This could be the ultimate wine tasting experience – Napa Valley’s Signorello Estate, damaged in last month’s catastrophic wild fire, has determined that while it rebuilds, it will bring its phenomenal food-wine pairing event to your home – to any town in America!
Ray Signorello Jr., in a photo taken just days before the devastating wild fire October 9
“Since we can’t do tastings at our winery now,” explains owner Ray Signorello Jr., we want to bring our wines into our consumer’s home. With a minimum of 10 friends or family members assembled, you can enjoy a seven-course, wine-paired meal, which will be prepared in your kitchen by Signorello Estate chef, Tyler Stone.” The seven-course, wine-food event, called Cucina, was a popular offering at the winery before the fire.
Estate chef Tyler Stone
The Cucina home plan works like this:
Chef Stone will craft seven courses, each to pair with a different Signorello wine; one course will feature Snake River Farms Wagyu Kobe beef.
Estate sommelier, Ron Plunkett, will also attend your home pop-up event and start the evening by sabering open a bottle of Champagne.
The wine and food pairing will include all of Signorello Estate’s top cuvees -- Seta, Hope’s Cuvee Chardonnay, Syrah, Cabernet and Padrone.
Ray Jr. concludes: ”As a thank you, we will lift the purchase limits on all the wines in our portfolio, including library and big bottles. You and your guests may buy as much of any wine as you please – there will be no bottle limits even on scarce items!“
In fine print, these are the costs you will bear:
$325 per person for the in-your-home experience, which covers wine and food costs as well as the chef’s and sommelier’s time. There must be a minimum of 10 guests.
Your group must commit to purchase a minimum of $10,000 of Signorello Estate wines at the end of the event, but there will be no restrictions on your selections and no bottle limits.
The event host will be responsible for any rentals, or staffing required for staging the event (stemware, table rentals, servers, washers, etc.).
The event host must cover the travel expenses of chef Tyler and sommelier Plunkett from Napa Valley: they will require coach airfare, lodging in your home, or somewhere in your hometown, and if necessary, a rental car.
Aftermath of the Atlas Peak fire at Signorello Estate
Two weeks before the wild fires broke out in Napa Valley, I had the pleasure of having the Cucina multi-course meal with paired wines in the company of Ray Signorello Jr.
You can read about my appreciation of this sensational wine-pairing experience here:
http://www.napaman.com/napamancom/2017/09/napa-valleys-best-best-kept-secret-winery.html
The wild fires, which broke out in Napa Valley, Sonoma and Lake Counties last month destroyed a total of a quarter-of-a-million acres of land.
Forty-three people died in the fires, 8,800 homes and winery buildings were destroyed and estimates to replace what burned run in the $3-4 billion range, making these wild fires the deadliest, and most costly, in the history of California.
The Atlas Peak fire ravaged Signorello Estate particularly hard.
The photos of Signorello’s buildings on fire (immediately below) became poster shots of the Napa Valley wild fires in general. These shots appeared on news channels, and in local newspapers around the world.
The Atlas Peak fire engulfed the Signorello Estate winery and Ray’s home, which housed the estate’s public spaces and administrative offices.
As it turns out, when the fire struck, 95% of this year’s harvest was already in fermenting tanks; this wine has subsequently been evaluated, deemed of high quality and not tainted by smoke and has been transferred to barrels for aging.
As wines from all previous vintages and older, library wines, are stored off premises, Signorello’s wine inventory was spared.
Before:
After:
With characteristic charm, and in a totally calm manner, owner Ray Jr. has already begun to interview architects to rebuild Signorello Estate.
The pool at Signorello after the fire
For the moment, the Signorello admin team has moved into temporary quarters in Napa town and there are no immediate plans to establish a temporary tasting center. Instead, the plan is to bring the tasting room to you.
If the idea of hosting Signorello’s Cucina in your home appeals to you – or if it’s a gift you’d like to present someone for the upcoming holidays – please contact Sharon Goldman, director of guest experiences, at 707-255-5990, or email her at [email protected] and tell her that napaman sent you.
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