Category Archives: Viticulture

Grand Cru Grape Vine: Happy Mutter’s Day (May 2011)

Posted on by
Reply

Happy Mutter’s Day! The word Mutter is German for mother and, with Mother’s Day on May 8th, and our focus on Germany this month, we’re sending you a bilingual greeting.

This month, Jared and Tracy will once again participate in TasteCamp East. The 2011 itinerary includes visits to the Niagara wine regions on both the Canadian and American sides. Then, in June, Tracy will travel to the Kingdom of Navarra in Spain’s Basque region where she will taste the wines and cuisine.

Public classes begin June 25th when we’ll kickoff the season with a wine class and concert. This special evening will feature a wine class on Australian wine, followed by a concert and story-telling by Australian folksinger, Susanna Carman, as part of her U.S. tour. Enjoy wines and cheeses as you listen to Susanna sing and share her tales of living Down Under.

Other special events for the season include a wine and chocolate tasting with Roxanne Browning of Exotic Chocolate Tasting (July 17), and a class on Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, with high end wines such as Diamond Creek and Far Niente (August 14). Visit our website to sign up for these and all other classes.

Drink wisely and well,

Tracy Ellen Kamens, Ed.D., DWS, CWE
CEO: Chief Education Officer

and

Jared Michael Skolnick
COO: Cork Opening Officer

Happy Mutter’s Day: The Wines of Germany
A young engineer accompanied his boss on a business trip to Germany in the 1970s. One evening at dinner, their German hosts were keen to show off the quality of their wines and selected a special bottle from the restaurant’s wine list. The red wine was presented to the boss for tasting, with all eyes anxiously awaiting his reaction. The gentleman raised the glass to his lips, took a sip and declared, with his face revealing displeasure, “It’s too sweet!”

Whether true or not, for a long time, many people attributed all German wines with being too sweet. However, at least these days, the reality is that Germany produces a wide range of high quality wines from bone dry to lusciously sweet, so there are wines to suit a variety of palates and occasions. Germany’s association with sweet wines stems from its focus on the ripeness levels in its grapes. While we generally say that grapevines grow between 30-50o north and south of the equator, vineyards in Germany can be found as far north as the 52nd parallel. Given the northerly locale, reaching full grape ripeness is no easy task. Without the steep (often 45o), south-east facing slopes along the Rhine River and its tributaries, grapegrowing would not be possible in this area. As a result of this slope and orientation, the sun’s rays hit the water and reflect back onto the grapes, permitting them to reach full maturity. Consequently, such ripeness is prized and, much of the German classification is based upon ripeness/sugar levels at harvest.

This ripeness classification, whose designation is restricted to Germany’s quality wine category  – Qualitatswein mit Pradikat (Quality wine with attributes), starts from the least ripe, Kabinett, followed by Spatlese, Auslese, Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese, in ascending order of ripeness. You can expect wines of Auslese level and above to be noticeably sweet, but Kabinett and Spatlese wines may be dry or off-dry (slightly sweet). One clue is to look at the alcohol level; a lower level (10% and under) will generally suggest a sweeter wine since not all of the sugar was converted into alcohol. Another is to look for the word Trocken, which is German for dry, or the terms Classic and Selection, both of which indicate dry-style wines. Those with a little sweetness will pair brilliantly with Asian or other spicy cuisine as well as fatty poultry dishes. Auslese level and sweeter wines are best saved for dessert or as accompaniment to blue cheeses, but while they do retain high levels of residual sugar, they are beautifully balanced with high acidity. This is particularly true of German Rieslings.

And, as a final note, Germany is not a one-grape wonder. In fact, Riesling’s spiritual home is also home to Pinot Noir, Gewurztraminer and a myriad of other Germanic grape varieties.

Wine Tasting Notes

Bernhard Huber, Alte Reben Spatburgunder Trocken  2007, Baden, Germany, $75.00
From the southernmost and warmest region (Baden), this wine is produced from old vines (20-40 years of age) and presented a complex nose of wet leaves, vegetal notes and cherries. These flavors continued on the dry palate with vibrant acidity, low tannins and an extremely long finish. In a word, stunning!

Grafen Neipperg, Lemberger Trocken, 2008, Württenberg, Germany, $22.00
This estate is owned by Count (Graf) Neipperg and is located in the Württenberg region which is predominantly (70%) planted to red grapes, cherry, clove and vanilla greeted the nose . The dry palate had medium+ acidity, light tannins with flavors of bitter cherry, cloves and vanilla.

Johannishof, Charta Riesling, 2008, Rheingau, Germany, $22.00
Johannishof is owned by the Eser family, which has a winemaking history dating from 1685. This wine showed aromas of spice, floral, pineapple and peach. Dry with just a hint of ripeness, this wine has high acidity and concentrated fruit flavors of pineapple and tropical fruit, along with floral notes, all of which remain throughout the wine’s long length.

Liebfrauenstift Riesling Trocken 2009, Rheinhessen, Germany, $22.00
Originally cultivated by Capuchin monks, Peter Joseph Vlackenberg purchased a stake in the property in 1808, with his family currently owning 90% of the site. With citrus and stone aromas on the nose, this wine is dry with piercing acidity. Citrus, pith, stone and slight spice linger on the palate with long length.

Schloss Saarstein, Pinot Blanc, 2008, Mosel, Germany, $15.00
This estate is located on slate soils overlooking the Saar River. A refreshing wine, with good fruit concentration, this wine displayed floral, pear and melon notes on the nose. These notes were joined by some minerality and a hint of spice on the slightly off-dry palate with medium+ length.

The Circle of Life

Posted on by
Reply

From year to year, winemakers get the opportunity to begin again and make a new wine from a new harvest. Each vintage sharing some of the same elements as the one before, yet making its own mark on the world.

The newest vintage of wines from Bordeaux’s Right Bank (Rive Droite) was premiered at a Le Cercle Rive Droite tasting in March. Accordingly, barrel samples from 2010 were on offer from chateau in Pomerol, St. –Emilion and other Right Bank appellations.

Baronne Guichard owns three separate properties, each with a unique terroir – Chateau Vray Croix de Gay in Pomoerol with gravely soils; Chateau Siaurac in Lalande de Pomerol with clays and gravels; and Chateau Le Prieure in St.-Emilion with soils of limestone and clay. Accordingly, the ability to do a mini-vertical and mini-horizontal tasting presented itself.

Proprietor Paul Goldschmidt describes the Chateau Le Prieure wine as being feminine and notes that the slopes are south-facing. The 2010 was very mineral in character with herbal notes (which Paul qualified as “Herbs de Provence, but under the shade”) and red fruit. The 2008 was similarly herbal with red fruit, but the minerality wasn’t present.

Paul characterizes the wines from Chateau Siaurac as being more masculine and explained that its appellation is known as the “poor man’s Pomerol” due to its lower price. The 2010 was intense with a concentrated nose of blackcherry, while the 2008 had mellowed and showed more red than black fruit.

The sample of Chateau Vray Croix de Gay has a slightly different make-up than its brethren, featuring more Merlot (90% vs. 80%) and thus less Cabernet Franc. The 2010 was concentrated with floral aromas while the palate had firm, tight tannins, blackcherry, some spice and long length. Similarly, the 2008 was rich, lush and ripe, but with the flavors and structure more closely knitted together with time.

Rom: A high point in the Golan Heights

Posted on by
Reply

Courtesy Yarden Rom

A graduate of UC Davis, Victor Schoenfeld has been the winemaker for Golan Heights Winery in Israel since 1992. Zelma Long, who needs no introduction in certain circles, began her career at Robert Mondavi Winery and later moved to Simi Winery before pursuing her own interests. In 2002, the two well-regarded winemakers first came together with the goal of better understanding what limited and promoted quality among nine high quality blocks of vines at Golan Heights.

Describing the Golan Heights as a Mediterranean climate in an historical landscape, for Long, her visit “…felt like [she] was in this mythical land.” She saw its unique personality – wines that reflect the area with an extremely unusual diversity of climates within a small area (50 miles x 40 miles). Calling the wines fruit expressive with soft tannins, Zelma likens the wines to a cross between California fruitiness and Bordeaux restraint. She added that they are wines of complex character and concentration.

After working on the initial project together for several years, the two decided that a natural progression was to collaborate on the creation of a new wine. They recognized that blending wine was a very personal and intimate process, one that is not always easy to share with someone, but, their experience has been positive. Their vision for the wine, ROM, was power/intensity, which comes from the grapes and gives the wine potential for longevity; finesse/balance, which reflects winemaking and is also important for ageing; and flavor/complexity, which is enhanced in the winery through blending and ageing. Overall, they sought a wine of both access and ageing.

Ultimately, they sought out a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Syrah, with each variety bringing a distinctive set of aromas and flavor profiles to the final blend. The Cabernet Sauvignon from cooler vineyards brings black cherry and ripe plum, while grapes from the warmer vineyards result in olive and dried herb aromas. Together, these grapes provide solid, consistent foundation to the wine, which is enhanced by Syrah’s darker fruit, savory qualities and roundness, depth and richness. The Merlot adds fresher notes of raspberry, fresh herbs and orange zest and is responsible for lift and fleshing out the mid-palate. From the Hebrew word for a high place, the name Rom symbolizes Victor and Zelma’s pursuit in creating a wine of the highest quality.  [See the graphs below.]

Members of the press had the opportunity to taste through barrel samples of the component wines from the 2008 vintage: Merlot from Odem, Syrah from Tel Phares and Cabernet Sauvignon from El Rom. This exercise provided a glimpse of how the individual grapes came together to create a gestalt, especially when compared with the Rom 2008 barrel sample.

The first wine to be launched, the Yarden Rom 2006, showed beautifully with aromas of plum, blueberry and blackberry. The well-balanced palate offered very concentrated, rich fruit flavors with a hint of herbal notes and firm tannins. The 2007 had brighter red fruit on the nose and was a bit more structured, while the 2008 (barrel sample) was not as integrated, with the wood notes more obvious on the palate, indicating that this is a wine that will improve with time. A limited edition of 6,000 bottles was produced for the 2006 vintage, with an SRP of $160.00.

Courtesy - Yarden Rom

Courtesy - Yarden Rom

TasteCamp East 2010 – A view from the vines

Posted on by
Reply

Argetsinger Vineyard on Seneca Lake, Finger Lakes wine region

I spent this past weekend at TasteCamp East, which turned out to be a great event and a nice return “home” for me.

This was our first full participation in TasteCamp East since last year’s event was held on Long Island and, as residents of the region, felt that it would be duplicative to attend the various tastings. However, we did host the Saturday night dinner, which permitted us to meet most of the participants.

When we learned that the 2010 TasteCamp East would be held in the Finger Lakes, we were excited to be visiting all of the wineries. I attended Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, which is located within the Finger Lakes wine region, but had not really explored the region.  My sole exploration took place during Senior Week when I took a half-day wine tour offered by the College, which took us to Taylor and Bully Hill.

I credit these initial winery visits with whetting my appetite for wine at that time in my life and, in fact, found myself hosting a wine party that following summer. Each guest was asked to bring a bottle of wine, which I supplemented with a visit to our local wine store. I felt like a kid in a candy store, not knowing what anything was, but excited to be picking up a wide range of wines to expand my knowledge and palate. Even my mother was caught up in the wine frenzy that summer, foresaking White Zinfandel in favor of Pinot Grigio. And, with that, the world of wine was suddenly open…

Fast forward to this weekend’s festivities, which found us visiting wineries along Keuka, Seneca and Cayuga Lakes and tasting wines produced from vinifera and hybrid grape varieties. As an additional backdrop to the weekend, the Wine Century Club, an organization that lauds the diversity in grapes, celebrated its birthday on Friday, May 7. I was very impressed with the majority of the wines tasted and enjoyed the opportunity to meet a number of the winemakers, winery owners and vineyard managers, along with other winery employees.

While the focus was on wine, I met several people connected to Cornellover the course of the weekend and was pleased to hear of the positive impact that Cornell has had on the industry, both through the advice given by the Experimental Station in Geneva as well as its graduates, most of whom pre-dated the formal Viticultural program. My alumni pride, coupled with nostalgia for the area, prompted a brief  campus visit on the way out on Sunday evening, where I stood “far above Cayuga’s waters” remembering the day I first fell in love with Cornell.

When the Bud Breaks

Posted on by
Reply

Grapevines are dormant all winter — hibernating from the cold and snow — until the weather reaches an average of 50°F. Well, as you may have noticed, we have had temperatures much higher than that lately. In fact, even though it is only mid-April, we have experienced temperatures as high as 92°F, achieving a new record in Central Park last week.

Consequently, the vines have woken up from their slumber much earlier than expected. And, I mean MUCH earlier. According to figures posted on Vine Views referencing Cornell’s Cooperative Extension as the data source, the average date for bud break on Long Island is April 26 and the earliest was April 17.  Yet, this past weekend, on April 11, 2010, we clearly saw evidence of bud break on our vines as we sat outside enjoying a leisurely breakfast. Or at least we thought we did. It seems that what we actually have is bud swell; bud break doesn’t really occur until the bud unfurls its green leaf.

While bud swell and/or bud break are generally good things, heralding the start of the new viticultural year, the problem with such an early bud break is that Mother Nature can be quite fickle. Sometimes she decides that maybe she isn’t quite ready to proceed with Spring as we thought, bringing cold temperatures and possibly even a frost despite what had seemed like a permanent end to winter. The vine can withstand frost when it is dormant, but it is much more susceptible to damage once it has come out of dormancy, especially since the sap is flowing within it.

In Bordeaux, where climatic similarities with Long Island exist, they experience many of the same worries. Here, the Feast Days of Saints Mamert, Pancrace and Gervais (respectively May 11, 12, and 13) are thought to be the marker as to when the threat of frost has past and the Saints themselves are often referred to as the Saints of Frost and Freeze. Thus, we still have a full month before we can rest easy.

Elsewhere in the U.S., frost this time of year is also a problem. Wes Hagen of Clos Pepe noted that he was on Frost Patrol (waking up in the middle of the night to turn on fans and sprinklers) these past several weeks and had suffered damage due to a deep freeze earlier in April. Fortunely, a recent article published in Practical Winery and Vineyard Magazine offered some possible solutions to reverse the damage, so he may be able to save those vines after all.

Regardless of whether bud break has actually occurred, it is clear that this will be an interesting year since weather plays such an important role in the growth and development of the vine and, ultimately, the grapes themselves. Wine may be a more glamorous product than beans or orange juice, but in the end, it is still farming. Fingers crossed, we will have warm, dry weather stretching long into the fall, but only time will tell what the season will bring.

Grand Cru Grapevine: Getting down and dirty (September 2009)

Posted on by
Reply

As summer comes to an end, the North Fork is gearing up for harvest and will soon be ready to get down and dirty in the vineyard. If you are heading out to the North Fork this Fall season, you are sure to get caught up in the season’s excitement.

Grand Cru Classes is buzzing with its own excitement as we debut our new Where the (Wine) Bargains Are class on September 13 at 2:00 PM, joining our ever-popular From Vine to Wine class and others on the schedule. In addition, we will be presenting a five-week wine appreciation series for the Town of Riverhead’s Department of Recreation. If you can’t make it out East, you can catch Tracy at NYU where she will teach two classes: Exploring Italian Wines from North to South (5-weeks beginning October 6) and Seven Wines That Will Devastate Your Friends (one session – November 17). See NYU’s website to register.

Aside from teaching classes, we are thrilled to be bottling our first wine, produced from neighbor Macari Vineyards’ grapes from the vaunted 2007 harvest. This wine is not available for sale, but has been a wonderful opportunity for Jared and two friends to get hands-on experience in winemaking.

On a final note, we are pleased to announce the following special offer. The French Wine Society will host its 2nd annual conference this October 4-7 in Washington D.C. In addition to in-depth seminars, the conference will also include the launch of the Cheeses of France Academy (and its teaching materials), the French Wine Scholar certification exam, along with Master-Level certificate exams for both the Rhône Valley and Provence. The French Wine Society is extending a 10% discount to Grand Cru Grapevine subscribers. Please use discount code: RIUT6B when registering for the conference. For more details on the conference, please see the French Wine Society’s website.

Drink wisely and well,

Tracy Ellen Kamens, Ed.D., DWS, CWE
CEO: Chief Education Officer

and

Jared Michael Skolnick
COO: Cork Opening Officer

GETTING DOWN AND DIRTY

With harvest just around the corner, the vineyards will be filled with workers. While certainly imbued with more romance than harvesting other fruit, picking grapes is hard work, requiring pickers to stoop and bend as they examine each cluster before cutting it from the vine. By the end of the day, the harvest workers will be covered in sweat and dirt. 

And, as Ronnie LaCroute, proprietor of WillaKenzie Estate in Oregon, states in her email signature file, “Dirt Matters.” In fact, soil is one of the major factors that influence winemaking. Some of the influence is simple. For example, dark soils help to retain heat overnight, while white-colored soils can reflect the sunlight onto the grapes, ensuring ripeness in an otherwise marginal climate. More complex is the influence of the soil content on the finished wine whereby the mineral content is often reflected in the flavor profile of the wines, creating wines that truly taste of the terroir (place they were grown and made). Consequently, throughout the world, there are key soils that are highly prized.

Here are just a few examples of how “dirt matters”. In Champagne, the calcareous soils are high in calcium and help the grapes to retain their natural acidity. Elsewhere in France, the assortment of limestone, silex and gravel are felt to account for flint and mineral notes in Loire Valley Sauvignon Blancs, especially those from Sancerre. Within Australia, Coonawarra is known for producing Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz, the high quality of which is attributed to the terra rossa soils found there. Terra rossa is a red-colored soil, which consists of clay over limestone, providing good drainage. On New Zealand’s North Island in Hawkes Bay, an area known as Gimblett Gravels is among the first appellations in the New World truly based on terroir rather than political boundaries. After the Ngaruroro River flooded in the 1860s, dry beds of gravel were exposed. The vineyard land, mainly planted to Bordeaux varieties, forces the vines to go extremely deep to find water and results in high quality wines.

Regardless of the region and the soils present in the area, the grape variety, climate, annual weather conditions, viticultural practices and vinification techniques also play an important role in winemaking. These factors, coupled with the soil type, will ultimately be responsible for influencing what ends up in the glass.

Tasting Notes

St. Urbans-hof, Ockfener Bockstein Riesling Kabinett 2008, Mosel, Germany, $17.00
The term “kabinett” refers to the ripeness level of the grapes at harvest, with kabinett being the starting point of the scale, which is reserved for quality wines only. Aromas include typical Riesling notes of floral and peach. On the palate, the wine is off-dry, with flavors of peach and a mineral undercurrent.

Benjamin Vieux, Château Gaubert, Graves Blanc 2005, Bordeaux, France, $17.00
Graves is the French word for gravel and this area within Bordeaux has a large concentration of gravel within its soils that help with drainage. Produced from a blend of 60% Semillon and 40% Sauvignon Blanc, this wine is starting to show some development with aromas of yeast, apple and honey. Dry, with crisp acidity, it shows flavors of yeast, oak, smokiness and citrus, culminating in long length. 

WillaKenzie Estate, Pierre-Léon Pinot Noir 2006, Willamette Valley (Oregon), US, $38.00
WillaKenzie, a type of soil that originates from the pushed up sea floor is found in the Willamette Valley’s Yamhill-Carlton and Ribbon Ridge areas. With a beautifully perfumed nose accompanied by a note of fresh raspberries, this wine continues to deliver on the palate with raspberry, earth, minerality and an undercurrent of wet leaves. 

Cakebread Merlot 2005, Napa Valley (California), US $54.00
This Merlot is blended with 22% Cabernet Sauvignon and 2% Syrah with fruit sourced from Rutherford, Oakville and Calistoga. Notes of red and black fruits along with cinnamon/spice greet the nose. Aged for 18 months in French oak barrels (45% of which were new), the vibrant acidity and medium tannins on the palate are well balanced with flavors of cherry, slight earth, and spice.

Vilafonte Series C 2004, Stellenbosch, South Africa, $59.00
A collaboration between South African producer Warwick Estates and famed California winemaker Zelma Long, Vilafonte is named for a soil type. The “Series C” is a blend heavy on Cabernet Sauvignon (Series M is more Merlot based) with aromas of currant, vanilla, black fruits. On the palate, black currant, herbal and coffee notes comingle with firm tannins, finishing with long length.

Grand Cru Grapevine: I Left My Heart in San Francisco (February 2009)

Posted on by
Reply

Baby it’s cold outside! It’s the perfect time to stay indoors and open some wonderful wines, but eventually you may get stir crazy, so we have plenty of places for you to come hang out with us.

On February 26, Grand Cru Classes will present Long Island wines: From Potato Farms to Parker Points at the newly opened City Winery in Manhattan. We are very excited to partner with Michael Dorf on his project and look forward to a great event. Please register at City Winery online.

Two days later, Grand Cru Classes will import its Sex, Wine & Chocolate event to Washington, D.C. We’ll be at the beautifully-appointed Co Co Sala Chocolate Lounge, along with sexuality educator, Judith Steinhart, sipping wine, savoring chocolate and soaking up knowledge. We invite women-only to our noon session on Saturday, February 28, with a special session for couples-only presented at 3:00 PM. If you have friends, family or colleagues in the D.C. area, be sure and let them know we are on our way. And, save the date for the New York return on March 19, 2009. Details for this event are posted on our website.

Looking ahead, Tracy will reprise her Great Grapes! series through New York University’s School of Continuing & Professional Studies. The non-credit course will be offered on four consecutive Tuesdays, beginning March 24 at 6:30 and will feature Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Merlot and Pinot Noir. Registration is through NYU only.

While we are waiting for Spring, our hearts and minds are back in California wine country, namely the Napa and Sonoma Valleys. With the restrictions on transporting liquids on planes, we no longer take wines home with us from our travels. Instead, we leave with heavy hearts as we bid goodbye to these wonderful wine regions, but know we will be back.

Drink wisely and well,

Tracy Ellen Kamens, Ed.D., DWS, CWE

CEO: Chief Education Officer

and

Jared Michael Skolnick

COO: Cork Opening Officer

I LEFT MY HEART IN SAN FRANCISCO

Napa Fog The popular song, “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” made famous by Tony Bennett, is certainly apropos in many regards this month. As singer of the song, Tony longed to be back home, foreswearing both Paris and New York for his love that “…waits there in San Francisco.” Such passionate love, whether for a grand city or a lover, is certainly in keeping with the arrival of Valentine’s Day this month.

But beyond such love, Tony’s devotional also unwittingly mentions so many of the important aspects that make the Napa and Sonoma Valleys, which lie north of San Francisco, such great wine growing regions. His, “…city by the bay…” brings cool air, where “[t]he morning fog may chill the air…above the blue and windy sea…” and its “…golden sun will shine…” Truly, it is the climate, shaped so dramatically by the mountains, water and fog, that positively impacts the quality of the grapes.

Situated beneath the mountains, the Napa Valley is bounded on both sides with the Mayacamas range to the West and the Vaca range to the East. Moreover, the Napa Valley sits to the west of the hot and dry climate of the San Joaquin Valley (aka Central Valley), where much of California’s bulk wine is produced. In the early morning, the high heat from the Central Valley draws the cool air and moisture from the Pacific Ocean into the San Francisco Bay and then up the Napa Valley, cooling the area as it rolls in. This marine influence has differing results as one works their way up the 30-mile long valley, finding a difference of as much as 1oF/mile, with the southern end experiencing lower temperatures and increased rainfall when compared to the northern end, up near Calistoga. By noon, the fog has burned off and the valley is warm, with plenty of sunshine to fully ripen the grapes each year.

The southern end, known as the appellation of Carneros, spans both Napa and Sonoma and maintains the coolest climate of the region. Here, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay truly shine. Further up in Napa, we find Cabernet Sauvignon and, again Chardonnay, but generally produced in a different style. Whereas the Carneros Chardonnays are elegant and restrained, the wines from upper Napa are fuller-bodied and richer in character due to the warmer climate. Other varietals also are grown in Napa including Riesling and Sauvignon Blanc. High above the valley floor, the mountain appellations lie above the fog, with grapes receiving more sunlight and a warmer overnight temperature. As a result, these are wines with a darkness and intensity to them balanced with good acidity and tannins that are well polished. The most produced wine in these areas tends to be Cabernet Sauvignon and similarly, Bordeaux-style blends, in which Cabernet Sauvignon plays a significant role.

The larger, Sonoma Valley is a region of polyculture, not just viticulture, growing a wide range of produce and playing host to numerous farms. The areas closer to the coastline are tempered by the marine air, while areas further inland maintain higher temperatures. Consequently, some sub-regions are particularly well-suited for given grape varieties. More specifically, the Alexander Valley is vaunted for its Cabernet Sauvignons, while Rockpile is prized for Zinfandel. The Russian River Valley is another area known for cool-climate Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs, while the warmer and drier Dry Creek Valley is home to Rhone varietals (Syrah, Grenache, Mourvedre) and Zinfandel.

Tasting Notes

Dutton-Goldfield, Shop Block Pinot Blanc 2007, Green Valley, CA, $25.00
Celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2008, Dutton-Goldfield is the partnership of vineyard owner/manager, Steve Dutton, and winemaker, Dan Goldfield, in producing small lot, cool climate wines in the Russian River Valley. As a sub-AVA, the Green Valley is hailed as, “the coolest, foggiest region of the Russian River Valley.” Their Pinot Blanc has citrus, floral and stone aromas, with a dry, medium-bodied palate. Bright fruit flavors of citrus and apple coexist with muted notes of minerality.

Frank Family Vineyards, Chardonnay 2006, Napa Valley, CA, $32.50
This is a beautifully-made Chardonnay with aromas of apple and floral notes. Medium-bodied on the palate, it has flavors of apple and white flower and only a limited perception of integrated oak.

Robert Mondavi Winery, Fume Blanc Reserve 2006, To Kalon Vineyard, Oakville, CA, $45.00
From the famed To Kalon vineyard, this 90% Sauvignon Blanc, 10% Semillon blend has youthful aromas of grapefruit, hay and wet stone, opening up to peach. On the palate, it is dry with medium+ acidity, medium body, white grapefruit, stone and peach notes, finishing with a touch of yeast in the long length. 

Coturri, Jewell Vineyard, Pinot Noir 2005, Sonoma Mountain, CA, $30.00
While the wines aren’t labeled as such, Coturri is a biodynamic producer, believing that organic production isn’t the stuff of marketing, but rather, it’s the only way to make wine. This elegant Pinot hails from 60-year old vines and has raspberry and herbal aromas. Dry, with lively acidity, medium body and medium tannins, its flavors of raspberry and black cherry, coupled with pleasant herbaceousness, are very concentrated throughout the palate. 

Seghesio, Zinfandel 2005, Rockpile, CA $36.00
Known for its Zinfandels, Seghesio produces a range from different appellations and vineyards. The Rockpile rendition is spicy and juicy, with medium body, medium acidity, ripe tannins and rich flavors of spice, blueberry and blackberry.

CADE Winery, Cabernet Sauvignon 2005, Howell Mountain, CA, $60.00
Made in small quantities (only 400 cases), this wine comes from 9 year old vines grown at a 2,000 foot elevation, which is mostly Cabernet Sauvignon, with some Merlot to soften the wine. Aromas include menthol, along with some blackberry fruit in the background and oak. The dry palate displays medium acidity, high tannins and flavors of blackberry, oak and coffee.

NB: The wines selected for this month’s newsletter carry higher average prices than our usual selections, but we believe that these wines deliver excellent quality, while still providing good value. There are significant numbers of lower-priced California wines, most of which are commercially-made, cheap and cheerful wines with grapes sourced from throughout the state. With the high cost of land values in Napa and Sonoma, it is costlier to make great, artisanal wines, as these represent. Yet, with people choosing to stay in more frequently, as opposed to dining out, these wine costs provide you with the ability to trade up, while still keeping expenses reasonable.