VINO ROLLS OUT HARVEST 2012 ISSUE AT TASTING

            The wine lifestyle publication VINO , hosted its latest group of Rockstar Winemakers at an issue roll-out and tasting last Friday. The winemakers pouring, and profiled in the harvest edition of the magazine, included; Joey Arnold of Pozo Valley, Lood Kotze from Cass Vineyards, Carmine Rubino and Mike Mooney of D'Anbino and Chateau Margene/Moody Family wineries respectively. Halter Ranch's Kevin Sass and Guillaume Fabre from Clos Solene L'Aventure were also included in the six "rockstars" in the latest issue. The (dare I say) pressing demands of harvest kept them from participating in the tasting but are wineries with which I am familiar. Check out the group on line or in print and plan to add a visit to your next tasting tour of the area.

Without going into a lot of tasting note details, it was a great group of winemakers with vastly different methods of entering the business. Pozo remains a working family cattle ranch and offered a selection of 2006 Zin, Cab and Black Rock blend. It is rare to see that vintage being poured or even for sale in these days of three years and out the door being the standard sales cycle. Yes, Joey told me, "I have the hat and we still have the cattle.

Carmine uses his music production background and that of his nephew/partner John D'Andrea to style his wines with musical references on the labels at D' Anbino. These included Quadrophonic '07, a four wine Bordeaux blend that adds Syrah to the mix and a Syrah, Cab &Petite Syrah combination, Orchestration '07.

Lood (a South African moniker) opened the Cass '09  Flying Nymph, a blend combining Syrah, Mourvedre and Grenache. Other recent Rhone bottlings were also sampled and he discussed his formal education in wine and travels throughout the world in perfecting his skills.

Mike Mooney came from a corporate tech sales background and is determined to make a very few thousand cases of really nice Pinot (under the Family label) and Cabernet with the occasional experiment with other varietals just to keep things interesting at Chateau Margene. Meritage and a super Tuscan style are offered as Chateau Margene while Rhone varietals fall under the Moody Family label.