Too short a visit to the Livermore Valley
Apr 23 '05
The Bottom Line The Livermore Valley wine country offers an experience worlds away from Napa, both more relaxed more exciting, and is worth a trip.
On a recent vacation I was staying with a cousin in Brentwood, north of Livermore, and on my way to a visit to the Livermore National Laboratory a sign with an unexpected message presented itself: "Livermore Valley Wine Country ahead."
I didn't visit that day, but when I was leaving town and saw it again, I decided to take the "scenic route" and drive through, and surely enough, vines are grown just outside of the sprawling Bay Area suburb of Livermore.
It turns out that they've been grown there for a long time, longer than in Napa or Sonoma, even; wine grapes have been grown in the area since the 1840s, and this nearly unheralded region was the source of both North America's first Sauvignon Blanc (a Yquem clone, offspring of which are still growing at Wente) and the world's first Petite Sirah varietal at Concannon Vineyard.
Since I was just passing through and wanted to drive Highway One while it was still daylight, I didn't spend as much time here as the place warrants. Although the wineries are within walking distance of some housing subdivisions, the area remains pastoral, in part due to preservation easements and trust lands held by the Tri Valley Conservancy (www.trivalleyconservancy.org) which, among other things, keep the number of acres dedicated to wines and olives, at worst, constant. The pace is slower than in Napa and the mood, friendlier--here you find winemakers who clearly love their work and who share their passion with visitors, owners beaming with pride, and people who on the whole haven't lost the notion that wine is supposed to be one of life's pleasures. Although my visit was short--an hour and a half at the outside, I was able to visit four of the wineries, sampling and buying a bottle or three at each one.
Concannon Vineyard (http://www.concannonvineyard.com/home.html) was my first stop, as it was the first winery I came on along the road. Concannon is one of the few Livermore wines you can probably find at the local grocer (the other possibly being Wente) and is now corporate-owned, but is still run by the grandson of its founder and, having been legally allowed to continue operation through Prohibition, is the oldest continuously operating winery in the valley.
Concannon was the source of the first bottling of varietal Petite Sirah and said grape continues to be its pride, but, although I tasted some I can't speak to it, because I don't like Petite Sirah. I don't abhor it like viognier, I just don't care for it and hence have about as much appreciation of it as the jazz judges at the Grammy awards have for yodel albums. To each his own.
What I can say is that their "Assemblage" Red (a Bordeaux-style or "Meritage" without the licence and gimmick) and their varietal Cabernet Sauvignon held up to anything I had in and slightly above the same price range in Napa, but the star was their "Assemblage" White--a blend of white Bordeaux varietals, seventy percent Sauvignon Blanc and thirty percent Semillon, aged in oak for six months. This was a layered and well-balanced wine, with a slightly floral aroma, citrus and melon flavors, and a somewhat creamy finish. An excellent white at $15 and far better structured than their more expensive varietal Sauvignon Blanc, it was my first purchase of the day.
After a few questions, the pourer at Concannon discerned that I was a fan of Zinfandel and of offbeat wines; she gave me a map produced by the Livermore Valley Winegrowers' Association (http://www.livermorewine.com) and directed me to three other wineries on my route that she thought would suit my taste.
My next stop was Livermore Valley Cellars (http://www.lvcwines.com), where I sampled eight (!) wines including something I'd never tasted or even heard of before: Alicante Bouschet. Alicante Bouschet is such an odd wine that the winemaker, who was doing the pours that morning, poured it last (retriving the bottle from under the counter) only after seeing my reaction to their other wine, and even then prefaced the pour with all sorts of warnings and caveats and a statement that people either love or hate it, with most being in the latter camp. Alicante Bouschet is one of the few grape cultivars known to produce red juice, and is used, sometimes unscrupulously, as a blending grape in its native France. The wine produced from it as a varietal is to Zinfandel what Zinfandel is to, say, Gamay. Poured from a bottle that had thrown off an unbelievable amount of sediment despite only being a few years old, the Alicante Bouschet was a big and somewhat oily wine, with a distinct taste of smoke--which I was told was not from a barrel--layered on top of cracked pepper and somewhat prune-like fruit. I hadn't tasted anything like it before, and it was delicious in its own way, and despite having been told that it was probably only that tame beacuse it was open for a week, I took a bottle home.
Livermore Valley Cellars' specialty, Zinfandel, was less offbeat but equally distinctive. Among the wines I sampled were several Zins, including a barrel sample. LVC calls its flagship line of Zins the "Big Asss" (SIC due to Epinions filters) or alternately the "Derriere", collection, and the wines live up to the name. The current release, labeled the "Crack of Dawn" is a big but well-structured Zin with a distinctive oily sweetness that the winemaker says comes from grapes on a particular lot. The (almost-ready) barrel sample seemed to follow in the same pattern, but tasted slightly less ripe. Both were great and possibly outstanding Zinfandels at prices that could almost be called cheap.
Farther down the road I made my final two stops at two wineries across the street from each other: Thomas Coyne (http://www.thomascoynewinery.com) and Fenestra. Whereas LVC was within two city blocks of suburban development, these last two, although right along my planned route, were located on opposite hillsides in what seemed to be the middle of nowhere.
The Thomas Coyne tasting room was a somewhat run-down but weathertight old barn (used for aging), about an eighth-mile down a one-and-a-half-way dirt driveway from the road. This was staffed by a lone pourer, the son of the owner and winemaker who seemed to be quite pround of the family business. The Concannon pourer directed me there due to their dessert wines, including an unusual fortified Chardonnay which offers a pleasant change from the usual Muscat and Sauvignon Blanc dessert whites. Also enjoyable were their Syrah and their Merlots, two vinted from grapes grown elsewhere and one estate-grown. The El Dorado merlot, one of the two made from nonlocal grapes, was soft and floral, whereas the Detjens Farms estate-grown wine was more sharply herbal and tannic and had a caraway-seed note similar to young Cabernet; two pours giving a perfect illustration of the importance of terroir. They also offered for $4.00 per bottle a field-blend jug wine made primarily from Rhone varietals. Unfortunately, I didn't have an empty bottle; this was the best under $5 wine I've tasted.
Fenestra's tasting room was also located in a rustic building, that housed farm machinery, with several pourers lined up along folding tables. Zinfandel was among the offerings, good but not approacing that from LVC, but the top offerings seemed to be "Rhone Ranger" wines and (sorry!) Petite Sirah and Viognier. The Rhone offerings were quite good, including a blend called "True Red" after the man (surname True) who built the barn/tasting room, which they modestly label as "Table Wine". A true bargain it was, and accordingly they sell as much of it as all of their other offerings combined. Also striking was a real Merlot lover's Merlot, soft and floral and delicately fruity, which unfortunately I didn't buy due to coming to the end of my budget, and a Port made from their Rhone varietals and a splash of Zinfandel which, unfortunately, they're abandoning in subsequent years (after 1999) for one made from Portuguese varietals. I tried both and was far more impressed with the first as it had no hotness or astringency of any kind and many layers of flavor, whereas the latter, while not bad, was merely a slightly more tannic copy of some of Portugal's best rubies.
When I remarked that the wines in Livermore were as good as what I tasted in Napa--a small lie, as the offerings in Livermore don't match Napa's extreme high end and I didn't have anything to quite match Turnbull's Syrah, either--a Fenestra pourer remarked that they refer to Napa as "Oh, you mean the auto parts store?" and Sonoma as "They make blue-jeans, right?", and went on to denounce folks who think nothing good comes out of places without a "name" and to declare Napa a "state of mind." To a point, they're right, and Livermore is another state of mind altogether.
I'm glad I took this almost-detour on my way towards Monterrey and Highway 1--it was a delight visitng wineries where people love what they do but don't take themselves too seriously, being able to taste for free at a relaxed pace and chat with winery owners and winemakers and purchase for ten to fifteen dollars per bottle what, in more famous growing regions, would go for triple the price.
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Epinions.com ID:
bkalafut
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 in Restaurants & Gourmet |
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Member: Bennett Kalafut
Location: Tucson, AZ, USA
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About Me:
Stretching single molecules for fun and profit.
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