A360P

San Juan Bautista to King City, 13 April, 2009

It's 64 miles between San Juan Bautista and King City if you stay on Highway 101. It's an okay route, taking you past the bustling metropoli of Salinas, Soledad, Chualar, and Greenfield before finally arriving at the oasis of freeway gas stations and fast food joints visible in King City. On the other hand, if you veer off the freeway at San Juan Bautista (home of one of the California Missions) and head to Hollister (site of the 1947 biker shindig that was documented in "The Wild One"), you'll be able to enjoy another one of the state's best drives. And the kicker is that this route adds a mere four miles to the length of the otherwise dullsville drive down the 101. 

I stopped in Hollister to make some phone calls and noticed that my car had reached a mileage semi-milestone: 

There's something about documenting the mileage numbers that end in a lot of zeroes that I don't know why they're more important than random numbers, but here it is. What it does remind me of is the fact that I've got 2K left on the warranty, so if anything big is going to break, I hope it happens real soon. 

Heading south out of Hollister is CA 25 (also listed as the Airline Highway), a two-lane road that attracts lots of motorcycle riders and probably a lot of CHP officers on the weekends but is very open at 9:30 on a Monday morning. On the entire stretch I encountered four cars, and the road's long straights and broad vistas make passing very easy to accomplish. Just past the County Fairgrounds, I passed some extensive vineyard plantings. 

San Benito County has always been the home (at least in my mind) of smaller, boutique producers such as Calera and Enz Vineyards, but in reality, it was at one time home to Almaden, one of the state's more influential wineries in the last century. This vineyard in Paicines is now owned by Diageo, having purchased it from whoever owned it before Heublein, who bought it from Almaden. I shouldn't have been surprised, as the area was once the source of much of the fruit that went into Almaden wines, so the fountain of juice coming from this 700 acre vineyard and into bottles of Sterling and BV has some historical precedent in addition to its medicinal use. The other wineries in the area are up off the valley floor and aren't visible from the road (or I just wasn't paying any attention).

Heading further south from the vineyards you pass the Pinnacles National Monument, some impressive looking rocks, on the other side of which are the original vineyard plantings of Chalone, as well as Michael Michaud's winery. Here the road starts to open up even more, with long-range views of the road up ahead, set among vast meadows and plains. 

The quality of the pavement is pretty good, and with the great view and empty roads, there's a slight tendency to hit the accelerator pedal pretty hard. There are few sharp curves and the two-lane road is wide enough to accommodate just about any car that can attain any speed. I'd like to think that this is the sort of road that an older 12-cylinder Ferrari was designed for. 

The turnoff heading toward King City takes you up and over the hill, with a marvelous view once you get up to the top:

After some easy twisties in the hill, it's a gradual drop into King City, a town that's based around agriculture. 

I stopped for gas and headed toward my Santa Maria meeting on 101. It was an exceptional morning of driving, definitely removing the "just a commuter" aspect from the journey. 

1978 Mirassou Pinot Noir (Unfiltered)

There's no reason on earth why I shouldn't be flabbergasted that I haven't contacted the Centers for Disease Control to remove this bottle from the premises, but y'know, it's some interesting juice!

My friend Bob from 20-20 Wines gave me a box of wine the other day with the request to taste through and let him know if they were any good. The 1978 Sonoma Vineyards Johannisberg Riesling lived down to expectations. Oxidized (and not in a good way), it was definitely over the hill. Even a coroner would have had difficulty deriving anything from this corpse.

On the other hand, the 1978 Mirassou Pinot Noir (Unfiltered) I opened tonight was worth the risk. Brown down to its soul, there were hints of of berries and earth upon opening (the short cork might have been an indication that they hadn't expected anyone to age this one for much longer than it took to get it home from the grocery store), it turned even more earthy with exposure to air. Then, lo and behold it veered off into bret-land! Not a bad bret infection, but enough to make the wine even more interesting. Keep in mind that my tolerance for brettanomyces is a little higher than the normal drinker (I ahem, did work for Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant after all) but this one treads right on the borderline of interesting/offensive/compelling. Were it perfume, it would be patchouli, a piece of art: Andres Serrano.

As time passes and the fruit fades even further into the background the acidity becomes more apparent and the wine tastes as if it's easing toward senility (aren't we all?), but with grace and style. The nose is toying with volatility but hasn't yet eased over the edge into the realm of undrinkability. Maybe its 13.5% alcohol level helps keep it in balance, even while the wine's taste teeters on the precipice of godawful. It still smells good though, and it keeps me coming back for more, just in case the palate has turned the corner and become something good to drink. The experience is not unlike watching David Cronenberg's Crash or a
Long Jeanne Silver movie, there's something at once compelling and repulsive about the experience. There's a curiosity about the mechanics of the subject, not to mention wondering how it'll resolve in the end.

What with much of my life revolving around the idea of context, I'm thinking about what I'll cook for dinner that'll work with this wine and I've got some mushrooms in the refrigerator and maybe they'll balance out the gawkiness in the wine. Even if they don't, this is a thirty year old wine that's gone the distance, an occurrence both surprising and enjoyable, and one that speaks well to the concept that it's not a bad idea to stash the occasional bottle of wine away for longer than reason would normally dictate.

But since when has reason had anything to do with wine?

Listening to: Wild Things Run Fast/ Joni Mitchell (Quiex II Vinyl) and Bridge Over Troubled Water/Simon & Garfunkel (Half-Speed Mastered Vinyl) Joe Osborn is the god of the bass guitar