Anderson Valley "Deep End" Tasting @ My Place--10/22, Saturday

I know Falltacular is this weekend so call me crazy for posting this but it takes 6-8 weeks to get interest collected and the details built. [wink.gif] Falltacular is king, el rey grande and will be epic this week but I want to get the idea below out onto the table.

I am very interested in the very north end of Anderson Valley, the section called the Deep End. It’s where vineyards like Bearwallow, Porcupine Hill Kiser and Wendling are all producing some amazing Pinot Noirs. The producers of these plots are mainly Copain (Kiser and Wendling) and Rhys (Bearwallow and Porcupine), with Rivers-Marie coming online via Bearwallow I believe soon. And, while Littorai is getting Wendling, I don’t believe they are isolating the vineyard yet so it’s blended away for now.

Click on the link and then click the " - " button 2 times and you can get a sense of where these vineyards sit amongst Hwy 128. Note how far north they are and their proximity to the Pacific. http://www.everyvine.com/org/Kiser_Vineyard/vineyard/Kiser_En_Haut/

I do believe we can have plenty of raw material to do a nice introspective tasting of the Deep End. We’ll have to set some guardrails, as Bearwallow didn’t start until 2008, Wendling until 2012, and Porcupine Hill until 2013. Kiser has a much longer runway, with wines worth considering back into 2006.

If you would like to be a part of this tasting, please post a reply. I’d like to do at my place, say in latter March or early April. About 8-10 people. We should consider also doing the wines blind. I feel at this point I have a good handle on Kiser and can taste Haut from Bas but it would be cool to let those differences emerge and be part of some blind discussion.

Hope to see some interest here, as I would like to see some folks go with me on this idea. PS–for those of you coming to Falltacular this weekend, we will be pouring both the 2013 Copain Kiser En Haut and 2013 Rhys Bearwallow. Kind of a Deep End preview. [cheers.gif]

Frank…I would possibly be in depending on the date. The end of March would be better for me. I have a 07 Anthill Farms Abbey Harris that is from the Wolfey-Bearwallow vineyard.

Date dependent I have lots of Bearwallow

Would love it! I’ll be there (I hope).

I’d love to join. These wines are outside of my typical wheelhouse, so I’m not sure if I have anything on hand to contribute, but I imagine I could source something given a little direction…

Hey, good to see all you guys this past weekend. I appreciate you supporting the event.

OK. Bryan, your Anthill bottling comes from a vineyard that is down near Boonville, which is outside of the concept for what I had envisioned. Click the link below, type Abbey Harris into the field and then expand out with the map and you will see that Abbey Harris is in the central portion of the AV, whereas the Deep End is in the top north. Don’t take me wrong…I like a lot of things in the AV but my hunt with this tasting is to get after the top north portion of the AVA. http://www.everyvine.com/map/

That said, do you or Sean own any of the bottlings I listed in my first post? If you don’t own any, don’t discourage out of the event. Instead, stay in. We’ll figure it out, but we need your palates. I have plenty of Copain and Rhys stuff from the Deep End, as does Andrew and Arnie.

As to a date, why don’t we do this in April, either the 2nd, 9th, or 16th? All of these are Saturdays. Take a look at your calendars and post back.

I just checked my Cellar Tracker. The only California Pinots I currently have are a couple of 2013 Anthills (Sonoma Coast and Tina Marie), some Rivers-Maries, and a pair of 2008 Sea Smokes from back when I was on their list. Happy to bring any of those, something else, or to buy something in advance. While I don’t have much experience with these wines, I do want to learn about them :slight_smile:

All of those dates are currently open for me (somewhat of a miracle).

My mistake Frank. I thought it was deeper. I have plenty of bearwallow (Rhys), but April won’t work for me. Have fun guys!

I don’t have a free Saturday until June…I could do 6/11 6/18 or 6/25 if it went out that far

Don’t make me come back down there! Kidding, and have fun guys. This sort of thing can be lots of fun and interesting. If interested, notes from an AV tasting I organized in NYC about 16 months ago.

Mike

Frank: Two points. First, if possible, I would certainly like to attend. Secondly, I am not quite positive, but I think Nash Mill is in the area so we could include both Ladd and Cabot versions of this vineyard.

Cheers!
Marshall [cheers.gif]

Getting schedules to jive is the hardest part. Sigh.

Marshall, I didn’t realize Nash Mill was in the north. If you click on the link below, it should pop up on the map. It’s slightly south and due east of the Rhys/Copain plots but it’s actually dead east, over the ridge from Hein and Hennenberg, which are Copain vineyards right off 128.

[cheers.gif]




Cool! I Could not find it at first! So, is it eligible?


Cheers!
Marshall

I would say we draw the southern AV line here and call it good. Now, we need to figure out who is going to attend this tasting, as of right now, if we do April, it’s going to be you, Sean and I. We’ll be crap faced before the 3d bottle if we don’t get a few more palates to join us.

That’s too bad that Littorai doesn’t qualify, we’ve been lucky to have tasted quite a few of Ted Lemon’s wines (he went to school with one of our friends).

Nonetheless, depending on dates, Brad and I would be interested, but we’d likely not be able to do in April. If not this time, perhaps another tasting…

Sheesh, so much for April 9th! That was going to be the day I had in my mind.

I want to put this back on the schedule. Can I get some support for a Saturday in October, my place? And we look at having Alex cook us a multi-course meal?

Mindi and I would be interested depending on the date…middle to late in October would be best for us.

I’m still interested in this, and my October Saturdays are open for the most part.

Absolutely. Sahba too.