Grizzly Republic Blog

Last Thursday, we hosted a GRIZZLYMAKER’S dinner in Davis at Caffe Italia, which normally provides a warm, family atmosphere & home-style cooking for the locals & hungry travelers of the I-80 between San Francisco & the state capitol in Sacramento. The kitchen this night was anything but typical dinner faire & then weather provided a beautiful evening on the patio for those fortunate to have seating as we were almost to a full house. Make no mistake, Shar Katz can cook with the best. The white table cloth service provided by Anthony, Joe & the rest of the staff was personable; they were on first name basis with all by the end of the first course.

The five courses, each paired to to perfection the the GRIZZLY line up, we started with the dry 2009 GYPSY ROSE with blue cheese & grissini followed with fresh crab cakes & 2009 SAUVIGNON BLANC. The blue cheese sparred with the dry rose with perfect balance & the crab, well it was flat out awesome with the crisp, tropical Russian River SAUVIGNON BLANC. Next up was fresh cheese tortellini & Guido’s amazing sauce, a spicy, tangy tomato concoction that stood tall with the 2005 Amador County BARBERA.

Not to be out done by the kitchen, I pulled out 2007 Roadrunner PETITE SIRAH for everyone’s enjoyment while the french cut lamb rested to perfection, which was served by the big 2006 Napa Valley SHIRAZ. Then the coup de grâce, *a Banyuls-style Zinfandel solera started in 2005 old vine Zinfandel from Amador County, the first real public display of this Alpha lot served with decadent chocolate pots du creme. I’ve been waiting for this pairing since we finalized the menu back in April over text & emails while I was in the middle of Malbec harvest in Argentina. We surprised our guests with an impromptu raffle for a few of signed bottles of the 2008 Paso Robles GYPSY NOIR.

In all our 23 guest for the night went home with a little enlightenment & all the benefits of an wonderful dinner. I had a lot of fun with this dinner, as I was able to share collaboration with an old friend & make new friends. We’ve already discussed an encore performance next year with a new line up of wine & culinary accoutrement. Hmm, maybe some Argentine MALBEC with empanadas?

I walked through a vineyard in the Adelaida hills on the western side of Paso Robles with dentist & vigneron Gary Schmidt this past week looking for Grenache & Mourvedre, but came away with a perspective that I was not considering. The Cocavin estate also has Petite Sirah, Tannat, 2 clones of Syrah & 3 clones of Zinfandel, which got me thinking…what if I throw out the varietal boundries & focused on the vineyard with the vignerons, Gary and Wendy & manager Richard Sauret to create a single estate/vineyard wine?

This would not be much different than my focus when I harvest in Mendoza or St.Emilion, to make the best wine possible during harvest & let the blend develop after elevage in the cellar…winegrowers like the idea & so do I. We should mark May 29 as the conception of the COCAVIN. I expect we might reach six or seven hundred cases, but harvest will dictate the final volumes…on further thought, I will try to adhere to the AOC rules of Madiran with minimum 40% Tannat, which will also be the largest component in the blend

Madiran is located in outhwest corner of France in the Pyrenees & home to Tannat, although some would argue that Tannat is better grown in Uraguay or in the northern regions of Salta in Argentina. It is also principle to the Basque wines of Irouleguy, which I first enjoyed during a university rugby tour of southern France in 1994. I can not wait for the first release served with grilled eggplant & sweetbreads here in Paso Robles, can we saw AWESOME!!!

Grappling tannins should be the understatement from the big mountain fruit of Georgetown, even after 4 months in bottle…this wine is seriously GRIZZLY; get the BBQ ready for this summer for ribs & chops to pair, sauteed mushrooms, garlic & black pepper to dopple across the top

Available & ready for release by early summer

2007 Roadrunner Farm PETITE SIRAH pulls down the big medal, 2008 Mendocino GRENACHE survived the redwood fires & respectably got a silver. Both wines will be on display at the SF Chronicle Wine Tasting, February 20, 2010 at Fort Mason in San Francisco. We will also bring out the 2009 Best of Class: 2006 TEMPRANILLO from EL Dorado, not much of this wine left, save for the library.

On a similar note, we will be pouring the 2007 PETITE SIRAH at Dark & Delicious on February 19 in Alameda alongside barrel samples of the 2008 GYPSY NOIR, our red Rhone plagiarism from Paso Robles anchored with PETITE SIRAH, then dressed with SYRAH, MOURVEDRE, CINSAULT & GRENACHE. The wine will be bottled this spring for release later this year.

Our first vineyard designate PETITE SIRAH is looking gorgeous, rich & deep. I expect a release by Superbowl XLIV or shortly thereafter. The GRENACHE & is recovering well from the December bottling & will pair nicely this spring & summer with all things BBQ. The 2007 TEMPRANILLO is going to lay in the cellar for another few months in true Rioja Alta style that it is, probably should have labeled it as Reserva, perhaps for the 2008 vintage…

My first love with winemaking is AND always will be ZINFANDEL; it’s versatile and has so many approaches. While there are some styles I prefer over others, ZINFANDEL truly is California’s grape. It takes a heavy dose of influence from its terroir and yet it is capable to produce more than a few styles, from a light rose’, a full bodied red to heavy, late harvested dessert. I elected to fortify our URSA MAJOR from ZINFANDEL harvested at its prime to capture the fruit that makes ZINFANDEL so unique, but similar in character to the wine of Banyuls in southern France.

Why URSA MAJOR? It’s the Big Bear in the sky, also known as the Big Dipper. Lot #1 “Red Label” URSA MAJOR is a non-vintage ZINFANDEL from Amador County. Lot #1 is a five barrel blend from three vintages fortified & blended to 21% with fruit forward tendencies, hints of allspice, vanilla and dark rum. I elected to age with a fresh kiss of French oak this past year for the final touches. Best served with a side of chocolate, it would be a most enjoyable wine for those cold winter nights.

Which means we are five to six weeks away from my favorite time of the year. Not entirely prepared for grapes today but by the end of the month everything will be in place for what is looking like the best quality I’ve seen in California since 2005. Add to the excitement of our first harvest in Paso Robles, we will have our first PETITE SIRAH bottling in just a few weeks, perhaps it will be ready for release by Thanksgiving? I’ll boldly sacrifice my taste buds to the bottle shock to time the perfect release.

GRIZZLY REPUBLIC received another fistful of medals for our entries into the 2009 Critics Challenge in San Diego this past week. The 2006 El Dorado TEMPRANILLO was awarded with Platinum & the 2005 Amador County BARBERA came back in Silver. We are proud to say that we are developing some of the most elegant wines!

I took my folks out to dinner with our Ambassador of Marketing & Sales Friday night to one of my favorite Stark restaurants (MONTI’S) in Montgomery Village of Santa Rosa with a few barrel surprises, including a sample of the 2008 “Roadrunner” PETITE SIRAH (it’s ready for bottling right now) but I’ll preach patience for a little while longer.

I also brought dessert in a vintage Tinta Roriz that is, described by the Chef of this local rotisserie as “AWESOME!”, his words, not mine…but I will agree it’s time to bottle the first few barrels from this lot sometime this summer and keep the rest for another 4-5 years in the barrel to evolve a greater tawny.  I had brought the sample for a reduction glaze and was returned a near full bottle with the quote from the kitchen “It’s too good to cook”.  Since we can no longer use the term port, we’ll just have to call it a HARBOUR.  We saved it for dessert with a house chocolate creation that wasn’t on the menu…thanks Chef Paul for a great dinner