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Napaman – Back From a Week-long, Whisky Safari in Scotland!

Like big game hunters, I went on a safari last week, but with the intention of bagging some memorable Scotch whiskies, not whiskered trophies.

Aiming to break out of our pandemic mindset in a burst of alcoholic glory, the missus and I headed to one of our favorite countries, Scotland, land of sleepy sheep and stunning spirits.

Through an executive travel service (more about this later), I hired a car and driver, who, for a week, shuttled us from distillery to distillery and occasionally to a whisky shop, across the country in search of killer spirits.

We put on 1,100 miles in search of glorious, golden, whisky.

Here, in America, we tend to call the spirit “Scotch,” but to the Scots, where it’s made, it’s simply called “whisky,” because in their collective mind, there is no other spirit worth talking about.

What’s happened to the price of everything else we consume has recently happened to Scotland’s venerated elixir, only more so; the price of rare whisky has jumped 50 to 100 percent in the last six months, according to retailers with whom I spoke.

Rather than recap what happened chronologically, it would be more useful to readers to highlight the Best Of my experiences, so that if any of you intend to replicate our travels, you will know where to aim.

The Best Whisky Tasting

Of all the whisky pitstops, tours and tastings we experienced, by far the classiest was that hosted by Jack Dickinson at Gordon and MacPhail, in Elgin, Scotland.

This is a 127-year-old whisky “negociant,” if you permit; they approach many of Scotland’s 120 distilleries, purchase a distillery’s “new spirit” (the just-created distilled liquor) and age it for decades in (mostly) used bourbon, or sherry, casks, imparting their own twist to a participating distillery’s whisky. Some of the decade-old G&M whiskies we tasted were exceptional.

Jack Dickinson led us on a 90-minute, educational tasting, sharing his knowledge with professional detail – possibly due to the fact that he was a sommelier, formerly working in our favorite restaurant in Scotland. (More about this in a minute).

Gordon and MacPhail, 58 South Street, Elgin, Scotland.

The Best Retail Whisky Store in Scotland.

Over my many trips to Scotland, I have shopped at some mighty fine whisky shops, but I have never met any retailer with more passion than Scott Ashford, who, with his wife Sam (Samantha), runs the Whisky Castle in the tony town of Tomintoul.

Scott has an infectious zeal for whisky; he is not afraid to open $250+ bottles and give you a sip to make his point about a particular spirit and he will ship anything you buy back to your home state.

Is there a happier guy in all of Scotland? It’s hard to say because, in general, the Scots are among the happiest, cheeriest, people I’ve ever known. It’s almost as though town councils across the land have been adding happy-time chemicals to municipal drinking water sources, because we failed to meet one dour person in our entire time in Scotland.

(Also, please take note, San Francisco: no litter anywhere, no homeless, no graffiti sprayed across public buildings, not on trains, trams or buses.)

But back to Scott Ashford; he actually sets the bar for W.E. -- Whisky Exuberance -- of anyone we met on this trip.

One of the whiskies that Scott pulled off his shelf and let us taste was this rare (only 482 bottles produced) 25-year-old, Carn Mor, a brand from Benrinnes Distillery, in Speyside.

I’d never heard of this whisky, but it set my tongue a-clackin’ and the pounds sterling in my pocket a-crinklin.’ It whispered in my ear: “p-u-h-l-e-s-e, I want to live with you in Napa Valley…”

And now it does.

Make sure you put this address in your files – and please note that Resistance to Scott is Futile!

Whisky Castle, 6 Main Street, Tomintoul, Scotland.

 

The Best Restaurant in Scotland.

The restaurant is The Kitchin, and please note, this is NOT a typo.

The 1-star Michelin restaurant is named after owner/chef Tom Kitchin, whose fare I have enjoyed over a period spanning four years.

Tom Kitchin, Carol and me at The Kitchin, enjoying a glass of Tom’s favorite Champagne, Philopponnat “Royal Reserve” Brut.

On this trip, we dined two consecutive nights at The Kitchin, and as it was closed on the two Sundays we were in Edinburgh, we opted to dine at Tom’s other restaurant, a high-end, gastro-pub that itself is a cause for joy. Even the Michelin Guide inspectors agree as they have awarded this neighborhood pub a “Bib Gourmand” rating every year since 2017.

At Scran and Scallie (Scran means food, and Scallies are friends, or scallywags, in local jargon), we had the best oysters that we’ve ever eaten; Tom’s version of a Scottish meat pie was memorable.

And the chocolate tart (below), served with “milk” ice cream, was the single best chocolate indulgence that I have had in years.

At The Kitchin, I had the best soups I have had anywhere in a considerable time; Tom’s pea velouté is the only soup that I have earnestly thought about for weeks afterward;

his version of lobster bisque, without cream, puts every version of this soup that I have ever had in New England to shame.

The cheese selection here is exceptional, and like every ingredient in Tom’s arsenal, the DNA of every cheese offered is Scottish; Tom believes in supporting local farmers, growers, producers, taking an Alice Waters approach to cuisine.

(Alice Waters, owner and founder of Chez Panisse, in Berkeley, once told me over lunch that if California health regulations didn’t require her to have a refrigerator in her restaurant kitchen, she wouldn’t have one.

“We’d have produce, cream, butter, fresh fish, everything… would be delivered each morning and used up by dinner,” she told me. Which is pretty much how Tom cooks, relying on small quantities of uber-fresh, ingredients being delivered daily to his kitchen.)

After dinner, bar manager Kat Barker (above) rolled a monster cart up to our table, offering us numerous whiskies well older than her. I was dumbfounded by:

1. The presence of a whisky cart at all
2. The number of outstanding whiskies on it
3. Kat’s knowledge of every whisky on the cart, as though she had hand-picked each of them

Make a note of this address for your next visit to Edinburgh:

The Kitchin, 78 Commercial Quay, Leith, Edinburgh, Scotland

And if you are in town long enough, score a reservation at Tom’s neighborhood eatery:

The Scran and Scallie 1 Comely Bank Road, Stockbridge, Edinburgh.

 

The Best Bar in Scotland

Ask locals to name the best bars in Scotland and this one, in Speyside, makes all the shortlists: Quaich Bar, in the Craigellachie Hotel, in Aberlour.

(Locals pronounce it “QUAKE-kh… there’s a little guttural “kh” at the end, almost undetectable. In Gaelic, it refers to a traditional, shallow, two-handled cup symbolizing friendship.)

It’s upstairs, above a restaurant called Copper Dog. The bar is a rich depot of delicious drams.

Ben, the young bartender, knows all 700 of the whiskies stocked and has an opinion about every one of them.

Three whiskies (below), which Ben suggested we try – some of his personal current favorites:

Below is my good friend, Jim Walker, of Walker’s Shortbreads fame; he lives in Aberlour; he and his wife Jennifer joined us for dinner and then for drinks afterward, at the Quaich Bar.

The whisky Jim is holding is made for the onsite restaurant, Copper Dog.

Quaich Bar, Craigellachie Hotel, Aberlour, Scotland

 

The Best Way to Tour Scotland

On previous visits to Scotland, I’ve rented a car and driven on “the wrong side of the road,” fortunately missing pedestrians, but often hitting potholes, curbs, and missing much of the bucolic scenery as we rolled through the Highlands and Speyside regions of whiskydom.

So this time, I called my friend, Jim Walker, and asked if he would suggest a local travel company that might supply a car and driver.

Daniel Main, left, owner of DM Executive Travel, and on the right, our driver and tour guide, Steve Brockman.

“DM Executive Travel” was his suggestion, the D and M standing for agency owner Daniel Main, a pleasant, capable, professional tour operator.

Daniel suggested an itinerary based on several of our own agenda requests; we wanted to visit the Isle of Mull, site of the producer of one of our current favorite whiskies, Ledaig (pronounced LETCH-ig), and we wanted to dine at a few favorite restaurants upcountry.

Our driver for the week was Steve Brockman, a cheery, thoughtful, detail-driven man and a helluva good driver.

As we drove across country, Steve would occasionally veer off road, suggesting we needed to see something special.

Like the oldest bridge in Scotland…

The Carr Bridge, above, has suffered from the hooves of horses, bone-numbing winters, and Biblical floods since 1717 when it was built.

Other visual, or historical, highlights of our week with Steve:

Kelpies are said to be shape-shifting monsters beneath the sea -- though this presentation sure makes them look like horses! Kelpies supposedly drag sailors down to their death.

Steve detoured to show us these 100-foot high, stainless steel-plated, horse heads, constructed at locks joining the Forth river and Clyde canal, in Falkirk, Scotland.

Knowing that I have a passion for photography, Steve made a point of stopping, or detouring, to present me with moments of Kodak lucidity. Here are some shots from our travel to the

Isle of Mull, the Highlands and Speyside…

Because we were so far north and nearly at the summer equinox, daylight stays around until close to 11 pm… and the sun rises to wake you at 3.50 am.

Here’s a shot of the harbor at Oban, one of my favorite mid-country towns, taken at 11 pm at night. Catch how much light there still is!

And then there were the Pyramids of Dufftown!

Steve detoured to take us to Dufftown Cooperage, site of 250,000 used barrels from bourbon producers in America and sherry producers in Spain; before these barrels can be used to age local whiskies for 10-30 years, they individually need to be reconditioned, repaired, re-banded, or made leak-proof again.

To contact Daniel Martin and plan your own Whisky Safari, make a note of his contact information:

DM Executive Travel

[email protected]

+44 07756297947

One of the original visits that Daniel set up for us at the rural home of Ann Miller, who calls herself The Dram Queen, a dram being the Scots’ term for a wee pour, or nip, of whisky.

Ann Miller, The Dram Queen, uses a map to illustrate the origin of distilleries whose whiskies we tasted.

I joked with Ann, told her that I had been expecting to meet The Drama Queen, instead of The Dram Queen. She is a retired veteran of the whisky trade, worked for years with Chivas, knows everyone in the trade and knows everything you ever wanted to know about whisky but were afraid to ask. She leads educational whisky tastings that are highly informative and entertaining. She does not sell the whiskies she pours.

As a motif for our tasting of six whiskies, Ann resorted to an historical map of Speyside, showing us how distilleries popped up along the rail line (essential for bringing goods in and whisky out of the country).

This is what we sipped with The Dram Queen as she regaled us with stories about the cask-strength elixirs…

If you’d like to book a session with The Dram Queen, best to do it through Daniel Main, who knows the way to Ann’s home in Carron. However, you can contact her directly through www.dramqueen.co.uk and Ann will send you a map and directions to find her comfy digs.

You Know You Are In Scotland When You See Products and Signs Like these….

Finally, there’s this tidbit from my own history.

When I was in grade school in Toronto, one of my classmates (we are still close friends 62 years later…) and I made up a Scottish joke about an estuary (called a “firth” in Scotland) that runs into a particular river in Scotland, the Forth.

The joke came back to me as we crossed a bridge over the Forth River.

I shared it with Steve, our driver, and he laughed heartily:

If you are drinking a 32-ounce bottle of whisky, sitting on the banks of a particular Scottish river estuary on April 4th, could you say that you were drinking a fifth on the fourth of the fourth at the Firth of the frothy Forth?

Well, it had me in stitches 62 years ago….

 

Bordeaux’ Best No Match for This Napa Valley Cabernet!

Ok, listen up. This is a story about a Yountville winery producing some of the very best Cabernets in Napa Valley. Blankiet Estate Cabs are not well known, which is surprising, given how elegant, balanced, and sensual they are.

I attended a tasting at Blankiet yesterday at which their Cabs crushed venerated, first-growth, Bordeaux wines that cost as much as four times more than the Blankiet Cabs.

If the Judgment of Paris wine tasting in 1976 hadn’t ever happened (at which American wines dominated revered French labels), the tasting I attended proved to me that Napa Valley Cabernets can be far superior than costly, first-growth Bordeaux wines. 

(Keep reading: YOU will be able to take the Blankiet/Bordeaux Challenge yourself at Blankiet Estate … read on for details!)

The Blankiet Cabernets that were tasted against Bordeaux’ top wines were:

+ The 2018 and 2019 Blankiet Estate Proprietary Red, a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot

+ The 2018 and 2019 Cabernet called Mythicvs, which looks like a typo, but which crushed every Bordelaise wine on the table in terms of purity, elegance, finesse, texture, and balance.

Mythicvs: You would expect the “v” to be a “u,” but winery owner Claude Blankiet, proudly steeped in the Classics, had other ideas.

Mythicvs, properly spelled with a “u,” is an adjective from Latin, meaning “legendary.” And what an appropriate term for the wine in this bottle! Every time I have tasted this wine, I  have slapped my forehead as in a “DUH!”moment, asking myself why hadn’t I bought more before the vintage sold out?

According to Claude, Mythicvs is produced to exhibit balance, elegance, harmony, and sophistication. And of the many vintages I have tasted, this goal has been reached again and again.

Blankiet only produces 150 cases of Mythicvs each year, while top Bordeaux factories, er,wineries, may produce 25,000 cases of a first-growth wine. As such, Claude can afford to micro-manage the care of his grapes during the growing season and afterward, during production.

I am not alone in crowing about Blankiet’s killer Cabs. Respected wine critic Jeb Dunnuck, formerly with the Wine Advocate, recently rated each of the 2018 and 2019 Mythicvs wines 100 points, the same perfect score he ascribed to the 2019 Chateau Lafite Rothschild, reputedly one of the world’s greatest wines.

For the record: Long before Dunnuck rated these wines, I had found them so compelling that I bought them for my cellar. After visiting Blankiet Estate as a paying customer over the years, I befriended owners Claude and Katherine Blankiet. On the basis of our friendship and my professional interest as a wine writer and winemaker, I was invited to the Blankiet/Bordeaux comparative tasting.

Claude Blankiet

Claude’s goal was to prove to himself -- and  to anyone who wants to take the Challenge -- that his Cabernets are as good as, and possibly better than, the best of Bordeaux.

The Pepsi/Coke Challenge is so…. 20^th century. Claude has updated the idea and thrown down the gauntlet, offering visitors to his winery a chance themselves to take the Blankiet/Bordeaux Challenge!

In his review of Blankiet Estate wines, Dunnuck commented on several connections between the Blankiet Cabs and the 2019 Château Lafite Rothschild.

“The 2019 Blankiet Estate Proprietary Red is straight-up incredible. It reminds me of a great vintage of Château Lafite Rothschild with its elegance and purity. It is just pure class!”

“Pure gold. The 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon Mythicvs has that incredible profile of power without weight that is so hard to find, and again, it has a Lafite-like elegance and class. This wine absolutely stopped me in my tracks.”

Claude was not surprised by Dunnuck’s comparative statements, for what Jeb did not know is that 75% of Blankiet’s Cabernet vines were grafted 26 years ago with budwood from Château Lafite!

“The complexity of our fruit arises from the soil – we sit atop three seismic faults, which helps produce great grapes,” says Claude, adding, “but good genes also help!”

Claude, who grew up in Dijon, France, has always preferred French-style Cabernets (Bordeaux wines) over the bombastic, over-extracted, over-alcoholized, over-oaked Cabernets that so many American wineries produce. These wines lack the finesse, precision, and balance that make Claude swoon.

“California gives us more consistent fruit purity than Bordeaux, but sometimes we just have too much sun, adds Claude.

He continues: “To moderate this, we installed 70,000 linear feet of shade cloth, 9,000 vaporizing misters, and two optical sorters to eliminate all high-sugar content berries that would contribute to over-ripeness and higher alcohol levels.”

Blankiet’s exceptional wines are made by winemaker Graeme MacDonald, who shares a reluctance with Claude to make wines with over-ripe fruit and high alcohol.

Claude and his wife, Katherine, are some of the last, old-time, original, independent, winery owners in Napa Valley, which is quickly becoming a corporate clone of industrial corporations, bent on buying up family wineries at an alarming rate. These are NOT the kind of clones we welcome in wine country.

To initiate the Blankiet/Bordeaux Challenge, Claude, Julian Christian, a certified sommelier and hospitality director at Blankiet Estate, and I sat down with nine Cabernets, each poured four hours earlier to optimize their appeal.

Julian pours for the tasting.

In the first round, we tasted three wines that Dunnuck had reviewed.

To my palate, there was NO contest. The Blankiet wines dominated the round. And the 2018 Mythicvs clearly bested the Bordeaux.

Flight 1

2018 Blankiet Estate Proprietary Red

Gorgeous red fruit nose, mostly of ripe cherries. I was prepared to score this wine 100 points on the basis of aroma alone. Alluring, welcoming, warming. Dunnuck scored this wine 98+ points, but for me, it was a perfect wine, so beautifully rich in fruit aromatics that I would happily pour it into my home humidifier to be able to smell it all day long in every room of the house! 100 points, my score.

2018 Blankiet Estate Mythicvs

A gentle hint of new leather as well as the scents of ripe black olives and ripe red fruit. If this wine were a movie star, it would be Charlize Theron, known for her sensual beauty and ability to charm and captivate your heart. Just like this wine. 100 points, my score. (All scores hereon will be my scores, not Jeb’s.)

2018 Chateau Lafite Rothschild

A much tighter nose than either of the Blankiet wines in this flight, though there are hints of wax, leather, briar, and a soupcon of greenness. On the palate the wine is flat, linear. The attack is on standard, but the middle palate disappears, and as you would expect at this age, this wine has a disappointing finish. 97 points.

Blankiet's vineyard, tucked into a hillside in Yountville:

Wanting to go beyond Dunnuck’s realm, Claude and Julian decided that since we were together tasting venerated Bordeaux first-growths, we might as well rate a second flight of wines from the 2019 vintage. I was not reluctant to join them! These are some of the very best Cabernets in the world, assembled for our professional edification… oh, and yes, our pleasure!

Flight 2

2019 Blankiet Estate Proprietary Red

Unusual but alluring aroma of warm clothes just taken out of the dryer, followed by aromas of ripe fruits in a warm, baked compote. Gorgeous integration of fruit and alcohol. Tannins are evident but submissive, even at this age, to the fruit, which is sublime. 98+ points.

2019 Chateau La Mission Haut-Brion

A boatload of ripe fruit on the nose! Would score this wine 100 points on the aromatics alone. On the palate, this is a thrilling wine. Nothing short of ethereal. 100 points.

2019 Blankiet Estate Mythicvs

Rich, ripe, dark fruit on the nose. On the palate, let’s put it this way – it was impossible to spit this out. I had to own it for a while. Of the nine wines we tasted, this was the most outstanding wine of the tasting, beating out such classic labels as Chateau Margaux, Chateau Mouton Rothschild and two vintages (2018 and 2019) of Chateau Lafite Rothschild.

The 2019 Mythicvs may very well  become the best wine of the year for me and we are only two weeks into the year. You can't make a more sublime, sexier, more sensual wine. Period. I was forced to rate this wine 101 points. You do the math.

2019 Chateau Lafite Rothschild

Elegant, herbaceous nose, plenty of complexity. There are cherries present, and a cherry-liqueur top note, suggesting over-ripeness. The nose finishes with a hint of Balsamic acidity. The palate is linear, the fruit is over-ripe and the wine lacks the finesse you expect from such an important label. 98+ points.

2019 Chateau Margaux

An enticing nose, though there are hints of alcohol and after a few deep whiffs, copper pennies proliferate. The wine is lean on the palate. I'm inclined to call it naked. The fruit is underripe, very lean, the finish is disappointing. And they charge, on average, across America, $850 for this? 97 points.

2019 Chateau Mouton Rothschild

Straw and hay notes on the nose, with a strong finish of Band-aids. A dirty wine, compromised by Brettanomyces. The worst wine on the table. 93 points

And now, the Good News!

I encouraged Claude to make this wine tasting experience available to visitors to his winery, so they can establish for themselves that his fairly priced, Napa Valley Cabs exhibit more finesse, elegance, charm and balance than Bordeaux' top wines, which cost many times more.

Book your own personal, private Blankiet/Bordeaux Challenge by sending an email to hospitality director Julian Christian:

[email protected]

For $500 per person, you will be poured 50 mL of six wines:

From 2018:

Blankiet Mythicvs

Blankiet Proprietary Red

Chateau Lafite Rothschild

From 2019:

Blankiet Mythicvs

Blankiet Proprietary Red

Chateau Lafite Rothschild

In the meantime, you can learn more about Claude’s winemaking philosophies and practices at blankiet.com

 

 

The best burger that I have ever had

The Goldfinch Tavern in the Four Seasons Hotel in Seattle serves, quite simply, the best burger that I have ever had.

And this praise does not come lightly. I traveled the world as a restaurant critic for one of the largest newspapers in North America for six years to discover the best foods and restaurants.

Regular readers of napaman.com know that I have written that the best burger in Napa Valley is served at G&G (Goose & Gander), in St. Helena, but I have found a burger that eclipses even this burger's ground greatness.

(To be clear, the G&G burger flirts with perfection and ranks among the most memorable burgers that I have ever had, right up there with the one served to me by Antoine Magnin, owner and chef of Louis L'Ami, in Paris, and the burger prepared from scratch for me by Pierre Franey, chef and food writer for the New York Times, who served it to me in my test kitchen. Both Antoine and Pierre have long departed this plane of existence - but the memory of their burgers burns on brightly.)

I have now had the Goldfinch Tavern Burger five times and it is consistently a perfect dining experience.

If I rated burgers on a scale of 100, the Goldfinch burger would rate 102.

Having the Goldfinch Tavern Burger is like seeing an original Picasso, or Matisse, painting close up – you walk a bit lighter the rest of the day having been graced with artistry that cavorts with angels.

The fact that they also make a killer rye Manhattan at the Goldfinch Tavern adds to the enjoyment factor of this burger.

But I digress.

I now know the secrets of how they make this exceptional burger; I spoke with the talented executive chef, Emmanuel Calderon, who goes by the nickname “Manu,” who has been at the helm here for more than two years.

“As important as making our burger tasty and juicy,” Manu told me, “is the need to make it consistently perfect.”

Manu’s brigade only makes 400 burgers a week post-pandemically so there are only 400 people in Seattle each week lucky enough to be graced by burger greatness.

The ingredients of the best burger in America

Manu starts with ground beef from an Idaho beef supplier with a pedigree -- Double R Ranch.

“I ask for an 80/20 blend (80% lean/20% fat) of short ribs and brisket for flavor. Double R makes up the difference with lean cuts,” Manu says.

The first time that I tasted this burger, I conjectured that there was brisket in it; after three weeks of gum-shoeing for this story, I discovered that this was, indeed, the case. Manu admits that from time to time, the fat ratio even approaches 75/25.

Manu makes hand-pressed, 8-ounce patties from this meat blend and then ages them 24 hours – “this produces a slight oxidation, which adds to the taste,” he says.

I also detected that there was an “umami thing” going on with the Goldfinch Tavern Burger and Manu provided the Big Reveal:

“We splash the patty with Balsamic vinegar when we start to grill it to add that “umami thing” you speak of.”

The other ingredients that make this burger exceptional:

In-house made pickles. “We start with English cucumbers, skin them, soak them in a house-made brine flavored with coriander, bay leaves, and black pepper.

Manu also falls back on a recipe for one of the condiments that was created by 3-star Michelin French chef Michel Guerard. I met Gerard in the early 1980s just after he invented Cuisine Minceur. One of his flavorful, low-cal condiments was “Onion Marmalade,” which he made by s-l-o-w-l-y sweating red onions until their natural sugars caramelized over low heat.

Manu makes a version of this cuisine minceur onion marmalade and adds it to the burger. But Manu adds his own signature:

“I hot smoke the onions before we sauté them,” he admits. “It adds another level of complexity.”

He also smears the bun with a stunning fennel aioli that was the brainchild of Ethan Stowell, a partner-chef at the Goldfinch Tavern.

Ethan runs more than a dozen successful restaurants in Seattle, including one of my favorites, How To Cook a Wolf, in the Madison Park neighborhood.

Years ago, before Manu came along, the Four Seasons hired Ethan to consult on the menu and operation side of Goldfinch Tavern and there are still legacy elements of Ethan’s contribution, like fennel aioli.

Manu adds lettuce, tomato, and Beecher’s cheese (a Seattle classic) to the burger and layers all this into a bun made by the Macrina Bakery, which I discovered for a Seattle food story that I wrote 25 years ago!

The bun has good chew and good flavor. “I like this particular bun because, in texture and flavor, it is between challah bread and a brioche. I think a straight brioche bun would be too rich, detracting from the burger, so we require something less buttery,” Manu explains.

The result: One of the most delicious, juicy, hamburgers that you will ever have. It’s as close to having angels dance on your palate as you’ll ever get.

The $25 Goldfinch burger comes with sensational fries, but be sure to order them "lightly salted," in order to have just the right amount of salt. Otherwise, it's salt overkill. Also order a few vegetable sides to complete your meal. I always order a side of roasted baby carrots (sometimes glazed handsomely with maple syrup), a side of roasted mushrooms, or a side of roasted broccolini. 

Visitors to San Francisco are often lured to what is considered “the quintessential San Francisco experience,” an Irish Coffee at the Buena Vista Cafe, where the intoxicating drink was first served in this country, in 1952.

It is said that a trip to San Francisco is incomplete without an Irish Coffee at the Buena Vista Café; I would argue, in similar fashion, that a visit to Seattle is incomplete without having the Goldfinch Tavern burger. It is the quintessential Seattle food experience. But, remember, only 400 of these burgers are available each week, so book early to avoid disappointment.

Goldfinch Tavern, Four Seasons Hotel, 99 Union St., Seattle. Tel 206-749-7070.

Napaman’s Best Wines of the Year

Wine critic and flamboyant wine-marketer James Suckling boasts that he and his tiny team taste 25,000 wines a year.

That’s 68 bottles a day, day after day, even on Thanksgiving and Christmas.

That’s also asinine.

In his wine-tasting hey-day, Robert Parker annually came to Napa Valley to assess a new vintage; he’d taste through 450 palate-bruising, purple-teeth-staining, Napa Valley Cabernets in three days. That’s 150 bottles a day!

No one, not even Bob Parker, can taste that many corrosive wines in a day and really assess their beauty, finesse and perfections.

The only wines that stand out when you taste this many at once are the over-alcoholic, over-extracted, over-oaked, aberrant wines. And when these hyper-exaggerated wines stand out from a pack tasted all together, these are the wines given a score of 100, simply because they poke their head out of a field of more nuanced wines. It’s the oddball wines that get the high scores and resultant press.

In my world, my end-of-year wine notes are assembled over 365 days, one wine at a time. With dinner.

In this manner, my few favorites this year were discovered one by one, WITH FOOD, which is what wine is all about and what it is intended to complement. All those wines tasted by critics Parker, Galloni and Suckling are rated with hundreds of other wines at the same time without food.

I kind of like the way I do things, and how I rate my wines.

“Okay the suspense is killing me, what are your favorite wines this year, Napaman?”

As has become my tradition, toward the end of the year, I roll the calendar backwards, reviewing the best wines that I have had the past year. So let’s get to it.

There were not many positive things you can say about COVID-19, but the resulting quarantine sent many of us deep into our cellars to discover long-lost wines hiding in corners.

In June, we had a most rare experience on our then 117^th day of quarantine – three perfect, 100-point wines. How rare is that?!

The occasion was a visit from San Francisco of very close friends with whom we maintained proper social distance.

On the occasion of their visit, I called G&G (Goose & Gander), in St. Helena, home of the BEST BURGER IN NAPA VALLEY and asked chef Nic to supply me with two dozen of his insanely delicious burgers, frozen.

I figured that the Best Burger in Napa Valley required the Best Cabernets in Napa Valley, so I pulled out three different labels from three different vintages, hoping they’d be showstoppers.

Each turned out to be, respectively, a perfect, textbook, 100-point, wine.

2001 Rudd Cabernet, Oakville

The Rudd Oakville Cab, despite being 19-years-old, was still extremely youthful, filled with vigor and bright fruit. I raised a glass and toasted to the memory of Lesley Rudd, a friend who died a few years ago. He was the brains and brawn behind this wine. You can’t make a more perfect, more balanced, more nuanced, more satisfying wine. Loads of dark, ripe fruit, and a velour-like texture.

100 points.

2011 Kathryn Hall, Cabernet, red label

A comment about the 2011 Napa Valley vintage; James Laube of the Wine Spectator, and other wine writers, killed this vintage at the start, claiming that 2011 was a wet, less-than-stellar vintage, in essence, a major disappointment.

I begged to differ then – and still do -- and wrote numerous contrarian pieces at the time, forecasting that 2011 was going to be a supremely gratifying vintage. I predicted that the better wines would have balance, be less alcoholic, show finesse and elegance after six to nine years.

Let me count… 2020 minus 2011…. equals 9 years. Just as I predicted!

This is why the 2011 Kathryn Hall is showing so well right now – what a gorgeous wine! Filled with balance, elegance, and all those other “ance” words – like nuance, vibrance, endurance.

I have had numerous bottles of this red label Kathryn Hall wine from 2011 and each has flirted with 99-100 points. This bottle was particularly good, the wine so pleasing, so complementary to our barbecued G&G burgers that the union seemed to have the blessing of a higher order.

100 points.

2002 Harris Estate Vineyards, Treva’s Vineyard

The 2002 Harris Cabernet was a real treat, my sole remaining bottle and one I had completely forgotten I had in the cellar.

Mike and Treva Harris were close friends while they lived in Napa Valley; from their vineyard in Calistoga, they produced some exceptionally brilliant wines (several years ago, they sold their vineyards and gorgeous home and moved to Park City, Utah).

I wrote many times about their sensational wines, which were made by a succession of different winemakers, but the fruit was so good from their vineyards that even a neophyte winemaker couldn’t screw things up.

These were fantastic, magical, Cabernets. I had forgotten how good the Treva’s Vineyard offering was – this 2002 was filled with super-ripe dark fruit, exhibits a finish of ripe boysenberries. How delicious and what a complement to the G&G burgers!

100 points.

Oh, and let’s not forget those burgers – easily 100 points themselves!

Andy Florsheim, proprietor of G&G, has just temporarily closed the restaurant in St. Helena but says that he will reopen for outdoor dining at the very least in the spring, likely around late March.

Andy, don’t forget to let me know when you re-open… I will be down a few quarts of G&G burgers and several gallons of your sensational Manhattans by then!

Bravo to Hall Winery for Keeping up our Spirits!

If you are a resident of Napa Valley… or an occasional visitor here… chances are that you have driven by Bunny Foo Foo, the 35-foot tall, stainless-steel sculpture that highlights the roadside vineyard of Hall Winery, in St. Helena.

For the record: I LOVE this whimsical sculpture, created by English sculptor Lawrence Argent; it puts the fun into wine-making and wine-tasting, which can get a bit too serious. C’mon people – wine is a lifestyle beverage, not bleach to drink to avoid getting Covid-19!

At various times of the year, Bunny Foo Foo, named after a children’s poem about a pestering rabbit, dons calendar-relevant garb – a conical witch’s hat around Halloween, or a basketful of colorful eggs at Easter.

But thanks to Kathryn and Craig Hall, for elevating our spirits during the coronavirus pandemic… Bunny Foo Foo now sports the mandatory-in-public face mask!

Thanks for the chuckle, Kathryn and Craig.

And by the way, I continue to enjoy cases of your 2012 WALT Pinot Noirs and 2015 Hall Winery Cabernets, which I overbought years ago. They’re still rockin’ delicious! Longevity, as well as balance and flavor, are Hallmarks of Hall wines!

The House restaurant in San Francisco is closing permanently

What a sad day for us — and what a tragic loss for San Francisco…. one of my very favorite restaurants anywhere has just announced that it is closing for good.

The House, a sensational Asian-fusion restaurant, on Grant Ave., on the edge of North Beach and Chinatown, was forced to shutter months ago due to the coronavirus pandemic and the owners cannot justify hanging on until dining inside a restaurant in San Francisco, at full capacity, is re-permitted.

 

My favorite sandwich anywhere - The House's 

brilliant Ahi-Tuna BLT

 

We are sad, sad, sad…. I have written numerous times that the Ahi Tuna BLT here is my favorite sandwich ever… if they gave out awards like the Oscars, or Tonys, or Emmys  for sensational restaurants — The House would have walked away with dozens of statues over its 26 years of keen devotion to serving tasty, original, memorable dishes. 

 

One of the tastiest appetizer's in any San Francisco 

restaurant -- the Salmon Roll, created by chef/owner  Larry Tse

 

The House proved that Asian fusion fare doesn’t have to be con-Fusion… they created so many memorable, tasty, harmonious, Asian-inspired dishes with local San Francisco ingredients that I treated visits to The House as though I were making a pilgrimage to Mecca. It was that special and meaningful.   

 

RIP The House. We loved you.

 

These New Food Discoveries are Getting Me Through Quarantine!

In order to keep things “new” and happening during our mandated Shelter In Place, I headed to the stores, masked and gloved, twice in the last 60 days to discover new edible treats.

 

Several products have been so addictive, such a taste-hit, that I want to share them with readers.

 

Haig’s Organic Hummus

 

Hard to imagine that a small tub of hummus could be so gratifying that I would elevate it to Star status. 

 

My son mentioned that one of the things he regularly buys at Whole Foods is Haig’s Organic Hummus. 

 

While Haig’s, based in San Francisco, also makes a conventional hummus, it’s their organic version that commands a 21-gun salute. 

 

 

Late every afternoon, just before cocktail hour, I find myself heading to the fridge to take out the Haig’s tub; I dip 365 (Whole Foods house brand) Baked Woven Wheat crackers into the dip; or I rip large pieces off a sheet of Trader Joe’s Lavash for my dipping pleasure.

 

While I do NOT  have an addictive personality, and can taste a single spoonful of most every dip and move on, there is an addictive element to my hitting the Haig’s Organic Hummus tub and I really have to work at convincing myself to have “just one more” cracker with dip.

 

Haig’s Organic Hummus is $4.99 at Whole Foods.

 

 

If you live much further south than Yountville, or much further north than St. Helena, you may not be eligible to enjoy this newfound source of nourishment: B’s Seedy STATION Granola.

 

The “B” is Brenda Bosetti, who is one of the most talented bakers and cooks in Napa Valley. She makes a lot of the tasty fare for Joel Gott’s new venture, STATION, in St. Helena, but the stand-out item for me is B’s“Seedy” granola.

 

B makes another STATION granola, but as it contains grains, it is unacceptable to gluten-intolerant consumers. B’s “Seedy” granola has NO grains so is an ideal snack for gluten-sensitive consumers.

 

I am NOT gluten-sensitive so the fact that I love B’s “Seedy” granola underscores how good, and how addictive, it is. 

 

I love the playful, and perfect, levels of sweetness and salt in this granola. There is a draw which brings me back for another handful after every swallow. I find it hard to stop noshing on this crunchy, seedy granola, rich as it is with coconut, almonds, and sesame, hemp, chia and flax seeds. Brenda has dialed in the salt and honey levels perfectly.

 

Nice work, Brenda!

 

1-lb bag of B’s Seedy STATION Granola is $16, sold only at STATION, on Main St., St. Helena. 

During quarantine, you must call in your order and arrange a pre-paid pick-up on the phone.

 

 

You may think I’m a chipmunk, given that I am listing another nut product as a Go-To on my list of newly discovered quarantine foods, but I love to have a few walnut pieces with my morning espresso, or cappuccino. And I have largely been disappointed with the walnut offerings in bulk bins. Too often, the nuts are only marginally fresh. 

 

But Whole Foods 356 Organic Walnut Halves & Pieces presents a 10-ounce bag filled with fleshy, tasty walnuts. Delicious on their own, these would also be great if added to home-baked banana bread, or, if chopped, to home-made chocolate chip cookies. What are you waiting for?

 

These are the freshest, tastiest commercial walnuts I’ve ever had.

 

Whole Foods 365 Organic Walnuts, Halves & Pieces, 10-oz bag $7.99.

In the event that you are quarantined!

As readers of this column are likely to become Newbies to the world of quarantine, let me share some discoveries now that my wife Carol and I are in Week Three of our self-imposed house confinement (with daily walks in surrounding vineyards) -- 

 

1. The later you sleep in each morning… the fewer hours have to go by before it is reasonably close to 5 o'clock for your first cocktail of the day. 

I normally awaken at 5.30 am… but found it intolerable to wait 11.5 hours for my first cocktail… so now I sleep in until 9 am… and only have to wait 8 hours until my first Gin & Tonic. 

 

2. If you replace the batteries in your kitchen clock with old, previously discarded, batteries which no long work, then you can justify having your first Gin & Tonic at just about any hour you think “feels like 5 o'clock.”

 

3. In the event that 5 o'clock sneaks up on you and you don’t wish to start making a gin cocktail from scratch, make the recipe below ahead of time, keeping a gallon of this pre-made Martini in your freezer. 

All you have to do is head to the freezer whenever it feels like 5 o'clock.. and pour yourself a slushy Martini.

 

For friends in Napa Valley….. as an additional health protection you may wish to follow my rather unorthodox, prophylactic health measure: we built a moat and filled it with hydrochloric acid and coronavirus-eating crocodiles…. and have lowered the portcullis, which has been reinforced with an impenetrable coronavirus-kevlar material. 

 

And now for something completely different: 

 

Pre-mixed slush Martini recipe:

 

5 ounces of (preferably) Gordon’s or Beefeater Gin

2 ounces distilled water (works better than tap water)

1 ounce dry vermouth (works best with Dolin)

2 lemon twists, or olives

 

This recipe makes 8 ounces of liquid, which equals two to four Martinis, depending on how big you make them and how lightweight you are in holding your liquor.

 

Double, triple, or quadruple the recipe and store the premix in as large a sealable bottle as you have. The premix never goes bad. Store in freezer.

 

Much thanks to my good friend, David Smith, in San Francisco, who turned me on to this brilliant drink. I have known David 54 years and this bit of wisdom is one of the best things he ever shared with me!

 

PS: If you like vodka more than gin, I pity your underprivileged tastebuds - but go ahead, and ruin the integrity of this recipe by replacing gin with tasteless, colorless, jejeune vodka!

 

 

Step 1

Combine the gin, distilled water and vermouth in a mixing vessel. Using a funnel, transfer mixture into a glass bottle. 

Repeat, making as many units of the pre-made Martini as you wish.

Seal the bottle and keep in the freezer.

 

Step 2

When mixture is fully chilled, pour 3 to 4 ounces into a chilled cocktail glass.(If the contents of the bottle are slightly slushy when you remove it from the freezer, give the bottle a shake before you pour out contents).

Garnish each glass with lemon twist or olive.

 

Top Food Trends in the Country

What do cauliflower, coconut, gluten-free breads, plant-based snacks, and bison jerky have in common?

They are all on display at the 45^th Fancy Food Show, in San Francisco, this week. And they are all hot trends in the food world.

Some 1,500 food and beverage manufacturers assembled in the cavernous Moscone Center to show off their paleo-friendly, keto-friendly, plant-based, foods and snacks, their fat-rich coconut drinks, their sumptuous chocolates, terrific tonics, reduced-sugar, caffeine-enriched, sustainably packaged, vegan-appealing, and gluten-free products.

I have attended this annual trade show for the past 30 years, originally as a food writer, then as a manufacturer of muffins, flatbreads and pizza crusts, and now, this year, as the dad of a talented daughter making the best-tasting macaroons in America.

Rather than offer an abusively long overview of everything I tasted at the three-day trade show, I will highlight my favorite discoveries, which underline nascent food trends.

That’s Carol, my wife (left), helping Jenn (right) at her ROONS booth at the Fancy Food Show.

My daughter, Jenn Topliff, exhibited at the Fancy Food Show, offering the 25,000 exhibition attendees a chance to sample her sensational, gluten-free, grain-free, no added preservatives, certified Kosher, woman-owned, macaroons, called ROONS.

Yes, she is my daughter but my adoration of her baked macaroons, available in six astounding flavors, has nothing to do with our family ties. If I were offered her ROONS in a blind tasting, I would proclaim them as the “best tasting macaroons that I have ever had. Period.”

Each ROON sports a hand-formed, pure chocolate base, a perfect complement to the rich coconut macaroon. If you can stop eating ROONS after just one… you may have permanent palate fatigue, or you may possibly already be deceased.

ROONS is a family affair; Jenn’s husband, Brad, works the aisles at the Fancy Food Show, to draw in retailers, brokers, store owners, and supermarket buyers attending the event. The event is trade-only, not for end-use consumers.

You can learn more about ROONS at eatroons.com.

Like ROONS, another sensational artisanal food product in Portland is Wildwood Chocolate, maker of the most original, precisely made, tastiest chocolate bar I’ve ever tasted.

I was WOWED by their chocolate tablets – each flavor SKU packs a powerhouse of originality, brightness, rich chocolate undernotes, and without any question, these are the most beautiful looking chocolate bars I’ve ever seen.

Wildwood is the creation of Steve Lawrence and Rebecca Savage, who have just renamed their former chocolate works Wildwood Chocolate. Their new website and different bars will be up and running by March first, so bookmark that date to go to wildwoodchocolate.com.

 

One of the tasty new foods I tasted at the trade show contains one of the hottest ingredients in the food world – cauliflower. I kid you not.

I saw or tasted cauliflower-based pizza, ice cream, snacks, chips, candies. But the item I think families preferring plant-based, gluten-free products will embrace are Caulipower‘s cauliflower-breaded chicken tenders, coming to supermarkets in your ‘hood this coming May.

I tried them; tender pieces of chicken breaded in a cauliflower coating without oil. Heat in the oven – simple and tasty!

While most vendors were touting products absent of ingredients – things made without gluten, lactose, fat, or meat – I appreciated the concept and taste of Pocket Latte, small chocolate squares endowed with 150 mg of caffeine, about what you’d get from a large cup of drip coffee. And the chocolate tasted great. Made in Los Angeles and available in four flavors.

But wait, there’s more….

I have had a long love affair with Peerless Coffee, a San Francisco-based coffee roaster. About 30 years ago, I hand-picked Peerless to produce a line of private label coffees for a supermarket chain to whom I was consulting. Peerless coffees have always been just that – peerless, perfectly balanced, never bitter, never acidic or sour, as so many trendy coffees are today.

Peerless’ Competition Blend espresso was my favorite coffee at the trade show, a gloriously rich blend, available in many supermarket locations. Roaster Magazine named Peerless the top coffee roaster in the US last year. Nice work, Peerless!

This is jubilant Peerless barista Sam Bouwens, cranking out a bagillion espressos and macchiatos during the 3-day trade show. I’ve never had a better macchiato made with oat milk than the ones Sam made for me each day. Thank you, Sam!

Many producers were pitching to the keto-inspired crowd… I thought this was an attractive package whose message was self-evident.

Tired of old-fashioned beef jerky? Then maybe Bison Bites will appeal to you. They are soy-free, sugar-free, gluten-free, nitrate-free and the bison themselves are roam-free.

 And lastly….

Lots of event-goers seemed to like the plant-based, frozen-treat-on-a-stick called Dream Pops.

I know that everyone in our family did.

The product story is pitched to vegans and consumers skirting dairy and gluten. This 100% plant-based frozen treat is packed in single servings or four pops in a resealable pouch.

Each pop is less than 100 calories and is dairy-free, gluten-free, soy-free. But fortunately, NOT taste-free - I tried several flavors and found this a tasty, calorie-conscious, alternative to ice cream.

Nice work Dream Poppers!

Napaman’s Best Wines of the Year

The single best wine I tasted this year was bright, balanced, and filled with personality.

And, did I mention, it was 221-years-old?

I’m referring to a 1795 Barbeito (producer) Tarrantez (the grape) Madeira.

The fruit for this wine was picked when George Washington was our president.

In hindsight, 2016 was a stellar year for tasting the fortified wine from Madeira, an island afloat in the middle of the north Atlantic Ocean.

I tasted exceptional Madeiras on two occasions this year. You can recap the original stories here:

From a tasting on Valentine’s Day, in San Francisco

http://www.napaman.com/napamancom/2016/02/i-spent-valentines-day-with-an-old-heart-throb-a-216-year-old-wine-that-is-still-youthful.html

From a 2-day tasting in Seattle with America’s Madeira guru, Roy Hersh

http://www.napaman.com/napamancom/2016/04/george-washington-was-president-when-this-wine-was-made-and-its-still-young-brilliant-and-lively.html - http://www.napaman.com/napamancom/2016/04/george-washington-was-president-when-this-wine-was-made-and-

In summary, here is a chronological ramble of my Best Wines of 2016.

February

We weren’t very far into the year when I attended a rare Madeira tasting in San Francisco; Mannie Berk, of the Rare Wine Co., poured 16 Madeiras, the oldest was 216-years-old, from 1800.

The tasting produced three perfect (100 point) wines.

In addition to the unique taste of Madeira, when you drink any wine of 200 year’s age, there is this immutable and impressive fact:

There is NO ONE ON THE PLANET alive today who was alive when this wine was made.

EVERY SINGLE HUMAN ON OUR PLANET AT THE TIME THIS WINE WAS PRODUCED IS DEAD.

So, yes, with an old Madeira, you truly are drinking a snapshot of history.

1834 Barbeito Malvasia

A truly sensational wine, balanced, elegant, exhibiting notes of raisin and brown sugar with a bright undertow of acidity and then, on the finish, sublime salinity. A perfect 100-point wine.

1863 Barbeito MMV Malvasia

MMVF are the initials of Ricardo Freitas’ (he owns Barbeito today) mother, who, during her lifetime, guarded the evolution of this wine, which, only recently was moved from storage to bottle.

This wine has many of the characteristics of the 1834 Madeira above, though it is 29 years younger. (Such a youth!)

Coffee, treacle and burnt orange peel notes arouse your senses; there is richness and warmth in the mouth; this is a generous wine wanting to please. Until I tasted the other two wines, highlighted here, I had already thought of naming this 1863 Malvasia as my Wine of the Year -- and yet we were only into February!

I have reconsidered, and think that all THREE of these Madeiras merit a position on napaman’s compendium of Best Wines of the Year. 100 points.

1885 Barbeito Verdelho

Verdelho is a grape that mostly produces a drier-style Madeira. Even so, this wine offers delicious brown sugar top notes on the middle palate, sports great acidity and has a long, focused finish.

If this Madeira were an Olympic marathoner, it would be one of those Kenyans gracefully racing to the finish line, arriving well ahead of the pack, without ever skipping a heartbeat, or an ounce of breath. 100 points

2005 Masseto

A bit later in the month, I had the privilege of tasting my first-ever Masseto, often called “the Chateau Petrus of Italy.”

It also costs like Petrus; the bottle friends brought to our home for dinner has a price tag up to $1200 in the secondary market.

The wine was paired with perfectly roasted, moist and juicy, farmhouse chicken. The Masseto blew the hinges off the dinner door, surpassing ten other wines, which I served to our eight assembled dinner guests.

The Masseto was sublime; it exhibited such finesse, balance and warmth that it sucked me in, made me think I was drinking an elixir worthy of royalty.

The rich, ripe fruit, integrated tannins, and exceptional finish made me rethink and revere Merlot all over again. From the house of Ornellaia. 98 points.

April

And then, in April, I attended a two-day Madeira event in Seattle, WA, organized by Port and Madeira expert Roy Hersh, which produced three additional Best Wines of the Year.

(Yes, I am running this photo again -- a) because I Can! and b) because anytime you experience a wine of this profound age and vibrancy, you can talk about it, and show pictures of it, as much and as often as you like!)

1795 Barbeito Terrantez

Terrantez is one of the original grapes used to make Madeira. This bottle presented a wine of profound depth and harmony. On the nose there were bright, warm scents of chocolate, amber-grade maple syrup, marzipan, and the salted caramels made by San Francisco chocolatier Michael Recchiuti.

The color was one of dark mahogany, the color of a sideboard in an old southern colonial home.

I was knocked out by the peppery attack and long lasting peppery finish. Even at 221 years of age, this wine was lively, spirited, delivering flavors of warm bread, yeast, treacle, and molasses.

This wine is a complete symphony of flavors and scents; there are fruited notes, including strawberry; the finish goes on for a minute or more. There are hints of rum-raisin, hot-cross buns, wine-gum candies and cola.

In short, this wine is a religious experience; it may be what Heaven tastes like.

Thank you Eric Ifune, from Las Vegas, for bringing this wine to the Seattle tasting, and thank you again, Roy Hersh, for organizing this transformative (at least for me) Madeira tasting. The wine: 100 points. The weekend Madeira tasting experience: 100 points.

1886 Barbeito Malvasia

I brought this Madeira to the Seattle tasting; it turned out to be a favorite of many guests at the event, and I thought it rocked, too.

Initial tastes: honey, yeast, malted barley, molasses, tobacco bordering on cigar wrapper, marzipan, and even a hint of shiny floor wax.

The wine exhibits great acidity; this is a vibrant wine – you’d NEVER guess that it’s 120-years-old. Very complex. Gorgeous. 98 points.

1895 D’Oliveiras Malvasia

On the nose, hints of orange peel, honey cake, spearmint, and tobacco. On the palate, there are elements of orange peel and fruit cake, all of it fused with a core of bright acidity. Extremely complex and compelling. 96 points.

Then, three days after this extraordinary Madeira event, the bottom fell out of my life; my BFFF – Best Four-Footed Friend ever – died.

Linus, was an amazing, life-of-the-party, Goldendoodle with palpable personality, who got too old too fast. He died a few weeks shy of his 13^th birthday.

To honor his memory, the day after he died, Mrs. Napaman said she wanted to cook a dinner to celebrate Linus’ life – so she made homemade chicken soup from scratch, which was Linus’ favorite meal. For 13 years, Mrs. Napaman made Linus his own chicken soup from scratch once, or twice, a week to spark up his kibble.

To commemorate Linus’ life, I chose a wine from his birth year to complement the rich, nourishing chicken soup, filled with moist chunks of chicken – the 2003 Spottswoode Cabernet Sauvignon.

Due to the occasion, and because the wine was just so damned near perfect in every way – color, aroma, texture and swallow – I scored the wine 98 points, and the soup 100 points.

Linus would have been pleased. As my BFFF, he scored 100 points every day of his life, of which there were 4,710. And, if I were given the chance, I would trade a case of Madeira to be able to spend one more day with him. 

And then, to lighten my mood and distract me, before the month was out, the Robert Mondavi Winery held a massive, three-day event to celebrate the upcoming 50^th anniversary of the eponymous winery, which Bob Mondavi started in 1966.

Napaman was one of very few guests invited to the pre-event and I am eternally grateful to the organizers for including me.

The highlights of the three-day tasting were recorded here:

http://www.napaman.com/napamancom/2016/04/napa-valleys-most-memorable-wine-event-of-the-year-robert-mondavi-winery-turns-50.html

It is critical that I add all 50 vintages of Mondavi wine to this year-end summary, because, taken as a whole, they constitute a lifetime’s oeuvre.

I was particularly bowled over by the first vintage produced here, the still bright, 1966 Cabernet, and I loved the 1969, which was still at an apogee of complexity, length and vigor.

Warren Winiarski

For me, the single most memorable moment of the year in wine-speak, occurred at the Mondavi 50^th Anniversary gala dinner.

At the Monday night dinner for 75 former winemakers, vineyard managers and close friends of the winery, the hosts poured, among many wines and many vintages, the 1966 Robert Mondavi Cabernet Sauvignon, leaving only three bottles of this compelling wine in the cellar at Mondavi.

1966 was the first vintage of Mondavi Cabernet ever made.

After the wine was poured, Warren Winiarski, who was seated next to Margrit Biever Mondavi, stood up and said loudly and proudly,

“Hello, my name is Warren Winiarski AND I MADE THIS WINE (50 years earlier)!

Everyone in the room got goose bumps. The dining room erupted in thunderous applause, and many gave Warren a standing ovation.

In a lifetime of writing about wine and profiling famous, and not so famous, winemakers, this was simply an astounding, once-in-a-lifetime experience. How many winemakers are still around 50 years after their first wine? And when such an event occurs, how many of those first wines do you suspect would still be supple, confident, and delicious 50 years later – as was the 1966 Mondavi Cabernet the night we tasted it?

Bravo to Robert Mondavi, who had the vision to pick Warren as his first winemaker! Bravo to Warren for making such a profound statement. Bravo to Bob, who was a dear friend, for sharing his vision of what Napa Valley could produce.

June

You don’t see a lot of French Burgundy (Pinot Noir grape) on Napaman’s annual Best of the Year wine list. It’s not called the Heartbreak Grape for nothing.

How many bottles of Burgundy do you have to open to get a bottle that you can rave about?

Answer: Too many.

Many years, though, a Willamette Valley Pinot, from Oregon, appears on my list because these Pinots deliver in spades – unctuous texture, sublime ripe fruit, ethereal balance and rich complexity. Oh wait, I’ve just described the 2006 Patricia Green Cellars Croft Vineyard Pinot Noir I drank while the Warriors lost Game 6 of the NBA finals to the Cleveland Cavaliers.

This was a profound wine and at ten years of age, seamless, gorgeous, a near-perfect drinking experience. 98 points.

In June, napaman was invited to a wine seminar in Coombsville, one of 16 designated sub-appellations in Napa Valley.

For decades, grape producers in Coombsville have been supplying exceptional fruit to the big boys in Oakville and Rutherford where the resultant wines are sold in fashionable, extra-heavy bottles for a fortune.

During my wine reconnaissance, I discovered one of my Napa Valley wine-finds of the year – Scalon Cellars.

I loved the 2013 Scalon Cellars Cabernet, scoring it 96 points the day I tasted it in June... and then scored it the same again in August, when I met with winery partners Jesus Espinoza and Cruz Calderon at their vineyard property.

This is a voluptuous, heady, complex, cocoa-tinged, flesh bomb of underpriced Cabernet; I urge readers to connect with business associate Tim Goodwin to acquire one of the very few cases, which remain. His cell is: (925) 658-2151. Good luck!

Having had so many spectacular high-scoring wines, and having been invited to the two Madeira tastings and Mondavi event in the first half of the year, I failed to find any wines, or events, in the second half of the year worthy of being added to this rich list.

But the truth is, I am still running high on the vapors of the two Madeira tastings and the historical Mondavi Cabernet tasting.

Best wishes to readers for a healthy, happy and wine-filled 2017.

Napaman’s Best Wines of the Year

As has become tradition, at the end of each year, I roll back the calendar, reviewing the best wines that I have been fortunate to enjoy.

2019 supplied me with many happy, vinous moments at the table. So let’s get to it.

2006 Archery Summit, Premier Cuvee, Pinot Noir

We were four months into the year when I discovered this last remaining bottle of 2006 Archery Summit in my cellar, the remnant of a case I had purchased a dozen years ago.

Friends came to our home for dinner. I wanted to complement Carol’s divine grilled salmon with a Willamette Valley Pinot Noir and discovered this errant bottle. I thought we'd seen the last of the case years ago.

This innocent discovery turned out to be our Wine of the Night, as well as one of my favorite wines of the year.

A gorgeous integration of fruit and flavors, still young at 13 years, and not showing any signs of age, or fatigue. A rapturous wine, filled with red and dark fruits with a spirited, hedonistic finish.

98 points

 

2003 Roger Sabon, Secret des Sabon, Chateauneuf-du-Pape

2006 Pierre Usseglio, Réserve des deux frères, Chateauneuf-du-Pape

Ola! What do we have here? What amounts to a double-header of pleasure, two perfect, Grenache-based wines served at the same dinner.

And also, two perfect Napa Valley Cabernets!

What are the chances that you could enjoy FOUR 100-point wines at the same dinner!?

As friends came from San Francisco to have dinner with us (he is general manager and partner of a stellar, 1-star Michelin restaurant), I went deep into the cellar to find some vinous treasures to please our guests.

In a corner of the cellar, I found two Chateauneufs-du-Pape from two of the top producers in the region; these wines are now perfectly aged at 16 and 13 years respectively.

The Secret des Sabon is the winery’s top-tier wine, 90% Grenache from vines that are well over 100-years-old. This is a pretty wine with a somewhat sweetish middle palate and a gorgeous finish, which amplifies the fruit. The finish hangs on like an echo in a canyon for a good thirty seconds.

I love, love, love this wine. Complex, beautifully structured, bright on the palate. This is textbook perfect wine – what you would choose to take to a desert island if you were only permitted to take one wine to drink for the rest of your life.

100 points

The Pierre Usseglio CDP, 100% Grenache, displays slightly more alcohol on the middle palate and throughout the swallow than the Sabon. It exhibits slightly more assertive flavors, too. Lots of ripe raspberries and blackberries on the finish.

Another perfect wine, just cruising now into middle age with much more aging potential.

A glorious wine, perfect on its own, plu-perfect with a perfectly grilled, medium-rare, porterhouse steak.

100 points.

 

2011 ADV Cabernet

2016 ADV Cabernet

The other guests at our table were Rob and Lexie Adler, who produce one of my favorite Cabernets in Napa Valley, silky, elegant, totally harmonious ADV (Adler Deutsch Vineyard).

They brought to dinner their 2011, and just-released 2016, Cabernets.

If you recall, wine critic James Laube destroyed the challenging vintage of 2011 in Napa Valley, declaring it a disaster. The bottom fell out of the market for 2011 Cabs, due to his dismal (and WRONG) assessment of the vintage.

Talented winemakers in that wet, cold season made gorgeous wines; wines with less alcohol than perhaps consumers are used to – more like the levels found in classic Bordeaux. Some of the prettiest Napa Valley Cabernets I have tasted come from the 2011 vintage. And one of the prettiest is that of ADV.

The 2011 bottle, paired with barbecued, porterhouse steak, was sublime; it had nuances of sweet, mature fruit and ample length.

By contrast, the 2016 ADV was bigger, bolder, more show-offy, exhibiting tons of bright fruit, brilliant acidity, harmonious flavors and a tongue-clacking finish.

Think “Spottswoode,” at half the price.

2011 ADV Cabernet, 100 points

2016 ADV Cabernet, 100 points

A Trifecta of Perfect and Near-Perfect Wine

In early fall, Rob and Layla Fancucci came to dinner.

I was Rob’s former partner in Charter Oak Winery, in St. Helena, where, for 12 years, we were joined at the hip, making rich, seductive wines, which won illustrious awards for their balance and harmony. I moved on to initiate other business activities; Rob continues to operate his family winery, making sensational wines.

For our September dinner, Rob and Layla brought two sensational Charter Oak wines:

2017 Charter Oak Winery, Guido Ragghianti Red Blend and the textbook-terrific 2005 Charter Oak winery, Monte Rosso Vineyard, Zinfandel

For our dinner, I went deep into the cellar and pulled out a 2007 Vieux Donjon Chateauneuf-du-Pape. So let’s start the commentary about these wines:

2007 Vieux Donjon Chateauneuf-du-Pape

How do you rate a wine 101 points? I dunno, but I just did.

I have opened so many bottles of Vieux Donjon over the last 30 years that I could be their brand ambassador to the United States.

Some bottles have been good, some have been great… and then, every 24 bottles, or so, you hit one that has such a perfect blend of Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre, and Cinsault that you would trade an organ, or dog, for another perfect bottle.

This was one of those bottles; the wine was unctuous, rich, sublime. There were undercurrents of ripe purple, red and blue fruits; there was perfect, mouth-watering acidity on the finish. 101 points (sorry but that’s just how the judge feels about this wine.)

2005 Charter Oak Winery, Monte Rosso Vineyard, Zinfandel

For the record: This is a wine which Rob and I made together.

We bought six tons of grapes from the Monte Rosso vineyard, the oldest Zinfandel vineyard in America (now owned by Gallo).

When we bought this fruit, the vines were about 135-years-old.

Rob and I carefully coached this wine into life; we aged it in neutral oak and have watched it age in bottle for a dozen years. OMG – this evening, it grabbed me by the lapels, shook me, and made me proud of our efforts. I wanted to genuflect in its presence for being so inspirational.

99 points

2017 Charter Oak Winery, Guido Ragghianti, Red Blend

I turned my shares of Charter Oak Winery back to Rob years ago, and after we split, I failed to taste all the SKUS annually coming out of the winery.

The 2017 vintage, which Rob brought to dinner, is a stupendous wine, his personal favorite since we stopped making wine together.

This beautifully structured wine exhibits ripe red and blue fruits. It’s going to be a serious contender as Wine of the Year in the St. Helena appellation four years hence, when it has had time to age and integrate.

97 points… and growing.

 

2015 San Filippo, Le Lucere, Brunello di Montalcino

Get your rain gear on, America!

You are about to be drenched, if not drowned, in a January tsunami of tremendous wine from Italy.

Specifically: The soon-to-be-released 2015 Sangiovese-based, Brunello di Montalcino wines are going to blow the doors off your wine cellar.

I just visited Montalcino, in Tuscany, and blind-tasted two-dozen pre-release 2015 Brunellos, (released in January).

I am not alone in my praise for this vintage; winemakers, winery owners, and professional wine writers are uniformly agreeing – 2015 IS THE BEST VINTAGE OF BRUNELLO IN HISTORY.

Thomas Bianciardi is winemaker at San Filippo. I had the pleasure of having lunch with him, tasting through several vintages of his sublime wine, including a bottle of the soon-to-be-released 2015 cuvee, Le Lucere. Several days later, I identified it in a blind tasting of a dozen 2015s Brunellos. I tasted it on another occasion, too. Each time, it was my favorite wine of the flight.

While I ascribed 100 points in Montalcino to numerous 2015 Brunellos (the vintage is THAT spectacular), I was mesmerized by Le Lucere’s richness, breadth, complexity, chocolate notes, sensuality, weight on the palate and sublime finish. And the wine hasn’t even been released yet!

To properly place San Filippo’s Le Lucere Brunello di Montalcino in the hierarchy of other stupendous 2015 Brunellos to which I ascribed 100 points, I will have to attribute 102 points to the Le Lucere to be faithful to, and accurate with, my rating scale.

Good on ya, Thomas, you broke the rating scale! 

Happy New Year to all; may your 2020 be filled with as many vinous pleasures as mine has been in 2019.

Spectacular Wine-Country Images For Sale!

From an original photograph by Napaman.

“Alma de la Tierra,” which means “Soul of the Earth,” celebrates life in the vineyards.

If you’ve followed Napaman for the past 10 years, you have only occasionally found a story about me. Ninety-nine percent of the stories here have been about a winery, a wine tasting, a restaurant, or an event. Napaman was the messenger of these stories, not the subject.

But this column turns this history on its head. This time, the story is about my photography.

In the short space of a few column inches, I am going to expose you to my work and possibly even prompt you to purchase one of my photographs, or, better yet, have you order one affixed to a shower curtain (looks great!), coffee mug, or create a set of postcards to give to someone as a hostess, birthday, or holiday, gift. No kidding.

Fog balloons, Napa Valley

Gnarly Zin vine, Napa Valley

Fall colors, Napa Valley

Biblical sunset, Napa Valley

(NOT photoshopped – this is the real sky, my camera recorded exactly what I saw)

These wine-country images, and dozens more, appear on my Fine Arts America site.  (Click on this link to be taken to my wine-country portfolio. Use the discount code EFEXDM to get 20% off whatever you buy – consider this Napaman’s treat to you for being a loyal reader.)

The “Alma de la Tierra”poster above is available in a variety of sizes and can be printed on numerous materials (paper, metal, canvas, etc.).

With the purchase of 10 or more copies of the poster, I can have the text, “Alma de la Tierra”replaced with your own personalized message. For such an individual request, please contact my business manager, Jim Scott, at [email protected]

Backgrounder

Few readers know that before I was a professional wordsmith, I made my living as a professional photographer.

Island of Djerba, Tunisia, photo by Jim White

Island of Djerba, Tunisia, photo by Jim White

In 1970, I traveled to Africa to tackle a freelance, photographic assignment for National Geographic in Tunisia – the editors, comfortable with my photographic skills and eye, asked me to record life on the Isle of Djerba, a.k.a., “Land of the Lotophages”(lotus-eaters).

These photos from Africa, Jim White

After covering wars, drought, and civil unrest across Africa with my camera for years, I discovered that I also had a voice with words. And so I became a foreign correspondent in Africa, stringing for numerous periodicals, newspapers, United Press International and the Associated Press.

After spending time in African jails for being in the right place (as a journalist) at the wrong time (charged for being in areas where journalists were unwelcome – in Libya, Egypt and Uganda), I returned to North America. I calculated that it was safer to write about prepared food rather than African conflicts.

I became a food writer, then a restaurant critic and in the process, (not being immodest here, but who else is going to say this…?) was twice named, by a panel of journalist peers, in 1980, and again in 1982, the Best Food Writer in North Americawriting for a newspaper with 1 million circulation or greater.

But all these many years later, I still have a passion for photography; and after moving to Napa Valley, I revitalized this passion in the vineyards.

Jimi Hendrix, photo by Jim White.

A year ago, I teamed up with a talented, local photographer and darkroom technician, Jim Scott, who digitized 20,000 of my film images, and coordinated the sale of a portfolio of Jimi Hendrix images, which I had shot in 1969, to the Estate of Jimi Hendrix.

And it was Jim who is coaxing me to monetize my wine-country imagery; he insisted that I post this story.

Will this story generate photography sales? Dunno. Let’s see.

Anyway, thanks for reading to the end.

My Favorite Summer Cocktail!

My hat is off to Coqueta, my favorite Spanish restaurant in the Bay area, and, for that matter, probably anywhere in the country.

They do so many things right at Coqueta, but the bar item that caught my fancy, and which spawned numerous home trials to reproduce it, is Coqueta’s Gin Tonic – which is how the Spanish refer to the refreshing, breezy, delicious drink we know as GinandTonic.

For the longest time, Coqueta only had one outpost – in San Francisco, on the Embarcadero. So napaman felt compelled to learn how to make this cocktail, because how often was I going to be in San Francisco, I asked myself?

Little did I know that plans were underfoot to open Coqueta Napa Valley, just behind Michael Chiarello’s destination restaurant, Bottega, in Yountville (Michael is the brains behind Bottega and Coqueta). So when it opened, I no longer really had the pressure to finesse the cocktail at home, but I pressed on anyway.

I think, humbly, that I have improved on the original, Coqueta-inspired Spanish Gin Tonic and want to share it with readers. The summer is hot, this drink is refreshing – what more needs to be said?

The secret ingredients

Secrets of the Coqueta SGT include:

Not all gins are created equal. I’ve made multiple versions of this cocktail using different gins and each one adds, or subtracts, an essential element of the finished cocktail. Bloom gin, imported from England, is Coqueta’s choice and a smart one, indeed!

As Bloom is looking for a new national distributor just now, I was only able to snag five bottles of this gin from a Florida retailer. I am guarding my stash until more becomes available in the marketplace.

You can make this drink with Plymouth, Martin Miller, Bombay Sapphire, or 209 gin and each version will be different. One of my runner-up favorites uses a very inexpensive, commonplace gin -- Gordon’s.

If you don’t know Fever-Tree Tonic, you are about to have an Aha! Moment. Forget ALL those other household, commonplace tonics and ginger ales. Fever-Tree, made in England, is THE only tonic, club soda, or ginger ale, to have in your home.

It comes in two sizes and is available in fine grocery stores (I buy mine at Whole Foods) and also can be found at Cost Plus/World Market.

Your Spanish GT will NOT be as good as mine if you use any other brand of tonic. Trust me on this.

Also, while Coqueta uses the full-sugared version of Fever-Tree Tonic, I prefer their “Naturally Light,” which has reduced sugar and suffers nothing at all from the reduction of sugar and calories.

The restaurant adds a small slice of grapefruit; I find that stripping a wide peel off the rind of a grapefruit adds some essential oils to the final cocktail which helps lengthen the flavor profile of the drink.

Coqueta adds edible flowers and thyme to its SGT. We’ve started to grow our own edible flowers for our nightly, 5 pm cocktail hour. Violets and borage are two of the more colorful, edible flowers to be included.

Also add a sprig, or two, of thyme, which adds herbal zip to the beverage.

As juniper berries are an essential part of the flavoring of gin itself, I found it natural to add a few more to the cocktail. I add four berries to every glass of SGT, which I prepare.

The restaurant takes the use of juniper berries a step further and toasts them before adding them to the cocktail; I don’t think my version suffers for NOT toasting – so don’t feel compelled to toast your juniper berries.

The basic napaman recipe for Spanish Gin Tonic goes like this:

For each glass:

Fill a large wine glass (stemless, or with stem), whisky glass, or attractive water glass with clear ice.

Pour 2 ounces of Bloom gin, or gin of your choice, over the ice.

Cut a wide swath off rind off a grapefruit and slip the piece between the side of the glass and the ice cubes.

Add 4 juniper berries.

Add colorful edible flowers and thyme spring to taste.

Add 2 to 3 ounces of Fever-Tree Naturally Light Tonic and stir.

Taste and if you feel your drink needs more tonic… add more, but it is always more agreeable to add tonic than it is to realize you’ve added too much tonic at the start.

If you want to try the cocktail at Coqueta, go ahead – they are made identically at both locations. THEY ARE ALMOST AS GOOD AS MINE! (LOL)

Coqueta,Pier 5 The Embarcadero, San Francisco. 415-704-8866

Coqueta Napa Valley, 6525 Washington St, Yountville. 707-244-4350

Happy 100th Birthday, Lawrence Ferlinghetti!

One of my favorite poets of all time wrote one of my favorite poems of all time.

The poet is Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Godfather of the Beat Generation, whose bookstore, City Lights, in San Francisco, has been a beacon to all would-be writers, poets, satyrs and intelligentsia since 1953. Ferlinghetti turns 100 today.

Crowds gathered in front of City Lights this afternoon to celebrate the occasion while Ferlinghetti stayed out of sight, largely because his vision is, well, largely out of sight – he is nearly blind.

From 1 pm onward, celebrants, artists, poets, unusual dressers, and particularly hirsute partiers gathered to hear area poets read and to share stories about Ferlinghetti, with whom so many celebrants appear to personally have had a relationship.

In Jack Kerouac Alley, beside the store, attendees signed a LARGE birthday card for Ferlinghetti.

Local folks who attended the afternoon festivities:

My favorite poetry book of Ferlinghetti’s has always been A Coney Island of The Mind, containing my personal favorite poem, untitled, which starts out “Sometime During Eternity,” which is Ferlinghetti’s dirge about how Christ has come to be referenced.

I own several copies of A Coney Island of the Mind,even one translated into Italian, and one signed by Ferlinghetti. Since publication in 1958, the book has sold more than a million copies, making it one of the bestselling poetry books of all time.

When I lived in Toronto, Canada, I made numerous visits to San Francisco on business – often to review restaurants as I was the food editor and restaurant critic of the Toronto Star, then the third largest newspaper in North America.

And on every trip, I’d work in a visit to City Lights, to check out the unusual collection of books, magazines and floor dedicated to Beat literature. There was no other bookstore in America quite like it then. And, if you were wondering, there still isn’t.

I took the photo of Ferlinghetti in front of his store (top, above) in the summer of 1975. For me, it’s a sublime memory of that day, when we talked, exchanged ideas, and felt good about us, our country, and our place on this spinning orb.

But that was 44 years ago and a lot has changed since then. Especially how we feel about this country.

Over the years, Ferlinghetti has made unusual public appearances – he often popped up at times you wouldn’t expect. One such appearance was at the 1976 filming of The Last Waltz, the final concert of the Canadian-American rock group The Band, held at Winterland Ballroom, in San Francisco.

The film documented the Band’s last-ever performance and during the event, Ferlinghetti appeared to speak some nonsensical lines, which were included in the film’s final cut.

I wanted to attend the birthday festivities today at City Lights to commemorate Ferlinghetti’s gift to us all, his words of wisdom and wise-ness, and his coruscating view of so many of our cultural icons and habits.

For a fresh understanding of what makes the poet tick, you might read Ferlinghetti’s just published autobiography, titled Little Boy.

Happy 100^th Birthday Lawrence; thank you for making my voyage on the Good Ship LIFE so enjoyable – much more so than had you not also been a passenger.

The revolution at Pahlmeyer has begun!

 

Vive la révolution!

Under the direction of new winery President, Cleo Pahlmeyer, daughter of founder Jayson Pahlmeyer, there is a slow, subtle tweak coming to one of Napa Valley’s premiere cult wines, Pahlmeyer.

Successfully tweaking the personality and profile of any successful brand, especially one which has won accolades for 30 years, is no small challenge.

Cleo’s task is a bit like that of the captain of a huge super-tanker, who decides half-way across the Pacific that the onboard compass needs to be reset for a different destination – so the captain aims to steer the ship to head for a different point on the horizon.

You ever try to turn a super-tanker around?

Excuse Napaman for mixing metaphors, but to my mind, this is a bit what Cleo’s self-imposed undertaking resembles.

She’s going to press success and make things - like the taste profile and actual bottle design of Pahlmeyer – better. In my mind, that’s like changing the direction of a super-tanker.

Cleo Pahlmeyer, President of the winery.

Cleo has taken the reins of Pahlmeyer from her dad, Jayson, who founded the winery, producing his first glorious vintage in 1986.

Jayson is in good spirits and fine health, but thought that it was time to turn over operational responsibilities to his family’s next-gen, next-gender. Hence, Cleo’s move from the dugout to the batter’s box.

I asked Cleo what she would like to achieve, now that she is running the show.

“We really want to create the gold standard of Napa Valley wine,” Cleo told me.

“We want to make a classic Napa Valley red wine showing richness, power, and volume, whose hallmarks are alluring aromatics and freshness. We think we can make even better wine than we do now by farming our vineyards with more precision. At harvest, we want to up our game and handle the fruit less. We want to be able to taste the vineyard site in our finished wine.”

Based on whom Cleo’s hired to execute her vision, I think she is likely to succeed.

You see, Cleo has just hired Jennifer Williams as Pahlmeyer’s new winemaker.

Remember, you read this here first.

Jennifer Williams, Pahlmeyer’s new winemaker.

Napaman is the only media outlet to get wind of this sea-change at Pahlmeyer.

As well, Napaman was also the ONLY journalist invited to an all-day retrospective tasting of all 30 vintages of Pahlmeyer.

(For clarity, perspective, and full disclosure, I am a long-time friend of Cleo and her husband, Jamie Watson, which is why I was asked to join the otherwise private, staff-only tasting.)

If the name Jennifer Williams rings a bell, it may be because you have enjoyed her delicious, beautifully crafted wines, which she has made at other Napa Valley wineries.

Jennifer William 

Perhaps you have been lucky enough to drink Spottswoode Cabernets from vintages 2006 through 2011 -- ALL the handiwork of Jennifer, now 42. 

Jennifer had the good fortune to be mentored by some of the top wine people in the industry, including the Stephen Curry of vineyard managers, David Abreu, and winemaker Francoise Peschon at Araujo Estate.

(Today, Jennifer and her husband, Mark Porembski, work together to produce their own wine, Zeitgeist Cellars, for which they craft small batches of Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah.)

Todd Kohn 

Helping Jennifer is Todd Kohn, associate winemaker at Pahlmeyer. As well, Todd is full-on winemaker at Pahlmeyer’s Sonoma Coast winery, Wayfarer, where he makes delicious, Burgundy-style, Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs.

To determine a new direction for Pahlmeyer wines, Cleo said that she had to first understand the evolution of the wine to date, so she arranged a tasting of all 30 vintages – everything ever produced – and assembled a small panel to taste the wines in Yountville last week. Napaman attended the tasting.

This is what a table looks like when you assemble your team… and 30 vintages of Pahlmeyer.

The wines were arranged in five flights, grouped by whomever was the winemaker at the time. 

Over 30 years, Pahlmeyer has had a succession of winemakers, each lasting five, or six, years, including, in historical chronology, Randy Dunn, Helen Turley, Erin Green, Kale Anderson and Bibiana Gonzalez Rabe. 

The Pahlmeyer team tasted 30 vintages of the winery’s proprietary red, a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cab Franc, Merlot, Petit Verdot and Malbec.

Among my favorite wines of the 30 vintages were those made in the ‘80s by Randy Dunn and the ones in the 90s, made by Helen Turley.

The 1990 Pahlmeyer, even though 28 years old, tasted like a current-release wine, filled with contemporary freshness, bright acidity, good balance and ample vigor. Quite a delight. 94 points.

My favorite from the Turley era was her 1994 Pahlmeyer, which exhibited sweet, mature fruit, smart acidity, and tremendous balance. I noted that this wine tasted extremely refreshing, which is not a word I often use to describe 24-year-old Napa Valley Cabs. Great job! 96 points.

Jamie Watson, full-time lawyer in private practice and part-time consigliere to his wife, Cleo Pahlmeyer, and her family.

“In addition to improving our wine and strengthening our brand, our next strategic move will be to build our own winery and have our own hospitality center,” Jamie told me at the tasting.

Dave Wilson, Pahlmeyer director of vineyard operations

Like Jennifer Williams, Dave Wilson will bear a lot of the responsibility going forward to produce a “Gold Standard” proprietary red wine. Dave oversees 12 separate vineyards for the company, five of which are groomed specifically for Pahlmeyer’s proprietary red.

One of the essential properties supplying Cabernet for Pahlmeyer is Dave’s own family’s vineyard, Rancho Chimiles, east of Atlas Peak, on a swale about 600 feet in elevation.

Rancho Chimiles has been Pahlmeyer’s backbone source of Cabernet for 25 consecutive vintages. If I told you the coordinates of the vineyard, or shared a photo, the Pahlmeyer crew would kill me, so don’t ask. I need to be home for supper tonight.

If you are interested in getting on the mailing list, or joining any of several wine club programs, go to pahlmeyer.com.

Best Wines of 2017

We opened, on average, more than 1.5 bottles a night this year, which means we drank 550 bottles; we probably bought another 50 in restaurants; we probably attended tastings, professionally and in winemaker’s homes, and drank another 150 wines.

So, in total, we tasted at least 750 wines. And another 150 Madeiras in May.

Them’s a lot of wines: 900 bottles.

And despite this grand total, the stand-outs, the memorable wines, only number a few.

And this be them in 2017....

2002 Heitz Cellar, Martha’s Vineyard

Good friends brought this bottle to dinner in our home at which we served a perfectly grilled bistecca alle fiorentina.

You can talk all you want about wine perfection, but if you want to taste it, you should have been at the table when we drank this wine.

A magical, memorable wine, perfectly balanced, harmonious, providing gorgeous Cabernet scents on the nose, and delivering ripe, red ripe fruit flavors, violets, and an ethereal undertow of cassis on the palate.

The wine showed a finesse and elegance which is rare in Napa Valley Cabernets, which too often push the envelope with alcohol, have too much gushy, forward fruit and excessive oak. Not this wine; this bottle showed all the greatness, which Joe Heitz, who founded the winery, imparted in his wines.

Joe was one of the first artisans in the California wine industry and the first producer to recognize the concept of “single vineyard” wines. 100 points.

2005 Mauro Molino Barolo, Vigna Conca

Was this wine magical because we drank it in one of my favorite Italian towns, Alba, or was it the company, my sweet wife, Carol, of 45 years, or was it, by chance, just a near-perfect bottle of wine?

Dunno. But it sure was a thrill-a-sip wine.

One of my go-to gurus on Piemontese wine told me that just about anything Mauro Molino produces is great.

“His 1990 Barolo is one of the top five Barolos I’ve ever tasted in my life,”my friend Josh told me, and as beverage buyer, wine-server, and former sommelier in 1- and 3-star Michelin restaurants, he has tasted a LOT of Barolos.

The 2005 Mauro Molino throws off sweet cherry bottom notes, a sort of scaffolding for other flavors to tower over as the wine gains air.

This wine exhibits elegance, finesse, supreme balance. At 12 years of age, the wine is already beautifully sculptured; it is generously endowed with texture, middle palate flavors and a gorgeous finish.

After 30 minutes in the glass, there are curious, but delicious, hints of cinnamon, allspice and exotic spices from the East.

“Luscious, rich, lubricious, “ are three words I found in the margin of my notes when I returned to Napa Valley. 97 points.

2009 Cavallotto Bricco Boschis, Vigna San Giuseppe

Oh my, another near-perfect wine, enjoyed with a meal highlighted with a rich shaving of fresh white truffles in one of our favorite restaurants anywhere, Dell’Arco, in Alba, Italy.

This wine gripped our senses, demanded we pay attention to its charm, richness, allure and depth. A stunning example of superb wine-making. There was an immediate release of fresh ripe red fruits on the nose and palate; followed by rich and deep traces of root vegetables and truffles. An amazing near syrupy-like texture that is so unknown in Barolo circles; this is a wow! wine of richness, complexity, and deliverance. 99 points.

1998 Chateau Trotanoy

Our family gathered for Thanksgiving. To complement Carol’s perfectly prepared, oven-roasted turkey, I opened a magnum of 1998 Chateau Trotanoy, which Carol had given to me on my 60^th birthday, many years ago.

The 1998 Trotanoy, 95% Merlot, 5% Cab Franc, was nothing short of ethereal.

The wine was magnificent, filled with lusty top and bottom notes, ushering a sequence of flavors into our collective mouth -- loads of cherry, chocolate and blackberry, all anchored with supple notes of rich, silky violet. A near-perfect wine. 99 points.

FYI: Upon the commercial release of this wine, the producer, Claude Berrouet, said that this vintage was, in his opinion, “one of the best Trotanoy’s ever produced.” I have to agree with him -- #whatawine!

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE....

In May of this year, Carol and I spent eight days on the Atlantic island of Madeira, where some of the world’s most alluring, exotic, and, for sure, most age-worthy wines are produced. I have tasted Madeiras, which are 222-years-old, produced in the 1700s, and they are still vibrant, fresh, youthful, complex, and even riveting!

I would be remiss if my year-end Best Wines compilation failed to incorporate some of the top wines I tasted during my sojourn on Madeira. And they include the following:

 

1954 Henriques & Henriques Malvasia. Sipping this wine is like setting fireworks off in your mouth – your palate lights up with small explosions of taste; there are explosive, juicy, coffee, toffee and burnt sugar notes, a profound undercurrent of acid runs through the performance. It’s like the end-of-night fireworks at Disneyland going off in your mouth. Gob-smacking glorious! 97 points.

1957 Henriques & Henriques, Boal

There is such perfect balance and harmony in this wine, a mellifluous yin and yang of sweetness and acidity, with top notes of orange, orange zest and tangerine running wild along the entire length of the taste and swallow; you can’t spit this wine out in a tasting – impossible! 96 points.

Barbeito 30-year-old Malvasia, Vo Vera, of which there are only 612 bottles in the whole world.

Winemaker and Madeira blender extraordinaire at Barbeito, Ricardo Diogo Freitas, says that he thinks his 30-year-old Malvasia Vo Vera is “the best single wine I have ever made in my entire life,” which is like having Stephen Curry identify which of his hundreds of 3-point shots from center court is his best career dunk.

Ricardo calls this “a wine of precision.” I call it a tour de force. You can’t put more wine into a wine. 100 points.

This beauty sings, dances and spins plates on pointy sticks -- all at the same time. If Ed Sullivan were still alive and on the air, this wine would be the headliner act for his Sunday night TV broadcast.

Barbeito 1863 Boal

This was another high scoring wine of the 17, which I tasted at Barbeito, a profound expression of winemaking skill. A legendary wine.

This wine had been in the same cask for 145 years when, in 2008, it was transferred to a demi-john. The wine was bottled in February of this year.

If you want Impeccable wine with a capital I – this is it. Also a 100-pointer.

Blandy’s, one of the larger, old-family producers on the island of Madeira, has been making wine for 206 years. You’d expect them to have figured out how to make great wine over such a long period. And they have.

One of my favorite wines of my entire eight-day visit to the island of Madeira in May was a rather young wine, only 97 years old.... the Blandy’s 1920 Bual.

How good was this wine? My tasting notes read:

“Coffee, coffee, coffee on the nose, with some toffee thrown in for good measure. The nose alone goes on for a minute!

There is a core of delicate, persistent acidity, which runs the entire length of the taste experience; it is wrapped in a blanket of treacle and orange zest. The finish lingers for a long time and ends with echoes of fresh coffee grounds and a squeeze of lime.”

As there are now no more 750 mL bottles of this magical, wine at the winery, we will have to wait until Blandy’s fills bottles with what remains of this wine in demi-johns. And believe me, it ain’t much.

In fact, getting ready for this occasion, Chris Blandy, head of the family business, told me that he aims to bottle all remaining stock of the 1920 Boal now in glass demi-johns three years hence, in 2020, for the 100^th anniversary of this wine, and then release it. Chris: Put me down for a 6-pack! 98 points.

The Cossart Gordon 1987 Bual (actually a Blandy’s-owned label), was bottled in 2016 after spending 29 years in a large wooden barrel.

Although still a baby, this wine presents a stunning mouthful of complexity and restraint. This is a gorgeous and elegant wine. It shows a balance typically reserved for bank ledgers, which is to say precise. It also shows that you don’t have to seek out a 100- or 200-year-old Madeira to be knocked to your knees in Hosannas of ecstasy. 98 points.

One of my favorite winery visits on Madeira was to D’Oliveira, where my tongue was clacking and my head spinning from tasting 32 Madeiras spanning three centuries in one day.

Two of the stand-out wines for me are included here as among the very best wines I tasted all year:

1928 D’Oliveiras Sercial.

Bottled in 2008, when the wine was 80 years old.

Aromas of freshly roasted espresso beans, mandarin oranges and orange zest tweaked my nose and followed through on the palate. Peerless balance and a brilliant acidity, which stretched out the flavor components long after the swallow (this was not a wine to spit out). My personal favorite, top wine of the day-long tasting. 100 points.

What I tasted during my visit to D’Oliveira, plus three other wines, which failed to make the photoshoot!

1875 D’Oliveiras Moscatel.

Bottled in the late 1970s, when the wine was already 100 years old.

The bottle we tasted from had been opened 18 days earlier to help bring some life to this oldster!

A tremendous beverage, filled with top notes of chocolate and bottom notes of cocoa; the finish was so long that if it were a ball game, it would have been into extra innings. Could this be the Holy Grail of Madeira? 100 points.

Happy holidays to all readers. Please come back to napaman.com in the New Year for new food and wine discoveries -- what makes Napa Valley (and me!) tick.

America! Let Signorello Estate bring its tasting room to you!

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.

My favorite Napa Valley Cabernet – and you’ve never heard of it!

Fasten your seat belt; I am going to tell you about one of the best Cabernets in Napa Valley and the only way to get it is to join the winery’s mailing list. It’s not available in any retail store.

The view when you taste ADV wines at the home of the producers

Forget those $350 bottles of Cabernet with enough gold filigree on the label to make the winery owner another gold pinky ring.

Forget the over-extracted, over-alcoholized, over-oaked, fruit bombs, which have come to define “Napa Valley Cabernet.”

Forget over-priced wines, of which there are many in this valley.

This is a story about a wine with finesse and elegance; about a wine, which actually complements food; about a wine which is ethereally balanced. And which doesn’t cost a fortune relative to what’s in the marketplace.

Here’s the skinny:

This is the story about a three-lettered label, ADV, which is an acronym for the owners, Robert Adler (the A) and his wife, Alexis Deutsch (the D), while the V stands for Vineyard.

I have been acquiring Adler Deutsch Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon since the first vintage, in 2008, and it just keeps getting better both stylistically, and as the vines mature.

It also has grown in stature because of the production team, which Rob and Alexis have nurtured.

Winemaker Aaron Pott

Aaron Pott, the extremely skilled Mt. Veeder winemaker, is ADV’s wine guru. At age 26, Aaron solidified his reputation when he was hand-picked to make the wines for one of Bordeaux’ top houses, Chateau Troplong-Mondot, a Premier Grand Cru Classe wine in St.-Emilion.

Aaron then went on to become wine director/winemaker at another legendary property, Chateau La Tour Figeac. Let me tell you, this guy dreams in phenolic colors.

And as smart as Aaron is, and as skilled as Aaron is, that’s how nice he is.

Desmond Echavarrie

Helping Rob and Alexis put ADV into a select few of the nation’s top restaurants required Desmond Echavarrie’s skill, palate and contact list. Des, as he is known to friends, surrounds himself exclusively with premium, small-production wines.

As a certified Master Sommelier, Des is building a small business to place Napa Valley’s top wines (personally selected by him) in strategically important venues across the country. ADV is one of only 20 wines, which Des has committed to place.

I took an instant liking to Des and was bowled over by his phenomenally accurate, and sensitive, sense of smell and taste.

Rob and Alexis, pictured above, are committed to grow the best grapes their soil will produce.

Rob, a former doctor in LA, and Alexis, a creative fiction writer and talented artist, donate 100 percent of ALL profits of their wine activity to charities, which support families needing food and safe shelter. As well, they fund inner-city arts programs. They keep nothing for themselves.

Much as they are not in this for profit, so too are they not in it for ego-driven needs; if anything, Rob and Alexis are self-contained, soft-spoken, and lead very private lives.

But wait, there’s more....

The reason you haven’t heard about ADV wines until now is because only 225 cases are produced annually and they are quickly purchased by a small band of sophisticated, dedicated, wine consumers.

I put ADV wine in the same class as Spottswoode, whose wine I also buy annually in a six-pack format. If you asked me which Napa Valley wines I would take to a desert island, they would be, plain and simple, ADV and Spottswoode. Napa Valley Cabs don’t get any more supple, rich, elegant, or delicious.

Sure, I have favorite vintages of many wines; I love the 2007 Lokoya Howell Mountain Cabernet, I love the 1991 Philip Togni Cabernet, I love early vintages of Ridge Montebello Cabernet, and yes, I have enough of these to sink a desert island.

But for sheer brilliance in winemaking, the ten-year run of vintages, which ADV has produced, is exhilarating – because the wine is so sexy, so soft, so approachable, so delicious! And that is not a word you often see used to describe Napa Valley Cabernet.

In 2006, Rob and Alexis bought a worn down farmhouse on a 3.2-acre parcel on the southern edge of the St. Helena Appellation, thinking they would try to make the kind of wine they themselves like to drink, something which complements food, not which bonks it on the head with overbearing fruit, alcohol, or oak.

They tore down the farmhouse and built a gorgeous home, which has been featured in Veranda magazine.

You can read the article about their home here:

http://www.adlerdeutsch.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/hallberg-photossmallpdf.com_.pdf

They planted, then partially re-cloned, 2.2 acres with three varieties of Cabernet Sauvignon; as well, they planted Cabernet Franc and Petite Verdot.

Aaron Pott, who makes his own fabulous wines and who consults to nine other wineries in the valley, says that ADV has a particularly rich vineyard site.

“I am credited for making good wine at ADV, but the real credit needs to go to the soil here. It is some of the very best gravel in all of Napa Valley,” says Aaron.

“ADV vines sit on the St. Helena bench, which has a perfect gravel/clay balance which produces intensely flavored wines with profound depth. This is, in winemaking terms, ‘a Perfect Site.’”

The first-ever retrospective of ADV wines! Des, Aaron, Alexis and Rob taste through 10 years of vintages

It was napaman who suggested to Rob that he conduct a 10-year retrospective of his wines so that his team – and napaman, who begged to be present! -- might learn how the wine was maturing, influenced by vineyard changes, which Aaron has introduced over successive years.

The group assembled last week and, for the first time ever, the team -- and napaman -- tasted all 10 vintages of ADV, from 2008 through to barrel samples of the 2016 and 2017 vintages.

Let me be clear about one thing:

Over a decade, napaman has become a personal friend of Rob and Alexis and for the longest time, I have avoided writing about them, or their wine, because of a potentially imputed conflict of interest – writing about, and promoting, my friends’ wines in this column.

But it strikes me as inane to avoid writing about one of my favorite wines in the valley and penalizing the winemakers because they are friends.

Hell, I have written about so many hundreds of Napa Valley wines over the last 20 years, many made by narcissistic, ego-driven, people. I figure it’s time to write about a wine I really like, which is made by people I really like. So there you have my admission of self-interest in this wine profile.

We tasted 10 vintages of ADV wines

I will not provide individual tasting notes on the 10 vintages of ADV Cabernet we tasted, as readers will not have a chance to find, cellar, or try the older, library wines. I will, however, offer a few tasting note highlights:

While there were NO duds, NO imperfections, and NO blemishes, my favorite vintages of the lineup were 2011, 2012, 2014 and 2015. Aaron and Des agreed.

2011 was a cooler, wetter, vintage, one which most critics rated incorrectly. They largely said that the weather had conspired to produce a lousy vintage, which immediately killed sales of every winemaker’s 2011 Cabernets across Napa Valley.

Napaman was a contrarian and said so in print. I claimed early on that this was an impressive, balanced vintage, which was going to produce gorgeous wines. And to put my money where my mouth would follow, I bought many cases of many Napa Valley 2011 Cabernets. They are still gorgeous and in many cases, silken and alluring.

ADV’s 2011 Cabernet is ethereal. There are amaro-like bitters and hints of espresso on the nose, as well as pretty aromas of fresh fruit. This wine has elegance and finesse and would make many Bordeaux producers envious for its purity, complexity and smart grooming. 95 points.

ADV’s 2012 Cabernet has more of the same compelling espresso nose, oodles of ripe red fruit and a whiff of freshly cut flowers (iris and violets particularly evident).

On the palate, the coffee notes rise to the top, followed by fresh red fruits and purple tones, likely nuanced from the Cabernet Franc. I love the texture of this wine as much as the flavor. Sexy stuff. 95 points.

ADV’s 2014 Cabernet was Aaron’s first farm-to-table vintage for ADV and his efforts produced a wine of extreme depth, rich flavor, silken texture and outright sex appeal. There’s lots of stuffing in the wine, though it remains a complex, pretty, alluring beverage. 98 points.

ADV’s 2015 Cabernet is as close to perfection as you can get without going into triple digit ecstasy. I hesitate to score this wine 100 points only because readers will think it hyperbole, so I will resist such temptation and score this wine 99 points. But trust me, there is virtually nothing missing here. This wine has not yet been released.

On a typical visit to ADV, guests assemble on Rob and Alexis’ back patio, which overlooks their vineyard. In the distance, one is impressed by the view of Mount St. Helena.

Ella, the winery mascot, makes sure patio tastings are complemented with enough crackers and sufficient crumbly fare to ensure that crumbs fall to the patio...

The 2.2-acre ADV vineyard

The only way to obtain bottles of the 2015 ADV Cabernet (released next spring) is to join the winery mailing list.

To do that, go to adlerdeutsch.com and add your contact information.

The 2015 ADV Cabernet will be $135 upon release – a bargain compared to many over-priced Napa Valley Cabernets in the $250-$800 range, which aren’t, quite frankly, anywhere near as pleasing as ADV.

For the record: ADV wines are only sold in multiples of three bottles. You must order 3, 6, 9, or 12 bottles.

Once you are a mailing list buyer, you may request to visit Rob and Alexis as they do not have a public tasting room. To request a visit, email [email protected], or call 707-880-7227.

Telling Rob or Alexis that napaman sent you won’t enable you to jump the queue, or enable you to buy more than your allocation, but at least you’ll have something else to talk about other than the perfect wine, which Rob is going to pour for you.

Napa Valley’s Best, Best-Kept-Secret Winery!

The smiling man above is Ray Signorello Jr., an energetic, passionate, friendly guy who just happens to produce exceptional wines, which I’d never tasted until this week.

I ask myself how is this possible? I have driven by the main gate of Signorello Estate, at the southern end of Silverado Trail, literally hundreds of times over the 20 years I have lived here.

Through a common friend, I was encouraged to meet Ray, tour his 100-acre property, of which 42 acres are planted with grapes, and get a sense of his vinous achievements. (Spoiler alert: his achievements are awesome! My take-away is that you will absolutely want to spend time at this winery on your next visit to Napa Valley to partake in one of two guest experiences offered. More about this in a minute... we now return to our regularly scheduled conventional story...)

Ray’s father had the insight, in 1977, to buy this tract of land, actually a large hill, which had previously been a horse farm. When Ray Sr. bought the property, there wasn’t a single grape vine on the land.

In 1980, Ray Jr. and his dad started to turn the property into a working vineyard, planting all the major grape varieties except Pinot Noir.

I am as impressed by Ray’s wines as I am by his devotion to adhere to the legitimate, time-tested ways to make honest wine.

Signorello vineyard manager and winemaker, Pierre Birebent

All of the fruit today is planted, managed, and hand-picked by an in-house crew under the leadership of vineyard manager and winemaker Pierre Birebent, formerly vineyard manager at Stags’ Leap Winery and Kuletto Family Vineyard.

The wines are given a controlled contact with wood (usually 50% new oak and 50% used, or neutral, oak) so that the resultant wines are elegant and gently nuanced, not over-oaked. The fruit in Signorello wines speaks in a sexy, sultry voice.

I like the fact that there is no residual sugar in these wines; they are not gloppy, they are not fruit bombs, they are not “fruit-forward,” or cultish in any way; they are simply beautiful, elegant wines, exhibiting great texture and sublime finesse.

None of the Signorello wines, not the whites, not the reds, are fined or filtered.

As well, Ray believes in native yeast inoculation, which means he doesn’t buy commercial yeast to kick-start fermentation.

And the way Ray has decided to present his wines in the tasting room is to pair them with appetizers, or full meals, so that guests learn how they complement food – as they are meant to be enjoyed once you get them home.

As Ray’s guest, I experienced the winery’s top-tier, 5-course, food-pairing, which is a 3-hour extravaganza; you will not find tastier dishes in most local restaurants and if you have the midday pairing, you will not have recovered your appetite by dinner time, so cancel any restaurant dinner reservation you may have following lunch here!

The 5-course meal with pairings is $175 a person and it is worth it. (Underlined and boldfaced to make the point.)

Before you hunker down to lunch, or enjoy a less intensive wine and appetizer pairing, all guests are driven into the vineyards for a property tour.

This is the view, looking westward, which greets guests from the top of Signorello Estate.

From the winery’s hilltop, guests get a better sense of the microclimates at work on the property.

And now for something completely different....

Time for the Enoteca, or lunch/pairing, experience.

The first course was a perfectly seared, single sea scallop set atop a bed of crunchy, fresh corn kernels tossed with arugula, sliced fennel and capers.

Ray chose to pair this with his 2014 Signorello Estate “Seta” white wine (seta = silk in Italian), a delicious, barrel fermented, unfined, unfiltered blend of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon. There are hints of melon here with a tweak of tropicality.

For the next course, we moved on to a Bellweather Farms ricotta tart crowned with silver-dollar-sized coins of ripe yellow peaches. This was paired with two wines named after Ray’s mother, Hope.

The 2013 and the 2016 Signorello Estate Hope ‘s Cuvee Chardonnay are very Burgundian, except for a haunting, lyrical lilt of lemon oil evident in both vintages of this wine. I love this New World note on the Old World order.

Onto the next course: a perfectly roasted slice of pan-roasted King salmon, with a gloriously crusty crown, served on a delicious bed of spinach and lentil ragout, tossed with caramelized trumpet mushrooms. This was served with the 2013 Signorello Pinot Noir, the last bottling of the Las Amigas Vineyard. (Moving forward, Ray has sourced a different vineyard.) Lots of ripe, red fruits evident on the swallow. It’s really hard not to love this wine.

Executive chef Tyler Stone

For courses four and five, exec chef Tyler Stone adroitly paired a pasta and then a rich short rib with the winery’s star Cabernets. This young chef is well trained and highly talented.

Orecchiette-shaped pasta was served with a rich Wagyu-bacon ragout that will have your tongue clacking; it was served with the 2014 Signorello Estate Cabernet Sauvignon, which was a perfect match in terms of weight, texture, acidity and suppleness to complement the dish.

The piece de resistance was a Snake River Farms, American Kobe Wagyu short rib, which Tyler had cooked 72 hours in a sous-vide bath at 135 F.

The meat was so tender that it could be cut with a fork. The short rib was napped with a wine reduction jus that I would like to have sipped endlessly through a straw; the beef was served with a puffy, potato puree.

To prove his point, that Signorello wines complement great food, Ray served two killer Cabs with this course, his 2006 and 2013 Signorello Estate Padrone cuvee.

These are perfectly balanced, elegant wines. They are stylistically comparable, but it was a thoughtful touch to give me a chance to see how the wines gracefully age.

Ray says that his wines are meant for the long haul – if you can keep your hands off your purchase, you will enjoy his reds, and even his whites, decades later.

I scored both Padrone Cabernets 96-97 points; they are, in a word, gaw-jus.

Ray – you sure do know how to throw a tasting!

The Enoteca, or lunch, tasting, is offered at noon Monday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

The Antipasti experience – 90 minutes, the same wines served as in the larger, Enoteca, or lunch, pairing.

Ray’s team offers a similar, but shorter, and less expensive, tasting at which the same wines are paired with antipasti and cheeses, in the event that you aren’t looking for a large midday meal to fill you up and slow you down.

The 90-minute Antipasti tastings are offered daily except Tuesday, five times a day, at 10, 11, 2, 3 and 4 pm. The antipasti tasting-wine pairing is $100 a person.

Both the Enoteca, or lunch, tastings and the Antipasti, or appetizer, tastings are limited to 8 people at a time, so book early and far ahead.

To book a tasting, call 707-255-5990, or email [email protected].

Big Thank You to Ava for Her Inventive Idea - It Could Change Restaurant Service Everywhere!

 

The photo that started it all.

Last week, I drove through Berkeley and stopped at one of my favorite lunch spots, Iyasare, which serves a trendy (and did I say very tasty?) version of Japanese cuisine with a California touch.

Co-owners Niall (pronounced “Nile,” like the river) Cantwell and chef Shotaro Kamio (pictured above) don’t call their food “Fusion,” because, all too often, this term connotes “confusion” in the kitchen, when chefs combine too many ingredients and different ethnicities. And that doesn’t happen here.

The server who started it all -- Ava Mehrpour, presents her phone with a photo of Chilled Summer Ramen. We couldn’t resist her soft-sell… we fell for the dish on the basis of the photo alone.

Our server on this visit was a charming, young Iranian named Ava Mehrpour. When we asked if there were any daily specials, she performed one of the most original and inventive movements I have seen in 37 years of professionally reviewing restaurants: she pulled her iPhone out of her apron pocket, entered her passcode and showed us a photo of the daily special on her wallpaper.

“Yes, the special is a delicious chilled soup for this very hot day (102 F in Berkeley); you must try chef Sho’s Summer Ramen.”

My photo version of the chilled Summer Ramen

It was such a compelling visual, and Ava related such a sweet story about it that resistance was futile.

And it was at this moment that I realized servers in ALL restaurants could be enabled to take photos of the restaurant’s special dishes, or daily specials, and show them on their iPhone to hungry patrons.

Trust me, when you’re hungry and you see a full-color, full-frontal of a daily special, YOU WILL ORDER IT!

Niall says the trick will be to keep servers from also consulting their phones while on service – in most restaurants, phones are forbidden to be carried by staff into the dining room.

Ava described the chilled Summer Ramen so beautifully:

“Chef Sho says chilled soup originated 60 years ago in his hometown, Sendai, Japan. He says that it is now popular all over Japan during the warm summer months.”

Ava continues: “traditionally this soup consists of a chilled shoyu broth, noodles, bean sprouts, bamboo shoots, a variety of seaweeds, and raw vegetables such as cucumbers and carrots.”

Sho's special touch is to add a large slice of lotus root, creating a dramatic visual center to the dish and fresh California sweet corn adds a crunchy finish.

Niall and Sho

Niall and chef Sho worked together for six years at Yoshi’s, in Oakland. Tired of working for others, they decided several years ago to set out on their own. When the space formerly occupied by one of my former favorite Berkeley restaurants closed (O Chame), the pair took over the lease.

“Chef Sho has a mantra which describes his style of cooking,” explains Niall.

“Seasonal. Simple, Surprise.”

“Sho likes to add an unusual ingredient for color, or crunch, or taste, without disparaging the traditional Japanese recipe. That’s the surprise element.”

I have eaten lunch here many times and will return for dinner because both owners insist that the dinner experience is a notch above lunch, which is hard to imagine, because they are doing everything right here at noon.

Dishes which I would not miss at lunch include:

Sashimi Salad – absolutely fresh slices of salmon and tuna sashimi, served with a delicious mizuna and cucumber salad.

The Kaiiage tempura comes with four large, tasty, quick-fried triangles of intertwined plants and roots, but we wolfed down two slices before I could even get my camera out!

Kakiage Tempura – a skein of perfectly crisped snippets of burdock root, yellow onion, sweet potato, shiitake mushrooms and black tiger shrimp is cut into thick triangles and served with a delicious bonito-soy dipping broth. Holy smokes! I am hankering for this dish again just writing about it.

Iyasare has a small, but well-chosen, list of Japanese craft beers and American draft beers. As well, there are wines by the glass or bottle, which would complement the dinner menu. The bartender makes appealing seasonal cocktails, which appear to keep regulars happy at the bar.

In Japanese, “Iyasare” means “the healing,” which is what Niall and chef Sho want their food to promote, a sense of wellness and comfort. Based on numerous lunches I’ve had here, I’d say they have achieved their ideal – well done!

Iyasare, 1830 Fourth St., Berkeley, CA 94710. Make reservations on Open Table, or call 510-845-8100.

Madeirathon 2017 – An Expedition to a Fabled Island To Find and Taste 144 of the World’s Rarest Wines!

 

The Island of Madeira -- Thirteen intrepid wine enthusiasts boarded planes last week and flew to this tiny island in the mid-Atlantic to discover, learn about, and taste some of the world’s rarest wines – some of them 150-years-old and still abundantly youthful!

The expedition was led by two Madeira wine specialists; the indefatigable Roy Hersh, one of North America’s most knowledgeable Port and Madeira experts for whom this was his 12^th group tour to Madeira. Think of Roy as the Indiana Jones of Portuguese wine and you will get an idea of his swashbuckling, spit-in-the-bucket wine style. His very capable side-kick, who organized our trip from the Madeira side, was Mario Ferreira, a Lisbon resident with his own colorful wine industry career.

Mrs. napaman and I were two of the 13 team members hell bent to unearth liquid gold.

Hold on to your (funny looking!) hats! 

Roy Hersh and Mario Ferreira speed down a steep, mile-long hill in a toboggan sled, a tourist activity in Funchal, capital of Madeira. (It’s one way of putting the Fun in Funchal...)

Madeira may belong to Portugal, but this tiny gulag (given its history as a quality wine destination, perhaps I should say “this tiny glug-glug?”) is geographically closer to Africa (366 miles off the coast of Casablanca) than it is to Portugal.

Madeira was a prosperous farming center 600 years ago, exporting sugar, grain, timber and even wine back then to the European mainland.

Records show that Malvasia grapes were planted here more than 350 years before America was even founded.

The purpose of our seven-day Madeirathon was to see many sights on the island and, given our collective interest in wine, visit the eight remaining Madeira wine producers, conducting a thorough review of current releases and past glories.

Some producers let us taste library wines going back to the mid-1800s. (I like to hang out with 150-year-old anythings – it makes me feel so young in comparison!)

The Thing About Madeira

Unlike other wines, the more harshly Madeira is treated in its youth – through exposure to heat, oxygen, or movement – the more resilient and tastier it becomes decades, even centuries, later.

An explanation for this: the natural acidity of Madeira grapes is so naturally high that oxygen is prevented from gaining a foothold to turn this wine into another, noxious kind of acid -- acetic.

According to winemaker/chemists on the island, there is so much fruit acid in the wine that it acts as a shield against spoilage.

Oxygen virtually cannot turn Madeira into vinegar no matter when it makes its end run – while the wine is aging for 20, or more, years in cask, or when a bottle is left open for months on the counter.

You know the standard drill: Pull the cork and leave a bottle of table wine open over night and there’s a good chance that it will turn into vinegar the next day.

But expose a bottle of Madeira to oxygen and the wine just gets better! If anything, oxygen resuscitates Madeira, improving the flavor, giving the wine new life and vigor!

As such, I think it’s safe to call Madeira the Terminator of Wine. You can’t harm, or hurt, it. Expose Madeira to air, leave a bottle open for months, heat it, shake it up – you just can’t bruise it.

In fact, like the Terminator, the more you mistreat this wine, the more resolve it shows to take even more punishment!

They’ve been making Madeira on this island since the 1400s and to confirm just how good an old bottle can be, the single best wine I tasted all last year was a 1795 Madeira made from the Terrantez grape. You can read about it here:

http://www.napaman.com/napamancom/2016/02/i-spent-valentines-day-with-an-old-heart-throb-a-216-year-old-wine-that-is-still-youthful.html

About the island

Porto Moniz, on the northwest corner of Madeira, a stunning destination for swimming in ocean tide pools

Madeira, one of four islands in a small archipelago in the mid-Atlantic, covers 286 square miles.

By comparison, Napa Valley is 789 sq. miles, more than 2.5 times larger than the entire island of Madeira.

On Madeira, only 1,174 acres are planted with the six principal grapes used to make Madeira.

By comparison, 45,000 acres of vines are planted in Napa Valley -- that’s 38 times greater.

There are now only eight remaining producers of Madeira on the island; by comparison, there are 1,000 producers of wine in Napa Valley.

But where Madeira beats Napa Valley wines hands down is in compexity, longevity, elegance, and sheer drama.

No Napa Valley will ever age 220 years and still present itself as “astoundingly youthful,” alive, bright, and filled with the flavors of treacle, coffee, mocha, tobacco, apricots, orange zest, honey, brown sugar, marmalade, cinnamon, baked apples, fruit cake, or burnt sugar, -- all of which are descriptors I found myself using often to describe the 144 wines we tasted on our week-long tour.

Day 1

Our first day began with an overview, more about the geography of the island than about its wine.

Highlights included:

An aerial tram ride high across the capital city, Funchal

A brief visit to a spectacular botanical garden, the Tropical Garden of Monte Palace, described by Conde Nast Traveler as “one of the 13 most beautiful botanical gardens in the world.”

Thrill-seeking tourists course one mile down an extremely steep hill in a sled outfitted with wooden runners and steered by two gondoliers sporting straw boater hats and thickly soled shoes.

A 30-minute afternoon bus ride took us to the northwest corner of Madeira where our group experienced the natural sea wonders of Porto Moniz.

BTW: Locals say that it used to take hours to cross the island because vehicles had to follow old, wormy, switchback trails high up and over the central mountain range which divides this island; but an injection of EU cash helped finance the construction of 180 tunnels, many quite long, and now one can drive across the island in under an hour.

Dinner was served in a high-altitude restaurant located in a national park where large chunks of tender beef were skewered on stalks of laurel….

… grilled over hot coals….

… and then hung on chains which dangled from the ceiling, enabling diners to slip moist, perfectly grilled cubes of beef from the laurel stalks…. DELICIOUS!

What we drank to wash down our beef …. 10 bottles of Justino’s Madeira, the oldest dating to 1934.

Day 2

This was a day of study and great food. The group assembled at IVBAM, which sounds like an iPhone app to regulate the flow of fluids from an IV drip, but which actually stands for the Institute do Vinho do Bordado e do Artesanato da Madeira. In other words, the regulatory body which sets standards for, among other things, Madeira wine.

During a three-hour lecture and Madeira tasting, the group learned that there are only eight Madeira producers left on the island; that there are six basic varieties of grape commercially grown (5 are white, one is black); that the island soil is mostly volcanic; that 47 percent of the entire island land mass is either forest or mountain – inhospitable for planting grapes; that there are 2,015 grape growers supplying the eight producers.

In the old days, when George Washington was President of America, for example, the grape of choice in Washington was Terrantez; a hundred years later, after phylloxera and odium struck vines here in the mid-to-late 1800s, other varieties necessarily became the workhorse grapes of Madeira – Sercial (driest), Verdelho, Boal (also spelled Bual) and Malvasia (sweetest).

Today, even these grapes have largely been replaced by a more commercially viable grape. Today, 85 percent of all the grapes planted on Madeira are Tinta Negra, according to IVBAM.

Madeira wines are made by fermenting island-grown grapes; at a desired point during fermentation, the process is halted by the addition of Spanish, or French, grape spirits, The resultant mass is then treated in one of two ways:

Either the wine will spend three months being heated in circulating tanks cranked up to 122 F degrees, then it will be permitted to rest for assessment and categorization. This is called Estufagem.

OR

Better wines may be selected from the outset to age in oak casks, which are kept in a modestly warmed environment (about 113 F degrees) called a canteiro for years, or decades.

Lunch time!

The group assembled at a Funchal restaurant, Chalet Vicente, where multiple wines were served with multiple courses.

In order to understand how difficult it is to start a winery on the island, the group visited Madeira Vintners, a cooperative venture that is barely four years old; its first release was a series of four Madeiras released in 2016, which we tasted.

Dinner time!

One of the top dining experiences on the island was dinner at The Fort restaurant, in Funchal, constructed within a Portuguese fort dating back to 1614.

I was particularly struck by the architecture of the fort, the color it has been painted and the care given to the food and service at the restaurant.

All Top notch.

Waiting for appetizers at The Fort restaurant

After dinner, we toured an 8-block quarter of Funchal which is – how best to describe it? – Bohemian. Residents of this ‘hood have painted their doors with amazing, original works of art. We walked through the quarter after midnight.

An original painting on a door on the “Street of Doors.”

Midnight on the “Street of Doors”

Day 3

The large quantity of sugar cane growing on Madeira supports the activities of three rum producers on the island.

Today, we visited the only producer still using steam engines to process cane stalks -- Engenho do Norte, on the northeast coast of the island, in Porto da Cruz.

I loved the visual aspect of this facility:

Trucks arrive at the rum works, sagging from the weight of just-cut stalks of sugar cane.

The cane is processed in a steam-powered factory, the 100-decibel machines husking the cane stalks look like something Rube Goldberg designed.

The cane bark is stripped and the pulp processed, fermented and turned into rum.

Naturally, given the propensity of our group to taste and rate anything containing alcohol, we set upon a hostess named Isabel, asking her to pour ALL the rum varieties made here.

To be factually correct, the beverage made from fermented sugar cane here is NOT called rum.

Labels identify the resultant beverage as “Arguardente de cana,” or “firewater from cane sugar.”

If you asked an inhabitant of Madeira for “rum,” there’s a good chance they wouldn’t know WTF you are speaking about.

Our hostess, Isabel, pours our group ALL the rums produced here.

We were treated to 5-, 15-, 30-, 40-year, and unblended, single-cask arguardente, bottled under the brand J. Faria & Filhos, Engenho’s parent company

The line-up of Madeira wines also made by this firm, which we tasted and rated. Madeira wine -- the breakfast of champions! It is still early in the morning!

Lunch time!

The thing about one of Roy Hersh’s Port, or Madeira, tours is that whatever day it is, you will swear that your watch is broken. Eat again? Didn’t we just get up from a sensational three-hour lunch? What’s that you say? Time for dinner already?

Today’s 3-hour lunch was served in a glorious, al fresco, setting – the patio of a beautiful resort called Quinta do Furao (which means “estate of the ferrets” in Portuguese), in a small hamlet on the outskirts of a small town, Sao Jorge.

I enjoyed not only one of my favorite dishes of the trip (so far), but one of the best expressions of rabbit I’ve ever had – a dish to rival the classic standard at Mustards Grill in Yountville (if you’ve never had Cindy’s rabbit – it’s a must try!).

We now interrupt this long story to introduce the highlight of today’s Madeira search:

… a tasting at H. M. Borges, in Funchal, one of the traditional Madeira producers on the island, and the only facility run by women.

Isabel (left) and Helena (right) Borges

The women are fourth generation Borges cousins, the daughters of grandson brothers whose grandfather started the Madeira firm in 1877.

Madeira wines being aged… come back in 20 years, please, and we’ll have some wine for you….

The firm only uses neutral, French and American oak barrels; “neutral” means that they are reused – and reused again. Borges never introduces new wood to the process of aging Madeira – but they do spend a lot of time and money repairing their inventory of 700 barrels.

Tasting notes:

There is a wonderful common fingerprint to all the wines we tasted, evidence that there is a single winemaker here who has threaded all these wines with bright acidity, even the sweeter ones, who has produced phenomenal, perfectly balanced, wines of exceptional purity, freshness, and complexity.

Helena Borges lines up the Madeiras we tasted.

My favorite wine of the tasting was the 1990 Borges Sercial (that’s the grape), a fabulous expression of fruit, acidity and sensual allure.

My tasting notes included this comment: “Good Lord, this is great shit!”

The wine has impeccable attack, a spine of brisk acidity, displays a voluptuous crescendo of flavors including toffee and coffee and finishes with a lingering note of fresh lemon.

Many of us in the group loved many of the wines we tasted at Borges and bemoaned the fact that none of them were readily available in the US.

But napaman has learned that this situation is about to be remedied; a new importer, Next Chapter Wines & Spirits, has finalized terms and will become the exclusive importer of Borges’ wines in the US.

Napaman exclusive!

To get on the mailing list and learn what wines will initially be available, send an email to:

[email protected]

For the record: napaman is the first source to publicly reveal that Borges wines will be available in the US starting this fall, and the first to share the contact information of the importer, which is Pennsylvania based.)

Day 4

Today we cranked up the quality and number of wines tasted, visiting two legendary Madeira producers. In total, we tasted 32 Madeiras today.

Stop One wasn’t so much a run-of-the-mill, facility tour and wine tasting as it was the equivalent of dropping in on an advanced class of chemistry, philosophy, and alchemy, taught by a charismatic professor with a degree in stand-up soliloquy.

Call this class Madeira 101, offered at Henriques & Henriques, in the small coastal village of Camara do Lobos.

The firm is the third largest producer of Madeira on the island.

The instructor was Humberto Jardim, managing director and owner of H&H, as it is known in the trade.

Humberto Jardim leads instruction in a class, which could easily be called “Madeira 101.”

As we tasted through 12 wines with Humberto, he shared details about Madeira, which I had either forgotten, or never known:

+ Humberto put into perspective the four varieties of grape most often used to make classic Madeira. He created a kind of color/flavor mnemonic to help us better understand each grape’s characteristics:

Sercial. This grape makes the driest wine. Think of it as the color GREEN.

Flavors include fresh grass, pale hay, pea shoots.

Verdelho. Slightly sweeter, this grape projects the color ORANGE.

Flavors found in a Verdelho Madeira include orange, orange zest, orange oil, tangerine, peaches, apricots.

Boal. Sweeter yet. Think of the color BROWN.

Flavors, which this wine suggest, include coffee, toffee, caramel, burnt sugar, honey, milk, butter. “These are the flavors of our childhood; look for them in a Boal,” says Humberto.

He also noted that there are often hints of minerality in a Boal, as well as a metallic finish, which resembles “the scent on your hands after you hold coins.”

Malvasia. The sweetest of the Big Four grapes used to make Madeira. Think of the color MAHOGANY.

Flavors found in a Malvasia (sometimes called Malmsey) include burnt sugar, or molasses.

A line-up of what we tasted with Humberto.

Among my favorites of the day:

1954 H&H Malvasia. Sipping this wine is like setting fireworks off in your mouth – your palate lights up with small explosions of wonderment; there are explosive, juicy, coffee, toffee and burnt sugar notes, a profound undercurrent of acid runs through the performance. It’s like the end-of-night fireworks at Disneyland going off in your mouth. Gob-smacking glorious!

1957 H&H Boal. There is such perfect balance in this wine, a harmonious yin and yang of sweetness and acidity, with flavors of orange, orange zest and tangerine running wild along the entire length of the taste and swallow; you can’t spit this wine out in a tasting – impossible!

A “canteiro” outdoors, as a display, at H&H.

One of the terms used in the production of Madeira wines is “canteiro,” which refers to a long shelf, or beam, on which barrels rest for a minimum of two years, while the room in which they sit is heated to between 113 and 122 F degrees to promote oxidative aging. This encourages evaporation, which concentrates the wine, giving it more complexity.

And now for something completely different…

Ricardo Freitas

In the afternoon, we dropped in on another master class, this one taught at Barbeito, one of the great Madeira houses. Our instructor was the fabled Dean of Madeira, Ricardo Diogo V. Freitas, managing director.

Among Madeira cognoscenti, Ricardo is considered one of the top master wine blenders alive.

Ricardo, the alchemist

Ricardo’s passion is to find demi-johns of hundred-year-old Madeira in a hidden corner of his winery, rehabilitate the wine with air, using inventive, self-discovered decanting practices, which turn the old wines into a mind-bending, mouth-pleasing, sensory-overloading, forehead-slapping experience.

Think of Ricardo as an alchemist, or a character in Harry Potter’s world, capable of turning mere dross into pleasurable liquid gold. If Ricardo would only drop the slim-fit suits and don a Merlin cape…. he would start to get the Merlin recognition he deserves.

Julia Freitas, who is a lawyer by day, and her husband Ricardo, who is a Madeira Wizard Winemaker by day, brought Ricardo’s palate-inoculating, mind-boggling, 40-year-old Malvasia to dinner – which is like having Christian Mouiex bring a bottle of his Chateau Petrus to dinner -- you get a wine of impeccable authority brought by the legend who made it.

Someone in the group asked Ricardo about the importance of vintage in Madeira wines.

“While all other wine regions are concerned about “vintage,” Madeira, which is made from any one of a group of six to eight different grapes, cares NOTHING about vintage,” says Ricardo. “Strong vintages can produce poor wines, and weak summers can produce amazing wines.”

“A season that is good for Sercial (grape) may be horrendous for Malvasia (another grape). The concept of vintages, as they are known in America, or Europe, means nothing here on Madeira.”

Due to the varieties grown to make Madeira wine, and due to climatic conditions on the island, winemakers here pick grapes with a much lower sugar level – and a much higher acid level -- than we ever would pick in North American wine varieties.

In Napa valley, we wait for many grape varieties to reach 28 to 30 brix before harvest. Brix is a measure of soluble sugars.

By contrast, grapes harvested on Madeira are rarely more than 16.36 brix, which means they have HALF the sugar which grapes like Cabernet Sauvignon or Chardonnay, in Napa Valley, have when picked.

Basically, what isn’t sugar in a grape, chemically speaking, is acid.

By industry standards on Madeira, grapes must have a minimum brix content of 16.36 when harvested, Francisco Albuquerque, winemaker at Blandy’s, told me.

Few grapes on the island are able to jump much higher in sugar content. There just isn’t enough sun, enough heat, or enough length to the summer to make this happen.

The resultant wines, made from grapes with low sugar, and high acid, produce wines with low alcohol once fermented and tart, bright acidity, which stays alive in the fermented mass.

As explained much earlier in this book-length story, is the fact that this high level of acidity is prevents Madeira from oxidizing, as other wines would if exposed to air during the process of maturation.

My, oh my, Madeira wine is such an odd duck in the wine world. No wonder so few people understand it, grok it, enjoy it, or drink it.

But enough of this chemistry… let’s get back to Ricardo

Knowing that our wine-centric group was coming, Ricardo selected 17 wines for us to taste, covering three centuries of his family’s production. (Honest -- three centuries!)

Many of Ricardo’s wines had me slapping my forehead in wonderment, uttering comments like, ”How can he make such mind-blowing wine? This stuff is the crack cocaine of wine – it is totally addictive! I need to buy some of this!“

Among the highlights of our tasting:

Barbeito 30-year-old Malvasia, Vo Vera, of which there are only 612 bottles in the whole world.

Ricardo says that he thinks, “this is the best single wine I have ever made in my entire life,” which is like having Stephen Curry identify which of his hundreds of 3-point shots from center court is his best career dunk.

Ricardo calls this “a wine of precision.” I call it a fucking perfect wine-making tour de force. You can’t put more wine into a wine.

This beauty sings, dances and spins plates on pointy sticks -- all at the same time. If Ed Sullivan were still alive and on the air, this wine would be a headliner for his Sunday night’s TV broadcast.

Barbeito 40-year-old, Malvasia Mae Manuela of which there are only 87 cases for worldwide consumption.

Our tour leader Roy Hersh thought that this wine was even more memorable, more monumental, than Ricardo’s 30-year old Malvasia (above). And if you had heard the discussion, which ensued, between these two -- about which was the better wine -- you would have compared their debate to that of two Socratic-era philosophers arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

One of the reasons this wine is so compelling is that Ricardo did some fine-tuning and added a trace (seven percent by weight) of an 1880 Malvasia, which he found in a demi-john in a corner of the winery! (He could have added his 1880 Malvasia to a jar of Bovril and it would taste great! THAT’s how powerful this component is in Ricardo’s experimental blend.)

Barbeito 1863 Boal. This was the highest scoring wine of the tasting for me, a profound expression of winemaking skill. A legendary wine. This wine had been in the same cask for 145 years when, in 2008, it was transferred to a demi-john. The wine was bottled three months ago, in February of this year. You want Impeccable wine with a capital I – this is it.

What we tasted at Barbeito. No kidding. And there were NO duds.

Day 5

Blandy’s, one of the larger, old-family, Madeira producers on the island, has been at this business for 206 years.

A visit to Blandy’s corporate headquarters in Funchal is a bit like a visit to Robert Mondavi Winery, in Oakville, Napa Valley. You get a thorough, educational tour, covering every aspect of wine-making; you learn how wine is made, you see artifacts which are relevant to the family and history of the winery; you can sign up for different levels of tasting.

The one thing you can do at Blandy’s, which you can’t do at Mondavi, is dine in a sensational bistro on site; we ate well at lunch and bought the last remaining bottle of a sensational 1920 Blandy’s Boal, which put a top spin on the meal.

How many lunches have you had in your life where, off the menu, you can order a 97-year-old wine that is in perfect, youthful condition, delivering joy and supreme happiness to your jaunty jowls?

Our Blandy’s tour was led by an informative guide, Rita, who related Blandy family history and told us how Madeira is made then walked us through the wine-making process; we visited the canteiro, where wine, in 700-liter barrels, is aged. We visited a small museum where old instruments for making wine on the island are displayed in cases; we came upon a wonderful selection of old Madeira wine labels, among which were these:

Walking through a virtual museum of Madeira wines, I came upon an ancient wine press, first used on the island 400 years ago, in the 1600s. That makes it even older than Henry Kissinger -- and I didn’t think anything could be older than him!

400-year-old Madeira wine press

On the tour, our guide Rita took us into a very well secured vault containing the Blandy family’s personal library of Madeira wines.

The oldest wine in the cellar is an 1755 Malvasia, the year of the famous Lisbon earthquake. The wine was made 21 years before there even was an America.

A shelf in the family’s wine library -- just beneath the 1755 Malvasia

At lunch, we ordered the last bottle of 1920 Blandy’s Boal off the shelf of the in-house winery restaurant.

How good was this wine? 98 points good. My tasting notes read:

“Coffee, coffee, coffee on the nose, with some toffee thrown in for good measure. The nose alone goes on for a minute!

There is a core of delicate, persistent acidity, which runs the entire length of the taste experience; it is wrapped in a blanket of treacle and orange zest. The finish lingers for a long time and ends with echoes of fresh coffee grounds and a squeeze of lime.”

As there are now no other 750 mL bottles of this magical, 97-year-old wine left at the winery, we will have to wait until Blandy’s fills bottles with what remains of this wine in aging casks. And believe me, it ain’t much.

In fact, getting ready for this occasion, Blandy’s recently transferred this wine out of cask into small demi-johns for safe keeping (mostly to stop evaporation; winemaker Francisco Albuquerque told me that he was concerned that as evaporation continues in cask, and as this wine is already pushing 21.5 percent alcohol, he didn’t want alcohol to exceed 22 percent, the permissible industry limit, so he stopped all oxidative and evaporate chemical reactions by transferring the aging wine from barrel to glass.).

Chris Blandy, head of the family business, told me that he aims to bottle all remaining stock of the 1920 Boal three years hence, in 2020, for the 100^th anniversary of this wine, and then release it. Chris: Put me down for a 6-pack!

Blandy’s has arranged the small demi-johns, filled with the 1920 Boal, in a separate room, which they make sure visitors see on their tour:

For Madeira newbies: Demi-johns are not related to Demi Moore, but the wine held in these particular glass vessels still rates a 10! The 1920 Boal in these glass demi-johns will be bottled in 2020 to celebrate the 100^th anniversary of the wine.

Onto the afternoon tasting

All good things like lunch and camaraderie, must end… and work must begin anew; time to sweep through another group of impressive Madeiras.

Chris Blandy

Chris Blandy represents the 7^th generation of his family to run the Blandy empire since it was established in 1811. He led our group tasting of 11 spectacular wines.

Here’s what we tasted with Chris.

Here’s another way of looking at what we tasted– the placemat before each of us.

While I had many favorites at the tasting, my top MVP award goes to this wine:

This Cossart Gordon (a Blandy’s label) 1987 Boal, which was bottled in 2016, spent 29 years in wood.

Although a baby, it presents a stunning mouthful of complexity and restraint. This is a gorgeous wine, an elegant wine. It shows a balance typically reserved for bank ledgers. Which is to say impeccable.

On the outskirts of Sao Jorge, a sleepy pastoral community, in late afternoon, we visited one of Blandy’s multi-varietal vineyards in which Sercial, Verdelho and Malvasia are planted.

Because Malvasia vines jump like pole beans in a single season (six feet or higher is not uncommon!), vines are trained to crown nets hung overhead, which are nine feet off the ground. The vines are kept at this height so that tractors can drive through the row while Malvasia vines remain suspended overhead. This overhead method of vine styling is known as latada.

The Blandy’s vineyard in Sao Jorge hugs a ravine, which hugs an undulating hill, which hugs the sea. A gorgeous part of the island.

Day 6

Here’s something we haven’t seen much on the island – much older wines still in barrel, like Malvasia from 1901, aging in this barrel at D’Oliveiras.

Imagine -- this wine has been aging in wood for 116 years and when it is finally transferred to bottle, it will still be youthful, fresh and juicy!

Madeira wine is such a nonsensical paradox of pleasure. The longer you keep it, the longer you abuse it with heat and exposure to air, and the more you move it around – the better it gets.

Luis D’Oliveira and his brothers run the winery, considered one of the island’s best Madeira producers. The family is D’Oliveira... the wine label reads D’Oliveiras, but they forgot to include an apostrophe. Just sayin’.... don’t want readers to think napaman has fallen asleep at the editing desk!

We met Luis D’Oliveira, responsible for sales and marketing, in a downtown Funchal warehouse, which dates back to 1619. Buildings here, like the wine produced in them, have unique longevity.

There is an explanation why D’Oliveiras wines have a richer, more concentrated texture and flavor profile than that produced by other houses on the island – and it stems from the winemaking process.

“We keep transferring aging wine into ever smaller barrels rather than top off larger barrels, or let too much oxygen depreciate wine in the barrel,” says Luis.

(When Madeira ages in an oak barrel, a certain percentage of evaporation occurs annually through cracks in the barrel. A three percent loss in volume annually through evaporation is common as large barrels are subjected to heat in summer months when the temperature of a canteiro can easily reach more than 100 F degrees.

Too much “head space” in a barrel might harm an aging wine, so some winemakers top-up low-fill barrels with the same wine from a spare barrel used for “topping-up.” But Luis’ family chooses, instead, to move the wine to a slightly smaller barrel, which the transferred wine will entirely fill.

In this fashion, for more than a century, wine like the 1901 Malvasia above, has been aging in a series of ever-decreasing-in-size barrels to keep the wine “fresh.” This process helps explain why D’Oliveiras wines have more stuffing, more concentration and more zip than wines produced elsewhere.

Roy Hersh and Luis D’Oliveira

I asked Luis how it came to be that, unlike so many other Madeira producers on the island, his firm has such a large inventory of older wines, many dating back to the mid-1850s.

“Both my grandfather and father were averse to ever exporting a single bottle of Madeira,” Luis said. “They outright refused to send Madeira overseas. And as there was such a small market here on the island, our family just amassed more and more wine!”

There is another, more commercial reason to explain the rich inventory held by D’Oliveiras today: the family has bought out five other producers over the decades and now is a single enterprise with six warehouses, many filled with the spoils of what Luis’ family acquired when they bought out a competitor.

The Super Bowl of Madeira Tastings

Roy Hersh says that in all his years of coming to Madeira and Portugal, he can’t remember ever having had as many wines in one day with the same producer.

Often, as I’ve noted above, a producer will put out between five to 15 glasses and pour examples of the different house styles, or ages, of wine. But Roy notes that he’s never tasted 32 wines in one day with one producer, as we experienced at D’Oliveiras.

In fact, there were so many wines to be sampled that we tasted 15 drier Madeiras in the morning session, took a break, had a two-hour lunch served with some exceptionally fine Portuguese wines, and then returned to the warehouse for an afternoon tasting session of 17 sweeter wines.

Luis helps present the wines for our tasting.

How compelling were the wines, which Luis served? Let’s frame the answer this way:

Sufficiently compelling that 13 people chose to sit in a warehouse basement with no windows on a sunny day on a gorgeous tropical isle so they could sip small glasses of amber elixir – and not one person wanted to speed up the tasting, or get out into the sunlight, or be somewhere else. For eight hours, Luis’ basement was a bunker of beatitude. We were each respectively, supremely grateful to have been able to spend the day here.

My list of favorites from the day-long tasting would double the length of this already-too-long report, so let me focus on just two highlights:

1928 D’Oliveiras Sercial. Bottled in 2008, when the wine was 80 years old. Aromas of freshly roasted espresso beans, mandarin oranges, and orange zest tweaked my nose and followed through on the palate. Peerless balance and a brilliant acidity, which stretched out the flavor components long after the swallow (this was not a wine to spit out!). My personal favorite, top wine of the tasting.

1875 D’Oliveiras Moscatel. Bottled in the late 1970s, when the wine was 100 years old. The bottle served to us was opened 18 days earlier to help bring some life to this oldster! What a tremendous beverage, filled with top notes of chocolate and bottom notes of cocoa; the finish was so long that if it were a ball game, it would have been into extra innings. Have we discovered the Holy Grail of Madeira? This could be it!

This will give you an idea of what we tasted in 8 hours at D’Oliveiras

Day 7

There’s a tiny corner of the island, which is so remote that you get to it by boat. See the image above? That little patch of 29 acres in the lower left corner, beneath cliffs of volcanic rock, a Shangri-La of sorts, is called Faja dos Padres.

Translated, it means “Fallen cliffs of the brothers (Jesuits).”

According to legend, Jesuit priests first settled this tiny corner of the island, planting fruit and vegetables in rich soil at the foot of the towering cliffs.

Today, the estate is owned by Mario Fernandes and his family, who tend 14 acres of fruit and vegetables, manage a 2-acre plot of mostly Malvasia grapes, and rent off-the-grid cottages for guests aiming to escape urbanity.

Mario not only looks like a weather-worn Anthony Quinn, he lives his life like a kind of Zorba the Greek himself. For decades, he has worked assiduously to turn this small patch of land into an Eden of bounty.

I asked Roy Hersh what makes this small patch of land so iconic in winemaking circles on the island.

"In 2006, I visited Madeira and tried to excite growers to replant Terrantez, one of the original grapes grown on the island. With encouragement, Mario propagated some old vine Terrantez and eventually wound up planting 500 vines on his farm in 2010," concludes Roy.  

Faja dos Padres is an important site for Malvasia, too. Years ago, Mario discovered a single vine of Malvasia Candida n his farm, a particular clone of Malvasia that had long been thought extinct. Oenologists from the mainland descended on the property like ants on a picnic to verify the claim. It turns out that Mario was right.

Today, ALL Malvasia Candida growing on Madeira owes its rebirth to Mario’s discovery at Faja dos Padres.

Here’s how mature Malvasia vines are trained here; that’s our group walking beneath an arbor of Malvasia Candida growing overhead.

And here’s another one-off fact: This other, tiny plot of Malvasia, pictured below, holds a world record – these vines are planted in closest proximity to an ocean anywhere in the world! Here they are less than 10 yards from the Atlantic Ocean – think of it as a first down to a watery goal line.

Zorba, er, I mean Mario, walked us to his improvised cellar, where he crushes his grapes, where he let’s native yeasts inoculate crushed grapes and where he then cellars his wine to age; Mario used a hand-carved, bamboo reed to thieve a sample of his 2001 Malvasia Candida for us to taste. In a word – phenomenal!

Guests in the cottages, and Mario’s family itself, enjoy meals cooked by a professional chef on staff whose team daily harvests the fruits and vegetables grown on the farm.

Some of Faja dos Padres’ other inhabitants:

As we walked past a vineyard planted with Malvasia, I spotted one other inhabitant in this verdant paradise… but needed a macro lens to catch his antics…

Readers who are already hooked on Madeira, or for those who wish to learn more about this sensual beverage, or for those who want to seek out a source where to buy them at fair prices, should turn to the best source of Madeira in America: The Rare Wine Company, in California.

Check out their offerings for Madeira at rarewineco.com or send an email to their Madeira maven, Chris John, at [email protected]

For readers thinking about visiting Portugal, or Madeira, to study the wines of the region, there are no better tours than the ones organized by Roy Hersh, who lives outside Seattle.

Visit is site, http://www.fortheloveofport.com or send Roy an email expressing your interest to join him on one of his many planned vinous expeditions to Portugal or Madeira. You just might find napaman and Mrs. napaman on one of them!

Roy’s email is [email protected]

In closing, my favorite sign seen on the trip – found in the bistro café at Blandy’s. It says it all.

Mel Taub – A Mutable feast!

That’s an anagram above – the letters of “Mel Taub” rearranged to spell “Mutable.”

Mel Taub

Anagrams are the key to solving my favorite-ever crossword puzzles, the ones on which I grew up, created by a remarkable wordsmith, Mel Taub.     

His spicy, witty, sometimes infuriating, Puns & Anagram (P&A) puzzles have appeared in the Sunday New York Times Magazine for – catch this! -- 61 years.

And all along, on almost every Sunday his P&A puzzle has appeared in the Sunday NYT, except for a period when I was a foreign correspondent in Africa, I have attacked Mel’s puzzles with gusto, using – what’s this, Mr. So-Assured-of-Yourself? -- a pen!

Recently, I spent a day tracking down Mel Taub and found the 88-year-old Prince of Puzzles living in Manhattan, NY, with his wife, Phyllis. Mel still produces puzzles for the Sunday NYT, although they appear less often than before because the paper has incorporated so many other styles of puzzle for Sunday rotation.

A sample Mel Taub P&A Puzzle from the Sunday NYT

Editor’s Note:

In the ten years I have written as napaman, I have intentionally neglected to reveal much about myself; I wanted to highlight Napa Valley and shine a spotlight on the people and wines of the region, so I made a conscious decision to rarely use the first person singular -- the “I” construction – in most of the stories, which I have penned for this column.

But, this time, I need to include a bit of my own personal background to explain how I approached Mel, to justify to him why a California food and wine writer wanted to profile a crossword puzzle-maker in New York.

I’m reprinting my pitch to Mel below to explain to readers why this profile appears here – it is because Mel is someone I have admired for much of my life!

Here’s what I wrote to Mel:

“I know this sounds corny, but I have always used my journalistic credentials to meet people who were my boyhood heroes -- to be able to profile them. 

I have met and interviewed Buckminster Fuller, Sir Edmund Hillary, had breakfast with Sir Richard Branson, and over a period of six months, spent time with anthropologists Louis and Mary Leakey and their family in Britain, Kenya and Tanzania, researching an article for the NYT Sunday Magazine, which, unfortunately, never saw print.

I’ve also had the opportunity to dine with Haile Selassie in his Imperial Palace, in Addis Ababa; I interviewed Muammar Gaddafi in Tripoli, Libya, though I do not consider him a “hero” by any stretch of the imagination. Same for Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver, whom I tracked down in Algiers, Algeria in June 1970. He wasn’t a boyhood hero of mine, either, but I was a curious and fearless journalist and decided to track down America’s Most Wanted Fugitive (by the FBI). And I did just that.

Over my life, Mel, your name became synonymous with one of my favorite mind-stretching exercises— I have been filling in your Sunday New York Times P&A puzzles from shortly after the New York Times began publishing them. I have never been a diagramless, or acrostic. puzzle fan nor have I become a Kenkenian. I was nursed on your P&A puzzles and have been a fan of them since my youth.

In short, Mel: You are, in your own way, one of my boyhood heroes with whom I’d love to connect. As much to say Thank You as to learn more about you.

 Having just reached 70, I am taking stock of my life’s pleasurable moments, and, on reflection, your P&A Puzzles have, for decades, brought me extreme joy, and only on the rarest occasion have they caused me to curse you for pulling off a totally wicked pun, which I was unable to figure out. 

Will you let me interview you please?”

As you will see below, Mel agreed.

We exchanged Qs and As through email and followed up with a phone interview.

When I next get to New York, I will make a point to meet Mel in person, to give him a hearty hug to express my thanks for having filled so many days of my life with lucid learning, groaner jokes, and those ecstatic moments – when I’ve filled in an entire crossword puzzle correctly, defying the odds, and proving, at least one more time, that “I haven’t yet lost my marbles.”

Q &A with Mel about P&A

How old were you when the New York Times accepted your first crossword puzzle? Was this a conventional crossword or a P&A puzzle?

I was 26-years-old. My first regular crossword was commercially published in the Times in November 1954. My first P&A puzzle appeared May 1, 1955.

How much did they pay you?

I was paid $10 for my first regular crossword and $15 for the P&A. 

How much do you earn contemporarily for selling a P&A puzzle to the NYT?

Current payment for the P&A is $300.

How many P&A puzzles have you constructed for the NYT in your lifetime?

I can't tell you exactly how many were published in the Times. An educated guess would be 350 to 400.  In between them, there were quite a few British-style cryptic puzzles and a bunch of "Puns & Twists" for editor Will Weng. I have also had about 150 P&A puzzles published in other publications over the years.

Was constructing P&A puzzles your fulltime occupation all these years?

If not, what did you do 9 to 5 for your career?

Puzzle making was always just a hobby. My real job was as an insurance company executive.  I retired in 1992.

How long does it take to construct a Sunday P&A puzzle, on average?

When do you construct your puzzles – at night after your wife goes to bed, or early in the morning before anyone else in the house gets up, etc.?

With a full time job, I created my puzzles evenings and weekends. In retirement, I have no time restrictions. In my younger days one puzzle might take five to eight hours to construct. Nowadays, probably 10 to 12 hours. I almost never complete one at a single sitting. I spread the work over two, three, or even four days.

Where do you and your wife live?

Phyllis and I live in Manhattan near Lincoln Center. We still go to the theater, and enjoy movies and concerts, but at 88, I can no longer undertake the long, casual walks, which we’ve always enjoyed.

According to NYT Crossword Puzzle Editor Will Shortz, Mel's next P&A puzzle will appear September 25 -- mark this down on your calendar, get the Sunday paper,find the puzzle at the back of the Sunday Magazine and tackle my favorite puzzle. If you're not familiar with Mel's P&A puzzles, I suggest you attempt your first one in PENCIL.

Margrit Biever Mondavi Dies at Age 91

The headlines and obituaries will note that Margrit Mondavi, a pioneer of modern-day California wine, and wife of Robert Mondavi, died today.

But Margrit was much more than that to me. She was a friend and, as Robert’s wife, the leading influencer of a movement to bring together art, music, and food with wine.

Margrit had Class, with a capital C, she had humor, and she set a high bar for entertaining and cooking.

She convinced Bob to start the Great Chefs of France Cooking School back in the mid-70s to prove to rubes in America that Bob’s red wines could stand up to Michelin, three-star food. And she was right.

Margrit and Bob introduced me to Napa Valley in May 1980, forever changing my own life’s direction and focus. They are why I live here today.

On my first visit to Napa Valley, to attend a 3-day cooking school with Jean Troisgros, one of the great French chefs (from his family’s restaurant, Freres Troisgrois, in Roanne), Margrit invited me to her home on a knoll in Yountville to proudly show off her Swiss-made, just-installed, wood-fired, oven with which she was looking forward to bake bread.

The last time I saw Margrit, was at the 50^th anniversary dinner of the winery, which she hosted on Monday, April 25^th.

During her lifetime, she and Robert built a wine empire which went public, and which the family eventually was forced to sell in a takeover bid.

Theirs was a colorful, but tempestuous life saga.

At the winery’s 50^th anniversary dinner in April, Margrit sat beside another wine pioneer and legend, Warren Winarski, who made the 1966, very first Cabernet produced at Robert Mondavi Winery.

Warren then went on to his own fame as proprietor and winemaker at Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars.

When the 1966 Cabernet wine was poured for assembled guests, Warren stood up said, “I am Warren Winiarski... and I made this wine.” There was an audible gasp in the room.

What are the chances that anyone ever gets to taste a 50-year-old wine WITH THE PERSON WHO MADE THE WINE 50 YEARS EARLIER?

On top of which, let’s not forget – this wine was sublime!

Between Margrit and Warren in this photo is Mark de Vere, head wine educator at the winery.

 

These last few years, Margrit had been Vice President of Cultural Affairs at Robert Mondavi Winery, now owned by Constellation Brands. 

Margrit joined the winery in 1967. Under her direction, Robert Mondavi Winery developed the cultural and culinary arts programs, which are now benchmarks for the entire wine world. 

Margrit created a showplace for painters, sculptors, photographers, jazz and classical musicians, great chefs and winemakers of the world.

Forty-Seven years ago, Margrit founded the winery’s extremely popular Summer Music Festival to benefit the Napa Valley Symphony. This concert series has hosted some of the world’s best jazz, R&B and pop artists including Ella Fitzgerald, Harry Belafonte and Tony Bennett.  I know about this because many Saturday afternoons at 5 pm, we would sit on the lawn of the winery to be transfixed by the presence of some of the world’s great musical artists.

Typical menu designed and illustrated by Margrit.

Margrit was an artist in her own right, often designing and illustrating the menus which were presented to guests who dined in the winery’s very special Vintage Room.

I have written elsewhere that some of the very best meals I have ever eaten in Napa Valley were prepared at the winery and served in the Vintage Room. All under the tutelage of Margrit.

Margrit leaves behind three children, six grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. And a slew of fans and friends in Napa Valley. We will miss your cheery smile, Margrit. May you rest in peace while the rest of us grieve our loss.

The family has asked me to include this detail:

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations be made to The Oxbow School, 530 Third Street, Napa, California 94558 or to the American Cancer Society, 860 Napa Valley Corporate Way, Suite E, Napa, California 94558.  

Coombsville – Proof that you can be Nostalgic about the Present!

Attention passengers! We are now entering the tiny, grape-growing region of Napa Valley known as Coombsville, a somewhat hilly, bucolic region, dotted with small family wineries producing wonderful wine.

Population: Who knows?

Typical Coombsville vineyards

While five million visitors annually charge into Napa Valley, seeking cult wines in Rutherford, Oakville, Stag’s Leap District and other growing areas, almost no one visits the wineries in the sleepy old Coombsville corridor, at the southeast corner of Napa Valley.

(There are 16 designated American Viticultural Areas, or AVAs, within Napa Valley, identified as having site-specific, geographically defined, soil and microclimatic traits. Coombsville is the newest such region, gaining AVA status in 2011.)

Visitors! Show some respect!

The town of Napa might have been called Coombsville, as the founder of the town was a land developer named Nathan Coombs. In 1848, he created what was then – and still is – the largest city in our valley. Only he chose to call it Napa, instead of after himself.

Good idea, Nate! How popular would this place ever have become if tourists aimed to visit Coombs Valley, CA?

Coombsville, the wine region, is small, representing an area of 11,075 acres, of which 1,400 are today planted with grapes.

Writers assembled yesterday on the crush pad at Covert Estate to learn about the Coombsville wine-producing region.

In an effort to promote the grapes and wines of 52 members in the Coombsville Vintners & Growers Association, the group hosted its first-ever press/publicity event yesterday.

A tasting panel of wine writers assembled yesterday to be introduced to the wines of the Coombsville.

About a dozen guests were invited to Covert Estate, a new facility owned by Julien and Elan Fayard.

Julien Fayard. His 2012 Covert Estate Cabernet Sauvignon, tasted at yesterday’s press event, was magnificent.

Although born in France, Julien fell in love with Napa Valley and “specifically with Coombsville. I love the rustic nature of this area and the soil and climate are ideal for producing superb wines,” says the wine-maker.

Here’s what you need to know about Coombsville wines:

The only way to think about this tiny, perfect little area, dotted with small, mom-and-pop wineries is to think about diamonds.

You know how, when you see a gorgeous diamond ring on the finger of a pretty woman, your eye catches – and focuses on – the large emerald-cut diamond at the center of the ring. Your eye rarely registers two perfect, smaller baguette-cut diamonds mounted on either side of the center stone. But they’re there and they are, on their own, each gorgeous, precious, and delightful.

Well, the same is true of Coombsville wines; they are the shiny, gorgeous, precious and delightful wines on either side of the big stones – Oakville, Rutherford, St. Helena – but on their own, they are themselves brilliant!

In fact, there are such great grapes grown here that, for decades, much of Coombsville’s best fruit found its way into heralded wines made at Robert Mondavi, Joseph Phelps, Far Niente, Pahlmeyer, Randy Dunn, Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars and Kongsgaard.

Writers convened in a small ante-room at Covert Estate yesterday. On the right is illustrious wine writer, and natural contrarian, Dan Berger, whose writing and thoughts I much admire.

The assembled guests were given 11 wines to taste, to get an understanding about the richness, complexity and balance of wines from the AVA.

My favorite wine of the tasting.

While all the wines were delicious, and while I scored them all between 91 and 95 points, my two favorites of the event were the Scalon and Covert.

The 2013 Scalon Cabernet Sauvignon drew four exclamation marks out of me, punctuating my notes. I loved the soft, sweet, sensual fruit, both on the nose and palate; I thought the wine was harmonious, elegant and at a suggested retail of $85, quite a steal.

I scored the Scalon 95 points and noted that wine writer Allen Balik, sitting to my left, rated the wine his top favorite of the flight, too.

Interested in obtaining some of this nectar? There were only 146 cases... and you will have to fight over the remaining 145, because napaman intends to get one before you!

To visit the winery, or purchase wine, go to scaloncellars.com, or call the winery at 707-666-2245.

I was also partial to the 2012 Covert Estate Cabernet Sauvignon, of which there are 350 cases.

I noted a wonderfully original hint of sour cherry at the core of a medley of red flavors; I loved the balance and finish, and scored the wine 93 points.

To visit the winery, go to covertestate.com, or call Julien at 707-812-4202.

Covert Estate vineyards

Entrance to the chai, or aging cellars, at Covert Estate

Go to coombsvillenapa.org to learn more about Coombsville area wines and to help you plan some off-road, appointment-only, winery visits in a part of Napa Valley that is what the valley used to be like before the California wine rush started – simple, tasty, understated.

Napa Valley’s Most Memorable Wine Event of the Year – Robert Mondavi Winery turns 50!

The highlight of just one tasting panel featured wines dating back to 1968, including the very last bottle of 1969 Cabernet Reserve at the winery.

Some 150 special guests assembled for an extravagant celebration over the last three days to mark the 50^th anniversary of Robert Mondavi Winery.

Napaman was one of them.

I was thrilled to be included as I have been a long-time friend of the winery, and of the man who kick-started the modern Napa Valley wine industry, Robert Mondavi.

Or “Bob,” as he was known by his friends. Napaman was one of them, too.

In fact, the very reason I live in Napa Valley is due to Bob.

The iconic Robert Mondavi Winery

In May, 1980, as food editor of the third largest newspaper in North America, the Toronto Star, I was asked by Bob to come to Napa Valley to cover an event at his winery – the Great Chefs of France Cooking School.

He was hosting Jean Troisgros, chef-owner of what was then, and still is now, a landmark, three-star, Michelin restaurant, which many food authorities then, and now, consider to be the best restaurant in the world.

Bust of Bob outside the winery, bearing Bob’s vision: “It’s only the beginning,” in his handwriting.

Bob had a notion that his Cabernet Sauvignon was as good as anything coming out of Bordeaux and to prove it, he brought a succession of three-star, French chefs to his winery to cook for paying guests. He wanted to pair his wines with their three-star food to prove that his wines were a) complementary, and b) every bit as good as Bordeaux wines.

And they were.

My friend, Robert Mondavi

Bob was a showman, a marketing genius, a humble guy, a visionary. What the winery has been celebrating these last three days – the 50^th anniversary of the winery – is really a celebration of Bob, because he and the winery are synonymous and inseparable. (Bob died in May, 2008 at the age of 94.)

As a side note: My 1980 introduction to Napa Valley by Bob was so profound, that I decided the very weekend I met him that I would, one day, move to Napa Valley; it took 17 years to save up the funds and get our kids through college, but I never lost site of my dream to move to Napa Valley, to write about, and make, wine. Thank you for the introduction, Bob.

Margrit and Bob Mondavi, photographed by napaman at a winery luncheon we enjoyed together in April, 2005.

RMW, as the winery is known, is important to all of us in the wine industry and the wine-drinking world.

Founded in 1966 by Bob, when he was 53, the winery was acquired by Constellation Brands in 2004. Today, it is the jewel in a crown of many wineries and brands owned by Constellation.

Today, RMW has 1,300 planted acres and its wines are sold in 90 countries. Them’s a lot of countries.

Perhaps the most important single vineyard in America is the famed To Kalon vineyard, 450 acres of which are owned and farmed by Mondavi.

Bob knew the importance of vineyard site; in fact, he chose to build his winery in the To Kalon Vineyard, an historic property regarded as one of Napa Valley’s best.

The vineyard had been planted with different grape varieties and named in the late 1880s by a vineyard visionary named Hamilton Walker Crabb. “To Kalon,” if you’ve forgotten your Greek, means “the beautiful,” which this vineyard certainly is. And the wines, which it produces, certainly are.

Over the last three days, to celebrate 50 years of RMW winemaking, the by- invitation-only guests tasted half of the 50 vintages of Mondavi Cabernet Reserve, including the very first vintage, from 1966; we dined in the Vineyard Room, which I have earlier in my critiquing career called “the best private dining room in Napa Valley,” and traipsed through the To Kalon vineyard, oogling at 71-year-old Sauvignon Blanc vines, while drinking chilled examples of what these vines produced from the 2004 and 2013 vintages.

Maybe the best way to recount the three-day wine orgy is in an orderly fashion:

Day One

Jason Wise, producer/director of Somm: In the Bottle, speaks to guests before the screening.

On Sunday evening, a small cadre of 50 guests assembled for special wines and a screening of Somm: In The Bottle. Filmmaker, director, producer, and all-around nice guy, Jason Wise, was present to answer questions about his film.

Not only is this a wonderful film – I encourage you to see it in a neighborhood theater or rent it – but as a thoughtful courtesy, the Mondavi hosts served guests legendary wines in the darkened Vineyard Room, many of them mentioned in the film.

I thought the three WOW-ser wines were the 1997 Penfolds Grange, the 1990 Chateau Lafite Rothschild and the 1995 Robert Mondavi Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve . You see the wines with which Mondavi wines can hob-nob? They have the required sophistication, elegance, balance and charm to do so... exactly what Bob was preaching 50 years ago.

Day Two

Mark de Vere MW and head wine educator at Mondavi, leads guests on a tour of the property, starting with a pit-stop in the barrel fermenting room, outfitted with 5,000-gallon French oak barrels in which the top Mondavi Cabernets are produced.

From the barrel fermenting cellar, we descended to the barrel aging room where guests tasted through 16 vintages of Mondavi Cabernet Reserve.

We tasted 16 vintages of Mondavi Cabernet Reserve going back to 1968.

Highlights of the tasting for me were the 1968, 1971, 1991 and 1994 Cabernets. I even loved the often-maligned, Napa Valley vintage 1998. I thought the Mondavi effort was gracile, balanced, delicate, and focused. Hardly an ugly sibling, as the press would have had us think about a wine from this wet vintage.

Tough vintages, when the weather sucks, are the test of a great winemaker’s skills; they nailed it in spades in 1998 at Mondavi.

There was a tremendous consistency in flavor profile across all of these wines; tasting hallmarks included tea, soy, black olives, and wild Provencal herbs, often called “garrigue” in French.

The emotional highlight of the tasting was that the winery opened for us its very last bottle of 1969 Mondavi Cabernet Reserve (called “unfined” on the label). THAT is a true demonstration of Hospitality with a capital H.

Say buh-bye to the ’69 at the winery... our group polished off the last bottle.

Thank you, Mondavi Team!

All 16 wines in the morning panel were aromatically similar, fresh on the palate; one of my tasting comrades noted that the wines were very much like older Italian Barbarescos, in that they were filled with dark cherry, and black olive flavors and coffee end-notes, all shaped by a spine of youthful, refreshing acidity.

Mark de Vere, who led the morning retrospective, described Bob’s style of wine making:

“Bob always said that a properly made Cabernet should have the power of Pavarotti singing an aria... and the softness of a baby’s bottom.”

Most of the wines we tasted throughout the three-day Mondavithon met this criterion.

Megan Schofield, left, winemaker of Mondavi’s Burgundy varietals, Mark de Vere, MW, center, wine educator, and Joe Harden, right, winemaker of Mondavi Bordeaux varietals, led the morning tasting of 16 Mondavi Reserve Cabernets, dating back to 1968.

The aftermath of the morning tasting.

A delicious lunch was served in my favorite dining salon, the Vineyard Room.

Afternoon Day Two

Following lunch, the educator team at Mondavi led guests to the revered To Kalon block to examine, first hand, 71-year-old Sauvignon Blanc vines and treasured Cabernet vines.

Sauvignon Blanc, used to make what Bob Mondavi called “Fume Blanc,” in the famous I Block of To Kalon vineyard. These vines were planted in 1945.

Evening Day Two

The gala dinner, commemorating 50 years of winemaking achievements, was a chance to invite illustrious alumni back to the place where their careers had blossomed.

Monumental winemakers like Warren Winiarski, and Zelma Long, and a dozen vineyard managers/growers were present, too; the dinner, cooked by executive chef Jeff Mosher, was a canvas for exceptional wine pairings.

The most important wine of the evening – in fact of the three-day event -- was served right off the bat; it was the first wine ever produced at Mondavi, the 1966 unfined Cabernet Sauvignon, 90% estate Cabernet Sauvignon and 10% estate Cabernet Franc.

The dinner menu, painted by Margrit Mondavi.

How special, how good, was this very first-ever, 50-year-old Mondavi Cabernet? PLENTY SPECIAL if you rate a wine on importance, merit and, oh yeah, taste.

Warren Winiarski

The line of the night was delivered by Warren Winiarski, who stood up when the 1966 Mondavi Cabernet Reserve (in those days labeled “unfined”) was served and said:

“Good evening. I’m Warren Winiarski ... AND I MADE THIS WINE!”

The room erupted in spontaneous joy, applauding his craftsmanship, for, indeed, Warren had made this wine 50 years ago and it is still delicious, lively, balanced!

After leaving Mondavi in 1968 as winemaker, Warren went on to found his own winery, Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, winning all sorts of recognition and accolades.

The 1966 unfined Mondavi Cabernet Sauvignon exhibited notes of tea, ripe berries, soy, and ended with prune and cold coffee notes.

Mark de Vere, who acted as host of the dinner, shared that, after tonight’s tasting, there are only three bottles of this first vintage 1966 Cabernet left at the winery.

Uniformity of profile, consistency of taste and a “Mondavi-style” were evident in all 30 wines we tasted on Day Two.

Winemaking director Genevieve Janssens and all her predecessors, many who were present at the Gala Dinner, must recognize their achievement and be proud of their collective accomplishment.

Margrit, the Grande Dame of Mondavi, on the left, Mark de Vere, in the center, and Warren Winiarski, on the left, at the Gala dinner.

Phil Freese

Former VP of winegrowing at Mondavi, Phil Freese, was invited to the Gala dinner with other field and cellar alumni. I loved what he had to say about Bob Mondavi’s work ethic:

“Bob was a man without a rear-view mirror. Even after the worst catastrophe in the cellar, or a failed vineyard experiment, he just kept crashing forward -- it was the only direction he knew!”

Bob was a relentless idea machine, a never-give-up-experimenting kind of a guy. He pushed his vineyard managers to plant different rootstocks, he got them to change row orientation, to change plant spacing; I remember when Tim Mondavi and his dad pushed the limits to see if overplanting vines could positively stress vines to compete for nutrients – so they planted 4,000 vines per acre (usually under 2,000 vines per are).

Bob also contracted with NASA to conduct satellite reconnaissance of his vines to determine which ones were healthy using infrared spectroscopy; in the process, they created a whole new field of agriculture now called Precision Farming, or Site Specific Crop Management (SSCM).

Day Three

Joe Harden, winemaker of Bordeaux varietal,s and Megan Schofield, winemaker of Burgundy varietals, led a morning panel of 15 contemporary wines from vintages 2009 through 2013.

The day started off with an appreciation of recent vintage wines. We tasted through Reserve Chardonnays, Fume Blancs, Reserve Pinot Noirs and gorgeous Cabernet Sauvignons.

My take away was that I’ve mistakenly lumped Mondavi Chardonnay in with all those goofy Napa Valley Chardonnays that have so much oak they taste like they’ve passed through the kidneys of a beaver.

I’d forgotten how delicate, ethereal, refreshing, and Burgundian-like, the Mondavi Reserve Chardonnays are, or can be.

I fell head over heels in love with the 2012 Mondavi Chardonnay Reserve and as soon as this is story is posted, I intend to buy a case, as proof of my pleasure. I scored this wine 96 points, and loved the candied lemon top notes and creamy middle palate. Great length. Great wine. Nice work, Megan Schofield!

If you’ve been staying away from Napa Valley Chardonnay because of Chardonnay palate fatigue and a dislike of over-oaked, over-alcoholized wine, it may be time to review Mondavi’s offering; I was gob-smacked by the beauty, fruit, balance and charm of these Chardonnays.

A small, but significant, group of wine writers attended the three-day Mondavi celebration.

Director of Winemaking at Mondavi, Genevieve Janssens.

Long before Genevieve Janssens, Mondavi’s director of winemaking, said this to the assembled group, I was thinking it to myself:

There is a Holy Grail of Winemaking at Mondavi, which spans decades; it is a desire to produce consistent, refreshing, food-friendly wines, which are pleasing to the palate.

Wines here are never made to attain foolishly high, alcohol levels, or over-the-top levels of extraction in order to grab the attention – and earn high scores -- from fatigued wine writers with numbed palates.

I noted a stylistic consistency through ALL 50 YEARS of wines made at Mondavi. These harmonious wines are ready to drink upon release and continue to be drinkable for long windows of 10-, 20-, and as we’ve tasted, even 50-years.

My favorite Cabernet of the morning panel was the 2012 Mondavi Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve, which i scored 98 points. I thought this was a sensational wine, worthy of owning, worthy of cellaring. Nice work, Joe Harden!

After the morning tasting, guests were served a sensational, casual wine-country lunch on the terrace of the Vineyard Room.

For the occasion, Margrit Mondavi had created the menu artwork, as she had done for all dining menus presented to guests for all our meals. Nice work, Margrit!

As a final gesture, Genevieve debuted a new wine, which the winery will launch to celebrate Bob Mondavi’s life and the winery’s 50-year run; named after Bob’s passion for music, the wine is a symphony of reds from two significant parcels – To Kalon and Wappo Hill. Guests were served the first-ever vintage, the 2013 Robert Mondavi Maestro. Talk about delicious! Nice work, Genevieve!

Before guests departed for their respective homes across the country, I felt a need to put the three-day session into context for assembled guests.

I noted that only twice before in my life have I attended an event of such august, significance – the 100^th anniversary of BV, which I attended with Bob Mondavi himself, and the 20^th anniversary of Opus One, again in the presence of Bob Mondavi.

This three-day, 50-vintage span of Mondavi wines, many of them tasted in the presence of the former winemakers and vineyard managers who brought these wines into existence, made this once-in-a-lifetime, industry experience even more exotic.

The event itself, like the wines tasted, will never happen again. This was a three-day taste of history, and a detailed study of how one person’s passion to do the Right Thing can change the world. Nice work, Bob – you really started something special.

George Washington was President when this wine was made – AND IT’S STILL YOUNG, BRILLIANT AND LIVELY!

The highlight of a two-day Madeira tasting in Seattle, WA, this past weekend was a 1795 Barbeito Terrantez. There aren’t many left in the world.

To call this a transformative experience is an understatement; once you’ve had a wine of this age and eminence, it changes the way you think about all other wines, our collective social history, life on the planet itself.

What the group tasted Day One

Let me back up and put the wine tasting into perspective.

Fifteen Madeira-crazed individuals from the US and Canada descended on Seattle this past weekend and collectively brought 30 bottles of their favorite wine to share.

The event was held over two long, languorous afternoons.

Some of the Madeiras approached 150 years of age. Even older than Bernie Sanders, though not by much.

The oldest Madeira served was 221 years old, the 1795 Barbeito Terrantez. More about this later.

The person who brought us together for the tasting was Roy Hersh, a local wine expert who spends his life in the pursuit of pleasurable fortified wines like Port and Madeira.

Roy is so passionate about the subject that, three times a year, he leads groups to Portugal, or to Madeira, the North Atlantic island where the world’s tastiest, and rarest, elixirs originate.

What we tasted on Day One.

The youngest Madeira in this group was 59 years old (1957 vintage) and the oldest was 136 years old (1880 vintage). In Madeira-speak, this is still a baby wine.

Roy’s passion is so deep that he maintains a website devoted to the two beverages. It’s called For The Love of Port. In shorthand, that’s ftlop.com.

If you want to learn more about Port, or Madeira, or read Roy’s thousands of detailed tasting notes, sign up for a subscription ($59 annually).

I was impressed by Roy’s skill at identifying nuances in Madeiras we tasted; his descriptive notes of all the Madeiras he’s had are rich and illuminating. His tasting notes on ftlop.com are worth the price of admission.

Event organizer, Roy Hersh

Speaking about this weekend’s tasting, Roy noted, “This is an incredible line up of Madeiras. I would have flown from anywhere in the US to taste these assembled wines.”

Many attending the event, including napaman, did just that -- travel from distant cities. Each participant was required to bring a distinguished bottle of Madeira for each of the two tastings, and, as well, old, and still significant, wines for a dinner, which followed each day’s tasting.

Roy was like an orchestra conductor, making sure that all the Madeiras and dinner wines were in total harmony, that each complemented others, and that there were no duplicates, and no duds.

The afternoon tastings evoked debate and discussion; topics included:

“Which was the best Madeira of the tasting?”

“Could this really be a Bual (one of several grapes, which may be used to make Madeira)?”

“How many angels can dance on the top of a 200-year-old Madeira cork?”

Each guest hunched over 16 glasses of Madeira at the first day’s tasting.

Here’s what each placemat looked like, once you removed the 16 Madeira-filled glasses.

How Madeira is made would take four times more space than this tasting recap. As such, if you’d like to learn more about this venerated beverage, go to:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madeira_wine

Unlike most wines, which have a reasonably short shelf life, and which lose their potency if held too long, Madeiras are prized specifically because they CAN last 200 to 250 years. In fact, the older they get, the better they become!

There are essentially half-a-dozen different grapes which cn be used to make the fortified wine we call Madeira; these include Sercial, Verdelho, Bual, Malmsey (aka Malvasia) as well as Terrantez, Tinta Negra, and occasionally Moscatel or Bastardo.

My favorite wine of the first day’s tasting was, in fact, the oldest. The 1880 Barbeito MMV Malvasia had a rich mahogany color and lush notes of chocolate, treacle, torched sugar; throughout the swallow, there was a bright, sweetly acidic core, resembling a well aged Balsamic vinegar. The long, herbaceous and aromatic finish persisted for a minute.

The flavors of this wine cascaded over my palate unlike other wines in the first panel, and I was drawn to the rich, sensual mouthfeel. Easily 95 points, but I was saving my top scores for Day Two, when Roy was going to roll out really old, dowager Madeiras, worthy of oooohs, ahhs, and reverence.

Participants sniffed and sipped through their wines on Day One:

And then Day Two dawned, anticipated by participants as Christmas morning is by small children. We knew, just knew, that there were going to be some mighty special wines in the second paneling.

Day Two was the Great Reveal, the moment I had the oldest wine I have ever tasted – the 1795 Barbeito Terrantez, a wine with such profound aromas, flavors, and age that I had to pause to think about this wine in the context of when it was made.

The wine, although 221-years-old, is still vibrant, vivacious, full of life, full of acidity, nerve and allure.

This wine was made when George Washington was President.

The grapes were harvested the year that Beethoven gave his first public piano performance.

It was made the year that France adopted the metric system. That’s a long time ago.

It is so long ago, in fact, that the US flag only had 15 stars and, curiously, it had 15 stripes.

When you drink a wine of this age, you must stop and think about it in historical context; EVERYONE WHO WAS ALIVE when this wine was made is now dead.

There is NO ONE ALIVE ON THE PLANET who was alive when this wine was made. Period. No one. Not one living soul.

In fact, eleven full generations have come ….and gone ….since the grapes to make this wine were picked.

When you sip this beverage, you are not just tasting wine, you are sipping HISTORY.

Here’s the line-up of Madeiras tasted on Day Two:

The second day’s tasting produced three of the best wines I have tasted all year to date. Including:

1795 Barbeito Terrantez

Terrantez is one of the original grapes used to make Madeira. This bottle presented a wine of profound depth and harmony. On the nose there were bright, warm scents of chocolate, amber-grade maple syrup, marzipan, and of the salted caramels made by San Francisco chocolatier Michael Recchiuti.

The wine was dark mahogany, the color of a sideboard found in an old southern colonial home.

I was knocked out by the peppery attack and long lasting finish. Even at 221 years of age, this wine is lively and spirited, delivering flavors of warm bread, yeast, treacle, and molasses.

This wine is a complete symphony of flavors and scents; there are fruited notes, including strawberry on the finish, which lingers for more than a minute. There are hints of rum raisin and hot cross buns, wine-y wine gum candies and a persistent undertow of cola.

In short, this wine is a religious experience; it must be what Heaven tastes like.

100 points.

1886 Barbeito Malvasia

This was one of the Madeiras, which I brought to the tasting; it was a favorite of many at the event, me included. The grape chosen to make this wine was Malvasia, which tends to be a sweet grape with a one-two knockout punch of rich flavors.

This bottle did not disappoint. The initial tastes were of honey, yeast, malted barley, molasses, tobacco bordering on dark cigar wrapper, marzipan, and there was even a hint of slippery floor wax, but in a positive way.

This is a vibrant wine exhibiting great acidity; you’d NEVER guess that, if served to you blind, this is a wine of 120 years’ age. Very complex, gorgeous in every aspect.

98 points.

1895 D’Oliveiras Malvasia

On the nose, hints of orange peel, honey cake, spearmint, and tobacco. On the palate, there are elements of orange peel and fruit cake, fused with a core of bright acidity. Extremely complex and compelling.

96 points.

Some of the guests attending the event:

Alan Gardner, one of the most knowledgeable Madeira drinkers I know, is head of Toronto’s Madeira “Estufarian Society.”

Eric Ifune, from Las Vegas, helps pour wines for the Day Two tasting; Eric has been to Madeira numerous times and has a sensational taste memory of every Madeira he’s ever had. He contributed the best single wine to the weekend event, the 1795 Barbeito Terrantez. Thank you, Eric.

Weekend host Roy Hersh.

My knees are sore from having genuflected so many times this weekend in front of rare vinous treasures. Thank you to all who participated for sharing your rare liquid wines.

If UNESCO were in the business of sanctifying great wine tastings the way they do World Heritage Sites, this weekend would have been worthy of UNESCO recognition as a Significant Wine Heritage Tasting.

I Spent Valentine’s Day with an Old Heart Throb - A 216-year-old Wine That is Still Youthful!

 

What do US Presidents Andrew Jackson, Abe Lincoln, and Grover Cleveland have in common?

They were in office, respectively, when each of three wines I just tasted were made – in 1834, 1863 and 1885.

And each of these wines is still vibrant, balanced, ethereal, alluring, and -- trust me -- each is more rare than a $2 bill.

The wines I tasted yesterday are Madeiras, unique, fortified wines from the Portuguese island of Madeira, in the Atlantic Ocean.

Unlike most wines, which have a reasonably short shelf life, and which lose their potency and give up their pleasure if held too long, Madeiras are prized specifically because they CAN last 200 to 250 years. In fact, the older the old ones get, the better they become!

I tasted 16 -- call them ancient -- near-perfect-to-perfect, Madeiras yesterday, the oldest being an 1800 HP Barradas Reserva Particular. That’s a 216-year-old wine and it was unctuous!

Mannie Berk, head of Rare Wine Co.

The tasting was organized by Mannie Berk, head of the Rare Wine Company, which operates out of Brisbane, California. Driven by a passion for Madeira, Mannie has become the lone crusader for Madeira in America, searching out centuries-old wines from the island of Madeira.

Twenty-two fans of Madeira assembled for yesterday’s tasting, each paying $700 for the privilege of sipping the wines.

Ricardo Diogo V. Freitas, head of his family’s wine business, Barbeito

At the tasting, held at Central Kitchen restaurant, in San Francisco, the special guest speaker was Ricardo Freitas, whose family has produced some of the longest lived, tastiest, most balanced Madeiras the world has ever known.

Ricardo’s grandfather, Mario Barbeito, oversaw the evolution of the 1834, 1863 and 1885 Madeiras we tasted yesterday; I scored each of them a perfect 100 points. You can’t make a better fortified wine. Period. My notes follow at the end of this story.

22 Madeira mavens attended the unusual event. One person flew in from Seattle for the day, just to attend; another flew in from Calgary, Alberta, and another came from Los Angeles just for the day. That’s how rare – and attractive – Madeira tastings can be.

Madeiras are really the Jurassic Park dinosaurs of the wine world, creatures which we thought died out -- if not dried out -- a long time ago, but which, when tasted, enthrall us with their toffee, treacle, fudge, orange peel, and caramel top notes, elongated on the palate by a backbone of racy acidity.

Classically, old-style Madeiras are named after the principal grape from which each is made; from driest to sweetest, we have: Sercial, Verdelho, Bual, Malvasia (also called Malmsey), Bastardo and Terrantez (now called Folgasao). The workhorse grape for mundane Madeiras today is Tinta Negra.

Madeira starts out like most other wines, with grapes being pressed; but during fermentation, while a specific level of residual sugar remains, fermentation is halted with the addition of alcoholic spirits.

Mannie Berk, Ricardo Freitas and avid Madeira collector, Bob Stern, discuss the merits of one of the wines poured yesterday.

What happens to Madeira then is a lifetime of suffering, if not downright torture; the wine is heated and stored in conditions that would make Guantanamo Bay feel like a Four Seasons Hotel.

In the old days, fortified Madeiras were shipped across the Atlantic and Indian Oceans to thirsty ports. Shipped barrels often sat on the deck of a ship, baking under the hot sun, the contents churning.

The resultant beverages had the hallmarks of the wines we tasted yesterday – a gorgeous golden, brown hue resembling very old Sauternes, and a compelling combination of caramel-y flavors suffused with a spine of brisk acidity.

And, once opened, the more air you introduce to the wine, the greater the volume of pleasure you will get from it.

One more curiosity: unlike every other wine in the world, which we are admonished to store on its side to help preserve the cork, Madeira mavens advise us to store old Madeiras upright.

“Even if a bit of air gets into a bottle of Madeira, it will only help the evolution of the wine,” says Mannie Berk, who led yesterday’s swirl and sip tasting. Unlike so many of the professional tastings, which I attend, there was very little spitting going on.

As one guest said, “With wines this special, this old, and this charming, I’m not spitting – I’m ‘renting’ these wines for a brief moment – I am NOT spitting them out!”

In addition to the unique taste of Madeira, when you drink a 200-year, or older, wine, there is this fact:

Every person on earth who was alive when this wine was made is now gone. There is NO ONE on the planet alive today who was alive when these wines were made. EVERY SINGLE HUMAN ON THE PLANET AT THE TIME THIS BEVERAGE WAS PRODUCED IS HISTORY.

So, yes, with old Madeiras, you are truly drinking a piece of history.

Ricardo noses one of the older Madeiras; one of the 16 bottles opened was corked. Groan!

The highlights of the 16 Madeiras we tasted yesterday for me were three Barbeitos, produced by Ricardo’s family. They did him proud:

1834 Barbeito Malvasia

A truly sensational wine, balanced, elegant, exhibiting glorious notes of raison, and brown sugar with a bright undertow of acidity and then, a slightly saline finish. A perfect 100-point wine.

1863 Barbeito MMV Malvasia

MMV are the initials of Ricardo’s mother, who recently died, but who, for her lifetime, guarded the evolution of this wine, which, only recently, was moved from storage to bottle.

This wine has many of the characteristics of the wine above, thought it is 29 years younger.

Coffee, treacle and burnt orange peel top notes arouse your senses; there is richness and warmth in the mouth; this is a generous wine wanting to please. Until I tasted the other two wines, highlighted here, I had already thought of naming this 1863 my Wine of the Year -- and yet we’re only in February!

I have reconsidered, and think that all THREE of these wines will make napaman’s short list of Best Wines of the Year,

Check back here in December to see what else gets added to the list. But it won’t be more dramatic, more concentrated, -- and, for sure, not older! 100 points.

1885 Barbeito Verdelho

Verdelho is a grape that mostly produces a drier-style Madeira. Even so, this wine offers delicious brown sugar top notes on the middle palate, sports great acidity and has a long, long, focused finish.

If this Madeira were an Olympic marathoner, it would be one of those Kenyans gracefully racing to the finish line, getting there ahead of the pack, without ever losing a heartbeat, or an ounce of breath. 100 points

If you’d like to learn more about Madeira, or check out availability, go to rarewineco.com.

Best Restaurants of 2015

As we come to the close of the year, I am in a reflective mood (color me Nike headband).

“What were your best meals of the year?” you ask.

Surely, you assume, they might have been Italian, for napaman spent two weeks in October traveling in Italy.

But if you assumed this, you’d be WRONG.

My best meals this year, despite domestic and international travels, were in San Francisco and Napa Valley.

You can’t dine better, you can’t drink better, and you don’t have to take off your shoes, or have some guy pat you down, to dine at these restaurants.

Moreover, I have gained a sense of family in these particular dining rooms because the staff are friendly, casual and thoughtful. Which is why these are my top restaurants of 2015:

Drum roll, please....

In San Francisco, you cannot dine better than at the two sibling restaurants Quince and Cotogna.

I will go out on a limb and say these are the two best restaurants in San Francisco right now. Maybe in the country. They are certainly where I have had my own best meals in 2015.

Cotogna

Ahhhh, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. Your bar is stupendous, tended by several of the most accomplished bartenders in a city that is brimming with talented mixologists.

The servers at Cotogna, the managers at Cotogna, the bussers, the cooks, everyone here, has been trained to perfection by Chef Michael Tusk and his detail-oriented partner and wife, Lindsay.

Together they orchestrate authentic Italian, perfectly prepared food; they initiate an ever-changing menu, which is seasonally brilliant; individual dishes launch on the palate with amazing texture and finish with rich flavor. All through the chew there is culinary magic at work. Thank you chef, and thank you Lindsay, for this mealtime magic.

If I wanted to rent out a dining room for a celebratory evening in San Francisco, Cotogna would be my choice; this is my favorite casual restaurant in San Francisco right now. Period.

One of the rare shots of Chef Michael and Lindsay Tusk in the same frame; they operate Cotogna AND Quince. The photo is from 2012.

Like magicians pulling silk scarves out of a hat, Michael and Lindsay have invented the perfect counterpoint to their casual Cotogna; they have given us Quince, the best fine-dining room in San Francisco. Maybe in all of California. And while we’re about it, how about maybe in America?

I dined in the 3-star Michelin Le Bernardin in New York this year and despite that fact that my lunch tab was TWICE as expensive as a dinner at Quince, the food, service, ambience, and experience at Quince are FOUR TIMES BETTER.

Quince wine cellar

As a former professional restaurant critic (with an unlimited budget to dine in any 3-star restaurant anywhere in the world), and then as a patron of the table for the next 35 years, I can say with authority – and from experience -- that I have never had a better multi-course dinner with complementary wine pairings in my life than I had this year at Quince.

And I had this multi-course dinner TWICE at Quince this year, once in May, once in November. And each dinner was a raucous symphony of flavors and textures, and the presentations themselves were original, inventive and memorable.

Come to think of it -- Michael and Lindsay Tusk ARE magicians; I think of them as the Penn & Teller of fine-dining AND casual-dining because whichever restaurant of theirs you exit, you are filled with the same sense of wonderment, awe and joy as you are after a Penn & Teller performance... you walk out slapping your forehead, asking everyone around you, “How the hell did they do that....?”

Cotogna, 490 Pacific Ave., San Francisco. 415-775-8508

Quince, 470 Pacific Ave., San Francisco 415-775-8500

Spoiler Alert – Nasty comment coming up...

Quince only has two Michelin stars? This is a travesty. A great dining injustice.

What the fuck is wrong with Michelin?

This is a dining room which heartily welcomes guests; the staff actually smile at patrons, portions are flavorful and, for a change in a multi-course setting, sufficient in size to actually fill you up. And the complementary wines, chosen by knowledgeable and sensitive wine folk for both of my multi-course dinners, were so good that I actually sought some wines out afterward, purchasing them by the case for my own home consumption.

Only two Michelin stars? Quince merits four, you insensate Michelin inspectors! But you are so used to surly French waiters and servings the size of an M&M, (as evidenced by many of the restaurants to which you have accorded three stars) that in the case of Quince, you have failed to recognize culinary brilliance when it is visibly evident and thoroughly accessible by taste!

Quince is the best fine-dining restaurant in which I have dined in 2015.

Cotogna serves the best casual fare of any restaurant in which I have dined in 2015.

But I would be remiss if I did not add some other 2015 favorites, which readers must try. Let’s commence with Napa Valley highlights.

Redd Wood

I became a regular at this Yountville dining haven this year, but I am making up for lost time given the recent frequency of my visits.

The fettuccine Bolognese here is better than ANY version of this dish I ordered in in Emilia-Romagna, Italy, last month – including a half-dozen restaurants in Bologna itself.

Chef Richard Reddington

There are mornings I wake up thinking about Redd Wood’s Bolognese ragu, which chef Richard Reddington created.

The pizzas here are among the best in the Bay-area, too. I’m crazy for the arugula-prosciutto pie.

And if you are ordering a main protein like chicken, salmon, steak or pork, be sure to order the flash fried fingerling potatoes (above) – they are proof that potatoes actually are a food group unto themselves... and you should have a serving like this daily to maintain proper health!

The wine list here is smart, as is the staff serving the wines. Put yourself into passive gear and ask your server, or the sommelier on duty, to recommend a wine to complement your food selection. THAT’S the smart move here.

Redd Wood, 6755 Washington St. 707-299-5030.

Other local restaurant favorites, which are also high on my list, and which need to be re-recommended to friends and visitors:

Mustards Grill

For more than 30 years, Cindy Pawlcyn has turned out consistently great fare here.

In many respects, Cindy is the arch-creator of California grill cookery, having brought to market a sensibility for fresh, seasonal ingredients, prepared in the quintessential California style – which is to say grilled.

As good as the fare has been here for 30 years – it has never been better than it is right now.

At lunch, I recommend everyone try the calamari slaw appetizer, followed by the pulled pork sandwich.

At dinner, Cindy’s hanger steak defines this dish and has become my personal benchmark for “hanger steak,” whenever I see it on another menu. And it’s NEVER as good as Mustards Grill’s hanger steak. NOT EVER.

Mustards Grill, 7399 St. Helena Highway, just north of Yountville. (707) 944-2424.

Bistro Don Giovanni

Ever since I moved to the valley 18 years ago, I have dined regularly here. Giovanni and his capable lieutenant Neno, and their dedicated team of cooks and servers, make dining here a real treat.

I have dined at Bistro Don Giovanni more than 400 times and always walk away with a broad smile; the room, the food, the service, all work together to provide guests a sensational experience.

Bistro Don Giovanni, 4110 Howard Lane, Napa. (707) 224-3300.

Market

I have written about this small, intimate, narrow dining room in St. Helena before; it is time to remind readers just how good the food is here.

This is probably the only restaurant on this page at which I have a difficult time deciding what I am going to have for dinner – because EVERYTHING ON THE MENU AT MARKET IS PHENOMENAL!

I have so many American favorites here that I would run out of digital ink naming them. Just go, scan the menu and order many different dishes for the table and share.

Among my favorite appetizers are: lobster rolls wrapped in rice paper, Crispy Calamari, and who can say No to Market’s ceviche, Caesar salad, or extravagant chopped salad?

I often order the appetizer portion of pepper-crusted steak, served with a huge mound of truffled, shoestring fries, as a main course.

For dessert, there is no option: Resistance is futile. You MUST order the fabled butterscotch pudding, which I previously opined on these pages was – and remains - the best dessert in Napa Valley.

Yes, Cindy’s Mile High Lemon Meringue Pie at Mustards Grill is a Best Dessert rival, as has been the strawberry shortcake at the soon-to-close Tra Vigne. But Market’s butterscotch pudding has stood the test of time and is still, again in 2015, my choice as Best Dessert in Napa Valley.

Market, 1347 Main St., St. Helena. (707) 963-3799.

Goose & Gander

Once a week, I crave a burger and the one served at G&G is, without question, the best burger in Napa Valley.

Yes, Gott’s Roadside has its fans, Mustards Grill, too, and even Bistro Don Giovanni serves a sensational one. But the champ is still the burger served at G&G.

The cocktails here are also worthy of a detour. We love everything they concoct, but our favorites are the Manhattans and Martinis.

Goose & Gander, 1245 Spring St., St. Helena. (707) 967-8779.

Now let’s look at some sensational San Francisco dining rooms,

which should command your attention:

 The House

This small restaurant is a sublime destination for Asian fusion cookery, which never comes close to con-fusion cookery, as so many mixed-ethnic cuisines do.

For the record: I have dined so many times at The House that I have become a friend of owners Larry and Angela Tse -- but they should not be punished and left out of my best-of-2015 restaurant list because they are friends.

The single best sandwich I ate this year was the Ahi Tuna BLT, served at The House at lunch.

I have had this sandwich three-dozen times and the sandwich always makes me vocalize the same line:

“This is the best sandwich that I have had this whole year.”

Dinners at The House are filled with tasty surprises; there are sensational noodle dishes, superb fish-based specials. The House, a tiny gem, merits a spot on the National Registry of Best Restaurants in America, if such a thing existed, because it truly is a national culinary treasure.

When the Japanese/Asian/fusion restaurant Ochame, in Berkeley, closed a few years ago, I felt my left arm had been cut off; it was an outpost of delicious, original, Asian fare. If The House were ever to close, I would feel I’d lost my other arm, as well as my heart.

The House, 1230 Grant (at Columbus). (415) 986-8612.

Perbacco and Barbacco

These two restaurants are immediate destinations when I crave Italian fare and don’t wish to head crosstown, or fight for a parking space, at Delfina, Locanda, SPQR, or A-16, each worthy of being on my list of sensational Italian San Francisco restaurants. I love every one of these restaurants and recommend them highly.

But this year, Perbacco and Barbacco, ably operated by Umberto Gibin, just feel “new,” alive and worth special attention.

You want a luxe experience? Try the white-clothed Perbacco.

Want something a bit more casual, a great wine list by the glass, sensational appetizers, rich pastas and happy-go-lucky staff, who know what everything tastes like? Then Barbacco is your choice.

Perbacco, 230 California St, San Francisco, (415) 955-0663.

Barbacco, 220 California St., San Francisco. (415) 955-1919.

Coqueta

Chef/owner Michael Chiarello, who has many Italian successes behind, beside, and in front of him (several new places opening soon – napaman is obliged to not say where or when); but his attempt at creating a GREAT Spanish tapas experience has paid off in spades. I LOVE THIS RESTAURANT.

The bar is superb – cocktails rock – and the selection of small dishes is overwhelming. One favorite I order every time is the truffled-honey, smoked salmon – I dare you to stop at one order!

I love the selection of Spanish white wines; service is keen, focused, and the waitstaff can ably assist you to choose wines that complement your selection of tapas dishes.

The room is a hoot, the food is superb. Why this isn’t a one-star Michelin restaurant shocks me. Further proof that the Michelin inspectors are brain dead – or maybe they are just insensate from eating too much foie gras?

Coqueta, Pier 5, The Embarcadero, San Francisco. 415-704-8866.

On Safari in Darkest, Deepest….. Italy!

When you go to Africa, where I lived on and off for years as a photographer and foreign correspondent, I often hired a guide to go on safari.

I figured the same might be required on my recent trip to Piemonte, Italy’s glorious Eden of wine and truffles, so I contacted Josh Eisenhauer, a bright, focused, engaging, wine guru, who has moved from America to Italy. And who just happens to know more about the wines of Piemonte than anyone I know.

Josh Eisenhauer

I use the word “focused” because I don’t know any other term to describe the career path of someone like Josh who is a self-taught wine expert; at age 18, he worked in the wine cellar of Mario Batali’s iconic New York restaurant Babbo; at age 19, before he was even of legal drinking age, Josh was serving wine there; and before long, following his head and heart, Josh became a full-fledged sommelier at Il Buco (one of my favorite restaurants in NY, by the way).

Josh traded up and became a sommelier at another one of my all-time favorite New York restaurants, the 1-star Michelin, Del Posto, owned by Mario Batali.

And that’s where Josh met Sara, a gorgeous, demur, delightful Italian working at the restaurant and last year, the couple moved to Piemonte to amplify their respective hospitality careers.

Sara Marchese and Josh Eisenhauer at dinner with napaman in Piemonte.

Today, at 26, Josh is head sommelier at one of the most prestigious luxury hotels and restaurants in all of Italy - he is responsible for a cellar of 30,000 bottles at Guido da Costigliole d’Asti, a 1-star Michelin restaurant that is part of the ultra-luxe resort and spa Relais San Maurizio, in Santo Stefano Belbo. At 26 years of age!

Josh in the cellar at Guido, where he is cellar master, sommelier and guardian of 30,000 bottles, the bulk of which are Italian.

THIS is the guy I wanted to steward me through the most beautiful wine region in the world. (Sorry Napa Valley, Burgundy and Bordeaux… but you all take second place to the astounding vineyard settings around Barolo, La Morra, Castiglione Falletto…)

 Josh had no idea when he grew up in Berwick, PA, that he would become a fully fluent, Italian-speaking, sommelier at a top-tier, Italian restaurant.

Josh, by gosh…

I contacted Josh and Sara, now his wife. I knew Josh from his Del Posto days; we spent part of a week together, swirling and sipping wines at numerous wineries to which Josh introduced me.

More than once we found wines that we could NOT spit out. Like all  the wines poured for us by Roberto Conterno, who operates the lionized winery Giacomo Conterno.

“Roberto makes the best wine in Italy, hands down,” says Josh, who scored us an appointment with God, er, I mean Roberto, who hosted us for nearly two hours and who poured three of the best wines I tasted in Italy in two weeks of travel. But more about this in a minute.

Steep hills with planted vineyards are the landmark feature of Piemonte. This image, of vineyards just outside Barbaresco, reminds me of an urban work by Wayne Thiebaud (California’s greatest living landscape painter).

Piemonte, for the uninitiated, is the home, in Italy, of two of the world’s best-known wines – Barolo and Barbaresco (each made from the Nebbiolo grape) and Barbera, the best of which comes from Alba or Asti.

“Giacomo Conterno’s wines are in a league of their own in Italy,” says Josh. “Among other favorites, year in and year out, regardless of the merits of a vintage, I like the Barolos and Barberas of Vajra (pronounced VIE-rah), Giuseppe Mascarello, Bruno Giacosa and Luigi Pira.”

If you are looking for a primer on Italian wines, because you aren’t familiar with them, scribble these names on your palm in indelible ink and remember to look at your palm the next time you are in a premium wine store.

What you need to know about Nebbiolo, the grape, which makes both Barolos and Barberescos, is that it is a relative minor player in Italy in terms of quantity. In Piemonte alone, it accounts for less than five percent of all the grape production. That’s nothing.

But in reverence, Nebbiolo scores high marks. Nothing else in Italy, except perhaps for Tuscany’s brilliant Sangiovese-based wines, will command such stately prices.

Nebbiolo, by the way, was likely named for nebbia, or fog, which is a hallmark of harvest time in Piemonte – the hills and vineyards here are invisible most mornings in October, as they are bathed in a blanket of fog.

I ate and drank, and then drank some more, with Josh and Sara across the hilly countryside of Piemonte; I attended the annual truffle festival in Alba (and regret to inform truffleheads that the price of this year’s white tubers has been set at $4500 per kilo).

In order to optimize my learning from Josh... and have nuggets of Truth for napaman readers, I want to encapsulate a few of Josh’s qualified observations: 

+ The BEST recent vintages in Piemonte for Barolo and Barbaresco wines:

1990

1996

2001

2004

+ The WORST recent vintages (not to totally avoid, but you need to know producers in these vintages well):

1994

1995

2002

Barolo and Barbaresco are both made from the Nebbiolo grape. They get their names from the respective delimited areas in which they are grown.

Barolo is known as the king of wines and the wine of kings. Today, there are essentially two styles of Barolo - a traditional wine fermented in cement and aged in very large, old oak casks and a modern version, aged in small barriques. As it happens, there is a place for both in your cellar and on your table.

This column would go on to devour the internet if I listed ALL the great wines I tasted with Josh in a week… so I will summarize a few of the more spectacular wines we tasted. Anything listed here is worth seeking out.

Vajra

 

Aldo and Melina Vaira, pictured above, and their children run a fastidious winery.  I spent half-a-day with the family, mostly with son Giuseppe, and I like the family as much as I like their wines. Which is to say, A LOT.

(The family spells its name with an “i,” but the winery is spelled with a “j” for a whole lot of legal reasons – don’t ask.)

Son, Giuseppe Vaira

Aldo just completed his 40^th harvest, so he’s finally getting to learn which grapes grow best where… and how to vinify them.

“My wines are not made to blow your mind,” says Aldo. “They are made to be harmonious and make you happy.”

His MO certainly worked on me. I left the winery with a happy face and a big smile.

Approximately 20 to 25% of the winery’s offerings are exported to the U.S., so napaman readers should find these wines in fine wine stores and available from online etailers.

Everything Vajra makes is from estate-farmed fruit and while the family let its organic status lapse to avoid bureaucratic nightmares, it continues to make mostly organic wine – Vajra just doesn’t seek official certification. Which is what happens to a lot of wine produced in Napa Valley, too. 

Restrictions in Italy and the EU on what can be said on a label are so frighteningly obtuse that Barolo producers may not even identify the vineyards from which they source grapes on the back label on a bottle. Organic certification rules are even more restrictive and arcane.

 2013 Vajra Barbera d’Alba Superiore

Though not classically farmed as “biodynamic,” this wine is still produced with some “bio” discipline, such as being bottled in conjunction with particular phases of the moon.

Whatever the family is doing to make this exceptional Barbera, they have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams; glorious flavor, bursts of fresh fruit and a wonderful, rich, complex finish make this a stand-out Barbera.

As this wine is aged in used, large Slavonian oak casks, there are no splinter-y young tannins, often present in wines aged in smaller, new-world, barriques.

I liked this Barbera so much that I bought a case. 94 points.

2011 Vajra Barolo, Bricco delle Viole

OMGWAW!

(Oh My God, What a Wine!)

A beautiful, balanced, harmonious wine, which will need years to assemble, integrate and quiet down. But all the components are here to encourage this.

96 points.

2011 Vajra Barolo, Luigi Baudana, Cerretta Vineyard

An equally impressive effort, possibly richer on the palate than the wine above. Exhibits a gorgeous mouthfeel, unusual for young Barolo. From the Cerretta block; only 250 cases produced for worldwide consumption.

Think of Bricco delle Viole, the previous wine, sent to a plush toy farm, where it is coated in velours, then bottled. That’s what Luigi Baudana resembles. 96 points.

Giacomo Conterno

Roberto Conterno

The family winery is run today by a son, Roberto Conterno, who produces 5,000 cases of liquid gold, soon to be augmented by fruit from a just-purchased vineyard, which will add 1,600 additional cases to the total output.

I tasted dozens of Barolos and Barberas during my week with Josh, but nothing was in the league of Conterno’s wines. They are as DRC is to everything else is in Burgundy; plain and simple, ethereal.

 

2013 Giacomo Conterno Barbera d’Alba, Vigna Franca

“This is consistently, year in and out, the best Barbera in Italy,” according to Josh.

I can’t disagree from this limited sampling of one bottle; gorgeous, complex, deep flavors, Asian spices, and a hint of soy in the middle palate. 96 points.

2011 Giacomo Conterno Barolo, Francia

Did someone drop a pound of truffles in the room? The wine has a nose of freshly shaved white truffles with a follow-up of red berry fruit. On the palate, this has the weight of a Burgundy Pinot Noir with very fine tannins on the finish. An exceptional Barolo. 98 points.

2008 Giacomo Conterno Barolo, Monfortino

This is the single best wine I tasted in two weeks in Italy.

If you could have a Tesla... or a few cases of this wine… you’d have a hard choice to make.

Like a Tesla, this wine is a head-snapping, jaw-dropping, eye-opening experience, demanding your full attention.

Just released in Italy, the 2008 will soon be found in  U.S. wine stores but even though it runs north of $650 a bottle, it won’t stay on shelves very long.

For starters, very little is made, and there is large demand.

An extremely complex, extremely subtle, extremely memorable wine. You can’t stuff more Nebbiolo into a Barolo, you can’t make a wine more addictive, or more perfect. 100 points.

Cavallotto

Giuseppe Cavallotto and Josh Eisenhauer

Regular readers may recognize this family name. I wrote so glowingly about their 2012 Chardonnay that napaman literally caused a stampede for this wine in America; napaman’s review sold 125 cases in the U.S. The wine was that good -- and I guess my commentary that compelling.

You can read that original story here:

http://www.napaman.com/napamancom/2015/02/by-word-of-mouth-napaman-sold-all-the-stock-of-this-wine-in-america.html

On my visit last week, brothers Giuseppe and Aflio Cavallotto tasted us through all their new releases, including the brilliant, bright and, at this point, somewhat tart, 2014 Chardonnay. It will settle down, but we’ll have to wait six months to see how things integrate.

 

2014 Cavallotto Langhe Chardonnay

Very bright, almost aggressive acidity on entry; green flavors, youthful minerality. Not yet integrated, doesn’t yet taste like a $100 Burgundy, which the 2013 did when we discovered it last year… but this wine is still undergoing bottle shock and the wine may become another textbook Chardonnay. At this point, 90 points. 

2012 Cavallotto Barbera d’Alba Superiore, Vigne del Cuculo

Great aroma on the nose, very BIG, assertive flavors, lots of extraction; from 50-year-old vines, only 1,300 cases produced, and I own one of them. 92 points.

2012 Cavallotto Langhe Nebbiolo

Made with Nebbiolo grown outside the delimited area of Barolo; this is a stunning wine, a lovely wine. Easily accessible, delicious right now, refined, has the weight of a Pinot Noir on the palate and the elegance of one too. I loved this wine. 94 points.

2011 Cavallotto Barolo, Bricco Boschis

Lots of raspberries on the palate and young, attractive fruit. A handsome wine.

95 points.

2009 Cavallotto Barolo Bricco Boschis, Vigne San Giuseppe, Riserva

A rich, older, memorable Barolo from a really stunning vintage. Dark Nebbiolo flavors and long finish. What’s not to like about this beauty? 94 points.

Carlo Giacosa

Josh Eisenhauer sure has a lot of wisdom for a guy only 26 years old. And a striking palate. He has zigged and zagged across the hills of Piemonte (and there are a lot of them) to seek out great wine producers, big and small.

Luca Giacosa, who helps his grandfather tend the vineyards, make the wine, and then travels around the world once a year to sell it; here Luca points out his family’s vineyards and winery in Barbaresco.

Luca Giacosa is one of the small producers. He is the 21-year-old winemaker in his family’s three-generation business. Josh discovered Luca’s sublime wines and offers one of them by the glass at his 1-star Michelin restaurant. That’s a statement of how good they are.

Over lunch with Luca, I learned that several of his wines are already on the wine list at several San Francisco restaurants, including A.Q, SPQR and Water Bar, which is on the Embarcadero.

Three generations of the winemaking family; Maria Giacosa on far left, mother of Luca, who is in the middle, and on the right is Carlo Giacosa, patriarch of the family, and Luca’s grandfather.

In total, the firm, Carlo Giacosa (named after Luca’s granddad – and NOT a relation in anyway to any of the famous Giacosa wine personalities in Piemonte) produces 3,500 cases annually.

 My three favorite wines of many I tasted with Luca and Josh were the following:

2012 Carlo Giacosa Barbaresco, Narin

An assemblage of three different blocks, this is an elegant, beautifully structured wine, a gorgeous achievement for the 21-year-old Luca, who, in addition to making the wine, operates the tractor in the vineyards and heads off to Denmark, Russia, Sweden, Austria and the U.S. annually to act as the firm’s sole salesman!

I loved this wine, Great going, Luca! 93 points.

2010 Carlo Giacosa Barbaresco, Luca

This black-labeled beaut is gorgeous. It has a romantic nose, a refreshing, totally charming entry on the palate, and ends with a kiss. 93 points.

2011 Carlo Giacosa Barbaresco, Luca

I tasted this from a “shiner,” a bottled sample of this wine, which has not yet been labeled. The wine will be released early next year. Look for it.

A gorgeous wine with tons of personality. It’s a bit like the 2010 Luca Barbaresco above, only amped on steroids. Call this the Lance Armstrong of Barbarescos!

92 points at this early stage of bottle development, but could score higher once labeled and officially released.

Want to learn where you can buy Carlo Giacosa wines? Contact the U.S. importer, Siena Importers, in Berkeley, at 415-285-9675.

Or contact [email protected].

Most everything else reviewed in this story can be found at fine wine stores now and from online etailers.

Tra Vigne is Closing its Doors December 20!

 

What a black Christmas it’s going to be for staff and patrons of what is one of Napa Valley’s iconic restaurants, Tra Vigne, in St. Helena.

In what is a personally sad story to have to report, Tra Vigne will serve its last meal December 20.

It’s not that the restaurant has gone broke, or couldn’t meet rent payments; the demise of Tra Vigne has to do with the personal and private ambitions of others, of a lease running out, of others' commercial interests which were greater than keeping the lights on, and the mozzarella melting, at Tra Vigne.

Tra Vigne goes out on a high note as one of the great restaurants in our community and it will be greatly missed. By locals, by me, and certainly by the Wine Spectator, which held its Napa Valley Wine Auction Magnum Party every year at Tra Vigne since it started hosting the annual party decades ago.

For decades, Tra Vigne has been making locals and visitors happy, happy, happy. The restaurant has had several great chefs over this period, including Michael Chiarello, who opened the space, and for the past many years, Nash Cognetti, who has become a personal friend.

 

Executive Chef, Nash Cognetti

Tra Vigne has been my home away from home for all the years I have lived here, and I have personally dined, over the years, more than 450 times at Tra Vigne.

Tra Vigne was like Cheers, a neighborhood spot where you could meet regulars, share your personal stories with the staff, both behind, and in front of, the bar.

Losing Tra Vigne is what it must feel like to see your marriage dissolve. You can’t believe this is happening, that this scenario is unfolding as it wasn’t meant to be.

ooh-la-la, the bistecca alla fiorentina

Executive chef Nash Cognetti has brought stability and harmony to the menu at Tra Vigne. We will miss him and his glorious one-kilogram bistecca alla fiorentina, and his Wednesday cioppino night, as much as we would miss SNL if it were ever to go off the air. When something becomes bigger than life, when it’s gone, it leaves a void that just can’t be filled.

You know how you felt when Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, or The Wire came to an end? You’d spent years with this alternate “family,” and once the series was over, you felt robbed of a friendship, adrift without family. That’s how it feels to know that after December 20^th, there aint gonna be no more mozzarella made a la minute by Chef Cognetti in our life.

Nash brought some fabulous food into our collective lives, which nourished our collective spirit; Eileen Regan, behind the bar, and her sidekick Luke Christian, made some of the best cocktails in Napa Valley.

The staff – I’d name them individually here but fear I might leave someone out, so I will just say ALL the staff – and Jennifer the GM, and assistant GM Paul Smith, and the hostesses, and the busboys, and kitchen brigade – we will miss you ALL. You made our lives richer, more textured and more cultured. Thank you.

Tra Vigne will have a new life, but not one that many, or any, of us will see, or taste, Nash is opening a permanent pop-up catering space of sorts in Cindy’s old space on Main St.,, in St. Helena, once the home of Pinot Blanc, then the place with several incarnations under Cindy Pawlcyn’s tasty tutelage.

Now Nash and some of his brigade will open a space that exclusively caters to large groups and weddings. It will not be a casual restaurant in to which folks off the street night drift for a draft. Or for a glass of wine, or for dinner. So, essentially, Tra Vigne is off limits to the community. You’d have to be lucky enough to be invited to a wedding to taste Nash’s sensational fare again.

So if you are within the sight of this screed, and you are hosting a wedding at Nash’s new location on Main St. next year – PLEASE INVITE NAPAMAN TO YOUR FUNCTION because I can’t think of a world without Nash’s bistecca, or mozzarella.

Tra Vigne, we hardly knew ya.

RIP.

And thank you for the tasty memories.

Bella Union -- the Super Baby Wine is Born!

Remember how they gossiped when Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie got married? Everyone conjectured that their kids would be stunning, runway model gorgeous.

Well that’s what we’ve been expecting in wine country, after two of Napa Valley’s super stud wineries, Far Niente and Nickel & Nickel, joined forces to make a new wine; the baby will finally bounce into life next week and will be named Bella Union.

A small group of local wine writers were invited to the winery today to taste the wine and explore the new venture in the heart of Rutherford.

(Rutherford population 480, but with the influx of down-valley writers today, the population soared to 490.)

Larry Maguire, director of Far Niente, Nickel & Nickel and now, Bella Union.

“We started making wine at Far Niente with the 1982 vintage and have only ever produced estate wine,” says Larry Maguire, director of the two parent wineries.

“Then we started Nickel & Nickel, our effort to bring high quality, single-vineyard-only wines to market.”

“What we did not have in our portfolio until now was a blended Cabernet made from different parcels around Napa Valley; Bella Union fills that niche,” Larry finishes explaining.

The core fruit for Bella Union comes from a 25-acre Cabernet vineyard along fabled Bella Oaks Lane, in Rutherford. 

Napaman knows the vineyard well; as it is adjacent to his home, the sulfuring tractors, the chattering, early morning grape pickers and seasonal pruners have awakened him enough mornings that Napaman earned his invitation to the inaugural launch!

The name Bella Union is a nod to the history of Bella Oaks Lane, first called Bella Union Roadway in the 1880s. At that time, the country lane led into the Mayacamas Mountain range and the Bella Union Mining Company.

Beth Nickel

Speaking of the wine’s name, Beth Nickel, who with Larry Maguire hosted the reception and launch event today, commented, “I think with a name like Bella Union – meaning ‘Pretty Union’ – this wine may become a staple at weddings!” Beth and her late husband Gil Nickel, started Far Niente in 1979.

The Bella Union vineyard is located along the western bench of the Rutherford appellation. Planted in loose, loamy soil, the Cabernet vines here are expected to produce 2 to 3 tons of fruit per acre. In addition to Cabernet Sauvignon, small amounts of Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot are planted.

In the initial 2012 release, 60% of the wine comes from the Bella Union vineyard; it has been augmented with Cabernet, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot from elsewhere in the valley. While the label does not make an Organic claim, the Bella Union vineyard is maintained as such.

The winery has only produced 1,250 cases of the 2012 release. 

The Wine 

Oh boy, this is good stuff!

The inaugural 2012 Bella Union Cabernet Sauvignon is delicious. It exhibits bright fruit on the nose, with hints of cherries and plums on the palate; after three-quarters of an hour, the wine really starts to relax and have a good time in your mouth.

The 2013 vintage, which will not be released until February, has an even deeper, darker composition, hinting at cocoa and chocolate on the finish. I made a note in the margin of my notebook that the 2013 Bella Union was like the 2012 only with a deeper suntan. 

The Winemaker

 

Winemaker Megan Melief

Winemaker Megan Melief, formerly assistant winemaker at Nickel & Nickel, has turned out two dazzling debut wines at Bella Union. I would not be surprised to hear polite applause at the unveiling of the 2012 Cabernet but the 2013 will cause drinkers to jump to their feet loudly clapping and demanding an encore. “Bravo!” they will shout. And if they don’t, they should.

In 2005, Megan graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with a degree in Molecular and Cell Biology.

Following this, she earned a Masters of Pharmacology at the University of Washington.

Upon graduating, Megan decided to forego pharmacology as a career and, instead, pursue her growing passion for wine. Her first winery gig found her pulling hoses and working midnight pump overs as a cellar intern at Seattle’s JM Cellars.

Megan was drawn back to her native Northern California and in 2009, she joined Nickel & Nickel as enologist, eventually becoming assistant winemaker.

The scoop

The 2012 Bella Union Cabernet, priced at $85, will be released early next month. It will be available in only a few restaurants and online.

Go to bellaunionwinery.com to score your 6-pack, or contact the winery at 707-967-9500.

Trestle – My Newest Favorite Restaurant in San Francisco!

Every once in a while, napaman strays from his wine-country beat to discover a hot new restaurant, or bar, in San Francisco.

Call me Wanderlustman . Or SFman, if you must.

Until now, my three, all-time, favorite SF restaurants (in alphabetical order) are:

+ Cotogna, the sister restaurant to Michelin-studded Quince, to which it is adjacent.

I swoon at the pizzas and pastas served at this neighborhood Italian eatery. My taste memory returns time and again to brilliant dishes, which I have enjoyed here.

Cocktails, served by a highly capable team, are as good as they ever have to get.

If you are lucky enough to have eaten at Roscioli, one of the truly great, casual, restaurants in Rome, then you will appreciate what chef/owner Michael Tusk has achieved at Cotogna: the fare here is superb and as memorable as anything I have ever eaten at Roscioli.

 

+Delfina; we have loved everything Craig Stoll has served us at his Italian restaurant in the Mission for something akin to 20 years.

Craig’s calamari and white bean appetizer is the best starter on any menu in town. I don’t think it’s ever come off the menu... with good reason.

His pastas are simple yet sublime; Craig understands that the essence of taste resides in how few ingredients are used to make pasta sing, not how many are incorporated. Most often, in the kitchen, “the more the muddier.”

Delfina pastas, like those at Cotogna, are Top of The Class.

 

+ The House, where Angela and Larry Tse serve the best Asian American fare I have ever tasted; their Ahi tuna BLT, served at lunch, is a contender for “best sandwich in America” and is, for sure, worth a detour.

I once drove 150 round-trip miles to have this sandwich. It is that good. For that matter, everything on the lunch and dinner menus here is sensational. And as small as the place is – that’s how big your welcome will be.

 

And now there’s a new restaurant in town, which, even though only three-weeks old, has vaulted onto my short list of Favorite San Francisco Restaurants:

It’s Trestle.

It’s easy to miss the front door of this small restaurant. For simplicity’s sake, remember that it’s on the west side of Jackson St. at the intersection of Columbus Ave.

The restaurant is the brainchild of Ryan Cole and his partner teammates.

More about him, and them, in a minute.

Trestle serves a three-course prix-fixe menu nightly for $35 a head. The menu changes every few days so what you fall in love with tonight may not be on the menu the next time you return.

Among the items on the prix-fixe menu the night I dined here:

 + The best falafel I’ve ever had, creatively worked into a first-course salad.

I asked Ryan to keep this on the menu forever. Or suggested he start a take-out falafel restaurant where hungry customers can get one of these tasty, not greasy, ethereally light, falafels on a 24/7 basis.

+ A delicious roasted carrot soup served with croutons of – can you believe it? –

crisped-up carrot cake! As tasty as it is original, zipped along with ginger, colored with a “pesto” made from finely diced carrot tops. 

For an additional $10, you can order one of two delicious pasta offerings, prepared with the care and attention you’d expect to find at a serious white tablecloth destination.

The winner pasta on my visit was a small plate of tiny ravioli filled with a short rib forcemeat, served with a gremolata and horseradish soubise, which was so tasty the dish could have been served with a straw to slurp up the sauce.

Less successful were the gnudi, a variation of gnocchi, which are made with ricotta instead of potatoes. Trestle’s pudgy pillows were napped with a sauce incorporating pesto.

A sensational roasted chicken was served here

Of the two main courses offered, the winner was the thyme and garlic roasted chicken, a generous, boned portion so tender that it could be cut with a fork.

The moist chicken was served atop a mound of creamed corn kernels, which tasted like something out of a Michelin-starred kitchen.

The other “mains” option was a crispy skinned branzino, served with charred scallions and a salsa verde. It wasn’t that the fish dish was weak; it was just that the roasted chicken outshined it for composition, flavor, color, and taste.

Two desserts were offered: a fudgy, dark chocolate brownie capped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and an equally short-lived, bread pudding crowned with a spoonful of whipped mascarpone.

Hey! What’s with the short half-life of these desserts? They disappeared from their respective dishes in the time it takes for a meson particle to vaporize in the CERN particle collider, in Switzerland. POOF! ... they instantly vanished!

Who would have guessed that Ryan and his culinary team were into advanced, particle physics?

There is a well-thought-out wine list here, a smart beer list and an applause-worthy, wine-by-the-glass program.

Interior of Trestle

The three-course dinner starts out at $35 per person, but with the added $10 pasta course, a glass of white wine, then a bottle of red wine, we drove our bill for three to $75 per person. Even so, the dinner was still easily a value proposition.

We came away with smiles so wide that we looked like poster children from a Crest toothpaste ad... those After The Dentist Visit kids who are beaming with Grand Canyon-sized smiles.

 

Trestle delivers a HUGE knockout punch of pleasure, small as the place is in size.

Readers note:

Elements of the prix-fixe dinner at Trestle change daily, or every other day. Tonight’s appetizer might appear for a day, or two, while the pasta and main course may remain unchanged for a few consecutive days, but then they’ll change, too.

By the end of three, or four, calendar days, you can expect all the items on the menu will change. This is good news if you’re a regular patron... but sad news if you get hooked on one of the dishes as we did. Damn it! Those falafels were tasty critters! Or should I say fritters?

Partners in Trestle, left to right: Cyrick Hia, Exec chef Jason Halverson, Front of House Operations Tai Ricci, Jason Kirmse, and lead operator/owner Ryan Cole.

How’d the restaurant get its name?

A trestle is defined as one of the earliest interpretations of a dining room table – a framework consisting of a horizontal beam supported by two pairs of sloping legs, used to support a flat surface -- such as a tabletop.

And who’s this guy Ryan Cole behind the venture?

Although he graduated with a degree in Finance and Hospitality Admin,

Ryan was sidetracked early-on by his love of wine. As a Kopf Scholar, he traveled the world, learning the intricacies of winemaking.

Ryan’s restaurant years include stints as Wine Director and Manager at Clio restaurant in Boston, then Bastide Restaurant in LA, which he helped earn 3.5 stars from the LA Times.

From there, Ryan joined Bay-area superstar Michael Mina, opening three restaurants for the renowned chef, including his eponymous, Michelin-starred  dining room in San Francisco, which was chosen as Esquire Magazine’s US Restaurant of the Year.

Out on his own, partnered with a talented kitchen and front room team, Ryan has already turned heads at two San Francisco locations -- Stones Throw, 1896 Hyde St., and Fat Angel, 1749 O’Farrell St.

And now, there is his newest jewel in the crown, Trestle.

 

 

Trestle, 531 Jackson, St., at Columbus Ave. 415-772-0922.

For One Night, I Became Brunello-man!

It was a dream assignment:

Napaman was invited last night to a private dinner in Yountville at Bottega, one of northern California’s top Italian restaurants, to celebrate a singular Italian wine from a singularly good vintage:

We’re talking about the heralded, and much hoopla’d, 2010 vintage of Brunello di Montalcino.

The 44 lucky souls who attended the event paid $195 each for the 4-course dinner; they were served exceptional 2010 Brunello wines with each course.

As a twist, guests were invited to bring ANY vintage of ANY Brunello di Montalcino wine from their personal cellar to share with tablemates.

The event was hosted by Michael Chiarello, chef/owner of Bottega, (right, above) and by his genial wine director, Massimiliano Giovannoni (left, above).

The 2010 Brunellos are just hitting the street now; wine writers who have had access to the new vintage are calling it “the best vintage of this Sangiovese-based wine in living memory.”

Robert Parker’s Italian specialist, Monica Larner, says that the hype surrounding the 2010 Brunellos is not hyperbole. She emphasizes:

“The 2010 vintage is iconic for Montalcino ... it shows the amazing versatility of the Sangiovese grape with a level of clarity that I have never encountered. This vintage restores my confidence in a grape variety that has been both overhyped and underappreciated, sometimes at the same time.”

Even more bombastic is this observation from former Wine Spectator writer James Suckling:

"2010 for Brunello di Montalcino is the greatest modern vintage of Italy's most famous red wine region. Never have the wines been so profound in quality, character, and quantity from the best hillside vineyards of Montalcino."

Do comments like these raise the bar for Brunello, or jack it up so high that no wine can live up to the hype? Napaman was compelled to determine for himself whether such critical excitement over 2010 Brunellos is merited.

The wines served at dinner

The six 2010 Brunellos served were all exceptional wines. I have numerous exclamation marks on the pages of my tasting notes and I scored the wines in a range of 93- to 97-points. They were that good.

The common aromas in these wines are plums and roses, which wafted off the just-poured wines; there is a juicy, salty, balsamic-and-tea acidity profile on the palate, an undercurrent in each of these wines. The commonest descriptors, which I found myself applying: tea cake spices, plum, and tea.

With Napa Valley Cabs, the overall flavor profile is one of ripe red, or dark, fruit and the finish is usually jammy, or fruit-driven; with a Brunello, certainly at this young age, there was an evident brisk acidity, something akin to that experienced from another great Italian grape, Barbera, grown in Piedmont.

This makes Brunello, with its noticeable minerality, a terrific, food-friendly wine; it clears your palate each time you go back and take a sip. It is not sweet, cloying, or syrupy.

This was the Brunello I brought; Massi says that 2004 Brunellos are his favorite-ever vintage of this Sangiovese-based wine. Table companions said it was one of their favorite wines of the night – Maybe this guy Massi knows something about Brunello after all!

A brief history of Brunello

(Hey! this is interesting stuff, and even though it’s not on the final exam – pay attention!)

Brunello di Montalcino, a red wine, made from the Sangiovese grape, is produced from vineyards surrounding the town of Montalcino, about 70 miles south of Florence, in Tuscany.

In 1865, at an agricultural fair in Montalcino, the prize-winning wine was a red which locals called “Brunello.”

Brunello, a diminutive form of "bruno," which means brown in Italian, was the name given to what was initially believed to be a unique grape variety grown only in Montalcino.

Wrong!

It turns out that the “Brunello grape” was, is, and continues to be Sangiovese, the most planted grape across Tuscany; but the original name stuck, so all the wine from this commune continues to be called “Brunello di Montalcino, even though it’s 100 percent Sangiovese.

Massimiliano, who is called Massi for short, oversaw the service of 36 bottles of wine poured for diners during the evening. That’s almost a bottle per person.... plus the wines some guests brought.

The wait staff and wine servers pulled off a flawless dinner; if a small table in a regular restaurant had this kind of food, wine and attention to detail, guests would be amazed. But to provide this level of service for 44 diners at the same time – that’s a WOW! moment.

In the mid-19th century, a farmer named Clemente Santi isolated plantings of Sangiovese and produced a wine that could be aged for a considerable period of time. In 1888, his grandson, Ferrucio Biondi-Santi, released a modern version of Brunello di Montalcino, which was aged for a decade in large wooden casks.

By the end of World war II, Brunello di Montalcino had developed a reputation as one of Italy's top wines. The earliest commercial producer was Biondi-Santi. The high price and prestige of its wines encouraged others to emulate the style.

By the 1960s, there were 11 regional producers of Brunello.

By 1970, the number of producers had grown to 25.

Today there are more than 200 Brunello producers. The wine definitely has traction.

Our hosts for the evening

Chef Michael Chiarello

Sommelier Massimiliano Giovannoni

Traditionally, Brunello is aged three years "in botte," large Slavonian oak casks, which impart minimal oak flavor.

Some winemakers today use small French barriques to impart a hint of spice and vanilla.

Most producers separate production between a normale and a reserva bottling.

Normale bottles are released 50 months after harvest, while riserva wines are released 62 months following harvest.

The Sangiovese grape is the only grape permitted in Brunello di Montalcino DOCG wines.

Brunello is now so popular in the US that about 30 percent of all the Brunello di Montalcino made is sold here, according to James Suckling.

The dinner

In addition to superb wines, guests were treated to an elaborate dinner from chef Chiarello, who came out twice during dinner service to entertain and inform. He told about the excursion, which he and Massi took to Montalcino, where Massi grew up and where he earned his sommelier certification.

“Massi is like the mayor of Montalcino,” says chef Chiarello. “Everywhere we went, people came up to him to discuss their wine, their lives, their families.”

To complement the just-released 2010 Brunellos, chef Chiarello created a four-course-plus-dessert menu.

A Brunello-glazed, slow-cooked egg, served in a bruschetta basket, topped with shaved Pecorino cheese and black truffle.

Chef Chiarello married classic ribolita ingredients with a presentation twist, which he learned from Craig Stoll, chef/owner of Delfina, in San Francisco.

Wine wasn’t the only liquid celebrated at this vintage-release dinner; a 2014, just released, olive oil, was served with the delicious ribolita.

As Massi has deep connections in Montalcino, he knows the producer of this olive oil and urged him to export a small quantity to Yountville for the Brunello dinner. The oil, perfumed, green and luscious, would earn 97 points if olive oils were rated like wine.

Sangiovese-braised pork sugo served with pappardelle. Served with two different 2010 Brunellos from producer Abbadia Ardenga.

Cooks in the kitchen, under chef Chiarello’s direction, grilled the bistecca over an open flame; the chef said the beef was Chianina, the authentic source of bistecca in Italy.

Massi and the chef kibbitzed while showing guests how to properly carve a bistecca; they were as amusing and entertaining as Click and Clack, the Tappet brothers, on NPR’s applauded radio program, Car Talk – they were that engaging and yet informative. A great show, guys!

The steak was served with beans cooked in the oven “al fiasco,” in this glass vessel.

The beans were baked in glass flasks, or fiasci, in a wood-fired oven at 1200 F. The flasks were made specifically for chef Chiarello, who learned to prepare beans in this style on the trip he took with Massi to Montalcino.

Chiarello’s famous “Torta della nonna,” the lemony cake, which grandmothers traditionally serve in Tuscany, made with lemon custard, pine nuts and a Meyer lemon marmalade.

There is discussion at Bottega that the restaurant may consider hosting a series of special, regional Italian dinners like the Montalcino dinner last night.

If they do, you’d be well advised to sign up. Certainly Brunelloman will. Er, napaman will. 

By Word of Mouth, Napaman Sold All the Stock of This Wine in America!

This is the story of an inexpensive Italian Chardonnay which drinks like an expensive White Burgundy.

I’m talking about Cavallotto Chardonnay, from Piemonte, Italy.

Last June, on a trip to Italy, my good friend Josh Eisenhauer, who is head sommelier at the 1-star Michelin Ristorante Guido da Costigliole d’Asti, introduced me to the exceptionally talented winemaker brothers Alfio and Giuseppe who own and operate Cavallotto, their family winery, in Castiglione Falleto. Their sister Laura is a third partner in the winery.

The vineyards of Barolo

For a whole morning, the brothers paraded out a series of their killer reds – Barolos, Nebbiolos and Barbarescos.

The Cavallotto Baroli (plural of Barolo) are considered by collectors and wine writers as some of the very best in the region.

Antonio Galloni, who formerly wrote for Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate and who now operates his own web wine business called Vinous, has said of the winery:

“Cavallotto may very well be the greatest Barolo producer.... Truth is, it isn’t just the Barolos here that are impressive, the entry-level wines are every bit as delicious and well-priced.”

At my tasting, I discovered that they excelled at entry-level whites, too; they poured a sample of their 2012 Pinner, an effusive, fruited, young white.

Winemaker Giuseppe Cavallotto and his delicious Pinner white

Pinner is 100 percent Pinot Nero, fermented without skin contact at very low temperature for 2 months, after which, the wine stays on the lees for nine months.

Formerly, the wine was called Langhe Bianco at Cavallotto, but in recent vintages it became known as Pinner,” the brothers’ shorthand for PINot NERo (PINNER).

At a lunch, which the brothers hosted following our tasting, I was bowled over by the complexity, minerality, and length of their 2012 Chardonnay. The wine was 12 Euros, which, at the time, was about $18 US. It was one of the most pleasing wines I tasted in my ten-day visit to Italy and one of my favorite wines of the year. So much for the theory that Chardonnay is boring, out of fashion and irrelevant.

I returned home to Napa Valley and spent six months trying to source this wine from some of my favorite wine retailers.

I regularly checked wine_searcher.com, an excellent search engine to locate ANY wine ANYWHERE in the US. But for six months, not a single bottle of Cavallotto Chardonnay showed up on the radar screen.

Then, one day in January, I was speaking to Aaron Diodato at Sokolin, in Bridgehampton (Long Island), NY; we were casually talking about how great Cavallotto reds are. I asked if Aaron had ever seen their crazy good, crazy cheap, Chardonnay.

Aaron checked with his importer source and within a week, I had a case of the 2013 Cavallotto Chardonnay air shipped to Napa Valley. The cost before shipping, $20/bottle, is virtually what the wine costs in Italy. The trans-Atlantic trip was free!

I poured some of this exceptional Chardonnay blind for friends in Napa Valley; one friend thought it was a $125 white Burgundy; another bottle tasted more like a $75 Chablis due to the minerality and fresh acidity.

This is NOT your daddy’s Chardonnay, this is not the over-extracted, over-oaked, over-worked, over-alcoholized, butterscotch-y wine, which has become synonymous with Napa Valley Chardonnay.

Cavallotto’s version is young, fresh, bright on the palate, refreshing, food-friendly, and though it tastes like a great, white Burgundy, it doesn’t cost like one.

The grapes grow on vines planted with an eastern exposure in calcareous soil. The Chardonnay is fermented in temperature controlled, stainless steel tanks. About 40 percent of the wine is put through secondary (malo-lactic) fermentation, which keeps more than half the wine bright and acidic.

There were only 415 cases made of this wine – and my friends and I have already accounted for seven of them:

I bought two cases. And mentioned to five friends how good this wine is and they contacted Aaron and each purchased a case.

When I spoke with Aaron this week, the mentioned that the importer is bringing in new stock – “should be here by April,” he said.

It turns out that the cases, which I bought and which I induced five friends to buy, wiped out the entire inventory in the US!

No one at Cavallotto expected to sell very much Italian Chardonnay here – so they only threw a few cases onto a pallet to test the market in America.

If you like a bargain; if you like bright, young, fresh, food-friendly white wine... I suggest you contact Aaron at Sokolin NOW and place an order for the small quantity of this wine, which will arrive in April.

I suspect that by that time, napaman will need another case, or two, as will those who have already discovered this wine, which, at $20 a bottle, is a steal. You won’t find a better house white at this price for the summer ahead. That’s napaman’s tip of the week. If not of the year.

Aaron Diodato can be reached at [email protected] or at 631-504-5319.

Book NOW – and Avoid the June Rush! Hall Rutherford - One of Napa Valley’s Top Winery Tours

Hall Rutherford, 750 foot above the valley floor

The price of winery tours in Napa Valley has nudged north like the price of premium Cabernet itself.

Back in the early 2000s, you could take a great winery tour for $20, and simple tastings were $10, with the fee waived against a purchase.

Not any more.

The newest valley tour, called Appellation Exploration Experience, is offered at Hall Winery’s Rutherford campus at $125 per guest, ($100 for club members).

Promoted as the hedonistic, Triple Crème of winery tours in Napa Valley, the Hall Rutherford tour features a 90-minute walk around the gorgeous property and a tasting of impeccable wines from no fewer than three Napa Valley sub-appellations. (The Halls get fruit from 15 of the 16 sub-appellations, so for them, it is not a problem to choose three – any of which will dazzle you.)

Trying to stay abreast of new tours, and do the homework for readers planning to visit Napa Valley, napaman signed up for “Appellation Exploration” to learn what makes the tour so special.

There are gorgeous – and playful – works of art outdoors, and many exquisite sculptures inside the winery at Hall Rutherford.

Additional pieces which I loved on my tour:

Hall Rutherford is an experience for your palate AND your eyes.

There are more than 30 pieces of contemporary art here and they wines you will taste are so good that you will want to swallow, not spit. Those kind of wines.

The winery is built at the Sacrashe vineyard site which sits atop Auberge du Soleil on a peak on the east side of Napa Valley.

Sacrashe Vineyard in the winter – before bud break

I never heard the proper pronunciation for this site until my visit.

It’s SACK-RAH-SHAY, originally named by the three partners who owned it before the Halls – Sacri, Craig and Sherwin – using the first few letters of their respective last names.

Kathryn and Craig Hall acquired the vineyard in 1995 and intended to beef it up quickly, but their plans were sidetracked when Kathryn was named US Ambassador to Austria, where she served from 1997 to 2001.

Craig and Kathryn Hall, pictured in 2012

Upon returning to Napa Valley, the Halls did more than just update Sacrashe – they went on a buying spree and acquired a large property with vines in St. Helena, which became Hall St. Helena, where the bulk of the winery’s annual 100,000 cases are produced.

If you missed my napaman story about the St. Helena campus, check it our here:

http://www.napaman.com/napamancom/2014/09/waiter-theres-a-hare-in-my-glass.html

But back to Hall Rutherford

Your tour begins with a walk around the property and a pit stop at the Sacrashe vineyard itself. This is followed by a tour of the production facility where my guide discussed all elements of wine making.

Hall wine educator, Sol Gold

My guide was terrific, filled with knowledge which he leaked out at just the right moments during the tour. A big round of applause for wine educator Sol Gold.

HALL has custom-made, custom-shaped, fermentation tanks and favors gravity flow production.

One of the reasons Hall Cabernets are so damn delicious (the 2011 Kathryn Hall [red label] Cabernet was my single favorite contemporary release Napa Valley Cab last year) is the fact that all the wines are made with free-run juice, not pressed juice, so even before you put the wine into barrel to age 22 to 24 months, it has a head start in silkiness, sensuality, and textural purity, which is amplified through the barrel-aging period.

Cabernets here are unctuous, exhibiting an uncommon silky texture, a suppleness, and exquisite balance; this is partially due to the winemaking practice of NOT pressing the skins and seeds, which can extract harsh tannins.

To get from the production facility to the gorgeous Crystal Cave tasting room, you traverse a long, barrel-aging tunnel. Here, in the tunnel, you stop to thieve a sample of the still-aging 2013 Kathryn Hall Cabernet from barrel. A major charmer even from cask.

Bravo to Steve Leveque, Hall’s director of winemaking; during the Rutherford tour, you will get to taste his 2013 (red label) Kathryn Hall Cabernet from barrel (it won’t be released until September 2016). It is already a delicious, forehead-smacking wine, capable of bringing a wide grin to a seasoned wine writer’s face. We’re talking A Beverage of Natural Beauty.

I’m told that Robert Parker tasted the 2013 Kathryn Hall Cabernet from cask and declared it a 99-100 point wine and it still has another nine months to age in barrel and then a full year to age in bottle before it ever sees the public– so that is quite the compliment from Mr. Parker.

On my tour, we tasted three 2012 Cabernets, none of which will be released until this fall. But visitors to Hall Rutherford may purchase these particular wines now, ahead of release.

The wines are tasted in a most impressive space, a cave hollowed out beneath the Sacrashe vineyard.

From the ceiling hangs a chandelier made to look as though it were the roots of a vine. The one-of-a-kind chandelier, designed by artist Donald Lipski, sports more than 1500 Swarovski crystal “petals.”

Wines I tasted

Guests taste wines from three different sub-appellations -- from the same vintage -- to learn about distinctions, which soil and terroir bring to bear on a finished wine.

On my tour, I tasted 2012 Hall Cabernets, one from each of St. Helena, Stags Leap District and Diamond Mountain.

2012 Hall, Bergfeld Vineyard, St. Helena, Cabernet Sauvignon

Starts with smoke and alluring fruit on the nose. Has a gorgeous, spicy complexity on the palate, with hints of cinnamon at this point in its evolution, which are likely to disappear with age and integrate into the wine.

2012 Hall, Stags Leap District, Cabernet Sauvignon

The fruit for this wine comes from a leased vineyard adjacent to Shafer in Stags Leap District, one of my favorite sub-appellations.

This wine had me jumping out of my seat. My notes included: “THIS IS THE DADDY!”

The wine exhibits sublime aromas and flavors, which pop from the glass.

A gorgeous wine, seamless, filled with ripe red and dark fruits, and totally in balance, from the initial sip through to the swallow.

This is wine candy for adults.

2012 Hall, Diamond Mountain District, Cabernet Sauvignon

The darkest, most brooding, wine of the three sub-appellations tasted; this wine is darkly purple, heavily intense, showing more structure than either of the other wines.

Impeccable winemaking here – you can’t put more wine into a wine. Absolutely first-class Cabernet.

In the winter off-season just now, it’s reasonably easy to reserve space for Appellation Exploration, but come spring and summer, be advised that they will be booking weeks, if not months, ahead.

The reason: Hall only offers two tours a day – 11 am and 2 pm and the winery is limited to hosting not more than 15 people during the whole day. They can sign up 14 people for one tour and one individual for the other tour on a single day – or can mix n’ match any combination of guests, but can’t exceed 15 total guests on any one day.

So if you like what you learn here, book early.

To book a tour, contact Laura Garrow, on the phone at 707-967-2626, or via email at [email protected]. Also check out tour and winery details on the web at hallwines.com.

No Need to Wait for Spring – Lisa Livoni is Here!

Napa artist Lisa Livoni’s work is so bright, so fresh, so evocative, that one glance at her watercolor of flowers, bulbs, or fruit, is enough to get you through another dreary winter day.

Lisa’s watercolors are a visual elixir, a mesmerizing achievement, reproducing on paper how outdoor plants and vegetation make you feel. Lisa captures the spirit of life, doesn’t just capture a three-dimensional flower on a two-dimensional sheet of paper.

Lisa Livoni and her artwork

To be transparent: My wife and I have collected Lisa’s works from a time before we ever met Lisa and her husband Robert.

I was so enthusiastic about Lisa’s watercolor skills that, six years ago, I asked Lisa to work with me to produce a tourist guide to Napa Valley that would feature her watercolors and my words.

For many reasons and time pressures, we never got the project off the ground.

The good news now is that starting this Sunday, January 11, Napa Valley residents – and lucky visitors to the valley through March 4 -- will have an opportunity to view Lisa’s watercolors up close.

Lisa has a one-woman exhibition called A Passion for Light and Color at the Robert Mondavi Winery (Vintage Room) in Oakville.

Readers of napaman.com are invited to attend the exhibition reception this coming Sunday. You’ll have a chance to meet Lisa, see all her glorious watercolors up close – and buy one to take home. It’s the best way to break your dreary winter blues.

The reception runs 2 to 4 pm Sunday and I suspect you’ll be served a glass of refreshing Robert Mondavi Fume Blanc, which does to your palate what Lisa’s watercolors do to your eyes – make you happy!

Lisa was born in Honolulu, HI. Instead of brushes with death on a surfboard as a child, Lisa opted for brushes she could fill with paint. In her youth, she traveled extensively, living at one point for three years in Japan. She also took art classes at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

Later on, Lisa studied at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, CA.

She moved to Napa Valley in 1988. Washington’s loss was Napa Valley’s gain.

Lisa’s work is currently represented by Thomas Bartlett in Napa, and Cindy Raleigh Fine Art in the San Francisco Bay-area.

But your best chance to see a large portfolio of Lisa’s work – and to purchase one of her gorgeous images -- will be at the Robert Mondavi Winery this coming Sunday, through March 4.

See you there.

Best Wines of the Year!

White wine of the Year

 

The year was only six weeks old when we opened and drank what may have been the single best bottle of wine that we drank all year.

It was a 375 mL bottle of 1999 Chateau d’Yquem, the ne plus ultra of Sauternes, which packed more punch, and produced more flavor descriptors than the Jelly Belly test lab.

Initially, the most identifiable flavor note was one of gorgeous, golden saffron, but this quickly transitioned into hints of marzipan, Tasmanian honey, Italian torrone bars, nougat, marshmallow, Indian spices, and by the time we were finishing up the wine, it was redolent of bright, youthful cherries!

This is not a tasting note I have ever seen ascribed to an ‘Yquem, but every one of those present at our dining table, including one of America’s top sommeliers, agreed with these descriptors. 

Red wine of the Year

The awe-inspiring, Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Le Secret des Sabon, is starting to copy the San Francisco Giants – a magnificent achievement, reclaiming the crown for the second time in three years.

In 2012, the 2001 Le Secret des Sabon was my Best Wine of the Year.

And now, just a few years later, a different vintage of Le Secret des Sabon repeats the achievement. Only this time, it’s the sensational 2004 Le Secret des Sabon that is my Best Red Wine of the Year.

I bought this bottle at the winery in Chateauneuf-du-Pape, in July, 2006.

Jean-Jacques Sabon, owner of the winery, sold me this bottle from his own, private locker. The wine was made under the direction of a close friend, wine consultant Alain Benquet, who has been a hidden resource at this winery for many years. (Maybe I should start to refer to Alain as the actual Secret of Sabon!?)

For the record: The 1999 Yquem mentioned above was opened during the first six weeks of this year and the 2004 Chateauneuf-du-Pape was opened during the last six weeks of the year. In between, we’ve opened, tasted, and drank more than a bottle a night every night... and not one of these other bottles merited a mention in his column. That’s either a comment on how good these two Wines of the Year are... or how mediocre so many other, high-priced wines really were.

After an hour left breathing, the Secret des Sabon relaxed, exhibiting loads of ripe red fruit; within two hours, the wine started to resemble a decadent Richebourg; while not syrupy, the wine had a texture that I wished I could spoon into my mouth.

Bravo Maison Roger Sabon and Alain Benquet! (For clarity, the producer of this sensational wine is the firm Roger Sabon; Jean-Jacques Sabon was the son of winery founder Roger Sabon.)

For score keepers, both wines rated a perfect, 100 points.

Happy holidays ahead to all readers. May you have found some equally thrilling wines this past year to crow about. And may you find several next year that are as noteworthy.

Is Shawn Askinosie the Thomas Edison of chocolate?

I’m beginning to think so.

The Springfield, MO, chocolate-maker keeps inventing new products with the speed, and creative genius, of America’s legendary inventor.

Just a few weeks ago, I reported here that Shawn had brought to market his Askinosie 60% Dark Chocolate + Peanut Butter Bar, which was as sensual, sophisticated and sublime as a $300 bottle of wine.

And now... and now... he’s done it again. Hit another one out of the park.

This week, Shawn launched the Askinosie Coconut Chocolate Bar, laconically called, “A Beautiful Mess.”

Discursive commentary on the label explains the bar: “Flakes of Coconut Get Toasted as Rich, Dark Chocolate Teases Coy Coconut Sugar, Creating A Beautiful Mess.”

It’s a mouthful, but so then is the product itself. A delicious, can’t-stop-eating experience of tropical richness.

The underside of the tablet is coated with so much shredded, toasted coconut that it looks like the side panel on one of those terracotta Chia Pets covered in chia seed! Now I understand why this is called a “coconut chocolate bar” because there appears to be more coconut than chocolate! 

The dark chocolate in this bar comes from single-origin cacao beans, which Shawn sources directly from growers in Davao, Philippines. It is blended with organic coconut sugar and toasted coconut.

Shawn Askinosie, master chocolate-maker and, I am happy to call, friend.

If you’re getting tired of this photo of Shawn, blame him, not me!  Shawn has invented so many different themed chocolate bars, that each time one is released, I have to go back to my file and rerun this same old/same old photo.

(Memo to self: Ask Shawn to release a new shot of himself each time there is a new bar; napaman.com readers are getting tired of this photo!)

Backgrounder

Several years ago, Shawn got the idea to bring to market a series of unique, themed chocolate bars, each produced in collaboration with an ingredient supplier.

 

The Chocolate Coffee bar was made in collaboration with Intelligentsia Coffee, the Malted Milk Dark Chocolate bar was made in cahoots with Jeni’s Ice Cream out of Columbus, OH.

To date, there have been five “CollaBARation” Bars, as Shawn calls them. The sixth, and newest, comes from the influence of two bubbly sisters, Elsie Larson and Emma Chapman, who work near the Askinosie chocolate factory, in Springfield.

Sisters Elsie Larson and Emma Chapman

Elsie and Emma operate A Beautiful Mess, a women's lifestyle company focused on creating “happiness through a homemade lifestyle.”

On their site, www.abeautifulmess.com  they share home decor projects, recipes, and crafts, as well as talk about their life in Missouri.  

Elsie, Emma, and others from their web team helped the Askinosie team make the earliest samples of the Coconut CollaBARation bar.

The sisters got to talking with Shawn about their love for coconut, a popular ingredient in their family’s part-Venezuelan heritage... one thing led to another, and before long, the sisters were in the chocolate works, helping to make samples with the talented Askinosie chocolate team.

The Askinosie “A Beautiful Mess” Coconut Chocolate Bar is available for $9 from Shawn’s website, www.askinosie.com

Now I am publicly pleading with Shawn to create a new CollaBARation Bar with another well-known blogger – napaman!

I am exhorting, beseeching, even pleading on bended knee: Shawn, please make the world’s greatest Chocolate Ginger Nugget Bar, a sensuous combination of a bright tasting Criollo chocolate, preferably from South America, assertively tweaked to get your attention with large nuggets of candied, organic ginger that has been folded into the chocolate.

It is unfair, Shawn, to shine a spotlight on ingredients like coconut, coffee, and licorice and leave out one of the greatest chocolate-pairing ingredients that ever existed -- ginger!   

What would Laurel have been without Hardy?

What would Rogers (whose first name was GINGER, by the way!) have been without (Fred) Astaire?

Some things are just meant to be together and ginger AND chocolate are two of them.

So how about it Shawn? Can the next CollaBaration Bar be the napaman-inspired, soon-to-be-world-famous, Askinosie Chocolate Ginger Nuggets Bar?

You know where to find me if you’d like help making the samples....

This Book Should Come with a Free Promotional Corkscrew!

“I drink between one and one-and-a-half-bottles of wine a day,” says Gerry Facciani, who is both a friend and now an author – of the book above.

Gerry’s self-published book, The Drinkers Guide To Healthy Living, makes the case that one can drink as much wine as you like as part of a healthy lifestyle.

Citing the cardio-protective ability of wine, and resurfacing many of the things we’ve read about resveratrol, anthocyanins, flavinoids and antioxidants in the press... and stringing together hypotheses and test data, Gerry makes a case about the positive, physiological aspects of wine early in the book.

In many respects, the earliest chapters of Gerry’s book aren’t so much a persuasive thesis about the benefits of moderate drinking; they are more like a collection of clippings from numerous, informed sources, which support a common hypothesis. The Gerry Facciani Clipping Service has plumbed the depths of newspapers, medical research libraries, and scientific studies. 

I started out highlighting all the salient arguments why wine is good for me  with a yellow marker...  and by page 37 decided that so many pages were solid yellow... that it was far easier to dip the book in a pail of yellow watercolor paint and then use white-out to un-highlight the very few sentences which I DIDN’T want highlighted!

Resistance is futile!

There are so many references in the book about the health- and performance-boosting properties of wine that it sounds like wine may just be the magic Elixir of Life. (Good thing that I have a cellarful of the elixir...)

Results of some of the cited clinical tests are hard to believe: for example, one clipping’s insistence that even the common cold can be warded off by drinking sufficient quantities of wine:

According to a 2002 Spanish study, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, “when individuals consumed 14 or more glasses of wine per week, the relative risk of developing the common cold was reduced by 40 percent, compared to teetotalers, with red wine providing superior protection against the common cold.”

What’s not explained here, of course, is whether the wine drinkers in this study also partook in extraneous activities, when they weren’t drinking, which possibly strengthened their resistance from catching a cold (jogging, running, etc.).

This is either Gerry Facciani, or this is Jerry Facciani. It depends on which page of the book you reference.

Specialists and friends who wrote an endorsement for the author in this book, spelled Gerry’s name both with a G (Gerry) and with a J (Jerry). Sometimes using both spellings in the same paragraph!

Even Robert Parker, the esteemed wine critic, who is one of Jerry’s closest friends, spells his name two different ways in the foreward of the book.

In fact, Gerry’s name is so blatantly misspelled throughout the book, that I’m beginning to think that, to be considered a good friend it is essential to misspell his first name. So I’m raising a glass to you tonight, Sherry Facciani!

One other copy editor’s question: Where’s the apostrophe in the title?

If the book were aimed at one drinker, the title should be The Drinker’s Guide to Healthy Living. If Gerry meant to speak to ALL the drinkers out there, it should have been The Drinkers’ Guide to Healthy Living.

Speaking of healthy living, Gerry does a good job of summarizing present thoughts about diet, nutrition, and the need for exercise and stress management in the middle chapters. As well, he speaks about the health detriments of immoderate drinking.

Gerry in his wine cellar.

Given his passion for wine and the sheer quantity, which he enjoys daily, I asked Gerry about his favorite wine regions.

“For sure, my favorite regions include California, especially those producing Cabernet, Zinfandel, and Syrah. I also love the Rhone and Bordeaux wine regions of France. I’m also a big fan of Shiraz from Australia.” 

Gerry has had a colorful career in – of all things – pension actuaries! He was the founder of an actuarial firm, which he sold in 1991 when it had become the largest individually owned firm of its type in the country. 

In 2010, Gerry and his wife Karen moved to New Haven, CT, so that he could enroll as a full-time student in the Yale Divinity School. Three years later, Gerry graduated with a Masters Degree in Religion. (There must have been a run on altar wine in that three-year period, although there is no clipping in the book to support this hypothesis...)

The Drinkers Guide to Healthy Living is $14.95.

To purchase a copy, go to drinkersguidetohealthyliving.com

This Chocolate Bar Belongs in the Museum of Modern (Edible) Art!

If edible luxuries qualified, the new Askinosie Peanut Butter Chocolate Bar would be selected for the collection at MOMEA –the Museum of Modern Edible Art. 

The Askinosie bar, or tablet, presents a dark, rich, unctuous Tanzanian chocolate, which borders on velour in texture; it has a lingering, haunting finish that goes on for minutes, like a stunning 100-point, Chateauneuf-du-Pape wine; there are hints beneath the dark cocoa layers of freshly roasted, ground peanuts.

The whole eating experience is like being presented with a multi-course, chef’s tasting menu... each bite is so complex, so perfectly balanced, that you can’t wait to have another bite. The chocolate is as sophisticated, subtle and sensual as a $300 bottle of wine – and each bite brings you more pleasure than the last.

The Askinosie Peanut Butter Chocolate Bar has zero relationship to Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, so put this comparison out of your mind.

This bar is the single best expression of dark chocolate blended with peanut butter that I have ever tasted. As I have brought to market many hundreds of chocolate- and peanut-based products in my 40-year food development career – this is a professional opinion, not that of a hobbyist.

This is Shawn.

I have profiled Shawn Askinosie on this site many times.

Not the least of which include:

http://www.napaman.com/napamancom/2010/12/there-are-people-who-make-exceptional-chocolate.html

http://www.napaman.com/napamancom/2008/10/

http://www.napaman.com/napamancom/2011/11/napaman-is-not-a-shill-for-shawn-askinosie-i-cant-help-it-if-he-just-happens-to-make-the-worlds-best.html

http://www.napaman.com/napamancom/2010/08/askinosie-hey-hey-hazelnut-spread-best-new-chocolate-product-of-the-year.html

http://www.napaman.com/napamancom/2009/12/the-best-holiday-gift-you-can-give-a-years-supply-of-askinosie-americas-best-chocolate.html

I mention these articles because I must remind readers that Shawn is quite possibly the best producer of premium chocolate in the United States. Very possibly in the world.

In many respects, Shawn Askinosie is the Elon Musk of chocolate; he makes up his own rules, pays no attention to traditional manufacturing processes and is a leader in his chosen field.

For example, Shawn flies directly to Tanzania, Ecuador, Honduras and the Philippines himself, to contract with cocoa farmers so there are no middlemen. Everything Shawn pays for his cacao goes 100 per cent, DIRECTLY to the producers.

Shawn only uses single-origin cacao – he doesn’t blend beans from one region with those of another. Shawn respects indigenous flavors, which differ among cocoa-growing regions.

Shawn is such a purist, in fact, that he doesn’t even mix the cocoa butter, which is removed from beans, with cocoa from another region – the cocoa butter gets reintroduced to the same regional cocoa later in the process of production.

With respect to the new Peanut Butter Bar; the beans have come from Mababu, Tanzania. The woman on the package is Miama Rahabu, the lead farmer of a women’s farmer group. Shawn spent a year developing this bar, finally determining that the ultimate taste experience was a bar containing 60% by weight dark, Trinitario chocolate. The remaining ingredients are organic cane sugar, peanut butter and cocoa butter.

As with all Askinosie chocolates, no lecithin is used in the production of this bar (I have only ever found one other producer – in Europe – who does not use lecithin, an emulsifier which gives chocolate its smooth mouthfeel).

And Shawn uses no vanilla, or vanillin, either. I don’t know of another chocolate-maker any where in the world who could make this boast. THAT’S how good Shawn’s chocolate is – he doesn’t need crutches to give his perfectly made chocolate the texture or taste, which other producers require.

For peanut butter, Shawn has chosen a premium, all-natural product from a craft spread maker, Big Spoon Roasters.

Made at the Askinosie Chocolate works in Springfield, Mo., the decadent PB + Chocolate Bar is certified Kosher, vegan, and gluten-free. 

The Askinosie 60% Dark Chocolate + Peanut Butter Bar is $8.50 for an 85 gram bar; it is available at askinosie.com and specialty food retailers.

To order online, visit askinosie.com or call 417-862-9900.

Visiting Napa Valley? Plan your winery visits with this 3-D Map!

A year ago, I discovered a sensational 3-D map of the Napa Valley depicting its 16 sub-appellations.

Produced by the Napa Valley Vintners, the map is an ideal tool to help visitors orient themselves to our demi-paradise; the map depicts landmass, mountain elevations and valley swales on a miniature, plasticized, 10- x 12-inch sheet.

I show the map to first-time visitors to Napa Valley to give them an idea of where I’m sending them when I suggest they go up Pritchard Hill to visit Chappellet, or  Continuum, or when I send them up Spring Mountain to visit Philip Togni, or Pride.

To optimize your time here, you need to visit wineries which are located in the same sub-appellation so that you don’t waste time driving helter-skelter all over the valley, back-tracking your route.

I suggest that travelers concentrate visits to wineries within the same sub-appellation to reduce travel time. It makes sense, for example, to combine visits to three or four wineries in Stag’s Leap District, or in St. Helena, or in Rutherford; this 3-D map helps give you an idea of which sub-appellations are close to one another to further help you draft a strategy to visit wineries.

The NVV, which represents 500 wineries in Napa Valley, started producing this 3-dimensional map about six years ago.

“As Napa Valley has such a varied topography, we created the map to help residents and visitors see -- and feel -- the diversity of our wine region,” explains Patsy McGaughy, communications director of the association.

Because it is expensive to produce the 3-D map, even NVV members must purchase it. Many wineries keep the map handy in their tasting room to give guests an idea of where they are, or where they’re headed.

The cost of the map is $25 – a  good gift for someone you know who may be planning to visit Napa Valley – to help them plot out their visits to different sub-appellations while they’re here.

“The map has become popular in Asia,” adds Patsy. “We’ve been asked to produce maps in Japanese and Mandarin to help Asian friends in the wine business get a better sense of what the Napa Valley is all about.”

If you’re interested in purchasing the 3-D map, you can acquire one online. Napaman doesn’t sell them and doesn’t make any income if you opt to buy one. Go to:

http://www.napavintners.com/trade/store.asp 

Click to purchase the “Napa Valley Raised Relief Topo Map” which is NVV jargon for their 3-D map.

Waiter! There’s a Hare in my Glass!

Well, there could be if you visit Hall Winery, in St. Helena, and stand in the vineyard, admiring a 3.5-ton, stainless steel sculpture called “Bunny Foo Foo.”

The sculpture is only part of what’s new at Hall, which dazzles guests with its modern, new Visitors’ Center, staffed by extremely friendly wine folk.

“Bunny Foo Foo,” designed and crafted by British artist Lawrence Argent, was commissioned and named by winery owner Kathryn Hall who used to read a poem of the same name to her children, David and Jennifer, at bedtime.

(Bunny Foo Foo was a rabbit who hopped through the forest, scooping up field mice, bopping them on the head.)

Today, the 35-foot-tall, shiny, Swiss-cheese-aerated, Bunny Foo Foo is an object of beauty - as is the visitor center and the wines showcased inside it.

The new Hall Visitor Center.

I can’t recall having been so impressed by a winery upgrade in Napa Valley in years. The Halls have knocked this one out of the park and I will insist that friends who visit over the next year add Hall winery, in St. Helena, to their MUST-DO list.

(There’s also a Hall winery in Rutherford, but today, we’re strictly speaking about the St. Helena venue.)

After tasting a dozen wines, I couldn’t agree more. Crazy good...

There are as many wines to taste here as there are art installations on the property – I stopped counting at 30 of each.

The wines are glorious expressions of balance and rectitude (now THAT’s a word I haven’t seen ascribed to wine recently!). There’s a purity of production here and it shows in the glass.

I visited Hall twice this month to research this story. I scored all the Cabernets and Pinot Noirs I tasted in the mid 90s and I was gob-smacked by the 2011 red label “Kathryn Hall”  Cabernet, which I scored 96 points.

On my second visit, I joined a group of Canadian businessmen for a two-hour, property tour-and-tasting led by Hall wine educator Paul Dugoni. 

I liked Paul’s casual manner, and the Hall story he shared. He knowledgably answered every question posed by the group.

Paul Dugoni leads a tour through the winemaking process, encouraging guests to taste wine while learning about the winery’s colorful history.

Paul related that the Halls acquire grapes from 70 different vineyard sites to make their various branded Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir and Cabernet Sauvignon wines.

Paul led the group out into the vineyards to let members pluck ripe Cabernet Sauvignon from the vines to learn about grape ripeness.

But first, a word about the art...

The art at Hall is Craig Hall’s doing. He believes, like Margrit Mondavi does down the road at Robert Mondavi Winery, that art nourishes the human spirit and can make a profound difference in one’s life.

Throughout his business career, Craig has placed some of his favorite personal art on display for public enjoyment.

Art installations placed around the grounds bring as much joie to your eyes as Hall wines do to your palate.

I’d walk a mile for a camel... especially one standing outside a winery as welcoming as Hall.

Not only does a giant, stainless-steel rabbit jump out of the vineyards, but a life-sized, fiberglass, aluminum, stainless-steel camel stands guard at the door of the visitor’s center.

Albino Camel Contemplating Needle is a 2013 work by Californian artist John Baldessari.

The 83-year-old artist has been featured in more than 200 solo exhibitions and in more than 1,000 group exhibitions in the U.S. and Europe. Which means his work is well respected, highly collected and we’re lucky to have such a piece in dreamy old St. Helena.

The work is called Red Rooms, completed in 2013 by American artist Peter Wegner. It is a masterful accretion of nearly 500,000 die-cut index cards mounted with their cut end exposed to the viewer.

Asked about the installation, the artist said, “The edge of a piece of paper doesn’t amount to much. You might miss it if you weren’t looking for it.”

And yet, when you put enough of these potentially overlooked index cards together, they can make a statement. Even a colorful one.

This is not a painting. It’s not a classic “art installation.” It has the mass of sculpture but is not one. It is also not architecture. Whatever it is, or isn’t, I sure do like it.

There is a sensual element to Jaume Plensa’s marble-and-lead head, called Sanaa, that I find compelling, mysterious, even alluring. I could stare at it for hours and not be bored.

The Barcelona-born sculptor’s works are known to evoke emotion while stimulating thought. Sanaa sure does both, though I do not understand the name choice.

Is the name a paean to the award-winning Tokyo architectural firm Sejima, Nishizawa and Associates, colloquially known at “Sanna,” or is it a reference to the capital of Yemen, Sana’a?

The wine here is an art form too...

The wines are Kathryn Hall’s doing. She developed a passion for wine growing up in her family’s vineyards in Mendocino County.

The couple’s desire to create one (actually two!) of the top wineries in Napa Valley were put on hold in the late 1990s, when Kathryn was appointed U.S. Ambassador to Austria (1997 through 2001).

With the couple’s return to Napa Valley in 2002, the Halls embarked on a path to create some of the most compelling properties, wines, and vineyard sites in Napa Valley. Olympic judges might score it this way: 

Winery Intention 10

Execution of Idea 10

Overall Form 10.

In my mind, the Halls have earned a Gold Medal in Winery Construction.

The visitors’ tasting bar.

The tasting room, designed by local architect Jarrod Denton, of Signum Architecture, is an original, one-of-a-kind visual statement. The private salons for tasting are linear and gorgeous. Art highlights many corners of the winery.

The wines.

My favorite Cabernets in my two tastings here were from the 2011 vintage, to which many wine writers have given the cold shoulder; their story is that 2011 was a wet, cold, crappy vintage and they’ve suggested that wine drinkers hold off for the more robust, exotic, fruit-bomb vintages of 2012 and 2013 (as yet unreleased valley-wide).

To this, napaman says NONSENSE!

I am one of the lone voices in the wilderness: I am advising readers to load up on 2011 Napa Valley Cabernets. For the most part, these are wines of extreme beauty and lower alcohol. This makes them food-friendly, (or Foo-Friendly, if you like serving them with rabbit).

The three 2011 Hall Cabernets below are elegant, balanced, filled with ample fruit, and gorgeous poise; you can drink them early, or set them away in a corner of your cellar for seven to 10 years and you will love them all along the journey.

2011 Hall “Kathryn Hall” red label

How do I love thee? Craig watch out! I love thee in innumerable ways; on the lips... on the swallow ... on the finish – long, focused and with a gorgeous finish. No one would ever guess in a blind tasting that this is one of those “2011 wet-vintage Cabernets.”

I scored this wine 96 points, one of my top-scoring 2011 Napa Valley Cabs so far this year. $135.

2011 Hall “T Bar, T Ranch” from Alexander Valley

Similar in style to the red label K. Hall above. No one tasting this blind would ever guess that it is a 2011 Cab because there are no pallid flavors, or missing top notes, which many wine writers erroneously attributed to this vintage. A stellar wine. Easily 93 points. $60.

2011 Hall “Ellie’s” cuvee

A blend of 91 percent Cab, 6 percent Cab Franc, and 3 percent Merlot.

Gorgeous plum top notes and a hint of tobacco on the finish. A generous expression of fruit, a superb example of impeccable winemaking.

94 points. 

Want to visit? Make an online reservation. Go to hallwines.com. Located at 401 St. Helena Highway South, at the southern end of St. Helena.

Want to Get High in San Francisco? Visit Coit Tower!

View from the top of Coit Tower

While napaman is a Napa-centric website, every once in a while a guy’s gotta get out of town, blow off some steam... and get high.

My idea of getting high is to visit a tall, landmark building, enabling me to capture sweeping, panoramic shots of the skyline.

The best place to do this in San Francisco is one of the city’s top tourist sites, Coit Tower, on the peak of Telegraph Hill.

View from the front

 

View from the back

Built in 1933 with funds bequeathed to the city by Lillie Hitchcock Coit, the unpainted, reinforced concrete tower with fluted vertical sides, is a monument to Art Deco.

The interior of the tower houses America’s very first publicly funded art project; 27 different artists were hired with public funds to paint huge murals, which wrap around the interior of the ground floor lobby.

Murals even sweep up a hidden stairwell toward the top, but these stairs today are off limits to the public.

The only way to reach for the stars now is via a slow-moving elevator.

The line-up for the elevator to the top of the tower forms the second the doors open at 10 am. As of Sept. 1, the price of the up-and-down ride is $8. Well worth it to catch the panoramic views above.

The murals were funded by the Public Works of Art Project, the first New Deal federal employment program for artists in America.

Most of the muralists were faculty and students of the California School of Fine Arts.

Being young and idealistic, many of the artists were leftists, some even outright Marxists. All were asked to depict life in California during the Depression.

Themes included were work in the countryside, and work in the city; many of the artists stressed the imperative of racial equality.

The murals are glorious works of art, commanding a visitor’s time to be able to absorb all the detail.

A small corner of Lucien Labaudt’s large mural depicts Eleanor Roosevelt who was National Director of the Public Works of Art Project (WPAP).

The following shots will give you an idea of the themes and detail of the oversized murals.

The dynamic duo who welcome more than 500,000 visitors a year to Coit Tower:

On the left, Terry Grimm, who operates the facility; on the right, Davy Crockett (Yes! America’s original Davy Crockett is a distant relative...), who is tour director of the tower.

To give an idea of how large the murals are, tower operator Terry Grimm stands before one of the ground floor panels.

One you’ve ridden the rickety elevator to the top, you have access to breathtaking, 360-degree views of San Francisco and the Bay.

On a clear day, there isn’t a better view of the city and Bay from anywhere.

From this perch, you can see all the other top tourist sites – The Golden Gate Bridge, the Bay Bridge, Alcatraz, and the Embarcadero leading to Pier 39.

Talk about a birds’ eye-view!

The thing I find strange is that there is no closure atop the tower, no roof!

A 32-foot high wall vaults over the highest, last platform on which one can stand.

There’s a strange resemblance to Stonehenge here, or some druidic temple, the way the sunlight and open-air top interact.

 

Want to visit Coit Tower? It’s open seven days a week, 10 to 6 pm from May through October, and 10 to 5 pm, November through April.

Check the website for details:

http://sfrecpark.org/destination/telegraph-hill-pioneer-park/coit-tower/

You Will Want to Take This San Francisco Cocktail Safari!

The two things most talked about in Napa Valley these days are:

1. the water shortage

2. well made cocktails

It turns out that if you have enough of the latter, you can forget your worries about the former.

So to do my community service, to help shake our collective concern about the drought, napaman set out to study the current craze in cocktails. The chilled ones are especially hot.

San Francisco seemed like the perfect place to devote a night’s research to cocktails. Bartenders here are recognized for their innovation as well as for their keenness to revive classics, which have been lost over time.

I contacted Lisa Rogovin, who operates a series of sensational food tours in San Francisco (www.edibleexcursions.net) and signed up for her Thursday evening walk-about of four different trendy bars where tour participants get to talk to the bartenders and learn about popular cocktails.

Bartenders is such an old term. Nowadays, these masters of the spirit world are called mixologists by the press, and are as revered as DJs were when raves were the hot trend.

The bar scene at Cantina.

There were eight people on my cocktail tour. We met at a bar called Cantina. Our tour guide was Quinn Sweeney, a Vermonter who fell in love with the San Francisco cocktail scene nine years ago when he arrived and never returned home. 

Quinn talks about Pisco to our group in a back corner of Cantina.

Quinn is a teacher, writer, photographer and artist. He writes for several publications and knows where to find the best cocktails, or ingredients to make them. 

Quinn also designs and sells "distinctive devices for discerning drinkers" as he puts it. You can check out his offerings at https://www.etsy.com/shop/libationlab

The Peruvian distilled spirit used at Cantina to make delicious Pisco-based cocktails.

Cantina is really ground zero in America for the Peruvian spirit called Pisco. Bar owner Duggan McDonnell is a principal in the brand Encanto, produced in Peru, which is used here to make a cocktail called Pisco Punch. It was THE San Francisco drink back in the 1850’s gold rush era.

Bartender Brian Deconinck at Cantina makes eight Pisco Punch cocktails with Encanto Pisco for our group.

Duggan has been relentless in researching the origins of Pisco Punch and thinks the one he now serves is as close as anyone has ever gotten to the version served 150 years ago, when San Francisco’s seediest section was called The Barbary Coast – where sailors who had one-too-many Pisco-based drinks would get konked on the head and wake up on a ship halfway to Shanghai (hence the term “to be Shanghai’d”).

Bartender and general manager Brian Deconinck uses Lillet Rouge to give his pineapple-infused Pisco Punch color.

Brian also explains how Pisco is made in Peru – through the distillation of a variety of up to eight different fermented grapes.

As we take our leave to head to the next bar stop, this is what our group looked like:

The BEFORE shot; our group at the start of the cocktail safari. Sober as a judge, each and every one of ‘em. That’s Quinn on the far left.

Here’s the AFTER shot - our group after four bar stops and five cocktails:

Next stop on our safari – a bar called Royale.

Here we are introduced to two flavor sensations. Quinn serves us his favorite Vietnamese bánh mì sandwiches, which he has brought along from Fresh Brew Coffee. “These are some of the best bánh mì sandwiches in the city,” he says.

Tour leader Quinn Sweeny brings mescal-based cocktails called “The Last Word” to our table.

Quinn also introduces us to The Last Word, a mescal-based cocktail which, he says, originated in Detroit in the 1930’s and which has been painstakingly recreated at the Royale.

We are given an introduction to mescal. Unlike Tequila, which must be made by distilling only the blue agave plant, mescal can be made with many different agave varieties.

The Last Word cocktail.

The Last Word is a blend of mescal, green Chartreuse, maraschino liqueur, and a squirt of lime juice. It has a smoky finish and the acidic lime flavor lingers.

 Quinn explains the difference between mescal and tequila to the group.

TIP

Speaking about Chartreuse, which is made by an order of Carthusian monks in France, Quinn says that one of his favorite shots is called Lucky Charms. “To a jigger of green Chartreuse add a dash of your favorite hot sauce,” says Quinn. “Knock it back as you would any shot – divine!”

These shoes have absolutely NOTHING to do with mescal or our tour – but I sure did like them on this  woman sitting at the Royale bar. Smokin’!

Time to move on to another bar.

At Trocadero Club, bartender Zander Sheets specializes in drinks made with schnaps, a German term derived from the verb “to swallow.” Schnaps are strong distilled spirits and, as Zander explains,  can even be made from distilled beer!

Bartender Zander Sheets creates his drink The Baroness for our group.

The ingredients required to make The Baroness.

Okay, the evening is moving on and so are we. To our fourth, and final, bar.

At Rye (the name of the bar), bartender Vincent Toscano prepares a Basil Gimlet. A large basil leaf, about the size of a lily pad, floats on the top of each cocktail.

The first cocktail served to us here is a Basil Gimlet. Quinn confides, and bartender Vincent confirms, that one of the best gins you can use to make gin-based cocktails is actually one of the least expensive – Gordon’s.

“It’s a myth, perpetuated by marketing people, that you have to spend a lot of money for gin,” says Quinn. “If you’re making a gin-based cocktail, Gordon’s is a great ingredient.”

The Basil Gimlet prepared at Rye Bar.

The deafening bar scene at Rye.

Our second cocktail at Rye is, like the first, NOT made with Rye. How curious.

Vincent shakes up eight Nail Gun cocktails, a sweetish drink with a lemony, peach finish. It is made with Dewar’s blended Scotch whisky, Drambui, bitters and freshly squeezed lemon.

“It’s a variation of the Rusty Nail,” explains Vincent. “We add peach simple syrup and lemon to the classic recipe to give it a twist.”

The tour ends. It’s after 9 pm. It’s been a hoot, and a colorful, and tasty one at that. If you are interested in taking the San Francisco Cocktail Tour, go to

http://bookeo.com/edibleexcursions?type=213RNLMY9140EA177AF0 

and fill in the blanks.

The tour is offered every Thursday, 6 to 9 pm, and costs $115 per person, which includes all cocktails and appropriate food nibbles. But not your Uber ride home!

2011 Rutherford Cabernet – The Plush Toy Vintage!

Today’s Rutherford Dust Society event was held at Francis Ford Coppola’s Inglenook Winery.

I never expected to come away from an all-day tasting of 2011 Rutherford Cabernets and use the word “plush” as a descriptor of the vintage.

Nor think of it in terms like a dog’s, or a child’s, play toy, which when in use, brings a smile to your face. But it really is a totally friendly, totally tasty, vintage.

Regina Weinstein, Honig Vineyards & Winery, is president of the Rutherford Dust Society. She addressed members of the press, describing aspects of the 2011 growing season.

The press – and winemakers – have been leading us to believe that 2011, which was plagued with rain, cooler-than-average temperatures, and low yields due to mold, rot and Botrytis, is a mediocre vintage, sandwiched between two stellar vintages, 2010 and 2012.

Members of the media at the tasting.

So what a treat to discover that so many 2011 Cabs from Rutherford are “charming,” “balanced,” “feminine,” “showing poise,” “food-friendly,” and “supple.” These are words I found myself using over and over to describe 13 wines tasted blind at this morning’s annual Rutherford Dust Society Trade and Media Tasting.

Tom Rinaldi, Director of Winemaking at Hewitt & Provenance said that to be successful with the 2011 crop, winemakers had to be extremely diligent about sorting fruit – to remove rotten, moldy, or Botrytised grapes.

The event, one of my favorite trade events of the year, is hosted by Rutherford growers and wine makers.

Today’s event was held at Inglenook (formerly Rubicon, and formerly before that Niebaum-Coppola Estate Winery, and some time before that, it was called... Inglenook).  

The gorgeous stained glass window at Niebaum-Coppola...er, Inglenook.

Rutherford is one of 16 sub-appellations within Napa Valley. Many winemakers in this tiny appellation chose to tweak their 2011 wines with up to five percent of their 2010 or 2012 beefier Cabernets to give a boost to their potentially underwhelming reds. This is totally permissible by wine-making regs.

In the morning, the Press tasted a flight of 13 unlabeled 2011 Rutherford Cabs; in the afternoon, restaurant and retail wine buyers were let into the action as Rutherford wineries poured their new-release wines.

There was a pleasing uniformity among all 13 wines in the Press blind tasting.

One of my favorites of the tasting was the 2011 Conn Creek Cabernet Sauvignon which I discovered afterward has an extremely low alcohol level – 13.5 percent – just as top Bordeaux often exhibit.

How refreshing to find wines of lower alcohol levels – this tends to make them prettier, softer, more approachable early on.

Though make no mistake about the 2011 Cabs – they are going to age just fine. In fact, I predict that some of the wines we tasted today will still be gorgeous six to 10 years from now.

Lunch time.

Philippe Bascaules, Inglenook Estate Manager and Winemaker, at lunch.

After the morning media session, guests were treated to a catered luncheon at Inglenook. I had the pleasure of sitting with Philippe Bascaules, Estate Manager and Winemaker, who hosted the luncheon. His own 2011 Inglenook Cab was approachable, refined, charming, and did I say compelling?

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Rutherford Factoid

% of vineyard acres planted to Cabernet Sauvignon – 71%

Size of viticultural area – 6 square miles

No. of wineries in Rutherford – 48

Oldest bonded winery – Inglenook, 1879

Average altitude  - 172 feet above sea level , though if the polar icecaps melt as predicted, tractors in Napa Valley may have to be equipped with pontoons by 2050

Soil composition – the soils here are primarily Gravelly, Sandy and Loamy. Wait, aren’t those King Lear’s three daughters?

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After lunch, guests joined trade members in a free-for-all tasting of some 65 different wines poured by no fewer than 37 wineries

2011 Frank Family, Winston Hill -- another one of the wines I really liked at the morning press tasting. The wine was velvety in texture, had a softness you might associate with the photos of gorgeous fashion models taken with a camera lens smeared with Vaseline to heighten the desire; the wine was that alluring.

Pouring Cabernet at the Alpha Omega stand.

Nancy O’Connell pours el Molino Chardonnay and Pinot Noir – proof that man cannot live on Cabernet Sauvignon alone!

2012 Napa Valley Cabernet – The OMG! Vintage. $4,333.33 per bottle proves the point.

The price paid per bottle for 2012 Scarecrow’s special Cabernet selection called Toto’s Opium Dream, Scene III. A 5-case lot sold for $260,000 this weekend. That’s $52,000 a case, or $4,333.33 per bottle.

More than 600 wine buyers, restaurant wine directors, sommeliers and wine retailers descended on Napa Valley this weekend for a three-day, mid-winter, extravaganza known as Premiere Napa Valley.

For the first two days, appellation associations and individual wineries entertained the out-of-town tradesfolk at daytime and late-into-the-night parties.

And then Saturday, the trade crammed into the Culinary Institute of America’s Greystone campus, in St. Helena, to bid $5.9 million for one-of-a-kind, auction lots of (mostly) 2012, not-yet-released, Napa Valley Cabernets.

Fritz Hatton, one of two auctioneers, set the tempo for a three-and-a-half-hour auction, which raised $5.9 million.

Previously, the high water mark of auction proceeds from this annual event was last year’s $3,044,500. In other words, Napa Valley Vintners, organizers of the event, nearly doubled their best-ever previous total. Doubled!

Today’s barrel auction, the 18th annual version, is one of the wine trade’s most eagerly anticipated auctions because it gives buyers their first glimpse – and first taste -- of the next, soon-to-be-released vintage of Napa Valley Cabernet.

Wine buyers from 8 countries and 28 states attended the auction.

Proceeds support Napa Valley Vintners’ mission to promote the Napa Valley appellation, its wines, vintners and community. With this auction’s astounding results -- $5.9 million -- they should have enough funds to promote Napa Valley wines even on Mars!

The highest bid for a lot was the $260,000 bid for 5 cases of 2012 Scarecrow. It was purchased by Los Angles retailer The Wine House.

“We are thrilled to bring home this magnificent wine, drawn from the J.J. Cohn vineyard from nearly seventy-year-old vines,” Bill Knight of The Wine House, told organizers.

For consumers who read this blog, the big question, of course, is:

“OK, just how good are the 2012 Napa Valley Cabs?”

While most winemakers with whom I spoke over the three-day, wine weekend deemed 2012 “the best vintage we have seen in at least 15 years,” wine producers are fully aware that 2013, coming down the pike for release next year, is an even better vintage.

One talented winemaker, who asked to remain unnamed, told me:

“2012 was a perfect vintage. I mean PERFECT. But wine makers are reluctant to say it’s the ‘Vintage of a lifetime,’ because we all know that one year from today, at next year’s barrel auction, we’re all going say that 2013 is the ‘Vintage of a lifetime,’ and you know how that’s going to fly - we’re going to look like jerks for saying the same thing two years in a row.”

What winemakers say on the record about the 2012 vintage

Mary Rocca, owner, and Paul Colantuoni, consulting winemaker, Rocca Family Vineyard

Paul Colantuoni, consulting winemaker to Rocca Family Vineyard:

“The fruit in 2012 is a mile deep and a mile wide. We LOVE our 2012 Cabernet.” Paul said this with a capital-letters-kind-of-emphasis on the word ‘love.’

Winemaker dad, Chris Phelps, and winemaker son, Josh Phelps, who produce Ad Vivum Cellars

Chris Phelps, who is winemaker at Swanson and also winemaker of his own brand, Ad Vivum, summarized the 2012 vintage:

“This is the first of two back-to-back vintages which demonstrate what Napa Valley Cabernet can achieve. There were no weather extremes in 2012. Vineyard managers just watched and waited... watched and waited. If you picked at the peak of ripeness, and didn’t mistreat your fruit – you made gorgeous Cabernet.”

Nicole and Ryan Hill of Hill Family Estate

“2012 was a rare vintage,” says Ryan Hill of Hill Family Estate, in Yountville. “It was one of those rare years when grape growers were happy with what they produced... and wine makers were happy with what they produced. In most years, one of them is unhappy – and often with the other’s output!”

Jean-Charles Boisset, owner of Raymond Vineyards, hosted a magnificent party Thursday for the St. Helena Appellation in his winery’s “Crystal Room.” Glasses were abundantly filled with extravagant wines from the 2010, 2011 or 2012 vintage, poured by reps from 31 different appellation wineries. Space does not permit a detailed critique of these wines, but they were real palate pleasers.

Katharine DeSante, winemaker, and Linda Neal, owner, Tierra Roja Vineyards.

“2012 was a classic vintage,” says Katharine DeSante, winemaker at Tierra Roja Vineyards. “The wine has excellent structure and textbook balance.”

Elias Fernandez, winemaker, Shafer Vineyards.

“2012 is a poster child for the perfect vintage,” says Elias Fernandez, who has been making wine at Shafer Vineyards, earning impressive scores and begetting a cult following, for 30 years.

“I started working with Doug (Shafer) 30 years ago next month - specifically, March 24, 1984,” Elias adds.

(As an aside: Napaman has learned that to commemorate their 30-year history together, Elias and Doug are launching a wine to be called something like “Project 84” in the next few weeks. Details will be announced shortly.)

Greg Martin, owner, and Aaron Pott, consulting winemaker, Martin Estate

Napaman asked Aaron Pott, consulting winemaker to Martin Estate, to complete the sentence: “The 2012 Napa Valley Vintage is ___________.”

Aaron filled in the blank: “... a vintage of exceptional elegance.”

He went on to say that while the vintage is not one of power (that will come with 2013 Cabernets when released a year or more from now), it is a vintage of noticeable complexity.

Aaron compares the 2012 vintage to 1991, which was one of my own personal favorite vintages of the entire 1990s decade, and compares the next-to-be-released Cabernets from 2013 similar to wines from the 1994 vintage, only better.

After tasting more than 100 Cabernet-based wines this weekend from the 2012 vintage, my own observation is that I can’t remember a barrel auction in the last 15 years at which the still-in-barrel samples were so gorgeous and approachable. I have never applied the word “delicious” to so many barrel samples.

Basically, what most winemakers say about the 2012 vintage is that if you are a local winemaker and failed to make a gorgeous, voluptuous, harmonious, approachable, elegant wine, perhaps you should think about a new career – maybe try working at that other Napa – the one that specializes in Auto Parts... this one:

 

Multi-Vintage Perspective

Molly Brooks-Thornton, of the Barrel Room, San Diego, CA, and Rina Bussell of Altura Restaurant, Seattle, WA, taste through 62 different wines blind at the Friday Multi-Vintage Perspective hosted by Napa Valley Vintners.

 

The barrel tasting

Preceding Saturday’s barrel auction, out-of-town wine buyers caromed from kiosk to kiosk in the CIA’s barrel room, tasting as many of the 225 to-be-auctioned wines as possible in a three-hour, free-for-all.

After the barrel tasting, guests were invited to a sensational lunch prepared by culinary students at the CIA. This is often my favorite buffet of the year, just as the barrel auction is one of my favorite wine events of the year. I enjoyed a 2009 Shafer Hillside Select Cabernet with my meal selections – guests had their choice of hundreds of different, top-tier Napa Valley wines.

The single best scallop that I have tasted in the past five years was served at the luncheon buffet; a sweet and sensuous sea scallop, served atop a puree of mashed potato and celery root puree, was crowned with a dollop of fermented, black garlic aioli. Napaman went back for three servings – THAT’S how good they were. Chef-to-be Heidi Mitchell, served them (above).

The little darlin’s...

And finally, for sheer originality...

I noticed the following tattoo of an old-fashioned, wooden, grape press on the forearm of Kenneth Olsen, a Dane who lives in Copenhagen, who attended Premiere to purchase Napa Valley wines for clients in Copenhagen. Now that’s wine passion – way to go, Ken!

 Look familiar...?

 

Best Five Wines of the Year

Given the quantity of  Chateauneufs-du-Pape we drink each year, it is not surprising that one of them usually makes it to this exalted, end-of-year compilation – Napaman’s Best Wines of The Year.

 This year’s Glorious Grenache Award goes to Domaine Monpertuis for its sensational, 2007 special cuvee, Secret de Gabriel, which my Coravin work mate, Peter Johnson, brought to dinner one night.

I already knew this wine; the producer, Paul Jeune is a personal friend and I have had this wine in his home in Chateauneuf-du-Pape. Peter didn’t know this when he brought the wine for dinner.

I also knew that Eric Asimov, wine writer for the New York Times, had selected the standard cuvee 2007 Domaine Monpertuis as the top wine out of ten 2007 Chateauneuf-du-Pape wines his panel tasted in 2009. Peter didn’t know this when he brought the wine for dinner, either.

So it was pure coincidence that Peter brought to dinner one of the best wines we had all year.

It was filled with rich, ripe, red fruit, lots of bramble and cherry. The finish lasted a good thirty seconds. Thank you Peter for the bottle, thank you Paul, for making such great wine!

My other top wines of 2013, out of perhaps 500 we drank with meals this year, include the following four.

2005 Domaine Serene Guadalupe Vineyard, Pinot Noir.

What is it about Domaine Serene? Very often, one of their single-vineyard Pinot Noirs earns recognition on this Best Of Year list, and this year is no exception.

The 2005 Domaine Serene Guadalupe Vineyard is a highly laudable wine. It was enjoyed this past summer at a dinner with my daughter and her friends from LA and Vermont, served with center-cut fillets of  Atlantic salmon, perfectly broiled by Carol.

This was a perfect dinner and a perfect wine. The Pinot was silken in texture, syrupy in pleasure, filled with dark ripe cherries, field fruits and sensual ripeness. I can’t recall having a better Pinot Noir the whole year.

Intellectually my left brain wants to scribble 96 or 97 points for the wine; emotionally my right brain is screaming “100 points!” There is nothing rationale, or logical, about love... and there is nothing logical or rationale about loving this wine – it is what it is - Love at first sip.

1978 Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, Cask 23, Cabernet Sauvignon

Not only was this one of the best wines of the year, but it was actually the oldest wine I had the pleasure to consume.

This spectacular wine was poured from a magnum at Press restaurant at the birthday bash of Alan Greenberg, a Toronto friend who visited Napa Valley to celebrate his 53^rd birthday. What a bash we had – and what a wine this was.

The 35-year-old Cab, a dyslexic version of Alan’s age, was lively, fresh, totally balanced, and elegant. Loads of plum, currant and still-fresh, herby notes.

Had I tasted this wine blind, I would never have guessed that this was 35-years-old. A brilliant achievement in winemaking – thank you Warren Winiarski who owned Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars at the time this wine was made.

The wine has an historical pedigree that made it extra-special; Stag’s Leap’s second vintage, its 1973 Cab, was included in the famous Paris Tasting of 1976, where it trounced ALL the Bordeaux submissions. Tasted blind, it was chosen the No. 1 Cabernet-based wine by a group of professional wine writers.

Does anyone remember the furor that ensued? The seismic change in the way Napa Valley Cabs were perceived? Or the rush to buy Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars’ wines?

Wine writers have long claimed that Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars’ top cuvee since 1974 has been Cask 23; the two magnums served at Alan’s birthday were proof they have been right.

2001 Turnbull Cabernet, Weitz Vineyard

I’ve always loved the wines from Turnbull, often overlooked, I think, by the raters and rankers and influential wine wankers; in many vintages, the mid-priced Turnbull is a better made wine than many triple-digit-dollar Napa Valley Cabs.

I loved this 2001 offering from Turnbull right out of the gate and bought a six-pack, which I have been drinking slowly, to make the pleasure last.

On the visit of very close friends from London, UK, we drank this offering from the Weitz Vineyard. A glorious wine, silken in texture, with an almost syrupy, satin finish. Loads of black currants, and dark ripe black fruit. Oh what a wonderful wine this is/was.

2002 Spottswoode Cabernet

I purchase a 6-pack of Spottswoode most years, a tribute to the sensational winemaking talents at this St. Helena winery. The night we drank the Turnbull (above) we also enjoyed the 2002 Spottswoode, a virtually perfect wine-drinking experience. Two gloriously rich wines, each at its respective ripest moment of evolution. How lucky is that?

Mike Grgich turns 90. Again!

Mike Grgich turned 90 years old yesterday. For the 167nd time.

Mike, who’s one of the founding fathers of America’s wine industry, actually turned 90 April 1, but Napa Valley is celebrating the winemaker’s birthday as many times as possible throughout the course of the year.

Last night was the 167^th night since his actual birthday – a good occasion for another celebration.

Mike blowing out 90 candles on his cake last night

This one was held at one of my favorite hotels in Napa Valley, Bardessono, in Yountville.

Mike doesn’t seem old for 90 but I suspect that after blowing out a 90-candle cake so many times at so many celebratory birthday dinners across the valley this year, the guy must be pooped.

If Mike’s last name, which looks like a typo, doesn’t ring a bell, then it’s possible that you have been living in a cave, or have been on life support, for 37 years. Because Mike became a favorite Napa Valley son in 1976 when the Chardonnay he made for Chateau Montelena outscored France’s best white Burgundies at the now famous “Judgment of Paris” tasting.

This victory transformed the status of Napa Valley wines forever. America knocked the French off their fancy schmancy wine pedestal - on their home turf! And Mike had made the killer Chardonnay that changed history.

So important was Mike Grgich’s contribution to American culture, in fact, that the winning bottle of Chardonnay is now displayed at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History along with one of Mike’s famous berets, his suitcase, and his wine textbooks.

Mike is actually a shortened version of Miljenko, his real name, bestowed upon him by his parents in communist Yugoslavia.

Mike grew up in the village of Desne on Croatia’s Dalmatian Coast, where generations of his family had grown grapes and made wine.

Last night at dinner, Mike told me that, for the first 30 years of his life in Yugoslavia, under communist rule, he never once was able to celebrate his birthday. (It looks like he’s making up for lost time this year...)

“We only ever celebrated one person’s birthday each year in Croatia – Jesus’.... on December 25^th. For the rest of us, no one celebrated a birthday,” he said.

Looking for a better life in North America, Mike fled Yugoslavia, first settling in Germany for 18 months, then in Canada for two-and-a-half years.

In 1958, Mike landed in Napa Valley, with one suitcase (now at the Smithsonian), some wine textbooks, and $32 hidden in his shoes.

The rest is pretty much the story of which dreams – and Hollywood movies – are made.

People reverentially speak of Mike in the same breath in which they speak of pioneering vintners here like Robert Mondavi, Brother Timothy from Christian Brothers, and André Tchelistcheff from Beaulieu Vineyards.

After crafting the prize-winning 1973 Chardonnay for Chateau Montelena, Mike teamed up with Austin Hills (of Hills Bros. coffee) to establish his own eponymous winery.

In July 1977, ground was broken in Rutherford to create Grgich Hills Cellar. In 2006, the name was changed to Grgich Hills Estate once Mike opted to produce all his wines from estate-grown fruit.

Today, Grgich Hills Estate owns five properties in the three temperature zones, which run the length of Napa Valley.

The winery earns many international awards for its balanced, elegant wines and is recognized as a leader in sustainable vineyard practices. And did I mention, the wines are sensational...?

I always send visitors to Mike’s winery because his Chardonnay is such a gorgeous, refreshing, beverage. Even if it hadn’t won the 1976 Paris tasting, Mike’s Chardonnay would deserve a special niche at the Smithsonian - for its finesse.

Last night was proof again that, years later, Mike hasn’t lost his Chardonnay touch.

At the Bardessono dinner, Mike yucked it up with dinner guest Candi Kosich

The 2010 Grgich Hills Estate Chardonnay served at dinner was, to my mind, the single best glass of Chardonnay that I have had all year. And this includes many bottles of over-priced white Burgundy, which more often disappoint than inspire.

Mike’s Chardonnays are balanced, harmonious, elegant, and exhibit a great deal of finesse.

They are juicy, yet focused, and are never buttery, as Mike does not let his Chardonnay go through malolactic fermentation. This is a common winemaking stage - a secondary fermentation in which naturally occurring malic acid is converted to lactic acid.

Chardonnays that have gone through “ML,” as it’s called, tend to pick up buttery, or dairy, notes. When “malo’d,” Chardonnay may even exhibit hints of butterscotch.

Mike also goes against the grain (so to speak) with oak, fighting the trend to over-oak white wines. Mike only gives his Chardonnay a soupcon of oak letting it age six months in a combination of Limousin and Nevers French barrels - one-third new oak, one-third once-used oak, one-third twice used oak.

If I were asked to sum up Mike’s style of winemaking, I would say that he is a Master of Restraint. His wines are well balanced, they are NOT oak monsters, they are NOT alcoholic, they are NOT fruit-bombs.

Mike’s wines display a restraint that is rare in Napa Valley.

Last night, to celebrate Mike’s 90^th birthday (again), the Bardessono Hotel hosted a dinner for 20 special friends and clients. Executive Chef Victor Scargle looked after the menu.

Bardessono Executive Chef Victor Scargle

I have followed Victor’s career since he appeared on my food radar screen at Julia’s Kitchen, at COPIA, in Napa. I dined regularly at COPIA, always excited to taste Victor’s dishes.

I was happy for Victor when he moved on, accepting a teaching position at the CIA (Culinary Institute of America), in St. Helena, but I felt that Napa Valley had lost one of its best practicing chefs. At night, when we’d head out to dine, it was like there was one less twinkling star in the restaurant firmament.

And then Victor left academia and turned up at Bardessono to run Lucy, the hotel’s fine dining room. Happy were we. Happy were our palates.

Victor and Mike Grgich ham it up for the camera at the Bardessono dinner

So what a night last night! The dynamic duo were both on hand – Mike Grgich with many wines to complement Victor Scargle’s sensational fare.

Mike speaks to the dinner group; that's Bardessono GM Jim Treadway on the right

Here’s the menu of the four-course dinner.

RECEPTION

Diver scallops, rau rum (AKA Vietnamese cilantro), and garden melon

2011 Grgich Hills Estate Fume Blanc

DINNER

Kampachi Paillard - Lucy greens, padron peppers, sweet corn, basil

2010 Grgich Hills Estate Chardonnay 

Liberty Duck Breast - Forbidden rice cake, garden choi  

Don Watson Lamb Sweetbreads - Romesco sauce, wrinkled cress

2009 Grgich Hills Estate Zinfandel

2008 Grgich Vina Plavac Mali

 

Dry-aged Beef Striploin - Lucy strawberry spinach, Little Farms potatoes

 2009 Grgich Hills Estate, Yountville Selection, Cabernet Sauvignon

K&J Peach Galette - Almond cream, crème fraiche sherbet

2009 Grgich Hills Estate Violetta

 

A couple of notes about the wines served at dinner

The pairing of Mike’s Napa Valley Zin and his Croatian-made Plavac Mali has historic and ampelographic importance:

Plavac Mali is a cross between Zinfandel (called Crljenak Kaštelanski in Croatia) and Dobričić grapes. It is the primary red grape grown along the Dalmatian coast.

The name refers to the small blue grapes which the vines produce. In Croatian, plavo means blue; mali means small.

Plavac Mali produces rich wines that resonate with the flavors of blackberries, dark cherries, pepper, and spice. Not unlike our domesticated Zinfandel.

In the 1980s, Plavac Mali was initially thought to be an ancestor of Zinfandel. In 1998, with urging from Mike Grgich, Carole Meredith from UC Davis and researchers from the University of Zagreb, researched the origins of Zinfandel through DNA fingerprinting. They discovered that Zinfandel is actually one parent of Plavac Mali. The other parent is an ancient variety known as Dobričić.

Of the two wines paired at dinner – the 2008 Plavac Mali and the 2009 Grgich Hills Estate Zin, I actually scored the Plavac Mali one point higher. It has many of the same ripe red and black fruit flavors of the Zinfandel, but it also has a softer, medium-bodied weight in the mouth, is more sensual, more ethereal – if that’s a word that can be applied to a wine containing 15.4% alcohol!

In sum, the evening was a grand success. As they say in Mike’s native Croatia - Hvala, Mike and Victor, for a wonderful evening – Thanks!

A great souvenir from the evening -  a photo of the Master of Restraint and moi.

Coravin – Let’s You Remove Wine from a Bottle without Pulling the Cork. Talk about a Game-Changer!

The Coravin wine access system, which wine writer Robert Parker predicts will revolutionize the way the world drinks wine, is finally here.

The small, hand-held Coravin device was unveiled in Napa Valley last evening at a reception at Bardessono, in Yountville.

Karen MacNeil, author of The Wine Bible, speaks with Peter Granoff, owner of the Ferry Plaza  Wine Merchant in San Francisco.

Nearly 200 local winemakers and members of the press were present as were Greg Lambrecht, inventor of Coravin, and Nick Lazaris, Coravin’s CEO.

Nick Lazaris, CEO of Coravin, speaking in the late afternoon sun, to 200 winemakers and members of the press.

Although it’s said “Necessity is the mother of invention,” in the case of Coravin, Motherhood was the necessity of the invention.

Greg Lambrecht, inventor of the Coravin Wine Access System

“My wife got pregnant with our second child and I lost my wine drinking partner,” explains Coravin inventor, Greg Lambrecht.

“I quickly tired of pouring out a half-bottle of wine each night so I turned to my medical technology background to solve the problem of wasted wine.”

It helps that, professionally, Greg, 44, has invented surgical needles for spinal taps.

With these skills, Greg invented Coravin, a device that enables you to draw wine from a bottle without peeling off the foil or pulling the cork.

“The key was figuring out how to remove wine from the bottle without introducing oxygen -- so that wine remaining in the bottle would continue to age as it would have, had no wine ever been removed,” Greg explains.

Although Coravin appears to be an overnight success, it has taken Greg 14 years of development to bring the device to market this month.

The Technology: How Coravin Works

An ultra-thin, surgical-grade, stainless steel, Teflon-coated, hollow, bullet-shaped, needle passes through the foil and cork to access the wine. 

Pressing a trigger releases argon gas into the bottle. Argon, an inert gas, is the third most populous natural gas we breathe (after nitrogen and oxygen).

The pressurized argon pushes wine out through holes in the side of the needle, causing it to flow out a spout, into your glass. At no time does oxygen enter the bottle. 

Once the needle is removed, the cork naturally reseals itself, and the remaining wine continues to evolve naturally.

Cork, with 220 million cells per square inch, has highly elastic properties. The cork, which was the closure when you bought the wine, remains the closure, conserving wine remaining in the bottle.

To be clear: Coravin is NOT a preservation device. It is a device to ACCESS wine. It’s a whole new way to get at your wine – one glass at a time, without having to commit to a whole bottle every time you’d like a fresh glass of wine. 

What do local winemakers say about Coravin?

KR Rombauer has become one of the most vocal Coravin supporters in Napa Valley

KR Rombauer, head of Rombauer Vineyards, whom I call “Captain Coravin,” can be found many nights in a local restaurant, his trusty Coravin in hand, accessing many different bottles of wine. Here’s what KR has to say about Coravin:

“This incredible device permits me to taste wines months – even years! – after a bottle has previously been accessed. It’s the first time in the history of winemaking that we’ve been able to do this!”

“Every glass from a previously Coravin’d bottle tastes like the first glass you would pour had no wine ever been removed from the bottle!”

David Duncan, President and CEO of Silver Oak

Here’s what David Duncan, President and CEO Silver Oak Cellars, has to say about Coravin:

“Coravin is great for people who want to enjoy a glass of wine, or even more exciting, have a taste of several wines at once.

Now we can truly enjoy wine the way it was meant to be enjoyed - one glass at a time!” 

Chuck McMinn, owner Vineyard 29 and a Coravin investor

Here’s Chuck McMinn of Vineyard 29 waxing poetically about Coravin:

“Coravin is going to dramatically change the way fine wines are enjoyed by removing the ‘all or nothing’ choice as to when you might open a bottle. Now you can have a glass of wine from any one of those great bottles in your cellar – anytime.”

How Napaman discovered Coravin

Lest readers forget, napaman was the first journalist anywhere to break the story of Coravin – last January, after I discovered it in a beta trial at Del Posto restaurant, in NYC.

Massimiliano Giovanonni, (then) head sommelier at Del Posto, in NYC, last January, poured wines at tableside with a Coravin, which is where and when napaman discovered the handheld device.

At Del Posto, using the Coravin at tableside, they have been able to serve much more expensive wines without the fear of spoilage that comes from conventionally opening bottles. As such, using the Coravin, they now offer many wines by the glass, ranging in price from $50 to $500 a glass. That’s right, I said $500 A GLASS.

I saw the Coravin in use and decided that not only did I want to buy the device, but I immediately also thought about buying the company! Or at the very least, a small part of it.

Which is what I was able to do. I am now an investor in Coravin.  So please understand that despite my unbridled enthusiasm for Coravin, I have a potential gain to make by yapping on about it here.

I have had free use of a Coravin demo model for three months in my home and it has changed the way my wife and I drink wine. 

Now every bottle in our cellar is available by-the-glass. I playfully conduct my own vertical, or horizontal, tastings for just the two of us.

When friends come over for dinner, I can offer them tastes from any wine in the cellar; some nights, we “access” a glass from six, or seven, different wines and put the bottles back in the cellar. If I revisit these bottles in a year, there will be no change in the wine.

And nights when Carol, my wife, wants a glass of white and I desire a glass of red, we no longer throw out the remains of two unfinished bottles; we simply “access” a glass of white and a glass of red from their respective bottles and I don’t worry about spoilage – we can return to these bottles another night... another week... even a year later. That’s the beauty of Coravin’ing your wine.

“Every night is now Friday night in our home,” says Carol. “Now we drink our best wines every night; we’re not distressed about losing wine from opened bottles.”

How Coravin came into being and how it was used in trials at Del Posto:

  

After a year of trials at Del Posto, refinements were made to the Coravin device, which are included in the just-released model called the Coravin 1000.

Over this period, Greg and Joe Bastianich struck up a relationship, which is apparent in this short clip. For the record, restaurateur Joe Bastianich has become an investor in Coravin.

 

A GIFT FOR NAPAMAN.COM READERS!

As I am connected to Coravin, I wanted to reward anyone who had the curiosity – and time! – to read this far down into my Coravin story.

As such, I’ve arranged with the Coravin team to offer napaman.com readers a special gift: if you order the Coravin Wine Access System ($279 without capsules) and input the special code “napaman” at checkout, you will receive, absolutely free, a 3-pack of argon capsules, which have a $30 value.

If you purchase additional units in the same order, the “napaman” code, input once, will automatically add another free 3-pack of capsules for each Coravin unit you have placed in your cart.

The promo code is time sensitive!

This promotion is good from Friday morning, August 9, through to 9 pm PDT Monday, August 12.

To order your Coravin, or for more information, go to coravin.com.

Wanna see a 30-second clip of the Coravin in action? Go here:

www.coravin.com/tech

 

Best Manhattan and Best Burger in Napa Valley – and they’re in the Same Restaurant!

There are days that I wake up thinking about the best burger and the best Manhattan cocktail that I have ever had.

They are served at Goose & Gander, in St. Helena, and often, as I open my eyes, I think: “This is going to be a G&G Manhattan & Burger Day.” In short, I am addicted.

To others like me, who are co-dependent on this incomparable, perfect pairing, Goose & Gander is now the large X on our local gastronomic map. X marks the spot for Sublime Pleasure.

I asked one of America’s top sommeliers to join me at G&G earlier this month to experience this formidable food/cocktail pairing and he pronounced the Manhattan, which bartender Scott Beattie has perfected, “the best Manhattan I’ve ever had.”

And that’s saying something, because this sommelier lives and works, in Manhattan, NY, where they know something about making delicious cocktails. Especially the city’s namesake drink.

How much do I love the Manhattan and Burger at G&G? Consider this my 1138-word love poem for the perfect Manhattan and perfect succulent, juicy, addictive burger served here.

First, We Take Manhattan

(With thanks to Canadian poet and singer, Leonard Cohen, who wrote and composed “First We Take Manhattan. His lyrics: “First we take Manhattan... then we take Berlin...”)

Scott Beattie making the Perfect Manhattan

Popular myth suggests that the Manhattan cocktail originated at the Manhattan Club in New York City in the 1870s where it was invented for a banquet hosted by Winston Churchill’s mother.

Supposedly, the success of the banquet made the drink fashionable, prompting people to request the drink by referring to the name of the club where it originated—"the Manhattan cocktail."

However, if truth be known, Winston’s mother, Lady Randolph Churchill, was in France at the time, so the story is fictive.

Since inception, wherever and when ever that was, the Manhattan has always been a mix of American whiskey, Italian vermouth and Angostura bitters.

Scott Beattie, bartender extraordinaire, at Goose & Gander

“When my co-bartender Michael Pazdan and I were asked to set up the bar at Goose & Gander, we assembled 300 different whiskies and spirits to select the best flavor combinations,” recalls Scott Beattie.

“To make the best tasting Manhattan, we opted for a combination of equal parts bourbon and rye. It makes a more compelling drink.”

Beam me aboard, Scottie!

Scott’s personal choices were for Evan Williams Single Barrel Bourbon and Templeton Rye, which together produce warm, harmonious, tones; cut them with Carpano Antica, an Italian vermouth, add splashes of three different bitters, and you have the makings of a Perfect Manhattan.

The Holy Trinity of Spirits used by Scott Beattie to make his Best-Ever Manhattan

Then Scott adds unique touches to amplify pleasure:

Instead of pouring the stirred (never shaken), ingredients over small ice cubes, Scott opts to pour them over ONE large cube that’s about the size of a major league baseball. Or Muhammad Ali’s fist.

Cutting a single ice cube out of a 25-pound block of ice

“We import our ice from San Francisco where we have a specialty firm make 25-pound blocks for us of oxygen-removed, totally clear ice,” says Scott. We saw it down to manageable size with a chain saw and then use a serrated knife to chip it into individual cubes.”

“This is how they chilled cocktails when they were first invented,” Scott points out, “so our practice pays homage to the drink’s origin.”

Besides, Scott says that one large cube does a better job of chilling the drink and doesn’t dilute the whiskies, as smaller cubes might do.

Another secret to the G&G Manhattan is that it is made with not one, but splashes of THREE different bitters. These are Angostura Aromatic Bitters, Jerry Thomas’ The Bitter Truth Bitters, and Fee Brothers Old-Fashioned Aromatic Bitters.

Bartenders, to whom napaman has spoken about Manhattan cocktails, generally choose two commercially available liqueur-infused cherries for garnish.

Some barmen like Amarena Fabbri wild cherries from Italy; others, like Scott, prefer Kirsch-soaked Morello cherries, produced in France under the Griottines label. Both products are available on amazon.com.

And finally, for home mixologists, there is this sensational tip:

COMBINE ALL THE INGREDIENTS IN A SEALABLE JAR DAYS, EVEN WEEKS, AHEAD OF SERVING. STORE AT ROOM TEMPERATURE, OR IN THE FRIDGE, AND POUR THE MIXTURE OVER A LARGE SINGLE ICE CUBE IN A WIDE, OLD-FASHIONED, WHISKEY GLASS WHEN DESIRED.

“All the ingredients in a Manhattan are high in alcohol,” says Scott. “We mix them together in their proper ratios and store the mixture in a container for later use – we never have time to make individual Manhattans from scratch at the bar.”

So the barman makes up quarts, or gallons, of his cocktail mix ahead of time, and pours out drinks as they are ordered.

Mixologists at home can do the same.

How to Make the Perfect Manhattan

¾ oz Evan Williams Single Barrel Bourbon (or bourbon of your choice)

¾ oz Templeton Rye (or any rye of your choice)

¾ oz  Carpano Antica Sweet Italian Vermouth

Splash each of Angostura Aromatic Bitters and Jerry Thomas’ The Bitter Truth Bitters and ½ splash of Fee Brothers Old-Fashioned Aromatic Bitters      

In a cocktail shaker filled with ice, mix together all ingredients.

Using a metal bartender’s spoon, stir well. Do not shake.

Pour over one large ice cube in a wide-mouthed, old-fashioned whiskey glass. Garnish with several Amarena wild cherries, or Griottines Kirsch-macerated, Morello cherries.

AND NOW, FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT:

THE BEST BURGER TO ACCOMPANY THE BEST MANHATTAN

Why stop at perfection from the bar?

The kitchen at G&G is equally successful in the domain of Perfection. Namely, their burgers.

Here’s what makes this burger so dramatically better than any other burger I have tasted in Napa Valley:

They ask their meat purveyor to blend ground chuck that has been procured from three different ranches.

The G&G burger has a sheen, a juicy ooziness, that first affects the eye – and afterward the palate -- the same way a sensual Renoir, or Cezanne, painting causes wonderment,  sometimes leading to Stendhal’s Syndrome, a condition experienced when art (or hamburgers!) cause you to faint from the overwhelming pleasure of the experience.

Oh, and the burger’s taste? Magnificent. Primal. Ethereal. Addictive.

Each 9.5-ounce burger is grilled over a combination of hardwoods and served on a ciabatta bun created exclusively for G&G by Model Bakery, in St. Helena.

The burger is topped with Romaine leaves, cheese, bacon, bone marrow (optional) and the bun is lathered with a tasty, textured, remoulade sauce.

The burger is accompanied by a generous serving of French fries twice-fried in duck fat.

If you can find a better burger in Napa Valley – or a better Manhattan – napaman wants to hear about it.

Until we have the names of other Bar n’ Burger candidates to share with readers of this column, head to Goose & Gander for your own OMG! Manhattan & Burger moment.

Where all this takes place...

Goose & Gander, 1245 Spring St., St. Helena. 707-967-8779.

2010 Rutherford Cabs – one of the three best vintages of the last decade!

Wine writers gathered to taste the 2010s

Members of the press and trade were invited to two events today in Rutherford, at the epicenter of Napa Valley, to get a sense of the appellation’s just-released 2010 Cabernet Sauvignons.

Beaulieu Vineyards hosted the event to which Bay-area journalists, wine writers and wine retailers were invited. Thirty-five Rutherford wineries participated in the afternoon trade show.

For writers, 2010 might be called “The Vintage From Hell to Describe,” because how good Napa Valley 2010 Cabs turned out depends on whom you ask.

Charles Thomas, winemaker at Quintessa, pours for Rick Kushman of Capital Public Radio.

Charles Thomas, winemaker at Quintessa, called 2010 “one of the three best vintages of the decade for Quintessa.”

He added, “Yes, there was fear of rain, and fear of heat, but we picked and sorted properly and the result speaks for itself.”

The Magician’s Vintage?

Other winemakers called 2010 “The Magician’s Vintage,” suggesting that good winemakers had to pull a rabbit – or a great claret – out of a hat at the last minute, faced as all winemakers were with a tumultuous growing season that featured heat spikes to 110 F degrees in August and five inches of rain in late October, 2010.

Staglin winemaker Fredrik Johansson and owner Shari Staglin

“2010 was one of the toughest growing seasons,” said Fredrik Johansson, winemaker at Staglin. “We had to contend with damp days, foggy days, heat, rain, all of it made even more challenging as we’re all-organic.”

Grape grower and vineyard specialist Dave Piña leads press discussion

Grape growers like Dave Piña, who spend time in the vineyards, have a different, nuanced appreciation of the vintage. “Trust me, it didn’t matter whether you picked before the October rains or not – it’s how you grew and tended your grapes all season long that mattered,” he explained.

Dave might well be right. In a blind tasting of 18 Rutherford Cabs from 2010, I rated his Piña Firehouse Vineyard 93 points – my second favorite wine in the tasting. It is a sensational wine -- and for the record, Dave picked AFTER the October rains. His grapes all got washed by the October downpour.

BTW: Lest readers think Rutherford is some HUGE appellation, here’s the reality: Rutherford has a reputation that far exceeds its geographic footprint.

Rutherford, only six square miles in size, is planted with 3,518 acres of vines, producing less than one-quarter-of-one-percent (that’s .25 percent!) of all the wine produced in America. By comparison, Disney World in Orlando, FLA, at 47 acres, is nearly eight times bigger!

In the morning blind tasting:

The Board of the Rutherford Dust Society selected 18 Cabernets from the 2010 vintage and poured them blind for assembled journalists.

Napaman tasted through them, scored and ranked the wines. At this annual event, in many previous years, the least expensive wines in this tasting score higher than the most expensive wines. Such was not the case today.

In fact, the most expensive wine in the blind tasting, the 2010 Staglin INEO Cabernet was my favorite blind-tasted wine, scoring 94 points. The wine is $250 a bottle, which is considerably more than any other wine in the tasting.

I asked Staglin winemaker Fredrik Johansson to explain the origin of the name.

“INEO is Latin for “beginning,” and we first applied it to our Rutherford Cab the year we departed from our conventional vineyard blend. For the first time – our new beginning -- we added Cabernet Franc and Petite Verdot to the blend.”

Blind Tasting Summary

Here were my top 5 wines, tasted blind, from 18 presented.

All are 2010 Cabs, all the fruit comes from Rutherford.

Staglin INEO, $250 a bottle, to be released Oct. 1, 2013. 94 points.

This wine had a gorgeous nose, sporting rich, elegance right out of the glass. Of all the wines tasted, it had the most velours-like texture, which set it apart from all the other wines tasted. Words like “gorgeous, elegant, restrained,“ appear in the margins of my tasting sheet for this wine.

 

Piña Napa Valley Firehouse Vineyard, $85 a bottle, to be released this summer. 93 points.

It’s hard not to love this wine, which scored a single point difference from the Staglin above, yet it costs two-thirds less.

Dave Piña has previously been named Napa Valley Winegrower of the Year, he is head of the Rutherford volunteer fire department, and he’s a helluva great guy, to which I can attest from social gatherings and evenings we’ve spent together.

His 2010 wine had warm notes, a generous lode of coffee, even on the nose, and nearly the same type of textural elements found in the Staglin Cab.

Frank Family Vineyards, Winston Hill Red Wine, $150 a bottle, to be released in September, 2013. 92 points.

I thought this wine was a bit hot on the nose, suggestive of a high alcohol level. But I did like the almost grapefruit rind aroma that evolved in my glass over thirty minutes. Really liked the complexity of this wine through about 80 percent of the swallow, and then, at the very end, the alcohol snapped me out of my reverie. Over time, this wine will likely calm down, and the components integrate, resulting in a very pretty wine, indeed.

Conn Creek Winery, Cabernet Sauvignon, Rutherford Estate, $65 a bottle, to be released in 2014. 92 points.

Ripe fruit on the nose, and a touch of minerality on the palate, which was lacking in ALL other wines in this tasting. I really liked the generous finish.

Foley Johnson, Rutherford Estate Cabernet, $75 a bottle, already released. 92 points.

Well integrated fruit on the nose and a delicious middle palate. Sensuous texture and a pleasing finish.

From a new winery in Rutherford – former home of Sawyer Winery.

Welcome, new neighbor!  (Though for accuracy, Brad Warner was winemaker at Sawyer for years and continues to make the wine at Foley Johnson. But you’ve really torn the stitches off the ball this year, Brad, sending it up... up.. easily a three-base hit ... just missing the center field wall for a home run.)

In the afternoon, members of the wine trade were invited to taste 2010 Cabs and one other wine of the winemaker’s choice, from among 35 Rutherford wineries pouring at the event.

Noticeably absent – one of the 800-pound gorillas in the appellation, Inglenook, formerly called Rubicon, and before that Niebaum-Coppola. You know the place, you know the owner, Francis Ford Coppola.

Why the no-show? Insiders refer to the fact that there are a lot of changes being made internally as the winery converts all its brands, labels, and merchandise to Inglenook.

“This will take some time to complete,” one insider told napaman.com. I suspect we’ll see Inglenook in full play next year.

I sampled Inglenook’s recent releases at the winery last weekend and they are seriously good wines that likely would have shown well today at the Rutherford Dust Society Tasting.

FYI: The Rutherford Dust Society was founded in 1994 by growers and vintners to carry on the legacy of grape growing and winemaking, which started here eons ago.

The revered, late winemaker André Tchelistcheff said it best:

"It takes Rutherford dust to grow great Cabernet."

What is fondly referred to as "Rutherford dust," has come to reflect a “commitment to quality, a spirit of achievement and a deep connection to Rutherford's soil,” says the Board of the Rutherford Dust Society.

Napaman.com readers wishing to experience their own Rutherford Tasting must be patient... please circle Dec. 6, 7 and 8 on your calendar this year, the weekend of this year’s annual, Rutherford Passport Weekend.

Participants will visit Rutherford wineries and be treated to exclusive barrel tastings, food pairings and entertainment. You can even speak with winemakers and share your observations about their wine. (Careful – some of them are permitted to pack more than a corkscrew...).

Details to come at rutherford-appellation-wineries.com

Sign in the barrel-aging room today at Beaulieu Vineyards