CA Central Coast Trip summary - Day 3 Los Olivos

Day 3. Los Olivos

Rideau – I tasted here last year and did not like much but brought the wife a bottle of Roussanne which she loved so she had to visit. She tasted while I walked around. I did taste the Grenache Blanc and found it very refreshing and quite drinkable. Wife stocked up on roussanne ($144/case) and added some GB, Chard, and Rose.

Qupe – Pouring 3 labels (Qupe, Veradade, and Ethan) out of the tasting room. The wine that knocked me over here was the 2009 Ethan, Sawyer Lindquist Vineyard, Syrah. The nose alone had me. I think its 100% whole cluster and which really shows in the nose. This wine should have a long life.

Longoria – Visited them last year and loved them. This time, was much less impressed. Unlike Foley, I am sure that this is only vintage difference. I just don’t like their 2008s as much as the 2007s. Looking at my total purchases for the trip, I don’t think I liked the 2008 as a vintage with very few of them purchased, much more 2009 and 2007 purchased.

Andrew Murray – One of the three best tasting room people we met. Why is it so hard to get someone who understands that not all customers want the same level of information? Most give you the speech they rehearsed even when its obvious the customer does not care, others can’t answer what seems to be basic questions. It’s a pleasure when you find one of the good ones and its obvious by how much time we spend there. As for the wines themselves, the reds were not my style preference but the RGB (Rousanne/Grenache Blanc) was delicious.

Stolpman - Another stop of solid wines yet nothing thrilled me. There was an interesting no sulfur syrah that was fun to taste after the normal Syrah. However, it was the L’Avion (Roussanne) that came closest to providing the wow effect and what we purchased.

Dragonette – A real revelation. First time tasting them and knew very little about them. Best SB of the entire trip and a great PN from the Fiddlestix vineyard. One of my favorite stops due to both the wine and the folks running the place. One of the owners was in the tasting room filling in lots of info about harvest status, techniques employed etc.

Tercero – I wanted to like Larry’s wines more than I did. Larry poured 9 wines the day we stopped. All were priced well and I found a number of them that were pleasing but again nothing really excited me. May have suffered by following Dragonette . Favorite was the Mourvedre and the Cuvee Loco.

[Jenise]

So many wineries, so many names that have popped up since I last tasted through that area! Rideau and Dragonette are new to me. I remember tasting with Andrew Murray himself (who looks kind of like Mike Filigenzi) in some old barn--he'd just sold his vineyards and had not opened up a different tasting room yet--but his wines were pretty much all syrah and most syrah bores me. Did you stop at Beckman? I've always found their syrahs atypically European in style, and they mature well in the bottle.

Dragonette is relatively new, not sure exactly when they opened. Rideau has been around for about 15 years and known most for the viognier. Back in the day, Richard Longoria was the consulting winemaker but I have no idea who is doing the cellar work there now.

We planed to visit Beckman but missed the turn and decided to hit it on the way out instead but by the time we finished with Tercero we were shot.