Sun, Wine, Friendship and Fun…At Last

May 17, 2022 – Back after a two-year hiatus, the Santa Lucia Highlands Gala 2022 was a decidedly upbeat, celebratory affair that had a sellout crowd reconnecting after what seemed like forever. There has never been more abundant food, fellowship or laughter at this event over its always delightful years, whether foggy, wet, windy beyond belief or dessicatingly hot. This was a Goldilocks Day: just right. Thanks to all the hard working volunteers who toil behind the scenes to make events like this possible. 

It’s always fun to see the first timers, both attendees and pouring wineries, taking it all in, but I was happy to have a seasoned pro—Ann Hougham, who sold her beloved Mesa del Sol in 2021—as my tasting companion. The people I didn’t know, she did, and vice versa, and it was doubly heartwarming to see how many friends we have in common. 

We started with CRU, where Rebecca Gilbert was pouring the 2018 Paraiso Chardonnay, rich and appealing, with jasmine and peach. The 2019 SLH Chardonnay, sourced from Paraiso and Sarmento, was all wildflowers in the nose, with abundant Meyer lemon, tangerine and candied orange peel. With more acid and less oak, I found this wonderfully refreshing.

While I was talking with Adam Lee of Clarice and tasting a Bien Marchais Pinot Noir from Soberanes Vineyard that he made with his very French collaborator, Philippe Cambie from Languedoc, up walked Scott Shapley, winemaker for ROAR. The two began working together at Siduri just before 9/11, and recalled the coma the world fell into at the time. 

“Meanwhile, we had a harvest to do! The grapes were not going to wait!” said Shapley. They so enjoyed working together that they’re “getting the band back together” to create wines for an online auction to benefit Ukraine. More on that to come. Meanwhile, back to that Pinot Noir, which was picked quite ripe and underwent 48 days of skin contact, producing a wine much more like a Syrah than any Pinot I’ve tasted, except for those with Syrah added. It figures, because Cambie lives in Chateauneuf-du-Pape and produces Rhones under the Les Halos de Jupiter label.

Everyone who stopped by to see Denis Hoey at Odonata reveled in the sparkling Grenache Noir, a strawberry and guava punch made in what Hoey called a Lambrusco style. His 2019 Escolle Pinot Noir is from clone 943, with solid pomegranate, cherry and strawberry jam. We tasted his two Syrahs, one from Hook (spicy, with white pepper, huckleberry and overall vivaciousness) and the other from Escolle (Alban clone, earthy, massive, with great depth and chocolate covered blueberries), with Paul and Rebecca Clifton of Hahn.  Lots of people were keen to taste Syrah this year, which bodes well. Paul and Rebecca met at Byington, down the road from me. 

A highlight was to see Ed Kurtzman, winemaker for Mansfield-Dunne, and meet Dan Peterson, brother of the late John Peterson, who established the brand and who sadly passed away last year. We have him to thank for the Peterson Vineyard and the Cortada Alta Vineyard, the highest and most inhospitable to grapes in the region. It’s incredible that anything but poison oak grows up there. The wine from Cortada Alta, though, is quite distinctive, and we especially enjoyed the 2018 Reserve that came from a M+ Radoux barrel. John made the barrel selection. Silky yet massive, this Pinot Noir was brimming with exotic spices, dark cherry and sandalwood. 

When I asked Kurtzman how many tons they got in 2021, he said, “80! Wow, that makes it just about 2 tons per acre! Amazing!”  The 2019 Cortada Alta was soaring with red cherry, pomegranate and cranberry, while the 2019 Peterson Pinot was as smooth as corduroy and overflowing with field ripe strawberries. I couldn’t stop raving about the 2017 Peterson, and told everyone who would listen about its encapsulation of autumn, from its warm spice and dried leaves to its roasted chestnut and ripe apple stuffing. Effusively complete and complex in the mouth, with hints of nutmeg and cinnamon stick, this was the Pinot Noir of the day for me.

But we were far from done, and we barely made a dent. We enjoyed Chardonnay and Pinot Noir from Luli, admired the floral revelation of Rosella’s Pinot Noir and the peachy Soberanes Chardonnay from ROAR, sipped a lovely Tondre Chardonnay from Sarah’s Vineyard and contemplated a statuesque 2018 Soberanes Pinot Noir from Bruliam.

We did pause to enjoy the dish of the day, which was on everyone’s lips: bacon lollipops. These were made of sous vide Baker’s Bacon pork belly, dipped in jalapeno cider vinegar and rolled in a smoky rub and chopped peanuts created by chef Dyon Foster of Chef’s Palette Spice Rubs and Chef Steven Siglund. Devilishly threaded onto wooden skewers that said VEGAN, it was the perfect food for a tasting like this. Foster told me that his daughter loves his sous vide bacon and refers to it as “poufy bacon.” 

The folks from The Club at Pasadera were very harmonic in their process, turning out two excellent dishes, including the spring pea sopa topped with rock shrimp with chorizo black beans and lemon cilantro queso fresco, and the seared Ahi on squid ink chicarron with avocado-wasabi puree. Chef Tim Wood of Woody’s at The Airport served up a terrific seared Ahi atop Asian style slaw as well as a steak and potatoes dish that probably was killer with the Cattleyea Syrahs at the table nearby. 

There was Italian food, sausages, pulled pork buns, Lula chocolates and more. 

Steve McIntyre chose to pour me a terrific, well-constructed and perfectly sculpted 2019 Pinot Noir from the McIntyre Winemaker Series made by Don Van Staaveren, formerly of Chateau St. Jean. This is a fun collaboration. 

The 2019 Talbott Sleepy Hollow Chardonnay knocks it out of the park, with its creamy white linen texture carrying grated nutmeg, butterscotch dipped shortbread and white fig, while the 2019 Tondre Grapefields Pinot Noir had a sweet edge, with a smack of root beer.  Always so lovely, the 2018 Bernardus Sierra Mar Pinot Noir was a silky mouthful of red and black cherry cloaked in a warm vanilla spice.  

At the Wrath table, Sabrine Rodems appeared to be in a bowling alley of bottles, with six Pinots and a Syrah, lined up four deep. She had them arranged by elevation, starting with the Cortada Alta. There was such a marked difference between the bright red verve and nervy tangerine edge of the Cortada Alta (1400ft), the clove-edged blackberry and plum of the Boekenoogen and the spicy blue and black fruits of the McIntyre.  A young first time event attendee asked how it was possible to discern the difference between all the different Pinots. My simplistic explanation was probably TMI, but I hope she at least got the drift of “taste them all, but remember to spit.”  I never did make it to the Wrath Syrah, which I regret. 

But I do not regret for a minute talking about bagpipes, music and Chalone with Greg Freeman, winemaker at Chalone (formerly at Hahn), who towers over any crowd, even when not wearing his pipes. 

Towards the end of the event, Ann and I had the great pleasure of trying Scott Caraccioli’s outstanding Rosé of Pinot Noir, made 100% intentionally from at least 8 different clones, each one specifically selected by him and picked maybe two brix higher than he picks for sparkling. He had just gotten the glass he ordered months ago, as it had been sitting on a cargo ship. The wine had literally been bottled the week before the event. Served up in magnums and also available in 500ml bottles, this stuff is utterly magic. Get a magnum of this for the summer solstice. 

And then Scott poured us his Gamay Noir, grafted from some underperforming Pinot Noir. One sip and your palate is sent into another dimension of blueberry. It’s super crisp and crunchy, yet flowing with smooth blackberry and boysenberry pie. The look on Kim Stemler’s face when she tasted that Gamay was priceless. She was completely astonished. “OMG!! This is my new favorite wine!” was all she could manage. And then everyone wanted to try it. 

Ann asked Scott if his father ever told him he was proud of him for doing such a great job. This launched a very Scott-like reflection on the last 10 years. “What makes you good is walking the vineyard. We have learned to benefit from a good year. Michael (Salgues) told us every year in California is a good year compared to France! We didn’t know what we didn’t know. We had no idea. Now with weather pattern changes and climate change overall, we have to get better. I have to learn to be better. You have to pay more attention to everything. You’re dancing and the music changes, every year.”

Speaking of dancing, there’s always the party tent where they were pouring sparkling at a bar and the band was playing and hips were swaying. It was almost a separate event from the one in the barrel room. And everyone gravitates towards the wine, and the music, that gladdens their heart.