Friends, you know who you are. Spectators, speculators and good sports, here’s more for you to digest. We come to the point in history when it once again proves itself as a repeating entity. When folks learned to like my ’08 Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir (caps used out of respect for the grape), many realized that it was not unlike the dodo – fondly remembered, studied, referenced, etc. – but nowhere to be found. Sold out. Heck, even I have only 2 meager bottles of the stuff; how wrong is that? So then, when I announced the imminent arrival of a 2009 bottling of similar nature,

here today, gone tomorrow

save for a few improvements and availability in magnum format, the early birds got their worms and the rest of the people “thinking about it” couldn’t get any. That wine was gone in about 8 weeks, travelling to good homes in bags, baskets and boxes, packages and pokes, sacks and sidecars, Harleys and handcarts, rickshaws and Range Rovers, canoes and carry-ons, in wagons and on Pogo Sticks, and even down pantlegs – the latter two modes of wine movement warming my heart the most. Thus, what I had to do was forewarn the peeps and prospects about a new release – the 2010 vintage. Yes, from different fruit: the Windsor Oaks Vineyard. And yes, from a different appellation: the Russian River Valley. And yes, made in a style very similar to those previous two darlings from the Sonoma Coast – Dijon clones, the pie crust component, French oak, no filtering, food-grade acidity levels that allow for excellent aging…you know, a Simple Math style, no matter from whence the grapes shall have grown. I started offering this as a future about a month before release, and pouring barrel samples for one of the pickier portions of our profession – sommeliers. The comments from the start were: “This is young but is going to rip my heart to shreds in a few months.” “Stunning.” “Thanks for letting me taste this; I know you won’t have any by the time it’s fully showing.” Of late, now about three weeks on the streets and having been hand bottled (as gentle as its gets), it’s nothing but good news. I heard last weekend, “We’ve been buying pinot for decades – Rochioli, Peay, Hanzell….we came here to find something up to par, and you have done it. What a find.”

Here’s an image from about two months ago:

along for dinner in SoCal

I’ll keep this short so you can keep sharp by addressing two notions – 1) Q: What aboot consistency, fella?  A: My goal is and always be consistency in quality and value. I can’t be married to one vineyard because sustainability is a cornerstone of the whole project. If a crop fails, I keep my shirt by remaining nimble, flexible and mature – then I take the growers I know out to lunch and help them strategize for survival, seeing as how we’re all in this together.  2) Q: But I can get good pinot for $10.  A: But you can’t get great pinot for $10. And if you feel you can, remember that $25 of that budget behind the scenes went into brochures and bribes to big-box distributors who can deliver those huge quantities to your humble burg, population 3000. This is not a diss. I was raised in such a town and know the game.

If you would like to examine yet another wine in a crowd of wines and think about wine all the time and become an armchair expert on wine and promise me you won’t call me to ask technical questions about wine (it’s already on the website) – check it out. Simple math, really – it’s very fairly priced and people like it and are buying it from under your feet. That’s all there is to it. I’ll let you in on a secret, too. If you haven’t joined the mailing list and would like to, there’s a great way to really do summer right on a 3-pack of my BBQ wines, paying $60 for $78 worth of goodies. Check it out.

Thanks for reading, wonderful folks. Be well, and be sure to visit the new tasting room some time around September 1st. It’s listed on the contact page but there’ll be more info very soon!