Wine & Spirits - June 2021 - 33

I TA S TE C ALIFORNIA
In a recent tasting of
two dozen of Contra
Costa County wines
(notes and scores on
p. 44), the selections
ranged from zinfandels to carignanes,
mourvedres and
blends from mixedblack vineyards.
" I taste California, "
said Nathaniel Muñoz
of LA's Mozza. The zinfandels reflected that
sentiment: Most were
harvested at modest
ripeness and conveyed in a tight but
seamless weave. The
same could be said
for the carignanes,
which, compared with
many old-vine carignanes from Mendocino, were tenser,
more vibrant, with
less cushion and
more energy.
Then there's the
mourvedre. In France
and in Spain, they say
that mourvedre loves
a view, and given the
Delta's close proxim-

ity to the coast, it's
hard to imagine a better place in the country for the variety
than right here, the
vines old and the fruit
load balanced, enjoying ample sunshine
and mitigating wind.
The mourvedres
were bright and propulsive, bristling
with wild strawberry
flavors and a briary,
mildly animal savor,
all delivered with an
edgy animation. The
riper bottlings had
an appealing seamlessness, but many
of the others were
woolly and robust,
natural, comfortable, as if they'd shed
any unnecessary
adornment like an
unwanted garment,
and were free to be
entirely themselves.

voluble. They make a good team; in the years
since, Erggelet has served as one of the main
conduits linking established growers like Del
Barba to what has amounted to a new new
guard-winemakers with strong natural leanings, like Martha Stoumen, Claire Hill, Deux
Punx, Inconnu, Enfield and Halcyon. He and
Sebastian also make Contra Costa zin, carignane and mataro, as well as old-vine malvasia.
Standing in Fred's Vineyard with Tom Del
Barba, surrounded by vines that once provided fruit for Randall Grahm's Cigare Volant
and Old Telegram, it's easy to feel a kind of
legacy. But you also feel suburbia lurking,
just beyond the cyclone fences that line the
property. Neighborhood sounds, smells and
sights-barbecues, jungle gyms, coronas of
trampoline netting, the rev of motorcycles, the
whine of car radios-all encroach on whatever
beauty the old vines retain. Such coexistence
is routine in Oakley; in some places, vineyards
serve as informal buffers or easements between
industrial and residential areas. Despite a century-old existence, the vines look isolated and
out of place.
In 2018, the Bay Area Rapid Transit's yellow
line completed its terminus at Antioch, connecting even more of the region to Oakland,
San Francisco and the South Bay-and driving land prices well beyond a vineyard's value.

TOP TO BOTTOM: MORGAN TWAIN-PETERSON,
TEGAN PASSALACQUA, JULIAN ERGGELET,
AND FRED AND TOM DEL BARBA

Right now, you can go on Zillow and purchase
a 27-acre parcel of old, vertically trellised vines
in Brentwood; the price tag is just north of $10.5
million. It's hard to imagine ever earning back
that investment in a lifetime of grape harvests.
As a former mayor and city council member,
Kevin Romick has struggled with these pressures for most of his political life, trying to do
what he can to save the region's viticultural
heritage in the face of its hunger for growth.
Recently he oversaw a project to move alicante
Bouschet vines from a site destined to house a
power plant; the vines were transplanted two
miles inland (at great expense, with mixed
results); the power plant was never built.
Other sites await similarly grim fates.
Dupont still owns a large vineyard, currently
leased by Fred Cline, that's been for sale for
years beside the company's old plant. Romick
assumed it would be developed but the waning
of the big box era may have given the vines a
reprieve, however temporary. " Who knows? "
says Romick, " It might just end up being a
giant marijuana farm. "
For Julian Erggelet, who's trying to carve out
a niche in this vanishing wine culture, all of it
feels ominous. He has put down a vineyard on
his in-laws' property, planted to mid-body white
varieties, for which he thinks the region is ideally
suited. But he also has his eyes on another property that, he assures me, isn't going anywhere.
He took me there in a COVID caravan, passing
through housing subdivisions, fence lines and
gates, across several low bridges and down a few
miles of dirt road, farther and farther away from
civilization, to what may be the last protected
vineyard in the county.
It resides within a coastal preserve known
as the Dutch Slough-a spit of sand near Big
Break, just south of where the San Joaquin
drains into Suisun Bay. The preserve combines the properties of three families-the
Gilberts, Burroughs and Emersons-and was
once slated for housing. The families reversed
course and sold their lands to the California
Department of Water Resources, which has
devoted its 1,200 acres to wildlife preservation,
habitat restoration, and miles of walking trails.
And within that preserve is an old vineyard-
once 70 acres, now just 14, nearly all of it carignane, planted in the 1880s, currently leased to
Matt Cline. Erggelet wants to be around when
the lease runs out.
The setting feels almost pristine. There's birdsong, and big sky; the sand seems to extend for
miles, framed by cottonwood trees where the
land meets water. A few abandoned outbuildings of an old dairy remain; the only visible electrical wires are on the horizon, miles away.
" No one can ever build here, " says Erggelet.
" These vines will stay here as long as they're
alive. " ●
WINE & SPIRITS

JUNE 2021

Wine & Spirits - June 2021

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