Darren Delmore

At dawn, I was at the kitchen table drinking that full-blooded, strawberry scented Grenache, eating a porkchop with crackers and a Vache curd. Amber and Leah woke up for their morning shift and looked at me fearfully as they heated water for coffee and tea. My eyes looked radiated. "This is my happy hour," I clarified. After they left, I stumbled into bed with an ice cream bar and woke up at 1:15 pm, having to be at work by two. KINDLE and PAPERBACKS of "Unplanned Parenthood: Confessions of a Vagabond Cellarhand" available now on Amazon.

"The door slammed open and I heard a mob rush in. A man aggressively jumped onto my back and drove his knees into my ass, the tip of his assault rifle rammed between my shoulders. A second officer asked, Are you armed in there? Are you armed?! with his handgun pointed at my head." BOOK 3 of the Confessions of a Vagabond Cellarhand trilogy out NOW!! "Unplanned Parenthood: Confessions of a Vagabond Cellarhand is available in paperback and Kindle. Just in time for the holidays! https://www.amazon.com/s "The Hunter S. Thompson of the wine world."-Surfer Magazine

"With a cheek full of chewing tobacco, he immediately let us know we were all getting arrested, and would most likely be serving five to ten years. My eyes welled up with tears then. My life was truly over. There would be no more wine harvests for me, nor would there ever be my own wine label; I was done. Nine years down the cellar drain." - Confessions of a Vagabond Cellarhand, Vol. 3 (Coming June 2020)

Old Wines... The oldest wines in my wilting cardboard stash - cellared in the chilly sunless Toobs Bodyboards factory in Morro Bay - is a box of Bandol circa 2009. I used to collect California Pinots, Petite Sirahs and Rhone blends, and some Australian wines too; things I believed were bulletproof for a decade. Even with a mixed six case collection, there were disappointments and wines that faded over the hill, even in the course of a year. The concept of "short-term cellarin...g" proved to be a safer bet, as did buying Bandol rouge in quantity. I don't dig the aromatics of old red wine, and the flavors that turn to tobacco, leather, and tea aren't for me. But capturing a rich red when the tannins have just resolved and the first stage fruit is still intact is like catching the green flash of a sunset. The 2009 Domaine Tempier was silky, red-fruited and finessed with an old cellar whiff - nearly Brunello like - whereas the Pibarnon was light, elegant, pure at the core with some Cab-like cassis and licorice, and could've been blinded as Bordeaux. These were chunky, mouth drying beasts on release, and will likely head into their secondary descent in a year or so. Combined with mushrooms and grass fed beef last week, I was seeing those flickers of green. See more

Paix Sur Terre 2019 Ugni Blanc Willow Creek Paso Robles As a distraction I’ve been reading a dusty book from 1987 called "Wines of the Rhone Valley" by Robert Mayberry. I pulled it off the shelf at Tablas Creek and noticed a pink post-it note wedged into the Tavel section that read "Rosé" in Robert Haas's handwriting. I can't imagine a second edition was ever printed, nor if the author made much more cash than I did off both "Confessions of a Vagabond Cellarhand" books combi...ned, but the winemaking details inside are like secrets revealed. The book tells how the Ugni Blanc grape is called St. Emilion in Cognac and Armagnac, and Trebbiano Toscano in Italy, and is known for enormous florality, a somewhat metallic crispness with a good mineral feel such as are found in the whites of the upper Loire. The 2019 Paix Sur Terre has Vouvray Sec style, more in the mid palate which is a high point here. The aromatics are fresh, subtle in flowers but strong enough in beeswax to think it could be Chenin, and if any barrels were used they were neutral. The fresh dose of sulfites is undetectable. The palate fleshens out with ginger, pineapple guava, more honey, then minerality and acid weaves through the textural ending. Making whites like this in a hot climate isn't easy. www.paixsurterrewines.com Note: more random tasting notes to come.