The Corkdork - Wine and Food Musing

Tasting in Santa Maria Valley Part 3

After leaving Volk, I headed to Foxen to taste with Co-owner, Winemaker, and Viticulturist, Billy Wathan. Billy and Dick Doré started Foxen in 1985 to focus on Pinot, Chardonnay, and Rhone-style wines. Foxen had achived fame way before Sideways but the film really put them on the map. (You may remember the scene where Miles and Jack help themselves to full glasses of wine when the pourer turns her back.) 

Tasting here is a two-part affair. First you start at the old Shack, opened in 1987, which has current offerings, and then head up the road to the new solar-powered tasting room for some more reserve wines. In the shack, my favorite things were the bracing, leesy 2010 Foxen Sauvignon Blanc - rich and viscous, the 2008 Foxen Cabernet Franc Rock Hollow - quite a hit of new French oak, but had a nice Chinon-like quality to it (with a bit more heat!) and the spicy 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon, Grassini Family Vineyard from the new Happy Canyon AVA. 

At the main tasting room, I started with one of the most lemony Chardonnays I have ever had, the 2009 Chardonnay, Bien Nacido Vineyard - Block UU. They refer to this as the lemon drop. This one might be fun to pair with something like a creamy shrimp dish that could use a citrus-y counterpart. Next was the 2009 Chardonnay, Tinaquaic Vineyard, Santa Maria Valley which I thought was excellent. It is creamier and bigger than the Block UU. Recommended.  Of course, the reds are where Foxen shines brightest. They produce Pinots from some of the best vineyards in Santa Barbara county, including Bien Nacido Block 8, Julia's, Seasmoke, Bien Nacido Block N, and Sanford & Benedict to name a few. There weren't a lot of Pinots open, so of the ones I tried, I enjoyed the 2008 Foxen Bien Nacido Block 8 Pinot the most, with its spice and cranberry flavors. I also liked the 2009 Foxen Santa Maria Valley Pinot which comes from mostly Pommard clones from Bien Nacido and Julia's vineyards. 

My next stop was one that defines why I spend my free time driving 800 miles in a rare mini-vacation weekend and writing about wine. My contacts at CCWS set me up with an exciting afternoon with a brand new winery, Presqu'ile, high on the hills next to Addamo off Clark Avenue. As I mentioned in my previous post, Presqu'ile was started by Matt Murphy (and family) and Dieter Cronje, both who were at Ambullneo previously. Most of my tastings are spitting affairs, where 95% of everything I taste goes down the drain instead of my gullet, but it was now 5 pm on Friday and the stunning Murphy house was set up with some awesome cheeses, Presqu'ile's wonderful wines and a breathtaking view of the Valley. So, Matt, Dieter, and I sat and chatted, snacked, and drank together for almost 2 hours. For now, there is no tasting room, but in 2012, there will be an extraordinary production facility, tasting room, and cave. They are just excavating the cave now and are setting up gravity-heavy production with old-school touches like adding cement fermentation tanks (like you see in the Rhone), natural yeast usage, and no filteration. The 2009 Presqu'ile Sauvignon Blanc was done partially in stainless, partly in neutral barrels and the some cement fermentation. The result is a wine with a complex mouth feel, crisp acidity and clean flavors. The 2009 Presqu'ile Chardonnay is treated to only about 10% new oak and 90% neutral oak with lots of stirring, so it has a beautiful weight to it. I think this will be one of those defining wines of the area. Lighter in alcohol than a lot of SB Chardonnays, it is very food friendly and priced at $35.00, which is a great value for a wine of this exceptional quality.

I was lucky to taste the sold-out 2008 Presqu'ile Santa Maria Pinot Noir and the current release from 2009. The 2008 was more extracted and felt like it had a touch more alcohol on it but the extra year gave it great depth. The 2009 Presqu'ile Santa Maria Pinot Noir, I feel is a more structured wine and in time will show greatness with age. It has lovely Burgundian truffle/forest floor aromas and feels very natural. Very highly recommended, especially at $42.00. 

I said my goodbyes as the sun was setting, not without buying 2 of each wine. 

Later, I found myself at Chef Rick's - The place to eat in Orcutt, the next down down from Santa Maria. Everything there always has something special to it and it is one of my favorite things about visiting the area. The garlic soup, tinged with Indian spices is amazing and is served with most entrees. I started off with some excellent fritters made with artichokes and goat cheese - with a nice red pepper sauce.

Next up was cheesy grits with spicy shrimp, Creole-style spices, rosemary, and thyme with a light beautiful sauce, sopped up with their amazing home-made rolls. Don't miss Rick's. 

 

Wine Tasting in Santa Maria Valley Pt. 2 - Insider's Glance

Day two of my excellent recent trip to Santa Maria Valley started with a visit to the Central Coast Wine Services Center which houses an expansive crush-to-bottle service center with access to the best grapes in the Valley, winemaking facilities, analysis, storage, bottling, filtering, branding, packaging, and more. The building houses 400,000 sq. feet of production space and can warehouse up to 685, 000 cases of wine. Yes, it is servicing some large scale operations, but it is also a beehive of activity for Garagiste winemakers that are using small footprint areas of the facility to house their tiny production facilities. Many of the names you may know (or should know)as boutique wineries are actually made here because of the instant access to Vinquiry (analysis) in the building, bottling lines and storage. Sans Liege, Paul Lato, Tyler Winery, Bonaccorsi, Conway Family Wines/Deep Sea, Nipomo Wine Group/Phantom Rivers, La Fenetre/Timeless Pallets, K Furtado, and Deovlet Wines are all here making small batch wonders. 

My first winemaker encounter of the day was a tasting with Ryan Deovlet and he is making a Pinot and a Chardonnay that turned out to be two of my favorite wines out of about 60 that I tasted on my trip. Ryan has cut his teeth at such wineries as  Stephen Ross, and the Central Coast cult phenomenon, Sanguis before striking out on his own. As I traveled around for the next two days, the buzz from other winemakers, tasting rooms, and wine-bars was that Deovlet was one of the new hot wines to watch. As I entered his space, (which consists of storage for a couple dozen barrels and a 10' x 12' area where he works) I noticed the small collection of dead soldiers on a top shelf, mostly Burgundies and the essential Chave. I knew I was dealing with someone with my kind of old-world palate and sensibility. It shows in his two excellent current releases, the 2009 La Encantada Pinot Noir Santa Rita Hills and the 2009 Solomon Hills Chardonnay Santa Maria. These are both done in a Burgundian style, giving sensitive treatment to the fruit.The Pinot only had gravity racking --it never saw a pump. For now, the best place to find these delicious wines is on his site. Highly Recommended. 

As I was supposed to be rushing out of the CCWS to my next appointment, Curt Schalchlin of Sans Liege Wines caught my eye and I had to say hello. His wines have a cult following and I can see why.  I have had his "Offering" and "Call to Arms" wines, Red Rhone and White Rhone blends respectively from 2008 and they are unctous, rich, opulent wines. Worth checking out if you're a Rhone Ranger.

I left the CCWS with a bunch of wines that I can't wait to try, so the posts should keep coming about the wines coming out of this extradordiary place. 

Next up was a trip across town to Kenneth Volk where I met Michael Brughelli, Director of Operations to taste Volk's current offerings and do some barrel tasting. Mike is an amazing talent and has staggering wine knowledge for someone as young as he. As we went through the '09 barrels, comparing the same wine, different barrel...same wine, different yeast...same barrel, different vineyard block...he spoke with a vivid memory of each element in the process, every inch of the vineyard from which it came, the flavor of every barrel. Several of the barrels popped out at me, especially the Sierra Madre Pinot and the Bien Nacido Vineyards Pinot. Both were great wines and things to definitely look for when they come out. We then tasted some finished wines and I got a feel for the vast array of grapes that Kenneth and Michael like to work with, some very rare in California, which they refer to as "Heirloom" Wines. I tasted the likes of Verdelho, Touriga, Negrette (maybe the most smoked-meat scented wine I have ever smelled), Alianico, Tempranillo, and Mouvedre. My favorite of this round was the 2007 Kenneth Volk Zinfandel from Enz Vineyard, a lovely, light, restrained Zin. If you're in the area, a visit here is a must.  

 

 

Wine Tasting in Santa Maria Valley Pt. 1. Tastes of the Valleys in Solvang

Since my last trip in 2007, I've become very enamoured with Santa Maria Valley as a wine lover's destination. Before the Sideways phenomenon, which I can tell you is ever-presently real, the wines of Santa Barbara county have been captivating cool-climate wonders. The Pinots are world class, and the best Chardonnays are crisp, floral, citrus-y, and bursting with character. 

I am lucky to have some friends in the wine trade in Santa Maria and they have been gracious with their time and contacts and I'm planning on the next few posts sharing a taste of the insider's guide to Santa Maria Valley/Los Olivos/Solvang/Buellton tasting and eating. If it's your first time in the area, there are quite a few tourist traps, and I'm afraid I'm not here to tell you what to avoid. I'm here to help you plan on the things to savor.

The first insider's tip is something that may appear at first as just a tourist destination, but if you're lucky, you'll strike gold. 

Most people find the Tastes of the Valleys tasting room by searching for Au Bon Climat wines, as this is the main tasting place for the great wines of Jim Clendenen. But it's also the tasting room and retail shop for a lot of other excellent wines.

The most important find at Tastes of the Valleys really is Elizbeth Breen, who is one of the most knowlegable tasting people I have ever seen run a tasting room. If you spend an hour tasting with her, you'll walk out knowing some new wines to share with your friends, the up-and-coming winegrowing areas and AVAs, and brief histories of a bunch of new winemakers that you don't know yet. Go for the most expensive tasting flight, which is still remarkably inexpensive, so you can try as many things as you can. 

If you're looking for a good dinner in Solvang and don't want to head over to the Hitching Post II (see below) I have heard lots of great things about Cecco. It's a new good local hang for brick-oven pizzas and pastas. Local sommeliers are also talking about Full of Life Flatbread Pizza in Los Alamos.   

Here are the wine favorites that I tasted. They are all for sale in the shop, and some of them are pretty available in your local wine shop.

Margerum Sybrite Sauvignon Blanc 2009:  Cold fermented with a tiny spritz to it and a good touch of wood. Not too grapefruity from the latest applelation in the area, Happy Canyon. Doug Margerum started the wonderful Wine Cask restaurant in Santa Barbara back in the 80s. After selling it in 2007, he's devoting all his time to winemaking and it shows. 

Au Bon Climat Pinot Noir "Knox Alexander" 2008 - Light and lovely with a distinctly spicy overtone. The '08 Isablle is lovely too but I think the Knox is in a great place right now. 

Belle Glos Pinot Noir "Taylor Lane" 2008 - Very sweet nose. Chewy texture with ranier cherry on the nose. Very popluar in the tasting room because it's good a distinct sweet fruit character. It's too sweet for my usual tastes, but I can see the attraction. 

Belle Glos Meiomi 2009 Pinot Noir - this is a mix of Sonoma/Monterey/Santa Barbara bulk wine, but picked out by Joe Wagner at Belle Glos. Very appealing at around $18 bucks.

Margerum M5 - this Chateauneuf-du-Pape style blend is a great value at around $20 bucks.

My first night, I had to go to the Hitching Post II in Buellton. Yes, it was featured in Sideways, but it was picked out for a reason to be featured in the film. It is a local institution and deserves your attention if a good glass of wine and a perfectly cooked steak sounds good. After a day of tasting I can't think of anything I want more. Make no mistake --this is a tourist destination, but the steaks are perfect, the Pinots that are made by Hitching Post are delicious and inexpensive and you need to make a reseveration if you're going to be around the area for any length of time. 

Part of the charm is the Central Valley itself. At the long table that was close to me, by the chef's window, there was a woman wit a straw ranger hat on and a guy in his late 50's with overalls on, and an older woman with a wild mane of gray hair --a far cry from the scene in San Francisco! The 10 oz. strip steak I had was cooked to perfection and basted with some kind of magic. Special feature? The relish tray, campy and weird, but great in its own way. Big plus --the garlic toast and perfect baked potato with tons of chives.

 

 

 

Santa Maria Valley - Hotbed for Great Wine - intro

I'll be posting a big round-up of my favorite new finds from Santa Maria Valley in the Central Coast when I can get home and download my photos, but there are two wineries that deserve to be on your radar right now: Presqu'ile and Deovlet.

Presqu'ile (creole for almost an island) is brought to you from the guys behind the scene at Ambullneo who've ventured off on their own project. These are not the hammerhead shark wines of their former digs, but models of elegance and restraint, bringing out the best of the superb fruit they have access to.

And Ryan Deovlet is making some superb Pinots and Chardonnay from La Encantada and Solomon Hills respectively from his nook deep inside Central Coast Wine Services. Gravity fed wonders. I couldn't leave without buying some.

Expanded posts coming on both soon.

The Art of Cocktails or Cocktails as Artform: A Check-in at Bar Agricole and Una Pizza

Last night my brother and I went out on the town and originally planned to have dinner at Bar Agricole, but were shocked to see no line at 7 p.m. on a Wednesday at Una Pizza Napoletana. So naturally, we had to get a couple of Anthony's awesome pies. Then off to Bar Agricole for a cocktail or two.

I've said it before, but I'll say it again. You owe it to yourself to have one of these amazing pizzas if you're visiting San Francisco. Anthony Mangieri's pizzas were the toast of NYC for years before he packed up his oven and came west. Now on 11th between Howard and Folsom, he's still making the best pizzas I have ever had.

Bar Agricole has been open for 9 months or so now and even though we cancelled our dinner reservation, we still wanted to check-in and see if the cocktails are still amazing. At Bar Agricole, the artful cocktail preparation is combination of performance art, mad science, and alchemy. I asked one of their star performers, Craig Lane, to reenact his opening night cocktial of artisan tequila, sour, and thai bird's-eye chile and it was exactly as I remembered it from August. A perfect concoction.  Then the signature cocktial from Martinique, the Ti Punch. We were told that it was called "Ti" (short for petite) and that this is a wildly popular drink all over French-speaking Caribbean countries. It is made by squeezing just a tiny bit of juice from a slice of lime, gently bruising the skin, and swirled with agricole rum in a glass with huge ice cube. Another stunning cocktail. We also tried the Mary Pickford, which was good if you want something a little sweeter. It's made from white rum, homemade pinapple gum syrup, and maraska marischino syrup. Delicious.