Bogle: Hospitable Wines And Hospitable Setting

At the recent Unified Wine & Grape Symposium in Sacramento, one message often iterated was that if wineries hope to connect with a younger clientele they need to introduce programs that offer visitors entertainment and engagement.

Bogle Family Vineyards just outside of Clarksburg in the Sacramento/San Joaquin River Delta subscribed to that message long before the Unified gathering, to judge by a visit to the winery’s refined tasting room the other day.

And the allure of Bogle’s formula for entertaining and engaging customers, we realized in glancing about the room, isn’t limited to young folk. Several seniors also were taking advantage of Bogle’s heightened hospitality.

No wine is made at the historic Bogle winery these days, though tanks that remain on the site occasionally are used for overflow storage from the company’s sprawling production facility just to the west. (Bogle Family Wine Collection, the company’s formal title now to recognize its expanding portfolio of brands, is the nation’s 13^th largest winery by annual case sales – 2.7 million, according to yearly tracking of the trade by Wine Business Monthly.)

The home ranch is where tastings continue to be conducted. Despite the growth of Bogle, one thing that has remained constant in visiting the tasting room is the throwback route to get there – County Road 144, the narrow, twisting strip of asphalt atop a levee bordering Elk Slough, still a scenic thrill for anyone coming or going.

In the tasting room itself, however, change long has been the guiding principle. The premises seems to be made over stylishly between each visit. Today’s two-level tasting room has been designed along the lines of an artfully appointed hunting, fishing or ski lodge, much of its woodsy appeal owing to imaginatively recycled barrel staves. It is sunny, friendly and relaxing, and looks out over vineyards where the family’s involvement in the wine trade began, now cultivated to Chardonnay.

In addition to one large second-floor tasting space, the quarters are partitioned into cozy lounges for couples or small groups.

But the biggest change in Bogle hospitality has more to do with content than appearance. Fans who have come to identify Bogle with the everyday varietal wines upon which it built its following – Chenin Blanc, Petite Sirah, Chardonnay, Zinfandel, Merlot – are apt to be stunned by the number of wines and the number of brands on the tasting menu: 36 wines under such labels as Juggernaut, Twenty Acres, Dark Watchers, Phantom and Tanist, as well as Bogle.

Here’s the game plan: For a tasting fee of $20 per person, each visitor can choose up to five wines from the extensive menu, or they can pick a flight of five wines organized by style. One is strictly Chardonnay. Another consists of Bogle’s flagship wines (Chenin Blanc, Chardonnay, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Petite Sirah). The flight called “Run with the Big Dogs” is devoted to the winery’s “inky, jammy, tooth-staining” wines like its Dark Watchers Syrah and its Juggernaut Cabernet Sauvignon.

We winged it, each of the two of us randomly choosing five wines. Well, the selection wasn’t strictly random, since we wanted both to revisit some old favorites and to be introduced to new wines with which we were unfamiliar.

Old favorites included Chenin Blanc under the Bogle brand. The current release, from the 2021 vintage, with a Clarksburg appellation, is basically dry, light- to medium-bodied, and evocative of peach, pear and lime, with a pleasantly lingering finish. While Chenin Blanc once was a staple of the Bogle portfolio, today it is kept in the fold largely for sentimental reasons, like a cherished family heirloom. Fortunately, the Bogles relish sharing its unassuming charm with passersby.

Another favorite wine from Bogle’s traditional lineup was the light, teasing and delicately sweet 2021 California Pinot Noir whose wispy strawberry fruit, slim structure and faint evocation of earth suggest it would be best on a table next to a platter of pasta with a mellow cream sauce and white mushrooms rather than chanterelles or morels. The grapes for the wine were grown at Arroyo Seco, Clarksburg and Lodi, showing both just how far afield Bogle goes to secure fruit and just how adept its cellar crew is at blending.

Our absolute favorite from the Bogle bargain bin was the 2020 California Old Vine Zinfandel, sassy with suggestions of plump and juicy boysenberries, several generous dashes of peppery spice and only restrained touches of tannin and oak. The grapes that went into the wine were grown in Amador County and Lodi.

Again, all these are under the flagship Bogle brand, and all carry a suggested retail price of $11. We passed over three Bogle wines available at the tasting room because we had tasted them at the recent San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition at Cloverdale, where each won best of class:

• The Bogle 2021 California Chardonnay ($11): The Bogle family hits the rare Chardonnay trifecta with its 2021 take on the varietal, seizing suggestions of all three fruit groups generally associated with the wine – tropical, citric, apple. While soft and easy-going, this Chardonnay has the structure to hang with fried chicken and the subtle layering that keeps it interesting even when sipped on its own as aperitif. At the Chronicle it was up against 23 other entries in its price range, $11 to $13.99. (I am lifting here tasting notes I wrote for the Chronicle competition as I tasted through best-of-class wines.)
• Bogle Family Vineyards 2020 Clarksburg Reserve Chardonnay ($24): The artificial-intelligence platform ChatGTP suggests a long list of words to describe wine. This Bogle Reserve Chardonnay squarely lands on several positive terms from the list – aromatic, fruity, mellow, balanced, oaky, supple. In other words, a Chardonnay likely to satisfy most any palate, all smoothness, no rough edges, joyous on its own or with a bowl or pasta not aggressively seasoned. At the Chronicle it was up against 37 entries in its price range, $23 to $25.99.
• Bogle Family Vineyards 2018 Clarksburg Petite Sirah Port ($20): Clarksburg increasingly is recognized for its Petite Sirah. Most of it is made into sumptuous and elastic table wines, but the Bogle family, old hands at working with Petite Sirah, used the grapes here to produce a densely colored and muscular yet friendly Port especially notable for its sweet expression of raspberries, its ticklish spice and its surprising persistence. At the Chronicle, it beat out 15 other entries in its price category, Ports priced up to $32.99.

Among wines from Bogle’s higher price brackets and expanded list of brands, our favorites were:

• The Bogle Family Vineyards 2019 Arroyo Seco Syrah ($25), concentrated with dark fruit from the plum and berry families, a generous dose of black pepper, a thread of mint, and impressive persistence. The American-oak barrels in which it was aged for 28 months is present more as reinforcement to the body than a dominant element in aroma and flavor.
• Juggernaut 2021 Sonoma Coast Chardonnay ($20), an exceptional bargain for how it so clearly defines the citric, apple and tropical-fruit
  

  Both inside the bottle and outside, Bogle’s Juggernaut wines represent vivid colors and brashness.

  shadings of Chardonnay. While rich and complex, the Juggernaut trips across the palate with graceful balance.

• Juggernaut 2020 Russian River Valley Pinot Noir ($20), another bargain for the freshness and equilibrium with which it showcases the strawberry and cherry facets of Pinot Noir, complicated with a note of lavender in aroma and a thread of mint in flavor.
• Dark Watchers 2019 Arroyo Seco Syrah ($24), somewhat huskier than the Arroyo Seco Syrah under the Bogle brand, with more oak evident, but nonetheless also seizing ample plummy fruit punctuated with several generous twists from the black-pepper grinder.
• Dark Watchers 2019 Central Coast Cabernet Sauvignon ($24), a juicy, finely structured and complicated take on the variety, its cherry fruit underscored with suggestions of olives, its tannins modest, its oak liberal but short of heavy-handed.

Incidentally, Bogle now also has two sparkling wines in its lineup, a refreshing, delicately sweet 2021 California Rosé ($17), made with the charmat method, and a richer, more complex 2021 Clarksburg River Ranch Blanc de Blancs ($25), made by the more classic méthode champoenoise.

About those brand names now sharing space at Bogle:

• Phantom is a takeoff on the family name Bogle, Scottish for specter, goblin and phantom. It also was inspired by reputed sightings of phantoms on the home ranch. (Unintimidated by such sightings, the folks at Bogle, who do like to have fun, put together a series of videos exploring the presence of phantoms on the home ranch.)
• Juggernaut was introduced into the lineup with the release of a Cabernet Sauvignon made with hillside fruit sourced in the Sierra Foothills, Livermore Valley and Sonoma County. The name Juggernaut is meant to recognize both the “big, bold, unapologetic” nature of wines under the brand and the winery’s surging growth.
• Twenty Acres, inspired in homage to the first 20 acres of wine grapes planted by the Bogles in 1968, is for wines intended for restaurants.
• Tanist was inspired by the family’s roots in Scotland, where the word designated the presumptive heir of a Celtic clan, and represents the family’s intent to continue its stewardship of vineyard and winery, with the sixth generation now running the show, and the seventh on alert.
• Dark Watchers is for wines made with grapes grown along California’s central coast, where early Spanish settlers were unnerved by sightings of mysterious dark figures who disappeared when they were approached, and which they called “los vigilantes oscuros.”

A leisurely tasting at Bogle also can include an optional, varied and generous charcuterie box for an additional $25. Sacramento caterer Jill Zenti (Chef Zenti) assembles the boxes, which on any given day are apt to include an assortment of cheeses and meats as well as crackers, almonds, grapes and peach/chipotle jam.

What’s more, Bogle keeps a lively and diverse calendar of special tastings, some for club members, others for the general public; here’s the current calendar.