Author: lgsjr

Contrasts in Places to Visit: California and Europe

The Places to Visit feature in Power Tasting is about the other things to do when you’re making a trip to somewhere in Wine Country.  Since most of our wine tasting experience (and maybe that of our readers) is in California and in Europe, we thought we’d compare the two in terms of non-wine visiting.

Photo courtesy of Patch.com.

Woody Guthrie sang that “California is a Garden of Eden, a Paradise to live in and see”.  He went on to say less positive things, but let’s leave it there because it’s true.  The Golden State has it all: sandy beaches, rocky coastline, desert, mountains, farmland and cities.  It is also unquestionably the source of the finest wines made in the United States, which makes it the premier American destination for wine tasting.  And it has lovely places to visit that aren’t about wine.  There are great cities, ski resorts, and charming towns that speak to American history.  We love it and travel there often.  But for places to visit, it’s not Europe.

Reims Cathedral in Champagne.  

Now, as noted elsewhere in this issue, Europe is a big place with a lot of locations where wine is made.  Perhaps somewhere in Europe there is an area where they make wine but there is nothing else of interest.  Perhaps, but we doubt it.  In our experience, everywhere wine is made, there is a cathedral or a church worth visiting somewhere nearby.  There is a café with delicious coffee and pastries.  There is a market somewhere in the area almost every day.  And there are a few millennia of history.

Somewhere around the vineyards – sometimes in the vineyards themselves – a battle was fought.  Particularly in France, there is a monument to the glorious fallen heroes of each village.  We have always found it moving to read the names and visit the local cemetery to see those same names echoed over decades and centuries.  The same names are now also over the butcher shop and the bakery.  And on the labels of the wines made there.

In many of the places where wine is made there are castles to see from the road and to visit.  In many cases, the descendants of the nobles who built the castles still live there while others now are used as bed-and-breakfasts.  Or both.  We once had the experience in the Dordogne of sleeping in an 11th century castle and having breakfast served to us by the Count himself!

The overall point of this comparison is that wine tasting in California is primarily about wine. Almost anywhere you can taste wine in Europe you can experience something else that is wonderful.  Even in places where everyone you see is in the wine business, one way or another, they have lives and histories that transcend wine.  The place is in their stones and in their bones.  So if you’re fortunate enough to go wine tasting in Europe, make sure to immerse yourself in the places and people and try to share their lives as much as is possible for a visitor.  If for no other reason, it will give you a special appreciation for their wines that you can’t get any other way.

 

 

Editorial: Wine Tasting Then and Now

We have gone wine tasting for many years, decades actually.  It is our avocation and it enriches our lives.  As Americans, we taste the wines of California more frequently than any other part of Wine Country, but have also visited many other locations.  We often go to European destinations, especially in France and Italy.

But not this year.

Because of Covid-19, we have curtailed our travels and do not go to places with crowds.  We’re sure many of our readers are imposing the same restrictions on themselves.  So, for example, this will be our first year without wine tasting in California since 1976.  Alas, but there are worse fates than skipping tasting rooms and there have been too many sad cases to feel too sorry for ourselves.

Many wineries have been forced to close their tasting rooms for various periods of time.  As we write, many Napa and Sonoma wineries are open for seated tastings outdoors, by appointment only.  We’re sure that must be fun, in its way, but it is a different experience than the ones we have enjoyed over the years.

Like so many people, for reasons more important than wine tasting, we eagerly await the conquest of this disease so we can return to Wine Country.  In the meantime, we are supporting our favorite wineries by ordering remotely and refilling our cellar.  We’re making a point to open some of our better bottles and using wine to add pleasure to our lives.  We remain confident that there will be better time ahead and that we will see the vineyards in bloom again…soon.

Preston Farm and Winery

Preston (www.prestonfarmandwinery.com) isn’t like other wineries and that’s because Lou Preston and his wife, Susan, aren’t like other winemakers.  The Preston winery is…different, verging on odd and definitely unique.  They’ve been making wine there since 1975 and once were into some serious production.  And then in 2001, Lou decided he’d rather be a farmer as well as a winemaker and cut down to 8,000 cases a year.  The land that wasn’t left under vine was used for olive trees, grains, vegetables and lambs.  Lots of vineyards used to be farms; only Preston that we know of has a farm where there were once grape vines.

The Preston Farm and Winery tasting room. 

There are many reasons why a visit to Preston is worthwhile.  For one, the winery is very intentionally in touch with the history of Sonoma County.  The building itself looks like an old farmhouse, with clapboard sides and pitched eaves on the roof.  The tasting room is functional and decorated with farm implements, books and the occasional cow horn.  That latter is because everything at Preston is organic.  (The cow horn is used for…well, it’s a long story.)

The grounds are a well-kept garden, much as you’d expect for a visit to your rural grandparents, if you ever had them.  There are also picnic grounds in a wooded area, so stop at the Dry Creek General Store on your way to bring lunch.  But be sure to bring extra, because you will have to feed some of the many importunate cats who prowl the grounds.  After lunch or your tasting, you can play a little bocce on their court.

Thankfully, Lou didn’t eliminate wine altogether and we always come home from a visit with a supply of bottles.  In the pre-farming days, Preston made an inexpensive red Rhône blend called, cleverly enough, Faux.  It was widely shipped so we never bought it at the winery because we could get it at a local wine shop back home.  In its place today is a powerful blend of Syrah, Mourvèdre, Cinsault, Grenache and Carignan, called without pretension simply L. Preston, which is stenciled on the side of the bottle…and nothing else.  Did we mention that Preston Farm and Winery is a bit eccentric?

As may be seen, the specialty at Preston is Rhône grapes.  The partner to L. Preston is a white blend called Madame Preston, with a similarly simplistic label.  It consists of Roussanne, Marsanne, Viognier and Grenache Blanc.  All the varietals are bottled individually. The Mourvèdre is our favorite, but we haven’t been able to buy it for years because it’s always sold out when we visit.

As you’re tasting, you can usually sample some olive oil and freshly baked bread.  For sure, Lou bakes bread too, though we’re not sure that every loaf available for sale at the tasting room has passed through his hands.  As you leave the tasting room, turn right and there’s a little country store featuring whatever was recently harvested on the farm.  We’ve never bought any vegetables because we don’t have a kitchen in California, but they do look good.

We miss some of the old wines, especially the aforementioned Faux and a dessert wine that they called Moscato Curioso, with the emphasis on the cat.  Still, we keep coming back to Preston and always will, whenever we come wine tasting in Dry Creek.

 

 

Wine Tasting in Sonoma County, Only Yesterday

Sonoma County has unique attractions for wine lovers: an enormous variety of, well, varietals; beautiful scenery; great restaurants; and of course some very fine wines.  But earlier in our years of wine tasting, Sonoma County was often viewed as simply an adjunct to its more “refined” neighbor across the Mayacamas range.

Chateau St. Jean.  Photo courtesy of Sonoma County Tourism.

Whenever we wanted to visit Sonoma County, we would take a day out of a trip to Napa Valley and traveled across the Oakville Grade to the southern end, known today as Sonoma Valley.  Our experience there was limited to the wineries right along Route 12 (Sonoma Highway) so that later on we could get back easily to the Napa side.  That wasn’t very restrictive because there were some pretty good places to taste wine.  A typical visit would start at B. R. Cohn, move on to Arrowood, then Kenwood and finish at Château St. Jean.  (Come to think of it, that’s not a bad selection even today.)

But Russian River? Alexander Valley? Dry Creek?  We seem to remember that we had heard of them, maybe, but we had no idea where they were or what they produced.  Then, some time in the 1990’s, we thought we’d spend an entire trip in Sonoma County.  Friends looked at us quizzically.  “Why go there? Why not just stick with the good stuff in Napa?” they would say.  Ever adventurous, we took off across the Golden Gate and along Route 101 only getting a little lost around the town of Sonoma.

The view across Dry Creek Valley.

Yes, we discovered all sorts of wonderful wines and wineries.  There weren’t as many then but there were lots of well-established wineries, without any of the fancy-schmancy buildings and tasting rooms that were then being erected in Napa Valley.  What some might have called rustic we interpreted as authentic.  Instead of fighting the traffic on Napa’s Route 29, we were traveling along beautiful country roads, lined with vines.

However, there were some drawbacks.  It was hard to find a meal.  There were no restaurants at all along those country roads, and even on Route 101 all we could find were fast food joints.  Hotels weren’t a problem; we stayed at the Hilton in Santa Rosa, now sadly lost to the 2017 fires.  But as recently as the year 2000, we pulled into Healdsburg at midday and had trouble finding a restaurant where we could sit and enjoy lunch and a glass of wine.

Today, the best of Sonoma County is still there while the shortcomings have been eliminated.  The scenery is till ravishing.  There are quite a few wineries that make world-class wines.  Chards, Cabs, Zins and Pinots to be sure, but also wineries that specialize in grapes native to the Rhône and to Italy, as well as California’s own Petite Sirah.  And there is no longer any difficulty finding a good meal, we can assure you.  In recent trips, we’ve dined excellently in Sonoma, Santa Rosa, Windsor and of course in Healdsburg, the culinary mecca of Sonoma County.

We miss a bit of the anything-goes nature of the Sonoma County of yesteryear.  The rough edges have been knocked off, and there are some full-fledged palaces for tasting.  But Sonoma County’s charm and quality have persisted and even improved, so there’s really no comp

Jimtown Store, Farewell

The Jimtown Store had permanently closed at the end of 2019, so this is not late breaking news.  But its passing, as well as the 28 years in which it served travelers in the Alexander Valley, tells a tale about what Sonoma County was and what it is now.

Photo courtesy of Alexander Valley Winegrowers.

The best that can be said about the Jimtown Store is that it served really good food in a beautiful general store setting, along a country road with views of the mountains.  We always looked forward to lunch there when we went wine tasting in the area.  They had a few tables in the store aisles among shelves packed with goodies, gifts and old fashioned toys.  They also had a charming outside  seating area.  It was a relic of another age, with its somewhat dilapidated exterior and the old red Ford pickup parked outside.  The sign outside touted “Good Food” and the store delivered on its promise.

But it was a fake.

Yes, there had been a general store there back in the late 1800’s but it had been closed for years when John Werner and Carrie Brown bought it in 1989.  They refurbished the place, but not too much, to retain the feel of what it had been.  They were not starry-eyed beginners but experienced entrepreneurs in the gourmet food trade.  They opened the store not to serve the local population but rather wine-loving tourists who needed to put some food in their bellies as they hopped from winery to winery.

That told the story of what Sonoma County was becoming in the 1990s and into this century.  Wine grapes were long grown there. The area was focused on farming and winemaking, but there were few tasting rooms, much like Napa Valley 25 years before.  Werner and Brown could see what was coming and filled their store with fancy foodstuffs and gourmet sandwiches.  Now we like fancy foodstuffs and we always enjoyed the gourmet sandwiches but we knew quite well that this wasn’t what the farmhands were eating.

Jimtown Store wasn’t an ol’ time general store any more than Jordan Winery is an English manor or Ledson Winery is a haunted castle.  But all of them were built on the proposition that pretense plus wine equals tourist dollars.

As indicative of Sonoma County as was the Jimtown Store, so was the cause of the store’s closure: wildfire and its effect on tourism.  The recent Kincaid fire came awfully close and it frightened away many wine tasters during the high tourism season.  That, combined with Covid-19, is also a part of what Sonoma County and many other areas of Wine Country have become: a tourist destination starved of visitors.

Again, we want to emphasize that we are among the tourists who in the past have added to Sonoma county’s economy.  We won’t be going this year because of the pandemic and many wineries have only limited openings anyway for the same reason.

The Jimtown Store wasn’t just good food; it was fun.  And Sonoma County isn’t just good wine, either.  The pleasures of going wine tasting are being forced to change, but we who love to do it must always preserve the fun.

Farewell, Jimtown Store.  We eagerly await the next chapter of visiting Wine Country, Sonoma County very much included.

 

 

Tips for Wine Tasting in Sonoma County

A fair question is why there’s any need for wine tasting tips, specifically for Sonoma County.  How is it different than Napa Valley, for instance, or Bordeaux or the North Fork of Long Island for that matter?  The answer is the combination of size and variety.

You can go wine tasting in Napa Valley along two parallel roads and the crossings between them.  Yes, there are wineries up in the hills on either side, but the wineries are all generally concentrated along Route 29 and the Silverado Trail.  As far as the geography is concerned, the same can be said of the North Fork or the Cote d’Or in Burgundy.

As to variety, while there are ample exceptions to the rule, the majority of wines made in Napa Valley are made from Chardonnay and Bordeaux grapes.  In Oregon, you’ll get Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, as you will in Burgundy.  It will be Gamay in Beaujolais.  But in Sonoma County, Alexander Valley is dominated by Cabernet Sauvignon, Russian River by Pinot Noir and Dry Creek by Zinfandel.  There are pockets of Rhône grapes and Petite Sirah.  And yes there’s Chardonnay everywhere, but you’ll find a healthy amount of Sauvignon Blanc too, especially in Dry Creek.

So if you are new to wine tasting in Sonoma County, here are a few things to think about.

  • Focus on one area per day. You really can’t get a taste (pun intended) for Sonoma County as a whole in a short trip.  Each area can be viewed as a separate outing.  Moreover, if you are tasting in Russian River, for example, you can compare wines made from the same grape varietals and understand the difference between microclimates on the northern end of Westside Road and its eastern extension.  And of course, you can compare the talents of different winemakers as well.
  • Think about lunch. Of course you’ll want to eat, for safety’s sake if nothing else.  But there’s only one place to buy a sandwich in Alexander Valley (highlighted in this issue).  The same can be said for Dry Creek.  There are some in Russian River on River Road in Guerneville, but they’re quite a way out.  You can always drive into the towns: Sonoma, Santa Rosa or Healdsburg.  But that takes you out of the way and adds to the driving.  So either pack a picnic or plan for a stop where you know you can get some food.
  • Try to ascertain the specific character of Sonoma County wines. It’s inevitable that you would compare the wines you are tasting with those you’ve had elsewhere.  And you may decide that you prefer the Cabernet Sauvignons of Bordeaux or the Pinot Noirs of Oregon.  That’s okay, but there is a distinct Alexander Valley style of their Cabs or the Pinots of Russian River.  You’ll enjoy your tastings – and the bottles you buy back home – more if you can pick up on the uniqueness of the Sonoma County style.

  • Don’t just drive. Enjoy the scenery.  From the views of the mountains to the east of Alexander Valley to the magnificence of Chalk Hill Road to the town squares in Sonoma and Healdsburg, we have always found the views in Sonoma County to be among the prettiest in Wine Country.  Let your eyes drink, not just your mouth.

Los Olivos, California

Power Tasting has frequently extolled the virtues of in-town tasting.  But we were thinking of towns like Healdsburg, Yountville or even far away in Montalcino in Italy.  It’s a very different but equally pleasurable experience to go wine tasting in a village that’s not near a major airport, has lots of local wineries, not one of them that could be called a palace.  If that sounds attractive to you, find your way to Los Olivos in California’s Central Coast.

There are many wineries and vineyards in the vicinity of Los Olivos.  Among the best known are Firestone, Beckmen, Fess Parker and the fabled Bien Nacido vineyard.  We suggest you visit these, but we particularly urge you to pull into “downtown” Los Olivos.   There’s not a lot to it: three blocks of Grand Avenue and two of Alamo Pintado Avenue that together host 32 (!) tasting rooms.  (A few of them specialize in beer, not wine, but that’s okay too.)

“Downtown” Los Olivos.  Photo courtesy of www.losolivosca.com.

With all of these establishments to choose among, it’s a good idea to have a game plan when you visit Los Olivos.  Given enough time, you can at least in theory try all them all.  But for most wine tasters there’s probably only one day to sample among the town’s riches.  The usual rule of thumb of one hour per winery doesn’t apply here, not with one tasting room cheek by jowl with the next one.  So we suggest a walk down the two avenues to get a feel for the place.  Take note of the tasting rooms, but also enjoy the “little American home town” atmosphere.

While you’re at it, eat some food.  If you plan to return home that day, a degree of temperance is absolutely necessary.  Even if you stay overnight, you need to be selective.  There are a few places to eat, one of which were briefly featured in the movie Sideways.  In fact, one not very good reason to visit Los Olivos is to brag that you went where the movie was shot.  That was a long time ago and many of the wineries have changed since then.

Refugio Ranch Vineyards tasting room on Grand Avenue.  Photo courtesy of Central Coast Uncorked

This being Central Coast, you will find a lot of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.  The Pinots in particular have some real aficionados.  And if you are a red wine drinker, save some room for the Syrahs and Rhône blends.  We have found some of these to be excellent.

If you enjoy the wine you taste in the first, somewhat randomly chosen location, ask the server about other tasting rooms that might have similar wines.  There’s no guarantee that the server knows what you enjoy, so there might need to be a few visits until you hit your groove.  Another approach is just to choose the most attractive tasting rooms and enjoy the wine without concern for top quality.  To be honest, you are likelier to have the pleasure of discovering wines you never heard of in these tasting rooms than to finding the next Screaming Eagle.  Either way, you should have a good time in Los Olivos.

Château de la Liquière

If you happen to be travelling through Cabrerolles in Languedoc in southern France…Wait, nobody just happens to be travelling through Cabrerolles.  For one thing, it’s little more than a blip on the map; a hamlet, not even a full-fledged village.  For another, it’s in the wine producing area of Faugères, which isn’t close to anything.  And the roads to get there are small, winding and hilly.  If you go there, you mean to be there.

But the visit is worthwhile, because there you will find the tasting room of Château de la Liquière (http://www.chateaulaliquiere.com/new/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=112&catid=34&lang=uk) .  It cannot be said that la Liquière is well-known in the United States, but it is occasionally available.  We first encountered their wine, specifically their Les Amandiers label, on a restaurant wine list.  We enjoyed it so much that we decided to make the trek to Cabrerolles to taste their other wines.

You drive across a valley where la Liquière has its vineyards.  As you pull into the hamlet on the main (basically the only) road, you’ll see a sign pointing up a hill to the winery.  Park at that sign and walk 100 meters.  There you’ll find a filigreed iron gate that welcomes you into a quaint tasting room.  If no one is there to greet you, just shout “Allo” and someone will descend from the office above to offer you a tasting.

The tasting room is rather dark, with only one small window, and the floor is made of paving stones.  There is a small bar but you’ll probably want to taste your wines at the barrel with a board on top of it.  La Liquière makes eleven wines – red, white and rosé – and you may find yourself confounded, as we were, when your server asks you, “What would you like to taste?”  You don’t want to be piggy and say “all of them” nor is that safe.  So just shrug and indicate you’d like to know their best wines.  (They speak a little English, poorly.  If you can struggle through a little French as well, you’ll be fine.)

We found that the wine we had drunk back home was near the bottom of their list.  The server was delighted that we had had the opportunity to try the Les Amandiers (available in all three colors) in America and told us that they had much better wines than that.  And indeed, two of la Liquière’s reds are bold, tannic red wines made of Rhône grapes.  Their Cistus label is made of Syrah, Grenache, Mourvèdre and Carignan.  The top of the line, Tucade, is primarily Mourvèdre, with some Grenache and Carignan.  These are age-worthy wines and indeed the Tucade ought to be put down for some time before opening.

Like all Faugères wines, those at la Liquière are quite minerally.  This derives from the schist soil makes up the ground in the hills.  It’s a taste that is distinctive and not to everyone’s liking.  We do like it and we have found la Liquière to be among our favorites in Languedoc.  Also typical of the better wines in the region today, la Liquière’s wines are “nature”, the equivalent of organic.  If you want to learn about the wines of Faugères, la Liquière is worth the trip.

 

 

Get Lost

Where we grew up, “Get lost!” (with an exclamation point) meant something between “fuhgeddaboudit” and a term unprintable in a genteel journal like Power Tasting.  However, we mean it as respectful suggestion: when you’re in Wine Country, allow yourself to get a little lost.  Sometimes that means you’ll miss the best known wineries along the best known roads, but there are also the cases in which the owners of premier vineyards deliberately placed them where caravans of tourists would not be passing their front gates.

By all means, travel on the main drags, such as Route 29 in Napa Valley, the Route des Grands Crus in Burgundy and the Strada della Badia di Sant’Antima in Montalcino. But also prepare yourself for the little excursions off the central roads and you’ll get to experience Wine Country the way the locals do.

Photo courtesy of France.fr.

  • Do a little preparatory homework. Get a map of the region, which is a lot easier these days with everything on the Internet.  But having a good paper map is a good idea because it will show many more minor roads.  It’s all right to get lost but it’s smarter to know in general where you’re getting lost.
  • Don’t trust your GPS. Even in the primary winemaking areas in the United States, the satellites don’t know every back road.  And it’s those back roads you want to drive on.  In fact you might find, as we have, that the GPS will take you around in circles when you’re looking for a specific remote winery. This goes double in some European sectors of Wine Country, where road signage is an arcane art form.
  • Have several destinations in mind. That way, if you pass a gate with a placard announcing one of them, you’ll know to stop.  Then, when you’ve tasted their wines ask the server about the others on your list.  He or she might say, “Oh, it’s the next vineyard on this road” or contrariwise, “Oh, that’s quite a way from here’.  If the latter occurs, ask for a recommendation for another good winery nearby.

 

  • Enjoy what you see while you get lost. There won’t be any palatial architecture, but there should be some beautiful farmhouses and vineyards.  This can be even more fun at harvest time, when the fields are full of active workers (who might just give you a little help getting un-lost). When you stop by a working vineyard, you get the feel for the reality of the farming that goes into winemaking.  If you get “good” lost, you can go for miles without seeing a winery, but you will see vines as far as the eye can wander.
  • Don’t get too If you really don’t know where you are nor where you’re going, look for pointers back to someplace you do know.  Despite the previous comment about road signs, you’re bound to come across a sign somewhere that points to San Francisco or Paulliac or Florence or the Long Island Expressway.  Follow one of indicated roads and things will begin to look a little more familiar.  When all else fails, ask somebody how to get back home.

Discoveries

We have been enjoying wine tasting for many years.  We keep going back to Wine Country because of the beauty of the environment, enjoying our favorite wines, getting to know the terroir and the people who make wine.  At this point in our wine tasting “career” we get our greatest enjoyment from making discoveries.

There are different sorts of discoveries and all are wonderful because they are, by definition, unexpected.  One sort is finding that a winery that we’re already familiar with has some delicious wines that we didn’t know that they made.  In recent months, one such was Etude Wines’ L’Esprit, their new dessert wine, which we hadn’t ever heard of, even though we are members of their wine club.  For another example, we knew all about Robert Mondavi Winery’s top-ranked Cabernet Sauvignons.  But we were unaware of the depth of their portfolio of Pinot Noirs.

The reverse can also happen, finding that a winery that we hadn’t thought much of can produce some high-quality wines.  Very often that’s because those that focus on the mass market only allow their winemakers to make small amounts of finer wines, just to show off their chops.  These wines are usually available only in the tasting rooms and then only in small quantities.  The only way you’ll ever get to taste them is on a wine tasting trip.  When we find some of these wines, we leave the winery with a smile and the lingering taste of surprising wine on our lips.  Without casting aspersions on any winery, we’ve had that experience at Clos Du Val and William Hill Winery in Napa Valley.

The tasting room at Testarossa Winery.  Photo courtesy of the winery.

We have also had the happy experience of finding great wine in a region where we visited with low expectations.  Our best recent find in that regard was at Testarossa Winery in, of all places, California’s Silicon Valley.  There among the software we found Pinot Noirs that completely wowed us.  They are located at the northern end of the Santa Clara Valley where, we must sadly state, we found no other wines that came even close to what Testarossa can do.

Then there are the discoveries of a whole different sort that occur when we travel internationally.  Sure, we knew that places like Australia and South Africa had vineyards.  But very often the wines that are exported to the United States are of the mass production variety.  That way there is enough volume to make it worthwhile for the States-side importers to bring them here.  If you are lucky enough to discover their top-end wineries and wines before they become internationally known, you can do some fabulous tasting before the wines get terribly pricy.  Perhaps our favorite example was buying bottles of Henschke Hill of Grace in Australia for $25; today they go for $800!

The secret to making wine tasting discoveries is being open to them.  Just because you may not have heard of a region, a winery or a wine doesn’t eliminate the possibility of finding something you’ll really enjoy.  In fact, it’s the possibilities that make wine tasting such a life-long avocation.  There’s always something new – that’s why they put vintage years on the labels – and there’s always someone who’s making great stuff that we haven’t heard of.  So let’s go wine tasting and see what’s over the next hill.