Events, Past and Present

John On Wine – Events, past and present

Originally published in the Ukiah Daily Journal newspaper on Thursday, September 18, 2014

Winesong was fun. If you aren’t familiar with Mendocino County’s largest wine event, Winesong is a three hour wine tasting followed by a spectacular auction and lunch, held at the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens as a benefit fundraiser for the Mendocino Coast Hospital Foundation.

These were the wines I poured during the tasting, we also donated wines for the lunch

With 1,800 guests tasting wines from over 125 producers and food samples from over 45 top purveyors from 11:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m., the mood was quite happy when the live auction began at 2:00 p.m., and the bidding was breathtaking.

I called Michael Coats, who handled PR for the event. He sent this note in return: “Bidders at the sold-out live auction helped raise significant funds, with a projected gross of over $650,000 coming in from the two-day event.  After covering production expenses, the Winesong net return will be used to assist the Mendocino Coast Hospital purchase needed equipment.  The highlight of the auction was the “Fund-A-Need” lot which brought in $174,000 in a matter of minutes, with nearly every paddle raised to donate a record amount toward the purchase of new and much needed Cardiology equipment!”

Congratulations to everyone involved, especially all of the volunteers, who made this event a spectacular success.

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If you were not at this year’s annual Testa Blending Party, you missed a great time. Maria Testa Martinson is a wonderful hostess, and her husband Rusty is as good as it gets around a barbecue grill. The wine is famously good, and the food, catered by Bella Ciba, paired perfectly. McKenna Faith is a gem, Ukiah raised a genuine star, and with her band she served up a healthy dose of great music.

There were 25 tables full of happy party guests, and each table created their own blend using Testa’s 2013 vintage reds: Cabernet Sauvignon, Petite Sirah, Zinfandel, and Carignane. I sat with judges John Buechsenstein, John Dickerson, and Heidi Cusick Dickerson. Heidi wrote this column before I did, and will be returning to the UDJ (hurray!) to write a new column about Leadership Mendocino.

This was a table filled with talent; I sat there too

I tasted through the 25 blends with John B. and John D., and we each picked our top seven. Next we found that there were five wines that two or more of us had in common on our top seven lists. Heidi joined us as we retasted those five, we each ordered them from top to bottom, and averaged our results.

My top five order was coincidentally the same order that averaging our judge rankings yielded, which may suggest that I have a spectacularly average palate. Seriously, we agreed on almost all the best, except one notable exception, where a wine I gave a “yes” to was a wine that received a “Hell no” from John B., who had the best palate in Calpella that night.

The 2013 Testa Black SIX, inspired by the night’s winning blend, is going to be delicious. You will also want to make a note to grab up some 2013 Testa Carignane when it is released; light, bursting with strawberry, cherry, and raspberry, all four judges loved it as a base wine, unblended.
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I visited Campovida in Hopland, while owners Gary Breen and Anna Beuselinck were celebrating their 11^th anniversary together, and I wandered their property.

The grounds of Campovida, site the old Fetzer Valley Oaks Hospitality Center, were immaculate. I keep forgetting to pick up my prize from a “where is our winemaker Sebastian in this picture” contest win, but I was rewarded with a lovely and calming walk through the restored gardens, around the renovated buildings, and by the remarkably pristine lawns beside the beckoning bocce courts. Of particular visual interest were the teepees set up in an open field behind the winery area, as they made me think of earlier inhabitants of the property.

DO Lecture Teepees

Campovida will be hosting The DO Lectures in Hopland again, beginning today, September 18, 2014, and running through September 21, 2014; the property is shining in readiness.

Ross Beese, producer of this year’s Do Lecture USA wrote to me and shared more about the event, “The DO Lectures is a four day intimate experience filled with inspirational talks, hands on workshops and long conversations over shared farm fresh meals.  We keep the experience to an intimate 100 folks with only 15 speakers/50 attendees and the rest are volunteers.

It is a volunteer run organization founded in the UK, with events now in the USA and Australia. It has been named one of the top 10 idea conferences in the world by the Financial Times and by Brain Pickings.  So for now we are gathering an incredible group of speakers, athletes, musicians, artists, cowboys, entrepreneurs, poets…in general DOers.

There are some fascinating people speaking and attending this year – from the Award winning local chef John Ash to the Hollywood Screenplay Writer and Director Peter Farrelly (dumb and dumber, There’s Something About Mary) to Tom De Blasis (Design Innovation Director – Nike Foundation) Maria Popova (@brainpickings) and Zach Klein (co-founder of Vimeo, now founder of DIY) plus 12 other inspiring speakers and 40 amazing attendees that could be speakers.”

I wish the Doers a great time when visiting Mendocino County this week. A reminder for the lecturers, In Vino Veritas, and a wish, may all your conversations here in wine country ring with truth.

 

Winery Spotlight: Campovida

JOHN ON WINE – Winery Spotlight: Campovida

By John Cesano

Originally published in the Ukiah Daily Journal on May 23, 2013

 

I have visited Campovida, just about a mile east of Highway 101 on Old River Road in Hopland, often since Gary Breen and Anna Beuselinck opened their gates for the spring 2010 Hopland Passport, after the former Fetzer Valley Oaks property had been chained and neglected for the previous five years.

Originally, Gary and Anna allowed four labels under one larger umbrella wine brand, Magnanimus, to be poured at Campovida. Some of the wines were quite good while others were just okay, but the draw for me was never the wines but the property itself.

That said, Cesar Toxqui made a delicious gold medal winning Viognier for Gary and Anna’s new Campovida labeled wines.

The biggest news on the Campovida wine front is that Gary and Anna have hired Sebastian Donoso from his assistant winemaker position under Alex MacGregor at Saracina to be the winemaker for Campovida.

With 14 wine varietals in a beautiful new barrel room, Sebastian is expected to produce 17-22 different small lot release wines under the new and growing Campovida label.

I tasted through a number of wines with Taste of Place manager, Meagan McNabola, earlier this year. Taste of Place, the tasting room for Campovida, is open daily from 11 a.m. ­ 5 p.m.

My favorite wine of the day was the 2011 Campovida Viognier $36. ­ Round, 100 percent malolactic fermentation, many noted, light butter, oak, smooth, herbal, lightly floral, hay, and lots of fruit. The San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition liked it too, giving it a silver medal this year.

We also tasted older Magnanimus wines under the Mendocino Farm label, and they are holding up well but I am honestly much more excited about the wines Sebastian will make in the future.

It feels odd giving the wines such scant attention, but there is more that happens at Campovida that deserves sharing.

Ken Boek, master gardener, first for Fetzer and now for Campovida, has brought the amazing gardens back with a lot of volunteer help and on Saturdays leads wonderful tours.

Organic vegetables, fruits and herbs grow in one garden that leaves me longing for a basket and permission to pick a little with every visit; fruit orchards, a cultivated rose garden, a lake, and of course, vineyards provide an abundance of sensory stimulus. The gorgeous colors, the rich scents, the sounds of birds and insects, the feel of different plants – all of it enjoyed with the taste of a delicious wine. I have spent hours walking alone, taking it all in, feeling tensions erased as calm settles over me, becoming a little in tune with nature. It is all so beautiful, powerfully beautiful, and breathtakingly so.

Many estate vegetables end up offered for purchase in Campovida’s Taste of Place, along with estate olive oil and honey made from Campovida’s hives. The taste of farm fresh food, still warm from the sun, picked just minutes before, is nearly religious in the power to move you.

The buildings at Campovida have also been restored, and the facility is often rented whole for weddings and events, with the rose gardens the site of a wedding and rooms on-site used for overnight stays by the folks after the event.

To handle overflow demand for rooms, Gary and Anna purchased the old Lawson Station on Highway 101 in Hopland and transformed it into the Piazza de Campovida.

Piazza de Campovida offers additional lodging for Campovida weddings and events, or for visitors to Hopland, and has another seven rooms, or suites, available. The Piazza also offers up pints of several hand crafted brews, bringing the hops back to Hopland, and their menu has grown from delicious wood oven fired artisanal pizzas to include sharable small plates, delicious salads, and larger rustic plate specials like venison stew.

Chef Adam’s menu at Piazza de Campovida constantly changes as only the freshest local and seasonal ingredients are sourced with an emphasis on organic growing. The food is spectacular and on a recent visit with a friend we sampled a pizza, salad, and a few small plates, sharing it all and having some yummy leftovers to take home afterward.

Especially nice: Piazza de Campovida waives corkage on any wine bottle purchased that day from a Hopland tasting room. I bought and brought a bottle of the 2010 McFadden Old Vine Zinfandel: a lighter Zin, that paired perfectly with every menu item we ordered.

The Piazza is open from 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week, closed only Tuesday.

John Cesano loves his job, but thinks working at Campovida – outside as much as nature allows – would rock.

 

Biodynamic Musings, Monsanto, Hopland, Working for Free, and a Wine Competition

I come from an organic tasting room, I understand organics. Biodynamic is good, but for me, ventures into practices of questionable value. Animals and a variety of plants on vineyard property is great for me, it provides a richer experience for me as a visitor. I don’t know if baby goats headbutting each other makes a better wine, but it is entertaining. Where biodynamics loses me is the whole cow horn thing. Cow horns are crammed full of cow manure, then planted on a full moon on an equinox, dug up six lunar months later on another equinox, added to a container of liquid made up of virgin’s tears, allowed to steep like a witch’s brew over another period of lunar cycles, and spread by a Catholic priest’s aspergillum throughout the vineyard in a rite reminiscent of the ritual sprinkling of Holy water. Poo-in-the-horn tea is just one of several preparations that are created to fortify the vineyard, strengthen the ecosystem, and produce wines more naturally.

I would love to see a vineyard test block where half the rows are grown organically, and the other half are grown biodynamically. I would like someone to show me empirical evidence of the superiority of biodynamics over mere organics; until then, I will look upon biodynamics with some skepticism, as some sort of ritualistic magic ju-ju voodoo.

I posed the question of measurable efficacy supporting biodynamic growing practices to Ann Thrupp, Director of Sustainability at Fetzer, and she responded, “I am aware of only a few scientific studies that have been done to compare biodynamic and organic vineyards (see literature by Professor john Reganold, for example). It is difficult to prove scientifically that there are improvements in quality, based on such studies…However, in blind tastings, many biodynamic wines score high.”

Cesar Toxqui makes great wine for Cesar Toxqui Cellars and is working to improve the biodynamic wines of Jeriko, which I am confident he will be able to do. Cesar knows of my skepticism, but will be trying to educate me regarding biodynamics in the near(ish) future, touring me from vineyard to winemaking at Jeriko.

Nance Billman, during my recent visit to Saracina, while acknowledging the over the top ritualism in some of the preparations involved in biodynamic farming, described a near miraculous almost immediate increase in vine vitality when those preparations are administered.

I have tasted many biodynamic wines, and they are almost universally good. I don’t think they are good because they are biodynamic per se; instead I think that the attention to detail, the commitment that goes with biodynamic farming leads a winery to make good wine. I have no proof that a biodynamic wine is any better than an organic wine, but I am confident that biodynamics don’t make a wine worse.

Paul Dolan, Bonterra, Mendocino Farms, Jeriko, Saracina, there are plenty of folks making great wine with biodynamic grapes. Everyone of them is earnest in their belief, their dedication; you can feel the passion for biodynamic farming. I would like to know what they know, because all I hear are anecdotal tales of magic, and it may just be me, but I can’t take the leap and need more science based evidence before I am buying that biodynamic farming is anything but effectless ritual.

I’m not ready yet to drink the poo-in-the-horn tea biodynamic kool-aid.

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I was approached a few months ago to answer some questions about sustainability for my winery that could appear on a website, and the piece was published yesterday.

I forwarded the questions to my boss who kicked them back to me to answer. I forwarded my answers to him for review, and while observing some of the answers were “over the top,” he suggested only one edit to correct a mistake.

I did not know it at the time, but my boss, an organic farmer for over 40 years, abhors the word “sustainable.” Guinness runs a CCOF certified organic farm and vineyard. CCOF organic means something. Demeter Biodynamic means something. Sustainable isn’t measured, it isn’t certified, and lots of wineries use the term to cloak themselves in a green-ness that they haven’t earned, cheapening the efforts of real organic and biodynamic growers.

In my naiveté, not yet knowing that perhaps I too am supposed to hate the word, I completed the sustainability survey.

Naive, well, not entirely. I researched the folks who were asking for the survey answers, and found the monthly Lempert Report Newsletter where the piece would be published was sponsored by Monsanto imagine.

A Google search of “Monsanto imagine” led me to several pages suggesting that Monsanto imagine is a greenwashing public relations effort on the part of Monsanto, an effort to blur the line obscure the chasm between themselves and responsible Earth friendly organic family farmers.

The answers Guinness found “over the top” were not included in the piece linked above. The following passages were edited out of the piece appearing on the site paid for sponsored by Monsanto imagine:

“At McFadden Vineyard, it is unthinkable that people would choose wines and foods made with synthetic chemical fertilizers, poisonous pesticides and herbicides, from bio-engineered Frankenfood seed over delicious, healthy, natural, organic, sustainable wines and foods.”

“Right is right, doing things right, the right way, doesn’t need to be measured. The thought of dumping poison on our food or using genetically engineered crop seed is unthinkable. At the end of the day, are you proud of yourself? Does your wine and food make people happier? We notice something that can be improved, and we get around to making those improvements; that the greener, more sustainable, or organic choice sometimes is the less expensive choice, or sells better, is just a bonus.”

“Let’s have a cooking contest. We’ll make a fruit ice cream. I’ll use organically grown fruit from Mendocino County, and organic dairy products from Clover in Sonoma County. My competition has to use FrankenFruit, fruit from biogenetically engineered seed, grown with poisons, and cheap milk products loaded with Bovine growth Hormones. We’ll ask consumers which ice cream tastes better. I will win. Things that taste good always win out over things that don’t taste good. Growing organic, growing sustainably, is better for the environment, society, and the economy than the alternatives. Tastier too.”

Where sustainability pushes buttons for Guinness, Monsanto does it for me. I liked the piece I wrote, and the idea of Monsanto publishing a piece critical of their practices tickled me. While the piece didn’t get posted intact, you got to read the juicy parts here.

Genuine Green Revolution!

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I live in Ukiah and work in Hopland. Hopland is truly a small town. Businesses engage in cooperative efforts to help each other. The more we help each other, the more we end up helping ourselves.

I take pictures for Margaret at Weibel, and Margaret tries to save decorative plants at McFadden from being killed by my black thumb.

I want to see the Hopland Inn succeed. A successful Inn is a place late afternoon visitors to Hopland can stay after a more complete wine tasting, to possibly begin anew at another tasting room the following morning. I have knocked out a new marketing piece for Amie that better presents what the Inn offers, and am working on another smaller piece that can be created less expensively than my first.

Gary of Campovida, a local resort, escorts his guests to the Hopland Inn for afternoon cocktails at the Inn bar.

Margaret and I, Amie and Gary, none of us are rivals, competitors, but instead cooperative partners with a shared stake in the success of Hopland.

The people who live and work in Hopland, their love for the town, makes Hopland a place worth visiting. locals love playing bhost, and visitors are charmed by the small town friendliness set in the middle of amazing natural beauty.

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I sought a spot on the Board of Destination Hopland, and on the Hopland Passport working group. I welcome taking the social media marketing reins, and increasing our visibility. On top of my winery job, with uncompensated extra hours spent working at home, I am going to be spending more uncompensated hours doing what I do well for the benefit of others.

I am not a business owner, my extra work will not increase my ownership equity value. I am a wage, not a salary plus benefits, employee. I am taking on the extra work for two reasons; one is to benefit my employer, by helping to increase Hopland tourism, I benefit the person who signs my checks, and the other is because I saw an area where my skill set, my abilities, passion, and experience could improve what is being done for Hopland in a way no one else had done. I really look forward to the next year’s work.

The reward for my volunteer efforts has been increased requests for volunteer work. More business owners would like me to give up my time freely so as to work toward increasing their revenue. I can’t say that I blame them for asking, but today I found myself drawing a very clear line: I have more than enough on my plate. I will meet every commitment I’ve made with professionalism and pride, to the best of my ability; but I am not taking on any more unpaid gigs.

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Next Friday, August 5, 2011, at 7:00pm, the winners of 35th Annual Mendocino County Wine Competition will be announced at a farm to table dinner hosted at Jeriko Estate north of Hopland. The event is open to the public, come and taste Mendocino County’s best wines at the Grand tasting, paired with a locally harvested dinner. Tickets are just $75, or $65 for wine industry members, and the event will sell out, so hit the link above and buy your tickets now.

I’ll be there, representing McFadden Vineyard, hoping for some Gold. While we are cooperative, not competitive, I would gladly lug some bling from Jeriko to McFadden after the event. Just sayin’.

 

Free film in the field Sunday night 9/5 at sunset, Julie & Julia at Campovida in Hopland

Campovida is the name Anna Beuselink and Gary Breen gave to the 51 acre Hopland property that had once been the site of the Fetzer Wine Hospitality Center. The property was owned by Brown-Forman, and while in negotiations to buy the property, Anna and Gary met Owsley Brown III, a Brown-Forman Brown, and the owner of Magnanimus Wines.

Campovida means Field of Life, and when I visited this week, every field, vineyard, and garden was bursting with life.

From Campovida’s website:

Campovida is a family owned and operated rustic farm and working vineyard. This unique place offers deep connections with nature, wine tasting, a professional culinary kitchen, a 10-room retreat center and multiple spaces for conversations both big and small. It’s a place where you can relax, enjoy and create your custom gatherings.

Come. Play. Stay. Explore.

Anna and Gary are not just the owners of Campovida, but see themselves as stewards as well.

Anna and Gary invited Owsley Brown III to move his Magnanimus Wines tasting bar and art gallery to the building at Campovida that previously housed Fetzer’s tasting room.

Magnanimus Wines has four wine labels, Ukiah Cellars and Talmage are made using sustainable practices, Old River is made organically, and Mendocino Farms is made bio-dynamically.

In the California county best known for green practices, all four labels of Magnanimus Wines are verdantly green.

The marriage of wine to place, Magnanimus to Campovida, Owsley to Anna and Gary provides a perfect synergism, the whole much greater and more pleasing than the parts.

I visited and wrote about Campovida and Magnanimus four months ago, was met by Megan Metz and tasted wines poured by Josh Metz, during a soft open coinciding with the Hopland Passport Weekend.

Here are my tasting notes from then:

2008 Ukiah Cellars Chardonnay, Beckstoffer and McDowell Vineyards, $16 – Clear, brilliant, pale gold. Apple & pear nose, tart fruit, but not aggressively tart. Light cream and vanilla apple flavors.

2006 Old River Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon, Ponderosa Vineyard (near Grass Valley in the Sierra Foothills), $19 – Nice, lush fruit. Supple and complex, approachable black berry fruit.

2006 Talmage Collection Pija Blend, Mattern Ranch, $25 – A field blend, roughly 50% Zin and 45% Petite Sirah (with a smidge, about 5% Charbono from Venturi Vineyards). Bright, lush, bursting fruit of cherry and berry, with integrated acid, oak, and tannin.

2006 Talmage Collection Syrah, Maria Vineyard, $32 – Dark purple, chewy cherry nose gives way to more full flavors of cocoa, black berry and currant.

2005 Mendocino Farms Redvine Series, Heart Arrow and Fairbairn Ranches, $25 –75% Cab, 13% Petite Syrah, and 12 % Syrah. Cab fruit is obvious. Blackberry rich. lush, juicy, soft, and delicious.

2005 Mendocino Farms Syrah, Fairbairn Ranch, $32 – Delicious burst of fruit, black berry and raspberry mix. Berry fruit medley. Lush, more than the typical Syrah.

2008 Mendocino Farms Zinfandel (Barrel Sample), Dark Horse Vineyard. – Really nice round fruit, accessible dark berry fruit. Incredible potential.

I tasted these again this week with John March, and must say that I LOVE the 2005 Mendocino Farms Redvine, it drank well then, and again now. Lush, velvety, plummy oak fruit, smoky oak, delicious. With apologies to Bambi lovers, I would love to pair this wine with venison.

I tasted a wine this week that I did not taste previously, a 2007 Mendocino Farms Grenache Rose Dark Horse Ranch. First, because it doesn’t taste like it, a warning: this little blush wine is packing nearly 16% alc by volume! The flavors include strawberry, vanilla and cream, and reminded me of commercial candy strawberry taffy. Genuinely tasty, and charming for being unique.

The Magnanimus Wines tasting bar and art gallery does indeed have art. With an intention to rotate artists every three or four months, or so, the Art of Jack Stuppin currently graces the walls of the main room. Available for purchase at prices ranging from $3,200 for a 15 x 10″ acrylic on canvas Cottonwood Abiqui to $40,000 for 44.5 x 63″ oil on canvas Summer, Elephant Mountain, Stuppin’s paintings are beautifully contained bursts of color capturing nature.

Cottonwood Abiqui, 2005

Summer, Armstrong Woods, 2010

Summer, Elephant Mountain, 2010

In an adjoining room, I found a bookcase with books going back to the Fetzer days, including books that I sold to Fetzer eight or nine years ago. It was all I could do to not “merchandise” the books for Magnanimus.

Ken Boek took me on a tour of the 13 acre organic gardens at Campovida four months ago, and while beautiful, the gardens were being brought back from years of neglect. I walked the gardens by myself this week and was stunned at the transformation, the reclamation, and by the lush bursting growth of the plants.

The gardens are overwhelmingly lush, scented powerfully with floral and vegetal notes. Apples fallen on a path make me yearn for some flour, sugar and an oven.

A wet beautifully earthy smell enveloped me, and I stopped to savor the primal sensualness of the aroma.

Birds rustled in the foliage. Spiders cast webs between branches.

I tasted the tartness of morning side blackberries and contrasted that with the fall apart over ripeness of the blackberries grown on the afternoon sun side of the same plant.

I breathed in, broke off and tasted fresh basil.

I love to cook, and ingredients matter. I was near flush with desire as I imagined the food I could create with the bounty from Campovida’s gardens.

Ken Boek will be leading a 1 1/2 hour tour of the gardens this, and every, Saturday at 1:30 pm. I can not encourage you strongly enough to take a guided tour with Ken.

I am excited beyond telling that Campovida intends to share the fruits of their gardens through a Community Supported Agriculture program at some point in the future.

Last year I wrote about my trip to Oregon, and gave a paragraph to seeing the film Julie & Julia.

That Friday night, after dinner, I went to the local drive in movie theater to see Julie and Julia, a lovely film that blends food, blogging, and a little romance. I loved this movie; but really, I’m a foodie, you’re reading my blog, and I am a huge romantic.

I have seen the movie twice since then, I just love the title characters. Amy Adams as Julie Powell and Meryl Streep as Julia Child. I don’t cry often, but this movie usually leaves me with tears running down my cheeks.

Anyway, I have seen movies outdoors at vineyards in Sonoma and Napa as part of the Wine Country Film Festival, I saw Julie & Julia outside at a drive-in, I love Campovida and a bunch of the Magnanimus Wines, so you can imagine my delight when I heard that Campovida is hosting a free outdoor movie night this Sunday with Julie & Julia.

Come out to Campovida this Sunday, September 5, 2010 to watch Julie & Julia under the wine arbor, stars and moon. The movie will be starting at sunset, about 7 p.m.-7:30 p.m., show up early, meet new friends, get comfortable. Bring a low chair, blanket, plan on dressing warm as it might get cool-cold, and don’t forget to bring a picnic dinner. Campovida is providing the place, the film, and popcorn. Magnanimus Wines will be selling wines by the glass $5-$7 or bottle $18-$25.