Wine….
One common goal, two distinctive finds
By DALE ROBERTSON Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
Sept. 14, 2008, 8:32PM
A coincidental convergence of meetings with winemakers in recent weeks has provided an amazing short course in the diversity of the wine world.
Don and Sons, descended from the vast Sebastiani jug-wine empire, dispatched Jim Knapp to Houston to have me taste a new petite sirah with a cool, stamp-size label, similar to the old S&H green stamps. They’ll soon be introducing it here. The Sebastianis — Don and sons Donny and August — already offer a slew of wines and seem to believe the more the merrier. It’s in their genes.
The century-old Sebastiani Central Valley factory operation, which they sold in 2000, produced 8 million cases annually. The new négociant-style firm, headquartered in Sonoma, has upped production to 2-million-plus cases and intends to keep creating new wines with catchy names. Ever seen Mia’s Playground, Hey Mambo or Plungerhead? Those are Don and Sons wines.
A cynic would call this gimmicky, a marketer’s way of packaging ordinary juice made from bought grapes as something special. But with the multitudes of wines screaming for the consumer’s attention, it’s hard to fault the concept as long as the wines are solid and reasonably priced, and they are.
Another visitor who dropped by was Rob McDonald, representing the opposite end of the spectrum.
The 44-year-old McDonald leads a simple life in Napa with his family, in a house with a small vineyard for a front yard. From the vines, he makes about 25 cases a year, mostly for friends.
Yet he, too, came to Houston touting a bottle of wine. The 2005 Girls in the Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon is his only commercial wine, and he makes roughly 3,000 cases of it. The “girls” are the vines, sustainably farmed in the Amber Knolls vineyard in the Red Hills AVA of Lake County, well removed from hip and trendy Napa Valley.
McDonald is anti-trendy, saying his mission as a winemaker isn’t “to sell a lifestyle” but to “bring wines from the vine to you without any fuss and, where possible, do a good deed along the way.” Toward that end, a small portion of the proceeds on wines purchased directly from the winery are sent to the nonprofit organization of the buyer’s choice.
He promises never to waste money on advertising, nor on a fancy tasting room. McDonald uses only California-made bottles, and his capsules are made of recyclable tin. His cabernet grapes turn into wine that actually tastes like cabernet, not some heady, oak-laden sorcerer’s brew.
So the Girls in the Vineyard fruit flavors and aromas are well focused and out front, with lots of cherry and cassis. Oak? It’s there, but you’ll have to concentrate to detect it. This is truly a cab from another era, before Robert Parker came to dominate the conversation.
If high ratings fuel your quest for wine, the Girls probably won’t knock your socks off. Tasted recently in a field that included several turbo-charged Australian Shirazes and classic 21st-century cabs, his wine was a bit overshadowed. Overheard: “The Girls need to work a little harder.”
But at $20 suggested retail ($17.61 at Spec’s), you’ll find this wine to be an eminently satisfying purchase, especially come dinnertime. It’s wonderful with food, which once was, lest we forget, wine’s primary raison d’être. And when McDonald comes calling on a customer, he rarely strikes out. Almost every stop he makes produces a sale.
With one wine and no gimmicks, it’s easy to stay on message.