2006 Evan’s Ranch Pinot Noir Clone 114 Lone Oak Vineyard
USA, California, Central Coast, Santa Rita Hills

Wine Rating: 91

Uncorked: 2009.11.26 Thanksgiving Dinner
This was a fine pairing with the Thanksgiving meal of roasted foods. Beautiful ruby color as it cascaded into the decanter. Cherry, cranberry and sawdust on the nose. Plenty of body, complexity and firmness to stand up to the meal. Surprisingly dark flavors in this wine with concentrated black cherry and dark raspberry. Tree bark, cloves and allspice flavors bring a spiciness to the wine. Bigger than I expected with an almost loamy-like soil undertone. Rounded tannins with a long finish. Noteworthy wine.

$52.00 Evan’s Ranch Cellar Club [Gainey Vineyard]

Gainey Vineyard Website

2006 Tercero Grenache/Mourvedre Rose
USA, California, Central Coast, Santa Barbara County

Wine Rating: 88

Uncorked: 2009.09.11 Dinner on the Deck – served with grilled salmon & shrimp
I’ve been drinking several of the wines I discovered on my visit this summer in the Santa Ynez Valley. Some of the wines won’t find their way into these reviews for several years, but at least a case of the wine that came home with me is intended to be enjoyed in these final days of summer and early fall.

So there have been several notes about Larry Schaffer’s Tercero Wines. I have to say, this is a winemaker to watch out for. He is working magic with the fruit of the Santa Ynez Valley (with is a treasure to begin with), bringing a purity and clarity to wine that is pretty unique. His wines are an extension of the vineyard — good fruit into the process, tending it carefully, and bringing to the glass a wonderful sip of the Valley itself. Seriously — I taste the Santa Ynez Valley in every sip of these wines. But it’s not old musty “terroir” — it is the freshness and life of the vineyards and valley. Combine that purity and place with a luxurious feel in the mouth, and you’ve got Larry’s wines.

This wine is one of the first two wines that Larry Schaffer made. If he weren’t so ernest and honest, I wouldn’t believe him. This wine tastes like it was made by an experienced master. Yet it is fresh in style and exudes accessibility. It’s no surprise, then, that this is the third or fourth wine from Tercero that I have written about in the past few weeks. If you haven’t figured it out yet, I REALLY like these wines! The only reason I’d tell you to not go buy every bottle you can find (mostly from the winemaker himself — they’re small production and not yet widely available), it would be because I’m selfish and want to drink it all myself. It’s also an amazing bargain. GO BUY THIS WINE. On with the tasting notes…

Soft in color. texture, and flavors. Not wimpy, but gentle with a good backbone. Very well balanced in the nose and mouth. Citrus, honey, and strawberry on the nose. Cashmere feeling in the mouth with fresh summer fruit flavors and firm acid that make for a wonderfully balanced, easy drinking, summer wine. Wonderful to drink on the deck on a warm afternooon. Went very well with grilled salmon and shrimp.

$12.00 (special pricing right now for like $10) purchased from the winery

Tercero Wines Website

2006 Tercero Grenache Blanc Camp 4 Vineyard
USA, California, Central Coast, Santa Ynez Valley

Wine Rating: 89

Uncorked: 2009.09.06 Picnic at Blossom – Cleveland Orchestra
What a wonderful wine to enjoy on a summer evening, particularly at NE Ohio’s Blossom with the Cleveland Orchestra!

A bit softer than the 2008 we’ve already had, undoubtedly the result of more time in the bottle. The aromas were a bit muted, but still had plenty of citrus and honey with a refreshing smell of wet stones. Very round, almost velvety feel in the mouth. Plenty of fruit flavors, mostly sweet fruits, but without the accompanying sugar: apricot, honeydew, even slightly tart pineapple. Plenty of citrus and minerality with nicely balanced acid. Very enjoyable and easy to drink. Excellent QPR.

$18.00 retail Purchased from the winery

Tercero Wines Website

1992 Château Bel-Air (Domaines Henri Martin)
France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Haut-Médoc

Wine Rating: 83

Uncorked: 2009.09.04 Dinner with Neighbors
This poor little bottle had been forgotten in the cellar. I’ve got a couple more down there — an ‘88 and a ‘94. These are pretty simple, low-end Bordeaux bottlings, but it’s always fun to find forgotten bottles, and interesting to endulge in a bit of mystery since it’s hard to know what’s gone in under the cork over these several years.

We had dinner with some of our neighbors, and this was one of seveal wines we sampled. We opened the bottle and let it decant for about an hour. It was tight and a bit unwieldy. Not a crowd-pleaser, but I had a sense there was more to this little bottle than the turned-up noses as we first tasted the wine. So I drank it over the next three days. This was a good example of “good things come to those who wait.” While the wine never became anything extraordinary, it was fun to see that this little bottle wasn’t just going to roll over and be forgotten.

Obviously beyond prime, but surprising how it balanced out on day 3. Aromas of dark chocolate, elderberries, and smoke. Soft feel in the mouth with skin-on plum, currant, and bell pepper flavors. Softened but ripe tanins endured through a moderate finish. Remarkably easy to drink, even in its twilight.

I encourage even novice wine drinkers to find a couple of bottles that can be hidden away for a few years. It is a treat to see how wines develop over time. This one went beyond its best drinking window, but how fun it was to blow off the dust, wake it up a bit, and let it give the gifts of aromas and flavors that have been bottled up for fifteen or sixteen years.

$8.00 in 1994

2006 Saarloos & Sons Ring Effie Unk Santa Ynez Valley

Bordeaux-Style Blend (85% Merlot, 10% Cabernet Sauvignon, 5% Cabernet Franc)
USA, California, Central Coast, Santa Ynez Valley

Wine Rating: 94

Uncorked: 2009.08.22 Jeff’s Birthday Dinner – served with farmer’s market finds on the grill
Concentrated and intricate, expressive and lush, elegant and delicious. There is something really special going on in this bottle of wine, and at this young age it is just beginning to demonstrate its moxy. The color is beautifully dense and saturated. Earthiness in the nose with dark berries and currants, coffee, graphite, and hints of wildflowers. Delicately extracted yet concentrated fruit flavors show remarkable restraint. Blackberry, ripe plum, and slightly sweet blueberry are balanced with good structure and body. Flavors of the vineyard itself come through with earthiness, dried herbs, and shale. Solid tannins lead to a lingering finish. Focused, sensuous, and very memorable.

$48.00 Purchased from the winery

Story about the unique name of the wine:
What is RING EFFIE UNK? Ring, Effie, and Unk are the names of family members that lived together. Ring and Effie were married and his brother, whom everyone called Unk, came to live with them. Leave a blend of personalities together for a extended period of time and no longer are they individuals but a entirely new family. They went so far as to have the names on the sign on their home include them all.

Saarloos & Sons Website

Wine is a luxury of being home.

Sure, I have my cellar in my home and I am writing this sitting on the front porch of my home while sipping the remains of the 2008 Tercero Grenache Blanc Camp 4 that I opened yesterday (it has only gotten better!).  We share simple family meals with a glass of wine, or have extravagant dinner parties where wine and fellowship are shared in abundance.  But that’s not my point.

Wine is not the product of nomads.  It takes years for a newly planted grapevine to produce enough fruit to make wine.  The vines need tending, the fruit needs harvesting, and the juice needs a place to undergo its transformation into wine.  Fermentation, racking, aging, bottling, storing — these are all activities that require settlement.  One of the markers that researchers and archeologists use to determine when bands of people moved from wandering to being settled is the presence of viticulture and winemaking.

Certainly wine (of sorts) can be made by nomads who find fruit, pick it, crush it, and allow natural fermentation to happen as they continue along their journey.  But viticulture, growing grapes to produce wine, simply can’t be done on the move.

In the Biblical story of the flood (with Noah and the ark), one of the first things Noah was instructed to do when the water receded was to plant a vineyard.  Those vines were a strong symbol that Noah and his kin were no longer displaced; they were now home.

The implications of wine being a product of settlement, security, having a “place” and land, are many and rich.

While I will no doubt wax on profusely about all of this at another time, I want to end here by suggesting a connection between this concept and one of my newest favorite wineries:  Saarloos & Sons.  They are making some wonderful wines and serve them in this home built in 1886 which they call simply, “House.”

Each of the wines that Keith Saarloos (son) makes is connected to stories of home – stories from the vineyards where the wines had their birth as well as stories of family and ancestors whose memories and legacies are captured and honored in the naming of their bottlings.  Their family creed says it all:  “We live to honor those that have come before us, and to prepare the way for those yet to come.”  An example of their somewhat odd wine naming is their “Purper Hart.”  Not a misspelling.  It’s the Dutch translation of “Purple Heart.”  The wine (an amazing Syrah) honors John Saarloos, a member of their family who received the Purple Heart for his service in WWII.

These wines, and all wines, are connected to the land, to the people who make them, and to those who delight in drinking them.

You see… it’s about home.

2008 Tercero Grenache Blanc Camp 4 Vineyard
USA, California, Central Coast, Santa Ynez Valley

Wine Rating: 90

Uncorked: 2009.08.13 Warm afternoon sipper
Delicious and elegant. Pale straw color. When cold the nose was a bit tight with lemon, green apple, minerals, and hints of pepper. Opened up with riper aromas of honeydew and stone fruit. Youthful and vibrant in the mouth. Bright and crisp citrus flavors dominate followed by nice tartness. Finishes with nice acidity. Very well balanced flavors, particularly for a wine this young. It is luscious with depth and texture in the mouth, yet remains refreshingly crisp. I could drink this all summer long. Extraordinary QPR.

$18.00 From Larry Schaffer himself after private tasting

Tercero Wines Website

2008 Foley Estates Pinot Gris Courtney’s Vineyard
USA, California, Central Coast, Santa Rita Hills

Wine Rating: 88

Uncorked: 2009.08.09 Kerri enjoyed this wine on Joyce Davis’ patio overlooking the Pacific Ocean
Crisp in color, aroma, and flavors. Floral hints in the nose with definite citrus and minerals. Bright melon and citrus in the mouth with an interestingly round mouthfeel. Perfect wine for a warm afternoon.

$23.00 Foley Estates Winery

Foley Estates Website

I confess that I have had a bias against Fess Parker wines for many years. The winery itself is gorgeous, nestled in the midst of mature vineyards along a picturesque winding road in the Santa Ynez Valley. On one of my early visits to the winery (early 1990s) we met Fess Parker himself, and were pleased to have “Davy Crocket” (or “Daniel Boone” if you prefer) autograph one of his bottles of Pinot Noir for us. It was quaint, though the facade of a skilled Hollywood production was obvious. This guy knew how to market wine… even wine that was quite unremarkable. Over the next few years, the number of tour buses visiting the winery increased, the array of products available in the tasting room eclipsed the varieties of wines, and the wines themselves… well, they remained unremarkable. So I stopped visiting Fess Parker Winery, and probably raised my nose a bit every time I drove by on my way to one of the lesser known wineries up the road.

That was until last week. One of the area’s most interesting new wine makers, Larry Schaffer, met us for a private tasting of his Tercero Wines (see yesterday’s review of his Outlier Gewurtztraminer). I came to find out that Larry is on the wine making staff of Fess Parker Winery. That got my interest. Larry spoke very highly of Blair Fox, the head winemaker at Fess Parker, and gave me a different prespective on the resources that are available to the wine making team as part of a larger enterprise. They have the luxury of selecting only certain barrels to include in their finest wines — a reality not available to the smallest producers. They have the resources to have a wine making staff, not just one winemaker and one palate shaping the wine.

Still, what made me visit Fess Parker Winery again was its accessibility to less well-trained wine consumers… I took my mother-in-law. She likes wine out of a box. White Zinfandel is her wine of choice. She wouldn’t like Tercero’s complex flavors or the big flavors in Beckmen’s juice. Of all the wineries in the valley, the one bearing the mark of the ‘coon skin cap is the one she’ll like the best.

I had set up a private tasting at Fess Parker with Larry Schaffer, assistant winemaker, to guide our experience. The first wine was a Santa Barbara County Chardonnay. I almost skipped the pour. Larry’s expressive face told me to try it. The wine had a clean, elegant aroma that got my attention. THIS is Fess Parker’s wine? I sipped and was instantly humbled. This is a new kind of wine from Fess Parker. Thinking it might be a fluke, I was still reluctant as we continued the tasting. Boy was I wrong. This team of winemakers is doing something really interesting — they are exploiting the resources available to them to create some really fine wine.

We bought two bottles — I’d have bought more if we weren’t restricted by our need to take it home on an airplane. The chardonnay would be a gift for the couple taking care of my mother-in-law’s dog (nice gift!), and I’d keep the wine that changed my mind about this winery — the 2005 Syrah “The Big Easy.” They have captured some of Santa Ynez Valley’s finest Syrah character in that bottle. See some of my impressions in the review below.

Oh, and fortunately I’ve still got that autographed bottle on display in my wine cellar at home.

Fess Parker Winery Website

2005 Fess Parker Syrah “The Big Easy”
USA, California, Central Coast, Santa Ynez Valley

Wine Rating: 90

Uncorked: 2009.08.02
Davis family patio – served with grilled tri-tip, sipped into the night

Improved after being open for an hour or so. Very big in the nose with dark fruit aromas, vanilla, and some earthiness. In the mouth it lives up to its name, “The Big Easy.” Big fruit, but not over-extracted. Juicy plum, cherry, and dark berry flavors with a bit of spice. Very well balanced flavors and mouth feel. Finishes with solid tanins, and the alcohol was subdued with some breathing time. I was pleasantly surprised that this came from the Fess Parker Winery — they’re producing some fine wines these days.

$40.00 Fess Parker Winery

Fess Parker Winery Website