This thread remind’s me of 6 years ago when we were taking my daughter to her first year of college at UCSC and we stopped in Pescadero and ate a fantastic meal at Duarte’s Tavern had the Artichoke soup and the best Cioppino I have ever had. Just by chance we stopped at a market in town and I bought a 04 Mount Eden pinot to drink with lunch…I have been hooked ever since, with Duarte’s and the wine! 
Thanks for the rant ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
One of the great pleasures of my life is working with wineries here. On my last visit to Mt Eden we drank a reserve chardonnay with crayfish Jeffrey had just ordered in from New Orleans. All the wineries in the Santa Cruz Mtns are lots of fun.
No argument from me here. Only agreement. Nice post Dan.
Never had the '94, but I’ve had the '97 Old Vines Reserve a few times and it has always been stellar.
Happy belated birthday, by the way!
Andy
to Jay Winton,
What offer did you get? I can’t imagine it’s related to my post. FWIW, I used to try to sell some Santa Cruz Mountain wines (represented Mount Eden in DC, MD, VA for a few years), but the three tier system at that time was a killer (pre-internet).
to J Coley, in re my dozen names: I am SO glad you asked! I’m using the SCMWA as a crib sheet, not because I can’t come up with a dozen on my own but because I don’t want to forget any of those I love, and there are a lot. So, alphabetical order. Please note that there are a LOT I don’t know, including some with a lot of favorable press.
Ahlgren - Old school, and I believe they still make Bates Ranch Cabernet Sauvignon. Everybody knows that Monte Bello is the greatest Cabernet vineyard in the Santa Cruz Mountains / California / the USA / the world / the universe… except that I’ve had as many great ones from Bates as from Monte Bello, with a lot of different winemakers. Ahlgren lots of different wines from different Appellations, but everything is good or better.
Alfaro - Visited with French growers last spring, inconsistent but some really brilliant wines. Look for the Lindsey Paige Chardonnay and the lighter but IMO better ‘A’ Pinot Noir.
Bargetto - Known mostly for fruit wines and mead. Don’t laugh. Gorgeous Estate Chardonnay and inconsistent but sometimes wonderful Pinot Noir.
Burrell School - Not only Old School, they have a wine named ‘Old School’ (but from Santa Clara Valley). Look for ridiculously good/inexpensive Chardonnay, as well as Syrah and Cabernet Franc.
Equinox - commercial post: Owner Barry Jackson is an old friend and makes and bottles wine for me from time to time - GREAT sparkling wines from the SCM with very extended bottle age. Good and interesting Santa Clara Valley wines under his Bartolo label. He makes bubblies for many other California wineries.
McHenry - Before there was Rhys, there was McHenry. Not the same budget and honestly only rarely the same quality, but the same intensity of effort with sometimes the same intensity of results.
River Run - A shoestring operation. When he can afford to make SCM Cabernet, the results can be stunning. Most recently, a Viognier that would make Condrieu gnash teeth.
Salamandre - Dr. Wells Shoemaker is a winemaker. SCM Pinot Noirs can scale the heights, as can Primitivos from other regions that achieve 18% natural alcohol. A true garage operation with quality and character the only reason for doing this. Wells has more energy than most supernovas and a more than full-time job as a pediatrician.
Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyard - Apparently no longer making Bates Ranch Cabernet, they are making plenty of great SCM wines and have now branched out to Portuguese varietals! The tasting room in the city of Santa Cruz makes life easy. The most valuable bottle in my cellar (to me) is my '78 Bates Cab.
Savannah - Chanelle - The old Congress Springs I used to work with, in fact one time had rights to the name after some sad happenings. Last time I tasted, very good wines from this spectacularly good vineyard. But it’s been a while. World class Chardonnay when at its best.
Silver Mountain - Jerry O’Brien makes fine Pinot from his own vines and also produces Bates Mountain Cabernet. Quality is not consistent, but the best are excellent and prices reasonable. His Bordeaux blend ‘Alloy’ is excellent and great value, but not SCM fruit.
Soquel - They’ve gone over to the dark side (4-letter word n of San Francisco, adjacent to Sonoma) for Cab, but very good SCM Pinots, including Estate, and brilliant Chardonnays from top SCM vineyards.
Storrs - A wide variety of brilliant and subtle wines, again the best are usually the SCM Chardonnays. In the past they’ve done as many as half a dozen bottlings. I think Chards are more limited today, but there is always an abundant exuberance of bottlings, including library stuff, available a reasonable prices from the literally in-town (Santa Cruz) winery.
And I’ve left out half or more, but I’m out of time to do this. PLEASE visit these wineries, taste these wines!
Dan Kravitz
Offer was probably the same one I got which was from BP Wines.
Nice list Dan, some great people behind the wines on your list. JP at River Run and Wells at Salamandre have been turning out great wines in small quantities at really reasonable prices for years. Steve and Pamela Storrs have a larger production but continue to fly under the radar.
How are the cabs from Martin Ranch? Anyone know?
Thanks,
Andy
They use to make a nice Gewurtz also. Its been a long time so not sure if that is still the case.
I like them a great deal and in the tasting Wes noted above they were the run away winner with the Dos Rios bottling. Wes likes them less than I do and I think Dave Tong would be in the middle. Dave recognized the Dos Rios as SCV in the blind tasting if I remember right but guessed Creekview not Martin Ranch and scored it in his top three. I had it #2 in my list behind the Mount Eden.
I won’t claim to be unbiased though I love Dan and Therese Martin and they’ve been a big help to Stefania and I. We buy grapes from the every year and they are always there if we need something. I did rate both the wines in the blind tasting 90+ points though. The ‘Therese Vineyards’ bottlings are a big step up from the JD Hurley bottlings though and probably what you’d want to try.
Notes from the tasting Wes mentioned are at:
http://www.stefaniawine.com/?p=1531
Wes and Dave also did blog postings on it. It captures some of the producers that I would call ‘newer’ than most mentioned in this thread so far.
It depends 1) where you live and 2) how much effort one wants to put in to finding the wines. The fact is that I can walk into the supermarket a mile from here and get a bunch of nice whites and reds from Italy and France in price ranges from $8 to $20. The domestic (Oregon and Washington as well as Cali) sections mostly start at $20 and are often in the mid-20s. I was thrilled to find a Steve Edmunds Porphry Gamay Noir the other day for $18, but things like that are rare. They’re much easier to find in Cali and/or at a store that specializes in Cali wines.
Do this - walk into a good supermarket or good wine shop in most cities outside of Cali. Try to find most of the wines in Dan’s list. You probably won’t. Can I order them? Sure, but right now it’s too hot to ship even up the coast so I need to remember this in a month or so and then pick out wines and then deal with the possibility of UPS or Fedex hassle… or I can walk into that supermarket and get good stuff now. Or go to a wine shop and grab $20 red Bourgogne from Potel or Digioia-Royer etc.
I’ve looked for some of the wines people like Tom Hill have mentioned but they’re not on the shelves here. In some cases that’s because quantity is tiny, in some they don’t distribute here (and oddly do in places like Missouri… ). People here rave about Bedrock, Cabot, Tercero and more. But those wines aren’t on the shelves here either. Yes, I can order them or deal with mailing lists, but that’s asking me to do work in order to give them my money. Why would I do that when I have wines which I like and that I can just go buy right now without hassle?
Thanks, Paul. I just ordered a few of the Therese Vineyards and look forward to trying them.
On a related note, when is your fall release?
Andy
I opened an '94 a few weeks ago, but unfortunately it was oxidized. However, a '92 I opened earlier this year was singing.
The '94 and '95 Mount Eden Chards are learned from mistakes and are usually oxidized. Hasn’t happened since.
Martin Ranch’s oldest vineyard is in the SCM and dates back to the '70s under the name Harvest Moon. Ahlgren and others (incl. SCMV and River Run) sourced the fruit in the past, now they mostly don’t sell fruit and they don’t use the name on their own wine. Though it does contribute to the Kathryn Kennedy Small Lot Cab and the Stefania SCM Cab blends.
Yes, River Run can turn out stunning wines.
I’d describe the McHenry Pinots as rustic. I love 'em. They don’t put it on the label, but they’re in the small Ben Lomond AVA. There’s a unique expression to that little area that you can also find in the Beauregard wines from their estate vineyards. A little trivia: A certain Randall Grahm fell in love with McHenry Pinot, planted next door and started his winery using their vineyard name.
Downhill Wine is a good qpr. with good Chard, Pinot, Syrah and Cab from the region. I see they still have some '07 Peter Martin Ray PN on their site. They took over sourcing Uvas Cab when Stefania switched to their own Crimson Clover.
I love Woodside Vineyards Pinot (about half is from the Bill Walsh Vyd, btw) and their Cabs are often excellent (some of the vines dating to 1895, brought from Ch. Margaux and are the grafting source to Mount Eden and the William Short planted 1949 vines at Ridge). Their Zin vines were planted on own roots in 1897 - the regular bottling isn’t usually impressive, but their Zin Port is really good.
I agree with David in agreeing with Craig. For me I find far great value in France, probably due in some part to established landholdings.
That said, thanks Dan, SCM is my favorite region of CA, and I will review this list for some new names as I really like what I have found there.
Don’t forget Paul’s Stefania on any SCM list. I really, really like the character of his cabs (haven’t had the others). Uniquely CA while uniquely SCM. They, like Mount Eden, seem to offer something unique and desirable that I don’t get elsewhere, particularly good, fresh, forward fruit without being confected, candied, overripe, etc., and with enough non-fruit interest to keep me going back.
to Rick Gregory,
This is reminiscent of my posts on Burgundy. If you happen to live in the neighborhood and want really fine, reliable wines for not a lot of money, just knock on almost any door.
The odds on finding ANY of the wines on my list in ANY supermarket (even IN California) are slim to none (and, as they say, slim just left town).
Rick, you wrote: “Why would I do that when I have wines which I like and that I can just go buy right now without hassle?”
Because they are unique. You may like them, love them, hate them, even be indifferent to them. But they can come from no other place on earth. If you love them (or even really like them), you go through the hassle and expense of getting them from the cellar door to yours. As mentioned, the expense is derisory compared to wines of at best equal quality from far more famous places. No, I’m not saying that all of the best SCM Cabs are as good as all of the best insert 4 letter word Cabs. But I’m saying that overall quality is roughly equal at no more than 1/2 the price. And for Chardonnay (and just maybe Pinot), this is the best place in the Western Hemisphere.
Dan Kravitz
Dan,
I hear you and I might chase some of these down. But I’ve always been mystified that I can get tiny production wines from, say, Umbria that are farmed organically for $12 in Seattle… but not something like Mt Eden from 2 states away. Now, if the wineries are succeeding like this, well… OK. It’s just odd.
My “Why would I do that?” isn’t really from the perspective of someone who knows the wines but from mine. To really get a feel for this I need to hunt down a mixed half case or case, perhaps buy them from several sources and ship them up here. They might be unique but so are the Touraines, Savoies, Kerners, etc. And I can grab those here. I just find it a bit sad that these wines are so hard to find while others from 5000 miles away I can buy off the shelf.
K&L carry a good selection, but what’s on offer at any one time changes. A lot of these wines are very small production and sell locally. (If you look at wine books from the '60s & '70s they mention Woodside Vineyards, who used to be available in places like New York, but now sell out mostly direct plus a handful of retailers and restos.)
http://vinocruz.com/ has the best selection, including stuff you can’t get anywhere else. The site isn’t set up for online orders, but I see their club ships to WA, so you might be able to have them ship a selection.
Oh, Sarah’s Vineyard has a new owner and is excellent. House Family is all estate high up in the Saratoga hills, made by Jeffrey Patterson. Muccigrosso is good, too. '08+ Nicholson, Odonata…
I should have time to write the letters this week and we’re not too busy yet so Stef should be able to get them in the mail next week.
Thanks for the update…and good luck with the release!
Andy