When we tasted the Hook and Ladder Pinot the other night, I was not only very impressed but there was something about it that just kind of nagged at me based on the tasting. When the wine was “revealed” it hit me. I knew exactly where Hook and Ladder was located – the southern end of the Russian River Valley almost right beside the DeLoach winery (http://www.deloachvineyards.com/deloach/index.jsp). We have driven right by it a number of times while visiting the DeLoach winery which we do almost every time we make a trip to California. DeLoach is really and truly one of the best around and one of their specialties is a Pinot. They are one of the very few wineries that have the real Pinot presses and actually make Pinots for many other places under contract. Its worth a tour to see them. They also make some wonderful Zins. We just opened a 2004 Gamboni ranch Zinfandel on Friday and it was fabulous. Highly recommend it. But that’s another post at another time.
Anyway back to Hook and Ladder. I went to the web site yesterday and it became very obvious why the tasting notes were similar. Hook and Ladder is owned by the DeLoach family. While I haven’t tried any of their other wines yet, they have now made it to my list of places to visit. Anything the DeLoach family does is normally outstanding. Would love to hear about any other wines from Hook and Ladder.
