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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

Happy Woulda-been 100th Birthday, Bob!

Robert Mondavi in 1966 

My friend Robert Mondavi would have turned 100-years-old today.

To commemorate his 100^th birthday, and acknowledge how much he influenced the lives of so many of us living in Napa Valley, Margrit Mondavi, and Bob’s eponymous winery, hosted a birthday party of sorts this afternoon.

Margrit Mondavi and Genevieve Janssens, Director of Winemaking.

Some 200 guests assembled on the lawn at the foot of Bob’s favorite vineyard, To Kalon, and toasted to his memory with a glass of perfectly chilled Robert Mondavi Fume Blanc. Bob would have loved it.

Margrit spoke and said that her 28 years married to Robert were among the most cherished of her life.

Genevieve Janssens, Director of Winemaking at Mondavi, spoke and said that going forward, all Mondavi Reserve Cabernet bottlings would, for the first time, be made exclusively with fruit from the To Kalon vineyard, which Bob identified as being the most important, best producing, vineyard in the valley.

“Mr. Mondavi always urged us to keep improving our wines,” said Genevieve. “From now on, we will only use fruit from To Kalon in our reserve Cabernet... which is one more way to keep improving our wines,” she added.

To make better wine, to make wine as good as, or better than, the wines coming out of the Old World, that was Bob’s passion.

And boy, did he make a difference and prove his point.

I remember nights in the winery’s Vintage Room, well beyond 1 am, spent with Bob and one of his visiting Great Chefs of France, like Jean Troisgros, or Paul Bocuse, sipping and comparing Mondavi Cabernets, or Mondavi Pinot Noirs, with French selections from Bordeaux, or Burgundy, respectively.

The chefs always agreed that Bob was on to something... that his wines complemented their dishes equally as well as any wines they brought over from France, and quite a few chefs agreed, off the record in our late night tasting sessions, that they liked Bob’s Napa Valley wines more.

Happy Birthday, Bob, wherever you are. I raised a glass to your memory this afternoon, and I shall do so again tonight. It’s an ideal occasion to pull an old Mondavi Cabernet out of the cellar and thank you, one more time, for having introduced me to Napa Valley.

Wine Geeks, Pack This Book on Your Next Trip to Italy

If the new Michelin paperback, Wine Trails of Italy, were to be rated with Michelin stars, it probably wouldn’t get all that many. Oh, the cruel irony.

The book, an overview of Italy’s 20 major wine regions, offers 125 itineraries of where to go on the trails of wine country. At least that’s what the press release would have us think.

I have reviewed the book and am disappointed that it doesn’t have a more regimented “follow this route” editorial approach, as one might expect from a reference book billed as being filled with “itineraries.”

In fact, the book isn’t so much a “Where To Go Planning Guide” for your next wine trip to Italy as it is a “What Do I See Now That I Am Here?” guide.

There is good color commentary on towns, sights, and 750 wineries worth visiting; winery phone numbers are given, which is a great help for making reservations. For this reason alone, I would suggest buying the book to take on any trip to Italy on which you anticipate getting out into the countryside to visit local wineries.

But aspects of this travel book are exasperating:

+ Not every one of the regions is illustrated with a map. Would have been nice.

+ On occasion, maps are spread across double pages and we lose details in the thick binding of the 520-page volume.

+ Why, oh why, did they lay a grape-purple color over some of these maps, making it difficult to see city names and places of interest?

+ Do we really need Michelin advertisements spread throughout the book?

“Nunc est bibendum” means “Now is the time to drink!” a phrase made famous by the poet Horace after learning that Cleopatra, long an oppressor of Rome, had committed suicide.

Michelin’s famous “tire man” became known as Bibendum, linked as he was to this Latin phrase in early tire advertisements such as the one above from 1898.

Three researchers traveled around Italy for a year, compiling data for this book. If anything, theirs is a companion piece, meant to enhance and complement two other Michelin works on Italy – the venerable 1400-page Michelin Red Guide to Italy and the more casual, travel-focused, 600-page, Michelin Green Guide to Italy.

Michelin’s Wine Trails of Italy is priced at $22, but is $16.32, substantially less, at amazon.

It’s Party Time in Napa Valley!

 

Napa Valley is in high spirits this weekend, doing what it does best – throwing a four-day party.

This one, hosted by the Napa Valley Vintners, has attracted 2,000 guests, most of whom attended today’s Barrel Auction.

Tomorrow, about half these guests will attend – and bid at  -- the weekend’s central event, a live auction featuring 45 one-of-a-kind, wine-and-travel-themed lots.

Shari, daughter Shannon, and Garen Staglin, chairs of this year’s Wine Auction. Why do they call them “chairs” when no one in this family, including son Brandon, not pictured, ever sits down!?

Given the nature of the auction lots, and the hard work of the Staglin family, who are chairs of Auction Napa Valley this year, napaman predicts that this year will be the largest fund-raiser ever for the annual event, which, in 32 previous years, has raised more than $110 million for community services and health care.

Despite cutbacks in social services at the federal and state level, community programs in Napa Valley continue to excel, thanks to funds raised at this annual charity auction.

The Staglins have worked diligently for more than a year, traveling the globe to implore past auction winners to return once again to raise their paddles.

“There are many lots to tempt attendees this year,” Garen Staglin told napaman. “We’re looking for the irrational generosity of bidders to fund Napa Valley charities.”

Bruce Cakebread, president of Napa Valley Vintners, said that how much is raised is not the concern, “it’s raising enough to be able to continue to fund community projects we’ve undertaken – things like children’s health care, and English language training.”

Given the Staglins’ skills at fundraising, Napaman confidently predicts that under their stewardship, this weekend’s charity auction will zoom past the previous high-water mark of $10.2 million raised at a single wine auction. Napaman predicts that the event will raise $12 to $13 million.

An ooooh... the lots!

In addition to bringing in bidders, the Staglins have also encouraged exceptional individuals to donate exceptional gifts. As a result, at tomorrow’s auction, guests will be able to bid on:

+ A plane trip to London with the San Francisco 49ers

+ A first-class trip to Tokyo with Naoko Dalle Valle, and dinner at the best sushi restaurant in the world, Sushi Jiro

+ Trips to Scotland, to South Korea, to France or to Italy, the latter hosted by Baroness Philippine de Rothschild and Marchese Piero Antinori, who are respectively co-owners of Opus One and Antica wineries in Napa Valley

+ A trip to China where you will meet retired basketball star/vintner Yao Ming and then see a Shanghai Sharks basketball game

+ A cruise on the world’s largest mega-yacht

+ A chance to drive a McLaren 12C Spider racing car -- with an option to buy it, of course; as well, a trip to the US Grand Prix with access to the McLaren suite

Rick Jones, of Jones Family Vineyards

 + Take a group of 12 to a Giants ballgame in San Francisco – and watch from the luxury box of the Giant’s President and CEO, courtesy of Jones Family Vineyards

+ A vertical tasting of 20 vintages of Harlan Estate for you and seven pals

+  A cruise to the Arctic Circle

Cars seem to be a common theme at this year’s auction

+ Lamborghini Gallardo track driving experience for four – and then private jet to Emilia–Romagna for a week of private touring with Beth Nickel of Far Niente

+ And there is even one lot with nothing more than a single bottle of wine. But what a bottle and what a wine: a 12-liter Balthazar of Screaming Eagle

But that’s what’s on the auction block tomorrow. Today’s party – thrown amidst blocs of Cabernet vines at Raymond Vineyards – was all about the Barrel Auction.

Jean-Charles Boisset, host of today’s event, held at Raymond Vineyards

The host of today’s event was Jean-Charles Boisset, who purchased the famed Raymond Vineyard four years ago and who has sculpted it into a prized property.

At today’s barrel auction, bidders competed for highly prized cases of (mostly) Cabernet; they made as much noise and hoopla as fans at a San Francisco 49ers/Oakland Raiders game. Only no one painted his face orange today, or dressed up in a pirate’s outfit.

To attend today’s barrel auction and food/wine Showcase, guests paid $500 each.

Tim Mondavi pours his fabled Continuum wine, one of 100 vintners pouring barrel samples of their next-vintage wines

Wines that I tasted, which stood out from among 100 different barrel offerings, included the 2011 O’Shaughnessy Estate Petite Verdot, the 2012 Ovid Cabernet Sauvignon, and the 2012 Continuum from Pritchard Hill, which Tim Mondavi calls a “red table wine,” which is like calling a Maserati “a car for running errands.”

Between placing bids for cases of wine that won’t be bottled for one-to two-years, guests today enjoyed the fare of more than 40 top Napa Valley restaurants and food purveyors.

Shar Hills presents scrumptious mozzarella arancini, served with a basil aioli, from Cindy’s Backstreet Kitchen.

Napaman loved the Vietnamese-style, Roast Chicken Banh Mi sandwiches served by Kitchen Door (in Oxbow Market, Napa)

Greg Cole, chef and owner of Celadon, prepares delicious ahi poke salad, served on a crispy won ton chip.

Napa Valley Vintners, which hosted the weekend wine auction, is the non-profit, trade association that promote and protects the Napa Valley wine appellation. The association represents more than 450 local wineries.

Besides all the barrel lots, the online E-lots, and tomorrow’s live lots, there was one other gaming opportunity for guests: the could buy a raffle ticket for $1000 and win this $130,000 Audi R8 Spyder. Only 500 tickets were made available and by the end of today, more than half were sold.

Do not despair if you live out of town, or missed today’s barrel brouhaha; you can still participate in the bidding fun.

Wine lovers around the world can still bid for more than 170 unique wine lots on the web at the event’s E-Auction. The action is LIVE – go to auctionnapavalley.org.

The E-Auction runs until 6 pm PDT Sunday, and ends in four consecutive waves separated by minutes.

Odds and ends

Unusual shots I liked from the day:

 
Sweetie Pies, in Napa, makes some of my favorite sweets in the valley. I was amused by the sign above, promoting the sensuous dessert they were serving.

As I walked up to Kristen Spelletich, who was pouring her family’s wines, her back was to me and I couldn’t help but notice two different messages tattoo’d on her calves.

One “tat” reads:

I don’t know the key to success but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.

Who said it, Kristen?

“I got it from the marketing guru Bill Cosby, not the TV comedian,” says Kristen.

The other “tat” reads:

Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.

Who said it, Kristen?

“Winston Churchill!”

In terms of wisdom and sagesse, this winemaker's got a leg up on others...

Come Celebrate The Cameo Cinema’s 100th Birthday -- Major Party May 15!

Talk about projecting yourself! Over the past century, the Cameo Cinema, in St. Helena, first projected silent films, then talkies, then 3D, computer-generated, digital epics. And now, on the eve of turning 100, the dowager screen queen is being remodeled to become the single best independent movie theater in America.

With more than $300,000 pledged from private donors, Cameo owner-operator Cathy Buck is remodeling the cinema. Local contractors are donating their time and Dolby has donated its top-of-the-line ATMOS screening system.

Cinema-goers are in for a treat. “With ATMOS, we’re adding many speakers, including in the ceiling, which will provide the best movie experience possible, “says Cathy.

Cathy Buck, owner-operator of the Cameo Cinema

“We will be the only independent, single-screen cinema in America with the ATMOS sound system and Meyer Sound speakers,” she adds.

That’s quite an achievement. Meyer Sound is considered THE top speaker-maker in the industry. The Berkeley-based firm makes all the top-end speakers for Pixar, Lucas Films, Skywalker Labs, American Zoetrope and Cirque du Soleil. That’s a Triple-A list of customers. Now add the tiny, tony, terrific Cameo and you get a sense of how good the sound system will be.

Factoid: There are 39,580 movie screens in America today. Not one will have a sound and projection system better than the Cameo's! 

Additional reno details

When the renovation is completed, just ahead of the Cameo’s 100^th Birthday Bash May 15, there will still be 142 seats. And, yes, all the love seats in the last two rows are coming back, all new but the color remains grape purple.

The theater has the size, feel and intimacy of a movie director’s private screening room at home.

Lobby of the Cameo Cinema, before the renovation

At the confection counter, Cathy will add chocolates made locally at the CIA, and sweet potato chips made locally by Food of Love. There will also be a new popcorn machine.

“Every year, we fall short by $75,000, which we make up with fund-raising drives,” says Cathy. This was the reason she applied for, and received, 501c3 status. So now, Friends of the Cameo donations are tax deductible.

May 15 – Cameo’s Centennial Party

The Cameo opened its doors on Main Street, in St. Helena, on May 15, 1913. The first screening was a silent film, Kings of the Forest.

Which is what Cathy will screen for the 100^th birthday bash. Musician Mike Greensill will accompany both the afternoon matinee and the evening screenings with an original score.

Each projection will be followed by a screening of Napa Valley Dreams, a special documentary, which has taken several years to produce; it’s a complete tour of our little paradise, Napa Valley, and it will play several times daily, seven days a week, at the new, upgraded Cameo starting May 16.

For the May 15 matinee birthday bash, doors open at 2 pm, the two films will be screened starting at 3 pm. Cameo popcorn and birthday cupcakes, baked by students at the CIA, are included in the $25 admission ticket.

For the evening screening, guests will first attend a Hollywood-like cocktail party at 7 pm at Caldwell Snyder Gallery, 1328 Main Street, St. Helena. Meadowood’s Michelin-starred chef Christopher Kostow will prepare hors d’oeuvre to accompany premium Napa Valley wines.

As well, chef John Defilippo of the CIA is creating a special anniversary centennial cake and chef Stephen Durfee is producing a unique chocolate sculpture. At 8 pm guests walk the red carpet to the Cameo Cinema to view the two films, which start at 8:30 pm. The $100 admission ticket for the evening includes food, libations and film screenings. 

For additional information, visit cameocinema.com, or drop by the Cameo box office, which opens daily an hour before the day’s first screening. Or call 707-963-9779.

All proceeds from the 100^th Birthday Bash will be donated to Cameo Cinema Community Programming.

Several years ago, I wrote a story about the Cameo Cinema under this headline:

The Second Best Thing You Can Do in the Dark in Napa Valley!

With the giddy rush that comes from watching films screened with the new sound and projection system, I may just have to revise this sentiment; watching films at the Cameo may just become the best thing you can do in the dark in Napa Valley!

The Only Time it Pays to be Sheepish!

Or maybe I mean it’s the only time you have to pay to be sheepish!?

I just returned from Sonoma County where they're holding the 19th annual Sheepdog Trials at Oak Springs Ranch, on the outskirts of Santa Rosa.

This annual competition brings owners and their Border Collies from all over the US and Canada.

The Collies compete to see which dog can corral a small herd of sheep into a pen in record time. There are cash prizes and ribbons to be won, and  participants have to pay to register their pets, while guests and the photographic public must pay $5 to park.

This morning, the pro-novice dogs and owners competed; tomorrow the expert dogs, trained for years to herd sheep , will compete.

The judges are from Ireland and Scotland.

One Collie owner told napaman that “these are REAL Border Collies, not the ones approved by the American Kennel Club, where the dog’s herding instincts have been bred out, in preference of looks.”

“These Collies are scruffy looking, but they know how to corral sheep,” the owner said.

If you want to visit this event next March when the trials will be held again – a great photo opp! – make a note to go to this site around March 1, 2014:

www.sonomasheepdogtrial.com

Napa Valley Premiere Barrel Auction Raises More than $3 million!

Auctioneer Fritz Hatton sets the auction in motion...

$3,044,500 to be exact, by napaman’s tally.

More than 1,000 wine tradespeople, media personnel and winemakers crammed into the barrel room of the Culinary Institute of America (CIA), in St. Helena, today to taste barrel samples of more than 210 wines, most of them from 2011, and then to bid on them.

The event was organized by the Napa Valley Vintners’(NVV) association. Proceeds from the auction are used to promote the valley’s wines. NVV represents about 450 local wineries.

What winemakers were promoting today was their 2011 vintage; guests were given a chance to peak beneath Pandora’s skirt – this was the first official chance for the wine trade to taste the 2011 Cabernets.

Initially, 2011 was the Rodney Dangerfield of vintages; it didn’t get much respect.

Wine writers wrote off the vintage as being water-logged. Production was down so low that many winemakers talked about the pounds of fruit they got off an acre rather than the tons they normally harvest.

Napaman reveals all

But here’s my tip: FORGET what you’ve heard, or read, about the 2011 vintage of Napa Valley Cabs.

Doomsdayers who predicted that the water-logged crop would be lean, mean and green were WRONG. Just plain wrong.

The Barrel tasting Room at the CIA this morning

I’ve just spent three days tasting through dozens of 2011 Cabs and 2011 blends and these wines are soft, pretty, even elegant. And approachable on release. These will be great wines for restaurant wine lists. And also for impatient wine drinkers who don’t want to wait seven years for their wines to age.

The only word one wouldn’t include in describing these wines is “complex.”

Of the 2011 Cabs, which I have tasted, not a single one could be described as “showing great complexity.”

From today’s barrel sampling, I really loved these wines:

2011 Vineyard 29 Cabernet Sauvignon which exhibited a juicy core of fresh, ripe fruit and sweet dark cherries; one of the more thrilling wines of the day, I thought. And so did someone else because the lot fetched $27,000 at auction for 60-bottles.

2011 Turnbull Wine Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon, cuvee Le Corbeau.

"! ! !" This was the complete set of notes I made about this wine, so impressed was I by the presence of fruit and character - three very large exclamation marks in the column of my notebook. Nothing more needs to be said about this glorious wine.

2011 ADV (Adler Deutsch Vineyard) Rutherford Cabernet.

I am NOT raving about this wine because I am a personal friend of the Adlers; I just didn’t think it fair to penalize them by omitting their wine because they are friends.

Besides, I heard enough positive spin around the barrel tasting room about this wine to know that I am not alone in praising it; it reminds me of a young Spottswoode, it’s that good.

Elegant, pretty, extremely well balanced and expressing a minerality, which I did not find in many wines of the vintage.

Show Time!

Regular readers of napaman.com will recall that I typically ask winemakers at the annual barrel auction to describe wines of the vintage in terms of a Hollywood star or actor – to give readers a more vivid sense of what the vintage holds, or is like. You know, is it an edgy, boring, or flashy vintage?

Here’s how winemakers responded to the question this year:

If the 2011 vintage in Napa Valley were a Hollywood star, who would it be?

Steve Reynolds of Reynolds Family Winery.. he offered:

“Debby Reynolds. Not because we share the same last name, but because she is classy, classic, stands the test of time and is not flashy. Just like wines of the 2011 vintage.”

Cliff Lede of his eponymous winery suggested...

“Catherine Deneuve. She is elegant, understated, elegant – a timeless beauty.”

The dynamic duo from Broman Cellars: Lisa Augustine, sales & marketing, and Bob Broman, owner and winemaker.. they agreed on their answer:

“Natalie Portman. She is small in stature but her performances are BIG!”

Peter Heitz, winemaker, Turnbull Wine Cellars

“I think the 2011 vintage is best represented by a nameless Sundance Indie actor. Someone who is charming, not well known, somewhat awkward, waiting to be discovered.”

Robert Adler, owner, ADV (Adler Deutsch Vineyards)

“Anne Hathaway, for sure. The wines from this vintage remind me of her – soft, elegant, voluptuous and unforgettable.”

Sue Parry (right) who with her husband Stephen makes a wonderful Cabernet, volunteered to pour wines at lunch; she took the bottle table labeled A-J while Stephen was nearby pouring from bottles labeled K to Z.

Lunch for 1,000 is prepared by students at the CIA, and all the wines are donated by NVV sponsors.

It’s usually a free-for-all at lunch, as guests race to try favorite, hard-to-get wines.

Stephen Parry's wine table, K to Z

After lunch for 1,000 in the CIA kitchen, the auction gets underway in an adjacent room. The air is chilled by the activity of bidders raising their paddles:

The largest single lot sold was $75,000 for 120 bottles of Bevan Cellars and Chateau Boswell Winery’s 2011 Red Wine called “We Will Rock You.”

And the largest price PER BOTTLE was paid for 60 bottles of Shafer Vineyards – Total Wine, a chain with 89 stores across the country, bid $50,000 for the lot, bringing the price per bottle to $833.33.

Total Wine also happened to buy the Bevan/Boswell lot above, too. 

"We want the industry to know that we are serious about high-end wine and the Napa Valley Vintners Premiere Barrel Auction allows us to offer wines not avaialble anywhere else," a spokesperson for Total Wine told napaman.   

"Some people only see us as a big box store, but we are focusing on acquiring impossible-to-come-by wines for our high-end clientele. We purchased many of the top lots at the Barrel Auction, including Bevan/Boswell, Shafer, Cade, Pride, Moone Tsai, Chappellet, Silver Oak, Rombauer, Amici, Spring Mountain, Stags Leap, Baldacci, Raymond, Red Mare, VinRoc, and Peter Paul," the spokesperson added.

How much someone bid per bottle for each of 60 bottles of 2011 Shafer Vineyards Sunspot Vineyard Cabernet.

In an unusual move, someone bid $316.66 per bottle for a Sauvignon Blanc – the 2011 from Lail Vineyards.

Sure hope we don’t see retail prices like this when these wines hit the street!

Finally...

Helen Buehler of Buehler Vineyards

I couldn’t help overhearing the conversation of two young wine producers on the shuttle bus from the event parking lot to the CIA. They made no effort to guard their conversation or keep it private.

 Helen Buehler, on the bus, to a wine pal:

“I had to stay out drinking with a Canadian film crew last night and didn’t get home until 5 am (it being 9 am when she said this).”

“How do you feel?” asked her friend out loud?

“If my hangover were a person, it would be John Goodman!”

Which says it all.

It turns out that even hangovers have star qualities at the Premiere Barrel Auction.

Napa Valley – How I Do Love Thee!

The only way you can make living in Napa Valley any better is to stage a weekend wine event, invite a thousand professional wine tasters, and let them loose, tasting hundreds of unreleased wines.

It’s a bit like inviting lemmings to a cliff. They all come. They all partake. They all jump.

This weekend marks one of my favorite annual wine events in the valley, the mid-winter Premiere Barrel Auction, organized by the highly professional trade group called Napa Valley Vintners (NVV), a marketing association representing 450 local wineries.

This morning’s session, organized by NVV, called a Multi-Vintage Perspective, gave professional tasters and tradespeople a chance to taste three successive vintages of Chardonnay and three of Cabernet Sauvignon, to prove that climate and weather DO make a difference in winemaking here.

The tasting was held at the Rudd Center for Professional Wine Studies at the Culinary Institute of America’s St. Helena campus.

British wine expert, Steven Spurrier

Among attendees were Steven Spurrier, the UK wine expert who organized the famous 1976 Paris Wine Tasting, and Napa Valley’s own Karen MacNeil, author of “The Wine Bible“ (which is a MUST compendium in every wine library).

Karen MacNeil and Steven Spurrier

The session enabled invitees to taste blind three vintages of Chardonnay (the ‘09, ‘10, & ‘11 vintages) from 12 different producers and three vintages of Cabernet (the ’08, ’09 & ’10 vintages) from 12 different producers. A total of 72 wines tasted blind.

Tasters tasted.... photographers photographed...

This is often one of my favorite tastings because it reaffirms my belief that when Napa Valley Cabernets are tasted blind, price does not necessarily dictate quality.

Often at this tasting, my preferred wines are the low- to mid-priced wines, not the really expensive, cult wines.

A roomful of tasters

This year, for example, I rated the 2010 Reynolds Family Estate Cabernet Sauvignon and the 2009 Titus Cabernet Sauvignon as my top wines of the blind tasting.

The 2010 Reynolds Family Estate Cab is a gorgeous, beautifully balanced wine, showing a great deal of elegance and “European restraint,” as Steve Spurrier noted. It retails for $45 (they haven’t raised their price in 10 years, according to Matt in their tasting room).

This 2010 wine won’t be available in retail circles until May, 2014 ... but oh! is it worth waiting for!

The 2009 Titus Family Estate Reserve Cab had me going back for seconds and thirds. I loved the structure, the complexity, the texture and balance of this wine. Simply breathtaking. It retails for $65.

By contrast, there were wines in the tasting running from $110 to $230 a bottle, which I didn’t think showed as well.

Emma Wellings, UK taster

The purpose of this tasting was to show that our wines DO alter from year to year; many consumers think that we have hot, sunny summers every year, but, in truth, no two vintages here are the same.

The wine buyer for Selfridges, London, was on hand to judge Napa Valley wines. She took notes on her Samsung tablet, converting hand-written notes to typewritten text at the stroke of a button.

2008

This was a nightmarish vintage born with a crippling spring frost, which lowered yields, followed by dry-bordering-on-drought conditions, followed by freaky summer heat spikes. You want an example of an inconsistent vintage? This is it.

2009

The trick this year was to pick before the rains came in mid-October or to wait to pick until well afterward. Anyone who picked during the deluge, has watered-down wine. The 2009s are, for the most part, lovely, medium-weight, graceful wines, built for a long evolution.

2010

Until I tasted the 2012s (which readers won’t see for some time), I thought that 2010s were among the best we’ve ever made in Napa Valley. The killer Cabs are powerful, shockingly big, yet balanced - what wine writers like to call a “thrilling vintage.”

Napa Valley’s Purple Floss Weekend Has Finally Arrived!

Kelly Kehoe, business manager, and Robert Foley, winemaker

In case you’ve been living in a cave, you know that this is the weekend Napa Valley Vintners hosts its annual winter, Premiere Barrel Auction, an excuse for wine retailers and tradespeople to descend on the valley, taste copiously of unreleased, next-vintage Cabs en barrique, and see old friends.

It’s a bit like a 30-year college reunion, a freshman hazing and a wine-lover’s weekend all rolled into one.

And don’t forget the manifestation of the weekend: purple floss.

After you’ve tasted 30, or 40, or 80 young Cabernets at each tasting, we’re talking heavily stained, purple-colored teeth.

At yesterday’s multiple-wine tasting hosted at 750 Wines, at an event cleverly called Port Foley Oh!, a portfolio of wines from legendary winemaker Robert Foley were highlighted.

Invitees got to taste the wines of eight different producers - a total of 21 different wines, all made by Robert Foley, who is colloquially known as “Mr. Merlot” for his early insistence that Merlot could stand on its own as a single, bottled variety.

(Many years ago, Robert was recognized for his insistence and for his brilliance: the Wine Spectator chose his 2001 Paloma Merlot as Best Wine of the Year.)

When I mentioned to Robert at the 750 Wines tasting that his wines not only make an indelible imprint on my memory – “they also make an indelible purple mark on my floss!” he retorted: “My wines stain everything – even stainless steel!”

Owner of Switchback Ridge, Kelly Peterson, pours her 2010 Merlot, Cabernet and Petite Sirah wines, all made by Robert Foley

Of all the Foley-produced wines poured at the 750 Wines event, my top favorite was the 2010 Merlot fashioned out of fruit from Kelly Peterson’s Switchback Ridge vineyard in Calistoga.

This wine had the texture of satin, and the concentration, extraction and depth of a serious Napa Valley Cabernet. If Jimi Hendrix were alive, this wine would have been the model for his song “Purple Haze.”

This was the single best wine of the 21, which I tasted at the Port Foley Oh! event, itself a prelude of hundreds of wines to come over the next 72  hours of auction weekend.

Lynn Wight, Ron Engel, Jen Engel

I finally had a chance to meet Ron Engel at the 750 Wines event. Bob Foley fashions his wines out of fruit grown on Ron’s vineyard near the Grist Mill, outside Calistoga. When he’s not growing grapes, Ron is wrestling feisty Bulgarians in international wrestling competitions. Looks like he’s done a good job of “wrastling” the other guys – and his grapes – into submission.

Tom & Marcie Dinkel

The event also gave me a chance to catch up with Tom and Marcie Dinkel, who grow fruit on Atlas Peak, and whom I haven’t seen for nearly ten years. That’s part of the allure of this weekend; you get to catch up with old acquaintances.

The Dos Lagos Cabernets, which Robert Foley makes for the Dinkels, is stellar stuff. Of the two vintages poured, I preferred the 2010.

The 750 Wines tasting room – an unusually quiet moment Thursday afternoon, when you could actually see the floor and find time to raise your glass to your lips.

And now, a word about the vintages poured at this event – and at events all weekend:

The 2010 vintage was ideal. If  someone made lousy wine in 2010, shame on  them. Hard to do.

2011, by contrast, was a lesser year; the fruit was caught in colder, wetter climes, and the results are evident in the barrel. You had to be a talented winemaker in 2011 to make memorable wine.

(And for anyone anticipating the next vintage... last year’s 2012... let me just say as a winemaker’s assistant... that this may turn out to be the single greatest vintage in living memory in Napa Valley. It’ll drink great early, it’ll drink great with age, and there’s tons of it.)

The 2011 Chateauneufs-du-Pape – prettier and sexier than a politician’s mistress! And cheaper, too!

The 2011 Chateauneuf-du-Pape circus has come to town (if you live in San Francisco this is true).

Wine importer Alain Junguenet

Angeles Wine Agency, out of southern California, and wine importer Alain Junguenet hosted a tasting of 2011 Chateauneufs-du-Pape at the tiny, tony restaurant Bistro Aix, in the Marina district, today.

They graciously invited napaman to taste from barrel samples and just-bottled wines from a CDP vintage that is lighter than we’re accustomed to tasting.

Chateauneuf-du-Pape vines, in France’s southern Rhone valley, were drenched with rain in early September in 2011, causing some winemakers to panic; they harvested immediately after the rains to take advantage of bright acidity. These wines have length, finesse, a note of herbs and display some bright red fruit.

Typical signpost in and around Chateauneuf-du-Pape

Winemakers who waited for their grapes to dry wound up picking fruit that ripened on the vine, reaching full maturity; wines made from these grapes exhibit greater structure, more tannins, more voluptuousness. Which isn’t, by the way, a word that any other winewriter is going to use to describe the 2011 vintage in Chateauneuf-du-Pape. You heard it first here. And only here.

But dang! Two of the wines I tasted at the AWA/Junguenet event this afternoon were absolutely voluptuous, and I will stand by this observation –

+ The 2001 Bosquet des Papes Chante Le Merle was syrupy thick, rich, unctuous, tasted more like they’d added 20% from the 2010 vintage, which was a killer year in CDP.

Sandrine et Thierry Usseglio of Domaine Pierre Usseglio

+ The 2011 Domaine Pierre Usseglio & Fils, cuvee Tradition, made from 80 percent Grenache, 10 percent Syrah, and 5 percent each of Mourvedre and Cinsault.

Instead of producing his premium-tier cuvees “Mon Aieul” and “Deux Freres” in 2011, winemaker Thierry Usseglio added the fruit that would otherwise have gone into these top-end cuvees to his One and Only cuvee this year, “Tradition.”

I rated both of these wines 96 points, my highest scoring wines of the tasting.

I will be buying a case of each. They are that good.

Many of the other 2011 wines tasted exhibited lighter structure; there are many pretty wines here, easily accessible NOW, as opposed to having to wait five or seven years for them to “come around.”

Alain and his son John Junguenet

Alain Junguenet started his wine import business, Wines of France, in 1984. He and his son, John, live in New Jersey, where they import containers of delicious Chateauneuf-du-Pape, as well as other wines from the Rhone valley.

“We have become the largest importer of Chateauneuf-du-Pape wines in America,” Alain told me in French. He’s speaking in terms of SKUs, not in tonnage.

In total, Wines of France imports 19 different Chateauneuf-du-Pape wines whose annual offerings exceed 75 different cuvees.

Francois Michel, of Le Vieux Donjon

napaman and Claire Michel-Fabre, the winemaker/owner, joshing at the winery last September.

Claire Michel-Fabre in her cellar

Wines I really liked at the tasting:

2011 Le Vieux Donjon, poured by Francois Michel. I always buy a case, or two, of Vieux Donjon every vintage; the family believes in only making ONE cuvee, so they put ALL their fruit, including that from their best blocs, into ONE blend. From a consumer’s perspective, how refreshing!

For the record: The single best case of wine I ever bought from any wine-producing region, was the 1990 Le Vieux Donjon; every one of the bottles was a perfect specimen of pleasure.

I visited Vieux Donjon in Chateauneuf-du-Pape last September where winemaker Claire Michel-Fabre, Francois’ sister, let us taste several vintages.

2011 is lighter for V. Donjon than any wine in recent memory, but it is still balanced, pretty, and drinkable already.

2011 Chateau Sixtine, cuvee Manus Dei. A blend of Grenache, Syrah and Mourvedre with a gorgeous robe, and equally gorgeous balance. I loved the very dark, very plum-y flavors. While not textbook complex, this is still a richer wine than many others in the tasting.

2011 Mas de Boislauzon, cuvee Tradition. Because the fruit was imperfectly ripened, brother and sister Daniel (winemaker) and Christine (sales) Chaussy chose not to make their two top cuvees in 2011.

So no “Quet,” and no “Tintot” this year. (The 2010 Boislauzon Quet was one of my personal favorite Chateauneufs of 2010.)

As such, the fruit that would otherwise have gone into these two premium blends has been added this year to “Tradition,” making it a substantially richer wine than it would have been without these additional blocks.

Really liked this 2011 a lot.

2011 Domaine de la Charbonniere both the “Domaine” and “Hautes Brusquieres” cuvees. Even if I didn’t like these wines, I would be compelled to mention them. But as it turns out, I really do like them.

The Maret family, who make these wines, are good, hard-working people; their pert, smart daughter, Veronique, who makes the wine now, had dinner in our home a few summers ago. Her wine is never flashy, never over-wooded, never over-extracted. If you are looking for a New World wine experience take a pass here.

This is classic Chateauneuf-du-Pape and Veronique’s 2011 exhibits beautiful hints of perfume on the nose. There is an underlying finesse in both these cuvees. Lovely balance and memorable texture -- which I never expected from 2011 wines, given what other wine writers have said in print. Lovely stuff, this.

Street shot from my most recent visit to Chateauneuf-du-Pape

In the next few months, napaman.com readers are going to start seeing offers for pre-arrivals of the 2011 Chateauneuf-du-Pape wines; if you can’t find a retailer in your area, call Karen Bria at AWA to locate a dealer where you can find these wines. Call 831-239-6174, or send her an email at [email protected].

My favorite street in Chateauneuf-du-Pape!

I had heard early press rumblings that this might be a light vintage, one even to forego; but based on tasting nearly two-dozen wines from the vintage, I am keen to purchase a sampling from many producers.

These wines will be drinkable early – from now to about five years out – and they are truly pretty, sexy, bright, easy-to-enjoy wines, few with tannins which need time to be integrated.

Lucien Le Grand, the (now deceased) proprietor of one of the great retail wine establishments of Paris, once shared his wine consuming philosophy with me in the early 70s. We were standing in his cluttered, dusty-bottle cellar:

“Never forget, wine is like a beautiful woman. What’s the point of taking a beautiful girl home tonight... and putting her in your cellar... and waiting 15 years to take her out and up to dinner?”

“When you find a beautiful woman, you need to take her home with you the same night you find her – and ravish her AT THIS MOMENT, not in 15 years!”

If Lucien were alive today, I am sure that he would identify the 2011 Chateauneufs-du-Pape as a vintage to take home now – to ravish TONIGHT!

Secret to Making the World’s Best Negroni Cocktail!

Recently, I had the best Negroni cocktail that I’ve ever had at Il Buco Alimentari,  in NYC.

That cocktail, the color of faded Venetian draperies, displayed a pitch-perfect balance of sweetness and bitterness; it sported a sensational middle palate with a lush, syrupy texture, and had a long, lingering, bitter cherry, finish. I can still taste it a month later.

The Il Buco Alimentari Negroni.

The Negroni is said to have originated in Florence, Italy, in 1919, at Caffe Casoni when Count Camillo Negroni reputedly asked the bartender to strengthen his favorite drink, the Americano, by replacing the soda water with gin.

The drink became so popular so quickly that it was soon called the “King of Aperitives.” Eventually, the originator’s name was affixed to the cocktail.

I’m sure the Count never imagined that one day he’d become the spirit(ual) leader of drinkers around the world.

One taste of the Negroni at Il Buco Alimentari and I knew that I had to learn how to ace this cocktail at home. So I asked Melissa, the bartender, for her secrets to make the perfect Negroni, which is basically a concoction of three spirits:

Equal parts of:

Gin

Campari

Sweet Italian vermouth

Mixology 101: Stir, do not shake, the mixture of three spirits over ice, pour into old-fashioned glasses filled with ice (different ice, not the same ice used to mix the concoction) and, if desired, squeeze the oil from a strip of orange rind over the drink, and then add the rind.

Sounds simple. But the mixing’s a mathematical nightmare: which gin, which vermouth, and does one really add equal parts?

Campari is central to any Negroni and is the one part you don’t substitute when formulating a strategy to mix The Best-Ever Negroni.

This was an assignment for napaman akin to decoding the human genome. And equally as important to humanity if you agree that what happens daily at 5 o’clock somewhere in the world is critically important to the survival of mankind everywhere in the world.

Melissa told me that she uses Breuckelen Distilling’s Glorious Gin, a NY-made gin (Breuckelen is the old Dutch spelling for the borough in which it’s made).

The secret ingredient in the Il Buco Alimentari Negroni. Should be on the UN watch list as a dangerous weapon of mass intoxication.

This one night, she also replaced Carpano Antica, the sweet vermouth typically used here, for Cocchi di Torino, a more focused, slightly edgier, sweet Italian vermouth. It’s a complex, very intense vermouth; if Cocchi were a psychiatric patient, you wouldn’t learn in five years of psychoanalytic couch therapy what makes it so moody and intense.

San Francisco skyline; I had to head off to San Francisco to conduct basic Negroni research.

Back home, in California, I contacted my favorite wine and spirit retailer, K&L Wine, in San Francisco, and asked the dynamic Duo of Daves (Dave Driscoll and Dave Othenin-Girard) if they could order Cocchi and Breuckelen Distilling’s Glorious Gin for me. And also sell me some other branded gins for the exercise I was about to undertake.

“No problem” they chirped in unison in their standard echo-like fashion to please this customer.

While waiting for the gins and vermouth to arrive, I thought I’d be smart to conduct some basic bar research, to better understand how different brands of gin and vermouth altered Melissa’s recipe.

So I visited two of my favorite bars/hotels in San Francisco, both which happen to be Kimpton properties, the classy, high-end, boutique lodger, in whose hotels I often stay.

I visited Jasper’s Corner Tap, where I have enjoyed one of my favorite burgers ever in San Francisco. (This hunk o’ beautiful bovine is served on an original, crusty bun that is as memorable as the meat.)

I figured that if they know as much about mixing as they know about meat, this would be a solid place to start my Negroni research. I was right.

Barman Dan Wootton agreed that not all gins, and not all vermouths, are created equal. So he set up a trial of drinks to make his case.

Each was made with equal parts of three spirits, each contained Campari and Cocchi, which I’d already determined in tests is a superior vermouth for Negronis, better than Carpano Antica or even VYA Sweet Vermouth.

Do not lose sight of the fact that VYA Dry Vermouth is the secret to making the world’s best martini. But that’s another story and to fully understand how to make the World’s Best Martini, go here:

http://www.napaman.com/napamancom/2007/05/vya_the_stephen.html

And do not lose sight of the fact that Carpano Antica made some stellar Negronis in the course of my research, not the least of which was the Negroni made at Bistro Don Giovanni, in Napa town. Here they mix No. 209 gin, Campari and Carpano Antica. Fabuloso.

But back to Dan; he made three Negronis to prove his point.

Ginning at Jasper’s Corner Tap

The one made with Old Tom Ransom Gin from Oregon was muddied and unfocused.

The one made with Aviation Gin from Portland, which was Dan’s preferred Negroni of the trial, was a bit too clean; for me, it exhibited too much vanilla on the finish.

I selected the Negroni made with Martin Miller’s Reformed London Dry Gin, Westbourne Strength, as “Negroni of the Night.” It was sensational. Properly named, it Reformed my opinion about which gin makes the best Negroni. 

Dan and assistant general manager Jose Carlos Delgado pointed out that to meet the demand for Negronis, Jasper’s Corner Tap actually has devoted one wine/beer tap to… Negronis! 

That’s right, they pull a pressurized Negroni off one of their bar taps and the beverage is… FANTASTIC!

To make their wildly popular “draft Negroni,” they mix one part each of Campari and Plymouth Gin and for the third part, they mix Cinzanno and Punt e Mes, an Italian vermouth. This is a sensational, house-ready, Negroni. And it’s On Tap!

Over time, I’ve also come to respect and enjoy the spirits, wine and food at the Fifth Floor restaurant and bar, in another Kimpton San Francisco property, the Palomar Hotel.

As the Fifth Floor is a Mecca for Martini- and Negroni-drinkers, I knew it was time to visit an old friend here, Amy Goldberger, head sommelier at Fifth Floor.

In turn, she introduced me to Brian Means, the affable and skilled barman who mixed many variations of the Negroni on my visit so that I could test the impact of different gins and different vermouths.

Bartender Brian Means at the Fifth Floor. You could say that Brian Means business when he makes you a Negroni.

Plymouth gin produced a rusty, rustic, serviceable Negroni; Martin Miller’s Reformed London Dry Gin, Westbourne Strength, produced a superior cocktail with a sensational middle palate, and a sunburned finish.

St. George Dry Rye Gin, made in Alameda, CA, produced a Negroni that was flavored with bandages and Mercurochrome, and which had long lasting bitter notes.

Fords Gin, from England, produced a watery, non-descript beverage with not much of a middle palate and no memorable finish. Call it the Mitch McConnell Negroni – absolutely no personality.

Brian Means in his laboratory... er, I mean bar, planning a few more Negroni combinations to try.

We tried a Negroni made with Greenhook Ginsmiths Gin from Brooklyn, NY, which Brian wangles from a special source as it is not commercially available in this market. It produced a drink with slow attack and slow release; there were a few floral notes and a hint of cucumber. This might be the Negroni to have if you’re planning to have more than two Negronis, as the flavor build-up is slow. 

But I’m in search of the one-off, single best Negroni you can make at home, not one of which you need to drink a bathtubful to obtain a flavor hit.

(By the way, let’s not forget to mention that the bar area of the Fifth Floor is THE place in San Francisco to have a sensational, rich, burger – order it with “the works”  -- with a side of fries. Major delicious.

If your server is Dillon, he will guide you through all the other spirit and food options on the bar menu. This is one of my favorite after-hours destinations in San Francisco; it is quiet, comforting, secluded. The drinks and service are first-class.)

When my bottles of Breuckelen Distilling’s Glorious Gin and Cocchi finally arrived at K&L Wine, I started to conduct mixology trials at home.

After determining that Cocchi sweet vermouth makes the best Negroni, I mixed the cocktail using many different gins.

Here’s what I discovered, on my way to selecting my all-time favorite, Best Ever Negroni. In order of preference, from least liked to best liked:

Boodles Gin

Not much of anything. The spirits and flavors do not integrate with one another. There is a succession of tastes, including cinnamon and ripe fruit, but overall, the Negroni lacks luster, focus and zip. 89 points out of 100.

Hendrick’s Gin

Here’s a gin I often like for martinis, but in auditioning for The Negroni Idol, this straight-forward gin produces a rather straight-forward, rather pedestrian, cocktail. There’s not much “there” there.

A rather simple drink, missing the complexity and alluring character found in other Negronis in this taste test.

91 points out of 100.

Plymouth Gin

Somewhat soapy, pallid, pastel-flavored in the Negroni. Even with the addition of bitters and an orange peel, this gin underwhelms in the cocktail.

This gin is far more successful as an ingredient in a martini.

91 points on its own, 94 points when made with bitters.

No. 209

The best US gin you can use for martinis. Bar none. In any bar.

But for Negronis made with Cocchi, this very floral, very botanical, gin produces a beverage that is a bit sloppy, and unfocused. Almost socially backward and embarrassing. Still, it produces a refreshing cocktail. Much better when combined with Carpano Antica vermouth. 95 points.

Breuckelen Distilling’s Glorious Gin

A winner by any standard of comparative measurement.

The presence of Cocchi lengthens the finish considerably.

Love this gin for the Negroni, though when tasted straight, on its own, it’s a rather mundane, lackluster spirit. How curious. 96 points.

 

Martin Miller’s Reformed London Dry Gin, Westbourne Strength

This gin makes a sensational Negroni; the cocktail is bright in the mouth, bouncy and alive on the palate.

The cocktail is vibrant, and does what a proper cocktail before dinner is meant to do: arouse one’s appetite. 98 points.

In short:

Miller’s Reformed London Dry Gin, Westbourne Strength, makes a superior Negroni when mixed in equal parts with Cocchi di Torino sweet vermouth and Campari.

This combination of spirits produces an Academy Award-worthy Negroni.

(For the record: Miller’s Reformed London Dry Gin is distilled in the UK, then shipped to Iceland where it is blended with Icelandic waters and bottled. How curious! How delicious!)

Here’s what happened next:

Thinking that I’d found the Holy Grail Recipe for The Perfect Negroni, I called my friend Eileen, who is the bartender at Tra Vigne, in St. Helena, and who is, in my humble opinion, the best bartender in Napa Valley.

“I want to make you a Negroni and get your feedback,” I offered.

I made my Negroni with equal parts of Miller’s Reformed London Dry Gin, Cocchi and Campari, and as good as it was, Eileen improved it!

She suggested upping the gin to 1.5 oz. while keeping the Cocchi and Campari at 1 oz. each.

“The extra gin softens the drink, reduces the perceived sweetness, and generally makes for a better cocktail,” Eileen concluded.

And she was right.

So now you have all the trade secrets – the ingredients, the ratios, and bartender tips -- to make The Perfect Negroni at home. So what are you waiting for...?

Want to taste the best commercial Negronis?

In NY, go to:

Il Buco Alimentari, 53 Great Jones Street,

Tel: 212-837-2622 

In San Francisco, go to:

Jasper’s Corner Tap, 401 Taylor, off the lobby of the Serrano Hotel.

Tel: 415-775-7979.

The Fifth Floor, on the 5^th floor of the Palomar Hotel, 12 Fourth St.

Tel: 415-348-1555.

In Napa Valley, go to:

Bistro Don Giovanni, 4110 Howard Lane, Napa.

Tel: 707-224-3300.

Tra Vigne, 1050 Charter Oak Avenue, St. Helena.

Tel: 707-963-4444.

Margrit Mondavi Honored for a Lifetime of Wine Achievements

Margrit Mondavi, the Wine World’s Patron Saint of Culture, was recognized this afternoon for her lifetime contribution to the American wine industry, essentially for proving to us all that wine is part of an active lifestyle.

Man cannot live on bread alone. Or on books alone, Or on art, theater or film alone. Everything, it turns out, goes better with a glass of wine, which Margrit has taught us to think of as the hydraulic fluid of life.

Margrit with the Tiiffany Monteith Trophy

At a formal luncheon at The Robert Mondavi Winery today, Margrit, as we all call, know, and love her, received the elegant, sterling silver, Tiffany Monteith Trophy, one of the most prestigious awards in the American wine industry.

Mike Thompson, our regional congressman, and Co-Chairman of the Congressional Wine Caucus, presented the award to Margrit at the luncheon, honoring her for her tireless promotion and consumer education in the fields of wine, food and the arts.

The Tiffany Monteith Trophy was created in 1980 and Margrit is its 30th recipient. The award is sponsored by the Atlantic Seaboard Wine Association, whose board members were present for the presentation.

The award is presented annually (with a few exceptions) to an individual who, or an organization which, has made an exceptional contribution to the development of the American wine industry.

The Monteith Wine Bowl Trophy, made of pure sterling silver, was made by New York’s Tiffany & Co for the Vinifera Wine Growers Association. Its craftsmanship represents one of the earliest forms of silversmithing.

The award was presented to Margrit ahead of a delicious lunch, served in the Robert Mondavi Vintage Room, where I have had some of the best food I have ever been served in Napa Valley. (Let the record be clear: I first had the privilege of dining with Bob & Margrit Mondavi in this private dining room 33 years ago.)

Margrit kibbutzes around with L. Pierce Carson, food, arts and wine reporter for the Napa Valley Register.

Good going, Margrit! We’re sure happy for ya! It’s recognition you’ve earned. I’m pleased to be able to call you a friend and neighbor.

Best Meal of the Year! (And It’s Only The First Week of January!)

New York City: it ain’t your granddaddy’s dining scene! (Painting by Edward Hopper, 1930, “Tables for Ladies.”)

My three best meals in New York last week were all Italian, and one of them will likely remain on top of my list as The Most Outstanding Meal of the Year, regardless of what follows.

Is there a better cuisine than Italian? 

Is there a better city in North America in which to find sublime examples of the Mother Kitchen?

My three top restaurants are listed below alphabetically, which also happens to be, by coincidence, their order of ranking.

For some reason, friends and readers extrapolate and think that as Napaman is knowledgeable about where to dine, and what to do, in Napa Valley, he’ll know, too, where to dine in other destinations.  Which is why I’ve penned this short profile of my Three Best Dining Experiences in NYC, because everyone is asking me for them.

So go ahead... copy... paste... drool... and ultimately enjoy!

#1. Del Posto

Chef Mario Battali’s single best restaurant anywhere. Rated 1-star by Michelin, but on napaman’s  scorecard, this is a solid 4-star dining experience, and the best place in America at which to have lunch. Ours lasted 4 hours and was a thrill-a-minute series of courses complemented by paired wines, immaculately selected by head sommelier Massimiliano Giovannoni.

I will be shocked if we have a better dining experience in the coming year. How do you improve upon perfection?

Head sommelier Massimiliano Giovannoni

Elisabetta Riccardi

Overseeing our dining needs was Elisabetta Riccardi, who made us feel at home, and who carefully guided us through menu options.

Highlights of the lunch

A cauliflower veloute that will forever change the way I think of the ubiquitous vegetable.

A captivating salad with unusual greens, which appear to have been plucked out of a garden minutes before being served. How else could they taste so fresh? It is tossed with a black truffle vinaigrette that so commands our attention that we’re inclined to ask for a steak on which we might nap this compelling, earthy, aromatic vinaigrette.

Head sommelier Massimiliano Giovannoni pours a single glass of wine using a soon-to-be-released-to-the-public wine device called Coravin, which enables one to draw wine from an, unopened bottle! The 2008 Damijan Malvasia, which Massimiliano poured for us, was sensational.

Lobster salad with “gigantes” beans.

Lobster salad with meaty, gigantic beans; just the thought of having fresh, tender chunks of this seameat , served with my favorite beans excites my palate!

Cacciucco all Livornese, the traditional fish soup of Livorno. What cioppino is to San Francisco, or bouillabaisse is to southern France. Only better, if you have it at Del Posto.

Yes, yes, I know... not enough wine at lunch. 

 Fact: There were more glasses on our table than you’d find in a Riedel glass showroom!

New York’s Battery, the Statue of Liberty, looking west.

#2. Il Buco Alimentari

I have now eaten four times at this sensational restaurant, owned by Donna Lennard, and have never had a disappointing dinner. I am giddy for two days before dining here, excited by the anticipation of what joys my mouth will have.

New York magazine describes this as being one of the Top Ten Restaurants in New York. It is.

If you meet Maggie, the capable, able, talented hostess, say napaman sent you; she’s totally professional and keeps her calm even when, on a weekend night, the place is packed like a subway car at rush hour.

Il Buco Alimentari is home of the single greatest Negroni I have ever tasted. It’s superb when made by any barman here, but particularly memorable when Melissa makes it.

The secret ingredients include a local gin (Breuckelen Gin), Cocchi (Italy’s least understood  -- and best! -- sweet vermouth), and a dash of bitters. And of course, Campari.

(Stay tuned to napaman.com; in coming weeks, after I perfect the Negroni at home, I will share the recipe... and you can save the airfare to NY to order one at Il Buco Alimentari. On the other hand, I’d STILL fly to New York just for one of Il Buco Alimentari’s Negronis!)

Lattuga

Be sure to order lattuga, a salad of winter chicories, white anchovies, marconna almonds and red radish. Note in the margin of my dining notebook: “This salad scores 12 out of 10!”

Don’t miss: grilled sausage, served on a bed of Umbrian lentils, tweaked with roasted cipolline onions and given some weight with a deep aftertaste of sage.

Another winner is lasagnette, a house-made noodle tossed with a classic Bolognese ragu; the meaty flavors are lifted by Parmigiano and black pepper. You want perfection on a plate? This dish has it.

Another cold-winter must: Slow-roasted short ribs. Served with Castelvetrano olives, celery, walnuts and – catch this! – horseradish. Richer than Donald Trump. And more appealing.

How they serve the house-made ice creams at Il Buco Alimentari.

Did I say deeelicious?

 

#3. L’Artusi

The primary sensory highlights at L’Artusi: it’s dark (as the photo above attests), it’s loud, and it’s fucking delicious.

One young, trendoid diner we know describes this noisy, jam-packed, Italian restaurant as his favorite in all of Manhattan. One taste of the pastas and we fully understand why.

Beef carpaccio at L’Artusi

Don’t miss the arancini (fried risotto balls), served with a tongue-clacking tomato sauce.

Chicories, lit by candlelight.

Chicories tossed with a sensational Parmesan, lemon and anchovy dressing earned three exclamations in my notebook and the added comment: “Worth flying to New York just for this dish!”

Ravioli stuffed with autumn squash, dressed with a sage-brown butter sauce; your mouth will sing The Battle Hymn of the Pasta Republic.

Garganelli with a mushroom ragu, tumbled with a ricotta salata. The best single dish of the night. We thought about ordering a second one it was so good, but knowing what desserts might follow, we opted for prudence over pig-outery.

Gilded bronze sculpture, “Standing Nude,” by Elie Nadelman,

If you’re going:

Del Posto, 85 10^th Avenue, NYC. Tel: 212-497-8090

Il Buco Alimentari, 53 Great Jones St., NYC. Tel: 212-837-2622

L’Artusi, 228 West 10^th St., NYC. Tel: 212-255-5757

Best Wines of the Year!

2001 Domaine Roger Sabon, Le Secret des Sabon

Six years ago, I visited one of my favorite wine producers in the world, Domaine Roger Sabon, in Chateauneuf-du-Pape, in the southern Rhone.

The consulting winemaker to this property, Alain Benquet, who is a longtime friend, secured the tasting appointment for me with owner, Jean Jacques Sabon, who has since deceased.

Backgrounder about this wine

Robert Parker scored the 2001 vintage of Roger Sabon’s top cuvee, Le Secret des Sabon, a perfect 100 points on every occasion he has tasted it.

I have been fortunate to experience this wine on several occasions.

In 2004, at a business dinner, I ordered this wine at The French Laundry, in Yountville, and rated it 100 points. It was a perfect wine.

In 2006, I tasted it again, this time with Jean Jacques, the owner, and with Alain, who made it, at the winery and again, it was a perfect 100-point wine.

And now, six years later, last night, I opened my only cellared bottle (which I purchased at the winery) and it was as impressive, still easily a 100-point wine. Maybe more.

The wine exhibits a core of very ripe, black fruit, predominantly black cherry and blackberries. There is a backfill of grilled steak flavors, with a faint echo of white birch sap. (Trust me - it's there.)

There is more than wine in this bottle; upon pouring, one senses an essence, a spirit of wine, which is more than just juice. Thrilling, complex, complete.

1990 Vieux Donjon

I enjoyed this bottle with Stefan Blicker, of BPWines, St. Helena, who brought the 22-year-old Chateauneuf-du-Pape to lunch at one of my favorite local restaurants, Market.

I’d had 12 bottles of the 1990 vintage from a case I’d bought as a pre-arrival and everyone of the bottles from that case was a perfect 100-point wine.

I asked Stefan to share his only bottle of the 1990 Donjon, acquired with the contents of a wine cellar purchased from a California collector, with me. It was, like the 12 bottles before it, a perfect 100-pointer. And one of my best wine experiences of the year.

We paired it with the immaculate pepper-crusted filet (served with truffled shoestring French fries), on the small plates list at Market.

The wine, upon being opened, exhibited scents of cedar, white truffles, anise seed, garrigue, licorice, herbes de provence, and kirsch.

Earlier in the year, I devoted an entire story to this one bottle of wine. Go to:

http://www.napaman.com/napamancom/2012/05/how-can-a-wine-be-this-good-13-times-.html

2003 Domaine Serene, Grace Vineyard

I have long been a fan of the sensational, fleshy but balanced, Pinot Noirs coming out of the Willamette Valley, in Oregon.

These are my Go To Pinots when I want freshness, balance, food friendliness, and no fear that I’m going to find over-zealous alcohol or wood (a failure of too many California Pinot Noirs) or hints of dirty barrels and tired winemaking (too many Burgundies).

Of all the Willamette houses producing Pinot Noir, the ones I treasure the most are Domaine Serene, and Arterberry Maresh.

In June, served at home with Carol’s perfectly broiled, center-cut filets of fresh Atlantic salmon, I opened an eight-year-old Domaine Serene classic, the 2003 Grace Vineyard Pinot Noir.

It was still young, gorgeously balanced, filled with fresh and candied versions of black cherry, gobs of sweet, ripe red cherry and the alcohol and wood elements were so integrated, they were unnoticeable.

Quite a wine. Easily a 98-point experience. Nice work, Serenistes!

2006 Arterberry Maresh Pinot Noir, White Rose Vineyard.

This wine was one of my top wines of 2008, and I thought that was the end of the accolades.

Then, in July of this year, I opened my last bottle from a case I had bought and, as every bottle before, it was a perfect, unctuous, syrupy rich, delicious, wholly balanced, Willamette Pinot Noir.

I said the following about this wine four years ago, and every word I wrote about it then, is still true today:

“I could write a sonnet, a book, an encyclopedia about my love for this extravagant, balanced, elegant, mature, brilliant Pinot Noir from the Willamette Valley in Oregon.

I have now opened and shared many bottles from the case and every one gets a forehead-slapping, “I can’t believe how good this wine is!” comment from Napa Valley winemakers, and knowledgeable sommeliers for whom I have poured it.

The Dinner, Wine-tasting and Social Event of the Year,

featuring three of the year’s very best wines

 

 
Barry and Patricia Brown, my Toronto dinner hosts

 What they served with an exquisite home-cooked dinner:

1944 Marques de Murrieta, Ygay (white)

1935 Marques de Murrieta, Ygay, Carta Blanca (red)

Imperial Corrigedor (a Non-Vintage Sherry that is not less than 63-years-old, and partially 130 years old)

Served by very good, very close, and very dear friends Barry and Patricia Brown in their condominium overlooking the “Mink Mile” of Bloor Street, in Toronto.

1944 Marques de Murrieta, Ygay (white)

Barry Brown, who is president of the Spanish Wine Society of Canada, knows more about Spanish wines than any North American I have ever met. Name a vintage, a Spanish winemaker, a region – the guy knows them intimately.

Barry has a taste memory of every Spanish wine he’s ever had; he could fill the shelves of a large LCBO (Ontario wine store) with the empty Spanish bottles he’s had in his lifetime. Got the picture?

A day after my birthday, in July, I visited Barry and Patricia in Toronto and they threw a birthday feast for me that eclipsed just about every wine I’ve experienced at any table the entire year -- in age, complexity, and sheer enthusiastic enjoyment.

The white 1944 Marques de Murrieta Ygay, made largely from the Viura grape (93% Viura, 7% Malvasia, aged in a succession of old oak tanks, then smaller oak barrels) was 68 years old. A 68-year-old white wine! Yet the wine still showed youth, vigor, complexity and verve!

The wine was the color of apricots; initial tastes were of camphor, cedar, clover honey, almonds, and leather. Patricia described the wine as “pretty,” Barry said that it was the oldest dry white wine he’s ever had. Me too. And one of the best.

One hour after being opened, this wine still exhibited vibrancy, complexity, and crisp acidity on the finish. Patricia said that among long-lived Spanish whites, this was a “templar” (knight) of wine. I totally agree.

That’s me, Patricia Brown, and the two oldest wines tasted this year

1935 Marques de Murrieta, Ygay Carta Blanca (red)

As good – and astonishing -- as the 68-year-old white Ygay was, there was more magic to follow. Barry opened and decanted a 77-year-old, red Marques de Murrieta Ygay – from the 1935 vintage.

The wine, about half Tempranillo (the remainder being Garnacha, Mazuelo & Graciano – which sounds like the name of a Spanish law firm), was a gift, given to Barry by the cellar master of the winery in 1985. It was the oldest, and only, bottle in his cellar, and he chose to open it for my birthday. Which itself made this a special wine.

Barry Brown and the 1935 Marques de Murrieta Ygay, Carta Blanca

Upon opening the bottle, we found ourselves slapping our respective foreheads; this 77-year-old wine was like the most intense Merlot-Cabernet Franc wine I’ve ever tasted; dark plums, dark cherries, and red raspberries rushed from the glass; there was a ton of bright acidity, a vibrancy suggesting a much younger wine – and yet this wine was made and bottled before the Spanish Civil War!

I have three pages of notes and a brace of exclamation marks describing this wine; cherries, cinnamon and blackberries are noted multiple times in my notes. Patricia said that the wine was “like a sunset – filled with romance, warmth and the promise of a perfect tomorrow.”

Barry said that of all the 60- and 70-year-old Spanish reds he’s ever had, this bottle was the youngest tasting of any he’s had.

Imperial Corrigedor (a Non-Vintage Sherry that is not less than 63-years-old, and partially 130 years old)

Who’d a thunk you could top these two wine experiences the same evening? Barry went to his Spanish-stocked cellar and pulled out a wine, which the great cellar masters of Spain believe is one of the greatest sherries ever made.

Barry says that Sandeman, the producer, only ever made three barrels of the rare, Imperial Corrigedor Sherry. The young wines used to refresh the solera in which this Sherry was made, were Sandeman Very, Very Old Olorosso and Pedro Ximenes Viejo, themselves 30-years-old when added to the solera.

According to records, the solera, which produced this sherry, was started in 1882.

The Corrigedor Olorosso has dark chocolate colors and flavors, and also tastes of rum, mahogany, coffee, tangerine and treacle.

Patricia insisted that this sherry MUST be tried with tart Spanish clementines – to bring out the bright orange acidity in the wine. At first, I thought this would destroy the wine – pairing fresh fruit with such an old wine to supposedly enhance the wine’s flavor? But I followed Pat’s suggestion and SHE WAS 100 PERCENT RIGHT! I ate a few segments of clementine and then tasted the sherry – the fruit pulled out the blood-orange notes of the wine and accentuated them! Patricia was right – this was a perfect food and wine pairing experience!

In a lifetime, to have the occasional, perfect 100-point wine is something. But to be invited to someone’s home and to be served wines that are older than you – and to have each of them score a perfect 100 points – now, THAT’S the definition of a memorable wine evening!

Addendum:

Worst Wine Moment of the Year

We visited our favorite French wine region in July, Chateauneuf-du-Pape, to check out the 2010 vintage, which was just being bottled and to see dear winemaker friends.

We couldn’t believe the pathetic, offensive and unfriendly reception we received at Vieux Telegraphe.

I have been buying this wine for more than 20 years from Kermit Lynch, one of my most trusted wine merchants in California. Not only does Kermit sell the wine, but he’s also the importer of Vieux Telegraphe.

We did not book an appointment at VT (as it’s colloquially known in the trade) because the firm has a proper drop-in tasting room, much as you find in Napa Valley.

We pulled up to the winery at 11.59 am, having traveled 6,000 miles to visit one of our favorite wine houses; the tall, young, rude and offensive clerk was just coming out; he told us that he was going for lunch and was locking up the tasting room.

We pleaded, told him that we had just come 6,000 miles to just have a quick sip of the 2010 vintage and then we’d go. The tasting room staffer didn’t give a hoot and told us so. He then proceeded to lock up, walking off with a crusty French baguette for lunch. Les maudits visiteurs!

This kind of reception does NOT happen in Italy, it does NOT happen in Napa Valley, or other California wine regions; hospitality is the name of the game and if someone walks into a tasting room at 4.59 pm, despite the official closing at 5 pm, no tasting room employee would throw out a potential future customer, someone who might spend $600 a case for 20 years (= $12,000), as I have for VT

Basically, we were told in a crude, rude and unfriendly fashion to piss off, “I’m going to lunch.”

Well, here’s my response: VT, I’ve bought the last bottle I’ll ever buy and I will do my utmost to convince friends and readers that there are far better Chateauneufs-du-Pape to drink, ones that are filled with flamboyant aromas, not flaming arrogance.

Best New Restaurant Discovery of the Year

Hands down, it goes to Frank’s Kitchen, a sensational artisanal effort in Toronto, where I had the good fortune to dine twice this year.

Frank Parhizgar and his wife Shawn Cooper run this sensational, small, restaurant where everything is made in house. And I mean everything. Including the ceramic platters on which the appetizers are served.

I enjoyed a sensational dish of Lamb Prepared Several Ways on my most recent visit; the large rack of Ontario lamb was perfectly cooked, the Merguez sausage, made with lamb, was ethereal, a word I’ve never applied to sausage in 35 years of reviewing restaurants. The dish had great taste, great texture, and all the flavors were liaised with a delicious reduction.

Shawn, who looks after wine purchases, has done a masterful job of finding fairly priced wines that complement Frank’s dishes; not easy to do in Ontario where the monopolistic LCBO unreasonably marks up wines and then makes restaurants buy them at virtual retail prices. As a result, Napa Valley’s modestly priced Cakebread Cabernet turns up on Toronto menus at $200.

On future visits to Toronto, I will book my first night of dining at Frank’s Kitchen; as much to reacquaint myself with Frank’s sensational cuisine as to set the bar high for other restaurants I will visit on my trip.

Frank’s Kitchen, 588 College St. (at Clinton), Toronto. (416) 516-5861.

St. Helena Goes to the Dogs...

... and the parrots, too.

For today, townsfolk held the annual St. Helena Pet Parade. kicking off an all-day Octoberfest-cum-Harvest Festival, featuring an artisanal crafts fair.

Residents of St. Helena lined both sides of Oak Street to watch the pet parade, which lasted about 45 minutes.

The pet parade is one of my favorite annual rituals in the valley; residents dress up their pets and march them before judges who award prizes for the top dog, so to speak.

Some years, entrants have paraded their sheep, cats, and other family pets; this year, most of the contestants were well groomed dogs. 

Several Bassett hounds made appearances in the parade this year.

For the record, my boy, Linus, did not dress up this year for the Pet Parade; he sat this one out on the sidelines, preferring instead to make offhanded comments about the various costumes.

Best Wine Tasting of the Week

Napaman was invited to Spottswoode’s Summer Garden Party, in St. Helena, today, one of my fondest annual winery events.

The wine is always good, the food is fabulous (catered today by Oak Avenue Catering), and the setting can’t be improved.

The setting, poolside.

The Novak/Milliken clan invite a few hundred of their faithful club members to the garden event, and let them taste old and new wines, paired with salads, cheeses and hearth-fired pizzas.

Beth Novak Milliken, President of the winery, standing behind a 6L bottle of impeccable juice – the 1999 Spottswoode Cabernet.

The highlight of this year’s event was a 6-liter bottle of 1999 Spottswoode Cabernet Sauvignon, poured from 750 mL bottles into which the elixir had been transferred.

I found this ’99 to be one of the best wines of my week, a gorgeous, elegant achievement, just entering a delicious level of maturity. It’s rare to find a California Cab exhibiting the pronounced blackcurrant nuances typically found in Bordeaux wines – but this beaut has the profile in spades. 

I scored this wine a strong 95 points, maybe even 96 points. Simply gorgeous.

This was Rosemary’s Baby, so to speak -- Rosemary Cakebread was winemaker here when the grapes were harvested and the wine made. Beth Novak Milliken, president of Spottswood, esays "this is Rosemary's favorite wine from the decade of the 90s.” 

Napaman asked Beth what are her own two favorite Spottswoode Cabs from the 90s:

“This ’99 for sure, and our ’93, also elegant, balanced and delicious.”

Speaking of '99  Napa ValleyCabs, another outstanding wine, which I had this week, also the 1999 Clos du Val Cabernet Sauvignon from Stag’s Leap District.

This was another mature, mouth-thrilling, Cabernet with harmonious blackcurrant and cedar notes. Easily a 94- or 95-point wine. 

Maybe it’s time we headed to our respective cellars to revisit some of our stored ’99 Napa Valley Cabernets. It appears their 15 minutes of fame is just about to shine.

In St. Helena, FB Does NOT Mean Facebook. FB is the Town’s Toniest New Restaurant – French Blue!

Not sure why they called it French Blue, given that the sexy, blue hue is only an edging detail here.

Howard Backen, impresario, architect, and now restaurant owner

Better they should have called it “Backen White,” after the predominant shade, which owner and architect Howard Backen created and which he used to paint all the wooden surfaces of his new restaurant on Main Street.

Okay, so French Blue (real credit due: the name comes from Howard’s wife and business partner, interior designer Lori Backen) opened a month ago but it’s still too early to identify menu favorites because in every new restaurant, 50 percent of everything changes in the first few months of operation.

Here’s what napaman does know:

The restaurant is now open for BLD – Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner.

The 98-seat room looks and feels as though it should be at a resort, or on the hillside of a pineapple plantation in Maui. It’s a relaxing, casual, comforting, welcoming room.

Aurally, French Blue doesn’t have the harsh, loud sounds, which keep me from returning to Goose & Gander, another new St. Helena restaurant, where it’s so noisy at dinner you can barely hear your waiter recite daily specials. By contrast, French Blue is calming.

Setting the communal table

At French Blue, there’s a welcoming, casual, communal table, which seats 14.

Who’s surprised that Howard Backen has created a room that compels one’s spirit to soar?

Howard is THE architect of Napa Valley, as well as the architect of the rich and famous. (Spoiler alert: Howard was the architect of our home in Napa Valley, though napaman doesn’t pass the physical – of being rich or famous.)

Howard is internationally recognized for his work on wineries (Harlan Estate, Screaming Eagle), hotels and resorts (Meadowood), institutions (Sundance Institute), and retail stores (Restoration Hardware retail locations).

Architectural Digest recognizes Howard’s talents, having named him one of the Top 100 Designers each of the last five years. Now they’ll have to recognize his prowess as a restaurateur, too.

French Blue has some mighty talented hands at the helm.

Howard’s wife Lori designed the interior and created all the sexy blue-and-white items for sale around the room.

Stanley Morris, responsible for operations at French Blue, has worked in the hospitality and entertainment industries for 30 years; he took Jeremiah Tower’s San Francisco Stars restaurant concept to Singapore, where he lived for six years, then returned to the Bay-area to direct operations at Il Fornaio. Most recently, he launched and operated Teatro ZinZanni in San Francisco.

Philip Wang, originally from Indiana, is the FB chef. After studying at the CIA, Philip cooked in San Francisco for Traci des Jardins at Rubicon and Jardinière. In NYC, he helped open Daniel Boulud’s eponymous restaurant, which eventually earned four stars from the New York Times.

It’s too early to give a full and proper restaurant critique, but at Howard’s behest, napaman stopped at French Blue for breakfast last week.

While the Cowgirl Mt. Tam Omelette was light and fluffy, the Oven-Baked Blueberry Pancake was the superior breakfast item. (Howard confided to napaman that he has one for breakfast many mornings.)

This is not a conventional pancake, but rather a German-like pancake, baked in a cast iron, Staub skillet, in which the pancake is then served. House-made rhubarb maple syrup adds richness to the dish. Best to share – otherwise you may find yourself overloading on carbs and snoring through your first morning meeting.

Favorite feature: A delightful outdoor patio a step off Main Street.

Most restaurants put their patio at the back, keeping guests hidden; I love the FB French city touch here, putting tables and chairs at street level out front, so guests get a sense of the town action. (This may be the year’s top oxymoron: “St. Helena town action.”)

Pet peeve: They don’t take reservations.

When even a tiny restaurant like Cook down the block makes the effort to accept dinner reservations, why can’t, or won’t, French Blue?

Who wants to exit from a film at the Cameo Cinema and be told at a neighborhood restaurant that “there’s a half-hour wait for a table… how about drinking at the bar until a table is ready?”

If there were only one thing to fix at French Blue, it would be to offer reservations.

French Blue, 1429 Main St., St. Helena. Tel: 707-968-9200.

They Finally Hosted a Cultural Event for Margrit at Mondavi Winery!

After four decades of hosting receptions for visiting artists, chefs and musicians at her family’s winery, Margrit Mondavi was finally accorded her own cultural reception yesterday – for the publication of her new book, Sketchbook: Reflections on Wine, Food, Art, Family, Romance and Life.

The star of yesterday’s cultural event, Margrit Mondavi

Margrit, wife of the late Robert Mondavi, has created a collection of personal stories and sketches based on reflections about her life with Robert in the Napa Valley.

Margrit’s stylized drawing of the winery

The book is written in the spirit which Margrit and Robert brought to the winery; they always believed that food, wine and the arts need to be celebrated in everyday life – and all together. 

Margrit painting for Sketchbook

Margrit has illustrated many anecdotes in Sketchbook with her own watercolor images.

Janet Fletcher, who lives in Napa town, is co-author of Sketchbook

Foodwriter Janet Fletcher, who has written more than a half-dozen of her own food books, many of them award-winning, was Margrit’s co-author on Sketchbook, helping to give it structure and flow.

“We worked on Sketchbook for more than a year,” Janet told napaman, “and I kind of wished the project would never end. Margrit and I had a great time working on the project together!”

A number of close friends and family members also added to the memoir. French Laundry chef/owner Thomas Keller wrote the forward.

Margrit signing books at the launch reception yesterday

$10 from the sale of each book sold at yesterday’s signing was earmarked for the Napa Valley Opera House, an example of Margrit’s ongoing cultural support to the community.

Margrit and Robert Mondavi, 2005. I took this shot at the winery, on the occasion of Robert being awarded the French Legion of Honor for his lifetime work in advancing wine knowledge and appreciation.

Talk about cultural support; Margrit and Robert started the Robert Mondavi Winery Summer Concert Series in 1969 to bring first-class music to the valley and to support local musical development. 

Over the Summer Concert’s 43-year history, more than $2 million in proceeds have been earmarked for local musical education and enrichment; funds have been steered to support the Napa Valley Symphony, the Napa Valley Opera House and the Napa Valley Unified School District.

More than 300 guests showed up for the book reception and launch of Margrit’s Sketchbook

Margrit Mondavi’s Sketchbook: Reflections on Wine, Food, Art, Family, Romance and Life is available for $35 on amazon.com and also at the Robert Mondavi winery.

A Shout Out – for the First Talkie Film!

 

Okay you mugs, listen up! This is the President speaking…

The President … of the Al Jolson Fan Club of Toronto, Canada, which a classmate and I started in 1960. We loved the first talkie, The Jazz Singer, made in 1927, and we loved Al Jolson who starred in it, so we started a fan club for the long-dead (even then!) singer.

In you live in Napa Valley… or will be visiting July 15, here’s your chance to experience the first talkie film… under the stars!... with live musical accompaniment! The celluloid experience doesn’t get any better, or more real, than this.

In celebration of its centennial anniversary, our wonderful, charming, and historically important local Cameo Cinema, in St. Helena, is hosting a delightful evening of music and film at the Castello di Amorosa, in Calistoga, Sunday, July 15.

Highlights

 

Highlights of the evening, called “Jolson and Jazz Under the Stars,” include a screening of the film outdoors, along with live jazz performed by internationally acclaimed guitarist Martin Taylor and jazz vocalist Alison Burns.

FYI: Alison Burns was recently nominated a candidate for “Best Jazz Vocalist of the Year.” The award will be announced at the Scottish Jazz Awards later this month; Martin Taylor has already been awarded the prestigious “Order of the British Empire” by Queen Elizabeth.

Also on hand for the screening of the first talkie at Castello di Amorosa will be writer/filmmaker Cass Warner, granddaughter of Warner Bros. founder Harry Warner, who financed The Jazz Singer.

Cass will share family stories about the making of The Jazz Singer.

Hors d’oeuvres and desserts will be served by Knickerbockers’ Catering and wine will be poured by Castello di Amorosa, Cade Winery, Rasmussen Winery, Consentino Winery, Coquerel Winery, Domain Chandon, Casa Nuestra, and Swanson Vineyards.

Doors open at 7 pm. Tickets, which are tax deductible, are $125 in advance and $150 at the door. All proceeds will benefit Cameo Cinema Community Programming.

Tickets may be purchased at the theater’s box office at 1340 Main St., in St. Helena, every day an hour before the day’s first show time, or online at cameocinema.com.  

For further information, visit the website or call the Cameo box office at 707-287-4172.

See you at the movies! See you under the stars!

 

The Valley is Super-charged – Wine Auction 2012 has begun!

Nearly 2,000 visitors and Napa Valley residents bumped hips Friday at Jarvis Winery, kicking off Auction Napa Valley 2012.

 

Under several Big Tops…. 2,000 guests nibbled hand-held appetizers, presented by 40 of the valley’s top chefs and caterers, then paired the food selections with hundreds of offered wines. 

This is Day One of Napa Valley Vintners’ annual community fundraiser, the most celebrated charity wine auction in the world. Over many years, the annual event has raised -- and then donated -- more than $100 million to health, youth and affordable housing non-profit programs in the valley.

Essentially, Auction Napa Valley is a restrained three-day mosh pit for wine lovers who don’t like mud.

Founded in 1981, thanks to the vision of Robert and Margrit Mondavi, this annual wine event showcases the best of Napa Valley’s wine and food. 

Napaman rarely shows up in photos but I could not resist posing with two of the great ladies of Napa Valley – Cindy Pawlcyn, chef/owner of Mustard’s Grill and Margrit Mondavi.

Locals are given a chance to participate at Friday’s Barrel Auction and Marketplace; for a $350 attendance fee, they get to sample more than 100 wines offered in an online barrel auction and feast on foods prepared by more than 40 local chefs and caterers.

In this respect, Friday is a day of sophisticated indulgence.

Observation about the event

Owing to the way the winery and food kiosks were randomly placed next to one another, Napaman found many deep, dark, brooding Cabernets being poured next to stations serving uncomplimentary dishes like shrimp, or seafood.

Suggestion to organizers: Next year have a series of red wine stations under one tent paired with food purveyors serving ribs, and meaty dishes, and have wineries serving whites and roses in a second tent, served with foods that complement such wines.

Sean Knight and Patrick Kellaher of Mustard’s Grill dispense some mighty tasty hoisin-marinated St. Louis-style ribs. In Cindy Pawlcyn’s cookbook, the marinade is called Mongolian Marinade.

Greg Cole, chef/owner of Celadon and Cole’s Chop House, in Napa, served a delicious shrimp appetizer.

Sarah Mitchell Hansen and her mom, Karen Mitchell, of Model Bakery fame, with storefronts in St. Helena and Napa town, serve biscuits with macerated strawberries.

Marc Cohen, proprietor of Howell at the Moon, pours a Cabernet that won’t be released until this fall.

Kara Haspel Lind is the founder and driving force behind six Bay-area outlets of Kara’s Cupcakes. Today she served several of her 80 different varieties of cupcakes.

I’ve always respected – and liked – the wines made by Joe Cafaro from his vineyards in Stag’s Leap District.

Masaharu Morimoto, who has eight eponymous restaurants serving his edgy Japanese fare, presented what I thought was the single best hand-held food item at the Friday food festival – sensational Hamachi tacos, made from a recipe Morimoto created for his restaurant in Mexico City.

Morimoto’s Hamachi tacos were so good, I went back for seconds.

Neno Giovani, the smiling GM at Bistro Don Giovanni, serves one of Scott Warner’s focaccia breads, which has been filled with Gorgonzola dolce, arugula and apricot. I have eaten at Bistro Don Giovanni more than 300 times since moving to Napa Valley and have never had a disappointing meal here.

After the midday food festival ….

Guests start to move into the underground barrel room of Jarvis Winery to take part in the colorful barrel auction. 

 

Jarvis Winery, located north and east of the town of Napa, is built entirely underground. As a consequence, the food festival, known as Marketplace, was presented on a grassy patch leading into the sunken winery; the wines-in-barrel being auctioned were on view in the underground bunker.

According to Napa Valley Register reporter Pierce Carson, the Jarvis barrel chai, where the barrel tasting was held “is the one of the largest underground man-made chambers in the world.” (Chai, pronounced SHAY, is the French term for the room where wines are aged.)

I’ve never seen a carpeted underground wine facility, but the first 100, or so, feet of the Jarvis cellar is carpeted. This leads into a series of chambers, and if you are on the right path to the wine auction, you pass a gurgling waterfall… continue on the yellow brick road until you reach… the chai!

Guests tasted barrel samples from more than 100 Cabs (mostly from 2010), which were poured, by their producers. Guests bid for full cases of the wine.

When I left the din of the dungeon, guests had bid up a single case of 2010 Shafer Hillside Select (Stag’s Leap District) to $7700 a case.

The underground scene was chaotic, noisy and claustrophobic; too many people in such a tight space; guests had to yell to be heard when standing next to each other. Hey! Wait a minute – sounds like just about every restaurant at which I dined last week in New York City!

Favorite line overheard at the Friday Barrel Auction:

Don Weaver, Estate Director at Harlan Estate, known for high-scoring, price-soaring, highly collectable, Cabernets:

 “I’m going to try and show some personal growth today… and have a glass of white wine…”

How Can a Wine Be This Good 13 TIMES???

The only wine in my life of which I have drunk an entire case and rated every single bottle of the case a perfect wine was the 1990 Le Vieux Donjon, from Chateauneuf-du-Pape.

I LOVED THAT CASE. And every bottle in it.

I was apparently justified in thinking so highly of the 1990 Le Vieux Donjon; in Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate several years ago, he quoted sommelier Doug Mohr of Vidalia restaurant, in Washington D.C., who marveled that “the greatest wine he had ever tasted was the 1990 Vieux Donjon Chateauneuf-du-Pape.”

Gentlemen of the jury, I rest my case.

As perfect as 1990 was, other vintages of this wine have also produced giddiness when served with great food.

Several years ago, I paired a 2001 Vieux Donjon with my wife Carol’s homemade pappardelle tossed with a sensational veal ragout (a variation of a Mario Batali recipe, only Carol makes it better!). The wine offered a near-duplicate experience of the 1990 vintage.

Here was a wine of exceptional length and extraordinary quality. Another perfect wine. Brilliant, elegant, rich, balanced. A 100-pointer, for sure.

There was nothing missing in this wine, no flaws, only gemstone brilliance, bright mature fruit, terroir, minerality, and a finish that Burgundian producers would kill to duplicate.

So imagine my extreme pleasure to have received an email two weeks ago from Stefan Blicker at BPWine, in St. Helena, offering to collectors a single bottle of 1990 Vieux Donjon, which he had acquired with the purchase of a large private cellar. He was asking $150 for the bottle.

I called Stefan, from whom I have bought many fabulous Chateauneufs-du-Pape over the years, and made an offer he couldn’t refuse:

“Take that bottle of Donjon off the shelf and bring it to lunch. I will write an encomium to the wine, which is the best press coverage you – and the wine – will ever have, “ I pledged to Stefan, knowing full well that he didn’t know what an encomium is.

He agreed. Which just shows that wine retailers aren’t any smarter than winewriters.

Hey! Before we get to details of our lunch, let me give a brief overview of Vieux Donjon, pirated from the superb book The Chateauneuf-du-Pape Wine Book, by Harry Karis.

If you missed my earlier review of this book, you’ll find it here:

http://www.napaman.com/napamancom/2011/02/the-best-wine-tasting-of-2011-and-its-only-february.html

The winery

Le Vieux Donjon was founded in 1962 by Marcel Michel.

The winery is named for the view of the original Chateauneuf chateau, which Marcel’s home over looks.

Today, a third generation of Michels runs the winery; it’s in the hands of Marcel’s granddaughter Claire Michel, who interned at -- of all places! -- Harlan, here in Napa Valley.

VD (as we affectionately call it) has nearly 35 acres of red grapes and 2.5 acres of white varieties.

Unlike neighbors, who make several cuvees – a luxury selection and a lesser cuvee – VD only makes 1 cuvee, producing the single best wine it can make from its grapes. And man, they hit the ball out of the park many times each decade. But particularly in 1990 and in 2001, two of my favorite-ever years for Vieux Donjon.

The traditional blend is 75% Grenache, 10% Syrah, 10% Mourvedre, 5% Cinsault.

All varieties are vinified together, with the exception of Mourvedre, which is vinified separately and then blended with the others to be matured in wood.

The Michels age their Chateauneuf-du-Pape for 18 months in large wooden foudres.

Not terribly impressive for its “world headquarters,” but Le Vieux Donjon’s wines, produced here, are among the tops in Chateauneuf-du-Pape.

To Lunch We Go…

And now, ladies and gentlemen… to the luncheon with Stefan, who, last seen, was clutching the 1990 Vieux Donjon as though it were a bar of gold. I think he feared that I wouldn’t have anything to write about if he dropped it.

Stefan Blicker, of BPWine.com

We dine at one of my favorite Napa Valley restaurants, Market, on Main St., in St. Helena.

Upon being opened, the wine exhibited scents of cedar, wood, rich white truffles, anise, garrigue, licorice, herbes de provence, and kirsch.

The wine is opened by waitperson exceptionelle, Lacey McDaniel

“1990 was one of the ripest Donjons ever made,” says Stefan, who loves the Grenache grape almost as much as I do. Stefan, 44, owns and operates BPWine with partners Brent Pierce and Cory Wagner.

BPWine is one of Napa Valley’s larger wine retailers. I asked Stefan what’s the oldest, rarest wine he’s ever sold.

“We secured an 1865 Lafite (Bordeaux) from a private cellar and a collector bought the bottle from us for $10,000. The customer then consumed it at The French Laundry as part of an exceptional dinner.” 

The 1990 Donjon may not be in this same league, but for us humble folks who remember our roots, and who can stretch to pay $150 for a wine of this stature, there is still a ton of pleasure here.

The Donjon is elegant, focused and shows improvement with each ten minutes of passing time, putting on weight and adding complexity. 

After 30 minutes, the wine is humming along, exhibiting raspberries, lots of garrigue, truffles, and fresh herbs, just cut from an organic garden. Sure doesn’t taste or smell like a 22-year-old wine.

Lacey asked if she could shoot the two diners wasting her time  -- I think she meant with a .45 caliber pistol, but she settled for my camera when I handed it to her to take this shot. That’s me on the left, Stefan on the right.

The wine is also special – and one of the year’s best – for what’s NOT present. There is NO:

+ Bottle funk

+ Bottle stink

+ Brett

+ Off-flavors

+ Advanced Age

+ Storage issues

In sum, the wine is a perfect 100 – in both provenance and pleasure.

I LOVE the chopped salad at Market

We paired the wine with two of my favorite dishes at Market; the appetizer chopped salad has many delicious ingredients. It has crunch, richness, complexity, and sensational taste.

The small plate pepper-crusted filet medallions, served with Napa Valley’s best truffled, shoestring fries, is a natural, totally complementary dish to the wine, which itself boasts truffle-y flavors. I LOVE THIS DISH and have had it at Market a half-a-dozen times in the past two months. Congratulations to chef Eduardo Martinez for duplicating this perfect dish time after time.

And thanks to the Michel family for making yet one more perfect bottle of 1990 Donjon, my 13^th perfect experience of this wine.

Best Wine of the Year so Far!

Six years ago, I visited one of my favorite wine producers, Domaine Roger Sabon, in Chateauneuf-du-Pape, on a visit to the southern Rhone.

The consulting winemaker to this property, Alain Benquet, is a good, longtime friend and he secured a tasting appointment for me with the owner, Jean Jacques Sabon. 

Backgrounder about this wine

Robert Parker has scored the 2001 vintage of Roger Sabon’s top cuvee, called Le Secret des Sabon, a perfect 100 points on every occasion he has tasted it.

I have been fortunate to experience this wine on several occasions.

In 2004, at a business dinner, I ordered this wine at the French Laundry, in Yountville, and rated it 100 points. It was a perfect wine.

In 2006, I had it again, this time with Jean Jacques and Alain at the winery and rated it 100 again. 

And now, six years later, last night, I opened my only cellared bottle (which I purchased at the winery) and it is just as impressive, easily a 100-point wine. Maybe more.

The wine exhibits a core of very ripe black fruit, predominantly black cherry and backberries. There is a backfill of grilled steak flavors and a faint echo of white birch sap. (Trust me - it's there.)

There is more than wine in this bottle; upon pouring, one senses an essence, a spirit, of wine, which is more than just juice.

Thrilling, complex, complete, this is, without question, our best wine of the year so far.

GIII – It could stand for Gorgeous Grape Growing!

These uncommonly good wines come from grapes commonly grown in one of the most historically important vineyards in Napa Valley.

GIII (G3) sounds like a hot new sports car, or maybe a reference to a summit meeting of finance ministers from the industrialized nations. 

But it's actually shorthand wine-speak for one of the most revered vineyards in Napa Valley.

GIII, as it became known, was the third vineyard, which legendary winemaker Georges de Latour bought, in 1928, for his winery, Beaulieu Vineyards.

Latour’s three Beaulieu wine blocks, all in the tiny hamlet of Rutherford, are reputed to produce some of the best Cabernet in America. They certainly produce some of the most historically important, and critically acclaimed, wine in the country.

Georges de Latour, a chemist from Perigord, France, came to Napa Valley in 1883, in search of tartaric acid (cream of tartar), required to make baking powder. (One of the byproducts of winemaking is tartaric acid.)

Like so many of us today, Monsieur de Latour got hooked by the wine bug and began to buy more than just tartaric acid – he started to buy land and bought a winery.

Latour, in many ways the granddaddy of grape growers here, called his winery Beaulieu (“Pretty Site”). By 1913, his Rutherford winery could produce 126,000 cases of wine annually, mostly Cabernet, Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon.

The original blocks of land, which de Latour bought, are designated:

BV 1 (his first acquisition), on the west side of Highway 29, across from today’s BV winery. The block stretches west to the foothills of the Mayacamas Mountains.

Today the 79-acre block is planted with all five classic Bordeaux varietals, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Petit Verdot.

BV 2, the second purchased property, is adjacent and south of BV 1. These 125 acres are today planted to Cabernet Sauvignon and a small amount of Merlot.

de Latour’s GIII block, shot last week, before bud-break

BV3, when sold by Beaulieu became… GIII Aha! We finally get to the hero of today’s story and tasting. This 300-acre parcel, adjacent to what is Caymus Winery today, runs between Conn Creek Road and the Silverado Trail.

(Relax, this history portion of the story is nearly done! And besides it’s not on the final exam.)

The GIII block

Georges de Latour made many innovations in California’s wine industry. Most notably, turning to his French roots, he advocated using small oak barrels to age different varietals. This gave his wines a complexity and depth not seen before in American wines.

The best wine produced at BV has always been the Georges deLatour Private Reserve, first produced in 1936. At one point, running into quality issues, de Latour hired wine wizard Andre Tchelistcheff to modernize production. This was a brilliant move as Tchelistcheff elevated the wines – and the brand – to superstar status.

The GIII block, today owned by Andy Beckstoffer

In 1988, Andy Beckstoffer, Napa Valley’s largest independent grape grower, bought GIII. Recognizing the historical importance of the vineyard, and knowing what great fruit it produces, Andy replanted with five updated Cabernet Sauvignon clones, changed the direction of the rows, imposed tighter vine spacing and opted for advanced trellising to improve quality and tonnage.

How we got to where we are today – the GIII tasting

David Stoneberg, St. Helena Star, and Andy Beckstoffer at the 750 Wines tasting

One day in January, David Stoneberg, who is both editor and wine editor of the St. Helena Star, suggested to Andy Beckstoffer that he bring together a number of the winemakers who purchase his GIII grapes and conduct a blind tasting to celebrate the bounty of this historic vineyard.

Good thinking, David! Good work, Andy!

David and Monica Stevens, owners of 750 Wines, in St. Helena, amenable as ever, agreed to host the tasting. Only the winemakers and several members of the press were invited, napaman included.

Today, the fruit, which Andy Beckstoffer manicures and matures on the 300-acre GIII parcel, is sold to no fewer than 30 different producers who forge their own style of wine. The purpose of today’s tasting was to see if a common elegance, or thread of DNA, might be evident in the resultant wines.

The wines, tasted blind, were split into two flights and scored; 2008 wines, and then 2009 wines (with one 2010 barrel sample included as a ringer). 

2008s

2008 Myriad, GIII Vineyard

Among the 2008 wines, napaman and the group shared a common opinion. We ranked the Myriad Cabernet as our favorite expression of GIII fruit. I noted that the wine had a lovely balance and elegance, and a syrupy texture bordering on silky.

On the Internet, this wine is $65.

2008 12 C GIII Vineyard

Napaman and the group were also of the same mindset about a wine called 12 C, which we ranked our second favorite of the 2008s. The wine exhibited plum and blackcurrant aromas and flavors and had an aromatic complexity suggesting that it may not be all Cab.

You can find this wine on the Internet for between $60 and $75.

2009s

2009 Fairchild Estate, GIII Vineyard

In the 2009 flight, my first choice, tasted blind, was the Fairchild Estate Cabernet. A gorgeous wine. The group, whose scores were added up and divided to get a group average, ranked this wine its second favorite.

I thought the wine had a sensual element, exhibiting soft ripe, as well as dried, fruit flavors.

At the winery, the wine is $145.

2009 Sojourn, GIII Vineyard 

I ranked Sojourn Cellars my second favorite of the 2009 wines, while the group ranked it tops. The wine is made in Santa Rosa, Sonoma County.

At the winery, the wine is $95.

At the end of the tasting session, the winemakers were asked if they could detect a common thread in the wines, all made with GIII grapes.

Roy Piper, a Napa Valley winemaker and winewriter, voiced the opinion that there was noticeable acid (a good thing) in the wines and good loamy (soil) characteristics.

“These GIII wines are not uber-big, like the wines from Ta-Kalon vineyard (in Oakville) – they’re more restrained, exhibiting red fruit flavors rather than darker fruit flavors,” Roy noted.

Most of the winemakers agreed with Roy, as did I.

In the end: Could I isolate a GIII wine in a blind tasting of wines from many different Napa Valley vineyards? Absolutely NOT.

But what we learned from the tasting is that GIII grapes, under the tutelage of talented winemakers, can sure make one tasty beverage.

Waiter, Hail Me a Cab…

In fact, get me four Cabs - two from France and two from Napa Valley. 

Our Boys Night out For Burgers started earlier yesterday when I read winewriter Richard Jenning’s column on 2001 Napa Valley Cabs.

Richard is my favorite, new, go-to voice for judicious juice commentary, This guy knows his wines and has a great palate. He lives in the Bay-area and we were fortunate to have dinner together a month ago.

Go here to see Richard’s thorough overview of the 2001 vintage of Napa Valley Cabs:

http://www.rjonwine.com/cabernet-sauvignon/2001-napa-retrospective/

Richard’s observations are that some big-name 2001 Napa Valley Cabs have lost their balance, fruit, and charm, and many are just quirky and flawed.

This made me run to my cellar to pull out some 2001 Napa Valley Cabs for dinner to see if my wines were experiencing this bottle breakdown.

A good Rutherford winemaker friend pulled out some 2000 French Bordeaux for comparison and we headed to Market, in St. Helena, for what is possibly the valley’s best burger.

Yes, I know, it’s hard, if not impossible, to judge Bordeaux and Napa Valley Cabs at the same time; California wines, with their higher alcohol, and elevated fruit extraction, usually clobber the bejesus out of French wines at such pairings. Not because the Napa Valley Cabs are better, but because they’re just more in-your-face bombastic.

Surprisingly, the four wines we chose from our respective cellars were flawless, delicious and one Bordeaux, the 2000 Chateau Pape Clement, was so filled with fruit and ripe blackcurrant flavors, that it was my “wine of the night.”

The two Napa Valley Cabs, thankfully, showed well.

 

2000 Chateau Brane-Cantenac (Margaux)

 Perfectly mature at 12 years, showing soft, rose petal scents and tasting more of ripe red fruit than anything dark or plum-like. Medium-weight. 91 points.

2000 Chateau Pape Clement (Pessac-Leognan)

A remarkable beverage, reminding me of dark purple, blackcurrant pastilles. Wine of the night. 94 points. 

 

2001 Turnbull, Weitz Vineyard, Oakville

Of the two Napa Valley Cabs, this one was the more puissant, the more fruit-forward. Perhaps a bit of residual sugar here, or is the perceived sweetness simply from an abundance of fruit? A delicious wine showing balance and remarkable grace, given its forward fruit. 93 points. 

2001 Beringer Private Reserve

Upon release, I thought that this might become one of Beringer’s best-ever wines. I have followed its evolution since the day it was bottled (I was there) and must remark that no single bottle I have tasted since (and I bought a case) has yet to deliver what I expected from this wine.

Tonight’s bottle is the best I’ve yet tasted, so perhaps the wine is just now coming into a stage of maturity?

Lots of licorice, anise and salt on the palate; an hour into the bottle, the wine was starting to show angular features and tasting a bit hot. 91 points.

Eduardo Martinez, executive chef/owner, Market Restaurant

2012 Hamburger, Market Restaurant, St. Helena

To paraphrase Elizabeth Barrett Browning:

Oh how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. 

I love thy fresh, juicy, warm center, of delicious Niman Ranch beef;

I love thy egg-y bun, almost sweet, never spongy, a superb carrier;

I love thy toppings, rich Fiscalini Cheddar, and sweet grilled onions;

I love thy bountiful fries, perfectly cooked and salted.

Market Restaurant is at 1347 Main St., St. Helena. Tel: 707-963-3799.

 

 

Here Comes the (Tuscan) Sun!

Get out your Crayola crayon and circle NOON, Sunday, April 1 on your calendar.

This is when the Cameo Cinema, in St. Helena, will host a premiere showing of Under the Tuscan Sun.

This is the movie adaptation of Frances Mayes’ bestselling tale of the same name. And guess who will be on hand to answer questions and sign copies of her new tome, The Tuscan Sun Cookbook?

Frances Mayes, that’s who.

In addition, my close friend, Steven Rothfeld, a St. Helena resident, will be present; Steven, one of the most gifted photographers I have ever known, took all the photos for Frances’ new cookbook. And like everything Steven shoots, they’re stunning.

Kale, white bean & Sausage Soup

About the Cookbook:

La dolce vita. For real. A typical al fresco table.

The Tuscan Sun Cookbook is a collection of 150 recipes inspired by 20 years of cooking at Bramasole, Frances and Ed Mayes’ home in Cortona, Italy.

Napaman received a review copy of the cookbook, but too late to prepare any of the mouthwatering dishes for this column; but  the dishes look stupendous, don’t appear to be challenging, and if you like “food porn,” you’ll want this volume for your collection just for  Steven’s images.

But more about the movie, starring Diane Lane:

We asked Cathy Buck, who owns the Cameo Cinema, for details about the premiere screening:

“We like to think of this as an afternoon in Italy! Frances Mayes will be our guest for the screening, which will be followed by a Q&A and book signing of her cookbook.”

Frances in her garden, in Cortona, Italy

“Italian bites from St Helena’s Knickerbocker’s Catering will be paired with wine from Benessere Winery. Guests will also be served gelato from Sogni Del Dolce and a taste of homemade limoncello,” adds Cathy.

Ed and Frances in their Tuscan kitchen – source of all the recipes in her new cookbook

Tickets are $50 each. Cathy will have copies of Frances Mayes’ new cookbook, which Frances will sign, for sale. Book tickets online on the Cameo web site – www.cameocinema.com – or at the box office.

The doors open at 11.30 am Sunday, April 1.

See you at the movies!

PS: All the photos in this story courtesy of Steven Rothfeld. Way to go, Steven!

Don’t miss this sensational winemaker dinner, April 19!

Hola! If you live in the Bay-area within the sound of my voice, circle April 19 on your calendar and immediately call Tra Vigne restaurant, in St. Helena, to reserve a seat, or two.

Charter Oak, homegrown here in Napa Valley, and EIEIO, from the Willamette Valley, OR, are co-hosting a sensational dinner to:

1. Show off their respective wines (six will be poured at dinner) and
2. Celebrate the cooking of one of my favorite Napa Valley chefs, Nash Cognetti.

The seasonal Italian dinner will be served in the restaurant’s private dining salon, Cantinetta, and there will only be 36 seats for this rare event. (We prefer our winemaker events as we prefer our steaks – rare.)

EIEIO is a fun label, but a serious wine, produced by a colleague and friend, Jay McDonald, who actually lives on a farm in the Willamette Valley.

Jay borrowed from the childhood nursery rhyme, figuring that since he lives on a farm, where he grows grapes, he might as well name his wines on this basis: “Old McDonald had a farm, EIEIO.”

Jay also owns and operates one of Oregon’s foremost retail wine stores, a sweet, small, focused operation called The Tasting Room in Carlton.

Jay Mcdonald, right, walks through his Yates-Conwill Vineyard with Shannon, a harvest helper.

Essentially, Jay took over what used to be the community bank, converting it into a wine store. The treasured wines are kept in what used to be the bank’s vault. 

If you’d like some background on Jay and The Tasting Room in Carlton, check out an earlier story I wrote:

http://www.napaman.com/napamancom/2008/05/oregon-pinot-noir----proof-that-the-best-things-in-life-are-not-free.html

EIEIO vineyards, source of the Chardonnay and Pinot Noir dinner wines

The dinner and wines 

For the dual winemaker dinner at Tra Vigne, Jay will be on hand to pour three wines:

2009 EIEIO Chardonnay Yates-Conwill Vineyard. Produced from Dijon 76+96 Clones, aged in predominately neutral French Oak. $25.

2008 EIEIO Cuvee E Pinot noir Willamette Valley. $35.

2009 EIEIO Cuvee I Pinot noir Willamette Valley. Predominately old Pommard vines planted in 1974. $45.

And from Charter Oak….

Rob (on right) and me, kibbutzing at Charter Oak.

Rob Fanucci

Rob Fanucci, Charter Oak winemaker, who asked me to become his winery partner four years ago, and I will be on hand to pour three of our favorite wines:

2009 Charter Oak David Fulton Vineyard, Old-Vine Petite Sirah, from 80-year-old vines planted in St. Helena. $48.

2007 Charter Oak Mt. Veeder Hillside Cabernet, from a vineyard high above Napa Valley. $75.

2009 Charter Oak Monte Rosso Zinfandel, from the oldest block of Zinfandel planted in the United States – 128 year-old vines in Sonoma County. $48.

If you like what you taste, you can order any of the six wines from the respective producers at dinner.

Charter Oak Zinfandel on the vine.

Rob and his family, in the cellar of Charter Oak

At Charter Oak, we hand press the fermented juice in Rob’s grandfather’s wooden basket press.

The price of a meal ticket is $100, subsidized by the winemakers in order to keep the cost down. The price includes a four-course meal, six wines, taxes, and even gratuities!

In the fall, I help Rob punch down fermenting grapes.

Here’s the full menu:

                EIEIO & Charter Oak Winemaker Dinner

                    Tra Vigne, Thursday April 19

 

                                            Primo

    Olive Oil Poached Santa Barbara White Seabass ‑ spring pea

                and watercress puree, shellfish nage

         2009 EIEIO Chardonnay, Yates Conwill Vineyard

 

                                            Pasta

    Hand-made Maccheroni alla Chitarra ‑ slow cooked sonoma duck

                        with wild mushroom sugo

                 2008 EIEIO Cuvee E Pinot Noir, Willamette Valley

                                            and

               2009 EIEIO Cuvee I Pinot Noir, Willamette Valley

 

                                            Entrée

          Bistecca alla Fiorentina ‑ garlic spinach, rosemary roasted potatoes

              2009 Charter Oak David Fulton Vineyard, Old-Vine Petite Sirah,

                                                and

                 2007 Charter Oak Mt. Veeder Hillside Cabernet Sauvignon

 

                                        Formaggi

            Cave-Aged Fiscalini Farmstead Cheddar ‑ Modesto California

            Black Market Colston Basset Baby Stilton ‑ Nottingham, England

           2009 Charter Oak Monte Rosso Vineyard, Zinfandel, Sonoma County

If you like what you see, call 707-963-4444 and ask the Tra Vigne receptionist to reserve a seat, or two. Seats will be held with a credit card. Reservations can be cancelled by phone up to one week in advance of the event.

See you there!

I’m In a New York State of Mind

Just back from a week in New York and my head is dancing with images of some of the most intense, and pleasurable, foods I have tasted in two years.

Rather than get into hyper-specific detail and a micro-review of whole meals, I will offer a review from 15,000 feet up – highlights. Think of them as potential leads, if New York is on your radar screen. 

Espresso at Ninth Street Coffee, in Chelsea Market

While the entire Chelsea Market is worth a two-hour visit, the must-try is the profoundly rich, exceptionally complex, espresso and cappuccino served at the Ninth Street espresso bar. Their Alphabet City espresso blend is custom-roasted by Chicago-based Intelligentsia, whose coffee I also adore.

Even though Carol, my wife, is an espresso Zen master, roasting her own espresso beans at home daily, she insisted we purchase a 1-pound bag of Alphabet City beans to see if we could replicate the flavor of their espresso at home. The good news: We can. We did. We do.

Ninth Street Espresso in the Chelsea Market, 75 9^th Av., between 9^th and 10^th Streets. 212-228-2930.

  

The Beast Master Pizza at Roberta’s in Brooklyn

Our son, Jason, who lives in New York and who is a culture vulture (he actually just started a cool New York Real Estate  web called blockhawk. Check it out here.), cocktail connoisseur and accredited foodie, compiled a list of must-try restaurants before we got to New York. One of the top spots on his list was this quirky, hipster-style boite in Brooklyn. In a crazy neighborhood, hidden behind an unmarked door, Roberta’s serves up some mighty fine fare, including some of New York’s best pizzas. 

We asked our server what she thought was the best of the best, and she suggested that we order a former house specialty, which at present is not on the printed menu. We acceded and ordered the Beast Master, a rich, satisfying, delicious pie combining mozzarella and Gorgonzola cheeses with a tangy tomato sauce. Great crust. Great pie. One of the best I have had in two years anywhere, our trips to Italy included.

Roberta’s, 261 Moore St., Bushwick, Brooklyn. 718-417-1118.

 

The $29 prixe-fixe lunch at Del Posto

Want to live like a king for a day? Dine at this regal 1-star Michelin restaurant, owned by Mario Batali. The setting is stunning; calm, royal, hushed. The food is of the caliber of that coming out of a 3-star Michelin kitchen. The service is refined, thoughtful, precise; so polished, in fact, that you’d swear you are in Europe.

With add-on prices for specific appetizers, unctuous sea meats and extravagant wines ordered from a magnificent list of Italian wines, our $29 per head luncheon with tax and tip wound up costing more than $100 per head. Never mind, it was so good that we made an effort to return two days later to repeat the indulgence.

If I were scoring the meal out of 100, I would have ascribed 105 points.

But when we returned the next day to rebook a second lunch, we were snubbed by two men at the maitre d’ station who were cold and disdainful. You might expect their demeanor at a mortuary, but not at a restaurant where one comes to celebrate life, not bury it. Their posturing was such a turn-off, in fact, that we canceled our return visit.

Top marks to Mary Grace who oversaw our thrilling dining experience and to Josh Eisenhauer, a tremendous sommelier, who hand-picked several brilliant wines to pair with our fare.

 

The desserts? I can’t recall having better confections in Italy. Superb.

 

 

 

Without question, our best meal of the week, by a city mile.

Del Posto, 85 10^th Ave., New York. 212-497-8090. 

 

Eataly

Chef Mario Batali and his wine sidekick Joe Bastianich teamed up with Oscar Farinetti, the creator of Eataly, a Turin-based, Italian food hall, to open New York’s Eataly last year. 

There are stories on the street that in its first year of operation, the New York food hall will gross nearly $90 million. That’s a success even if industry guessers are off by $10 or $20 million.

Eataly is New York’s new, must-visit food emporium, replacing Dean & DeLuca, Balducci’s, and Macy’s basement as the city’s “in” food destination. 

There’s something like 35,000 square-feet of food hall here, encompassing multiple eating areas (each featuring different fare – beef, fish, pasta, salads, wine, etc.) with multiple espresso bars, a gelato grazing station, shelves of Italian packaged goods, kitchen equipment, wine and beer.

I ate twice at the Le Verdure station, which features delicious salads. On my first visit, the grilled salad of bitter greens (Scarola alla griglia), tossed with pine nuts and sweet currants, was finished with a generous snowfall of Parmigiano Reggiano and a splash of a tremendous aged Balsamic vinegar (so good, that we bought a bottle to take home). We returned later in the week attempting to repeat the pleasure, but alas, a different cook, with a heavier hand, turned out a salad that was oily, dull, not delicate, and only memorable in that we would not order it again.

Eataly, 200 Fifth Ave., New York. 646-398-5100.

 

Parm

Katelyn, our counter server.

Our son Jason and several NY chefs insisted we visit this new lunch diner, a sister eatery to Torrisi next door, operated by two talented chefs, Rich Torrisi and Mario Carbone, who have worked with Mario Batali and Wylie Dufresne.

Baked ziti at Parm.

Only hours before our visit, the New York Times published a food story raving about the meatball sandwich here. Our counter server, Katie, kept her cool, despite the crush of patrons clamoring to get in to the small diner to order the sandwich. Call it meatball madness; at one point, the kitchen actually called a 30-minute time-out to catch up with a backlog of orders. 

Parm’s version of mile-high pie, a three-tiered, Neapolitan ice cream confection.

We opted to order the Parm chicken Parmigiana, served on a soft roll; delicioso. We also loved the ultra-moist, sliced turkey breast sandwich. 

Parm, 248 Mulberry Street, at Prince Street. 212-993-7189. 

 

The Breslin, in the Hotel Ace

Guests literally pigging out – on suckling pig.

Everyone raves about the lamb burger at The Breslin, which has two entrances, one on 29^th Street and one off the lobby of the Ace Hotel.

At 5 pm, the hotel lobby becomes a riot of young people, swarming to hook up with members of the same, or opposite, sex, and who are drinking some of the most exotic cocktails I’ve ever seen, or tasted. The din at 5 pm is so loud, it’s easier on the ears to go outside for a conversation; Broadway is like a hushed library compared to the decibel level in the hotel lobby.

But about the lamb burger: Juicy, moist, served with the best French fries I had all week in New York. And if one can make such a declarative statement – this is quite simply the best lamb burger I have ever had. Served on a soft, tasty bun, oozing taste.

Many wonderful and unusual cocktails served here, too. Don’t miss ’em.

The Breslin, 16 W. 29^th St., New York, 212-679-1939.

 

Il Buco

Il Buco, the original location.

So successful was the first Il Buco, that there are now two locations.  We visited both but ate at the recently opened one, where there is also a take-out, deli counter offering a selection of fine Italian meats and cheeses. Before dinner here, I noshed on the tastiest taralli (circular, pretzel-like breadsticks) I have ever had, and sampled delicious culatello, a refined version of prosciutto, reputedly made from heavier pigs.

Melissa, the bartender at Il Bucio II, works fast, making some of the tastiest cocktails I had in New York.

Dinner was sensational, a stampede of dishes brought to our table, one after another. The next day, we reviewed our printed receipt and observed that we had been brought small plates that we hadn’t ordered or paid for, and had been charged for dishes we ordered and never received. But the food and service, cocktails and wine, were so good that we didn’t feel gypped in the least. In fact, we can’t wait to return to sit at a community table again and try the many other dishes, which we didn’t have room to contemplate.

Il Buco II , 53 Great Jones, New York. 212-837-2622.

And finally, some additional food-related, and non-food-related, photos from our week in New York:

Look! Up in the Sky! It's a Bird! It's a Plane! NO, It's Yowayowa!

For half-a-year, I have been enjoying a most original, deliciously visual site called Levitation.

A young Japanese photographer, Yowayowa, captures her own image in various stages of "flight," though what she is actually doing is jumping at the instant her image is captured.

I signed up for Yowayowa's RSS feed -- so whenever she posts online, I get an email with her latest photo. Yowayowa's are some of my most eagerly awaited emails and they ALWAYS bring a smile to my face, even sitting at my computer alone... her shots are original and whimsical.

Check out the site and sign up to receive Yowayowa's emails (she doesn't post too often... maybe once every two weeks; since last May, there have only been 16 emails).  

Go to:

http://yowayowacamera.com/

and have some laughs!

If you are interested to learn how "levitation" photos are often made, I discovered a useful backgrounder at: http://www.picturecorrect.com/tips/levitation-photography-tutorial/

Best Wines of the Year

Ready, gang?

Here’s my annual summary of the year’s best wine experiences. Not just wines, but best wine experiences. 

Often we open great wines, which score high marks for what’s in the bottle; but a great wine experience has as much to do with the person with whom you are enjoying the wine, or the setting, as the wine itself. 

My Best Wine Experiences, in chronological order for the year:

The first wine experience of the year to grab me by the lapels occurred upon opening a 1970 Unfiltered Robert Mondavi Winery Cabernet. The wine was made in Bob Mondavi’s forth year of production and it was the first year in which estate grapes were crushed.

My old friend Harry Grant, from Los Angeles, brought the wine to Napa Valley to celebrate our 41^st anniversary – of having met at the Thorn Tree restaurant in Nairobi, Kenya. The year we met was 1970 – the same vintage as this Mondavi Cab. Harry and I bonded as youthful travelers in search of the inconsequential, and we spent a year on extended safari, traveling all through southern Africa.

From left to right; Harry Grant, from LA, who gave me the ’70 Mondavi Cab, and Rob Fanucci, my winery partner at Charter Oak, with whom we drank the wine. Not seen: Ken Miller, another friend, also present at the dinner.

I took the Mondavi Cab to dinner for a winemaker’s night out; we invited Rob Fanucci, my partner and winemaker at Charter Oak winery and another good friend, Ken Miller. We dined at Cindy’s Backstreet Kitchen, in St. Helena, enjoying some of the best burgers of the year, which perfectly complemented the rich and elegant ‘70 Mondavi Cab.

The wine was pleasing and sweet upon pouring, not what I expected from a 41-year-old wine. As the wine rested in the glass, it gained body, weight and a silken texture; 20 minutes later, the wine was better than it had been upon pouring. 

Initial flavors: cedar, tea, soy and ripe, older red fruit. Everything became more accentuated as the wine sat in the glass. A remarkable dowager wine, still strutting its stuff. 93 points.

Best Wine Night of the Year 

This has never happened to me in 35+ years of drinking and rating wines; the serendipity of opening four bottles of wine – two whites and two reds – and finding each of them a perfect 100-point wine experience. That’s a 400-point night!

The setting: Rutherford friends Liz and Dave Berry came for dinner on a beautiful August night; Among the gems we pulled from our respective cellars were two sublime white Burgundies and two exquisite, perfect and perfectly aged Chateauneufs-du-Pape.

What we drank.

2005 Patrick Javillier Corton-Charlemagne, Grand Cru.

2006 Marius Delarche Corton-Charlemagne Reserve

White Burgundies don’t get better than this. The peculiar thing is that I have opened many bottles of these two wines and due to bottle variation, have never had what I would call an “Aha!” moment. How strange then (and how wonderful!), to open BOTH these wines and find them exhibiting 100-point perfection. Extremely elegant, beautifully textured, sublimely pleasing.

1998 Domaine de la Mordoree Chateauneuf-du-Pape

Wowie. Over time, I have opened bottles of this wine, to which I ascribed 98 and even 99 points, but not ever 100. This particular bottle, however, commands a perfect score. Close your eyes and it could be a sublime Vosne Romanee; it has balance, finesse, elegance, hints of garrigue, and a plush, lingering finish.

2000 Domaine de la Vieille Julienne

My last bottle of this exceptional wine. A perfect bottle, showing saddle sweat, leather, earth, and a myriad of ripe fruit flavors. The wine ends with a long, delicious finish. If I thought eternity were this sweet and alluring, I might consider signing up for the package.

Even after several hours in a decanter, this wine had tons of life left in it – behaving like a well-trained ultra-marathoner who dances into the 50-mile marker, with tons of reserve to get to the finish line at mile marker 130.

Let’s Not Forget the Italians!

It was a great year for whites. We found this extremely delicious, extremely rare white from Jermann while traveling in Capri in September. Very little of this wine is exported to the US, but I recently found it on the menu in our ‘hood – and even by the glass! – at Alex’s Italian Restaurant, in Rutherford, here in Napa Valley.

I knew Silvio Jermann when I lived in Toronto, Canada. In the late 70s, he said he was moving to Fruili, Italy, to start producing wines. We patted him on the back and wished him well.

Don’t think we needed to wish Silvio luck; the guy’s super-talented and makes some of the very best whites in all of Italy. Today, his family farms close to 250 acres of grapes.

There isn’t anything Jermann makes that I wouldn’t score in the mid-90s, including his sensational Ribolla Gialla, which he labels “Vinnae.”

This wine is filled with fresh, tropical flavors, hints of mango skin and sports lush tropical scents. Fully dry and fully delicious, too. A 93-pointer for sure. Hints of Riesling and Tocai Friulano in the blend add to the richness and character.

I loved this wine so much that before leaving Capri, where we discovered it, I hunted down the last three retail bottles on the island and schlepped them home.

May your New Year be filled with fun, good health, and many wonderful wine experiences.

It Started in Napa Valley… and Yes, She’s Bananas for Bananas!

The world’s most popular fruit – the banana – has a new, tasty fan club.

Courtney Dougherty

Food entrepreneur Courtney Dougherty is launching a line of fully baked, ready-to-eat-out-of-the-jar, banana desserts that will have you smiling at their intense banana-based flavors.

Rather appropriately, the dessert line is called Bananappeal. Everything Courtney makes is all-natural, preservative-free and as she uses no hydrogenated oils, all her desserts are trans fat-free.

Courtney has produced four varieties of Cheesecake in a Jar:

Bananas Foster

Banana Gingersnap

Banana Tiramisu

Banana Strawberry

The Tiramisu and Strawberry cheesecakes are gluten-free.

She has also produced four varieties of Frosted Cake in a Jar:

Banana Chocolate Fudge

Banana Peanut Butter

Banana Salted Caramel

Banana Toasted Coconut

The Banana Peanut Butter Frosted Cake

If you can stop at one jar in a sitting, you either have Absolute Will Power, or you may be comatose; in which case, see a doctor. 

Courtney’s Bananappeal desserts are so good that Williams-Sonoma may put her mixed four-packs in its late winter/early spring catalogue.

MMMMM, love it!

The frosted cakes are available in both an 8-oz. (1-2 servings) and a 4-oz. (single serving) size, while the cheesecakes are available only in a 4-oz. size. 

At present, you can order these sensational, fully baked, ready-to-eat desserts from Courtney’s website, www.bananapppeal.com. 

Pricing:

The 4-pack, 4-oz. frosted cakes are $29.95

The 4-pack, 8-oz. frosted cakes are $39.95

The 4-pack, 4-oz. cheesecakes are $29.95

The 4-pack, 4-oz. gluten-free cheesecakes are $34.95

Full disclosure

I was introduced to 27-year-old-Courtney 16 months ago by Napa Valley wine friends who asked if I could help her refine a culinary concept. 

(I have been a product development consultant to the food industry for 35 years and have brought to market many of the products in your kitchen cupboard – mostly the healthier ones.)

I offered to coach Courtney at no charge, thinking this was an ideal way to give something back to the food industry, which has been good to me. 

I was particularly eager to help Courtney for four reasons:

1. Bananas are on my own list of food-favorites. 

2.  I was captivated by Courtney’s bright, spirited entrepreneurial approach to business. 

3. I enjoy mentoring bright, young people.

4. I respected Courtney’s credentials and experience. She graduated twice – once from Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration, and then she graduated from the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone, in Napa Valley, with a baking and pastry certificate.

Courtney has great experience, having worked with the best and at the best; she has been executive assistant to Tyler Florence, famed chef and Food Network personality; she was a respected concierge at Napa Valley’s Auberge du Soleil; she helped launch three restaurants in the Bay-area and has been a pastry chef at two top-tier American restaurants, Tru, in Chicago, and Eleven Madison Park, in New York. (I know, I know… after all this experience you’d expect Courtney to be 75!)

After a lot of backing and forthing across the country, Courtney longed to return to the Bay-area to explore her banana passion.

Bananas, grown in more than 107 countries, are universally available, but until Courtney came along, no one thought of producing a line of banana-based desserts. And even more specifically, no one thought of baking them INSIDE a glass jar – so that for convenience, and sheer pleasure, the consumer can spoon Courtney’s fully baked confection out of the reusable, or recyclable, jar.

What’s more, we discovered as we worked together that the glass jars are a superb barrier against spoilage.

Even though there are no preservatives in Bananappeal desserts, and everything is all-natural, the shelf-life of these desserts, kept refrigerated, can be measured in weeks, not days.

(For the record: I have NO commercial interest, or investment, in Courtney’s business; I only guided and coached her, at no charge, to help her get her product line ready to launch.)

About the Fantastic Packaging

Courtney’s original desserts, I felt, required original packaging. So I suggested that Courtney contact Jenn White Topliff, my daughter, to see if she could develop something special for “Court,” as she is known. 

Jenn is a Bay-area graphic designer with many years of professional experience, having designed compelling packages for many big-name clients. (Check out her work at www.13creative.com) 

Jenn and I have often worked together as a dad ‘n daughter team, Jenn producing imaginative packages for clients for whom I have fixed, developed, or improved products. 

I figured Jenn and Courtney, who are look-alikes, would develop a great friendship as well as great packaging. Dad was right on both counts.

I am proud of Jenn’s highly original packaging, which plays on a 50’s theme – a time when mom made these kind of desserts for her family.

Courtney and Jenn ham it up – but there is NO ham in Courtney’s frosted cakes!

Good going Courtney and Jenn! I didn’t think that this story should go un-applauded on the napaman site just because I had a minor hand in directing Courtney or teaming her up with Jenn. 

Update: To commence commercial production, Courtney has just left the Bay-area, relocating in Denver, CO, where she will produce all her banana-based, jarred desserts.

Good luck, Court – to keep up with demand…  and to get through the cold Colorado winter! The Bay-area’s loss is definitely Denver’s gain.

Napaman is NOT a shill for Shawn Askinosie! I can’t help it if he just happens to make the world’s best chocolate.

My hero, Shawn Askinosie. He used to be a feared, and fearless, criminal defense lawyer; now is he a fearless chocolate maker, feared by century-old chocolate manufacturers whose quality he has eclipsed.

Long-time readers of napaman.com are probably aware of my vocal, even exuberant, support of Shawn Askinosie, who makes single-origin chocolate bars, or tablets, in his Willy Wonka-like factory in Springfield, MO.

Shawn buys cacao beans directly from farmers who nurture their plants in the Philippines, Tanzania, Mexico, Ecuador and Honduras; this ensures quality but, more importantly to Shawn, this ensures that ALL the money he pays for these organic beans goes to the farmers. Nothing is siphoned off by middlemen, or negociants.

I met Shawn four years ago and immediately fell in love with his chocolate, his work ethic and his story and proclaimed his chocolate “the best tasting in America. Maybe the world.”

Fresh back from Europe a few weeks ago, where I tasted many great chocolates, I haven’t changed my tune. Askinosie is still at the top of the heap.

For one thing, Askinosie is the only chocolate-maker I know who does NOT add vanilla, or vanillin, to flavor his chocolate; he may also be the only producer who does NOT add lecithin, an industry-used emulsifier, which other chocolate-makers add to give their chocolate a satiny, smooth texture.

Shawn doesn’t need to rely on chemistry to achieve greatness. His careful sourcing and his tedious attention to detail at the manufacturing level means he doesn’t have to add lecithin.

For this holiday season, Shawn has gone into cahoots with two of his favorite food suppliers to create two new dark chocolate tablets. He calls these CollarBARation Bars, because he has made them in a collaborative fashion. What works for him, also works for his pals.

CollaBARation Bar #1: Dark Milk Chocolate + Black Licorice

This is the most original chocolate bar I have eaten in a decade. AND I LOVE IT.

Shawn partnered with his Scandinavian distributor Martin Jörgensen. (Yes, Askinosie chocolates are a HUGE hit in Scandinavia! I guess they must find something to temper the taste of reindeer pate.)

As Martin owns a licorice factory called Lakritsfabriken, in Ramlösa, Sweden, Shawn has added Martin’s premium organic licorice (it’s gluten-free!) to his own ethereal dark milk chocolate, made with cacao beans from Davao, Philippines.

I am swooning from the taste of this new creation; the sensual melt of chocolate reveals tiny nibs of delicious, salty licorice, which slowly dissolve on the tongue.

A tweak of fleur de sel sea salt in the bar increases the length of the finish.

There are also tiny anise seeds in the bar, a sort of flavor booster to augment the licorice-ness.

This is one of those food experiences where the sum of the ingredients is 1 + 1 + 1 = 5. So maybe it turns out that Shawn’s not so hot at math, but he sure is one helluva chocolate-maker.

The bar is now available on the Askinosie website (www.askinosie.com) and, if you are reading this column in Sweden, you will find it at the Lakritsfabriken licorice factory in Ramlösa.

The 3-oz (85 g) bar is $10.

But wait, there’s more!

CollaBARation™ #2: Dark Chocolate + Coffee

If you are a coffee geek and have been to Los Angeles or Chicago, you doubtless know about one of America’s greatest coffees – Intelligentsia.

As Shawn has such a high regard for the purity and flavor of this coffee firm’s roasts, he has teamed up to make a CollaBARation Bar that is a mixture of dark chocolate from single-origin, organic, Davao, Philippines cacao and organic, single-origin coffee from La Perla de Oaxaca, Mexico.

Talk about intensity of flavor! Here is chocolate from the dark side, so dark, in fact, that it makes Darth Vader look like an albino. Here we have dark chocolate infused with darkly roasted, Mexican coffee.

This somewhat gritty bar has the texture of canvas. It is so intense and dark that if it were a weather system, you’d be preparing for a black funneled tornado.

The press release says to look for “creamy caramel and a crisp citrus acidity.” I don’t share this sentiment and didn’t detect any of these flavors. But I’d still  encourage you to get this bar if you need a caffeine, or theobromine, hit and if you love dark chocolate and dark coffee.

Available at www.askinosie.com and Intelligentsia stores in LA and Chicago.

The 3-oz (85 g) bar is $10.

Now You Can Rent a TEP Device in the USA!!

Two weeks ago, I waxed poetic about traveling in Italy with my favorite new WIFI gadget, Tep Wireless, which I rented for about $10 a day.

It permitted me to connect up to five WIFI-enabled devices (iPad, iPhone, laptop, etc.) no matter where I went, as it converts a wireless phone signal, which is virtually omnipresent, into a useful WIFI signal.

Go here to see the original story:

http://www.napaman.com/napamancom/2011/10/my-favorite-new-tech-tool-a-must-have-for-european-travelers.html

Now, just today, Tep announces that the same rental service is available in the US, in Australia, and in Hong Kong.

This is how all my Canadian friends should travel in the US -- with a rented Tep Wireless device. It sure beats the high cost of hotel WIFI and means you can use your Canadian-based phones (or your European-based phones for folks visiting from Eruropa...) here in the US for unlimited data (not voice -- data) for about $10 a day.

Sure beats the high cost of data roaming or of usurious hotel WIFI fees.

Nice going, Tep!

For additional information, go to www.tepwireless.com

 

 

Holy smokes! This restaurant reviewer makes Michael Bauer look like he’s anorexic!

An old friend from my Toronto days, Josh Josephson, breezed through Napa Valley a few weeks ago.

Josh Josephson

I was out of town, so I asked Josh, who fancies himself a fulltime restaurant critic, when he isn’t researching neurosurgical drug matters, to send me a list of where he ate, what he ate, and what he liked while in Napa Valley.

The guy ate at all the places listed below in TWO days, took all these photos, and posted all these comments on his own site, http://cookbookstoreblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/napa-restaurants-french-laundry-tra.html

I append Josh’s review in full. It is unedited and does not necessarily carry my full endorsement or agreement. But this guy pretty much knows what he’s talking about; for one thing, Josh has a serious passion for food, cooking and cuisine, In fact, he opened, with Alison Fryer and Barbara Caffery, Canada’s first cookbook store. Called "The Cookbook Store," in Toronto, it's still running strong 30 years later.

As well as being an optometrist actively involved with research. Josh is chairman of the Standards Council of Canada, Ophthalmic Committees (spectacle lens, contact lens, contact lens care, product standards, etc.). He is Canada's sole voting representative at all ISO meetings.

Most recently, working with a research neurosurgeon, Josh founded a pharmaceutical company that has developed a stroke drug, which prevents complications from a stroke; at present, it is in FDA clinical trials.

All the while, Josh still owns and operates Josephson Opticians, Canada's first high fashion optical chain, established in 1935, by his dad, David, who outfitted me with my earliest glasses.

Anyway, have a look at where Josh ate in Napa Valley, and what he had to say about each course. It’s like a condensed visual Zagat trip through the entire valley.

One more thing: those aren't misspellings below. Those are quaint Canadian spellings: "flavour, colour, etc." Hey, Blame it on Canada!

 

The French Laundry, Yountville, California 

The French Laundry is on any serious eater's hit list and probably the number one on anyone's list of important restaurants to eat at in North America. Finally, I made the list of reservations! There are only 2 menu's, one having everything including meat and fowl, the other, "a tasting of vegetables."

A friend and I, both certifiably NOT vegetarians, and unbeknownst to each other, and, for the first time at any restaurant in our experience, we chose the vegetarian option.

My friend is a highly experienced mangeur of both great rustic and refined cuisine, a Frenchman who lives in London, has a second home in Cap Ferat and a third on the Isle of Wight. Both of us were taken aback when we learned about our choices and realized that we chose this menu for the same reason. The courses and course descriptions were more interesting to us than the meat/fowl menu. We were not disappointed.

Perfectly rendered cheddar cheese filled gougeres.

Cornet filled with salmon tartar, red onion, creme fraiche. 

Medjule date puree, chopped roasted cashew and cilantro in advance of the carrot soup to be poured.

The carrot puree soup with a touch of peanut butter in the puree. The sublime sweetness of the carrot puree went so well with the sweet date flavour. I do not eat mellons. The carrot soup was the chef's menu substitution.

My friend's choice of compressed summer melons with crystallized ginger, lemon verbena and garden mint. 

Salted and sweet butter for the bread. The butters were redolent of field flavours.

Jardiniere de legumes d'ete with Australian black truffle coulis. A marvellous, memory provoking range of bright flavours and textures.

The presentation of the gazpacho ingredients before an emulsion of tomato essence is poured: toybox tomatoes, cucumber, garlic, cilantro and Manni extra virgin olive oil sorbet.

The gazpacho complete. Certainly one of the best gazpachos that I have enjoyed, with a bright tomato flavour complemented by the Manni oil sorbet.

My friend's choice of chawanmushi, dungeness crab, current tomatoes, bonito, tosaka seaweed and strips of nori.

Salad of black mission figs with petite onions, Piedmont hazelnuts, arugula, and smoked soubise. The figs added a heavenly dimension to this dish and worked well with smokey flavour of the soubise.

Degustation de pommes de terres, fingerling potatoes, red radish, petite lettuces and Australian black truffle. This was a sensational dish of earthy, complementary flavours.

Cranberry bean agnolotti with brentwood corn, filet beans and bean blossoms awaiting the bouillon.

The mangalitsa ham bouillon is added. Fabulous contrasting flavours from the bouillon and the perfectly cooked, delicate pasta of the cranberry bean filled agnolotti.

 

My friend ordered the hand cut farfalle with hen-of-the-woods mushrooms, eggplant, Spanish capers, meyer lemon, pine nuts and parmesan "nuage". He felt that the pasta was not cooked adequately, left the pasta over and ate the rest.

"Burrata" consisting of "pain de campagne" croutons, baby squash, Greek basil and charred padron pepper vinaigrette. Again, wonderful layers of flavours that worked so well together with the nicely contrastng textures.

Persian lime sorbet with mascarpone "panna cotta", graham cracker and toasted marshmallows. After this great dessert  I was so satisfied and yet there was more!

Dark chocolate "marquise", malt "anglaise", raison puree, cocoa "financiere" and muscovado sugar ice cream.

 My friend's selection.

 

Fabulous mignardises with various fillings.

"Coffee and donuts!" A coffee, chocolate pudding like consistency on the bottom layer with a thick rich milk foam on the top, accompanied by chocolate coated macadamias and the best "timbits" (for you Tim Horton people) you have ever tasted, sugar dusted crispy skinned dough balls with a soft interior...addictive!

Tra Vigne, St Helena, California

Tra Vigne is a an always jammed, people friendly place with a rather somber inside room and an arbored, leisure encouraging outdoor eating area. A good friend, former Toronto epicure, food writer Jim White, now a Napa resident, praised the bistecca fiorentina at Tra Vigne. I was glad he told me as the waiter did not announce this steak as a special and it was not on the menu. Further, when I did ask, I was advised there were only 4 of these 2.5 pound behemoths and he better get right back into the kitchen to make certain that he could reserve one. Our steak was confirmed and we ordered it rare.

We began with wood oven roasted, baked fig pizza, with Sister Mercy's black mission figs, gorgonzola, arugula and aged balsamic. Great, complementary topping flavours and a nicely thin, tasty, crispy crust.

Another crisp and well flavoured hit, the rosemary pizzetta with roasted head of garlic, cambozola cheese and Dickson Ranch "Regina" olive oil. The pizzas at Tra Vigne were the very best that I tasted in the Napa region.

The best wood oven roasted padron peppers I experienced in Napa and almost every resto offered some version of these peppers! Perfectly cooked, tossed with Napa's taggiasca olive oil, pleasantly crispy skinned and not over oily. The gold standard for me.  

A perfectly rendered rigatoni alla carbonara made with guanciale bacon, onions, organic eggs, cracked pepper and parmesan. This was a very rich tasting dish for which the critical elements were the richness of the egg and the properly reduced sauce.

Our wine of the night. Pardon the side view as I tried to rotate the image: A fabulous Whitehall Lane Reserve vintage 2003.

The rare steak, served with crispy skinned, roasted potatoes and  perfectly sauteed spinach with olive oil and chopped garlic. This steak was as good as the best bistecca fiorentina I have ever enjoyed in Florence. Great flavour, texture and juiciness. A "beef boys" ranking of 8/8 1/2/ 8 1/2 (all out of 10).

Bistro Jeanty, Yountville, California

This casual bistro owned by chef Philippe Jeanty is where one can experience classic examples of well prepared, rustic, French influenced cuisine with a contemporary twist. The cuisine also well represents local produce and a good selection of regional wines.

Warm lamb's tongue, with potato, frisee endive, small capers, copped chives, chopped tomato and chopped parsley, all tossed with a tart, creamy mustard vinaigrette dressing. A superb dish.

Our wine, a very good example of regionally made pinot noir, Red Dog Vineyard's Ancien vintage 2007.

Blood sausage, caramelize apple on mashed potatoes. I love blood sausage and with the caramelized apples and mash, this well executed dish, with it's sweet earthy flavours, smooth but coarse texture, really hit the spot.

Leek and melted goat cheese tart. A melt in the mouth, intensely leek flavoured, thin crispy crusted delight. A perfect tart.

Bone marrow, sauce bordelais. Remarkable quality marrow, not too fatty/oily, perfectly cooked to be somewhat firm in texture. Wonderful flavour. 

Pied de cochon, lightly breaded, deep fried, crispy skinned, perfectly spiced and accompanied by a whole grain mustard sauce and tasty, crispy frites.

Lemon meringue tart with a shortbread crust, accompanied by a lemon orange sauce !! Just look at this mile high piece of indulgent pleasure! It tasted as good as it looked.

Armagnac soaked prunes over rich vanilla ice cream. These liquor soaked prunes were as good as I have enjoyed anywhere.

Oenotri, Napa, California

Oenotri has an ambitious menu and that attracted me to try the restaurant. The menu is rustic but sophisticated. 

To begin, the wood oven pizza disappointed. This pizza was topped with peppers, pancetta, red onion, aglio rosso and wild arugula. The toppings were very good, tasty and the dough had a nice flavour. However, the dough was too soggy in from the outer crust. The texture was almost bready and had an unpleasant stretchy/doughy texture.

Brentwood sweet corn, grape tomatoes and Blue Lake beans. This was a bland dish with no distinguishing element. The corn was sweet but not sweet enough.

These padrano peppers were strangely textured, rather oily and almost slimy. The aioli was spicy and had a nice creamy texture.

This was a good salad with Marin Roots mustard greens. roasted eggplant, Jimmy Nardello peppers, a slow cooked Tully Dolci egg and pecorino sardo. A very tasty salad with intriguing flavours. The wonderful tasting egg was perfectly cooked but did not seem a great complement for this dish.

Bucatini alla carbonara with pancetta, Tulli Dolci egg, coarsely ground black pepper and pecorino romano. The pasta was perfectly cooked and the black pepper a very good accent for the rich addition of the Tulli Dolci egg. However, the sauce was slightly too salty.

Wild nettle fidei pasta with wood oven roasted san marzano tomatoes, eggplant, Jimmy Nardello peppers and pesto Genovese. Again, the pasta was perfectly cooked and most of the flavours of this dish were good, especially the strong eggplant flavour. However, the dish may be too complicated with too many things happening. The pesto flavour component was a bit too salty and perhaps a bit overwhelming.

Perfectly cooked donuts had very good flavour and good texture with a crispy skin. The mascarpone sauce was a good tasty complement.

Lunch at Rutherford Grill

Lunch at the Rutherford Grill is said to be the time that many vintners and area farmers attend.    

It was certainly a convenient place to eat in the area that we were tasting wines.

We began with a wonderful coarsely ground, flavourful house made Italian sausage (no photo). This was probably one of the 2 best things I ever ate at the Grill in the 2 meals that I had there. It was juicy and had a mild fennel flavour. It was very juicy without being fatty.

Colcannon mash with a nice mild bight had good flavour and a texture that was pleasantly coarse rather than boringly creamy. That was the accompaniment of the tasty, oak wood roasted, rotisserie chicken. The problem was that is was a bit dry. Only the thigh section had any reasonable moistness (I am reaching here).

The burger arrived perfectly medium rare, as ordered. It was juicy, but too much of that juiciness was the fatty component. The fries were crispy and ok.

Dinner at Rutherford Grill

I ordered roast beef with high expectations. The owner of the Grill is reputed to be the owner of Huston's Steak House and apparently this resto is his "baby". He should know beef. The menu read well: slow roasted, roast beef.  I  asked if i could get my beef medium rare to rare, on the rare side. I was advised that my request should be no problem. It arrived as you see below: medium. It was tough and the texture a bit dry too. It was too well done for me to enjoy, so I asked to have it returned to the kitchen and I reordered the beef. The waiter was very gracious about my request.

In the meantime, I enjoyed the artichoke grilled over a wood fire. The artichokes had been basted with garlic butter loaded with finely chopped garlic and served with an extraneous sauce resembling remoulade, which after tasting, I ignored. This dish was one of my 2 favourite dishes in the 2 meals at the Grill.

While I was waiting for my beef, I had oak grilled pork ribs which were sided with the house made BBQ sauce. The ribs were a bit too "fall off the bone" done, but they were tasty from the wood smoke. They arrived with very good crispy french fries and a very good, creamy dressed slaw made with chopped parsley and chopped cabbage 

My Second serving of roast beef arrived. Remarkably, not to my liking, again: medium to medium rare, on the medium side. The beef was on the tough side and a bit dry tasting too! Clearly my server is no judge of what degrees of doneness should look like....and he should be as he is the quality controller of what is put in front of guests. The beef in this restaurant was a sincere disappointment. On the beef tasting scale we have established among our serious amateurs and professionals (the "beef boys") I would give it a rating of 53/4 /4 /4 (taste, texture and juiciness, on a scale out of 10). The horseradish sauce was not particularly enjoyable and the "au jus" a watery stock that a good piece of beef would make completely redundant. The potatoes were as I described before, for me, the only edible food on the plate!

Mustard's Grill

We began with a very tasty tomale made with sweet creamy corn, wild mushrooms, and accompanied by pumpkin seeds and a terrific tomatillo, avocado salsa.

Lightly breaded, crispy, very tasty onion rings were accompanied by a nice house made ketchup. They are great when they are fresh and hot.

The dungeness crab cakes were good but the salad dressing for the greens was really very enjoyable, a raspberry, canola oil, vinegar molasses vinaigrette. I have never had canola oil taste so good.

This was my half of the fabulous Don Watson lamb burger which arrived perfectly cooked as ordered, medium rare to rare, and what a great burger, my favourite item ordered. The burger was very juicy and had a light smokey flavour. The bun was also perfect, a crispy skin with a soft interior that did not fall apart as one ate the burger. Arugula and sliced onion were added to the burger. The fries were crispy and tasty but were over salted and frankly inedible. 

I had high expectations of the wood smoke oven cooked Sonoma duck. Unfortunately, the smoke flavour was overly strong. I suspect that apple wood or pecan wood was not used but would have been preferable. The meat was a bit too dry. The duck was accompanied by local beans, grilled sweet potatoes and mustard fruits.

Dessert was a terrific, intensely flavoured plum orange sorbet and pleasingly not too sweet. There was a very nice lingering after taste, an experience often lost in the quality of most restaurant sorbets.

Hurley's

We began with lightly breaded crisy mix of calimari, rock shrimp, red onion and cauliflower florets accompanied by a caper remoulade.

The best dish of the night was the lovely, crusted, savory onion tart, which contained caramelized onion with rosemary, applewood smoked bacon and goat cheese. Frisee lettuce and sliced cherry tomato were on the side.

The main was a tamarind and chipotle glazed portion of buffalo short ribs accompanied by a ginger and scallion risotto, and baby bok choy.

Bardessano Hotel Restaurant: Brunch

The Baldessano is a very attractive, modern and cleanly designed hotel that is so respectful of a natural habitat. I ate outside on a lovely, clear skied, sunny morning.

This was one of my very favourite meals in Napa. Pork cheek confit hash, wilted spinach, roasted root vegetables, yellow and green zucchini, crispy "Little Farm" potatoes all topped with a sunny side up egg and served with a house made, somewhat bland fresh tomato tasting ketchup (which I only tasted). What a great dish, alone, worth the drive to Yountville all the way from the Silverado Country Club! Wonderfully integrated flavours, each component perfectly cooked and all bound with a rich, highly reduced sauce that really helped to make this dish. Two varieties of toast accompanied this dish, rosemary flavoured sourdough toast and a whole wheat toast. Mclelland's lovely butter was served on the side along with very good house made preserves of blackberry jam with such bright flavours that made one want to eat more.

Oxbow Market: C Casa and Pico Pico Bar

My friend Jim White, now a native of Napa, highly recommended a sojourn to this market full of different food a craft purveyors. At certain times of the week there is also a farmer's market that I did not make.

C Casa

C Casa specializes in creatively made tacos with very wholesome, tasty ingredients. I just had to order 3. I began with a rotisserie duck taco with baby spinach, orange wedges, goat cheese, cilantro and serrano salsa. This delicious taco went down quickly! Then, a pork carnita taco with cabbage slaw, mildly seared pineapple, avocado and serrano salsa. I loved the fabulous flavours and textures. This taco did not last long either! Finally, a spiced lamb taco, with goat cheese, avocado crema, mint, jalapenos, garlic aioli and micro greens.This last taco was my favourite!

Pica Pica Bar

Still hungry, I wandered down to Pica Pica Bar. Their display looked very appetizing. I enjoyed a "maizewich" of grilled sweet corn bread "pernil", a wonderfully spiced, slow roasted shoulder of pulled pork, with sliced tomato, sliced avocado and a garlic aioli.

The patacones also looked so enticing, fried, crispy crusted plaintain tarts one filled with chopped avocado and chicken breast salad, another with spiced beans, chopped raw onion, chopped cilantro and chopped tomato and the third with shredded pork, avocado and chopped tomato. Despite the fact that by this time I was stuffed, I enjoyed finishing them all!

My Favorite New Tech Tool - A MUST-HAVE for European Travelers!

My iPhone was tireless and my Tep tool was wireless

Every time that I have previously gone to Europe, I have had to turn off my iPhone and keep it on Airplane mode for the duration of my travels.

Otherwise, I could run up a roaming data bill of $2,000 for a two-week vacation, as many irritated AT&T customers report they have unwittingly done.

But now there’s a new service in Europe that let’s you connect to the Internet for data wherever you go, for however long you want, and it’s not expensive.

The Tep Wireless Wifi device

Tep Wireless is a British-based data service that rents a pocket-sized Wifi device for between $8 and $10 a day, depending on which country, or countries, you are visiting.

You turn on the playing-card-sized Tep device and it picks up a wireless phone signal in the country in which you are traveling; it then converts this signal to Wifi for up to five of your own devices (cell phone, iPad, tablet, laptop), permitting you to surf the web and send emails to your heart's content. There are no additional roaming fees, and no fear of returning to America to face a $2,000 roaming data charge.

What you get in the Tep Wireless kit they courier to you: An electrical charger, a car charger (an optional fee) and the Wifi device itself.

Remember, this is for data transmission only and not voice, but you can always get voice for free by using Skype on your Tep device.

Tep Wireless has even taken a page out of Netflix; they courier you the device (along with a wall charger and an additional car charger, if requested) just prior to your international departure and provide a free, postage-paid, return mailer.

No hassles, nothing to take back to a store, no late fees, and no nonsense.

Me using my iPhone in Italy last week – thanks to Tep (data only); I checked the stock market daily, called up Google maps repeatedly to get un-lost and located some tremendous, off-road restaurants, thanks to Tep.

One more positive note: the cost of Wifi in Italian hotels has gotten expensive; in one Rome hotel, the posted rate was 15 Euros ($20) per day per device. For two travelers each with a cell phone and maybe an iPad or laptop, between them, this could easily run up to three devices x $20 each per day = $60 a day to have Wifi at the hotel only.

By contrast, I took my Tep Wireless device every where I went – even in remote outback areas -- and only paid a total of $10 a day, which enabled me to hook up as many as five devices for the one flat daily fee. That’s a substantial savings and a whole lot more coverage in Wifi-speke. Thanks, Tep!

Interested in learning more? Go to www.tepwireless.com

Thomas Wolfe was right: You Can’t Go Home Again

In the 1980s, as restaurant critic for the third largest newspaper in North America, I visited France with my wife, Carol.

Me, documenting dishes and wines at dinner

Upon arriving in Lyons, we had lunch at an intimate restaurant called Chez Lea, where the chicken, napped with a raspberry beurre blanc, was possibly the best chicken dish we'd ever had; it was so ethereal, in fact, that we made reservations upon finishing lunch, at 3 pm, to return again at 8 pm, the very same evening, to order the very same menu again.

We returned five hours later, sat down to eat the identical three-course meal but not one of the dishes was as good as it had been at lunch. 

Throughout our parallel careers in food (Carol is an extremely meticulous food editor) we have, on occasion, tried to repeat certain restaurant dining experiences, but alas, the second time is just never as good as the first time. We must be slow learners as we keep trying.

Last week we were in Rome, trying to repeat certain food experiences, which we’d had last fall in top-tier restaurants, and not one of them pulled its weight in consistency.

The worst experience was at Dal Bolognese, a Bologna-style restaurant where we dined twice last year. In fact, dinners here had been so memorable that they became the inspiration for a Bolognese birthday dinner, which Carol asked Nash Cognetti, exec chef at Tra Vigne, in St. Helena, to recreate in January.

Some of Fall’s best ingredients in the Italian kitchen

These too.

We returned to Dal Bolognese last week for dinner, hoping to re-experience our memorable meal moments. Our expectations were way out of line. 

The tortellini in brodo, Carol's favorite dish in the world, was insipid. "Uninspired" is a nice way of saying "it had no taste. 

The broth, which should have kvelled of rich, slow-cooked, country chicken, was totally under-salted, and lacked any chicken-flavor.

In fact, the broth had the taste and texture of -- how do you say this in Italian? -- acqua. The hand-made tortellini were dense, leathery, undercooked, and had as much flavor as the wool tassels on a Scottish bagpiper's sporran. 

For the next course, we split an order of tagliatelle with a Bolognese sauce. The house signature dish. The version last week was less than stellar and nothing as we remembered it. The pasta was undercooked, even for home-made pasta; it tasted of raw, uncooked flour. The meat sauce was over-salted, even before one added grated Parmesan cheese.

But the worst was yet to come.

Salsa verde and Cremona-style mustard.

We ordered the 30 Euro ($40) plate of bollito misto, a normally delicious melange of boiled meats and fowl, served with what should have been an outstanding salsa verde and a racy Cremona mustard (candied fruits in a zippy, sweet syrup, tweaked with a hot mustard finish).

Just before our bollito misto was served, the lights in the restaurant went out. And stayed out for the duration of our dinner.

One eerily glowing emergency light glowed across the entire dining room, casting a ghostly white shadow across tables, but little of this light reached ours.  

I would not have been surprised if Patrick Swayze, from the movie Ghost, and from his own deathly afterlife, brought us the bill. The place had that kind of ghoulish pall.

The restaurant’s bollito misto when the lights are on.

In the dark shadows, it was impossible to discern what we were eating. Certainly not from sight. But alas, also not from taste; all the boiled meats -- tongue, beef, chicken -- tasted the same and pretty much had the same texture. 

The meal ending took another twist; as the kitchen was dark, the chef couldn't prepare anything else, so we couldn't order dessert.

Here’s one other thing they couldn’t prepare: the bill. They couldn't get the VISA machine to work, as all equipment and phone lines, were dead. 

I suggested that they write down my credit card number and put the charge through the next day. They said they couldn't do this. 

Instead, the host suggested we return the next day to pay, incurring another $30 round-trip taxi charge – on us. 

What should have been a Happy Face meal, turned out to be a scary face meal.

At this point, the waiter came over to our table and said in a friendly, and understanding way, "Don't worry. You don't have to pay. Ees not your problemo."  My kind of waiter.

It turns out that Thomas Wolfe was right, particularly in the vernacular of restaurants; you really can't go home again. I think we’ve finally learned.

Gary Taxali - My Favorite Illustrator!

Often, readers ask, “who drew that cool dude?” referring to the iconic character in the upper left-hand corner of this site, who represents me, Napaman, a guy who writes about wine (and food) on the internet.

The answer is: Toronto artist Gary Taxali.

I saw this particular image in an international edition of Time magazine four years ago. I LOVED the image and knew that I wanted it for my soon-to-launch website, napaman.com; it perfectly portrayed, in a light-hearted way, what this site is all about.

I contacted Time, got the illustrator’s name and flew to Toronto to meet Gary. We negotiated a price for his original art and we subsequently became good friends.

Gary is a still-young, highly talented artist/illustrator. There’s almost no week that goes by without seeing one of his images illustrate a story in the New York Times, Business Week, Esquire, GQ, Rolling Stone, or Time.

Or I see his work on a wine label, or on a wind-up toy in a museum gift shop. The guy is everywhere.

And now, Gary has just published two books, compendia of his magazine illustrations and there are no repetitions in the two books – if you like his work, you need to consider buying both. That’s what I just did.

Gary has a weird, wonderful and warped way of expressing life in shades that resemble a vintage comic book; there is an underlying commentary on sex, life, and consumer behavior, and if you study his work, you will see that many of his characters return, time and again, as foils to make another social commentary.

Here’s what’s new:

I Love You, OK? Hardcover, 144 pages, featuring 120 works. This book, exquisitely printed in Italy, measures 6 x 7.5 inches and has text in English, German and French. Forewords by Aimee Mann and Shepard Fairey. $25 CDN (plus shipping) and each copy is signed.

Mono Taxali. Hardcover, 304 pages, featuring 175 works. This gorgeously printed book measures 6 x 7 x 2 inches (very thick book!).  It features four-color printing on laid paper with special varnishes. Forewords by Seymour Chwast, Steve Heller, Charles Hively and Ferruccio Giromini. $65 CDN (plus shipping) and each copy is signed.

The books are available on Gary’s website. To order, or learn more, go to www.taxalionline.com.

Brassica opens – Cindy Pawlcyn’s newest restaurant

 

Two things can be said about Cindy Pawlcyn: 

1. She sure as hell knows how to cook
2. She sure as hell knows how to throw a party

Nearly 800 guests took up Cindy’s invitation and attended the pre-opening bash of her newest restaurant, Brassica, in St. Helena, last night. 

Napaman was present but the crowd was so dense that it was impossible to raise a camera to get any meaningful shots. Hence the skimpy visual coverage. 

The name Brassica, of course, is ironic as it is Latin for the family of plants known as mustards. And it is Cindy, who for 28 years, has been the gale force behind Mustards Grill, which has been one of the valley’s best restaurants for this entire stretch of time. And still is.

Brassica is located in the space, which we all knew and loved as Go Fish, also a Cindy operation. But the sushi bar and seafood-driven menu ran their course; it’s thought that visitors to our valley want heartier fare to go with their killer Cabs. But we sure had some tasty dishes at Go Fish. May she R.I.P. 

Brassica’s menu leans on the zestier fare of the GMR – Greater Mediterranean Region; on the menu, I note the use of za’atar to flavor eggplant fries, and the introduction of lamb kebabs, Greek cheeses, and middle eastern tabouli.

Appetizers were offered last night but servers couldn’t keep up with the size of the crowd. A proper commentary on the food will follow in the weeks ahead in this space. Keep a-lookin’. 

Brassica 12

On the wine side, Brassica introduces a new concept called Brassica 12. The restaurant will highlight a dozen different, small-production Napa Valley winemakers who don’t have tasting rooms. Their hard-to-find wines will be showcased by the glass and bottle, and the selection will rotate.

Guests will be able buy individual bottles for home consumption, or buy a Brassica 12 12-pack (that’s NOT a typo! That’s a Brassica 12 12-pack!) for take-out.

Brassica, 641 Main St., St. Helena. 707-963-0700. Reservations suggested.

 

It must be August – I just attended Spottswoode’s Annual Garden Party

There are many wonderful annual major wine events in Napa Valley, to which I look forward, including February’s Barrel Auction and June’s Wine Auction.

But sweet, smaller, perfectly orchestrated wine events are no less compelling.

In particular, I look forward to Spottswoode’s late summer garden party, held each August on the front lawn of the family’s estate. 

I’m actually embarrassed to say how many times I’ve attended and written about this event, but if you search the napaman.com archives, you’ll find numerous references and alluring photos.

Orlando Torres serves gazpacho shots, offered to guests at the lawn party. This year, Knickerbockers’ Catering, from St. Helena, provided tasty salads, cheeses, and breads to soak up the many poured wines.

My two favorite wines of the afternoon were the 1998 Spottswoode Cabernet, poured from 6-liter bottles, and the unctuous, memorable 2003 Spottswoode Cabernet. 

Two of the cheeses served to winery guests

Commenting to one of the winery’s team about the 13.5 percent alcohol in the 1998 Cabernet, I mentioned how wonderful it was to drink a wine with such low alcohol. I added that I miss those days of lower levels of alcohol. 

By contrast, today’s Napa Valley fruit-bomb Cabs often have more than 15.5 percent alcohol, which diminishes their food friendliness, as well as how much of them you can drink at one sitting. 

One of the winery’s staff told me that there is a move afoot in the valley, and certainly at Spottswoode, to make wines with lesser amounts of alcohol.

“We are making an effort to get the alcohol down,“ I was told. “The fact that (wine critic) Robert Parker has handed over the reins from personally rating California Cabs to his associate Antonio Galloni, means that wines will now be praised for their balance, not their bombastic imbalance.”

In short, Parker loves large, fruit-forward, higher alcohol, scratch-out-your-eyes wines from the new world. Galloni, by contrast, who rates the wines of Italy, Chablis, Champagne and Burgundy is thought to have a palate that enjoys – and scores more highly – wines of balance, and lower alcohol.

We’ll have to see. But a universal truth is that winemakers everywhere will bend their winemaking ways to achieve high Parker scores, so if the new kid on the block likes them more sotto voce, that’s likely the way producers will try to make them. Nothing sells a wine like a good Parker rating.

If you want to be invited to Spottswoode’s next late summer garden party, you’ve got to become a good, and regular, customer, as I have been for the past nearly 20 years.

Poured today:

The 1998 Spottswoode Cab is at the top of its game. It will not get any better, so if you have some in your cellar, drink up. This is a truly tremendous wine from a cantankerous vintage. 94 points.

The 2003 Spottswoode Cab is, in a word, gawjus. What a stunning beverage, filled with ripe fruit and mature grape flavors. The wine exhibits a glorious middle palate of many flavors and an equally engrossing texture. 96 points.

One More Awesome Source for Killer Single-Malt Whisky

 

I just discovered one more incredible source in the UK for rare, hard-to-find, single-malt whisky.

You may have seen my two earlier columns on single-malt Scotch, based on two weeks of (highly dedicated) research in Scotland.

Missed them? Go to

http://www.napaman.com/napamancom/2011/07/for-10-days-napaman-became-hamish-the-scotsman-in-search-of-the-worlds-greatest-single-malt-whiskies.html

and also see

http://www.napaman.com/napamancom/2011/07/scotch-whisky-is-the-new-black-.html

Anyway, the pretty, crystal bottle pictured above was secured by my newest whisky friends, in Yorkshire, UK. Their business is called The Whisky Vault.

This is a family venture, run by dad Philip Hawley and his two sons, Richard and Thomas.

Philip, who works in construction by day, decided in May 2008, to turn his passion for single-malt whisky into a business.

Contact The Whisky Vault, tell them what you want, and there’s a great chance that they’ll find it. One of their clients called looking for the rarest Ardbeg whisky ever made, The Lord of the Isles, a 25-year-old whisky, which I had the rare pleasure to taste in Scotland at the distillery in Islay.

In short: it was one of the three best whiskies I’ve ever tasted; sublime, sensual, arousing, ethereal.

Think of The Whisky Vault as the Google of Whisky World – just query them, looking for something rare and obtuse… and they’ll have the answer and get what you’re looking for!

That pretty glass bottle above, by the way – it’s the most expensive whisky sold by The Whisky Vault to date – a 57-year-old Macallan single-malt, in a Lalique crystal decanter. Philip found it for a client who paid $17,600 for the bottle. That’s $676 an ounce. But don’t count ounce prices if you intend to contact The Whisky Vault.

(For the record: The 57-year-old Macallan was assembled from two casks, the first a 1950 American oak sherry butt, the second from Spanish oak sherry butts originally filled in 1949, 1951 and 1952. Only 400 decanter-bottles were produced.)

“We have a large network of customers in Taiwan, Singapore and Japan as well as in Europe and we have never lost a shipment to the US,” notes Philip in an email exchange, commenting on his reliability.

Philip says that he has many rare, Pre-War whiskies, too, including a blended whisky from 22nd December 1885, supplied to "The refreshment department" of the Houses of Parliament. (See image directly above.)

Looking for a rare single-malt Scotch? The Whisky Vault is the first place to start your treasure hunt.

Their web site: http://www.thewhiskyvault.com

Happy treasure hunting.

 

The Best Gift you can Buy a Wine-lover!

 

 It’s the 2007 Stags Leap District Wine Box, a superb collection of 18 different wines from one of my favorite Napa Valley appellations. 

The Stags Leap District winegrowers have produced a mixed case like this for many years, and I have often bought the collection as it’s an easy way to get some of the top-favored, top-flavored, top-rated, wines in Napa Valley without having to careen from winery to winery.

A tremendous shot from Stags Leap District, taken by my friend, Steven Rothfeld

The 2007 collection is considered one of the best Stags Leap Wine Boxes ever assembled, according to Nancy Bialek, the association’s executive director.

In her own words:

“The 2007 wines are generous in aromatics and texture. The vintage opened with cool weather and early growth. A mild April turned into a hot May and June, with grapevines blazing through bloom and the first phase of development.

Late summer heat punctuated the start of harvest. The 2007 vintage … has unusual depth and complexity.”

What all this means is: A superb vintage with bright, youthful, fleshy wines.

Another amazing shot in Stags Leap District, taken by Steven Rothfeld

Here’s how Elizabeth Vianna, winemaker at Chimney Rock Winery and Vice President of SLDWA, sums up the vintage:

“The 2007 harvest will go down as one of the great harvests of the decade for Stags Leap District. The fruit concentration is amazing.”

The Stags Leap District Winegrowers didn’t provide napaman an easy, one-tasting-pours-all way to sample the 2007 wine collection to provide readers with detailed tasting notes on the 18 wines; the best that I could do was visit several Stags Leap District tasting rooms.

Chimney Rock Winery, 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon, Ganymede Vineyard

I like the way winemaker Elizabeth Vianna explains her 2007 effort:

“We experienced a dry spring, which is the first thing we need to grow great grapes. We like vines to stress early so that they focus their attention on the fruit. One of the parameters of quality is the size of the berry. Most of the color and flavors in wine come from the skins; the smaller the berries -- the greater the ratio of skin compounds to pulp – results in a better concentration of flavor and color.”

“The average Cabernet Sauvignon berry in 2007 was nearly 30 percent smaller than in the previous two vintages,” Elizabeth says. Which explains the concentrated flavors in her 2007 wine.

Only 500 cases of the estate Ganymede were made and they are all gone now, save for bottles in the 2007 Stags Leap District Wine Box.

The wine is delicious, exhibiting gorgeous ripe fruit notes and flavors. This wine has a pedigree in balance and finish.

Regusci Winery, 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon

Some 3,000 cases were made of this $53 wine, a blend of Cabernet (92 percent), Merlot (6 percent) and Cab Franc (2 percent).

The Cab has a warm and inviting nose with scents, and flavors, of red currant-bordering-on-cranberry. Has attractive floral notes on the nose and exhibits medium length on the palate. Well structured. I like the alluring middle palate. 

Cliff Lede Vineyards, 2007 Poetry

Probably the most expensive wine in the 2007 collection ($150), though it definitely delivers; coffee, dark ripe fruits on the nose with a hint of animal and an identifiable green scent toward the end of the sniff.

On the palate, juicy notes, a l-o-n-g finish, flavors reminiscent of dark plums with a sunburn. Needs to be cellared - big time.

Silverado Vineyards, 2007 SOLO

In the old days, this wine at Silverado was simply labelled their Stag’s Leap District offering, made exclusively from estate fruit. But the label was confusing with other house labels, so they created a new brand, Solo, to better register the essential elements of the beverage: made from one SOLO vineyard and made exclusively with one SOLO grape, Cabernet.

In 2007, Silverado made 1,400 cases of this exquisite wine which begs to be drunk now, but which will cellar for 10 years and then magnificently enthrall your palate.

At Silverado, I spoke with Jen Withrow, one of the extremely pleasant tasting room staffers; she encouraged me to try the 2000 Silverado Stag’s Leap District Cabernet – the same wine offered in the 2007 collection, only seven years older, and now, fully aged 11 years.

Of all the wines I previewed for this Stag’s Leap District Wine Box story, nothing approached the beauty, balance and majesty of this striking older wine. In fact, the 2000 Silverado Stag’s Leap Cabernet is one of the best wines I’ve tasted in months. It’s simply gawjus. Easily a 97-point wine.

Anyone who was smart enough to buy this upon release has a majestic wine in his, or her, cellar.

Come to think of it: the 2007 Solo Cab is $90 at the winery today. For $20 more you can buy the fully aged, 2000 Cab from the winery library – actually, a much better value!

Photo by -- who else? -- Steven Rothfeld

The Appellation Collection is the only offering in the country, comprised entirely of Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon from a single appellation and a single vintage. Each of the Association's 18 member wineries is represented in the collection.

The Collection is limited to 200 cases. You can order it starting October 15^th.

Photo by him again, Steven Rothfeld

The Collection contains one bottle each of the following Stags Leap District wines:

Baldacci Family Vineyards, 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon

Chimney Rock Winery, 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon, Ganymede Vineyard

Cliff Lede Vineyards,  2007 Poetry

Clos Du Val . 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon

Hartwell Vineyards, 2007 Estate Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon

Ilsley Vineyards, 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon

Lindstrom Wines, 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon

Malk Family Vineyards, 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon

Pine Ridge Vineyards, 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon

Regusci Winery, 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon

Robinson Family Vineyards, 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon

Shafer Vineyards, 2007 One Point Five Cabernet Sauvignon

Silverado Vineyards, 2007 Solo

Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, 2007 Fay Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon

Stags' Leap Winery, 2007 The Leap Estate Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon

Steltzner Vineyards, 2007 Estate Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon

Taylor Family Vineyards, 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon

Terlato Family Vineyards. 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon
 

 

The 2007 Appellation Collection of 18 wines costs:

$1,450.00 per case. 7.75% tax applies to California sales and various states by law.

To order:

Online as of October 15 at www.stagsleapdistrict.com/appellationcollection

“Scotch whisky is the new Black!”

 

The nose is “floral, marshmallow, freshly washed damp linen,” and there are hints of kiwi fruit, sweet persimmon and talcum powder.”

 Sounds more like a collection of highly scented items in my grocery cart than an expensive single malt Scotch whisky, but that’s exactly what’s being described.

If you thought wine writers and winemakers were verbal deconstructionists with wine… you should see what whiskyheads write about beverages in their field.

The description above is about Balblair 2000, a newly released Highland Scotch whisky, which the editors of Whisky Magazine liked (was it the “talcum powder” finish?).

Like wine writers, columnists and editorial staff at Whisky Mag ascribe points to every whisky, Bourbon, or Finnish, Irish, even Canadian, distilled spirit they review.

I found Whisky Magazine on my travels in bonny Scotland this month and really enjoyed the stories and editorial content. The magazine takes one’s appreciation of alcoholic spirits to a whole new level. Napa Valley Cabernets are so…. so… 2010 by tasting note comparison! Scotch whisky is the new Black!  

You can subscribe to the journal at www.whiskymag.com as I have. A one-year subscription costs $44.95 and includes eight issues.

I also wanted to comment on three great sources for rare Scotch whiskies, which I discovered in my travels this month in Scotland and Ireland (where I spent 24 thoroughly rapturous hours on my way back to bonny Napa Valley). 

All three stores secure really rare single malt whiskies from time to time and claim to ship thousands of bottles annually to America without any being lost, or broken.

Three great sources for rare whiskies:

 

 Dufftown Whisky Shop

1 Fife St., Dufftown, Keith, Scotland.

www.thewsd.co.uk

Speak to Michael Lord who can tell you about every one of the 600 different whiskies in his store.

 

 

 Royal Mile Whisky

379 High Street, Royal Mile, Edinburgh. 

www.royalmilewhiskies.com

Contact Tom, or Sean, or Chris, the store manager. All of them are knowledgeable whiskyheads and each one has a strong opinion about any particular whisky about which you may inquire.

 

Interior of the Celtic Whiskey Shop.

Note: In Scotland, they spell whisky “whisky,” without the E. In Ireland, they spell it “whiskey,” with the E. In both nations, they pronounce it “whess-key.”

Celtic Whiskey Shop

27-28 Dawson St., Dublin 2, Ireland

www.celticwhiskeyshop.com

Speak to Michael, Al, or store owner-director Ally; they are extremely friendly (isn’t everyone in Scotland and Ireland?) and rare whiskeys often come into their possession, but don’t stay for very long.

I asked them for a short overview: “We stock more Scottish malts and blends than anyone else in Ireland. We also act as importer and agent for numerous Scottish whiskies, which has made us one of the main spirits wholesalers in Ireland.

We are agents for Cooley Irish whiskeys, but stock pretty much every brand of Irish whiskey. As such, we have more than 100 different Irish whiskeys on our shelves.”

The only other thing you need to know to be a knowledgeable “whess-key” drinker is how to say “cheers!” when you clink glasses. It’s “Slainte!” which is pronounced “slant-CHA!” 

There! You’ve just finished Scotch Whisky 101 and are considered a fully trained, soon-to-be-loyal, "whess-key" drinker.

For 10 days, napaman became… Hamish the Scotsman, in search of the world’s greatest single-malt whiskies!

I just returned from ten days in Scotland, tracking down the world’s greatest single-malt Scotches. Locally, they refer to them as “whisky,” pronounced “wess-key.”

We called our family’s “wess-key” treasure hunt “The 2011 Single-Malt Scotch Safari."

As there are 400 producers of “wess-key” in Scotland, no matter how hard we tried, we were unable to visit all of them in our ten-day safari.

But we didn’t do poorly.

On our 1,000-mile safari we visited four of the country’s five major whisky-producing regions: Islay, the Lowlands, the Highlands and Speyside.

 

Are you starting to see a similarity among these producers of peat-smoked whisky on the island of Islay?

Initially, we visited distilleries on Islay, a small island reached by ferry, off the west coast of the country. The nation’s most peaty, smokiest, single-malts are produced here.

The stills at Laphroaig, on the island of Islay (pronounced “EYE-lah”)

Then we headed north to the Lowlands, to the Highlands and onward to Speyside, where some of the nation’s best-selling single-malt brands are produced.

After 900 years, or so, the Scots have pretty much figured out how to turn barley, water and yeast into the magic elixir we call Scotch.

They start with barley, which they wet to encourage germination. This sprouting process is critical as it converts the grain’s starch into sugar.

Many producers, especially the eight on Islay, dry their malted barley over smoky fires fueled with dark chocolate-colored clods of dried, boggy earth, known as peat. This stains the beverage with a smoky richness.

Tossing peat onto the fire at Lahproaig, the only distillery we visited where we saw the actual peat-drying process in action. We even got to throw bricks of peat onto the fire.

The dried, malted barley is then washed three times with fresh water (the water in Scotland is some of the tastiest I ever drank) in vessels called “mash tuns.” The soluble sugar in the barley dissolves and the sweetened water, called wort, is collected; yeast and heat are introduced, initiating a bubbly fermentation. If carefully managed, this produces a muddy liquid that is really an 8 percent (alcohol by volume) beer without the presence of hops.

Distill this fermented mixture twice and you produce a clear, colorless liquid called “new-make spirit.” Transfer the spirit to a used American (bourbon) or Spanish (sherry) oak barrel, age it for at least three years and voila! - you have young whisky.

For spirit newbies, single-malt Scotch is a whisky:

1. That is distilled in Scotland in a copper pot still at a single distillery
2. Is made from only one grain – barley – which is malted (germinated)
3. Is matured in oak casks in Scotland for not fewer than 3 years

Best Overall Distillery Tour

At Laphroaig. The tour here is equivalent to the one given at Robert Mondavi Winery in Napa Valley, which remains the best, basic, essential winery visit for first-timers to wine country.

Laphroaig offers a sensational visiting experience; it was the only distillery where we saw an active malting floor and the actual peat-drying process.

Visitors are encouraged to sign up and join 380,000 individuals from 150 countries, who call themselves “Friends of Laphroaig.” This has been a very successful marketing campaign; Friends are given a lifetime lease of one square-foot of land at Laphroaig and in exchange, for letting Laphroaig use your land, they pay you an annual rent  -- a free, wee “twee” dram of Laphroaig. To collect your rent, however, you must visit the distillery. Details at www.laphroaig.com.

Most Generous Single Malt Tour

Oban. One of spirit giant Diageo’s smallest distilleries, this sweet discovery in the heart of downtown Oban (pronounced “OH-bin) is a must on any tour. While the tour is concise, our guide Patrick gave a thoroughly enjoyable tour. It was here that we tasted two of our top whiskies.

Best Single Malts Tasted on our Single-Malt Scotch Safari

+ 25-year-old Ardbeg Lord of the Isles. A symphony of flavors in a wee glass; Christmas cake, sherry, molasses, treacle and salt taffy come to mind, in both scents and taste. An extremely elegant, alluring, rich malt whisky with a long and stunning finish. If one ascribed points to malted whiskies the way we do to wine, this would be a 100-pointer.

+ 30-year-old Brora and 32- year-old Oban, distilled in 1969, bottled in 2002, tasted together at Oban. We were extremely lucky and got to taste both these sensational “wess-keys” with Oban general manager Mike Tough.

I had never tasted either of these aged whiskies. Tasting them side by side was an exceptional treat. We’re talking two perfect, 100-point whiskies, each a gorgeous expression of the masterful art of whisky making.

Whisky blender Bob Dalgarno, at Macallan, generously offered to share a whisky from my birth year, when he learned that we are food and wine writers; he pulled a sample from a cask of whisky that has been aging – and continues to age – since 1946.

+ 1946 Macallan, cask sample, the oldest Scotch whisky I have ever tasted – 65 years old! 42% alcohol at cask strength today, and still ageing in American oak, once used for sherry and then filled, once only, with Macallan whisky before the 1946 spirit started ageing in the barrel.

Bob drew a cask sample for us to taste, but showed us a sample that had been bottled some time ago.

If you have to ask the price of a bottle, you likely shouldn’t consider buying it. A second mortgage may be required on your home. The last bottle of 1926 Macallan, a 20-year senior to the ’46, last sold at the distillery for $32,000.

How happy was I to meet Bob!

Older is Not Always Better

At some point in time, matured cheese, matured Champagne, even matured whisky can be less thrilling than a younger expression of the same food or spirit.

Although we were thrilled to taste older, fully matured, whiskies on our safari, I realized, during our visit to Macallan, just how great – and special -- one of their younger whiskies is.

My family in the tasting room at Macallan

At Macallan, they lead visitors through an extremely generous whisky nosing and tasting; guests are permitted to taste five different whiskies, aged from 10- to 30-years of age.

And as good as they all were, my favorite is, was, and continues to be the benchmark 12-year-old Macallan. One expert taster has called the Macallan the “Rolls-Royce of 12-year-old Scotch.” After a week in Scotland, I’d have to agree. 

Best Single dish of the trip

Scrambled eggs and Inverawe Smoked Salmon at Pierhouse House, Port Appin.

In all my life, I have never had tastier, richer, more memorable scrambled eggs than the ones served at a wee Loch-side hotel called Pierhouse.

The locally caught salmon is smoked nearby and the scrambled eggs are farm fresh and fabulous, enhanced with a pinch of maldon (English) salt.

We haven’t stopped talking about this breakfast dish. Sometimes big, 3-star, over-hyped restaurants just can’t live up to such honest, simple fare.

Pierhouse Hotel and Seafood Restaurant, Port Appin, Argyll, Scotland. www.pierhousehotel.co.uk

Best Single Meal of the Trip

Lunch at 1-Star (Michelin) Martin Wishart, in Edinburgh. We breezed through a four-hour tasting menu of stupendous breadth and balance; if a picture is worth a thousand words, here are 5,000 words worth (no, not THAT Wordsworth!), of what we sampled at lunch. But there were many more taste treats, which are NOT visually represented here.

Best Whisky Store in Scotland

The Whisky Shop, Dufftown

That’s owner Mike Lord selling some impressive single malt whisky.

Okay, you ask, how do I know that it’s the best in all of Scotland? From what others tell me and from my own experience.

I walked in, asked owner Michael Lord for several rare, aged Scotches, which were on my Must Get list and he happily engaged me in conversation, while pulling the whiskies from his shelves.

Michael has more than 600 different whiskies on hand – even more than my favorite Scotch source in California, KL Wines.

Best Way to Visit Scotland

If you plan to visit many distilleries, you don’t need the aggravation of trying to remain sober or of trying to learn how to stay out of trouble while driving on “the other side of the road,” as they do in Britain and Scotland.

We contacted Classic Scotland, asking the ever-jovial and helpful proprietor, Stephen Wood, to line up hotel accommodations for our family, a van and a driver for a week.

Creating an entire itinerary, including requests to book several 1-star Michelin restaurants, wasn’t much more difficult than making a dinner reservation at a favorite restaurant in Napa Valley.

To contact Classic Scotland, go to www.classicscotland.com, or connect with Stephen via email at [email protected]. Or call him on his free-from-the-US hotline, 866-464-7389

Our driver and guide, Jean Blair, her talents are “extraordinaire.”

Our assigned driver turned out to be a wonderfully friendly, thoroughly knowledgeable guide.

As Jean Blair does not book hotels, so you still need to contact Classic Scotland for this component of your trip; but Jean does lead independent walking tours throughout Scotland and can be contacted – and contracted – directly via her own website, www.travelthroughscotland.com.

Not long ago, Jean gave travel-guide writer Rick Steves a personal walking tour in Edinburgh for which he gave her a glowing report in his most recent updated Edinburgh commentary. Way to go, Jeannie!

Finally, this classic Scottish discovery:

You know you are in Scotland when you find these in a neighborhood grocery…

 

Welcome to Somerston, Napa Valley’s Newest Winery!

 

If you ever wanted to learn about the terroir of Napa Valley, Somerston Winery’s a good place to do it.

Napa Valley’s newest winery (it opened to the public yesterday) features more than 87 distinct growing blocks, five completely different soil types, multiple sources of water each with different mineral properties, and the ranch sprawls across a tall ridge, which joins two different valley systems.

Somerston, the creation of real estate developer Allan Chapman, has been seven years in the making. In 2004, Allan started acquiring land on Sage Canyon Road, ten miles beyond Pritchard Hill and Lake Hennessey.

The winery’s mail address may be St. Helena, but the isolated, mountainous location has as little to do with the tony town. If anything, visiting Somerston to party for an afternoon, is like heading out on a safari. Be sure to pack your water bottles, sunscreen and photo equipment.

Somerston owner Allan Chapman

Allan, born in Newcastle, UK, studied at Cambridge University and came to America via Vancouver. The bulk of his career has been spent in real estate and telecommunications. Allan says that he had no expectation that one day he would own a 1,626-acre winery in Napa Valley.

There are 17 different grape varieties planted between 800- and 2200-feet elevation at Somerston. More than 200 acres are planted.

After speaking with Allan, I understand how he thinks and why he’s been successful at business; it’s in his genes. Allan’s family operated and sailed giant clipper chips in the 1850s era in England.

“In those days, in England, the annual crop of Indian tea would run out before the next year’s crop was picked and delivered. As soon as the next new crop of tea was picked, whoever got it from India, or Ceylon, to England first, was able to charge five times more than the market price; consumers bid up the price of the newly arrived, new-crop tea,” explains Allan.

Allan’s family realized that if they added great billowing sails to transport boats, and built and sailed giant clipper ships, they could make the voyage from India to England much faster than others, landing the new-crop tea first on the shores of England and earning themselves a premium price for the tea. 

“My family was able to build a new sailing clipper each year with the profits,” says Allan.

I’m not sure the same rules apply in bringing new-crop Nouveau Cabernet to market in Napa Valley, Allan, so maybe don’t think about applying this strategy to your winery business….

Even so, to honor his family’s shipping heritage, many of the planted blocks and vineyards at Somerston are named after Allan’s family sailing ships.

Today, 1500-head of Dorper sheep, originally from South Africa, graze in the vineyards, eating weeds and keeping grasses short. “We call this organic fire control,” quips Allan, who is intent on ultimately getting full organic certification for the property. 

“At present, everything we do here is sustainable farming; in fact, we are building a solar power system, which will completely remove us from the outside electrical grid,” says Jim Provance II, a staff wine specialist at Somerston.

Even the sheep at Somerston get immaculate care and attention; they’re day-cared by a Peruvian shepherd who moves the herd to different blocks to keep them fed and the grasslands trimmed.

The winery occupies a site formerly known as Priest Ranch, named after Joshua James Priest, who landed in California in 1847 to stake a claim in the gold rush.

That’s the winery barn at a distance in the middle of the shot; above it tower the quarries where miners thought they would extract gold; instead, they found a source of bubbly, mineral-rich, soda, which was bottled and sold for its reputed healing properties.

Priest thought that bits of bright blue glass, which speckled on the property, indicated the presence of gold. But instead of gold, Joshua discovered a hidden natural soda springs on the property. The natural waters were bottled on the property and sold for their reputed healing powers.

While beverages bottled on the ranch today may lack health-curing powers, they contain alcohol, which will help anyone forget they have issues requiring medical attention.

In fact, three different wine brands are produced here: Somerston, Priest Ranch and Highflyer. Premium wines carry the Somerston label.

Among Somerston reds, the two I tried and liked are:

2007 Somerston Proprietary Red, a blend of 97 percent Merlot and 3 percent Cabernet Franc. $90. Only 150 cases made.

2007 Somerston Cab, which is 100 percent estate Cabernet. $120. 250 cases produced.

To celebrate the opening of the winery, Allan and his winemaker-partner, Craig Becker, hosted an all-day party Saturday.

Wine specialist Jim Provance II takes guests on zippy 20-minute rides through the vineyards

They offered rides on All Terrain Vehicles (ATVs), which scootered over the ridges and through the vineyards. They generously fed guests and looked after their beverage needs, too.

Now that the winery is open to the public, here’s what you need to know:

With a booked appointment, visitors get a ride through the vineyards, a tasting flight of three Somerston wines, complementary local cheeses and freshly made pate.

The cost is $50 per person. The ATVs make their 20-minute run through the vineyards three times daily -- at 11 am, 1 pm and 3 pm. To book space, call 707-967-8414. Or check details at www.somerstonwineco.com.

The winery is at 3450 Sage Canyon Rd. Set your GPS device to read “St. Helena” for ‘city.’

Can’t make it to the farm? Somerston also operates a tasting room in Yountville at 6490 Washington St.

Best New Dish of the Year… and it’s in Berkeley

Every once in a while, napaman leaves the Napa Valley homestead and wanders afield to find great food and wine elsewhere.

As former food editor and restaurant critic of the Toronto Star, the third largest newspaper in North America, I was trained to keep looking for The Next Best New Dish, and The Next Best New Super Chef.

Rarely was I able to return to a wonderful, familiar restaurant because so many new ones were crying out to be reviewed. 

Today, the luxury of not having a fixed newspaper deadline means that I can return to a restaurant as many times as I wish to indulge my senses. And I just returned to an earlier favorite, Café Rouge, in Berkeley. And the good news is that it is better than ever.

This shot, taken with my iPhone, does NOT do justice to this meatball stew

At the core of my pleasure this week is this dish:

Bill Niman Ranch beef meatballs, served in a stew of white corn and wilted collard greens, richly flavored with a complex salsa verde.

There is no question that this is my favorite new dish of the year.

  

If this were a wine I just discovered, I would go out and buy a case. Or two. I could never have too much.

The meatballs are juicy, tender, golf-ball-shaped and sized, yet cut-able with a fork; the pale white corn has been freshly shucked off ears; the collard greens thread through the soupy strew like seaweed, adding texture, flavor and color.

I spoke with the chef and, yes, I know intellectually that he has not added Zatarain’s spice mixture used in Louisiana for crab and shrimp boils, but the meatball stew TASTES like this might be a secret ingredient.

The stew is spicy, warm-to-hot in intensity, has great middle-palate draw, and a surly smokiness, which lingers, giving one’s palate a rare glimpse of what Nirvana might taste like.

IN SHORT: I LOVE THIS DISH.

Upon leaving Café Rouge, I was told that this dish is on the menu for two weeks as a seasonal special.

I implore the chef and his team to keep this dish on the menu for the entire corn- and collard-growing season. I simply cannot wait until next year to revisit this stew. PLEASE HIT THE COMMENT BUTTON, CHEF, AND TELL NAPAMAN.COM READERS THAT YOU’LL KEEP THIS EXCEPTIONAL DISH ON THE MENU FOR A FEW MORE WEEKS AT THE VERY LEAST!

If this were a wine I were rating, I would give it 100 points. You can’t have a more flavorful, more perfect, more mouth-filling, pleasurable experience. Not in public anyway.

 Café Rouge. 1782 Fourth St., Berkeley. 510-525-1440.

PS: Thanks to waiter Sean Arnold for answering to many of napaman’s seemingly pesky questions!

Double Your Pleasure… Double Your Fun…

Sounds like an old Wrigley’s Doublemint gum commercial, but in wine-speak, it refers to two of my favorite Napa Valley wineries, which have just joined retail forces. 

Harris Estate Vineyards and Jones Family Vineyards, both Calistoga appellation wine producers, have opened a dual tasting room in the tiny, tony town of St. Helena (population 6,000 … but 6,008 when eight visitors crowd into the new, small, designer tasting room).

The dual venture, which provides an extremely sophisticated tasting experience, is called Salon St. Helena. It’s on Hunt St., between Main and Railroad Avenue, where it shares space with Martin Design. 

Jake is spokesdog for Harris Estate and CRC (Chief Rabbit Chaser) of Jake’s Creek Vineyard, one of four Harris cuvees.

The Harrises and Joneses met at a luncheon last year hosted by Thomas Brown, consulting winemaker for both families.

“It seemed like such a natural thing -- for us to open a dual tasting room,” says Mike Harris, “since neither of us are permitted to conduct tastings on our respective properties.”

From left to right: Janee Delancey, Salon tasting room hostess, Treva & Mike Harris, Rick Jones & Stephanie Jones Bailey 

“Thomas is an extremely gifted winemaker,” says Stephanie Jones Bailey, daughter of Rick Jones and director of operations of her family’s wine business.

“Thomas is self-taught,” she continues. “He started his wine career at Turley, and went on to become winemaker at Schrader Cellars where he produced 100-point Cabernets. The guy’s a Cabernet wizard.”

Yes, quite the wizard. So much so that Thomas was named Winemaker of the Year last year by Food & Wine Magazine.

Thomas Rivers Brown

Today, Thomas Rivers Brown is the consulting winemaker of more than a dozen star Napa Valley brands, including Outpost, Casa Piena, Maybach and Revanna.

And let’s not forget Harris Estate and Jones Family wines, which I swooned over at a tasting at the Salon.

I tasted six wines, which are offered as a flight for $35. We’ll get to my tasting notes in a minute, but here’s what a wine writer colleague had to say about new vintages of Harris and Jones wines.

Wine writer Roy Piper

Roy Piper, whose palate and tasting judgment I respect, penned these notes in a recent column on wineberserkers.com:

2009 Jones Family Cabernet, Napa

Okay, if you like the Spottswoode/Gemstone styled combo of power and finesse, this is the one to get. Classical Napa style with juice red cherry and blueberry fruits,a really nice structure and smooth mouthfeel. Good balance. Medium-full body. This is the second straight excellent vintage of this producer. Voluptuous and sexy. Sourced from a single block. 95pts

2009 Harris "Lakeview" Cab, Napa

If I had to rank my favorite wines of the day, this was it. A wholly complete wine in every way, with power, balance, purity, complexity and nice long finish. Black fruits in the nose with stacked flavors and a good structure and grip in the mouthfeel. This has it all. Could use 3-5 years to get in the zone but is balanced enough to approach now with a nice decanting. Worth hunting down. The best wine from this producer I've yet had. 96pts

Stephanie Jones Bailey & her dad, Rick Jones

Rick Jones, whom I knew in my former days as a consultant to Safeway, was executive vice-president of supply for the grocery chain, where he worked 12 years. Upon retiring, Rick bought a vineyard in Calistoga and says that when he realized how good his fruit was, he decided to bottle it for his own label.

Rick is CFO of the family wine biz and his two daughters have specific responsibilities; Stephanie runs the day-to-day biz and her sister, Heather Jones Melvin, is director of special events.

Mike and Treva Harris and their wonderdog, Jake

Over at the Harris ranch (not to be confused with the steakhouse – no relation), Mike is the face of the business while his sweet and charming wife Treva (I can say these things because the Harrises are good friends) oversees bookkeeping and the backroom. Their wonderdog Jake, a black Lab, is responsible for chasing rabbits and catching Frisbees. (He’s not as successful at his job as Thomas Brown is at his – which is probably a good thing for wine lovers.)

Mike & Treva Harris

Mike, who was a pediatric dentist for 32 years in Milpitas, has a wicked sense of humor. He comes by it naturally; his father owned Tommy’s Joint, a landmark bar and performing venue on Van Ness, in San Francisco. Mike grew up with some of the biggest names in entertainment who paraded through his family’s night club.

Janee Delancey, tasting room hostess, and Presley

Everything about the tasting experience at Salon is chic. Including the hostess, Janee Delancey, who manages the tasting room and makes guests feel totally at home. Her onsite helper is wonderdog Presley.

If you’d like to have some snacks, or appetizers with your wine tasting, Janee can arrange to have tasty fare brought in from Cook restaurant next door.

“We’d prefer that groups and individuals book an appointment for tastings,” says Janee. “Our Salon isn’t big,” she notes. But the wines sure are.

The six wines served at Salon St. Helena.

2009 Jones Family Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc

The first white wine produced by the Jones Family, a beguiling, elegant Sauvignon Blanc, produced from fruit grown in Rutherford. Fabulous with food. $40. 92 points.

2007 Jones Family Vineyards The Sisters

A great $50 Napa Valley Cabernet, whose nose suggests smoke, and deep purple grapes. The addition of a small percentage of Petit Verdot and Cabernet Franc add a touch of spice and complexity. What a lovely, approachable wine. $50. 92 points.

 2007 Jones Family Vineyards Estate Cabernet

Huge nose of fresh ripe red fruit, a gorgeous silk texture like that of velours; hints of tobacco and cedar and a long, lingering cherry finish. I really love this wine. I followed the word “wonderful” in my tasting notes with three exclamation marks. $110. 94 points.

2008 Harris Estate Vineyards Indulgence

The Harris’ first offering made with fruit sourced off the estate. The vines are young, the nose is tight and the wine, at this stage, is slightly angular. While made from 100 percent Cabernet, this is a blend of three different Cab clones. $95. 90 points.

2007 Harris Estate Vineyards Jake’s Creek Vineyard

A voluptuous wine, filled with red and black fruit flavors, a stunning middle palate and a great finish. Aged 20 months in new French oak. Bravo! $110.  93 points.

2008 Harris Estate Vineyards, Lakeview Vineyard

Whoa! This wine socks it out of the park! A stupendous achievement. The wine is filled with minerality and complexity. One of those “ Aha!”wines that make you slap your forehead with wonderment. $110. 94 points.

One of the take-aways from the tasting is how different areas within the Calistoga appellation produce different tasting wines. The Harris Cabernet vines are planted on the western side of the valley, the Jones’ Cab vines are planted on the eastern side of the valley. The wines are made by the same winemaker who pretty much uses the same barrels and winemaking techniques for all these wines. So what has changed most is the source of the grapes – east versus west.

After a rousing afternoon of tasting at the Salon, I’d suggest visitors dine at Cook, on Main Street, or at Cindy’s Backstreet Kitchen, around the corner on Railroad Avenue, or a few blocks south on Main Street at Tra Vigne. You will have a fun, fine dining experience and any of these restaurants, and if you’re really smart, you’ll bring some wine along from your Salon tasting for dinner.

Salon St. Helena is located at 1118 Hunt. St. Call Janee at 707-963-3193, or on cell at 707-328-1001 to book an appointment.

I Was On the Trail Last Week for Really Good Wine in….. Israel!

And I found it.

There are only a handful of wine-producing countries, which I’ve wanted to visit but missed the chance, and near the top of the list is/was Israel.

Friends have been telling me for years that they’ve had really good Cabernets from the Holy Land and now that I’ve just been, I can say, “Holy Smokes, they were right!”

It turns out that, according to guidelines, the practice of making Kosher wines isn’t all that different from practices, employed to make top-tier wines in Napa Valley.

Here’s what you need to do to make Kosher wine:

You can’t pick grapes from the vine until the fourth harvest.

Here in Napa Valley, most winemakers start to pick in the third year after planting, what we call “third leaf.”

No other fruits or vegetables may be grown between the rows of vines.

We pretty much observe the same practices here.

The Israelis insist that every seventh year, the vineyard must lie fallow.

This must mean leaving the fruit wither on the vine, because, for sure, they’re not tearing out their vines every seven years and replanting.

This appears to be one of the differences in the practice of making Kosher wine versus Napa Valley wine. Due to sheer economic realities, no one here can afford to leave his, or her, vineyard untouched every seventh year.

Another element, which we do not follow; to make Kosher wine, only a religiously observant Jew may come into contact with the grapes arriving at the winery.

There aren’t enough Jewish winemakers in Napa Valley to spread around the 500 wineries here, so methinks this valley’s not going to be turned into an all-Kosher wine zone.

Another area where there is often overlap: to make Kosher wine, all the materials used in the production – including yeasts and fining and filtering agents – must be certified Kosher. Often, these materials happen to be Kosher here just by happenstance. 

My wine travels in Israel

I tasted some sensational wines in Israel, traveling through the Upper Galilee and Golan Heights wine-producing regions.

Tishbi 

Golan Tishbi, winemaker at Tishbi Winery

If you want to meet one of the most dynamic, happy-go-lucky, entrepreneurs in Israel, head to Tishbi Winery in Benyamina, in the hills overlooking the coastal Plain of Sharon, south of Haifa. 

Yes, you may meet his mom and pop, but for sure, you want to meet their wiry, fiery, son, Golan, a fifth-generation Tishbi who has become the family winemaker. And a damned good one, at that.

The Tishbi family has been making wine since 1882, originally planting vines on the slopes of Mount Carmel, following in the footsteps of Bordeaux' Baron de Rothschild, who had a lot to do with the establishment of vineyards and a wine industry in the region.

Tishbi’s tasting room

Ever the promoter, Golan contracted with the fine Swiss chocolate producer, Valrhona, to become its exclusive distributor in Israel.

At the winery, to promote chocolate AND wine sales, Golan has invented a tasty, informative pairing – of six different Valrhona chocolates with six different Tishbi wines. The fact that these wines are Kosher is completely irrelevant to the experience.

The tasting chart, which visitors can use as they pair Tishbi wines and Valrhona chocolates.

When you’re finished the tasting, you can head over to Tishbi’s on-site bakery to buy some hot, homemade breads, or you can sit in the winery’s pizzeria area, where a fully trained chef turns out delicious pizzas in a gas-fired hearth. 

Or refill an empty jug you might have brought along with a pleasant, $5-a-liter, red Tishbi blend.

Adir

Walking into the tasting room at Adir, I felt as though I had magically been transported to a chic tasting room in British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley, or perhaps to that of one of Ontario’s newer wineries, Tawse.

The room is strikingly white, designer friendly, and the wines are delicious.

This Upper Galilee winery produces Cabernet, Cab Franc, Merlot, Chardonnay and a lush Syrah (which they insist on calling Shiraz for the marketing value).

I thought the best wine of my tasting here was the 2007 Plato (top-tier) Cabernet Sauvignon, produced from 22-year-old vines. The wine contains eight percent Syrah and was aged two years in 100 percent new French oak.

Dalton

At Dalton winery, I tasted the single best Israeli wine I’ve ever had, a stunning 2008 Dalton Reserve Cabernet, which was impeccably balanced, full of ripe, red and dark fruits, and in a word (noted in the my tasting notes), “delicious!”

I scored this beauty 93 points. 

In fact, I was so struck by this wine that upon returning home, I found a wine merchant in New York State who sells it for $31 a bottle and ordered some. You’d be smart to do likewise. The wine is $36 at the winery, so anything less from an American wine merchant is a bonus.

Naama Sorkin, winemaker at Dalton Winery 

The wines at Dalton are made by a talented female, Naama Sorkin, who learned her craft in Australia. She has been making the wines at Dalton since 2002.

Dalton produces about 75,000 cases of wine a year, 30 percent of which are white.

Summary

Here’s my thinking on Israel’s Kosher wine conundrum.

For starters, you’d never know these wines were “Kosherized” when you taste them. They smell, look, and taste like first-class wines coming out of other wine regions of the world.

In my opinion, Israel has suffered the same fate as Italy’s wine industry; that nation first exported pathetic, poorly made wines in straw-covered bottles (called fiasci). American consumers were initially taught to think of these wines as “Chianti.”

It took Italy 40 years to overcome this stigma; based on our earliest experiences,  we thought all Italian wines were this bad.

The same fate has happened to Israel’s wines. Our earliest experiences were wines that had been pasteurized (oy vey! Can you imagine heating wine to the point of boiling? THIS is going to win the mind, heart and pocketbook of consumers??).

Others grew up thinking that all Israeli Kosher wines must taste foxy and sweet like Manischewitz, made from Concord grapes.

It’s no wonder that we came away thinking Kosher wines are a bust.

I don’t know when Israeli winemakers started cleaning up their act, to follow universally accepted winemaking practices, but certainly, over the last ten years, they’ve matured these practices and are now making truly fine wines competitive with what’s being produced in other wine regions of the world. But,  by and large, the American consumer doesn’t yet know this.

American consumers have to catch up; our appreciation of Israeli wines is pretty much how we thought of Italian wines in the early 80s, before we collectively became aware that Italy’s wine industry had caught up to the rest of the world.

Today, we see single-vineyard Italian Cabs or Sangiovese blends, called Super Tuscans, priced at $300 and we don’t blink. We’ve come to recognize that the Italians KNOW how to make great wine and we accept this concept.

We’re about 20 years behind in our appreciation of what Israel is turning out. If you see a “Kosher” wine from Israel – don’t fight the trend; as a Jewish mother might say, “Try it…. You’ll like it!”

Spoiler Alert: Don’t Read This If You Are A Vegetarian!

Twenty-eight carnivores gathered at Tra Vigne’s Cantinetta, in St. Helena, last night to explore numerous ways to over-eat, consume gross quantities of red meat, raw and cooked, and to share a possibly not-healthy-to-humans, and most certainly a not-healthy-to-cows, experience.

Tra Vigne Executive Chef Nash Cognetti, who created the superb dinner.

The group assembled at 4 pm for the first-ever gathering of the Red Meat Club, an anti-establishment, red-meat-devouring, assembly of like-minded individuals.

We didn’t get up from our chairs until 9 pm; for five continuous hours, we were served different parts of the same 26-month-old steer, which, trust me, would have been happier to be “present in the moment” than be honored as the dinner centerpiece.

The event was hosted by Tra Vigne executive chef Nash Cognetti, and Michael Panza, from Biagio Artisan Meats.

Cost of attending the event was $100 per person, tax, and tip included. Guests could eat their weight in perfectly prepared viandes, all of them emanating from the same steer. 

House-made grissini, one of the few things served at dinner that did not come from the evening’s host cow.

Dinner was a delicious, six-course, sit-down affair. The single cow, which provided the dinner for 28 guests, was a pasture-raised steer from Lucky Dog Ranch, in Dixon, CA, about 40 miles east of Napa Valley. Terri Gililland, owner of the ranch, was present for the dinner.

Chef Nash received the entire left side of a steer for our dinner.

“According to scientists at the University of Nebraska, a cow’s left side is the tastier side,” said Andrew Tescher, whose job title is ‘steak wrangler’ at Lucky Dog Ranch. (He’s in charge of sales, as well as butchering.)

“Cows tend to rotate in circles, almost always turning right, which stretches their left flank,” added Tescher, explaining why meat cut from the left side of a cow’s carcass may produce tastier, juicier meat. It gets worked more.

Courses served to the hungry diners, each of whom were asked to bring at least one bottle of wine to complement the boeuf, included:

Head cheese.

As tasty as this course was, a joke naturally surfaced; a guest held out the large platter of sliced meat, offering it to me, asking, “Would you like some head….?”

The next course: Steak tartare, brilliantly prepared with tasty capers.

One guest commented that as delicious as the steak tartare was, “if you put it into a 450 F degree oven for an hour, it would make a killer meat loaf!”

The next course: A rich, flavorful Marrow Bone, cut lengthwise, for easier scooping.

Sorry no photos of the next course: Beef Soup, another one of the evening’s tastier courses, deliciously chunked with threads of brisket.

Next up: A mixed grill of heart, live and kidney

The culinary climax: Bistecca alla Fiorentina, the culmination of our five-hour meal; thick, perfectly grilled, juicy pink slices of porterhouse and bone-in, rib-eye steak.

Our fearless leader, Nash, standing atop the bar, addresses the single community table, explaining the menu.

One guest, to my left, daunted by the many unusual cuts of beef served (liver, kidney, brain…) suggested that the event be renamed for the squeamish, from “Red Meat Club” to something more appropriate:

“I think it should be called ‘The ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Dinner!”

The Napa Valley Magnificent Seven Rode into Town….

The Magnificent Seven …. high-profile chefs Tyler Florence, Masaharu Morimoto, Cindy Pawlcyn, Michael Chiarello, Thomas Keller, Jeffrey Jake and Ken Frank

Well, to be completely accurate, the Magnificent Seven were already in town and it was us, a group of food- and wine-writers, who rode into Napa town yesterday to see them.

Let me explain.

The Napa Valley Destination Council and a group of dynamic chefs decided that what our valley needs is one more festival/event/fund-raiser to keep Napa Valley on the lips of America’s wine-drinking, food-loving public. Especially in an off-month, when visitor traffic starts to fade.

The original idea, which initially rattled around the brain of Bottega chef/owner Michael Chiarello, got some heft and support from the Culinary Institute of America; then a group of civic-minded chefs came forward  as did venue support from Silverado Resort & Spa. 

And that’s how the new festival was born, to be called:

Flavor! Napa Valley.

The four-day culinary circus comes to Napa Valley Nov. 17 to 20. There will be nine signature events hosted at Silverado Resort & Spa and at the CIA, in St. Helena.

Jeffrey Jake,Executive Chef at the Silverado Resort & Spa, will be anchor host chef for many of the planned event activities.

At press time, these are the participating, high-profile, chefs:

Michael Chiarello, Scott Conant, Tyler Florence, Ken Frank, Jeffrey Jake, Thomas Keller, Christopher Kostow, Masaharu Morimoto, and Cindy Pawlcyn.

Participating chef Masaharu Morimoto, from his eponymous restaurant in Napa town, Morimoto’s.

Napa Valley’s vintner community will also be represented, as you would imagine, showcasing their wines and two of the industry’s leading sommeliers will be on hand to lead seminars and discussion – Karen MacNeil and Andrea Robinson.

Proceeds will benefit the CIA’s Greystone Campus scholarship programs to support the development of tomorrow’s culinary and wine education leaders.

Promoters are hopeful that this will become an annual November, post-harvest event.

Either intentionally, or because planning is still “somewhat fluid,” as one insider told napaman, additional event details were not forthcoming at the impressive, and tasty, press luncheon, served to food- and wine-writers, at the Silverado Resort yesterday.

2011 Napa Valley Premiere Auction – Highest proceeds ever, $2,366,000!

 
Auctioneer Fritz Hatton gets the room a-rockin’.

Would you pay $2,083 for a bottle of fine Napa Valley Cabernet?

Ichizo Nakagawa, a Japanese wine importer, did at the Napa Valley Vintners’ Premiere Barrel Auction yesterday.

In fact, Mr. Nakagawa bought more than one bottle. He bought 60, bidding $125,000 for five cases of 2009 Scarecrow Cabernet Sauvignon, ironically labeled Toto’s Opium Dream: Scene II.

The bid was the highest ever for a single lot in the 15-year history of Premiere and helped propel the auction to raise $2,366,000, the largest sum ever garnered in the event’s history.

Yes, I know you’re asking, “What recession?”

What the room looked like to Fritz…

The results certainly bode well for wine sales in general as the winter auction tends to be a barometer of what follows in the general market.

Mr. Nakagawa was joined by more than 500 wine retailers, wholesalers and restaurant wine-buyers, who assembled from many countries in St. Helena to aggressively outbid each other for unique auction lots of mostly 2009 Napa Valley Cabernet wines.

As if Napa Valley hasn’t been cold enough this February, bidders whipped up the chilly air with their wooden paddles, pledging record sums for unique cuvees, most which won’t be released for at least a year.

Premiere Napa Valley, held at the Culinary Institute of America’s campus, is organized by Napa Valley Vintners, the non-profit trade association responsible for promoting and protecting the Napa Valley wine-growing appellation. The association represents nearly 400 local wineries, half of which produce unique wine cuvees for this annual auction.

Funds raised are used for marketing and promotional purposes in the year to come.

Biggest single lots

+ $125,000 for five cases of 2009 Scarecrow Cabernet Sauvignon. This works out to $2,038 a bottle, which may not be expensive compared to “futures” for first-growth Bordeaux wines, but don’t tell this to an unemployed car assembly worker in Detroit.

+ $45,000 for five cases of 2009 Schrader Cabernet Sauvignon called Double Diamond “B2 Bomber.” This works out to $750 a bottle. Mr. Nakagawa likely wouldn’t invite you back to his home if you if you brought such a cheap wine for dinner.

+ $38,000 for a five-case lot of Shafer Cabernet Sauvignon. The fruit for this 2009 Cabernet came from a single block called Sunspot, which forms the backbone of Shafer’s Hillside Select. This works out to $633 a bottle. Yes, I know, the auction prices are dropping dramatically; you’d expect to find wines in this low price range at your neighborhood Trader Joe’s, not at the NVV Premiere Auction.

2009 Vintage of Napa Valley wines

Premiere Napa Valley is really the first time each year that the trade gets a peak at the next-to-be-released vintage of Napa Valley Cabernet. It’s a collective chance to assess the vintage and determine how consumers will like the wines.

“Many winemakers say, ‘we picked before the October rains in 2009 and saved our crop,’” says Aaron Pott, winemaker of Pott Wine. “But I spent six years making wine in Bordeaux and can tell you that the Cabernet grape can take rain, and we made a great wine picking AFTER the rains.”

Napa Valley was struck by rain in October 2009. “Some appellations recorded as much as five inches of rain in one day,” says Aaron. Generally, wines from this vintage are considered winners.

Aiming to add some humor to the mix, Napaman posed a common question to winemakers, asking them to assess the quality of the 2009 vintage as though it were a celebrity.

The question I asked:

“If the 2009 vintage were a celebrity, who would it be – and why?”

I also asked each winemaker, or producer:

“Of the 11 vintages in this decade (2000 through 2010), name your favorite three.”

I figured that if there were uniformity in choice, napaman.com readers would get a sense of which vintages are worth hunting down in the secondary, or auction, market.

For each winemaker’s response, I have listed vintages chronologically, though often they listed their preferences in a different order. But still, these are their respective Three Favorite Napa Valley Vintages over the last 11 years.

Tom Farella, winemaker, Farella-Park Vineyards

 “2009 is the Katy Perry of vintages. The wine is forward, friendly, pretty, but not something you would accuse of being intellectual challenging.”

Favorite three vintages of this decade: 01, 05, 07.

 

Philippe Melka, consulting winemaker to 14 premium Napa Valley wines

“For me, 2009 is the Juliette Binoche of vintages. The wine is filled with lots of ripe berries, red fruit and has brisk acidity. But there is also a serious side to this wine. It is pretty, has great energy and is sexy – like Juliette.”

Favorite three vintages of this decade: 01, 05, 07.

 

Aaron Buoncristiani, winemaker, Roy Estate

“2009 is the Halle Berry of vintages. It is elegant, seductive, has beautiful color. In a word: stunning!”

Favorite three vintages of this decade: 01, 03, 08.

 

Robin Lail, owner, Lail Vineyard

“2009 is the Cate Blanchett of vintages. It is wonderfully complex, has a great sense of self and place, is extremely versatile, and glows with an inner beauty.”

Favorite three vintages of this decade: 02, 05, 07.

 

Jeremy Weintraub, winemaker, Seavey Vineyard

“2009 is the Scarlett Johansson of vintages. The wine is generous, voluptuous, and exhibits strength and power.”

Favorite three vintages of this decade: 01, 03, 07.

 

Mary Ann Tsai, co-owner, Moone-Tsai Vineyards

“2009 is the Anne Hathaway o vintages. The wine is elegant, new age, young, vibrant, shows finesse, power and structure. Besides, I think it has a long future ahead.”

Favorite three vintages of this decade: 05, 07, 09.

EXTRA: You read it here first! Mary Ann and her press attaché, Toby Baird, confirmed that the Moone-Tsai winery will open May 2 in the space previously housing Luna. Napaman will continue to follow this story; look for an update when the winery opens.

 

Todd Graff, winemaker, Frank Family Vineyards

“2009 is the Angelina Jolie of vintages. It is big, voluptuous, smooth, gorgeous, curvaceous, yet has strong backbone.”

Favorite three vintages of this decade: 05, 06, 09.

 

Rich Frank, owner, Frank Family Vineyards

“2009 is the Meryl Streep of vintages. It is big, strong, will stand up to anything, has great character and knows what it wants to be.”

Favorite three vintages of this decade: 00, 05, 07.

 

Aaron Pott, winemaker Pott Wine, as well as Blackbird Vineyards

“ 2009 is the Audrey Hepburn of vintages. The wine appears lean but it is very elegant.”

Favorite three vintages of this decade: 01, 05, 07.

 

Ryan and Nicole Hill, owners, Hill Family Estate

 “2009 is the LeBron James of vintages. The vintage shows well across all grape varieties, not just Cabernet. Like LeBron, the vintage is showy, full of potential – and it delivers. It’s hard to find a better player, or a better vintage.”

(Ed Note: If you don’t know LeBron James – he’s the hot, talented, point-scoring forward for the Miami Heat basketballers.)

Favorite three vintages of this decade: 01, 07, 09.

 

Jennifer Rue, winemaker, Livingston Moffett

“2009 is the Natalie Portman of vintages. The wines are youthful, filled with complexity, display inner strength and are multi-layered – like Natalie’s performances.”

Favorite three vintages of this decade: 01, 07, 09.

 

John Arns, winegrower, and Sandi Belcher, winemaker, Arns

“2009 is the Jim White – AKA napaman – of vintages! The wines exhibit zest and are full of life; they are vibrant, forward, powerful, even exuberant!”

(Ed note: Aw shucks, Sandi, you didn’t have to say that!)

Favorite three vintages of this decade: 01, 02, 07.

 

The day before

 

The day before the auction, Napa Valley Vintners and the Rudd Center for Professional Wine Studies at the CIA, typically host a wine-tasting event, allowing auction guests to sample Napa Valley wines from recent vintages. This gives participants a way to benchmark different vintages – and learn how the wines are aging.

My issue with this annual tasting is one of operations: in order to serve the hundreds of guests three different vintages (06, 07 and 08 were poured this weekend) from 12 different wineries, servers start by blending two bottles of a vintage to fill a large decanter… and then keep topping up the decanter with wine from a third, fourth, etc., bottle from the same vintage.

You could call this the “solera method” of wine tasting. What one tastes is really a blend of several bottles – something which gives a general impression, or overview, of a wine.

Obviously, this is not how professional tastings, or critical evaluations, are conducted, but the NVV has been unable to invent a better system to enable hundreds of guests to partake in such a tasting.

I must add this note about the best wines of the tasting, in case readers are interested in hunting down some tremendous unheralded wine. 

Tasters were presented three vintages of wine blind  from 12 different Napa Valley wineries. The decanters from a winery identified only as “Number 2” held my top-scoring wines. I tasted and swore these wines must be Shafer Hillside Select. They were delicious, thrilling, had texture, grip and a thoroughly engaging finish. Elegance, too.

How surprised was I to learn that the 2006 wine, which I rated 95 points, the 2007 wine, which I rated 96 points, and the phenomenal 2008 wine, which I rated 97 points, were all Bennett Lane Cabernets, crafted by winemaker Grant Hermann.

Grant Hermann, winemaker, Bennett Lane

Way to go, Grant! These were my favorite wines of the weekend, and the good news for readers is that they don’t cost like top-tier wines; you don’t have to have deep pockets like Mr. Nakagawa to enjoy them.

Atelier Melka

Napaman chose to attend a few of the nearly two-dozen open houses held at wineries and retail wine stores during Premiere weekend, which stretched into four days of revelry. 

Philippe Melka, a celebrity consulting winemaker in the valley, brought together eight winery clients for whom he made their Premiere auction lots. Hundreds of out-of-town visitors crammed into 750 Wines, in St. Helena, to make the scene, swirl, sip and spit.

At Hall Winery, also in St. Helena, 10 wineries assembled to pour their top wines and Premiere barrel samples. The place was a beehive of wannabe bidders.

It’ll be June before the dust settles around here and probably that long before Premiere bidders get the purple wine stains off their teeth – just in time for the year’s grand auction, the heralded Napa Valley Wine Auction in June, which raises millions for charity.

Napaman’s tip to the organizers:  Be sure to encourage Mr. Nakagawa to return for the event!

The Best Wine Tasting of 2011 – And It’s Only February!

A smattering of the 22 Chateauneufs-du-Pape we tasted

I can’t imagine a lustier, more anticipated, more engaging wine tasting this year than the one held in St. Helena last night, celebrating my favorite wine, Chateauneuf-du-Pape.

The event, held at 750 Wines and hosted by BP Wine, two top-notch St. Helena wine retailers, brought together Chateauneuf-du-Pape aficionados to taste wines and to meet Harry Karis, author of the most important, most researched, most detailed book ever written on the wine and the region. 

Author Harry Karis with his book

Harry’s 500-page tome, The Chateauneuf-du-Pape Wine Book, is the definitive work on the subject. Did I say definitive? I meant all-encompassing, all-knowing, all-seeing down to the molecular level, everything there is to know about Chateauneuf-du-Pape.

In addition to desiderata, the book includes profiles on all the major wine producers, a run down on ALL the properties in the appellation, a chapter on ALL the area soil compositions in the region, in fact, ALL of EVERYTHING about “CDP,” as I call the wine and the region.

“It took nearly five years to research and write the book,” says Harry, whose son Phil took all the photos and art-directed the book.

Harry, who when asked his age says “I am vintage 1956,” is a serial careerist, tackling one after another. Initially a musician (lead guitarist in a Dutch band), he became a chef and opened his own restaurant. Bored with this achievement, Harry went back to school and became a doctor, specializing in occupational health. This guy has had almost as many careers as we had bottles of Chateauneuf-du-Pape last night.

Along the way, Harry was bitten by the Chateauneuf-du-Pape bug.

“I had my first Chateauneuf in 1978, but it  took many years  to fully realize what a  sensational blend it is,” says Harry. “After I learned that many of the great Burgundy reds contained as much as 50 percent Chateauneuf-du-Pape (added for color and flavorful top notes), I gained a new respect for this wine.”

Harry opens wines at the tasting hosted by BP Wine and 750 Wine, in St. Helena

I asked Harry what was the oldest Chateauneuf-du-Pape he’s ever had:

“The 1890 Chateau La Nerthe. It was still singing! I could taste fresh red fruit, raspberries and strawberries, and there was a silken licorice finish.”

Try as hard as you will to extract a point score for any of the 6,000 wines Harry tasted while researching his book, he just won’t fall into that trap. “Wine is meant to be enjoyed not rated,” he says.

To thrill assembled tasters, Harry brought some exceptional, well aged CDPs. But before we began tasting, I asked if he was as enthusiastic about the 2007 vintage as wine critic Robert Parker, who called it “the single greatest vintage in modern CDP history.”

Harry says that he probably would prefer a 2006 CDP more than any 2007 – certainly for a good decade before the 2007s soften and integrate. “It is a bombastic vintage!”

Before the tasting, Harry and I got to discuss the world of CDP… 

 
… and generally goof around

Backgrounder

Before commenting on the wines served, for those unfamiliar with Chateauneuf-du-Pape, here’s the skinny on this exceptional wine:

+ In 1936, Chateauneuf-du-Pape became the first wine region in France to receive appellation controllee status.

+ How Chateauneuf-du-Pape got it’s name: More than 700 years ago, a series of Popes, seeking to withdraw from Rome’s military influence, moved their worship zone to an area around Avignon; in 1333, Pope John XII built a secondary residence nearby, calling it “Chateauneuf-du-Pape,” which simply means “new castle of the Pope.” The hamlet, in which the structure was situated, picked up the name.

+ While Picpoul, Terret and Clairette sound like three Shakespearean crones you’d expect to find stirring cauldrons in King Lear, they are, in fact, three of the 22 permitted varieties of grape, which can be used to make Chateauneuf-du-Pape. You likely know some of the more common grape varieties permitted – Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre.

+ Chateauneuf-du-Pape producers may blend any combination of the 22 permitted varieties; some producers, like Chateau Rayas, make wine from only one variety -- 100 percent Grenache. Others, like Beaucastel, Clos des Papes, and Clos-du-Mont-Olivet, make a practice of blending ALL of the main varieties.

+ Here’s a chart of the grapes permitted in CDP:

Harry’s Sez:

If he could only take the CDPs of a few producers to a desert island, what would they be?

“I love the wines which Julien Barot is making for Domaine La Barroche. I would also take Charvin wines, made by the talented Laurent Charvin, and some Chateau Rayas to prove how long great wines can age. And I’d also grab some Domaine de Pegau, because these are always great wines.”

I asked Harry what was the single best CDP he’s ever had.

“While I have had many superb wines, there has only been one wine, which came close to an Aha! Moment: The 1998 Henri Bonneau, Reserve des Celestins. I was drinking it with a friend; we opened the bottle and poured a glass for each of us. We took a sip and didn’t utter a single word to each other for five minutes. We sat there in angelic silence. We were stunned at how good a wine can be.”

 I asked Harry for his top three tips to best enjoy CDP.

 + “Only decant Chateauneuf-du-Pape if there is more than 10 percent Mourvedre in the blend. This grape tends to be funky and needs aeration. Otherwise, pour straight from the bottle.”

+ “Generally, in most vintages, the best age to drink a CDP is from ten years onward.”

+ “If your CDP has been at room temperature, place it in the fridge for 30 minutes before serving, to mimic cellar temperature. You’ll find the wine is fresher, brighter, more lively.”

The cursed “CDP August Effect ”

I asked Harry if I was the only person he’s ever met who believes there is a phenomenon, almost a curse, which I call “The CDP August Effect.” It has been my experience that every summer, when August comes around, the most balanced, elegant Chateauneufs-du-Pape in my cellar become awkward, gawky, imbalanced, some of them downright nasty wines.

Harry looked at me as though I were speaking a secret language. (It’s time, Harry, to pull out our Captain Midnight Secret Decoder Rings….)

I was startled by his reply:  “I have that identical experience!” Harry says that for him, the nasties start in July.

“I make a point of not opening Chateauneuf-du-Pape from the middle of July to the middle of September,” Harry said.

Harry’s experience is based on a sampling even larger than mine. At its peak, Harry’s cellar held 4,800 bottles of Chateauneuf-du-Pape, and it didn’t matter which house, or which vintage, he pulled from; during summer months, they all took an evolutionary step backward, regardless of how well they were stored.

The Tasting

Hosts for the CDP-tasting; held at 750 Wines (David Stevens, proprietor, far left), BP Wine host, Stefan Blicker, and right of him Harry Karis. At the far right is BP Wine co-owner Cory Wagner.

Host Stefan Blicker reviews two-dozen Chateauneufs-du-Pape served to guests.

Rather than give exhaustive tasting notes on two-dozen wines poured, let me concentrate on the top wines.

1949 Chateau Patriarche, Pere et Fils.

This wine, from a Beaune negociant, was the oldest CDP of the evening, and the oldest CDP I personally have ever tasted. Despite being 62-years-old (!), it still has fruit, life and personality. Call it CDP-lite; though partially oxidized, there are still hints of dried fruits, like prunes, raisins and fig, and a noticeable Virginia tobacco finish. Actually, a very “pretty” wine, considering the age.

1959 Roger Sabon.

OMG – this CDP! Don’t let the pale strawberry color fool you; this is CDP on steroids. Sweet, almost meaty, in the middle palate this wine displays a cacophony of fruit flavors and there is a l-o-n-g finish of mint and spearmint, which persists for a good 20 seconds.

1961 Chateau Cabrieres.

I know this sounds nuts: Although half-a-century old, this wine still tastes young, vibrant, and is thoroughly alluring. It grabbed my attention on each swallow, begging me to come back for another sip. Fruit and forest flavors mingle. There is a heap o’ cherry on the finish, both sweet and sour varieties, and I ended my tasting notes with this litany: “Stunning complexity, arresting flavors, exceptional wine.” Kinda says it all.

1978 Chateau Cabrieres.

They must have been doing something extra correct at Cabrieres to snag two of the top spots in this tasting; I used many of the same words to describe the ’78 as I did the ’61. As well, I noted this wine was sweet, lush, and hedonistic. Oh, and  truly sensational. Lots of berries, both black and red, tons of fresh fruit flavors, not dried or candied. What a package

The Book

Anyone who would like to learn more about Chateauneuf-du-Pape wines, or who plans to visit the region in southern France, needs this book. Period. It is the definitive tome on the subject (though I think I made this clear many paragraphs ago).

The book is $50 on amazon, and $79 just about everywhere else.

You can also buy the book on Harry’s Dutch website, www.kavino.nl

One other new toy: Harry has put his ENTIRE 500-page book, as well as a new summary guide, on a compact flash drive (pictured above), which you can transfer to your iPhone or iPad, so that you always have everything you need to know about Chateauneuf-du-Pape in your pocket or backpack.

The flash drive, available on Harry’s website, is $24.95.