And here's the long awaited post...

I hope you haven't thought I'd forgotten about this blog. This initial tasting post will be rather "amateurism," but as it progresses, we'll be adding more formal notes with the tastings. I should say one us will be the professional and the other will post more informal opinions.

We've decided that we weren't going to buy anything that didn't knock our socks off. So that put us in a very critical mindset.

First up is Black Ridge which opened for tasting at the winter SCMWA passport weekend (www.scmwa.com). A very new winery with a beautiful tasting room just off Rt. 17 with a view back toward San Jose. They were tasting an '07 Viogner, '05 Cab, '06 blend, and an '07 Cab Franc.

The estate Viogner had a chalky tone. Nice, but didn't stand out to us.

The '05 Cab had medium color, a nice nose. In wine was spicy, medium body, and some of that same chalky taste like the Viogner. It must be imparted by the soil in the area.

The '06 blend is called San Andreas and it's 69% Cab Sauv. It had good body and was pleasing.

The '07 Cab Franc was still very young and I again got that chalky note on the taste.

I'd give the efforts a C+ and will come back in another year to see how they've progressed.

We're no longer here....

We've moved to www.santacruzmountainwines.blogspot.com which better reflects the subject and region.

Welcome to our Wine Blog

We'll be using this blog to share notes about local wines and wines from our travels and our collection. The opinions are personal, and should not be taken as gospel - you should taste for yourself.

We're writing this blog in part because we feel there are regions in California and elsewhere where extraordinary wines are being neglected because of general ignorance of regions outside the overly publicized (I'm looking at you Napa). The region of particular interest to us is the Santa Cruz Mountains because: (1) it's in our backyard, and (2) it produces some of the very best wines (Uh, Ridge Winery, for starts). Other Northern California regions we explore on a regular basis are Alexander Valley, Anderson Valley, Calaveras County, Livermore Valley, and Lodi.

We've already got some notes from the latest SCM "Passport" weekend, which we'll post shortly.