Reminisce over a good bottle

A few weeks back an amazing friend of mine, knowing my love of all things Frontierland and Davy Crockett, as well as my fondness of wine, sent me a bottle of Fess Parker’s Frontier Red.

While most wines from the Fess Parker Winery and Vineyard usually have a very simple and elegant label with the name and a small coonskin cap emblem, the label to this bottle tells a larger story. From weathered edges to the photograph of Parker himself in full Frontier garb, from the storied, if brief, recount of Fess’ place in the Frontier and even the bold lettering this wine is something special.

Let me be clear, this is not a wine that is expensive or exclusive, in fact, it is listed as a table wine, but the flavors of the wine bring this right back home. As wine tasting goes, I do not have an adept palate, so the aromas of blackberry, huckleberry, boysenberry, smoke, vanilla, cedar and spice and flavors of black cherry, boysenberry, milk chocolate, cinnamon, black currant and vanilla, as listed by the wine’s product sheet, escape me. What I can tell you is that this red wine, mostly made up of Syrah, has a spicy texture to it that matches well to hearty pastas and pizzas. I thoroughly enjoyed the bottle, along with my wife, as we celebrated the Gazette’s second anniversary with pizza and King of the Wild Frontier.Fess Parker Winery began in 1989 as a family vineyard, and it remains a family operation to this day. Located in Santa Barbara County, in the Santa Ynez Valley, the vineyard and winery is complemented with an inn, spa, and the Petros Los Olivos restaurant as well. Between the two vineyards, Rodney’s Vineyard and Fess Parker Ranch (Camp 4), Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Riesling, Merlot, Syrah, Grenache, and a plethora of other grapes are grown and produced into the Fess Parker family of wines. You can learn more about Fess Parker, his family, their wines, vineyards, and other endeavors at the Fess Parker Winery website.

I look forward to my next bottle of Frontier Red, or perhaps the Pinot Noir, while dreaming back to my days in the Frontier, or rather Frontierland, and hopefully sharing it with wonderful family and friends. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll even venture out west again and take in the vineyard for myself.