Welcome to the Wine Buying Guide

As a wine enthusiast living in the San Francisco Bay area, I have the luxury of being able to head off to local wineries at a moments notice to taste or buy wines. As a result, my wine collection is a mixture of wine club offerings and limited release wines that I've picked up at the wineries and are usually available only at those wineries. I realize, however, that not everyone has that opportunity. Their source of wines is typically the local grocery or package store where they either buy an old standard, look for a recommended wine, or employ a hit or miss strategy for trying new wines. With the growth of the internet, online wine purchasing opportunities are now plentiful. The question, though, is what to buy. Yes, just about all of the wineries now offer their products through internet sales, but which of those wines are worth the effort and shipping costs? This blog is dedicated to providing information for wine lovers to assist them in their online buying decisions. As I visit local wineries, I will relate my findings through the blog to give readers an idea of what wines I find that I'd recommend to others. These are usually wines that I buy myself, or wish I could buy if I had an unlimited budget for wine purchases. Each entry will provide information about the location of the winery, varietals with which the winery specializes, the costs of the wines, website links, and my own recommendations. If they have had their wines rated by some of the better known reviewers, such as Robert Parker, I will mention that also, as well as the winery's own tasting notes, if they are particularly helpful or entertaining. To give you a sense of my tastes, I tend toward Pinot Noirs and Zinfandels. I've run across numerous other varietals that I enjoy, but I'm always particularly interested in Pinots and Zins. A good Cabernet Sauvigon or Chardonnay hits the spot, too. Favorites include Kunde Century Vines Zinfandel, Sonoma-Cutrer The Cutrer Chardonnay, La Crema Anderson Valley Pinot Noir, and Valley of the Moon Old Vine Zin. The trouble here is, unless you've visited the winery, you've probably not tasted these wines. There are many wonderful, small production wines out there and I hope to pass on my favorites through this forum.

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Ty Caton Vineyards

My first experience with Ty Caton Vineyards came through http://www.woot.com/.  Woot is a website that sells one item each day.  A couple of years ago they added a wine site; http://wine.woot.com/.  I watched the site for a while, then one day they listed Ty Caton's TYtanium; two bottles for $75.  I quickly checked out the website, saw the list price for one bottle was $75, so I went back to woot and bought a pair.  As it happened, I was going up to Sonoma that day anyway, so I dropped into their tasting room (8910 Sonoma Highway, Kenwood, CA, the Kenwood Village Plaza shopping center) and tasted their wines for the first time.  I was not only glad that I'd ordered the TYtanium from woot, I also bought a couple more wines that day.

Caton shares a tasting room with Michael Muscardini in Kenwood.  The tasting room is located in a shopping center on the Sonoma Highway.  On any given day, Ty or Michael are likely to be there helping serve their wines.

Everything I've tasted from Ty Caton has been wonderful.  I don't think one could go wrong ordering their particular varietal favorite from the website.  Looking at the website today, you can see how popular some of his wines have become.  The 2009 Petite Sirah is sold out, as is the Petite Verdot and all the Cabernet Collection.  The Petite Sirah is the thickest wine I've ever seen.  On a visit to the tasting room a few months ago, our pourer splashed some into a wine glass then layed the glass on the bar and rolled it.  The wine coated the glass in a rich purple blanket that hung on even after the glass was righted.  And the taste was superb, velvety and elegant. 

The 2009 TYtanium ($80) is a red blend of 31 percent Cabernet, 30 percent Syrah, 18 percent Petit Sirah, 12 percent Merlot, and nine percent Malbec.  Caton produced 827 cases of this wine.  It, also, is a wonderful wine, if your pocketbook can bear the weight.

Ty's Red is a hearty wine that puts less weight on the pocketbook at $32.  Ty's Red is a blend of 62 percent Syrah, 26 percent Merlot, six percent Cab, and six percent Petite Sirah.

A red wine specialist, Ty introduced a Riesling last year so that white wine lovers would have something to taste at his tasting room.  My sweetie, who loves her big, buttery Chardonnays, was impressed enough with the Riesling to buy a bottle.  Ty produced 350 cases of the Riesling, which sells for $28.

Last night I opened a bottle of Ty's Caton Cabernet Collection Big Hill Vineyard.  The Caton Cabernet Collection is a group of single vineyard Cabs, each limited to 45 cases.  They sell for $50.  The Big Hill was a rich, supple cab with a long finish.  My sweetie, who doesn't often identify any particular flavor in a wine, insists she tasted butterscotch on the finish.  The entire 2009 collection is sold out, but I'm betting the 2010 collection will be just as fabulous as the 2009.  I went to a barrel tasting of the Cab Collection a couple of years ago and found them all to be wonderful.  Big Hill was simply my favorite of seven.  The others in the collection are; Arroyo, Barracks, Knoll, Little Hill, Terraces, and Upper Bench.  If I remember right, Barracks was my second favorite and my purchase from the previous vintage.

Ty has several options for wine clubs.  The Silver Club ships two bottles four times a year and members get a 20 percent discount on wines and merchandise.  The PlaTYnum Club shipe four bottles four times a year and members receive a 25 percent discount.  The Caton Cabernet Collection Club ships twelve bottles per year as the member chooses.  Members received a 25 percent discount on Cab Collection purchases.

Caton has developed quite a following on woot.  I've read some very good feedback about Caton wines on the woot website from happy customers.  I notice his wines on sale there about once a quarter now, so you might keep an eye on it in the future for some good deals.  His Racchus Red shows up there occasionally and is a very high quality, less expensive wine ($19 on Caton's own website, less on woot).  The Caton website is http://tycaton.com/. 

Caton's tasting room hours are 11 am to 6 pm, seven days a week.  If you can get to the tasting room sometime it's a stop that I'd highly recommend.  The wines are wonderful and Ty and Michael are great hosts (if they happen to be there when you stop in).  I'll write about Muscardini wines in a future post.
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Location: Sonoma, CA, USA

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