Where else would you hold a New Mission Winemakers tasting than in a nice, SOMA garage?

New Mission Winemakers “is a loosely affiliated group of Bay Area craftspeople who operate outside of natural wine dogma, pursue many things in addition to balance, and hold the belief that grapes don’t really care for manifestos anyway.” They held their first public tasting this week. My highlights are below.

Pietro Buttitta, one of the main organizers of the New Mission Winemakers tasting, was pouring both Prima Materia and Rosa d’Oro Vineyards wines. Prima Materia is a new project for him and, under that label, he makes wine from non-mainstream grapes in the East Bay. His 2013 Prima Materia Cabernet Franc ($30) was deeply aromatic and very floral with leafy spice, ripe dark fruit and a touch of cocoa.

Rosa d’Oro is Pietro’s family’s winery in Lake County where Pietro has been making wine for eight years. That winery too focuses heavily on varieties uncommon in this country. The graceful 2012 Rosa d’Oro Nebbiolo ($24) features drying rose petal, spice and stewed cherry.

Tim Telli of Betwixt Wines offered two lovely, site-expressive Pinot Noir. The 2014 Betwixt Pinot Noir Lester Family Vineyard Santa Cruz Mountains ($35) shows the friendly, red fruit I typically see from that vineyard which is located very far south in the AVA, near Aptos. Medium-bodied with tangy pomegranate, maraschino cherry, baking spice and a hint of toasty wood. The 2013 Betwixt Pinot Noir Helluva Vineyard Anderson Valley ($35) comes from near Boonville and represents the mid-range between the very lean and full-throttle styles from the area. It’s just barely medium+ in body with lengthy flavors red cherry, vanilla and fine, moderate tannins.

Kristie Tacey’s Tessier Winery had four wines on offer, all good, representing three very different regions: Santa Cruz Mountains, El Dorado County and Russian River Valley. My favorite yesterday was the 2014 Tessier Winery Pinot Noir Morelli Lane Vineyard Russian River Valley ($42). The vineyard is actually in the Green Valley of Russian River Valley AVA which is the coolest AVA in Sonoma County. The result is a medium-bodied Pinot Noir with very fine, moderate tannins and flavors of red fruit, orange zest and sarsaparilla spice.

The delicious Sanford+Benedict Vineyard Pinots from Neighborhood with their adorable cloth labels

I was delighted to learn about Neighborhood Vineyards. In 2013, Elly Hartshorn planted one-half acre of Pinot Noir in San Francisco. Those vines are still too young for making wine but, in the meantime, she’s been working with a small group of people to produce small-lot wines from other places.

At the New Mission Winemakers tasting, she poured two different Pinot Noir from the Sanford and Benedict in Sta. Rita Hills. Both are lovely and insanely good values at $24. The 2014 Neighborhood Vineyards Pinot Noir Santa Barbara County shows ripe red cherry, baking spice and vanilla. It’s a very fresh wine with medium+ body and fine, moderate tannins. The 2014 Neighborhood Vineyards Pinot Noir Sta. Rita Hills is structurally similar but with deeper, darker flavors—brown sugar instead of vanilla, the cherry more brooding.

John Fones makes his Cellars 33 wines in San Francisco’s “Dogpatch” neighborhood. He had five nice wines with him at the tasting. My favorite among them was the 2013 Cellars 33 Pinot Noir Gloria Vineyard Russian River Valley ($43). That’s the estate vineyard for Freeman Winery at which Fones used to work. The wine is a study in brown spices and ripe, concentrated red cherry.

Flywheel Wines are made in San Francisco by Scott Shapley with fruit that comes from Monterey County, not far from The Pinnacles. I enjoyed the 2015 Flywheel Rosé Monterey County ($18) quite a bit. He made it from Pinot Noir, Mourvedre and Grenache using the Saignée method. It has medium+ body and tastes of tangy cherry and strawberry with vanilla.

Bryan Harrington has been making wine in San Francisco for fourteen years. He offers a wide variety of… varieties, often made without sulfites. He started out making Pinot Noir, but now offers everything from the “Mission” grape to Lagrein. [What variety could be more appropriate for a New Mission Winemakers tasting than Mission. It was good too!] The 2014 Harrington Pinot Noir Coast Grade Vineyard Santa Cruz Mountains ($40) is excellent, very juicy with fine-grained tannins and showing red fruit and a lot of black tea.

Winemaker Ed Kurtzman with the delightfully fragrant Sandler Pinot Noir Boer Vineyard, my favorite of all at the New Mission Winemakers Tasting.

Another long-time San Francisco winemaker, Ed Kurtzman,  brought nine wines from his August West and Sandler labels. I’m not providing scores here, because it wasn’t a controlled environment and I didn’t get to spend a lot of time with each wine. That said, I’d give everything he poured scores of 90 or better, including a 93 and 94. One of my two favorite wines of the day was the 2015 Sandler Pinot Noir Bien Nacido Vineyard Santa Maria Valley ($36). It expresses that slightly dark, exotic side of the vineyard (and AVA) very well with loads of black tea, North African spices, and ripe dark cherry on the nose and palate (medium+ body, very fine tannins).

My top wine of the day was the 2015 Sandler Boer Vineyard Pinot Noir Chalone AVA Monterey ($36). There was plenty of fruit in the wine, but it’s gorgeous aromatics—driven partly by substantial use of whole clusters—highlighted spice, including pink peppercorn, tea and flowers. The palate is medium+ in body with mouthwatering freshness.

Copyright Fred Swan 2016. All rights reserved.