Vintelligence

An Evening with Tantara's Jeffrey Fink
July 13, 2006

By Steve Woodward

Human beings seem split about down the middle on how we exude that vital intangible known as confidence. Everyone agrees that you need it to make a difference in this world, but while some people demonstrate confidence by how firmly they pound a chest or slap a back, or through sheer speech volume, others keep it rather contained, even muzzled.

Jeffrey Fink, a Virginia gentleman living in southern California and commuting regularly north to Monterey and Santa Barbara counties, seems to fall into the latter camp.

We dined with the affable Fink on a recent summer’s evening along Chicago’s trendy Randolph Street, and he was kind enough to arrive with an arsenal of Tantara Winery’s latest Pinot Noir masterpieces from California’s Central Coast.

Combined with a parade of delicious creations from Chef Jackie Shen’s kitchen at Red Light, a well established Pan-Asian destination in the Windy City, the marquee 2004 single vineyard Pinots were even more impressive than in an earlier tasting.

“Wine is just meant to be with food,” Fink said as we sipped his yet unreleased Solomon Hills Vineyard Pinot, the product of seven newly planted acres on virgin soil along the western edge of the Santa Maria Valley in Santa Barbara County.

Fink, it is clear, was meant to be with wine, and the run of acclaimed Tantara vintages – Monterey and Santa Barabra Pinot Noir along with Chardonnay and Syrah – in recent years suggests emphatically that he and co-founder and fellow winemaker Bill Cates have gone well beyond the mere pursuit of a shared dream.

How this partnership came about has been documented here and there but is, nonetheless, fascinating. That Cates and Fink are defining Central Coast excellence with an alliance not even a decade old might explain Fink’s muzzled confidence, too. A lot of guys say they are going to move west and make wine, but few get past the talking stage. Now they are in the center of superb Pinot production from Monterey vineyards occupying the Santa Lucia Highlands, joining top labels such as A.P. VIN and Loring Wine Company.  

He lived briefly in a Chicago north shore suburb as a child – and had not been back to these parts until the day we dined – but resided for many years in southwest Virginia and later attended the famed University in Charlottesville. He knew Cates after befriending Cates’ daughter in the mid-1970s when both lived in scenic Roanoke, Va.

An architect by trade, Fink moved to Los Angeles in 1984, a few months after the city was host to the Summer Olympic Games (and still commmutes from the L.A. area north to Central Coast wine country). He later got into home-based winemaking. Cates, a journalist/writer, partnered with Fink in 1997 after deciding to transform his lifelong wine connoisseurship into something more intense. Two transplanted Virginians were now a very long way from the rolling Shenandoah Valley.

“I am drawn to Pinot Noir by the elegant characteristics,” Fink said after we moved on to a 2004 Bien Nacido Vineyard Adobe, a 194-case production born of a three-acre site in Santa Barbara County. “These are the kind of wines we produce. I got into this to make single vineyard Pinot Noir.”

As we prepared to enjoy the next course and Tantara’s balanced 2004 Pisoni Vineyard Pinot from a Monterey County harvest, Fink was handed a list of 13 of his Pinot Noirs that were rated 90 points or higher by the authoritative Wine Advocate since 2001. If Fink was getting a confidence rush courtesy of Robert Parker Jr., it wasn’t obvious.

His 2003 Pisoni earned an Advocate 91; and the ’02 garnered a 94. The decanted 2004 at our table is potentially in their league if the satisfied buzz of the assembled veteran tasters is any indication. And it seemed to jar Fink out of his low-key conversational mode. A confident winemaker was doing the talking now.

“Give this wine a year or two,” Fink said, his Virginia drawl coming through. “It’ll really settle down. It’s a monster wine.”

From the lurking monster we transitioned to the finale pouring, as a memorable Tahitian Vanilla Bean crème brulee made the rounds. The finale was the Mother of All Unfiltered Pinots, and that’s not a cliché. The just released 2004 Pinot Noir Evelyn from the Santa Maria Valley is so named to honor the memory of Cates’ mother.

The 110-case Evelyn had the tasters buzzing again.

The nose covered a broad spectrum: Anise; fennel; raspberry; wild strawberry earthiness; fruits out of the garden, straight from a basket; air coming off the ocean; slight garlic.

Evelyn has muscle, a certain edge, they agreed. It possesses “an incredibly complex engine,” said one of the guests.

Fink, rightly so, had the last word.

“The descriptions were not obvious -- you couldn’t say it’s just this, or just that, which for us is kind of the point of this,” he said. “This is a wine that keeps us moving forward. I don’t exactly get it. I don’t understand it, but I know it when I taste it.

“I know it when it’s there. … Music and wine can have similarities because there is a craft, but the art part is where you are affected by it. But you can’t really describe it. The experience itself, you need to be involved in it. How can you describe music? You have to listen to the song yourself. I saw everyone kind of searching their brains, and that’s great because when a wine can take you to another place, I think that’s a good thing.”

Just look how far it has taken Jeffrey Fink.