One of the greatest joys in my life remains the feeling I get when stumbling upon a small winery whose name rings no bells, but who produces excellent wines. I don’t know why this is, exactly, but it has replaced the childish joy I used to experience as a young boy when finding a small crystal on a hike, or setting a new personal record for stone skipping on a pond.

Little wineries with high quality wines are like buried treasure, I guess, but these days my goal is not to hoard but to share as widely as possible.

I first discovered Cooper Garrod Vineyards at a trade tasting for the Santa Cruz Mountains Wineries Association. I was making my methodical way down a table of producers and so when I got to the Cooper Garrod table, I dove in, though I hadn’t ever heard of the winery before. About halfway through the lineup of bottles I started to realize that these wines were all well above average in quality, some were truly excellent, and all of them had a personality that spoke of meticulous winemaking with very little fancy technique. By the time I finished all the wines, I was pretty excited. I found myself looking around the room, wondering why everyone wasn’t mobbing the table.

Cooper Garrod Vineyards is a 3,000 case production winery nestled in the hills above Saratoga, California. The winery represents the agricultural legacy of the Garrod Family, who purchased a modest 120 acres of land in 1893 that looked down on the spreading orchards that covered much of what is today known as Silicon Valley. The land they purchased was itself orchard land, and the family settled down to making a living growing apricots and prunes like many of the other farmers in the area.

Exactly 100 years later, the granddaughter of those early farmers, Louise Garrod, along with her husband, George Cooper, established a commercial winery on the property. The farm had been planted with grapevines since 1973 when George, a WWII fighter pilot and NASA test pilot, retired and decided to keep himself busy making a little wine for the family. Cooper was lucky enough to befriend legendary winemaker Martin Ray, who was one of the pioneers of single varietal winemaking in California, and helped establish the Santa Cruz Mountains as a serious winemaking region in the 1930’s and 40’s. With Ray’s help, Cooper became more than competent as a winemaker over the next twenty years, and in 1993, with the help of his eldest son, Bill Cooper, and his nephew Jan Garrod, the family established the small winery that they still run today.

The family estate is planted with 28 hillside acres of completely dry-farmed grapes, a little less than half of which are planted to Cabernet Sauvignon, with the rest split somewhat evenly between Cabernet Franc, Chardonnay, and Syrah with a tiny bit of Viognier and Merlot thrown in. As with many such family operations, the grapes are all picked by hand before being meticulously sorted, destemmed and crushed. They are fermented in small lots, often with “native” yeasts and the red wines are laboriously punched down by hand (a process in which the floating fruit and skins are pushed down into the fermenting juice to circulate air and extract color from the skins) at least four times daily. Most are bottled unfined and unfiltered.

Among other things the winery four Cabernet and Cabernet Blends, including this single vineyard wine. All of the Cabernet based wines are released “when they’re ready.” Perhaps influenced by Martin Ray, who was a proponent of extended aging, George and Bill Cooper tend to let their wines sit a bit longer both in oak and in bottle before release. This 2004 is therefore the current release of this wine.

The Lone Oak Cabernet Sauvignon is made from grapes grown on a steeply terraced hillside vineyard that was planted in 1989. The three-acre plot sits at about 1,000 feet of altitude on the eastern side of the Santa Cruz Mountains and faces South, soaking up the sunshine. The grapes were picked in multiple passes through the vineyard, destemmed and then fermented in batches with usual punch-down regime. Secondary fermentation took place in French oak barrels, and then the wine aged for an additional 21 months before bottling, and then another three years in bottle before release.

Cooper-Garrod’s wines are generally made in what most would consider an Old World style. They are restrained rather than brash, and some might even be mistaken for French Bordeaux if tasted blind. Anyone interested in honest wines that are good values and testaments to the quality of modern winemaking in the Santa Cruz Mountains should most certainly seek them out.

Full disclosure: I received this wines as a press sample.

Tasting Notes:
Medium to dark garnet in color, this wine has a wonderfully aromatic nose of classic green herbal, cherry, and graphite aromas. In the mouth the wine has a classic bordeaux complexion of pencil lead, cherry, leather, and rich espresso notes. Lovely cherry and unspecific floral aromas float around through the finish. Great acidity and fantastic balance. A mere 13% alcohol.

Food Pairing:
This wine, with its wonderful balance of earthiness and fruit will accompany many things well. I’d love to try it with a gourmet burger and fries. Right NOW.

Overall Score: around 9

How Much?: $28

This wine is available for purchase on the Internet.

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Let me make this clear. I don’t intend to write about every Bay Area winery that shutters its doors. Though for the next year or two I’d certainly have a lot of things to write about.

But I am choosing to note the sad (and all too common) denouement of Rosenblum Wine Cellars, whose parent company Diageo announced its intention to close the popular winery in Alameda last month and shifted production for the brand, which will continue to exist, up to the BV facility in Napa.

I wrote a story last year year entitled How to Kill a Wine Brand. I only need to write that story once.

The sale of Rosenblum for more than $100 million was, of course, a triumph for founder Kent Rosenblum, who built a wine brand from nothing to become one of the darlings of the California wine industry. Under the terms reported at the time, Rosenblum and his operation were to be left alone to do their thing.

But that was before the wine industry fell off a cliff. And Diageo doesn’t have a strong track record of allowing its acquisitions to be truly independent, as opposed to simply brands in the portfolio.

So while it’s not entirely a surprise that the beloved Alameda winery will no longer host the thousands of loyal customers in its big hangar of a space, and will no longer incubate other small wine labels as it has done for years, it certainly is a damn shame.

Of course, bottles bearing the Rosenblum label will continue to show up on store shelves for the coming years, and there’s a chance that they may still be just as good as they used to be. But they certainly will lack some soul that they once had, even if you can’t really taste the difference.

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We love the French Paradox idea that wine is healthy. Now a major French study offers a surprising answer to the question, “Why?”

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In a wine culture obsessed with the idea of pairing, far too few people talk about the best complement to a nice glass of wine: sex. Yes, that’s right, forget grilled meats and Zinfandel, oysters and Champagne, the best combo I know of is a bottle of something good and some skin-to-skin contact.

Which is presumably why the CEO of Taittinger Champagne recently said at a press briefing that Champagne’s main competitor in the luxury market wasn’t cheap California sparkling wine, it was Viagra.

I’m not kidding.

Of course, he might have been, but no matter how firmly his tongue was placed in his cheek, there’s a certain amount of truth to the notion.

Wine tastes good on your lips, but it tastes better on the lips of your partner.

Great debate continues in the over-wrought world of wine and food pairing as to whether the match between the two is best tested by eating first, and then drinking, the reverse, or the middle ground I like to describe as “chew while you chug.”

When it comes to wine and sex, however, I’m firmly in the wine before sex category, though I’ve never complained about a well chilled glass of Champagne afterwards.

Matching wine and sex is a lot easier than wine and food, thanks to the versatile nature of sex. It goes well with just about any wine, provided that the wine is served at the correct temperature (if you need a mnemonic: warm Chardonnay = no roll in the hay).

I’ve been keeping track of particularly successful matches over time, both my own and my friends, and have been surprised at how many are measured by conception — I owe my own daughter to a nice bottle of Champagne, and a killer Russian River Pinot Noir — though that may just be the particular life stage that my friends and I happen to be in at the moment. Six years ago I remember a particularly great evening thanks to a bottle of Vino Nobile de Montepulciano.

But back to the general theory. I find red to be better than white when it comes to truly great pairings. This perhaps is not entirely a surprise, but on the other hand, nor is it anywhere close to a hard and fast rule, so to speak.

And let’s not forget the magic of the unplanned pairing,

Wine and sex paired well make sparks. Your skin feels warmer, time moves just slightly slower, and your heart feels full. What’s not to love about that?

As with any wine match, I think it’s important to get the proportions correct, but this may be more important with wine and sex than with other pairings. Too little and you might as well not have had any. Too much and things can get sloppy. However, I’m a firm believer in the idea that there shouldn’t be any rules when it comes to wine pairings. I encourage you to find your own balance of flavors.

There is however, one place where I have to draw a line. Not because of any particular allegiance to the folks in Reims, but purely on the principle of the whole thing. Wine will always be more romantic than popping pills. Viagra truly is no substitute for Champagne.

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Sometimes as I’m traveling through wine country, I see beautiful pieces of land that aren’t planted to grapes and I think to myself, “now why is it that someone hasn’t turned that into a vineyard?”

I don’t pretend to have an eye for what makes good vineyard property, but those who do are constantly saying the same things about choice pieces of land everywhere. Sometimes these pieces of land become famous, or perhaps infamous is a better word, for their frustrating combination of appeal and unavailability.

For years, even decades, the wine country of Santa Barbara, and the appellation of Santa Rita Hills held such a piece of land. Directly across the Santa Ynez river from vineyards like Sanford & Benedict and Fiddlestix, an elongated parcel of land hugged the northern banks of the river and cried out to many a winemaker as a prime location to plant Pinot Noir.

But the land, planted to beans, wasn’t for sale. And so for years, winemakers and would be winery owners would drive by and drool, and people like me would naively wonder why no one was trying to grow grapes there.

But then one day, along came Bob Davids. The CEO of Hong Kong based Radica Games, a company that designed and manufactured electronic and video games, Davids was a Burgundy fanatic who one day decided that he wanted to make world class Pinot Noir in Santa Barbara.

Davids fell in love with the bean field, and set his heart on owning it. Through a combination of persistence and making offers that were increasingly difficult to refuse, Davids managed to finally convince the owner of Rancho Chabuchu to sell him 350 acres of land.

Davids planted nearly 100 acres of Pinot Noir (and a little bit of Chardonnay) as soon as he could, and the 24 different vineyard blocks became Sea Smoke Cellars, named after the fog which floods its way up the river valley and makes it possible to grow Pinot Noir this far south in California.

From the release of the 2001 vintage, the winery’s first effort, Sea Smoke was a near instant success. With the coveted site, winemaking by the talented Kris Curran, and Davids’ marketing savvy, Sea Smoke quickly became one of the more sought after Pinot Noirs in California. Sold almost exclusively to mailing list customers, the wine joined the ranks of the “hard to get your hands on them” Pinots like Marcassin, Rochioli, and Sine Qua Non.

The winery is a small operation, with only about six employees, and is run by Curran and viticulturalist/vice president/general manager Victor Gallegos.

A mix of 10 different clones of Pinot Noir in the 24 vineyard blocks are tended with an eye towards keeping yields low. The grapes are hand harvested in the early morning and brought to the winery where they are destemmed, first by machine, and then carefully by hand, to eliminate even the “jacks” — the small bits of stem that make it through the destemmer. Keeping the vineyard blocks separate throughout the winemaking process, he grapes undergo a cold soak for a few days before a two to four-week fermentation. Secondary fermentation and aging take place in French oak barrels, of which generally 75% are new and the rest used. Overall production sits somewhere around 15,000 cases.

I’ve tasted the Sea Smoke wines over several past vintages, and I think the 2007s are some of the best I have tasted. I will be interested to taste the 2008’s and 2009’s especially since winemaker Curren was lured away in 2008 by William Foley. I am not certain who has been making the wines since.

Full disclosure: I received these wines as press samples.

TASTING NOTES:

2007 Sea Smoke “One Barrel” Pinot Noir, Santa Barbara County
Medium to dark garnet in color, this wine has a nose of rick blackberry, cranberry, and violet aromas. In the mouth it is tart and lean with a gorgeous texture, light tannic structure and a core of cranberry and raspberry fruit. Balanced, powerful and expressive, the flavors deepen with time and air. Best leave this one alone for a couple of years. This wine represents exactly what its name suggests: one (the best one) barrel from the vintage, which in this year happened to be one of the used barrels, so no new oak involved. Only 280 bottles made. Score: around 9. Cost: $150. Click to buy.

2007 Sea Smoke “Ten” Pinot Noir, Santa Rita Hills
An astonishingly bright, medium garnet in color, this wine smells of cedar, chocolate, and cherries, with a hint of herbal greenness that is appealing. In the mouth it is tart and bright with a core of cherry fruit tinged with raspberries. Light tannins creep around the edges of the palate, firm but soft in feel. The wine finishes nicely with a zing of acidity. Takes its name from the 10 different clones of Pinot Noir that go into it. Score: around 9. Cost: $80. Click to buy.

2007 Sea Smoke “Southing” Pinot Noir, Santa Rita Hills
Bright, light to medium garnet in color, this wine smells of mulling spices, cranberry, and cherries. In the mouth it is smooth, and bright with acidity that works with light leathery tannins to frame a core of cherry, cranberry, and cedar flavors. An aromatic sweetness coupled with a wet stone and tree bark flavor lingers in a long finish. The wine takes its name from the south-facing slopes of the vineyards. Score: around 9. Cost: $52. Click to buy.

In addition to the wines above, the winery also makes a Pinot Noir called Botella, which is released with less aging, and a Chardonnay.

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What ever happened to the old Chianti bottles that came wrapped in wicker baskets?

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The world of wine lovers is divided into two parts: Those who love rosé wine and those who consider it a weak substitute for red.

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While wines, and great wines in particular, are made with incredible forethought and planning, sometimes wine labels can spring up overnight as the result of an opportune conversation or new friendship.

In 2005, a guy named Cameron Hughes met winemaker Sam Spencer. Sam, who has his own label called Spencer Roloson, had just been offered some choice Cabernet Sauvignon fruit, but wasn’t interested in adding a Cabernet to his lineup. On a whim he offered to make the wine for Cameron, to bottle under his own label.

Now you need to know something about Cameron to understand why the idea of making his own wine was something of a radical concept for him in 2005.

Cameron has a long background in wine sales, and has lots of connections to wineries as a result. Over the years he’s heard many times from winemakers who had multiple barrels of finished wine that they couldn’t sell for some reason — either there was no demand in the marketplace for it, or for some reason the winery ended up with more wine than they wanted after making their final blends. At a certain point the message sank in — there was lots of wine out there, and some of it was really good wine, sometimes made by top winemakers, and it was available dirt cheap, as long as someone was willing to promise never to reveal just exactly where, or more importantly, who, the wine came from.

Cameron decided to become what you might call a modern California negociant (a French term for a type of wine producer who buys grapes or finished wine on the market and bottles them under his own label). He started buying wine from very reputable producers, blending it with other batches, and bottling it for sale under his own name.

Cameron Hughes wine has consisted of small lots of wine, each of which is marketed under simply a lot number and the appellation of the specific wine, and most often for prices between $10 and $20 a bottle. The wines have been sold almost completely through his mailing list and web site, as well as in Costco stores around the country.

To say that Cameron has been successful is a bit of an understatement. The concept of “Ten Buck Chuck” caught on like wildfire and he’s barely been able to keep up with demand. But until 2005, his entire model was based on buying wine someone else had made and putting it in his own bottle.

The idea of paying someone to make a wine specifically for him didn’t quite fit in the plan. So while other winery owners might have leaped at the chance that Sam offered him, Cameron hesitated.

But the fruit was too good to ignore. And it turns out that the timing was right. Cameron’s dad was retiring that year from his job of 33 years, and apparently had an interest in having his own wine. A few phone calls later and a new wine label was born. With the help his best friend, Sandy Wellman, the elder Hughes pulled together the capital to buy the fruit and hire Sam as the winemaker for their project.

They made 199 cases of the wine without having a clear strategy, other than the fact that it wouldn’t be part of the Cameron Hughes “extreme value” lineup. They weren’t sure if they would ever make another vintage. Heck, they weren’t sure if they’d even sell the first one.

But the wine was good, and so they decided to keep making it. This 2006 is the second vintage, and it is even better than the first. It is rounder and more refined than the 2005, which had some angular herbal notes that weren’t objectionable, but weren’t as pleasurable as the seamlessness of this wine.

The fruit comes from what was up until recently called the La Herradura vineyard on the east side of St. Helena at the base of Howell Mountain. Hand harvested in the early morning, the fruit is destemmed and then fermented in separate vineyard blocks after four days of cold soaking. After fermentation the wine is transferred to 70% new French oak barrels where it ages for 22 months before bottling.

Largely based on the success of their collaboration, Sam Spencer has now become the head winemaker for Cameron Hughes Wines, which means he’s responsible for helping to source and blend all the wines.

Full disclosure: I received this wine as a press sample.

Tasting Notes:
Dark garnet in the glass, this wine has a nose of rich cherry and tobacco aromas. In the mouth the wine is exceedingly smooth and balanced, with velvety tannins and rich black cherry fruit, buoyed up by good acidity. A hint of woodsmoke enters towards the finish and lingers like a haze over sweet chocolate and black cherry fruit with a hint of earthiness. Nicely balanced and effortless to drink, this is an example of why people love Napa Cabernet so much.

Food Pairing:
This is a classic red meat wine. I’d love to drink it with Texas barbecue.

Overall Score: between 9 and 9.5

How Much?: $50

This wine is only available for sale through the Cameron Hughes web site.

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