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Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Hello Bubbly: Nick Braughton gets a flute of champagne to sample at a wine club dinner.
Toast to the Tastebuds
These Willow Glen wine connoisseurs aren't typical 'wine snobs'
By Michele Leung
January 26 was a night of suspense and unbelievable revelations. No, it wasn't a screening of all three installments of Scream but a typical meeting of the Willow Glen Wine Guys/Gals. The name of the game for these wine connoisseurs is to discover fine wines from the world over. The Wig-Wigs, as they like to call themselves, made me an honorary member the night I visited them. I don't profess to be an authority on this beverage; rather, I rank no higher than wine ignoramus. But more on that later.
The club, which meets monthly at Cafe Primavera, began a year ago when Cafe Primavera manager Jeff Hanson and frequent Willow Glen customers Darrell and Judy Braughton decided to take their hobby to the next level. "I had been bringing my own bottles from my own cellar [to dinner], and Jeff encouraged me to get a wine club started," says Darrell, a self-proclaimed wine fanatic. "So I contacted my friends and other wine buffs."
The premise of the club is that over dinner, members blind-taste various wines they bring in brown bags and give each mystery wine a score. The one with the highest composite score of the night is the winner.
"I've learned that through blind tasting, you get pleasant surprises. Some $10 wines are actually good, and other more expensive bottles do live up to their hype," says Hanson.
No membership dues are collected here and new members are added by invitation only. The current format of dinner and wine at the restaurant restricts the growth of the group, which is currently 12 members strong. But more events that will lend themselves to a bigger and different crowd are in the works.
The highlight for most Wig-Wigs was December's David Bruce night. Bruce, a Santa Cruz winemaker internationally known for his pinot noirs, and his wife joined the club for a night of wine tasting. "We opened up one of his pinot noirs to compare to others and his was straight up at the top," says Hanson.
But Bruce's wife, Jeanette, wasn't going to be outdone. When identifying wines, "she could pick it down to a tee. She told me women have better taste buds," says Judy. "From Jeanette, I was picking up descriptors for aromas. I was able to smell them but couldn't tell what they were," says Darrell.
Hanson hopes that visits from other winemakers will be a future trend, though there are no names lined up yet.
With a giant like Bruce preceding me, I feared I would be laughed out of the restaurant. And who wants to have dinner with a snooty group, anyway?
"I stress that wine snobbery can't be a part of our group," says Hanson.
"These people have different degrees of knowledge, but without the pretension," says Judy Braughton. "We're an average group. We come together and are humbled."
Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Toastmaster: Jeff Hanson, manager of Cafe Primavera and co-founder of the Wig-Wigs, shares a toast over dinner.
Indeed, the Wig-Wigs are an eclectic and informal group of people. Nick Brownlee hails from Oregon but occasionally does business in San Jose and regularly stops by. Jim Gold felt it imperative to tell me right off the bat that he builds monster homes. If the table was this forthright before dinner, I wondered what else I would learn after eight bottles of wine?
One attribute Gold attests to his fellow Wigs is their unselfish nature. "The nice thing here is that these people are generous enough to share their good wines. That's the fun of it," he says.
Usually, each night is governed by a specific theme, such as wines from the same region or of the same variety. But this night, it was a free for all. At my initiation meeting, we tasted two white wines and six reds. After each tasting, the devoted take meticulous notes on their score sheets as they try to guess the identity of the bottle.
"Whoa. Number two is a blend?"
Victories counted big. "Thank goodness I'm right in this night of dark secrets," said Judy.
They stupefied me with their palate's ability to pick out the nuances in different shades of the same color. Unfortunately, try as I may I was unable to join them. "Do you smell the vanilla and the oak in Number three?" Hanson asked me. No. 3 smelled no more vanilla-laden or oakish to me than its competitors.
Judy decided to resolve the amateur's failure to distinguish. "Just think of an autumn fruit," she implored.
Since I have never been in touch with my inner horticulturist, I wasn't quite sure what constituted an autumn fruit. The homely pumpkin came to mind. However, I don't believe the pumpkin has ever been considered elegant enough to be exalted in a wine bottle.
The runaway favorite of the night was No. 7, a red wine that earned two exclamation marks on my otherwise empty score sheet. (It didn't sear my throat like previous ones.) Others liked it for that perfect fruity taste. Rumors swirled around the mystery bottle, as everyone tried to guess the identity. "We're all stumped. That's what's humbling us," said Hanson.
Finally, the brown bag came off. "I told you, cabernet franc," said Darrell Braughton to Hanson in sweet victory, revealing the St. Francis label.
A driving force for Hanson is to introduce the local community to wines that come from wineries other than the Northern California mecca. "People in Santa Clara Valley are missing the boat. We're so Napa Valley-conscious, and we need to keep an open mind," he says. His wine world stretches out to Washington state, Italy and Australia. But on the other hand, he estimates that 20 percent of his stock at the restaurant is made locally in Los Gatos, Saratoga, Gilroy and Santa Cruz. For his efforts, he has received an award of merit from the Santa Cruz Mountain Wine Association for his support of winemakers in Santa Cruz.
"He could easily go to huge producers, such as Gallo. But he takes the time to investigate and research to give the best wines to his customers. This is our way of saying thank you," says Karen Hibble, executive director of the association.
With the advent of The Grapevine, a new wine shop on Lincoln Avenue tentatively scheduled to open at the end of February, Hanson believes the trend is indicative that Willow Glen is becoming more wine savvy. "People who live locally have a great interest in wines and want to learn more and try new wines," he says. "The market has always been there."
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Willow Glen, California Since 1992
