Froot Loop-de-loops

Kathy here. In my online research I spend a lot of time looking for variations of “contra costa county wines” and “Oakley grapes.” I managed to find a message board that was cataloging old vineyards. In the course of the discussion someone mentioned how Toucan Wines’ newsletter announced their latest Evangelho Vineyard release. What? Another wine to search out and find. Of course, I immediately looked up their Web site and saw that all of the Evangelho Carignane was sold out. Oh well, I’d sign up for their newsletter.

Approximately a month later an announcement came through the e-mail — the Carignane had been released. I immediately got on the phone to owner Doug Timewell.

Doug met Frank Evangelho down near his ‘hood of Arroya Grande. Frank was helping a neighbor plan out a vineyard and got to know Doug’s wines. Later when a contract for the Carignane fell through, Frank offered the grapes to Doug.

Doug originally made Carignane from Frank’s grapes in 2006. Those bottles sold out immediately. He and co-owner Terrie Leivers have just 200 cases of the 2008 (Frank didn’t have enough grapes in 2009 as it was a tough year).

I asked Doug about the eminent domain seizure of Frank’s property. He said that Frank was able to harvest his grapes in the year in question (hooray), but the whole thing was so hard on Frank that no one asks him about it. Frank, here’s to you. Your grapes make some tasty juice.

Doug’s Carignane has an amazingly high alcohol content of 15.9%, but you would never know it. It has a nose of blueberry pie with a bit of clove and cinnamon. There is a nice acidity to balance out the fruit and the wine has beautiful long finish. Tony picked up a bit of pumpkin pie spice (nutmeg, clove and cinnamon) and got a bit of pie crust in the mouthfeel. My biggest note was mmmmmmm.

Nightmare Town (1948)

Well, like any Sam Spade-styled Pinkerton agent on the case, I guess it’s time to report our progress on the case to sleuth out owners of, and winemakers using fruit from, the century-old, gnarly vines cropping up everywhere in our little city of Oakley, California.

Truth be told, the only thing hard-boiled about my detective work is the egg on my face. Oh sure, we’ve had a few small breaks with some Cline properties (e.g., Big Break vineyard, ironically enough), and we’ve been able to pinpoint a few local properties which appear on some wineries’ labels as vineyard designates.

They say that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and it’s true: Ignorance does indeed have a certain blissful quality to it. Kath and I started by noticing ancient wine vines everywhere we turned; an Internet search for Contra Costa County narrows down a list of local vineyards by name: Some appear on wine labels, some don’t. The puzzle is to locate the vineyards that do; and for the ones that don’t, figure out not only their location, but which wineries buy their grapes.

Either way, the aim is to find the wines, and drink our way through our local acreage.

Then there are the complications. In one instance, we have a list of local vineyards that we’ve never heard of (Ghidossi? Madruga?); in another, we have a tip about what an intriguing location is planted to, but no owner/vineyard name (a plot of old vines directly beside the Oakley post office is, according to Erin Cline of Three Wine Company, planted to Alicante Bouschet, a juicy, old-skool blending fave). Who grows it? Who buys it? Where can we purchase wine made from it?

These two instances were the exact circumstances precipitating our “Mission to Massoni” caper. Kathy had downloaded some tasting notes for Cline Cellars’ 2008 “Cashmere,” a Rhone-style blend of Mourvèdre, Grenache and Syrah. According to Cline’s notes, the Grenache is sourced from both Big Break and Massoni vineyards, both in Oakley. We had no idea where Massoni was located, so we motored up to Cline’s Sonoma tasting room to solve the mystery.

No one on staff could tell us where the Massoni property was.

Ah well, the 2008 Cashmere offered up a look of bright cherry and a great nose of inviting, typically Grenache bright fruit with a whiff of smoke. The zippy acid paired with black fruit on the front nine mingled with just a touch of earthiness. Long on the backstretch, too.

Cashmere was a cozy diversion, but Massoni was still MIA. Our Riedel empty, we were back on the case.

Cline v. Chateau Ste. Michelle: The Great Mourvèdre Smackdown

As noted earlier, Kathy and I transplanted ourselves from Seattle to the tiny East Bay city of Oakley. One of the largest wine playahs in the nation is Ste. Michelle Wine Estates, parent co. of the Chateau Ste. Michelle brand, and its palatial winery/tasting room/event facility/offices in Woodinville, just north of Seattle, Washington.

CSM’s wine club is a true class act, with a free annual wine-soaked outdoor concert for club members, and frequent limited-bottling club selections featuring small lots of varietals sourced from their contacts and vineyard holdings all over the state.

They’re a big, big corporate outfit, but their wines and customer service render them downright boutique.

For the last few vintages, they’ve bottled a Limited Release Columbia Valley Mourvèdre, which we’ve enjoyed, if only for the novelty and winemaking commitment to a varietal unusual for the Pacific Northwest. Unlike those in our Cali ‘hood, “old vines” in Washington state are in their early 30s, and the explosion in Rhone varietals specifically is younger still. It wasn’t that long ago in WA, that when a winemaker decided to bottle a varietal Cabernet Franc, it was downright exotic! So when CSM decides to put their winemaking muscle behind a Mourvèdre, hey, we’re there!

The 2006 Chateau Ste. Michelle bottling was a nice effort, exhibiting a few “look at me” qualities of earth, smoke and tannins.

And then Kath and I got it into our heads to compare this Pacific Northwest newbie with Cline’s 2008 Ancient Vines Mourvèdre made with grapes from their vineyard holdings in our neck of the woods. I wasn’t expecting something from century-old vines to be this smooth, though a couple of Pinot Noir-like notes (tar, rubber) punched through. It’s nice and bright on the palate, with sour cherry and blueberry juice components relaxing into a mocha vibe. The Cline was elegant and totally integrated.

It made the CSM taste simple and rustic, a complete role reversal for the city slicker and the grizzled farm hand.

The Big Knockover (short story; story collection edited by Lillian Hellman 1966)

Take a gander at Kathy’s photo of Ledson, a hunka hunka pile o’ tourist trap located in the Sonoma Valley on Highway 12 up to Santa Rosa.

Speaking of Santa Rosa, Kath and I attended a free screening of Hitchcock’s “The Birds” last night, projected on a screen set up on the greensward at Oakley City Hall, as part of our burg’s summer program. Just as creepy as I remembered it growing up as a kid in Ottawa (Canada’s capital, bien oui — which is French for “eh”), but taking on new significance since we now live in Northern California. The avian attacks begin in Bodega Bay and by film’s end have “migrated” south to Santa Rosa, our longtime entrée to Dry Creek and Russian River Valleys in Sonoma wine country. Apparently the film’s ambiguous ending could have been freakier: Hitch reportedly had a final frame depicting the Golden Gate Bridge covered in crows/gulls/ravens, but it was scrapped due to budgetary constraints.

Coming full circle, North Bay to The City: When Kathy and I lived in San Francisco in 1998, we did rent a car to escape to Sonoma. At that time, Ledson castle was just under construction; tasting was in a double-wide adjacent to what looked like cross between the bombing of Dresden, and Camelot.

But here’s the punch: Rumor had it that part of the financing came from a partner who tried to use drug dough, and that the DEA had stalled construction. OK, this was 1998, and I don’t really know the do, but we WERE tasting premium wine in a trailer. I remember the story being better than the wine, but 10 years later, I’m very confused.

“The Castle” is one of those destination spots, just the way it was planned, lo a decade ago. Limousines full of bachelorette parties drinking Cosmos enroute, stretch Hummers disgorging frats and sororities: all parties perfectly content to stumble past the signs admonishing them that only food and drink purchased on the property will be allowed. No prob; $15 for a tasting, providing that the pourer deigns to lock retina with ya.

The real deal is that Kath and I found out that Ledson, with no distribution (everything is sold onsite), had made some juice from our Oakley ‘hood. We wanted to confirm that the bottles in the wine shop labeled “Contra Costa County” were, as researched, from Oakley vineyards.

In Ledson’s galleria, selling cheese, olives, pickled vegetables, merch and, oh yeah, some wine, Kathy and I found some Oakley stuff not available anymore. Dude, we found a 2002 Petite Sirah labeled the specific-but-not “Contra Costa County,” our first clue that the wine might come from vines in our ‘hood.

We wanted to confirm the provenance of these Petite grapes, and were told to confirm with tasting room dude “Leon” (not his real name; that was “David”) where the grapes came from. We were told, CIA-I-could-tell-you-but-I’d-have-to kill-you-style” that he could not tell us the origin of the grapes. We said that we were from Oakley, and he admitted, reluctantly, that they were, indeed, from an Oakley vineyard.

“Leon” could not divulge whence the grapes came. Our whole deal is that these vineyards are already anonymous; Ledson, hook a bruvah up.

We kid, because we love.

The 2002 Ledson Contra Costa County Petite Sirah is crazy. It’s got an opaque ruby garnet look, with a nose of cane fruit and Mexican molé spice and blueberry. This stuff continues on the tongue, with a touch of cardamom, integrated into an elegance I’d have never thought possible. Petite never seems to get the love.

Kathy and I posted a while back about some Cline vineyard properties that are named after the Oakley streets to which they’re adjacent. Seeing old vines on Big Break Road made easy work of solving the mystery of where the grapes for Cline’s Big Break Zinfandel come from — no further questions, Your Honor.

Likewise their Bridgehead Road Zin probably was sourced from the old parcel on (dot, dot, dot) Bridgehead Road?

But the trippy thang is that both vineyard parcels were originally part of a huge agricultural land parcel bordered by Bridgehead Road to the west, and Big Break to the east, and purchased by chemical giant DuPont in 1955. Eighty-nine acres along Big Break were sold to Cline, as were 79 acres along Bridgehead, the two vineyards divided by tracks for the Santa Fe railroad.

But from 1956 until 1997, DuPont used virtually all the remaining acreage to erect a manufacturing base for the production of such agriculture-friendly goodies as anti-“pinging” gasoline additive tetraethyl lead; their patented refrigerant Freon; and the ever-popular white pigment, titanium dioxide.

Currently, with DuPont having shut down production years ago, and almost all manufactories on the site demolished, the vast property has been the target for myriad redevelopment plans with the City of Oakley, but the current economic climate seems to have stalled the dream.

Even trippier is a draft of something called the River Oaks Crossing Specific Plan, sponsored by the City of Oakley and the Oakley Redevelopment Agency, and which Kathy found online. Dated September 2007, this proposal provides a detailed blueprint for, basically, paving over the entirety of Cline’s old-vine Bridgehead Vineyard (acquired by the family when DuPont sold it) in favor of, among other mixed use, big-box retail: a Wal-Mart was said to be shovel-ready.

Man, between neighbors such as DuPont and Vold-Mart, I’m surprised that Cline’s Big Break Zinfandel didn’t glow in the dark, or exceed the RDA of lead in someone’s “Reedle” wine stemware from China.

Gawd, I need a drink.

And what better, this Memorial Day, than Cline’s 2006 Bridgehead Zinfandel from (insert Walter Brennan chuckle here) “the ol’ DuPont spread. Heh heh” ? It’s got a plumy garnet look, with a slight bluish tinge at the edge and a nose of blackberries, brambles and mocha. There are notes of earth and smoke, and a nice racy tartness on the back nine. “The miracles of science™,” indeed.

We suspected that we were rushing the season, but when Kath and I drove by Papini Farms in Brentwood last weekend, and saw the apricots hanging from the trees, we knew that we had to check it out. After a quick tally of our mutual dough (all the U-Pick joints seem to be cash-only), we grabbed a bucket and came away with a couple of pounds of golden aps, as well as some Bing cherries. The first-of-the-season apricots are ripening nicely on our kitchen island, and the cherries barely lasted until the first commercial break during “Property Virgins.” (BTW: Don’t you hate when some first-time homebuyer thinks he’s being smart by proposing an insultingly lowball offer? Hey, mofo, hope you like that stainless steel fridge you’re eying, ‘cause the box it came in is where you and “babe” are going to be living.)

The great apricot adventure intrigued Kathy to try a funky tasting. We’ve posted before about Cline’s Oakley fiveREDS blend from local old vines. But, surprisingly, Cline bottles an Oakley fourWHITES, the 2008 comprising Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon, Malvasia Bianca and old-vine (70 years) Palomino. I never thought of our ‘hood as white wine acreage, but, apparently, we got some. In the glass, it’s all pale hay and straw colored, with the nose reminiscent of tropical fruit: pineapple and, yes, apricot! It has a decent balance of plumpness in the mouth and acidity on a medium finish, with a very slight metallic edge.

On the Way (1932)

Had a great, enlightening telephone chat the other day with Dave Parker, winemaker and partner with his wife, Shari Simon, of Parkmon Vineyards, a super-small winery run, literally, out of their garage. They’re located in Moraga, California, a tony suburb a few klicks east of Oakland, and, by extension, San Fran just west of the bay.

When a consultant pointed out that the one-acre hillside behind their house would be great for grapes, Dave’s home-winemaker chops kicked into commercial gear in 2005: Today, he’s the prez of the Lamorinda Winegrowers’ Association, a band of small farmers, home winemakers and commercial grape growers numbering around 85 at last count. All tending miniscule parcels within the area encompassing the suburban cities of Lafayette, Moraga and Orinda. (BTW: Orinda’s beautiful old Streamline Moderne cinema is the new home of the California Independent Film Festival, and recent special events have included a Q&A with Tippi Hedren after a screening of “The Birds,” Mary Badham (“Scout”) post-“To Kill a Mockingbird,” and last night, Oscar-nommed Candy Clark was scheduled to do the honors after “American Graffiti” unspools.)

But what really intrigued Kath and me was the discovery that, among their 15 or 16 bottlings sourced from grapes up and down the state (the Rosenblum model was a big influence, notes Dave), Parkmon has vineyard-designated a few varietals sourced from our ‘hood.

Oakley, Brentwood and Antioch are nowhere near Moraga, but Dave bottles some tasty juice from … Evangelho! Previous posts and photos have shone the light on Frank’s vineyard, but check this out:

Dave Parker has always loved Rhone varietals, and grooved to Napa-based winery Jade Mountain’s forays into Mourvedre and Rhone blends. Now, Napa is Cabernet country, so it’s obvious that this branching out was due to its winemaker, Alison Green Doran. And where did she source her Rhone varietals for these bottlings? Frank Evangelho! Oh, another thing, strictly FYI: Alison has moved on from Jade Mountain, and Jade Mountain no longer does an Evangelho Vineyard designate. I’m just sayin’.

So, Dave boldly calls up Alison, explains his sitch, and Alison hooks him up with Frank Evangelho! Frank agrees to give him a few rows of Carignane and Zin, and they have been operating on this deal for a couple of years now. As Dave told me, “We agree on terms in May, then Frank calls me when his bigger clients are picking. I show up with my micro-bin; they pick my fruit in 45 minutes, then spend the rest of the day picking for the big boys.”

Kathy and I have a few Jade Mountain notes to post soon: an ’06 Evangelho Mourvedre, and both the ’06 and ’07 “La Provencale” blends (available at Cost Plus World Market at a bargoon price), all of which, I’m pretty sure, were made under Green Doran’s regime.

And what has Dave done with the legacy of Evangelho fruit for his and Shari’s label? An elegance that I would never have thought possible from old skool vines. Parkmon’s 2007 Evangelho Carignane exhibits a nice, rare blueberry color on the robe, furthering the adjectives on the nose --- blueberries and violets--- (Kath even noted Gummi Bears) --- with a great mouthfeel of elegant acid and hints of cloves and tar (not a bad thing!).

The corkscrew is on deck for the Parkmon 2007 Evangelho Zinfandel.