Tag Archives: Appellation

A FIND IN SANTA RITA HILLS – MARGERUM WINES

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Continuing our series on the wineries I visited on a group wine tour in the Santa Rita Hills Appellation on Saturday, we will take a look at Margerum Wine Company (LINK). Our group tasted at the winery near Buellton, but the regular tasting rooms (LINK) are in Santa Barbara. Assistant Winemaker Sam Smith conducted our tasting on Saturday.

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Sam Smith describes Margerum Wines.

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Margerum produces a number of wines from a variety of vineyards (LINK) in Santa Barbara County. They produce small quantities of each wine, seeking to maximize the quality. Their stable of wines runs from Sauvignon Blanc (including a rare late harvest dessert version), to Pinot Gris and a Grenache Rosé on the white side, with Syrah, Pinot Noir, Grenache, and Rhone and Chateauneuf-du-Pape style blends under a couple of labels. You can read about each of the wines at the link above. I really enjoyed the 2013 LATE HARVEST SAUVIGNON BLANC, a very light and smooth dessert wine that has a light mouthfeel and not too much sweetness.

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I found the wines we tasted to be well-crafted with a tendency toward lightness and elegance, even a sense of understatement, which is consistent with the style that many winemakers adopt in this region. As noted in earlier posts, if you want the big fruit-bomb reds, you need to head north a bit to Paso Robles, where that style is more prevalent.

The owners of Margerum Wine Company are also involved in the Wine Cask Restaurant (LINK) in Santa Barbara. The restaurant has an excellent reputation, and, I am pretty sure, you can get some Margerum Wines on the premises.

Later, more posts on the other two wineries we visited, LaFond and Tyler, each very interesting in its own right.

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Stainless Steel Barrels at Mergerum.
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A Line Up of Rosés.

SOME AMAZING PINOT NOIRS

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On Saturday, I joined a group for a wine tour of four wineries in the Santa Rita Hills Appellation (LINK), near Santa Ynez, California. The four were: Tyler, LaFond, Margerum, and Ken Brown. I will blog about each separately, beginning with Ken Brown Wines (LINK). The Santa Rita Hills are located about 30 miles north of Santa Barbara. A unique geological area, they are on a circular land mass that separated from the North American tectonic plate about 12 million years ago. Since then, that circle of land has been turning about 1/4 inch per year, so that now, the mountain ranges and valleys run east to west instead of north to south. This provides a “chute” for cool breezes and moisture from the Pacific Ocean to come farther inland and created one of the perfect places on earth to grow Pinot Noir. The film “Sideways” (LINK) was filmed here (before the appellation was established), and the rest is, well, a rich history.

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Ken Brown is a legendary winemaker in the Santa Rita Hills area. He began at Zaca Mesa Wines. His first name is actually Byron, and after Zaca Mesa, he started Byron Winery in 1985, selling it to the Mondavi Family in 1990. He said that both of those wineries got to the level of 80 to 90,000 cases in annual production, and by that point, actually before that, it was no longer fun for him. The current annual production at Ken Brown Wines is just about 3,000 cases in total.

Along the way, Ken Brown has trained a number of winemakers in the area, including Jim Clendenen of Au Bon Climat and Bob Lindquist of Qupé Winery. His tasting room is in Buellton, CA, just off the 101 Freeway. It is very nicely appointed, with a corkwood floor that got a lot of attention from some of the women on the tour.

Ken Brown Holding forth about his Wines.
Ken Brown Holding forth about his Wines.

Ken was very expansive in describing his process of winemaking and each of his wines. We tasted one Chardonnay, five Pinot Noirs and one Syrah. My general comment is that his wines are amazingly well-crafted in a Burgundian style, not big fruit bombs like many California wines. In fact, some in our tour group thought his wines were not big enough.

I found them to be nuanced, balanced, and each had different characteristics. I just about fell in love.

The Chardonnay was beautifully made, and very oaky – not to my taste, but you could readily smell, taste, and see the quality of the wine. Several bottles of this were purchased by tour members.2015-02-07 15.43.28 2015-02-07 16.11.47

Each of the five Pinots, one a blend of two Santa Barbara appellations, the rest from Santa Rita Hills, two blends of vineyards and two single-vineyard wines, had a strong sense of place and a very nice blend of fruit, mineral, and spice.

I won’t go into all of the individual wines in detail – mainly because it is unlikely you will be able to get any! All are small production, and available only through the winery (LINK to wine shop site).

I purchased the 2012 Zotovich Vineyard Pinot Noir (LINK), a very complex Pinot; the 2012 Santa Barbara County Pinot Noir (LINK), his most approachable Pinot – fruity and very refreshing; and the 2012 Watch Hill Syrah (LINK), a rich fruit-forward Syrah with great complexity. If we were not moving soon, I would have bought more.

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If you are in the Santa Rita Hills area any time soon, put Ken Brown Wines on you list of places to visit, You will not be disappointed (unless you only like the big, big wines. Then you better stick to Paso Robles).

MY FAVORITE WINERIES & VINEYARDS: Broc Cellars Winery

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Chris Brockway’s Broc Cellars Winery is an unusual entry into the California wine scene. Housed in a small, old warehouse in a derelict (but recovering) section of Berkeley just off the 580 Freeway, it reeks of outsider and startup, which it is.

As it says on the winery website:

We are a ‘low wattage’ winery in the sense that we have very little modern equipment. Grapes are pitchforked whole-cluster into the fermenters, fermentation is allowed to happen spontaneously, all wines are basket pressed, with little/no sulphur used in our wines until bottling. True asphalt winemaking, in an urban winery.

And from Eric Asimov in the NYTimes:

Mr. Brockway casts a wide net to find grapes, often from odd little patches of unexpected varieties. He gets grenache, grenache blanc and cabernet franc from Santa Barbara County, and picpoul, a Mediterranean white grape, from Paso Robles. He finds zinfandel from Sonoma, carignan from the Alexander Valley and nero d’Avola and counoise, one of the 13 grapes permitted in Châteauneuf, from Mendocino. He buys valdigué, a grape once confused with gamay in California, from two sites in Solano County, and genuine gamay from the Umpqua Valley in Oregon.

At harvest, grapes are picked in the cool of night, and then he drives them back to Berkeley in his flatbed truck. “I’m on the road so much, sometimes I feel more like a truck driver than a winemaker,” he said.

Oh, and they have been written about at least three times in the New York Times, including a feature column by Eric Asimov in March 2014. This in addition to lots of local and regional coverage drew me to stop at the tasting room during a recent visit to the Bay Area. I was joined by a friend who was also in the area for a visit.

The tasting room is part of a larger room that houses barrels, tanks and other equipment. There are other sections of the building and an outdoor area that included a few concrete wine tanks. The tasting room itself is nicely furnished and well laid out. The staff member there, Craig Willimas (Chris Brockway was not there that day), was very knowledgeable about wine and about the Broc products. He was also a raconteur, regaling us with stories about his life as a private chef and journeys to New Orleans that involved costumes from the San Francisco Opera Company.

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Carol Carnes at Broc Cellars Winery Tasting Room
Jim at Broc Winery
Jim Lockard at Broc Cellars Winery in Berkeley.

We tasted six wines that day. Broc sources fruit from the Central Valley of California up to the Willamette Valley in Oregon. They tend to produce uncommon varietals, with the exception of their flagship 2009 Philary Syrah, their most expensive wine at $75.

Our tasting included

  • the 2013 Vine Starr White, a 100% Grenache Blanc ($30)
  • the 2013 Cassia Grenache(s) – ($27), a rosé blend of Grenache Gris and Grenache Noir from Mendocino County CA
  • the 2013 Valdiguié Green Valley Solano County ($24) – Valdiguie is a French varietal also known in California as Napa Gamay or Gamay 15
  • the 2013 Umpqua Valley Gamay Noir ($24) from Oregon grapes
  • the 2013 Nero d’Avola Mendocino County ($30)
  • and the 2009 Philary Syrah ($75), which is not normally part of the tasting, but there was a bottle open, so . . .

I enjoyed all of the wines with the exception of a Mouvedre that was not on the tasting list. The Philary Syrah was rich and big, but I didn’t think it was in the $75 class. I purchased three bottles: the Valdiguié, the Gamay Noir, and the Nero D’Avola.

Today, Dorianne, a friend and I tasted the 2013 Cassia Grenache(s) rosé. After drinking a lot of rosé this summer, this wine is the best. Beautiful fruit on the nose, perfect blend of fruit and minerality on the tongue, with a smooth aftertaste. And only 12.5% alcohol. This may be the perfect summer wine. The conversation drifted to splitting a case.

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2013 Cassia Grenache(s) Rosé

If you are in the Bay Area, Broc Cellars Winery is worth a visit. If not, order some of their wines from their website.

GO-TO WHITES FOR SUMMER

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In the summer, my tastes move into the realm of rosés and whites, probably reversing the normal 75% red to 25% white ration of the rest of the year. Summers mean more lighter foods served cold, more seafood and salads and fresh vegetables from the garden.

Today, my go-to whites for this summer are featured. We’ll look at rosés in another post Thee wines seem to change each year, a factor of things like availability, special bargains that arise, and my own shifting tastes. A few years ago, Dorianne and I were visiting Laetitia Winery north of Santa Maria and discovered that they were selling their very nice Sauvignon Blanc for $60 a case. That became our go-to wine for the rest of that summer!Wine - les-portes du Bordeaux

This summer, there are two, and they are both from France. The first is Les Portes de Bordeaux Sauvignon Blanc (2012) from Trader Joe’s. It sells for $6.99 and is a very nicely-crafted single varietal from Bordeaux. We tried a bottle in early June and have been buying it ever since. It is simply a very nice every day white wine.

The sec2014-08-05 19.36.54ond is Louis Latour Chardonnay Grand Ardèche (2012). It sells for $10.99 and is available in lots of places. For an every-day wine, it is very well-balanced and pairs well with a variety of dishes. Dorianne made an Italian sweet onion soup last night, and the Latour was a perfect match.

We have also had a couple of nice bottles of Sancerre Blanc from DOMAINE HIPPOLYTE REVERDY, a Kermit Lynch Wines pick.Wine - Sancerre Label Lynch I purchased this  at Total Wine and Spirits for $23.00 and have returned to buy more. It is a very nice, well-crafted special occasion wine. We were motivated to try it as we are following the New York Times Wine School each month with friends, and Sancerre was the wine last month.

In finding your own go-to whites, I suggest that you spend some time exploring and keep your eye out for bargains. Remember, you expect a $50 bottle of wine to be good – when you find a bottle around $10 that you enjoy – that is a find!

Let me know your favorite summer whites in the comments.