Call this America’s best (fill in the blank)*.
*(Party? Annual wine auction? Charity fund-raising event? Four-day food and wine love-in?) Some how, each of these definitions is correct.
Whatever you call it, the 29th Auction Napa Valley is half over, having started Thursday. Guests paid $2,500 per person for full-attendance privileges. The climax is always a spirited live auction, which includes individual lots for wines, trips, and even cars, often surpassing $500,000-plus per lot.
Napa Valley Vintners, the non-profit trade association responsible for promoting and protecting the Napa Valley appellation, organizes this annual event to raise funds for local charities.
Since inception, the event, the country’s premier charity wine auction, has raised more than $85 million, pledged by thirsty bidders. While the wines they bid on generally leave the valley, their funds stay here to subsidize local healthcare, youth services and affordable housing.
Napa Valley Vintners, which represents 350 area wineries, invited napaman to attend the first half of the weekend’s events. So consider this a half-time update.
Thursday
Under the auspices of Napa Valley Vintners, many local wineries opened their doors for auction attendees. Some offered special events. But every winery poured its top wines and offered complementary appetizers. Auction guests zoomed around the valley, from 11 am to well after dusk, checking out the many winery parties.
Napaman used the opportunity to update tasting notes on the wines of three wineries.
First stop was Round Pond, in Rutherford, the home of judicious Cabernet.
Winemaker Brian Brown and Round Pond owner Miles MacDonnell.
Round Pond is a family affair, owned by a brother and sister team, Miles and Ryan (that’s a her) MacDonnell. They have owned the 360-acre property for some time, but until recently, sold all the fruit to top Napa Valley wineries.
A few years ago, the MacDonnell’s decided to keep five percent of their fruit to craft a signature blend for their own label.
The setting of Round Pond is glorious. The architecture of the main building is memorable, as are the wines.
2007 Round Pond Cabernet Sauvignon
I really liked the barrel sample of 2007 Cabernet, which is Cab and a squeak (three percent) of Petit Verdot. This wine, crafted by winemaker Brian Brown, is beautifully structured, expressive and not overpowering. When released this fall, it will retail for $60.
I would love to find this wine blindly inserted into the July Rutherford Dust Society tasting to which napaman is invited; it would be fun to see if I like it as much then and discover, too, if I can pick it out blind in a line-up of 20 unknown Rutherford Cabs. Don’t know how I’d like it then, but sure did like it Thursday: 94 points.
Next Stop – The Lore of Tor was in Store
I jumped at the chance to attend Tor Kenward’s open-house: More than a dozen different blends of Tor’s delicious wines were poured at one of my favorite victual venues in Napa Valley, Mustards Grill.
Amidst Mustards’ raised organic vegetable beds, Tor Kenward set up tasting tables.
Tor winemaker Jeff Ames and Brittany Savory pour the winery’s top Syrahs, and Cabs at Mustards Grill.
Napaman doesn’t generally love outdoor tastings; gusts of wind whip essential, compacted aromas out of the glass and the heat of a Napa Valley midday sun can makes one’s palate lazy. So my appreciation of Tor’s wines was probably challenged, but of the 13 wines I tasted, two really stood out:
2006 TOR Cabernet Sauvignon, Beckstoffer To Kalon Vineyard
Love the wine, don’t love the price. You expect a wine of this price -- $150 – to deliver the goods, and this one does. But in this economy, how many wine drinkers are rushing out to buy triple-digit wines?
I found this to be a sensuously rich – ethereal really – wine, filled with fresh ripe red fruit and a hint of Virginia tobacco (given Jeff’s roots, maybe it was Alabama tobacco?). Gawjus jus. 94 points.
2006 TOR ROCK Syrah, Hudson Vineyard
A thrilling wine. The best of the Syrahs poured, a truly pleasurable purple paean. I adore the intensity of this Syrah, the balance and elegance. And, oh yes, the price – back in the ballpark of reality: $60 for this 95-point wine.
Later the same day…
Julie Johnson, owner/winemaker of Tres Sabores
To round out the day, napaman visited a hidden Rutherford winery, Julie Johnson’s Tres Sabores. She hosted a party for friends, and loyal customers from around the country, offering five different wines to taste.
Her 2007 Pourque No? (the question mark is on the label) brought to mind a famous Paul Masson marketing line: “We will sell no wine before its time.” Because this 2007 wine is being previewed, and sold, before its time.
The background: Last year at Auction Napa Valley, Julie offered her 2005 Pourque No?, which was a delicious, solid, 92-pointer. This blend of Zin, Cabernet, Petit Sirah and Petit Verdot is always a crowd-pleaser, especially at the price: $25. I’ve even seen it for as little as $20 in the economic downturn.
After Julie sold out her modest production of 2005 Pourque No?, she introduced her 2006 Pourquoi No?. It was so good that she blew through her entire production before year-end. That was the wine Julie expected to offer guests at this year’s auction party, but there wasn’t a drop to be found in the realm.
So Julie bottled her 2007 Pourquoi No? slightly ahead of schedule to have product ready for the auction crowd (and for restaurant beverage managers, who love this wine and who hate to be out of stock, regardless of vintage).
The result is a wine that, after only a short spell in bottle, needs time to age, put on some fat, gain focus, and broaden its shoulders. The subtle sweetness of the 110-year-old Zinfandel, which Julie gets from Calistoga, and which constitutes 70 percent of the blend, is missing in this young wine. It’s there, but will need several months to show. There are muddled notes of raspberry in the 2007 blend, but the wine is nowhere near as bright and delicious as it will be if this wine is given a few months to recover from bottle shock.
(Many wines go through ‘bottle shock,’ a period when the wine, or some of its component grapes, appear to be dumbed-down; the wine is less exciting, offers fewer, sometimes no, regular flavor characteristics. Winemakers call this effect ‘bottle shock.’ It can occur two weeks, or two months, or even a year after bottling, and can last months in some wines, or as long as years in some Bordeaux wines.)
I look forward to revisiting this wine at the Rutherford Dust Society in the summer to learn how it is evolving.
Friday
Site of the 29th annual Auction Napa Valley – Robert Mondavi Winery
Some 2,500 people converged on the Robert Mondavi Winery for Friday’s indoor/outdoor food and wine fest known as Taste Napa Valley. It was a chance for guests to sample the very best food and wines of Napa Valley and to hobnob with the chefs and winemakers behind the glorious fare.
The day is a bit like a three-ring circus; you don’t know whether to be out at the stalls tasting the best food… or be in the Mondavi chai (where wine is barrel-aged) to see the 112 lots, which will be offered at Saturday’s Live Auction… or hang out in the fermentation room, where 120 wineries are pouring their (mostly) 2008 Cabernet blends from barrel.
Perhaps the best way to share what the day was like, is to present the elements in snapshot format:
Dozens of local restaurants participated, each offering a signature item. Rutherford Grill, where you will ALWAYS find winemakers converging, presented house-smoked salmon, served on pointed toasts, sauced with a remoulade.
Auberge du Soleil, the ritzy Rutherford resort, presented toasted rounds topped with an assemblage of fava beans, prosciutto, and Berkswell cheese (English sheep’s milk).
A novel way of presenting an innovative chilled treat – from whom else? The French Laundry. Chef Thomas Keller filled small paper cups with watermelon-flavored, shaved ice, drizzled it with olive oil infused with fresh garden basil, and topped the concoction with – are you kidding me? – chopped black olives.
Dale Ray, the new chef at Mustards Grill, and owner Cindy Pawlcyn, serve the restaurant’s classic smoked ribs.
Thomas Keller, owner of the French Laundry, Bouchon and Ad Hoc, all in Yountville, was present to hand out his butter-rich, super-dense, super-moist, brownie-like Chocolate Bouchons, a signature sweet at Bouchon Bakery.
Love the hat! Hiding beneath it is Lori Narlock, a public relations specialist in the wine industry.
Although bidding began a month ago on 112 auction lots offered only in an online format, guests at the Friday event were still making bids right up to cut-off time at freestanding terminals around the Mondavi property.
The top e-bid lot – for $$13,500 -- was for three 6-liter bottles of Arietta Wine, a case of Arietta library wines, and a private charity auction to be held in the winning bidder’s home, courtesy of winery owner and famed Napa Valley auctioneer Fritz Hatton.
Santa Rosa Caricaturist Doug Shannon sketched guests at the all-day food/fun/frivolity fest – Taste Napa Valley – held on the lawn, beside the vineyards, of the Robert Mondavi Winery.
Napa Valley Vintners converted Mondavi’s fermentation room into a full-bore tasting room, where 120 wineries presented their (mostly) 2008 Cabernet barrel samples. These were the wines on which guests bid for cases.
Pouring their glorious Cabernet above are Mike and Treva Harris of Harris Estate Vineyards.
The din in the fermentation room approached that which you’d experience on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier with jets taking off. An appropriate simile – as bids for many of these wines headed for the stratosphere.
Full use was made of the Mondavi property. The 42 major auction lots for Saturday’s Live Auction were displayed in Mondavi’s chai, where earlier vintages of Cabernet barrel age.
Lot 1 of 42 lots gives an idea of the grandeur and size of the lots in the Live Auction. Lot 1 offers 135 bottles (!) of fine Napa Valley wine, plus a portrait to be taken by Napa Valley Vintners’ photographer Jason Tinacci, plus a special dinner, plus an album of photos.
No wonder Fritz Hatton is smiling – his lot of Arietta wines received the highest bid -- $13,500 – among 112 lots in the e-auction. Celebrating with Fritz (on left), are Anna Simons (Pope) and Mark Pope, AKA The Bounty Hunter.
Friday Taste Napa Valley event is a time for locals to bump into friends whom they haven’t seen for a while. It was great seeing these three amigos and catching up – Margrit Biever Mondavi and Tim Mondavi, partners in Continuum, their new winery project, and Genevieve Janssens, Director of Winemaking at Robert Mondavi Winery.
As napaman was not accredited to cover Saturday’s events, which culminate with the Live Auction, you’ll have to check Napa Valley Vintners website Sunday, after 3 pm, to get Live Auction results and the grand final auction tally.
You’ll find them at http://www.napavintners.com/trade/tm_3_releases.asp
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