Happy Mumm Day

I celebrated my recent birthday with a trip to Mumm Napa for my favorite wine - the kind that sparkles. I received a tip to try their limited edition 2011 Sparkling Pinot Meunier, which was peachy, flowery and very pretty, having spent 18 months on its lees before disgorgement. This traditional Champagne blending grape is aptly named for the flour-like dusty white down on the underside of its leaves. Though unknown to many, Pinot Meunier is the most widely planted Champagne grape and is favored because it buds later and ripens more reliably than the finicky Pinot Noir. In the final wine it contributes fruity flavors and aromatics.

Another favorite from this tasting was the DVX 2006, a 50/50 blend of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, which spent 5 years on its lees, so it was nice and toasty.

After this second visit to the beautiful Mumm terrace my favorite remains their Reserve Brut, a 60/40 blend of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay that is consistently bright, creamy, fruity and toasty. We wanted to buy another Magnum but they were sold out. Next time!

Thanks again to Lauren and James for a wonderful tasting.

Wine and Watches

Last week the San Francisco Wine Center sponsored a tasting at Ben Shemano Jewelry, a beautiful second-floor showroom in Union Square that specializes in antique and custom jewelry.  For collectors of the finer things in life, the focus of the evening was on fine wristwatches from designers including Rolex, Patek Phillipe and Audemars Piguet.  For the group of about 30 people I helped pour an array of wines from around the world and shared stories about winemaking and travel. We even learned that the late owner of Pride Mountain Vineyards in Napa Valley was a former dentist. Wonder what toothpaste he’d recommend for wine stains? He actually wasn’t a practicing dentist but a consultant who advised other dentists on how to optimize their office layouts.

From the white wine drinkers we found many Sancerre lovers and even converted some to Riesling fans. It was a warm evening in San Francisco and many opted for the cold ones. We encountered those who thought Riesling was always sweet, so we educated them on the various styles of Riesling and the labeling term used to denote ‘dry’ in German, which is ‘trocken.’

Red wine fans enjoyed classic west coast examples of Pinot Noir, Petite Sirah, and Zinfandel, plus a Chilean blend dominated by Cabernet Sauvignon. A couple of magnums dared to impress bold palates and showed how the right amount of air can make a wine open up.

Inevitably, with an even number of wines it’s easy to find yourself comparing. 2 whites, 2 reds, 2 magnums. The Sancerre had a flowery nose and a rich palate. The Riesling had the distinct petrol nose that developed into stone fruit, followed by beautiful citrus and orange blossom on the palate. The Oregon Pinot Noir was earthy and leathery, while the Napa Petite Sirah had a flowery but smoky nose with spice, lead pencil and roses on the palate. The two magnums couldn't be more different; the Brown Zinfandel was immediately rich, fruity and lush, while the Chilean blend was super tight, smoky and herbal at first, eventually opening up to reveal warm spice, red fruit, and an herbal forest.  I found this one to be the most interesting, particularly as it evolved over the course of the evening.

Wine List

1. Gitton Sancerre 2012 - France
2. Peter Jakob Kuhn Riesling Trocken 2010 – Germany
3. Provocateur Pinot Noir Willamette Valley 2003 - Oregon
4. Pride Petite Sirah Napa Valley 2003 – California
5. Brown Estate Zinfandel Napa Valley 2006 – California (Magnum)
6. Primus The Blend Colchagua Valley 2008 – Chile (Magnum)

Bites from The City Kitchen complimented the wines and provided a wonderful appetizer to later dinner plans. For some, the jewelry was dessert.  

Turley: Old Vine Zin

Another notable stop on our Paso Robles tour was Turley Wine Cellars. My first experience with Turley was at The Girl and the Fig, an amazing "French country" restaurant in Sonoma where we dined a couple years ago. Larry Turley founded his namesake winery after he sold his share of Frog's Leap in Napa to focus on Zinfandel. Turley scours the entire state of California looking for the oldest Zinfandel vines, making 23 different bottlings of Zin plus 5 bottlings of Petite Sirah. His Zin blends include the best blocks from the vineyards, and within those blocks the best grapes are bottled as single vineyard designates. All of the vineyards they source from are organic or in the process of becoming certified organic, all yeasts used in fermentation are natural, and the wines are unfined and unfiltered.  

Turley Ueberroth Vineyard Zinfandel 2011 comes from their oldest vineyard of 18 acres planted in 1885 in Paso Robles. The vines are ungrafted and head-trained on very steep limestone soils. The high pH of the soil translate into a high-acid wine. I found it to be beautifully complex, with a nose of barnyard/hay, spring flowers in bloom and salty air with brambly fruit and earth on the palate.

I also enjoyed the Turley Hayne Vineyard Petite Syrah 2005 from Napa Valley (they spell it 'Syrah' rather than 'Sirah'), which had a great blueberry nose and boisenberry palate, with nice structure, firm tannin, and brambly complexity. Planted in 1953, the Hayne Vineyard is dry-farmed and head-trained.

Old head-trained vines on the Turley property in Paso Robles

In addition to the Paso Robles tasting room, Turley recently opened one in the hills of Amador County, where they source a lot of fruit. Perhaps this will be our next trip?

1989 Cabernet Sauvignon: 1 for Sonoma, 1 for Napa

The other night we were making a steak dinner so we decided to try a bottle of A. Rafanelli Cabernet Sauvignon 1989 from the Indiana basement collection. Under the capsule the top of the bottle and cork were moldy, and the fill was low in the bottle, suggesting some leakage. We didn't have high hopes for the wine. The cork crumbled and we had to push it in to get to the wine, which we then decanted. We tried it, and it was pretty oxidized with little fruit left. We figured it was gone and reached for another bottle from the collection. It happened to be Diamond Creek Cabernet Sauvignon 1989. This was pure coincidence - we were just reaching for another old bottle and it happened to be this. The cork was in better shape and came out in one piece, unless you count the many tartrate crystals attached to the end. We decanted it and tried it, and while strongly vegetal, it seemed to have more structure, acidity, and tannin, and we deemed it the winner. We left the other, not ready to dump it yet while we sipped the Diamond Creek. As we went about making dinner, about a half hour later Jeremy said, try the Rafanelli. I did, and just from the smell I could tell it had improved. Fruity and spicy, with each sip it kept getting better. We went back to the Diamond Creek - not as vegetal, with hints of dried fruit starting to emerge. We were intrigued. Both were getting better. We took a glass of each to the table to enjoy with dinner. Rafanelli was fruity, spicy and smooth, while Diamond Creek was bold, structured, and interesting with secondary fruit. When we finished eating, the Diamond Creek was pretty much at the end of its life, with the fleeting fruit now gone. The Rafanelli had kept opening up, and I quickly whipped up a batch of cookies to pair with it for dessert. Unfortunately, that 20 minutes was enough to turn this wine back on its side, as the fruit started to fade and it was time to say goodnight. 2 bottles, 2 roller-coaster rides, 2 Cabs: 1 point for Sonoma, 1 point for Napa.

An interesting and fun exercise in old wine and time.

To filter or not to filter

One of the last steps in winemaking is usually filtering. When I worked at Wiemer, we used either the superfine cross flow filter or a pad filter for the wines made in smaller quantities. In winemaking you have to make some small sacrifices throughout the process. Each time you move the wine you risk exposing it to air, and inevitably each time you move it you risk losing a bit of its character, whether it be aroma, color, or flavor. Filtering is one of those steps that some winemakers would consider optional. The reason for filtering is to rid the wine of any bacteria or yeast that might remain in the wine and to ensure a “clean” wine before bottling. At Wiemer, where we made wines that often had some residual sugar left in them, filtering was necessary to ensure the yeast was completely removed from the wine. If any yeast remained, it could feed off the sugar and start another fermentation in the bottle, which at the very least might make the wine sparkle a bit, but at the worst it might cause the bottle to burst from the excess carbon dioxide and pressure.

Newton Vineyard in Napa was founded on the principle of unfiltered wines. Dr. Su Hua Newton, the first Asian female winemaker, began making unfiltered Chardonnay in the late 70s and then added the red Bordeaux varietals – Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Malbec. Her husband, Peter Newton, had been the first to plant Merlot in Napa when he worked for Sterling Vineyards, and the Newtons were one of the first to plant Petit Verdot in Napa. Dr. Newton built a state of the art winery between 1977 and 1979, with gravity flow and 30 feet of underground tunnels in the hills of Spring Mountain. The Newton vineyards are the only ones on the southern side of Spring Mountain, whose steep slopes and volcanic soil contribute to small concentrated berries and softened tannins. The winemaking process involves hand picking only the ripe fruit, which means they skip over the unripe fruit and go back to it later, making multiple passes through the vineyard until all the fruit is picked. The various pickings are kept separate, vinified in oak barrels in separate, temperature-controlled rooms. Then, the wines undergo aggressive “battonage” every day for 6 months – this means that after the fermentation has been complete (after a couple weeks), a long baton is inserted into the barrel to agitate the lees (dead yeast cells) that have fallen to the bottom. This action contributes a certain flavor to the wine and is “naturally antibacterial,” helping to “clean” the wine so the impurities settle out to the bottom. It’s similar to the process of riddling for sparkling wine, where the lees from the second fermentation in the bottle are forced to the neck of the bottle by a partial turn each day for 3 weeks, acting like a squeegee along the inside of the bottle until they are eventually disgorged. After the 6-month battonage, the clean wine – 85% of the barrel - is pumped out (this part is not done by gravity) and the remaining 15% of wine and solids is discarded. That amounts to about 4 cases of wine lost from this process - a significant loss but one preferred to the potential loss of color and aroma from machine filtering. The wine is then bottled and labeled “unfiltered.”

Views from Newton Vineyard

So does unfiltered wine taste better? Can you tell the difference? Newton wine still looks clear and clean. I tasted 4 wines paired with small bites from the Domaine Chandon gardens in Napa and their onsite restaurant, Etoile (Newton Vineyard is now owned by LVMH, the parent company of Moet & Chandon).  The 2009 Unfiltered Chardonnay was creamy with butterscotch and crème brulee notes. It wasn’t overpowered by oak and it went deliciously well with a spoonful of English pea soup accompanied by dungeness crab and meyer lemon. The 2008 Unfiltered Merlot had bright red fruit, black pepper and other spices, nice acidity, and grippy tannins that would soften with a bit more age. It went fabulously with a bite of tea smoked duck. The 2009 Unfiltered Cabernet Sauvignon had great black fruit that almost tasted sweet and again nice acidity and tannin that would lend well to further aging. The last wine was their Bordeaux blend that they call “The Puzzle” because of the shape of the vineyard blocks that it is sourced from. The 2008 Puzzle is made of 42% Merlot, 36% Cab Sauv, 14% Cab Franc, 6% Petit Verdot, and 2% Malbec. It was silky, smooth and complex and went great with the heirloom beet salad.

The last bonus wine was a 2002 Unfiltered Merlot from a Magnum bottle, which holds the equivalent of 2 regular bottles and is a better format for aging wine because of the reduced exposure to oxygen. This wine was musky and floral with additional characteristics of beets and lead pencil. It had great balance and structure and was very smooth. After recently enjoying the Newton 1991 Unfiltered Merlot and now trying the current releases, it was awesome to taste a wine right in the middle.

Now back to the question, to filter or not to filter? I can’t say I would be able to tell the difference unless I had the same wine in filtered and unfiltered form side by side. Winemaking is a combination of art and science, and I tend to gravitate toward wines made with the least manipulation. And as a former winemaker, knowing how the wine is made makes me appreciate and enjoy it more.

Corkscrew trees and the garden atop the wine caves

Drinking the Stars at Domaine Chandon

"Brothers, I am drinking the stars!" - Dom Perignon

You may know the story of how sparkling wine was discovered - by accident. Dom Perignon, a Benedictine monk, was making ceremonial wine and the bottles started exploding, due to residual sugar left in the wine that re-fermented and gave off carbon dioxide, causing pressure in the bottles. He tasted it and proclaimed the above. He didn't totally understand it, and it wasn't until years later that the sparkling wine process was accepted, perfected, and demanded.

The rise of Champagne and the French Champagne houses have a very interesting history, and I'd encourage anyone interested in the subject to pick up The Widow Cliquot: The story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It. It details some of the history of the Champagne trade and how the methods in the winemaking process were tested and perfected.

If you know me at all by now, you know I love bubbly. I drink it whenever I can and I don't need a special occasion for it; sparkling wine makes any occasion special. A few weeks ago I visited Chandon in Napa, after meeting one of their winemakers at Pinot Days in June. Chandon is owned by Moet and Chandon, the French Champagne house/empire. I visited Moet and Chandon on a trip to France in 2007, and I visited Chandon Australia in 2009. So, after living in California for over a year it was high time I checked out the Chandon in my backyard. I always love touring these facilities and seeing their processes. Chandon uses huge tanks that could double as studio apartments in New York City. They produce a huge amount of sparkling wine. After a tour of the facility, I had a patio tasting of the entire portfolio. My favorite was the Brut Classic, their #1 seller. A blend of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, it was delicate, creamy, citrusy and refreshing... a classic!

Next time I'll have to check out Etoile (which means 'star' in French), the Michelin star restaurant on the property.

Bottle Shock

Chateau Montelena is a 130 year old winery in Napa whose Chardonnay is famous for winning The Judgement of Paris - a blind wine tasting competition organized in 1976 by a British sommelier / wine merchant that pitted 6 California wines against 4 French counterparts. In the red category, in which California Cabernet Sauvignon competed against French Bordeaux, Stag's Leap Wine Cellars 1973 Cabernet took the lead. In the white category, Chateau Montelena 1973 Chardonnay was judged to be the best wine among the French Burgundy and other California Chardonnay. With an entirely French judging panel, the Paris Tasting of 1976 brought credibility and prestige to California wine. Chateau Montelena and the Judgement of Paris were the subject of the 2008 movie Bottle Shock, which depicts the competition and the drama associated with the 1973 Chardonnay. In the story, vintner Jim Barrett wants no part in the competition, but his son Bo secretly entered the wine. He later sees that the wine has turned brown in the bottles, and thinking it oxidized, he sends them to be dumped, but the samples have already been sent. Then, realizing the brown color is temporary and the wine has gone through "bottle shock," the bottles are saved, the wine wins the competition, and then everyone in France wants it but they can't get it (since it isn't French).  This story may or may not be true, but nonetheless, being the wine geek that I am, I found it very entertaining. Of course, there was a silly love story running through the plot as well that helped romanticize the whole thing.

So what is "bottle shock?" It's a condition characterized by disjointed or muted flavors, usually occurring shortly after bottling. I'm not sure there is definitive evidence of discoloration; this element may have been added to the movie for dramatic effect. Bottle shock can last a few weeks, as the wine needs some time to settle down from the bottling process and adjust to its new environment. It doesn't mean the wine is bad; it just tastes a bit confused. As a consumer, you would likely not experience bottle shock from a wine off the shelf at your local store, since most wines probably rest in the cellar for a bit before shipping. But, you might if you were tasting at a winery that had just bottled and needed to release the wine immediately to meet demand. Would you notice? I'm not sure I would, unless I had the same wine consistently from different bottles. A winemaker could detect it while tasting the wine throughout its life cycle.

Recently at Chateau Montelena, I recognized the building from the movie as soon as I saw it.  The Chardonnay is still made in the same style as it was in the 70s, and I found the 2009 to be very "Burgundian" in style. By this I mean subtle oak (only 10% new), steely acidity, crisp and clean. I love this style of Chardonnay, which is why I tend to prefer French Burgundy over new world Chardonnay, and I could see why the French judges were impressed with their style. The current vintage (2009) goes for $40 a bottle.

I don't usually get starstruck, but being at this winery, tasting the wine that essentially put California on the map, seeing those movie scenes in my head when I approached the building... I felt like I was among the stars (but not the actors).

Pinot Days

Yesterday I attended the Pinot Days Grand Festival Tasting at Fort Mason in San Francisco. My ticket included a sit-down tasting with 4 winemakers, and I chose the one called "Passion, Personality and Pinot," featuring the wines of Inman Family, Winderlea, Clos Pepe, and Big Basin. Each winemaker talked for 10 minutes about their vineyards, winemaking philosophies, and the 2 wines they chose to share with us. All of these wineries are small, low-production operations that use sustainable or organic vineyard practices and natural (spontaneous) fermentations. Each winery's offerings included 2 wines for comparison.

Inman Family: A one-woman show, Kathleen Inman called her winery Inman Family to encourage her daughters to participate. While her daughters and husband help out, she is the vineyard manager, winemaker, sales and marketing manager, and tasting room manager. When I think about the work I did at Wiemer, I marvel at how she does it all - she is one tough cookie (who drinks a lot of coffee). Inman Family is located in Russian River Valley and their focus is Pinot Noir, but they also make some rose and Pinot Gris. We had the 2007 and 2008 Inman Family OGV Estate Russian River Valley Pinot Noir. The 2008 was slightly richer but I preferred the more restrained 2007.

Winderlea: Located in Dundee, Oregon, the Winderlea vineyards are slowly being infected with phylloxera, a root disease that wiped out vineyards in Europe in the mid- to late- 1800s. The red basalt volcanic soil of the Dundee hills has helped to slow down the spread of the disease throughout the vineyard, so they are keeping an eye on it and replacing vines as needed. We compared the 2009 and 2010 Winderlea Legacy Pinot Noir, made from their older vines. 2009 was a warm vintage so this wine was very jammy, while the 2010 was a cooler vintage, and I preferred this wine's more earthy, spicy, refined flavors.

Clos Pepe: Winemaker Wes Hagen loves the cool climate and maritime influence of the Santa Rita Hills for the consistent vintages they are able to produce. When other areas in California are struggling with heat spikes, this area in Santa Barbara county hardly gets above 80 degrees, and on average their warmest temps are in the 70s. We compared the 2009 and 2010 Clos Pepe Estate Pinot Noir. Wes said that 2009 was a perfect vintage and allowed him to make a very deliberate wine - every action was due to his inclination instead of being dictated by weather. He described the 2010 as "overtly slutty" in the sense that it is showy and obvious in its intentions and delivery. I found it to be too fruit-forward for my taste, but Wes said he is making wines to be aged and this wine could probably use some cellaring so that it will eventually emerge as more of a "sexy librarian" like the 2009.

Big Basin: Bradley Brown is proprietor and winemaker of Pinot Noir and Rhone varietals (Syrah/Grenache) at this Santa Cruz producer.  Instead of a vintage comparison like the previous 3 producers, Bradley served 2 unreleased Pinots from the same vintage but different vineyards: 2010 Big Basin Coastview Vineyard, Monterey County and 2010 Big Basin Woodruff Family Vineyard, Santa Cruz Mountains. The Coastview Vineyard Pinot was more jammy but with a great minerality and acidity. The Woodruff Family Vineyard Pinot had great acidity, marked salinity, nice structure and balanced fruit. This vineyard is dry farmed (no irrigation) and is the oldest vineyard in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Bradley expects to release theses wine in a year or so. There's only about 100 cases of each.

After the sit-down tasting I walked around the tables and tried some more wines from local producers. Chandon (located in Carneros) is known for sparkling wines made from traditional Champagne grapes, but they also make still wines from these grapes. I tried their 2010 Pinot Meunier (fruity and lively), 2009 Pinot Noir (more structure and spice) and NV Brut Rose sparkling (65% Chardonnay sparkling with still Pinot added). I've been to Chandon Australia and Moet & Chandon in France, so Chandon California is a must-visit for me. Other tables I visited included Cuvaison, Buena Vista, Cartograph and Robert Sinskey, plus the earlier wineries from the sit-down tasting to further geek out with the winemakers and taste what else they had brought. Walking around a huge warehouse with tables upon tables of wine can be overwhelming, and you have to have some discipline at these things. So I stopped by familiar tables and producers I'd been wanting to try. After a couple hours I was feeling wine-fatigued, so I headed for the table marked "FOOD" and got some empanadas and alfajores from El Porteno, brought in from the Ferry Building. Yum!

A nice little Saturday.

Frances and Newton

Last week I finally made it to Frances, a popular restaurant that I've been hearing about for a year where you can never get in. It received 1 Michelin star in 2011 and is classic Californian, with a daily changing menu inspired by local ingredients and a casual setting. The reservation list is full for months, but they have a "bar" area in front with about 8 seats available on a first-come, first-served basis. I've tried to go in the past but with wait times over an hour I usually am too hungry to wait. This week though, to celebrate a special occasion on Wednesday, we tried again after calling and hearing that the wait for the bar wasn't too long. We got there and were first in line for 2 seats at the bar, a 30 minute wait. As we perused the wine menu, Jeremy had a thought that we should've brought a bottle from home. Corkage fee was only $15, and with a half hour to kill, why not go home and get a special bottle? So he went while I waited for the table. He got back 2 minutes after I was seated and presented a bottle of 1991 Newton Merlot - a bottle from his father's cellar. We had the 1990 a few weeks ago and it was really interesting, so I was excited to try this slightly younger vintage. The waiter decanted it for us, showed us the cork, which he managed to keep 75% in tact, and previewed by saying that while pouring it into the decanter it smelled amazing. We encouraged him to grab a glass and share some with us.

Amazing it was - rich and deep, with earthiness, leather, warm spice, and a bit of complicated fruit - not quite dried but still lively and bright. It went great with our meals (I had the Quail and Kale and Jeremy had beef) as well as the dessert - a decadent chocolate cake with bing cherries baked in and caramel sauce on top.

Frances and Newton - a match made in heaven!

Why We Love(d) the 90's

A few weeks ago I visited Indiana with my boyfriend and we raided his dad's wine cellar. His dad had managed to get himself on a bunch of coveted wine lists in the 80s and 90s and still has a lot to show for it. Now a diabetic, he doesn't drink wine as much as he used to, so he said we could put together a couple cases and bring them back to California with us. I've been lucky enough to sample some of these cellar treasures, including Ridge from the 80s and Leonetti from the 90s. It is always a gamble with older wines - you never know how they will keep. This basement wine cellar that we raided is not actually a wine cellar at all - it's a boiler room. So every time we open one of these bottles, the cork crumbles, we dismantle it in pieces, push in what we can't get out, and usually end up decanting and sometimes passing the wine through a coffee filter (into a coffee pot if we've run out of decanters). The wine may be oxidized, it may have lost all its fruit. Or it may be amazing, complex, funky, silky, and downright delicious. Here are a few winners from the latest collection:

 Leonetti Cellars 1992 Select Walla Walla Valley, Washington

The components of this wine are unknown, but I suspected it was a Merlot/Cab Sauv blend. It was gorgeous, fruity, spicy and chewy, with no oxidation and a beautiful richness.

Newton 1990 Merlot Napa Valley, California

This wine wasn't as clean as the previous but still had a lot of fruit and spice to go with the funk.

Chateau Phelan Segur 1990 Saint-Estephe, Bordeaux, France

This 1990 Bordeaux, which is dominated by Cabernet Sauvignon in the blend, still had a lot of fruit, plus richness and complexity that is so typically Bordeaux. I've learned through my tasting and study that really good Bordeaux needs at least 10 years to be drinkable, at least to my liking (the tannin needs time to calm down) and this was a perfect example. Blackberry, leather, barnyard, and dried fruit mingled with a surprising acidity (that calmed down after being open for a day) and tannin that suggested we could have waited a bit longer to open it, but not too much longer. 

A. Rafanelli 1991 Zinfandel Dry Creek Valley, Sonoma County, California

I tried this wine after it being open for a day, and it was pretty oxidized, but it still had a bit of fruit and spice and was drinkable. Jeremy said it was much better the first day.

Both of these last two bottles had been leaking, which was why we decided to open them. You can see how the bottle tops are kind of moldy and icky. 

All of these wines threw a lot of sediment, as can be expected in older wines, and the 1990 Bordeaux also left tartrate crystals behind, which is from the acidity precipitating out. 

We were just saying that we should probably get some cheap Tuesday night wine to drink so we are not opening interesting and potentially amazing 20-year old bottles on a whim, but really, we are opening the bottles from Indiana assuming they are bad from the storage conditions, but hoping they will surprise us. So far so good! Thanks again, Jeff.

Gravity Flow Winemaking at Vineyard 29

Lately I've been hearing a lot about gravity flow winemaking. I first encountered it in South America, having visited wineries in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay that are gravity-driven. The belief is that moving the wine via pumps is disruptive to the wine and steals some of its character. Gravity-driven wineries are constructed on multiple levels so that wine is transported from higher tanks to lower tanks by gravity. Conceivably you could require as many as 4 levels - sorting level for the grapes/juice to go in from the press, a level below for racking off sediment, another level below for racking off fermentation lees, and another level down into the barrel cellar. I was always skeptical - what if you run out of tanks in the lower levels? What about blending? What if you need to move the wine up to an empty tank? And forget logistics of the hoses - there would need to be trapdoors and tunnels everywhere. The mystery was solved during my recent visit to Vineyard 29 in Napa. There I understood the missing link - a holding tank that moves between levels via elevator, since they have just 1 level of tanks above the barrel cellar. With their elevator holding tank they have more flexibility to move the wine without relying on available tanks on a certain level. Hoses are snaked through tunnels in the walls and floor.

Above Tank Level

Tank Level

Holes for the hoses to snake through to reach the Lower Level

Red wine barrels in the cellar

Once we made our way through the gravity tour, we were welcomed in the barrel cellar for a round-table tasting.

Their 2009 Estate Sauvignon Blanc was unlike any I'd ever had. It was luscious, flowery and tropical while also maintaining the acidity and minerality so coveted in Bordeaux. The use of concrete tanks allows for an air exchange that makes the wine less sensitive to oxidation, so it can age for longer than most white wines - it was aged for 18 months in water-soaked oak barrels (minimal toast) before bottling. This wine was so complex and alive, yet refined and pretty. The finish was super long.

Concrete holding tank for the Sauvignon Blanc

The 2008 Aida Cabernet Sauvignon was blended with small amounts of Merlot and Petit Verdot. It was jammy and thick with super dark blueberry fruit. It was quite balanced in terms of tannin, acidity and alcohol - which was 14.8% but the wine didn't taste hot.

The 2009 Estate Cabernet Franc (75% Cab Franc/25% Cab Sauv) was also unlike any I'd ever had. It had a gorgeous rose/graphite/leather nose with an earthy spice and marked minerality on the palate. Not a ton of fruit but I did notice dark plum. It was very rich and complex with a long finish.

All the wines were decanted 1 hour before serving

Thanks again to Austin for a truly memorable experience - I look forward to enjoying the wines I took home.

Darioush

Last weekend I made another visit to Darioush in the Napa Valley, this time for a sit-down "table-side" tasting. A flat panel tv in our corner of the tasting room showed a video of the field crew harvesting the grapes at night - common practice here in California where fall days can be too hot for harvesting. I think this is such a great process - the field crew works all night and then by 7am the day shift gets to work sorting the grapes and getting the juice into tanks. I'm sure in many parts of the world (warmer climates mostly) this type of shift work is done; in the Finger Lakes it didn't really make sense for us, especially since it could get pretty cold on those fall nights.

Greg, our server, was very knowledgable about the wines and the valley. Darioush wines are made from 90% estate grapes (from vineyards they own) and 10% from vineyards that are leased over multi-year agreements. Owning your own grapes or at least leasing them is important, because it allows you to have control in the vineyard, where wine is born. Knowing the land and the vines gives you a leg up when it comes time to make harvesting decisions. The wines tasted were not far from the lineup I had on my first visit there almost a year ago - Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Merlot, and Cabernet Sauvignon. The Cab is their flagship wine and I had tasted the 2007 in March and loved it. This time I got to taste the 2006 next to the 2008 (2007 is sold out because it got great ratings and everyone went crazy for it). The 2006 was obviously smoother, with a silky texture and long finish, but the 2008 had tons more fruit and was much more exciting. The tannins were still gripping but you could imagine how a couple years in the cellar would really do this wine well.

Thanks again to Ryan and Greg for their impeccable service and attention! I highly recommend a visit to Darioush.

Mumm's the word

Friday we went up to Napa to escape the fog of San Francisco and enjoy some wine tasting before the weekend rush. We went to Mumm Napa, sister sparkling wine producer to G. H. Mumm in Champagne, France (both are owned by Pernod Ricard). Most of the wines are made from a base of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, two of the classic Champagne grapes. We had a relaxed patio tasting overlooking the vineyards and mountains, hosted by Claudia, who gave us suggestions for what flights to try. She also let us compare sparkling wine in a regular champagne bottle to that in a magnum - twice the size. Their magnums go through extended lees aging (when the bottles age on the dead yeast cells before disgorgement), so they have more toastiness and complexity to the taste - 7 years aging versus 3 years, as an example. I love these characteristics in Champagne and sparkling wine so it was really exciting to taste the differences. We did this comparison for both the Brut Rose and Brut Reserve. The regular bottles were great but I loved the magnums even more. I love dry pink sparkling wine in general, I think it is the prettiest and most exciting wine to drink, and I've rarely met one I didn't like. The Brut Rose Magnum was so delicious. And the Brut Reserve Magnum was magnumificent!

We also liked their DVX line of wines, which go through some neutral barrel aging and partial malolactic fermentation before bottling for the second fermentation. Traditionally, still wine designated for sparkling wine is stainless steel fermented and extremely acidic, which helps its longevity and age-ability going into the second fermentation. DVX is softened a bit before the second fermentation, but the acidity still remains in the finished wine, so it had this amazing creaminess and crispness in an interesting balance. (Malolactic fermentation is a process whereby the natural malic acid present in the grape juice/wine is converted to lactic acid, a softer acid found in milk. This fermentation happens naturally at the right temperature, and most red wines go through it. Some winemakers allow white wines like Chardonnay to go through ML, but for other wines they usually avoid it by cold-stabilizing the white wine.) 

Champagne bottles in various sizes - as they get bigger they have funny names like Jeroboam, Methusalem, Salmanzar, Balthazar, and Nebuchadnezzar.

Thanks to Claudia for a fantastic experience at Mumm Napa!

Brown Zin

I've found a new favorite - Brown Estate Zinfandel. I tried their single vineyard 2009 Mickey's Block Zinfandel at a friend's house and loved it - smooth, chocolatey, spicy, dark-fruity. So enjoyable on its own. Then, I tried another bottling at Ubuntu in Napa, a vegetarian restaurant that really knows what to do with veggies. They made a bean stew taste meaty without any fake meat or seitan or anything. I was surprised by the number of reds on their wine list and decided that the wine pairing must have been carefully tested. I wanted the Brown Zin anyway, not caring if it went with our food choices. It was just as enjoyable as my first experience, if not more so, and it helped bring me to the conclusion that Zinfandel (and Brown in particular) is a very versatile red, pairing well with meats, of course, but also with lighter meals (of veggies) and even on its own. Some Zins have a touch of sweetness from those ripe California grapes; if it's a lower alcohol Zin (I'm talking 14% or lower), there may be some residual sugar in the wine. If it tastes like chocolate, I want it. Less calories! (Maybe?)

Brown Estate is a Zinfandel-focused family-owned vineyard, believed to be the first and only black-owned estate in Napa. The waitress at Ubuntu said they tried all their different Zins and loved them all. This winery is definitely on my list the next time I plan a trip.

Lagrein Wine

A couple months ago there was an article in the New York Times about Lagrein, a red grape varietal from northeastern Italy. I read the article and instantly wanted to try this wine, which Eric Asimov described as "deliciously plummy, earthy and chewy, dark and full-bodied but not heavy, with a pronounced minerally edge." Shortly thereafter, I was in Napa with a couple visiting friends and we came across a Lagrein at Imagery Estate Winery. I was primed to like it, and I did. Maybe because I wanted to, because of the article. I got a bottle to take home to my boyfriend, who had sent me the article. We drank it one night with dinner, and we noticed the high alcohol. It was jammy in the California style, and I'm not sure I liked it as much as when I tasted it at the winery. The next morning we were both hungover.

This week at SFWC's Grilling Wines class, I tried one of the well-known Italian Lagrein producers, Hofstätter, and I loved their Lagrein. It was balanced, rich, spicy, and full-bodied without being heavy. The alcohol was probably around 2% lower than the California had been. It was interesting to see the new world vs. old world comparison. I admit I am getting more used to California wine, my tolerance for alcohol and tannin is getting stronger and I have found a lot to like. But in this case I prefer the old world version.











New York Times article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/30/dining/reviews/30wine.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

Old World vs. New World

This week's class at San Francisco Wine Center was a comparison of Old World (Europe) and New World (everywhere else) wines, and I donated a sample of Hermann J. Wiemer Dry Riesling 2009 to the cause! The 2009 Dry Riesling was recently released, and I am very proud of this wine because I helped make it during my time working at Wiemer. I sorted the grapes, monitored the fermentation, racked the wine, contributed my sensory opinion in putting together the final blend from our 3 Riesling vineyard sites, filtered, bottled and labeled it. Last night, we pinned it against a German Kabinett Riesling from the Rheingau and I thought the Wiemer showed fantastically. I was excited to share this wine with the other employees at the SFWC and the students in the class.

The rest of the comparisons were interesting and intriguing:

Elegant white Burgundy led the way for creamy California Chardonnay:
Olivier Leflaive Puligny Montrachet Les Folatières 1er Cru 2009 (Cote de Beaune, Burgundy) vs. Deovlet Soloman Hills Vineyard Santa Maria Valley Chardonnay 2009 (Santa Barbara, CA)

Delicate Pinots from Burgundy and Oregon stumped many:
Erath Estate Selection Willamette Valley Pinot Noir 2008 (Oregon) vs. Domaine Jacques Prieur Beaune Champs-Pimont 1er Cru 2008 (Cote de Beaune, Burgundy)

Popular Argentine Malbec found its roots in Cahors, France:
Château du Cèdre Cahors 2007 (Cahors, Southwest France) vs. Norton Malbec Reserva 2007 (Mendoza, Argentina)

Cabernet-dominated Margaux confused the California Cab drinker:
Blason D’Issan Margaux 2007 (Bordeaux, France) vs. Meteor Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 2007 (Napa Valley, CA)

Take a Napa

It's been raining since I got to San Francisco, which I really cannot complain about since New York just got another snowstorm. I thought maybe if I went up to Napa the weather would be better, but it was the same, rainy and gray with flooded vineyards. They get most of their rain in winter (and early spring apparently), and then the rest of the year will be sunny. Part of my quest for what's next involves sampling the region's wines. After all, how can I determine which winery I would want to work for if I haven't sampled their wines?

First I went to Darioush, which looks like a Persian palace. Impeccable customer service awaits as you view their stainless steel tanks overlaying a blue tile floor and press pad overlooking their estate vineyards. Despite the lavish decoration, you can still see a working winery. Here I learned that a lot of wineries in Napa harvest at night, when the grapes have cooled off from the intense sun. Darioush then sorts the grapes first thing in the morning, first the clusters as they go into the crusher/de-stemmer and then the individual berries as they come out. Their 2009 Viognier was floral and pretty, with good acidity. I was surprised by the alcohol - 14.8% - because I didn't really notice it. I really enjoyed their 2008 Russian River Pinot Noir, which had some great spice overlaying the cherry and tobacco notes. It had good body and structure but a comfortable lightness. The 2007 Merlot was very bright, with raspberry and baking spice flavors. The 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon was the best of the tasting - remember that I normally don't like young Cabs, but I loved this one! It was so smooth, with delicious blueberry, currant, chocolate and spice, balanced by great acidity. This is their best seller and their largest production at the winery with 7,000-10,000 cases made per year. It goes for $80 a bottle!

At Signorello, their wines are nicely balanced and elegant. They spend a lot of time in the vineyard, keeping yields low, allowing a small amount of fruit to battle for nutrients. They have 42 acres and produce only 5500 cases. I'd probably want to cellar most of the reds for a few years. The 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon was my favorite, smooth with chewy cocoa and spice and nice acidity and tannin.

My last stop was Far Niente, where I toured the property, which includes an acre of underground caves where they store their wine in barrels. It is the perfect temperature and humidity for wine storage and aging. They only make two wines, Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon. We had 2 Cabs, one from 2000 and one from 2008. I liked the older one better, but the 2008 had some great fruit and spice, with good grip from the tannin; I could see how it would age well. They also have another label called Dolce, which is a sweet Sauternes-like dessert wine made from Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc. This was a beautiful wine. They did a great wine and cheese pairing, which was a really nice way to finish the rainy day.

Chardonnay is Queen and Cabernet Sauvignon is King out here, so my education of these two wines continues...

Princess of Pinot - sparkling and still

Last weekend I visited the Carneros wine region of California, a wine region just north of San Francisco that covers the southern portions of both Sonoma and Napa. Carneros was designated an AVA (American Viticultural Area) because of its soil and climate. Chardonnay and Pinot Noir thrive there, so sparkling wine is a large focus of many wineries in the area.

We visited Acacia Vineyard first, where we tasted a bunch of their single-vineyard Pinot Noir. I liked their 2006 Beckstoffer-Las Amigas Vineyard bottling best, better than the current release of 2007. The Beckstoffer vineyard was very old and they actually pulled the vines out in 2008 because it was yielding so little fruit.

At Gloria Ferrer, a sparkling wine producer owned by Spanish sparkling wine producer Freixenet (you know that $10 Cava in the black bottle?), we had a tour of their facility and tasted some bubblies. My favorite was the 2002 Royal Cuvee, a blend of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir that aged for 5 years on the lees. This amount of aging resulted in really toasty flavors that I liked.

Domaine Carneros, owned by Taittinger, is a beautiful property that I first visited in 2004. They produce sparkling wine and Pinot Noir. First we had a tour and tasted some of their sparkling wines. The best bubbly of the bunch was their 2005 Le Rêve Blanc de Blancs, their premium bottling. We tasted a few of their current release Pinot Noir bottlings before meeting their Pinot Noir winemaker, TJ Evans, who then gave us the behind-the-scenes tour. We had some pre-sparkling tank samples and then 5 barrel samples of Pinot Noir - all different clones. In California they are very focused on clones and how they differ in terms of flavor and structure. Different lots are often blended with the proportions of the different clones in mind. At Wiemer, we grow Pinot Noir clones 115 and 777. I tried those at Domaine Carneros plus 3 others. It was interesting to taste the differences between the clones and also to compare their same clones to ours at Wiemer.

One of the cool things about visiting both these sparkling wine producers was seeing the machinery they use for riddling and disgorging. This is a gyropallete, which riddles 500 bottles at once in about 3 days. Remember how we were hand-riddling at Wiemer for 3 weeks?

North of Carneros, outside the city of Sonoma, we visited Buena Vista Winery and tasted some bigger reds - a highlight of the trip. Their 2006 Ramal Vineyard Pinot Noir Swan Selection was the best from the weekend. I also liked their Merlot, Syrah, and a couple of wines from the 2005 Atlas Peak collection - Cabernet Sauvignon and Claret (a Bordeaux blend). But I have to say that I only liked the Cab after our server sent it through the Vinturi aerator 3 times, which is supposed to be equivalent to a year of aging in the cellar or an hour in a decanter with each pass - this was after I told him I only like Cabs when they are old.  It is interesting that every winery sells the Vinturi. I wonder if it is because many of the wines in California are very fruit-forward and in-your-face, but some people like their wines a bit more demure, with a little more age on them.

I didn't know this at the time, but Buena Vista Winery got all of their plants from the Hermann J. Wiemer nursery. Everything comes full circle!