We have many reasons to enjoy living in the East Bay of San Francisco.  We can be in the city in 15 minutes, visit wine country in a little over an hour and have access to an abundance of regional parks all within a 15-minute drive of our house.  Lately, we’ve also discovered a small number of wineries in the area who are making pretty exceptional wine.  This Saturday, we decided to stay local by barbecuing in one of our favorite parks while opening a bottle from Broc Cellars.

Broc Cellars is a small winery in Berkeley, Calif.  We first discovered Broc and its owner, Chris Brockway at an East Bay food and wine pairing event a few months ago.  Broc blew away the competition away with his incredibly rich and complex wines, as well as his food pairings, which included both venison and duck. 

Brockway introduced his first vintage in 2004 and yesterday, we had the great fortune to drink his 2007 Vine Starr red blend.  It was the perfect wine to sip as we enjoyed the view in Redwood Regional Park and fired up the grill for some tri tip. 

The smell and taste of the wine is distinctly Zinfandel, but much more complex.  There are notes of blackberries and a fruit jam smell and taste that makes you come back for more.  Jill also tastes a little bit of licorice on it – but strawberry licorice.  It could be because she loves Twizzlers and wishes that flavor was in everything, but it seems to really be there.  The wine notes list the blend’s varieties as 67% Zinfandel, 30% Syrah, 2% Petite Sirah, 1% Mourvedre.  We love that Brockway makes his wines in the Rhone style.  You can’t beat getting great French-inspired wine from a local winemaker (and at a reasonable price).  The Vine Starr is currently selling for $25.

As you can imagine, Brockway doesn’t have his own vineyard in his backyard in Berkeley.  He sources the grapes from growers across Northern California and produces his wine in a Berkeley facility shared with a few other wine makers. 

Wine is currently being produced in all 50 states in the United States.  Our advice – check out your local producers and get to know them.  The winemakers are often products of great enology programs  and are striving to bring great wine to their local market. As we all “go green,” let’s continue to “go local” and support these up-and-coming wine producers.

Jill and David Shabelman