When I think of spring, a few things come to mind: warmer weather, longer days, spring training and opening day and March Madness — how about them SDSU Aztecs!
One of the events that I most look forward to is the Family Winemakers of California San Diego/Southern California show at the Del Mar Fairgrounds. Each year Family Winemakers hosts its annual tasting of family-owned and produced, hard-to-find California wines.
Many booths have the owner, often also the winemaker, or both the owner and winemaker attending.
As I reflect on this year’s show, which I attended with Taste of Wine founder Frank Mangio and travel writers, Scott Hagner and Nancine Belfiore, I find it helpful to categorize the wines we tasted into white, specifically viognier, Rhone reds, pinot noir and cabernet sauvignon.
Our first stop was the Falkner Winery booth. It was good seeing owners Ray and Loretta Falkner, along with winemaker Duncan Williams and his wife, Mare. It was even better hearing that Falkner’s new state-of-the-art winery and tasting room has been fully operational since 2022, following the tragic fire in 2020 that destroyed the previous ones.
Three of my favorite Falkner wines are their award-winning viognier, syrah and Amante “Super Tuscan” style blend. Luckily all three were served at the show. I especially gravitated to the 2021 viognier, with peach, pear, pineapple and guava flavors, and the 2020 syrah, with black fruit flavors along with plum finishing and hints of cocoa and vanilla.
After Falkner, we headed over to the Cass Winery booth to see co-proprietor Ted Plemons getting the crowd excited with his massive collection of Rhones and a few cabernet sauvignons.
Plemons and assistant Angela Hollen spoiled the crowd with eight of their delicious wines. The lineup started with their 2022 rosé (80% mourvèdre / 20% grenache) before moving to their 2022 viognier.
Reds followed by the 2021 grenache, 2020 Backbone syrah, 2020 Rockin’ One grenache, syrah, mourvèdre (GSM) blend and 2020 cabernet sauvignon (85%) blended with merlot (7%) and malbec (6%) and a splash of petit verdot (2%).
When you thought it couldn’t get any better, Plemons continued to wow guests with 2020 Vintage Ted featuring some of Cass’ best fruit that included Clone 8 with cabernet sauvignon (70%), 25% mourvèdre and 5% petit verdot, all estate-free run juice.
The finale was a 2020 Bordeaux Reserve featuring cabernet sauvignon (80%) blended with petite sirah (11%), merlot (6%) with splashes of petit verdot (2%) and mourvèdre (1%). This beauty still has another 12 months of aging for a total of 30 months.
This was one of my fav cabs at the show. The flavors were incredible with plum, blackberry and blueberry with hints of cherry and tobacco. The tannins and structure were solid, and the additional aging will make it even better.
Next to Cass was another of my fav cabs at the show, from Coomber Craft Wines. Co-proprietors Maureen and Skip Coomber, also the winemaker, were spoiling the crowd with their 2013 Private Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon with Beckstoffer fruit sourced from Rutherford.
I found this to be full-bodied with great fruit and the expected cocoa on the finish based on the famous Rutherford dust. The Coombers were also delighting guests with their 2020 Paso Robles-sourced cab sauv and 2014 Santa Rita Hills-sourced pinot noir. The Coombers are excited to open their new Vista tasting room this year in the late spring/early summer.
Speaking of pinots, the Sojourn 2021 pinot noir, sourced from Gaps Crown Vineyard in Sonoma Coast’s Petaluma Gap, was my favorite pinot of the day. The 97-point International Wine Report winner was whole-cluster fermented, adding body with baking spice notes with a cherry and dark berry palate.
Sherry Perkovich, director of marketing, WSET III, was also pouring their 2021 rose (pinot noir), 2021 Sonoma Coast chardonnay, and 2021 Sonoma Coast pinot noir.
I would be remiss if I didn’t share kudos to Ehret, the 2nd largest vineyard in Knights Valley after Beringer. James Robinson, director of sales, was wowing with 2018 merlot blended with cab sauv, 2018 cab sauv, 2018 Bella cab sauv (97%) with a splash of merlot (3%), and 2020 zinfandel.
I was subtly familiar with Ehret, and that is one of the great benefits of the Family Winemaker show. It is a great discovery venue of small batch, boutique, superb wines.
I suspect there were more great wines to discover at the show and hope to find these at future events. I am already looking forward to next year’s show. See more at familywinemakers.org.
— Story by Rico Cassoni
Reach Rico and Frank at [email protected].
