Over the years, we have discovered a few of what we consider simply awesome winery finds. One favorite – St. Amant Winery in Lodi, CA – was discovered on a wine tasting trip. The tasting room hidden in an industrial complex belied the fantastic Italian-style wines we found inside.Another big find was River Run Vintners near Aromas, CA (north of Monterey). We discovered River Run at a Rhone Wine Festival in San Francisco several years ago and quickly became huge fans. Typical with small wineries, River Run wines are hard to find outside its local Monterey Bay area. In fact, the wines are not all that easy to find there, either! The winery is open just 6 days per year and by appointment otherwise. Fortunately, their wines are available via their website.
When we first met the winemaker, he was standing by himself behind his table at the festival. We sampled his wine, nearly fell over in surprise, and gushed how wonderful his creations were. We asked him a number of questions, including price and availability. Way back then, when he was undiscovered, he was charging a ridiculously low $10 per bottle. We honestly – and stupidly – told him he could charge at least double, perhaps triple that. Today, according to the website, he was listening. Any bottle across the board will set you back $29. Is it still worth it? Is it still a find? We opened a bottle of a 2000 River Run Malbec the other night to find out.
The verdict: Yep, it’s still good and it’s still a find. And while we really wish it were cheaper, we will still buy a few $29 bottles now and then.
As mentioned in a previous post, Malbec is most recognized as a French blending grape, added to red wines to give texture and color. Some folks, though, like River Run, have been experimenting by letting this grape stand on its own. The River Run version was simply tasty. It was just a good, solid wine. It was deep dark purple and had a lightly earthy plum flavor. It went great with our Canadian bacon pizza, although we could have successfully paired it with any number of more elegant dishes. It also had an average alcohol content of 13% which left it feeling refreshing and sippable instead of heavy and headache-inducing. All in all, we are still big fans and are kicking ourselves by being too honest that day at the festival.
