More East Bay Wine Exploration: JC Cellars
If you know that JC Cellars shares a tasting room with Dashe, you may have been wondering why I didn’t mention it in my last post…. I did taste there, too, but decided that even though the two wineries share a facility and a tasting room, they should be treated as two separate entities, which they are.
The JC in JC Cellars is Jeff Cohn, formerly winemaker for none other than Rosenblum Cellars, where I work. Though he’s been gone from RC for over a year now, his presence lives on in the vast barrel program and in the high number of yeast strains we use. My friend Meg loves to tell the story about how Jeff was supposed to speak at a conference on some related subject but couldn’t attend due to back problems. Instead, the crowd sat transfixed as someone pushed play on a cassette recorder of him reciting his speech.
On a Monday afternoon, KB and I tasted our way through the menu. True to his Rosenblum background, Jeff specializes in Rhone whites, Zinfandel, Syrah, and Petite Sirah. While Dashe makes about 9,000 cases, the production here is closer to 6,000 (up from 3,000 in 2004). We sampled five of the wines, though, sadly, none of them were Petite Sirah. The best bargain was The 2005 Flip Side, at $20 and only available at the winery, with its interesting palate of vanilla and smoky bacon. I also enjoyed the 2005 Imposter, a Zin blend coming in at $32 and with huge fruit and spice on the back. The two Syrahs were still huge and in need of more time, and the 2005 Preston Vineyard Marsanne was very similar to the one we make from the same vineyard at Rosenblum– full of apricot and hazelnut, though with possibly higher residual sugar.
I’m glad I finally got over to our neighbor wineries for the first time, and i know it won’t be the last.
