Your favorite Cali Wineries... that are gone now?

[Larry_P]

@larry schaffer

Garretson was a fave for many . . .

The first one that came to my mind.

[John_Morris]

@MitchTallan

Garretson? Mat is/was a super nice guy who had little of what it takes to run a successful winery. There were hits and misses includings spritzy bizarre whites and a significant fail with a much-ballyhooed Santa Barbara Wine Futures release of Alban Vineyard designated syrah. And then there were repeated failures to timely ship wine. They were exciting for the unexpected and they were balls to the wall, I’ll give them that.

This squares with my experience. I bought two bottles. One had gone feral (and that was under screwcap) and the other was really over the top – porty and hot. Matt sent a replacement for the spoiled bottle when I mentioned it in an e-mail. I still have that, having saved it for curiousity.

Matt always seemed like a real gentleman on the eBob board, amid the nastiest spats there, and I really appreciated his gesture in sending the replacement. But based on the two syrahs I tasted, I didn’t buy anymore.

[Paul_H_Galli]

Dain…

TTT

[TomHill]

@John A Hunt

Veedercrest.

The Chardonnay was one of the first wines I really began to enjoy a hundred years ago…

Yup, John…agree. I particularly liked some of his LateHrvst Rieslings from WineryLake vnyd.
I did a visit w/ AlBaxter back in the mid-'70’s. His wnry was an old/abandoned Arco Van de Graf accelerator
site there in Emeryville. I believe Al was a mathematician at UC/Berkley.

Actually, Veedercrest is not gone. The label still exists and is run by RonFonolio, one of the original investors.
Al planted a vnyd up on MtVeeder, but don’t know whatever became of it. Maybe that became the ParasVnyd?? Anybody know??

Tom

[Anton_D]

Sean Thackrey’s Taurus.

[Larry_Stein]

@Steve Brickley

Gemello

I can out-Tom Hill on this one. When my family moved to the Bay Area in '59, I remember going with my Mom or Dad to the Gemello shop in Mountain View (near the intersection of El Monte and El Camino, IIRC). They would buy gallon jugs of Gemello Zin or Cab, and 750s of other wines. That was their first exposure to CA wine.

Thunder Mountain
Ritchie Creek
Fretter
Cassayre-Forni
Sutter Home (the real article from the 60s and 70s)

[Anton_D]

Christian Brothers made redwood aged zin in the 70’s that we kept around and drank into the 90’s. It was surprisingly good.

[TomHill]

This thread is just like all the old folks down at the nursing home…sitting around in their wheelchairs & walkers…
reminiscing about the good ole days!!! Well…I’m not part of that crowd…yet.
Tom

[Bud_Carey]

Navillus Birney

[Larry_Stein]

@TomHill

This thread is just like all the old folks down at the nursing home…sitting around in their wheelchairs & walkers…
reminiscing about the good ole days!!! Well…I’m not part of that crowd…yet.
Tom

Tom, Tom, Tom…

All that statement does is compel me to do this.

[PeterJ]

@mike pobega

Plam. Exactly.

We stumbled onto Plam one day many years ago. It was a very tiny, rather open, facility next to a small house, IIRC. Enjoyed a few vintages and then lost track. I thought I’d read they’d moved somewhere, but then … nothing. Do you know what happened?

[Anton_D]

@TomHill

This thread is just like all the old folks down at the nursing home…sitting around in their wheelchairs & walkers…
reminiscing about the good ole days!!! Well…I’m not part of that crowd…yet.
Tom

Well, then, how about your favorite Cali wineries that will be gone?

[mike_pobega]

@PeterJ

@mike pobega

Plam. Exactly.

We stumbled onto Plam one day many years ago. It was a very tiny, rather open, facility next to a small house, IIRC. Enjoyed a few vintages and then lost track. I thought I’d read they’d moved somewhere, but then … nothing. Do you know what happened?

I stumbled and found it too one morning while out taking photographs.

I think there was a resurgence once before. Buellton now.

http://www.plam.com/

[Howard_Cooper]

For all intents and purposes, Inglenook Cask and BV Private Reserve.

[David_Welch]

Ritchie Creek
Havens
Guillams
Thunder Mountain - loved their Doc Miller Vineyard cabs

[Sean_Devaney]

Just from the Santa Cruz Mountains: Ahlgren, Cronin, Martin Ray, Noble Hill and Thunder Mountain.

[Matt_A_u_s_t_i_n]

Campion. The entry level Pinot Noir was one of my all time QPR wines.

[Mike_Evans]

I’ll supplement my earlier response with McDowell and Limerick Lane (now reincarnated, and apparently better than ever, but the pricing, while fair, isn’t the ridiculous value that the $15 1994 Collins Vineyard, which I recently learned was made by Joel Peterson, offered).

[Scott_G_r_u_n_e_r]

Karl Lawrence and the original Stags Leap Winery come to mind. At least I think the Stags Leap Winery is gone. got split up into Don Quixote or something.

[ATaylor]

S. Anderson

The sparklers were some of the best around and the Richard Chambers Vineyard Cabs were really nice bottles.