Cinnabar Winery wins double gold and set to become new wine country destination

The company I work for regularly hosts a “Friday Beer Bash”. Fortunately these beer bashes also include wine, and the folks who put these events on – good colleagues all – really seem to know their wine, having made a number of great picks thus far.

I received a back-channel email from one of my colleagues last week alerting me that our company would be showcasing wines on Friday afternoon from Cinnabar Winery of Saratoga, California. Turns out that colleague used to room with a woman who works at Cinnabar. I instantly knew that I must show up to the tasting, which was to be located in another building.

It’s not often one gets a chance to sample Cinnabar wines. While you can find their Mercury Rising red and white Bordeaux blends in distribution and at selected local restaurants, Cinnabar has not had a tasting facility nor allowed public visitation at their vineyards aside from the five or six Passport Days each year.* Because it had been a while since I’d tried any wines from Cinnabar besides the red blend, I was eager to taste whatever they were pouring.

So Friday afternoon I met Sarah Franci of Cinnabar, and volunteered to help her carry in the wine from her car. By the time the two of us had set down and opened her boxes of wine and glasses, many of the “bash crowd” had already begun to swarm. But first, for my small favor, Sarah poured me Cinnabar’s as-yet-to-be-released 2005 Central Coast Pinot Noir.

I was immediately impressed. A classic pinot, though young, but full of strawberry fruit, a hint of vanilla smokiness, a soft bite and a creamy texture that called for more. At a price point of $25, this wine offers sterling value, and I’m stocking up today for safekeeping.

Sarah also poured Cinnabar’s two popular Mercury Rising Bordeaux blends at the bash; these both typically sell for under $20 and are available at such places as Cost Plus World Market and many of the larger supermarkets. But I was hooked on the Pinot.

I learned from Sarah that Cinnabar had produced a 2003 Santa Cruz Mountains Zinfandel that took a double gold medal at the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition earlier this month. (A “double gold” means that the judges were unanimous in declaring the category winner.) But what you may not be aware of is that the vineyard this wine was produced from has already been torn out and replaced with Cabernet vines. And apparently you cannot get any of this medal-winning zinfandel; it is not listed on Cinnabar’s website.

But there is still good news: Cinnabar is planning to open a new tasting room in downtown Saratoga in late April. Long awaited by legions of Cinnabar fans, the 1300-square-foot facility will function as Cinnabar’s official tasting room, saving wine tourists the treacherous trip up the narrow, steep, and unpaved Congress Springs Road to Cinnabar’s private ridge-top production facility.

For more details, please see the Cinnabar Vineyards & Winery website.

[Update: Cinnabar Winery's new Saratoga tasting room is now open.]

~winehiker

*Passport Days are sponsored by the Santa Cruz Mountain Winegrowers Association.

Related posts:

• Cinnabar tasting room grand opening June 23, 24
• A nice note from George Troquato, winemaker at Cinnabar
• Tasty Tuesday links

This entry was posted on Monday, January 29th, 2007 at 2:07 pm and is filed under grape squeezins, tasting venues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.