WINE
Liquid assets in Sonoma
By Mark Criden
Illustration by J.P. Thimot.
Is there a better food and wine town than San Francisco?

I could fill an entire column with food recommendations (salt-baked Dungeness crab at Great Eastern, sweet potato galette with eggs and grilled cornbread at Dottie’s, warm chocolate cake at Chapeau!) but the culinary apotheosis was dinner at Bushi-tei, the temple of fusion cuisine in Japantown, where Chef Seiji Wakabayashi plied us with sweet breads and beef cheeks, and wine pals brought beautiful bottles. (Jon’s 1994 Beaucastel was especially memorable.) As we polished off the rest of the flourless chocolate soufflé cake with roasted strawberry and organic milk ice cream, I asked about the next day, when we planned to venture to the heart of Sonoma County, California’s famed Russian River Valley. What wineries shouldn’t we miss?

“Swan,” they buzzed.


More Great Wines from the Russian River Valley

Sonoma is much different from Napa Valley. While Napa is vinous Disneyland, with every winery a castle and every tasting room a shrine, Sonoma is much more like the Finger Lakes or Niagara, dominated by small, family winemakers. It’s farm country, not Las Vegas.

Case in point: Limerick Lane Cellars, where owner Mike Collins has been farming the land here for nearly thirty years. The Collins Vineyard dates back to 1910 and there are some vines from that era still in production. Having sold grapes to several local wineries, Limerick Lane started producing its own wine in 1986.

Their Collins Vineyard Zinfandel has always been one of California’s best, pure and superbly balanced, with an opulence that coats every corner of the mouth. It’s the Zinfandel for Burgundy lovers and the 2005 is another great example—dark, rich, and full of finesse, with notes of raspberry, cinnamon, and white pepper. It’s a wonderful wine for $30, and even better when you buy it at their wine club price of $288/case. Check out limericklanewines.com for details.

Limerick Lane makes other wines. We tasted a dusky 2006 Pinot Noir Orsi Vineyard ($38); the inky, delicious 2006 Syrah, Collins Vineyard ($30); and the NV Late Harvest Furmint, a dead ringer for Hungary’s Tokaji Aszu. It’s golden with aromas of apricots and honey, and while not cheap at $60 per 375ml bottle, it will provide a unique experience.

In winemaking, everybody’s got a story, not least of which San Jose State math instructor Rick Moshin. Like many Californians, he dreamed of making wine, and when his family purchased a ten-acre Pinot Noir vineyard in the Russian River Valley in 1989, Moshin Vineyards and Winery was launched. Although little known, Moshin turns out one delicious wine after another—mostly Pinot Noir—using natural, sustainable farming and winemaking methods.

We savored a terrific range here. While we tasted two very good zins, the 2006 Bowman ($28) and the 2006 Carreras ($35), the real excellence started with the 2007 Sauvignon Blanc, Larrick Vineyard, a brilliantly bright and creamy mouthful for $22. The beautiful 2006 Chardonnay Foppoli Vineyard was all flowers and citrus, boasting as much complexity as premier cru Burgundy at a fraction of the price ($35). The 2006 Pinot Noir, Russian River Valley ($34), was terrific, with a beautiful structure, long finish, and crammed with black currant and cranberry flavors. But this wine was dusted by the opulent 2006 Pinot Noir Lot 4, Russian River Valley, a kaleidoscope of tea, earth, and candied black fruits for $42, and the unbelievably complex 2006 Emoshin Pinot Noir, Russian River Valley ($44), whose flavors and aromas of cherry, autumn spice, earthy cinnamon, and toasty brown sugar seemed to go on forever. This was a real “wow” wine—a perfect example of how Pinot Noir can have intensity without weight.

You can sign up for Moshin’s wine club and get big discounts and shipping directly from the winery. Check it out at moshinvineyards.com.
But what about Siduri, I asked, invoking the name of California’s darling du jour, a small winery that brings wine writers to orgasm.

I thought Jon would choke on his caramelized banana. “Zinot Noir,” he warned.
Swan—Joseph Swan Vineyards—thus had to be our first, least contaminated stop. Swan produces many wines, but, for most of its four decades, has specialized in pinot noir and old-vine zinfandel. Its leader, Rod Berglund, joined the operation the old-fashioned way—he married Joe Swan’s daughter—but there’s no taint of nepotism here; Berglund is one of California’s finest winemakers. His mentor and late father-in-law was no slouch, either. Joe Swan grew up the son of teetotalers (his mother was in the Women’s Christian Temperance Union) but somehow grew interested in winemaking. Using his mother’s ringer washing machine, he squeezed juice from some rhubarb, and, in a crock he hid in the attic, produced his first “wine.”

The Swan wines of today are a far cry from the rhubarb wine that Joe produced, but Swan—and Berglund—continued the philosophy that, when it comes to grape growing and winemaking, small is beautiful. Small vineyards with small crops lead to more intense, ageworthy wines, and a small winery allows one to oversee every aspect from fermentation to bottling.

There’s good news and bad news about Swan wines, though. First, the good: the wines are fabulous. The 2005 Pinot Noir Great Oak Vineyard ($38) is dark, rich, exotic, and just brimming with black fruits, with a full body and a long, sweet finish. It’s the Hugh Jackman of wine: wild, yet elegant. The 2005 Pinot Noir Saralee’s Vineyard is nothing short of sensational, perhaps the greatest wine this storied vineyard has produced. This one’s all red fruits: wild strawberries, cherries, and plum, with a lovely floral spice character. Quite complex, this wine is a boatload of deliciousness for $35. Could there be a better match for salmon?

We were also excited by both the 2001 and 2002 Syrah Trenton Estate Vineyards. The older vintage had a long, smoky finish, like Cote Rotie and is ready to drink, a steal for $25. The 2002, rich and layered, with great length and zingy fruit, is deeper, and needs a few years. It’s a great buy at $27. Both wines are big boys, but they’re full of finesse, with none of the over-ripe, jammy character you get in warm climate Syrahs. 

We ended with a pair of wonderful zins. We loved the Top of Form 2000 Zinfandel, Lone Redwood Ranch (a steal at the close-out price of $15), but the highlight was the 2002 Zinfandel Mancini Ranch, a fabulous wine and textbook example of zininess. Complex and ethereal, and only $25 a bottle, this one is worth buying by the truckload.

That brings me to the bad news. You can’t buy Swan wines in New York. They will not ship to us, nor do they do business with New York distributors. This is a real crime, and if I were you, I might contact retailers in the Bay Area like klwines.com; they will doubtless have suggestions for you. Believe me, it’s worth the effort.

Despite my friend’s warnings, we were going to find out what the hoopla was all about, and after a burger in Healdsburg, we headed for the fabled Siduri Wines, named for the Babylonian Goddess of wine. Siduri is the realization of a dream that young upstarts Adam and Dianna Lee developed when they fell in love working at Neiman Marcus in Dallas. Adam originally wanted to be wine writer, but Dianna—sure there was no greatness in that—turned him on to the idea of making wine. Imagine watching Casablanca, and saying, “Hell, I could do that.”

The couple moved to Sonoma and learned the business working at small wineries. In 1994, when Adam was thirty and Dianna twenty-four, they found a vineyard owner who allowed them to purchase one acre’s worth of grapes. They dramatically reduced the crop—knowing the world’s greatest wines are produced from low-yielding vines—made the wine as naturally as possible, aged it in expensive French oak barrels, and hoped for the best. Their first vintage yielded about 1300 bottles. Then, lightning struck. They heard that famed wine writer Robert Parker was staying nearby. They pulled a sample of their first wine and left it with the concierge at his hotel. Parker scored this wine highly in the Wine Advocate, and Siduri just exploded. Today Adam and Dianna produce what are hailed as great single vineyard Pinot Noirs from twenty different vineyards up and down the West Coast.
If only the proof were in the bottle. The 2006 Hawk’s View Vineyard Pinot Noir from Oregon is short, simple, and unremarkable, no deal for $39. The 2006 Terra De Promissio Vineyard Pinot Noir from the Sonoma Coast is more edgy, but not especially expressive. There’s better ways to blow $44. Finally, the 2006 Clos Pepe Vineyard Pinot Noir, from a famed vineyard in the Central Coast area, was so rich and over the top I thought I was drinking Ausssie Shiraz. $53, and Zinot Noir indeed.

Maybe it’s just that Pinot Noir is such a hard grape to get right, but the Lees do a better job with their other, non-pinot label, Novy Family Wines. A 2007 Russian River Viognier ($20) is light, crisp, and peachy, and though not as good as wines from Niagara’s Lenko or Creekside, it’s eminently enjoyable. Similarly, a 2006 Sonoma County Syrah ($19.50) had a nice peppery, blackberry vibe, though it was beat by the very good, plush 2005  Santa Lucia Highlands Syrah ($27). The 2006 Parson’s Vineyard Syrah ($33), though, was a complete disaster, a brawling, painfully tannic monster saved only by a blessedly short finish. “Enjoy” this brute with a huge slab of beef.


Mark Criden is a nonprofit executive and advises on wine for a number of local wine groups.


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