California uber alles

originally posted by BJ:
Is the new LIOCO any good? 2011 vintage?
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Try Ghostwriter. Light colored, 12.7% pinot and a similarly styled chardonnay.

If you can't find them in your area, we have some and will ship.

I think the LIOCO 2011s that I've had are good.

Ceritas were very good, but the Charles Heintz chardonnay was far and away the best. Some of the other wines tasted too much like other very good wines to me. The Heintz chardonnay was something else entirely. Speaking of whcih, Kevin Kelly makes one from Salinia that is great and unique.
 
Hi Nathan,
The Charles Heitz was indeed my favorite at Ceritas, unfortunately they were all sold out.
The 2010 and 2011 Porter Bass Chardonnay were also excellent.
Restrained and minerally. I think John mentioned the grapes were picked at 20 brix IIRC.
No yeast, all neutral wood (barrels used at least six years) and really no cellar interventions orher then a bit of sulfur. All three Chardonnay I tasted seemed very distinct from each other.
I am a rank novice with CA Chardonnay, a wine I have actively avoided for years.
These hit the sweet spot for me.

Also tried a 2012 Cabernet they made 3 barrels only from Santa Cruz Mountains Peter Martin Ray vineyard.
12% abv and to me very much a ringer for old school CA Cab,
as best as I could tell from a barrel sample.

Exciting stuff going on in the Golden State.

Also had a glass of the Broc Carignan while out there.
Fun and very drinkable.
 
originally posted by Marc D:
Hi Nathan,
Exciting stuff going on in the Golden State.
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The last few years have really excited me. I've been drinking tons of CA wine lately.

If you haven't tried Hobo zinfandels, you NEED to.
 
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Hey, we're going to be in East Bay for a couple weeks this summer.

We are going to try to do some outings and visit some producers.

Thinking about visiting:

Ceritas
Lioco
Wind Gap
Steve, if he'll have us

Who else?
 
Arnot-Roberts?

If it were my trip, I'd make a point of visiting Rod Berglund at Joseph Swan, but YMMV on that.

Mark Lipton
 
Mark, good idea!

I haven't heard Rod's name mentioned in many years...since way back in the Prodigy Wine Board days.

. . . . Pete
 
originally posted by BJ:
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Hey, we're going to be in East Bay for a couple weeks this summer.

We are going to try to do some outings and visit some producers.

Thinking about visiting:

Ceritas
Lioco
Wind Gap
Steve, if he'll have us

Who else?
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if you visit wind gap tasting room see if you can set an appt with scott schultz too. he makes the wine there and also makes his Jolie-Laide label there too. if you're interested pm me and i can shoot him an email for you.
in Santa Rosa there's Kevin Kelly of Salinias. same industrial park Florida Jim make this wines in. Kevin's a great guy and a fun visit.
In Healdsburg Sam Bilbro has a Salumi place and pours his wines there.
 
I don't have a place, as such; I make everything at a winery up in the foothills. But with a little planning, getting together to eat and drink can be a possibility. (I'm not overly fond of wine talk, though)
 
Last year in Oakland we hit the taco trucks and then visited Dashe. It made a great afternoon.
Great folks at Dashe doing interesting things with Zin and concrete egg shaped fermenters. I think you would like their Les Enfants bottles in particular.
 
Also I think Ceritas and Lioco are the same folks, so maybe call Phoebe at Ceritas to schedule a visit. If I were going now, I'd try to visit Arnot Roberts. My favorite currently of the CA wineries but there are many others that I don't know about.
 
originally posted by Steve Edmunds:
I don't have a place, as such; I make everything at a winery up in the foothills. But with a little planning, getting together to eat and drink can be a possibility. (I'm not overly fond of wine talk, though)
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BJ and Steve, I'm sure we could pull something together with interesting bottles and a minimum of wine talk.
 
I haven't checked into Disorder in quite a while, and was shocked to find my name mentioned. I really have got to get out more often....

By all means, come on out to Oakland--we're just off Jack London Square at 55 4th st. Our recent Les Enfants Terribles bottlings are really quite interesting, especially the recent Chenin Blanc (which I called the "Black Bart Cuvee" after my black concrete egg fermenter until I got a cease-and-desist letter), the Evangelho Carignane, and a new LET wine made from Signal Ridge Vineyards (highest elevation in Mendo County). I'd love to see you.

Steve, come on over to the winery too; we can all have lunch at Nido and drag out some older wines.

--Mike D
 
originally posted by Michael Dashe:
I haven't checked into Disorder in quite a while, and was shocked to find my name mentioned. I really have got to get out more often....

By all means, come on out to Oakland--we're just off Jack London Square at 55 4th st. Our recent Les Enfants Terribles bottlings are really quite interesting, especially the recent Chenin Blanc (which I called the "Black Bart Cuvee" after my black concrete egg fermenter until I got a cease-and-desist letter), the Evangelho Carignane, and a new LET wine made from Signal Ridge Vineyards (highest elevation in Mendo County). I'd love to see you.

Steve, come on over to the winery too; we can all have lunch at Nido and drag out some older wines.

--Mike D
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Nice to see this btg at Rouge Tomate the other night:

dashe_btg.jpg
 
This is getting pretty exciting. I'll send out some dates this weekend. Looking at late June/early July, so a ways out.
 
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