Wine Bazar

The wine industry spends a lot of time and energy fighting for the attention of global consumers. In particular, they′ve tried hard to market seasonally to consumers, but they just can’t quite compete with the likes of Oktoberfest for beer drinkers. The best that the wine industry has been able to come up with sends even the most tolerant wine lovers running for cover every November, as the rollout of Beaujolais Nouveau reaches ever more spectacular heights of commercial bling.

It would be one thing if the wine was even somewhat drinkable. But these days, what passes for Beaujolais Nouveau is, by and large, utter crap. That’s just my professional opinion, of course, and no offense meant to those who enjoy a bottle of the banana and bubble gum concoction that is foisted on consumers the third Thursday in November each year.

It’s sad that such wine, and the marketing hoopla that goes with it, has become so entrenched in the industry, and even sadder still that we can’t come up with a better event with better wine. OK, maybe New Year’s Eve and Champagne are a saving grace here.

But let’s get back to Beaujolais. Because today I want to talk about the other Beaujolais — the quiet, shy sister to the airhead that is Nouveau.

Beaujolais, is of course, a wine region that snuggles up to the southern borders of Burgundy in East-Central France. For centuries, Beaujolais was simply a neighbor of Burgundy that happened to grow more of the grape Gamay Noir than the land to the north, thanks to the grape’s preference for the granitic soils of the region rather than the limestone of Burgundy. In 1395 Philip the Bold, the Duke of Burgundy, ordered that all the Gamay vineyards of Burgundy be torn up, and forever banned from the region. Rather suddenly, Beaujolais became a much more unique wine region, and a safe haven for a grape that went from widespread popularity in France to nearly being unknown thanks to Ducal decree.

Beaujolais as a region produces several classifications of wine, the vast majority based on Gamay, from the wine simply labeled Beaujolais to appellation designated wine from Beaujolais Villages, or the ten “Cru″ appellations of the region: Morgon, Régnié, Brouilly, Côte-de-Brouilly, Moulin-à-Vent, Fleurie, Juliénas, St-Amour, Chénas, and Chiroubles.

These latter appellations, and in particular Morgon, play host to a resistance movement that is slowly proving to a widening circle of wine lovers that the region deserves a better reputation than Nouveau is capable of supporting.

This new reputation for more serious wines is largely the work of a band of winemakers that have retrenched to more traditional Burgundian grape growing and winemaking methods. Known as the Gang of Four, these winemakers have spent the last twenty or more years making wines that are the complete opposite of Beaujolais Nouveau.

Which is to say that they are actually quite good.

Jean-Paul Thevenet is one of the Gang members (the others being Guy Breton, Jean Foilard, and Marcel Lapierre) and perhaps best embodies the “old school” qualities that these winemakers have championed in the region.

Thevenet works a plot of extremely old vines in the Morgon appellation. The average age of the vines is 70 years and they are cultivated organically and yield very little fruit. The grapes are fermented with natural yeasts and, quite remarkably, often without the addition of any sulfur dioxide (commonly used by winemakers as a preservative and to prevent bacteriological growth). After fermentation Thevenet ages the wine for six to eight months in used oak barrels that he manages to get from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti. It is bottled without filtration.

Thevenet’s wines, as well as the rest of his gang (and those of a number of producers that have started to follow suit in the region) represent a fundamentally different side of Beaujolais and the Gamay Noir grape. A side that frankly deserves a lot more celebration than the millions of liters delivered with fanfare every November.

Tasting Notes:
Light ruby in color, this wine has a rich, loamy nose of cassis and cranberry aromas with darker notes of fruit and earth underneath. In the mouth it is lush — silky, smooth, and very nicely balanced with flavors that bounce between the red tart fruit of cranberry and the darker, juicier notes of cassis. The tannins are faint, nearly imperceptible, and tinged with notes of smoke and wet dirt. This wine is concentrated to a perfect degree, rich without being overpowering, and pure without being too polished. Lovely.

Food Pairing:
I’d love to drink this wine to accompany pork tenderloin with pomegranate sauce.

Overall Score: between 9 and 9.5

How Much?: $23

This wine is available for purchase on the Internet.

Original post by default@goarticles.com (Alyssa Nair)

We don’t have a Cru classification in California (we just have mailing lists and release prices) but there are a few vineyards in the state that would most certainly be at the top of the list. Their names are well known to those wine lovers who can afford the generally expensive wines they produce, and one of them is unquestionably the Hirsch Vineyard.

First planted in 1980 by farmer David Hirsch, the Hirsch Vineyard is located on the mountain ridges above the northern California town of Fort Ross at 1500 feet above the ocean surface and 3.5 miles as the crow flies from its crashing waves. One of the pioneers of a region known as the Extreme Sonoma Coast, this 72 acre vineyard is planted mostly with Pinot Noir which thrives above the fog line in the unique and powerful mix of sunlight and cool ocean breezes. Within several years of its planting, the vineyard was recognized as one of the top sources of Pinot Noir in the country.

Williams Selyem winery is one of the main advocates and customers of the Hirsch Vineyard, and the Pinot Noir they make from this vineyard every year is almost always one of the finest in California.

Williams Selyem was founded in 1981 by Burt Williams and Ed Selyem, two friends who started making wine together in their garage in Forestville, California in the late seventies just because they loved the stuff, wanted to drink more wine together, and loved a challenge. A few years later, what started as a hobby became an avocation, and in a few more years, a cult phenomenon. Over the course of a decade or two Williams Selyem winery played a major role in establishing Sonoma County as a premier winegrowing region, and establishing California as a world-class Pinot Noir producing region.

Surprisingly, the two didn’t start with Pinot Noir as a goal. They were more excited about Zinfandel (which William Selyem still makes) but it was ultimately Pinot Noir that captured the majority of their attention, and the attention of the wider world when their 1985 Rochioli vineyard Pinot Noir was the winner at the California State fair in 1987, and the winery was simultaneously awarded the designation Winery of the Year.

At that point Williams Selyem was still just two guys in a garage, marshaling an army of friends to meticulously hand pick, hand sort, and hand crush small lots of grapes from what were at the time, relatively young but clearly very high quality vineyards. They quickly found themselves with the demand, and the capital, to invest in a proper winery.

By the early Nineties, William-Selyem had become one of Sonoma County’s first cult wineries. People were waiting years to get on their mailing list, and the wines were selling out before they ever got the chance to hit retail stores. But about that time, Burt and Ed were ready for a break after nearly 20 years of winemaking, and sold the winery to its present owners, John and Kathe Dyson in 1998. While the ownership and winemaking team has changed, the demand for the wines has not.

Currently the winemaking is done by Bob Cabral, Lynn Krausmann and oenologist Adam Goodrich, with little deviation from the strictly minimalist approach taken by the founders. Even today, no mechanical pumping is ever done to the wine, nor any filtration, and the wine is aged in a mix of French oak of which about 50% is new. Babied through the entire winemaking process process, apart from a forklift and a press, nearly everything is done by hand by this small group of individuals under Cabral’s careful direction.

Williams Selyem’s success as a winery has afforded it the luxury of being able to make no compromises when it comes to winemaking, which includes the ability to be a bit more European about working with the wine — the wine takes as long as it takes — to ferment, to age, to sit in the bottle.

This particular wine was aged in 67% new oak and 37% 1-year-old oak barrels for about 16 months before being bottled unfiltered.

Tasting Notes:
Light garnet in color, this wine has an elegant nose of raspberries, cherries, and crushed herb aromas. In the mouth it is equally as elegant, even distinguished, with gorgeously textured flavors of raspberry, red apple skin, hints of citrus oil, and a woody undertone that provides a base note to the brighter flavors. Perfectly balanced, this is a beautiful rendition of Pinot Noir that gives ample time to reflect as much in its long finish.

Food Pairing:
This would beautifully accompany a nice charcoal roasted quail.

Overall Score: around 9.5

How Much?: $72 to mailing list customers, though it goes for $95 and higher in retail stores.

This wine is available for purchase on the Internet.

Original post by default@goarticles.com (Levi Reiss)

One of the greatest experiences that a wine lover can encounter is a wine that stops them in their tracks. I’ll admit that I’m excitable in general, but there’s nothing that gets me quite so giddy as a schoolboy as when I stumble across a wine that truly bowls me over. Such wines are the closest I get anymore to the emotions of that first passionate kiss in a new relationship — they electrify me. While the world slows down to a crawl around me, all I want to do is stick my nose in the glass and inhale slowly.

This is one of those wines. I was minding my own business, tasting away through a public wine tasting in San Francisco. As a matter of course, I marched up to the Guigal table, and tasted through what they had to offer, like I have done before at other tastings. I enjoy Guigal wines a great deal, especially their more exclusive bottlings.

But while I’ve had Guigal wines that have been great, even exceptional, I’ve never had one knock me on my ass in quite the same way as this wine did when I put it in my mouth.

Etienne Guigal founded his winery in the tiny Northern Rhone village of Ampuis in 1946. The vineyards he purchased to begin producing wine had been growing grapes for as long as anyone can remember. So long that some of the stone walls in the fields dated back more than 2400 years to Roman times.

The enterprising 32-year-old Guigal was no stranger to the wine business when he bought his first vineyard, having worked as a winemaker for several years before striking out on his own. By the time his blindness forced him to turn operations over to his son in the Sixties, he had personally worked more than 67 vintages.

The estate is now beginning its third generation of family ownership, and is widely recognized as one of the top wine producers in both the region, and the world. From its humble beginnings, the estate has grown to sizable proportions, or what amounts to sizable proportions in the relatively small appellations of the region. The estate now owns vineyards in Côte-Rôtie, Condrieu, Hermitage, Crozes-Hermitage, and Saint-Joseph, and buys a significant amount of fruit from producers all over the region.

I′m not entirely sure of the estate’s current production levels but they are somewhere north of 340,000 cases, with the bulk of that being wines made from purchased grapes. The wines are currently made by Philippe Guigal and his father Marcel.

This particular wine is 95% Syrah and 5% Viognier, culled from some of the oldest blocks among 6 of Guigal’s vineyards:

Le Clos “Côte Blonde”,
La Garde “Côte Blonde”,
La Grande Plantée “Côte Blonde”,
La Pommière “Côte Brune”,
Le Pavillon Rouge “Côte Brune”,
Le Moulin “Côte Brune”

Some of these vineyards were planted in the early 16th century. Of course, they have been replanted over the ages, and the average age of the vines now is around 50 years. While the vineyards are not certified, they are essentially farmed organically.

The grapes for the wine are hand harvested, meticulously sorted, destemmed, and then undergo a cold soak for sometimes more than a month before fermentation is allowed to begin in steel tanks. After fermentation, the juice is transferred to the estate’s own barrels (since 2003 the estate has run its own cooperage on the property) where it ages for at least 38 months before bottling.

Tasting Notes:
Medium garnet in color this wine leaps out of the glass, grabs you by the scruff of the neck and drags your ass into a field in the middle of southern France and then stands back laughing as you stumble blissfully among sage, lavender, rosemary, and a small lake of fresh cassis. In the mouth the wine is equally explosive with an incredibly juicy core of cassis that is riddled with crystalline granitic minerality. Perfectly balanced, with the texture of satin and tannins that don’t grip so much as they caress. And just when you think it can’t get any better, the floral notes from the Viognier sweep in like valkyries to carry you away into the finish. Please, sir, may I have another? This is definitely the best current vintage of Côte-Rôtie I have ever tasted.

Food Pairing:
I’d love to drink this with a slow roasted leg of lamb with rosemary.

Overall Score: between 9.5 and 10.

How Much?: $130

This wine is available for purchase on the Internet.

Original post by default@goarticles.com (Levi Reiss)

One of the greatest experiences that a wine lover can encounter is a wine that stops them in their tracks. I’ll admit that I’m excitable in general, but there’s nothing that gets me quite so giddy as a schoolboy as when I stumble across a wine that truly bowls me over. Such wines are the closest I get anymore to the emotions of that first passionate kiss in a new relationship — they electrify me. While the world slows down to a crawl around me, all I want to do is stick my nose in the glass and inhale slowly.

This is one of those wines. I was minding my own business, tasting away through a public wine tasting in San Francisco. As a matter of course, I marched up to the Guigal table, and tasted through what they had to offer, like I have done before at other tastings. I enjoy Guigal wines a great deal, especially their more exclusive bottlings.

But while I’ve had Guigal wines that have been great, even exceptional, I’ve never had one knock me on my ass in quite the same way as this wine did when I put it in my mouth.

Etienne Guigal founded his winery in the tiny Northern Rhone village of Ampuis in 1946. The vineyards he purchased to begin producing wine had been growing grapes for as long as anyone can remember. So long that some of the stone walls in the fields dated back more than 2400 years to Roman times.

The enterprising 32-year-old Guigal was no stranger to the wine business when he bought his first vineyard, having worked as a winemaker for several years before striking out on his own. By the time his blindness forced him to turn operations over to his son in the Sixties, he had personally worked more than 67 vintages.

The estate is now beginning its third generation of family ownership, and is widely recognized as one of the top wine producers in both the region, and the world. From its humble beginnings, the estate has grown to sizable proportions, or what amounts to sizable proportions in the relatively small appellations of the region. The estate now owns vineyards in Côte-Rôtie, Condrieu, Hermitage, Crozes-Hermitage, and Saint-Joseph, and buys a significant amount of fruit from producers all over the region.

I′m not entirely sure of the estate’s current production levels but they are somewhere north of 340,000 cases, with the bulk of that being wines made from purchased grapes. The wines are currently made by Philippe Guigal and his father Marcel.

This particular wine is 95% Syrah and 5% Viognier, culled from some of the oldest blocks among 6 of Guigal’s vineyards:

Le Clos “Côte Blonde”,
La Garde “Côte Blonde″,
La Grande Plantée “Côte Blonde”,
La Pommière “Côte Brune”,
Le Pavillon Rouge “Côte Brune”,
Le Moulin “Côte Brune″

Some of these vineyards were planted in the early 16th century. Of course, they have been replanted over the ages, and the average age of the vines now is around 50 years. While the vineyards are not certified, they are essentially farmed organically.

The grapes for the wine are hand harvested, meticulously sorted, destemmed, and then undergo a cold soak for sometimes more than a month before fermentation is allowed to begin in steel tanks. After fermentation, the juice is transferred to the estate’s own barrels (since 2003 the estate has run its own cooperage on the property) where it ages for at least 38 months before bottling.

Tasting Notes:
Medium garnet in color, this wine leaps out of the glass, grabs you by the scruff of the neck and drags your ass into a field in the middle of southern France and then stands back laughing as you stumble blissfully among sage, lavender, rosemary, and a small lake of fresh cassis. In the mouth the wine is equally explosive with an incredibly juicy core of cassis that is riddled with crystalline, granitic minerality. Perfectly balanced, with the texture of satin, and tannins that don’t grip so much as they caress. And just when you think it can’t get any better, the floral notes from the Viognier sweep in like valkyries to carry you away into the finish. Please, sir, may I have another? This is definitely the best current vintage of Côte-Rôtie I have ever tasted.

Food Pairing:
I’d love to drink this with a slow roasted leg of lamb with rosemary.

Overall Score: between 9.5 and 10.

How Much?: $130

This wine is available for purchase on the Internet.

Original post by default@goarticles.com (Levi Reiss)

As you likely know, I make it my business to keep my eye on new California wineries, especially in Napa and Sonoma, as much as I can given the fact that I do a lot of other things besides write about wine. Whenever possible, I like to taste the first releases from these wineries. They are not always fantastic - some are good, some show potential, and some simply need to be written off as first efforts and retried again later. That’s the thing about wines, just because they’re not good now, that doesn’t mean they won’t be later, and, of course, vice versa.

It’s quite rare, however, for the very first vintage of a wine to knock my socks off. But when I got my first taste of Blackbird Vineyards out of the barrel a couple of years ago, I quite literally couldn′t bring myself to spit it out. I was immediately in love. And how delightful (and against all odds) that the best Napa wine I had tasted in many months was a Merlot.

Blackbird proprietor Michael Polenske is used to beating the odds unexpectedly. By all accounts he never should have gotten into wine in the first place. Spending one’s teens and early twenties in a fraternity at Chico State generally favors the the cultivation of a strong affinity for beer and bikinis rather than fine wine. But in between his finance classes, thanks in part to a roommate who turned him on to wine, he dabbled in the wine curriculum and spent weekends exploring Napa Valley visiting what were becoming his favorite wineries.

When he graduated from college, Polenske again took an unexpected turn, getting into the pragmatic financial planning industry just as everyone in that industry was moving towards more active money management. Polenske had the bright idea that he could do financial planning for people in the wine business, and so managed to find a firm in the Midwest that was willing to give him Napa and Sonoma as a territory. In addition to the territory of his choice, they also asked him if he’d be willing to cover the zip code 94025 as well.

It turned out that there wasn’t much interest in wine country, but Polenske found quite a lot of both interest and money in that other little zip code, which happened to be Atherton, California, and for which he found himself the sole representative in his company. Through a lot of trial and error, a ton of cold calling, and a significant amount of elbow grease, Polenske spent 10 years building a sizable book of business in Silicon Valley, learning more about and continuing to fall deeper in love with wine in the process.

And then one day, relatively out of the blue, JP Morgan called and offered him a job as a private banker. Like a small town kid picked up out of high school by the Major Leagues, Polenske walked starry eyed into his first day at work, sat down next to his colleagues with their Wharton, Kellogg, Harvard, and GSB diplomas on their desks, and when no one showed up to tell him how to do his job, he just did what he knew how to do. He started making calls.

At the time, the average JP Morgan banker brought on between seven and nine new clients per year. At the end of his first year Polenske had 35, a figure so shocking at the time, that executives at the highest levels of the company told his manager to get him on a global conference call so they could demand an explanation. Based on that call JP Morgan changed its approach to new client acquisition, and it wasn’t long before Polenske was in charge of the San Francisco office, and beginning to dabble in his other interests, including antiques (he would eventually go on to own Patina Atelier Antiques in San Francisco).

As Polenske’s star continued to rise in the financial services world, he kept his eye on Napa, thinking that someday it might be nice to build a lifestyle business. But each time he nearly got to the point of buying some land, another job opportunity would come along, and he′d be swept up into running a new company, division, or fund.

After years of almost buying vineyards, Polenske eventually decided to scrap the idea, and instead simply settle for a house on a hill in Napa with a pool. He ended up with a couple of houses on the flats, and a 10 acre vineyard. These things tend to happen in the valley.

Napa has a way of turning people into winemakers overnight simply because they stumble on the right piece of property. Polenske’s acquisition, as you might expect, was a little more strategic than that. Call it a compulsion to seek out the undervalued parts of the market, or just call it instinct, but Polenske found himself staring at a Merlot vineyard that was selling fruit to prominent buyers who were making 90 point wines from it, yet the prices they were paying for the fruit were below market rates. Never mind that Merlot was on the down and out. Polenske saw the raw ingredients for the perfect boutique wine brand, and his idle fantasies about building a lifestyle business instead of another hedge fund began to crystallize. The vineyard was named Blackbird, and when Polenske found out that in French Patois, Merlot means “little blackbird” the key turned in the lock and everything fell into place.

Today, with the help of winemaker Sarah Gott and winegrower Aaron Pott, Polenske farms the 10 acre estate vineyard to produce several wines under the Blackbird label (after initially launching the brand with a single “Proprietary Red”). That wine, now called “Illustration,” has been joined by “Paramour,” “Contrarian,” and “Arise,” (all varying blends except the Arise which is 100% Merlot). The winery also now produces a rosé called “Arriviste.”

The 2006 Illustration contains 86% Merlot, 11% Cabernet Franc, and 3% Cabernet Sauvignon from the estate’s 12 year old vines in Napa’s Oak Knoll District. After meticulous sorting and careful crushing and fermentation, the wine ages for 20 months in French oak barrels of which 70% are new and 30% are older. The wine is bottled completely unfined and unfiltered. 1,195 cases are made.

I’ve been watching the Blackbird brand evolve, and tasting the wines along the way and I continue to be thrilled with them. I don’t personally buy many Napa wines on release, but Blackbird is most certainly one of them.

Full disclosure: I received this wine as a press sample.

Tasting Notes:
Medium ruby in the glass, this wine has a nose of cocoa powder and cherries. In the mouth it is gorgeously smooth with bright cherry cola, chocolate, and juicy bing cherry flavors that dance on a lively bed of acidity. Velvety tannins sneak around the edges with a hint of sweetness and then pirouette slowly in the back of the throat for minutes. Fantastic.

Food Pairing:
Extremely food friendly because of its juicy acidity, this wine will pair well with a lot of foods. I’d enjoy it with a spiced, grilled rack of lamb.

Overall Score: around 9.5

How Much?: $90

This wine available for purchase on the internet.

Original post by default@goarticles.com (Levi Reiss)

Greetings from Cape Town, South Africa! I′ve come down to the Cape Winelands to dive deep into South African wine in a way that isn′t possible in the United States. In most wine stores I′m lucky to find a handful of South African wines at most, and forget about restaurants, which often just have a single representative wine on their list, if anything at all.

So I′m here under the imposing shadow of Table Mountain to attend Cape Wine 08, the biannual South African wine convention — their equivalent of VinItaly or VinExpo. I′ll be visiting a few wine producers, having a few meals, attending a couple of seminars, but mostly I′m going to be doing one thing, and one thing only: tasting as much South African wine as I can.

At least, as much as my jet lag will let me. It hasn’t kicked in yet, but I expect it to in about 24 hours, so while I′m able to be rested, I′ve gotten started on my explorations.

My first event of the week was a lunch sponsored by the winemakers of the Simonsberg Ward of the Stellenbosch District. The South African wine regions take some time to get one’s head (and one’s tongue) around. Those familiar with California wine appellations will find the best analog to the Districts and Wards in the relationship between say, the Central Coast appellation and the specific AVAs (American Viticultural Areas) like Paso Robles and Arroyo Grande Valley. In South Africa, the Stellenbosch District represents the larger wine region, while the Wards are the equivalents of our AVAs.

The Simonsberg Ward takes its name from its primary geographical feature, Simonsberg Mountain, which nicely separates the Stellenbosch and Paarl wine districts, much as the Mayacamas mountains separate California’s Napa and Sonoma counties.

Simonsberg Ward is home to a mere 15 wine producers, most of whom focus on growing Bordeaux varietals and blended wines on the sloping, rocky hillsides that ring the craggy mountain.

After tasting a couple nice Sauvignon Blancs on the patio (with little space for me to take notes) we moved into a restaurant for lunch and tasting wines. Here are my notes from the wines I tasted. I found the wines competently made and varietally true, and some had great personalities. In addition to standard Bordeaux blends, some of the red blends in the area also contain Syrah as well as Pinotage, South Africa’s signature cross between Pinot Noir and Cinsault.

I believe that I may have missed one or two wines on offer, but I plan on seeking them out at the convention tomorrow.

TASTING NOTES:

2004 Thelema Cabernet Sauvignon, Simonsberg Ward, Stellenbosch, South Africa
Inky ruby in color this wine has an intense nose of espresso and black cherry aromas. In the mouth it is soft and rich with flavors of cherry, plum, wet earth, and a spicy cedar note that seems to ride on the back of the suede-like tannins. Nice finish. Score: around 9. Cost: $27. Where to buy?

2000 Thelema Cabernet Sauvignon, Simonsberg Ward, Stellenbosch, South Africa
Inky Garnet in the glass, this wine smells of cedar and sawdust with a hint of red fruit lying underneath. In the mouth it is lean and taut with flavors of cherry, sawdust, and caramel, and light, dusty tannins. The fruit has dried somewhat but has not been replaced by more interesting secondary aromas and flavors. Score: around 8.5. Cost: n/a

2006 Warwick Estate “Trilogy” Red Blend, Simonsberg Ward, Stellenbosch, South Africa
Dark garnet in color, this wine smells of cassis and black cherry. In the mouth it is medium bodied with nice, smooth tannins that wrap around flavors of black cherry, and then on the finish, sweet cocoa. Pleasant but not amazing. Score: around 8.5. Cost: $??

2004 Tokara Cabernet Sauvignon, Simonsberg Ward, Stellenbosch, South Africa
Dark garnet in the glass, this wine has a nose of earth, leather, and tobacco aromas. On the palate it offers a straightforward combination of cherry, spices, and a heavy helping of oak and vanilla, that ends up being the lasting impression of the wine. Score: around 8.5. Cost: $??

2005 Rustenberg “John X. Merriman” Bordeaux Blend, Simonsberg Ward, Stellenbosch, South Africa
Dark garnet in color, this wine has a remarkably savory nose of mixed herbs and what I′ll call “tree bark” aromas. In the mouth it centers on cherry flavors with a good helping of oak and dried herbs, and some unfortunate alcoholic heat towards the finish. Score: around 8.5. Cost: $20. Where to buy?

2004 Deleheim “Grand Reserve” Bordeaux Blend, Simonsberg Ward, Stellenbosch, South Africa
Medium ruby in the glass, this wine smells of a very pretty concoction of cherry, mint, and leather aromas. In the mouth the leather quality persists both in flavor as well as the texture of its grippy tannins. The primary fruit is a bright cherry that mixes with a nice minerality that lingers in the finish. Very Bordeaux in style. Score: between 8.5 and 9. Cost: $??

2007 Laibach “The Ladybird” Bordeaux Blend, Simonsberg Ward, Stellenbosch, South Africa
Dark garnet in color, this wine has a promising nose of mocha and hazelnut aromas. In the mouth, however, it leaves something to be desired. All the flavor sensations seem to be at the top of the mouth, as this high-toned wine slides by the palate without engaging it, leaving very pretty aromas of cassis and oak but not much body to show for them. Score: around 8. Cost: $??

1995 Kanonkop “Paul Sauer” Red Wine, Simonsberg Ward, Stellenbosch, South Africa
Medium garnet in the glass, this wine has a leathery nose, as if it brushed by a saddle shop on the way to the barrel. In the mouth it is smooth and lean, with sandalwood, and very soft cherry aromas that mix with incense qualities that show the wines age quite prettily. Score: between 8.5 and 9. Cost: n/a

2004 Kanonkop “Paul Sauer” Red Wine, Simonsberg Ward, Stellenbosch, South Africa
Inky garnet in the glass this wine has a powerful nose of dark cherry, espresso, and tobacco aromas. In the mouth it is round, lush and juicy with cherry and black cherry aromas that are nicely balanced with earthier, mineral complexity. Velvety tannins trace through this perfectly dry, poised wine that feels like a river of cherry silk in the mouth. A gorgeous finish rounds out this absolutely top notch wine. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: ??.

2005 Le Bonheur “Prima” Red Blend, Simonsberg Ward, Stellenbosch, South Africa
Medium garnet in color, this wine has a bright cherry smell, and primarily cherry flavors in the mouth. The wine shows a bit too much of the green bell pepper characteristic that is common sometimes in Cabernet Sauvignon for my taste. For those who are not put off by such flavors (which are a lot of people) this is a straightforward wine. Score: between 8 and 8.5. Cost: $14.Where to buy?

2005 Uitkyk “Carlonet” Cabernet Sauvignon, Simonsberg Ward, Stellenbosch, South Africa
Medium ruby in the glass this wine has a promising nose of cherry, leather, and earth aromas. In the mouth it offers a core of cherry fruit with lots of earth tones that somewhat overwhelm the fruit. These darker notes, combined with the drying tannins make for a wine that seems more bitter than it should be. Score: between 8 and 8.5. Cost: $??

2005 Quoin Rock Syrah, Simonsberg Ward, Stellenbosch, South Africa
Dark garnet in the glass, this wine has a pretty nose of cassis and floral aromas. In the mouth it has, classic, strong blackberry flavors, and an unusual touch of chocolate before it heads to a finish that brings in tones of violets. Score: around 8.5. Cost: ??

2004 Morgonhof Estate Red Blend, Simonsberg Ward, Stellenbosch, South Africa
Medium to dark ruby in color, this wine has a wonderfully earthy nose. In the mouth it offers rich black cherry flavors with a nice spicy black pepper quality that tends a little towards the bitter side as the wine finishes. Score: around 8.5. Cost: ??

2005 Remhoogte Red Cape Blend, Simonsberg Ward, Stellenbosch, South Africa
Medium ruby in the glass, this wine has an odd nose of aromas that seem both vegetal as well as gamey while at the same time being neither. In the mouth it is smooth and soft on the tongue with dried fruit characteristics of prunes, figs, and chocolate, with an undercurrent of the vegetal, that I attribute to the including of Pinotage in this blend of Cabernet and Merlot. Score: around 8. Cost: ??.

2005 Knorhoek “Pantere” Red Blend, Simonsberg Ward, Stellenbosch, South Africa
Medium garnet in color, this wine has a nose of cassis and wet earth aromas that are quite inviting. On the palate, the wine is a nice balance between rich earth tones of mud and leather and fresh cherry fruit. Nice texture and acid make it easy to drink. Score: between 8.5 and 9. Cost: ??.

2005 Laibach “Widow’s Block″ Cabernet Sauvignon, Simonsberg Ward, Stellenbosch, South Africa
Dark garnet in the glass, this wine grabs your attention the moment the earthy, cherry aromas hit your nose. By the time you’ve got even just a little bit of the wine in your mouth you are tasting chocolate and cherries, bouncy with juicy acidity. And by the time the velvet tannins snake their way around your tongue and the wine is finishing beautifully, you already know you’re going to take another sip. Score: around 9. Cost: ??

2005 Muratie “Ansela vin de cab” Red Blend, Simonsberg Ward, Stellenbosch, South Africa
Medium garnet in color, this wine has a pungent nose of chocolate and smoky aromas. In the mouth that smoky quality persists quite strongly, incorporating woody, cherry flavors into a lean angular body. Quite distinctive, but not utterly compelling. Score: between 8 and 8.5. Cost: ??

Original post by default@goarticles.com (Levi Reiss)

One of the greatest, though imminently forgivable, crimes perpetrated by a large number of even the most knowledgeable wine lovers consists of the tendency to consume great wines before they have had the opportunity to fully develop. Sometimes referred to as “infanticide,” this practice varies in its levels of extremity depending on the category of wine.

In my opinion, perhaps the most slighted of all categories in this respect is California Pinot Noir. While it may not have the aging potential of Burgundy (though we don’t really know for sure — no one has been making really serious Pinot Noir in the state for the 50 years it would take to find out) California Pinot can age beautifully over two decades, a fate that it is unfortunately only rarely allowed to achieve.

I only started aging California Pinots beginning with the 1996 vintage, and only a bottle or two survived to recent years to shame me into the realization I had drunk many far too early. But I had the good fortune to purchase a portion of an acquaintance’s collection of old California Pinot a few years ago, and I have been reveling in my exploration of these older wines, of which this particular bottle is one.

Walter Hansel made himself a good living in the late 1970s as the owner of a number of car dealerships in Sonoma County, where he made his home. As a lifelong wine lover with a good deal of property in the Russian River Valley appellation, it was an easy choice as to what to do with some extra savings. Hansel’s vineyard plantings began in 1978, and were increased in fits and starts over the years to the present holdings of about 65 acres down the road from names like Kistler and Dehlinger. From the first plantings, the grapes were sold to surrounding vintners while the family made small amounts of wine for themselves.

Sadly, Walter Hansel died in 1996, the same year he and his son Stephen had decided to commercially release wine for the first time. That year the winery produced a mere 70 cases of estate Pinot Noir, which this bottle was a member.

After taking over the winery from his father, Stephen was mentored in his initial explorations as a winegrower and winemaker by friend Tom Rochioli, who knew a thing or two about growing Burgundian varietals in the Russian River Valley. With Rochioli’s help, Hansel carefully grew the estate with plantings of specific clones of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay matched to the three soil types that pervaded the family’s vineyards.

The estate continues to produce small lots of mostly single vineyard designated wines in quantities between 100 and 800 cases. The fruit for all the wines is carefully hand-harvested before or at dawn, and rigorously sorted in the field, and then again at the winery. The clusters of fruit are destemmed, sorted again, and undergo a cold soak before beginning fermentation. After that point, very little is done to the wine — it ferments with natural yeasts in open top fermenters, and is aged in various French oak barrels that vary in age from new to two years in age.

It was a distinct pleasure to revisit the first vintage of what has become a quiet member of the upper echelon of Russian River Valley Pinot Noir producers. The wine remains a great testament to the man whose name it bears.

Tasting Notes:
Light ruby in color, fading slightly to pink at the edges, this wine has a heady nose of hibiscus, raspberry, and hints of smoked meats. In the mouth the wine is beautifully structured with excellent acidity, velvet texture, and light tannins that merge with an overall earthy quality. The primary flavors on the palate are rooibos, wet dirt, raspberry, and exotic spices which linger into a finish that is literally minutes long. Outstanding, easily could age for another 5 to 10 years, and a slap in the face for those who think that California Pinot Noir has a short lifespan.

Food Pairing:
We drank this wine with a simple dinner of roast pork tenderloin and sauteed rainbow chard.

Overall Score: around 9.5

How Much?: unknown

This wine is nearly impossible to find except in the collections of those who were fortunate enough to take a gamble on the winery’s first vintage. If you ever see a bottle, snap it up.

Original post by default@goarticles.com (Levi Reiss)

There’s something really cool about seeing a young winery start to hit its stride. I’ve only seen a few newborn calves and foals in their first moments after birth as they learn to use their spindly legs, but it’s hard not to feel a sense of pride when after a few minutes, they go galloping around in circles.

I was first introduced to Gargiulo Vineyards at a wine bar in San Francisco a couple of years ago. I just happened to stop by for a drink, and April Gargiulo was on hand, pouring what was then her family’s second release to a hip crowd of San Francisco wine lovers. At the time, I wasn′t blown away by the wines — they were somewhat awkward, and didn′t fully hang together — but April seemed very serious about what they were doing. It was also clear that the family had made a serious investment in their vineyards in the heart of Oakville, so I′ve been keeping tabs on the winery over the last few years, and watched them go from their awkward first steps in the market to where they are now, a consistently excellent producer.

Gargiulo Vineyards was started in 1992 when Jeff Gargiulo and his wife Valerie purchased a 40 acre vineyard in Oakville called Money Road Ranch. Like many of the new vineyards owners in Napa, the Gargiulos come to their new occupation by way of a lifelong dream. Jeff has worked in the agricultural business his whole life, but always thought that one day he might have an opportunity to merge his own love of wine with his work on the business side of agriculture. It was only a matter of time before the right property came along, and suddenly the Gargiulos were in the vineyard business.

The first task of that new occupation was the replanting and re-engineering of the vineyard, with new rootstocks and planting grids and trellis systems, a process which took three years. The resulting vineyard is mostly Merlot, with smaller amounts of Cabernet, Sangiovese, and Pinot Grigio.

The vines weren’t ready for prime time for another four years, and for the first couple of years after that, the Gargiulos sold their fruit to local producers while they fine tuned their operations. In that time the family purchased another piece of property at Oakville crossroads, sandwiched in between Rudd and Screaming Eagle. Needless to say, it’s a prime piece of real estate, and one of the few south-facing sloped vineyards in the Oakville appellation. The Gargiulo’s named this vineyard OVX, and planted it with Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and Petite Verdot.

In 2000 the family felt ready to produce their own wines from the Money Road Ranch vineyard, and have slowly ramped up production, as they build their own winery facility which is due to open this fall. Starting in 2004, the family also began harvesting and bottling wine from the OVX vineyard, the potential of which is perhaps best captured in this bottle of wine.

Made up of 86% Cabernet Sauvignon; 5% Merlot, 5 % Cabernet Franc, 4% Petite Verdot, the wine can legally be called a Cabernet, and is indeed labeled as such, but it drinks more like the Bordeaux-style blend that it is. This is the inaugural vintage for this particular single vineyard bottling, which looks to be slated to become the winery’s flagship wine. Only 250 cases will be made each year.

Named after a favorite jazz chord, the wine is made by the estate’s winemaker Kristof Anderson who has been with Gargiulo since 2003. Kristof′s resume includes stints as winemaker at Lewis Cellars, Del Dotto, and at Saddleback Cellars.

The G Major Seven Study is made from the best blocks of each grape variety in the family’s OVX vineyard. The entire vineyard is farmed with deficit irrigation and a combination of sustainable soil management practices and organic farming, and these blocks yield approximately two and a half tons of fruit per acre. The wine spends 19 months in French oak (90% new) before bottling.

This is the finest wine I have tasted from Gargiulo, but based on this single bottle, I expect to taste many more.

Full disclosure: I received these wines as a press sample

Tasting Notes:
Inky garnet in the glass, this wine has a nose of cherry, tobacco, and earth aromas singed with a hint of burnt vanilla. In the mouth it is smooth, full, and rich with spicy sandalwood and cherry flavors that are propped up by deeper notes of wet dirt and tobacco. Faint faint tannins dance at the periphery of the palate as the wine finishes long and as beautiful as its namesake.

Food Pairing:
This wine would be a great accompaniment to this venison daube with cumin and coriander.

Overall Score: between 9 and 9.5

How Much?: $125

This wine is generally sold to mailing list members and a few select retailers. It is available for purchase on the Internet.

Original post by default@goarticles.com (Levi Reiss)

From the late 1800′s to the first half of the twentieth century California represented a land of opportunity for many. In Northern California, this potential seems to have been realized in particular by Italian immigrants who settled North of San Francisco in great numbers, founding small towns up the coast and in the inland valleys. Drive Highway 1, Highway 12, Highway 116, and the Bohemian Highway North of the city and you’ll pass old barns and homesteads, country stores, and several Italian restaurants that have been operating continuously since at least the Thirties.

That these fiercely determined immigrants met with success here is evidenced by not only by the preponderance of these small towns and farming communities, but also that these same towns are, after several generations, still populated with Dinuccis and Gonnellas.

Garen Staglin grew up the son of one of those early Twentieth Century immigrants. His father, Pasquale Stagliano, later naturalized as Ramon Staglin, emigrated at the age of two with his family from Calabria, Italy and settled first in New York and later California. Like so many other immigrants, the Staglianos brought with them their love of food and wine and the central role they both play in family life.

It’s no wonder then that when Garen met with considerable success, going from UCLA to Stanford Business School to the corporate world, and then to boardrooms and the halls of Silicon Valley venture capital, he and his wife Sharalyn dreamed of owning a vineyard. Carefully biding their time, they finally found just what they were looking for.

In 1985 the Staglins purchased a very old, very large estate in Rutherford that for many years had been under the management of André Tchelistcheff, known by some as the “Godfather of California Cabernet.” Tchelistcheff managed this vineyard for Beaulieu Vineyards under the ownership of the La Tour family, and it was this 50-acre parcel that he selected for producing the vaunted BV Georges De La Tour Cabernet.

The Staglins took this vineyard and the adjoining ranch and literally transformed it, carefully replanting the vineyards with direction from Tchelistcheff and building an underground winery and a home for themselves in the style of an Italian villa.

Today, and for nearly the past twenty-five years, Staglin Family Vineyards has been winning praise for the small quantity of estate wine that it produces each year: 350 cases of Sangiovese and 2,000 cases of Chardonnay in addition to the slightly more than 6,000 cases of this Cabernet. They are certainly my favorite producer in Rutherford, and in my opinion, one of the top three producers in the appellation.

Winemaking is currently done by Fredrik Johansson, but I believe this vintage was made by then winemaker Celia Masyczek, who spent almost a decade making some of the most celebrated of Staglin’s wines before continuing her career as one of Napa’s superstar winemakers.

The wine is made from 100% Cabernet Sauvignon grown organically on the Staglin Family estate in the shadow of Mt. St. John in the Mayacamus Range in an area known as the Rutherford Bench. After destemming and crushing, the berries cold soak before a fermentation that lasts anywhere from 14 to 28 days. After secondary fermentation is complete the wine is aged for 26 months in 100% French oak barrels, (65% of which are new).

Tasting Notes:
Medium ruby in color and showing little sign of its age, this wine has a nose of leather, cherry, and wet cedar bark aromas — distinctively an older California Cabernet. In the mouth it offers flavors of fresh and dried cherries, cinnamon, and what can only be described as both the flavor and texture of the softest suede. A long finish completes a very satisfying experience that, if tinged with anything other than pleasure, might be said to involve a little regret at drinking this wine now, as it clearly has a good decade ahead of it.

Food Pairing:
I drank this wine with a nicely grilled filet mignon and fresh vegetables, which is certainly a classic pairing.

Overall Score: between 9 and 9.5

How Much?: This vintage can be had at auction or select retailers for around $120

This wine can be purchased online.

Original post by default@goarticles.com (Andrea Cardelli)

In the Silicon Valley, business incubation is quite common — larger companies often provide financial, operations, and moral support to smaller companies that they themselves have started, or outside start-ups that they believe have a good potential for success. This practice has become so normal that some companies have established entire business models based on incubation.

Incubation has also become common in the wine industry, where the costs of all the equipment and supplies required to make wine can be an extreme barrier to entry, and a source of extremely high overhead for those who do take the plunge. Just like a larger company might rent out some cubes and offer guidance to a smaller company, so to do wineries offer the use of their equipment to smaller producers using the fees from such services to defray the costs of their capital investments.

But incubation in the wine industry does not only happen as a matter of economic convenience, it often happens simply because, frankly, most folks in the wine industry can′t help themselves — they love making wine.

Jeff Cohn comes to winemaking from the world of food and hospitality. He fell in love with eating and drinking in his twenties and decided that he was going to make them his career, heading off for a degree in culinary arts, which was followed by a degree in hospitality management.

His early career saw him as the food and beverage director for Windjammer Barefoot Cruises and then later the manager of a Washington, D.C gourmet store.

During the ten years of his hospitality career, Cohn fell deeper and deeper in love with wine, and by 1993 he couldn’t take it any longer. Enrolling in a masters program in agricultural chemistry, Cohn emerged with a degree emphasizing enology, and was promptly hired by Rosenblum Cellars as its staff enologist.

That same year, Kent Rosenblum allowed Cohn to make a little of his own wine on the side — around 70 cases of Zinfandel — and JC Cellars was born.

You′d think that winemakers would be pretty busy folks — lots to worry about as grapes come piling into the winery by the truckload, dozens of fermentation tanks, hundreds of barrels — and that they wouldn’t exactly have time for dabbling here and there. But I don’t know a single winemaker that doesn’t have some small side project going, whether it’s a little experiment with a new cooperage, a new source of grapes, a consulting project for a little extra cash, or their own private label.

Such activities make for a lot of late nights for winemakers around harvest time, but somehow they manage to pull it off, and Cohn was no exception. He gradually built up a small business on the side, thanks to Rosenblum’s help, and Rosenblum customers got used to shopping at J.C. Cellars after they arrived to pick up their wines at Rosenblum.

By 2000, Jeff was Rosenblum’s winemaker and he had convinced owner Kent Rosenblum to add Rhone style wines (Syrah, Viognier, and Marsanne) to the portfolio, and J.C. Cellars was a steadily growing success. In 2004 Cohn was named vice president of winemaking and production, but in 2006, the time had come to focus all his efforts on J.C. Cellars.

Managed by himself and his wife Alexandra, the winery now produces about 5000 cases of wine and is the poster child for “in-winery” incubation of a new brand. The fledgling winery got its start in the protective shadow of Rosenblum but is now a completely independent entity, and one of America’s most highly regarded small wineries, with an unusual amount of critical acclaim for the wines.

The J.C. Cellars portfolio consists of mostly single vineyard wines, with an emphasis on the Rhone varietals — Syrah, Petite Sirah, and Viognier — plus some Zinfandel thrown in for good measure. Cohn sources grapes from small producers throughout Northern California with long term contracts that allow him to work closely with growers to tailor the fruit to his specific liking.

The wines are made in small batches that are carefully crafted to showcase each specific grape source, from the yeasts to the barrels, to the durations of time that the wines spend in contact with the skins.

Cohn’s wines have a reputation for power and brawn, richness and opulence. They have conjured the adjective “hedonistic” from many. These are accurate characterizations, but I find the wines somewhat more restrained on the whole than other producers that elicit similar descriptions. Cohn’s wines are nothing if not carefully and lovingly made, and this is easy to taste.

Full disclosure: I received these wines as press samples.

TASTING NOTES:

2007 JC Cellars Rockpile Vineyard Rose, Rockpile, Sonoma
Pale ruby in color, this rose of Syrah smells of alpine strawberries and rosehips. On the palate it is bright and silky with bouncy flavors of strawberry and cherry that remain firmly (thank god) in the territory of dryness, making this an excellent, refreshing wine of which to drink many glasses. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $18. Where to buy?

2005 JC Cellars “Rockpile Vineyard” Syrah, Rockpile, Sonoma
Nearly opaque garnet in the glass this wine has a rich sultry nose of earth and black cherry aromas. In the mouth it is silky and thick with flavors of black cherry, leather, earth, and black currant. Dusty tannins emerge as the wine heads to a long finish. Big and brawny, this wine will please lovers of big Syrahs to no end. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $45. Not yet released.

2005 JC Cellars “Ventana Vineyard” Syrah, Monterey
A cloudy medium ruby in the glass, this wine has a nose of white pepper, cassis, and black cherry. In the mouth it comes across as spicy, with continued flavors of white pepper, blackberry, and mixed spices. Lean and less bombastic than some of the other wines from this producer, but no less pleasant for it. Score: between 8.5 and 9. Cost: $45. Not yet released.

2006 J.C. Cellars “California Cuvee” Syrah, California
Medium to dark garnet in color, this wine smells of homemade blackberry jam and rose petals. In the mouth it offers flavors of cassis, blackberry, cola, and caramel notes, that head towards a finish with some heat on it. Decent acid, and imperceptible tannins, but the wine doesn’t quite hold together as much as you might like. Feels a bit disjointed. Score: between 8 and 8.5. Cost: $25. Where to buy?

2005 J.C. Cellars “Caldwell Vineyards” Syrah, Napa
Inky garnet in the glass, this wine smells of well oiled leather, black cherry, and earth. In the mouth it offers black cherry, blackberry, and deeper woodier flavors. Good acidity and silky texture make for a very pleasant feeling in the mouth and a long finish. Score: around 9. Cost: $45. Where to buy?

Original post by default@goarticles.com (Andrea Cardelli)