I'm declaring a (temporary) moratorium on generosity here at The Cave where it has, recently, runneth over and I've a bit of catching up to do.I confess, when I first took this job I was scared to death of the customers, worried they'd be too snooty to put up with the likes of me, the indication here that I did indeed arrive with prejudices and pre-conceived notions about those who drink wine avidly. Wow, was I wrong, and unraveling those notions continues.
Generous, funny, inclusive, way smart, more than a little quirky... I get to witness these little slices of otherwise complete strangers for two or three minutes at a time. Very Intriguing.
(Except for that one guy...)
So after a lull the ol' Troglodytes Locker is suddenly full, and a return to wine is necessary. Maybe people are making room for shipping season, but really it's because they are just crazy-generous human beings. It always amazes. Since summer is winding down, I thought it might be good to tend to whites first.
Halter Ranch 2009 Cotes de Paso Blanc. Let's just start with Paso Robles in general. The earthquake in 2003 seemed to take the town out, or so it seemed based on what was coming out of there via the news. A casual observer, I never heard much about the place, it seemed all about Napa and Sonoma. Something about coming back from that destruction seems to have breathed new life into every aspect of the area, because it's like all about Paso Robles right now. Maybe because it's closer, maybe because opportunity is there, possibility. It's an interesting time for the region and it'll be curious to see how it lands. In the meantime...I found this tasting note on this wine (second one down), and I'm pretty much there with it; if I were going to a barbecue with a bunch of people I didn't know and wanted to bring something genial to "snack on" while the burgers were being burnt, this would be the wine. Nice wine, crisp, clean...beyond that, though....
Scholium Project Dulcissima Camilla 2007. Here's a good article from the NY Times on Abe Schoener and his wine. Considered a cult wine? I'm not wine savvy, so this one threw me; a little sweet and desserty, but not entirely. I couldn't figure out where it should go. After the third day, I still didn't know where it should go and decided I kind of liked that. It was lush and alive, and I liked that, too. It seemed to me it wanted to be served with a good spicy sausage. Onions, jalapeno. It would be amazing.Stony Hill Chardonnay, 2001. Sadly, this wine, a very nice wine, was forced to follow that act.
This is a really good, flattering article on the vineyard and on this particular year from the LA Times, 2003.I don't read anything about the wines beforehand thinking it might sway me into a direction I don't want to go, but because of this I might have to reconsider that. It was everything the article indicated, but the subtlety of it was out of focus after the boldness of the Scholium project. My bad.