So many wineries, so little time...

I trotted up to Sonoma County yesterday and came back with only 3 1/2 cases....
We've had an oddball winter and spring. It has been dry, about 80% of "normal" rainfall, and most of the rain came in February and March. We got a couple of hot days (90 degrees) a week ago, but it has gone back to very cool and windy, with considerable overcast.
I was surprised that the vines are just leafing out; I expected them to have enough leaves that the branches would be pretty well hidden. There were a few crews thinning, but they were only working in the sunniest patches.
It's sort of neat to go visiting on Tuesday or Wednesday. Most of the time I was the only customer in the tasting room, and a couple of times I had a nice half-hour chat with the owner or winemaker. They, and the knowledgeable tasting servers, were a bit concerned about the weather and the slow start to the growing season. The concern is basically that the fruit might be slow to develop and fail to (using my own term here, not theirs) "fatten up" in midsummer. We'll see.
I like having long chats, but it does cut into my winery count!
I started off by going over to Glen Ellen and stopped at Loxton and Wellington, a couple of my favorite kind of small places. Chris Loxton and his assistant Jeff and I chatted for a good half hour and I was impressed with his Chardonnay, which is made from a part of the same ranch that Chateau St. Jean calls Durrell Vineyard. As I understood it, the owners of CSJ gave or sold a part of Durrell Vineyard to a fellow named Hill, and his girlfriend's name is Parmelee, so this part of Durrell is now Parmelee-Hill Vineyard, on the edge of Carneros but still in Sonoma Valley. (Please don't take this as authentic history - it's what I recollect from conversation.) The Chard is matured in mostly neutral casks, and it tastes very much like an oaked Chablis. He also had a non-vintage "Sonoma Reds", a mixture of Zin, Syrah and some Pinot Noir. Chris is a sort of self-deprecating Aussie, and his story is that there was a barrel of this and a barrel of that left over and he didn't know what to do with them. Well, what he didn't know what to do was more than good enough for me, and I brought home a couple of bottles. Great hamburger wine! And Loxton is a Syrah destination and I got some of that, too.
At Wellington, I found they had '04 Cab on sale at 40% off for case lots. Well, with tasting and schmoozing and so forth, I ended up with half a case of Cab and some really delicious Marsanne and a couple of bottles of Grenache that won medals and I could see why, and of course as I'm a Zinaholic, some Zin. I got the 40% on the Cab and case discount on the other stuff.
I stopped at Kunde on the way back to Santa Rosa, more for old times' sake than anything else. They've moved sharply upscale in pricing and presentation since I was last there several years ago, and I didn't find any bargains there.
Foppiano is one of my regular stops, and I was the only one there, and ended up with a case. Four bottles of '01 reserve PS, for which I paid 56% what it cost me 2 1/2 years ago. It's drinking beautifully, and has maybe 5 to 20 years ahead of it, depending on how old you like your wine. I also bought a couple of bottles of '92, which is a lady in her best middle years, showing some maturity and still fresh and graceful. And some '05 just for the stash, and a couple of bottles of '00 PN, which is ready any time over the next 5 years or so. I didn't buy any of this on release - the only older bottle I have in my list is an '02 that I drank last October, and it was typical of RRV PN.

Ok, I said I only came back with 3 1/2 cases. However, David Coffaro is always my downfall. I ordered 3 cases of '08 futures because I couldn't figure out how to satisfy myself with less. I spend 45 minutes sipping from barrels and bottles and chatting with assistant winemaker Matt. They've done the basically final but not perhaps final final blending and the stuff is tasting quite a lot like wine now. The estate Zin is full of cinnamon and brambles, and it has a pretty good backbone. The My Zin could be bottled today IMO. Zin with enough Petite Sirah to perk it up. And the Block 4 is jammed with old-vine, old-Italian-style character, perhaps the best I've tasted in 5 years or so. Carignan is good, too.
By then it was getting late and the only other place I stopped was Dry Creek Vineyard, partly to complain about my corked bottle of Petite Zin. The good stuff convinced me. They replaced my bummer and I bought a couple more just for luck - it would be great with crab Louis on a hot day. For the rest, Tom Hill's "short/boring" post has the tale. I did buy a bottle of '05 Endeavour Cab for an appalling $55. It's good wine, but the old Lindblad Expeditions ship Endeavour has been retired to the Galapagos Islands, and I wanted a bottle to memorialize her. I last traveled to the Falklands and South Georgia Island on her last October and November.

Swan and Yoakim Bridge are only open on weekends. I ran out of time and didn't go down to the Forestville area so I didn't check out Hook & Ladder, Sunce, de Loach, or Pellegrini. I also didn't get up to the Alexander Valley. As the subject says......

John

I opened a bottle of Loxton Chardonnay '07 to have with wine-braised breast of chicken and rice flavored with turmeric tonight.
The color was medium gold. At Loxton yesterday, the bottle was right out of the refrigerator and was a bit cold. I let mine warm up for a bit, so it was sort of like British beer temperature - warm enough to let the aromas out without being exactly room temperature. A very nice buttery aroma, and a very smooth entry. Oak is present but it's mainly a background to the peachy, fairly ripe flavor. Long and even.
Tasty stuff.
$25.20, sort of high end for my pricing tastes, but a worthwhile wine. 13.7% alcohol.

John (copying note into my spreadsheet)

I admire your restraint..On our last trip to Sonoma,,with a few stops in Napa as well, bought so much wine that I am now on a self imposed moratorium re buying red wines
Tasting with Matt at Coffaro can be injurious to your wallet..bought some assorted reds and a dessert wine and we also bought 2008 futures..stuff tasted fabulous from the barrel..

Hey John -

Do you know if Wellington still makes their "Noir de Noir" alicante bosche? I've had a few bottles of that over the years and I find it both interesting and tasty.

Durell Vineyard was named for the original owner, Ed Durell, who acquired the property, originally a cattle ranch, back in the '70's. Ed had been a food broker, and through that business, had become friends with Steve Hill, whom he hired to manage the vineyards they began planting on the property in the late '70's. Steve was (and still is) married to Gwen Parmelee, and they have two kids (now fully grown), Ned and Darcy.
In the early '90s, after it became apparent that phylloxera had taken root in the original blocks planted at Durell, Ed sold some of the property to Kendall-Jackson (including the original 6 acre block of Syrah at Durell) and a portion of it to Steve, which became the original blocks of Parmelee-Hill. Durell sold the rest of the property early in 1998 to Bill Price, who is the current owner. Steve continues to be the vineyard foreman at Durell, and to operate Parmelee-Hill with his son, Ned, who is doing a lot of viticultural work on his own, as well. Steve has acquired adjoining property, and leased some nearby property to expand the holdings of Parmelee-Hill.
Part of the Durell property is in Carneros, all of it falls into the Sonoma Valley appellation, and I wouldn't be surprised if it also qualifies as "Sonoma Coast."

Mike,
Yes, Wellington does make the "Noir de Noirs", and it's a really interesting super-dark, super-fruity, aperitif sort of dry wine. It will stain teeth, glasses. clothing, and probably the air over the glass. I enjoyed the taste, but I didn't buy any because I'm a wine-with-food sort of person, and I had a hard time imagining a menu that would work with the alicante bosche.

Steve,
Thanks very much for the inside scoop on Durell and Parmelee-Hill.
If I were an anthropologist rather than a mechanical engineer, I imagine the workings of the businesses of the small farmers and small producers in the area that I might vaguely describe as the "North Bay" would provide lots of masters' theses.

John

Glad to hear they're still making the stuff. I agree regarding food matching - it's much more of an interesting curiosity than a wine to go with good food.