Friendship and understanding are the key to our existence… well that and some great cheese, pâté, not to mention a proper baguette, oh…. and a great bottle of wine. These are some of the key ingredients to my life. Then of course you throw in family for some extra complexity and there you have a perfect recipe for a happy winemaker. I wish it was that simple and at times it truly is. The carefree life!

As soon as bottling was complete in March, I once again took off for the Rhône Valley to participate in the Decouvertes en Vallée du Rhône. This is a two week tasting throughout the Rhône which for me has become a chance to taste outrageous wines, decadent food, go to amazing parties and most importantly see old friends and hopefully make new ones. The trip is truly a learning experience that allows me to get my creative juices flowing, and come back pumped up and ready for the new year of winemaking to begin.

Speaking of winemaking, 2006 is really starting to shape up. The wines are round, lush and all together very balanced. As Yves Gangloff (Côte Rôtie / Condrieu) once said to me, "JC Cellar wines walk a tightrope. One side is very American, the other very French and the rope is the balance in between". I could not say it any better and the 2006 will prove to be the best example of this yet.

The 2006 harvest went without a hitch; the weather cooperated as much as it could. It was a touch cool down in Southern California and a little cooler up at Rockpile. This just meant longer hang time and additional complexity to the wine, not to mention a few extra grays to my hair. We continued to experiment using more whole cluster, longer cold soaks and extended macerations during our red fermentations in hopes to achieve extra complexity, texture and aromatics. These wines are still evolving in the barrel and I look forward to seeing the final results. The First Date (75% Roussanne, 25% Marsanne) and the Preston Marsanne will ultimately prove to be stunning and more exotic than ever before, each one walking that tightrope and showing the best of both worlds. I am a big fan of minerality in my whites, but the roundness and unctuous texture these varietals can demonstrate when they are truly ripe shows in this vintage. God must have been a Frenchman who loved to vacation in California!

Wine barrels, a lot of paint, great artistic flair, lots of hot pizzas and amazing wine: what do these all have in common?

Verticals for sale (What and why didn't I know?)

Surrounded by talent and the luck of it all

Joel Peterson and Paul Draper (Ravenswood and Ridge): Without these two gentlemen my passion for Zinfandel and winemaking would never have begun. They were my first winemaking heroes and today I consider them my friends. How lucky is that?

Pam Starr (Crocker and Starr): I met Pam at Spottswoode on my first trip to California with Alexandra in 1991. This was 2 years before I attended Fresno State for Enology and Viticulture. I can honestly say that Pam taught me the most important winemaking lesson. Taste the fruit and don't worry about the numbers. If it's not ripe, you need to wait even if the numbers say otherwise. I live by this every year, even when I see rain clouds on the horizon (more gray hairs). I consider her one of the greatest in this industry and am always in awe of her talents.

Ed Kurtzman (August West): I met Ed while attending Fresno State. He has the greatest palate, makes fantastic pizza, was San Francisco's best taxi driver (a side job while at Fresno State), and now produces the finest Pinot Noirs in California. Ed inspires you to taste and taste and taste…..as many wines as you can. He takes joy in understanding the wine in an enological aspect as well as the importance of just relishing a glass of good wine.

Brett Escalera (Consilience/ Fess Parker): A classmate of mine at Fresno State with a great palate. He gave me my first opportunity to buy Syrah grapes from Fess Parker's Vineyard way back in 1997 and continues to share the same passion for the Rhône valley; although he has slipped and also makes Pinot Noir (I'll excuse him from this lapse in judgment).

Elliott Millett (Sonoma-Cutrer): Another classmate who also attended Fresno State he always reminds me that wine should be fun no matter how much it costs. He has taught me the knowledge gained from drinking a bottle of wine with friends is provocative and stimulating although not always the most memorable the next day.

Kent Rosenblum (Rosenblum Cellars): I could fill an entire page about Kent. He is one of the nicest people I have had the good fortune to meet as well as incredibly talented. He has inspired me to push my winemaking to its limit and gave me many opportunities to experiment at Rosenblum Cellars during my ten years there. On the subject of opportunities, Kent gave me the chance to start JC Cellars while working at Rosenblum and has always been the biggest supporter of my winery and my wines. I respect his palate, I understand his palate and I use his palate as a guide to tasting wine.

Matt Garretson (Hospice du Rhône, Garretson Wine Company): I owe a great deal to Matt. I met Matt back in 1995 while attending a party at Pam Starr's. He was dressed as Elvis Presley (always the showman) and I had a chance to listen to him speak the gospel of Condrieu and the mission of the little organization then called The Viognier Guild, later named Hospice du Rhône. I had a chance to participate in The Viognier Guild in 1998 and met some of the greatest Rhône producers from all over the world. I realized at this point that my winemaking of these varietals was not up to the caliber of others being shown. I had the good chance to meet and make many new friends from the Northern Rhône that first year. These included Yves Gangloff, Francois Villard, Yves Cullerion and Pierre Gaillard. To taste their wines for a first time was a turning point in my winemaking philosophy and I spent as much time asking them questions and drinking with them as I could. The sense of minerality, elegance and finesse, not just fruit, are an integral part of JC Cellars' philosophy. It has been ten years since meeting these gentlemen from France and I think about this turning point in my life almost every day. Matt thanks for your vision.

Bob Biale (Robert Biale Vineyards): I met Bob my first year at Fresno State while attending the ZAP event in SF in 1993. I think there were more wineries than people at that point. The function was very informal and I had the chance to speak at length with Bob and then followed up with a visit to Napa from which point we became close friends. With great fortune, Bob gave me an opportunity to pick a quarter ton of fruit from the Aldo's Vineyard as part of a class winemaking project. As a student who was mesmerized by Zinfandel, I felt I had hit the mother load and still feel this way today. This wine (Wild n' Zinful) is what convinced Kent Rosenblum to give me a job. Besides Bob, I have also become good friends with the rest of the Biale team. Al Perry who is able to take Zinfandel and make it positively seductive by bringing finesse and elegance to the wine from the vineyards he works with (this is what it is all about) and Dave Pramuk who is a marketing genius and blows me away each time I get their newsletter.

This is just the tip of my iceberg of who's who, and I feel fortunate that my list of friends continues to grow and their influences and knowledge continue to guide me through my winemaking career. Am I lucky? Damn right I am. We all have people that influence us in our lives, but how many make our lives taste better?

Great friends surround our lives, but we also have family, for better or for worse they are your family. I am very fortunate and count my blessings everyday that my family is so involved in every aspect of JC Cellars. This includes visiting the vineyards with my kids Haley 4 ½ and Isabel 7 ½. They take the best grape samples during harvest and do love to taste the wine whenever it is offered, especially Isabel, who's palate is really starting to develop and is very opinionated taking after her mother and father. Haley loves to stick her fingers in the fermenting must and help daddy do a punch down or two. Alexandra continues to become more involved in every aspect of the winery, except the winemaking (I do need a job), including winemaker dinners and other events. There are times I feel like we are running a three-ring circus, but I could not imagine our lives any other way. For this I give thanks for the support and experiences our loyal and fanatical friends provide to our winery.

As I mentioned in the last newsletter, the 2005 vintage has proven not only to be one of our most convincingly exciting ones in the 10 years that we have been making JC Cellars, but also throughout the world. Why, you may ask? I don't really know. Maybe it was the amount of rain fall we had and when it occurred, or it could have been how the sun shined at a particular time, or it could have been that every so often Bacchus smiles down on all of us and provides winemakers a chance just to make great wines. Whatever the reason, these wines have just been spectacular in every sense.

Current Releases

2004 Rockpile Vineyard - Syrah
This is one for the books -- so intense, yet so in balance. To quote Robert M. Parker Jr., "the 2004, 100% Syrah aged in French oak boasts an opaque black/purple color as well as a gorgeous nose of blackberry liqueur intermixed with melted licorice, smoked meats, acacia flowers and a talcum powder-like stony minerality." This will be a Rockpile to hold for many years to come!

2005 Preston Vineyard - Marsanne
This is a wine of incredible concentration, with texture and layers both aromatically and on the palate; it makes my heart pound just looking at the bottle in the cellar. Its aromas of orange blossom, honey, marzipan, subtle apricots and peaches, wisps of vanilla and mineral are exquisite. On the palate, this majestic wine shows extraordinary richness, intertwining flavors of mineral, honey, oranges and apricots but with nice acidity that keeps it focused.

2005 The First Date - Roussanne / Marsanne
A blend of 75% Roussanne and 25% Marsanne both from the Fess Parker Vineyard. This wine is a sultry dance between these varietals that leave you wanting for more. I love it when a wine draws you in; you become infatuated with the honey, golden apricots and floral aromas. The textures and flavors of this wine take you in many directions from silky honeysuckle with just a dash of apricots; peaches and bees wax to almonds and exotic spices.

2005 Arrowhead Mountain Vineyard - Zinfandel
Shows anisette, black currants, and black licorice stick all packaged into one little bottle. Briery notes of roasted herbs de Provence run into chocolate cherry-raspberry liqueur, sprinkled with freshly cracked red and black pepper flowing with an unending abandon. Deep in color, almost black as an abyss with an intensity that is so pure and unyielding that each smell, each taste, sets your mind on a journey of unequalled proportions.

2005 Fess Parker's Vineyard - Syrah
This vintage has layers upon layers of aromatics, textures and flavors that seem to flow from the beginning to the end and back to the beginning again. We have been producing wine from this vineyard since 1997 and with each year the fruit just seems to get better and more complex. The 2005 vintage has gone further than any other Fess Parker has gone. The black fruits are darker; the red fruit brighter, the mid-palate is almost a diving board to a finish that just seems to go on and on.

2005 California Cuvée - Syrah
Always a new experience every year for us at JC Cellars. It's a chance to take wines we have produced and nurtured along the way and produce not just a wine, but an experience that represents the many aromatics and flavors of the different AVAs of California. This year's blend has become my favorite so far. Gushing over with all kinds of blackberry, and blueberry fruit intermixed with some minerality. A touch of smoke and a hint of peach skin from the Viognier that makes this wine just a little more than intriguing.

2005 The Impostor - Zinfandel Blend
Roasted earth, crème de cassis, black cherry liqueur, layered with plum pudding, dark chocolate, marjoram, tarragon, smoked venison, the list can go on and on and on! Without a doubt this is the most exotic and mysterious wine we have ever produced. You feel the wine is going in one direction and all of a sudden it's going in another direction. It's so layered and textured; you may not want to put your glass down. A blend of Zinfandel, Syrah, Petite Syrah, Mourvedre and Viognier.

Sneak Peak of What's to Come

2005 Iron Hill Vineyard - Zinfandel
As in the past this wine demonstrates the heights that Zinfandel can go. Of course most Zinfandel vineyards are not planted on very steep 55 degrees hillsides, with volcanic soil and a beautiful patch of lavender next door. The lavenders aromatic essence is present in the wine and permeates the air as soon as the glass is poured.

2005 Ripken Vineyard - Late Harvest Viognier
It's as if someone took the exoticness of our 2004 and blended it with the outrageous components of the 2003 vintage. This wine is a true symphony of aromatics and flavors, ranging from lavender honey drizzled over peach and apricot compote, to French vanilla bean lightly sautéed and gently infused in crème brulee that has been caramelized.

2004 Ventana Vineyard - Syrah
Always smoky and leaning towards the roasted herbs de Provence sensory profile, this newest vintage actually is showing more black fruits with layers of wet riverbed stones that bring this seductive mistress together. A romantic liaison between California and the Northern Rhône. As your friend and bearer of great wines, I look forward to meeting many of you at our winery or on the road. I feel blessed to be able to share my personal feelings through my wine and am honored to have it included among the happy moments in your life. Thanks and many great wine experiences,

Jeff & Alexandra Cohn
JC Cellars