Does Walnut Creek produce good wine?

Apparently it does. Our very own Shadowbrook Winery, located off Northgate Road in the Mount Diablo foothills, scored very well at the recent San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition. Especially for its 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon ($68), which took a Double Gold and beat out some top Napa vintages.

Shadowbrook's wine master is Tim Jochner, a Walnut Creek native who calls East Walnut Creek “God’s country.”

The competition concluded Friday: "Over five days, 63 professional wine experts within the media, restaurant and hospitality, education, winemaking and retail wine industries tasted and evaluated a world-record breaking 4,913 entries, a number that maintains the competition's status as the largest competition of American wines in the world."

Here is a list of the winners of the competition and a note the winery sent out to its wine club members:

Every so often there is a huge underdog that wins, and when this happens it seems to brighten our world. Shadowbrook Winery, you, our family of wine club members and now the proven soil and climate of Walnut Creek have provided one of those miracles.

Shadowbrook's 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon competed at the largest wine competition in the world, The San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition, against the Cabernet legends of Napa. We all know that Napa Valley produces the best Cabernet in the world, and Cabernet is how we measure the success or failure of wineries. At the end of the competition Shadowbrook’s second vintage of Cabernet, with grapes grown in Walnut Creek and vines with an average age of 4 years old stood at the top of the podium winning a DOUBLE GOLD MEDAL!

Walnut Creek stood above Napa for the first time and Shadowbrook above wineries like Krug, Mondavi, ZD, Cakebread, Heitz, Rombauer, Round Pond, Jarvis, Turnbull, Chimney rock, and Hall, beating their reserve wines with prices up to $175.00 a bottle. This accomplishment is nothing short of miraculous!

But there is more to celebrate, Shadowbrook’s Encore Blend or party blend also received a Double Gold in the Other Red blend category, this is the 3rd double gold awarded to a Contra Costa winery, Shadowbrook owns all 3! The 07 Jon-Rae won a GOLD medal in the “Elite Class of Bordeaux Blends greater than $50 again competing with wineries such as J Lohr, St Supery, Justin, Stonestreet and Wiliam Harrison.

We also won Silver Medals for our 07 "Northgate" Zinfandel our first release of Zin, Silver for our 07 Petite Sirah also our first release and silver for our 07 Syrah. We are obviously excited about these accomplishments and want to thank each and everyone one of our family of club members that supports us. These accomplishments belong to all of us and the magnificent "terroir" of Walnut Creek

CHEERS!