by Tom Hill

A self-admitted wine geek, Tom lives in Northern New Mexico and works as a computational physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory doing numerical neutron transport & large scale code development. He has been tasting wines since 1971, participates locally with a couple of large tasting groups in his area, and is practically a fixture at most California wine festivals, such as the Hospice du Rhône, Rhône Rangers, and ZAP. Other interests: Tom is heavily into competitive sport fencing (foil & epee), biking, cooking, basketball, skiing, backpacking, mountain climbing.

On the Friday afore the recent Rhone Ranger tasting, I had a visit with Steve Edmunds over in Berkeley. I've followed Steve's wines from the very start and have long regarded him as one of the premier Rhone producers in California. His Durell Syrah has always been one of my top Calif Syrahs. I've regarded his early Rhone blend, Les Cotes Sauvages, as perhaps the best Calif Rhone blend made. As he has been able to access more and different Syrah vnyds, his touch with that grape just seems to keep getting better and better.
We met up at the place Steve is currently making his wines, at Audubon Cellars, down in lower Berkeley near the Aquatic Park. After the usual exchange of greetings, we headed immediately to the barrels:

1. Edmunds St. John Nebbiolo Rose '00: grapes from the Cafari vnyd down near Los Alamos: Pale pink color; quite spicy/fragrant/cinammon nose; tart/lean very crisp spicy/cinammon/floral austere flavor; med.long very floral/spicy/cinammon&cloves rather tannic finish; very attractive perfume w/ a leaness/hardness on the palate like a Provence rose; probably as good a use for Calif Nebbiolo as anything. 
2. Edmunds St. John Viognier/Roussanne (50%/50%; Alc: 15+%) '00: from the RozetVnyd in PasoRobles; first crop, 16 yr old barrel; < 2/3 tons/acre; other half of crop went to EhernJordan/Pesenti: Med.light gold color; very perfumed/aromatic floral/honeysuckle slight reduced/pungent nose; soft huge/mouthfilling/glycerined some pungent/tobaccoy fragrant/floral flavor; very long soft very spicy/floral/honeysuckle/apple bit pungent finish; very pretty floral character with a huge mouthfeel; a pungent/tobaccoy character but no new oak present; the Viognier does not dominate like I expected. 
3. Edmunds St. John  Viognier '00: Rozet Vnyd in Paso: much more fragrant/pear/Viognier some pungent nose; soft rich floral/pear/Viognier somewhat more pungent/tobaccoy flavor; very long/ lingering pear/Viognier/peach finish; loads of pear/elegant Viognier character w/ a distinct pungent character.

Both of these white had a distinct pungent/tobaccoy character that suggested the use of new oak; but such was not the case. Must be the terroir speaking. They both had that effusive/ DollyParton character I get in Paso Viognier from Eberle and Alban. Then onto the reds:


1. Edmunds St. John Red Blend '00: from the RozetVnyd in Paso; 60% mourvedre, 20% Syrah @26.5 Brix, 15% Grenache, Cuonoise; official name not yet chosen: Med.color; strong licorice/pungent/ plummy/black cherry slight earthy nose; tart bit lean spicy/plummy/black cherry light pungent flavor; med.long black cherry/plummy light pungent/tarry/roasted finish; not a LesCotesSauvage and not the overripe Paso/jammy character but a nicely done red blend. 
2. Edmunds St. John Red Blend '00: 66% Syrah, 33% Grenache; forgot the grape sources on this one; perhaps the Rocks&Gravel blend; Alc: 15+%: Dark color; beautiful spicy/black cherry/aromatic ripe bit peppery nose; tart ripe/black cherry/cherry/bright/floral/berry some toasty/pungent/ smokey flavor; long bright/ripe/cherry/black cherry lush fruit bit toasty/pungent finish w/ some tannins; another blend but closer to the LCS in character. 
3. Edmunds St. John Syrah Fenaughty Vnyd (14+%) '00: Very dark color; strong peppery/black pepper/ black cherry ripe fruit nose; med.rich peppery/black pepper slight pungent/dusty flavor; med.long pepper/black pepper/pungent some toasty light earthy/dusty finish; much more fruit than most ElDorado Syrah w/ that classic EdStJ pepperiness. 
4. Edmunds St. John Syrah WylieVnyd '00: Very dark color; more meaty/gamey more complex strong peppery/ black cherry/blackberry/Syrah some pungent/toasty/coffee nose; rich big meaty/gamey strong black cherry/blackberry/Syrah bit earthy/dusty flavor; more of the EdStJ/peppery character.

Many of the red wines that come from ElDoradoCnty seem to have a sort of supressed fruit, not the brightness of fruit of other Calif regions, and a characteristic earthy/damp cellar/ mushroomy quality. This seems to work better with Syrah than other varieties like Zin or Merlot, giving them a bit of Languedoc/Southern Rhone character. Steve probably is making the best Syrahs coming out of ElDorado (the Cedarville & Sierra Vistas being the other very good ones) these days and, hopefully, will spark more plantings up there of Rhone varietals. The slight earthiness of ElDorado Syrah along w/ Steve's characteristic peppery/ spicy notes makes for some rather Rhonish-like Syrahs. And then on over to Sonoma:

1. Edmunds St. John Durell Vineyard Syrah Racoon Hill '00: Very dark color; beautiful very spicy/blackberry/ black pepper fragrant classic EdStJ spicy nose; rather tannic/hard very spicy/peppery/ blackberry slight pungent/toasty flavor; classic EdStJ Durell Syrah; another winner. 
2. Edmunds St. John Durell Vineyard Syrah Terrace Block '00: Black color; same very spicy/peppery rather more licorice/pungent/roasted complex nose; bigger/richer more mouthfilling very spicy/ peppery licorice/pungent complex flavor; a killer Syrah; Steve characterized this wine as the "first vintage of Durell I'm excited by (since the replanting)"; an outstanding Durell. 
3. Edmunds St. John Parmalee Hill Vnyd Syrah '00: Dark color; very strong cherry/black cherry/bright/ some cough syrup/Cheracol quite spicy nose; tart/crisp bright cherry/black cherry/ Cheracol quite spicy flavor; much more bright fruit and less of the pungent/peppery character that's in the Durell. 
4. Edmunds St. John Bassetti Vnyd Syrah '00: first crop from this very cool vnyd over near Cambria down in SLOCnty: Black color; some H2S/stinky/reduced very peppery/spicy/blackberry/ Syrah nose; big ripe very peppery/blackberry/black cherry/Syrah some C-R-like flavor w/ fine tannins; reminds me of Fallia-Jordon QueSyrahVnyd Syrah w/o the toasty/Fr.oak; this is going to be a terrific vnyd w/ maturity. 
5. Edmunds St. John El Dorado Matagrano Vnyd Sangiovese '00: Med. color; interesting earthy/licorice/ smokey/cinammon stemmy/yeasty some cherry/mushroomy/earthy nose; tart lean/hard smokey/ cherry mushroomy/earthy flavor; typical CalifSangio hard on the palate character but a very nice fragrance to it.

Then it was off to lunch at BayWolf thru the backroads of lower Berkeley/Emeryville, puncuated by BobDylan music from Steve's tape deck. And, miracle of miracles, we found a nearby parking space, after shooing the UPS driver, delivering bike parts, out of it. This was Steve's third visit to BayWolf in as many days, the previous day being lunch w/ BobLindquist. The always-affable Michael Wild greeted us at the door and seated us at an inside table. Michael always seems to have an interest in the going-ons at LosAlamos, so, this time, I came prepared, with the blueprints of the W88/WhenHoLee version to discuss the intricacies of thermonuclear weapon design!! Michael is heavily at work on his BayWolf restaurant cookbook "The Wolf At The Door", to be published soon; featuring many of the duck receipes that BayWolf executes so well. My lunch:

Spring Carrot Soup w/ Tarragon Creme Fraiche
Salade Nicoise w/ Tuna Confit & Aioli 
Basque Custard Cake w/ Fresh Strawberries 

As it always is at BayWolf; the food was terrific, the wines terrific, and the company extraordinary. The wines:

1. Moulin des Castes BandolBlanc (Clairette/Bourbolenc/UgniBlanc) '99: Med.gold color; med. light earthy/stoney bit floral nose; tart clean rather stoney/earthy/flinty/austere light floral/appley flavor; not a wine that would turn any heads in a tasting but exactly the kind of wine that's great to wash down this lunch. 
2. Edmunds St. John Rocks & Gravel '99: Med.color; med.spicy rather cherry/black cherry/fragrant/floral slight coffee/pungent bit earthy nose; tart very spicy/cherry/black cherry/strawberry light pungent/toasty/coffee flavor; what a great drinking red for a great price ($18); not the depth & intensity of his LesCotesSauvages in the past, but just a mighty-fine drinking red. 
3. Edmunds St. John Wylie-Fenaughty El Dorado Syrah '99: Black color; beautiful very spicy some peppery rather blackberry/black cherry/pungent some Hermitage-like bit leafy/fennel nose; rich spicy very peppery/blackberry/black cherry/fennel/licorice flavor w/ much fine-grained tannins; has that classic EdStJ/peppery/spicy character; not a heavyweight/blockbuster Syrah but lots of complexity & a long life ahead.

Steve regards his Wylie-Fenaughty '99 as, perhaps, the finest Syrah he's ever put into bottle. So I was expecting a huge/mouthfilling/extracted/blockbuster kind of Syrah. This wine is NOT that kind of Syrah; it will look a little wussy when tasted beside an Alban or a SQN Syrah. Yet I kept going back to the wine and finding new things in it and a sort of elegant/classy/complexity to it that made it a very compelling (my Parker-term for this article) Syrah. I've always greeted winemakers comments on coarse/fine tannins and tannin management with a healty degree of jaundiced skepticism; so much mumbo-jumbo designed to take in gullible wine writers. But in tasting the W-F'99 and the Bassetti'00;

I'm beginning to get a glimpse of what Steve is talking about. Both have a very distinct tannin character on the palate but they have a certain fineness/smoothness that belies the amount of tannins present. I'm not sure how you go about attaining these "fine" tannins but it's much the same character I find in Draper's MonteBello Cab as well. So, maybe these winemaker guys really DO know what they're talking about, or maybe I'm just as gullible as all the rest.

Bid adieu to Steve and Michael and head off to Tiburon for dinner w/ friends.

TomHill

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