Plymouth winemaker follows his fate
You could say that Thomas Allan began his wine education at age 15 when the Santa Barbara native first started working in fine dining. But it wasn’t until he landed a job at the legendary Wine Cask — and became intimately familiar with the Santa Barbara restaurant’s 2,500 wine labels — that he knew wine was his calling.
In 2010, Allan became a certified sommelier and moved to the Gold Country, where he spent nearly seven years at Plymouth’s farm-to-table Taste restaurant, first as a server and then as sommelier and wine director. There, inspired by the region’s rolling vistas and award-winning Italian and Rhone varietals, Allan launched Fate Wines, a tiny label producing stellar sangiovese, viognier and brut rosé sparkling wines ($16-$30).
Today, he produces about 600 cases of wine and plans to double production next year. Naturally, we had questions. Q How did your time at Taste prepare you to launch Fate Wines? A I made a lot of contacts — most importantly, John Hoddy, the executive winemaker of Bray Vineyards. He allowed me to make my first wine at Bray in 2008: 100 cases of tempranillo that I bought from Bray, blended with grenache and did my first oak aging and made it my own.
Q What’s special about Bray Vineyards?
A They are so representative of what this area is about: A friendly, small, family-owned winery with 30 acres of vines planted to 32 grape varieties. I am the tasting room manager and recently started pouring my own wines there and it’s been really fun. Q How does a sommelier approach tasting and selling wines? A I’m always thinking about food, so if a wine has more acidity, it’s going to pair better with food. And when you’re tasting through a bigger blend, you start talking about a big rib-eye with bacon marmalade and Gorgonzola. People start salivating and that sells wine. I also like to test my wines with the servers at Taste before I release (the wines), just to make sure I didn’t miss something. I’m not making wine for me. I’m making wine for everybody else. Q Favorite Shenandoah Valley wineries at the moment? A Top of the list is Dillian Wines. It’s a small, family-owned winery that I featured at Taste a lot. I’ve always been a fan of their barbera. It’s super smooth and balanced. Also, Vino Noceto. They’re the sangiovese specialist of the region. Terre Rouge, of course. Bill Easton is the Rhone specialist of the region.
Q Current wine trend you’re excited about?
A Well, rosé is very popular and so is sparkling wine, so I’m seeing more and more brut rosé. Renwood and Helwig each make one. So does Bray. I’m currently working on a sparkling wine made with a secondary fermentation in the méthode champenoise using 100 percent sangiovese. When you think of that method you think of pinot noir, but since (it’s) too hot to grow here, I decided to use another lighter, low-tannin red — and sangiovese definitely fits the bill. Q Anything else you want people to know about Amador wine country? A It’s not just zinfandel up here. There’s so much more. We’re friendly people and we’ve figured out what grows best here, so the wines are getting better and better all the time. It really is a great alternative to Napa.