Tuesday was a holiday, so I schlepped my bicycle over to Sonoma for a little ride and sip. After my chain broke on the hilly road climbing past Ravenswood, I coasted/skateboarded back to downtown Sonoma, where I found a bicycle shop open who fixed me up for $2.98!!! Unfortunately, when the chain broke on the steep hill, I fell over, and I now sport eight square inches of road rash, but...as the kid at the shop said "Who says road biking is not manly"?
Anyway, I decide to do one of my "Tour de Dead End Roads" and after doing this fantastic modest climb up and over Lovell Valley and Wood Valley Roads, I end up at
Bartholemew Park Winery. Situated in the eastern foothills near Buena Vista and the old Count H. vineyards, this winery produces surprisingly interesting and "Euro-ish" wines. The 2005 Estate Syrah was very good, with excellent acidity, some balanced black fruit, and a strong note of rhonish-meat and savoryness. Outstanding! Similarly, the 2003 Estate Cabernet is showing very, very fine right now, with excellent acidity, light to moderate mouth feel and weight, good currant fruit, and a lot of interesting funky savory notes going on. This is my second tasting of this wine, with consistent enjoyment. Both wines would rate above 90 on my scale. The winemaker has moved on the Duckhorn, they said (I prefer the Bartholemew Park, at less than half the price, to Duckhorn), so hopefully the house style will not change dramatically.
Alas, not all American wineries are as fine. I did the Michael David (Lodi) tasting last night in Vacaville. The Infinity Viognier was downright strange-some peachy/citrusy notes going on but a weird finish. The Chardonnay was downright
vile. Everything wrong with modern California Chardonnay. The 7 Deadly Zins was about what one would expect from a cute pun-oriented marketing driven wine. Plush, polished, produced, utterly characterless-the shop owner described it as over produced and over polished pop music...hence Abba.
The Lodi Cab had both a green note and fruit that was so candied I thought I was sucking on a Skittle. The Petit Sirah was the best of an odd lot, smooth and polished but with a weird acidic note on the nose that I normally associate with a wine that has been opened for three days.
...(Humans) are unique in our capacity to construct realities at utter odds with reality. Dogs dream and dolphins imagine, but only humans are deluded. –Jacob Bacharach