San Francisco Pinot Call-it-a-Day

Rockroom managed to pull off our first ever industry tasting today at San Francisco Pinot Days big finale tasting at Fort Mason and I must say it went well. Pouring the pre-release (as in so far only available to you co-op faithful) 2006 and the current release (as in almost sold out) 2005 Hein Vineyard pinots we got many cudos on the wine. Reactions ranged from "hey that's nice" to "wow, that's really good". So I would say our joint winemaking collaboration is working out well, which of course comes as no surprise to those of us that have been sipping and sampling along the way. So for now we will keep on pushing the boundaries of small production winemaking, OK?

06 Napa cab bottles

The last of the 2006 rockroom custom wines goes to bottle today. Hurray! Pete made the bottling line hum and we knocked it out in an hour or so. And now, after waiting 20 months or so since harvest, we wait some more. After a few months settling down in the bottle the hard edges will ease up and we should have a very nice food-friendly Napa cab. The predominant character in this wine comes from Howell Mountain fruit selected from 2 vineyard blocks with about a 5% dash of lush fruit-forward merlot and a similar dash of deep dark malbec rounding it out.

w.o.w. - gettin your vino bang for the buck

Next time you want something special but a $50 wine from a top boutique producer is a bit over the top, consider an appellation blend. Like this killer 2006 Sonoma Coast pinot from Siduri. Siduri makes wine from dozens of vineyards in California and Oregon and uses a small batch approach to experiment with different yeasts, fermentation approaches, barrel selections and press fractions. As bottling time approaches the best of the best barrels go to the vineyard designated wines with the next tier of barrels going to blends from multiple vineyards within the same appellation. So for example, while about 20 barrels of Sonatera Vineyard wine made it into the vineyard designated bottling, another 13 or so barrels (still really good juice!) went into this bottling, along with wine from two other Sonoma Coast vineyards. So you get solid regional character year after year and pay about 40% less than the vineyard wines that make up the blend. Making for a great Saturday wine to serve with wood-grilled salmon and walleye!

w.o.w. - ya gotta start saving

As a fan of ripe bananas I figured out long ago that today's banana is edible but in a week it will sweeten and gain flavor. No added cost, just time. Same deal with wine, especially reds. Everyday wines are fine today but will often improve, sometimes dramatically, with even a year or two of aging. So if you are not already, you must start setting aside some wines to revisit at a later date. This 2000 Guigal Crozes Hermitage is a great example. A simple 20 dollar wine a few years ago, this French syrah has matured into a flavorful intense wine that went great with an order of County Line smoked brisket. Well worth the wait with flavors way beyond its unpretentious status and price tag. So how do you end up with a few humble gems like this? My suggestion is that each time you do a wine buy, get enough bottles to get the volume discount and include a couple picks for the cellar. Maybe grab an extra bottle of a red you like that has just a bit more tannic edge or acidic tang than the typical juicy jam-bomb. Even if your cellar is a dark corner of the coat closet, you will be rewarded over time with a couple cases of eclectic wines to be popped after a year or two of bottle aging. Can be fun to share these with friends over a special meal.

wow - time to break out that chard!

One summer favorite that just screams for a full flavored chardonnay is grilled seafood and veggies. Toss some sliced squash, zucchini, onions and mushrooms in a ziplock with a splash of balsamic vinaigrette and grill along side a slab of fresh salmon (or in this case fresh steelhead trout). Either of the 2006 rockroom co-op chards we made goes great with this simple supper so if you ended up with some, pop that cork! Remember, the wine we made here in Austin is not cold stabilized so if you chill it for more than a few hours you might end up with a bit of tartrate crystalized in the bottom of the bottle - a natural grape byproduct, it is cream of tarter for your next lemon meringe pie!

Dry Creek Co-op

I spent the last few days meeting with grape sources and crush alternatives and did a healthy dose of field reseach bellied up to winery tasting bars around Sonoma County. Michelle Baker was our gracious hostess with the mostest at Family Wineries in Dry Creek Valley. With 8 wineries under one roof (including my personal favorite Collier Falls who recently got that best of show trophy you see on the bar) it really reminded me of our own little co-operative effort in Austin. As we chatted with her Michelle revealed that she is not only a friendly face behind the Family Wineries tasting bar but also writes about wine for Wine Country This Week, Spotlight’s Wine Country Guide and Jane magazine. It was a great stop and I highly recommend it as you work your way through Dry Creek on the way to the Dry Creek Grocery for picnic supplies, water to rehydrate and toothpaste to get scrub your zinfadeled teeth. Cheers!

wow - patience rewarded

I was reminded this Memorial Day weekend about the benefits of aging and breathing to a big red wine. Like this 2002 Napa syrah from Novy. A good fruit forward syrah in its youth, it has gained even more smoky, gamey complexity with a few cellar years. But it took being open a couple hours for the really great stuff to kick in. Glad I waited (well for part of the bottle anyway).

wow - pinot of a different color

Related to pinot noir, little green pinot blanc grapes make a great refreshing white that is a tad more serious and complex than you average quaffer but still not as heavy as most chardonnays. Tart and tangy, these grapes thrive in Alsace France and into Germany (call it "weissburgunder") and also do quite well in the cool Willamette Valley in Oregon. Great seafood wine or a complement to creamy sauces or cheese. On the healthy side, it really brought out the lemon in a lemon-pepper roasted chicken. Or just sip it on a hot day - yum! I picked this 2006 Adelsheim up at Austin Wine Merchant - 17 bucks.

wow - unAmerican white?

Pine Ridge makes this crisp delicious dry white using 80% chenin blanc and the rest viognier. Now do you ever see such a wine on a menu or at a tasting? You would in France and certainly would in South Africa where, sometimes called "steen", chenin blanc is one of the most widely consumed wines. Stateside, however, chenin blanc has a bad rap as something that should come in a big green jug. All because the grape was never raised carefully for flavor but was instead turned into a workhorse of Central Valley California bulk wine where it flourishes but becomes unremarkable. At probably its most lofty form, French Vouvray can be $100 a bottle chenin blanc that can age well for decades. This much more humble Pine Ridge ages just fine on the front seat of the car on the way home from Whole Foods where I picked it up for $9. As Texas winegrowers search for grapes to grow that fit our hot climate, they would do well to consider this high-acid grape that can produce great refreshing wines ranging from dry to sweet.

wow - one swede pink

Here from Italian producer Letizia, another really good dry rose ("rosato" in Italian) from a pretty interesting Italian, well Sicilian actually, varietal: nero d'avola. This variety does well growing in the Sicilian heat (Texas grape growers should take note!) and can produce big barrel-aged reds, but in these grapes give heft to a very full flavored aromatic pink that is great with prosciutto and a sliver of sharp cheese. Yet another terrific summer quaffer! I was sipping this wine with lunch in Sweden (!) but don't go that far for a bottle - look for a nero d'avola rosato near you.

w.o.w. think pink

As summer approaches you just gotta think pink. I know all the pushback: pink wine is sweet, pink wine is not "real" wine, and of course my favorite: real men don't drink pink....ANYTHING. Well, set aside those cliche's for a minute and consider, there is a LOT of dry rose out there that is not the least bit sweet - just as dry as a chardonnay or sauvignon blanc but with more heft and complexity. So while whites may do fine, something like, say, a good spaghetti carbonara with that bit of egg and pancetta (hmmm... Asti comes to mind), is a whole different dish with a dry rose. Like this UNTI 2007 Rose: 65% grenache 35% mourvedre, all farmed at UNTI's own vineyards in Dry Creek Sonoma. Now that is real wine. Can't find UNTI at the store? Order direct like I did - go to the link above and you are a few clicks and a credit card away from having some wine within a week. Hurry though - this is not a wine to have shipped in the heat of the summer. So now, should I address that real men drinking pink wine issue? Guess not, as coming from someone that likes pink wine it might sound defensive.

wow - unexpected bargains

Sure, Ken Brown pinot noirs are really good stuff and are a good pick when you run across them, but I call out this bottle of 2005 Santa Rita Hills for a specific reason. On a recent R&R trip to San Francisco we ran into a small grocery to pick up some wine, cheese, etc for a picnic lunch. Gorgeous spring day and it had to be done. Scanning the wine shelves it was easy to see they organized horizontal by varietal and vertically by price. Down there on the bottom shelf, not where I expected to find a wine I was willing to buy, sat a few Ken Brown pinots. No price. Asking a busy checkout clerk, she had someone run check and came back with $9.99 - bottom shelf, right? I went back and got the other two bottles, so ended up with $120 worth of great wine for 30 bucks. The point? When you know the wines you love (in this case pinot noir) always consider lower-priced bottles that have vineyard designations or special appellations (in this case Santa Rita Hills) that indicate limited production. The wine industry is complicated and mistakes often get made, so price is not always a good indicator. In fact, let me know sometime if you want to hear about a bottle of 1973 Stags Leap Cellars cab that was on a clearance shelf in the busiest wine shop in Houston on the busiest day of the year. . .

07 barrel samples ready to taste

The 2007 wines are ready for tasting! I recently brought chardonnay, syrah and cabernet samples so we can monitor progress in our most recent barrels. Certainly not finished wine but fun to try as we watch the evolution. Hope to see you in the rockroom Austin headquarters this week for a sniff, swirl and sip.

wow - big ol pinot

Yeah I know what you're thinkin. You're thinkin "why more hype about pinot?", right? I mean yeah it is heavenly stuff when done right, but there are so many more wines out there so why does it always have to come back around to pinot noir? Well keeping in mind that the rockroom approach is that wine is meant to be enjoyed with food and friends, you generally will not do better than a pinot noir. Take for example this 2003 Lucia pinot noir - their Santa Lucia Highlands(that's loo-see'-ya, not loosh-ee'-ya for those playing at home) appellation blend. Big, fruit forward and flavorful enough to drink like a wine cocktail, it is more at home with a really flavorful dish, like this braised lamb shank with cabbage. It works because the wine has enough acidity to act like a little sip of sorbet in between each bite. The oak influence is there but not overdone and the fruit is dark but not jammy so it doesn't compete with the food flavors. Got it? The concept I mean. Getting Lucia wine, made by Jeff Pisoni in Sonoma County, CA, is a little tougher. Google it or call 800.946.3130 - you'll be glad ya did.

wow - messy is a good thing

Here is a beautiful and balanced white that has it all going on. Floral aromas, citrus and pear flavors, and a honeyed mouth coating quality. Yummy Soave from Verona Italy. $16 at Tony Mandola's on Lamar. Oh, and messy in that it is not cold stabilized so after a day in the chiller it will snow a little cream of tarter.

blending fun

This week I got a chance to do some experiments with master blender Kian Tavakoli on our 2006 Napa cabernet sauvignon. Staying with 100% Napa wines it was amazing how small dabs of a different cab or malbec can punch it up. Our favorite by a long shot was a small addition of a Napa benchland cab (remember our base wine is Howell Mountain) and a tiny dab of Malbec from Coombsville (far southern Napa Valley). The blend will continue to barrel age and could even see more blending later.

wow - good godello

Always good to have a few interesting whites on hand for the porch-sittin' warm spells we get every winter. Here is a charmer from cool northwest Spain: godello grapes turned wine by Abad Dom Bueno. About 20 bucks - delish.

crankin some zin

While the grownups yakked Alex supplied the muscle to separate our Russian River zin from its skins. Our co-op reds are now pressed and will age for a year or so in their barrels.

pinot press

Our Carneros pinot noir finished primary fermentation and we pressed it today. 2 different pinot clones from the same vineyard - UCD18 for color and bright acidity, Dijon clone 115 for earthy aromas and flavors. Now for malolactic fermentation in barrel and aging. While we worked we sipped on a Loring Rosella's Vineyard pinot from 2005 - great inspiration for our humble little wine!

uh-oh, wine is happening

During Prohibition there was an enterprising company that would send out blocks of dried zinfandel grapes with a label on the package that said "warning - do not add water and yeast or wine may result". Well I feel I must warn you that those grapes we had delivered to Austin are now turning into wine. Just the way it goes, expecially when you pitch in a little wine yeast. Here is a photo of the pinot noir frothing away as yeast eat sugar and spit out alcohol. The process is moving fast and we will be pressing pinot and zin in the coming week.