Some days, tasting a batch of new wine releases seems a bit too much like work; just another day of drudgery at the office. Then there are days that are pure, unabashed joy. The difference? It’s the wine, silly!
I love tasting great wines or I wouldn’t be doing this. I am ecumenical in my analysis. Every box I open, no matter the grape variety or country of origin, has the potential to dazzle. Most disappoint. Not in the sense that they are badly flawed; only that they are in no way special.
It’s the extraordinary, the exceptional, that keeps me coming back for more, day after day. So I was both elated and puzzled by a recent tasting experience. Elated because I came across several remarkably good wines, all from the same winery, and puzzled because I hadn’t made this discovery long ago.
The winery, Patz & Hall, is hardly a new kid on the block. It does have a new winery facility, just opened, in Sonoma, but the wines of Patz & Hall have been around for nearly 20 years.
They’ve been flying just beneath my radar for ‘lo these many years. I remember tasting a Patz & Hall wine in the sweepstakes round of voting several years ago during the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition, but I didn’t vote for it and promptly forgot about it.
And I’ve had the occasional glass of Patz & Hall while dining out over the years; again, experiences that made very little impact.
That all changed as I went through their most recent wave of new releases — three Chardonnays and a Pinot Noir. Those grapes are the house specialty at Patz & Hall, which figures because the Russian River Valley is one of the winery’s primary grape sources.
Two of the four wines — the Napa Valley Chardonnay and the Dutton Ranch Chardonnay — were exceptional and two — the Chenoweth Ranch Pinot Noir and the Zio Tony Ranch Chardonnay — were extraordinary, among the best wines of their type made in California.
Tasting them was a revelation and gave me a deeper appreciation of the work winemaker James Hall has been doing at Patz & Hall for nearly two decades. All of these wines are made in limited quantity, and might be more easily found on a restaurant wine list rather than at a retail wine merchant, but they are well worth the trouble.
And though they are not cheap, they are priced modestly when compared to other wines of comparable quality. Visit the WRO Reviews page for my comments on these four new releases.
PHOTO: James Hall
8