Family Winemakers of California

Rather than visiting a crowded Irish pub and getting smashed on green beer, this St. Patrick’s Day we went to the Del Mar Fairgrounds to a crowded wine tasting event (see picture below), getting smashed on wine.  The wine tasting event was put on by the Family Winemakers of California and entailed some 60 wineries from all over California.  It is worth noting that this included only one winery from Temecula and one from San Diego county, the latter an urban winery at that.

Once inside, tasting was free and they had some free food as well – bread and cheese as well as some munchies at the booths.  Let me add that our Priority Wine Pass got us 10% discount off of the normal $60 entrance fee.  Anyway, we made sure that we got our money’s worth, but try as hard as we could we only managed to visit about half the booths in the three hours of the show.  Needless to say, we depended on Uber to get us to and from the Fairgrounds.
So, you ask, how were the wines, or, more specifically, how did they compare to wines made in our part of the state?  For starters only about a third of the wineries whose tables we visited offered wines that I would consider good enough to write a review about.  In comparison, I’ve reviewed about two-thirds of the wineries I’ve visited in Southern California.  In terms of specific wine varietals (keeping in mind that we focused almost exclusively on red wines), only one was significantly better than we’ve found in Southern California, namely Pinot Noir.  This was not a surprise – for the most part, we don’t have the climate for that particular grape, though I have had a pretty good Pinot made from grapes grown in Fallbrook.  I’ve made a little table comparing different wine varietals from the show versus my visits to wineries I’ve reviewed in Southern California.  It shows that the Southern California wineries are competitive with the rest of the state, and superior for some wine varietals.  Note, however, that we did not see any Nebbiolo, Montepulciano, Refosco, Lagrein, Nero D'Avola, Aglianico, Aleatico or Negroamaro at the show.

Wine Varietal	So Cal vs Family Winemakers
Pinot Noir	Family Winemakers -- by a lot
Cabernet Sauvignon	not enough samples
Cabernet Franc	About equal
Zinfandel	Southern California
Sangiovese	Southern California -- much better
Barbera	Family Winemakers
Syrah	Southern California