2007-12-06
Tasting Room of the Week:
GRGICH ESTATES
by Charles Neave
Two things to remember before you visit the tasting room at Grgich Hills Estate in Rutherford, next to the Wine Train tracks: the wines are absolutely first rate and keep getting medals and awards and glowing write-ups, and if you were there yesterday or a decade or more ago, the tasting room probably hasn’t changed a bit. The floor is still cement and there is lots of wood everywhere – on the two bars, the bigger of them an L-shaped affair to the right as you walk in, on the wine racks behind them, on the rustic display (wood boards on barrels) between the (wood) beams and on the walls.
Oh yes, and then there are row after row of wood barrels stretching alongside and behind the tasting room. Wonder why there is a cement floor in the tasting room (and everywhere else)? Because it is easy to hose down and keep clean. You really are tasting right in the center of a busy working winery. No Tuscan villa, no modernist showplace this; at Grgich Hills Estate it is all about the wine.
And what about the wines? Miljenko Grgich, who everyone calls Mike, is in mid-eighties and still at the winery most days, first came to international fame for his part in the Paris Tasting in 1976, when American wines (including a Chardonnay crafted by Grgich) bested the French in their own arena. The rest, as they say, is history. So it is no wonder that when it came to opening his own winery it would be all about the wine.
Yet it is hardly all seriousness. “The main thing here is to have fun,” says Michael Adair, who has been with the winery for years. “I see people from all over the world here, and we do talk about food and wine pairings, and the biodynamic approach, and we try to educate people that want to learn more about wine, but we also have a good time.”
To help ensure that sense of enjoyment, wines available for tasting include a Fumé Blanc made with grapes from near the Bay, a crisp and balanced Chardonnay, a Merlot composed of 100 percent Merlot grapes (not as common as you might imagine), Zinfandel made with fruit from their dry farmed estate in Calistoga, to the north, and a deep, dark Cabernet Sauvignon full of aromas of blackberry, cedar and even hints of licorice.
There are also occasional limited availability treats. Perhaps a sample of the 30th Anniversary Carneros Chardonnay, some of Miljenko’s Old Vines Zinfandel or the Yountville Selection, Estate Grown Cabernet. As Adair says with a smile, “If people don’t get to try it, how will they know if they like it?” That one sentence, perhaps best of all, sums up a visit to Grgich Hills Estate.
Grgich Hills Estate is located at 1829 St. Helena Highway (Route 29) in Rutherford. They are open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Tours are available by appointment only. For more information, contact them at (707) 963-2784 or look for them up at www.grgich.com.
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