Until the past decade or so, the Alexander had only a couple of resident wineries. Most of the vineyards were owned by absentee landlords and after harvesting, the grapes were hauled off to wineries located elsewhere. That began to change in the eighties, when northern California underwent its wine-production boom. Dozens of new, small wineries whose emphasis was on quality rather than quantity opened for business, most in the Napa and Sonoma Valleys; but Dry Creek Valley, the Russian River Valley, and the Alexander each got their share of the entrepreneurial newcomers as well. Nearly twenty wineries now operate in the Alexander Valley, the best of them producing what is known in the trade as signature reds that rival any made elsewhere, including the overly aggrandized Napa Valley. Even I had known that before my talk with the wine shop clerk, which is testimony to how far and wide the word has spread.
The Alexander is a little too far north and a little out of the way to attract the volume of visitors from San Francisco and the East Bay cities that Napa and Sonoma do. The resident wineries might not like this fact, but I was all for it; if I were going on a wine-tasting outing I’d want to do it at a leisurely pace, without having to fight traffic and crowds or pay tasting fees or be limited to two or three in the number of types available for tasting at a given winery. In any event, at noon on Thursday the traffic was light all along Alexander Valley Road to its intersection with Highway 128, another two-laner that follows the north-south course of the river. I turned south on 128. Not many cars along there, either. A pleasant, relaxed drive in the country, past vineyards and oak groves, an occasional winery and small cattle ranch.
Silver Creek Cellars was at the southern tip of the valley. A sign at its graded but unpaved entrance lane said that the tasting room was open from ten until four-thirty daily. The winery buildings weren’t visible until you’d gone a hundred yards or so along the lane; then the trees that screened them opened up and I saw two stone structures set some distance apart, the larger one on slightly higher ground. Both were built back into notches cut in the hillside and shaded by live oaks; a section of the creek that had given the place its name ran through the trees to the south. The buildings figured to be no older than Silver Creek Cellars itself, but they were so artfully made that they not only blended into the landscape but looked as though they’d been there half a century or more.
There was only one car in the parking area. I put mine alongside it. Unlike the fogbound city, the day up here was sunny and dry and mostly windless; the air smelled of the oaks and of the rich scent of fermenting grapes. The building higher up was probably a storage warehouse; a guy on a forklift trundled a pallet-load of oak barrels out through a doorway in its side as I crossed to the smaller building.
Inside, the temperature was ten degrees cooler and the dank cellar aroma twice as rich. The tasting room was at the far end of an aisleway between rows of huge oak and stainless-steel vats. A heavy set, red-haired woman in a white smock and a lean man in overalls were bent alongside one of the metal vats — conducting some sort of test on the wine it contained, judging from an open kit full of vials and other apparatus. The woman said, “There’s too much residual sugar, dammit,” and the man answered, “I just don’t see how that’s possible, Gail,” as I passed.
The tasting room was small, filled with stacked cases and racks of bottles on display, the counter L-shaped and taking up most of two walls. Absent were the T-shirts and crest-embossed wineglasses and other tourist items most wineries peddle along with their vintages these days. Limited space may have been the reason, but it might also mean that James Woolfox cared more about making and showcasing premium wines than he did about ringing up a few extra bucks. The bottle of ‘95 Century Vines Zinfandel last night had been pretty wonderful.
Only two people occupied the stone-walled room, a woman behind the counter and a male customer in the process of buying half a dozen bottles of Chardonnay. I pretended to browse among the racked wines, waiting for the transaction to be completed and the customer to leave. Most of the bottles wore the distinctive silver, black, and white label, but there were a few 1994 vintages that carried a different and inferior label. That told me the new one had been designed sometime in ‘95, for the ‘95 bottling.
The man left as I was reading the label description on a bottle of ‘94 Sauvignon Blanc, which some neo Bulwer-Lytton had rhapsodized as being “ripe, soft, plump, a passionate delight to the tongue.” Wine people get downright orgasmic about their product at times, as if you ought to be making love to it instead of drinking it.
When I stepped up to the counter, the woman — taffy blond about forty — greeted me with a bright smile and said, “Welcome to Silver Creek Cellars” as if she meant it. She gestured to a blackboard on which half a dozen whites and reds were listed. “Our current selections. Would you care to start with our Reisling?”
I explained that I wasn’t there to taste and asked if James Woolfox was on the premises. No, he wasn’t. “You’re a day early,” she said.
“Early?”
“He’s still in Los Angeles. Due back tonight. Is it business or—?”
“Not exactly. As a matter of fact, you may be able to help me.” I tapped one of the bottles in the service well. “I’m looking for some information about this label.”
“...Our merlot?”
“No, the label itself. Can you tell me who designed it?”
“Why, yes. Sondra Nelson. It’s wonderful, isn’t it?”
“That it is. Is Sondra Nelson a local artist?”
“She isn’t an artist. Well, not professionally.”
“That sounds as though you know her.”
“I ought to. She works here.” The woman smiled again and added, “But not for long. At least not full-time.”
“Oh? Why is that?”
“She and Mr. Woolfox are getting married.”
“Is that right? Good for them.”
“In July. They’ve been engaged nearly a year.”
“You seem pleased about it.”
“Oh, I am. Sandy’s a nice person, and Mr. Woolfox... do you know him at all?”
“I haven’t had the pleasure.”
“Well, he’s quite a catch. In every way.”
“How long has Ms. Nelson been employed here?” I asked.
“Let’s see... she came about six months after we opened.”
“About two and a half years, then.”
“Closer to three, actually.”
“Did she know Mr. Woolfox before that?”
“No. He hired her through a newspaper ad.”
“What sort of work?”
“Back then? Same as my job — tasting-room hostess.”
“What does she do now?”
“Mr. Woolfox calls her our woman-of-all-trades. You know, PR work, advertising, special-events planning.”
“Is she here today?”
“No, she went to Los Angeles with Mr. Woolfox. Why are you so interested in Sandy?”
“I think she may be a woman I’ve been trying to locate.”
“Locate? Why?”
“Has to do with her past life.”
“Oh, God, you mean something bad—?”
“Nothing like that, no. It involves a child from a former marriage.”
“...I didn’t know Sandy was married before. Or that she had a child.”
“Not one to talk about her past?”
“Not much. Hardly at all.”
I handed her the photos of Janice Erskine. “Is this Sondra Nelson?”
Pretty soon she said, “Well... Sandy has dark hair. Short and curly.”
“Facial resemblance?”
“I suppose so. Yes. How old are these pictures?”
“Four or five years.”
“Sandy’s about thirty, so that seems right...”
“Try to imagine this woman with short, curly, dark hair. Or Ms. Nelson with long, ash-blond hair. The same person?”