Lil and I used our spring break to go out to Sonoma and visit a couple of our favorite wineries. This time, we were lucky enough to Have Lil's family join us for a great afternoon of tastings. We started off at Siduri. We had meet with Adam in December, but this time we were tasted by Mark Zengilowski (we first met Mark a couple of years ago). Mark poured for us the '02 Central Coast, '02 Garys', '02 Keefer Ranch as well as the Novy line including the '02 Carlisle Zin. Normally, this can be a very cold place to taste, but given the heat wave hitting the Bay area in March, the facility was at an ideal temperature to taste. The Central Coast is a blend of fruit including some Garys' and Pisoni and is a typical large-scale Central Coast pinot. For the money, a great value. While I really enjoy the Garys', the surprise for me was the Keefer Ranch. This is from a valued property in Sonoma and was gushing with black fruit and well balanced oak.

After the three pinots, Mark opened a couple of the Novy label wines. Novy is a joint partnership between the Lees and Dianna's family. The big hit was the '02 Carlisle Zin. This is fruit that Novy gets from Mike Officer. If you have had any of Mike's wines, you know the great quality. This is another big scale bruiser zin.
 

    Next, we we met Mike Officer of Carlisle in his rented warehouse facility in Santa Rosa. The big news is that two days after our tasting, Mike was quitting his day job to focus solely on Carlisle!!! Given the already high state of quality, where will this winery go with Mike able to devote full-time attention? Mike Officer, the owner, wine maker and head guru, was kind enough to taste us on a number of barrel samples of the '03 zins, and his '03 syrahs. The zins were uniformly excellent! We tasted a number of zins that were just finishing fermentation but many of them had great definition already. Mike feels that his '03 zins will be some of the best produced. He has added some new fruit, some of which will be be blended while other fruit will be vineyard designate. What is amazing about the wines is that the high alcohol is hidden by a wealth of gorgeous red and black fruit--none of the "hot finish" that you so often get with these big zins. The wines are balanced and drinking well right now out of barrel. I loved again the Carlisle Vineyard--to me the ultimate expression of zin. We also tasted various syrahs. Some of the syrahs will be bottled separately while others will go into the great valued Sonoma County. Mike is doing some great things with syrah, and I am really looking forward to some vineyard designates next year. As you can see from the photos, Mike and I had a wide-ranging conversation, and he was kind enough to spend a couple of hours talking about his philosophy and his wines. What is amazing about Carlisle is that there is such quality and care in the bottle at such a reasonable price. Other Cali wineries could learn from Mike.