Went to 315 for dinner last night and tried:
1. Failla PinotNoir HirschVnyd/SonomaCoast (14.4%) 2002: Med.light color w/ some clouding; lovely perfumed/toasty/oak/smokey/very Burgundian some black cherry/Pinot/earthy beautiful/complex/perfumed nose; tart very smokey/pungent/toasty/oak/Burgundian bit tannic some black cherry/earthy/Pinot complex flavor; very long/lingering bit tannic pungent/smokey/Burgundian/oak/toasty some black cherry/PN finish that goes on & on. $40.00
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2. Felton-Empire SantaBarbara GWT TepesquetVnyd/SelectLateHrvst (RS: 15%; 9.1%; SaH: 31%) 1981: Med.brown/amber/gold color; very slight volatile beautiful/complex botrytis/fruit cocktail/peachy/apricotty some pencilly/ozone/smokey old German TBA very complex nose; very tart slightly sweet intense/peachy/apricotty/botrytis/fruit cocktail slight spicy/pencilly/smokey very complex flavor; very long/lingering intense/botrytis/apricotty/peachy bit smokey/pencilly very complex slightly sweet finish; a textbook mature old German TBA that can still go on because of the acidity; stunning old Calif botrytis wine. $7.00/hlf
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A wee BloodyPulpit:
1. I'd been dawddling about going in to the reinvented/expanded Restaurant 315 in SantaFe of LouisMoskow's for several months now. Me bad. He had planned late last Spring to close for a month to remodel the kitchen. It turned into the project from Hell. He didn't finally repoen until last Sept or so, missing out on all the summer tourist business (well...maybe not that big a loss...315 is mostly supported by the locals whilst the tourists head to the big-name restaurants...their loss).
Well...I'm here to tell you it was worth the wait. Maybe the best meal I've yet had at 315. The menu still focuses on French-style bistro food. But lots of new items, including house-made charcuterie. The wine list is the best it's ever been...and reasonably priced. The wait staff have all returned and really know their stuff. His new LaStazione (formerly, the RailYard) focuses on Italian cusine and is also absolutely first-rate.
Louis liked that Failla, but was not as impressed with it as I was...being a big Pinot fan, and especially RedBurgs. As we talked Pinot, it was interesting to find that Louis' tastes have also segued away from the big/extracted Pinots and towards those that show more elegance & finesse. I invited him to become a charter member of the AFWE (AntiFlavorWineElite), but he seemed to be hesitant to take such a drastic step...yet.
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2. FaillaPinot: I was very/very impressed by the Pinot. One of the best mature Calif Pinots I've had in a long time. Easily the best RedBurg I've had in a yr's time. It brought back memories of the RedBurgs I used to drink back in the early-'70's...when I could afford RedBurgs. Back when they were consistently good..even the TonyRodent's. This Failla is probably at its peak, maybe even a bit beyond, and has lost a lot of the spicy Hirsch black cherry fruit; but the stuff that's left is really rockin'.
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3. Felton-Empire: This was a wnry started up in Felton in the late '70's by BillGibbs (marketing guy at Ridge afore Donn) and LeoMcCloskey (now of Enologix fame, then lab geek at Ridge), up in Felton-Empire Grade on the old ChaffeeHall/Hallcrest property, where some legendary Cabs were made in his time. I belive it is now owned by JohnSchumacher under the HallcrestVnyds/OrganicWineWorks label.
F-E was a wnry before its time, and eventually went under, though. Their Hallcrest Cabs were rather lean & hard & austere and badly needed some age, so didn't seem to become very popular. But I recall them being of the stature oof the MonteBello and DavidBruceEstate Cabs. They focused a lot on Riesling, but the realities of the marketplace for Calif Riesling (alas) pounded that vision out of their head. After they went under, I believe Bill continued to market wines under the F-E label, but think they were made at SanMartin or somewhere. Not sure whatever happened to BillGibbs...would like to see him again sometime...we have a history.
They even bottled up WhiteRiesling and GWT juice (verjus) around the early '80's for several yrs. I still havve a btl or two of them. It's amazing how well Riesling juice can age...must be the acidity.
In '81, they went down to TepesquetVnyd in SantaMaria/SantaBarbara and bought some JR & GWT botrytized grapes. This GWT was at the very high end of the BA level, the JR (they labeled it WhiteRiesling) was well into the TBA level. I was initially very taken by those two wines because of the brisk acidity they showed, that balanced well the RS. That is undoubtedly what has preserved this GWT so well. They were originally priced about $15/hlf, but didn't sell very well. I came upon a stash up in Colorado marked down to $7/hlf and bought a $hitload (Kansas colloquialism for "a lot"). Now down to 1 GWT and 2 WR's. But these have matured very well, better than many other BA/TBA's from Calif I think.
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4. Tepesquet: This was one of the very earliest planted vnyds in SantaBarbaraCnty. It is now part of the Cambria estate. Planted up on the SantaMaria benchlands just south of BienNacido. They had a fair amount of Cabernet, GWT and JR planted, grapes that didn't succeed very well in SantaBarbara...until lately. They sold a lot of their grapes up North, in addition to making some under their TepesquetVnyd label. GinoZepponi made a few yrs of TepesquetVnyd Chard at ZD way back when that was awfully good, Chablis in style, back when big/soft/oaky/buttery Chards were all the rage. He also made some Chard from his tiny vnyd there in the Vineburg region of Sonoma that was pretty terrific. Gino was a pretty special guy, for those who knew him. Originally an aerospace engineer type over in the Sacramento area.
Tom