Gala honors De Anza College’s wine connection

The annual Taste of History Gala at De Anza College, which was held in early May this year, is always an opportunity to introduce attendees to the bounty of our local wine region. Did you know that the campus bookstore used to be a winery? The California History Center is located in the Petit Trianon, the former home of Charles Baldwin, who planted vines and built a winery on 70 acres in the flourishing wine region of Cupertino. He hired famed San Francisco architect Willis Polk to design the home in 1895.

After several changes in well-to-do ownership, including the heir to the Pullman Coach fortune, the property was sold in 1959 by industrialist E.F. Euphrat, president of Pacific Can Company at the time, to the Foothill College District for the De Anza college campus. He specifically requested that the Petit Trianon and massive stone winery be preserved.

After many years of neglect and eventual restoration, the neoclassic-style house became the California History Center, which contains the Stocklmeir Library, a fantastic resource open to the public for a small fee (free to California History Center members), containing research papers, taped oral histories, clippings and photograph archives covering regional and state history and issues.

More than 400 audiotapes shed light on the valley’s agricultural and viticultural heritage, including interviews with some of the valley’s last cannery workers and farmers. There is nothing more fascinating than history, especially when viewed through the lens of wine, which captures the essence of each year.

Fittingly, the winery became the college bookstore, a wonderful interpretation of “In vino, veritas. Or as Jack Kerouac put it in “The Dharma Bums”: “There’s wisdom in wine, goddamn it!’”

Among those pouring at the gala were House Family, Kings Mountain Vineyards, Loma Prieta, Ridge and Waxwing Cellars. Loma Prieta Winery was pouring the controversial grape called Pinotage, the most widely planted red in South Africa. Created in the 1930s to accommodate South Africa’s hotter weather, it’s a cross between pinot noir and cinsault. The thicker skin of the latter grape adds an extra layer of sunburn protection, along with a fleshiness and tannic profile rarely seen in pinot noir.

Loma Prieta Winery, located on the Summit above Los Gatos, has been championing Pinotage for years, ever since now-deceased founder Paul Kemp fell in love with it. The 2017 Estate Pinotage is tasting absolutely amazing at present, with its bountiful sweet red fruit, soft tannins and expansive mouthfeel. It has just the right acid to keep it interesting. Their 2014 Karma Vineyard Pinotage from Lodi reflects its bottle age and the riper growing clime.

Loma Prieta, under new ownership since late 2020, is the only winery in the Santa Cruz Mountains to grow Pinotage in the AVA, and at 2,600 feet, their vineyard makes it the highest known planting in the US. Winemaker Andrew Brenkwitz, who made wine at Byington for 20 years, is now at Loma Prieta Winery. Reached via the Summit Road exit off Highway 17, the tasting room is open every weekend and Fridays, June-August, noon-5 p.m. https://lomaprietawinery.com

Speaking of history, check out local KCAT radio personality Bill Regan, who has a podcast called “Wine with Bill.” He recently interviewed two local winegrowers, Greg Perrucci of Perrucci Family Vineyard in Los Gatos and Jeffrey Patterson of Mount Eden You can find the interviews on YouTube.