This weekend was the RhoneRangers Experience held in PasoRobles. A few of my observations:
Friday BobLindquist, who has a good friend, Ed, that does film documentaries, wanted to film an interview with SteveEdmunds and myself. They filmed Steve first for about an hour, followed by me for about 45 min. Bob had filmed an interview w/ AdamTolmach several weeks earlier. He will try to film the remaining RR founders in the coming weeks. Bob asked a number of interesting questions that elicited some interesting responses from Steve & myself. Bob put a lot of thought into his interviews.
Afterwards, we adjourned to lunch that Jason Haas had set up at TablasCreek. Most of the original RR founders were in attendance. Most of them brought treasures from their cellars to share with us over lunch. It was a very impressive lineup of wines. Our lunch ran for well over two hrs as we all shared our stories. Some of which might have actually been true!! Afterwards we adjourned. Thanks to Jason for treating us to such a spread.
This morning (Sat) we had a Rhône Essentials Seminar with 10 different wines. It was very ably moderated by Sam Cole-Johnson of Jancis Robinson. One white that stood out was a Clairette Blanche. It was a natural wine made by Doctor’s Orders Natural Wine Company from SantaBarbara. It was as pure & clean as any natural wine I’ve tried… not a hint of natty character.
Jason Haas presented a varietal Vaccarese, a very rare variety grown in CdPape. It was a very interesting, somewhat earthy, red. Don’t think it’s going to be the next big thing, though.
And Randal lpresented a SantaBarbara Syrah under his The Language of Yes label. Not a big blockbuster of a wine, I suspect it will age quite nicely like Bob Lindquist’s wines. Worth seeking out.
Aft erthe Seminar, we adjourned for a nice catered lunch afore the Grand Tasting.
The Grand Tasting was typical of those events. I had my bright red spitoon, so spit mostly all the wine. My focus was to expand my horizons. Tried a lot of the white varieties & Syrahs. LarrySchaffer had been touting the quality of the Texas Rhones. The RR will be holding an event in the TX Hill Country in a month. So I wanted to try as many of the TX Rhones as I could. I found them to be good/solid/sound wines, rather interesting. Nothing profound, though. The Syrahs were a bit on the rustic side. The whites were better. For some reason, TX has more Picpoul Blanc than anywhere else in the US. Go figure. Those wines were pretty good w/ nice minerality. I finished up about 30 min early, so headed out.
There were a ton of new PasoRobles wineries showing, so I made an effort to try as many of these new ones as I could. Didn’t find a clunker in the bunch.
Jason was head of the Organizing Committee for this RR Experience. It was a very well run event , one of the best RR events I’ve attended, and everything went smoothly. Very well done job, Jason.
Overall, it was a great weekend and I loved seeing a lot of my long-time friends there.
Tom
Looking forward to hearing more impressions from you - as well as from others who may have been there.
It’s a pretty big tasting - we had over 75 wineries from CA, OR, WA, AZ and Texas this year. I really enjoyed the seminar - Samantha Cole-Johnson, who works with @Jancis_Robinson and does her daily or weekly 5 Minute News segment, was an awesome moderator. I really enjoyed Dom from Doctor’s Orders as well - that Clairette Blanche was very nice indeed. (His father is David O’Reilly, who started and still runs Owen Roe Wines up in WA). The Viognier from J Lohr would hit the spot for those who are not fans of the variety because it gets too ‘Dolly Parton’ as our friend @TomHill penned way back in the day! There was a viognier forward white blend from Herb Quady at Quady North up in Oregon that was really aromatic and quite beautiful. As Tom said, the Vaccarese was quite rustic - interesting but will not be the next big thing. Still fun to taste a grape that there is probably less than 30 acres planted around the world. And Randall was classic Randall - I truly could listen to him talk all day long . . .
Cheers
Any idea of where one could find some of those Doctor’s Orders wines to purchase in Santa Barbara County?
@larry_schaffer Still haven’t heard back from the president, nudge, nudge. 
Message sent . . .
Cheers!