ON THE VINE

Santa Cruz winemaker Denis Hoey was scanning the classifieds section of a trade paper looking for used equipment when he spotted an ad for a cute little winery for sale on the River Road Wine Trail just south of Salinas.

“We’d already been on tons of wild adventures looking at wineries for sale all over the Santa Cruz Mountains,” he recalls, but he packed his family in the car once again and drove down to have a look.

“We walked around and it was that aha moment. It was just what we had been searching for,” he says. “It had a house that fit the family, a barn, a 3,000-square-foot crush pad, enough property to plant on and it was flat!”

Hoey immediately purchased the former Marilyn Remark Winery and moved in with his wife Claire and their two young sons, turning it into the production facility for his Odonata Wines and opening a tasting room he calls Odonata South, to distinguish it from the original tasting room in Santa Cruz, now called Odonata North.

Since setting up shop on River Road two years ago, the 33-yearold winemaker is helping breathe new youthful energy into this highly regarded yet often overlooked wine destination.

It doesn’t hurt at all that Hoey’s a tall and good-looking guy with a mop of tousled curls and a laid-back surfer vibe. Or that he often works the tasting room himself, chatting with customers and sending them off with a big bear hug.

Perhaps it helps that Odonata’s richly textured wines are a little different from the famous Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs of the nearby Santa Lucia Highlands. Specialties include Rhone varietals, Sangiovese and a popular line of sparkling wines.

Hoey has been fixing up the 5-acre property, adding a new stone windbreak, a fire pit and an outdoor seating area last summer. Next spring he will plant a 2-acre vineyard of Syrah and Viognier.

He has high hopes for the River Road Wine Trail and readily participates in new marketing ventures like the recent Tunes, Trucks & Tastes event and the Roving River Road Wine Tasting Pass.

“e neighbors have been awesome,” he says. “Everyone has welcomed us with open arms. I feel so fortunate that people want to support us and like our wine.at touches me so much.

“ey are not competitive. Everyone wants this area to do well,” he adds. “If we all do well, we all win. ere is power in numbers.”

EAST OF EDEN

e River Road Wine Trail cuts straight through the hardscrabble heart of Steinbeck Country, with lettuce and broccoli fields bordering the vineyards. If the Pastures of Heaven are at the top of the ridge, then this must be East of Eden. e road itself is sun crackled and caked with mud from enormous tractor tires that crisscross the pavement.

Odonata is the northernmost winery on the road, just seven miles south of Highway 68 and about 30 minutes from downtown Monterey. e road winds for 60 miles along the path of the Salinas River past 13 wineries, nine of them open for public tastings.

Wineries that offer tasting rooms at their River Road vineyards, from north to south, include: Odonata, Pessagno, Manzoni, Puma Road, Wrath, Hahn Family Wines, Paraiso/Alexander-Smith, Ventana Vineyards, and Scheid Vineyards. While it’s a good idea to check for opening hours, the River Road wineries are all usually open on Saturdays and Sundays; some are open every day. e sleepy country road, just a couple of miles west of busy Highway 101, will take you straight through the prestigious Santa Lucia Highlands appellation, a grape-growing region that is increasingly attracting the attention of giant wine companies.

One of the largest acquisitions was E.&J. Gallo’s purchase last year of Talbott Vineyards, which has since closed its River Road tasting room. is past spring, Delicato Family Vineyards purchased the historic McFarland vineyard on River Road, although the McFarland family is continuing to make wines under its Percheron-McFarland label.

Other big names like Kendall-Jackson and Wente source much of the fruit for their popular Chardonnays from vineyards along River Road.

World-class Pinot Noirs begin their lives in renowned vineyards that straddle both sides of the road, like Rosella’s, Garys’ and Tondre Grapefields.

Wagner Family of Wine of Napa Valley has been growing grapes on a 450-acre River Road ranch for decades. “My dad always appreciated Talbott wines and came down in 1988 because he couldn’t grow

Chardonnay in the Napa Valley,” says winemaker Charlie Wagner, who is responsible for the Mer Soleil label. “It was all virgin land then, disease free and just used for grazing cattle.

“What’s special about this area is that it’s a coastal valley; sometimes you can smell the brine in the air. Fog burns off about 11am every day and then the wind starts and it stays cool,” he explains. “It’s like a natural refrigerator. When it’s 100 plus in Napa, it’s 85 degrees here and that’s why we can grow whites.”

Located just 13 miles from the Pacific Ocean, as the crow flies, the Mer Soleil vineyards on River Road produce complex Chardonnays that Wagner calls “layered wines on the bolder side of things.” His pride and joy is Mer Soleil Silver, a bracing unoaked Chard aged in concrete tanks and sold in silvery gray bottles that resemble those tanks.

Unfortunately, there is no local tasting room. “is is not the Napa Valley. We haven’t seen the level of tourism yet to have a tasting room,” says Wagner, citing a lack of nearby hotels and restaurants.

“ere’s a lot of interest,” he acknowledges. “But people need an excuse to come out here.” at’s why Mer Soleil hosts the annual Santa Lucia Highlands Gala, a good chance to visit the massive winery and taste the products of 42 other SLH winemakers. Now in its tenth year, the gala pairs wineries with some of the best chefs from the Monterey Peninsula for one of the most extravagant, strictly-local food and wine events of the year—in a county that abounds in fabulous events.

THE UN-NAPA

A lack of hotels and restaurants along River Road also concerns Kim Stemler, executive director of the Monterey County Vintners & Growers Association. She’s looking forward to the opening of a new Hampton Inn in Greenfield next spring at the southern entrance to the wine trail and suggests visitors bring along picnic supplies to enjoy at the wineries. (See also “e Wild, Wild East” on p. 28 for an exploration of restaurants in the region.)

But she bristles at comparisons with the wine country up north. “We are not the Napa Valley and we don’t want to be,” she says. “We’re farmers and we’re family. You get to talk to the grape grower or the winemaker and that would never happen in Napa.”

She says River Road offers a more authentic experience, a place where you can “bring the dog, pack a lunch and hang out.”

Ventana Vineyards is one of the more atmospheric examples of the River Road style. Owned by Randy Pura and Bruce Sterten and popular with the local ag community, tastings are conducted in an old white-washed barn with concrete floors. ere wine lovers can sample unique varietals like Gewurztraminer, Tempranillo and Orange Muscat, not available in shops that only stock Ventana’s respected Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs.

A few miles south of Ventana is Scheid Vineyards. e southernmost of the wineries offering tasting rooms along River Road, its noted wines make it well worth the trip. Conveniently located just off Highway 101, Scheid’s tasting room also has a down-home feel and a friendly staff to guide you through select vintages, made from grapes grown by Scheid on 4,000 acres of vineyards they farm up and down the Salinas Valley.

For a different style, stop at the elegant tasting room of Wrath, which features a lily pond and masses of fragrant lavender. It is named not only for e Grapes of Wrath, but also for “the wrath of Mother Nature, the wind, the rain, the sun and the struggles of the Pinot vines,” according to tasting room chief Sarah Babcock.

Michael omas, Wrath’s wine director, is also an archeologist and recently discovered what may have been the world’s first wine distribution center in the ruins of Pompeii. Be sure to try his just-released 2014 Ex Dolio Falanghina—a wine fermented and aged in large earthenware amphora called dolia using the ancient Italian falanghina grape. It tastes like something to drink while wearing a toga and reclining on cushions—peaches and honey, with a heavenly aroma and a dry finish.

One of the best places to picnic is at Hahn Family Vineyards, where you can eat under spreading oaks or on a large deck with wide vistas overlooking the beautiful SIP-certified vineyards, which are bordered in flowers. As you enjoy a glass of wine with your meal you can survey adjacent farms and see all the way across the valley to the peaks at Pinnacles National Park. (You may also see the winery’s falconers: see story in EMB’s Winter 2013 issue or at www.ediblemontereybay.com to learn more about the role they play in protecting vineyards.)

Hahn tasting room manager Laura Lee Anzivino is behind some of the latest River Road marketing initiatives, like a new mobile-friendly website with an interactive trail map and the Roving River Road Wine Tasting Pass, which sells online for $45 and entitles the purchaser to tastings at eight participating wineries through the end of the year.

“We don’t only want people to come here once,” she says. “We want you to come and experience the true beauty and magic of all the wineries.”

Anzivino, who is full of energy and brimming with ideas, says she often stops by Odonata after work to share a glass of wine with Denis Hoey and discuss projects, with an eye towards attracting the younger crowd. ey cooked up the new Tunes, Trucks & Tastes event last June, when each of the participating wineries hosted a band and a food truck for a one-day party all along the wine trail. River Road’s popular Valentine’s Passport event has been going strong for years and is always a sellout.

Joining some of the other River Road winemakers, like Scheid and Wrath, Hahn is getting ready to open a new tasting room in Carmel this fall, which will make it easier to reach more people and give wine club members another place to pick up their orders. But the River Road tasting room will remain an important part of the winery, because tasting a wine at the vineyard where it was grown is something special.

‘is is our flagship tasting room and there’s nothing like sitting out there on the deck and smelling the terroir,” Anzivino says. “It’s not as far as people think.”

Deborah Luhrman is deputy editor of Edible Monterey Bay and editor of our weekly newsletter. A lifelong journalist, she has reported from around the globe, but now prefers covering our flourishing local food scene and growing her own tomatoes in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

EXPLORE: Learn more about the River Road Wine Trail at www.riverroadwinetrail.com. And for more about where to eat, see “e Wild, Wild East” on p. 28.