About Urban Legend

 

About Us—FAQ

Rather than put together some hopelessly pompous manifesto about our mission, philosophy, and other blah, blah, blah, we’re going back to our “techie” days and providing answers to your frequently asked questions about Urban Legend. If you have a question about us you don’t see answered, contact us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Q: Why would you put a winery in Oakland?

A: Where could be better? Oakland (and the rest of the Bay Area, for that matter) is home to some of the most sophisticated palates around who appreciate locally crafted products. Some of the finest grapes in the world are grown within a two hour travel radius. And, we live here and don’t really want to leave. We feed on the vibrancy that is the Oakland, the East Bay and San Francisco. So: Ready-Made Audience + Good Raw Materials + Happy Winemakers = Urban Winery Good Idea (in our mind, anyway).

On the serious side, there’s an element of sustainability to the urban winemaking model. If you look at the whole winemaking process, you generate a lot of your carbon footprint just transporting goods and people around. So, if you make the product where the people are, you can cut that part down. Then, if you look at the “cost” of transporting product vs. raw materials, you leverage your footprint even further if you transport the grapes rather than the finished wine; bottles add significant weight when compared to the weight of grapes to make the same volume of wine. We can offer wine in refillable containers that local consumers—both restaurants with kegs and individuals with refillable bottles—can easily access, too.

As our friend Brendan (Periscope Cellars) puts it: “Grapes care a lot where they’re grown but don’t care much where they’re made into wine (but they do know)”

Q: Is Urban Legend part of another company or independent?

A: UL is about as independent as it gets—a classic Mom and Pop business. There’s just Marilee, Steve and a few stalwart crush and cellar volunteers who keep it all running.

Q: So, who are “Mom” and “Pop”?

A: They’re Marilee and Steve Shaffer—husband and wife, serial entrepreneurs, high tech alumnae, flavor junkies, and, likely, moderately crazy, but in a nice, togetherness sort of way (would that be a folie a deux?).

Marilee’s past careers included academic research to discover effective bacterial vaccines, development of molecular cloning methods with a focus on DNA sequencing, and biotech equipment sales engineering and marketing (ask about her exhibit at the Smithsonian). After too many years on the “bleeding edge” with biotech start-ups, she decided that it was time for a business of her own in a gentler arena and founded Waypoint, a “click-and-mortar” retailer of products for marine navigation that she still leads. An offhand remark about using her old microbiology degree subsequently led to home winemaking, and eventually completing UC Davis’ Winemaking Certificate program as part of getting the winery launched. Even though she's armed with a MBA from UC Berkeley she still wanted to do this (we did say crazy right?). She’s right handed and left brained and does the accounting when she's not being empress of fermentation ( and iron the handed dictator of barrel topping). Here creative side is expressed from the very beginning of our winemaking process.

Many recognize Steve as an engineer's engineer, but if you think that makes him nothing but analytical, you'd be wrong. While his past careers included the design of some very successful computer and telecom systems — he holds several fundamental patents in computer system and fiber optic networking —he's the artistic soul of Urban Legend. It just took him 15 years longer than Marilee to realize the importance of listening to that side of himself. He designed and built the tasting counter (as well as the winery itself) and captures the photos that bring our experience to you. Most importantly, he's the “designer” behind our flavor with flair for barreling and blending that makes our wine distinctive. He's left handed and right brained and designs most of our presentation material and website.

Q: What best describes your wines?

A: Purity. Not sterility, mind you, but a clarity of flavor that unmistakably communicates with you about the grape and its origins. Flavors that remind you that you’re drinking something made from fruit yet are much more complex than soda pop. Flavors that are complex because the grapes that provided them were—not because of what we added or manipulated.
If we break down the characters that usually describe a pure wine they’ll inevitably include firm acids, clear fruit flavors, round tannins, and very light hand with oak with all flavors in balance. Incidentally, this is a good recipe for wines that complement food—one of our primary goals.

Q: What is your winemaking style?

A: Buddhist! But seriously, we like to say that we aim to walk the Middle Path with regard to winemaking. It’s never simple, but we think that only when we are mindful at every step can we make clear decisions about what’s best for each vineyard’s harvests, each vintage. At the end of it, we really see winemaking as guiding grapes to grow into be the best wines they can be.
So, in practical terms we spend a lot of time up front selecting vineyards that grow grapes in a soil and climate that’s both appropriate to the variety and the style of wine we want to make, with growers who enjoy working in close partnership with winemakers. One of the great fortunes of urban winemaking is that we are not tied to an estate or terrior, we're free to select growers, varietals, and vineyards that best suit the wines we want to make.
We’re careful with making the decision when to pick. This is probably the second most critical decision in our winemaking, selecting a vineyard is the first. Often growers are a bit surprised at our schedule, while it is true that acid can be added to grapes and ripeness can't, we find that picking to retain the natural acidity brings character to the wines.
We handle the grapes in the winery minimally but not according to either an interventionist or non-interventionist recipe—it’s all case by case, whether it’s whole clusters vs. destemmed, crushed or whole berries, sulfites or not, cultured yeast or natives, etc. After wines finish fermentation, we measure sulfite levels often to be able to adjust only when the wines need it. Blending is done by taste trial, not by numbers, which means that we make a large number of small lots of individual varieties to have the components to do it well. Same way with bottling and release—when the wine tells us it’s right, we do it.
We're also very picky (obsessive) about how the winery runs. Attention to details, clear decision making, all with good humor are all key ingredients to making our wines.

If we had to sum it in a word: “balance”, It is our guiding principle. Balancing fruit, acid, and tannin for flavor. Balancing just the right intervention to elevate the wine’s quality as it ages. Balancing science with art to craft a wine— rather than just letting it happen.
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