T-Vine Cellars, The Love Affair Continues    posted June 13th, 2007

There is no denying that we here at the House of Tricks have a love affair with T-Vine wines.  At any given moment, there will be no fewer than three T-Vine wines on our list.  It used to be limited to maybe two, but the quality and consistency of the product as well as the staffs love of selling the product, has led us to putting any T-Vine available on our list.  Currently we offer the Napa Zinfandel, Napa Grenache, Napa Merlot, Monte Rosso Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon of Sonoma, and the Psychedelic Rooster Rose. 

Information on T Vine cellars is not easy to come by.  The web site is small with a minimal amount of information.  T-Vine does not submit their wines to be scored, so you won't find the wines in periodicals. Additionally, they do no advertising. So, the following is a short history.

Greg Brown, owner and winemaker of T-Vine Cellars graduated from Chico State with a degree in finance and promptly became a Corporate Banker for Bank of America in San Francisco.  One day a few years later, Lester Hardy, the wine maker at Cain Cellars jokingly said to Brown, “Why don’t you come work harvest this year?”  He quit the following day and was working at Cain as a cellar rat two days later.  While working at Cain, cleaning barrels and dragging hoses, Brown met Tony Soter (of Etude) who was at the time a consulting wine maker with Cain.  “Tony’s passion, teaching skills and ability to communicate vision inspired me to follow my dream, as he has done” Says Brown.  That dream was to make his own wine. 

In his early twenties, Brown had taken a trip to Gigondas in the Southern Rhone Valley of France.  “That’s when I feel in love with Grenache” remembers Brown.  The stars must have been perfectly aligned, for one day when chatting with Tony Soter about his dream of making his own Grenache, there was a phone call for Tony from grower Jim Frediani looking for a buyer of a crop of Grenache.  Tony Soter invited Greg to make his first batch of Grenache at his Etude winery.  In 1992, Brown made 10 barrels of his first wine.

Now coming up on his 16th vintage, Greg has reached cult status, and with no formal training is making some of California’s most exciting wines.  He now makes about 5000 cases of wine a year and really has no desire to grow his company.  He is a firm believer that wine is made in the vineyard and continues to buy grapes from Jim Frediani of which he says, “Jim has more knowledge about growing grapes in the cuff of his jeans then I would attain in my lifetime”.

Greg Brown makes wines that are concentrated and carefully hand crafted, reflecting the origin of the grapes.  “I make wine more like a chef than a scientist, by constant tasting”, he says.  He also says that he wouldn’t release a wine if he didn’t adore it.

The name T-Vine reflects Brown’s attitude towards life and the future. “The T in T-Vine stands for Trinity, which represents and reminds me of body, mind and spirit”, says Brown.  A Yoga-practicing, fly fisherman, Brown doesn’t own a television nor a newspaper subscription, preferring a more spiritually focused path.  This is obvious from his web site and his personal quotes found on the labels of his wines. Passionate, fee-spirited and soulful are just a few of the words used to describe Greg.

I am convinced, that good energy, and good people make better wine.  With Greg Browns passion of the subject, his spiritual connection with his work and the world, and his positive energy, it is not surprising that the wines he produces are each spectacular. 

For available tasting notes on the current release click on the following link.
http://www.tvinecellars.com/whats_new.html

Loads o’ Turley   posted May 29th, 2007

We have Turley coming out of our ears.  Or so it seems.  The thing with Turley is that its gone before you know it.  And once its gone, it will be a year till we have it again.  The amazing thing this year is that our allocation went from 12 bottles to sixty. Take advantage if this large offering, because it may not be this way in the future.

I know that having so many Zins of one name can be confusing and overwhelming.  And unfortunately, because these wines are allocated, samples are out of the question (I didn’t get to try them either).  So what I have for you is tasting notes. These are not written by me, but are directly from the winery.