When a young winemaker meets a medium-sized winery, his job is wide-ranging.
Chris Graves, whose first primary vintage from Tamas Estates is now on shelves, took over in 2005 with a string of responsibilities that included supervising vineyard management and helping design a new label. Tamas, based in Livermore, is part of the Wente Family Estates group
Graves’ 2004 red wines, made in the Livermore Valley from the Italian classic Barbera and 
Sangiovese grapes, and the admittedly semi-Italian Zinfandel, show excellent value and a bright future for the 26-year-old Graves. He’s a Californian who was born in San Jose, but grew up in the hamlet of Somerset, Calif., east of Sacramento in El Dorado County, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. His acquaintanceship with Zinfandel and Sangiovese began there.
"They were all around me when I was a boy," he said in a recent telephone conversation, "and it just seemed natural for me to work with them as I grew older."
Graves followed the well-trodden California wine trail to the University of California-Davis, earning a degree in viticulture and enology. He joined Wente in 2003 as an enologist, then moved up to his present post at Tamas in early 2005.
His first four wines include the ‘04 Barbera, Zinfandel and Sangiovese, each retailing at about $13, and an ‘05 Pinot Grigio, at $10. All are good values and the reds display classic Italian tendencies. The Pinot Grigio, too light to be on my favorites list, is a pleasant, if innocuous, aperitif, though I’ve found almost all Pinot Grigios to be that way.
The reds are a different story, and all are 100 percent of the varietal. Graves says his focus is on
fruit that is assertively forward, and the Sangiovese is perfectly placed in that category, with strawberry and raspberry overtones holding the point position in a group of red fruits. The Zinfandel is on the jammy side, but it is not overly rich. The balance is excellent, the nose showing the typical bramble notes that are a Zinfandel trademark. Barbera shows hints of vanilla in the midst of lovely grape flavors and less acid than many of the wines tend to display. All three will go well with pasta frolicking under a garlicky meat sauce.
All the grapes come from the Livermore area of Alameda County, which Graves calls ideal for the grapes. "We have cooler nights because of the breeze from the bay," he points out, adding, "The soil is stony, like Italy, but has good drainage so that the vines don’t get their feet wet. It isn’t the most fertile soil, so it makes the vines work a little harder, and that’s a good thing, too."
Like many California winemakers, Graves designs his to be ready for drinking while they’re still relatively young. He uses only stainless steel for fermentation, then ages the wine, albeit briefly, in smaller barrels of both French and Midwestern American oak.
Looking ahead, Graves termed the 2006 vintage to be very promising even though most of the harvest was later than usual.
-Joe