Blind Muscat's Cellarbook

Iberian Reveries

Blind Muscat spent a day in his version of Heaven last Thursday--in an auditorium at UC Davis listening to lectures about grapes and wine. The occasion was the annual Varietal Focus session, this year devoted to Iberian varieties--dozens of 'em--that are rapidly getting more attention in the import market and with wineries looking for something different to grow and bottle. It was an excellent program, some interesting wines, and a glimpse of what will surely be a growth segment in the wine marketplace.

Monterey Epiphany

Blind Muscat recently spent several days in Monterey County, tasting his way through a whole bunch of wines, mostly Chardonnays and Pinots. Besides several tasty individual wines, the trip reminded me of what a blessing a cool climate is for winemaking. Because among other things, it keeps winemakers from creating gigantic, undrinkable wines.

Lake County Ramble

Blind Muscat has been running around too much lately to do much typing here at home. But before he heads off again this afternoon—to knock on doors and get out the vote for Obama in Las Vegas—he wants to pass along his latest, amazing, off-the-beaten-path wine country discovery: Lake County.

Before you go scrambling for a map or an atlas, it’s the county north of Napa, home to Clear Lake and a million rabid bass fisherpeople as well as the Konocti Harbor Resort, scene of concerts from Merle Haggard to Bob Dylan and back again. Plus, they grow a lot of grapes, most of which disappear into wines from Napa and Sonoma, but more and more of which are being bottled by the growing band of local wineries.

San Benito County

You’ve got to love a wine region that supplies grapes both to anonymous, industrial, jug-wine conglomerates and near-cult producers like Williams Selyem. Which means you ought to love San Benito County.

Say what? San Which? Is that in California? I’m amazed at the number of my friends in the Bay Area who don’t recognize the name of the county, let alone think of it as having anything to do with wine. It’s the county south of Santa Clara County, west of Merced and Fresno, and most important, east of Monterey County, from which it seceded in the 1870s. San Benito is probably best known for the Mission San Juan Bautista, in the town of the same name, the setting for Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo,” the 1958 thriller staring Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak. The dizziness in this film had nothing to do with adult beverages.

The Fabulous Finger Lakes

The great wines of California are known all over the world; Oregon Pinot Noir has an international reputation; and the scrumptious wines of the Finger Lakes region in upstate New York are . . . a really big deal in Syracuse and Rochester.

The wines of the Finger Lakes are the best-kept secret in US wine, brilliant in the clarity of their cool-climate fruit, refreshingly higher in acidity and lower in alcohol than most California efforts, often possessed of a magical mouthfeel—and quite rationally priced.  From the pretty to the intense, these wines are finally beginning to get a dollop of attention from the wine press, catching up with an outstanding track record in competitions. In early August, the cream of the Finger Lakes (and New York’s other winemaking regions) were on display at Copia in Napa. To get some well-deserved attention, the New Yorkers moved the annual Governor’s Cup competition for the best New York wines right into the belly of the beast and put on one heck of a show. (Results can be found on the New York Wine & Grape Foundation website, http://www.newyorkwines.org/nygold/wineandfood.asp.)