Big House Wines

First, let me send another thank you to the good folks at Folsom who sent along a few of the whites from the Big House line of wines for sampling. Big House is a value-priced line of wines from Underdog Wine & Spirits. Underdog also makes Cupcake, Fish Eye, flipflop, and Octavin wines. Big House’s winery is basically across the street from the Soledad State Correctional Facility in Mendocino County, California – thus creating the obvious inspiration for both the name of the wine and the nicknames of many of the individual varietals.

I received three bottles for sampling – their “most popular summer sippers,” according to winemaker “Warden” Georgetta Dane. So, without further adieu:

Big House White 2011 – This white is a “field blend” of 10 primary varietals, plus whatever else they have around at the time. The largest chunk of the wine’s composition is Viognier (about 27%), followed by Malvasia and Gruner Veltliner. With a backbone of Viognier, I wasn’t surprised to find the nose rather perfumey. You can’t miss the floral characteristics unless your sinuses are acting up. Flavorwise, I got melon & tropical fruit flavors with a little bit of sweetness from a little bit of residual sugar. The finish is fruity and a little fat. I thought it tasted like an inexpensive Viognier without the oiliness common to many of those wines. A decent enough summer quaffer if you’re looking for something that’s aromatic.

Big House 2011 “Unchained” Naked (Unoaked) Chardonnay – I’m not a big fan of many California chardonnays because they’re usually heavily oaked and buttery. Some winemakers have tried producing unoaked chardonnay with mixed results. The big drawback to many of these unoaked specimens is a lack of acidity. When I tried the Unchained, I was pleasantly surprised to discover some tartness. (Now, it’s not super-acidic, mind you.) Lemon and green apple were major flavors. The body had a decent amount of weight and the finish was reasonably crisp. I thought it was OK, but I wouldn’t classify it as one of my favorite bottles to just slug on. Steak tacos were on the menu for the evening, and I hoped there’d be enough oomph within to handle them. With the beef, greens, avocado, and onion – everything was fine. As soon as I dolloped some spicy salsa on there, game over. The capsaicin just ran the flavors over. Lesson learned – it’s a flexible enough food wine, as long as you aren’t eating spicy.

Big House “The Birdman” 2011 Pinot Grigio – Again, this pinot grigio wasn’t exactly what I expected. Many pinot grigios are either highly acidic or downright watery. Neither was the case here. I found this to be quite full-bodied for a pinot grigio – and I certainly wasn’t expecting one which had lemon flavors that sat on my tongue for any length of time. That lemon is crossed with a strong dose of tropical fruit, especially pineapple. The finish is much more fruity than crisp. If I weren’t paying much attention and was looking for a wine to slug on, it was decent. However, I like more crispness in my pinot grigio. This one just wasn’t my speed.

Big House also offers Big House Red, “The Usual Suspect” Cabernet Sauvignon, “Cardinal Zin” Zinfandel, “The Slammer” sweet Shiraz, and “Grü-V” Grüner Veltliner. Big House’s wines generally retail for around $10. Three liter “wine casks” are usually around $22.  

“You Gotta Want The Wine” – Mendocino, pt. 1

The Sweet Partner in Crime’s well-timed conference in San Francisco gave me the perfect opportunity to take a couple of days off, zoom westward, and whisk her away up US 101 North. We plowed past the familiar stops in Napa and Sonoma to drop anchor in Cloverdale, California, gateway to Mendocino County.

Mendocino County is just north of Sonoma County. Cloverdale, about 90 miles north of San Francisco, is actually just on the Sonoma side of the county line.

We chose Cloverdale because it was the vertex of the two major roads – US 101 and CA 128 – heading up into Mendocino County wine country. The well-known 101 goes up along the Russian River towards Potter Valley and Redwood Valley. CA 128 snakes upwards along Dry Creek from Cloverdale towards Boonville and into Anderson Valley before ambling over to the Pacific Coast Highway.

We hitched the wagon at Vintage Towers, a Queen Anne B&B tucked away in a neighborhood a couple of blocks from the main street. It had everything you’d want…great interior, delicious breakfast prepared by Mary Stuart while her husband Don entertained, great spaces to relax, and necessary amenities. By the last, I mean that we were able to get a good enough wi-fi signal to watch the Duke-Colgate game on ESPN3 after we got there.

After we got settled and watched the game, we walked a couple of blocks to Piacére for dinner, a local Italian place. The owner/chef is Hispanic, but he has a serious flair for La Dolce Vita. We started with the most enormous barbecued oysters on the half shell we’d ever seen, topped with diced garlic, clams, parsley, olive oil, and finished with roe. The SPinC had veal & prawns in a lemon butter sauce and I had a “seafood of all sorts” pasta in a tomato-basil sauce. We washed this down with a bottle of Chianti. Mindblowingly good.

We decided to take the Anderson Valley “fork” on our first day. Empowered by an absolutely delicious breakfast at Vintage Towers, we packed up the rental car and headed northward. Our innkeeper made an offhand reference to 128 as “Mario Andretti Highway.” I’ve driven lots of curvy roads before. After all, I cut my driving teeth whipping a 1969 Peugeot 404 around the hollers of Eastern Kentucky. I figured that this would be no big deal.

I discovered that our new friend wasn’t kidding. If you like switchbacks, this is the road for you. Narrow, twisty, speed limit of 25 that’s not a joke. That sort of thing. We forged on, though, buoyed by the promise of scrumptious pinot noir. After about 35 minutes of winding through gorgeous scenery, Anderson Valley opened up before us.

The overall vibe of Mendocino, and Anderson Valley in particular, is very different from Napa and Sonoma. Napa has become, for the most part, an overpriced tourist trap. As Napa wines, as good as they can be, became more and more overpriced, it became the glamour region. Sonoma prided itself on being “not Napa.” They cultivated a laid back image, which made it very popular with wine lovers who wanted to avoid busses of bachelorette parties doing wine shots. But with success and increased visibility comes the need to live up to one’s press clippings. Sonoma seems to be shading from “laid back” into “hipster” territory. Too cool for school in many ways.

Mendocino, and Anderson Valley in particular, is geographically buffered from casual wine tourists. It’s a little too far from San Francisco for an easy drive – especially since you have to go through Napa and Sonoma to get there, so most people stop short. Once people get to Cloverdale, CA 128 can be a daunting trip, so the folks who make the trip really want to be there. The tasting rooms, as a result – at least on this weekend, were less crowded and we were able to spend more time chatting with folks and relaxing over our tastings. The majority of the wineries we visited used “organic” productions – certainly in process if not in certification.

Our first stop was Foursight Wines, a small operation run by the Charles family. Turns out that their grapes are the “Charles Vineyard” grapes from Papapietro Perry’s pinot noir – one of my faves. We spent quite awhile talking to Kristy Charles, who had come home after working in the world of public relations to work in the family business, bringing her husband along with her. They take their name from the number of generations that their family’s worked that plot of land. “Welcome to our dream,” they say. The low-yield, handpicked wines, fermented with wild yeast instead of cultured strains were an absolute delight. The highlights for us were the “Zero New Oak Pinot,” an elegant, meticulously balanced pinot noir and their Sauvignon Blanc, which was bright, lovely, and lean – very much along the style of a good white Bordeaux.

We spent quite a bit of time at Toulouse Vineyards working our way through their solid range of selections. We met the winemaker, Vern, just outside the door and had a friendly chat with him in the gathering drizzle of this gray day. Toulouse focuses on pinot noir with a few other wines with grapes sources from elsewhere. Their pinots were a more fruit-forward with a little more pepper. Their estate pinot (my note says “exquisite!”) was a glass of velvet with a finish of crème brulee. We had a chance to taste the unfermented pressing that went into the 2008 pinot. 2008 was a rough year for many winemakers in Anderson Valley because of the wildfires. The smokiness certainly comes through in the juice. Many people will turn away from that vintage – I would recommend that you give it a try. It gives an interesting twist.

Another highlight was Roederer Estates, the American production from Louis Roederer, the Champagne house that produces Cristal. We were tended to by Shyla and Pat in the tasting room. (It was Pat’s first day, and she did really well). Roederer Estate’s sparkling wines are some of the best values out there for “midpriced” sparklers. At Roederer, I learned that there’s cache in doing 1.5 liter bottlings of vintage bubbly over the normal sized bottle. The larger bottles carbonate more slowly, yielding a smoother flavor when tasted side by side. That said, of the wines poured, I preferred the 750 ml versions. I liked the bit of sharpness. Their L’Ermitage vintage bubbly was spectacular. Creamy, complex, and luxurious. They also were tasting some still wines, and their still chardonnay was a bargain for a high quality wine.

We made a stop at Standish Winery, which was founded by a direct descendent of Miles Standish (quite a path from Puritan to Premier Cru, no?) The 2007 Bosc Block Pinot Noir was superb – lots of fruit and menthol with plenty of Burgundian-style earth and chocolate to finish. More interesting was Michelle, our tastress, who had moved to the woods of Mendocino County from Columbus, Ohio. She left woodworking school to work in the tasting room.

Another winner was Drew Winery. The tasting room is in what appears to be an opulent, somewhat out of place Spanish villa in Philo. Turned out that the villa was once an interior design firm. The tasting room itself was very understated, as were the lovely, quietly fruity viognier and pinot noirs. However, for me, their 2007 Valenti Vineyard Syrah was an absolute rockstar. Subtle, peppery, and finely balanced, it’s simply a fantastic wine.

Our last stop of the day was Londer Vineyards. Londer Vineyards produces pinots in the $30-70 range and their tasting room is attached to a swanky art gallery. We pulled in there just as a heavy rainstorm was getting cranked up. There we met Joe Webb, one of Londer’s winemakers and the husband of Kristy Charles from Foursight (where Joe also moonlights). He ran us through their offerings. They had a very solid gewürztraminer and some really fantastic pinot. Their “Anderson Valley” pinot, made from grapes chosen from across the county, was the best value we found on the trip. Normally $30, they were selling it half-off by the case on the day we were there. We stocked up.

When we finished at Londer, rain was falling in literal sheets. I gripped the steering wheel hard and slowly crept down the side of the unlit mountain, trying my best to ignore the fact that there was no guardrail. Freeway driving was much easier. We’d had reservations that night at the restaurant in the Boonville Hotel, but we cancelled them, thinking discretion was the better part of valor. We ended up at Tian Yuen, a Vietnamese noodle place in Cloverdale that ended up being very, very yummy. A quick drive from there back to Vintage Towers and we were ready for some rest. After all, we had another full day coming up…

“Smoother Sailing” – Mendocino, part 2

(Click here for Part 1.)

On the second day of our little jaunt through Mendocino County wine country, we were accompanied by Sid, a friend of mine from back in the Usenet days of basketball discussion boards. An Oregonian living in San Francisco, he’d never been through Mendocino wine country and wanted to see what was about. We were more than happy to have him tot us around in a Prius.

The “other fork” of the road from Cloverdale is a much smoother ride up Highway 101. The viticultural areas along that stretch tend to be warmer as they’re farther inland, away from the cooling influences of the ocean breezes. The climate is better suited for growing heartier grapes such as cabernet sauvignon and chardonnay rather than the more delicate pinot noir and gewürztraminer in Anderson Valley. The wines in these regions tend to be less expensive and a little more readily available than their Anderson counterparts.

After a couple of false starts, we found ourselves at Lolonis Winery. Lucky us! Lolonis is an organic producer with an understated warehouse of a tasting room that happened to have a fabulous spread of cheeses for our snacking pleasure. We were their first visitors of the day this Sunday. “We figured everyone would be in church!” they said. Lolonis’ trademark is the ladybug, since they use these cute little critters as pest control. We had long talks with Lori the winemaker and with Petros Lolonis, the owner, who is one of the most charming gentlemen to whom I’ve ever had the pleasure of speaking. He’s quiet & thoughtful – the same adjectives I’d apply to his Redwood Valley Merlot, which at $18 a bottle is a steal. Their petit sirah and late harvest zinfandel (the latter is Cuvee Lorrane, named after the winemaker) are also excellent.
(During our visit to Lolonis, we discovered that we were smack dab in the middle of the Taste of Redwood Valley Holiday Wine Open House and Sale. Oh, darn…)

From there, we made our way to Oster Vineyards, tucked away down a back road. The tasting room is a low, wooden barn where Teresa & Ken Oster make exactly one wine, cabernet sauvignon. When they’re not picking grapes, they’re picking bluegrass tunes – and the wine and music certainly complement each other. Their cab is a balanced, approachable cab with a little bit of a rustic bite at the end that will mellow with a little time lying down. Lots of good berry and tannin even now.

The other winery highlight of our trip was McNab Ridge, where Joseph Parducci does some varietals that don’t show up very often. They make a carignane that smells like a chocolate truffle and a pinotage that’s pretty rugged around the edges but has a really nice heart of blueberries. Their 2006 Reserve Cabernet was just a luscious wine – their first ever reserve offering. There’s “Zinzilla!” – a biga zinfandel that they make year after year. An asskicker. They also had a barrel tasting available of their 2008 cabernet. As I mentioned in the last entry, 2008 was an interesting vintage in Mendocino because of the wildfires. Everyone calls it a “rough vintage,” but is that barrel was any indication, I’m personally going to be seeking out wines from that year. I think that they’ll be unique wines.

A few of the other places we hit on the second day:

Cole Bailey – At the top of a hill at the end of a twisty, muddy driveway sat a somewhat ramshackle tasting room where Bob Anderson held court, pouring his “Sesquipedalian” cabernet and sauvignon blanc. His name may not ring a bell, but he’s better known by his fraternity nickname – “Otter.” Bob was in Alpha Delta at Dartmouth – the inspiration for the Deltas. No, he didn’t say, “Bob Anderson, winemaker – damned glad to meet you,” but he was a very nice guy. His sauvignon blanc was very pleasant, as well. In case you’re wondering, a “Sesquipedalian” is “a sophistical rhetorician inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity. In other words, a poser who uses fancy-pants words when simple ones would do.” Alternatively, a wine writer.

Frey Vineyards – Frey claims to be “America’s first organic vineyard” and the winery and tasting room have the exterior look of a commune. While they may be the first, they’re certainly not the best. They’ve become a destination winery for hippies and hipsters. They’ve spent more time culturing their “organic” image than on the quality of their wine.

Giuseppe Wines – a fourth generation winery in Mendocino, Giuseppe was certainly the most lively place that we stopped. They’re focused on making good table wine for Italian cuisine with American grapes. Their Zinfandel isn’t subtle. It’s around 15% alcohol and is crafted to mirror big Barbera, from what I can tell. On the day of the open house, they had a big spread of food out, and this is apparently nothing new. Spaghetti dinners are regular occurrences.

McFadden Vineyard – We didn’t make it to the vineyard itself, but we enjoyed their tasting room. Stick to their sparkling wines and their smooth, subtle whites like their 2006 Riesling. Very tasty.
The three of us also had a very good late lunch at the Ukiah Brewing Company & Restaurant. All the homemade beer and delicious vegetarian pub grub (no…seriously…it’s really fricking good) that you would ever want.

Sid ran us back to Cloverdale for our last evening at Vintage Towers. We relaxed a bit, then headed to La Hacienda, a locally owned Mexican restaurant in Cloverdale. Basic Tex-Mex. Mexican food and beer were a nice change after snorking wine for two days, although the SPinC didn’t much care for her quesadilla.

Alas, our little wine weekend had to come to an end. We were up early the next morning on our way to SFO to head home. Mendocino certainly made its mark on us, though. I used to think that heading back to Sonoma would be my wine destination of choice, but Mendocino certainly has its appeal. I’d head back there in a heartbeat. And if you’re looking for something new, I’d highly recommend this jaunt.
And with that, the Vine is going to take a bit of a sabbatical. Time to recharge the batteries.

See y’all in the new year. Cheers!