The old Cinnabar winery was a fun place to visit, beautiful spot and nice wines from the original site.
-Al
Carneros Creek.
Internet says it was bought by Mondavi, article from 2006.
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100% where my head goes. I unfortunately was not around to try the wines when they were released…but I’ve got a decent stash of bottles I’ve secured at auction from the 70’s and early 80’s that are still drinking well, and have to imagine they were great early on
Cinnabar: Tom Mudd died fifteen years ago. Great guy. Mt Eden bought the property. George Troquato, Tom’s winemaker, still makes wine under the Cinnabar label. This is the same Mudd family as Harvey Mudd and Roger Mudd.
Clos du Bois: I helped name the winery. The founder, Frank Woods, and his wife were wine customers of mine then. The wine buyer at Beltramo’s, Tony Woods, had a label called Antoine du Bois, so I suggested Domaine du Bois. Mme Woods suggested Clos du Bois. The winery has gone through countless ownership changes and is now part of Gallo. Margaret Davenport made some great wines under the Marlstone label. I took a bottle of the '93 or’94 Cab Franc to a dinner event at the Bay Wolf…maybe 15 years ago…blew the doors off. She was followed by Eric Olsen, who made more drinkable sooner wines
Carneros Creek was bought by Michael Mondavi’s company, then the facility was sold to somebody named, and correct my spelling pls, Khueu Wong, or something like that.
MacPhail was bought by the Hess people. I believe MacPhail makes wine for Jim Nantz under the ‘The Call’ label.
Rabbit Ridge made some good and inexpensive wines in the beginnings. The owners put up some buildings on the property w/o getting county permission. Then they took a strongly libertarian stance on the issue. Guess who won?? Then there was the mislabelling matter.They moved to Paso.
Inglenook Cask: the vineyards are divided between Dominus and Inglenook.
BV: another winery to go through many corporate changes. The vineyards are owned by a company that leases them back to the winery. Isn’t this a Treasury property now??
No one wanted to take over when they retired. Their '78 was a benchmark wine to me. But, they were never the only winery sourcing that fruit, and there are some excellent current ones, including I. Brand and Sandar & Hem, both made by Berserkers. The latter has planned Norwegian distribution (no idea on the status on that), since my friend named the winery after the towns his dad’s side of the family is from, and he has relations there.
Wines with real character. I have 1 bottle left that I’m looking for an occasion to open.
Yes.
This, though. 1000 times this. Some of the best wines ever made in CA by a truly interesting person. Formative wines for me and nothing else quite scratches the itch.
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Kenny bottles Cabernet from the old Ahlgren plot under his Ghostwriter label. I love it.
As Wes mentioned, Bates Ranch is large enough that a number of wineries buy their fruit. It’s such a great spot for Bordeaux varieties that they are almost always worth buying.
-Al
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Yeah, but the Ahlgren plot is old diseased vines that will be replanted. Just a tip, I’d grab some of Kenny’s version soon. Doubt it’ll last forever. It tastes like CA history to me.
I’ve heard the Ghostwriter ones are excellent. Also, I believe (could easily be wrong) their last vintage buying Bates fruit was 2016. The current release on their site is '15.
I can ask Kenny, but he didn’t expect to have access to the fruit for long. I think they’re planning on replanting that section. A good reminder to stock up while it’s still around.
Well, that certainly explains why they aren’t around anymore. And maybe why those Sonoma wines tasted like Paso fruit…
Carver Sutro
All this talk about Rabbit Ridge reminded me of another winery where we tasted that day: Hop Kiln. If I recall correctly, that was the first time we had ever tried a late harvest Zinfandel.
Laurel Glen: Bettina Sichel, the new owner, has been replanting the vineyard, something Ray Kauffman, the former winemaker, told me really needed to be done. She inherited a lot of older wine, which was for sale at their tasting room. I don’t think the winery was ever that profitable and it was the other brands that Patrick Campbell had that kept everything running.
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Hop Kiln does sound like it belonged in the same portfolio with Rabbit Ridge and the French Rabbit.
Doesn’t Landmark own the Hop Kiln property now? And who owns Landmark? Original John Deere people sold. Lots of consolidation in the industry with Foley and KJ buying up wineries, but there always seems to be newer folks stepping in to start projects.
Marilyn Remark in Monterey Co doesn’t seem to be anymore? I LOVED their Rhone style wines from the early 2000’s…so much finesse, and impeccably balanced. Their 2004 Lockwood Roussanne was killer! Too bad…
Gerald Weisl runs Weimax, a wine shop in Burlingame. He once did a newsletter about winery mergers. My favorite was Congress Springs merging with Leakey Lake. He called it Congress Springs a Leak.
Landmark and Hop Kiln are owned by the same people who ownJustin, Fiji water, and Pom Wonderful. The Resnick family.
The Lockwood brand is owned by the Boissets, I believe.
I thought I would be the only one who would mention Gemello.
In 2001, I did a 25 year anniversary of Steven Spurrier’s tasting. The French had always complained that Spurrier had chosen either mediocre estates or vintages or both. I chose the best from both regions from the 1970s, wines such as Petrus 1970, La Mission 1975, Heitz Martha’s 1974 and Phelps Eisele 1975. As I was boxing the wines in my cellar, I broke a bottle of 1974 Mondavi Reserve. The only other bottle that fitted the criteria was Gemello 1970. I had liked the wine and decided it would be interesting to see how it would fare against the other wines.
The tasting was held at Eleven Madison. A word about the judges. They were divided equally among professionals and gifted amateurs. Two winemakers from Bordeaux chateaux plus a Bordeaux negotiant flew in specially for the event. Eric Asimov and John Gilman were also there. The wines were served single blind in flights of four.
The results were astonishing. California wines took the first three places, with fifteen out of sixteen judges giving the Gemello first place. John Gilman is still convinced that the sommelier mixed the wine up with the La Mission 1975. I brought a bottle to one of our yearly over the top lunches, where it showed equally well.
To give you some idea of how good that wine was, I started calling Santa Cruz, to try and locate the vineyard. It was the only time in my life that I ever thought about becoming a winemaker. I am chronically lazy but this wine convinced me that I could make something where all the hard work might be worthwhile. Sadly it was subdivided into small lots and bought by internet moguls.
A couple of fun facts. One of the tasters was desperate for a bottle, so I sold him one that night for the same price as the highest priced bottle there, Petrus. $1000.
And, the Gemello was aged in redwood; it said on the label, that it would probably be at its best after five years.
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