It's a good thing to have a plausible excuse.
And yes, David's in the Dry Creek Valley which isn't technically the Russian River Valley, and I also hit the Alexander Valley. But really!! I wanted to taste the new barrel stuff! Really!
It's impossible to do a day like that and just only merely simply taste some stuff and order some futures. There are all those wineries up there, and they're all begging and pleading like little puppy dogs for me to wander in and piddle some money on the floor.
Well, David's up at the top of Dry Creek Valley, and I'm coming up from the south, so I charged up 101 and (manfully resisting temptations to stop earlier) took the River Road exit and headed west (passing Martinelli -- gotta stop there some time) and turned off at The Farmhouse Inn to go over to Westside Road.
All my manful restraint didn't work. I wanted to hit David Farrell, but it was only 10:30 and they don't open till 11:00. Nor does Moshin.
Oh well. On to Davis Bynum. I hadn't stopped there in several years, and I was a bit shocked to find that they've moved their pricing very much upscale. It's the same narrow steep driveway and the same tasting area in the barn, though. They'd just released their 2003 Pinot Noirs -- here's the shock -- priced from $50 to $75!! Fool that I am, I tasted anyway, and doubly the fool, I even bought some. <sigh> I really wanted the one with Rochioli and Bynum vineyard grapes, but my squeaky wallet would only spring for the one with Bynum (about 60%) and Moshin (about 40%) grapes. $50. No discount. I think it'll be pretty good, but it won't have the life of the one with Rochioli content (roughly half and half, according to the pourer).
Cheapest wine they had was a 2005 SB -- RRV, so predictably ripe, but no oak at all, and nice grapefruit acidity -- at $16.
My goal lay to the north, so I forged onward. Westside Road is one of the prettiest drives in California. I used to race sports cars and I really feel the challenge of a twisting, undulating country road, and my car is very competent, but I couldn't hurry -- it's too peaceful and too beautiful. Stick it in 4th and ease along at 35 - 40 MPH.
Mill Creek is another winery that I've skipped recently. They've come up with a couple of killer Merlots, and a real bargain at $22. All estate grown. I got a bottle each of the '01 (the current release) and the '02, which is sort of "pre-release" but you can get it. The '02 will be better than the '01, but patience will be rewarded. In the tasting room (new bottles, I was only about the second or third pour) the '01 was very dark and aromatic, with lots of herbs and just a taste of forest floor. The '02 was similar, but it was substantially more tannic, with perhaps a bit of bottle shock making the fruit a bit reticent. If you filtered it, you could probably make bricks.
It took me 10 minutes or so to talk and re-taste before I could see that the structure was really there.
Now, I'm not a Merlot guy. I only have 11 bottles of it in my 400+, counting these two. But this is Good Wine.
Quivira and Dry Creek Vineyards are close to each other, and each of them is an old favorite of mine. I stopped and talked and bought wines that are reliable but of no particular distinction in my mind. Quivira, in particular, makes wines that are on the ripe side. Sometimes they can be exceptional, and sometimes they're just ripe. I did pick up a couple of bottles of their '04 Anderson Vineyard Zin, a young vineyard that is improving year by year.
Then to David Coffaro.
I like tasting wines in the barrel. It's an experience. What you taste is not what you'll get in the bottle, but it's related. Yesterday, I got to taste Tannat and Petit Verdot in the barrel and un-blended. Now I have something else to put in my mental card file, which consists of scraps of stuff littered all over the floor inside my head. Tannat is a structure wine, not a fruit wine. I don't think I'd like a bottle of straight Tannat. Petit Verdot is all about aromatics. Now I know why they put 2% of it in this and that.
As I was tasting just after the wines had been put in the barrels, and some barrels were still doing a bit of secondary fermentation, and nothing had been blended, I won't try to talk about what David's 2006 products will be like. Or not much. The Zin is going to be a killer!! And the Cab, which he buys from 4 different vineyards, is going to be very good. One vineyard's cab was damn near perfect to my taste. (Unfortunately, there aren't many barrels of that in the barn.) The "Block 4", a true field blend of old vines (some unidentified) seems to me to be a better than average vintage.
So then I spent some time agonizing over how to order everything I want in the proportions I want, without needing a truck to haul it home. Of course, I ended up booking not enough and too much. <sigh> Life is hard.
Well, it was growing late, and I had one more place I hadn't visited and wanted badly to revisit -- Field Stone, over in the Alexander Valley, actually at the Alexander Valley end of the pass to Calistoga. I was glad I took the time. Their '05 SB is really tasty (better than most IMO, well balanced and not too alcoholic, and not oaky) and reasonably priced at $16 ($12.80 with discount). Their Estate Petite Sirah is from 19th century vines (planted somewhere around 1875 to 1885). The '02 vintage is really nice, worth $35 and even more worth the $28 I paid. I find it hard to describe what's so good about a really good Petite Sirah. It has Character. If you're not a Petite Sirah fan, I won't waste your time with opacity and pepper flavors and so forth. And if you are, I won't waste your time anyway. Here's a wine with Character. It'll be good for a decade or two, probably peak somewhere around 2010 or 2015. I doubt I'll be able to wait that long, but I won't regret my impatience.
So then I headed home. Oops! Just down the road is Sausal. I've never been there. Now I have. Nice little place, friendly, with a bench on the front porch to enjoy the afternoon sunlight. And good Alexander Valley Zin. Warmer climate than Dry Creek Valley Zin, but not as warm as Lodi.
Oh well. Another couple of bottles, here we go.
On the way back to Healdsburg, I followed a very nicely restored TR3. And then I got home in time for a good spaghetti dinner with a nice bottle of De Lorimier '02 Sangiovese (also Alexander Valley).
Dang! All that just for tasting a few wines in the barrel!
