East Bay Vintner Profiles - Episode 1: Periscope

My favorite wine rag, Wine & Spirits Magazine, had a brief article and link to  East Bay Vintners and in the next few weeks, I'll try to visit some of the lesser known ones and post my notes. First up is Periscope, which is winemaker Brendan Eliason's personal project. He's known as the winemaker at David Coffaro Estate Vineyard and turns out he's also the wine director at the excellent Va De Vi Bistro and Wine Bar in Walnut Creek, not too far from chez Corkdork.

When I arrived, he was doing double duty, getting a delivery of fine library Cab Franc (99) from John and Tracey Skupny of Lang & Reed for Va de Vi. Also on hand, Drew Dickson from Andrew Lane was having his own tasting with some customers in the far end of the building. Andrew Lane is using Brendan's huge warehouse for storage after losing their storage place in the big Vallejo fire last year.

Brendan is a true Garagiste, he gets his raw materials both as grapes, which he crushes wherever he can, or as tiny lots of bulk wine for part of his master blends, like the Deep Six. He gets small lots of lesser known grapes for their perfume, or their body to add what he feels may be lacking in a paraticular blend. His Syrahs may end up being blended as the 2005 was, with 85% Syrah, 12% Petite Verdot, and 3% Zinfandel. In the photo above, he's piping out some Tannat for us to try. Most of his product is sold as futures, so I was doing all barrel tasting of component elements. The Deep Six, for instance was still only a deep four, looking for those last two perfect blending elements to make it complete.

The Wines - Periscope Cellars

I tasted through component barrels of the Syrahs, sourced from Dry Creek. Brendan had separate barrels of deep and shallow rooted Syrah, both having their own style --the bright acid from the shallow, and the rich mid-palate from the deep rooted plants. These have classic Dry Creek style, ripe and rich, and I'm sure these will be winning wines.

The Zinfandels were exciting too. He had fruit from the Azzaro farm in Sonoma, some in new oak, some older oak, some even rumored to be Primitivo. I found these quite bright, with strong acids, but I'm hoping that something can fill out what I feel is a lack of body and mid-palate richness they need before they release.

The Petite Verdot is showing very nicely in barrel and should be a winner. I also really enjoyed a taste of his PV Rose, which he is selling in whimsical 187 ml bottles.

Keep your eyes out for Periscope wines at restaurants like Va de Vi or visit his website to sign up for the futures program.