Behrens Family Winery (4.13)



Open: By appointment only

Appt required? Yes

Last barlinwine.com visit: 2012

Directions:

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Tasting:
Behrens Family came recommended to me by a friend and seemed like a good fit after a stop at Pride on our Spring Mountain Day. Behrens has gone through a lot of change over the past few years that led to some confusing and misguided branding that has overshadowed some pretty solid wine. The winery opened in 1993 under the name Behrens and Hitchcock until Bob Hitchcock, who was the financial partner in the relationship, wanted to retire and sell in 2005. Bob Hitchcock wanted compensation to use his name as it was an established brand while Les Behrens refused to pay for the right to use his own name. When no agreement could be made, Les and his wife decided to name the winery after his mother, Erna Shein. Despite its catchy ring and complete lack of relation to the the old name, the new name surprisingly didn’t go over too well in the marketplace as it confused consumers and industry participants who still used the B&H name. More recently with the 2009 vintage, the winery was renamed again as Behrens Family Winery. In case that doesn't seem confusing enough, fear not: a couple of wines are still produced under the Behrens & Hitchcock brand as well. The other signature feature of Behrens wines are the labels. Any single vineyard production gets the classic yellow Behrens Family Winery label, while all the blends feature a modern American art piece as the label.

Krysten and I were able to squeeze in with another party of 4 for our tasting at 1:30. We arrived to find a small production facility and 2 vintage mobile homes that would prove to be our tasting room. Suddenly it made sense why they were sticklers about the number of people allowed at the tasting. The mobile homes were a different touch for sure, but it was a little disappointing to be crammed in a small mobile home when the weather was in the high 70’s and the view off the side of Spring Mountain was nothing short of spectacular. Oh well.

After some dilly-dallying outside, we made our way into one of the mobile homes (the other is actually being used by Relic Winery until their tasting room is built off Silverado Trail) and commenced with the tasting. We had been told to pencil in an hour and a half but that proved far too light of an estimate. Behrens produces a lot of different blends and there is much to be said about each, so our leisurely tasting went well over 2 hours. Part of this was our fault as we didn’t stress the need to be elsewhere on a given schedule. I thought the pace was a little slow and Krysten started dragging a bit after an hour or so. Our host Robin had been with Behrens for a long time and was friendly, knowledgeable, and clearly passionate about the wine.

As I mentioned, Behrens produces a lot of wine, up to 14 different bottlings in any given year. Les Behrens takes a mad-scientist approach to some of these blends that sometimes go against traditional wine making. This approach can be summed up with a bottling called “Everything but the Kitchen Sink” that we did not taste, but the same can be said about the Saint Fume, which was the first BFW selection on our tasting menu. Our tasting consisted of 6 Behrens wines plus a bonus of 2 wines produces under the Zeitgeist label (in case you were starting to think you understood BFW's branding), which is owned by Jen Williams who also happens to be the winemaker at Spottswoode.

'09 Labor of Love
The 6 wines under the Behrens label ran the gamut from just okay to outstanding. Behrens has no estate fruit so they're forced to buy everything they produce. For our tasting, we sampled (deep breath): ’09 BFW Sainte Fumee (also known as the “Angel of Meat” due to the painting on the label) which was a blend of Syrah, Grenache, Cincault, Tempranillo, Petit Sirah, and Petit Verdot; ’09 BFW Spare Me Cabernet which was made of spare barrels from 7 different vineyards; the ’08 B&H The Heavyweight (same 7 vineyards as the Spare Me but better grapes - 80% cab, 10% merlot, and 10% cab franc); ’09 BFW Crowley Cabernet (single-vineyard from York Creek on Spring Mountain); ’09 BFW Labor of Love which was a Cab Franc blend (67% cab franc, 20% cab sauv, 13% petit verdot) from the prestigious Martinez Vineyard on Pritchard Hill; and the BFW Kick Ranch Vineyard Petit Sirah. If that wasn’t enough, we started with the ’09 Zeitgeist Trousseau Gris which comes from the only Trousseau Gris vineyard in North America (a more floral version of a Pinot Gris) and mixed in the ’09 Zeitgeist Cabernet which comes from the Stagecoach Vineyard, the Anomoly Vineyard in St. Helena, and Coombsville.

The Saint Fume and Spare Me Cab were just okay, the Heavyweight was a little better, but then the Zeitgest Cab, BFW Crowley Cab, Kick Ranch Petit, and Labor of Love were all great to outstanding. The Labor of Love was definitely a Top 2 wine of my entire trip. Prices seem to be reasonable starting at $50 and topping out at $95 for the Labor of Love although the first couple wines at $50/bottle seemed very overpriced while the the Labor of Love seemed like a relative bargain at $95. The Zeitgeist Cab was also reasonably priced at $60/bottle.

Overall, despite the slow tasting pace, this was an interesting stop and is worth the trip up Spring Mountain. I think there was an advertised $25 tasting fee but this was not charged with purchase. The tasting room is a little cramped in the mobile home, especially with 6 tasters, so I would have preferred to take advantage of the weather and view, but the wine made up for it.


Recommended wine: The ’09 Labor of Love and ’09 Zeitgeist cab were my two favorites, although I also took home a bottle of the Kick Ranch Petit Sirah.

Ratings (out of 5):


WINE
4.50
TASTING ROOM
3.50

ATMOSPHERE
4.25
VALUE
4.25

OVERALL
4.13






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