Does anyone have any knowledge of this winery? https://www.santacruzmountainvineyard.com/ A local wine store offered a tasting of four bottles, two pinots, a petit syrah, and a grenache. I looked on CT for some notes and I cannot find a single bottle listed. Founded in 1975 with an interesting back story. I can’t wait to taste these but find it odd that there is no existing information on CT. Some earlier vintages were reviewed on Parker.
I picked up some 2016 cabernet of theirs recently and liked it. It’s very atypical for California – quite high in acid and with some pyrazines. But it was balanced if you like that style, and I put another bottle away to see how it develops. I could see this fleshing out with age. At $35 I didn’t run out to grab more, but if it develops well, that might turn out to have been a bargain.
It is difficult to find in CT because CT gives you results for all the wines made in the SCM area. Here is a link to the wines made by that winery:
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SCMV is a great producer that flies way under the Radar. Jeff Emery has been doing a stellar job. If you get a chance also check out their Quinta Cruz label for his take on Iberian varieties and Oscallis for brandy.
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Thank you!
As stated above, excellent quality especially for Old World oriented palates. Also keep a lookout for their Quinta Cruz wines which specialize in Portuguese varieties. K&L often offers Quinta Cruz at very nice prices.
Jeff Emery was originally the assistant and bought the label and equipment when the original owner retired (but not the vineyard). I like his wines, also the other label and brandy that Sean mentioned. The original wines were also good although some of them took a long time to develop (some very tannic Pinots). It used to be fun stopping by their table at large tasting events because Jeff generally brought some much older wines to taste.
-Al
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Love em.
Ordered a few bottles after reading about them in a WE travel article. As mentioned above, their Quinta Cruz line focuses on Iberian varieties, including some ports that I had the pleasure of testing this fall. I like the Touriga and Graciano (though I prefer Pierce Ranch’s, where they get their fruit, by a hair). For the SCM I enjoy their Branciforte Creek PN and Loesch Zin.
The wines have a very nice price point and I find most to be crowd pleasers. The wine club is super easy and all orders ship free in California.
We stopped here on our drive from Napa to OC and had a wonderful tasting. They have some very unique varietals, and it was a nice change of pace after tasting big Cabs in Napa.
We ended up shipping a mixed case home.
Jeff is one of my mentors, and helped many along the way, including Denis @ Odonata, Ken and Cole @ Madson… He’s one of the nicest guys in the business, a quiet legend, I can’t say enough good things about him.
His wines are old school, for sure, but always fantastic value and you can’t support a better family.
Ian
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He mentored you well. We had the pleasure visiting your tasting room at the recommendation of Pierce Ranch (Giada). Took home a bottle of your Monte Bello Cab for steaks the following night and absolutely loved it. We wish we took home more.
The wines live long. I have bottles from the late 1970s still showing young.
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George brought a '77 PN tonight. A couple people thought it past prime and fading in the glass. George and I thought it a lovely, fully mature wine with great tertiary perfume. Funny where preferences lie. Not thin or drying out. One person’s “No fruit left!” is another’s “The fruit is fully resolved.”
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I agree - I’m fortunate to have a friend with a long history with SCMV and regularly get to check out bottles that are 10-25 years old. Even on my birthday he can muster an '83 Merlot.
Is this the same SCMV that Ken Burnap founded??
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Yes, the Ken Burnap founded in early 1970s, bought Jarvis vineyard, Jeff started working a few years later and took over in the early 2000s.
-Al
Great thread. Introduced me to an interesting new-to-me winery with some history that I hope to try out and maybe visit. Thanks to all who contributed.
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It’s been a long time. But, here goes… The winery was founded in 1975 by Ken Burnap. He was a Burgundy lover and believed that Santa Cruz area was right for the grape. He bought some land there from David Bruce. He was committed to Burgundy sensibilities. He made wines that just got better over time. I still have a few bottle of his from the mid-‘80s. They are still fabulous. He sold the winery in 2004, and of course, the place was never the same again. He was an owner of a restaurant in Orange County - The Hobbit, which became a problem. So, he had to back out of the restaurant, reluctantly. At least back then (I don’t know the situation now) the same person could not own a restaurant and a winery in CA at the same time, at least not in the same space. He was (is) a wonderful man. I visited his winery one day (I called ahead and made an appointment) and he asked me how much time I had. I said all day, why do you ask? He said if came all the way from Philadelphia, the least I can do is spend that much time with you. He did. It was awesome! The next day he took me to a vintners’ tasting and introduced me to other vintners. WOW! Way special!!! I ‘imported’ his wines for many years after that visit. Thanks for conjuring up the old memories. 
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Well…back in the early-mid '80’s, Ken made some Cabs & Merlots that were highly reductive. They reeked of H2S. They couldn’t sell the wines here in NM.
Eventually, the distributor marked them way down and they were priced about 1/3’rd the original price. Even though they were highly reductive,
I was confident that, with age, they’d turn into something mighty fine. With 10 yrs of age or so, they were magnificent. That was how I learned to not fear the
stink of reductive wines, but, rather, embrace it.
Tom
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