Urban Wineries- Part 2

East Bay

We had a need to drive through the tunnel into Berkeley and Oakland so made a couple of stops at three of our favorite Urban Wineries.  This week we’ll talk about two of them, JC Cellars and Dashe Cellars and later we’ll review the third along with another one of our East Bay favorites. 

JC and Dashe share a facility and tasting room in the Jack London Square area visible from the freeway.  Both wineries are located in this area by choice and I am sure I mentioned in Urban Wineries- Part 1 there are a lot of reasons why a winery can be as easily located in the cooler parts of the east bay as it could be in the areas you would normally expect to see a winery.  These two wineries are not run by first time winemakers.  Both Jeff Cohn of JC and Michael and Anne Dashe have pretty full resumes. 

I am finding out that when you write a blog about wine tasting experiences, even if your focus is not involved with the detail tasting aspects, that you really need to pay a little more attention than you would normally if you were just out with a group of buddies hitting four or five tasting rooms.  Sometimes we are more successful than others paying attention to the story and philosophy of the particular winery.  When we have visited these wineries before we just kind of did the tasting at one side of the bar before sliding over to the other side and doing the second tasting at the other winery.  We listened a bit more on this trip but honestly I’m not totally sure we completely absorbed the different winemaking philosophies.   We do know that both operations turn out some pretty nice wine. 

The inside of an Urban Winery
 

The facility is a fairly large with a long tasting bar to the right of the entrance.  Each winery maintains their own tasting host.  The two of us were the only tasters when we arrived.  There is no particular order.  You can taste with one winery or both but each tasting is a separate experience.  The fee for each tasting is $5.00 and at each you receive a fresh glass.  We started at Dashe but I think the next visit we would start at JC because JC was pouring a couple of white wines.  It is probably best to check first.

 

Michael and Anne Dashe have wine resumes like few other couples.  Michael  is UC Santa Cruz and UC Davis  educated and Anne received her enology degree from the University of Bordeaux.  I mention UC Santa Cruz because while working on his undergraduate degree in Santa Cruz, Michael worked part time at Roudon-Smith, a winery we used to frequent back in the early 80’s.  While and after obtaining his master’s degree at Davis, Michael worked at Schramsberg and Far Niente.  Not too shabby.   After these stints he went on to work at Cloudy Bay in New Zealand and then Chateau Lafite-Rothschild in France before returning to California with Ridge Vineyards eventually becoming  in-charge of Ridge’s Lytton Springs Winery.  Anne’s background is similarly impressive with her initial position at Chappellet Winery and then on to Seavey Winery and before moving to RMS Brandy Distillery in Carneros.    

Dashe is known for its Zinfandel  and on this day was pouring three Zinfandels, as well as a  Cabernet and a Petite Sirah.  We liked all three Zins with two from the Dry Creek area of Sonoma and the third from The Todd Brothers Ranch in the Alexander Valley, again Sonoma County.  The Cabernet and Petite Sirah were also from the Todd Brothers Ranch.  The Cabernet was our favorite and at $35.00 we thought a pretty good value.  Certainly you could not go wrong with any of the wines we tasted.  I think if we would have not moved right into the tasting at JC we would have more distinct impressions of each wine tasted.  I guess this is one of the few downsides of a side by side tasting room.

 

JC Cellars is owned by winemaker Jeff Cohn.  Jeff took a little different path to winery owner than the Dashe’s.  Jeff’s initial studies were in culinary arts and then hospitality.  His initial wine related position was that of an intern at Boordy Vineyards in Maryland.  After college though while working in hospitality related positions he realized his passion was wine.  He moved to California and enrolled at Fresno State and eventually earned a master’s degree in agriculture chemistry with emphasis in enology.  Jeff’s first position was in the enology group at Rosenblum Cellars.  Within a few years he was in charge of the white wine program and then in 2004 was named vice president of winemaking and production at Rosenblum.  Again, not too shabby.  While at Rosenblum Cohn started his own label but before he left Rosenblum the 2003 Rockpile Zin placed #3 on the Wine Spectator’s Top 100 list.  This was the highest a Zinfandel had ever placed on this list.  In 2006 Cohn left Rosenblum to focus full time on the JC label. 
 

JC had quite a few bottles open for tasting.  The only one that I was not a fan of was the Viognier from France that is made in collaboration with a friend from France although the gal now tasting next to me thought it was terrific.  We liked the Rose (Grenache, Syrah & Mouvedre).  We really liked the Zinfandel’s, one from Rockpile and one from Paso Robles.  I had thought that Dashe had the great Zins but JC matched them here.  Syrahs are where JC really stands out.  We tasted a couple and they were both big and fruity.  The last wine we tasted was called The Impostor which was a blend of mostly Rhone varietals along with Zinfandel.  Again like most of the wines this was a big.  Obviously Jeff Cohn is not traditionalist and enjoys some experimentation with different varietals that you don’t see at most places.   The wines ranged from $16.00 for the Rose, $35.00 for The Impostor and the Syrahs being the highest priced ranging from $35.00 to $85.00. 
 

We had a really good time visiting these two wineries.  Both the tasting hosts were great and very easy to chit chat with and both of them were very knowledgeable about their operations, owners and wines.  As we left we thought that this easily matched many of our better wine experiences in Napa and Sonoma.  Both wineries have second tasting facilities with Dashe pouring at the Family Wineries in Healdsburg and JC pouring at the Vintner’s Collective on Main Street in Napa. 

What we liked- We like supporting the East Bay wineries.  The wine was excellent and the hosts were great.

What we bought- Dashe Cabernet (gift), the JC Rose (gift) and the JC Impostor (for the cellar). 

Vitals-

Dashe Cellars

(510) 452-1800

www.dashecellars.com

 JC Cellars

(510) 465-5900

www.jccellars.com

55 4^th Street

Oakland, CA

Note:  Wineries are normally open Thursday-Sunday 12: 00 to 5:00

   

Cornerstone Sonoma

Meadowcroft and Keating Wines

 

We went to a (great) wedding at Cornerstone Sonoma this summer and did briefly check out a couple of the businesses and gardens the next day but we did not make it to the two tasting rooms on site so we decided to make a quick trip there last weekend.  For starters Cornerstone is a totally cool place.  It sits on nine acres and their description on the website reads- An ever-changing series of walk-through gardens, showcasing new and innovative designs from the world’s finest landscape architects and designers.  But also located on the property is a collection of unique shops, galleries and two tasting rooms.  You can really spend quite a bit of time exploring the art and gardens which include exhibits like the Mediterranean Meadow, Earth Walk, Garden Play and the Flying Fence.  A couple of the shops have amazingly cool stuff.  My favorite is called Artefact Design and Salvage.  This place has the coolest design stuff from throughout the world.  This is a salvage yard extraordinaire.   Tesoro is a great flower store and Potter and Green had really unique garden stuff.  A store called Zipper has unique art and unique books.  So even if you don’t drink wine you can come to Cornerstone.  There is also a restaurant on the property. 

Unknown Art Exhibit

But we came to check out the tasting rooms this time.  It was a classic cold and rainy day.  A perfect day for winetasting.  The first tasting room as you enter the property is Meadowcroft Wines so this was our first stop.  Tom Meadowcroft began working in the wine business in 1979 in Bordeaux.  He spent most of the last 30 years as a vineyard manager and has managed dozens of properties throughout Napa and Sonoma.  Meadowcroft produces three lines of wines.  The reserve wines use the Meadowcroft label, a second label is the Foyt (as in AJ Foyt the racecar driver) label and the lower end label is named  Thomas Henry.  Both the Meadowcroft and Foyt label source grapes from premium Napa and Sonoma vineyards. 

 

Although it was rainy and cold we started with a Sauvignon Blanc as it seems winter has made us forget about this varietal for a while.  The Sauv Blanc was from the Thomas Henry line and at $18.00 was very good.  We tasted through a several reds including a Syrah, Cabernet, Merlot and Zinfandel.  We particularly liked the Zinfandel produced from Knights valley grapes and both the Meadowcroft and Foyt Cabernets from Mt. Veeder grapes.  I thought the Meadowcroft at $36.00 was a pretty good bargain.  We left the tasting room with a split case of Thomas Henry Sauvignon Bland and Syrah.  The case price was phenomenal and really at an everyday wine price. 

Our second stop was the Keating tasting room a mere 40 steps from stop one.  Keating takes a slightly different approach.  They make only red wine and not a lot of it.  We tasted a Merlot, two Zins and two Cabernets.  The Keating goal is to source from well known and respected vineyards and making an average of 10 barrels of wine from it.   The vineyard designated wines run from the Dry Creek ‘Buchignani’, Sonoma ‘Montecillo’ and Napa- Beckstoffer ‘Georges III’.  We loved the Monticello Zinfandel as well as both the Monticello and Georges Cabernets.  The Georges III Cabernet was priced at $95.00 which I am guessing is pretty standard for a Cabernet from this world renowned vineyard.

The Flying Fence
 

Both of the tasting rooms had $5.00 tasting fees which is a pretty good deal these days to taste premium wine.  While these spots are nice and cozy in the winter they would be even nicer in the summer.  Keating has a roll-up door that would bring the whole outside into the room and the grounds around each tasting room are nice.  The whole area is great.  Across from the entrance of Cornerstone is the Gloria Ferrer Sparkling Wine facility and within two or three minutes other tasting rooms (Jacuzzi, Cline, Anaba).  Just down the street is a great antique store, Sonoma Country European Antiques, and on this day they happened to be pouring a couple of Keating Wines.  A great bonus!  While we had plans to make another stop we decided we really got our wine fix for the day so headed home.

What we liked- A really cool spot.  Even if you are not a fan of the art stuff you are going to appreciate it.  The businesses are good and the whole place has a nice vibe.   

What we bought- That bargain split case (Syrah, Sauv Blanc) from Meadowcroft and a Buchignani Zinfandel (for a gift) from Keating. 

Vitals:

Cornerstone Sonoma

23667 Highway 121

Sonoma, CA  95476

www.cornerstonesonoma.com

 

Meadowcroft Wines

(707) 934-4090

www.meadowcroftwines.com

Keating Wines

(707) 939-6510

www.keatingwines.com

 

Robert Biale Vineyards

Napa, CA

We met some friends at Robert Biale Vineyards a couple of weeks ago.  They left their home in Napa at seven minutes to Noon and arrived on time to the winery for our Noon appointment.  Biale sits in the Oak Knoll district of the valley right on Big Ranch Road.  The road quickly turns from residential to rural as you drive north from town.  The Biale family has farmed this ranch since 1937.  Aldo Biale who founded the winery with his son Robert in 1991 used to make homemade wine as far back as the mid 50’s and delivered it to family and friends as part of the family farm produce business.  The story goes that customers calling on a party line could discreetly order a Black Chicken as part of their order and they would receive a jug of Aldo’s homemade wine. 

Biale specializes in Zinfandel and Petite Sirah.  We have tasted the wines many times at events and met Robert Biale previously and been impressed so tasting here has been on our list for a while.  When we arrived we were surprised at the newness and size of the facility.  We kind of did not expect there would be many guests since it is an appointment only winery and it was a rainy day.  We sat outside at a nice table.  At first I thought that it might be cold but with heaters above it was very comfortable and even in winter it really is nice to sit outside right next to the vineyards and in this case 70+ year old vineyards.  Tom was our host and he really turned out to be pretty much our private host for the tasting.  I thought for a minute that Tom was going to be a bit too intrusive, after all we wanted to chit chat with our friends a bit, but the Biale story and wine information was well worth it.  I want to be like Tom some day.  When is the last time you left a winery knowing so much family history, and the Black Chicken story and such and remember it two weeks later?  Much of Napa history dates back to the 60’s and 70’s but this very property, still in the same family, has been farmed for 70 years.

 

We tasted quite a few wines.  Although 30% of the grape source for Biale wines is the home property they source Zinfandel from throughout Sonoma and Napa county and Petite Sirah from Napa county vineyards.  They also make some Barbera and Syrah.  One of the wines we tasted was the Monte Rosso Zinfandel.  Monte Rosso is one of those classic vineyards just over the hill from Mt Veeder on the Sonoma side where grapes have been planted since the 1880’s.  Many wineries source Cabernet and Zinfandel from here which was owned by Louis Martini for many years and is now Gallo owned.  This was a dark and intense wine and could compare with the best Zins anywhere.  Another wine we had was the Like Father Like Son Red Wine.  This is a blend of Syrah and Petite Sirah.  This wine had finesse and I thought a really nice drinking (alone) wine.  We bought a magnum and this will be for something special.  We then had the Oak Knoll District Petite Sirah.  As deep a color the Petite had, the finish was very clean.  Why didn’t we come home with a bottle of this too?  The wines were priced from the high $30’s and up.

Anyhow, you can tell we totally enjoyed the tasting here and I’m ready to go back.  It really is a treat to taste just a couple of varietals and I am really glad that Tom spent the time with us.  He was a wealth of knowledge with everything Biale and it really is nice to have a story to tell versus many on the wineries that exist because their owners were successful in another business.  And we ran into Robert Biale the next day in Walnut Creek at a local event and told him how much we enjoyed our tasting.  He was appreciative of our nice comments and seems like a great guy.  And for the locals, Rocco's in Walnut Creek (Rocco Biale a relative of Robert) is a great spot for pizza, pasta and sports and has live music on Thursday and Saturday evenings

What we liked- A non rushed tasting experience.  Great history.  Excellent outside winter tasting (warm heaters).  All wines were excellent.

What we bought- Like Father Like Sun Red Wine- Magnum.  Our plans are to hold it a few years and open it for our friends son’s graduation (although he does not know it so who knows).

Vitals:

Robert Biale Vineyards

4038 Big Ranch Road

Napa, CA  94558

(707) 257-7555

www.robertbialevineyards.com

Sonoma County Weekend- Part 2

Russian River/Dry Creek

As I mentioned last week we spent the weekend in Sonoma County a couple of weeks ago so were able to make some winery stops in Sonoma County as well as a couple of stops in Napa on our way home.  Last week we talked about Hartford, Thomas George and Porter Creek.  This week we’ll talk about Limerick Lane Cellars, Yoakim Bridge Vineyards, and Ferrari-Carano Winery.

The Wine bottle pool

As with many of our stops we went to Limerick Lane Cellars because we had tasted the wine at a tasting event.  In this case we had met the new owner and tasted the Limerick Lane Zinfandel  at this year’s ZAP festival in San Francisco.  Jake Bilbro, who had just purchased the winery in 2011, and his brother Scott, the winemaker were pouring wine at ZAP and we committed to visiting the winery sometime in 2012. One of unique features of the property is that beside the winery is a wine bottle shaped pool.  Apparently this is not a regular part of the visit since we could not convince the host to show us the pool on the day of our visit.

We were familiar with the Limerick Lane name but really were not familiar with its significant history.   The estate vineyards were originally planted in 1910.  The vineyards were sold to the Collins family in the 1970’s and became established as a premier grape supplier to area wineries such as De Loach, Gary Farrell, Souverain and Ravenswood.   The first wines under the Limerick Lane label were produced by the Collins family in 1986.  The estate vineyard is in the eastside of the Russian River appellation. 

The tasting room is simple but warming with bench seating by the windows looking out into the vineyards.  There were a few folks including some regulars tasting when we arrived but our host took care of our group of six (without an appointment) well.  The wines are Syrah, Pinot and Zin.  They were also pouring a Rose Sec (Syrah and Viognier) which we served with our turkey for Thanksgiving.  We enjoyed the Pinot Noir and really enjoyed the Zinfandels.  They produce a Sonoma County Zin along with three Block Zins, the 1970 block, 1934 block and 1910 block.  The 1970 was the smoothest of the bunch while the 1910 was both full and beautiful.  A good stop.  The Rose Sec was $22.00, the Sonoma Zin was $30.00 and the 1910 was $48.00.

David and Virgina

Our next stop was Yoakim Bridge Vineyards.  Yoakim Bridge is owned and totally run by a couple, David and Virginia.  We think of two things with Yoakim Bridge, great red wine and yummy meatballs.  This is a very small winery but David makes a pretty good variety of red wines including Petite Syrah, Zinfandel, Merlot, Cabernet and a blend.  All the wines are well made.  We particularly like the Dry Creek Cuvee which is mostly Cab but includes Merlot and Petite Syrah.  Usually when we stop here there is a crock pot going full of meatballs cooking in the Yoakim Bridge Zinfandel sauce.  They really hit the spot.

Tasting room at Yoakim

We are wine club members at Yoakim and the reason besides the fact that the wines are consistently good is that wine club members receive a standard shipment of six wines for $150.00 or $25.00 a bottle.  The $25.00 probably averages out to a 30% discount and a deal that is hard to beat.  One thing to note about Yoakim Bridge is that this is a very small tasting room so it may make sense to call ahead if your group is larger than two. 

 

After Yoakim we had a little bit of time left and since we had some in our group that had never been to Ferrari-Carano we headed up the road a mile or so for a quick stop here.  Ferrari- Carano is really one of the big boy wineries of Sonoma County.  The grounds at the facility named Villa Fiore are magnificent.  There is a self guided walking tour of the gardens includes over 2,000 species of shrubs and, trees and in the spring there are 10,000 tulips and daffodils that sprout.  Honestly next time we are there we need to  take some more time to enjoy this.  Unfortunately the rain had started so we were forced to just taste some wine. 

Hospitality Center at Ferrari-Carano

The Hospitality Center at Villa Fiore offers a standard tasting and reserve tasting.  We opted for the standard tasting that included four of the current releases.  Ferrari-Carano makes a lot of different wines.  The standard or Classic series and Villa Fiore series are poured upstairs for $5.00 and downstairs the Limited and Reserve wines are poured for $15.00.  Ferrari-Carano farms quite a bit of acreage in pretty diverse areas so offers quite a variety of wine.  I think they initially became known for their Fume Blanc and this is still a big seller but today they are also known for their Chardonnay and Merlot.  If you look at their list of wines available though nothing is missed.    I know you see a lot of Ferrari-Carano wines in the wine shop or grocery store but I am guessing a good portion of the wines they produce are only sold through the tasting room.  Even if you do not drink wine Ferrari-Carano is a good stop just to see the grounds.  And for the shopper there is excellent retail here.

What we liked-  We will go back to all of these wineries.  We are going to be fans of Limerick Lane, Yoakim Bridge wines are excellent and Ferrari-Carano is a great spot to bring guests.

What we bought- The Rose Sec and Sonoma Zin at Limerick, our wine club shipment from Yoakim

Vitals:
Limerick Lane

1023 Limerick Lane

Healdsburg, CA  95448

(707) 433-9211

www.limericklanewines.com

 

Yoakim Bridge

7209 Dry Creek Road

Healdsburg, CA  95448

(707) 433-8511

www.yoakimbridge.com

 

Ferrari-Carano

8761 Dry Creek Raod

Healdsburg, CA  95448

(707) 433-6700

www.ferrari-carano.com

Sonoma County Weekend- Part 1

Russian River/Dry Creek

 We spent the weekend in Sonoma County a couple of weeks ago because we got a great Travelzoo deal to stay at the Fountaingrove Inn in Santa Rosa.  So we made it to a few wineries over the course of the weekend.  We drove home by way of Napa and made a couple stops there also.  This and next week we’ll talk about a couple of the Sonoma County stops we enjoyed.

We had an 11:45 appointment to meet up with some friends so we had time to make one stop before this.  I always enjoy the drive up the Westside of Santa Rosa, through Sebastopol and Forestville so we headed this way with our first destination being Hartford Family Winery.  I’m not even sure why we picked this spot as it is a bit out of the mainstream of the Forestville/Russian River area but it was a good choice.  It was not until today after studying their website that Hartford has a bit more background than we had realized.   

 

Impressive looking Hartford Family Winery

Hartford specializes in Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Old Vine Zinfandel.  I used to really think that Zins were grown generally in warmer climates but I guess I am wrong on that because we had some nice Zinfandel here as well as at another Russian River spot.    The first thing we noticed when we drove up was that this was a pretty classy looking place.  The winery itself is just off of Highway 116 and is pretty remote from many of the area wineries.  It is a really beautiful property.  There were a couple of other groups in the tasting room but our host took nice care of us and when our glasses were empty he came to us when there was no space at the bar.  The wines are not inexpensive.  Most of the Chardonnays are $60.00 and were of 2008 and 2009 vintage.  The 2010 Four Hearts Chardonnay was $40.00.  They were well made wines.  Of course we were really here for the Pinots and Zin.  We tasted three Pinots and two Zins and they were all very good.  The Pinots were priced from $45.00 up to $85.00 and the Zins were all $55.00 so there were no inexpensive options here.  I think we surprised by the quality of the wines and if we had known that the wine was going to be so good we would have taken some better notes.  

The Tasting Fee was $15.00 and we paid the fee which would have been compensated for with purchases.  There is a nice patio outside and there are tastings available outside with prior arrangements.  We will definitely recommend Hartford and would definitely go back.  Oh, and the fact that we found out later is that Don Hartford, the president of Hartford Winery, is married to Jennifer Jackson Hartford the daughter of Jess Jackson. 

Caves at Thomas George

Our second stop was Thomas St. George Winery.  We have visited here once before and many times before when it was the site of the Davis Bynum winery.  The winery today looks nothing like the old Davis Bynum days.  Davis Bynum was a well respected winery that closed maybe 10 years plus back.  We originally visited this winery a little over a year ago because we had tasted their wines at some public events and called their Pinot one of the best of the event.  The tasting room today is a nice new high ceilinged tasteful room with a great view of the ‘Middle Reach’ of the Russian River valley.  The tasting room can handle quite a few folks and there were several groups there the day we visited. 

 

Their website says they focus on Chardonnay and Pinot but they were also pouring several other varietals.  They also produce Sauvignon Blanc, Syrah, Viognier, Zinfandel and Pinot Blanc.  We tasted the Pinot Blanc, a Chard, Pinot, Syrah and a Zin.  We liked all the reds.  For the Chardonnay and Pinot they produce a base Russian River wine and then several vineyard specific wines.  They were priced at $34.00 and $40.00 so a little bit of a step down in price from Hartford.  Again, we were not taking good notes but as I have mentioned before our focus of this blog is not in the details of the wine but the good wine experiences and Thomas George met the mark.  The tasting fee was $10.00. 

The modest Porter Creek Tasting Room

There are many other good wineries on Westside Road and you could spend a couple of days without hitting them all.  Over the years we have been to many of them.  On this day we also stopped at Porter Creek winery which borders the (Fred) MacMurray Ranch (Gallo owned) winery property (not open for tasting).  The Porter Creek facility is more of the bare bones type but the wines were also good and we were taken care of nicely.

 

What we liked- Hartford- Quality wines, Thomas St. George- The wine and the great views (everyone said you really cannot beat the view). The Fountaingrove Inn where we stayed is ideal.

What we bought- A Pinot from Porter Creek- One of three that we tasted.

Vitals:

Hartford Family Winery

8075 Martinelli Road

Forestville, CA  95436

(707) 887-8030

www.hartfordwines.com

Thomas George Estates

8075 Westside Road

Healdsburg, CA  95448

(707) 431-8031

www.thomasgeorgeestates.com

Porter Creek Vineyards

8735 Westside Road

Healdsburg, CA  95448

(707) 433-6321

www.portercreekvineyards.com

Turkovich Family Wines

Winters, CA

A couple of weeks ago we were driving up Highway 505 just north of Vacaville and we stopped in Winters.  Winters is a small little town set against the eastern side of the Vaca Mountains and just five miles from the Napa County line.  We have taken this route a few times driving over Highway 128 and coming from Napa over to the central valley and for anyone that has not done this it really is a very pretty ride.  Off the Silverado trail you pass some big time wineries such as Chappallet, Nichelini, Kuleto and Brown, then past a portion of Lake Berryessa and then down into Winters.  Winters is in Yolo County and parts of Yolo County, especially the Capay valley just north of Winters, look very much like Napa.

We only had time for a couple of stops and with three tasting rooms open we chose Turkovich and a cooperative called Rootstock.  The other tasting room in town, and probably the best known tasting room, is called Berryessa Gap.  We’ll stop here another time as it was a good looking stop.

 

 

We first became familiar with Turkovich at last year’s Tapas (Tempranillo) Festival.  The Tapas festival had maybe 50 wineries pouring Spanish varietals and surprisingly Turkovich was one of our favorites.  The Turkovich tasting room is right downtown and easy to find as Winters only has a few streets downtown.  Winters is probably most famous for the Buckhorn Steakhouse and the tasting room is only two buildings down the road.  Winters also has a music venue called the Palms which gets great acts considering there just is not much to Winters.  The Tasting Room is in a cool old brick building with high ceilings and with the attached Winters Cheese Company.  In the late afternoon and early evening the room turns into a spot with some small plates and wines available by the glass.

 We sat at the bar and were initially the only guests so we were able to ask lots of questions regarding the cool spot and history of the winery and so on.  Christopher Turkovich is a third generation farmer who opened the winery in 2007.  Rhone varietals Syrah and Viognier are two of the key varietals along with Tempranillo, Petite Sirah, Grenache, and Mourvedre.   

We tasted the whole list which included a Viognier and Estate White Blend (Roussanne and Viognier) and three or four reds.  As always, when just starting off the whites always taste good.  It is really nice finding options other than Sauvignon Blanc, our favorite white wine, and Chardonnay.  The reds were all good.  We probably liked the GSM (Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre) best but still liked the Tempranillo that we had had several months earlier.  I think all the wines were priced from $18.00 to $26.00 or so.

 

We also stopped at Rootstock.  This is a cooperative tasting room and gift store featuring Yolo County products.  On this day there were six wineries represented.  My knock on cooperative tasting rooms is that you do not always meet the winery representative.  One of the wineries, Route 3 Wines, was represented by a family member the day of our visit.  Between the group of wineries there were probably 30 wines available for tasting.  We did find, on suggestion, a standout.  The winery was called Casey Flat Ranch and their two Red Wines, the Open Range Red at $18.00 and their CFR (Casey Flat Ranch) Red at $35.00 were excellent.    

So we were happy with our stop in Winters.  I think Turkovich is open late on some evenings and certainly if you have an hour on your hands when you are passing by or if you want to take a different route home from Napa I think Winters is a good stop.

What we liked:  Winters is a nice town and this may someday be a vibrant wine area.

What we bought: Turkovich Tempranillo, Open Range Red

Vitals:

Turkovich Winery

304 Railroad Avenue

Winters, CA  94694

(530) 795-3842

www.turkovichwines.com

Rootstock

22 Main Street

Winters, CA  94694

(530) 794-6013

www.rootstockgifts.com

 

 

The Halter Ranch (Experience)

Paso Robles, CA

 

We had the opportunity to stay at the Halter Ranch Vineyard Farmhouse while we were in Paso Robles a couple of weeks ago and it was one of the best wine country experiences we have ever had.  Halter Ranch is a ten year old winery in the heart of the Westside Paso wine country.  Their closest neighbors are Adelaida and Tablas Creek which were reviewed last week.  The Halter Ranch is a 1,000 acre property with 280 acres of vines.  The property dates back to the 1880’s when it was established by a San Francisco businessman as a cattle ranch.   A grand Victorian farmhouse was built on the property in 1881 which burned down in 1885 and was rebuilt.  This farmhouse with many improvements over the years is the first thing you see when you arrive at the property.  Farming and ranching were the mainstays of the property until June of 2000 when 900 acres of the property were purchased by the current owner Hansjorg Wyss.  Mr. Wyss had seen the area years earlier and had put word out that if a property like this became available that he would be interested as he had a strong desire to be a producer of world class grapes and wines. 



The Farmhouse

Hans is a Harvard educated Swiss born entrepreneur and the second richest person in Switzerland.  Hans put the property under the guidance of Mitch Wyss (no relation to Hans) with the goal of creating a world class sustainable vineyard property.  The property now has 20 different grape varieties planted.  The wine label was started in 2002 and the winery now produces about 8,000 cases.


We all have heard that it takes a bunch of money to get into the wine business and certainly a lot of money is being spent at Halter Ranch.   But I think they are very serious about doing everything right here.  I think a lot of thought goes into every aspect of the operation.  Sometimes there are these wineries that look like they have too much money but don’t get everything right.  This is not the case here. Every aspect of the property is tastefully done.  The Farmhouse while looking old is modern and tasteful on the inside.  The kitchen, bedrooms and porches were fantastic.  Some of the windows are original dating back to the 1880’s. 

The new wine making facility
 

But about the winery and tasting facility- I think this is one of those wineries where the Tour is a requirement (unless you just want to drink wine).  They offer tours on the weekends at 10am and 1pm and you walk through the ranch, across the bridge that spans Tablas Creek, and up the hill into the newly completed winery and caves.  The winery is state of the art and built to be able to handle approximately 48,000 cases (six time their current output).  The caves are the largest winery caves I have ever seen and at this point are not even ½ full.  You will be impressed.  We were there on a Sunday just a week after the last of the grapes had been brought in for the year and the winemaker, recently of Justin, (a highly touted Paso winery) was hard at work and we got to see some hands on winemaking in process.   Our tour guide had an intimate knowledge of everything Halter Ranch and answered every question our group came up with.  On the way up to the winery we passed a couple of old barns and other ranch properties that are in the process of being refurbished.  We also passed a couple of old airplane hangars the served as the original winemaking facility.  These originally housed planes that landed at the private ranch runway.

The tour ended with a stop at the tasting room.  The tasting room is located down below next to the Farmhouse and in another totally refurbished original ranch building.  The tasting room was busy but had lots of space both inside and outside.  Our guide served as our pourer for our group of ten. 

The tasting selection was mostly red wines.  The lone white, the Cotes De Paso Blanc, was a Rhone blend of Grenache, Roussanne, Picpoul (which I am not familiar with), Marsanne and Viognier.  It was refreshing and I’m guessing you will see varietal bottlings of these grapes in the future.  The reds included Syrah, Zin, Cab and three blends.  The blends were priced at $50.00 for the Ancestor (mostly Petit Verdot, Cab and Syrah) down to the Synthesis (mostly Cab) at $20.00.  The reds were consistently good although none of them stood out as being amazing.  I’m not sure the Ancestor is up to its price tag yet, especially in comparison to my benchmark $50.00 Napa Valley wines.  My guess is that the wines will improve over time especially with the arrival of Kevin Sass, the winemaker formerly of Justin, who arrived in 2011.  We had the $20.00 Synthesis at a family event recently and it was very good.

 

The bridge over Tablas Creek on the way up to the new wine facility

 

What we liked- Virtually everything about the place.  Like I said above, by taking the tour you really get to take in the whole place.  Everything, including the tasting facility, is very comfortable.  Everyone we met was professional, yet friendly.  But kind on a FYI- The Farmhouse is not for rent.  We were able to use it as we have some very good connections with someone that was the high bidder in a charity auction.

What we bought- Nothing this time but we will return with other tasters and would certainly buy wine from Halter next time we are in the area. I think in a couple of years you will also be able to find Halter wines on the retail market.

Vitals:

Halter Ranch Vineyard

8910 Adelaida Road

Paso Robles, CA  93446

(805) 226-9455

www.halterranch.com