He seeks grapes here,
he seeks ’em there

Listening to Jeff Cohn list the vineyards he uses to source his wines is like a geography lesson on fast-forward.

One moment, Cohn is reveling in his Rhodes Vineyard zinfandel from Mendocino County. The next he’s eyeing his syrah from the Fess Parker Vineyards outside Santa Barbara. “This is outrageous,” he says, taking a sip of the syrah — and hopping more than 400 miles in a single gulp.

Cohn has mastered the art of making wine on both large and small scales. He produces just 3,000 cases of his own bottlings under the JC Cellars label and in his day job as winemaker at Rosenblum Cellars, he helps turn out 140,000 cases of California zinfandel and other varieties.

But what really sets him apart is that in both cases the wines are made with an astonishing selection of fruit from nearly every corner of the Golden State, each showing off the unique characteristics of its own little slice of the nation’s largest wine-producer. Rather than staking claim on just one small patch, Cohn and his boss, Kent Rosenblum, have both established themselves as wizards of terroir, the term that describes the unique taste imparted to the wine by soil, topography and climate.

“I don’t like being limited to one vineyard,” Cohn says. “There are so many great pieces of land.”

The backdrop against which Cohn makes his wine underscores this unwillingness to set down roots. Housed in 62,000 square feet of a massive warehouse, Rosenblum Cellars’ Alameda-based winemaking facilities aren’t about landscaped villas and sleek retail outlets (though they have a well-appointed tasting room in the Sonoma County town of Healdsburg).

Rather, it’s the sort of place where you’re likely to dodge forklifts or pick up a whiff of chile verde cooking in a makeshift kitchen. (Cohn’s warehouse setup for JC Cellars, just across the tidal canal in Oakland, is even less glam.)

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In 1996, Rosenblum gave Cohn, previously a food and beverage manager for Windjammer Barefoot Cruises, the chance of a lifetime: to help hunt down top-notch California grapes and let each batch express itself. The formula has worked: Back then, the winery produced 30,000 cases, but its reputation — and a good dose of humility — has helped it grow more than four-fold, with 15,000 customers currently on its mailing list. Napa-sized numbers, if not a Napa-like winery.

If the shipyards and warehouses of the East Bay don’t at first glance seem the perfect place to make wine, there is logic to the location. It is a quick hop south from Napa, and just a few hours north from Paso Robles, the hub of the fast-growing Central Coast wine region. And interstates and three major airports are close at hand. If Alameda lacks a certain wine-country charm, it’s far more convenient to a city-dwelling winemaker.

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