York Creek Winery (Fritz Maytag)

K&L Wines just offered four library releases from this winery with an interesting write up. All 100% cabernet and billed as a K&L exclusive. I caught a mild California Cab bug after enjoying the 2012 Stony Hill with dinner the other night and went in for a few of these. Anyone have experience with them? By the description they sound like mountain cab suitable for an AFWE palate.

Fritz is friends with Paul Draper since they went to Stanford together. They were both part of a group in the '60s that worked to find and develop export businesses to boost South American economies, which eventually led Paul to conclude Chile was capable of making world-class wines, since it’s basically a mirror of California.

So, that all led to the York Creek Vyd being an early and long-term source for Ridge for Cab, PS and Zin. They still get Zin.

Fritz also rescued Anchor Brewery, preserving the historic “steam beer” from oblivion, and he founded Anchor Distillery (and some other nifty stuff I’m not recalling off-hand). He comes from the family of a notable appliance business, as well as an early artisan cheese producer.

The wines I’ve had have been very old school CA. Goldilocks with chunky, urm, tannins. Worth checking out a few at $30 a pop.

I really liked the 99 Meritage when K and L offered it a couple of years ago. It was obviously Napa but in an old school way.

Still growing grapes. The winery facility was at the brewery, IIRC, and when the brewery sold I think there was a loss of interest in the making end of the wine biz. I’ve sold a number of library releases over the years - buy confidently if you like more traditional mountain Cab. I still sell the 97 Cabernet and an 07 Cab Franc that customers love.

Many thanks everyone. I will report back after they arrive . . .

The winery was not at the brewery, unless it was hidden behind closed doors. Their distillery was across the street, accessible by an underground tunnel, which is what you might be thinking of.

I’ve had a '99 as well as an '05 K&L has offered in the past. The '99 impressed me though both were worth trying IMO. Pretty rare to find pre aged cabs ready to go with flawless lineage.

Yeah, across the street. Maybe sale and shutdown was a coincidence.

Got a bunch of 2003 splits of the Estate Cabernet. Think it’s the Spring Mountain. Opened a couple bottles two weeks ago. One was very good after 30 minutes, the other was ok. Never opened up like the first. Still the first was very good.

Don’t forget that he makes Maytag Blue Cheese, and the Old Potrero Whiskey…

His Junipero Gin is really good.

A long time ago, in a land far away, I went to an extensive tasting of various wines sourced from York Creek. Here’s George Heretier’s notes on the tasting:

http://www.gangofpour.com/ridgestock/saturday/saturday.html

The notes include a link to Allan Bree’s discussion with Fritz Maytag.

Bruce

I’ve always wanted to try a bottle from York Creek once I tried the wines produced by Ridge, of the wines available on K&L which would be the most approachable now and near future?

'03 Horseshoe Block - Spring Mountain District Cab
'05 Lake Block - Spring Mountain District Cab
'07 Springhouse Block - Spring Mountain District Cab
'06 Springhouse Block - Spring Mountain District Cab

Thanks for any/all input.

Fritz actually sold the distillery in 2010 and retired. I can’t recall if both sales happened at the same time.

York Creek PSA:

My local Grocery Outlet (Santa Barbara) has a range of York Creek back vintages in the $13 to $17 range, with 20% off on top of that.

Thus far I’ve tried:
York Creek 2002 Spring Mountain Merlot
York Creek 2006 Spring Mountain Cabernet “Track”

The former was very good, and the latter was excellent, in a robust but not spoofy style. No obvious signs of abuse or heat damage, just age-appropriate BDX variety development.

Went back today for more of the Cab–that vintage and block was gone–yet found they now had expanded the selections:
York Creek 2001, 2002, 2005, 2006 Spring Mountain Merlot
York Creek 2003 Spring Mountain Cabernet “Track”
York Creek 2005 Spring Mountain Cabernet “Springhouse”
York Creek 2006 Spring Mountain Cabernet “Lake”
York Creek 1996, 1997, 2000 Spring Mountain Meritage

The 96 and 97 Meritage are the most intriguing as these were strong vintages, and for $12 sale price, the risk/reward balance is awesome.

Is this the new one that took over the Ralphs on Milpas?

Cheers

Yep, that’s the one!

By the way, I picked up a bottle of your 2013 Mourvedre from Lazy Acres recently, great stuff!

Been digging a bit more, out of my own obsessive curiosity:

  1. The York Creek inventory is being liquidated at Grocery Outlets across Caifornia, with inventory varying by location.
  2. The 1996 and 1997 Meritage were made by Cathy Corison. It’s gamble with wines of this age, but if they’re on, it’ll be a cool window into the period before cults overran Napa.

I dropped by the GO in Redwood City. They didn’t have quite the selection listed above. The only Meritage was 2000 (weak Napa vintage) so I passed on that. No 1996 or 1997. No 2003 Cab. I bought 2005 and 2006 Cab. Also, a bottle each of 2001 and 2005 Merlot. They had a Port (didn’t note the vintage) in 375s and 750s as well as 2002 Valdiguie. Through 11/5, GO is having a 20% off sale on wine.

One wine that I was surprised to see was 2013 Cowan Cellars Pinot Noir, Anderson Valley for $10.

I saw these at our Grocery Outlet a few weeks ago but passed since I am really trying to cut back on purchases. This post inspired me to go back and I bought 2000 Cab Franc and Meritage and the 03 Cab estate. Opened them up blind for a party and what a treat. The Meritage has some brett that was distracting though not totally over the top. The Cab Franc and Cab were really good. Not at all over the hill and very balanced. The Cab Franc got the most votes for favorite but it was close. Went back and told the wine guy what a treat the bottles had been. He said he had just found 3 more CF in the back so… One of the deals of the year at $12-$16 per.