Justin Winery and Matchbook Wines Delightful

Recently I had the opportunity to taste wine from a couple of great California wineries that I have been fairly familiar with over the past few years.

Justin Winery from Paso Robles, and Matchbook wines from Zamora have both been on my radar screen for some time. I wrote up Matchbook in a past article a little over a year ago, and I have had Justin Wines a time or two when traveling in California on business. I was excited to get the opportunity to try these vintages and let you know a little more about them.

Located in the Central Coast area of California, Justin Vineyards and Winery was founded in 1981 by Justin Baldwin, with 160 acres of Bordeaux grape vineyards. The area that Justin chose for his winery holds huge winemaking tradition. Grapes were first grown there in 1779 by Fransican Friars. Paso Robles is now the largest group of vineyards, measuring 600,000 acres of planted land, in the largest AVA in California. Their specialty in that region is world-class Cabernet Sauvignon.

Justin’s winemaker is Fred Holloway. His resume reads somewhat as a who’s who in California Wines, with time spend at many influential wineries over the last 28 years. His experience has brought him many 90 plus scores from Robert Parker and Wine Spectator over the years.

The wine that I got to try was the 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon Artist Label. As with most artist series wines, the label each year celebrates each new vintage with a new artist’s work. The art on the label for this 2009 vintage features rolling farm land and houses by artist Michele Bleech.

This Cabernet Sauvignon is rich with dark fruit and vanilla on the nose. It features a deep, ruby-red color that shows the time that the wine was left on the skins. The flavors are rich with blackberry, vanilla, and cassis. A great wine to be enjoyed with a nice fillet, or like I enjoyed it, all by itself while sitting next to the fire in my studio.

The second bottle that I enjoyed was from the Matchbook winery label. The Giguiere family from Zamora, California has been producing wines since 1983 under a label that they took to the moon. The R.H. Phillips brand was their baby, producing great wines such as Toasted Head and EXP. They sold to Vincor in 2000, and John Giguiere worked as CEO of Vincor until 2005. The family started Matchbook, Mossback, Chasing Venus, and Sawbuck, which I’ve written about in other articles.

I was excited to try Matchbook’s “King”, in their 2007 Tinto Rey. This red table wine is the Giguiere’s favorite wine and I’ve been looking forward to trying it for some time.

A mix of 44% Temperanillo, 36% Syrah, 13% Cabernet Sauvignon, 5% Graciano and 2% Petite Syrah make this wine a huge combination of Spanish and Bordeaux varietals. The Spanish varietals give off huge flavors of spicy red berries, with black cherry and blueberry coming from the Syrah, Cedar and rummy tobacco runs from the flavors of the Cabernet Sauvignon, with tannic structure and pepper coming from the Petite Syrah.

This wine is beautifully complicated, with aromas and flavors from beginning to the very end of the finish. Enjoy with any kind of red meat. I followed the suggestion from the winery and made lamb pops with rosemary and garlic. It was ooooh so good!


Enjoy!

Matchbook Ready To Set Fire To The Wine Scene

“As a farm kid growing up in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, John Giguiere was a confirmed pyromaniac starting various things on fire such as his father’s wheat fields. He and his brother graduated to launching rockets which often blew up at some stage of the journey resulting in more random fires and calls to the local fire department for help.”

This paragraph stuck out to me as I read the attached letter from a recent box left on my doorstep by the UPS guy. My friend Katie from Calhoun Wine Company had once again sent me another interesting label to try.

Matchbook wines is a new winery located in the Dunnigan Hills of California just east of Napa County. John and Lane Giguiere, founders of the R.H. Phillips Winery back in 1983 had grown the empire into basically what it is today. A force to be reckoned with in the world of wine. R.H. Phillips, who’s labels include Toasted Head, are part of the family that locally includes Hogue Wines in Prosser.

In 2005 the Giguiere brothers left R.H. Phillips in 2005 with the idea of pursuing a new winery that took them back to their childhood. They wanted to get back to their roots of growing and making wine that they could have their hands on.

The first bottle I tried was the 2008 Old Head Chardonnay. The grapes are sourced mostly from the Dunnigan Hills Matchbook Vineyard. An additional 7% of the juice comes from Russion River Valley, and the balance is 3% Paso Robles Viognier. Basically, this being said, the wine from the estate vineyard is mostly fermented in used oak barrels, with the balance of the wine from other vineyards being fermented in stainless steel.

I found the wine to be very favorable indeed. The wine is dry, however the fruit flavors of melon, apple, and white peach show through and add sweetness. There is a little malolactic flavor of honey and cream, with a wonderful mineral finish. I served this with roasted chicken salad on a bed of romaine, and topped with a fresh blueberry balsamic vinaigrette. The wine balanced perfectly between the flavors of the chicken and the balsamic.

After dinner I opened the bottle of 2007 Tempranillo. As I have shared before, I have become quite the affectionado of Spanish varietals over the past few years. With so many being imported to our region at really good prices, combined with the new growth of Tempranillo in this region, I have to admit I opened this bottle with a little trepidation.

The 2007 Tempranillo is actually 88% Tempranillo, with 8% Graciano, and a balance of 4% Petite Syrah. Frankly, I was impressed with the low acidity of the wine. Most of the Tempranillos I have tasted this year were way too acidic to enjoy more than a small glass. This wine offers some acidity and spiciness, mixed with layers of dark cherries, and berry basket. The finish is full of blueberries. I would gladly serve this with lamb shanks, roasted pork, or possibly with a spicy seafood stew such as cioppino.

There is a possibility that these wines will be distributed in the near future in this region. If you see them on the shelf, I highly recommend you buy and try them.