Marin Brewing Co. - "Bluebeery" ale

Whenever I travel, I'm always on the lookout for simple, tasty beer that doesn't require an extended tasting session (or a trip to Sonoma County) to enjoy. Today's post focuses on one such beer - a 5.00% ABV ale made with blueberries, coming from Larkspur, CA-based Marin Brewing Co.

We were actually going to visit the taproom, which is located right in Larkspur Landing where one can pick up the ferry into San Francisco (it's a fun trip!) Our schedule changed and our new plans didn't permit an in-person visit, unfortunately, but luckily I found a few bottles of Marin Brewing beer in the Novato Whole Foods to try.

A word about berry beers, in general - honestly, I've never been that impressed by them. Berries are a fun ingredient, and they go with a lot of things, but every berry beer (with perhaps the exception of Empyrean's "Pitched Blue") has fallen flat to me. Each one I've tried is either too sugary or too thin; or in the case of a gose, too sour. In their purest form, I think I've only had Midwest or East Coast berry beers, so I'm curious to see how the Left Coast folks handle the style.

According to the label: "...We use only the finest ingredients: Malt from Washington and Wisconsin, hops from the Yakima Valley in Washington, Marin County's own water, and a carefully selected strain of yeast." That's cool. Marin County has pretty good water, I'm told, so I guess I can't complain. Let's crack it open.

It's darker than I was expecting, actually. Pours a deep amber, and generates some thick buff-colored foam. It generates a light, apple cidery nose....also curious.

Hmmm, okay, this is interesting. It's very, very light, but in terms of heaviness / texture, not of flavor. I'm getting a solid flavor of caramel malts, with some wheat sheaf / cereal flavors, and a blueberry juice throughout. The blueberrry is most pronounced on the finish, as the air mixes with what's left on your tongue. The aftertaste has a nice touch of wheat, which doesn't last too long.

I think the texture is what strikes me most about this. The blueberry flavors are fine - mostly juice, a bit sugary - but when it comes to the softness, it's almost like light beer. I like that it's not super flashy, made in a straightforward fashion with a handful of good ingredients, and has a price point suitable for everyday drinking. A good find! I think this was something like $5.99 for a 22oz bomber, so definitely cheap enough to enjoy on the regular.

La Gran Fabrica Drew Estate / Caldwell Cigar Company - "All Out Kings"

So I haven't done a cigar post in a long time, mostly because blog readers looking for cigar reviews are few and far between (yet somehow it's what people seem to remember most when I tell them about the blog...) Granted, it's not my main focus, nor is something to which most people can relate, but I've been enjoying the hobby for over 12 years now and like to include them here because, just like beer or wine, there's a world of different flavors, techniques, and strains of tobacco out there. Plus sometimes they can be as rare and desirable as a fancy wine!

During my trip I spent a few days out in Inverness, California before returning to San Francisco. I packed this cigar as one of the highlight smokes of my trip; I grabbed it at the Cigars International store in Pennsylvania back in February and have been looking forward to smoking it since.

This cigar is a three-way collaboration between Drew Estate founder Jonathan Drew; Drew Estate master blender (and El Titan de Bronce alum) Willy Herrera; and Caldwell Cigar Co. tsar Robert Caldwell. These three guys are known for their bold, in-your-face cigars, and I got a chance to meet each of them at the Connecticut Barn Smoker event I attended back in August of 2016, at which they announced the release of today's cigar. They even raffled off a few boxes, which of course I didn't win.

So what's under the hood? The innards are made from Dominican and Nicaraguan longfillers, paired with an Indonesian Sumatran binder, and finished with a stalk-cut Connecticut Habano wrapper.

I know from previous experience that the Sumatra leaf is known to be spicy and a touch sweet, and in general Connecticut tobacco is much milder and softer. A note about "longfillers" - you may see this term used to describe the filler of a cigar. Longfillers are essentially long strands of tobacco used as filler for a cigar. This gives the cigar body and consistency and progress, as opposed to shortfillers which are chopped-up bits of tobacco blended together and may be a mix of many kinds. Common wisdom is that longfillers are better, as it's one long strand of the same leaf, therefore providing more consistency.

So given the ingredients I listed above, I'm expecting a somewhat-lighter and more-refined version of a Liga Privada "T52" or a "No. 9." Some of these special-edition smokes are surprisingly light, though, so while I won't be expecting a massive, dark nicotine bomb with sweet, oily flavors, I still think there will be some weight to it. The color of the cigar is a bit lighter than something like the T52 (or a Nica Rustica, for that matter) but that's to be expected - this is a Connecticut Habano, not some dark-as-night Mexican wrapper.

I pre-cut it before my trip with my Colibri V-Cut, intending on smoking a month or so prior. But I saved it once my vacation was planned, and in the interim, the capa cracked a bit, unfortunately, so I had to peel a bit of it off.

First light is a bit tough; it takes a few "turns" of the cigar to get it fully lit. The first third of this cigar is quite surprising. There's a lot less flavors than I was expecting; as noted above I was totally expecting this to be an uppercut of a smoke, but it's really surprising me. As it warms up and I smoke it a bit, I realize that it's not that there's no flavors, but they're very subtle... there's some wood / hickory in there, with some roasted bit salty and minerally...kind of like the red peanut skins inside of the peanut shell. That's the best way I can describe it, and these flavors - although a bit hard to find - are noticeable and begin to build throughout the second third of the cigar, and keep holding on through the final third. This stick, for what it's worth, lasted almost down to the nub. Lots of flavor fidelity here, which is great. I could taste the same (or very similar) flavors from the end of the first third through the end of the final third - not a common occurrence, I tell you.

In terms of price - probably at the higher end of what I would pay. On CI.com they are $265.99 for twenty cigars, or $73 for five. At $14.50 a pop, not cheap. There are some smaller vitolas available - for example, their 5.7x46 corona sized named "Give Me Your Lunch Money" - costs $61 for 5 sticks.

So I think if you're into cigars with softer flavors, and enjoy more mineral notes, this might be a cigar to seek out. Sure, it's expensive, and not something you'd have every day, but it's a good example of a very nuanced cigar made by expert blenders and craftsmen.

Storybook Mountain Vineyards - an oasis of wine in Calistoga

One of the main goals of my trip is to visit smaller wineries, family-run outfits, and places to get a great glass of wine. But I also am sensitive to the troubles that Napa and Sonoma wineries have faced due to fire and drought, and one of my focuses for this trip is to visit a winery affected by fire.

Enter Storybook Mountain Vineyards, located just off Highway 128. It's a smallish-sized vineyard, with around 100 acres of production and nine employees. Started in the late 19th century by two German brothers, Jacob and Adam Grimm, this parcel of land was known as Grimm Vineyards and Wine Vaults. Production ebbed and flowed, and although the winery survived the nasty Prohibition business, the brothers moved on and the land sat unused for many years. It was purchased about 1976 by UC Dominguez Hills professor Jerry Seps and his wife Sigrid; they had a vision to turn it into one of the best vineyards in Napa.

As part of the Calistoga AVA, they began producing excellent wines almost immediately, and since the release of their award-winning Zinfandel in 1983, they've received dozens of awards and have been named to the Top 100 Wineries fourteen times. Production now includes varietals including Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Petit Verdot, among others.

All is not well in paradise, however - over the years California's wine country has been racked with devastating fires, including a major one in October of 2017 called the Tubbs Fire. Tubbs was the largest and most destructive wildfire in California's history - 52,700 acres burned. Some vineyards, like Storybook Mountain, suffered partial damage, and other - like Helena View Johnston Vineyards, only a half-mile down the road - were completely destroyed. News photos show buildings, burned to a crisp, littered with the shattered remnants of thousands of bottles of fine California wine, boiled by the relentless flames.

This isn't the first time this area was hit by fire - the Hanly Ranch fire in 1964 wiped out the entire vineyard, which at that point had been abandoned. The Tubbs Fire of 2017 followed almost the same path as Hanly, and while the pre-Storybook parcel was completely destroyed in Hanly, only 4% was lost in Tubbs. Unfortunately, that 4% included Storybook's entire wine library - vintages from the 80s through 2012 - which all went up in smoke.

Being a small winery, family-owned and -run, and affected by fire, Storybook seemed like a perfect place to explore. The winery is by appointment only, and when I reached out a few months ago, they were happy to accommodate our group. Pam, our guide for the day, set up the tour for us and took us around the property. 

Pretty much all of the winery's bottling and business activities takes place in this cool-looking building; you can see the fermenting tanks to the right and just a peek of one of the cave entrances between the tanks and the building. You'll also notice, on the lefthand side of the cool spiral staircase, a door set into the wall. During the Tubbs fire, the redwood grove (pictured below) beside this building caught fire and spread to the building, catching that door on fire - and it was only through Jerry's quick thinking that the fire did not spread and consume the whole building.

We took a hike up the path a ways, to reveal stunning views of St. Helena Mountain and the Mayacamas Range.

The soil here is is red volcanic clay (and loam), which is a great soil for growing grapes. In 2005, the winery "went estate", which means all the wine they make is from grapes grown on property. Some wineries will purchase grapes from other vineyards to use, or will even use their facilities to make wine (more on that in a few weeks) but any winery labelled as "estate" means they use their own stuff and nothing else.

These vine rows, with each vine trellised in a Y shape, are internationally set far apart for fire breaks, and most vineyards have a perimeter road which also doubles as a fire break. Bonus - the tiny figure you see below, between the vine rows, is winemaker and owner Jerry Sepps, on his daily walkabout throughout the property. 

The vineyard also has three connected caves, which were originally dug by the Grimm Brothers and Chinese laborers. We headed back down the hill and inside the caves, which are connected to the winery building although they do open to the outside as well. 

This is the original brick in the central cave room, as laid by the Grimm Brothers. The black coloring in the wall is a thick carpet of soft, fuzzy, black mold. It's harmless, and yes, I touched it. It eats methanol, so great for insulating wine caves. 

They had probably 100 or so casks in there, of varying sizes, but Storybook's largest cask features a design by Sigrid Seps; each coat of arms, figure, and design forms the narrative of the founding and thriving of the winery. During the fires, a fox found its way in the caves to seek shelter and hid behind this cask. 

The tour concluded in the leftmost cave, which housed the tasting area. Compared to other wineries, we had relatively few wines to taste - but this is by no means whatsoever a complaint. I'll take quality over quantity any day. By the way - each of the following wines I ended up purchasing a bottle of, so you may see them reviewed here come winter (Storybook, like many wineries, delays shipment until cooler weather when wine is less likely to be damaged in transit.)

First up is the 2014 "Mayacamas Range" Zinfandel, one of Storybook's most prized grapes. Zinfandel makes up 40% of their total production. It throws a fresh and fruity aroma in the glass, and is actually quite juicy and lively. Nice fruit flavors up front, some grape skins, a bit of char from the barrels, and generally clean and soft. Very nice and would go perfectly with some lamb or a steak. 

The second was actually my favorite, I think. It's called "Antaeus", and is a 2014 blend of mostly Zinfandel (52%) with some Cabernet Sauvignon (27%), Merlot (10%), and Petit Verdot (11%) making up the remainder. It's a garnet color in the glass, and smells like...port. Very sugary on the nose, which is cool.

The taste profile is a good example of "terroir" - flavors of the land. I'm detecting some soil, some salt, some tannins, and a long, dry, lingering finish. It's a bit hot, or over-alcoholed, which will hopefully drop off as it ages. Otherwise, a fantastic and savory wine, and one I'm happy to let sit in my shelf for a few years and revisit as special occasions warrant.

Finally (well, not finally, we had a few more glasses, mostly of rose and white, which were good but I won't review) we come to the "Four Reds", another blend, this time a split of 60% Cabernet Sauuvignon, 15% Merlot, 8% Cabernet Franc (my favorite), and 17% Petit Verdot. I found it very well-rounded, with some good notes of spice and a bit of leather; there's a nice juicy finish and a tad of sweetness on the aftertaste. Quite good, as well.

Big thanks to Pam and the rest of the crew at Storybook for arranging the tour and being so knowledgeable and welcoming! I encourage anyone in the area to make an appointment for a tour and stop by; it's a lovely spot and worth the trip out there. Storybook does not have the same mass-market, corporate feel that that Mondavi or Coppola (or even Cakebread) has, and while there's a time and place for that, I prefer these smaller wineries - the wine equivalent of a microbrewery. Note - they also ship wine, so if the above-reviewed wines sound good, I encourage you to give them a call and buy a few bottles!