Sampling the wares at the Cabrillo Farmers' Market
At the Cabrillo Farmers’ Market last week, I ran into Professor Alan Lonnborg who teaches anthropology at Cabrillo College. I know from Sue Slater’s Cabrillo wine class. He had a little “activist style” table set-up and was passing out leaflets promoting the Changemakers Network. The program is designed to raise awareness of eating habits and the choices we can make around food buying. I learned that in addition to being a carnivore and an omnivore, one could now be a “locavore”.
If we were in Italy that might be pronounced “lo-ca-vo-re,” inspiring the likes of Tony Bennet to break out in song.
It took me a minute to guess that the term applies to those of us who attempt to support sustainable food systems, local, seasonal, organic, and most of all, locally grown foods. It’s tough to be successful with that list of demands all the time, but that’s what we tout in this column every week: please buy locally produced wine. It is your grape-growing neighbors that are breaking their backs over making the great wines of the Santa Cruz Mountains. By buying those wines you could become a “locawino.”
At the Santa Cruz Fairgrounds last Friday night, locavores of all shape and stripe showed up 800 strong in support of the Pajaro Valley Community Health Trust, a non-profit organization established to educate PajaroValley residents about multiple health issues. The Trust is most recently focusing on issues of obesity and diabetes. According to Trust treasurer David Mesa, and Trust CEO Kathleen King, this year’s event raised an estimated $60,000 for the good of the cause. Thirty wineries from the Santa Cruz Mountains Winegrowers’ Association freely poured wine for the guests. The pouring was not from their less successful wines but were representative of their best efforts. Twenty-five local restaurants, caterers and cooks provided sumptuous hors d’oeuvres to complement the fine wines. In addition to the generous wine pourings, 28 wine producers also donated double magnums of wine for auction. Eight local rose and cut flower growers donated a splendiferous array of bouquets to brighten-up the Crosetti Building, and were part of the 100 wine and rose silent auctions. Santa Cruz Mountain winegrowers and local rose/cut flower producers have been supporting this event for many years. I shared a table with a couple of locavores, Tony and Aileen Madera-Correa, Watsonville residents who have been supporting the event for 15 years.
Since tasting and reporting to you about wine is our sworn duty, we’ll note here a few items we can recommend to you.
- 2006 Cooper-Garrod Viognier at $22.00/bottle is 100% estate grown, cellared, and bottled at the winery. This is a fruit-forceful wine, straw colored and loaded with tropical flavors. A big and complex viognier.
- 2006 Thomas Fogarty Monterey Gewurztraminer at $17.00/bottle is also a very fruit-forward wine that, although from a completely different variety, bore resemblance to the Cooper-Garrod Viognier in that both are large, fruity (though dry-style) wines. The “Gavurtz” got a 90 rating from Wine Enthusiast.
- Pelican Ranch. Phil Crews is a magical winemaker. He grows no grapes, but he sure knows how to blend. We were particularly struck with his Rhone-style 2007 Santa Cruz Mountain Trois Amis Rouge ($39), the very successful 2007 Lodi-Turner Road Vineyard-Pinotage ($35), and the “Beats Most Burgundies that we can afford” 2007 Santa Rita Hills-Babcock Vineyard-Pinot Noir ($45).
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