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.

1. SierraVista: Followed these wines from the very start, afore he started making Syrah. John MacCready's original passion was Cabernet and even named his street that the winery's on Cabernet Way. I think he planted Syrah sort of as an afterthought, since there wasn't much of a track record in Calif yet for great Syrah. Fortunately, John done did see the light that Rhone was where it was at in Calif and is one of Calif's pioneers in promoting Rhone varietals. Daughter Michelle is taking more&more responsibility for the winery operations I gather and the wines seem to bee getting better&better. Though I find their recent offerings to sometimes have a bit of a screechy acidity to them, they seem to be showing more&more varietal character and more brightness and less of the Eldorado/funkiness they sometimes had. The ElDorado terroir gives those wines an interesting character, almost SouthernRhone character, that makes the SierraVista (and Steve Edmund's wines from that area) rather unique in Calif. Their Viognier has always been one of my favorite wines; more leaner than most in Calif, more Julia Roberts than DollyParton in style. Good wines.
2. McCreaWnry: I've followed Doug's wines from the very start, when he first started showing up at HdR. Probably the first WashState producer there I think. However, since I don't do much business out of WashState, I've been pretty hit or miss in trying Doug's wines, mostly trying them at HdR and RhoneRangers. They've always shown well and impressed me in those venues, though. So when the new Fall offering came out and I saw the Counoise and Mourvedre on them, never having tried those varieties from WashState; I jumped at the chance to go thru the entire lineup w/ my group. And glad that I did. In the more quiet venue of my tasting group (at least some of the time it's quiet); they wines were even more impressive than I recalled. We tasting some of these at the last HdR Seminar on WashState Syrah and I recall also being impressed. All these were terrific to killer wines.
3. WashStateWines: Been following these wines from the very start as well with an Associated Vintners GWT many a year ago, given to me by one of its investors. That operation morphed into Columbia Wnry/David Lake some yrs ago. Of course, the Cabs and the Merlots were their first really great wines I thought. They always showed less fruit and much more terroir than similar wines from anywhere else. Alas, I often found those early ones pretty heavily bludgeoned by burnt/charred/French oak and then quit following them with the same excitement. However, when I tasted RobertGoodfriend's recent versions, I was pretty impressed with them. Time for a revisit methinks. The overpowering oak seems not to be a problem w/ their rendition of the Rhone varietals. It's oftentimes noticible, but the power of the Syrah fruit seems to stand up to the oak. And that terroir thing makes them often show much the same smoky/roasted/espresso character, in many cases, to their NorthernRhone brethern, though seldom to they show the elegance & finesse of the French versions. But my impression is that some of the greatest Syrahs in the world are coming out of WashState. A force to be reckoned with.
4. Jaffurs PetiteSirah: This btl was a gift from Craig Jaffurs for us to try. We had first seen this wine last Spring when DaveYates tasted w/ our group and showed us a barrel sample. We were so impressed w/ it our group ordered 5 cases worth. This is a wine I've labeled the Archibald Cuvee. I've joked about how Larry would strut about and preen afore my group about his winemaking experience with Craig last year. In point of fact, his responsibility was plucking out all the earwigs from the Thompson grapes the day the came into the winery. But I can't argue that this is a wine Larry has followed from the very start...but even BEFORE the very start. That's a claim I cannot make. I plan to have an "Archibald Cuvee" stamp made up and stamp that on the labels of the wines when they arrive next Spring. That should make them especially valuable on the auction market I suspect.

   Tom Hill