I stand corrected once again regarding major festivities and celebrations in the little town of Rough and Ready! On Jan. 24 our local winery, Coufos Cellars, staged their winter release party at the winery — cor­ner of 10065 Rough and Ready Road and Rough and Ready Highway. As I approached the building, pleasant chatter echoed from the building, the wind-whipped red, white and blue flag of the Great Republic of Rough and Ready was proudly displayed, and I was sold even before entering through the welcome sign on the door into the tasting room. A black­smith shop in days gone by, the tasting room presently includes a small gift shop displaying art work for sale by various California artists including photo­graphic greeting cards made by Janet Wheeler, partner of Henry Coufos, as well as hand painted tiles from the Penn Valley busi­ness, Pacific Blue Tile. Since a large crowd was antici­pated for this event, Henry and Janet opened their shop area where the wines were served, at no charge, and paired with spe­cialty cheeses from Dedricks's Cheese of Nevada City. Other light hors d’oeuvres complement­ed the afternoon delights. Dedrick’s have access to 263 spe­cialty cheeses from around the world and stock about 80 of those at a time in their Nevada City store.

Coufos have every reason to be proud vintners of fine Rhone (Southern France) style wines grown in these Sierra Foothills. On this day their Dry Rose’ was paired with Arina cheese, 100 percent goat’s milk from Holland. Mourvedre wine was paired with P’tit Basque, 100 percent sheep cheese made in the French Pyrenees. Syrah, the star grape of the Northern Rhone was paired with Cahill’s Porter, a cheese made in Ireland with cow’s milk and dark beer. Marsanne wine was paired with Parrano cow’s milk cheese from Holland. Buffo Blanc wine was paired with Fromager D’ Affinois, a cheese made in France. Roussane wine was paired with Midnight Moon, a goat’s milk cheese made in Holland. Last, but not least, Coufos Viognier wine was paired again with the French Pyrenees sheep milk cheese.

For at least three hours people came and went but mostly stayed for the con­vivial wine and cheese tast­ing event. At one time I counted at least 125 participants either assembled in the building or milling about the estate. Janet and Henry were busy at work selling and giving tours of the facilities. Although I'm no wine connoisseur and don't know “wine speak,” I did solicit remarks from other patrons who have a “nose for a bouquet.” Opinions were laced with posi­tive, delicious descriptive words, and I came to the conclusion that preference is a matter of idiosyn­crasy. Each person’s palate is unique. Aside from tasting the goodies I enjoyed getting acquainted with Southern Nevada County resi­dents, journalists and restaura­teurs Mimi Boardman and her sister Pam Scanlon. They recently operated the Stone House, a restaurant in Nevada City (now a casualty of the recession) in the historical Old Brewery building, but they have deep roots in Nevada County (Burg Jewelers, Grass Valley 1870s). They moved to this county after delving into genealogy finding their ancestral roots here as well as beautiful country and friendly folk. On this occasion they were in the company of Pam’s daughter, Jennifer, and Juan Browne and Juan and Jennifer’s newborn daughter, Julianne. Some may recognize Juan as the bassist/ vocalist from the local popular musical group known as “Ragged But Right.”

It was inter­esting to learn that Juan’s mother, Juanita Browne, was a local historian and author and her husband, Pete, a former president of the Nevada County Historical Society. Beautiful baby Julianne, eight weeks of age, was on her first family outing. She is seventh generation Californian according to ecstatic grandma, Pam Scanlon (pictured with baby Julianne), as well as her first grandchild. I pinned down Mimi Boardman for a comment before I licked the spinach dip bowl clean and reluctantly left the premises. She stated unequivocally, “San Francisco, where I was born, is a fabulous place to be raised and to live, but it’s not as good as here.” Thanks, Henry, Janet, friends and neighbors and Dedrick’s Cheese for a great “celebration.”

Published February 13, 2009

 

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