Tasting Grandly At Saratoga’s Mountain Winery

March 29, 2024 – Kudos to the Santa Cruz Mountains Winegrowers for moving the Grand Tasting at The Mountain Winery held Sunday, March 24, inside to dodge persistent showers and chilly temps. Lessons learned from the crazy wind-whipped event of 2023, made this year’s event somewhat cozy, as packing 500 plus people inside the two floors of the old Paul Masson winery made for fast friends and slow(er) drinking.  

So many wineries with so much good wine to sample presented a logistical challenge even for people with a plan. And if your plan was to strategically target certain wineries, it was doubtless foiled by the sheer presence of temptation at every turn. 

All in all, a good problem to have, and well summed up by my friend Steve from Livermore, who was wearing a much-admired t-shirt that read, “I came, I saw, I forgot what I was doing, retraced my steps, got distracted on my way back, I have no idea what’s going on, and now I have to pee.” He could have sold a few dozen of those if he’d had a table. The shirt was given to him by his cousin Ellen, also in attendance with her husband Lou—both seasoned journalists—and as such, excellent event-navigators. 

Truly the best strategy for these events is to secure the VIP ticket which gets you food, provided by chef Ross Hanson of Oak & Rye and chef Kirsten Ponza, and access to the Rosé and Sparkling offerings, of which there were two big buckets full, being poured by intrepid volunteers turning blue in the chill of the patio. The best part of the Mountain Winery is its many cubbyholes and view spots: with all the stonework, it feels like visiting a city in Europe. Its nooks and crannies can provide a warm speck of sun, or an abundance of numbing shade. But no matter where you end up, there’s history everywhere you look, including the extensive collection of event posters and signed albums by the many artists who have performed here. 

The Rosé field was big this year, and standouts included the 2023 Boathouse Rosé of Pinot Noir from Kings Mountain Vineyard, 2022 Thomas Fogarty ‘Rosalee’ Rosé of Pinot Noir, the 2022 Sante Arcangeli Rosé of Pinot Noir, 2022 Sandar & Hem Bates Ranch Grenache Rosé, 2022 Mount Eden Rosé of Pinot Noir and 2022 Storrs Rosé of Pinot Noir. 

My posse of Livermore friends, including ever-present photo director Susan, who captured every cute guy in the place, wanted to find the best of the Pinots and Chardonnays. We first made a beeline to Sante Arcangeli, where the gregarious Cindy Kane and pals enthusiastically poured the ethereal yet provocative 2022 Split Rail Pinot Noir and the fantastic 2022 Coast Grade Pinot Noir, announcing, “These truly do not suck!” with great enthusiasm. They are so very right. In fact, most every Pinot Noir we tasted had something to recommend it. 

We also scored at the Windy Oaks table where Spencer was pouring the excellent 2021 Estate Cuvée of many clones and the 2021 Whole Cluster bottling, which illustrates the mid-palate heft that a bit of stem contact can provide. Everyone was intrigued by the depth of Jim Schultze’s special “Le Chaud” Pinot Noir, from the block he heat-treats with a blower machine from Germany. It’s essentially a giant hair dryer that whisks away moisture after rains and heavy fog, mitigating mildew, leaf hoppers and botrytis, and also thickening the skins, which adds a tactile element to the tannin structure. The Windy Oaks Chardonnay also got big thumbs up from the posse. 

Other prominent Pinot Noirs in the vast lineup of treasures were the wonderfully rich 2017 Rexford Lester Vineyards Pinot Noir, the 2021 Big Basin Vineyards Old Corral Pinot Noir (magnificent mouthfeel and pure Pinocity), the wonderfully mountain-meets-the-sea pine and seawood mélange of Ryan Beauregard’s 2022 Beauregard Vineyards Coast Grade Vineyard Pinot Noir, the stunningly adroit 2022 Birichino Lilo Vineyard Pinot Noir from the hills above Aptos, and the truly exemplary 2021 McHenry Swan Clone Pinot Noir, made by Ryan Beauregard and poured by Brandon Blanchard, husband of Henry McHenry’s daughter, Annelisa McHenry. 

Brandon happened to be back-to-back with Joe Miller of Rexford at this event, and was delighted to learn that Miller, Professor Emeritus of Astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz, knows his father-in-law well. The same goes for his wife’s grandfather, as they were all part of the UC Santa Cruz professorial wine connection, which included professor Bernie Le Boeuf, whose vines today provide some Chardonnay for Rob and Recha Bergstrom’s Sandar and Hem project. 

Miller, McHenry and Le Boeuf used to teach wine appreciation courses at UC Santa Cruz. Joe Miller tells me that he was asked early on in the Ridge timeline of history to be their consulting winemaker, but they wanted an investment of a sum he didn’t feel like parting with, so he turned them down. It wasn’t long after that a young man named Paul Draper, fresh off his experience in Chile, took the job instead.  

Speaking of old home week and deep mountain connections, I got to meet Frederic Ballario, a delightful Frenchman who happens to live in the old Martin and Eleanor Ray house. He was pouring the 2020 Domaine Eden Chardonnay, the sister label of Mount Eden. Domaine Eden wines are made from fruit grown on the Saratoga mountaintop originally planted by Ron Mosley of Cinnabar. The former Cinnabar estate vineyard and winery is now the Domaine Eden property. It was purchased by Jeffrey and Ellie Patterson after Cinnabar founder Tom Mudd passed away. 

Fittingly, we ran into Mosley, whose Cinnabar brand is now located in Gilroy. Mosley still operates a longstanding tasting room in Saratoga, as well as one in Gilroy. He told us the story about how he came to purchase the company he’d started with at the outset of his career, sharing the frustrations of buying a winery right on the eve of the pandemic, and the challenges of the wine industry in general. Yet, he’s still forging ahead, determined to keep the brand relevant.  His son Caleb happens to be executive director of the Napa Valley Winegrowers. 

Speaking of families that keep it in the biz, the affable lab manager at Ridge, Lauren Lyall, was pouring Ridge wines, among them the 2022 Estate Chardonnay and 2021 Jimsomare Zinfandel, while in the next room her husband, winemaker Barry Timmins, who hails from New Zealand, was pouring Vidovich Cabernet and Zinfandel. They were eager to know what local Pinot Noirs they should try. Among those I mentioned were the 2021 Sandar & Hem Deerheart Vineyard Pinot Noir, for its mulberry and raspberry intensity, and the 2020 Charmant Juliettes Block Pinot Noir, made from clone 667, from a vineyard near Trout Gulch in Aptos. 

The most crow-buzzy wines of the day were definitely the 2022 Rexford Dry Riesling from Tondré Grapefields, done in neutral French for a touch of cream, the engaging and earthy 2013 Soulmate Nebbiolo from Martin Ranch, the cherry, pine and tobacco-packed 2021 Beauregard Vineyards Estate Cabernet Sauvignon, the fresh-as-can-be 2002 Kings Mountain Vineyards Meritage, the ballerina-graceful 2022 Madson Wines Ascona Vineyard Chardonnay, and the 2019 David Bruce Estate Chardonnay, which is the quintessential expression of the Santa Cruz Mountains, generous of fruit and acidity, with the restraint of minerality keeping it all in check. Long time David Bruce winemaker Mitri Faravashi was in attendance pouring, and the crowd around the table kept growing. 

There were so many great wines I know I missed. Apologies to all the wineries I never made it to, as there were many more I had intended to try. So many wines, so little time. Alas, I never made it to the Library table, but I know that most of those wines are in no hurry to exit stage left anytime soon.