Shalom, Chelan!

Hey, guys, we just got back from Kathy’s 30-year high school reunion in Omak, Washington. This is a burg at the far northeast of the state, an hour from my Canuck border into Penticton, British Columbia.

When we lived in the little house in Seattle, we were minutes from SeaTac airport; Kath on a biz trip could phone me at the house to pick her up, and I’d be there as she wheeled her carry-on to the arrival curb.

Not here chez Oakley, mein friends. One hour minimum driving to get to a Park&Ride lot at Oakland airport, then the livery gavotte to TSA humiliation.

Kathy’s brilliant plan (no sarcasm; she has brilliantly researched it), is based on prices. She had been watching one-way flight segment pricing, trying to hook up with the best fare. At a certain time, one must pull das trigger. Kathy done good.

Flying closer to the reunion would have cost much more; renting a car at the airport would have cost $100 more. And we wanted to go wine tasting, which, if we wanted to buy, would have cost us mofo in shipping.

Southwest! The one last airline that allows one to check 2 “bags” free of charge. We checked 3 empty Styrofoam professional wine shipper boxes on the flight up to Seattle (between the two of us), with the intention of shipping them back full.

We get the car off-airport-site, in Georgetown and, in an effort to break up the 5-hour drive to Omak, we stop to taste around Lake Chelan.

Lake Chelan is a real region: multimillion dollar vay-cay residences. But damn if the surrounding wineries did not band together and petition for a distinct American Viticultural Area (AVA). For AVA status, one must prove to the feds that your soil, weather, moisture and sun exposure differentiates from a neighbor.

And I am so envious that Oakley can not get it together like this. Farmers, unite! (Even if you have to hire a winemaker).

We tasted some old faves on this leg, such as Tildio, but could not believe this model of lake, vineyards and view, all at Lake Chelan AVA. Sigh

Signature Required; Must be Over 21

Hey guys, sorry if it sounds like I’m shilling for VISA, but Kathy and I had a great excuse to wear a few numerals off of her new VISA Signature card this past weekend. We’d had such a great experience up north in Healdsburg, Sonoma County, with program-participating tasting rooms up there welcoming us with open bottles, that we thought we’d check out the Signature program wineries a bit farther south in the county.

Good thing we didn’t run into some of these joints the first time, a few weeks ago, that we mentioned Signature; we’d have blown off the whole program and demanded our annual VISA fee back.

I think I wrote last time about Kath and I preparing a script, fully expecting that we’d get blank stares when we mentioned that the Sig program entitles us to waivers of normal tasting fees and, in some cases, purchase discounts (“Well, we have the VISA brochure, and you’re listed as being a part of the program. We’re going to buy, so can you honor it?). Our first stop last time, in Healdsburg, was J Vineyards, and they not only knew the program, but treated us as if we owned a San Francisco wine distributorship. VIP ASAP all the way. In fact, we visited dozens of joints that weekend, and all but one threw open the doors to the Chamber of Secrets.

Last Sunday, not so much.

It all started with an e-mail notification from Cline in Sonoma that our quarterly wine club mix&match selection was available for pick-up. Last year, about this time, we’d divested ourselves of all our wine club memberships, and only recently $tarted tru$ting our finance$ to local fave$ we loved, and which would give us an excuse to avoid shipping charges as an excuse to take road tasting trips. Gotta love Northern Cali; that’s what I’m talking about.

So Kath had this cool idea to pick up our Cline (one of the two bottles was the Live Oak Zin from an Oakley vineyard located, interestingly enough, off Live Oak Avenue; that’s what made vineyard sleuthing so easy from Cline when we first started this blog thang), and then check out the fewer southernmost Signature-participating wineries that we hadn’t hooked up with when we went north last time.

Now, some of the VISA Signature joints listed close to Cline are notorious tourist traps. You know, capacious buses and super-stretch limousines full of bachelorette-party attendees sipping Cosmos from plastic cups in the back seats after they deep-throat that Viognier. So it’s no surprise that the closest Sig participant après Cline is a winery that seems more interested in trying to move merch than mouthfeel. Hey, it’s all good; even if Homes de Tasting Room sounded like he’d just awakened 20 minutes before his shift, he knew The Program. We bought our bottle of summer white big gulp and bailed before a sea of strapless sandals beat us up getting to the Lisa Marie.

It was actually a fun afternoon of tasting and touring in this Southee end up to the Sonoma Valley. But it wasn’t until, midway through the afternoon that we hit the emotional jackpot. OK, the setup probably promises more than it delivers, but, in wine tasting terms, this is dot, dot, dot.

OK, Kath and I dig. There are discrepancies. We got to Gloria Ferrer, but they were having a special event: tasting room closed. Dude, apologetically, offered us a coupon for a glass of wine on our next visit, even though our card SHOULD OFFER US MULTIPLE GLASSES OF WINE. All caps, so wrong; I’m sorry right now. But check out Kathy’s groovy, oh-so-centered-Diane-Arbus-like photo above. OK, Arbus-ish, but without the hairy dude. So, this is an “I Love You, I Hate You” winery joint, like that one hurdle in Healdsburg. It’s listed in VISA’s brochure; it’s absent from their web site. It’s listed as “Appointment Only,” And then, there are “We’re Open” balloons on a sandwich board. And they’re on our Sig list! If you can’t read the sign on the right, ZOOM in. Oh, this is not right.

“Tasting in the Barrel Room” point the arrows on the sandwich boards. We get to the front doors and walk through this great walkway lined with French oak barrels, culminating in a groovy, literally cool, lounge with couches and a tasting bar. Manager is regaling a party of six at the sofas. Homes at the tasting bar, talking to one person, tell us, as one winery (personified) did two weeks ago, that they have been trying to extricate themselves from Signature.

FYI, Homes at the bar made no effort to engage manager for our query. Manager finally stopped schmoozing party o’six, got the dope on the whole VISA Signature thing. He offered us a 2-for-1 tasting, saying something like, “Staffing and until we get the remodeling done.”

Declined. Oh, not by credit; by us.

But ya gotta know, we worked north to St. Francis from East CoCo County in Oakley. Rony Francisco Perez is a star. He pours at St. Francis but pours out more knowledge than wine. Homes can hook you up with Sonoma restaurants, and dude does not have to read a cheat-sheet.

Funny how you leave a region, a state, a province, or a country based on who you met. And that’s what tasting rooms are all about.

I’ll Meet Ya in Alameda

Hey, so the other day, Kath and I gassed up the Lisa Marie and motored over to our eastern county neighbor for a wine-and-food fundraiser for Alameda County’s Meals on Wheels program, held in the cavernous barrel room of our good winery pals, Rock Wall.

We’d never yet been able to visit Rock Wall, which occupies one of the many buildings on the vast, decommissioned Alameda military base site. Last December, the week before Christmas, Kathy and I ventured to San Fran for fresh oysters on the half at the Ferry Building, then hopped said vehicle for the jaunt over to Alameda and Rosenblum Cellars, a few steps from the ferry terminus. We got a bit more ambitious back then, walking miles to Hangar One distillery (well worth the blisters), but couldn’t bring ourselves to complete the circuit to Rock Wall in the distance.

This time, we eschewed eastbound water transport in favor of westbound asphalt for this amazing event. And obscure it was not: Hundreds of people paid the suggested $20 donation to get their drink/graze on. All ages, too, though we seemed to run into a gamut of seniors at our first few tasting stations of the cross; Kath said something along the lines of “There are more canes here than in an unpruned vineyard.”

What made this tasting such a standout was the mix of big boys and boutique, and the food fare that was several steps above the usual Dixie Cup/plastic spoon offerings. I mean, no one expects Kettle Korn at a wine tasting, but seviche? Son of a vich, it was good. One local restaurant was serving a tasty seasonal salad, and had a “balsamic girl” dress it for you if you so pleased. The best.

The wineries were an absolute revelation. I think that Kathy signed up for more mailing lists than ever in one session. Small producers who own no vineyards, but contract out to growers up and down the huge state of Cali. Obviously, with arrangements such as these, varietals, yields and maybe even survival will vary year-to-year. But it sure was exciting to taste some juice from a producer who got some Pinot from Paso Robles and vinifies same in a concrete bunker in Alameda. That’s putting the “b” in “subtle.”

Cool story, at least for me: One winery that was pouring their juice was one that had signage that Kathy would see every day when she was commuting on BART from Oakley to San Francisco. Although they were one of the small ones buying grapes on contract, their crush and production facility is located in gritty Oakland. Turns out that the winery owner had timed how long their winery signage was visible when BART daylighted out of a tunnel — four minutes — and that was enough for them to choose the locale. Market research and/or gut instinct: East Bay is incubating some exciting winestuff.

CornFest!

Every year our neighboring city of Brentwood holds CornFest, a fundraiser for local service organizations. It’s a big deal around these parts, with literally thousands of people attending the three-day event, a combination of carnival midway, beer and wine tents, exhibits, food and the usual laundry list of vendors, artists and retailers hawking their wares.

Agriculture is still a huge part of our region of CoCo County, and Brentwood corn is considered a true delicacy with its small, white kernels packing a super-sweetness that’s made it famous and sought-after around the state. Safeway even touts it in its advertising every season.

This year, Kathy and I decided to attend CornFest for the first time, at its new location just down the main drag from our house. We went on Saturday, though we were able to enjoy Friday night’s fireworks show from our driveway. It was a beautiful sunny day, and, after loading up on tokens, made our way to one of the corn booths for a delicious roasted ear slathered in butter. The adjacent condiment table was laden with everything from garlic salt, sea salt, chili powder, hot sauce — even a spray bottle of lemon juice. Kath and I dressed our corn, and then wandered over to the grandstand to listen to the cover band. Life is good.

One of the joys of these affairs is the small town vibe. In the wine tent, over a (plastic) glass of vino, we chatted for a good half-hour with a complete stranger. In another tent, a local dance school was presenting a student recital featuring some of the most adorable little girls doing their very best to keep to the choreography.

I guess that this “small town” thing is especially fitting since, at the end of this month, Kathy and I are heading north to Washington state to attend her 30-year high school reunion in the tiny town of Omak, located in the northeast corner of the state, near the Canadian border. It’ll be a trek, but should be fun to attend, once again, this low-key affair celebrating a part of Kathy’s life in the town where she spent many of her formative years.

We’ll fly into Seattle, and then rent a car for the five-hour drive to Omak, passing through the Lake Chelan wine region along the way.

BTW: The wine that we enjoyed at CornFest just so happened to be Cline’s Oakley Four Whites, a blend of a quartet of grape varietals grown in our own little burg. It was slightly crisp, with a nice round quality and a perceptible tropicality and apricot notes. Nicely chilled, this local juice was perfect on a hot July afternoon.

What a Segue: Heading for Healdsburg

Neither Kathy nor I desperately needed another credit card. But when planning a quick overnight wine getaway to Healdsburg in central Sonoma County and searching online for tasting room coupons, she stumbled upon the VISA Signature card offering, among other nonwine-related goodies, complimentary reserve tastings and purchase discounts at some 70 Sonoma winery tasting rooms. Sign us up!

We’d noticed a fair bit of tasting room “fee creep” up in wine country over the last few years. It’s why we virtually never venture over to Napa anymore. I liken the stages of fee creep to the five steps in an actor’s career:
1. Who the hell is Leon Keaton?
2. Get me Leon Keaton!
3. Get me a Leon Keaton type.
4. Get me a young Leon Keaton.
5. Who the hell is Leon Keaton?

We’ve seen fee creep, especially in Napa, devolve as insidiously:
1. Welcome to LK Cellars! Everything on the complimentary tasting sheet is open and available to taste; we also have a few reserves open under the bar.
2. Complimentary tasting list on one side of the carte, Reserve list (for a fee) on the other side. Fee refundable with purchase.
3. No complimentary list. Fee refundable with purchase. Parties of six or more please call ahead.
4. Fees not refundable with purchase of the two wines we are currently pouring 2 ounces of. Buses and limos prohibited.
5. Open by appointment only.
6. Closed to the public.

We’ve started to see a bit of Napa creep work its way over the mountains to Sonoma tasting rooms, and, though not nearly as brutal there, it’s probably only a matter of time before they play catch-up.

That’s what made the idea of the VISA Signature card so intriguing. The idea of merely saying that you’re Signature members to avoid tasting fees is brilliant!

Now Kathy and I do have to admit that we were preparing for a worst-case scenario of blank stares and questions of the “What’s Signature?” variety. Didn’t happen. Or worse, the ever-popular “Oh, we’re not part of that program anymore.” With one exception, that didn’t happen either (and to their credit, that establishment did backtrack to honor it for us).

Our first stop, J Vineyards & Winery, set the civilized Signature tone. I’m tellin’ ya, J’s red carpet must have been out for steam cleaning, because if it was on the premises, it’d surely have been rolled out for us when Kath merely uttered the words “VISA” and “Signature.” We were treated to a Stations of the Cross for oenophiles. First stop, a couple of light summer sippers; next stop, bellying up to the sparkling-wine tasting bar before retreating upstairs to the club lounge for a sampling of food and wine pairings. With the Signature program, J waives the spendy $20-per-person tasting fee. Our first winery stop, and we’re already up $40. Plus, they had a big blowout special on two bottles of their, excuse me, signature bubbly. We walked out the door with virtually free wine.
And so it went. One of our next stops up the road was at Foppiano, an old-skool producer specializing in Petite Sirah, and responsible for turning Kathy and me onto this varietal grape decades ago.

It was also at Foppiano that we engaged in our first of many conversations with strangers who would overhear us mention Signature, then either ask us about the deal, or reply that “Hey, I have a Signature card too; you mean we can taste free?” Foppiano was also the first place that gave us Signature swag.

Oh, and check out K’s photo above: Just as she’s about to press the shutter, more than a dozen wine tourists come skimming through the parking lot. All on Segways! In response to my amazement, one of the lead riders hands me a business card on the fly. Apparently, Segway of Healdsburg does guided tours, parties and, dig this: weddings!

All in all a great start to Day One of our “Tasting Fee, Tasting Free Tour 2011,” though that first day ended with an embarrassing call to Healdsburg 911, certain that our car had been stolen. Ummm, Kathy found it where I had parked it, and I, keeping details to a minimum, called the local authorities back to rescind the report.

After omelets the next morning at the local diner, we headed up to Geyser Peak to re-establish our wine club member bona fides. Nothing like sipping sparkling Shiraz and a flight of super-premium Cabernet in the members’ Reserve Room, which features a picture window overlooking the barrel cellar, all just after 10 a.m.

Funny how over a day of wine tasting, it’s very possible to see the same folks at different wineries, just not in the same order you’re visiting them. Gotta tell you about Sam and Jim, a couple who had driven up from Los Angeles in their Prius a couple of days before. Yesterday afternoon, at Clos du Bois, I spotted a couple of guys, one of whom could have been a dead-ringer for Drew Carey. Flash forward a couple of wineries, and Kath spots them at the end of the tasting bar at Francis Ford Coppola’s outrageously Disneyesque compound. (Is it a winery? A resort? A cocktail lounge? A restaurant? A memorabilia museum? Yes.)

BTW: thank das stars for our Coppola wine pourer, Emily, who, despite the tasting room being a complete zoo, had product savvy, a sense of humor, and uncanny Spidey-sense for an empty glass. I suspect that without her pouring for us, we might have spent our visit worrying that we’d get hit by a Klown Kar. Kathy made sure that her supervisor gave Emily some love on our behalf.

But I digress. So, one of our final stops on our Signature jaunt heads us toward downtown Healdsburg, to Simi. Who walks in but The Boys! Drew immediately remembers us from Clos and Coppola, and all four of us spend the next 45 minutes laughing and talking a mile a minute. Jim opens his wallet, pulling out probably a half-dozen credit cards, looking for the word “Signature” on one of them. No luck.

Then he casually mentions to our pourer that he’s “sort of” in the industry. Dude, you have to know that Kathy and I are totally envious of those in “the industry.” Sommeliers, restaurateurs, retail wine buyers, distributors, writers, sometimes just an assistant manager at the local Booze Castle: We see these cats all the time at tasting rooms, getting the special bottles from under the counter, and the undivided attention of a tasting room manager. Now, in my heart, I know that bloggers are probably considered the red algae bloom of wine writing, but, sometimes, I feel as though I have my nose pressed up against the window looking in.

Jim is House Manager for the frickin’ Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in downtown Los Angeles. I’m guessing that duties might include ensuring that patrons have something to drink at intermission.

Oil and Spice (and Other Things Nice)

There’s a cool little shop down in our neighboring far East Bay city of Brentwood, and Kathy and I drove out yesterday to check in.

We hadn’t visited Brentwood Spice and Olive Oil Company in over a year, so we were definitely long overdue. Every once in a while, we’d run into proprietors Dawn and David at the occasional wine tasting around the region, and we receive their monthly e-newsletters, but I think the last time we saw them on their own home turf was when Kath was in desperate need of a couple of teaspoons of cardamom seeds for a recipe: Selling even minute quantities of a huge array of bulk ingredients, it was Brentwood Spice to the rescue!

As pioneering olive growers and producers of CoCo County olive oils, and prime purveyors of culinary seasoning, Dawn and David’s endeavor represents the ultimate marriage made in foodie heaven; not just in business, but in real life, too.

Relatively recently, the proprietors have added wine to the spicy mix. Kathy and I got to check it out for the first time, and we were truly impressed with the several dozen selections representing a worldwide swath at great price points. One of our favorite varietal grapes is Lemberger. It was supposed to have been Washington state’s answer to Zinfandel years ago, but the name, like the wines made from it, never caught on up there. Well, darned if Dawn and David’s small shop didn’t feature a Lemberger from Lodi of all places! It was one of the only Lembergers we’ve seen since we moved to CoCo, and pretty well the only local one we’ve encountered.

Another treasure we walked away with was a dessert Zinfandel currently (currantly?) sporting the label of “Brentwood Cellars,” reflecting D&D’s newest venture: their own wine line. This particular 2003 vintage bottling was produced at an established winery in nearby Martinez, and sported a different wrapping until David and Dawn were able to jump through all the government hoops which regulate what needs to legally appear (or not appear) on a wine label.

The 2003 Zinfandel Paraiso California Dessert Wine is an 18% sweetie now adorned in new Brentwood Cellars duds. It exhibits a nice unctuous nose of dried plum hinting of cloves. It’s a tasty mouthful of plump raisin and big fruit in balanced sweetness on a long finish.

Dawn told us yesterday that she was recently given about three dozen Zin clippings, which she plopped into the ground in their backyard; they’re all now bearing blossoms. Too bad we’ll have to wait a while for the wine made from that fruit. Let the countdown begin.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Earwig

So, Kathy and I are in the second full year here at the Oakley ranch, and we’re trying to learn from last year’s gardening mishaps. The sun can be intensely unrelenting during prime growing season, and temps routinely top 90 degrees.

Last year, Kathy constructed several raised beds and we placed them on our south-facing front lawn. I couldn’t wait to pop the produce and the citrus trees into the amended soil, and then let Cali show us the bounty.

Mutiny on that bounty, dude.

By August, the Meyer lemon branches looked like they came from a nursery in Hiroshima; likewise, the fig tree was scorched like something from a Cormac McCarthy novel.

We did place two beds in the backyard, and had a bit of success with some select varieties of tomato and a few herbs, so when we took the plunge to put the crowbar into the wallet for a front- and backyard landscape design makeover in November, Kath opted, presciently, to move all the raised beds to the back, and go for a drought-friendly design out front.

After 2011 rains that cut U-Pick cherry season short, and unseasonably chilly temperatures that had one roll down sleeves to the forearm, the Oakley ‘hood finally has its Fahren-chutzpah back: The thermometer is routinely bumping the high 80s and 90s these days.

Like last year, our raised-bed gardening in a new locale was an experiment. Unlike last year, the consolidation of all the beds to one location in the more-temperate backyard seems to be relatively successful, knock on untreated lumber.

We posted earlier about Kath’s adherence to the bed allotment suggested by author Lolo Houbein in her tome “One Magic Square.” After 2010’s dismal heat failures out front, we’re actually overwhelmed at how lush all the beds out back are looking this year. Kathy’s combo of starts from seeds and from small pots has created a jungle out there. Famine in 2010; feast in 2011. While last year we had to hope that the eggplant would form out front, today Kath worries that she should have culled more healthy growth weeks ago!

And then, natch, there’s Earwig and the Angry Inch. Same backyard critter that vexed Kathy last year; it’s driving her, literally, bugs, today. Last year, we’d had a small, albeit healthy, crop of greens one day; next day, decimated. Actually, check that: “decimated’ literally means “reduced by 10%.” This mofo bug licked the plate clean and asked for 200% seconds.

Now, you have to understand that I have what is called a “black thumb.” I move a plant from the crappy clay “soil” that makes up our front yard into a rich potting mix? It’s dead in 12 hours, maximum. Dude, I can kill mint.

A swarm of earwigs in our backyard beat me to it.

But here’s the deal: Earwig and the Angry Inch are back for an encore this summer — Kath goes out in her jammas with a flashlight; she doesn’t want to spray, but feels that she has to — and yet the garden, even with some earwig chomps, is displaying the green.

Don’t know whether it’s the concentration of raised beds in one location; maybe it’s the overfilling of said beds with a local potting mix, overseeding, or finally getting the planting right for the region? This garden gig will always escape me; everyone writes about how citrus in California is foolproof. I wish; see above: “mint,” re: “thumb, black.” I fear that I will never be able to tell Lemon Lady down the street that the only bag with I ever went haywire was, “You, lady.”

Or maybe the relative lushness of the garden conforms to the theory of “one for the earwig, two for the gardener”? But, you know, I don’t think that that gives Kathy nearly enough credit. She planned the relo of the beds, planned a schematic of what goes in ‘em, planned a watering sked.

And then, days ago, pulled up her first harvest. Her crazy China Rose Radishes, a funky varietal that look like carrots. They weren’t stunted like stuff out front last year; they aren’t some freaky root that underperformed. These suckers actually resemble the glam photo on the seed packet!

Thursday morning, after researching a few recipes the night before, Kathy got up early before work to prepare these China Roses for a quick refrigerator pickling treatment. While she was in her jammas.

And then, a couple of days later, part of her bok choy plot was ready for harvest. Check out the photo, above, of our wares for sale at our stand at the Brentwood Farmers Market (kidding; it’s just the “fruits” of Kath’s labors posing for a digital photo op on one of our backyard cocktail tables).

Last night, Kathy prepared a delicious Asian Beef Noodle Soup featuring star anise, ginger, udon noodles, and the bok choy from the garden. The soup was finished with cilantro, sriracha (that hot, red, chili sauce in the plastic squeeze bottle with the rooster on the label), and a side ramekin of her pickled mixture of China Rose radish, carrot, red onion and jalapeno (which jumped from the side right into the soup bowl). Chopsticks worked for me awhile, but only a big spoon could do the rich broth justice.

And what to drink with such aromatics? Well, K and I just happened, yesterday, to take an adventure to visit a small wine shop about 45 minutes west of us, wherein Kath stumbled upon an old fave from our old ‘hood of Washington state, specifically Woodinville, just north of Seattle. Chateau Ste. Michelle, in partnership with Germany’s Riesling guru, Dr. Ernst Loosen, has produced “Eroica,” one of WA’s consistently nuanced and elegant manifestations of said varietal. Fresh and minerally, with nose passes of lemon and a bit of apricot, the 2008 Columbia Valley “Eroica” Riesling was an exotic complement to a soup comprising its very own exotics.