Don's Gillette's Weekly Wine Blog
Weekly musings from our store's resident wine guru
Don has over thirty years experience in the wine industry. For the last eighteen years his attention has been focused on the growing local industry. Don has a large following of customers who search out his opinions (never in short supply!) on new releases and on what's currently most distinctive on our shelves. Others seek his insights on wineries and trends that are still under the radar. Check back here each week for Don's latest thoughts on various wine-related topics. Read Don's full bio...
Email Don directly with your wine-related questions.
Smoky Nights and Pinot Days
Northern California and the San Francisco Bay Area had been covered by a shifting halo of smoke for over a week, the primary cause being a series of lightning-induced brush fires: 120 in Mendocino alone. Last Saturday, Pattie and I were guests at Bacar Restaurant. We drove downtown to join our hosts, on an evening when the eyes stung and the air smelled just like a campfire.
NVWE customers Brad and Leslie Dubner were in San Francisco to attend the fourth annual Pinot Days and to enjoy two wine auction "lots" that they had successfully bid for. They came to Bacar fresh from blending their own five case Custom Pinot Noir Lot at Kosta Browne. They were rested and ready to enjoy a Wine Dinner for 8 at Bacar. Pattie and I were their guests, along with Mike and Suzanne Ibe, friends of the Dubners from out of town.
Our hosts were Joe & Pat Harbison, investors in Bacar and owners of tiny Harbison winery in Napa Valley. We enjoyed some of their terrific 2005 Napa Cabernet (not yet released) and a lovely 2004 Santa Barbara Chardonnay. The Chardonnay was a twenty-five case bottling, made for their private use, by Au Bon Climat's Jim Clendennen. We also shared, as a warmup to Pinot Days, Patz & Hall and Marcissan Pinots. A hot dinner topic was the Harbison's search for a winemaker for their new project. They have finished the planting of a new property, on vineyard land adjacent to Screaming Eagle's.
175 Pinot Makers
Pinot Days was held the following Sunday at Fort Mason Center, helpfully located at the opposite end of town from the bumper-to-bumper traffic of San Francisco's annual Gay Freedom Day Parade. The public was set to arrive at 1:00pm, while the trade entered (after glitches caused by some non-working ticket scanners) at 11:00am. Six NVWE staffers attended, while GM Denise "held the fort" at the wine store. Each staffer carried a crib sheet, highlighting: must stops; new producers; and interesting works in progress they should check-out.
The layout was alphabetical. I began at B, with 3 wines from Benovia (my favorite new producer), followed by 4 more Pinots at Black Kite. This was a mistake, as both Ancien and Arista were to run out of wine before I worked myself around to A again at four o'clock. In this sense, Pinot Days is itself a work in progress, as many small-production wineries struggle with how best to allocate their limited supply of samples.
Fine Pinot Noir is essentially a "small-lot" product, wherever it is grown. Pinot thrives in often sharply-delimited locations, must be carefully fermented in small containers, and tastes unrewarding unless the crop yields are kept small. When our store has 150 Pinots in stock, as it sometimes does, 125 or more are likely to be under 400 case production. Pinot producers in our state are typically tiny, so pouring at a large gathering of tasters like Pinot Days can make a serious dent in their supply.
Last year, Chasseur brought their great 2005 Pinots to PD. Owner Bill Hunter looked near to despair when his samples ran out within an hour of the arrival of the public. He had poured a case of most of his wines, no small thing, when you realize that many of his 2005s were under 100 case production and one was under 30. Bill could not afford to bring his much smaller crop of 2006s to Pinot Days. I hope he will reconsider when his fabulous and considerably more plentiful 2007s are ready.
Next week, part two: Our "staff favorites" and some new guys to watch...