Dover Canyon Winery

Tom Hill, aka Zorro of Zin, Joins the Pepper Rebellion

Tom Hill, known for his stream-of-consciousness tasting notes, is the newest member of the Pepper Rebellion, the secret society of pepper partisans who celebrate and defend pepper and spice in zinfandel.

Tom, a self-confessed wine geek, is a computational physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico, doing numerical neutron transport and large scale code development.  Tom has been tasting wines seriously since 1971, and has been an early and outspoken proponent of Paso Robles wineries.  Other serious passions include competitive sport fencing (foil and epee), biking, cooking. basketball, skiing, backpacking, and mountain climbing. Tom has a grand vision in life of becoming Superman, but has settled for now to just be Clark Kent, a mild-mannered computer jock at LANL! 

Tom has a Los Alamos tasting group of about 60 people, and they recently tasted through a comprehensive line up of Dover Canyon wines.  Tom's notes are posted on the Mark Squires Bulletin Board.

Here's an excerpt:

"DoverCanyonWnry Reserve Zin PasoRobles (15.2%; 16 mo. sur lies/neutral AmOak;
4 brls) 2006: Dark color; very strong blackberry/boysenberry/Zin some Am.oak/toasty/vanilla very spicy/perfumed bit dusty/old vines nose; soft ripe/blackberry/boysenberry/Zin bit earthy
some vanilla/toasty/oak very spicy/perfumed flavor; very long/lingering soft ripe/blackberry/
boysenberry/Zin very spicy bit peppery slight vanilla/toasty/oak some complex finish w/ some
tannins; still needs several yrs; much like the Dusi but a bit more oak, more spice, more
complexity; lovely very spicy Zin w/ no overripe character & very/very spicy. $38.00"

Using the word "spicy" five times to describe one zin? That's an automatic qualification.  Thank you, Tom, and welcome to the Pepper Rebellion!

Featured Customer: Rick Henderson

Customer and wine club member Rick Henderson is an editor for the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, Colorado. He sent us a quick, chatty email this week:

"The "60 Minutes" camera folks came to our offices today to film a meeting between our editorial board and the 'Fiscal Wake-Up Tour' sponsored by the deficit-fighting Concord Coalition. The tour is making three other stops in Denver today before hitting Seattle."

So let's keep our fingers crossed that we'll see Rick peppering the Coalition members with some tight journalistic questions in a future airing of '60 Minutes.' In the meantime, we can read his editorial, 'Wake-up tour' offers vital message.

Rick and Lola have been wine club members for six years, and they have very democratic tastes, liking pretty much everything we make. Let's hope Rick relaxed with a glass of wine after his television debut.

Do you have news, wine reviews, or photos you would like to share with us? Feel free to contact us anytime at dovercanyon@tcsn.net

Society Dogs and the Lime Green Bus

On Friday we had the pleasure of a visit from the ‘Society Dog’ Bus.

Check out the cool lime green and purple bus, completely renovated to safely transport human and canine alike. This San Jose, California social club rents their bus out for special occasions. Director Terri Festa, right, reports that a local radio deejay rented the bus for a recent bar-hopping evening of fun and reporting.

All of our canine guests were well behaved and delightful. Samson, a Bouvier, initially decided to pass on exploring the lawn for a cool drink and a nap in the shade. With all that black fur, who can blame him?