Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 40

T

he February weather was cold and rainy, which seemed to
call for cassoulet. The event was a reunion of the Young
Gentlemen's Culinary Society, a group formed in the mid1980s by four employees of the East Bay Express. In honor
of the occasion, I brought the last remaining bottle of our
1988 zinfandel.
From 1987 to 2006, we had made one wine per year. Our
most successful grape was zinfandel, for which we admittedly had a leg up: We bought the fruit from Ravenswood. I
had worked there during the '84 crush, and by '87 was writing Angels' Visits: An Inquiry into the Mystery of Zinfandel
(later retitled Zin).
Following the example of Joel Peterson, Ravenswood's

cofounder, we fermented our maiden vintage with indigenous yeasts. But we otherwise erred on the side of caution,
leaving the liquid relatively cool and pressing the wine as
soon as it was dry-i.e., before the "cap" of grape skins
floating on the surface had time to sink. Joel and his mentor, Joseph Swan, customarily waited for that to happen
before pressing, the aim being to maximize phenolic extraction, depth and heft.
Our '87, made in plastic garbage cans, turned out okay
but fell short of the world-beating product to which we
aspired. "You gotta be brave," Joel exhorted me, and Joe
Swan himself told me that he delayed pressing "as long as
I have the guts."
The following year, we supplemented the crushed juice
with whole clusters and, after a three-day cold soak, heated
the fermentation up near 90˚F. We left the wine on its skins
for 25 days, long after the mushy maroon cap had sunk
beneath the still, inscrutable liquid. The outcome was dark,
fruity, spicy and delicious.
Uncorking the '88 last February, I had no idea what to
expect. But the wine blew everyone's mind. In a subsequent
email, Steve Aibel-the Express's onetime art director, now
a wine broker-extolled its "raspberry/strawberry fruits and
soft ethereal tannins, resembling an older Bordeaux in that
the wine exuded bottle bouquet rather than a sense of the
grape variety." From my athletic POV, it was like a late-middle-aged player holding his own in better endowed company:
It felt fitter than many much younger wines.
After 1988, our best all-around wine was probably the
'96-another zin that, as it happens, came from the same
place as the '88: the Teldeschi vineyard in Dry Creek Valley,
a fact that I disguised in Angels' Visits, as the owners were
then contractually obligated to sell most of their grapes
to Gallo. In time, those tables got turned: Today, the Teldeschis sell most of their fruit to Ravenswood. They also
provide grapes to Joel's Once and Future label and his son
Morgan's Bedrock Wine Co., as well as to Frick, Sbragia and
Truett Hurst (and the family makes its own wine under the
F. Teldeschi label). John and Dan, the 56- and 63-year-old
brothers who now oversee the operation, are the fourth
generation in Sonoma County, but the first to be born in
America-they spoke Italian before they learned English,
seeing as how their father and grandfather, after emigrating, returned to Tuscany to procure wives and conceive
kids. Today, John's 22-year-old son Lucas (or, as his 92-yearold grandmother, Caterina, calls him, Lucca) is preparing
to assume the reins.
Lately, Joel and I have been working on a memoir of
Ravenswood and his life in California wine and beyond.
A chapter entitled "Vintage Cal-Ital" describes his history
with the Teldeschis.

"Uncorking the '88 Teldeschi,
I had no idea what to expect.
But the wine blew everyone's mind."
- DaviD Darlington
40

WINE & SPIRITS

JUNE 2019



Wine & Spirits - June 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Wine & Spirits - June 2019

Contents
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - Cover1
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - Cover2
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 1
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 2
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 3
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 4
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - Contents
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 6
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 7
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 8
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 9
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 10
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 11
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 12
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 13
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 14
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 15
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 16
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 17
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 18
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 19
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 20
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 21
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 22
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 23
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 24
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 25
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 26
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 27
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 28
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 29
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 30
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 31
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 32
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 33
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 34
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 35
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 36
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 37
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 38
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 39
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 40
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 41
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 42
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 43
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 44
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 45
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 46
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 47
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 48
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 49
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 50
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 51
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 52
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 53
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 54
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 55
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 56
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 57
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 58
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 59
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 60
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 61
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 62
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 63
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 64
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 65
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 66
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 67
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 68
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 69
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 70
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 71
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 72
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 73
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 74
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 75
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 76
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 77
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 78
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 79
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 80
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Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 87
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 88
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - Cover3
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - Cover4
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