Long before there was a national energy lab and towering wind turbines dotting the hills nearby, there were vineyards. In fact, winemaking in Livermore Valley goes all the way back to the Spanish missionaries. Some of the only wineries to survive Prohibition in California are located here. The historic Wente and Concannon wineries now anchor a growing wine region with more than forty wineries, many of them boutique wine producers with tasting rooms along main thoroughfares like Tesla Road.

The Livermore Valley: Worth a visit
The Livermore Valley may be lesser known than its neighbors to the northwest, but the region (which spans six cities) is producing some award-winning wines on par with those from Sonoma and Napa. If you want to spend less time and money on a wine country visit, Livermore Valley, generally, has more modest tasting fees and bottle prices than Sonoma or Napa. I also found the winemakers to be more accessible.

A couple of recent trips to Livermore wine country gave me the chance to sample the region’s wares. Here are a few smaller wineries I think are worth exploring:

Rhonda Wood, Winemaker at Wood Family Vineyards

Wood Family Vineyards
What does a former U.S. Airways pilot do when she is no longer flying commercial jetliners? She makes wine, of course. Rhonda Wood, a local favorite, used to make beer but eventually caught the wine bug. She taught herself to make wine by reading books, attending UC Davis extension classes and volunteering at wineries. In 2000 she and her husband, Michael, started Wood Family Vineyards. They consistently sell out of their wine through a mailing list and events that they hold at their Livermore Valley vineyard home. The day I visited I noticed something I don’t generally hear in a barrel room — local female folk rock vocalists blaring over the speakers. Wood is one of few female winemakers I have interviewed. She says, as a pilot, she is used to working in a male dominated world and if she has encountered obstacles, she doesn’t mention them. Her attitude about awards, and she has won several of them, is equally matter of fact. “How many awards do you need,” she asked me. After tasting through about a half dozen of her wines, I had a favorite — a smooth, rich, 2009 Zinfandel from Livermore Valley ($28).

Jim Frost, Winemaker at Auburn James. Photo: Stevie M. Sturla

Auburn James
Jim Frost makes wine that knocked my socks off. This English born former engineer is kind of a winemaker’s winemaker. The strong silent type, Frost seems more comfortable working behind the scenes making hits like his 2009 Auburn James Diablo Rosso ($60), an Alamo Tennat and Cab Blend that he creates with a custom crush client. This is a rich, balanced wine with red fruits including a hint of rhubarb. I also enjoyed a very nice, more affordable Pinot Noir ($34) and a 2008 Viognier ($30) that I am still trying to decide if I like. On the nose it’s a ripe, juicy apricot but on the palate I tasted cloves and bitters. This is a very interesting wine that pairs well with spicy food. In fact, pairing wine is what Frost likes to do, he doesn’t think of it, as many Americans do, as a stand alone beverage.

Auburn James tasting room in Danville

Frost may spend much of his time at his winery in Livermore but I could set up camp at his handsome, comfortable tasting room in Danville. Frost and his partner, Matt Ospeck, opened the wine tasting room last year. They focus on premier wines and they are at the pricier end for Livermore Valley. A light menu of nibbles and small plates is designed to pair with glasses and flights of wines. Another tip, try the 2008 Bella Vista Napa Valley Cab. If the $75 dollar bottle price is too expensive, you can try it by the glass or with a flight.

Collin Cranor, Winemaker at Nottingham Cellars

Nottingham Cellars
The owners of this family run winery may have reached into the past to come up with the name Nottingham, the original name of Livermore, but they have looked to the future in hiring their winemaker, Collin Cranor. At 26 years old, he’s among the youngest in California and is scoring high points from critics. Cranor has got the passion and a great attitude. I am a big fan of wine on tap and first took notice of Nottingham after trying a reasonably priced, tasty, red blend on tap at Toast in Oakland. On a visit to Nottingham Cellars I tasted through several other hand-crafted varietals.

Bottles of wine from Nottingham Cellars

My top picks from Nottingham included a 2009 Cab from Livermore, due out this fall ($44). This was a winner, chalky, earthy and spicy. I also liked the 2010 Rhone Red blend, Awakening ($36). A slightly less expensive choice is Ralphi’s Blend with hints of espresso and raspberry ($30).

There are other outstanding wines being made in Livermore including wines from McGrail and Steven Kent. But don’t trust me, taste for yourself. Livermore is holding its 31st Annual Harvest Wine Celebration on Sunday, September 2nd and Monday, September 3rd between noon and 5 p.m. Area wineries will offer wine, food, art and music to ticket holders. Bus transportation between wineries will be available on Sunday. Contact the Livermore Valley Winegrowers Association for more details.

Bay Area folks who like to sip on small production, artisanal wines in gritty urban settings can add another spot to their growing list. Dogpatch WineWorks has just opened its doors to a new tasting room among the hip restaurants and converted warehouses in San Francisco’s historic Dogpatch neighborhood. For the past year the winery has been operating a custom crush facility for locals who want to make their own wines. Now, WineWorks is building a list of partner wineries who will also pay to make wine on premises and will have their wines featured at the tasting bar which fronts a 15,000 square foot winery.

Dogpatch WineWorks founders Dave Gifford and Kevin Doucet

The neighborhood’s mix of retail and manufacturing appealed to founders Dave Gifford and Kevin Doucet. “We like it because people still make things here, and that’s what we’re doing,” said Gifford who left the restaurant industry to begin working in wine ten years ago. “I think this is really a new model we are trying here with a tasting room and custom winemaking in San Francisco,” said co-founder Doucet who worked in the finance world for several years, earned a graduate degree in oenology in Australia and has invested in a handful of wine operations. One of those projects was Crushpad, in some ways the predecessor to WineWorks.

Crushpad, which never had a tasting room at its Dogpatch facility, opened in San Francisco in 2004 as the first urban, custom crush facility. It broadened its clientele to include national and international members and eventually moved to Sonoma. After several years of rapid expansion, the company is unfortunately facing financial troubles. Gifford, who worked for Crushpad, credits the company for paving the way for WineWorks but he says his company is taking a different direction. “I like the idea that you can stop by on your way home from work and check on your wine. You don’t have to spend a day driving out to the wine country and back.

Tasting room visitors enter this former cannery off Third Street and can saddle up to a handsome wine bar made of reclaimed redwood from old wine barrels. Folks can order a 2 oz. taste, 5 oz. pour, a featured flight or a bottle and can drink it visiting at the bar or resting in one of the comfy, worn leather couches. On my recent visit, I didn’t have much competition bellying up to the bar since the tasting room had just opened. I tried a Rhone flight from WineWork’s first two commercial clients, Jazz Cellars and Qualia. I would recommend the Roussanne-Marsanne from Jazz and an estate Syrah from Qualia.

Despite the excitement around the new tasting bar, Doucet and Gifford say their priority is to be a production winery. “We are an incubator to help others realize their dream of making wine,” says Doucet. And just how do they do that? The way a custom crush facility, or in urban winery parlance, ‘collective’ works is this — a person, or group of friends, sign up to make a barrel of wine. They choose a varietal they really like say, Cabernet Sauvignon. The WineWorks staff then sits down with them and talks about the style of wine they like and recommends one of their premium vineyards such as in the red hot, new Coombsville AVA above Napa. Then a contract is signed and during harvest the grapes are picked and brought for delivery to the loading docks on the back side of the winery’s cavernous space. At that point the winemaking process begins. Clients can be involved as little or as much as they like. It can take months or years for the wine to mature, depending on the varietal. “Some people maybe come once or twice in a year and others show up here in the morning before we even do,” says Doucet. Clients pay between $6,000 to $10,000 to make a barrel, depending on the grape.

WineWorks’ client wine barrels and the destemmer on the right

The timing may be just right for WineWorks’ new tasting room as the Dogpatch is not only becoming one of the best, new food neighborhoods in San Francisco but is slowly becoming a destination for local wine lovers. Just a few blocks away, also on busy Third Street, Yield Wine Bar pours organic wines; Dig is a neighborhood wine shop, with tastings, next to the popular restaurant Piccino; and a few independent, commercial cellars have also moved into the neighborhood, some with dreams of opening tasting rooms. Also, hardworking winemakers love beer and Magnolia Pub in the Haight will soon be opening a brewery on Third Street, right across from Dogpatch WineWorks.

Dogpatch WineWorks
Address: Map
2455 3rd Street, San Francisco, CA
Phone: (415) 525-4440
Hours: Tasting Room
Thursday: 4pm – 8pm
Friday: 4pm – 8pm
Saturday: 12pm – 7pm
Sunday: 12pm – 5pm
Twitter: @DPWineWorks
Facebook: Dogpatch WineWorks

After two hours of sipping, swirling, sometimes swallowing but mostly spitting, I emerged from the Festival Pavillion with berry stained teeth and nearly unintelligible notes of interesting Pinots. It helps to have some kind of focus when you are entering a tasting event with nearly 500 wines and a bunch of Pinot freaks, such as myself. I went in search of local, undiscovered gems and found several which I have narrowed down to five, all south of fifty bucks (often the bottom line for a really good bottle of Pinot).

Freeman
The 2010 Keefer Ranch, Pinot Noir ($46) was an immediate hit with me. It was crisp and earthy. This vineyard sits in the middle of Green Valley, a couple of miles in from the town of Bodega, and has that Pinot taste that is so specific to the Russian River Valley, silky and smooth with notes of lush, ripe cherries. Get it while you can, Freeman made 320 (750ml) cases of this one. Every one of Freeman’s award winning wines that I tried at Pinot Days made me salivate.

Wrath
This Monterey County winemaker is located in the town of Soledad and has a tasting room in Carmel. I tried the award winning 2009 Wrath McIntyre Vineyard Pinot Noir from the Santa Lucia Highlands. It goes for $49 and is rich with hints of boysenberry yet a bit savory, too. Wrath makes great wines and several are more affordable than this Pinot Noir including their Rose of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, several killer Syrahs and a Monterey Sauvignon Blanc.

Fort Ross
Fort Ross, located on the northern coast of Sonoma County, makes a variety of good Pinots at a decent price point. My favorite is Symposium. I actually discovered it at Piccino in San Francisco’s Dogpatch and was happy to be reminded of it at Pinot Days. While the 2009 Pinot Noir Fort Ross Symposium from the Sonoma Coast is still a stand out at $32, their other Pinots, as well as a low oak Chardonnay, were very, very, very good.

Masut
Brothers Jake and Ben Fetzer have inherited the family gene for winemaking. One sip of the Masut 2010 Estate Vineyard ($40) Pinot and there is no doubt. It is ruby red in color and lush with cherry overtones and spices. This Pinot is a complex wine full of taste. These guys are farming land that borders the Fetzer Home Ranch they grew up on between Willits and Ukiah. Says Ben Fetzer of their rural vineyards, “Most people think they are lost when they get here.” Sometimes one has to get lost to really make a discovery.

Abiouness
Last but not least is Abiouness named after the owner and winemaker, Nicole Abiouness who says the name is a compliment to her Lebanese father. The 2008 Stanly Ranch Pinot from Carneros ($38) is a very small production, only 218 cases were made. This is typical California Pinot, fruit forward and smooth with a long, lush finish. Others, too, must think highly of Abiouness, her wines have been found at such lofty restaurants as The French Laundry.

Chardonnay happens to be one of my favorite varietals. I love the full body and acidity, whether it’s a leaner, Burgundian French style or a tropical, voluptuous California style. But I am not a fan of the super buttery, sweet, oaky kind. The problem is many people don’t realize there is any other style. It’s our nation’s favorite varietal, one out of four bottles that Americans drink is a California Chardonnay and it really all began at Wente Vineyards in Livermore.

Wente family circa 1895. Photo: Wente.

Ever Heard of the Wente Clone?

In 1912 Ernest Wente (son of Wente Family Estates founder C.H. Wente) brought Chardonnay cuttings from France back to California and planted them in Livermore. One hundred years later California Chardonnay is the most planted wine grape in the state and most of it is still started from a Wente clone. Like any centenarian, California Chardonnay is a survivor. Chardonnay plantings at Wente Vineyards were among the few to make it through prohibition. The varietal has survived disease as well as corporatization which eventually put mediocre Chardonnays on nearly every menu as the house white. And now it is overcoming an infatuation with a certain flavor profile.

Old Wente Chardonnay Clone. Photo: Wente

California Oak

No, I am not talking about those majestic trees that dot our landscape but, rather, that aspect of Chardonnay that got out of control for awhile. In the 1950s, Ambassador James Zellerbach brought French oak barrels to the U.S. to use for aging wine. His success making Burgundian Chardonnays at Hanzell Vineyards encouraged others to use oak barrels and likely influenced Chateau Montelena’s victory over French Chardonnay in 1976. But for many, bigger is better. The trend of aging in new French oak barrels took off in California. By the late 1980s that nice, toasty quality from the French oak became a kind of crack cocaine for winemakers– addictive to the point of excess. Fortunately, the trend is beginning to correct itself.

Meanwhile, Back in Livermore

As with many younger winemakers, fifth generation Karl Wente is less enamored of the big oak, high alcohol trend. He would never say that outright. As a serious practicing yogi, Wente is less judgmental than I am. He would say something like, “Stylistically, I want the fruit to be more expressive.” At 6 foot 7, Karl Wente may be carrying the weight of his family’s legacy on his shoulders but he is also reaching out to a new generation of wine drinkers who already know a thing, or two, about wine.

Tasting with Karl Wente. Photo: Kimberly Charles

I paid a visit to Wente back in December, on the eve of their Chardonnay centennial celebration. Karl Wente led me through a vertical tasting of six Chardonnay vintages and styles. Like many wines, crisp Chardonnays are best paired with food and so we tasted them along side several dishes prepared by Chef Matt Greco at the winery’s restaurant on Arroyo Road in Livermore.

Butternut Squash Agnolotti paired with Morning Fog Chardonnay 07′

I tried a one hundred percent stainless steel ’07 Eric’s Chardonnay from Wente’s artisanal, small production line. It was paired with a fowl terrine. “Awesome” was the way Karl Wente explained it. I agreed it had great acidity. If cost was not an issue growers would farm in the style of Wente’s Nth Degree line. This is the best of the vintages, handcrafted and limited in production. We tried an ’04 and ’09 with swordfish. After aging in the bottle for eight years the ’04 was stunning. The ’09 was lovely but a little too oaky for my taste. I also liked one of Wente’s most accessible wines, Morning Fog ($13). As Karl Wente explains, “there is this perception that the Livermore Valley is a really hot place but we get a morning fog that cools off the valley so we can retain those beautiful flavors.” The Wente ’07 Morning Fog shined with butternut squash agnolotti. I tasted stone fruit and pear. But I also liked the 2010 Morning Fog and could have drank it by itself. I was less enamored by the Riva Ranch 2010 from Monterey. It was lush with subtle oak and perfect for folks that like that hint of butter and vanilla.

In all honesty, I was hesitant at first to feature the Wentes because I like to focus on smaller undiscovered wine makers. But the Wentes are doing thoughtful work with Chardonnay that should be recognized. So, a toast to this California wine making family for helping to pave the way in our love affair with a certain white grape.

Do you have a favorite Chardonnay? Let us know!

Eric Cohen’s vineyard designated Petite Sirah has soul — lots of it. You can taste it in his 2007 Solano County vintage. I picked up a vibrancy and mustiness I associate with wines made with less chemical manipulation. It was clean and spicy. Whether it’s about additives in wine or fighting for the working poor, Cohen’s passions run deep and he doesn’t take the easy road. He has chosen to explore the possibilities of a grape that typically has been overshadowed by more popular varietals. Cohen sources from high quality, but lesser known, vineyards and he has infused his wine making, and his marketing, with a quest for social justice.

Ironically, Cohen worked briefly in the financial world of New York City where he was turned on to good wine. But he was turned off to what he calls, “corporate greed.” His thoughts of the experience were best summed up in an answer he gave to his then three year old son. The question was, “Dad, what’s money?” To which Cohen replied, “A bummer and a drag.”

Cohen headed west to commune with like-minded individuals and chase his dream of wine making in a highly competitive arena. For four years, he volunteered working harvest at several wineries including White Rock and Luna Vineyards in Napa. Despite the high quality of his wines, which he makes in a shared facility in Napa, Cohen is still making cold calls to get into local restaurants and wine shops.

Photo: Naomi Starkman

So, you could care less about the political pedigree of who makes your wine? Well, you still might want to pay attention to Eric Cohen. I caught up with him at Mission Beach Café in San Francisco where I tasted three of his vintages: a 2007 Petite Sirah from Tenbrink Vineyard in Solano County ($25), a 2008 Petite Sirah from Wolff Vineyards in Edna Valley ($35) and a 2007 Petite Sirah from Golden Vineyards in Mendocino ($35). My favorites were the Solano County and the Mendocino wines. The first had red fruits and spice while the other was lip smacking, bright and peppery.

Cohen’s Take on Natural Wine Making
The first thing Cohen does when I sit down at a table is hand me a small bottle that reads, ‘Copper Sulfates,’ “Poison,” Cohen says. “It is one of 200 additives often found in wine and one that I will not use.” I see a big notebook on wine additives and know where this is going so I try to change the topic to wine tasting. Natural wine makers are very committed to their pure style of wine making but one thing about Cohen is, as obsessed as he is about some things, he is not dogmatic.

“While I am deeply committed to the overall methods of ‘natural wine making,’ as transparently shown by my short ingredient list on all of my back labels, the choice of yeast is not something that I agonize over. I don’t believe there is truly much difference, in fact. All of my fermentations get started with native yeasts. Nothing added. I let them thrive as long as they can. If, and when, I need to step in and pitch in a small amount of commercial yeast, I will.”

Shoe Shine Wine
Cohen has named his wine, Shoe Shine Wine. He explains,

“Wine is a luxury good. Never in a million years did I imagine that I would be devoting myself towards making something that would be enjoyed mostly by the wealthy. Once I knew that my passion for wine was irrepressible, I tried to find a way to satisfy my equal need for social justice. I wanted to make the strongest possible statement that, more than most, the working poor need to be celebrated and supported. ‘Shoe Shine Wine’ is the embodiment of that statement.”

LGBT Labels
Cohen is one of few folks in the industry that includes gay and lesbian themed labels. He stated, “I wanted to represent all loving relationships.” I got the feeling Cohen is not trying to cater to a gay clientele but is deeply committed to inclusion. And he doesn’t stop with his labels, his bottle tops are unique, too. Instead of metallic, cork coverings, he uses vintage fabric.

Photo: Eric Cohen

Choosing Petite Sirah
“I am drawn to the underdog by nature,” says Cohen in describing why he has chosen to work with Petite Sirah.

“It’s ageworthy. I love the idea someone can drink this 25 years down the road. It’s been mostly used as a blending grape but I want to help bring it back as a stand alone varietal.”

For those who are starting to scratch their heads over the spelling of Sirah just a quick note to say Petite Sirah and Syrah are two different grapes that both make big red wines and are both Rhone varietals. Petite Sirah has a long history in California, is typically blended with Zinfandel and its tannins may be more intense than Syrah. I found Cohen’s wines much more drinkable then many Syrahs I have tried. But don’t let me tell you, try them for yourself. You can find Cohen’s wine at Bi-Rite in San Francisco or online at Shoe Shine Wine.

Small scale wineries seem to be the the hot thing this year. Whether the wine was produced on an organic farm in Sonoma’s Dry Creek Valley or in an industrial warehouse in Berkeley, these adventurous winemakers are getting some well-deserved attention for their interesting wines. Not all limited production wines are great, or affordable, but many are. This year I tried several very good California small lot wines for under twenty bucks including: Sherman and Hooker’s white blend Shebang, Long Meadow Ranch Sauvignon Blanc on tap, Navarro’s Edelzwicker and Pinot Noir from Mendocino, a Tempranillo from Bokisch Vineyards in Lodi and a Rose from Berkeley’s Donkey and Goat.

Just how small is small is up for debate, I tend to think under one thousand cases. It seems the designation is determined not just by a number but by a certain kind of style: a more hands on, focused and often natural approach to winemaking. For more recommendations on holiday wines and bubbles, I paid a visit to two local experts.

Peter Eastlake is co-owner of Vintage Berkeley, a wine shop that focuses on small production wines — most under $25. This year the small wines promoter is thinking big. “I am really into magnums. To me they capture celebration, boldness, going big. Their size makes them look prohibitive but when you multiply a bottle times two, it’s not that different. I think they are great for hosting and gifting,” says Eastlake. I was shown a Kermit Lynch Cotes Du Rhone for $26 and a Zin made by the organic Santa Cruz producer, Alfaro Family Vineyards for $45.

Eastlake, whose stores are in North Berkeley, Elmwood and Albany coordinated this year’s Wine Lands as part of Outside Lands. At the big San Francisco music and food event he showcased some of his favorite local, small scale producers including Wind Gap and Rajat Parr’s Sandhi wines. For this holiday Eastlake recommends wines from Lou Preston, a Sonoma legend who uses organic grapes from Dry Creek. “I really like L. Preston, a proprietary Rhone Blend. It’s an organic estate grown wine that goes for $25.” Eastlake also carries Madam Preston ($24). I personally love this wine which is a blend of Roussanne, Grenache Blanc and Marsanne.

Lou Preston white and red

Since no holiday season is complete without popping the cork on a good bubbly, Eastlake recommends Domaine Taille aux Loups, Jacky Blot, Brut “Triple Zero” ($25) “It is an incredible sparkling Chenin Blanc from Montlouis, Vouvray. “His sparkling has quince, and stones. It’s dry, savory stuff,” says Eastlake.

Champagne and sparkling wine may be the most popular holiday booze but Ian Becker, the wine director at Arlequin Wine Merchant in San Francisco, thinks that bubbles are one of the most misunderstood wines. “They are more flexible than people think and have so many pairing possibilities. I have had champagne with rib eye steak,” says Becker.

Ian Becker, Arlequin Wine Merchant

One of Becker’s favorite small champagne producers is Jacquesson. He featured the Jacquesson Cuvee 734 at the store’s annual champagne tasting event. This one was $63. “It has dry herbal aromatics that are quite appealing,” says Becker. Becker also recommends an affordable French sparkler, “Francois Chidaine makes a dry and compelling sparkling Chenin Blanc from the Loire Valley that is high in acidity and has a lot of pairing possibilities.” At Becker’s shop the sparkler is less than $22.

If you have heard of Natural Wine Week, Becker is the guy behind it. Some of his favorite winemakers are experimenting with native yeasts and bottling without fining or filtration. For the holidays, Becker suggests, “pick up a Pinot Blanc from Lioco ($23), it’s a very dry Chardonnay alternative.” If you are in the market for a red, Becker recommends a Cab Franc from Broc Cellars ($22). With only one hundred cases produced, you better hurry. In addition to a more natural style of wine, both of these winemakers picked up on other trends from this year including lower oak and alcohol levels. Want more holiday drink ideas? Try our festive cocktail tips!

Greg La Follette ‘listens’ to his wines and that may be why they ‘speak’ to some of us. Earlier this year I tried a La Follette Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir and was hooked. It was a lovely wine with great acidity and subtle tastes of raspberries and spice. I later found out the winemaker was a kind and quirky scientist, with a reverence for the land and a knack for the bagpipes. With his chatty personality, and jamming wines, La Follette could easily be one of those rock star winemakers but he may be too humble for the limelight.

La Follette started at Beaulieu Vineyards in 1991 and spent time overseas as a wine consultant. His work included being a consultant at Yarra Ridge in Australia. Back in California he made a name for himself at Flowers and then at Tandem wines. Last year La Follette went out on his own to make cool climate, Burgundian style, Sonoma Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays. I recently found a few reasonably priced La Follette Pinots at Bottle Barn in Sebastopol and plan on breaking them out for Thanksgiving.

Besides eavesdropping on his fermentations, La Follette generally avoids commercial yeasts, gravitates toward unconventional equipment built by hand using pieces from salvage yards, and experiments with practices such as fluff racking.

Greg La Follette was born in Iceland. His wife came to the U.S. from Germany and together they have six children. I recently had a chance to talk with La Follette at his shared winemaking facility in Sebastopol.

How do you describe your style of winemaking?

I see myself as more of a translator of the land rather than a dictator or someone who just wants to do everything in a prescribed way. I let the land take the lead on things. I have a strong collaboration with growers and am on call 24/7 with them. A lot of winemakers don’t have the plant biology training that I do. Nowadays many more winemakers are realizing that wine is best made in the vineyard and so winemakers are getting more viticulture training.

Why do you say you practice unsafe winemaking?

Well, we take risks. Safe winemaking is when you inoculate something, put in plenty of sulpher dioxide to knock out the bad guys, you put it at a temperature where its going to go through safely, you follow a formula. For us, frequently our fermentations don’t finish until June, the following year from harvest, which adds layers of richness. If you like the taste of forest floor and mushrooms in your pinot, that’s a compound produced by grapes and it’s brought forward when you provide oxygen at just the right time. It’s also about using your body, I have had broken ribs, torn rotator cuffs, concussions and other injuries. Our style of winemaking is a full contact sport.

Speaking of dialogues with your wines, why do you listen to your fermentations?

I am listening for the activity in the wine. That is a good clue for us to tell when we need to do things like add sulphur dioxide. Most winemakers, when the malolactic is done they say, “ok, lets add the sulphur dioxide now.” And I say, “no, let’s wait until they quiet down.” I am really focused on mouth feel, which means getting away from the hardness. By the way, the secondary fermentation has a different sound than the primary fermentation. But you have to spend the time listening, it’s not that different than listening to your spouse or your kids. It makes for better relationships.

How do you describe mouthfeel?

It’s what I focused on when I was getting my Masters at U.C. Davis. Mouthfeel is how all the parts in the wine work together. It’s what brings pleasure to your mouth. They are broken down into three parts, entry, mid-palate and late palate. You have to tie together the whole union of the wine.

You follow some natural winemaking techniques which include using native yeasts and little filtration. What do you think of this trend which has received so much buzz?

Well, I think of minimalist interventions. But here is the problem, there is less manipulation with the more commercial style of winemaking. We are playing with our wines all of the time. We really and truly live the wine and are on top of our fermentations, literally, several times a day, smelling, looking, tasting.

La Follette with assistant winemaker Simone Sequeria. Photo: La Follette Wines.

How did you choose Pinot Noir as your grape, it is so challenging to make.

I like introducing people to what Pinot Noir can do. It can just love and caress your tongue. I finally had to surrender to it and say “take me I’m yours.” Pinot is great to make if you have Chardonnay to give you a rudder of sanity. I wanted it to have weight and structure but be light and have it at a price point where we can make friends. It’s a new label so that’s important. (La Follette’s wines range from $29.99 to $49.99).

La Follette’s talent as a Pinot Noir maker may never have come to fruition had he not reached the conclusion that his first love, playing the bagpipes, was not a practical career. His dream as a teenager did not match his parents’ career expectations of him. La Follette saved his milk money to pay, secretly, for lessons and eventually became a ship’s piper on the Queen Mary. Now the bagpipes are a hobby to wind down from winemaking.

Since I have Scottish ancestry I assumed the bagpipes might be something I could pick up, after all, I can blow a lot of hot air. But I was quickly humbled after one short lesson from La Follette.

You can meet Greg La Follette and check out his wines at the “In the Cellar with Greg” series. The next one is scheduled for Friday, December 2. For more information you can go to “events” on his website.

This event is one in an occasional series on California winemakers.

La Follette Wines
4900 West Dry Creek Road
Healdsburg, California 95448
Phone: 707.395.3902
info@lafollettewines.com
Facebook: La Follette Wines

The warm days of summer might be over but it’s the middle of grape harvest and for wine lovers that means the chance to go back to camp. Some local wineries offer harvest immersions also known as “Crush Camps” which are half day stints to several day excursions offering hands on winemaking. The serious wine camper might start very early in the morning to pick grapes alongside day laborers who have been working since 2 am. If you are not that committed, you can start the process, as I did, once the fruit has arrived at the winery. I went to “day camp” at Crushpad in Sonoma, a custom crush facility where I have been making wine for nearly a year. My first task was to remove leaves, rocks and bad grapes from freshly picked Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir clusters. A conveyer belt then dropped the grapes into a giant destemmer. I am afraid I let a few unwanted items go by in my effort to learn the task.

Nearby the destemmer, red grapes were fermenting in open plastic bins. I had heard the term, “punch down,” but never knew exactly what it meant. Well, nothing like actually doing a task to get a first hand understanding. A punch down is where you punch the cap of a fermenting batch of grapes to pull the color and flavors out, move yeasts back down into the wine must, and prevent potential bacteria from growing on the exposed top layer. These grapes had already sat in a cold soak for four to five days, a process where winemakers gauge sugar and future alcohol levels. After the cold room, the white grapes head to a big press and are crushed into juice before fermentation. Red grapes are a little more complicated. To put it simply, they are first fermented with the skins on then pressed and the juice goes through a secondary fermentation before going into barrels to age.

My fellow campers, about half a dozen, and I were constantly washing our hands. Turns out the inside of a winery needs to be about as sterile as a hospital. Pesky yeasts will attach to your hands, clothes and other instruments and you don’t want those yeasts getting into a different wine batch with a different formula.

Before I could even break into a sweat, Crushpad’s Stu Ake, who was a great camp counselor, took us on a tour of the rest of the wine making process. This included several levels of fermentation, aging and barrel tasting. We tasted a Napa Valley Zinfandel from Howell Mountain that, I was told, needed six more months of aging. It was bursting with tannins.

I did a half day crush camp but if you want to check out one for yourself, consider that many wineries offer their wine club members harvest experiences. Meantime, here are a few suggestions from day camps to expensive, fantasy crush camps. If you have a recommendation, let us know!

• Sterling Vineyards
• Crushpad
• St Supery Harvest Experience
• Schramsberg — A multi-day, hands on, sparkling wine immersion.
• Sonoma County Grape Camp — A fantasy grape camp. Several wineries get together and participate in a three day, high end, harvest immersion.

And I leave you with this, what I thought of the entire day at crush camp:

Nutrition, Health, and Diet Related Disease

America’s obesity epidemic was the topic of discussion at the September 27 Edible Education: The Rise and Future of the Food Movement session at UC Berkeley. Dr. Robert Lustig, a neuroendocrinologist who studies childhood obesity at the University of California at San Francisco, spoke along with Patricia Crawford, a UC Berkeley professor who has traced the rise of the obesity epidemic and studies healthy food in schools.

Obesity Growth in U.S.
The most startling information came from Patricia Crawford who showed the rise in obesity in the U.S. over the past twenty years through a series of maps. In 1991 there was less than ten percent obesity in most state populations. But we gradually watched the map of the entire country get washed over in bright red, the color indicating the highest rates of obesity. Crawford says, “We need to create healthier food and activity environments to reduce obesity.” She’s been working in the school system to figure out how to achieve these goals. Crawford has found that even Berkeley kids, who live in a healthy food mecca, share similar eating patterns to kids in the rest of the state. Crawford listed four activities that can help to control the obesity epidemic:

• Reduce sweet beverage intake
• Reduce fast food intake
• Control portion size
• Reduce time on the computer or tv

Crawford is working in policy development to reduce obesity by trying to get high calorie snacks out of schools and advocating for zoning policies on fast food restaurants near schools. Following Crawford’s obesity maps were the equally startling comments on the toxicity of sugar by Dr. Robert Lustig.

Big Sugar’s Nemesis

Robert Lustig’s bracing argument in a recent New York Times magazine article on the dangers of sugar convinced me to quit my own habit. Something about his explanation of the biochemistry of sugar resonates. He explains how sugar can be toxic because of the way it breaks down and overwhelms your liver. Lustig blames sugar for the skyrocketing obesity rates in the U.S. “A type of sugar called fructose is the cause of the current epidemic,” says Lustig. “Our entire food supply has been adulterated with the addition of fructose for palatability and removal of fiber for shelf life.” Lustig explains how so-called healthy snacks, like low fat yogurt, can be full of sugar. According to Lustig, sugar is even added to hamburger buns and hamburger meat. He ran through several decades of food policy to explain why sugar has become an additive but the main point Lustig makes is that there has been a lot of attention on fat but fat consumption has gone down in the U.S. while our sugar and refined carbohydrate intake has gone up.

Eat Your Fruit Don’t Drink It

Even if you skip the Milky Way and go for something healthier like an orange, you still have to watch out. That orange is much healthier if you don’t juice it. Says Lustig, “A good part of the fruit is fiber but when you juice a fruit you destroy the insoluble fiber. You need it to limit the rate of carbohydrate and fat absorption into the blood stream which gives your liver a chance to catch up. Fruit is good. Juice is bad and smoothies suck.”

Sugar has been linked to not only obesity but other chronic health problems like heart disease, cancer and memory loss. Lustig says the obesity epidemic is responsible for a 65-billion dollar decrease in work productivity and a 50-percent increase in health insurance premiums. Lustig left the audience with a question to ponder: “Can our toxic environment be changed without government or societal intervention especially when there are addictive substances involved? For Lustig the answer may be regulating sugar just like we do with alcohol and cigarettes.

View the video of the entire class:

The 13 week course, which is funded by the Chez Panisse Foundation in collaboration with West Oakland’s People’s Grocery, makes tickets available each Wednesday to the public.

Right on the heels of California Wine Month and the beginning of grape harvest, comes Ken Burns’ latest documentary, Prohibition. The six hour series, which airs on PBS stations October 2nd, takes us back to an infamous thirteen year time period in our nation’s history when the commercial production and sale of alcohol was banned. For those not glued to the prohibition era TV series Board Walk Empire, the 18th Amendment was passed in 1920 at the urging of the temperance movement.

Prohibition agents. Photo: Library of Congress

California’s wine industry, which had recently rebounded from a major pest infestation and was poised for great things, was devastated by Prohibition. Vineyards were ripped up and a majority of the more than six hundred wineries in the state were shuttered. The few that remained in business did so by producing wine for religious purposes. Beaulieu Vineyard was one of them. Founder Georges de Latour, a Catholic, was a friend of the archbishop of San Francisco. Latour cut a deal to sell wine to all the priests in the diocese.

Prohibition was supposed to curb alcohol consumption, but instead the party went underground, giving rise to a thriving criminal economy run by bootleggers and gangsters. Port cities, like San Francisco, managed to stay pretty wet during those dry years, thanks to illegal liquor brought ashore in the dead of night, carried on ships from Canada. The roaring twenties saw the rise of a new breed of young women, known as “flappers,” and while beer, wine and spirits—some bootlegged, some made in basement stills flowed in hundreds of backroom speakeasies.

Flappers in the prohibition era. Photo: ©Scherl / Sueddeutsche Zeitung Photo / The Image Works

After years of lawlessness, the 18th Amendment was repealed in 1933. You can still visit remnants of the Prohibition era throughout the Bay Area. Some former San Francisco speakeasies remain and dozens of wineries survived Prohibition.

Called “Ghost Wineries” some have become homes, others used as barns or shopping complexes in Yountville and St. Helena. A handful of wineries have been restored and now have a second life including Freemark Abbey, Far Niente, Hall Wines and Storybook Mountain Vineyards in Calistoga.

Freemark Abbey 1898. Photo courtesy of Freemark Abbey

We’ve come along way since the dry days of Prohibition. In seventy-five years, the state’s award winning wine industry has built itself up to be a world leader, with more than 3,300 bonded wineries. But a new threat looms — this one from Mother Nature. Research shows that California’s prime wine-producing areas could shrink dramatically over the next three decades, due to climate change.

Find out much more about the past and future of California wines at the California Academy of Sciences Prohibition NightLife this Thursday evening. You can purchase tickets online for the event or buy them at the door. KQED’s science and environment series, QUEST, will be screening the segment on wine and climate change featured below and serving up wines for warmer temps. Cal Academy will be leading mixology classes and screening a sneak peak of Ken Burns’ and Lynn Novick’s new documentary on Prohibition. Can you think of a better way to commemorate the end of the 18th Amendment than with a cocktail party and wine tasting?

QUEST: Napa Wineries Face Global Warming

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