More…Great Underappreciated CA Wine Estates

Posted by Tom Wark on Sep 13, 2006

In the voluminous amount of words that are dedicated to the conversation on wine both in print and on-line there is a tendency to focus on what’s new, what’s hot, what’s cultish, what’s fashionable. This makes sense. "What’s New" is often what’s interesting.

But in the process it’s often the case that wineries that have been around a long time and consistently produce wonderful wines get overlooked.

Eric Asimov at his Blog "The Pour" makes just this point by listing his "Great under-appreciated California wine estates". His criteria is simple: Must be in business 25 years and must make consistently wonderful wine and he must like the wine.

It’s a good list and I suspect he could have gone on to list a great many more, but simply didn’t have the time and didn’t want to create post of monumental length.

So, allow me to add my two cents to the mix.

FOPPIANO VINEYARDS
Great Petite Sirah…consistently

GUNDLACH-BUNSCHU
Talk about being around  long time. Wonderful consistent wine.

MATANZAS CREEK
Merlot! The original great American merlot producers

CONN CREEK
These guys made some amazing wines in the 1980s and 1990s

CHAPPELLET
Chenin Blanc…Really Really good chenin blanc year after year