Fifty yards outside of the small town of Healdsburg a sign welcomes you to Dry Creek Valley.
That's what I did Sunday. Forsake the NFL for another wine road trip! Pure Craziness! Text updates from my brother, Marvin, in Dallas, kept me informed that the Cowboys are on their way to The Super Bowl.
Met some interns from Twomey. Twomey-West that is. Kim, Marta and Matt were on a lunch break, but decided to check in with Andy, a partner at Lambert Bridge. I learned a little about two wineries on one stop. Zin is king in Dry Creek Valley (although Andy informed me that Cab is the most planted varietal), and the Lambert Bridge version was a winner. Look for their Forchini Vineyard Zin.
Lambert Bridge has a connection to Ramey as well. Andy sees David Ramey on the road during trade tastings and the Winemaker and Associate Winemaker know David from his days at Simi in the early '80s!
The Twomey-West interns were from Australia (Matt), Spain (Marta) & Oregon (Kim), Pictured below with Andy on the right.. They invited me to come visit the new Twomey facility on Westside Road (surely you know that Twomey is a sister winery to the Silver Oak wineries). They were doing Pinot Noir punch-downs on this day. Twomey Pinot Noir-I'll have to take them up on that offer.
Oh, another cool Lambert Bridge connection: Andy was roommates with former Mavericks great, Steve Nash in college. I'm still bitter about the Mavs letting Nash get away.
Another small family-owned winery is Passalaqua - Italian for "flowing waters." They do an array of single-vineyard Zins. Tony in the tasting room says a large percent of Sonoma vineyards are small family owned plots, 25-acres or smaller.
Across the street was Dry Creek Vineyard. Karen was helpful in pouring some great Cab-based wines: The Mariner and The Endeavor were two standouts.. She also knows David from his Simi days. Dry Creek Vineyard was the official wine of the 15th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards. Actually the 9th straight year they were pouring wines at the event.
I then stopped at The Dry Creek General Store (since 1881) and had a black bean tamale on the porch, read the Sunday paper and watched the misty rain and fog drift over the mountains.
The great thing about a hard, physical job is moments like this.
I almost blew off the last stop of the day, Mauritson Vineyards. But, I'm only here for 3 months and I know I'll be working most days. In I went and Rick was only too happy to serve me and give me a brief history of the area as well as of Mauritson. History & Mauritson go hand-in-hand. They've been around since 1868! At one point in the '60s they had about 4000 acres in the Rockpile region (An AVA in far north dry creek valley). The Army Corps of engineers took over 3000 acres and created Lake Sonoma. Check that out on your Wine-country maps. Also, think about someone having the kind of foresight to plant grapes in such a remote area back when wine was not that popular in America. Mauritson has a deep list of single-vineyard Rockpile Zins. They really are distinct, especially when you get to compare and contrast them side by side with a host like Rick to guide you through what makes each wine different. I took home Rockpile-Jack's Cabin Vineyard.
Rave reviews from Chris, Robin, Andrew & TC at dinner. Robin had prepared an amazing BBQ Rib dinner. Perfect for some Mauritson Rockpile Zin! Turns out the Mauritson's are friends of Andrew (Robin's son). Andrew's friend Clay Mauritson is also good friends with Charlie Palmer (The Chef) They make wine from Palmer's vineyard called Charlie Clay Russian River Valley Pinot Noir. The ever-affable Rick, shared a drink of this ethereal Pinot Noir. Chef Palmer lives in the area.
Rick himself bought a ton of grapes one year and tried his hand at making some Dry Creek Zin. The parties they had doing the crush and later bottling the wine sounded fun but he said so himself, he would have been better off just spending the money on Mauritson wines!
Let's talk about red winemaking next. The 1st cab of 2009 arrived this afternoon!
