I attended the 3/25/12 Rhone Rangers Grand Tasting in San Francisco, and wrote a report for the Grape-Nutz.com website. A portion of the report is below - there are more comments plus tasting notes on nearly 100 wines from 23 producers here:
Rhone Rangers – 15th Annual San Francisco Wine Tasting
Report on the 15th annual wine tasting presented by the Rhone Rangers, on Saturday & Sunday, March 24-25, 2012, at Fort Mason in San Francisco. The event focuses on current releases of Rhône-varietal wines from member wineries in the United States.
This year’s event included two tasting seminars on Saturday afternoon and a winemaker dinner and auction on Saturday evening. Sunday featured a morning tasting seminar followed by the Grand Tasting and silent auction in the afternoon. I was not able to attend the seminars this year, so the tasting notes below are all from the Grand Tasting.
The Rhone Rangers organization is a non-profit group, which promotes the enjoyment of Rhône-varietal wines produced in the United States. Although the term “Rhone Rangers” has been used since the 1980s to describe some of the early champions of Rhône-style wines in the US, the organization itself was not founded until 1997. There are now nearly 200 wineries from California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Michigan, and Virginia that are members of the Rhone Rangers.
Nearly all of the wineries pouring at the event were from California, though there were also a few from the Pacific Northwest. I tried to visit a mixture of “tried and true” producers and newer or less familiar producers at the tasting. Many past favorites – including Beckmen, Jemrose, Lagier Meredith, Qupé, and Skylark – continued to present impressive wines. A few of the more established producers – such as Curtis and Quivira – look to be on the upswing. And several newer wineries – Petrichor, Sanglier, and Skinner among them – showed that they will be worth watching.
I found more noteworthy Rosé wines at this year’s Rhone Rangers tasting than has been the case in past years. I think that more wineries are treating Rosé as a “serious” wine these days, not just as a byproduct of bleeding off their reds. And there was a lot of diversity among my favorite reds of the tasting – more Syrahs than any other variety but including a number of other varieties and interesting blends too. In fact, diversity was a key to this Rhone Rangers tasting – there were lots of wine styles on display, a result both of vineyard sources all over California (and Oregon too), and of different winemaking philosophies and methods. For Rhône-style wine lovers, this really is an event not to be missed.
Some Favorites
WHITES & ROSÉS
Beckmen 2010 Grenache Rosé
Curtis 2010 Viognier
Domaine de la Terre Rouge 2009 “Enigma”
Folin 2011 Viognier
Jemrose 2010 Viognier
Lagier Meredith 2011 Rosé of Syrah
Martian 2011 Grenache Rosé “Down to Earth”
Quivira 2011 Rosé
Qupé 2009 Roussanne
Sanglier 2011 Rosé
Truchard 2010 Roussanne
REDS
Andrew Murray 2009 “Espérance”
Beckmen 2009 Purisima Mountain Vineyard Syrah
Holly’s Hill 2009 Mourvèdre “Classique”
Jemrose 2009 Syrah
Lagier Meredith 2009 Mondeuse
Petrichor 2009 “Les Trois”
Quivira 2009 “Elusive”
Qupé 2009 “Sonnie’s” Syrah
Sanglier 2009 “Boar’s Camp”
Skinner 2010 Grenache
Skylark 2008 Rodgers Creek Vineyard Syrah