Oh So Excited

Finally! The time has come for my annual installment of "I don't play favorites, but...". Yep, the next vintage of Boushey Red Wine is almost ready to be released! I love the intense, earthy tones that I always find in Boushey wines, and find that they are so lovely to pair with food. In the 2007 vintage, the composition is more similar to the 2005 than the 2006 vintage, with merlot being the more prominent varietal. The blend is 53% merlot, 40% cabernet sauvignon and 7% cabernet franc. Yum!

Also in the upcoming releases come two wines from the Red Mountain AVA: the 2007 Red Mountain Red Wine (which will be in the club shipment with the Boushey) and the 2007 Red Mountain Merlot (an extra special treat that club members will be able to purchase). Both of these wines come from Red Mountain Vineyard. The Red Mountain Red is 62% cabernet sauvignon, 25% merlot and 13% cabernet franc, while the Red Mountain Merlot is 100% merlot.

In preparation for the release, I am planning a Bordeaux inspired menu with recipes to go with the wines. I haven't totally decided on what to do yet, but am going to start playing around with Sauce Bordelaise recipes, lamb dishes and possibly cassoulet. If anyone has a recipe that I must try, please pass it along!

Napa, Day 2

Day Two
We started the day with a tour of the Seguin Moreau Cooperage at 8 am. After being in our hotel rooms for less than ten hours, I was expecting to be really tired, but this was a great way to wake up. For those of you who made it to the Seattle wine club party in 2008, these are the same guys who did barrel toasting demonstrations for us that night. The whole room smelled like baking bread (actually toasting oak) and I really wanted a marshmallow to roast over a smoldering barrel.


Above is the room where the barrel construction takes place. Through a process of applied heat and moisture, the barrels are shaped into form. Below, Charlie talks toast.
After the barrels are put together and toasted to perfection, they go on to be tested, tested again, fitted with new bands, sanded and hit with a laser. With less than 20 guys working, they average 50 barrels per day. Chris (our tour guide of sorts) said that if they have a big order, they can make it up to 100 barrels, and during really busy times, they'll be around 150. That's a lot of handmade barrels!

VISIT TWO, DAY TWO: Grgich Hills. I wanted the group to come here to learn a bit about the history of the valley, but I think we all gained so much more than that. Sure, we learned about Mike Grgich, the judgement of 1976 where Chateau Montelena Chardonnay beat out all the Burgundy whites, and the progression to 70,000 cases from there. However, we also learned about biodynamic farming (to which Pam said, "you're doing what with the cows what?") and how a big time winery can still seem small and humble.
The barrel room wasn't quite as shiny as some of the others we saw on our trip, but they sure did have an impressive racking system. That's me below, checking out the balance of all these full barrels.

John led us on a great tour, tasted us on some fun wines (we all like the Chardonnay for some reason...), and after this, we started to worry about where all of our purchases were going to fit in the van.

After Grgich, we took John's recommendation and stopped at Taylor's Refresher for lunch. Getting there just before the high school kids, we snagged a picnic table in the sun (yea!) and all enjoyed burgers and sweet potato fries.

VISIT THREE: HALL, Rutherford. We finally left the St. Helena Highway and crossed over to the Silverado Trail. By this point in time, the sun was out, and we were loving it. We carefully followed HALL's directions up one of the steepest, windiest roads our rental van had ever seen and found ourselves at the beautiful estate overlooking the valley.

We were greeted with Sauvignon Blanc and left to soak in the views before getting a tour of the surrounding vineyards and the amazing production and storage facility.
The caves dug into the hillside are completely constructed with bricks from former Austrian palaces, laid by a team from Austria who specialize in cave design. All the way through the property and into the back of the caves were beautiful pieces of art, highlighted by the sculpture below. Made to look like the root system of a grape vine, this huge piece hung over a table for 32 (I counted after feeling so small at our one end of the table). What are all those sparkles? Oh, just 1500 Swarovski crystals. We tasted three cabs, and were all impressed by the warmth and hospitality that we felt during our visit.

VISIT THREE: Paraduxx

By this point in time, the sun had overtaken our moods and we were all overjoyed to be able to sit and do our tasting on the porch of Paraduxx's small, clean, tasting room. I swear, I am going to make this my house someday...

We tasted just a bit of wine while visiting Paraduxx. Three different vintages of their zinfandel based blends, a syrah-grenache blend and their sister winery's pinot noir, all with cheeses along side. We were a happy group.

What did I learn here? You can be a huge winery (or group of wineries) and still have a small, intimate tasting experience.For a lasting image of the trip...one of the most beautiful trees I've ever seen.

Oh, Napa!

This past week, a group of us left the cold temperatures of Washington state and headed south to Napa for a little educational field trip. I personally have not been to Napa in at least six years (except for a conference, where I got to hang out in the Napa Marriott), and was very excited to see what all the fuss was about. Here's how the trip went, and all of the fun things I learned:

Day One:

We land at the Napa airport just before noon, then head to lunch at Oakville Grocery. Such a cool shop with great food. However, this was one of the three rainy days per year in Napa so we got to eat in the van.

VISIT ONE: Benessere Vineyards in St. Helena

This is a pretty small winery (by Napa standards) that specializes in Italian varietals. We got to try some fun library sangioveses, dating back to 1998, and a very good muscat frizzante. We really enjoyed ducking out of the rain and touring their production facility. Here, I learned that it is possible to stay small and family owned in Napa.
VISIT TWO: Vineyard 29 on the St. Helena Highway

This was a special stop, made possible by our buddies at Cordon (thanks, Ken!). As our tour guide reminded us several times, they generally are never open for tours, so we were all made to feel very fortunate for our time at Vineyard 29. This is a winery that predominately sells just to their mailing list, and has some spectacular single vineyard wines. The one exception is a wine named "Cru" that sells just to restaurants. There is almost the same amount of Cru produced as our entire product line. Above are some impressive oak fermenters that are part of their gravity-flow (they use an elevator) system of vinification.

Down in the caves of Vineyard 29, we were able to meet their Director of Winemaking, Keith Emerson, who was great to listen to. Their winemaker is Philipe Melka, who has projects across the globe, including one with Long Shadows in Washington. Apparently, he has the ability to control a bit of the winemaking from his phone - how crazy is that!?! Below, Charlie sips Aida Cabernet in the library. I'm not able to pinpoint my main lesson from Vineyard 29, other than anything is possible, including winemaking via cell phone.

VISIT THREE: This was a non-tasting visit. We stopped by the gift shop at the Culinary Institute of America. My knuckles were white from attempting to keep my credit card in my pocket. How beautiful is this building?

Oddly enough, I don't have pictures from the remainder of the day. We visited Alpha Omega in the Rutherford AVA, also right on Highway 29. Coincidentally, they use Michel Roland (also a Long Shadows winemaker) as their consulting winemaker. I bought a lovely Chardonnay as a gift to my mom for puppy-sitting while I was gone. This is a winery that has only been around for about three years, but makes a ton of wine and pretty much sells it all direct. Pretty wild...

We had dinner at Bottega in Yountville. I wish that I could list everything that we ate, but that would take forever. My favorites were my hubbard squash tortelli and the "polenta under glass" appetizer that we shared. This was a beautiful restaurant where we procrastinated before going back out into the rain. Nedra and I spied on Michael Chiarello a bit while he worked in the kitchen before we finally braved the weather to go to the hotel.

I'm going to have to do Day 2 in just a bit, before I overload blogspot with my posts...