We weren’t looking for great wine when we visited Avalon over the holiday. But, dang it, we found Rusack Santa Catalina Island Wine and were quite pleased.
Michael had heard that Rusack, a winery in the Ballard Canyon AVA, near Solvang, California, had a vineyard on Catalina Island. Catalina, for most of us here in sunny So. Cal., is this very rustic island off the coast of Los Angeles. The town of Avalon, located on the southeast end of the island, used to be quite the high-end party spot back in the early part of the 20th Century, mostly because the Wrigley family owned a good chunk of the island and had an estate there. The Wrigley’s as in the chewing gum and Wrigley Field in Chicago.
When Anne first visited Avalon in the late 1970s, it was a kitschy, rather endearing little tourist trap and beach town. Not exactly a haven for wine geeks and foodies. We went this past Saturday because we were looking for something different to do for the holiday and found a really good deal on the boat fare to and from the island. It’s still somewhat kitschy, but the food offerings have improved immensely. We went to the Bluewater Grill (which turns out to be a small chain here in Southern California) for lunch and enjoyed shrimp and scallops with papardelle and fried jumbo shrimp, both well made. And the wine list was respectable, though not overly exciting.
But we did track down the Rusack’s Catalina offerings at CC Gallgher: The Art of Creative Living, which were served to us by Betty Martinez, lead server, at the bar/store. Martinez was a total delight and very helpful, serving us generous tastes of the Rusack 2012 Santa Catalina Zinfandel and Chardonnay. Michael picked up some new oak in the nose and finish of the zin, which was very well balanced for 14.5 percent alcohol (which is a little on the high side for wine). Anne liked that it was fruity without being jammy. The chardonnay had the lovely crispness of a wine fermented without any oak, with mineral and apple notes in the flavor. Michael noted that it could use some food to go with it, but it was still very good by itself.
Alas, these are not cheap wines. The zin goes for $75 and the chard for $60. Worth it? Well, that depends. But they are very good. And Martinez was just as gracious and fun as she could be. Although, she thought we were joking when we invited her to dinner.
The bottom line is that good wine can be found just about anywhere these days. The trick is to be open to the possibilities. Kind of like Geoff Rusack and Alison Wrigley Rusack, owners of the winery. They wanted to plant vines on Catalina for the fun of it, according to their website. “Little did we know then that the classic, cool-climate conditions and clay loam soils that exist there would make it a world-class site for Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.”