side of the tape contained the cases of wine on which the taxes had been paid; the other, not yet] in a bonded winery was tough!)

Our final stop was with Charlie Smith at Smith-Madrone. He, with his bro, has been reclaiming this vineyard from the then-encroaching Madrone trees for almost a half-century. The conversation was frequently interrupted due to Chardonnay grapes arriving from the fields; they had to be tended. Harvest waits for no one. And old-skool is still in session. Beautiful.

Kathy had booked overnight lodgings at Maison Fleurie, a little joint in Yountville just behind restaurant Bouchon, a mere chanterelle’s toss from The French Laundry on Y-ville’s restaurant row. Extra savings for a tiny room chez Fleurie translated into freebie wine-and-snacks Snappy Hour in the brick-lined lounge, as well as a full breakfast in same the next morning. We had a great convo at Snappy Hour with some dude from Philly, who apparently is able to set up tasting appointments with winemakers all over the Valley. His wife holds the glass by the bowl, and he doesn’t seem to appreciate a lot of subtlety in the glass, though he talks a great game.

We pull out of the parking lot for our tasting event at Hess, only to find Homes pulling on a cigarette at the curb. Sigh.

So we get up the hill to Hess, just in time to hear the first set of Kit and the Branded Men, a Bay Area outfit kickin’ it honky tonk-style and featuring mucha-inked Kit Lopez, as well as Glen Earl Brown Jr.

Talked to winemaker Randle Johnson at the “Artezin” tasting booth; turns out that when we mentioned “Oakley,” he got all excited since he’d just talked to Frank Evangelho (of our ‘hood’s eponymous vineyard) that morning. His Artezin label under the Hess umbrella is poised for wonderful things.

We did not win any of the Hess raffle prizes, so we left in a huff. The huff did not start, so we got back to Maison Fleurie in the Prius.

We’ll talk again soon. Day Two was cool, too.

Labor Day: The World’s Our Oyster, Making Us Happy as Clams

This past weekend had Kathy and I keeping up with the Joneses: our frequent oyster joneses, that is.

It’s the second Labor Day that we’ve motored up northeast to the Tomales Bay Oyster Company, and their bacchanalian picnic site overlooking the bivalve beds in the eponymous inlet separating Point Reyes and Bodega “The Birds” Bay from the Pacific Ocean.

We had a lot of civilized fun in 2011, so Kathy thought that it had great potential as annual tradition. Man, was she correct.

The joint is so rudimentary that it’s downright sophisticated: Picnic tables on various tiers, each table with its own anchored charcoal grill; bags of Tomales Bay oysters, clams and mussels available for purchase (cash only; ATM onsite, FYI); you bring your own charcoal, wine or beer, utensils, condiments, citrus, and then go to town. And if you happen to forget anything except the booze, you can purchase it there.

We didn’t BBQ last year, but Kathy had, as usual, the master plan. First, it turns out that arriving 60 minutes after post time last year, and grabbing a free picnic table was veritably serendipitous (I think I wrote last year about an anxious couple hovering near us, asking if we were about to leave; tables were scarce). This year, Das RosenKathmeister left nothing to chance, and she even threw a wrinkle into the mix: We were going to BBQ, and bring Das Chimney.

OK, first things first. Directions: We swapped Mapquest’s vertigo-inducing (again mit da Hitchcock? Oy!) twisty-treat road warring for TBOC’s own breadcrumbs. We got there well before seafood-selling opening time, found prime parking onsite, and snapped up a wonderful spot adjacent to last year’s lair. Kath and I saw a crazy lot of “Reserved” signs on tables everywhere we looked; seems like the Co. has cracked down hardcore on clans who come in and try to commandeer multiple tables, sometimes using that old cinema trick of placing a coat (in this case, a bag of groceries from Trader Joe’s) on to the next table. TBOC’s rules push back: I guess that there is a cat that one Yelp commentator (take that with a grain of Coarse Kechil) took issue with for questioning an extended family of eight staking out three tables, while hopefuls behind the imaginary velvet rope for a table have parked their vehicles aside Highway 1, hoping that their tires don’t touch the solid white line, lest they get ticketed.

Guys, it was outrageously nice at Tomales Bay. Beautiful, cloudless sky, and K had a stash of cash for seafood purchases, as well as a picnic checklist of provisions to pack into the Lisa Marie before embarking on our Labor Day waterside feast:

Lemons.

Oyster-shucking glove.

Cutting board.

Paper towels & cloth napkins.

Ice from our freezer. Knives for cutting & spreading.

Baguettes, cheese, garlic, diced tomatoes.

Multiple bottles of chilled Muscadet Sevre-et-Maine.

Oh, and that aforementioned charcoal chimney. Now, I was scared. It’s a device that I can not believe that everyone does not use for a charcoal fire. Two sheets of newspaper (Ah, maybe that’s the problem. Damn you, digital media!), to fire the coals and we had our picnic neighbors inquiring about the device.

In fact, we saw folks at tables below fanning alleged flames, and then adding more petrol. The grills at TBOC were perfect for us to do the flue, while Kathy prepared the clams in a pouch of wine, tomatoes, garlic and parsley over the coals. Ten minutes later, the packets elicited open clams bathing in some nice aromatics and jus.

We brought games, too. Kathy had 3 Yahtzees and still lost. We did the two-person “Sorry!” game wherein each player controls two “Home” colors; I won that. This never happens; she usually whips my butt!

You guys, I was so afraid that my little newspaper in the chimney would offend these folks with petroleum starter. No worries. The burnt paper smoke dissipated faster than lighter fluid stench. And as mentioned above, the resulting gourmet meal “en aluminum” was delicious and attractive. In fact one passing TBOC staffer remarked, “Oh, that looks good!”

Life was good. Can’t wait for Labor Day 2013.

High Hopes & Low Production

It’s the next day in Cloverdale, and after a hearty breakfast at our fave, the Star, situated across the shopping center parking lot in front of the Super 8, we set out for our 10:30 a.m. appointment at Sky Pine Vineyards, home also to BobDog Wines, a label celebrating the now-deceased canine companion to proprietors Tim and Candy.

Sky Pine is Sonoma County’s highest winery, with an Alexander Valley elevation some 2,000 feet above the Russian River. No argument from Kathy or me: The tortuous roadway up to the summit where the winery facility is located has got to be one of the scariest adventures I’ve ever experienced behind the wheel. Twists and turns; old asphalt, gravel, then crumbling asphalt: I was white-knuckling it all the way, even before the directions suggested conquering one stretch of unpaved road either speeding up to 20 mph or utilizing 4-wheel drive.

The journey ended well at the winery atop Pine Mountain Road, with a warm welcome from Tim, Candy and Cabbie (short for Cabernet, and pictured above), a friendly old pup who couldn’t seem to wait to show us the best vantage points to take in the various blocks of all five Bordeaux varietal grapes terracing stunning views of the valley floor below us.

Some grape types are fussier than others when it comes to ripening, so it was fascinating to scope out the assorted terrain selected for each vine type, from 35-degree slopes to relatively gentle hillsides, but all necessitating hand-harvesting due to the topography.

And then it was into the cozy barrel room for sampling the literal fruits of Sky Pine and BobDog labels. Among a nice array of varietal bottlings, the 2009 Sky Pine Cabernet Franc and an ’09 BobDog Cabernet Sauvignon from vines grafted onto Merlot rootstock, were especially distinctive, offering up a flavorful exemplification of this unique mountain vineyard site.

Onward, and downward, automotively speaking, to the Old Roma Station, a converted rail depot for the old, and now-defunct, Roma Wines brand. Somehow, I still remember the Roma Wines jingle, maybe from my fascination with olde-tyme radio broadcasts and B&W television (My pal Jimmy Roberts was son of the first family on our block to have “color/cable.” I remember being invited over to watch “The Jerry Lewis Show”; some sketch with JL playing an archeologist, complete with pith helmet, has never escaped me. In color! Or, as an Ottawa, Canada lad should have exclaimed, “In colour!”).

Roma (my mom’s name BTW) Station is a cool one-stop shop for smallish tasting rooms. Pezzi King, not exactly boutique (we used to be members of their wine club when they hosted events at their erstwhile winery off Dry Creek Road), has just recently set up a small tasting bar in the Station, in the space that they previously used only as office space. It smacks of business forces: How can one be surrounded by tasting rooms, and then tell folks wandering around that one has nothing open to taste? Paperwork or a Pour: makes sense to combine.

Sapphire Hill, around the corner, featured an outrageous trove of varietal bottlings sourced from the valleys: Russian River, Alexander, Dry Creek and beyond. Very nice juice. We purchased a Sonoma County Zin managed by Dr. Valdez, and a Russian River Albarino taste untasted.

Had two especially, amazingly memorable experiences at das Station: Rebecca Allington hosted Kathy and I through a thorough flight at the Hudson Street Wineries, a co-op spotlighting ultra-small producers in one groovy setting. Savvy, funny (and apologetic that she was still tidying up from the special event the night before), Rebecca poured us a great sampling of these featured winemakers’ work. She also was impressed that I chimed in with trivia, a la Jeopardy, that apparently won me some sort of unofficial award.

I don’t remember (the wines were that good), but apparently I said something wherein the answers were:

Schooner

Beaulieu

Oh, that’s a famous dance company

And then we turn the corner chez Roma to Hart’s Desire.

Now, this chick puts the boots to “second generation.” Shea is a friggin’ goddess. The tasting room experience began with us wondering where the staff was, then wondering if the woman behind the stick really wanted to be here.

Shea was here, ladies and gentlemen. Man, was she here. Sounds like she is the parent trying to keep parents’ groove going. And it is a tasty groove, accentuated with a little Shea somethin-somethin. She has parties planned at das Station, featuring fam wines that are absolutely delicious, and have her personal hand- and bootprint. No slouch, her.

This trip was all about high altitude and cool attitude.

Room for all, don’t ya think?

The Sonoma Promised Land: Croquet, OK

Several lifetimes ago, when I was a struggling actor/comic in Los Angeles, I took solace in a couple of notions that gave me some goofy self-worth: I rented a cheesy converted maid’s quarters in Beverly Hills, and I joined the Beverly Hills Croquet Club.

Now, the club was a legit charter of the United States Croquet Association (USCA), an august governing body overseeing the tournament game which is an entirely different animal from the backyard version.

In those days, although my game was weak, my dues were welcome because I was one of the only members who actually lived in 90210, and the BH Parks & Rec department didn’t love providing services (and devoting an entire erstwhile lawn bowling court) at Roxbury Park to nonresidents wielding mallets.

I loved my Saturday morning matches, being able to walk to the park from my BH lean-to (I thought I looked so hot strolling down Rodeo Drive in my white togs, wicket-ly on a mission), to embarrass myself on the court.

During my tenure, I’d play against or, less frequently, with, members including Hollywood actors Cesare Danova and Maurice Marsac; Rhys, a published author who, at the time had just completed his manuscript documenting the search for Judy Garland’s “Wizard of Oz” ruby slippers; J.D. Salinger’s son, Matt; a good ol’ boy who lived in a trailer in Malibu, a la Rockford; and Bob, my fave partner, who made me a custom croquet mallet which I cherish to this day. R.I.P. Bob.

Now, know that almost all of these folks had dough. The number of times I heard them talk about USCA championships being held up in Northern California at regulation croquet courts at Meadowood in Napa, or Sonoma-Cutrer in, interestingly enough, Sonoma, had this Toronto transplant shrinking into the background faster than a drive-shot peel.

The other day, Kathy and I had an appointment for winetasting at Sonoma-Cutrer. And if the fact of multiple Chardonnays and a Pinot Noir, in beautiful stemware, on the patio at 10 a.m. doesn’t put you ball-in-hand (It’s a croquet term; whaddya think we’re running here?), the view overlooking the croquet courts should.

Cesare was right: none of Scorsese’s “Mean Streets” were in evidence at this oh-so-civilized venue. I so wanted to trot down to play some “hoops,” but was more than content to partake of some of the most distinctive, designated Chards to hit the glass. And, at price points in the $20s and $30s, there was absolutely no sticker shock. I’m already dreaming of our next visit to Sonoma-Cutrer. And I’d never thought that I’d say that the wonderful wine was a bonus.

Onward to Rochioli, a favorite Pinot producer which always sells out of its specialty bottlings of same to mailing list clients, but always has a couple of thangs at the tasting bar. It can be a dice-roll, and today featured, among a couple of other varietal bottles, a Valdiguie red which had recently been widely classified as Gamay until a visiting winemaker from France hipped them to their misnomenclature. Fact or fiction: I mean, it would not stop anyone from making the leap to Cru Beaujolais. Wrong grape, but still, what region: Brouilly? Julienas? Roll dem bones.

OK, so we’re off to downtown Healdsburg, a vibrant town square full of boutiques and boutique wine tasting rooms. A while back, we dropped in to what was once the Gallo tasting room; on that visit it had been transformed into a sparkling lounge, i.e., a “sparkling” lounge, featuring bubbles from the Boisset family.

It all came into perspective last fall, when Wine Spectator featured a cover story on scion Jean Charles with his wife, Gina Gallo, entertaining at their San Francisco joint.

We had a great tasting with attendant Jesse, bantering chez “JCB.” We bought $50 worth of Cremant. And then, Jesse had the Gaul to honor the 2-for-1 coupon. Whether it was Kathy or me, one of us got charged an $18 tasting fee based on the 2-for-1.

We may not have learned a lot while tasting and touring, but one thing that does slip out is that the folks behind the stick can do whatever they want to do: wave or waive. Just wish that JCB could have TCB.

That little bit of dosage would have ensured a return visit from us, and extended our history of purchases at the lounge. Two-fer or not, we may just walk on by.

Hit garagiste Roadhouse, a small Pinot Noir joint with a tasting room a few doors down. Glad we did: These guys are doing the do.

We left downtown to head a few miles west, to make our appointment at A. Rafanelli, a shrine to Dry Creek fruit. Man, this day we have never seen the pews so full: There’s a gate code that you must punch in; we did, and promptly had to back up for previous tasters leaving. Rafanelli has only two or three wines anyway; they’ll be the first to wonder whassup. A couple of head-on collisions on their driveway might figure it out.

On to Unti a mile away. Ran into Kate, who recognized us when she was pouring at Nalle a couple of years ago. Just goes to show that Tony being obnoxious and repetitive about his wine lore just might not doom Kathy and me to the back of the tasting bar. Again, they were packed, and we overheard a discreet staffer mutter, “Oh, they finally showed up.”

CSI: Sonoma.

So we check in to the Super 8 motel that we usually bed in. Look, whoever recommended visiting four wineries WITH a designated driver never did this right. Pal, we live two hours from this region; if you have to fly multiple hours to “Wine Country,” wherever that may be, you need just a cot and an ice machine.

We check in, and then hit a crazy tasting room north (North? We’re already out of das tasting loop!) of our Cloverdale Super 8.

Ulises Valdez has been tending vines, consulting on same, managing wine properties and, I’m only guessing here, wondering why he couldn’t do his own thang.

He did. And you don’t enter the biz without good grape sources.

This cat knows everybody: Watch his label. He’s wired.

See the USA, Start at Chappellet

Kathy and I had one of the best tasting experiences we have ever had up Napa way.

It was basically an “appointment only” thang that Kath set up, on a St. Helena road east of the easternmost main drag of Silverado Trail.

One of our Internet card/coupon deals hooked us up, a month-and-change ago, to RustRidge, a twisty-treat drive on a road that has never seen any days, nevermind better days.

We’ve posted a while back about the winery signs that we saw as we drove down the back nine. Some of those were the ones that K wanted to reach out to. Chappellet, Neyers, Gandona (an upstart poised to be the next cult juice) and Midsummer Cellars (headed by Rollie Heitz: yep, them Heitzes), all kickin’ it on the Pritchard Hill site east of The Trail.

We started by setting the alarm for 6 a.m. (not that we needed it with our kitties) to leave Oakley by 8 for our 10 a.m. appt at Chappellet. MapQuest estimated a 90-minute drive; we didn’t believe that it would be that quick. It was: We brought our Sunday editions of the Contra Costa Times and the San Francisco Chronicle (Kath loves all the coupons), thinking that our four tasting appts would never mesh.

We needn’t have worried: Appointment tasting is soooooooooooo different from bellying up to das tasting bar at a winery.

Kathy got through half of the Sunday ads in the Times, but only because we arrived 30 minutes early for our Chappellet rendezvous, up those crazy winding almost-real roads. Oh sure, man, it’s called Sage Canyon Road. But, as referenced above, we have to wonder how “Road” got applied to the county nomenclature.

Chappellet: an-oh-so-civilized tasting of estate Chard and Cab, plus a bonus Malbec, led by Don. The British say “Brilliant.” That must be a UK translation for “being seated at a communal vintage rosewood table in the barrel room. See: wonderful.” Chardonnay #1 is 50% malolactic in French oak; Chard #2 is 100%: Kathy and I were split on which one was brighter. We ended up buying both. Not sure what the Manhattan couple beside us was escaping with; they had a reservation at The French Laundry, for which they’d been waiting months. I picked up a little bit of their French convo, though Kathy noticed that they’d have to book to make their 11:30 reserv. We’ll always have an earlier love for this winery (the name is familiar on grocery shelves, even if the reserve juice is not), and no more for our discovery of their old-vine Chenin Blanc. Chenin, in the New World, has been usually chucked into a jug; Chappellet did it right. Alas, old vines are gone (See Kath’s photo of the remainder/reminder).

On to Neyers, up the road. I’d talked to winemaker Tadeo over a year ago, when Kath and I were trying to get a bead on Oakley-sourced grapes. Neyers has been trying to get out of the Zinfandel game, canceling a Pato contract. But, to belabor a “Godfather” reference, just when they think they’re out, they get pulled back in: this time with a Zin from our neighbor Tom Del Barba. He’s the dude who let me see his grapes’ Brix in the scope, and was so gracious on subsequent meetings. Neyers’ Tiffany led us on a wonderful tasting of whites and reds, ranging from the Sierra Foothills to the Santa Lucia Highlands, with perfect stops in our ‘hood at Tommy’s Zin off Laurel Avenue, as well as some Evangelho stuff up the road.

Our Sage Canyon Road trek continued with a stop at newbie Gandona.

Just an aside here, to mention the hillside. One always hears about the Napa cult wines, but one (well, me) always wonders where the Colgin, the Bryant Family, the Harlan stuff is. When in doubt, think “up a Napa hill.” You probably won’t go wrong. Gandona is probably the closest we’re ever going to come to a cult wine mailing list: They’re new, but with Philippe Melka blending the two bottling$, they ain’t cheap, a$ befit$ $ome of their pricey neighbor$ on Pritchard Hill. Co-owner Manuel Pires (see photo) was the sweetest host, leading us on an al fresco tasting of the Cab-based selection duo, plus barrel sample en chai of the not-yet-released Porto-style Touriga Nacional.

Kathy and I finished up our Sage Canyon Road tour with a stop at Midsummer Cellars, just off Silverado Trail. Rollie Heitz met us at the gate, and hooked us up with a nice outside place setting, beginning with a refreshing Rose of Grenache, followed with a delicious pair of Napa vineyard-sourced Cabernets.


Off the beaten track of Highway 29 and Silverado Trail? Yep. GPS and cell phone reception? Nope. But for cultists and consumers alike, an appointment or two up the hill can truly show the passion and the pleasure.

How Gracious was My Valley

So, Kathy found yet another Internet tasting deal, this one being the “Sonoma Passport” card, entitling two people to various and sundry bargains of varying worth. With this card, it might range anywhere from free tastings, to upgraded tastings (after you’ve paid the regular fee), a whopping 10% discount on a case (sarcasm intended), or a straight-up cash refund on a purchase.

Unlike a lot of the other Web deals of which we’ve availed ourselves, this one was all over the map (that map still being Sonoma County), but it did allow us to hit the valley north of the city of Sonoma with relatively few worrie$.

It’s actually pretty comical these days at small tasting rooms. They’ve all been hit by obvious telephone blitzes from the sales teams at sites such as Groupon, livingsocial, Amazon and the like. What Kath and I are seeing is more and more wineries signing up for all of the pitches, and then having to check their files to see the terms of the offer that we just presented. It’s of the order of, “Is this card for the complimentary tasting or the discount?”

We used our newly minted Sonoma Passport as an excuse to head up to Cline to pick up our latest club shipment, this one featuring a Zinfandel from our Oakley old vines at Live Oak Vineyard a few miles up the road from the manse, before heading up to a few joints, old and new to us, in the Sonoma Valley burg of Kenwood.

Kaz Winery is the very definition of shoestring: small production, limited tasting room hours, and wine poured by the winemaker-slash-co-owner-slash bottle-filler-slash-barrel-rotator. The card gave us a dollar-amount discount on purchase, but we were charged tasting fees, so it was a wash. Kaz’s wines were very distinctive: unfiltered, unfined and sourced from neighboring vineyards. They were also remarkably acidic; cellaring wouldn’t be just recommended, it’s probably mandatory. I’ll be dead in a year, but Kathy can hip you to tasting notes on the Kaz juice after a few anni. As befits K’s photo, winemaker Kaz is indeed the cock of the walk.

Motoring north on Highway 12 to the Versailles that is Ledson, we stumbled into the outrageously capable hands of tasting station agent Robert Blade, a law student working part-time at the winery, but who should own the friggin’ joint. Knowledgeable, personable and totally engaging, Robert upgraded our upgraded tasting to a bacchanal wherein the number of pours were written in invisible ink, and even the basic tasting fee miraculously disappeared. When we mentioned that we were touring from Oakley in CoCo, his eyes lit up: That Mourvèdre, still spelled “Mouvedre” on Ledson’s label, was one of the next in our glasses. Taste-tay.

Over the years at tasting bars, we’ve overheard some crazy shi-ite. A nouveau riche admiring a wine in a green bottle, not a wine glass (“Oh, look at that wonderful color!”); a beautifully bossy tasting room captain yelling at bar hogs to make room for us (“We have people who want to actually buy, here!”).

So when we heard the ignorami at the other end of Robert’s station go all “I don’t like this at all. I live in Europe” in a New Jersey accent, no less, the ears of Kathy and me went all Scooby-Doo.

Props to Robert, ever the pro. Should probably stand him in great stead with a judge as much of an a-hole as this tasting dude, once Robert passes the other sort of bar. But one could see that his party flustered him, not that said party cared about impressing anybody in the vicinity.

When Robert approached our bailiwick to pour some other special selection from what looked like Cost Plus condiment bottles, I made some lame remark about Homes, living in Europe, pissed that he couldn’t get Olympic Games tix. I needn’t have bothered: At Versailles chez Kenwood, protocol, like King Louis, rules. Screw cake, man: Let them chew Mouvedre.

And we stop, on the way back home, at VJB, also in Kenwood. It’s a winery specializing in Italian varietal wines, and the Sonoma Passport entitled us to freebie tastings at its new tasting facility. Nice stuff, and, like Jacuzzi down the road, they offer a Prosecco initially made in Italy. It did not hurt the final leg of the valley trip that the Old World patriarch of the enterprise walked into the tasting room and toasted Kathy and me with a “Salut!” as we held our flutes of bubbles.

Summertime and Livermore’s Easy

So many seasonal festivals everywhere, and nowhere more so than in California, a state larger than most nations.

Our neighboring city of Brentwood just had CornFest; our ‘hood of Oakley celebrates the annual Almond Festival. There are county fairs, street fairs and weekly Farmers Markets. Chambers of Commerce and nonprofit societies statewide sponsor fundraising weekends. Hell, even the city of Martinez, a mere olive’s toss west of Oakley, celebrates its putative history as the birthplace of a classic cocktail, with the annual Martini Festival.

Lots of diversity in theme, lots of range in terms of vibe, but one festival constant: Bring cash. Plastic frequently ain’t no good at these clambakes. Greenbacks buy you scrip or raffle-type paper tix from the roll. Sometimes you even trade your scrip in for tokens, which are then accepted in exchange for your wine pour.

But gotta tell ya, a glug from a bottle of Sauv Blanc pulled from a bucket of ice water and free-poured into a plastic cup on a 90-degree cloudless Sunday afternoon can easily elucidate our funky U-Pick, Gnarly Vine, Bad-Bocce Playing, Previously-Neglected-Model-Home existence. Three years running, soon. And here we are.

Down south in Livermore, home to, if you’ve read Kathy and me before, the wineries that fuel our semi-annual Fall and Spring “Port Run's, and holiday open houses of their own device, we ventured farther west toward downtown to attend the “Art Under the Oaks” shindig.

Held at the Alden Lane Nursery, and cosponsored by the Livermore Art Association, it was a cool little fest celebrated over a quarter-century, offering wares from local artists and winemakers, as well as spotlighting a huge array of flora for sale at the gorgeously appointed nursery, laid out in concentric circles with paths interspersed to live music.

As Kath’s photo may suggest, the “Oaks” in “Art Under the Oaks” are the full-meal deal, shielding more than a couple of our fave Livermore winery tasting tables. We dipped into some nicely unusual varietal stuff from familiar stops on our Livermore tours. Rodrigue Molyneaux was offering a case special of Pinot Blanc and an outrageously minty Cabernet for pickup at the winery close by. Before heading off from Alden, we toured the citrus circle. Man, grapefruit growing in pots! Exotic oranges! Buddha’s Hand fully formed!

My envy was as green as our tiny Meyer lemons in the backyard here in Oakley.

OK, no particular order, but we got to RodMoly to buy the case of wine. Again I say OK, but when one has announced the intention to buy a case of wine (albeit for a deep discount of $100), would that one be expected to pay the winery tasting fee? As one may say at the London Olympics, “Gob smacked, mate!” Years ago, I talked about “Fee Creep.” Apparently, it’s here, too.

Did not hurt that the Steven Kent winery, umbrella to the Pinot-centric La Rochelle (the only Livermore wine club to which we $ubScribe), allows us to taste gratis. SK’s “Barrel Room” is an oh-so civilized respite: It’s intimate, yet a host leads you to a wood-topped tasting board atop a barrel, and you are looked after by a professional staff fully capable of pulling a few “extra” bottles out of their collective sleeve. Have not had a bad tasting there yet. Never would have thought that spendy SK could be our $afe harbor when trying to escape tasting fees.

Sometimes, that same little joy that you get at a free festival is worth the journey. That citrus was really green. But, with a smile on my face, I say so was that Sauvignon Blanc.

And I say so with taste buds that are more palimpsest than palate.

RIP: Rich Pato

Richard V. Pato, local Oakley grape grower, died July 10, 2012.

I would like to say that I interviewed him for the local CoCo blog, I have to say that a self-effacing phone call and a tractor-side handshake were all that I got from a local cat who grew the do, and told me that the widening of Empire Road, adjacent to his vineyard acreage, into a suburban thoroughfare was “a pain in the neck.” Yep, he actually said “neck.

Rosenblum Cellars, owned for years now by drinks giant Diageo, has committed themselves to vineyard-designated sites up and down Cali. “Pato,” in our burg, Oakley, was just one of them. I have a call in to Diageo to see what happens now.