Livermore Valley is a mere 30 minute drive southeast from my home in Oakland, and maybe 45 minutes from my former home in San Francisco. Yet somehow, after 23 years in the Bay Area, I had not personally crossed paths with Steven Kent Mirassou of Steven Kent Winery, the most lauded winemaker in Livermore Valley. I had tried his wines in blind tastings on wine mag panels and in competitions, and was always impressed by his Bordeaux-influenced blends, but somehow we had never met. Until two weeks ago.
Since the year I arrived in California in 2000, older wine cognoscenti I have met in California have told me that Livermore possesses great potential for making incredible wine. It has gravelly soils. It has a climate comparable to Napa Valley. It also has a tremendous underground aquifer, which itself is more valuable than ever in a state that is increasingly drought-prone (2023 excluded, of course).
Livermore's winegrowing history is storied, and important to California's wine lore. The first vines were planted there in the late 1800's, and as late as
the 1960's Livermore had as many acres of vineyards as Napa Valley. Many of the vines planted in the Livermore Valley were propagated and distributed around the state, including "Wente" clone Chardonnay (which originated in Burgundy) and Cabernet Sauvignon clones planted at Concannon Winery in the late 1800's. The Wente family and other local growers have largely succeeded in preserving some of the local farmland from development, which has left the area with a harmonious mix of commercial use, advanced science labs, housing, and farms, including vineyards.
Given all of that great potential, history, and multi-generational wisdom, a wine tasting trip to Livermore Valley can still be a mixed bag. If you randomly cruise around the neighborhood, you'll taste all kinds of wines made from all kinds of varieties, from Cabernet and Merlot and Sauvignon Blanc, to Rhone grapes like Syrah and Grenache, to Chardonnay, and if you're really into fine wine, you frankly might be a little bit underwhelmed by the offerings.
It pains me to say this in print, but there's a lot of mediocre wine made in Livermore, a lot of wine that's not bad, but hardly exciting. Sometimes you just get the feeling that either the winemakers just aren't particularly ambitious, or maybe they just don't have the best aesthetic bearings, and haven't traveled enough, and maybe haven't tasted enough great wines from around the world. Sometimes I feel like I could net some better wines playing roulette in the discount wine section at Grocery Outlet.
Steven Kent Mirassou of Steven Kent Winery in Livermore is the most prominent exception to that rule. Coming from a long lineage of winemakers that emigrated from France to set up wineries in what is now Silicon Valley (then Santa Clara Valley). The family brand was sold to Gallo in the 2003, and since then scion Steven Kent has been doubling down on Livermore Valley. He's literate, well-traveled, and has great taste in wine, all of which are rather important, if not indispensable, when you're aiming to make great wine. SKM is serious in every possible way. He's the boss of Livermore Valley. There's really no getting around it.
He makes some tremendous, age-worthy Bordeaux blends under the proprietary Lineage label, and more recently has been focused on Loire-inspired, lightly-oaked Cabernet Franc from Livermore Valley and also makes a superb one from the Santa Cruz Mountains, near where his family began making wine - an area not really known for Cabernet Franc at all.
Long a quality leader in the region, Steven Kent Mirassou is trying to sell more local wineries on the potential for Cabernet Franc in Livermore. He definitely has some great vineyard sites that he is drawing from, including Ghielmetti Vineyard, an elevated site near the Altamont Pass, and another site in the cooler Santa Cruz Mountains called Las Positas Vineyard.
"This is an area that should be making wines as good as anywhere in the world," Mirassou says of Livermore Valley. "We have an opportunity to own Cabernet Franc in California in a way that no other place owns it."
His Ghielmetti Vineyard Cab Franc and Bates Ranch (Santa Cruz Mountains AVA) are sold under the Steven Kent brands L'autre Côte label. Both are excellent, and both are made using relatively little new oak barriques. Steven told me he's looking to the Loire Valley (home to Chinon and Borgeuil) rather than Bordeaux for inspiration when it comes to Cabernet Franc, seeking pure fruit flavors and a clearer expression of terroir.
He also makes a white Cab Franc, which is certainly a ringer to throw into a completely blind wine tasting because there aren't many other wines like it made in the world anywhere. It's actually a lovely wine, pressed quickly off the red wine skins, with great acid, clover, candied pear, and white pepper aromas, great acid, and just a hint of tannin that kinda comes across as an almost Picpoul-like minerality.
