“Catch The Spirit – Cooking With California Wine” will debut on Cox 4 September 5th. The crew has been taping episodes at Temecula Valley wineries the past few weeks and I caught up with them on Friday at Keyways. Friday’s undertaking was an ambitious one: they decided to tape two episodes. The day didn’t unfold without a few stumbles, but all in all things went very well and the food was nothing short of delicious.

The first shoot was set up outside in the rose terrace. Chef Cody James of Manhattan Catering prepared a menu of Chilean Sea bass with a Three Citrus Beurre Blanc served over rice pilaf and paired with Keyways ‘08 Sauvignon Blanc and followed it up with Brie en Croute with Raspberries, Keyways ‘06 Zinfandel, a red onion reduction and cracked black pepper. There was a cooling breeze that also carried the wonderful aromas to those of us lucky enough to attend. Keyways owner Terri Pebley lent a hand and helped Chef roll out the dough for the Brie en Croute. Chef Cody is a master at putting an audience at ease and has a quick wit. Terri was a natural. She was very interested in watching the beurre blanc preparation and admitted she’d never made it. She was the one who came up with idea of Chilean Sea Bass. The food was divine. Both wines were excellent and paired perfectly with the food.

We moved inside to the Club Room for the afternoon shoot. For this episode Chef Cody prepared a meal designed to follow the journey of the Chenin grape from early to late harvest. He started with Prosciutto and Honeydew Melon atop baby greens served with Keyways Krystal Ice Wine dressing. The color and presentation was impressive. Terri joined Chef Cody as he prepared Braised Scallops with beurre blanc sauce and curled carrot and golden raisin salad. This was paired with Keyways ‘07 Chenin Blanca. It made for a long day, but the food was scrumptious, the wines were wonderful and it was a unique opportunity to be behind the scenes for the taping of a TV show. Keep an eye out for for this show. I’ll be posting recipes  and video links soon.

I’ve been looking forward to Wednesday afternoons lately. That’s when regularly scheduled meeting of “The Counter Club” convenes at The Wine Company. Owner Dan Atwood thought it would be a good idea for some of his regular customers to come in and taste a few wines from a different rep each week. It’s a nice opportunity for wine lovers to sample some different wines and gives Dan some valuable feedback on which wines to order and which ones to avoid.

Kim Baily from Southern Wine and Spirits brought eight wines for us to sample this week. We started off with a 2007 Chardonnay from Beaulieu Vineyards. Rated 91 points by Wine Spectator, this 100% Carneros wine was pleasing to the nose and enjoyable, but I doubt I’d spend $20 for it. I made an important discovery this week. I’m not a fan of French Bordeaux. Kim brought two for us to taste. The first was an ‘06 Chateau Siaurac, a Merlot/Cab Franc blend. It’s not overpriced at $18 and would pair well with foods, but it wasn’t one of my favorites. Keep in mind I’m not a French Bordeaux fan. We jumped up to a $50 wine next, the ‘05 Chateau La Vieille Cure, a blend of 75% Merlot, 22% Cab Franc and 3% Cabernet Sauvignon. This wine had a magnificent nose, but was still tight. It opened up as it sat in the glass, but I wasn’t a big fan. In all fairness, Ed Mahieu, who loves French Bordeaux found this wine very much to his liking.

My favorite of the afternoon was a California wine, the ‘06 Domaine Chandon Pinot Meunier. This is one of the three grapes primarily used to make Champagne, but I had never tasted it on its own. It was reminiscent of Pinot Noir in color, nose and palate. I found it very reasonable at $17 and wound up ordering some. Kim poured us a $10 wine, the ‘07 Sterling Meritage. This was very approachable and can’t be beat for the price. The ‘05 Newton Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa was next in line. The nose is unlike any other Cab I have ever smelled and it was hard to pin down. We finally came to the conclusion that there was a prominent blackberry with a hint of cherry. Priced at $37, this is a wine I would like to try again. The final two wines were the ‘03 Canoe Ridge Merlot from Washington and the ‘06 Terrazas Malbec from Argentina. I found the Merlot to be pleasant enough, but for me overpriced at $54. Way overpriced. The Malbec was a delight, with a deep color and a great fruity nose. $16? Sold!

I’m looking forward to see what Dan has up his sleeve for the next meeting of the Counter Club.

It’s been a hectic (in a good way) week. I figured that rather than try to post several different articles, I would give you some of the week’s highlights. Last Sunday, Laura and I hopped into the new WINEormous-mobile (2010 Toyota Sienna) and headed to Santa Monica for the Rhone Rangers tasting event. Forty wineries from across California poured their finest Rhones: Syrahs, Viogniers, Mourvedres, Rousannes and Grenaches as well as some excellent blends. The Rhone Rangers hold annual tastings in Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. The events are a must for any serious lover of Rhone varietals.

Shelbi Wilson from Jada Vineyards was pouring their Mirror and XCV wines, and also offered SanTasti, a palette cleansing beverage that neutralizes your palate and removes tannins. I was amazed at how well it worked. There was also a nice assortment of antipasti.

Neil Roberts - Clavo

Laura

On Wednesday I accepted an invitation to have lunch at Thornton Winery with a group from IFWTWA, the International Food, Wine and Travel Writers Association. This was an excellent opportunity for us to network with other writers and spend time with Executive Winemaker Don Reha, President Steve Thornton and Executive Chef Steve Pickell. We enjoyed lunch in the Champagne Caves, an excellent roasted tomato, artichoke and prosciutto tartine (recipe here) followed by a ginger and peach tartlet with Moscato Sabayon and blackberries. The food was accompanied by Thornton’s ‘06 Sangiovese and Sauvignon Blanc and the ‘08 Moscato.

After lunch we toured the Temecula Creek Inn with sales manager Laurie Miller. The Inn is nestled in the hills of South Temecula. The lobby has been extensively remodeled, with a magnificent fireplace, granite counters and computer workstations. The views are spectacular. We walked the grounds and looked at three rooms, including a Junior Suite. The rooms were all spacious with views, pillow top mattresses and iPod ready stereos and flat screen TVs. I will return soon to do a review of the Inn’s Temet Grill.

I spent yesterday at Keyways Winery for two tapings of “Catch The Spirit – Cooking With California Wine”. Look for a post very soon along with some recipes.

There’s a common misperception that the Southern border of California’s Wine Country is Santa Barbara. It’s frustrating to those who have wineries in the Temecula Valley, but it’s especially galling to winery owners in San Diego. After all, San Diego is where the California Wine industry got its start.

I met with William Holzhauer and Tammy Rimes in the tasting room for their Hacienda de las Rosas Winery in San Diego’s Old Town. They love to share not only the history of their winery, but also the history of California’s wine industry. From 1769 until the 1820s, California was exporting wine to Spain. It created such a plunge in sales for Spanish wines that the King of Spain proclaimed a moratorium on new vineyards in California. No one paid any attention to his proclamation.

Father Junipero Serra planted the state’s first vineyard at Mission San Diego. He planted grapes at eight more missions, and over the years Napa became regarded as the star of California’s wine regions and San Diego became not much more than an afterthought.

It might interest you to know there are nearly sixty bonded wineries in San Diego County. William and Tammy got into the business because they wanted to combine their passion for horses and wine. They found property in the town of Ramona in 1998. Tammy begins the story by saying it all started with 600 dead apple trees. The property was perfect the their Peruvian Paso Horses, but they weren’t sure what to do with all those dead apple trees. They decided to tear them out and plant grapes “for fun”. For eleven years, William has been making wine. He took viticulture classes at UC Davis and took some apprenticeships with local winemakers, learning each had their own style.

A year ago April they opened their tasting room in the Fiesta de Reyes Plaza in San Diego’s Old Town. You notice the marriage of horses and wine immediately. There are pictures of horses throughout, there’s hay on the floor, horseshoes in the barrels and carved horses on the bar. Most of their wines are named after their horses: their Petite Sirah is called “Sombra”, Spanish for shadow, “Oro” (gold) is their Chardonnay and their Tempranillo is “Vistoso” (with vigor). I tasted the ‘02 “Primera Rosa”, a blend of 73% Cabernet Sauvignon and 27% Petite Sirah and the ‘06 “Maximus” Merlot. He is also producing a wine from California’s fist grape, the Mission Grape.

The wines are quite good, but it’s the whole package that makes Hacienda de las Rosas special. Tammy says they don’t sell wine (they do), but they sell stories and the experience. The plaza features several Mexican restaurants as well as curio and specialty shops. William and Tammy are active in promoting San Diego wines. They belong to the Wine Institute as well as the Farm Bureau, the San Diego Vintners’ Association (William is vice president)  and the California Association of Winegrape Growers. This year they partnered with three other wineries to make a summer passport, encouraging visitors to try other San Diego wineries. On Fridays they host a certified farmers market from 10 – 2. Last year they presented the first ever Old Town grape stomp during harvest, with Tammy playing the role of Lucy.

Hacienda de las Rosas has become home to several social groups, including book clubs, attorneys and cigar afficionados who gather there regularly to enjoy a glass of wine and conversation. Each month different local artists are featured in the tasting room. Winding up a day in Old Town with a visit to Hacienda de las Rosas is something I would highly recommend. If you enjoy cigars, do what William and I did – head over to San Diego’s first cigar store, Racine & Laramie for a smoke.

“Catch The Spirit, Cooking With California Wine” will debut September 5 on Cox 4 in San Diego County. I was fortunate enough to be invited to attend a shooting last week at Oak Mountain Winery in Temecula. Owners Steve and Valerie Andrews did a tremendous job hosting the event.

It was a real pleasure meeting Chef Cody James and his wife Linda from Manhattan Catering. Chef Cody prepared canapes of Salmon Mousse, Chicken & Apricot and Cucumber & Dill. He also prepared a grill-baked pizza with fresh and sun dried tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella and fresh basil, lamb chislic skewers in a Cabernet Franc reduction with berries and coconut milk and topped it off with a Pear Tart made with Key Lime Avocado Oil, goat cheese and marscapone filling.

Suffice it to say the food was absolutely delicious; fresh, tasty and unique. Watch for this show. If it’s not on your TV listings, you might find it online. My compliments also to the production crew from Javitz Videography in San Diego.

My first few visits to Doffo Winery weren’t so memorable. The first time the fruit flies were out in full force. The second visit was better, but we still were not that impressed. Thanks goodness we kept hearing good things about Doffo, because the third time was a charm! I recently wrote about that visit (Exploring Temecula’s Boutique Wineries (Plus One Giant)) and after spending time with Marcello Doffo and his son Damian, I decided I needed to go back and find out more about this special place. This past Saturday, I sat and drank coffee on their patio while Marcello and Damian shared a mug of yerba mate.

Marcello is a second generation Italian born and raised in Argentina. His passion for wine began when he paid a visit to his uncle in Turin, Italy and watched him making wine in the basement. He pays tribute to his uncle with a photo hanging in the tasting room. There’s also a photo of a young Marcello on the family farm in Argentina. He’s the second one from the right. He’s been farming since he was a boy, starting out growing soybeans on the farm.

Marcello had moved to Orange County and when he returned home he began making wine in his back yard. He joined the Wine Society and entered his ‘97 Cabernet Sauvignon in the amateur category and picked up a silver medal. Damian worked in a wine shop in San Dimas that also featured a tasting bar and became familiar with the retail end of the industry. He was about 12 when he became interested in the business. As he tells it, his dad is and always has been his best friend. They’ve always done everything together, from racing go carts to making wine.

Marcello started looking for a piece of land where he could grow grapes and make wine and he set his sights on the Temecula Valley. In 1997, he found the property he owns today and fell in love with it. Over the next year and a half, he and Damian cleared trees, tilled and prepped the soil, leveled the land and put in the irrigation system. In 1998 they planted Cabernet Sauvignon and the next year they added Syrah, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. The first vintage came in 2001, but the grapes weren’t ready to become wine yet. Their first release was in 2002, a 60/40 field blend of Cabernet and Syrah. It’s called Mistura, the Portuguese word for mixture.

I asked Marcello about his education in winemaking. His answer? He read a book, From Vines To Wines by Jeff Cox.  That was it. As Damian tells it, his dad is a very meticulous man in everything he does. He is driven to run the smallest winery in the Valley while producing exceptional, hand crafted, top shelf wines. Simply put, Marcello says “I want to make the best wines.” He wants visitors to feel they’re in a unique, well manicured place. He likens it to Nordstrom, where everything is impeccable. As you look across the vineyards toward the old schoolhouse, you see a speaker tower that fills the air with classical music.

Wine is not Marcello’s only passion. Ask him about his motorcycles. He’s been riding since he was 11 or 12 years old and owns 61 bikes. You’ll find them in his living room, in his garage and in the tasting room. When I first visited the tasting room last year, it didn’t feel like a tasting room. It was open air and not very attractive. Things have changed considerably. They’re about 85% done with the renovations now. There’s still some painting left to do, the floors aren’t finished and shelves will be installed, but the improvement over last year is staggering.

The Doffos have never entered any of their wines in any competitions and Marcello says they never will. He says he’d rather pour the wine for his customers than to ship them off to judges. It’s more important to him to get response from the folks in his tasting room than to have a medal on a wall.

The Doffo experience is intimate and unique. Buses and limousines aren’t allowed. He says the experience begins when you walk from the parking lot to the tasting room. If you’re not paying attention, you may end up in the family residence. Once, Marcello says, he got a phone call from someone asking where the tasting room was. He asked the man where he was and the man responded “I’m in a living room looking at a motorcycle in front of a fireplace”. He now locks the doors to the house.

In the near future, Doffo will offer olive oils and Marcello’s  own Balsamic vinegar. The wine club membership is approximately 500 members and they have no desire to have it get much bigger. Wine club members get two bottles of each varietal in their shipments – one to taste when you get it, the other to save for later.

You can feel history at Doffo Winery. If you join the wine club, you’re treated as a family member. The antique structure on the property is the old Hyatt School, a one room schoolhouse built in the 1890s that had 8 – 10 students, a piano and a kitchen. It was operational until 1947. The pepper tree in front dates back to the 19th century.

It’s been an interesting week, going from Temecula’s largest winery to its smallest. I urge you to visit Doffo Winery. You’ll feel their passion in everything they do and will come away with an experience you’ll never forget.

When I visited South Coast Winery last week, they had just won another two medals the night before at the Southern California Temecula Valley Wine Competition, bringing their total for the year to well over three hundred. They have also just won the prestigious “Golden State Winery of the Year” award for the second consecutive year. Pretty impressive considering South Coast only opened its doors in 2003.

I met with master winemaker Jon McPherson in his office inside the barrel room. Jon is a native Texan. His dad founded the Llano Estacado Winery in 1976 in Lubbock, so Jon grew up in the vineyards. His dad was one of the first in the nation to hire an Australian winemaker, and Jon learned a lot from him and the subsequent winemaker. His brother studied at UC Davis and returned as Llano’s winemaker.

In 1985 Jon decided he wanted to start making wine, in particular sparkling wine. Armed with degrees in food science and chemistry, he came to the Temecula Valley and started worked at Culbertson Winery, which would later become Thornton Winery.  At Culbertson he was making sparkling wines using the Methode Champenoise. He learned about a different way of producing sparkling wines called Charmat, and it’s how he produces his sparkling wines today. Jon joined South Coast when the winery opened its doors in May, 2003, bringing winemaker Javier Flores with him, because each man possesses a different skill set, and, he adds, it’s more than a one man job.

Winery owner Jim Carter joined us and it’s easy to see how these two men complement each other. Jim’s goal is to provide Jon with the best grapes so the he can make the best wine, not only in the county, but in the state. Winning the Golden Bear Award two consecutive years might tend to make some folks want to rest on their laurels. Jim Carter and Jon McPherson both strive to find ways to do even better. Jon told me he’s his own worst critic and that he is always able to find flaws in his wines which spurs him on to make even better wines. They work together and constantly strive to produce as good a product as they can.

Both men spoke to me of passion and both exude it. Jim believes you can’t produce good wine if you’re not passionate about it, and believes those that open wineries just to make money have got the wrong idea. In creating South Coast Winery, Jim’s goal was to offer his guests the true wine country experience: a villa in the vineyards, a working winery, fine dining, a spa and a venue for live entertainment. But, as Carter says “The real heart of what we do is wine.” South Coast’s facility is more than 100,00 square feet under roof, but he has grander plans for the future. His goal is to open Carter Estate Winery, a high end sparkling wine and estate wine complex that when completed would become California’s largest winery resort at 535,000 square feet. He is currently waiting on County approval.

Jon McPherson & Jim Carter

Jon told me it’s easier to name the grapes they don’t grow than the ones that they do. More than 90% of their wines are estate grown. Jon took me to the tasting room. South Coast features 38 wines on its tasting list. We sampled 21 of them. With that many wines, we were definitely making good use of the spit bucket. At one point, a woman saw me spit and came over and said “oh, you really didn’t like that one, did you?” I assured her I liked it just fine! The ones that stood out for me were the ‘07 Sans Chene Chardonnay, 100% stainless fermented, with a lovely nose and refreshing green apple finish. The ‘07 Reserve Chardonnay is barreled in oak, but is not overpowered by it. I enjoyed it, finding notes of vanilla and tropical fruit. The ‘08 GVR (Grenache Blanc, Viognier and Roussane) has pears on the nose and a silky finish. I love Gewurtztraminers that run on the dry side and was very impressed with South Coast’s ‘08. The Sparkling Gewurtztraminer is crisp with 2.5% residual sugar. The Ruby Cuvee is a sparkling Syrah with a deep ruby color and distinct Syrah characteristics. The whites and sparkling wines were my favorites of the day, but two of the reds shone for me. The ‘05 Sangiovese was well rounded with a soft finish. The ‘05 Wild HorsePeak Cabernet Sauvignon is aged in a combination of new French, American and European oaks for 18 months. It’s a classic cab and was very pleasing to my palate.

Crystal Magon, South Coast’s Director of Sales and Marketing, concluded my tour by taking me to one of the villas. There are 76 villas altogether, each one with fireplaces and patios that open to Viognier vineyards. During the harvest, guests are invited to help pick the grapes. Crystal explained to me that Jim Carter is involved in every aspect of the operation, even down to the design of the mattresses. He went through seven prototypes before he was satisfied. She says her guests call them “beyond heavenly”.

Our next stop was at the 15,000 square foot Grapeseed Spa. You walk past brilliant bougainvillea and tropical flowers as you enter the spa. Numerous services are available, including Thai massage as well as grape seed and champagne facials with Pinot Noir yeast. Downstairs there’s a fitness facility. A pool, separate locker facilities for men and women and a well stocked gift shop are all at your disposal.

South Coast also has the Vineyard Rose Restaurant serving breakfast, lunch and dinner with beers on tap and South Coast wines. The 7,200 square foot conference room seats 700.

I returned this morning to watch as they bottled the “Lot 1″ Cabernet Sauvignon. If you’ve never seen a bottling before, it’s a fascinating process. Cases of empty wine bottles are placed at the beginning of the line. They proceed single file where they are then rinsed, filled, corked and placed into cases. Winemaker Javier “Javy” Flores had returned from vacation and was on hand with Jon McPherson. Both men are affable and made me feel most welcome in their home. A trip to the Temecula Wine Country would be incomplete without a stop at South Coast Winery. If  possible, schedule a visit during the week when things are a bit quieter. When you win back to back State Winery of the Year awards, word tends to get out.