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By KRISTINA SHEVORY, November 14, 2008

Travel / Escapes Section

A Wine Tour at the Corner of Oak and Vine

A small group of vintners is ditching the countryside and opening wineries in old factories and industrial showrooms in cities across the country.


Vinography: wine blog

JC Cellars, Oakland: Current Release
08.24.2008

In the Silicon Valley, business incubation is quite common -- larger companies often provide financial, operations, and moral support to smaller companies that they themselves have started, or outside start-ups that they believe have a good potential for success. This practice has become so normal that some companies have established entire business models based on incubation.

Incubation has also become common in the wine industry, where the costs of all the equipment and supplies required to make wine can be an extreme barrier to entry, and a source of extremely high overhead for those who do take the plunge. Just like a larger company might rent out some cubes and offer guidance to a smaller company, so to do wineries offer the use of their equipment to smaller producers using the fees from such services to defray the costs of their capital investments.

But incubation in the wine industry does not only happen as a matter of economic convenience, it often happens simply because, frankly, most folks in the wine industry can't help themselves -- they love making wine.

Jeff Cohn comes to winemaking from the world of food and hospitality. He fell in love with eating and drinking in his twenties and decided that he was going to make them his career, heading off for a degree in culinary arts, which was followed by a degree in hospitality management...

Click here to read the full Blog entry.


Charles Olken Connoisseurs' Guide to California Wine: 91 pts
2006 Preston Vineyard Marsanne

While a rich and well-fruited wine with plenty of depth and an engaging element of ripe peaches at its center, what sets this very successful Marsanne apart from the crowd is its exceptional balance. Big, but lively and energetic straight through to end, it avoids the heaviness that so often comes in very ripe wines, and in so doing wins high marks as a worthy mealtime companion to a wide range of richer foods.

Tasting Notes | Purchase Online

Charles Olken Connoisseurs' Guide to California Wine: 92 pts
2006 The First Date Rhône Blend

Two Puffs for JC Cellars Rhône Whites The Jeff Cohn touch is more than evident here insofar richness and deep, very ripe fruit are the wine's chief concerns. Smelling of honey and orange-flesh melons with suggestions of dried apples and spice popping up on the palate, this unctuous, very full-bodied wine in backed up by good acidity on the palate and in the finish, and it makes wonderful aperitif with light nibbles, and it will not disappoint with grilled fish and chicken.

Tasting Notes | Purchase Online

James Laube Wine Spectator 91 pts
2006 Fess Parker's Vineyard Syrah

Generous ripe, juicy black cherry and blackberry fruit is at this core in this full bodied effort, with hints of mineral, spice and floral scents. elegant and stylish. Drink now through 2012.