Bears that Dance Wine that Sings – Cakebread’s Dancing Bear Ranch

While you have most certainly heard about the legendary wines of Cakebread, firmly planted into the Napa wine scene for over 35 years and counting, you may not be aware of it's other half. Perhaps due to its “up the mountain” locale, but there is another Cake in town, and boy is it a dandy, well actually a Dancing Bear Ranch. Just a short jaunt up Howell Mountain and its hugging twists and turns will park you in the middle of nowhere, quite wonderfully so. Imagine a Napa Valley without throngs of inhabitants crawling all over our streets. Just pure countryside and roads in their most native state. Close your eyes (after you’ve driven safely up the mountain, of course) and that is exactly where you will have landed in the Dancing Bear Ranch. Infamous bears have been known to dance for their meal of sweet, plucky-delicious grapes found only on this mountaintop. But who could blame them. After one swig of this beyond bodacious 2006 red blend of a wine, well a lady never reveals her secrets but dancing may have ensued. This wine is as hefty as those dastardly bears that once scooped up their fair share of grapes (until Dennis Cakebread, resident bear whisperer/head honcho, showed them who was boss), yet as elegant as a New York ballerina dancing her way through the Nutcraker. One sniff will reveal sweet scents of fig, chocolate and so much more. One sip will knock you off your seat, with the only foreseeable reason to get up being to slog down some more of this wine. But a little more about what one visit will grant…. A)You might bump into a black bear, how cool would that be? Wine country gone wild! B)This 200-acre sprawling vineyard is eye candy for the visually inclined. Steeps, flats, stellar views of the valley below, bird’s eye glance at a lake, and C) for you nature-preservationist out there, this ranch has been dubbed and awarded with the certification of “Fish Friendly Farming Vineyard” – translation they are not only respectful to the art of winemaking but also to the land that is responsible for delivering this special wine. Hats off to the Cakebread clan. You have done oh-so right by this wine swill’in gal. So get off your rump this harvest season and hop on up the hill to see some of the most spectacular views of this valley and enjoy some damn fine wine in the process. Wacky WineSense Rating: 5.0 Grapes!

Wacky Goes Ape, err Gape, with Kirk Venge~Tales from the Trail

Fact. It’s been exactly one year since I moved here and was fortunate enough to find myself hip-deep in grapes during last year’s harvest. I hadn’t lived until I got to stick pinky to arm pit into a vat of freshly picked grapes. As a consummate over-achiever, last year’s 2-day harvest stint with Kirk Venge was going to be a tough act to follow. But I’ve outdone myself, by somehow scoring a full-time gig as assistant grape sampler to Mr. King of the Grapes Venge himself (my nickname, not his, he is far too humble for such nomenclature). And it is the job of a lifetime, especially for someone who spends most waking hours and many late nights writing about and or sip’in on da’wine. But this year I am working for my wine which makes the bounty all the more sweet. While harvest was a little late in getting to the party this season, we are now bouncing off the grape walls. The run down to date. First it was cool when it should be hot, then hot when it clearly should be not. It rained, and threatened to follow on with some good old fashioned fall weather, but not before one last heat snap. What does this mean to those in the grape biz? Premature gray and balding hair, unless you’re like Venge, who appears to thrive under these sorts of conditions. Oh, forgot to mention. He was looking for a few more thrills so he decided to erect a new winery facility(Venge Vineyards) smack dab in the middle of harvest. Living on the edge never looked so good. Nor does the new winery and the grapes within. Note to self: learn some tips of the trade from this kid, he knows his stuff. A quick snapshot into my world, with more to follow in the upcoming weeks. It goes something like this: rise at dawn, wake up before the grapes do (pre-sun swelter), throw on a grape-stain resistant frock, pack up your hound, your grape cooler, some baggies for sampling, some water to rinse the juice, and an eye for the changing tides and tendencies of the grapes. At this hour you encounter only other grape-hounds and we are a mixed breed of a whole lot of something, none of which can be repeated to this PG crowd. We run through the fields, row by row, plucking a wide assortment of grapes from an unbearably long list of vineyards, that truth be told could do a much better job of labeling the vineyard rows and blocks. The iPhone GPS can get you only so far, then you have to rely on good old grape intuition, of which I had none initially, but now I am swimming in its sweet juices. As you are running through the field, fetching samples (methods are secret!), you often trip on dead and gangly vines that pierce skin like a blade, yet these road warrior scars never looked so good! You also get a pretty majestic view tooling down the 29 towards Napa during the wee hours of the morning. Gaggles of hot air balloons descend upon our valley, an idyllic vision if you ask me. If you don’t live here, what are you waiting for? This scene and these scents are like nothing you've ever witnessed, not to mention tasted. After combing the valley up and down for grapes, I hit the chemistry lab (I knew I should have paid attention to this junk in school, who knew?) to put my plucky grapes through a battery of tests to reveal Brix, PH, TA. I sound like I know what I’m talking about, right? Just enough to be dangerous. Then my world class mission continues as I track down my master and deliver our classified info. All of which will tell us if the grapes are ready to move off the vine, or if they need to keep hanging on for dear life. And that my friends, my wine-swilling peeps, is where I will leave you for now. My skin is as thick with stick (grape juice), as it is with sweat. My ankles are beat up and scraped, the bags under my eyes are ever-increasing, yet I can’t wait to get up and do it all again, tomorrow! While slinging ads in New York and making movies in LA all had their glim and glamour, they’ve got nothing on this sweet deal. Check back for the latest rantings...live from the trail. May all your grapes be good ones!

The Mountain Men of Smith-Madrone

Think wine is stuffy and pretentious? Get ready to change your mind.
A visit to Smith-Madrone Vineyards & Winery grants many pleasures, starting with a thrilling ride up Spring Mountain (brace for narrow roads, sharp turns and scenic vistas). Upon arrival, prepare to be charmed by the men behind the bottles, who’ll regale you with as many stories as you like. The no-frills approach not only adds to the charm but embodies the spirit of the brothers. “I hand them a glass of Chardonnay, tell them to stand where they are and turn in a circle: The tour is over. Now we can get to tasting the wine!” says Charles F. Smith III, winemaker. There isn’t even a tasting room, just a foldout table outside, a salt of the earth barrel room inside and the bodacious scenery. But it’s the company and the wines that keep people coming back year after year.

Up the mountain
When asked what drove him and his brother up the hill and into the wine business nearly 40 years ago, Charles replies deadpan, “I was cuckoo about wine. It was a hobby that got totally out of control, for both of us, really.” Perched at the highest point in the Spring Mountain appellation in St. Helena, looking out over the vineyard and valley floor below, younger brother and general partner Stuart Smith elaborates, “I was at Berkeley in the ’60s, where a food and wine revolution started in the Bay Area. At the time, roast beef wasn’t ‘done’ unless it was gray, vegetables weren’t cooked unless they were limp and exotic cheeses were Monterey Jack, sharp cheddar and Velveeta. All of that started to change.”
Click here to continue to full article